thirty country – yes,’ he said. ‘I have been all Asia, all Europes – all places.’
For several years, Churchill had worked in a zoo in Malaysia and had used his savings to travel all over the Far East. In the 1970s, when India donated an elephant to Iraq, he was recruited to accompany the animal to Baghdad.
‘I wash hathi in Euphrates River. Iraqi peoples, they come to watch. Very nice peoples. One day, Saddam he come give me sword. I make many friend, no?’
After travelling on to Europe, eking out a living as a manual labourer, Churchill returned to his beloved Assam and joined the Forest Department.
‘Now I’m here, no? This is my belonging.’
By the time the mahout had finished telling me his life story, it was feeding time.
‘Come,’ said Churchill. ‘To be mahout, you learn many thing.’
Draining their glasses, Chander, Bodo, Prat and Sanjay then offloaded the banana trees from Raja’s back and started cutting the curly outer bark into squares roughly one foot across. These they folded in half, making pouches, or ‘rolls’ as they called them, which they filled with uncooked rice and tied up like packages using lengths of vine. Once we had prepared about forty, they were split into two uneven piles.
‘Now watch,’ instructed Churchill.
Turning his back on the kunkis, he extracted a container from one of his trouser pockets and took out an antibiotic pill. This he crushed between his fingers, adding the powder to one of the rolls.
‘Medicine. Let’s see if Jasmine is eating,’ he said, putting it back amongst the others.
Prat laid the pouches in front of the animals. Raja and Jasmine’s trunks slithered about, pulling, touching, feeling and smelling, like Kipling’s Elephant Child with its ’satiable curiosity. One by one, they picked up the pouches, popping them into their mouths, their powerful molars making short work of the crunchy banana flesh.
Soon, all the pouches had been devoured, all, that is, except the one loaded with antibiotics which Jasmine treated with suspicion and pushed to one side.
‘How did she know?’ I asked Churchill.
‘She was smelling,’ he said, clearly frustrated. ‘I am trying to trick her for days, but no, she is too clever for old mahout.’
The squad kept me busy for the rest of the day. As a new recruit, I was assigned all the menial tasks. There were pots and pans to clean, clothes to wash, tents to sweep out and firewood to collect. It was hard work but it was more physically satisfying than anything I had done for months. More importantly, it was the perfect way to get to know the elephant squad and gain their confidence. Prat and Sanjay were delighted to have a helper, and in spite of the language barrier, we soon hit it off.
At dusk, we led the kunkis to the edge of the compound near the main gate where they were provided with cakes of rough wheat, or ragi, which was mixed with jaggery, a kind of molasses distilled from sugarcane juice. Chains were attached to their legs, which in turn were secured to two trees. As the sun dipped down behind the hills, leaving subtle hues in the sky, Prat showed me how to brush down the elephants with a coarse broom. Afterwards, he applied some cream to an open sore on Raja’s back to prevent any infection.
Our chores done, we sat on some logs watching the scene unfold around us. The kunkis were stripping the banana trees and shoving pieces into their mouths. Periodically, Raja tilted back his head and roared like a lion, showing us his gums. Jasmine replied with a little squeal, blowing air down her trunk and making a noise like water going down a hose-pipe.
Flashes of bright light burst across the compound from inside the garage where a forest guard was busy welding together two pieces of metal. At the entrance, an armed guard paced languidly back and forth, a cloud of insects circling above his head. Laughter spilled out from the main office where Mole and his deputy were sharing a drink.
At eight o’clock, the clanging of the dinner gong resounded across the compound. Churchill rubbed his hands. ‘Let’s go get some grubs,’ said the mahout.
‘Actually, Churchill, the word is grub, not grubs,’ I said.
‘Are you sure? I was taught grubs.’
‘Absolutely certain,’ I said, as diplomatically as possible. ‘Grubs are insects and you wouldn’t want to eat them.’
Churchill screwed up his upper lip.
‘That odd thing. A Britisher teach-ed me this word. Twenty years ago he teach-ed me,’ said the mahout. ‘I am using it since.’
As we walked into the mess-room and washed our hands, I said nothing further on the subject. But privately I smiled to myself, certain that Churchill had been the victim of a practical joke.
Mr Choudhury had spent the afternoon making preparations for a night-time operation. After dinner, he called everyone together for a meeting. We gathered round a map of the Sonitpur district which he spread out on the table in the messroom and listened as he outlined his plan.
According to ‘local intelligence’, the hunter told us, the rogue had visited the same village every night for the past week, killing three men. The chances were therefore high that he would visit the village again. But there was one serious complication. A wild herd had moved into the vicinity and they would first have to be driven back into the rain forest and hills to the north. Mr Choudhury, Rudra, Mole and the guards were to go on ahead and set up look-out posts, while the elephant squad followed. It would take the kunkis roughly two hours to cover the distance.
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