Into The Thorns

Chapter Two

Smell of The Hills

I was seven years and five months old when I was deposited on the hostel steps at Rhodes Estate Preparatory School. REPS (as it was called) is a boys boarding school and, in 1968, in true colonial tradition, was for whites only. The school is situated at the edge of the Matobo Hills, about twenty miles south of Bulawayo, and it was my home for the next five years. Like the twenty or so other kids who started school at REPS that year, I was awed at the immensity of the prospect facing me, and I was rendered weak with anxiety and homesickness. I look at seven-year-old children today and I cannot imagine sending them away to school for three months at a time. They seem like babies. But in rural Rhodesia in 1968 there were no choices, your mother packed your black metal trunk and away you went off to boarding school.

Cecil John Rhodes, the swashbuckling Englishman who made a fortune in the South African diamond mines and goldfields between 1870 and 1890, was instrumental in conquering and colonising the land between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers once known as Munhumutapha. With little evidence of modesty he named this beautiful new land Rhodesia, and it was swept into the basket, along with numerous other acquisitions also labelled “British Empire”. This was in 1893. In 1965 however, the colonials decided that they wanted to rule themselves, and they declared independence from Britain, who wanted to hand their Rhodesian conquest back to the black Africans from whom they had taken it. A bitter war followed, between the black Africans on one hand, who were trained and backed by the communist Chinese and Russians, and the white colonialists on the other. White Rhodesia was placed under sanctions by the world powers, and trade, arms and fuel embargos made war a difficult thing for the Rhodesians to maintain. So, in 1980, after approximately forty thousand deaths, the county was handed back to the blacks, and Zimbabwe was born.

During his years of travel in Rhodesia, his new country, Rhodes fell in love with two places in particular, and he had dwellings erected at both of them. One was Inyanga, a verdant misty spot nestled amongst towering mountains and forests on Rhodesia’s eastern border with Mozambique. The other was the Matobo hills. Rhodes found a place in the hills which commanded breathtaking views over the broken granite koppies, and he named this spot World’s View. He was buried there in 1902 according to instructions in his will, and it was no easy task bringing his body all the way from Cape Town, so that his remains could lie in the place he had loved so well.

Also in Rhodes’s will were instructions to build a boys school on a piece of land near his summerhouse. World’s View is situated about six miles south of the school. Rhodes’s summerhouse, and the school, stand at the foot of a long low grassy ridge that runs in an east-west line about half a mile north of the beginning of the granite koppies. I found it curious that someone who loved the Matobo hills so much would choose to build a summerhouse, and designate land for a school, on ground which was near to but not actually within the hills themselves. Reps consisted of the boarding hostel which had five dormitories, a chapel, a classroom block with five classrooms, a dining·hall, kitchen, a hospital, and the main hall. Scattered about were also various small maintenance buildings like the groundsman’s office and there were also four sports fields, a swimming pool and tennis courts. 1 did not think so then, but it is a beautiful, well planned and well laid out school. Very English. Compared to some of the “town” schools in Bulawayo. it was a small school with only about one hundred and twenty pupils. The school’s rugby first fifteen was drawn from a total of 28 standard five boys. It was surprising, with so few pupils, that Reps always did so well at sport. I suppose it had something to do with the fact that everybody, no matter how fat, thin, short or weak, had to play sport. This was not the case with the town schools. Once the initial shock of boarding school had dulled a little, we ‘new boys’ as we were referred to, began to assess the situation we found ourselves in. Some kids were able to make friends easily, while the less gregarious ones chose to pull into themselves and go it alone, wracked with homesickness. A few kids, like myself, discovered that this place was rich adventure indeed. I too was horribly homesick, but really only at night or when we had nothing to do. Thankfully, at boarding school there are very few times when there is nothing to do.

like a blanket. No matter how hard I resolved, in bed at night, that I would make it through the next day without getting into trouble, trouble would find me like a twin. I cannot explain it, really. I’m positive that I never ever sat there and said to myself, “Right, lets see what kind of stupid risky thing I can go and do now so I can get thrashed”. It just seemed that it swooped down on me like an owl on a mouse. Of course the things that appealed to me, like shooting birds with a catapult – Reps was a National Parks area – sneaking into locked storerooms, stealing fruit off of mulberry trees in “out of bounds” areas, were “boys things”, and if I were faced with that time all over again I would do them. But it’s the other things. Breaking windows with pebbles shot from catapults, chopping the heads off red-hot-poker flowers in the school gardens, these things I cannot explain.

I’m pretty certain I was sent to Reps in particular, because it was a “strict discipline” school, and I was a problem child. The seniority system in both Reps, and later at Plumtree High School, was, I think, the strength of the discipline system. You could not, and would not, even speak to a pupil in a form above yourself without inviting abuse, both verbal and physical. You only spoke to these ‘seniors’ when spoken to. Of course the teachers and matrons were in charge, but much of the discipline and punishment was handed out by the pupils. Bullying was as common as our oatmeal porridge in the mornings. I cannot say if this boarding school seniority is a good thing or a bad thing. Children either could not take it, and left the school, or they did take it and they finished. Looking back now, obviously it’s not a good thing for the weak or somehow disadvantaged children, because children can be merciless to one another, and if you could not stand up for yourself you were doomed. I was insubordinate and rebellious to seniors trying to discipline me or give me a hard time, and in my five years at Reps they failed to get me straightened out. It was only at Plumtree (a sort of unofficially accepted high school for Reps pupils) that finally, in my second year there, I was made to realise that fighting the system was over. So ultimately, I would have to say that the English-type, boys-only boarding school system was a good thing for me personally, and stood me in excellent stead for endeavours later in life. It built things like self-reliance, discipline, strength, both physical and mental, and it taught one how to find the avenues of least resistance and how to avoid pitfalls.

Most Plumtree boys who went into the Rhodesian army had no problem coping with recruits’ courses or basic training courses, and many of them climbed the officer ranks efficiently and quickly. The army commander, General Peter Walls, was an ex-Plumtree schoolboy, and it is quite astounding to see how many of the army hierarchy, and commanders of the regular army units were ex-Plumtree boys, especially when one considers how small the school was (plus or minus 400 pupils). So even though the constant threat of seniority and beatings with ‘the cane’ (a piece of bamboo about six feet long) clouded my horizon, Reps school, situated at the edge of the wild Matobo hills, was my first glimpse of adventure.

I quickly became friends with a boy in that new class named Graham Robertson. Graham came from a ranch south of Marula, about 50 miles west of Reps. We both loved the outdoors and both of us were children born for trouble. Fate, or destiny, or pure coincidence, whatever you want to call it, plaited a rope that mixed our two lives together in a part of the world where political turmoil, guerrilla war and other violent circumstances, shredded families and friendships every day. Yet here we are, 38 years later, still close friends and still enjoying adventures in the same Matobo hills. When we left high school and went in to the army, Graham opted for an airborne infantry unit, and I went on an officer’s course. Seven months later, we found ourselves not only in the same airborne unit, but in the same commando! (Airborne equivalent of a company). One year later I met a cousin of Graham’s who lived in Salisbury – this was Margie, the woman who a few years later I was to marry.

Reps permitted the children to go out of the school grounds on Sundays on what were called “exeats”. There had to be a minimum of four in your group, and you had to “sign out” in a register with the duty teacher when you left the school grounds. In this register went the names of everyone in your group, and the name of the place you were going to. Most of the destinations were in, or right on the edge of the Matobo Hills. The kitchen supplied us with picnic lunches, which to a child at boarding school, was a treat and adventure all by itself! Those day-exeats back in the late sixties seemed such a big deal, the distances walked, the adventure, seemed so great. It’s hard to believe when I returned to the school more than twenty years later, how small the school and grounds actually were, and how close our exeat destinations were to the school. I would have sworn that these places were a good four or five miles away, but in reality the furthest was no more than two miles. But I suppose two miles, to a nine year old, with no teacher or adult present, is as good as ten miles to us today! After all these years, I still remember those exeat destination names – they gave the same thrill to us then, as Zanzibar, Timbuktu or Panama may give to adventure-dreaming adults today! There was Tabaccies, First Bru, Second Bru, Arboretum, Second sister, Tonking Rock, Chennels’ Dam, Sandy Spruit and Devil’s Arsehole. Young local African boys used to make small, carved baboons which they cleverly covered with dassie skin. Lucky-bean seeds (red with a black dot) were used for the eyes, and we admired these things greatly. We had no money, so entering into a trade was difficult. We finally solved the impasse by trading away our underpants and handkerchiefs, in our opinion the least important of our belongings. My wife found it strange when she first found out that I owned no underwear, but I think she found the explanation even stranger.

All these recollections, even today, bring back fond memories of what were indeed exciting times. These exeats were not without danger. Children can find mishap in an empty room, let alone in granite koppies, rusty fences, dip tanks and dilapidated buildings. One kid in our class fell down a steep rocky slope and smashed most of his teeth out in the process. Although they were highly illegal, Graham and I had several catapults with which we were deadly. When school term commenced, at least one of us would have smuggled some good rubber back in our school trunks, and we hoarded this rubber carefully. In order to make powerful catapults one needed either unperished red car-tube (the black one was less powerful) or what we called “mining rubber”. This was a highly elastic, powerful, square shaped (in section) rubber which we prized above all other kinds. We were experts at making catapults and we were experts in firing them too. If we were unable to find any suitable leather, we used to cut the tongues out of our shoes in order to make the “velletjie” – the small leather patch attached to the ends of the rubber which held your missile. (Usually a small stone.) We hid these catapults in secret hiding places in a stone wall behind the chapel, and we used them whenever we were able to sneak away from school duties. Whilst other kids were playing on jungle gyms or with marbles, Graham and I were shooting out light bulbs, windows, signs and sometimes other children. More often though we were doing our damndest to kill any kind of bird we could. We must have caused the Reps groundsman untold misery. If we weren’t shooting holes through his office windows, we were stealing rubber from the hosepipes. Thin rubber strips are used in Africa to repair cracks and holes in hosepipes. The headmaster of our school had the same surname as l did but to my knowledge was not a relative (probably much to his relief). His name was Ray Grant and he was, certainly to us in those days, a big beefy fellow. l think, looking back, that when he realised, after our seventh or eighth beating, that Graham and l were going to be regulars in the punishment line, he actually developed a fondness for the two of us. Ray Grant, like ourselves, loved the outdoors. He loved guns and he loved hunting and he loved shooting. He ran a shooting club for the standard five students (12 year olds) using .22 rifles, and the school had a nicely laid out shooting range. I remember Graham winning the Reps shooting trophy in 1972.

At Reps, if you were caught in some activity during the week that necessitated a thrashing with the cane, you were not beaten there and then. You had to wait until Sunday, after church and inspection, and then line up outside the headmaster’s office. The waiting, in my experienced opinion, was far worse than the thrashing itself. I would feel nauseous for days knowing what was coming on Sunday. The headmaster’s office was at the end of a long open veranda which ran outside the standard one dormitory. The kids destined for a beating had to line up on this veranda at the doorway to the office. Some kids used to snivel their way to the back of the line, but to Graham and I this made no sense; you were just prolonging the agony even further. Unless there were boys more senior to the two of us in the line, we would go first and second. It was a sickening feeling listening to the whip – clap, whip-clap of someone taking a caning only a couple of yards away behind the closed door. Sometimes you’d even hear the pleading whine of some snivelling wretch trying to evade the cane. It was funny recounting it afterwards, but it wasn’t funny when you were next. The drill was to take your punishment like a man, walk sedately out of the office (remember, a whole dormitory of standard ones was looking out the windows) until you reached the central passage which ran through the building, past the baths and out to the back toilets. Once you reached this passage no one could see you, and you could run like hell, rubbing your backside feverishly, all the way to the toilets where you would strip down and try your hardest to crane your neck around enough to see the rapidly swelling welts and, sometimes, cuts on your aching pink flesh. Once Graham and I were in standard four (eleven years old) and were regulars for Sunday canings, a complication arose. As I have said, Ray Grant had taken a liking to us, and one day he told us to remain behind, on the veranda, after our thrashing. We looked at one another, startled. Jesus. What now? After the beating, my backside on fire, I stood forlornly outside the office trying my hardest not to touch that stinging flesh in front of the other kids. Everybody in line was thrashed and sent away except the two of us. We heard clanking, the unmistakable sound of the safe being opened. Ray Grant came out with a couple of shotguns, a rifle, oil, cleaning rags and a push rod. We then passed an anxious, but pleasant half hour helping the headmaster clean his guns! All the while we were treated to his latest hunting stories! If it weren’t for the circumstances which found us there and our aching backsides, it would have been a pleasant enough chore for a Sunday morning. This guncleaning duty became a fairly regular diversion from normal school routine, and we would have looked forward to it were it not for that unpleasant thing which always preceded it.

