07 Elephant Adventure (6 page)

Hal knew better than to try to interfere with a tribal custom. But it seemed impossible that one boy with a single spear could bring down an enormous elephant.

The young warrior’s spear consisted of a broad blade at the end of a bamboo shaft. It was little more than a yard long. To face up to a monster with so small a weapon was like attacking a lion with a darning needle. And the warrior who held the spear was no longer than the spear itself.

A white hunter would not dream of facing an elephant unless he held a gun as heavy as this boy, charged with a big bullet that would plough its way through a stone wall. Even then, it might take many shots to bring the beast down. The bullet might glance off the tough hide or a stout bone.

In fact there were only two places in that great mountain of meat where a bullet would really tell. One was the brain and the other the heart, and the chance of getting through to either one was slim.

As the young brave went forward with his little spear it reminded Hal of David attacking the giant Goliath with a sling-shot.

The elephant pushed her young one aside and turned to face the approaching midget. She tried to frighten him by spreading her ears, throwing up her trunk and screaming like a fire siren. She started towards him, but her hind feet refused to obey. She swung her trunk at him. One blow of that great black club would have killed him. He jumped nimbly out of her way.

He ran round behind her, but she turned to meet him. This wheeling about was something she could do. Again he got behind her. Again she spun around and one of her long tusks scooped into his shoulder, cutting a gash a half-inch deep. It was enough to discourage most hunters - but not the young pygmy.

He was too busy to think about it. Now the baby elephant had joined in the attack. It was a husky baby. weighing a good half-ton. Its tusks were short, but sharp. The boy did his best to keep out of its way.

The other elephants in the herd screamed and trumpeted, and some of the bolder ones attempted to break through the line of pygmies and safari men. If they

66 Elephant Adventure

succeeded, it would be all up with the little warrior. They could not be held back long. He must act fast

This time when he ran round behind the big elephant he got unexpected help from the little one. It happened to be in its mother’s way when she attempted to whirl about. The split-second delay was just what the pygmy needed.

He ran in between the elephant’s hind legs and raised his spear to the big beast’s belly. Still running, he ripped a slit six feet long.

This was something a bullet could never do. It could penetrate the soft skin of the belly but it could only make a small hole, then lose itself in the great inside.

This was the famous and traditional pygmy way of killing an elephant. Out from the long cut fell the great stomach and the entire digestive system, including some six hundred pounds of fodder eaten by the beast during the past twenty-four hours. The elephant with a last scream of defiance fell over on her side.

The young elephant-hunter came out smiling. His spear had been broken, his shoulder wounded, and he had been badly kicked by a forefoot as the thrashing elephant fell.

But what did that matter? He was a man now and had a right to marry and make a home.

He was almost knocked over by a shouting, laughing host of pygmies who came rushing up and scrambled inside the still-living elephant.

Pygmies have to be excused if their table manners are not the best. When ‘they get hungry they cannot drop is at a supermarket They drop into an elephant They don’t get the chance often. For days, even weeks, they may go hungry. Therefore, when at last the opportunity comes to eat you can’t expect them to be dainty eaters.

Sometimes they cook their meat More often they can’t wait and eat it raw.

‘Why do they go in?’ Roger wondered. ‘Can’t they just chop it up on the outside?’

‘They probably will, later,’ Hal guessed. ‘But the things they like best are inside. Especially the heart The first ones in are probably pushing their way through right now between the lungs to get at the heart’

‘Is it big enough to bother with?’

‘Ill say it is. It’s about a foot wide. It weighs more than a pygmy. It’s the elephant’s motor and it has to be big and strong to run such a large machine. It exerts tons of pressure. Blood comes out of it with the force of water from the hose of a fire engine.’

‘It must beat very fast to do that’

‘No, strangely enough, the normal heart-beat is only about thirty a minute. Pretty slow compared with our seventy to eighty. But about a hundred times as strong.’

‘But why do they want it - is it so delicious?’

Abu heard the question. ‘It is tough.’ he said. ‘There are other parts that taste better.’

Then why are they so keen about eating the heart?’

‘The elephant has great courage. We believe that if we eat its heart we get the courage of the elephant.’

