This story, “A Dangerous Cup of Tea,” appeared within the April 1957 subject of Out of doors Life.
We have been after elephants and our looking camp was arrange on a bend of the Tana River, within the Bura district of Kenya some 300 miles northeast of Nairobi.
For 3 or 4 days Louis Woodruff, my clothes shop and white hunter, held me to antelope of 1 sort and one other, and I knew he was feeling me out, sizing up my taking pictures earlier than he let me play within the majors. That was all proper with me, too. I ordinarily shoot a high-powered rifle about annually and make no declare to being an professional. I used to be as glad for a chance to check my taking pictures as Woodruff was.
I collected a gerenuk and a lesser kudu with horns slightly below 32 inches, among the best minor trophies I took on the entire safari. Each have been clear kills with the .270 bolt-action Remington I had shipped to Africa for my hunt.
Then I began having bother anchoring recreation with that rifle. It put ’em down however they didn’t keep. I wounded a fringe-eared oryx, adopted the blood path till darkish, and misplaced my trophy to the hyenas through the evening. I made it up the subsequent day, choosing off a magnificence, nevertheless it took two pictures to show the trick. Once I had the identical expertise with a zebra stallion, a topi, and a waterbuck I put the .270 away and fell again on a .375 Magnum Mannequin 70 Winchester. From then on I had no extra bother. The bigger .375 put them down for retains.
The .270 is a good rifle for the work it’s meant to do, particularly in professional fingers. However some African antelope are larger than you count on (the eland is in regards to the measurement of a small horse) and so they appear to take extra killing than deer and different soft-skinned recreation on this nation.
Woodruff lastly introduced I used to be prepared for larger enterprise. We ate breakfast at first gentle and he and I piled into the battered lorry that carried our camp gear, with three trackers, a few gunbearers, a skinner, and two or three different safari boys. We headed for the Somaliland border, 80 or 90 miles east of the Tana. “There’s a little bit of elephant nation over there I need to take a look at,” Woody defined.
I elected to experience on high of the truck, the place I may see the nation and hold look ahead to recreation, and we hadn’t pushed many miles once I noticed a rhino off to the left of the street. He appeared in regards to the measurement of a small barn.
I yelled to the driving force to cease, and Woody and I climbed down. The commotion despatched the rhino lumbering off, however he ran solely about 400 yards earlier than he wheeled round and stood eyeing the lorry with a grumpy stare, as if unsure whether or not to filter or come again and clobber no matter had disturbed him.
Woodruff and the tracker led me off on a large circle, so we may work upwind and method him from the rear. He was standing in thick, low bush, nonetheless obtrusive on the truck. However we have been within the open, and when Woody saved going till we have been solely 25 paces away I started to get uneasy. Then the rhino heard us. He swiveled round and got here, and I felt as if I have been standing within the heart of a railroad monitor with a locomotive bearing down.
Along with the .270 and .375 rifles I’d shipped to Africa, Winchester had despatched alongside one other Mannequin 70 in .458 caliber. It was the corporate’s new elephant gun. They needed my looking associate, Dick Heck, and me to check it on Africa’s huge recreation. This was in August of 1955, months earlier than the .458 was introduced for normal sale.
Associated: The ten Greatest Harmful Recreation Cartridges
I used to be carrying the brand new .458 that morning. It had a peep rear sight and I quickly had motive to imagine that’s an error on any gun supposed for harmful recreation.
I introduced the rifle up with the rhino pounding down on us, and I merely couldn’t find an important goal space by that sight. When he was 15 yards off I didn’t dare wait any longer. I simply slammed a bullet into him, hoping it might hit the place it might do probably the most good.
The .458 strikes a 500-grain strong bullet on the energetic clip of two,125 toes per second, and packs a muzzle wallop of greater than 5,000 foot kilos. However that wasn’t sufficient to show Mr. Horns, not the place I hit him. It took a second strong, from Woodruff’s .475 double rifle, to try this. Once I heard its heavy blast, with the rhino nonetheless heading in on us, I knew we have been in a really tight spot, for Woody received’t butt in until it’s completely mandatory.
His shot slewed the black hulk midway round. By that point I’d bolted in a recent hull and I fired once more. That turned him some extra, and as he lumbered away I smacked him within the rump, making an attempt for the bottom of the backbone. That one did it. He piled up in a heap, gored the bottom just a few instances along with his horn, and changed into a great rhino.
He ought to have. He’d absorbed 2,000 grains of high-speed poison. My first shot had caught him between the eyes, not a deadly spot along with his breed. Woodruff’s was a haymaker within the shoulder. My second shot had opened up a giant gap in his lungs, and my final one demolished his rear axle.