Sunday, beatings aside, was our day! When the wake-up bell rang, we made our beds carefully, as this was inspection day. We had to dress in our “number ones” – grey flannel shorts, belt, long socks, black shoes, white shirt, tie and blazer. After breakfast we would stand next to the open wooden locker at the foot of our bed and wait for the headmaster. When he arrived, accompanied by our dormitory matron, he would stroll along stopping at each pupil. We would hold our hands up; palms upward, then turn them over, and then put them back by our sides. He would then look at our bed, inside our (recently tidied) locker and then at our shoes. If you had prepared properly, he would walk on. We had a few scruffy kids in our dormitory, however, that never ever made it through an inspection unscathed. After inspection we all marched down to the school chapel where we sang and sniggered stupidly for about an hour. After chapel we would run like mad things back to the dormitories and change into our khakis and “velskoene” (desert shoes), which was standard Reps attire. We were ready!

We could now collect our lunch boxes and sign out for “exeats”. How I loved that feeling of leaving the school grounds with my catapult tucked into my pants, my sheath knife on my belt, headed for a whole day of adventure into the Matobo hills. Many people look askance at us when we mention our knives at junior school. Any pupil, no matter what his age, was allowed a knife at this school. They were prized possessions and lay importantly in your locker on display. I never ever heard of a Reps boy being stabbed, or hurt, or threatened, by another pupil with a knife. On some exeats we tried fishing, but most of our trips were taken up with climbing and exploring the hills, shooting at lizards, birds and other groups of kids with our catapults. The groups of “townie” kids took a lot of flak from us with our “cattys” as we called them, and fights were common. We killed birds quite frequently and these were turned into “biltong”. We used to pluck the bird, no matter whether it was a dove or a honey sucker, cut the guts out, then spear the small carcass on a thorn, well hidden from view. With salt stolen from the dining room at meal times, we would carefully treat the meat. Two days later, voila! Biltong!

At about nine years of age Graham and I began to trap rats. We had no conventional pressed-tin spring traps, but we had several homemade traps that were surprisingly efficient. The trap we used most was a tricky affair created with a brick, or even a flat rock, a piece of string and a mealie pip. We caught many rats this way. Some of the bigger rats would still be alive, and part way out from under the brick when we arrived to check the traps in the morning. These we dispatched with our sheath knives. I still recall clearly, today, the feeling of excitement and anticipation when approaching those simple traps. I still feel the same excitement when checking leopard baits today! People often ask, “What in the hell did you want to catch rats for? What did you do with them?” I can only answer that it was our form of hunting. We loved it. This pursuit took us into the bush, or certainly, if not in the bush, out of the school buildings and into an environment where we could test our skills, our wits, against animals. It was exciting, and doubly so if we were trapping in an area which was “out of bounds”, -areas where schoolboys were not allowed. As to what we did with them. Our sheath knives were too large and blunt and cumbersome to skin rats, so we liberated a few pencil sharpener blades from sharpeners in the classroom. With these we were able to skin our trophies. We then salted them with table salt pocketed in the dining room, and we forced one of the junior boys in the class beneath us to store the stinking things underneath clothing in his footlocker. We had no plans for the skins past that point.

Another successful method, one which could deliver live rats, concerned the use of a jam tin. The kitchen used to receive government-issued food, and the jam (jelly to Americans) used to come in sealed silver tins about a foot high and about eight inches in diameter. Graham and I used to cadge these tins when they were empty, from the African kitchen staff. The tins were buried, the lip level with the ground in some secret carefully selected spot. We then had an option. The simplest method was stretching a piece of thin wire or string, over the top of the buried tin, with a mealie pip tied in the middle. Our prey would try like hell to get to the mealie pip and when they tried the tightrope walk, they ended up in the bottom of the tin. You could collect several rats or mice in one night this way, and if you wanted to find them dead you would leave about four inches of water in the tin. But the far more complicated, and therefore favoured method, was to erect a small seesaw at the side of the can. A flat thin piece of wood (stolen rulers broken to about eight inches long, were good) was wired just passed its middle point, onto a fulcrum. Picture a capital H. The ruler was wired to the crossbar of the H, the slightly longer, or heavier part, being on the ground. The shorter, lighter part, stuck up in the air at about a twenty-degree angle. The mealie pip was glued, or tied to the top of this short end. This pip would be out over the sunken tin. When the hungry rat walked the plank, he was tilted into the tin. We spent hours perfecting these things and derived much satisfaction from them. Relatives were allowed to take children out of the school grounds on Sundays, and usually these day trips were spent in the Matopos National Park, or at one of the many beautiful picnic sites in the hills. I had an aunt who lived in Bulawayo and occasionally she used to take myself and a friend or two out for the day. These were real “bonus” exeats as we got to eat stuff like sweets and cokes which we hardly ever saw at school, and we were able to spend hours climbing and exploring the giant koppies near World’s View where Rhodes was buried. This area is rich in Bushman paintings and we loved to pore over the fascinating scenes of ancient hunts and sift through the pieces of broken pottery on the floors of the caves. During the three-month school term there was a “half term” holiday which was usually about four days long. Those of us who lived a long way from Reps (I lived at Victoria Falls – about 300 miles away) were not able to go home, as most of the short holiday would have been spent travelling, so on these mid-term holidays, if I was not instructed to go to my aunt in Bulawayo, I would go home with Graham to his family ranch at Marula. If we got into “lots” of trouble at school, I do not know how to describe the amount of nonsense we got up to on those four-day long holidays at Marula. We were now armed with pellet guns and rifles and there were no seniors present. Those were excellent days, and the mystery, and secret places of the Matobo hills by now had me enthralled. The caves, the Bushman paintings, the ancient Kalanga grain bins hidden in the bushchoked crevasses, all these thrilled the ‘explorer’ in me. On Graham’s farm we had free reign to enjoy the koppies as much as we wanted. We were merciless in our decimation of the rock hyrax, and even though he denies it, I am sure that our excesses in these hills as schoolboys is what prompted Graham to ban the shooting of these interesting creatures on his ranch once be took over ownership of it. Today they are numerous, and I’m certain that they provide the bulk of the leopards’ food in these areas. By the end of our fifth year at Reps we had explored just about every forbidden area surrounding the school, we had mounted numerous exciting, nerve-wracking forays into the Agricultural Research Station grounds as well as into the Matobo hills past First Bru and Tabaccies.

Graham and I had painstakingly laid plans for an assault on my home stomping-grounds up at Victoria Falls for the school holidays. We had talked and talked of the exciting things we were going to do, and we were eagerly looking forward to the end of the school term, when a devastating blow fell. Ray Grant, he of the whistling cane and numerous hunting stories, realised that no good could come of the two of us loose together in the school holidays. He took it upon himself to ‘phone Graham’s parents and he warned them strongly about the trouble we were likely to cause, and Graham was barred from that trip. Probably a good thing too, looking back.

Victoria Falls was a small village back in 1968 and I don’t think that there could have been more than a hundred or so white families living there. For someone as hell-bent as I was for getting into mischief and disappearing into the outdoors, Victoria Falls was perfect. The whole of the Victoria Falls area lies inside a National Park and big game roamed constantly through the town. Elephant and buffalo came into contact almost daily with residents and the few tourists brave enough or stupid enough to be visiting the Falls during those years (Rhodesia being at war), and injuries were common. I spent much of my school holidays roaming the outskirts of the town, and when I was about fourteen or so, a friend and I started exploring the Zambezi river just above the Falls. This part of the river is clogged with jungled islands, and all of these were populated by elephant, bushbuck, bushpig, hippo and crocodiles. I became a skilled poacher and looking back now, I shake my head in dismay. My parents, in fact no one at all, had any control over us back then and the stuff we got up to makes me wonder how I am still alive today.

I remember one particularly unpleasant incident when I was about sixteen years old. My friend and I had been fishing and poaching on a large island just below what is known as Hippo Pools, about a mile above the lip of Devil’s Cataract which forms the western-most cataract of the Falls. We had a small ten foot boat powered by a twenty horsepower Evinrude motor which had cut out. My friend was standing on a rock, holding the boat while I tried to repair the engine. We could hear very little over the thunderous roar of the Falls, and when I looked up I saw that a Zambian police boat was making its way toward us. There were three people on board, and two of them were holding machine guns. One fellow was gesturing for us to come towards him. We were on the Zambian side of the river and it was obvious that they wanted to arrest us. The international boundary between Zambia and Rhodesia lay down the centre of the main channel, and anyone boating down to the islands at the lip of the Falls had to slide over onto the Zambian side occasionally. This was not good. Not only would we be dragged across to Zambia and cause an international incident, but we had a bushbuck and some large bream in the boat, which we had shot with a .22 rifle that morning. My friend Gary grabbed the rope tied to the front of the boat and we leaped into the fast running water, keeping the boat between ourselves and the Zambian police. We floated quickly downstream back to the islands where the Zambians could not follow because of the shallow rapids. How one of us was not taken by one of the numerous aggressive crocodiles there, I do not know.

In January of 1973 I entered Plumtree High School and was directed to Grey House, which was to be my boarding “house” – or hostel, for the next six years. Erroneously, I had assumed that Plumtree, as regards bullying and seniority, was going to be along the same lines as that which we bad experienced at Reps. I don’t think I have ever been so wrong about anything in my life. I was not caned by the teachers nearly so much as I was at junior school, but the sheer brutality of the seniority and bullying system shocked me. We were hung in sleeping bags out of the windows of moving trains, we were electrocuted, and we were thrashed, kicked, beaten and mentally abused. It was a torrid time for someone like myself who was unable to stay out of trouble and naturally rebellious. The seniors hated me and by God I hated them back. But it was not only the seniors. Children, as mentioned before, are horrible things to one another and the weak were unable to survive under these conditions. In my form alone, out of the twenty or so that entered Grey House as new boys in 1973, I think at least six got their parents to take them to another school after being teased and victimised mercilessly by the other children in the same dormitory. Us, in other words.

Graham had entered Milner, a different hostel to the one I was in, and that was probably a good thing. The last thing we needed, while trying to cope with all the dangers and pitfalls of a new school, was the stupid egging-on into naughtiness, that the two of us were famous for.

Plumtree is situated right on the country’s western border with Botswana, parallel to, and sixty miles west of Bulawayo. It is a dry dusty thorn veld area extremely unattractive in appearance and it falls into “semi desert” region which gradually merges into desert proper in Botswana. It sits right at the north western-most tip of the Matobo hill range, where the hills peter out into the sand and thorn scrub. If you climb the school chapel belfry and look south, you can see the purple koppies of the western Matobo about three miles away.

Surviving six years of Plumtree could be a book all by itself, so I will have to ignore the details of what was a very formative part of my life, and mention only those interludes pertinent to this book. Once again, interest and activities in the outdoors was encouraged, and like Reps, day-exeats on Sundays were eagerly looked forward to. A big problem for me, regarding Sunday exeats was the system of punishments or “impots” (imposition), as they were known. House prefects could hand out impots to students in their hostel. One impot meant you had to work for one-hour physical labour on Sunday, normally doing something in the hostel grounds like weeding or digging in the garden. Whilst carrying out your impot you were supervised by a duty prefect. It was not possible for me to make it through the week without impots. The more serious crimes, like “bunking out” (leaving the hostel at night, when you’re supposed to be in bed for example) attracted a beating with the cane, and unlike Reps, these beatings were issued on the spot or first thing the next morning, so at least you didn’t have to wait until Sunday. But the less serious offences, like having dirty shoes, or an untidy bed, or talking after the lights were turned out, all attracted impots. Some kids, like myself, were happier to be thrashed as and when we transgressed, rather than receive impots on Sundays. Canings, to me, by this time, were not such a big deal as they had been once upon a time. I had received many, and I was now a seasoned recipient. If a student received three impots, he was beaten two strokes, and still had to labour for one hour; if he received four impots, he was beaten four strokes, and still had to work in the garden for one hour. Five or more impots attracted the maximum – six lashes with the cane.

