This took place in Tanzania. It is a real story - and scared me silly!

Elephant Morning


In my sleep my ears reach out, searching even before I roll over in my small bunk. A second sense left to us by our Neanderthal ancestors has awakened me from a bone deep sleep. It is dark, as black as any night could be.
The glowing hands and numerals of the wristwatch on the bedside table of small twigs and branches tracks my life in seconds, minutes, hours. The numbers tell me it is just after twelve.
I remind myself that is in another time zone, in another part of the world, perhaps in another reality. Still there is the sound that has awakened me, an insistent sound that has not gone away, no matter what my wishes.
As consciousness creeps across my groggy brain a memory is pulled from wherever memories are stored while I sleep. The origin of the sound an almost imperceptible shivering of the trees which tower over my tent. Perhaps a small monkey that is restless in the night. For a several minutes the sounds stop, only to be renewed. To comfort myself I believe, if only for a moment, it's a baboon in a nocturnally amorous mood.
The brilliant little flashlight kept handy next to my bed has been clenched in my sweating left hand for what surely must have been a half an hour now. In my right hand I squeeze the grip of my rifle, a 16 gauge over 8mm passed down through my family, father to son, son to grandson, for seven decades. The well worn black walnut stock soaks up my sweat. The sound of branches moving, cracking, and leaves whispering against leaves, moves closer to the canvas roof, now loud.
I try, almost desperately, to make myself believe that it is only a baboon. I fail. Maybe it's the leopard whose tracks have surrounded my tent each morning for the past three days. Relief floods through my body. Of course; it�s chui, the leopard. Chui has dragged a piece of meat, stolen from the kitchen, up into the trees that hang perilously close to my tent, barely a hands breadth between the canvas and branch.
Yes, I assure myself, it must be the leopard. Terry, my professional hunter, told me about chui. �You�ll have that, leopard about, no way round it actually. Simply love fresh meat, old chui does. Like the boys in that respect, he�ll eat all he can get then go sleep it off somewhere.� Terry made a good joke of it: �Of course chui is more interested in freshly killed kongoni than he is a stringy old bwana from across the sea.� he added. �Nothing to worry yourself about.�
It was easy to believe him; I probably needed to believe him.
Now my ears are stretching to hear movement, anything, to validate the belief that it is nothing more than chui. Hoping that it was a leopard that knew the rules, who really would rather be eating the kongoni I had bowled over this afternoon near N�gorongoro. Damn! It was tradition for the professional hunters to allow clients their privacy. Was it really necessary for Terry�s tent to be 200 black yards away?
The sound has now become more distinct; louder and closer. I strain to hear the sound of canine teeth tearing fresh meat. I only hear the sound of the leaves moving, falling on the tent roof only a foot from my sweating face. The very branches are now almost flailing my little temporary home. Scared, I can�t force myself to use the flashlight.
Reaching out through the blackness my ears detect a new sound. I immediately recognize the sound of something ponderous rubbing on the branches. It's a snake, a big snake moving slowly and elegantly through the trees. Moving from branch to branch, it is heavy; it must be a python, a constrictor. I silently curse myself for not studying African reptiles as well as I knew I should. Python probably. Were there any other large constrictors?
A shiver, then a shudder runs the entire length of my body; I shake myself as quietly as possible. Adrenaline, in large supply, is being pumped to every cell of my now quaking arms and legs, my chest is heaving. The sound now slithers into physical contact with the canvas; I can almost feel the smooth scales of the serpent on the tent. My fear has finally overcome my fear. I must use the light. My cave ancestors, from someplace deep in atavistic memory, whisper to me; use the light, but don�t let it blind you.
Very slowly I rise, silently kneel beside the cot. The light is clenched in my fist, it is slippery with fear sweat. In pitch black silence I place the rifle on my cot and cover the lens of the flashlight with my hand.
Oh, Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the sound is almost overwhelming, something is grating, rasping on the canvas. With a twist of the wrist the light is turned on, I can see it penetrating the flesh of the hand that covers the lens. The light, through the pinkness of my flesh, shows only the arteries and veins in my fingers. They glow pink and blue. My hands do not shake. Now they are rock steady, as still as my breath.
Carefully I allow an almost imperceptible sliver of light to escape between my fingers. It strikes the roof of the tent and the canvas is alive, moving. The entire tent is now swaying against the weight.
