John Gryphon
Well-Known Member
I have posted this tale before but its for those that previously hadnt the time to read this enthralling tale of survival.
Harry Wolhuter
Man-Eating Lion Killed with Knife
The waterhole was dry. It was quite a disappointment for the game ranger, Harry Wolhuter, and his three askaris. They were on the long return trek from a distant patrol and both men and animals were looking forward to the promise of water and a well-earned rest.
Despite the fact that it was almost dusk there was no option but to push on and hope to find that the next waterhole, nineteen kilometres away, would hold some water. Accordingly, Wolhuter left his men and pack donkeys and, accompanied by “Bull”, one of his rough Boer dogs, rode off along the track.
He had no fear of getting lost in the gathering dark as he had ridden that very path many times by night a few years previously when he was a scout with Steinacker’s Horse during the Boer War.
As he rode he reviewed and mentally crossed off the various animals that he had seen during his patrol. The Boer War had been a disaster for the game. Large companies of men permanently on the move back and forward across the veldt had to live as best they could off the land and the game of all species had been persistently hunted for meat.
On first assuming his duties as a game ranger, Wolhuter had despaired of ever seeing the game return to its former numbers. However with the passage of time the animals started to slowly trickle back into Sabi Game Reserve. Wolhuter was constantly, and expectantly, searching for any evidence of new additions to the area.
The trail led across a bare plain that had recently been burnt off, save for the odd patch of heavy grass. Wolhuter’s reverie was broken by the rustle of something large in one of the grass patches that the path occasionally cut through.
It was too dark to see, and Wolhuter assumed that it was a pair of reedbuck who favoured the area. To his surprise the animals approached and when within three metres he could make out the unmistakable form of a pair of lions.
It was a completely unexpected meeting as Wolhuter had never before seen any lion in that area. Although Wolhuter had his ever-present rifle it was too late to deal with two lions at such close quarters.
He swung his mount and spurred vigorously in an attempt to extract every effort from the horse. Before the steed had time to reach full stride it staggered under the weight of the lion that had leapt onto its hindquarters.
The great shaggy head of the lion brushed the ranger’s face as the beast took Wolhuter’s right shoulder in its mouth. Its grip was vicelike and the ranger gasped as he felt the crunch of its mighty canine teeth as they bit deeply into the bones of his shoulder.
The horse’s frantic bucking and plunging forced the lion to lose its grip. Unfortunately it also unseated the rider. Wolhuter tumbled heavily to the ground, landing almost on top of the second lion that was eagerly seeking the chance to grab the galloping horse by the throat.
There was a moment’s hesitation, which Wolhuter later considered was responsible for his salvation. The first lion, selfishly wishing to keep its prize for itself, quickly grabbed Wolhuter by the shoulder again and, rather than killing him on the spot, dragged him away.
The other lion resumed its pursuit of the horse. The ranger could hear the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the grunts of the lion together with the growls and barking of Bull who was in pursuit of the attacking lion.
The lion had Wolhuter by the right shoulder and was dragging him along on his back between its legs and, in doing so, the lion’s claws cut into his trailing arms. Wolhuter had long spurs held on by heavy leather straps and these acted as brakes, as they gauged deep furrows in the ground. Whenever the spurs impeded the impatient lion too much he would savagely jerk his burden free. This sent waves of agony searing through the badly wounded ranger.
Added to this was the anguish of knowing that the lion would soon make a meal of him. Wolhuter hoped that at least the lion would kill him before starting its meal. Hungry lions are apt to forgo such niceties!
The ranger grimly thought that his life was at its end. However, as the painful progress continued he thought of what he might be able to do to save himself. The only prospect was his hunting knife that he carried in a loose fitting sheath on his right hip.
Twice before it had fallen out during gallops across the veldt in pursuit of game and he had been lucky to find it. The chance of it still being in the sheath after this recent struggle seemed remote.
Wolhuter worked his left arm around behind him and, with indescribable joy, felt the handle of the knife in his grip. He considered several plans before deciding that the only chance lay in trying to stab the lion in the heart.
The choice was a difficult and complicated one, requiring the ranger to feel cautiously for the animal’s shoulder as it strode along purring loudly. Wolhuter’s face was pressed firmly into the lion’s mane and he had to reach awkwardly across his chest and strike backhanded.
