This story is a continuation of the previous post (see below).

Featured image: Clary Palmer-Wilson. (Artist: Gregg Davies)

CLOSE CALL WITH A LEOPARD

It was late in the afternoon and shadows were lengthening before Musa, Clary’s gun bearer, exhausted from his ordeal, stumbled into the house of Clary’s father in Tanga. “Your son has been attacked by a leopard and is close to death!” he gasped before sinking to the floor croaking for water. 

This was bad news. William knew of many leopard attacks, none of which had ended happily. Hastily, he assembled two long, stout poles, a heavy blanket, sheets, and some sisal rope to make a stretcher. Then, while selecting six strong men from his workers to be stretcher-bearers, he coaxed precise directions to the village from Musa who was too exhausted to make the return journey. The man had done well to make the perilous trek at such a fast pace. He would be well rewarded later.

“Twende. Let’s go.” The rescue party set out into the fading light of the dying day. By the time they arrived at the edge of town, night had fallen. Hurriedly walking in the dark, they lost their way several times. But then they noticed the smell of smoke from the bush fire that had been lit during the leopard fight and, later, its yellow glow above the distant horizon. Finally, the pale light of the village’s only kerosene lantern, seen through an open window of the headman’s hut, guided William out of the darkness and straight to his son’s bedside. 

Drawn by this big event in their monotonous lives, villagers stared through every window and door of the hut as Clary, his pale face showing both agony and shame, narrated the incident to his father—agony from the unattended leg wounds, and shame at being outwitted and outdone by a wild animal. William, however, finding that he had arrived in time to find his son alive, was greatly relieved.  Clary was badly mauled, yes, but still conscious and alive.

Willing hands lifted Clary from the blood-soaked bed and placed him on the uncomfortable jerry-rigged stretcher. Then four strong carriers heaved it onto their shoulders.  Clary faced a long, jolting ride back to Tanga, and it wasn’t going to be easy for the porters either. They had to carry a heavy load on the thorn-strewn paths through the dark bushland crawling with wild game, slithering snakes, and biting insects. “Let’s go,” William motioned to the waiting carriers, and without a word, they set off.

Early the next morning, Clary’s father, red-eyed and dead tired, walked into the room, already brightly lit by the early morning sun, where Clary was sleeping. He was trailed by a Kanzu-clad servant carrying an enamel washbasin steaming with boiled water and a white towel folded over one arm. Uncorking a dark green bottle, “Doctor” William, poured tiny purple crystals into the hot water. Little whirls of violet smoke curled up from each grain, which darkened the water into a deep purple liquid. “Permanganate crystals”, said William, before his son could ask. “We must disinfect your wounds before gangrene sets in. Otherwise, both of your legs risk being amputated! Leopard claws are full of rotten meat from their kills, so washing out the wound with this solution is your only chance.”

Then, with the warning, “Son, this is going to hurt like hell,” William poured cup after hot cup of liquid over Clary’s legs, washing away dried blood, dirt, and yellow body fluid, and staining the towel a sickly blue-black color. A sound like a lion roaring with its jaws wired shut escaped through Clary’s clenched teeth as he struggled to control the tears welling up in his eyes.  However, his father wasn’t done yet. “The most painful part of your recovery is still to come,” he warned. Closing the door behind him, he left his son alone to rest and reflect on his ordeal and to contemplate his future… assuming he had one.

“My hunting days are over,” Clary internally moaned.  Who will trust me to guide them after this?  He could not understand how he had missed that leopard, which was lying right at his feet, or why the big gun did not fire at the critical moment when the angry cat was on him. He could not comprehend what had gone so terribly wrong, yet the deep red wounds on his torn legs were certain proof that indeed it had all gone wrong. 

