Excerpt
I was totally unprepared for what happened next.
The elephant took a pace backwards, swung her giant head and, using her trunk to lift my body, threw me like a piece of weightless flotsam high through the air with such force that I smashed down onto a giant clump of boulders some 20 paces away. I knew at once that the impact had shattered my right leg for I could hear and feel the bones crunch as I struggled to sit up. I could see too that I was already bleeding copiously from an open wound in my thigh. Astonishingly, there was no pain - not yet anyway.
My friend screamed. The elephant - I knew for certain now that this was not Eleanor - rushed at me, towering above my broken body as I braced myself for the end. I closed my eyes and began to pray. I had a lot to be thankful for but I did not want to leave this world quite yet. Inside I began to panic, jumbled thoughts crowding my mind. But suddenly there was a moment of pure stillness - as if the world had simply stopped turning - and as I opened my eyes I could feel the elephant gently insert her tusks between my body and the rocks. Rather than a desire to kill, I realized that the elephant was actually trying to help me by lifting me to my feet, encouraging me to stand. I thought: this is how they respond to their young.
But lifting me now could have been catastrophic for my broken body.
"No!" I shouted as I smacked the tip of the wet trunk that reached down to touch my face.
She gazed down at me, her ears splayed open in the shape of Africa, her eyes kind and concerned. Then, lifting one huge foot she began to feel me gently all over, barely touching me. Her great ears stood out at right angles to her huge head as she contemplated me lying helpless merely inches from the tip of two long, sharp tusks. I knew then that she did not intend to kill me - elephants are careful where they tread and do not stamp on their victims. If they do intend to kill, they kneel down and use the top of the trunk and forehead.
And it was at this moment - with an astonishing clarity of thought that I can still feel within me to this day - I realized that if I were to live, I needed to fulfill the debt I owed to Nature and all the animals that had so enriched my life. For even as I could feel the broken bones within my crumpled body, the fire of pain now engulfing me and even though it was one of my beloved creatures that had caused me this distress, I knew then and there that I had an absolute duty to pass on my intimate knowledge and understanding of Africas wild animals and my belonging to Kenya.
I thought: if I survive this, I will write. This will be my legacy. I will set down everything I have learned in my efforts to contribute to the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife in this magical land.
It was as if the elephant had heard my thoughts. There was a tense silence as she took one more look at me and moved slowly off. I would live on. In a state of some distress, my friend managed to find his way back to our driver to fetch help.
After many hours of lying beneath that boulder, experiencing such agonizing pain as never before, I was rescued by the Flying Doctors. My ordeal was far from over. I was to endure endless operations, raging infections, bone grafts and a lengthy convalescence in which it took me months of learning to walk again. But, I was alive, still here in Africa. I had survived because of elephants extraordinary ability to communicate very sophisticated messages to each other, messages that often go against all their natural instinct. For, we discovered that Eleanor knew Catherine - as we subsequently named my wild attacker - and had somehow told her that I was a friend.
As for my epiphany - the certainty that I had to write about my life and my work - here it is, some years down the line. This is the story of my Settler ancestors, of growing up on my parents farm; of safaris and nights under the stars; my soul-mate David, my daughters Jill and Angela, the birth of our elephant orphanage, my life lived - all interwoven with spellbinding stories of the many different animals that have immeasurably enriched my life, animals that I have reared and loved and come to know as a surrogate mother.
Set against the majestic land of Africa, the birthplace of mankind, my story begins.