Akimbo and the Elephants First published in Great Britain in 1990 Akimbo and the Lions First published in Great Britain in 1992 Akimbo and the Crocodile Man First published in Great Britain in 1993

First published in ebook format as The Akimbo Adventures 2013 by Egmont UK Limited The Yellow Building, 1 Nicholas Road, London W11 4AN

Text copyright © 1990, 1992, 1993 Alexander McCall Smith

Illustrations copyright © 2005 Peter Bailey

The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted

eISBN 978 1 7803 1322 1

www.egmont.co.uk

A CIP catalogue for this title is available from the British Library

Contents

Title page

Copyright

Akimbo and the Elephants

Dedication

Akimbo’s wish

Father elephant

Stolen ivory

The enemy

The hunt

Escape

Rhino charge

Elephants in danger

Akimbo and the Lions

Dedication

A lion problem

The trap

Lion!

Left behind

Becoming friends

Lion at school

Back to the wilds

Akimbo and the Crocodile Man

Dedication

An unusual visitor

A dangerous search begins

Catching a crocodile!

The baby crocodiles arrive

Crocodile attack

A dangerous swim

Getting help

About the Author

This book is for Alan and Barbara Hannah, and for Jeremy and Kathryn

Akimbo’s wish

Imagine living in the heart of Africa. Imagine living in a place where the sun rises each morning over blue mountains and great plains with grass that grows taller than a man. Imagine living in a place where there are still elephants.

Akimbo lived in such a place, on the edge of a large game reserve in Africa. This was a place where wild animals could live in safety. On its plains there were great herds of antelope and zebra. In the forests and in the rocky hills there were leopards and baboons. And, of course, there were the great elephants, who roamed slowly across the grasslands and among the trees.

Akimbo’s father worked here. Sometimes he drove trucks; sometimes he manned the radio or helped to repair the trucks. There was always something to do.

If Akimbo was lucky, his father would occasionally take him with him to work. Akimbo loved to go with the men when they went off deep into the reserve. They might have to mend a game fence or rescue a broken-down truck, or it might just be a routine patrol through the forest to check up on the animals.

Sometimes on these trips, they would see something exciting.

‘Look over there,’ his father would say. ‘Don’t make a noise. Just look over there.’

And Akimbo would follow his father’s gaze and see some wild creature eating, or resting, or crouching in wait for its prey.

One day, when they were walking through the forest together, Akimbo’s father suddenly seized his arm and whispered to him to be still.

‘What is it?’ Akimbo made his voice as soft as he could manage.

‘Walk backwards. Very slowly. Go back the way we came.’

It was only as he began to inch back, that Akimbo realised what had happened. There in a clearing not far away were two leopards. One of them, sensing that something was happening, had risen to its feet and was sniffing at the air. The other was still sleeping.

Luckily, the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, or the leopard would have smelled their presence. If that had happened, then they would have been in even greater danger.

‘That was close,’ his father said, once they had got away. ‘I don’t like to think what would have happened if I hadn’t noticed them in time.’

It was not leopards, or even lions, that Akimbo liked to watch. He loved the elephants best of all. You had to keep clear of them, too, but they seemed more gentle than many of the other creatures. Akimbo loved their vast, lumbering shapes. He loved the way they moved their trunks slowly, this way and that, as they plodded across the plains between the stretches of forest. And he loved the sound of an elephant trumpeting – a short, surprised, rather funny sound.

There used to be many elephants in Africa, but over the years they had been mercilessly hunted. Now there were fewer and fewer.

Akimbo could not understand why anybody should want to hunt an elephant and asked his father why.

‘It’s for their tusks. They’re made of ivory, and ivory is very valuable. It’s used for ornaments and jewellery. Some rich people collect it and like to show off elephant tusks carved into fancy shapes.’

‘But it’s so cruel,’ said Akimbo. ‘I’m glad it doesn’t happen any more.’

Akimbo’s father was silent for a moment.

‘I’m afraid it does still happen. There are still people who hunt elephants – even here in the reserve.’

‘Can’t you stop them?’ he asked.

Akimbo’s father shook his head. ‘It’s very difficult. The reserve stretches for almost a hundred miles. We can’t keep an eye on all of it all the time.’

Akimbo was silent. The thought of the elephants being hunted for their tusks made him seethe with anger. He wondered whether there would come a day when all the elephants in Africa were destroyed. Then all that we would have to remember them by would be photographs and, of course, the ivory from their tusks. The reserves would be empty then, and the sight of the elephants crossing the plains would be nothing but a memory.