So this “impot labour” on Sundays seriously curtailed my opportunities for exeats in the first two years at Plumtree. Once pupils reach form three (fifteen years old) they have generally matured somewhat and don’t receive as many impots as they did in forms one and two. We were allowed to keep bicycles at school and this added a whole new dimension to Sunday exeats. We were now able to travel good distances from the school and my favourite destinations were Umhlanga (reed) and Tunduluka (wild plum) dams. Umhlanga dam nestles in amongst granite koppies about seven miles south-south-east of the school, and myself and three friends used to ride there on a rough dirt road as soon as we were done with chapel and inspection on Sundays. If someone had told me that thirty years later I would be making a living in this exact stretch of hills, I would have considered them unstable. At that stage in my life I definitely had no plans to return to anywhere near this place. Umhlanga dam, now sits right inside our hunting area and Graham’s record leopard was taken not more than six miles to the east of it.

Apart from Sunday exeats, I used to sneak off illegally on my own whenever the opportunity arose. I had several catapults hidden in the bush around the edges of the school grounds, and I would collect one of these, hide it in my shirt, and explore the countryside surrounding the school and Plumtree village. I could not fight the drug which was the thrill of seeing new “undiscovered” ground. I walked miles on my own through that unattractive bush around Plumtree, looking for birds nests, eagles nests, dry watercourses, fig trees and koppies. Large leafy fig trees stood prominently out of the thorn scrub, and these were fruit-eating bird magnets, as well as serving as a “find” – another secret place that I imagined was known only to me. Several miles west of Plumtree village was a corridor of land that ran along the border with Botswana. This was known as “no-mans-land” and served as a buffer zone between the two countries to help control illegal border crossings. It should be remembered that Rhodesia was fighting a guerrilla war at this time, and Botswana assisted the enemy by harbouring base camps where the guerrillas could prepare before infiltrating into Rhodesia. So it was probably not a clever thing I was doing, wandering around the bush on my own, way out of school bounds with nobody having any idea where I might be. In my last two years of school at Plumtree, I acquired first an air rifle, and then a .22 rifle which I hid inside the wall of my study, and I used these to hunt rabbits, duiker, doves and francolin. I was never caught with either of these weapons, which was quite surprising; as I had a good distance to go through the school grounds, until I was into the bush. Usually I transported my gun in a cricket bag – folks must have thought that I was serious about my cricket practice! Several years after I had left school I returned to attend the school’s event of the year, the annual sports day. Over a beer one evening I was chatting to Hannes Van der Westhuizen, who had been my favourite teacher and rugby mentor while I was still at the school. “You were a tricky bugger,” he said to me, “several of the teachers tried their damndest to catch you smoking, but never did!” “What made any of you think I was smoking?”

Hannes answered “Well, we saw you, all the time, sneaking off, out of the school grounds by yourself, we knew you were smoking!” How I laughed. I don’t know if Hannes believed me or not when I informed him that I had never ever been a smoker. I was everything else – poacher, bunking out of school grounds, drinking, the list is endless, – but they had been searching my study for cigarettes which weren’t there! I thought this was hilarious. Thank God they never found my guns.

The Rhodesian war escalated, and in my last year at Plumtree we were not allowed to go on exeats to many of the old haunts which had given me so much pleasure in the hills. Some of the students were issued with .303 Parker Hale rifles, in case the school was attacked by guerrillas. Straight away I realised that this meant I could range further afield and try for some kudu cows which I knew frequented a range of hills south of Plumtree town’s sewage dams. Ammunition was a problem, as we had to account for every round that we were issued. As it turned out I never did get an opportunity to poach anything with the school’s rifle, and disappointment at this failure festered in me. One morning, at about 11 o’clock while I was bunking class and sleeping on my bed on the form six balcony, the school was attacked by guerrillas. Or, more accurately some guerrillas fired a couple of dozen rounds into the hostel next to mine, and no one was injured. Apparently the school classrooms turned into a broken beehive with teachers and pupils hiding underneath desks and shouting orders all over the place. I raced downstairs to the housemaster’s office and collected my .303, and then returned to my bed which was a good vantage point, looking from the upstairs balcony over the Grey House gardens. I was more worried about being caught bunking class than being shot, but as it turned out, nobody was any the wiser. Although I did well at that school, both in sports and academically, I feel that it was relieved to see the back of me, and I left at the end of 1978 and joined the army in January 1979.

Graham had his share of misadventure during his years at Plumtree, and once he began smoking it was only a matter of time till he renewed acquaintances with our old friend the cane. He too achieved the academic qualifications he desired, but his school career ended under a bit of a cloud. There was some unpleasantness and misunderstanding involving drink, and Graham and three of his friends were unfortunately brought before the school authorities: I should mention that one of these fellows, on whom this ill luck had fallen, was none other than Trev Landrey, he of Denda Safaris at Matetsi where I spent so much time in the school holidays.

Nowadays, often when I’m driving through the towering granite koppies, or sometimes when I just sit and stare into the wonderful rock formations while I’m waiting for a majestic kudu to show himself, I think back over the years, and remember my early days at Reps and I can still feel the crackling winter mornings when icicles hung from the garden taps, and the hose pipes were frozen solid, white frost covering the front lawns and us small kids rubbing our freezing legs through thin corduroy pants, and dabbing at our pink, running noses. I remember of course the punishments, I remember the homesickness, I remember the big occasions of the swimming gala, the school play, the sports days. I remember being awarded school colours for sports, but the thing I remember most, the thing that is most easy to conjure up in my mind, and recall clearly, is the purple, balancing boulders, and the damp, lichen-smell, of the Matobo hills.

By Reid Scott

Long range shooting and African hunting. Like whiskey and tonic, surely those two things do not mix. They might both have their merits, but how can one channel their inner Hemmingway while carrying a synthetic rifle topped by an optic that looks like it was designed for stargazing? And yet, perhaps these two worlds are not so far apart.

In recent years, the shooting world has been consumed by long-range fervor. Everywhere you turn, sub-MOA guarantees and bigger optics vie for your attention. Since laser rangefinders have eliminated the black art of calculating distance, long range shooting has become obtainable to the common man without taking out a loan to cover the equipment and the schooling.

I’ll confess, the long range bug bit me too. More and more, I wanted to test my own limits and see how far away I could make a tiny bullet land just where I intended. Eventually, I found that with the correct equipment and quality instruction, I could confidently guarantee shots that I would have labelled unconditionally irresponsible before. As any good friend does, I convinced my buddies to sample some of the addiction. Soon enough my good friend Matt and I were spending an obscene amount of time training and shooting, and were quickly becoming the, “Shooter ready, spotter up,” duo.

Now enter African hunting. Surely a place for a good walnut stock and big calibers, if there ever was one. In fact, we were assured of several things: First, our carbon fiber tripods would be useless in the bushveld. Second, shots would be fast and close, with no time for dialing long range optics. Third, our little 6.5mm bullets would only maim the durable African game, and even if they did take down some animals, it just wouldn’t be in line with tradition. After all, Mr. Ruark had a few words to say about bringing enough gun to Africa.

Fortunately our hosts, the Knott family at Greater Kuduland Safaris, were willing to suffer us with an open mind. We arrived and requested to zero and true our rifles, both to confirm that the abusive airlines had not damaged them, and to prove to our hosts that we were not completely full of bull. We utilized their lovely runway as an improvised long range, and set up an impala-vitals-sized-rock against a berm at 600 yards. 

Gavin Knott spots for the author.

We each landed fist-sized groups on the stone, but the real proof was yet to come. I’m nothing special; if I can do it, you can do it. To demonstrate, we convinced both the seasoned legend, Howard Knott, and his immensely capable son Gavin to take a turn behind the rifle. Within moments, they were both making consistent hits at a range they would have previously considered unthinkable.

Howard Knott making hits at 600 yards using the author’s rifle.

These ridges provided beautiful shot opportunities. 

All the training in the world does not, however, alleviate that churning feeling in your gut while you wait to determine the validity of your shot. It made for a long walk, climbing down the ridge and closing those 465 yards to the point of impact. While I felt great about the shot, it’s easy to start doubting yourself as the minutes go by.

Fortunately, all my concern was for nothing. There was the kudu, with a perfect little hole through the shoulder just steps from where we last saw it. My trepidation turned to relief, and I was grinning like an idiot. It is worth noting that the miniscule 6.5mm bullet, a Hornady ELD-X, performed impeccably at this range. It mushroomed and exited, and resulted in a perfect outcome.

Naturally, Matt felt the necessity to prove his shooting skills superior to mine, and in the failing light one of the final days of our safari, Gavin pointed out a very nice old impala ram. It was feeding our direction, over 600 yards away. Our rocky perch was too tight to shoot from prone, but our adjustable tripods saved the day here.

Admittedly these lock-in tripods are an unusual piece of gear for this type of hunting, but we found them to be worth their weight in gold. Multiple times we set up over tall grass or on broken terrain, adjusting a bit here, a bit there, for precisely the right hold. While they certainly do not have the rustic panache of wood and leather shooting sticks, form follows function, and we were certainly happy to have that function here.

As the ram came slowly closer, Matt set up his tripod on the rocky outcropping for a seated shot. He maneuvered so that he could sit back against the boulders and steady himself, wedging his daypack under his shooting arm for added support. At 505 yards, the impala reversed course and began moving away. With the daylight rapidly escaping, this was the last possible moment for success. The shot broke crisply on Matt’s fancy Gunwerks rifle, and the ram never took another step. I had to endure the flight home hearing all about how any rookie could take a 465 yard shot, but it takes a real marksman to shoot beyond 500!

Adjustable lock-in tripods allowed for irregular shots that would have been impossible otherwise.

The author with a decidedly un-African rifle. He got the hat correct, at least.

Perhaps that is exactly what makes hunting in Africa so unique and addicting; it is simultaneously new and old, modern and traditional.

If you have not already begun your long range journey, I strongly encourage you to start! You will undoubtedly find it rewarding, and it pairs remarkably well with the pursuit of African animals. As for me, I am happy to mix the two. My whiskey and tonic, on the other hand, will remain nicely apart.

Robert harvested many excellent animals. Here he is with a very impressive Black Wildebeest. A beautiful animal indeed.

Hunt Details

Date of the hunt: May 12 – 20,  2024

Country: South Africa

Hunting area: Northern Limpopo

Outfitter satisfaction rating Excellent

PH & satisfaction rating: Undisclosed; Excellent

Rifle & cartridge details & satisfaction rating: Dart Rifle; Excellent

Ammunition & bullet details & satisfaction rating: 22 cal ignition of dart; Excellent

Riflescope details & satisfaction rating: N/A

Taxidermist & satisfaction rating: Jim Rice, Cutting Edge Taxidermy – Excellent (past experience from multiple safaris)

In 2014, Jim Rice of Cutting Edge Taxidermy introduced me to Africa and changed the trajectory of my life.  As a result, early in my journeys to the Dark Continent I vowed to only return if I too could introduce one or more “first time visitors/hunters” to the amazing experience that is Africa.  Be it a photo safari, a hunting trip for plains game, or the challenge of pursuing dangerous game, there is none as special as one’s first safari to Africa.  For this safari, I was joined by friends Jayke and Krystal Throgmartin.  This wonderful husband/wife team had dreamed of visiting Africa for over a decade and their time had finally come to make the journey.  We only get one “first safari” and I so wanted this to be a special experience for them.  In the end, mission accomplished!

As planned, our plane landed in Johannesburg, South Africa and what was born was truly an experience of a lifetime for the Throgmartin’s as well as for others in our hunting group.  Also sharing this safari experience were Robert Williams and Gary Acord.  Jayke, Robert, and Gary (along with several others) serve with me on the board of the Arkansas Chapter of Safari Club International (SCI). 

In preparing Jayke and Krystal for this safari, I made sure my coaching included the following, “You have to be flexible.  It’s called ‘hunting’ for a reason.  Sometimes things go well and other times, well, they don’t go as planned.  If I have learned anything over my 55 years of hunting, this I know.  Take each moment in stride, know there are ups and downs, and never lose sight of who we are as hunters and why we do what we do.”  

Our commitment to conservation clearly set the stage for this safari.  However, as hunters, our compassion and caring for the animals many times defines the safari experience and reminds us of what is truly important.

