The Elephant Keeper Page 6

  I found that my father did not greatly want to hear about Bob’s behaviour, and indeed he attempted to dismiss it as a mere prank, whereupon I interrupted, “Father, a prank that could end with the death of the Elephants.”—“Well,” said he, with great reluctance, for he hated arguments, “I will talk with him.” My father went and talked to Bob. A short time later, Bob came up to me: “Tom,” he said, “forgive me—I am sorry for the stones—and to shew this I should like to give the Elephants an apple each.” There was a mocking smile on his face, and before I could prevent him he had held out two small green apples. Both Elephants took their apples and put them in their mouths; but while Timothy ground his to pulp, Jenny spat hers out and with it a nail. I was very angry and told Bob what a fool he was. “A fool?” says he, sneering, “who are you to call me a fool? A stable-boy!” I said that, if the Elephants were to die as a result of his apples, he would be the fool, and that, if he did such a thing again, I would tell Mr. Harrington. I had disliked him for years, ever since I had seen him set the tail of a dog on fire. Making animals suffer was one of his favourite sports. He often tormented frogs and toads, and I heard that he once poured a bottle of Aniseed over the back of a cat when the hounds were running, and they clapped on the drag and tore it to shreds.

  One thing which I learnt from Mr. Coad was that, in the Indies, the captive Elephants were regularly ridden like horses, and I was resolved to try my luck in this respect, though the difficulties seemed formidable, and I could not imagine how it was done. None of the horses’ saddles was broad enough for an Elephant’s back, and mounting only seemed possible if the Elephant were to kneel or lie down, or to stand still while a ladder was placed against its side. What perplexed me most was how the rider, once perched aloft, directed his steed. Horses, with their sensitive mouths, are directed largely by means of the bit and bridle and the reins, and perhaps, I said to myself, Elephants equally have sensitive mouths, but it would take a strange bit and bridle to fit on an Elephant. Even if such a bridle could be fitted, looping under the trunk, and even if the Elephant were willing to accept the bit, would anyone hauling on the reins be strong enough to steer such a powerful beast? I had the ankus as a means of chastisement, but what if the Elephant were so maddened by the rider’s presence on its back that it chose to charge away? What if it chose to unseat its rider by rolling on to its back, as horses do when they do not like being mounted? To be rolled upon by an Elephant would surely be fatal. I thought a little further, and saw that an Elephant, if it so wished, might use its trunk to knock the rider from the saddle. My father, with whom I talked this over, felt that the venture was too dangerous to be hazarded; however, I secretly decided to disregard his advice.

  With this in mind, I made a rough saddle out of ropes, and fastened it on Jenny’s back, tying it under her stomach. Although she submitted to this readily enough, within a few minutes her trunk was feeling over the knot and soon enough she had it untied. I tied it again, this time much more firmly, and when she attempted to undo it she failed; but Timothy proceeded to untie it for her. This is no good, I said to myself, and tied it once more, this time with the tightest of knots. Next I made a sign telling her to kneel, which she did, and I was able to climb on—although, as I clung on her back, I found myself unable to make her stand up. “Stand up! Stand up!” She remained kneeling, for in my foolishness I had forgotten that she could only obey me when she could see me.

  I therefore had to teach my Elephants to understand human speech, by which I mean not the full range of speech, merely particular words and phrases. Again they were excellent pupils, listening to me with great attention, much as a young dog, anxious to please, will cock his ears and listen to every sound which falls from his master’s lips. Within a month I felt ready to hazard another attempt at riding. This time Jenny rose, and now I was eight or ten feet high, leaning over the ridges of her spine, clutching at ropes, and with my legs splayed horribly by the breadth of her back. Bob and Dick were watching; so was Lizzy, who cried up anxiously asking me if I was all right, and I was about to reply when Bob rammed a hot iron into Jenny’s fundament, whereupon she began to lumber forward. Being unable to grip with my legs, as one would grip a horse, and with the saddle not altogether as secure as I had thought it to be, I lost my balance, and slid over the cliff of her back. Though I put my hands out to break my fall, the pain travelled up my arms and into my elbows. As I lay on the ground, Lizzy rounded on Bob, saying that I might have broke my neck, but he laughed in her face; not for long, however, because Timothy, who had been eyeing these events, swung his trunk and knocked him sprawling. He picked himself up and went away cursing and vowing revenge. I was grateful to Timothy for administering such a swift rebuke; but my elbows hurt, and within half an hour my right elbow was swelling. I tried to make light of the pain, by pretending that it was merely a bruise, but that night I could scarcely sleep, and I knew that I must have broke a bone in my elbow. While it healed I supported it by means of a cloth knotted round my neck.

