Hands

Jill and search dog Javelin

Jill has always said she was embarrassed by her hands: they were certainly not slender and feminine, like her sister Anne’s pianist’s hands.  Yet from their robust workmanlike planes such tenderness and healing flowed that few animals failed to respond.  She wrote a poem about her hands, and also some practical hints about hand-grooming horses and dogs, which I put together here.

These hands of mine

These hands of mine

That I so hated all my growing life,

Because of their square bluntness

And the softness of the palms and fingertips

And too much skin across the knuckles

And the way the veins stuck out like an old woman’s

When they were still but children –

These hands of mine

That I so tried to hide behind my back

Or in my pockets or where? where?

That hung like lumps of expressionless meat

Dragging my arms down my sides to awkward branches

And could not be taken off, like shoes, and forgotten;

That I could see pendulum by when I walked with such distaste

That I would rather lift them to my waist

And snatch them full of wild spice and run –

These hands of mine

Are loved by animals.

 

Jill and Chiri, banded mongoose

All the many animals of my house

Vie without malice for these hands of mine,

Snuffle and push for just one finger, please!

And when they are engaged in household tasks

There is a jealousy that they should waste their touch

On beds and plates instead of them, the animals.

There seems to be some warmth, some understanding,

Or perhaps just love warming from every cell,

That brings an ease to the frightened and the hurt.

They come into my hands, these animals,

To live, to die, or maybe just to rest.

And little wild orphans, cold with shock

And terrified of every moving thing

Lie easy and grow warm and strong beneath these hands.

These hands of mine

Love the feel of fur, the beating heart, the reaching muzzle,

Though torn with the agony of some too-injured thing,

When pain-blind claws or fangs lash out, not understanding,

Do not complain.

Webbed with thin scars, roughed with work, and old,

More ugly than before, they need not hide,

But walk out in the sun with everyone else,

Because they are loved by animals –

These hands of mine.

(1972)

Hand-grooming

Jill demonstrates hand-grooming on Bay.
Note hip-pistol - it was wartime

Hand-grooming – or hand-rubbing as it is sometimes known – is a method long practiced by the Indians and Arabs.  It is possibly a better means of stimulating the skin than any other form of grooming and puts a marvellous gloss on the animal’s coat.  Because only the bare hands are used it is never irritating to the skin and horses and dogs alike usually love it.

            Because horses perspire over almost the entire surface of the body it is important to keep the skin in a clean and healthy condition.  Hand-grooming the legs of stabled horses stimulates the circulation not only in the skin but around the tendons and ligaments and helps to guard against “cracked heel”.

            Captain M H Hayes, in is book Stable Management and Exercise – a very old book but still well worth studying – describes it thus:

“In hand-rubbing above the knees and hocks, the stroke should be commenced by bringing the flat of the hand – each hand to be used alternately – well under the belly down the forearm, thigh or between the forelegs as the case may be, and it then should be drawn up with an even and firm pressure.  In doing this the weight of the body and strength of the arm should be utilised.

            The usual method adopted for hand-rubbing the legs below the knees and hocks is to kneel down or sit on one’s hams by the side of the leg which is to be manipulated and make alternate strokes downwards, while grasping the leg between forefinger and thumb.  The pressure exerted by the hands should be firm but by no means irritating.  The skin at the back of the pasterns should be well rubbed, so as to render it as dry and pliable as possible.”

He points out that although this technique is sufficient for ordinary grooming, in cases of sprain etc, this rubbing should be from the fetlock upwards, while the limb is held up off the ground.

            In hand-grooming the horse’s body, the coat may first be rubbed up with the fingertips or a wisp made of hay twisted to form a pad.  Then, starting at the nose, the hands stroke alternately with a long, firm action, following the lie of the coat.

            If the hands are dampened with water or cold strained tea, hand-grooming will help to keep the coat short.  However, the natural oil of the coat plus the friction of dry hands should suffice to bring any dirt up onto the palms and this must be rolled off periodically.

***

Jill with Jana and Tisa

Although dogs perspire only from the mouth, nose and paw-pads, hand-grooming is also effective with them, especially the short-haired types, and once they get the idea, most dogs love it.

            Because of the firmness of the stroking, the dog must be able to brace himself against your legs, or against your lap if he is small and you kneel to groom him.

            Rub the coat all over the wrong way, with stiff fingertips, especially through the harder hair along the back.  By fingertips I mean the pads of the fingers, not the nails.  Lift and move the skin as you go, without pinching.  Then dampen your hands, if you wish, with water, with cold strained tea or, if it is the tick season, with a solution of one tablespoon of lamp paraffin in one quart of water.  Once again, beginning at the nose, stroke firmly over the dog, the way the hair lies.

            Do not expect him to keep still.  He will probably stiffen his body, lean against your legs, stamp and shift and toss his head about, the more so if he is enjoying it.  It may help to give him a cloth or a brush to hold in his mouth.

            I frequently try, without any success at all, to hand-groom my cats.  The method is excellent and most effective, but the cats refuse to stand still. After the first few strokes they begin to roll around, grasp my hands, kick my forearms playfully and generally become so purringly impossible that I give up, no matter how they plead for me to continue.

            Hand-grooming is quite hard work, but the health and shine of the animal’s coat will prove it well worth the effort.

Puzzlingly, Jill doesn’t here mention a primary benefit of hand-grooming – strengthening simple bonding and trust.  In addition, it’s the perfect way to pick up ticks, wounds, lesions or strange lumps hidden by the fur, so they can be dealt with timeously.  My cat actually loves a massage, and knows that anything I pick off her, tick or scab, can be explored in my fingers afterwards, and possibly eaten (by her, not me).

Mouse-eye view of the SPCA

From the mouse that ate the files that recorded the affairs of the animals that lived in the house that the SPCA built.

From my office-cum-storeroom, among the SPCA files, the dry goods and the baby food so kindly donated, I watch.

            This office was built for me in 1963.  For the thirty-six years before that I often had to rough it, but I watched.

            I watched a group of people put together their love of animals, their care and skill and what money they could, and form a living, growing, working idea – this Society.

            I watched them agree and disagree and debate, and settle their differences because animals in need were more important than people’s personalities.