‘I don’t want that to happen,’ Akimbo said to himself. ‘I want the elephants to stay.’

Father elephant

A few weeks later, Akimbo was to be reminded of what his father had said about the poachers.

‘We have to go out to check up on a water hole,’ his father said. ‘Do you want to come with us?’

‘Yes,’ said Akimbo eagerly.

‘It’ll be a rough ride,’ his father warned him. ‘There isn’t even a track for much of the way.’

‘I don’t mind. I know how to hang on.’

Akimbo’s father was right. It was not an easy journey, and it was very hot as well. At noon the sun burned down unmercifully, and it was unbearably hot in the truck cabin. Akimbo wiped the sweat off his face and drank great gulps of water from the water bottles, but he did not complain once.

They had to travel slowly, as there were rocks and potholes which could easily damage the truck if they came upon them too quickly. Every now and then, a concealed rock would scrape against the bottom of the truck with a painful, jarring sound, and everybody inside would wince. But no damage was done, and they continued their journey.

During the hot hours of midday, few animals will venture out of the shade of the trees and the undergrowth. But Akimbo saw a small herd of zebra cantering off to safety, throwing up a cloud of dust behind them.

Then, quite suddenly, one of the men in the back of the truck hit his fist on the top of the roof and pointed off to the left. Akimbo’s father brought the vehicle to a halt.

‘What is it?’ he called out.

The man leaned over into the cabin.

‘Vultures. Flocks of them.’

The eyes of all the others followed the man’s gaze. Akimbo saw nothing at first, but when he craned his neck he saw the birds circling in the hot, still air. Even from this distance, he could tell that there were lots of them, and so he knew that something big was attracting their attention.

Akimbo’s father turned to one of the other men.

‘Do you think the lions finished a meal?’

The other man looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe. But there are rather a lot of vultures for that. Don’t you think we should go and take a look?’

Akimbo’s father agreed. Then, swinging the truck off to the left, he steered in the direction of the circling birds. After a bumpy ride of fifteen minutes they were there and they saw the sad sight which they had all secretly been dreading.

The elephant lay on its side, where it had fallen. As the truck approached, four or five vultures flapped up into the air, angry at the disturbance of their feeding. Akimbo’s father looked furious as he drew the truck to a halt. Without speaking, he opened his door and strode off to stand beside the fallen elephant.

Akimbo stayed where he was. He could not bear to look at the great creature. He knew that the elephant had been destroyed so that its tusks could be stolen.

Akimbo looked away. There was a group of trees nearby and as Akimbo looked towards it he noticed movement. Then, a little way away, the vegetation moved.

Akimbo strained his eyes to try to see more. He was sure an animal was there, but it was difficult to see through the thick covering of leaves and branches. He hoped it was not a buffalo, which could be dangerous.

There was another movement, and this time Akimbo was looking in the right place. Quickly opening the door of the truck cabin, Akimbo leapt out and ran to where his father and the other men were standing.

‘Look!’ he cried out. ‘Look over there.’

The men spun round. As they did so, the baby elephant broke cover. It took a few steps and then stopped, as if uncertain what to do. It raised its trunk and sniffed at the air. Then it dropped its trunk and stood quite still. Akimbo noticed that it had a torn right ear.

‘It’s her calf,’ said his father. ‘It’s very young.’

They stared at the calf for a few moments. The tiny elephant was obviously confused. It saw its mother lying motionless on the ground, and it wanted to join her. At the same time, its instinct told it to keep away from the intruding men.

‘Can we look after it?’ Akimbo asked.

Akimbo’s father shook his head. ‘No. The herd will pick it up. If we leave it here, another cow elephant will come for it.’

‘But it’s so small. Can’t we take it back to the compound and look after it?’

‘It will be all right,’ said Akimbo’s father. ‘It’s best not to interfere.’

They began to walk back to the truck. At a distance, the little elephant watched them go, withdrawing slightly as they moved. When the engine started, Akimbo saw it run back to the shelter of the trees.

‘Goodbye,’ Akimbo muttered under his breath. ‘Good luck.’

The truck turned away. Akimbo took one last glance back, and saw that the vultures, which had been circling high in the sky, had now dropped lower.

Stolen ivory

Over the next few days, Akimbo found himself thinking more and more about the baby elephant. He wondered whether it had been picked up by another member of the herd, or whether it had been left to die. Had the poachers destroyed two elephants in their cruel and greedy hunt for ivory?