  When Mr. Harrington heard of my failure, he wrote to Mr. Coad, who kindly drew a sketch of Elephant-riding in the Indies. It shewed a male Elephant, with long tusks, walking in a grove of palm trees. This Elephant was carrying an entire company of passengers, seated in a wooden platform like a broad boat. Such platforms are known in the Hindoo as howdars. In the sketch, the Elephant’s keeper, the mahoot, was seated not on the howdar but on his neck, with his bare feet propped on the bony curves of the Elephant’s ears. This was such an obvious solution to my difficulties that I cursed myself for not thinking of it before and, in spite of the pain in my arm, I took off my shoes and then and there climbed on to Jenny’s neck. I found that, at the narrow junction of the neck, my position was wonderfully comfortable and secure. I could, like the mahoot, rest my feet on her ears, or, if I preferred, I could drop my feet and brace myself with my legs against the sides of her neck. When, by chance, she put down her head, I felt myself in danger of pitching forward and sliding down her trunk, but this was a danger to which I soon accustomed myself; and from this point on I rode the Elephants every day, and what was marvellous and almost incredible, found that I could control them well enough without use of bits or bridles, whips or spurs, or of the ankus, merely by the power of speech.

  Chapter III

  During the second summer that the Elephants spent at Harrington Hall we had a period of very hot dry weather which lasted over a month and a half. This both pleased and displeased the farmers, for while it helped ripen the corn it was torture to the sheep on the downs, and their thin cries of distress filled the air. Every pond having shrunk to nothing but a muddy stew, I took the Elephants through the corn fields to a river about three miles away. The river was shallow, the water coming no more than half-way up the Elephants’ legs, but they played in it for many joyful hours, shooting water at each other and hauling up quantities of weed, which they flung high in the air.

  There came a day of thunder, heard at a distance of many miles, but drawing steadily closer. Now the Elephants became restive, flapping their ears to keep off the clouds of thunder-flies which plagued their eyes, and as the sky darkened, and the growls and rumbles of thunder grew louder, I put them in the cart-house. I attempted to soothe their emotions by talking in a soft voice and stroking their trunks. No animal likes thunder, and the horses were also anxious, while all the birds fell silent. Flashes lit the sky, and the first huge drops began to splash down; then, after a brief pause, when the storm seemed to draw breath, the rain fell in a torrent, pounding the roof of the cart-house with a deafening noise and spurting as it hit the ground. On a sudden the door flew open and in burst Lizzy, her hair dripping. I gave her a horse-blanket to wrap round her shoulders and sat beside her on a heap of straw. “You do not mind me being here?” she inquired, squeezing her hair and looking at me with her dark eyes.—“Not at all, why should I? How is Mrs. Harrington today?”—“Mrs. Harrington has bought herself a new dress and is very pleased with herself,” she
said, and took off her shoes. “O, I am soaked! How dark it is! How is your elbow?”—“My elbow?” I was surprized; I had forgotten my elbow. “It is mended, but still a little stiff.” I bent it slowly, while she watched; then she drew back her sleeve and shewed her own arm, which was very soft and fair in comparison to mine. Her hair dripped on to my arm, and she brushed it off, and let her hand linger on my arm, and then I thought that I should kiss her, indeed, that she would like me to kiss her; but I was too shy, and afraid that, if I did, she would make some joke at my expense. Even so, I might have plucked up courage and kissed her, but the Elephants chose to interrupt us, their trunks sliding over our shoulders and joining our hands. The storm continued for more than an hour; when it was at an end, a band of brilliant yellow light shone from under the dark cloud which was moving away to the east. I let the Elephants into the yard, and they splashed and trampled through the puddles with great relish.

