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only stopping when I caught Françoise’s disapproving glance. I had believed the electric boma was escape-proof. The experts had told me exactly that, and it never occurred to me that they might be wrong.
    David’s bedroom was across the lawn and I ran over. ‘Get everyone up. The elephants have broken out. We’ve got to find them – fast!’
    Within minutes I had scrambled to raise a search party and we gathered at the boma , astounded at the damage. The large tambotie tree was history, its toppled upper section tenuously connected to the splintered stump by a strip of its bark oozing poisonous sap. The fence looked as though a division of Abrams tanks had thundered through it.
    Standing next to the shattered tree was the astounded Ovambo guard who had witnessed the breakout. He pointed us in the direction he had last seen the elephants heading.
    Almost at running speed, we followed the spoor to the boundary. We were too late. The border fence was down and the animals had broken out.
    My worst fears were confirmed. But even so, how on earth had the animals got through an electrified fence pushing 8,000 volts so effortlessly?
    We soon found out. Judging by their tracks, they had reached the eight-foot fence, milled around for a while and
then backtracked into the reserve until – uncannily – they found the energizer that powers the fence. How they knew this small, nondescript machine hidden in a thicket half a mile away was the source of current baffled us. But somehow they did, trampling it like a tin can and then returning to the boundary, where the wires were now dead. They then shouldered the concrete-embedded poles out of the ground like matchsticks.
    Their tracks pointed north. There was no doubt that they were heading home to Mpumalanga 600 miles away. To the only home they knew; even though it was a home that no longer wanted them – and where, in all probability, they would be shot. That’s assuming game rangers or hunters didn’t get them along the way first.
    As daybreak filled the eastern sky a motorist three miles away spotted the herd loping up the road towards him. At first he thought he was seeing things. Elephants? There aren’t meant to be any elephants here …
    Half a mile or so later he saw the flattened fence and put two and two together. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to call, giving us valuable updated information.
    The chase was on. I gunned my Land Rover into gear as the trackers leapt into the back.
    We had barely driven out of the reserve when, to my astonishment, we saw a group of men parked on the shoulder of the dirt road, dressed in khaki and camouflage hunting gear and bristling with heavy-calibre rifles. They were as hyped as a vigilante gang and their excitement was palpable. You could smell the bloodlust.
    I stopped and got out of the vehicle, the trackers and David behind me.
    ‘What’re you guys doing?’
    One looked at me, eyes darting with anticipation. He shifted his rifle, caressing the butt.
    ‘We’re going after elephants.’
    ‘Oh yeah? Which ones?’
    ‘They’ve bust out of Thula, man. We’re gonna shoot them before they kill someone – they’re fair game now.’
    I stared at him for several seconds, grappling to absorb this new twist to my escalating problems. Then cold fury set in.
    ‘Those elephants belong to me,’ I said taking two paces forward to emphasize my point. ‘If you put a bullet anywhere near them you are going to have to deal with me. And when we’re finished, I’m going to sue your arse off.’
    I paused, breathing deeply.
    ‘Now show me your hunting permit,’ I demanded, knowing he couldn’t possibly have obtained one before dawn.
    He stared at me, his face reddening with belligerence.
    ‘They’ve escaped, OK? They can be legally shot. We don’t need your permission.’
    David was standing next to me, fists clenched. I could sense his outrage. ‘You know, David,’ I said loudly, ‘just look at this lot. Out there is a