Chunks of the heart were now being passed out to those who had been unable to get inside. The chunks were cut into smaller pieces and distributed so that everyone might share the courage of the elephant.

Hal and Roger were not neglected. Scraps of heart still dripping with blood were pressed into their hands. They would have liked to drop these precious gifts in the bushes. But the pygmies were watching them. It would not do to offend them.

‘Here goes,’ said Hal, and downed the bloody bit of courage. He managed to smile and smack his lips and the pygmies laughed and jumped up and down with pleasure. ‘Very good,’ Hal said to Abu.

Roger held out his portion. ‘Since it’s so good, yon may have mine too, big brother.’

‘Not on your life,’ Hal said under his breath. ‘If you don’t have the courage to eat it, that proves it’s just what you need - to give you courage. Down with it!’

Roger downed it and the pygmies danced with delight.

‘You eat our food,’ Abu smiled. ‘Now we feel that you are one of us.’

A man came out carrying two kidneys, each twice as big as his head. These were at once cut up and passed around. Hal and Roger suddenly had business elsewhere

and in the general confusion they managed to escape without getting a share.

Great chunks of meat were being handed out and eagerly devoured. With them suddenly came a violent rush of almost clear water.

‘Somebody’s knife must have slipped,’ Hal said, ‘and cut open the water stomach.’

‘Water stomach? What’s that?’

‘A special container for water - like a camel’s. An elephant drinks fifty gallons of water a day - when it can get it. In the dry season it can’t get it - at least not every day. So it has to store water in a special tank. Haven’t you heard how hunters dying of thirst kill an elephant to get water? It doesn’t taste so awfully good, but it’s wet’

‘I think I’d rather go without.’

‘Not if you were dying of thirst. And when the elephant gets thirsty and there’s no waterhole near by he can use some of the water from his own storage tank. He can drink it, or he can spray it over himself to cool his hide.’

‘But how does he get at it?’

‘He puts his trunk down his throat and sucks up water into his trunk. The trunk of a big elephant will hold about four gallons. Then he can spray it up into the air so that it falls on his back. Or he can shoot it into the face of an enemy. It comes out with force enough to knock you over. Laugh at an elephant, and you are apt to get soaked.’

Abu said, ‘One time we start fire in grass to stop elephant He put out fire with water and get away.’

‘Pretty smart,’ Roger agreed. ‘Doesn’t seem to be much he can’t do with that trunk.’

‘That’s right,’ Hal said. ‘He feeds himself with It He can hug or kiss or fight with it He can pick up a blade of grass or throw a rock weighing a ton. The end of a trunk is as delicate as a girl’s fingers or the tongue of a humming-bird. And yet - see those men trying to cut off the trunk - they can hardly get a knife through it, although there is no bone in it anywhere. It’s so strong that one swat from it on the side of your head could make you deaf for life - if it didn’t crack your skull wide open. In olden times they used to train elephants as Lord High Executioners to crush the skulls of condemned criminals.’ The trunk is really just the nose, isn’t it?’

‘Just the nose. But what a nose! There’s a story about how the elephant got such a long nose.’

They say that once upon a time,’ Hal continued, ‘elephants had ordinary noses like yours or mine. But one day as an elephant was drinking at the riverside a crocodile stuck his head out of the water, opened his jaws, and seized the elephant by the nose. Then he braced himself and tried to pull the elephant into the water. The elephant pulled back. They were both very strong. The only thing that was not strong was the nose. It began to stretch. It became a foot long, two feet, three feet, four feet, and still the crocodile pulled and so did the elephant They pulled all day and they pulled all night, and the rising sun looked with astonishment at an elephant with a nose eight feet long.

‘But the crocodile was getting tired. Suddenly the elephant gave an extra yank and hauled the crocodile up on to the bank. The crocodile let go and tried to escape into the river. But the elephant killed it with one whack of his new nose.

Then he went back to join the other members of his herd, but they laughed at his strange appearance and would have nothing to do with him. They went on with their breakfast, kneeling so they could get their mouths down to the grass. The elephant with the long nose didn’t have to kneel. He just pulled up some grass with the end of his nose and brought it up to his mouth. There were many leafy branches overhead that looked delicious, but the other elephants couldn’t reach them. The elephant with the long nose reached them easily and fed himself and his wife and his family and his best Mends.