With this on his mind, Clary asked a servant to bring him his 400 Jeffrey rifle, which he carefully examined, noting the leopard’s teeth marks and dried white saliva marking the ends of the barrels. But then he found something unexpected, the two triggers bent right back against the rear of the trigger guard. Then he checked the safety catch, which came off with a “click” that sounded more like an explosion as he suddenly realized what had gone wrong the day before: the gun had an automatic safety catch; open the breech and the safety is automatically pushed to “safe.”

Now he remembered! When he was lying on the ground under the bush fending off the leopard, he’d broken open the gun, reloaded, closed the breech, rammed the barrels into the leopard’s mouth, and, not realizing the safety catch was on, squeezed both steel triggers so hard he’d bent them back against the rear guard, rendering the gun useless. It would have to be repaired by a good gunsmith.

For young Clary, the following three weeks were the most boring of his life. Confined to his bed where his slowly healing legs were cleaned daily, he did nothing except eat, sleep, read, talk, listen, and defecate. But that ended one morning when his father announced that Clary must start walking again before his damaged muscles settled into a new straight position. Otherwise, he would find walking upright difficult and painful and probably walk with a limp the rest of his life. 

William then lifted Clary into a sitting position on the bed with his legs dangling over the side, and from there into a standing position. With a loud yelp of pain, Clary pulled free and sat down again. Blood oozed from cracked black leg scabs that had torn open when he tried to stand.  “Son”, William said, “I warned you it would be painful. But if you don’t start walking now, you’ll be a cripple for the rest of your life.” So, several times each day, Clary practiced walking, one slow, painful step after another, until he could reach the bedroom door unaided by the African servant standing ready to lend a hand in case of a fall. 

A month or so later, Clary had improved to where, armed with a rifle and accompanied by his dog, Satan and a porter, he was taking daily walks into the countryside. Ambling down Tanga’s main road past the imposing German-era Kaiserhof hotel, they strolled beneath huge shady mango trees and between rows of swaying coconut palms into the bush beyond the railway station. Returning home in the cool evening, with the salty tang of the sea breeze in the air, Satan trotting at his heels, and a fat kill draped over the porter’s shoulders, Clary finally felt his world was in order. It only remained to deal with his shame about the leopard incident.

For days, storm clouds had gathered into huge, woolly towers far out to sea, signaling the coming of the rainy season. Nightly rumblings of thunder carried into the little room where Clary lay awake contemplating a return to the place of his mauling. He had to lay his mind to rest about how he’d missed a leopard only inches away from the gun’s muzzle. Furthermore, he must do it before the rains came to wash away all evidence of the incident. “I have to go tomorrow,” he told his father.

The next day, Clary was up before dawn. Breakfasting on tea and chapatis, he was out of town before first light, carrying his repaired 400 Jeffery’s Express rifle and accompanied by a young helper with a haversack containing water bottles, biltong (air-dried, cured meat) and a twist of tobacco as a gift for the village headman.  Satan, whining sulkily, was forced to stay safely at home, as leopards, should Clary meet any on the way, were partial to juicy dogs.

They did not stop until they reached the settlement by the old baobab trees where the villagers were pleasantly surprised to see him alive. Gratefully receiving the gift of tobacco, the headman informed Clary that the leopard had not been seen or heard of since the incident. Their goats were grazing peacefully once more. 

Clary only recognized the thicket because of the termite mound, the fire having turned the thicket into an untidy mass of blackened, tangled branches protruding from a grey-black carpet of charred leaves. He pushed his way through the tangle of burned branches and leaf ash until once more he stood atop the termite castle where the events of that fateful day came flooding back. Then, looking down, as he had done on that same afternoon many months before, he could hardly believe his eyes as he stared right into a hole in the side of the mound. It was a deep hole, large enough to hide a full-grown leopard.

Finally, Clary understood what had happened: The big cat had crouched inside this hole, shielded from Clary’s fusillade of 303 bullets. Then the mound’s earth walls had protected it against the blast from his double-barreled rifle fired at point-blank range. (Inches to one side of the hole – just where the leopard’s neck and shoulder would have been had it had been lying on instead of in the anthill – were two bullet holes where the slugs from the 400 had slammed into the dry earth.)