He knew that his father and the other game rangers were doing their best to stop the hunters, but they seemed unable to deal with them.

‘If I were in charge,’ he said to himself, ‘I’d catch them and teach them a lesson. If nobody else will, then I’m going to stop them.’

He thought about this. There was no reason why the poachers should get away with it. Perhaps there was something he could do, after all.

‘Where do the poachers come from?’ he asked his father one evening.

His father shrugged his shoulders. ‘From all over the place. But we know that there’s one gang in the village nearby. We can’t prove it, but we think they’re doing it.’

‘What do they do with the tusks?’ Akimbo asked.

His father sighed. ‘They hide them. Traders come up from the towns and buy them from them. Then they smuggle the tusks back to town and that’s where they’re carved. They make them into necklaces and ornaments.’

‘But don’t you ever catch any of them?’

‘Sometimes. Then we hand them over to the police. But the poachers are cunning, and clever as well.’

Akimbo turned away. ‘I’m clever too,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘And I’m sure I can be as cunning as they are.’

‘What was that?’ his father asked.

‘Nothing,’ Akimbo replied. But he had declared war on the poachers the moment he saw that baby elephant waiting in vain for its mother to get up.

Akimbo knew that it would be impossible for him to do anything about the poachers in the reserve itself. The poaching gangs travelled by night, and were armed. Then they struck quickly and as quietly as possible, before fading away into the bush again. Every so often, the rangers picked up their tracks and pursued them, but usually they were too late.

He thought of different plans, but none of them seemed likely to work. If there was no point in his waiting for the poachers, why not go to the village and find them? That was the way to get the proof he would need to stop them.

At the edge of the rangers’ camp there was a storeroom. Akimbo had been inside only once or twice, as it was always kept locked, and his father rarely went there. In it were the things which the rangers confiscated from poachers when they managed to find them.

It was a grim collection. There were cruel barbed-wire traps, designed to tighten like a noose around an animal’s leg when it stepped into the concealed circle of wire. There were rifles, spears and ammunition belts. But what was saddest of all were the parts of animals which had been caught by the poachers. As well as horns and skins, there were the most sought-after trophies of all, the tusks of elephants.

Many of these things were kept to show to visitors, so that they could see what the poachers did. Some were also kept in the hope they would be needed as evidence once the poachers were caught. But that seemed to happen so rarely that the tusks and the traps just gathered more and more dust.

That night, at a time when the rest of the camp was asleep, Akimbo slipped out of his room and made his way across the compound towards the storeroom. In the moonlight he could make out the shape of the storeroom against the night sky. He paused in the shadows for a few moments, to check that nobody was about, and then he darted along the path to stand in front of the storeroom door.

His father’s bunch of keys was heavy in his pocket. He had slipped it out of the pocket of his father’s working tunic while his parents were busy in the kitchen. He had felt bad about that, but he told himself that he was not stealing anything for himself.

Now he tried each key in the storeroom lock. It was a slow business. In spite of the moonlight, there was still not enough light to see clearly, and it was difficult to keep those keys he had already used from being jumbled up with those which he had yet to try.

At one point he dropped the whole bunch, and it made a loud, jangly noise, but nobody woke up.

At last the lock moved, and with a final twist the bolt slid home. Akimbo pushed open the door and wrinkled his nose as he smelled the familiar, rotten odour of the uncured skins. But it was not skins he had come for. There, in a corner, was a small elephant tusk, which had been roughly sawn in two. Akimbo picked this up, checked that it was not too heavy to carry, and took it out of the storeroom. He took off its label. Then, locking the door again, he crept away, just like a poacher making off with his load of stolen ivory.

The enemy

‘I’d like to go to the village,’ Akimbo told his parents the following morning.

Akimbo’s father seemed surprised.

‘Why? There’s nothing for you to do there.’

‘There’s Mato. I haven’t seen him for a long time. I’d like to see him. Last time I was there his aunt said that I could stay with them for a few days.’

His father shrugged his shoulders, looking at Akimbo’s mother.

‘If you want to go, I suppose you can,’ she said. ‘You’ll have to walk there, though. It’ll take three hours – maybe more. And don’t be any trouble for Mato’s aunt.’

Again Akimbo felt bad. He did not like to lie to his parents, but if he told them of his plan he was sure that they would prevent him from trying it out. And if that happened, then nobody would ever stop the poachers, and the hunting of the elephants would go on and on.