            I watched them build safe, dry shelters for dogs, cats, rabbits, chickens, birds, everyone, every kind, and I have watched these shelters fill and clear and fill again, times beyond counting.

            I have seen lost animals brought here, mindless with panic, ferocious with fear, in their confusion torn between their instinct to hide away and their desperate dependence on people.  Ah, and I have seen the tear-blinding, heaven-high joy of reunion.

            I have seen abandoned dogs stunned with disbelief that all they gave, all their love and trust, meant no more than paint upon a wall, admired for a while then left behind without a thought.

            Some have been left tied to empty houses, trapped by their chains as surely as by a snare.  Some have been taken to unfamiliar places and thrown away like paper, to blow and cry on a strange, unheeding wind.  And I have watched them grow anew the courage and confidence to trust again.

            I have seen the injured carried in, the ears of their minds closed against their screaming pain, thinking every hand must be against them, every road must lead to death.

            I have watched them heal and walk and run again, or watched their eyes close in the vast relief of final sleep brought by the vet who understands when enough is enough.

            I have seen cats, their clean, sleek pride broken by poverty, so scuffed by the careless boots of the world that I – even I – have wept.  And tiny kittens, still blind and deaf to that world, crying and reaching out with incredible, stubborn courage, for the only thing they know – their mother their universe.

            I have watched people too, choked with grief, bringing a  beloved animal they can no longer keep; people with their hearts in their eyes, offering their homes to one or two waifs and yearning to take them all; people, SPCA people, being greeted by name by all the animals at once and greeting them in turn.

            From my office, where I live fatly on the dry goods and baby food so kindly donated and the SPCA files thoughtfully made of our sweet, local paper, I watch the dignitaries and the children, the loving and the careless – I can tell them all – come to this special place and leave with new thoughts in their eyes.

            I watch cats play again, and dogs laugh and birds fly free on mended wings, and I think, what would become of this world if people no longer cared, but shrugged away from the silent cry in the eyes of an animal in need, were too heartless or too afraid to call an animal “little friend”.  I think it would cease to be a world at all and go back to lifeless rock.

***

Animals in the guerrilla war

Farm dogs

All that evening Gertie, an alert fox-terrier, was worried and agitated.  Several times the farmer stood still in the shadows of the house, listening.  All was quiet.  Eventually Gertie and the other seven dogs settled down for the night on the veranda and the farmer and his family went to bed.

The attack, when it came soon afterwards, sounded for a second like hail on the roof.  Then came the roar of guns, grenades and rockets, fired from the south where the veranda was situated.  In the heated exchange of fire that followed as the farmer and his family defended themselves there was no time to estimate injuries or comfort animals.  In twenty minutes it was over and help was at hand.

Miraculously no one was hurt.  The dogs had all hidden away in various corners of the garden, except for little Bonzo, a six month-old bull terrier pup.  Somehow he had wedged himself between two brick chimneys, one of which had been hit by a rocket and was leaning at a frightening angle.

It took ten anxious minutes to free the crying, terrified pup who was, to everyone’s great relief, uninjured.  The chimney fell into the sitting room the next day; once again no one was hurt.

It was several weeks before the dogs could be induced to sleep on the veranda again and the sound of a rifle being cocked would send them cringing and shaking into hiding.  In time, however, even Bonzo, who took it all much harder than the others, got over his nerves.

Six months later, without warning a rocket hit the veranda where the dogs were sleeping, crashing through the roof, sending sheets of corrugated iron flying and blasting three of the farmhouse doors from their frames.

Alert little Gertie was killed outright.  So also was Rover, an Alsatian/Doberman, his body sliced in two.  Bully, an enormous thirteen year-old black Labrador, was very badly wounded in the chest and neck and lost a great deal of blood before the attack was repelled by this courageous little family and he could be attended to.  Young Bonzo was also wounded and the terrier Scamp, the old man of the pack, had shrapnel lodged in his upper jaw.

The farm was far from town and the constant veterinary attention the dogs required if they were to be saved, and so they were nursed back to health at the SPCA kennels.  Bully took a long time to regain his strength and his great guarding qualities, and Scamp will carry that shrapnel in his jaw for the rest of his life.  It was six months before the old terrier could breathe properly again.

For weeks after their return home, like frightened children the dogs could not bear to let their owners out of their sight and shook with fear at any loud noises or the sound of a helicopter overhead.

Bonzo’s nerves were shattered.  Two such terrifying experiences in his young life were more than he could manage, and the loss of Rover, his special pal, affected him deeply.  When months of patient, gentle handling failed to help him, he was evacuated right away from that area with all its frightening associations, and in a new home was slowly able to adjust and live a normal life again.

Police dogs

Under the crossed swords of war, boys are called upon to be men, men to be soldiers, soldiers to be leaders.  Policemen extend their duties and their courage far beyond the outlines of their careers.  And with them go their dogs, carefully selected, highly trained, keenly intelligent, embracing without complaint a military role with all its differences, difficulties and dangers.

And if they must give their lives, they give them, some with no more understanding than blind obedience and loyalty; some knowing death when they see it, and meeting it without flinching.

Such a dog was big Brutus.  Dubbed “The Frog-Dog” – from a famous exploit of his in which he, while tracking a common house-breaker, plunged undirected into a river and retrieved from its murky depths a linen bag filled with stolen goods – Brutus sometimes exchanged his city beat for the bush.

There, working free ahead of his patrol, in their search for a new and uncompromising enemy, through grass too long and scrub too thick even for a dog of his size, he caught wind of his well-hidden quarry.

Again undirected, entirely on his own initiative, Brutus hurled himself towards their position, drawing their fire but charging on none the less, into the thick of it.

His action saved his patrol, but cost him his own brave life.

***

 

Clipping from THE OUTPOST - 1978

One tends to think of the dogs of war and work as males.  Alexis, however, was a female.  being a bloodhound, her job was to track, never mind where or why, and track she did, with keenness and stamina that might have been the envy of her brothers.

            Her keenness was called for when the spoor of two armed and wounded men, known to have gone to earth, was lost after twelve hours of searching.  Alexis was brought in and within five minutes had located one man, already dead, and in another five found the second, who was captured.

            Christmas Day was no treat for Alexis.  Four District Assistants had been abducted and she was put on their trail.  She worked without let-up for twenty-six kilometres until she caught up with the group.  In the ensuing contact one abductor was killed, the others fled, and the four captives rescued.