For the first time since the incident, Clary felt relief. No longer did he need to blame himself for not killing the leopard.  Admittedly, he’d forgotten to switch off the Jeffrey 400’s safety catch. However, Clary vowed, he would never do that again. And, having decided that, he realized with a thrill that he could be a professional hunter after all. 

Clary discovers the leopard’s lair

(Artist: Gregg Davies)

Immersed in thought, Clary didn’t realize how dark the sky had become. The first large raindrops began to plop down as he hurried to take the footpath back home, raising mushroom clouds of dust, perfuming the air with that unique smell of fresh rain on thirsty soil. The rains had finally started. 

And despite getting soaked, Clary didn’t mind a bit. He was too happy. 

(Featured image by David Bygott)

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of Clary Palmer-Wilson, born in Nairobi, East Africa in 1907. At the age of 14 he began earning his livelihood as a hunter in the East African bush where dangers lurked everywhere and mistakes carried severe consequences. Unable to survive by hunting alone, he tried mining during a gold rush, became a car mechanic, farmed, and took on any other task that paid enough to keep him going. Eventually, he tried settling down to a normal life with a regular job, even though he still felt the call of wild. East Africa’s time as a wild game paradise was winding down. But Clary was too old to change. He lived to hunt. 

Clary Palmer-Wilson was a legend in his own time, credited with the world’s record buffalo and a massive elephant named The Crown Prince. Despite being asthmatic and allergic to over 150 substances, he became a sought-after hunting guide. 

(Artist: Gregg Davies)

From 1920 to 1973, during Clary’s hunting days, Tanganyika (now Tanzania) was a very different country. Beyond the towns and larger villages huge tracts of land teemed with wildlife. (In 1965, the country had 1,200,000 elephants.) Raw, untamed Africa started just beyond the front door, and the understaffed and overworked wildlife department was grateful for any help they could get in controlling marauding animals. Clary, a professional hunter, often assisted in game control measures but never shot an animal for sport, only for food or to earn his living. 

This is a historic account of one man living an unusual life in East Africa. Such a life would not be possible today.

(Adapted from Ric Palmer-Wilson. The Legend of a Hunter in a Bygone Era. Published in 2023 by Amazon.com.)

Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania). Tanga is in the northeastern corner, opposite the island of Pemba. 

(Shakki. GNU Free Documentation license.) 

1924. Somewhere west of Tanga.

Clary Palmer-Wilson lay dying on a rickety wooden sisal-rope bed in the village headman’s mud and wattle hut.  Seventeen years-old and miles from medical help, his only comfort was the thatched-palm roof that kept the room dark and cool from the fierce African sun. Dark red blood oozed through his khaki shirt, which he had torn into strips to make temporary bandages for his shredded legs.  Outside the hut, a dozen natives gathered to witness the last moments of the young man who had tried to save their dwindling goat herd from a spotted devil—a leopard. Instead, he had become a victim himself. 

Clary’s gun bearer, Musa, however, still held out hope. Wearing only a tucked-up loincloth, he set off at a fast trot to fetch Clary’s father William in far-off Tanga.

It had all started few days previously in the coastal town of Tanga when a delegation from the village asked Clary for help. The game department had refused because it was too busy keeping buffaloes away from the local railway station and elephants from native shambas (gardens). (In one moonless night elephants could destroy a family’s entire season’s food crop.)  Intrigued, Clary accepted the challenge, although it was more for the love of hunting than for saving goats. Taking up his double-barreled 400 Jeffrey rifle and a war-surplus 303, he casually informed his father. “I’ll be back in a day or two. Make room for a leopard skin rug somewhere.”

