Stalking a Wounded Lion

NEAR-FATAL ENCOUNTER # 12

The full version of this fascinating story is found elsewhere in Sleeping Between The Sheikhs

While I have known many noteworthy hunter/conservationists, killing animals and mounting their heads as trophies are activities I eschew, and sentiments I have come to abhor. So, the last hunting safari I ever organized was in 1984, when I arranged a grand hunt in Central African Republic for two Saudi sheikhs plus their retinue of ten. A land-locked-country with Southern Sudan at its eastern border, C.A.R. (as it is known) is a former French Colony that gained independence in 1960.

I had selected and hired for the safari four internationally-renowned professional hunters, the Professional Lion Hunter among them being a fearless Belgian, Willy Blomme.

Willy was a balding Belgian with a walnut tan, an impressive black handlebar moustache and a fun-loving nature, living life to the fullest and always teasing the other Professional Hunters mercilessly. Willy was a famed lion-hunter. His hunting attire was specific to lion-hunting and, dressed for the hunt, Willy cut a bizarre figure. Bald-headed under the hot African sun, he wore a red bandana around his brow to keep the sweat out of his eyes, as if his bushy black eyebrows would not suffice.

Dispensing with a shirt, he hunted bare-chested, perhaps as a nod to Belgian machismo. A pair of very brief khaki bush shorts was encircled with a wide cowboy-style leather gunbelt with loops for large bullets and a holstered .45 caliber Colt revolver. Instead of the typical suede safari boots (a.k.a. brothel-creepers, in safari parlance), he wore athletic trainers to facilitate the necessity of a sudden sprint. Willy’s outfit was completed with a black .500 Jeffrey double-barreled rifle slung over his shoulder, the barrels cut short and the barrel end topped with a centrally-placed pink plastic fluorescent sighting bead. About the size of a cigar, the .500 Jeffery cartridge was the most powerful cartridge available up until the Second World War, and it packs a hefty punch when hunting thick-skinned and dangerous game.

The rifle’s short barrels and the pink fluorescent front sight piqued my curiosity, and I asked Willy about this. He twirled one end of his impressive handlebar mustache and studied me for a moment with an amused smile. When it came, his answer was simple, and I was surprised I had not already figured it out. ‘When I need to shoot a charging beast, it will be so close there is no time to aim. I only need to know where the end of the barrel is, as I bring it up… so, the pink front sight!’

And the Colt .45 revolver? His explanation for this unorthodox armament always varied. Upon noticing my curiosity on the first day, he explained with a grin that the Colt was pour l’entretien ménager (for housekeeping). On another occasion, he told me with unconcealed amusement that it was actually pour expédier les malheureux (to dispatch the unfortunate ones); various other elucidations that passed his lips included balayer les débris (to sweep the debris), or pour encourager les fainéants (to encourage slackers), and donner le coup de grâce (to deliver the fatal blow)…. this last having the most semblance of truth.

I went out one morning with Sheikh Saleh and Willy, whose eyes always sparkled at the mere mention of lions, and who had clearly identified the direction from which last night’s roaring had come. We drove off and soon came across a Cape buffalo carcass, stopping the car a hundred yards short and stalking the rest of the distance on foot until we were crouched behind the trunk of a large fallen tree, only twenty yards from the dead animal. Lying on its side and with a belly bloated by accumulating gas, the rank smell of the buff’s rotting flesh filled our nostrils.

Nothing stirred. Or so it seemed. Suddenly, a twitch of tawny fur moved behind the buff’s swollen belly, followed by a deep purring sound. Willy motioned for Saleh to get ready. Without warning, a lion stood up and looked fixedly in our direction, a sizeable mature male, although C.A.R. lions lack the full dark mane of East Africa’s magnificent specimens. Saleh took aim just behind the point of the lion’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Instantly, the lion grunted, leapt two feet vertically into the air and took off at an impressive run, evidently hit hard but not gravely wounded. ‘Merde,’ exclaimed Willy, then ‘Sheikh, your hunt is over. I will call on the radio for a car to take you back to camp.’ Saleh was visibly dismayed and angry at himself for wounding the lion. But he accepted Willy’s instruction, and patiently awaited the car’s arrival to take him back to camp.