I had heard and browse many instances earlier than I went on the hunt {that a} rhino is probably the most slow-witted of Africa’s huge 5, which incorporates the elephant, buffalo, lion, and leopard. That could be so, however you don’t cease a rhino making a decided cost by outwitting him. It’s important to shoot him. My rhino was my first main trophy of the safari, and regardless of how lengthy I reside I’ll always remember the way in which he appeared when he got here pounding at us, head down and tail up, as sq. and ponderous as a tank.
I had left my dwelling in Pineville, Kentucky, on August 5. I did a little bit of sightseeing on the way in which, and stepped down from my aircraft at Nairobi six days later. My looking associate Dick Heck, who operates some tobacco warehouses in Madison, Indiana, had arrived in Africa two weeks earlier than, and he was off within the Masai nation looking lions with Mohamed Bal, a Pakistani skilled hunter employed by Woodruff. Bali, to make use of the nickname given Mohamed Bal by his buddies in East Africa, is a driver of racing vehicles (an accomplishment which got here in useful earlier than the hunt was over); a wonderful hunter, and a typically competent hand on safari.
The plan was for Woodruff and me to hitch Bali and Dick close to Salengai. However the afternoon I landed at Nairobi Heck knocked over a wonderful black-maned lion, and that wound up his Masai-country hunt. He and Bali despatched a runner out to the closest city and acquired off a telegram to Woodruff to let him know in regards to the lion.
That night on Safari Information, a particular broadcast put out every evening by a neighborhood radio station to all looking events out of Nairobi, Woody despatched directions to Bali and Heck to come back again to Nairobi. They hurried, understanding we had elephants up our sleeve, and arrived the subsequent midday.
We loaded the lorry and a four-wheel-drive looking automotive — which is named a taking pictures brake in East Africa — and drove out of Nairobi on the morning of August 13 with a dozen safari boys. We headed up by the Mau Mau nation to the Northern Frontier District and the Tana. Once we checked in with the district commissioner at Garissa we have been advised that elephants have been doing mischief round Bura, so we moved there and established camp. Woody and Bali let it’s recognized among the many native natives that we’d pay appropriate rewards for phrase of elephants with good ivory. Then we began looking antelope-sharpening our marksmanship for the damaging recreation to come back, as I associated earlier.
We adopted the blood signal, prepared for bother, and hadn’t gone far earlier than we discovered it. I heard a warning shout after which a crashing in a thicket forward.
After that got here our rhino fracas, and that very same day I acquired a lovely male ostrich, which was working full tilt, at near 200 yards. One shot from the .270 did it, once more proving the rifle very a lot O.Okay. for the sport it’s supposed to deal with.
Late that afternoon, driving by semi-desert nation the place flocks of guinea fowl saved getting up in conjunction with the rutted sand street, we topped a low rise and noticed a giant water gap forward. It was about twice the scale of a soccer discipline, and off to 1 aspect of it a herd of 40 to 50 elephants was working slowly by bush and scrub thorn timber.
Woodruff spoke an order in Swahili. Our native driver stopped the lorry and backed up very quietly till we have been out of sight of the herd. Then we rotated, nonetheless with none commotion, and drove again a few miles to make camp.
We headed for the water gap on foot of the herd. The stalk was simple. We made a circle and got here in on him upwind, maneuvering in order to not spook any of the others. When Woody lastly halted us we have been solely 50 yards from the bull. I assumed it might be simple.
I used to be carrying the .375, loaded with 300-grain increasing bullets. I laced one into his shoulder that belted him flat as a hoecake, and Woodruff let loose an exuberant yell. However our elation died because the bull bounced to his toes. He was out of sight within the bush earlier than I may work my bolt. A wounded buffalo’s a unpleasant buyer, and we had one on our fingers.
We adopted the blood signal, prepared for bother, and hadn’t gone far earlier than we discovered it. I heard a warning shout from Woody after which a crashing in a thicket forward. Subsequent I caught glimpses of three buffaloes coming at a useless run, one shut sufficient to name for fast consideration.
I drove a shot by the comb and Heck lower unfastened with the .458. The buff careened across the thicket, 25 paces away, heading in on us, and I noticed that it was not my wounded bull. This one was smaller, with a poor head, however I had no time to consider that. It turned out later she was a giant cow. I had clear taking pictures now for the primary time and I clouted her within the shoulder. She stumbled however stayed on her toes. At 15 yards she stopped together with her entrance legs braced huge aside as if to maintain from falling. She shook her head, spraying blood. Then I punched a 3rd shot by her coronary heart and she or he fell useless.