Setting out at dawn, Clary and Musa (Arabic for Moses) reached the village in mid-morning. Soon thereafter, Clary found himself crawling through a small patch of dense thicket near the village, frequently stopping to crouch and tensely peer around. He had seen the leopard’s spoor entering the thicket. He could smell its pungent odor. But where was it? Eventually deciding the leopard was gone, Clary climbed atop a termite mound to see over the top of the thicket.  Holding the muzzle of his rifle in one hand and shading his eyes with the other he scanned across the surrounding grassland for other thickets that might harbor the large feline goat-killer. Then, out of the corner of his eye the young hunter saw an ear twitch, and suddenly there it was—yellow-eyes, black tipped ears, shiny dark nose above sharp teeth bared in a half snarl—leopard! At Clary’s very feet! 

Taken by surprise, Clary, still holding the gun by its muzzle, leapt backwards, landed on his back, jumped up and fought his way through the thicket into the open where he whirled to fire at the pursuing cat—which wasn’t there. Glancing at the villagers waiting nearby, he wondered what they were thinking. (Witnessing his wild rush from the thicket, his ragged hair standing on end and his khaki clothes littered with dry leaves and broken twigs, they were wondering if the devil leopard hadn’t taken possession of him, too.) 

“I´ll get that big cat out of there now, good and dead”, he said to himself, although loud enough for all to hear. 

Exchanging his heavy rifle for the 303, he tried to flush the cat out by firing into the bushes where he had last seen it. Shot after shot ripped into the thicket. However, none induced a single sound or movement from the leopard. Clary knew that, if wounded, the leopard would have growled loudly or charged. If dead, it was somewhere in the thicket. If alive, it was somewhere there and very annoyed. He also knew that he, the brave hunter, the village savior, had to go back in to settle the question.  Taking up the 400 Jeffery’s rifle, he nervously inched back into the thicket toward the termite mound. 

Lee-Enfield 303 rifle used in the First World War. It was capable of 20-30 shots per minute in the hands of a highly trained rifleman

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.)

With his gun at the ready, he searched the bushes near the termite mound, circling it completely before climbing up to peer into the surrounding thicket. Dangling branches showed green gashes where they had been struck by 303 bullets.  Gouges in the fresh earth bore testimony to the same cause. But nothing else was noticeable and nothing moved. 

Suddenly, there it was again, that heart-stopping ear twitch of a live leopard!

And, once again, right at his feet, Clary saw an angry cat with flattened ears, fiery eyes, and a snarling mouth. But this time he was ready. Swinging the gun down, he pulled both triggers at once. “Boom! Boom!” Dust and sand exploded everywhere. He’d missed!  

With a short, guttural growl the enraged leopard leaped, knocking Clary off the mound to sprawl under a tangle of low-lying branches.  Fortunately, they blocked the savage cat from reaching his neck and face. Still on his back, he pulled the gun free of the bushes, reloaded, and jammed it through the branches into the leopard’s neck. Then he squeezed both triggers hard. To his horror, his rifle did not fire. Instead, the enraged cat seized the gun barrel in its jaws, at the same time clawing Clary with its razor-sharp claws, shredding his trousers and legs. 

In excruciating pain and high on adrenalin, he again squeezed both gun triggers, this time with all his strength, yet the only sound was leopard teeth breaking on gunmetal. The smell of fresh blood driving it on, the cat lunged closer to Clary’s jugular. Holding the animal at bay with the gun barrel, Clary screamed for help from the men outside. Jolted into action, they responded by lighting bunches of dry grass and hurling them into the bushes, setting fire to the dry underbrush. They threw Doum palm nuts in all directions.  They shouted like madmen. They beat the bushes with long sticks to cause maximum distraction. 

And their efforts paid off, causing the enraged leopard to retreat into the thick vegetation. However, danger was not yet over because the fire set by the villagers was moving with increasing speed and intensity towards Clary, who, severely wounded, could barely move. Yelling above the roar of the fire, he attracted the attention of the men who hacked a path through the bushes to where he lay. Lifting him up, they stumbled back to safe ground. Then, seeing his wounds, they took him to the headman’s hut. 

—To be continued—