He realized that if he bungled the attempt it would no doubt have fatal results. He made two quick stabs behind the lion’s left shoulder and a third stab into its throat as it roared in reaction to the unexpected attack.
The lion’s blood gushed out drenching the mauled victim and, dropping Wolhuter, the lion slunk off into the darkness. The ranger struggled to his feet not knowing how seriously the lion was wounded as it continued to call loudly from nearby.
Wolhuter yelled and cursed loudly in the hope of frightening the lion away. He soon stopped, however, when he remembered the other lion which he assumed would be unlikely to catch his riderless horse and could likely appear at any moment.
The next course of action he thought of was to set fire to the grass. It was difficult to strike a match as his right arm hung limp and numb. Finally when he managed to strike a match he could not set the grass alight because of heavy dew that had started to settle.
The only remaining course of action was to climb a tree. Under ordinary circumstances this would have been easy. In his injured state it was a different story. The mauled ranger had to stumble about in the dark until he finally found a tree that he could drag himself into using his one, good arm.
He struggled to climb to a height of four metres. Once there Wolhuter realized that his position was still very precarious. He was starting to feel giddy as a result of shock and loss of blood, what clothes he had left were soaked in both his and the lion’s blood and chilled him in the cold night air.
As he was still bleeding heavily from the wounds he received and fearing he might lose balance, or faint, he managed to undo his belt and lash himself to the tree. Meanwhile the stabbed lion continued to roar and growl from close at hand.
The animal’s cries subsided into a series of long moans and then came the unmistakable sound of a lion death rattle. Wolhuter felt a sense of relief to know that his attacker was dead.
However, he had no time to celebrate because, at almost the same instant, he heard the second lion arrive back at the spot where the horse had been jumped, some sixty metres away. It quickly followed his blood trail and, on reaching the tree, reared up on its hind legs and clawed at the bark.
Realizing that the tree would not prove any great obstacle to the lion, Wolhuter once again feared for his life. As he looked down he could occasionally see the bright glow of the lion’s eyes in the starlight.
Wolhuter yelled at the lion and this seemed to delay its intention to scale the tree. With great relief he heard Bull come panting up to the tree. The dog must have kept with the horse until he realized that his master was no longer in the saddle and then backtracked.
The injured ranger encouraged his faithful friend who responded by distracting the hungry lion with determined barking and snapping. It was some hours before the askaris arrived on the scene and helped Wolhuter down from the tree. The remaining lion continued to prowl menacingly about, being kept at bay only by the dogs and firebrands.
A quick search for the rifle proved fruitless and so the ranger armed himself with a borrowed assegai and set off for the next waterhole. His thirst was terrible and the only way of quenching it was to find water at the pool nine kilometres away.
When they arrived there, having been menaced much of the way by the lion, there was no water. The ranger told his men that he must have water for his raging thirst and after a long search they returned with some slimy remnants of a small pool.
Wolhuter quickly drank all but a little of the muddy brew. His intentions to have his wounds washed with the remainder were short lived, the pain proving too much.
The next morning Wolhuter could not stand, let alone walk. His men returned to find his rifle and the horse which had returned to the scene of the attack. They also found the dead lion and brought its skin, skull and heart back to camp.
They proudly pointed out the knife wounds in the heart. Initially they had doubted their master’s story of having killed the lion with his knife. Who had ever heard of such a feat!
Native bearers were obtained from a nearby village and the long journey back for help began with relays of bearers carrying the stretcher-bound ranger. It was five days march to the nearest settlement and Wolhuter’s wounds, which had not received any treatment, were by that time putrid with infection and he himself was suffering from a raging fever.
On his arrival he was treated by a doctor, unfortunately without any morphine to ease the incredible pain, before being loaded onto a train for a long trip back to the distant hospital.
In the coming weeks there were times when the doctors despaired of saving the ranger’s life. However his tough constitution saw him eventually make a good recovery. His arm was permanently maimed but, as he himself noted proudly, he could still lift it high enough to pull the trigger of his rifle! Nor did it prevent him chalking up forty-four years of exciting service as a game ranger.