Upon landing in Johannesburg, we stayed overnight at the Afton Safari Lodge which is less than ten minutes from the airport.  As always, the team at Afton welcomed us with open arms and helped us quickly settle in so we could relax and unwind after a sixteen-hour flight.  The next morning, we were picked up by our outfitter and within a few hours were settled into our rooms at the concession.  Normally I acknowledge the outfitter by name and sing their praises for making our stay and hunt a wonderful experience.  While this was certainly the case for this safari, because of the nature of this hunt and for the protection of the wildlife, the outfitter will remain nameless, and our location not disclosed.  Here is why.

In Part 1 of this article, Hunters – We Are Conservation, I emphasized the role of hunters as conservationists.  Certainly, this safari had a conservation component as one of the highlights was darting, microchipping, taking vitals, and GPS tracking specific members of a small herd of White Rhino in South Africa.  As I noted, it was an honor to participate as part of the recovery team and interact with this beautiful and unique species. 

As this was Jayke and Krystal’s first visit to Africa, it was important they experienced Africa to its fullest (as much as possible in eight days on three or four concessions).  In preparing Jayke for his first safari, I encouraged him to be willing to “take what Africa offers” rather than be tightly fixed to a list of hopeful animals.  After all, we were hunting in multiple conditions, and some included very dense bush where sight distances are short and visibility notability limited.  As for Gary and Robert, they had previously hunted in Africa so by working with their Professional Hunters they were off and running on their own and they did very well.

Following along on Jayke and Krystal’s first Africa journey is one of the greatest joys I receive as a hunter.  As with most every safari hunter, Jayke started with his list of hopefuls followed by another list of opportunistic animals that would be considered.  Jayke even prioritized each list as to what he was hoping for first, second, third, etc.  Just as “Man plans and God laughs,” I believe “Africa chuckles as well.”  While we may be primarily hunting one species, we never know what will be around the next corner or behind the next bush.  One of the many things I love about hunting Africa is with a multitude of species to pursue, you just never know when you will encounter the next surprise.  Where else in the world can you be tracking a Kudu, catch movement out of the corner of your eye and turn to see three giraffe walking by?  That is Africa!  It didn’t take long for Jayke and Krystal to experience this magic.

Jayke smiles big with a very special zebra taken over a waterhole late in the safari.

For Jayke, God laughed, and Africa chuckled early on.  His first animal taken was a very nice blesbok.   Why did Africa chuckle?  The blesbok was last on his carefully crafted list!  The good news is Jayke embraced the idea of remaining flexible and as a result was blessed with nine wonderful animals taken in eight days.  Soon and they will all adorn his home, bring a multitude of memories, and be the subject of many stories.  So, you may be asking, “Where does compassion and caring fit into this story?”  Well, there were a few very special moments in this safari that I believe reveal the real heart of the majority of hunters.

First, early in the safari Jayke wounded an early morning gemsbok.  For those that have hunted this species, it is no surprise that they are very tough animals to take down.  In addition, because of their somewhat unusual body configuration it is very easy (in the midst of a quick shooting situation) to aim a little high on the front shoulder and miss the vital cavity.  When this happens, these animals can run for a very long distance and in some cases are not recovered.  I know firsthand from first safari.  We believe this is what happened with Jayke and his gemsbok. 

In this situation, it is very common and the right ethical choice to “make our best efforts to recover the wounded animal.”  If you have hunted very much this situation will eventually occur.  What is important in Jayke’s case is how the outfitter’s recovery team shifted into high gear, assisted by the neighbor’s recovery team, three PH’s, and for a portion of the day, Gary and me.  It was refreshing to watch a group of professionals that were relentless in, finding this animal, ending it’s suffering, and assuring it did not end up as food for the jackals and hyena.  It would have been so easy for the outfitter to end the search after a couple of hours, remind Jayke he is responsible for the trophy fee, and continue to hunt.  Instead, the search continued for well over nine hours and resulted in finding the animal, harvesting it with a final shot and assuring it did not go to waste.  Jayke was beyond thrilled and very impressed with the commitment of the outfitter and his team.

 The second example is similar to Jayke’s.  Early one day Gary made what looked like a very good shot on a nice steenbuck.  It went right down, and all looked good.  To our surprise, however, it jumped up and took off running.  I thought, “Now we have a very small antelope on the loose in hundreds of acres of tall, thick grass.  How in the world will we ever recover this animal?”  Again, a team of six trackers, two PH’s and three hunters (Robert, Gary and me), looked for hours to find this tiny animal in the tall dense grass.  We were truly searching for a needle in a very big haystack.  After several hours, the outfitter voiced an idea.  “Let’s come back at night with a spotlight and try to find the wounded animal and see if we can harvest it then.”  The theory was it was shot close to the spine and after the initial shock, it took off running.  That evening, two hours after sunset, we ventured out with spotlight looking for our little four-legged needle.   After two hours of searching, we saw a steenbok in the tall grass and it appeared to be the same one.  Robert was in the best position to take the shot and was successful. As we exited the bakkie we exchanged high-fives as it was definitely the one Gary wounded that morning.  Arriving back at the lodge, Gary was thrilled (and a little surprised) as he had been hunting in a neighboring concession, and we were just trying to help him recover his animal. 

Gary Acord with his fine Steenbok that was seemingly lost in the thick bush.  Patience, perseverance, a very wise outfitter, and a carefully placed shot by Robert Williams brought this little antelope into the salt at the end of another long day.

 After a little quiet consideration, I agreed to add that particular cape buffalo to my list even though it was the farthest thing from my mind when the safari started.   Although it took four days of hunting to finally spot the buffalo, we made a good stalk, and at 50 yards off of the sticks I made a perfect shot with a 450/400 3” double rifle with open sights which brought the animal’s suffering to a close.  With one shot, the buffalo ran no more than 30 yards and quickly expired.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to have had this safari experience.  I am also thankful for outfitters and professional hunters that are committed to conservation and to assuring the future of hunting.  I believe that we must all take responsibility for the conservation of habitat and wildlife.  I also believe as outfitters and hunters we must have compassion for the animals we hunt and practice good stewardship of that which has been entrusted to us.

This safari was so much more than just taking a bag of animals and getting the right picture or securing the best place in the record book.   Sure, we had plenty of mountain top experiences be it taking an amazing animal or helping with rhino conservation.   Still, we also took those opportunities to do the right thing in being compassionate, caring, and respectful about the animals we hunted.

History has proven, as hunters, we are in the best position to conserve the natural resources which have been entrusted to us and to show appreciation and respect for the animals we pursue.  We are not only hunters.  We are caring as well.

By Andrea Bogard

In August 2019, as a very new hunter, I had an opportunity to journey to Africa. Seeking both plains game and adventure, I touched down in Namibia with no idea what to expect from the next three weeks. The experience was both illuminating and life-changing. Come with me as I take you down two paths. First, that life-transforming excursion and second, the road that is taking me back.

Andrea in Africa

My hunting journey began somewhat abruptly in fall 2017. Born of a desire to have a hobby outside of being wife/mom/business owner, I decided going on a pheasant hunt in South Dakota seemed like a good option. As a life-long shotgunner and clays instructor, pheasants seemed like a functional target.

Fast forward to summer 2019. I had an opportunity to go to Africa with a client to photograph his safari. He was planning to take an elephant in addition to a well-rounded selection of plains game. I was looking to harvest a few animals of my own, but was equally (if not more) excited about seeing Africa through my camera lens.

 The Road Back

Upon returning home in 2019, I had dreams and a tentative plan of going back. As is frequently the case, life had other plans. Since then: COVID happened and my businesses took a huge (but temporary) hit from the fall-out. I started writing about guns, ballistics, shooting, reloading, conservation and worldwide hunting. I got divorced and started a new life at 39. I started homeschooling my sons.

The road back, while winding, has been a great journey!

I was recently in a large classroom, and the question was asked how many people had been to Disney World. About 80% of the audience raised their hands. The second question asked was how many people had been back to Disney World, and almost the same number of folks raised their hands yet again. The upshot was, Disney keeps their guests coming back time and time again. I don’t think that there’s any question that Africa has the same pull for hunters as Disney World has for other folks. If you talk to someone who’s been to Africa, chances are they have been many times and plan on going back again and again.

The Dark Continent is a place of awe and amazement. If you have gone just once, and have experienced the abundance of wildlife and its scenic panoramic views, you cannot resist going back again so that you can feel the hot African sun on your back and marvel at some of the greatest sunsets ever. There is nothing like watching the blazing sun that has been punishing you all day set the sky ablaze as it sinks below the bushveld. I have had a few adventures in Africa, but still have only made a dent in the number of mind-boggling big-game species that exist here. My trophy room is filled with memories from Africa, but with its enormous diversity and richness of wildlife you could truly hunt here a lifetime and still take home a new animal every safari.

No place on earth has as many dangerous-game animals in such a variety. I have had the privilege of stalking through the thick brush, climbing up rocky peaks, sweating profusely through desert climate, and I have still only scratched the surface of the different and wonderful ecosystems.

I have yet to hack my way through the jungle or slog my way through the rainforest, but these adventures are still to come. I think the best part of planning my next trip to Africa is the expectation for the safari to come, which will keep me happy and driving forward throughout the year.

I have never had a bad safari and can’t imagine that that is even possible. Yes, some hunts are better than others, but every trip has been unforgettable. I have been lucky enough to see Africa with my daughter Misty, so it was as though I viewed it again but through a different set of eyes. The African bug has bitten Misty, and she is dying to go back, asking repeatedly when there is the next safari.

The SCI record book gives hunters various challenges and goals to accomplish.

You can try to collect all the spiral horned animals, the Big Five, the Tiny Ten, the Dangerous Seven, or try to qualify for the continent award. I love SCI for all that it does, and I have studied its record books to learn more about all the amazing animals on our planet, and specifically in Africa.

My recommendation to anyone who’s thinking about going to Africa is to take the plunge and go. Africa is not that expensive if you compare it to hunting and other places in the world. You can take four or five plains-game animals for the cost of an elk hunt in the US – it only takes one visit for the African bug to set in.

It is easy to take your hunting to the next level by booking a plains-game hunt to Africa, where you will likely be highly successful, and the drive and desire will set in to accomplish more. If this happens you should become an SCI lifetime member, not only to help conservation efforts, but lifetime membership has its privileges as you will be able to enter ten animals into the record books, plus you will receive free tickets to the greatest hunting convention on earth.

I joined SCI after my first safari as I wanted to get my animals into the record books so that I could honor the hard-working guides who helped me to achieve record book status with a number of species. Africa will test any hunter as the animals are plentiful, but they are extremely wary, and you will work hard to earn whatever you are after.

I never dreamed that I would do a green hunt and dart white rhino. I certainly didn’t envision that I would be charged by that rhino. (Let me tell you that it is not for the faint of heart.) It is so important to have a great PH with you. I went with Tam Safaris.

I have earned the continental award for hunting Africa. I have taken the South African spiral slam and have seen things afield that I couldn’t imagine. I saw a ten-foot monitor lizard eating a large waterbuck while I was out hunting waterbucks!

I explored Africa at night as she is even wilder when the sun goes down. If you want something to remember, try predator hunting at night. The variety of predators that prowl around is amazing and can be a little spooky. There is nothing like hearing the roar of the ultimate apex predator in the still of night. If that doesn’t get your adrenaline going, then nothing will.

The more time you spend in Africa the better the chances that you will see things that will astound you and leave you in wonder. The insects, the plant life, the culture – it is all unique, and exploring all that is Africa is what makes this place the best place on earth (sorry Disney). Go once and you will see.

My heart is pounding, sweat is dripping from my brow.  The dash to the tree, the only cover available in this wide-open barren landscape, isn‘t especially far, but with an evening temperature of almost 30 degrees it‘s been a real drain on the little energy I have left.  I embrace my rifle, a .375 caliber H&H magazine Tikka, lean my hand holding the barrel against the tree to steady my aim and force myself to breathe deeply in an attempt to lower my heart rate, this with only partial success.  My sights find the target and I slowly squeeze the trigger…!   

I am in Africa, Namibia to be exact – a country that most hunters would agree constitutes the best plains game hunting grounds on the dark continent.  I’m hunting on the Okomitundu farm located in the highlands of the Erongo region northwest of Windhoek, which is bordered by the Namib to the west and the Kalahari to the east.  The landscape is very diverse, composed of high mountain ridges and wide valleys, rough cliffs as well as plains with thornbush covered terrain.  A scenic countryside with a beauty of its own – the habitat of the mountain zebra. 