‘They stopped laughing at him. They wanted noses just like his and asked where he had obtained such useful equipment. He recommended the crocodiles. Soon the crocodiles had all the business they could handle, lengthening the nose of every animal in the herd, and when other herds saw the results they-came too until all elephants in Africa were supplied with long, powerful, useful trunks. And so it has been ever since.’

The trunk, when it was finally cut off, was brought and laid before Chief Abu who seemed quite delighted to receive it.

‘What good is it to him?’ Roger asked. He had never seen anything much more unpleasant that this huge black make smeared with blood.

Before Hal could answer Abu said, ‘Much good. Make fine soup. Like, what you call, oxtail, but better. I give you some.’

‘I can hardly wait,’ Roger said. He planned to be somewhere else when the soup was passed round.

Pygmies swarmed like ants over the great carcass. They chopped and hacked and jabbed and sawed and slashed. Sometimes their knives went through and hurt the men inside, who would scream with anger and push their knives through hoping to puncture someone on the outside.

Two men in the dark interior got into a fight and there was a lot of squealing and the clashing of knives. Soon one of them wag chucked out, unconscious, and was carried away to the witch doctor to be treated.

The skin was is inch thick. Every scrap of it was saved. Some of it would be used to make soup. Some of it, Hal explained, would be dried and made into trays to hold ground corn and other foods.

‘But how do you know all these things?’ Roger wondered. ‘Anybody would think you had grown up with the elephants.’

He often made fun of his elder brother and played tricks on him. But he really had great respect for him. He knew how hard Hal had studied to become a naturalist, devouring scientific books as eagerly as other young men of his age devoured ice cream and cake, determined to learn the habits of animals, their anatomy, their chemistry, what made them tick. But he was modest about it.

‘Afraid I have a lot to learn,’ he said. ‘I have more questions than answers. Tell me. Chief, why did they chip out that hole in the skull?’

‘To get the brain.’

‘Is that good to eat?’

‘Not taste good, but do good. Eat heart, get courage. Eat brain, get wise. Elephant more wise than any other animal, more wise than pygmy. When we eat brain, we eat wisdom.’

A thirty-pound mass of dripping, squirming wisdom was taken from the elephant’s skull. It also was laid before Chief Abu. He must keep it and give a bit to anyone who needed it, so the foolish could become as intelligent as the elephant

‘Wouldn’t it be great if it would really work?’ Roger said. ‘Just what I need in school. Instead of doing homework half the night I’d just take a bite of brain and watch TV.’

The four feet were cut off and cleaned out They would make fine buckets for the pygmies. Big bones were extracted - they could be used as clubs to fight wars with other tribes or to kill small animals. The great tongue, soft as velvet, was removed entire - it would make a pretty fair bed. Large gobs of fat were preserved. They would be useful in cooking and as fuel for oil lamps. Hairs from the tail would be woven into bracelets.

Other men attacked the great mouth. Each one of the giant’s mighty molars weighed some twenty pounds. They would make beautiful building blocks, or they could be hollowed out and used as cups or bowls. Some were very loose and easy to remove.

They were ready to fall out, anyhow,’ Hal said.

‘If they were all as loose as that,’ Roger said, ‘they’d all fall out, and then how would the elephant eat?’

‘He would eat,’ Hal assured him. ‘No tooth falls out until there’s a new one underneath ready to take its place. During an elephant’s lifetime he loses six complete sets of teeth and grows six new sets.’

‘Why should he need so many teeth? I don’t.’

‘You eat soft foods.’

‘So does he. Grass and leaves.’

‘It takes a lot more than that to fill him up. He eats bushels of twigs and sticks, branches and bark, and even the solid wood of tree trunks when he can’t get anything else. And he spends about twenty hours out of every twenty-four eating. So he grinds his teeth down pretty fast and he has no dentist to give him a set of dentures. But Nature takes care of him, so even if he lives to be a hundred years old he still has a good set of teeth in his head.’