            How well this great girl deserved her retirement, late as it was, and the sweet, easy life.

The ox and the ass

If it means nothing to lock children in a hut and burn it down, why should it mean anything to set fire to a pen of pigs, or turn a machine-gun on a herd of cattle, or chop off the leg of a living cow and leave her, without a qualm?

*

The loaded cattle truck was stopped at gun-point.  The driver was ordered out.  Then the truck was set alight.  The trapped, packed cattle burned to death.

            Why?

*

Not all the cattle stolen were slaughtered straight away.  Some were hidden.  Their legs were broken to prevent them moving away.  They were left there, untended, for days, until someone remembered or needed fresh meat.

*

Donkeys bow their heads in servitude to man.  Obediently they carry maximum loads without complaint.  They wait for food, for water, for rest.  They do not ask.

            They pull the scotch carts down the dusty roads.  They do not know the disturbance in the ground hides a landmine.  They plod across.

            Help must surely come for the tragic little children in the carts, for the wounded and the dead.

            Does somebody help the donkeys, dying in the traces?

            Does anybody care?

The wild ones

For some, in some places, there was relief.  People and livestock moved away.  Grass grew again, and small bushes where a fawn might hide dotted the lands.  As quietly as the grass growing, the animals, hunted out because they were alive, drifted back.

            Night hunting with lights and guns all but ceased.  With less traffic on the roads at night, the casualties there were fewer.  For a while even trapping became less prevalent.

            Against these small gains stood the terrible toll of the minefields.

            Paths trace this way and that across the face of wild Africa – character lines on an ancient face.  Paths that lead to seasonal grazing, browse and water.  Paths that that have been there ever since time was.

            Across the paths fences were strung, adequate for people who knew about such things, but not for animals.

            Some of them, seeing others blown apart, the deafening explosion drowning the screams of agony, understood not to go that way again.  But for most the lesson could only be learned by each one for itself.  One lesson only, taught by Death.

            And to the wounded and the dead came scavengers, victims in their turn.

***

Thousands of animals lost, innocent every one, caught up in man’s stupid wars.  For what?

War, women and dogs

Who suffers most in a war?  The commanders, who fight with coloured pins stabbed in a map?  The soldiers, trained to the weapons and the glory?  Or the women, the children, the old and the helpless, who want none of it – and the animals, who do not understand?

The women

Men don’t have to “adjust to a war situation.”  They cause it!  But ever since one dumbfool man threw a rock at another, women have had to bear with their men going off to fight, all too often taking their sons with them.

Behind me I sense centuries of women, dressed in the fashions of their time – skins, bustles, mid-calf skirts – nodding and saying, “Oh yes, we know.  We too!”  It has happened to every generation.  Did we think we would be spared?

Those women must have coped somehow.  I mean, if all the men went to war and all the women went to pieces the problem of adjusting would have fallen away, along with mankind.

How did early women manage?  Did she sit like this, staring down into a beautiful valley turned suddenly hostile, worrying and wondering when , if ever, her Early Man would come back?  Did she force herself up from her despondency and get along with minding the kids and tending the fire?  Even taking advantage of the situation and going on a crash diet and redecorating the cave walls while the old man was out from underfoot?

Did everything go wrong as soon as he left?  Sure, she didn’t have a fridge whose handle would fall off leaving the door in the locked position ten minutes before breakfast on a school day.    And she didn’t have a car whose torque, whatever that is, wouldn’t torque to her any more because of something to do with the engine turning which won’t.

But I bet the moment her he-man hitched his haunch over hump of the hill the dog threw a fit that looked suspiciously like rabies and there weren’t any vets in those days, and an out-of-season landslide brought the cave down.

Today’s Man gets called out at half an hour’s notice and Today’s Woman spins through the kitchen looking for something substantial to feed him before he goes because the roast isn’t done yet; sifts desperately through the sand pit for the camp cutlery set and tin mug the kids were playing with; frantically sews buttons back on his pants while he’s stepping into them already.

Perhaps it’s no worse than trying to get a decent design in war paint on him while he’s sweating and won’t keep still, sharpening the spikes on his mace, or clanking him into his armour.

Today’s Son wallows in war tales, talks weapons and tactics with his father beyond his mother’s understanding.  She purrs with pride to see him grow so fine and strong and wishes he was a baby she could cradle away from harm.  All too soon he will be off too, a man with a boy’s light laughter.  And they’ll come back (dear Lord, let them come back), brother warriors the pair of them, thumping each others’ shoulders and leaving the dreadful language men talk among themselves outside like dirty boots.  And she’ll pretend she wasn’t miserable without them and send them off to wash as if they were children.

Love and worry are worn together, the warp and the weave of the heart’s homespun mantle.

We tread the same path through the centuries, we women, in our skins and bustles and mid-calf skirts, minis and denims and all.  And while our men fight to stop the fighting and dare not stop themselves or be over-run, we must leave for a moment our dismal valley-watching and go in and feed the kids and the cats and tell the war to wait while we finish the chores.

Men who go to war: the husband

 

The dogs

When you are just a little puppy, loving only your mother in all the world, they take you away, from her, from your brothers and sisters.

You don’t understand.  You just don’t understand why.

But they are good to you and soon the hurt eases.  You are a child with their children and life is good.  For some reason, time goes faster for you than for them.  The children are still children when you are grown.  And you are a parent with their parents.  They are all you want and all you need and life is good, loving only them in all the world.

In the night strangers come, wet with rain, reeking of hate and danger.  You challenge them but they are many.  They drag your people from their beds, the parents and the children.  Drag them shrieking out into the rain.

You fight.  You bite.  You scream for help.  But the strangers are many and no help comes.  The clothes are torn from your people.  Struggling and praying they are apassed from man to man.

Guns bark.  Pangas flash.  And at last the screams are stopped with blood.

And the strangers walk away, laughing.

All night you stay with them.  With their blood and their silence in the rain.  You call to them and lick their faces, loving only them in all the world.  But they grow cold in the rain.  All night you cry for help and no help comes.

You don’t understand.  You just don’t understand why.