At breakfast, while I’m discussing the means and location of today‘s hunt with the farm administrator and had just agreed on the most promising type of hunt at a vantage point overlooking a waterhole – last time it rained was 7 months ago in the yearly drought – we are approached by Thomas, a non-hunting guest on the farm, with the request to accompany me.  As a rule I‘ll do just about anything to avoid taking a non-hunter along to a hunting blind, experience has taught me that they often lack the required ambition and endurance needed to patiently wait in hiding for game to appear.  This, however, is a different situation, the guest is an experienced paintball player and in my mind used to waiting undercover, so I agree to let him come along.  Zebras are usually drawn to drink at the waterhole in the evening or even during the night, so I agree to meet Thomas at 4 pm for us to drive to our hiding spot together and stay there in wait until the onset of dusk, which is at about 7:30 this time of year. 

Not to forget, I grab the esky and load it in the Indian make Mahindra off-road pick-up truck provided by the farm; the rifle is secured in place and I‘ve checked the ammunition.  In the afternoon we‘re off, on our bumpy way – that the Namibians affectionately call „pads“ – to a waterhole about 4 miles away in the middle of a terrain previously used to flood an old dam that hasn’t been used for decades.  In this old dam structure, someone‘s taken a lot of time and great effort to built what can only be described as a quite roomy bunker type blind. 

The zebras native to this geographical region belong to the species of mountain zebras (Equus zebra), which are differentiated from the prairie zebras (Equus quagga) of east and south Africa through somewhat longer ears, smaller hoofs and the absence of the so-called shadow stripes.  The biologist classifies two sub-species of the mountain zebra, for one the Cape mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra) that is native to the Cape region of south Africa, as compared to the Hartmann zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) in the mountains and hills of Namibia for the other, named after the German explorer Georg Hartmann (1865–1946).  Mountain zebras reach a height of 1.2 to 1.5 m and a length of approximately 2.2 m with an average weight of 260 to 370 kilos.  The Hartmann zebra is usually somewhat larger and has somewhat thinner stripes than the Cape mountain zebra. 

and nothing happens, then it‘s seven thirty and to the left of us the sun has swollen into a giant red ball only slightly above the horizon, ready to call it a day and hand over all further activities to nocturnal animals.  We only have about 30 minutes left before we are engulfed in utter darkness.

The twilight of dusk in Namibia dissipates rather quickly and since we have our off-road vehicle parked some ways away we slowly start to pack up our stuff, also ready to call it a day.  One last Look out the Observation Windows – no hinge!  We exit the bunker and while I relieve myself, Thomas lights up the cigarette that he‘s been longing for.  With the esky on his shoulder we start off on our way to the truck, Thomas suddenly stops and reminds me that I wanted to remove the tall grass in front of the bunker.  We hadn’t gone too far, so I leave my backpack with Thomas and hustle on back to the bunker where I hectically pull up fistful bunches of grass in front of the window.  Just as I want to head back, the thought hits me, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a quick check of the water level at the waterhole. 

Not really thinking anything, I casually cross the wide open area in front of me, suddenly, I freeze in my tracks:  Coming towards me on the other side – also on the way to the water – a zebra.  A single loner, this is most certainly an old male that‘s been driven from the herd by a young stallion, an outcast to wander by himself for the rest of his life.  His body size and sturdy neck tend to support my conjecture.  I look around and see no cover anywhere, so I slowly glide to the ground.  Carefully I unsling my rifle, so happy that I didn’t leave it behind with my backpack.  The stallion is standing alert about 130 meters away with his head raised, checking out the area between us.  Is he aware of me?  I wouldn’t be surprised since I‘m sitting wide open.  He’s unsure, yet he takes a few more steps towards me.  I support my elbows on my knees, aim carefully and once in my sights, I let it rip.  At first nothing happens, then he sways and slowly staggers away behind a bush about 30 meters distant.  I run for the only tree between me and the zebra, reach it drenched in sweat, it‘s still very hot even this late in the day.  I lean against the tree, aim and shoot – through the scope I see the stallion drop.  All of this didn’t take long and I’m totally overwhelmed from this unexpected hunt and the positive result.  

Startled, I turn around to find Thomas approaching behind me.  “What the hell are you doing here,” I ask.  “Well, I wanted to know what’s been keeping you and when I looked over the dam just as you sat down, I kept low under cover, like paintball and followed you, I didn’t even see the zebra.”  We both laughed in the oncoming darkness with not a minute to spare.  Sometimes a hunt is just coincidence with a happy end. 

Into The Thorns

Chapter One

Ambush Alley

On one of the farms on the far western boundary of the Project, just ibefore we cross the Ingwezi riverbed onto AJ’s properties, the dirt road snakes its way between two high ridges of rugged koppies that run parallel to the road. At some point the ridges are only about 50 yards away from the road and further on they stand about 200 to 300 yards away. I don’t know where the name “Ambush Alley” originally came from. Possibly a farmer was ambushed here during the Rhodesian war, or maybe the farmers were convinced that if they were going to be ambushed, this is where it would happen. Either way, this piece of road is made for ambush, that’s for sure.

Graham told me that this section, a couple of miles of it, is actually part of the original Pioneer settlers’ road. After crossing the Ingwezi it winds its way north and east past our camp at the Mangwe Pass. Standing between those brooding ridges it’s easy to picture the old wooden wagons with their 16 trudging oxen, creaking and trundling north, whips cracking, voorloopers shouting, heading into new land filled with adventure, excitement and sorrow.

On both sides of this road, the narrow alley is choked with the dreaded ‘wag ‘n bietjie’ bush. ‘Wag ‘n bietjie’ is Afrikaans, the language of so many of the ‘trekkers’, or settlers, and it means ‘wait a bit’. It means wait a bit because that’s exactly what happens when you’re hooked by one of these treacherous bushes. You actually wait a lot more than ‘a bit’ when you have to unhook yourself. These bushes are the young of the Mkhaya, or knob-thorn (Acacia nigrescens) tree and are covered with hooked thorns similar to those found on a rose bush. One cannot force one’s way through these bushes, they will shred flesh like flensing knives. Most hunters to southern and central Africa have met the ‘wag ‘n bietjie’ bush, but ambush alley is the headquarters for the damn things.

In June of 2001, the season of the monsters, we found tracks of a very big leopard utilising this road. I was hunting with Fred and Julia Herbst from Pennsylvania, a couple who would return for several more safaris and become good friends with my wife and I. Fred’s focus was a big male leopard and Julia was going to try to collect a few plainsgame trophies, including kudu. Fred and Julia had travelled over with John White and his friend Cheryl.

John wanted to hunt leopard with dogs and was being guided by professional hunter Kevin Du Boil and Tristan Peacock, a houndsman from Bulawayo, and was focusing his attentions on a large cattle killer on our eastern boundary which we had named ‘Smith’s Block’. Smith’s Block was ambling around with feet that squared eleven. He was obviously a monster!

We had about fifteen baits out which had only produced two females and one young male, and we were on day eight. The tracks we found now in ambush alley looked very promising and Peter and I got down to examine them more carefully. They squared ten, and they had been made that night. We decided to move one of our already smelling beef hind legs into the valley immediately. We found a suitable flat-topped acacia tree about 60 yards east of the road, near a cattle fence and metal gate. We cleared a shooting lane to the southwest and hung the beef.

Two days later, on our bait-checking rounds, we saw the size ten leopard track in the dust again. Hearts in our mouths, we made our way slowly down ambush alley. Our bait had been hit! It was now quite decomposed, but about five or six pounds had been ripped out of it by this big male. We were excited and turned the Land Cruiser around and headed back toward the mountain camp. On the way we were lucky enough to collect an impala ram which I decided to hang in place of the rotten beef leg. I was worried that the leopard might return, take a perfunctory sniff at the deteriorating meat, and then move on. Now he would have brand new impala meat to get stuck into.

We reached camp in high spirits. Things were not tip-top for John White, however. They told us that they had indeed cut the tracks of Smith’s Block, and the hounds had raised Cain in pursuit of him. Unfortunately he headed back toward his home stomping grounds on the ranch called Smith’s Block (imagine that) where we had not secured the hunting rights. Tristan called his dogs off at the boundary and a weary peed-off group returned to camp. To rub salt in the wounds we found out later that the owner of Smith’s Block would have been ecstatic for us to nail this gnarly old cattle killer, C’est la vie. So, John and crew were unhappy, but Fred, Julia and I were very excited.

We returned to ambush alley at about 3pm. Julia was determined to be in the blind for the kill, so we set up three sleeping positions, set the shooting sticks and sandbags, secured the warning line, and then made last minute adjustments to the camouflage of the blind. I had given Fred the standard briefing that morning which covers what happens in the blind, what to expect, and most importantly the actual shot. We cannot afford to have a big male leopard leave the bait without a shot being taken. Big male cats are scarce. The time and work involved in getting one into shooting position has to be witnessed to be believed. So we needed to avoid ‘educating’ a cat at all costs. When the light goes on most leopards will look into the light then look away, then, after about five seconds or so they will slowly move off. This gives the shooter plenty of time to assess the target, decide on a shot and squeeze off. Remember that the rifle is already aiming at the spot the leopard should be feeding from. Very little adjustment should be necessary, and the rifle is bedded down into small sandbags at the rear and fore end of the rifle. Every hunter, including myself, has a hammering heart and shaking hands when the light goes on. Some people obviously suffer from this more than others, but our method of securing the rifle cuts out a lot of room for error.

The leopard itself is not massively boned and muscled like a lion. Any medium calibre rifle firing proper ammunition can reach the leopard’s vitals from any angle. We cannot afford to sit there with the spotlight on waiting for the perfect shot. The hunter must take the one that is on offer. If a cat is on his haunches facing away, a spine shot into the lungs is perfect. If he is walking away a rectum shot will do the job. If he is angling away a raking shot into the area behind the ribs angling into the front offside shoulder will kill him.

Front on, and side shots need no elaboration. But it will amaze the hunter who has not yet tried leopard hunting, to hear the percentage of our leopards, even with the sand bagging and gun rests, that are missed or wounded at under a hundred yards. It is quite unbelievable. In an average year with about 15 leopard hunts, two will be failures through bad luck. Of the remaining 13, five or six will be missed or wounded. Professional hunters bitch when we pay our yearly life insurance policies. But if you are a leopard specialist, and you sit down and think about it, these insurance brokers have a point. We are a very bad risk!

Another aspect which is covered in the briefing before we actually sit, is that the hunter must not fire unless the PH says the word. Occasionally the culprit who has bent the warning stick is one of the small cats, or even a honey badger. All this is swimming around the poor excited hunter’s head as we settle in. Find the cat, select best shot – don’t procrastinate, don’t jerk trigger, wait for PH to tell me to “shoot”, be quiet, don’t pee, don’t snore, don’t cough. Confusing instructions, but we only ever have four or five super cat males on our area at any one time. In one season we take only two, sometimes three of these giants; and we cannot afford to let one slip away ‘educated’.

Fred was nervous after all these admonishments; and I think that must have had some influence on the bizarre incidents which followed. The three of us settled in. We removed our shoes, unwrapped our sandwiches, uncapped the water and Fred checked his rifle one last time. We were ready. One last sniff and cough, and the trackers drove off in the Cruiser.

This, for me, is one of my favourite times. It’s been a frantic day checking baits, securing new bait, getting back to camp to fetch all the equipment, and then working flat-out to make sure the hide is perfect by sundown. We are all quite worn-out and it feels good to lie down on a comfortable mattress out in the open with the evening coming on. Of course the feeling of anticipation, knowing that a giant leopard should be coming in, adds to the feeling of wellbeing, of a job well done.

Fred lay on the left side of the hide as we looked toward the bait, Julia in the middle, and me on the right. Fred and Julia are both bow hunters back in the USA and their self-discipline showed. They were quiet. The doves, francolins and a group of nearby green wood pigeons provided the evening serenade. We could hear a group of baboons barking in the distance. The gentle fitful breeze was still steady from our right as we looked toward the bait. I lay there hoping that the high ridges of ambush alley were not going to play tricks with the wind as they cooled down.

About an hour after dark Julia nudged me in the ribs. I opened my eyes and focused on the warning stick above our heads. The stars provided us with enough dim light to enable us to see the stick and each other, but that was all. Sure enough, the stick bent. Gently forward, relax, gently forward. He must be licking the bait. I gestured for Julia to stay still and for Fred to sit up very very slowly. Once he was up behind the rifle I silently stood up with the light and turned it on. An eye flashed, went out, then two green-white eyes flashed. Close together. A small cat, probably a genet. I moved a short step to the right to get a better look. Boom! Fred’s rifle clapped, and I nearly soiled myself. It was the last thing I was expecting! I saw the unscathed genet now; he took one more look toward us then skittered down the tree.