As his father had warned him, the walk was not easy. And, carrying a chunk of ivory in a sack over his shoulder, Akimbo found it even more difficult than he had imagined. Every few minutes he had to stop and rest, sliding the sack off his shoulder and waiting for his tired arm muscles to recover. Then he would heave the sack up again and continue his walk, keeping away from the main path to avoid meeting anybody.

At last the village was in sight. Akimbo did not go straight in, but looked around in the bush for a hiding place. Eventually he found an old termite hole. He stuffed the sack in it and placed a few dead branches over the top. It was the perfect place.

Once in the village, he went straight to Mato’s house. Mato lived with his aunt. She was a nurse and ran the small clinic at the edge of the village. Mato was surprised to see Akimbo, but pleased, and took him in for a cup of water in the kitchen.

‘I need your help,’ said Akimbo to his friend. ‘I want to find somebody who will buy some ivory from me.’

Mato’s eyes opened wide with surprise.

‘But where did you get it?’ he stuttered. ‘Did you steal it?’

Akimbo shook his head. Then, swearing his friend to secrecy, he told him his plan. Mato thought for a while and then he gave him his opinion.

‘It won’t work,’ he said flatly. ‘You’ll just get into trouble. That’s all that will happen.’

Akimbo shook his head.

‘I’m ready to take that risk.’

So Mato, rather reluctantly, told Akimbo about a man in the village whom everyone thought was dishonest.

‘If I had something stolen which I wanted to sell,’ he said, ‘I’d go to him. He’s called Matimba, and I can show you where he lives. But I’m not going into his house. You’ll have to go in on your own.’

Matimba was not there the first time that Akimbo went to the house. When he called an hour later, though, he was told to wait at the back door. After ten minutes or so the door opened and a stout man with a beard looked out.

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice curt and suspicious.

‘I would like to speak to you,’ Akimbo said politely.

‘Then speak,’ snapped Matimba.

Akimbo looked over his shoulder.

‘I have something to sell. I thought you might like it.’

Matimba laughed. ‘You sell something to me?’

Akimbo ignored the laughter.

‘Yes. Here it is.’

When he saw the ivory tusk sticking out of the top of Akimbo’s sack, Matimba stopped laughing.

‘Come inside. And bring that with you.’

Inside the house, Akimbo was told to sit on a chair while Matimba examined the tusk. He looked at it under the light, sniffed it, and rubbed at it with his forefinger. Then he laid it down on a table and stared at Akimbo.

‘Where did you get this?’ he asked.

‘I found it,’ said Akimbo. ‘I found a whole lot of tusks. And some rhino horns.’

At the mention of rhino horns, Matimba narrowed his eyes. These horns were much in demand among smugglers, and could fetch very high prices on the coast. If this boy has really got some, Matimba thought, I could get them off him for next to nothing.

‘Where did you find them?’

‘In a hiding place near a river. I think they must have been hidden there by a poacher who got caught and couldn’t come back for them.’

Matimba nodded. This sort of thing did happen, and now this innocent boy had stumbled across a fortune. He looked at the tusk again. He would give him some money on the spot and promise him more if he took him to the rest.

‘You did well to come to me. I can buy these things from you.’

Akimbo drew in his breath. Now was the time for him to make his demand.

‘You can have them. I don’t want money for them.’

Matimba was astonished. He looked again at the boy and wondered whether there was something wrong with him.

‘All I want is to become an elephant hunter. If you let me go off with some poachers – to learn how they do it – I’ll show you where I have hidden the tusks and horns.’

Matimba was silent. He stared at Akimbo for some time, wondering whether to trust him. Then his greed got the better of his caution. He granted Akimbo’s wish. After all, boys thought poaching was exciting. Well, let him learn.

‘You may go with my men,’ he said.

Akimbo felt a great surge of excitement. Matimba had said ‘my men’. He had found the head of a gang of poachers. His plan had worked – so far. The next stage was the really dangerous part.

The hunt

Matimba told Akimbo to come back the following night. He was to bring nothing with him and was to expect to be away for two or three days. The men would bring the food.

‘I hope that you’re strong enough,’ he said dubiously. ‘And I hope your parents won’t come looking for you.’

Akimbo reassured him, but Matimba was no longer paying attention. He had picked up the tusk again, and was polishing at its surface with a cloth. Akimbo threw a last glance at it before he left the room. He hoped that the loss of the tusk would not be noticed too soon. He would have to own up to taking it, but he only wanted to when his plan had been carried out. If it failed, then he did not look forward to confessing that he had given the tusk to the head of a poaching gang.