The 'beautiful valley'; Umtali (Mutare) in the distance

                                       ***

In the pre-dawn of Wednesday, August 11th 1971, Umtali came under mortar attack.  In a few moments everyone in the suburb of Greenside realised what was happening – everyone except the animals.  Without the reassurance and control few owners had time or thought to give them, they fled in panic into other suburbs, to the distant industrial sites, up Christmas Pass on the other side of town, into the hills, anywhere to escape the awful noise. 

All that day our phones rang incessantly as frantic owners enquired after lost pets and other reported dogs cowering in dark corners or staggering around exhausted, lost and blank-eyed with shock.

Some dogs ran until their pads were bleeding and they were virtually crawling on their elbows.  Some normally friendly dogs turned so vicious in their fear they attacked those trying to help them.  One very old dog was found an incredible distance from his home, hiding in a lumber yard.  A ridgeback puppy was not found until five days later.  Few had any form of identification on them and afterwards an appeal was launched for people to put licence discs or address tags on their dogs because this sort of thing could happen again.  How much quicker it would have been to have called the owner to come to the dog instead of spending twenty precious minutes coaxing it out of some inaccessible place while all those others were crying for help.  Those dogs needed their owners that day far more than they needed us.

The cats in the affected areas vanished, then turned up later ready to forgive everyone the way cats do.  There was only one report of a missing cat.  This Siamese belonged to the house whose roof was hit and after a long and desperate search was found unharmed beneath the rubble.

Over a month later another casualty came to light – a small black dog belonging to a man who worked at Forbes Border Post.  This dog was found after the raid with paralyzed hindquarters and taken to a vet, who advised the owner to let him put him to sleep.  The owner did not want to do this and hid the dog illegally in one of the townships in a chicken coop under a wheelbarrow.

Because the dragging legs became raw, he made “socks” from bicycle inner tube and wired them on.  The lack of circulation and air caused the hind feet to rot and it was a mercy that the dog could not feel anything.  The genuinely concerned owner had done his best in his ignorance.

Following a report, this pathetic little casualty was discovered and taken again to a vet.  As he was removing the rubber and wire from the putrid feet, the vet noticed a pronounced difference in the size, shape and expression in each of the dog’s eyes.  A few simple tests showed positive brain damage.  This time the sad owner agreed to have his put out of its long misery.

***

A bit about baboons

Our family lived on the slopes of Kenya’s Mt Elgon, whose square peak lies in Uganda.  A couple of miles’ jog-trot from our house, the scrub and swamp and sky-high grass, would bring one to the cliffs.

They were big cliffs, ravined with dense forest, splashed with streams, roped with strangler-figs, where the superbly marked forest leopards lounged all day, studying the habits and economy of the farms below.  Here, too, the massive hill baboons strode arrogantly or sat, inscrutable, their hands hanging over their knees.

In that isolated region, hundreds of miles from museums and reference books, farmers and hunters often had their own names for the wildlife they encountered.  They would speak of “hill baboons” and “forest baboons” as if they were different species, and perhaps they were.  There may have been some geographical overlapping of the great Olive baboon (Papio anubis) and the more slender Yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) from further south; unless the forest baboon was but an arboreal race of P. anubis.

The forest baboons did seem to be lighter-boned than the hill-dwellers, the guard hairs of their coats green-grey rather than brown-grey.  Perhaps because of the lush cover of their equatorial habitat made them difficult to find and therefore less persecuted, they were not as savage nor as resourceful, I think, as the hill baboons.  It is the latter I recall.

I used to sit for hours up on the cliffs, time being nothing to a ten or twelve year old, watching my favourite troop go about their business.  Life was fairly peaceful for them at that time as most of our men were away with the war. (The Second World War, dear; don’t be catty.)  I was too stupid to be afraid of them.  To me they were just mammals, to be treated with a certain respect like anybody’s mother or father, and they were used to me too, though I doubt if there was a split second, ever, when several were not watching me.

Many references place the weight of an adult male baboon as “up to 90 lbs”.  I can well believe it.  Huge and heavy-shouldered the males lorded the troop with swift cuffs and barking comments.  Only the very young were allowed familiarities and they could be more gentle with these tinies than the mothers.  I wasn’t fooled.  I had seen those same baby-fondling hands hurl boulders – more often than not right-handed – with frightening force and accuracy at something that threatened them – boulders that I could barely lift at all, let alone throw beyond my toes.

I wasn’t greatly concerned with the adults, however.  It was those of my own, comparative, age-group that fascinated me.  What wild games they worked up – pulling each others’ tails at moments of most dangerous and precarious balance; racing past some crusty old male within inches of reach; teasing snakes to infuriation; and running endless games of tag up and down the precipices.

In quieter moments they would sometimes sit in a rough circle in a place where there were pebbles or loose stones.  One would deliberately turn over a pebble, intensely watched by the others.  Then they would each focus on the pebbles nearest to them until another baboon turned one over.  This might go on for some time, each baboon turning only those closest to him, his eyes constantly flashing to the faces of his companions, ever watchful for the lifted brows and colouring lids denoting anger.

Sometimes one would suddenly leap backwards with a squall of fury, like a cowboy at a poker game leaping up to pull his six-gun on a cheat.  The game might then turn into rowdy swearing contest, the angriest going through the motions of picking up stones, though I have never in my life seen a baboon actually throw a stone at another.  More often it would dissolve into a genuine grub hunt or a mutual grooming session.

I can’t remember quite when I thought to join them, nor the first time that I did so.  Higher up the mountain, on my uncle’s farm, I had seen grubby little herd-boys playing with young baboons and thought nothing much of it.  And I had approached “my” troop before once or twice in an effort to rescue the young dassies they sometimes found and carted around with them, with rough gentleness, until the poor little things died of starvation.

In spite of my excellent manners – walk on all fours like a good baboon, avoid the grown-ups, keep eyes politely averted, at the least sign of animosity put cheek to the ground – the adults didn’t like me playing with their children.  But the children (safely out of reach) probably considered themselves too agile to be caught by their fathers, too old to listen to their mothers, occupied as the latter ere with new babies.

I tried without success to find a pattern to their pebble-turning game, which probably stemmed from serious insect hunting.  The Africans said they were playing dama (or tsoro). I quickly got fed up and played only a few times.