As I watch, a bulge appears in the canvas, I think first of a pulsing fire hose. Yes, I tell myself, it is a big snake; only a serpent of great size could form the deep concave shape that moves slowly across the canvas roof only a foot from my face.
A snake is OK, all right, not really dangerous. The tightly zippered tent flaps will allow no entry, even to a snake as small as a mamba. Big snakes are all constrictors, slow and easily evaded if necessary.
Then I notice the secondary sound. The sound has gone undetected until now, a sotto voce compared to the quaking of the trees and the sound of my own heart beating like a kettle drum played by a madman. It is the sound of something very big breathing.
Somehow it is dark again. I have involuntarily switched off the light; my rifle is again in my hands. I can hear huge lungs gulping air, pushing air back out. I can almost feel the moisture in the breath. A second dose of adrenaline is being pumped through my body. I become dizzy. I realize that it has been quite some time since I have taken a breath.
The sound of my own breathing startles me; it is so loud that it will surely give me away. The adrenaline pumps are all working at full capacity and I am sure that my next move will be stupid. I�m scared too stiff and, thanks to the adrenaline, too damn angry to care any longer.
I turn on the flashlight and am immediately blinded by the intensity of the beam. It no longer matters. I crawl across the floor of the tent and shine the light through the mosquito netting covered window. From this vantage point all that I can see are tree trunks, big gray and brown tree trunks. Now why are those tree trunks moving I ask myself? Because those tree trunks are the legs of bloody elephant you simple ass, my brain replies.
My brain seems to have gone off somewhere by itself, it�s talking to me as if I were a third party. It sounds as if it is sitting in a drawing room somewhere smoking a pipe and having a brandy.
�Now listen up oh great white hunter,� the old brain says. �You have gotten yourself in a very interesting position. These here bloody elephant are eating the leaves off the trees above your tent. There are at least several real, live, big, wild, hungry elephant that have taken a liking to these particular leaves and there is very damn little that you can do about it, now is there?
�You can surely shoot one of them and get yourself crushed when he or she falls on your little tent. You could fire a round through the roof and pray that you miss them and that they all run away in a direction that is not over you. You can, if you haven't already, wet your pants and sit here all night shaking like a ninny or you can relax as much as possible and enjoy yourself.
�Now don't start telling me that I'm off my rocker, let's look at the facts. Fact one, you have not, so far, been turned into hunter tartare, or more likely, mush. Fact two, it doesn't seem like these particular elephant are interested in doing anything other than having an early morning snack. Fact three, these particular elephant MUST have smelled your reeking old carcass by now. If they were inclined to be nasty you would have never awakened in the first place. I suggest that you count yourself lucky to be enjoying this experience. Just think about the story that you will have to tell the grandchildren. They most probably won't believe you but that doesn't really matter, does it? They will never believe much of what you tell them anyhow.�
With business concluded to its' satisfaction, my brain settled in to enjoy itself. After due consideration I concluded that I should take good advice when it is given. After crawling under the wooden cot, I relax and listen to the sounds of wild African elephant breathing, digesting, stripping the leaves off of the trees and every now and again replenishing the supply of fresh fertilizer.
After an hour under the bunk the cold African night air starts my teeth chattering, I finally crawl back onto the cot. I wrap myself in a soft down comforter. Smiling, I drift off to sleep.
We are not hunting early today. I sleep until the morning sun warms my tent. Was last night a dream? Were there elephant around the tent? Drowsy, it takes effort to unwrap myself from the warmth of the cot and comforter. I pull on freshly cleaned hunting clothes, shake out my low cut shoes and pull them onto bare feet.
I replace the 16 gauge over 8mm with the .375 H&H Mauser. I throw my small rucksack with binoculars, canteen, knife and extra ammunition over my shoulder.
I am careful to look only at the floor of the little tent as I open the zippers that shut it up tight. I step out and look only across the temporary, little camp toward the dining tent. I stride purposefully away from the tent knowing that the camp boys will sweep clean every square foot of the camp before I return from Manyara. Any trace of elephant tracks will be erased. I never asked.


Terry -the client, not the hunter, Terry Roach.