The moment of impact still returns in nightmares. The cow suddenly fills my headlights – facing right, oblivious. I can do nothing but grip the wheel as it looms squarely in front of me. I was a young teacher in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, driving a school minibus, with 12 students and two other teachers, on a Christmas trip to Victoria Falls. The long journey skirted the wild terrain of Hwange national park. We had planned to arrive during daylight, but when disaster struck – just 40km from our destination – darkness had fallen and everybody but me was asleep.
Locals will tell you that a newcomer to Africa driving at night is an accident waiting to happen. Years later, though, I still don’t know what I could have done differently. I wasn’t driving fast. The cattle careered down an embankment from the left and spilled on to the road. I swerved around one but couldn’t avoid the second. It was like hitting a wall. The impact smashed the headlamps and windscreen and crushed the gears. We slewed to a halt in darkness, dragging the cow underneath us.
I rushed out of my seat, getting everybody out and checking they were OK. There was glass everywhere but, other than minor scrapes to me and the other two teachers in the front, nobody was hurt. The cow was not so lucky. It was jammed under the front of the wreck, groaning. We heaved the vehicle off the stricken beast and shoved it on to the verge, out of harm’s way.
With two torches between us, we collected enough brushwood to build a warning fire. Beyond the flames the bush was impenetrably black. Insects whizzed around and cannoned off us. We tried to keep our spirits up, but the intermittent lowing of the cow was a horrible rebuke. I was desperate to put it out of its misery. But with no mobile phones, or other means of summoning help, all we could do was sit and wait.
After an hour, a safari-suited farmer pulled up. I asked whether he could do anything for the cow. He examined it carefully and shook his head. Fetching a handgun from his car, he squatted down and fired a shot into its skull. He then drove off, promising to alert the police. Twenty minutes later an army truck appeared and agreed to take our group to Victoria Falls. I stayed behind to wait for the police, along with another teacher and one student who spoke both local languages. With the others gone, the pulsing chorus of frogs and insects seemed to double in volume. We felt very alone.
Another hour had passed when we first heard the cowbell. I suggested, unconvincingly, that this was just some spasm of the dead animal’s nervous system. But then came an unmistakable moo. Struck at 75km/h, dragged under a minibus then – apparently – shot in the head: how could it still be alive? Today I wonder about that shot. We watched aghast as, inch by inch, the cow got to its feet. First it raised its head, then it levered itself on to its forelegs, and finally it heaved its gaunt frame upright. At last it stood on all fours, head hanging.
Then more horror: whooping calls announced that hyenas had smelled the blood of the cow. Would they tear it apart before our eyes? Our torch beams picked out glowing eyes and two menacing silhouettes in the road. I shouted and threw sticks from the fire. They loped off but we knew they weren’t far away.
By the time the police arrived, around midnight, the cow had gone. After standing immobile for what seemed an eternity, it had limped off the road and disappeared into the bush. The police thought I’d been drinking when I described what had happened. Only the blood and tyre marks convinced them otherwise.
The morning brought a tricky phone call to my headmaster and a tow truck to retrieve the minibus. The many wrecks in the police vehicle pound attested to the dangers of animals on the road; one mangled pickup had hit an elephant, killing both animal and driver. Over my next two years in Zimbabwe I heard of many such accidents. We had been lucky.
Back home three days later, I went down with a high fever. The doctor initially diagnosed malaria but, when the tests came back negative, confirmed I was suffering from delayed shock. I never found out what happened to the cow, but I can’t believe it gave up easily.