I wish now that I had taken it all so much for granted.  I wish I had noted more carefully of only little males, as I supposed, threw those seemingly uncontrollable fits of fury, indulged in the really dangerous games; if more males than females defied the less serious warnings of their elders and at what age discretion prevailed.  I wish I had more positively studied the adults’ behaviour – found out, for example, how they decide who will be sentry.

I wish I had known how short was my time with them.  Because one school holiday, all unprepared I reached the age of puberty and my troop would no longer let me near them.

Vervets and Somangos

When I lived in Imbeza Valley, in eastern Zimbabwe, vervet monkeys plagued and fascinated me.  Up in the Vumba mountains, where I later moved, I pit my wits against somangos.  Observing and comparing the two species is, I have discovered, a totally absorbing way of wasting time.

Adult vervets weigh about 4 ½ to 8 kilograms, against the somangos’ 7 to 9 kgs or more.  The former are a fairly uniform sandy grey, almost white over the brows and cheeks and on the belly, with darker hands, feet and tail-ends, and have cute little black, shield-shaped faces.

Somangos are a darker grey, verging on blue – in fact they are commonly known as blue monkeys – with black limbs, hands, feet and tails and a patch of russet at the tail head.  They have heavier, uglier profiles than vervets, with bushy eyebrows that make even their babies look like wizened old men.

Because vervets live where man wants to live, in savanna and woodland suitable for development, they are universally and unmercifully persecuted, their habitat systematically destroyed.  Consequently they have become, for the most part, a vicious, cunning lot, observant and adaptable.

Discipline in the vervet troop is strict.  Infants must obey their mothers instantly or risk a nip and a clout, and the whole troop must obey the dominant male.  It is he, it would seem, who decides where they will feed, when to remain in an area, when to move on, when to hide, when to flee, when to sleep.  He tolerates all the other males in his troop, provided they remain subordinate to him, but heaven help any strange male who comes near.

The one- to two-year olds, finding their mothers occupied with new infants, form mischievous “teenage gangs”, play rough-and-tumble games, tease their elders and let curiosity win over the elders’ warnings. The mortality rate in this group is high.  They fall more often than one would imagine, sometimes fracturing limbs.  But, like cats and other fine-boned, quick-nerved animals, they heal rapidly.

Territorial boundaries are known to the very tree, and disputes seem more often to concern the straying individual than the outright challenge.  If, however, as often happens, a troop is forced by human activity to forsake its territory and enter that of another, fighting can be bitter and prolonged, the harassed troop tragically caught between the devil and the deep.

At the forest edge...

Somangos are confined to our high, evergreen forests and this one fact is responsible for most of the psychological and sociological differences between them and the vervets.  Their habitat has not, as yet, been as extensively exploited by man as has the woodland.  Therefore the somangos are not persecuted as relentlessly as the vervets are.  While being quick and clever enough, they have not the need for same downright cunning.  They are noticeably less vicious and quick-tempered.  Their taller, denser trees afford them greater protection from all predators so troop discipline does not have to be too severe.  The warning shout of the somango is often more of a take-note quality than an imperious command.

Among the somangos this warning bark  is only made by the dominant male, except on the rare occasion  when the danger is great and an up-and-coming male finds himself at a safe enough distance from the boss to give a quick shout of his own.  This would lead one to deduce that there is only one adult male in a troop, which would be incorrect.  When disturbed, all the males in a troop of vervets give their warning cries and in this way one can get at least an idea of the ratio of males to females.

Like the vervets, somango youngsters also form gangs, getting up to every form of mischief.   Their games are even more uninhibited than those of their vervet counterparts and they make prodigious leaps.  They fall even more often but seldom come to harm because of the closely spaced trees and layers of overlapping branches below them.  For all this, it is the vervets that are the more successful species.

Somangos and vervets have common enemies – humans and dogs, leopards, eagles and pythons.  But by far the most devastating is the destruction of habitat.  The somangos are not able to adapt to changed conditions as readily, if at all, as the vervets, hence their more rapid decline.

Somango territorial boundaries are well-respected but there does seem to be a fair bit of straying by individuals.  It has been suggested that such individuals might be peripheral males from neighbouring troops raiding for females.  This may be so, yet how would the raider induce the female of his choice to go away with him?  Perhaps his objective would be merely a brief mating.  One’s observations are always greatly hampered by the height at which these monkeys live and the dense foliage.

The languages of the two species are fairly similar in some respects. The warning clickings of the females and barks of the males; the low sound followed by the incredibly high note of a young one calling its mother; the frustrated squeals of a youngster as its mother attempts to wean it; the loud, widely-spaced clicks of an adult who has become separated from the troop; the ‘comments” when a hawk, allied to their arch-enemy the eagle but in itself not dangerous, passes nearby; the soft, guttural greetings – all these are different in dialect rather than phrase.  Incidentally, several such sounds can also be recognised in baboon talk.

The somangos, however, have many sounds – chirrups and peeps – that would be quite impossible for the human voice to imitate without some form of mechanical aid.  Their need for secrecy and alertness being less demanding, somangos are more conversational than vervets.  It would take a great deal of study before their wealth of “words” could be accurately translated.  Besides the almost constant mutterings and whistles, virtually every occurrence such as a change in the wind, the sight or sound of another animal even though familiar, the sound of a branch breaking or a tree falling, and especially the warning shout by the male of some distant troop, are all commented upon.

Both species are omnivorous, relishing a wide variety of seeds, fruit, buds, flowers and leaves, insects, grubs and birds’ eggs.  Both are daring raiders of crops and orchards.

Much animosity felt towards monkeys is due to what would seem to be, by human standards, such wasteful feeding habits.  Typically, monkeys take a few mouthfuls and let the rest of the food slip from their hands.  Monkeys are not the only ones to do this, of course.   Birds and squirrels can be even worse.  But in the natural way of things this is a very useful habit.  For buck, bushpigs, servals, civets, mongooses, rats and mice, tortoises, chongololos and more, this is about the only way to obtain reasonably fresh fruit and tree seeds.  Some of these animals follow the feeding troops to pick up such delicacies as they fall and even strike up a friendship with each other.  In my forest I often watch somangos and bushbuck chasing around after each other, taking turns in pursuing and being pursued.  They will play tag round and round a tree until all the undergrowth is flattened in a circle.