“Jesus Christ Fred. That was a damned genet cat!”

“Ah hell, I just, ah hell….” He answered. I could see that he was devastated. He knew he had screwed up. “I saw the eyes flash, I saw spots, I thought maybe it was part of the leopard, I was remembering what you said – I didn’t want him to get away. Ah shit, I’m sorry, I screwed up”.

I didn’t want to belabour the obviously ruined super-cat hunt. I felt more sick with remorse than anger at Fred. God damn it. All that work and luck of getting a giant male on bait ruined. Shit! I felt deflated and resigned. Fred sat with his head in his hands. I knew he felt worse. Julia lay still with the blanket up to her nose. I could make out her wide eyes in the starlight. She said nothing.

“We’ll just sit tight until the car comes. But remember if there’s a next time, wait till I ask you to shoot, okay?”

I told Fred to reload his rifle and we sat quietly to see if the truck would arrive after hearing the shot. When half an hour had passed, I knew that they had not heard us. It was a clear night with no hint of rain. We were warm and I decided to spend the night. It was only 7pm. I reckoned that the cat had to be nearby and must have heard the shot. I was convinced that the only thing we were going to enjoy was a good night’s sleep out in the fresh air, and that any chance we had at a leopard had disappeared with the roar of Fred’s rifle.

“Settle in for the night Fred. Who knows, maybe he wasn’t near. Stranger

things have happened”.

I lay down again, but Fred sat for a long-time head in hands. He told me the next day he hated himself that night. He must have been feeling like hell. The night wore on. I was dozing when once again Julia nudged me. The stick was active again. It was still not an aggressive wild movement. It bent, relaxed, bent again slowly. I was puzzled. Would the same genet be back after being shot at? Had the leopard arrived? I gestured for Fred to get into position. When he indicated that he was ready I put the light on. Our friend the genet was back. We could see him clearly this time. I switched off the light. Four more times Julia nudged me. Didn’t this woman doze? Each time I checked the stick’s movement, but it was the same gentle action. We left the light off and let him feed.

At about ten o’clock the genet must have left. The stick was still. I could hear both Fred and Julia sleeping quietly. Thank God they were not snorers. The next thing I knew was that something was ripping the bait! Not only was the warning stick gyrating wildly, but I could hear crunching and tearing from the bait as well as nails ripping at the rough bark of the acacia tree! This had to be him!

Both Julia and Fred were sitting up.

“Quickly Fred, it’s him, I’m sure”. Fred dropped the huddled blankets away and moved into the bedded rifle. He nodded and I put on the light. The white light blazed onto one of the sights I still find so thrilling. A huge male leopard, green-white eyes flashing, white stomach, and gold and black back.

Tail slashing, left, right…. right paw hooked into the impala, jaws bloody.

“Take him Fred. Right shoulder, shoot”. Boom!

The leopard was slapped sideways by the bullet. He hit the ground, began roaring, stopped, then we heard him smashing through the thick vegetation. “He’s hit Fred, I’m sure of it, how did you feel? He’s a goddamn beauty! He’s a giant. Jeez Fred what did your sight picture look like?” I think I was more excited than Fred.

I was amazed that he had even come in. Fred said that he had seen the cat perfectly. He had been sideways, right side toward us, slanted upward on the acacia branch at about a 45-degree angle, and Fred had gone for the shoulder. I looked at my watch. 3.25am. I fired another shot over the hills to the east where I knew the trackers had driven to bed down. We talked excitedly and replayed the hunt over and over again until the Land Cruiser arrived. I yelled to George that they should bed down on the road until dawn. The three of us snuggled back down into the blankets for the coldest part of the night.

We were up with the first grey light of dawn. I cocked my .460 and George and I went forward to the bait tree. Sure enough there was the blood. We could see where the big cat had thrashed around and then made off through the thick vegetation to the east. Into the thorns. Peter, my tracker, was assisting Kevin with the dog hunt, so I decided to let George do his best on tracks while I stood over him as cover. We followed light blood-sign for about a hundred yards before I realised that we had a proper follow-up on our hands. This blood was definitely not heart or lung blood. I had felt so sure that this big leopard would have poured gouts of lung all over the brush and that we would find him expired not far from the bait. But I was very wrong. This hunt was just beginning.

I stopped George and we went back to where we had left Fred and Julia, and George went back to the truck to fetch my pistol and belt. After all that had happened, Fred was really downcast that the cat had not been found dead near the bait tree. He said that he had been steady, and he had been dead on with his sight picture. I tried to cheer him up, saying that the cat was probably lying not too far away, but I was worried. We both were. I cocked the Glock, jammed it in my belt and George and I went carefully back to where we had left the blood trail. Where we were at this moment was quite thorny, but mostly green leafy low bushes. The real stuff, the acres of wag ‘n bietjie, lay further to our left, or north, a couple of hundred yards away. I looked over that way and a feeling of dread flooded in with the butterflies already in my stomach.

The blood had already thinned. It was not thick, dark arterial blood. It was not orangey-red, frothy, bright lung blood. It was not watery, stomach-content, gut blood. I could find no bone shards. This blood seemed like muscle blood. At that range, the way the leopard had shown himself, I couldn’t imagine that Fred had hit the muscles of the back legs. If he had gone into the front leg surely there should be bone? If he had nicked the front leg there would be less blood than this. We pressed on, yard by slow yard. The cover was becoming thicker.

Whenever possible we try to call in help when following up wounded leopards in our areas. One more experienced PH is ideal. You can cover each other and the tracker perfectly without “over cluttering” the operation. My nearest assistance would be Graham, some 20 miles back up the main road, but I wasn’t sure he was home at that moment.

I decided to push on. George and I moved noisily through some burned out crackly undergrowth, trying in vain to move without sound. Fred called something to me from back near the bait. I didn’t answer for fear the big leopard was within charging range. George forced his way through an archway of head-high hook-thorn bushes, snagging his coveralls at every step – I went slowly around the side, .460 at the shoulder. This was becoming nervewracking and I needed to rest. A small cluster of granite rocks rose up out of the thorns about 30 yards ahead. I signalled to George to leave the spoor and fall in behind me. I felt certain that the cat was in the rocks waiting for us. He had to have heard us. I was ready for the charge and walked left foot leading at every step, my rifle up in the firing position ready to go. Sure enough, about four good paces up between the rocks I spotted a flattened area in the black koppie soil. I gestured with my eyes for George to crouch down and check it out while I covered him. He bent down, looked closer at the ground, lay the back of his hand against the flattened patch and immediately backed off behind me, whispering “U kona – dusi.” (He’s here – close!) I stood still for a full minute. Nothing. I crouched, looked down. There was fresh blood in the leaves. I felt the ground. It was warm. We had spooked this animal in the last few minutes. He was very much alive. I edged on to the top of the small outcrop, adrenalin singing through my veins. He wasn’t there. The tracks, no blood now, led down, and turned left. Straight into the intertwined acres of wag ‘n bietjie and thick yellow grass. This needed discretion. It was pure madness to go into this stuff with one gun. We pulled back and returned to update Fred and Julia back at the bait. Fred looked sick. After all that had transpired, this was too much. The poor guy was absolutely gutted.

I figured out it would be a smarter choice to try to find Tristan and his dogs who were hunting with Kevin and John White on AJ’s properties nearby, rather than drive 20 miles on the off chance that Graham was home. This turned out to be a lucky choice. We found Tristan within an hour, parked at one of AJ’s workers’ compounds. He had John and Cheryl and the dogs with him. Kevin was somewhere else looking for fresh tracks. We set off immediately for ambush alley. Peter too was there, and I was glad to have him in the team once again. When we arrived at the bait tree I battled to brief Tristan on the situation as the hounds could obviously smell the wounded leopard and were barking and howling in excitement.

We barely had time for hurried instructions to Fred, John and the staff, and the dogs were off. They clambered unerringly straight down the path George and I had taken, whining and barking all the while. Tristan, his main handler, Moyo and myself were in close pursuit, with Fred, John, Julia and Cheryl following with the remainder of our staff. To me, someone unfamiliar with dog hunting, it all looked too disorganised and slap-dash. But then Tristan had apparently taken many leopard this way. I decided to withhold council and see what developed. Either way it had to be better than going into the “point blank” vegetation alone.

The hounds hit the lying-down position by the outcrop and went ballistic. Fresh leopard scent was all over the place. They scampered around the rocks briefly then went howling into the wag ‘n bietjie. The hounds had hardly entered this sickening maze when the guttural burping roar of the enraged leopard could be heard in deep base against the high-pitched yelping, then ‘ow-ow-ow’ from one of the dogs. We stopped at the edge of the thorns. The battle raged on unseen for a few seconds then off the dogs went again – toward the road in the centre of ambush alley.

We were unable to keep up with the animals, the thorn was just too thick, and the dogs were on their own. We were all bleeding from cuts on our legs and arms as we fought our way back toward the road. As we reached the road, once again the leopard was brought to bay. The guttural roars, and the excited yelping and howling all rose in intensity and in volume. It sounded as though the battle was being fought in an area of thorns thicker than the rest – if that was possible.

Tristan had a dozen dogs. Not all were seasoned hounds, but I could not understand why they were unable to force the leopard into a tree or up some rocks where we could get a shot. I would find out in due course.

We regrouped on the road. Dog handlers, trackers, Tristan, myself, Fred and Julia, and John and Cheryl. The Americans had been kept safely to the rear out of harm’s way, but we were in a quandary. I wanted Fred to be able to finish off his own leopard, but Tristan and I both did not want to endanger the dogs or any person in trying to achieve that end.

The fight had now moved further northward up the valley and closer to the western ridge of hills. Tristan and I decided to climb the ridge and see if we could take a better look at the overall picture. We were hoping that at least one of us could get on some high ground or up a tall tree within shooting range of the leopard. Meanwhile, the leopard would fight the dogs off then bound away into the thickest cover he could find and then stop and make a stand. No one had seen the leopard since the fight began.

While we were standing on the road two dogs emerged from the bush, Buck and Gabe. Their tails were down, heads hanging. Buck had some bloodbearing scratches on his hindquarters, but we could find no teeth marks in either of them. These two had taken a hammering and had thrown in the towel. Gabe may have taken a blow to his left shoulder and probably had internal bruising as he was favouring his left front leg.

The commotion now from the dogs was sporadic. We decided to leave everyone on the road except for Tristan, myself, Fred, John and George. We walked north up the ambush alley road until we came parallel to the action. Dube, Tristan’s handler, was still with the dogs. After yelling and confirming with him that the leopard was still grumbling away in some very thick stuff, we cut into the thorns until we reached a fence line. We had now passed the subdued pack. The fence line showed about a yard of open ground on each side and we were now standing on a raised area about six feet higher than the surrounding bush. We could not see into it at all. We decided to get Fred ready for a shot down the fence line and then work the dogs up in the hope of pushing the leopard west, toward the wire.

Dube started whistling and yelling to the dogs and Tristan joined in, calling them all by name. They commenced barking louder, Whip and Biggun howling the bayed call. Suddenly, building up like a diesel motor, the grumbling growl of the leopard! A sudden burp and one of the dogs went off screaming. The plan was working! We could hear the cat bounding through the thickets right toward our fence. “Get ready Fred. Get ready, here he comes!”

As I said that, the monster poked his head and neck out of the bush into the fence line. I should have whacked him right then. It was a serious error on my part, but I so wanted Fred to salvage something out of this, I wanted him to finish the cat off. But the huge head swivelled immediately up at us on the rise. He glared at us for only a second or two, slipped back into the bushes and launched into the hounds once more. This time the screaming and barking was fierce.

“He’s hammering the dogs; we’ve got to go in!” This came from Tristan.

He was now seriously concerned for his hounds, and he had his .44 revolver out. This was not good. The cat would move out of the impenetrable thickets and he would not tree, he wanted to fight it out. I had zero experience with dog hunting, but Tristan said it was extremely unusual. Most leopards apparently would go for a cave where they could face their attacker, or they would go up a large tree to escape the hounds. The dogs were showing serious signs of battle-strain and we could hear two or three of them still baying around the grunting cat. As we found out later another three were ‘hors de combat’ and had gone back to the truck. Enough was enough apparently.