Wolhuter had the lion skin and his knife put on display in his home. The knife was nothing fancy but of good steel, designed for butchering work. Some years later while on a visit to England, Wolhuter visited the manufacturer’s shop, keen to buy some more knives to take home.
The young sales assistant appraised the rough looking colonial with upraised eyebrow. His apparent disdain seemed to increase as Wolhuter informed him that he wished to purchase a dozen of the blades, adding that he thought they were excellent knives and relating how a previous knife had saved his life in the encounter with the lion.
With a distinctly withering look the sales assistant replied, “Yes, they are good knives, they will also kill a sheep you know!”‘
During his various patrols Wolhuter had many encounters with poachers. Some of the poachers had rifles which they kept hidden in caves or hollow logs and as a result the stocks were often attacked by white ants and the barrels became pitted with rust and choked with dirt.
Wolhuter stated that he would not fire one of the rifles at any price. The poachers had no qualms about their firearms and, when questioned by him they replied that they never used to clean the bore because the rifles we better as they were!
There was one particularly dedicate poacher that Wolhuter had caught a number of times. On one occasion he had an old .303 rifle and both .303 and .450 Martini-Henry ammunition.
The ranger demanded the second.450 rifle. The poacher assured the ranger that he in fact only owned the one rifle, the .303. Wolhuter asked why it was that he also carried ammunition for the .450 if he did not have such a rifle? The old poacher replied that he could alter the .450 ammo for use in his .303 rifle!
The ranger refused to accept that statement so the poacher suggested that if his handcuffs were removed he would show the lnkosi how he achieved the conversion.
Taking a live .450 cartridge he first wriggled the lead .450 projectile from its case and emptied the black powder charge for later use. Then, having borrowed a hammer, he filled the empty case with water and, placing a rusty old hexagonal nut over the primer, he hammered the case into the thick soft bark of a nearby tree.
The resulting hydraulic pressure popped the unfired .450 primer from its pocket. He then took a fired .303 case and, by the same method, popped the fired primer out. The de-primed .303 case was recovered and the bark and water flicked out.
The MartiniHenry primer was then pushed into the .303 cartridge and some of the Martini-Henry powder was poured into the case. The .450 lead projectile was hammered against a hard surface until it became elongated and thin enough to be pushed into the neck of the .303 case. The resulting projectile was overly long, but that was easily fixed by taking a knife and trimming it to an appropriate length.
“Inkosi that is how I do it! If you like you can fire it!” said the poacher proudly. Wolhuter had a very definite preference that the poacher should fire the resulting concoction. Pointing out a mark on a tree some sixty metres away, the old fellow took his dilapidated rifle and, chambering the handload, hit the mark squarely!
Wolhuter had been a keen hunter before joining the game department. His shooting did not stop then either, as there was always the need to shoot meat for the pot and to cull animals when they proved to be a pest.
In this regard he had many encounters with lions, some of them rather close calls. On one patrol a group of lions attacked his oxen during the night. Only the concerted efforts of the dogs and the fire brandishing native helpers had managed to keep the lions from killing any of the draught animals.
The next morning Wolhuter, fearing further, more costly predations, set off after the pride. Having located the big cats he crept close and took two shots. A lioness fell dead to the first shot but the second shot only wounded another lioness.
This animal came straight toward him, coincidentally rather than intentionally he believed. A small bush hid the hunter from the oncoming feline and he was confident in his ability to handle the situation, but when he attempted to chamber the third round it refused to pick up from the magazine.
Not daring to take eyes off the rapidly approaching lioness he tried again and again to chamber the cartridge. He knew that he had left camp with a full magazine.
With the arrival of the wounded lioness imminent he froze and hoped devoutly that she would not notice him and continue on her way. The cat glanced in his direction and, stopping in her tracks, she fixed Wolhuter with a fierce glare and started to growl menacingly.
He stood as if frozen and he knew without looking that his native helpers were fixed rigid themselves, not many paces behind him. The smallest movement would precipitate an attack. After what seemed a very long time the lioness suddenly resumed her trotting run.
It then occurred to the ranger that the cause of the problem was probably the fact that the magazine of his .303 had not been pressed properly home. A tap with the palm of the hand clicked the magazine into its proper place. Wolhuter then had no difficulty in dropping the lioness before she could go any further.