Mato was still worried. As they lay side by side on their sleeping mats, Mato told Akimbo: ‘You’re crazy. Go straight home and tell your father what you’ve done.’

Akimbo told him about how they had found the baby elephant, waiting for its mother.

‘We can’t let all the elephants of Africa be destroyed. I must do something for them.’

Mato was silent at the end of Akimbo’s story.

‘All right. I suppose I should say good luck.’

‘Thank you,’ said Akimbo. Then, feeling tired after the day’s long walk, he drifted off to sleep, not hearing the sound of the village dogs barking, or the whine of the crickets outside. Mato stayed awake a little longer, worrying about his friend, but at last he, too, fell asleep.

The next day dragged past with a painful slowness. At last, as the sun began to sink below the hills, Akimbo knew that it was time for him to go to Matimba’s house. He was the only person there to begin with, but a little while later several men arrived. They looked suspiciously at Akimbo, and spoke in lowered voices to Matimba. After that, they appeared to accept Akimbo’s presence.

There were five men in the group. The leader was a short man, who walked with a limp. He gave orders to the others, who obeyed him quickly and without question. When the time came to leave, he told Akimbo to walk immediately behind him and not to speak once they set off.

‘Keep quiet all the time. Do exactly as I tell you and you’ll be all right. Understand?’

Akimbo nodded. The other men were ready now, and they slipped away from the village, following a path which led through the thick grass towards the hills in the distance. Over those hills lay the reserve, and deep in the reserve were the forests where the elephants lived. They were on their way.

They walked all night. Akimbo was used to walking long distances, but the speed with which the men travelled wore him out. He had to keep up, even though his feet were sore and he longed to lie down in the grass and go to sleep.

By the time the sun rose, they had already crossed into the reserve. Now that it was light, they moved cautiously, keeping to a route which took them through heavy vegetation. Akimbo wondered how long they could keep walking all day as well as all night. When could they sleep?

Suddenly the leader gestured with his hand and the men stopped.

‘We’ll rest here,’ he said quietly. ‘Find places to sleep. We’ll move again tonight.’

Akimbo dropped to the ground underneath the cover of a small thorn bush. The ground was hard but he was so tired that it was more welcome to him than the softest bed. He closed his eyes against the glare of the day and was asleep within seconds.

He felt the hand of one of the men on his shoulder.

‘Time to go,’ a voice whispered. ‘We’re leaving.’

Akimbo sat up. His body felt sore from sleeping on the ground, and his throat was parched. One of the men gave him a drink of water from a bottle he was carrying. Then he gave him a large piece of dried meat to eat as they walked. The meat was tough and difficult to chew, but Akimbo gnawed at it hungrily.

It was almost dark by the time they set off. They had to travel more slowly now, as the ground was rough and the grass was thick and high. Akimbo had no idea where they were, but he knew that they must be nearing the place where they might expect to find elephants, as he had seen the forests in the distance when they stopped that morning.

They disturbed several wild animals as they made their way. An antelope bounded off from a hollow immediately ahead of them, crashing through the undergrowth in panic. Another large animal was disturbed a little later, and they heard it charging away during the night. It could have been a rhinoceros, and this frightened Akimbo as he knew how dangerous rhinos could be.

They stopped to rest once or twice, and Akimbo found himself less exhausted than on the previous night. At last, towards dawn, they stopped altogether. They were now in heavily wooded land, and at any point they might see elephant. Akimbo assumed that now the hunt was on.

That morning, after resting for three or four hours, the group began to move slowly through the clumps of great trees which broke up the plain. One of the men was now acting as a tracker, and he had picked up the signs of elephant. From time to time he pointed at something on the ground and said something to the man with the limp, who nodded.

Suddenly the tracker stopped. The leader went up to him and crouched beside him. Akimbo and the other men crouched down too, waiting for a sign from the leader.

Akimbo saw the elephants at the edge of the trees. They were moving slowly, browsing among the branches of the trees with their trunks, pulling down clumps of foliage. His heart stopped for a moment. There was a male elephant among them who had a very large pair of tusks – great, white sweeps of ivory. Akimbo knew that the poachers would be bound to go for him.

Suddenly two of the elephants turned to face them. There was a ripple of activity amongst the others, as the two large bulls flapped out their ears and lifted their trunks in the direction of the crouching men. Akimbo realised that the animals had got their scent and were now alarmed. And if they were alarmed, then they might charge.