Mongooses also play with the somangos.  The way a mongoose asks to be groomed, lying stretched out, arm above head, eyes half closed in expectation, is immediately recognised by the monkeys and responded to.  Sometimes the mongooses nip – and get their tails tweaked in return.  All this means that the monkeys must play on the ground, but my forest is a reasonably safe place now and they play with abandon and a great deal of noise.

Young monkeys show a touching tenderness and curiosity towards new infants born to their troop.  At first the mothers, while allowing them to touch noses as they take turns to visit and admire the new arrival, fend off with a forearm any attempts to fondle it.  It is the other matrons who are trusted first, then the baby’s siblings.

In front of my house there is a flat-topped thorn tree much favoured by the somangos.  The many branches, twigs and leaflets form a thick mattress on which the young – and not so young – love to bounce.  Here the mothers gather and, since it would be virtually impossible to fall through this canopy, allow their infants to take their first tentative steps.  These babies toddle to one mother after another and are cuddled by all, but at the least sign of danger I notice the mother’s hands fly out to their own offspring only.  A little later the older siblings are allowed to sit quietly by the mother’s side and play with the new baby.  Like human children, when they see the little one suckling, these siblings sometimes want to suckle too, especially as darkness gathers round them, and throw screaming tantrums when prevented from doing so.

Strangler fig - somango country

[I remember that acacia tree, which my second-storey bedroom window overlooked; one day an outburst of distinctive “Eagle! Close!” somango cries made me look up from my desk just in time to see a Crowned eagle swoop across the tree-top and away with a little somango haplessly thrashing in its great claws.  The tree fell eventually, depriving us of a great viewing-platform. – Dan Wylie]

As they grow older a certain amount of fighting occurs, mostly confined to threatening postures and verbal abuse.  Perhaps they establish some sort of “pecking order”, for some individuals seem to consistently avoid certain others.  More serious fighting takes place when the dominant male’s leadership is challenged by a younger male.

When I first came to this place, Wildwoods Sanctuary, the resident somango troop numbered about sixty, which is a lot.  The boss monkey was an immense animal, well above the average weight.  I called him “Watch”.  There was no knowing how long he had been the leader but he was well established at that time.  At first he kept his troop well out of our way, until he came to understand that no one here would shoot or throw stones at them, nor the dogs bark and chase them.  It was quite safe for them to relax in the garden, play on the roof and nurse their babies in the thorn tree.

For the next six years Watch reigned supreme, magnificent and arrogant.  During the seventh year he was challenged by a younger male who, while as yet lighter than old Watch, showed promise of even greater growth.

The war raged on and off for several months.  Trees shook and branches broke under the contestants.  From what I could see there was not a great deal of physical contact, in spite of their enormous fangs and undoubted strength.  The idea seemed to be to run the other off the end of the highest possible branch; the younger monkey, being the lighter, had the advantage here.  I was relieved when old Watch survived battle after battle, but in the end the challenger won.

Overlooking the Ravine, Wildwoods

The troop’s territory sweeps up the mountain from east to west.  On the west and north sides the evergreen forest gives way to msasa woodland not very suitable for their everyday living.  To the south lies the parallel territory of another troop.  So it was to the high eastern boundary, by what we called Leopard Forest and the rocky Ravine, that Old Watch was forced to go.  Lost to him were his life-long companions, our sweet orchard fruits and the protection from predators that proximity to the house had afforded.

He would not accept it.  His towering fury was uncontainable.  He could be heard raging through the forest from afar, thrashing trees and breaking great branches, day after day.  I felt intensely sorry for him and hoped that when his temper cooled and he became less dangerous he would accept me again as a fellow forest-dweller and perhaps not so lonely.

He had a better idea.  One windy day he came quietly and unobtrusively down to where the troop, scattered around the bogs, was feeding and dozing, and when he left all the mature females, most of whom were at that time pregnant, went with him.  I would love to know how he rounded them up and got them to follow him without Young Watch being aware of it.  He had been their leader for years and I suppose that when he said, “Come on, let’s go!” in the old way, they obeyed him out of habit.  In any event, he now had a small but viable troop, with a whole generation about to be born, while his rival had to wait another full year before any of his females were old enough to breed.

It will be several years before any male in Old Watch’s troop will be grown enough to replace him and I doubt if the old warrior will last that long.  I visualise his family eventually drifting back to rejoin the others.  Meanwhile I sometimes take him wind-fall fruits from the orchard for old times’ sake.  And with respect and understanding I salute him.

Girl goat

After a series of vicious incidents in the 1970s bush war, the few surviving smallholders in an area near Umtali were forced to leave their homes.  The evacuation of livestock had just been completed when a rather fine-looking goat appeared up on a mountain, above a sheer cutting overlooking the road.  Surmising, of course, that she had been left behind, I made inquiries, only to find that no one in the area owned goats, nor had she been seen before.

Well, she couldn’t stay there.  Apart from the fact that she could be killed for food or caught in cross-fire, goats need company and protection from predators.  Moving her to a place of safety, however, was easier said than done.

For a start she was in a military no-go area.  Civilians were not allowed to go up there, even to have a few words with a goat.

A greater problem was that she proved to be extremely wild.  Sometimes she came down to browse near the roadside, but at the appearance of a vehicle she was off up the mountainside, not to be seen again for a day or so.  For several days I studied her movements with binoculars.

The weather was dry and often hot.  There was a stream at the foot of the mountain, below the road which was a busy one.  Heavy timber trucks, road construction and military vehicles passed every few minutes.  Widely, she seemed unwilling to cross.  Instead, she went over the far side of the mountain, I think into a deep donga where there was reputed to be permanent water.  Somewhere on that side she spent her nights.

All this time I thought she was a billy.  I arranged for Wanda, the SPCA’s pretty little she-goat, to be brought along in their van.  The idea was that she would be led about in a casual way near the road within sight of the wild goat, talk sweet sexy talk to “him”, whereupon he, enchanted out of his mind by her outrageous beauty and provocative simperings, would overcome his nervousness and follow her to a place of safety.

Wanda wasn’t very co-operative.  While being led about she ate too much.  When she did say something it was with her mouth full, which, as you know, is not a good way to get a conversation going.  The wild goat, after an initial distant stare, walked off in disdain.  Only later, when I happened to get a closer look and discovered that “he” was a she, did I understand that scornful sneer.