We hastily made a new plan – Tristan and I would go down right to the remaining dogs and try to get a shot at the leopard. The niceties of waiting for Fred to finish his cat were over. He was resigned to this and urged us to get the job finished. We moved as quickly as we could, getting snagged and ripped at every step. The leopard was in a thicket about seven yards by four. We could see the white and red flash of a dog every now and then and we could see the tops of some six-foot-high grass and saplings moving, but nothing else.

It seemed risky to me, but Tristan decided to put some .44 bullets into the bottom of the moving grass. They were his dogs and I supposed he knew what he was doing. The blast of the revolver temporarily silenced the dogs; another shot, blam! Now the long grass moved to our left. We had moved him. Once again he held. I decided to climb a mopane tree and get Tristan to pass my rifle up. This was achieved and I stared carefully into the thorns. The damn things were as impossible to see into from up there, as they were at ground level. I thought, from the movement of grass and bushes, that I had a pretty good idea where the brute was. Once I accounted for all the dogs (or had a good guess anyway), I braced myself up in the tree and fired a round into the spot where I thought the leopard was. It is not an easy matter to fire a .460 Weatherby magnum while you’re trying to balance in a mopane tree. I do not recommend it. At the ‘boom’ of the .460 the dogs went silent. The leopard continued to grumble and growl as he did before. He sounded exactly like a lion down there. I did not believe I had hit him.

I climbed down and reloaded. Three rounds sit in this rifle, now there were two. There is a standard unwritten rule in big game hunting. When you leave the truck make sure you have enough ammunition. In all my years of professional hunting I have never found myself far out in the bush without ammunition; but I can see how it could happen. Rounds being fired in desperation when one is lost, mislaid ammo belt, too many bad shots taken at a lightly wounded elephant. Murphy is watching. When I follow wounded leopard I like to feel unburdened and able to move easily, unhindered in any way. I have become used to wearing my leather belt with my 9mm pushed into the front. I take my ammunition holders and my knife off the belt; these go into the hands of my tracker. The other pertinent point is that when facing a charge, especially from leopard, buffalo, and lion, I make sure that I hold my fire until the absolute, absolute last second. The closer the adversary is, the less chance I have of missing him. I resigned myself a long time ago to the fact that there is no second shot. There is one shot only!

“Point blank” for a leopard, for me, means just that. At the end of the barrel if possible. With buffalo and lion I will fire at about five paces, which enables me to get out of the way of the still moving, but dead animal. An elephant in fairly open woodland can be taken more easily on the charge. They are a much bigger target and even if the brain is not hit with perfection, the animal will be stunned from the .460, giving me time for another shot. An elephant will also often turn from a failed brain shot. Buffalo, however, will not turn. Elephant in thick jesse or heavy cover are a different matter. The shooter is hampered by tearing and crackling bush and tree limbs and will have to fire upward at 40 degrees, or steeper, at the enraged animal’s head. This again is the time to wait until there is no going back. Point blank. This topic is covered with more care in the chapter “Follow Up”, so it will suffice to say here that I normally have three soft nose rounds in my .460 when following wounded leopards, but now I was down to two. Still in good shape.

Tristan and I decided to try to take the fight more to the leopard. We were running out of dogs. But every time we started yelling at the dogs and to each other to provoke a response from the cat I had to be up and ready for the charge. It was damned tiring as the adrenalin surges left me weak for a while afterwards. Once again we pushed forward, the dogs went in, the cat started burping his roars out, louder each time! Tristan fired at the whipping brush, I did the same. Had we nailed him? No! Off they went once more, howling like banshees back across the road into the wag ‘n bietjie on the other side.

This was exasperating. It was now very hot and approaching 11am. We sent for the girls and some water and the cool-box, and sat down in some shade on the road. This hunt was looking like it might slip away from us. Peter, who is the best tracker I have ever seen, is not the bravest soldier in the army, however, and had long ago taken himself out of the front line and appointed himself “dog looker-after”. He informed us that all the dogs, save two, had had enough of the morning’s festivities and retired to the vehicle. The only two left were Jessica and Biafra. Jessica was an outstanding hound and in my opinion the hero of ambush alley this day. She was not a big dog, and she was quite young. She was tenacious and lived for the hunt. She alone was still yapping in the bush as we all sat down to reassess the situation and cool down with some cokes and cold water. We called her over and she too settled down in the shade.

Tristan felt that with every hour that slipped away the chances of finishing this cat were disappearing. Too few dogs still had the vinegar to face this leopard, and you couldn’t force a leopard anywhere with only two dogs.

“This leopard seems reluctant to leave this maze Tristan, can’t we force him, provoke him into charging us?” I asked. I couldn’t see any other way out and I was tired of ripping my way through this stuff.

Tristan considered this a while and decided. “Yup, I think it’s the only way, Wayne. The dogs are done. If we can get them to work a little longer, and rile up the cat enough, he’ll come.”

It was a daunting prospect, but one which we’d been prepared for right from the start. For some reason Tristan had a protective Kevlar vest in his truck and George put it on. He was made of the right stuff and was ready, albeit unarmed, for battle. We stood up. I checked my rifle and pistol, and decided to force this thing to conclusion. I only had one round left. The one in the barrel. I toyed with the idea of sending George back to my truck for a few more. I didn’t see the point. I didn’t want to delay any longer and there was only going to be one shot now anyway. Tristan had exchanged his .44 for a .375 rifle. Jessica stood too, and Tristan began to get her excited and back into the hunting mode. To my surprise, and puzzlement, she faced the east side of the road and began to yelp at full volume. Tristan admonished her then stopped. He knew his dogs. Jessica and Biafra now had their hackles up and were barking furiously.

“Watch it Wayne, he’s right here in this thicket, he has to be, look at the dogs,” said Tristan. My God. Right where we were having a damned picnic! We yelled for everyone to back off. Tristan and I came closer together and began to shout obscenities at the cat, stamping our feet and kicking the bushes, advancing a yard at every step, rifle in the shoulder and hearts hammering. Guttural growling in short ascending bursts. Louder each time. Suddenly, for the first time since the fence line, I saw him, but so briefly and so little of him I could not get a shot off. He bounded back further into the bush, Biafra and Jessica hard on his tail. Tristan and I ran forward as best we could, George in tow. The leopard stopped again in some thicker stuff about 20 yards away. The two dogs continued yapping and circling the thicket and the loud growling was getting louder! Tristan and I shouted louder! We were psyched now into ending it.

“Come you bastard, come on!”

And with raging lion-like belches he came. The thing I noticed and remember the most was his hate-blazing eyes and the hugeness of his round head, ears flattened down in fury.

“Wait Tristan, wait, wait!” I shouted. I wanted him close. At about six feet I blasted him in the chest and he went down. I dropped my rifle and drew my pistol at the same time that Tristan let go with the .375. With a burbling sigh the monster from Ambush alley was finished.

It had been a long stressful night and morning, and I was suddenly tired. The staff rejoined us and George commenced regaling them with descriptions of the rogue’s last movements. They lifted the cat to carry him to the road and it was now that we saw what an extraordinarily large animal he was. Four of our staff were battling to get him to the road, his thick tail snaking along behind.

We lay him down in ambush alley and examined him. He was a beautiful specimen possibly just facing the end of his prime. His teeth were not yet broomed and yellow, but he’d lost all the serrations behind his upper canines. He was thick and fat with exquisite mountain-type colouring on his back and flanks. His big head was cut with fight marks that had just begun to heal, and it looked like he had received a bite which had damaged his right eye and his nose. What a battle it must have been. I wish I could have examined his opponent.

We turned the cat over to examine Fred’s shot and I was amazed to see his bullet-hole in exactly the right place! I could not understand it. If I were to take that shot I would have shot the animal in exactly that spot! It was puzzling. How had the bullet missed the heart/lung area? We rolled him over again. The left shoulder was broken. This explained why he could not tree and opted to fight it out on the ground. But how could a bullet enter behind the right shoulder and break the left shoulder, but avoid the vitals? It was strange bullet behaviour indeed. We decided to check the bullet’s path when the animal was skinned out.

We took some photos at the scene, but decided to do most of the photography at camp. This scarred old battler also had my .460 hole in the chest and another where it came out behind the right leg; as well as a hole high up above the left shoulder blade from Tristan’s .375.

Tristan took out his dogs’ medical pack and injected several of the dogs with antibiotics after cleaning all the wounds that he found. He then put in stitches on several large open cuts.

Fred was thankful that the giant leopard had not been lost, but he was glum. I tried to explain that he had made a good shot and pure bad luck had interfered via the bizarre bullet track.

This was an extremely heavy leopard and I am still angry with myself for not trying harder to find a good scale before gutting the cat that day. Graham and his client killed and weighed the leopard that became the biggest ever killed in the country some years later, and looking carefully at the photographs, I reckon this leopard was easily that size. Graham’s cat weighed 196 pounds. When we finally did get this beast comprehensively photographed and skinned, Graham and I went to the skinning shed to try to work out the puzzle of Fred’s shot. Strange indeed. The bullet went in at the right armpit and seemed to skim slightly downwards, along the ribs, but not entering the chest cavity, and staying under the skin. It then crossed the meat of the brisket, exited under the left armpit and went in a strange upward channel into the left shoulder, breaking the shoulder bone. The cat must have had his left side at a slightly different, higher angle than it looked in the bait tree. Fred probably should have aimed a little higher, but at the time I can see why he squeezed off where he did.

The dried skull of this fighting machine scored well over 17 inches and we ushered another Matobo giant into the record book.

Fred and Julia went on to enjoy the rest of their safari, with Julia collecting a beautifully shaped 55-inch kudu bull in the Shangani plains.

The Herbsts returned to our leopard areas five years later and Julia, now the hunter, put another big male leopard into the salt.

John failed to connect on his dog hunt, so I offered him a free return safari which he accepted. The following season he took a beautiful 160 pounder on the first night out

I remember one particularly unpleasant incident when I was about sixteen years old. We had a small ten foot boat powered by a 20hp motor which had cut out. My friend was standing on a rock, holding the boat while I tried to repair the engine. We could hear very little over the thunderous roar of the Victoria Falls, and when I looked up I saw that a Zambian police boat was making its way toward us. We were on the Zambian side of the river and it was obvious that they wanted to arrest us. This was not good. Not only would we be dragged across to Zambia and cause an international incident, but we had a bushbuck and some large bream in the boat, which we had shot with a .22 rifle that morning.

Into The Thorns

Introduction

Malindidzimu. “Dwelling place of the benevolent spirits.”

Silozwane. Shumbashava. Njelele. Bambata Caves. Old names.

Old names, conjuring up hidden, misty scenes. Ancient rituals, cleansings, murders. All sorts of magic and divinings performed here over the centuries by the tribal spirit men.

The giant balancing boulders, purple now in the late evening, brood silently over the hidden bush-choked valleys, caves, and crevasses. The Matobo hills. Unspeakable happenings, disappearing slowly in the drifting shadows of time.

Here in south western Zimbabwe hundreds of thousands of acres of jumbled granite hills, known in southern Africa as “koppies”, sprawl in broken rugged splendour all the way from the Bulawayo – Johannesburg road in the east, to the Botswana border, 120 miles away to the west, where the hills melt away into the dry scrubland of Botswana’s semi desert.

Two thousand million years of erosion has removed six miles of earth to expose these fantastic formations. Some of the koppies are quite small – about 120 feet higher than the surrounding bush, but other giant hills rise up a thousand feet – sometimes more, often forming almost impenetrable ranges over 20 miles long. It is wild country. Long before the black tribes came down from the north about a thousand years ago, these hills, caves and valleys were home to the Bushmen – the small hunter-gatherer people who were the original occupants of so much of southern Africa. These lithe gold-brown nomads were gradually forced out by the ever-increasing northern blacks, until finally, over the centuries, they adapted to the western desert areas, covering what is now Botswana, Namibia, and southern Angola. Today small clans still exist in these areas, but it would be hard to find many Bushmen still existing in their ancient traditional ways.

But these original African aboriginal folk have left rich records of their passing. Hundreds of caves and other surfaces protected from the weather, still today, show beautiful accurate scenes of the hunt: dancing scenes, trance scenes and symbolic pictures of every description – all lovingly painted in amazing proportion. Some of these wonderful pictures have been reliably dated to over two thousand years old.