Willy asked if I would like to stay, and I impulsively agreed, not quite thinking it through. The car left to go back to camp, and Willy and I were left alone. ‘This is where the fun starts,’ Willy began, ‘tracking a wounded lion through dense bush.’ He almost seemed pleased at this turn of events, and he became quite excited. ‘Andrew,’ he continued, ‘you will do exactly as I say. Exactly. Yes?’ Of course, I had no choice. My heart was pumping so hard, I had to sit down on the grass. ‘What,’ I said deliberately, ‘are YOU going to do now, Willy?’ His reply confirmed my fears. ‘WE are going to follow the lion up on foot and kill it.’ Ay caramba, I did not sign up for this! Was I not the host, who should right now be lounging in camp with the others, sipping a gin & tonic before lunch and having my every whim catered to by the fawningly attentive staff? Apparently not. The images of the hour that followed will be with me all the days of my life.

With adrenalin coursing through our bodies, Willy and I took off in the direction the lion had disappeared, moving at a fast trot across the open ground and following the blood spoor. I remember thinking, was the lion wounded badly enough that it might die before we even reached it? Or maybe the blood trail might end, and we might lose the trail and then be ambushed by an angry lion. Come on Andrew, I thought, pull yourself together! Blood or no blood? After a half-mile or so, the terrain began to change from occasional trees and scrub bush to large areas of tall grass. Great.

Cautiously and soundlessly, Willy stalked along the edge of the grassy plain, looking for the telltale blood-spattered grass where the lion would have entered this perfect place of concealment. I followed hesitantly, my head on a swivel, looking anxiously in every direction and convinced that the beast would ambush us and leap on me from behind. Did I mention that I was completely unarmed, save for a small pocketknife? After several minutes, a tellingly whispered ‘Aha’ from Willy announced he had found what he sought. ‘Fresh,’ he announced rather unnecessarily, ‘very fresh. Stay right behind me and keep silent’. Crap.

All of us encounter circumstances in life where we find ourselves in situations from which we cannot seem to extricate ourselves. But life or death decisions are in a wholly different category. The next few minutes dragged interminably. Slowly following the blood trail, we silently crept through the tall grass which had been slightly parted by the lion’s passage. The swishing noise the grass made as we passed seemed ridiculously loud. Pausing at a sizeable pool of blood, Willy whispered that the lion was probably gut-shot, a painful wound that would make him very angry. More good news. We continued on, each in a half-crouch, and I became aware of Willy’s breathing. Or my breathing. Or something’s breathing. It was loud. More like panting.

Willy stretched his arm out to motion me to stay still. He parted a few grass stems in front of his face and there on the other side of a twenty-foot clearing lay the panting lion, quite obviously in grave distress. He noticed Willy immediately and was up and charging at us in a second, with a terrifying roar. Willy stood up at once, raised his rifle and loosed off two shots in quick succession, the leaping lion dropping just six feet away from where Willy stood. To be certain, he aimed and put a third shot into the lion’s chest, before turning toward me with a huge grin on his face. ‘That’s a lion hunt’, he announced with pride, ‘now let’s get back to camp and have lunch.’ But first I had to sit down for quite a few minutes, as my legs had started to quiver.

That evening, Willy relayed every detail of the hunt for the wounded lion, relishing the awe of the Saudis as they listened intently. Every so often, he would pause and turn to me to say ‘Isn’t that right, Andrew?’ Looking back on it, I think Willy mainly asked me to accompany him so he would have me bear witness to his valor; he was certainly a very brave man. One would not think that lion meat would be very good to eat, so I was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted at dinner that evening.

I could not help thinking about what a close call it had been, how the result could have been very different; such a thin line in Africa between being the eater and being the eaten.