Armed with a pistol I did some more tracking on the mountain until I found a reasonably accessible place that she appeared to pass fairly frequently.  To this place I scrambled with a container of water, an old bucket, a tin of grain, bran and molasses, and a block of rock salt.  When I slowed my car the goat, who had been within sight, bolted.  I hoped the smell of the molasses would guide her to my offerings.  Next day I was delighted to find that she had eaten all the food.

I did this every day.  Each time, as I left the parked car, I called out gaily, “Come on, girl!” hoping I wouldn’t be attracting undesirable elements as well as the goat, and kept it up all the way to the feeding place.  Once there I rattled tins, splashed water, sat a few minutes and came on down.

My friend Carol, a devoted worker for the welfare of animals, had a month’s leave and took over some of these daily visits, which was a great help, with petrol as well as time.  It would have been better had we been able to take food at the same time each day, but as terrorists were known to be in the area we varied our times as much as possible.

In time the goat waited until we actually parked before running off.  Later she stood at a safe distance and watched us with her head on one side and her long ears forwards.  I talked to her in her own language, which I spoke quite fluently at one time but was now a trifle rusty, and this helped to gain her confidence.  Carol, too, tried a few basic goat words, although once or twice, lacking a suitable phrase book, she said the wrong thing and drew a snort of alarm from our Girl Goat.

 With water now always available, the goat no longer made the long and dangerous journey to the far side of the mountain.  Three-quarters of the way up the sheer face of the cutting was a narrow ledge, only a couple of inches wide.  This was eroded in one spot, making a slightly wider shelf, and here she took to lying, her legs over the edge, while she placidly chewed the cud and watched the traffic far below.

She was often there in the morning when people drove to work, and in the evening when they returned.  Children on their way to school watched eagerly for her.  Several people worried about her safety.  One evening we received a desperate phone call from a stranger to the area who had driven by, to say there was a goat stuck high up on a cliff and that there was no way she could get up or down.  A block and tackle would be needed to rescue her.  The caller was assured that there was nothing to worry about – that two-inch ledge was Girl Goat’s highway!

Among those who noticed her was one of the men who had been forced to leave the area.  He slammed on brakes, got out of his car for a second look and exclaimed, “That’s my goat!”  About eighteen months previously, he explained, he had bought this goat and several others from a distant farm.  Two weeks later they were stolen.  Girl Goat, it seemed, had found her way back this far, and here remained.  Had she come out on the next hill she would have looked down on her former brief home, although by now she may have forgotten it, and there were no goats left there to entice her back.  When he tried to approach her she ran away, as she did from everyone.  He was leaving for Salisbury the next day and so left her legally in our hands.

 We persevered in our efforts to tame her.  We stayed by our cars while she moved, way up the mountain,  towards the food, keeping a wary eye on us.  When she was used to that we stayed on the mountain, each time a little nearer.

One day, when I thought  she was ready for it, I called her to the feeding place, put the grain out for her and sat down beside the salt block.  After about twenty minutes of watching me from a distance, she plucked up the courage to tip-toe nervously over and quickly lip up some of the grain.  Then she fled.

I sat there many times before I could so much as turn my head or move a finger without her bolting.  Carol took turns with me and found the same response.  Up until then we had been putting the grain down on a smooth patch of earth.  Now we decided to keep it in the half-tin so that we could gradually place it nearer to where we sat, and eventually hold it.

It took a while for Girl Goat to get used to the sound of the tin under her chin as she lipped and licked up the food.  When it no longer worried her we placed it a little closer.  The first time I put it down near my foot she studied me for a long, long time.  Then she reached out a forefoot, put it in the tin and hooked it back to a safe distance.

However, by now she firmly associated the tin with the food and soon allowed me to hold it while she ate.  Then Carol tried holding it with her fingers in over the edge, so the goat had to almost nuzzle her hand as she fed.  One would have thought that the next step, to slowly lift a forefinger an inch or two and touch her soft muzzle, would have been a small one.  But it took many, many attempts before she accepted this and stopped jerking back in fear.

There was speculation among the local people that perhaps this goat possessed a spirit, taken from some troubled person by a witchdoctor and placed on her.  Whereupon, they explained, she would shun the company of other goats (not mentioning that she would probably be chased from the herd with sticks and stones, which would account for her nervousness) and remain apart for the rest of her days.  If anyone killed such a goat, the spirit would settle on someone else, perhaps the person responsible for her death, who would come to great harm.

Certainly she was a strange goat.  Before making any move at all she would look sharply over her shoulder as if receiving instructions.  She would stare up the mountain for long, intense moments, giving Carol and I the creeps wondering what she could see up there, our constant fear being of terrorists.  She had a deep, knowing look in her eyes, as if she had seen it all and wasn’t to be fooled.

On several occasions she tried to communicate with us.  Once, while I was sitting at the feeding place, she looked intensely at my face with her head on one side.  Then, slowly and deliberately, she extended her forefoot and drew it back, making a long line in the earth with her hoof.  For a moment she admired her handiwork, then looked hard at me again, nodding, as if to say, “You understand, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said.  “I don’t understand.”

Twice she gave Carol her demanding stare, then reared up on her hind legs, presenting her flank to Carol.  Sometimes she spoke to me softly in goat language – which I did understand.

Because of her fear of the least flicker of movement when we were with her, I included a branch of bridelia leaves in my offerings.  She had no need of extra leaves but bridelia micrantha is a favourite with goats.  Leaves, I reasoned, move and swish.  If  I could combine movements of the leaves with movements of my hands she might come to realise that my hands were friends.  As I sat motionless she ate the grain, drank some water, licked the salt block, her eyes all the while on the leaves I held.  To encourage her I nibbled a leaf myself and after a moment she joined me.  We browsed together for a while.  Then I moved my hand to bend a leaf towards her, plucked another and offered it to her and turned the branches this way and that.

It worked surprisingly well and the very next day I was able to stand up and move around without her bolting off.  I went to some fig suckers growing nearby, called her in goat language and bent branches down within her reach.  She came quite fearlessly and ate them.  Sometimes she stood on her hind legs, reached up high with her forefeet and hooked branches down.