Issues have been too scorching for the wounded bull by this time. He spooked out of a thicket up forward, with a second cow trailing him, and was out of sight earlier than we may get a shot. The intense, frothy blood path indicated a lung shot, however he may nonetheless journey and I’ve by no means been extra keyed up than I used to be for the subsequent half a mile.
When issues got here to a head rather a lot occurred without delay, the way in which it’s prone to in Africa. A tracker stopped and pointed, with a low grunt in Swahili. There was a knot of eight or 10 buffaloes off to our proper, standing immobile and staring again within the route the place we’d accomplished our taking pictures. Then we noticed the wounded bull by himself, about 40 yards away, between us and the herd. He was watching us, and I knew by the way in which he appeared that until we killed him any individual was going to get damage.
“Take him!” Woodruff barked.
I noticed mud fly from his black conceal at my shot however he didn’t even flinch. A second later he was coming for us full throttle. Bedlam broke unfastened. The 4 trackers scattered for the comb, working like streaks. Woody’s .475 bellowed nevertheless it had no impact. Heck rapped out a shot with the .458 after which ran previous me round a thorn thicket, in search of a transparent spot from which to make his subsequent strive. Within the confusion I misplaced monitor of Woodruff.
The bull was nonetheless bearing down, and as far as I may inform proper then I had issues all to myself — and I knew there have been eight or 10 extra buffs that we would hear from at any second.
My bull rounded a thicket 15 yards off, coming for the wind-up, nonetheless a good distance from a candidate for taxidermy. I’d solely get yet another likelihood now.
I drilled my soft-point bullet into him simply over a watch. It was a fortunate shot, for the place the place you possibly can hit a buffalo within the head and do good is fairly small. It smashed by and opened up in his mind, 300 grains of immediate dying. He conked out as if lightning had hit him, however the momentum of his cost carried him on. When he slid to a cease I took eight steps and touched him with my toe. That’s too shut.
He conked out as if lightning had hit him, however the momentum of his cost carried him on. When he slid to a cease I took eight steps and touched him with my toe
Once I rotated Woody was standing simply behind me, as I may need recognized he’d be, along with his .475 lifted to place within the finisher on the final second if I failed. However I’m glad he gave me my likelihood and glad I didn’t know he was there till it was throughout, for nothing else that ever occurred to me on a hunt gave me the thrills that scrape did.
“Bloody good present,” Woodruff stated quietly, and simply then we heard a commotion off to the fitting. The eight or 10 buffs that had watched the entire thing had lastly determined to filter. They thundered off, with a blackish calf wobbling alongside within the rear.
That ought to have been the tip of the story. However we nonetheless had just a few dangerous hours forward.
We had in our crew an aged tracker, Kubresh, who had served Teddy Roosevelt as a gunbearer again round 1909. Woodruff now put the skinners to work on the bull and the massive cow we’d killed, and began Kubresh again to camp with directions to Bali to come back for us with the looking automotive. The skinners discovered, amongst different issues, that we had blown the bull’s coronary heart to a pulp. But he was nonetheless coming robust when my final shot, within the mind, lastly belted him down.
We waited hours for Bali and ultimately despatched one other tracker to fetch him. He arrived promptly that point, bringing phrase that Kubresh hadn’t reached camp. We spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to find the outdated native and gave up at darkish, positive some mishap had overtaken him. The boys sang in my honor across the fireplace that evening, celebrating my buffalo kill, however I used to be in no temper to get pleasure from it. Off on the plains the hyenas have been howling, and I may image a hellish pack of them surrounding poor outdated Kubresh.
We appeared for him once more at dawn. The trackers picked up his tracks now and stayed with them, and an hour previous midday we discovered the outdated man, wandering aimlessly — however secure. He stated a buffalo had chased him the day earlier than, however Woodruff and Bali didn’t imagine his story. “Misplaced,” Woody grumbled. “He’s getting too outdated for this enterprise.”
Learn Subsequent: Carmichel in Australia: Charged by a Backwater Buffalo
We went again to camp and our head boy introduced a pitcher of chilly limeade to scrub the mud of that scorching, dry stroll out of our throats. So we sat round hashing over the hazards of the hunt.
“Properly, any time you come out all proper looking buff aloes you possibly can name it a great do,” Woody summed up with a smile. “They’re a nasty cup of tea.”
Remembering how the heart-shot bull had saved coming, and the way he appeared rounding a thorn clump at 15 yards, I didn’t really feel disposed to argue.