One Christmas Day a native farmer came to see Wolhuter and complained that during the night some lions had come and killed five of his livestock. The ranger saddled his horse and, after collecting a few of his native rangers and dogs, set off in pursuit.
The spoor led into a patch of thick bush adjacent to the small jutting outcrop of a granite Kopje. Wolhuter told his men to give him ten minutes to get in position before attempting to drive the offenders out into the open.
He proceeded to the small hill of stone and, leaving his horse, he climbed some fifty metres up the sloping face to where a rock projected out into space, offering an excellent view of the country below.
The ranger called on his men to begin the drive. He was beginning to wonder just where the lions had gotten to when he heard the rattle of loose stones on the hill side behind. He spun around to discover that the lions had inexplicably decided to ascend the hill.
A male presented a quick shot which Wolhuter took, sending the animal cascading down the steep slope and into the bush below. Another lion popped up and went tumbling down the kopje on receiving another snap shot. Then a lioness appeared almost opposite the ranger. On the impact of the bullet she tumbled down to fetch up, wounded and angry, at the base of the projecting rock on which he stood.
At this point with the roaring and raging lioness only some nine metres away Wolhuter discovered that he was out of ammunition. It was, and remained, a mystery to him how this came about, because he was always very careful to ensure that rifles had fully charged magazines.
There was nothing to do except stand very, very still and hope fervently that the lioness would continue to remain unaware of his presence and that it would succumb quickly to its wounds.
There was spare ammunition in the horse’s saddle bags and there were two ways of getting it; walk past the lioness or drop over thirteen metres to the ground below. Luckily for Wolhuter, and to his enormous relief, the lioness died from her wounds and, quickly hurdling her body, he ran down to recharge his magazine.
The ranger returned to his lookout position. He could hear a racket in the bush below as the beaters approached and eventually one of the askaris appeared and announced that two local tribesmen had been mauled.
Wolhuter hurried down to discover two men with rather bad bite wounds on their limbs. They were bleeding profusely and had stuffed the great puncture wounds with grass and leaves to try and stem the blood flow.
They had been attacked by one of the first lions that Wolhuter had shot but the lion had died before it could administer any more damage and was lying close by. The two villagers were not part of the organised beat but were from a nearby kraal, where they had been celebrating Christmas to excess with native beer and on hearing of the hunt had rushed over to join in and had managed to place themselves in the wrong place, at definitely the wrong time.
Stumbling onto the wounded lion they had defended themselves with axe and spear. In fact it was probably the spearing that had accounted for the lion. The wounded warriors assured Wolhuter that they could walk the one and half kilometres to the ranger station with the assistance of some friends. Accordingly he set off after the remaining wounded lion and its uninjured companion, despatching both in short order.
Wolhuter did not always need to have a rifle in his hands in order to find himself in an exciting situation with big game. Like most of the Great White Hunters he could list many very close escapes from death.
He shared the universal hatred of the crocodile, having witnessed many tragedies resulting from the animal’s great strength and cunning.
Returning from a long hot ride both the ranger and his horse were very thirsty. At the Sabi River Wolhuter let his mount drink its fill and when the horse had quenched its thirst and stepped back from the water he dismounted and went to take a drink himself.
On hands and knees and just in the act of lowering his lips to the water some sudden impulse made him pause. With immeasurable horror Wolhuter realized that he was staring straight into the eyes of a big crocodile that was lying just below the surface not a metre away.
Evidently it had been on the point of attacking the horse at the moment that the animal had finished its drink and stepped back. Wolhuter threw himself backwards and dashed back to snatch his rifle and place a shot into the reptile’s head.
The ranger and his askaris spent the rest of the afternoon in pursuit of the big lizard and after a hectic chase finally finished if off. The beast was just under five metres long and of very heavy girth.
Wolhuter considered that but for a slight, fresh run in the Sabi he would not have seen the crocodile. There would then have been only one, unavoidable outcome to the encounter.
Wolhuter survived the Boer War, bouts of lever, serious injuries and a lifetime of close encounters with big game. His autobiography “Memories of a Game Ranger” is worth the effort of tracking down in library or second-hand bookshop.
The final words in his book summarize the man and the era. “It was a hard life; full of risks; but we were compensated by the interesting things we saw and did”.