Today’s Bushmen who have known only the great thirst-lands have lost these skills with the painting. They’ve long since lost the verbal history of the early inhabitants of the mystic Matobo hills. But you can find a hidden cave still, up in a cool gorge far from prying eyes and you can sit there quietly, staring at the simple clean lines of a running kudu bristling with arrows, the hunters running behind, bows drawn and blood obo range. Small family groups allied with other groups. The weak were defeated by the strong. The Torwa dynasty weakened. Alliances crumbled.

Influx from as far away as Lesotho and Vendaland, in what is now South Africa, influenced and added to the colour and history in what is now south western Zimbabwe, and the Matobo hills were the spiritual centre for them all.

In the early 1800’s, far to the south, in what is now Zululand in South Africa, Shaka, King of the Zulus turned his attention to one of his subjects – Mzilikazi, leader of the Khumalo clan, who had become wealthy in status and in cattle. Mzilikazi and his people fled north – settling temporarily twice, before they moved into what is now south western Zimbabwe in 1837. This was the birth of the Amandebele nation, and with their warlike Zulu traditions they dominated and influenced the fractured tribes around them, amalgamating into a powerful force who, some fifty years later, would have to deal with a new threat – the threat of the white tribes. Once again massive strife and bloodshed amongst the people between the rivers. Gold, or rather, perceived gold, and millions of acres of vacant land enticed the hungry colonial powers to look toward the “unknown” country between the two great rivers, and once again the tribes fought. The strong dominated the weak. The weak found new friends and became strong. Nothing changed in the giant scheme of things.

The humans fought, lived, and died. They are still fighting. Today. Between the two rivers. But the haunting hymns of wind, playing gently through the ancient watching rocks, are the same gentle melodies that were listened to by the Bushmen so long ago.

And through these secret gorges and ancient wooded valleys another hunter pads silently along the winding trails. Oblivious to the madness of man and the unhappy relations the peoples have with one another. He was in these hills before the Bushman, and he knows the dappled valleys well. He is the hunter. The ultimate survivor. The Matobo leopard. Millions of acres of rocky wilderness have housed him, hidden him, and fed him through the centuries, and he is hunting there still.

I was ready for the charge and walked left footing leading at every step, my rifle up in the firing position ready to go. Sure enough, about four good paces up between the rocks I spotted a flattened area in the black soil. George bent down, looked closer at the ground, lay the back of his hand against the flattened patch and immediately backed off behind me, whispering “U kona – dusi.” I stood still for a full minute. Nothing. I crouched, looked down. There was fresh blood in the leaves. I felt the ground. It was warm. We had spooked this animal in the last few minutes. He was very much alive. I edged on to the top of the small outcrop, adrenalin singing through my veins. He wasn’t there. The tracks, no blood now, led down, and turned left.

Usually, hunting bongo is not very difficult; it doesn’t require insurmountable physical effort. But it does demand tenacity, concentration, and the willingness to face the often-hostile and sometimes painful equatorial forest. One must also accept the long, tedious 4×4 drives day after day, often seeing nothing until the right track is found.

This story will show that sometimes it can be excessively difficult, both mentally and physically, far beyond the usual hardship. This is not necessarily what we seek in a hunting trip, since the hunter is supposed to be on vacation. I believe that big game hunting in general should be associated with a quest that requires a minimum of physical effort. In this particular case, it was extreme and without enjoyment.

At the beginning of June, we welcome a European hunter, accompanied by his agent and cameraman. The trio is young, full of energy, and very friendly. The hunting season in Congo had started several weeks earlier. The rains are regular, and the salt licks are frequented by bongos, buffaloes, and other forest animals. The hunting conditions are good. After six days of hunting (half of the trip), we still haven’t found any signs of a solitary bongo bull. We’ve already covered several hundred kilometres in 4×4 and several dozens on foot.

On the morning of the seventh day, we finally reach the “hot spot” of the territory at the moment, the Lokongo baÏ. The bridge, about ten meters long, had broken the last time the heavy Toyota passed. The vehicle had dangerously reared up but had not fallen into the river. A team had spent two days repairing it, and we could finally access the area. After the famous bridge, we have to take the infernal road. Only three kilometers have been opened up with machetes and elbow grease. The ruts, mud, and roots force us to drive slowly, and the jolts are brutal for the human body…

Then, we reach the end of the trail, in the middle of the equatorial forest. There is nothing, just the hostile and brutal jungle. From here, a small path opens up, which we cleared with the Baka trackers. It takes about half an hour to walk the two kilometers to reach the Lokongo baï. The small meadow is located on the right bank of the crystal-clear river of the same name as the baï. These natural clearings, rich in minerals, attract countless multicolored butterflies, Gabon grey parrots, green pigeons, gorillas, buffaloes, and of course, bongos, which are the main goal of this safari.

It is still early, and the fog has not yet dissipated when we discover a beautiful track of a solitary bongo. The front hoof is long and wide, making deep marks on the wet ground. After a thorough inspection, we notice that one of its legs shows an unusual mark, as if it had been cut. The animal has probably gotten caught in a poacher’s trap and can no longer place its foot normally. The trail camera check confirms the presence of a large bongo… Indeed, its body and neck are massive. Its roman nose shows a mature animal. The horns are long and thick. All the signs are there to start the pursuit.

After the excitement of this great discovery, all the members of the team focus and prepare for the tracking. The Baka trackers rip a few leaves from nearby plants and attach them to their belts for “good luck”. The superstition or the citizen of the forest plays an important part in everything they do, especially when they go hunting. The six dogs are unleashed, and the hunt begins.

An hour later, we find ourselves back at the starting point, returning to the salt lick… The animal made a large loop, we took the wrong trail… Frustration is visible on everyone’s face. The hunters’ expressions are slightly mocking and irritated… there’s a feeling of shame among the trackers and the guide for making the mistake. The good mood takes a hit, but we remain confident. A few minutes pass, then Robert, the experienced Baka tracker from neighboring Cameroon, restarts the tracking. We are in single file behind the solitary, who is heading deeper into the Congolese forest.

Suddenly, the forest darkens, the wind blows dangerously through the treetops, and then comes the rain… or rather, the tropical deluge, where each drop feels like a liter… our hopes of seeing the bongo vanish. We shelter for a few minutes under our ponchos, but the storm is too violent. It takes two hours of walking through the pouring rain to reach the 4×4. We are, of course, soaked to the bone, shivering from the cold, and all the muscles in our bodies are stiff and sore. The return to camp is uneventful, but still in good spirits. That was the first tracking of the trip.

The next day, the eighth day of the safari, we return to check the salt lick after the deluge. The verdict is clear—no track. Nature tests our patience…

Ninth day of the safari; a day of grace and pain

n their local dialect and bang their machetes on the trees. It takes several minutes before the dogs are all gathered safely, because without them, it would be impossible to bay a bongo in this environment. I know deep down that the solitary has heard it all and has fled at full speed. Now alerted, it won’t be easy to catch. But it’s still early, and we don’t have many days left in the trip. We have no choice but to pick up the trail and go on.

Two hundred meters after the drama, we realize that the animal has begun to run at full speed. The hunter asks me if we can still catch it. I explain that we need to try for a few more hours. The morale is a bit shaken, but we are still full of energy. The tracking continues.

At this point, the bongo is no longer feeding; it is seeking the most impenetrable spots. We must crouch, climb over fallen trees, crawl, and avoid the thorny vines that tear at the skin. Although the trackers clear the way with machetes, the progress is slow and difficult. The body is being put to the test.

Now the bongo is walking with the wind at its back and leaps into a river, following it for a few hundred meters. It’s trying to outwit us; it’s very clever. We wade through water and mud up to our thighs. Soaked, we emerge from the swamp and fall into a column of ants. Thousands of ants moving, and of course, they climb on us and bite our legs. We run and jump, but they are everywhere, within thirty meters of the group.

Some dive into the river, others strip off their pants to get rid of the ants. The torment is added to the hours of walking and the uncertainty of the chase. After several hours, our solitary bongo mixes its tracks with those of a herd… Is it a coincidence or yet another trick?

Thanks to the determination and patience of the pygmy trackers, we are able, after several minutes, to continue our journey. I glance at my watch—five hours of pursuit, and our bongo shows no signs of fatigue, unlike the hunters and dogs. At this point, I don’t know what the hunter is thinking. I avoid looking at him or asking questions.

The suffering is real… I know the trackers will not give up, but I think about the hours of walking back and dread the thought of facing the jungle at night. The steps are heavy and uncertain; roots and vines trip us up. We must accept and push beyond our comfort zone, continue deeper into the forest.

After six hours of walking, we find ourselves at the footstep of a mountainous area with steep, slippery slopes. Robert, my faithful tracker, looks at me and says, “It’s going to stop at the top; it’s not too far now.” I’m convinced the solitary is going to climb to the top of its domain, find a thick thicket, lie down, and chew cud while watching for danger.

The small hunting party stops to rest before the final rush. We gather the dogs, who immediately fall asleep. The usually talkative pygmies are silent. While smoking their cigarettes, I see the weariness in their faces. Do they doubt the outcome of this hunt?

I don’t know, and I don’t ask. I know deep down that everyone is physically drained, and I also know the return will be a nightmare.

The slope is so steep that the beautiful striped antelope climbs in zigzags… we must grab onto shrubs to avoid sliding down the slope on our stomachs… calves and thighs burn, breath is short, and temples throb. At the top, we must stop to recover.

The summit is made up of exceedingly dense, almost impenetrable vegetation. The vines entangle us, blocking our path. Again, we must climb over, duck, and cut through quietly. The wind is blowing slightly in our direction. Robert is at the front, and we follow closely behind. The dogs walk around us as if they know the end is close.

Suddenly, the small lead female with red fur raises her nose and darts off at full speed, taking the rest of the pack with her. We hear the bongo fleeing in a cacophony of leaves and branches. The dogs catch up and bay the bongo. Despite the fatigue, they stand strong against the aggressive bongo. It is the final rush for the hunters. We run as best we can through the vines, which scratch our arms and faces. A tunnel opens between the low branches, and the solitary is there, head lowered, facing the dogs. The hunter calmly raises his rifle to his shoulder, he’s side-on, ten meters away. The shot went off with a deafening echo.

The beautiful antelope collapses, struck down. It has come to offer itself to the hunters at the highest point of its territory, as if to honor its memory and make way for another bull. A group of turacos sings in the tall trees.

The hugs between the men are sincere, warm, full of brotherhood and respect. Everyone realizes how intense the effort has been. It is time for photos and to skin the animal. All the meat is loaded into baskets made on-site using vines. Each load weighs over 40 kg. I try to dissuade Robert, Oscar, Diky, Rodrigue, and the old Bado from carrying such heavy loads, but nothing works.

Only the stomach contents are left behind. I don’t know where they find the strength for this, as we still have several hours of walking to reach the 4×4. The GPS shows the vehicle is 11 kilometers away in a straight line. The return mission seems almost impossible since we need to clear a path through the jungle, which would take far too long. We decide to head towards the Baï Baboundou, four kilometers away. From there, we have a trail about nine kilometers long to the vehicle. It’s hard to express how harsh and exhausting the first part to the meadow was. We had to clear the path with machetes. The trackers, loaded like mules, keep stumbling under the weight, and the ropes of the vine baskets break regularly. We have to redo everything and keep going—walking, ducking, climbing, it’s just torture.

Our soaked pants hinder our movements. Once on the trail, each root becomes an insurmountable obstacle. The difficulty is at its peak, and there is no more pleasure. Again, the rain joins in, adding even more challenge to our ordeal. I remember suffering during a Derby eland hunt in the Central African Republic, but not to this extent. The environment in which the bongo lives is so difficult that it puts both body and morale to the test.

It’s 7 p.m., and night has already fallen when we reach the vehicle. That’s over 13 hours of effort. The last pygmies arrive 30 minutes later. I thank and congratulate each of them. The arrival at camp is around 8:30 p.m. The day lasted sixteen hours…

We are exhausted, but the hunter is still smiling. His good humor kept us going throughout this memorable day. I thank him for his trust and to have endured such an effort.

Is this the most physically and mentally difficult hunt of my career? Yes

Are we exhausted? Yes

Did we enjoy it? No

Are we happy? Yes

Would we do it again? No (and yet the story will unfold such that we will return to these hills)

Are we proud of this experience? Yes

Does big game hunting deserve to be this tough? I don’t think so.

Before everyone heads to bed, I take my loyal tracker, Robert, by the shoulder to thank him once again. He simply says, “We should never go there again, it’s too far, it’s where the turacos sing.”