BB (#9564),
...“ The elephant is back, they've got the elephant back” The elephant had somehow made it's way onto our side of the line...
Sagacious beast ! On such tiny threads do the fate of armies depend !
Another elephant story worth the retelling:
...The other loss was a valuable item of Government property. I've said that new concrete tracks were being laid. Before you pour concrete, you have to put in hardcore and ram it down. They had no steamrollers, but a Works and Bricks elephant made a very good substitute. Jumbo "marked time" ponderously, helping himself to any edible vegetation within trunk reach. His "mahout" (keeper) moved him a few feet from time to time as the job required.
All was calm and content. Jumbo much preferred this to hauling heavy logs in the forest, and his mahout had nothing to do except smoke his malodorous "bidi" (this was the local "roll-your-own"; the filling was a matter of conjecture: obviously vegetable in origin, but "processed" by some animal - camel seemed the most likely).
By the way, it might interest you to know that there's a standard elephant "language" of commands, just as with sheepdogs. If you learn it, so that you can "drive" one trained elephant, then you can "drive" any other. The mahout backed up his orders with an "ankh", a very unpleasant looking iron rod some two feet long, curved at the end, with a nasty spike at the tip (there is no point - no pun intended - in whacking an elephant with a stick). It sounds barbarous, but I suppose it was no worse than the rowels on a spur.........(just thought you'd like to know!)
Then the air raid warning came. The mahout ran for it, leaving Jumbo to his own devices. In all fairness, there wasn't much he could do (imagine digging a slit trench to hold an elephant, and then persuading him into it). The bombs came down and Jumbo vanished. We found no bloodstains and concluded that he had been stung by a piece of hot shrapnel.
Whatever had hit him did not impede his locomotion. He was seen by "B" Flight (untouched by the raid on the far side of the runway), galloping along it with trunk, ears and tail outstretched, and roaring with indignation. He went trumpeting off the end into the hills and was never seen again. A tracker party found no body and assumed that he had decided to give civilisation a miss. And who could blame him?
But that wan't the end of it. This was no common or garden elephant. He was Government property, registered and on inventory. His loss must be investigated; there was an endless Court of Enquiry in which we were involved as witnesses. Indian bureaucracy is a wondrous thing. It rather seemed that they regarded the loss of their precious elephant as our fault, and thought that the RAF should pay for it.
What became of it in the end, I do not know, for shortly afterwards Stew and I, with three other crews, were posted to "beef-up" No. 8 Sqdn, IAF. They had recently been equipped with the Vengeance, and were somewhere back over on the other side of the Bay.
But before I leave K and the delicious, all pervading scent of tea which would stay long in my memory, here are two little vignettes to lighten what has been a sombre tale so far. "Topper" had got hold of a miniature dachshund (or at least, I think it was "Topper"), Over at "B" Flight (why would he be there - was he acting C.O.? ), among the trees, he had this dog with him. Jumbo had occasion to visit the Flight, to pull a tree down to make more room, or something like that.
The tiny dog took exception to this, and valiantly tried to defend his master's property by barking and nipping at this monster's toes. Jumbo looked indulgently down on the angry little animal, and gently shooed him away with his trunk, although he could have stamped him flat in a moment, or used his trunk as Tiger Woods uses a driver - and the dog wouldn't have touched down for 200 yards or so. We marvelled at his forebearance - truly the patience of an elephant!. Of course he was a great favoutite of all...
Just thought I'd mention it.
Danny.