Now ye wouldnt blame the man if he had tainted his under wear eh!
Harry Wolhuter
Man-Eating Lion Killed with Knife
The waterhole was dry. It was quite a disappointment for the game ranger, Harry Wolhuter, and his three askaris. They were on the long return trek from a distant patrol and both men and animals were looking forward to the promise of water and a well-earned rest.
Despite the fact that it was almost dusk there was no option but to push on and hope to find that the next waterhole, nineteen kilometres away, would hold some water. Accordingly, Wolhuter left his men and pack donkeys and, accompanied by “Bull”, one of his rough Boer dogs, rode off along the track.
He had no fear of getting lost in the gathering dark as he had ridden that very path many times by night a few years previously when he was a scout with Steinacker’s Horse during the Boer War.
As he rode he reviewed and mentally crossed off the various animals that he had seen during his patrol. The Boer War had been a disaster for the game. Large companies of men permanently on the move back and forward across the veldt had to live as best they could off the land and the game of all species had been persistently hunted for meat.
On first assuming his duties as a game ranger, Wolhuter had despaired of ever seeing the game return to its former numbers. However with the passage of time the animals started to slowly trickle back into Sabi Game Reserve. Wolhuter was constantly, and expectantly, searching for any evidence of new additions to the area.
The trail led across a bare plain that had recently been burnt off, save for the odd patch of heavy grass. Wolhuter’s reverie was broken by the rustle of something large in one of the grass patches that the path occasionally cut through.
It was too dark to see, and Wolhuter assumed that it was a pair of reedbuck who favoured the area. To his surprise the animals approached and when within three metres he could make out the unmistakable form of a pair of lions.
It was a completely unexpected meeting as Wolhuter had never before seen any lion in that area. Although Wolhuter had his ever-present rifle it was too late to deal with two lions at such close quarters.
He swung his mount and spurred vigorously in an attempt to extract every effort from the horse. Before the steed had time to reach full stride it staggered under the weight of the lion that had leapt onto its hindquarters.
The great shaggy head of the lion brushed the ranger’s face as the beast took Wolhuter’s right shoulder in its mouth. Its grip was vicelike and the ranger gasped as he felt the crunch of its mighty canine teeth as they bit deeply into the bones of his shoulder.
The horse’s frantic bucking and plunging forced the lion to lose its grip. Unfortunately it also unseated the rider. Wolhuter tumbled heavily to the ground, landing almost on top of the second lion that was eagerly seeking the chance to grab the galloping horse by the throat.
There was a moment’s hesitation, which Wolhuter later considered was responsible for his salvation. The first lion, selfishly wishing to keep its prize for itself, quickly grabbed Wolhuter by the shoulder again and, rather than killing him on the spot, dragged him away.
The other lion resumed its pursuit of the horse. The ranger could hear the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the grunts of the lion together with the growls and barking of Bull who was in pursuit of the attacking lion.
The lion had Wolhuter by the right shoulder and was dragging him along on his back between its legs and, in doing so, the lion’s claws cut into his trailing arms. Wolhuter had long spurs held on by heavy leather straps and these acted as brakes, as they gauged deep furrows in the ground. Whenever the spurs impeded the impatient lion too much he would savagely jerk his burden free. This sent waves of agony searing through the badly wounded ranger.
Added to this was the anguish of knowing that the lion would soon make a meal of him. Wolhuter hoped that at least the lion would kill him before starting its meal. Hungry lions are apt to forgo such niceties!
The ranger grimly thought that his life was at its end. However, as the painful progress continued he thought of what he might be able to do to save himself. The only prospect was his hunting knife that he carried in a loose fitting sheath on his right hip.
Twice before it had fallen out during gallops across the veldt in pursuit of game and he had been lucky to find it. The chance of it still being in the sheath after this recent struggle seemed remote.
Wolhuter worked his left arm around behind him and, with indescribable joy, felt the handle of the knife in his grip. He considered several plans before deciding that the only chance lay in trying to stab the lion in the heart.
The choice was a difficult and complicated one, requiring the ranger to feel cautiously for the animal’s shoulder as it strode along purring loudly. Wolhuter’s face was pressed firmly into the lion’s mane and he had to reach awkwardly across his chest and strike backhanded.