  This storm was one of the very few times that I saw the Elephants agitated. Although they started at loud noises, for instance when pheasants burst from the undergrowth, or ring doves clattered with smacking wings from the thickets, they were for the most part very placid and even-tempered. However, on one occasion, when we were riding along a track, Timothy came to an abrupt halt and gave a sharp trumpet. At the same moment he stiffened his trunk and pointed: upon which I, leaning over his head and following its line, saw a large viper coiled in the bracken. I urged him on, but he would not budge, nor would Jenny, who was following close behind, and we had to wait until the viper, perhaps conscious of danger, uncoiled itself and slid away. I conclude from this, that both Elephants knew, either by a kind of instinct or because they had seen snakes in the Indies, that snakes were poisonous, which was remarkable, though even more remarkable, to my mind, was that whenever we passed that same spot, both Elephants remembered the viper and checked stride to see whether it was still there.

  In the autumn we sometimes met herds of village pigs, rooting for mast. The Elephants did not like pigs, and would hurl pieces of wood, or stones at them, with great accuracy and force. These pigs soon learnt to avoid us, and whenever we drew near would flee in squealing terror. There were also occasions when we unexpectedly encountered horses. On a day of hard frost, as we were walking through a field of bean stubble, we heard the sound of the chase, and presently the hounds came pouring toward us, hot on the drag and barking furiously. They streamed past, pursued by the horses with their riders who, as always, were shouting and tally-hoing in a state of great excitement. Neither of the Elephants was in the least disturbed by the commotion; but one black mare, upon seeing the Elephants, was so unnerved that it shied and threw its rider, a heavily built gentleman by the name of Dr. Chisholm. Dr. Chisholm lived in Gillerton; he was well known both for his love of food and for his fiery temper. His foot now being caught in the stirrup, he was dragged some way through the mire before the horse came to a halt. Picking himself up, he turned on me in a fury, what the d-v-l did I mean parading my d—ned Elephants here, getting in the way of the chase, et cetera.—I respectfully replied that I was sorry, I had not known that the chase would be coming this way, to which Dr. Chisholm retorted that in that case I must be deaf. He remounted and galloped off.

  I was a good deal troubled by this matter, and feared that Dr. Chisholm would complain to Mr. Harrington. I heard no more of it. However, before long, I had occasion to remember the incident and to wonder about its consequences.

  The whole of January 1768 was exceedingly cold, with a bitter north wind, and heavy falls of snow. Every morning, as my father and I walked from Thornhill to the Hall, we came upon the bodies of thrushes and blackbirds frozen stiff, and every evening the sun, sinking through a trench of violet, seemed the colour of blood. Several of the horses having fallen ill with a contagious distemper, I became afraid for the safety of the Elephants who, without the protection of a coat of hair, or fur, were exposed to the full rigour of the cold; and though I kept them in the cart-house, and wrapped them in horse-blankets, they were listless and miserable. I could understand the depression of their spirits, for they were used to the heat of the Indies. When the cold deepened, a fine powdery snow blowing through the edges of the door, I lit two small stoves, though it worried me perpetually that the Elephants might knock a stove over, and set fire to the straw. For this reason I stayed with them all night, rising from my bed to stoke the fires, or to give the embers a puff with the bellows.

  My father confidently expected the weather to change with the new moon, which fell I think sometime after the middle of the month, and indeed there began a thaw shortly afterward; however, soon the cold returned harder than ever, with the same piercing wind. Mr. Harrington had not gone to Bristol, for Mrs. Harrington was about to give birth; and I remember that, to test the depth of the cold, he carried out an experiment, placing three glasses of different liquids in the open air: the glass of water froze in six minutes, hard enough to bear a five-shilling piece upon it; the glass of port wine froze in two hours, and the glass of brandy in six hours. By now this persistent weather was becoming a serious matter for farmers, even worse than the summer’s drought. Mr. Harrington’s barns were well provisioned with hay, but many farmers had little or no hay left and could not afford to buy more, prices being so high; moreover, in the fields the turnips had frozen to solid blocks, which left the sheep without food. People prayed for milder weather, however, when the thaw came, in the middle of February, the turnips had rotted in the ground and were pulpy and worthless, and many sheep died of starvation.