Carol and I, who had always visited her separately, now thought we should go together, for at the end of the exercise, neither of us would be able to catch her on our own.  Girl Goat, after some thought and counting of heads, seemed pleased enough to see her two friends at once.

The militia were getting more and more angry with us for going up there day after day, and it wasn’t a good feeling for us either.  But our plans were going so well we dared not jeopardise them by moving too hastily.  “Just keep the war off our backs,” we said, “while we get this job done!”

“Why all this trouble,” they once asked me, “just for a goat?”

“Because she’s alive,” I replied, “and she’s in need.  She’s in danger.”  Undoubtedly they thought I was bats.

We could now work on details for Girl Goat’s capture.  I knew we would have to get a collar on her.  To this end I began holding the food tin at shoulder level as I sat, so that she couldn’t see my hand moving up to scratch under her chin, along her jaw, and later, between her horns and along her neck.

It would have been so easy to dart her, but that equipment is reserved for larger animals than a half-breed Boer goat, and the mountain was far too steep to use game nets with safety.  We obtained a tranquilliser to put in her food, hoping the molasses would disguise it.  When the time was right, soon now, we would tranquillise her, get her off the mountain and return her to the flock where she was born.

We had now been working with her for two months and she had become an institution in the district.  the rains had come, the browse was lush and she was in fine condition.  Everyone delighted in her, our queen of the road.

Then a certain cruel, moronic individual, unworthy of the gift of life, shot her.

I passed her that morning and she was up there on her ledge watching for me.  An hour and a half later, when I came back to feed her, she was standing under a bush at the top of the cutting, her head hanging low.  I knew immediately that something terrible was wrong – and then I saw the 9mm cartridge case on the road.

With difficulty I climbed up until I could see the gaping wound on her foreleg, bleeding profusely, which she was licking.  She grew distressed when I tried to get nearer so I moved her food and water to a place that she could reach, put leaves for her and went to make a report.  We prayed that in her weakened state we might be able to catch her at last, but her trust in us was shattered; this was the hardest part to take.  She hid herself away and we could get nowhere near her.

The next day, to our relief, we could see the bleeding had stopped and she could move the badly swollen leg in a way that showed it wasn’t broken.  On the third day, after much searching, we found her in a very inaccessible place pressed against some rocks where she had sought shelter from a storm.  She looked terrible.  Her flanks heaved as she tried a small answer to my greeting.

We placed food and water as near to her as we could and she perked up a bit, licked her lips and made a move to come down.  Then she looked once, sharply over her shoulder in the old way – a habit she had given up as she had come trust us – and hobbled painfully off up the steep mountainside.  We could not find her again.  It was as if her spirit had said, “No, don’t trust them any more.  Come away – come away!”

Carol and I were heartbroken.  The Umtali Post reported the shooting and we had hundreds of calls, even from people who had never seen Girl Goat, expressing their anger and disgust.

For days we searched for her and watched the mountain through binoculars from every vantage point.  Where I wanted to look, in the donga on the far side, we could not go due to military activity.  I asked if the army patrols might report any sighting of her but we heard nothing.

Late one evening, fourteen days later, a neighbour phoned to say that she thought she had seen a goat above the old place on the mountain.  I didn’t dare believe her.  At six o’clock next morning a stranger rang.

“Is that Mrs Wylie?” he asked, laughter in his voice.  “You don’t know me but I just had to tell you I’ve seen the goat.  She’s back!”

My phone went wild for the rest of the morning.  I think every person who passed that way called me with the joyful news.  In the evening a man whose children were in hospital after a very bad car accident phoned to say he had seen her; he would call the hospital right away and tell the children.

“They’ll be thrilled!” he crowed.  “It’s the best news I could give them!”

For me, this alone was worth all the trouble and the danger.

Carol and I thought it would take a t least a month to regain Girl Goat’s trust in us.  This time I put the food, water and salt in another place. hidden from the road, easier to reach  and where we had some level ground to work on.  If Girl Goat wanted it, she would just have to come and get it.  She watched me with interest from a distance.  I was on my way down when I met her coming up so I returned with her and sat a while, greatly encouraged by her friendliness.

Her wound had healed well but for the first time I saw a big, raw scar on her side immediately behind the wounded leg.  She had come closer to losing her life than we knew.  Nine days later, as we held the tin of food for her and stroked her, with creeping fingers we buckled a strong yellow collar around her neck.  Over the next few days I accustomed her to small tugs on her collar, to the sight and smell of the nylon lead with which I would secure her, and the jingle of its metal clip.

Although still very shy she came when called, but took her time about it, nibbling at this and that and rubbing up and down on one of her precarious ledges.  There is a certain sense of insecurity when you sit in a no-go area singing loudly, “Come on, girl!” for twenty minutes at a stretch.  Warnings for us to get clear of that position become more intense.

On a Saturday morning, seventeen days after she had come back to us, we were ready.  Carol and I went up with the heavily tranquillised food, the lead, a blindfold and stockings to tie her legs.  Carol’s husband Arthur stayed in the car below as Girl Goat would still not allow anyone else near her.  She came to our call in her own sweet time, to our alarm leaving her ledge and walking along the middle of the road as if she was the chief engineer, before climbing up to us.

I couldn’t detect the tranquilliser in the food – but she could.  It took a long time and much encouragement before she had taken enough to feel drowsy.  I clipped the lead on her collar and tied the other end firmly to a tree.  The great danger was that she would stumble and fall down the mountain, perhaps taking us with her.

It took an hour for the tranquilliser to work.  We engaged her in conversation, offered her leaves and tried to calm her when she grew alarmed.  It was a long hour.  Eventually she grew drowsy enough for us to blindfold her and tie her legs with the stockings. Stalwart Arthur then joined us and with some difficulty we got her across his shoulders.  Girl Goat was no lightweight!

Step by precarious step, bracing Arthur against falling and holding the goat’s head, we inched down the mountain to the safety of the station-wagon where we laid her on a deep bed of hay.  Carol and Arthur got in with her and I drove us out to the farm.

There, as prearranged, we put her in a recovery pen, in a position where she could see her parent flock.  Next day she was reintroduced to her old billygoat friend and could talk to the others through the security fence.  Two days later she joined them, safe at last, her adventures over, and settled down as if she had never been away.