He realized that if he bungled the attempt it would no doubt have fatal results. He made two quick stabs behind the lion’s left shoulder and a third stab into its throat as it roared in reaction to the unexpected attack.
The lion’s blood gushed out drenching the mauled victim and, dropping Wolhuter, the lion slunk off into the darkness. The ranger struggled to his feet not knowing how seriously the lion was wounded as it continued to call loudly from nearby.
Wolhuter yelled and cursed loudly in the hope of frightening the lion away. He soon stopped, however, when he remembered the other lion which he assumed would be unlikely to catch his riderless horse and could likely appear at any moment.
The next course of action he thought of was to set fire to the grass. It was difficult to strike a match as his right arm hung limp and numb. Finally when he managed to strike a match he could not set the grass alight because of heavy dew that had started to settle.
The only remaining course of action was to climb a tree. Under ordinary circumstances this would have been easy. In his injured state it was a different story. The mauled ranger had to stumble about in the dark until he finally found a tree that he could drag himself into using his one, good arm.
He struggled to climb to a height of four metres. Once there Wolhuter realized that his position was still very precarious. He was starting to feel giddy as a result of shock and loss of blood, what clothes he had left were soaked in both his and the lion’s blood and chilled him in the cold night air.
As he was still bleeding heavily from the wounds he received and fearing he might lose balance, or faint, he managed to undo his belt and lash himself to the tree. Meanwhile the stabbed lion continued to roar and growl from close at hand.
The animal’s cries subsided into a series of long moans and then came the unmistakable sound of a lion death rattle. Wolhuter felt a sense of relief to know that his attacker was dead.
However, he had no time to celebrate because, at almost the same instant, he heard the second lion arrive back at the spot where the horse had been jumped, some sixty metres away. It quickly followed his blood trail and, on reaching the tree, reared up on its hind legs and clawed at the bark.
Realizing that the tree would not prove any great obstacle to the lion, Wolhuter once again feared for his life. As he looked down he could occasionally see the bright glow of the lion’s eyes in the starlight.
Wolhuter yelled at the lion and this seemed to delay its intention to scale the tree. With great relief he heard Bull come panting up to the tree. The dog must have kept with the horse until he realized that his master was no longer in the saddle and then backtracked.
The injured ranger encouraged his faithful friend who responded by distracting the hungry lion with determined barking and snapping. It was some hours before the askaris arrived on the scene and helped Wolhuter down from the tree. The remaining lion continued to prowl menacingly about, being kept at bay only by the dogs and firebrands.
A quick search for the rifle proved fruitless and so the ranger armed himself with a borrowed assegai and set off for the next waterhole. His thirst was terrible and the only way of quenching it was to find water at the pool nine kilometres away.
When they arrived there, having been menaced much of the way by the lion, there was no water. The ranger told his men that he must have water for his raging thirst and after a long search they returned with some slimy remnants of a small pool.
Wolhuter quickly drank all but a little of the muddy brew. His intentions to have his wounds washed with the remainder were short lived, the pain proving too much.
The next morning Wolhuter could not stand, let alone walk. His men returned to find his rifle and the horse which had returned to the scene of the attack. They also found the dead lion and brought its skin, skull and heart back to camp.
They proudly pointed out the knife wounds in the heart. Initially they had doubted their master’s story of having killed the lion with his knife. Who had ever heard of such a feat!
Native bearers were obtained from a nearby village and the long journey back for help began with relays of bearers carrying the stretcher-bound ranger. It was five days march to the nearest settlement and Wolhuter’s wounds, which had not received any treatment, were by that time putrid with infection and he himself was suffering from a raging fever.
On his arrival he was treated by a doctor, unfortunately without any morphine to ease the incredible pain, before being loaded onto a train for a long trip back to the distant hospital.
In the coming weeks there were times when the doctors despaired of saving the ranger’s life. However his tough constitution saw him eventually make a good recovery. His arm was permanently maimed but, as he himself noted proudly, he could still lift it high enough to pull the trigger of his rifle! Nor did it prevent him chalking up forty-four years of exciting service as a game ranger.
Wolhuter had the lion skin and his knife put on display in his home. The knife was nothing fancy but of good steel, designed for butchering work. Some years later while on a visit to England, Wolhuter visited the manufacturer’s shop, keen to buy some more knives to take home.