The leader gestured to one of the other men, who ran up to him with a rifle. The elephant must have seen the movement, as he suddenly moved forward several paces and let out a bellow. Behind him, the other elephants had moved for protection into the shadows of the trees.

Akimbo had never seen a charging elephant and he was not ready for the speed with which it moved. For a few moments he was frozen in terror, his eyes fixed on the great creature which was charging towards them. Then, quite suddenly, the elephant stopped. For a short while it stood still, its ears out, its body quivering, small eddies of dust about its feet, and then, without warning, it turned aside and moved back towards the herd.

As this was happening, the leader was fumbling with the rifle. By the time he had it to his shoulder, the elephants had disappeared into the thickness of the forest. Akimbo felt all the fear drain out of his body. They were safe. And so were the elephants – at least, for the time being.

Escape

The leader was clearly angry over what had happened. He called his men over to him and spoke sharply to them, pointing to where the herd had been to underline his words. They all knew that the elephants would move quickly, now that they had scented danger, and that it would be difficult to catch up with the herd.

For a few minutes the leader seemed uncertain what to do. Then he spoke. ‘We’ll follow them. I want to get those tusks.’

One of the men stepped forward.

‘But they’re going west. There are rangers that way. It would be too dangerous. They might . . .’

The leader interrupted him abruptly.

‘I want those tusks. If you’re frightened, you can go home now.’

The man looked down.

‘I’m not frightened.’

Akimbo listened. The information that they were going to travel west excited him. In that direction lay the ranger camp, and home, and this would make it easier for him to carry out his plan.

With the tracker in the front, his eyes glued to the ground, the line of poachers snaked its way through the thick savannah. Tracking elephants was much easier than tracking other animals, as elephants destroy so much as they make their way, but even so it took all the tracker’s skill.

By late afternoon there was still no sign of the elephants and Akimbo wondered what they would do when darkness fell. It would be impossible then to follow the herd any further – and dangerous, too, as they could suddenly find themselves in the middle of the herd in the darkness, and they would stand no chance then.

When the light became too bad to go on, the leader called his men to a halt. Everybody was tense, weary, and thirsty, and they were pleased to be able to rest.

‘We will spend the night here. At first light we can go on.’

‘But we’re too close to the ranger camp,’ one of the others said. ‘It’s only one or two hours that way.’

Akimbo watched where the man pointed. Then, without bothering to hear the leader’s answer, he walked off and lay beneath a nearby bush, curling up as if to sleep. The other men all settled themselves too, concealing themselves beneath branches or bushes, and soon anybody walking past would not have realised that five men and a boy were sleeping there.

The boy was not asleep. Although his bones ached with tiredness, Akimbo fought back the waves of drowsiness, and he struggled to keep his mind on what he had to do. At last, when he was sure that all the others were fast asleep, he crept out from underneath his sheltering place.

Nobody moved. Nor did anybody stir as he began to move off in the direction of the ranger camp, which one of the men had pointed out.

‘I hope he was right,’ he said to himself. ‘If he’s not . . .’ But Akimbo did not allow himself to think about that. For the moment he knew exactly what he had to do, and he concentrated all his energy on doing it.

It was more frightening than Akimbo could ever have imagined. The moon was behind cloud, and there was very little light. All that he could make out around him were large black shapes – the shapes of trees, bushes, rocks. Akimbo tried to fix his mind on some landmark in order to keep travelling in the right direction, but it was almost impossible to do this in the darkness. The shape which he aimed for would suddenly be lost, or would look different when he approached it, and there was no way of telling that he was not going round in one large circle.

‘If I’m just going round and round I’ll come back to where I started from and I’ll walk right into the poachers.’

After about fifteen minutes the cloud cleared and there was a little more light from the sky. Akimbo could now identify an object to aim for in the distance. He could also move faster, as he did not have to worry so much about the ground suddenly giving way over a cliff.

He broke into a run. It was painful to his tired legs, but he managed to push himself to do it. He scratched himself, of course, on thorn bushes and protruding twigs, but he did not mind that. All he wanted now was to reach the ranger camp and safety.

Suddenly Akimbo stopped. His heart was pounding within him, his skin prickling with fear. Had his ears deceived him, or was it . . . Yes. There it was again. It was a roar. Still quite distant, but unmistakeably the roar of a lion.

Akimbo looked about him in panic. All he saw were the same dark shapes and shadows of the African night. Lions could be anywhere. They could be watching him at this moment. They could be crouched, ready to pounce.

He shook his head. He would not give up now. He would not look for the nearest tree and try to climb to safety. He had to get home.

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