  Before this thaw both Elephants did fall ill, as I had feared. The first to sicken was Timothy, whom I found with his head hanging and eyes closed, and when I offered him a carrot he declined. Soon Jenny too fell ill, and when both animals lay down, I became very afraid that they had lain down to die. With my father’s help I opened their mouths, and poured cordials of milk, peppermint, and honey down their throats. The horses had been bled, as a matter of course, and my father was in favour of bleeding the Elephants; a suitable vein, he believed, lay in the roots of each ear. I was reluctant to bleed, for fear that it would be impossible to stanch the flow; however, my father urging strongly, I gave way. We bled Timothy first, and hit the vein at once. The blood was dark and very rich, and we succeeded in drawing off a full three pints of blood. When we came to Jenny, the first blow missed the vein, but we struck with the second, and though her blood was less rich and flowed sluggishly we took two pints. I should mention here the old story that the blood of an Elephant is colder than that of any other animal, but this is entirely untrue, it is as warm as that of a horse.

  After this, there was little more that we could do. My father left, but I stayed with them. Sometimes I rested my hand against one or other of their chests to feel that their great hearts were still thundering away, and sometimes I talked to them, which, while helping them not at all, seemed to relieve my anxiety. To keep out the chill I let no one into the cart-house save for my father and Mr. Harrington, and Joshua, who made me kneel and say another prayer on their behalf.

  Soon after their recovery, my father fell ill. First, he complained of pains shooting through his legs, next, that he was hot and giddy. Since he had always enjoyed good health, I was surprized but not greatly concerned, for, as I say, I was still thinking of the Elephants. He went home and, taking to his bed, sank into a fever. This being the middle of the day, my mother became very alarmed, and began to think of fetching the doctor—the same Dr. Chisholm whom I mentioned earlier—however, before doing so, she consulted Mrs. Perry, as she did on every matter. Mrs. Perry bustled up and, looking at my father, declared that the fever was not serious, she would stake her life on it being no more than a severe cold with a touch of ague. All this I had from Jim, my brother, who was at home, for in such weather there was little to be done in the gardens. As the afternoon wore on, my father continued to decline, and in the evening, despite Mrs. Perry’s repeated reassurances, my mother sent my brother through the sn
ow to Gillerton, where Dr. Chisholm lived. Dr. Chisholm being at table, Jim was told to wait. More than two hours passed before Dr. Chisholm appeared—patting his mouth with a napkin—to ask what the matter was. My brother told him.—“And what is your father’s name? Ah yes—he is the father of the Elephant keeper, is he not? Well, let us hope he is not ill with the dreaded Elephant Fever. I cannot come now, young man, but I shall come to him later.”

  My brother returning home, gave this message to my mother: “Dr. Chisholm is coming later.”—“But could he not come at once?”—“No, he is at table, but he will come later. He says that Father may have Elephant Fever.” My mother, very frightened, cried out, “What is that?” Upon which my brother told her, that it was a special disease which human beings caught from Elephants.

  Since I had stayed the night at the cart-house, I knew none of this; however, shortly before day-break, Jim appeared, and told me about my father’s Elephant Fever and that I must come home, bringing a piece of one of Timothy’s tusks. It seems that Mrs. Perry now believed my father would only be saved if he were given a medicinal potion made of powdered tusk. This was utter folly, I did not believe a word of it; even if it were true, Timothy would not have stood idly by and allowed me to saw off his tusk. Jim then mentioned that, as he had returned through the snow from Gillerton, he had been followed by a light. I asked, what sort of light; he did not know, but it was a dancing light, like a will o’ the wisp. I said to myself, it is probably no more than the frozen crust of snow glistening in the light of the young moon; but I knew that Jim believed it to be an omen of our father’s death.