The young sales assistant appraised the rough looking colonial with upraised eyebrow. His apparent disdain seemed to increase as Wolhuter informed him that he wished to purchase a dozen of the blades, adding that he thought they were excellent knives and relating how a previous knife had saved his life in the encounter with the lion.
With a distinctly withering look the sales assistant replied, “Yes, they are good knives, they will also kill a sheep you know!”‘
During his various patrols Wolhuter had many encounters with poachers. Some of the poachers had rifles which they kept hidden in caves or hollow logs and as a result the stocks were often attacked by white ants and the barrels became pitted with rust and choked with dirt.
Wolhuter stated that he would not fire one of the rifles at any price. The poachers had no qualms about their firearms and, when questioned by him they replied that they never used to clean the bore because the rifles we better as they were!
There was one particularly dedicate poacher that Wolhuter had caught a number of times. On one occasion he had an old .303 rifle and both .303 and .450 Martini-Henry ammunition.
The ranger demanded the second.450 rifle. The poacher assured the ranger that he in fact only owned the one rifle, the .303. Wolhuter asked why it was that he also carried ammunition for the .450 if he did not have such a rifle? The old poacher replied that he could alter the .450 ammo for use in his .303 rifle!
The ranger refused to accept that statement so the poacher suggested that if his handcuffs were removed he would show the lnkosi how he achieved the conversion.
Taking a live .450 cartridge he first wriggled the lead .450 projectile from its case and emptied the black powder charge for later use. Then, having borrowed a hammer, he filled the empty case with water and, placing a rusty old hexagonal nut over the primer, he hammered the case into the thick soft bark of a nearby tree.
The resulting hydraulic pressure popped the unfired .450 primer from its pocket. He then took a fired .303 case and, by the same method, popped the fired primer out. The de-primed .303 case was recovered and the bark and water flicked out.
The MartiniHenry primer was then pushed into the .303 cartridge and some of the Martini-Henry powder was poured into the case. The .450 lead projectile was hammered against a hard surface until it became elongated and thin enough to be pushed into the neck of the .303 case. The resulting projectile was overly long, but that was easily fixed by taking a knife and trimming it to an appropriate length.
“Inkosi that is how I do it! If you like you can fire it!” said the poacher proudly. Wolhuter had a very definite preference that the poacher should fire the resulting concoction. Pointing out a mark on a tree some sixty metres away, the old fellow took his dilapidated rifle and, chambering the handload, hit the mark squarely!
Wolhuter had been a keen hunter before joining the game department. His shooting did not stop then either, as there was always the need to shoot meat for the pot and to cull animals when they proved to be a pest.
In this regard he had many encounters with lions, some of them rather close calls. On one patrol a group of lions attacked his oxen during the night. Only the concerted efforts of the dogs and the fire brandishing native helpers had managed to keep the lions from killing any of the draught animals.
The next morning Wolhuter, fearing further, more costly predations, set off after the pride. Having located the big cats he crept close and took two shots. A lioness fell dead to the first shot but the second shot only wounded another lioness.
This animal came straight toward him, coincidentally rather than intentionally he believed. A small bush hid the hunter from the oncoming feline and he was confident in his ability to handle the situation, but when he attempted to chamber the third round it refused to pick up from the magazine.
Not daring to take eyes off the rapidly approaching lioness he tried again and again to chamber the cartridge. He knew that he had left camp with a full magazine.
With the arrival of the wounded lioness imminent he froze and hoped devoutly that she would not notice him and continue on her way. The cat glanced in his direction and, stopping in her tracks, she fixed Wolhuter with a fierce glare and started to growl menacingly.
He stood as if frozen and he knew without looking that his native helpers were fixed rigid themselves, not many paces behind him. The smallest movement would precipitate an attack. After what seemed a very long time the lioness suddenly resumed her trotting run.
It then occurred to the ranger that the cause of the problem was probably the fact that the magazine of his .303 had not been pressed properly home. A tap with the palm of the hand clicked the magazine into its proper place. Wolhuter then had no difficulty in dropping the lioness before she could go any further.
One Christmas Day a native farmer came to see Wolhuter and complained that during the night some lions had come and killed five of his livestock. The ranger saddled his horse and, after collecting a few of his native rangers and dogs, set off in pursuit.
The spoor led into a patch of thick bush adjacent to the small jutting outcrop of a granite Kopje. Wolhuter told his men to give him ten minutes to get in position before attempting to drive the offenders out into the open.
He proceeded to the small hill of stone and, leaving his horse, he climbed some fifty metres up the sloping face to where a rock projected out into space, offering an excellent view of the country below.
The ranger called on his men to begin the drive. He was beginning to wonder just where the lions had gotten to when he heard the rattle of loose stones on the hill side behind. He spun around to discover that the lions had inexplicably decided to ascend the hill.
A male presented a quick shot which Wolhuter took, sending the animal cascading down the steep slope and into the bush below. Another lion popped up and went tumbling down the kopje on receiving another snap shot. Then a lioness appeared almost opposite the ranger. On the impact of the bullet she tumbled down to fetch up, wounded and angry, at the base of the projecting rock on which he stood.
At this point with the roaring and raging lioness only some nine metres away Wolhuter discovered that he was out of ammunition. It was, and remained, a mystery to him how this came about, because he was always very careful to ensure that rifles had fully charged magazines.
There was nothing to do except stand very, very still and hope fervently that the lioness would continue to remain unaware of his presence and that it would succumb quickly to its wounds.
There was spare ammunition in the horse’s saddle bags and there were two ways of getting it; walk past the lioness or drop over thirteen metres to the ground below. Luckily for Wolhuter, and to his enormous relief, the lioness died from her wounds and, quickly hurdling her body, he ran down to recharge his magazine.
The ranger returned to his lookout position. He could hear a racket in the bush below as the beaters approached and eventually one of the askaris appeared and announced that two local tribesmen had been mauled.
Wolhuter hurried down to discover two men with rather bad bite wounds on their limbs. They were bleeding profusely and had stuffed the great puncture wounds with grass and leaves to try and stem the blood flow.
They had been attacked by one of the first lions that Wolhuter had shot but the lion had died before it could administer any more damage and was lying close by. The two villagers were not part of the organised beat but were from a nearby kraal, where they had been celebrating Christmas to excess with native beer and on hearing of the hunt had rushed over to join in and had managed to place themselves in the wrong place, at definitely the wrong time.
Stumbling onto the wounded lion they had defended themselves with axe and spear. In fact it was probably the spearing that had accounted for the lion. The wounded warriors assured Wolhuter that they could walk the one and half kilometres to the ranger station with the assistance of some friends. Accordingly he set off after the remaining wounded lion and its uninjured companion, despatching both in short order.
Wolhuter did not always need to have a rifle in his hands in order to find himself in an exciting situation with big game. Like most of the Great White Hunters he could list many very close escapes from death.
He shared the universal hatred of the crocodile, having witnessed many tragedies resulting from the animal’s great strength and cunning.
Returning from a long hot ride both the ranger and his horse were very thirsty. At the Sabi River Wolhuter let his mount drink its fill and when the horse had quenched its thirst and stepped back from the water he dismounted and went to take a drink himself.
On hands and knees and just in the act of lowering his lips to the water some sudden impulse made him pause. With immeasurable horror Wolhuter realized that he was staring straight into the eyes of a big crocodile that was lying just below the surface not a metre away.
Evidently it had been on the point of attacking the horse at the moment that the animal had finished its drink and stepped back. Wolhuter threw himself backwards and dashed back to snatch his rifle and place a shot into the reptile’s head.
The ranger and his askaris spent the rest of the afternoon in pursuit of the big lizard and after a hectic chase finally finished if off. The beast was just under five metres long and of very heavy girth.
Wolhuter considered that but for a slight, fresh run in the Sabi he would not have seen the crocodile. There would then have been only one, unavoidable outcome to the encounter.
Wolhuter survived the Boer War, bouts of lever, serious injuries and a lifetime of close encounters with big game. His autobiography “Memories of a Game Ranger” is worth the effort of tracking down in library or second-hand bookshop.
The final words in his book summarize the man and the era. “It was a hard life; full of risks; but we were compensated by the interesting things we saw and did”.
Now ye wouldnt blame the man if he had tainted his under wear eh!
