Free Born Wild by Tony Fitzjohn

for the herbivores. They failed to make much of an impact on the elephant and rhino population: that privilege fell to the AK47-armed Somalis in the years to come.
    There was also licensed ‘sport’ hunting in Kora until it was banned in 1977 and often the commercial hunters would come and visit us if they were old friends of George’s or even if they weren’t. I can see little justification for game hunting today, but in those days there were many good people who had lived their lives in the bush, hunting on foot and to a certain extent protectingthe wildlife as their livelihood. Many of the early game wardens, like David Sheldrick, Bill Woodley and George himself, had been hunters before joining the national parks or Game Department. These visits from hunters were often the only contact that we would have with the outside world for weeks at a time and they were usually welcome. Most who turned up at camp had done us the courtesy of learning our tastes so would bring supplies of whisky and beer with them – a sure-fire way to be invited back.
    Other than that, it was very quiet at Kora. Until Terence cut five hours off the journey by hacking a back road in, it was a nightmarish ten-hour journey to Kora from Nairobi unless you had a plane. This kept visitors at bay and ensured a peaceful camp. George would occasionally be dragged off to Naivasha by Joy, or to Hola, two hundred miles away, by the council – our landlords – leaving Terence and me in camp. Before Kora was made a national reserve it was a tribal trustland and George had to pay £750 a year to rent it. This didn’t leave much for Terence to pay his crews or for any of us to have any pocket money. We always did it for love. To this day, I have never managed to get the Trust to pay me – I live in Trust property and drive Trust cars but have nothing of my own. I feel genuinely privileged to have lived the life of my choice and find it much easier to fundraise because I can say that none of the money is spent on paying me.
    Terence and I didn’t have much to say to each other, not that he ever said much to anyone. He was a grumpy old sod who disapproved of me and thought I encouraged George in his wilder schemes. He was right: I loved George’s wilder schemes. But I think the key problem between us was that we were both competing for George’s affection. A self-taught engineer, architect and road-builder, Terence didn’t drink or smoke. He loved elephants and knew a great deal about their habits, and he was brilliant on plants and regeneration cycles, but none of that made him anyeasier to live with. When we found ourselves in camp alone together I would go on long walks around Kora, ostensibly in search of the lions but really to get away from Terence and enjoy the bush. I bitterly regret it now. He was a good man and I should have treated him better.
    I would often climb to the top of Kora Rock, at 450 metres above sea level the highest point in Kora, from which you could see hundreds of square miles of real wilderness. The bush has a strange rusty hue that comes from iron in the ground. It can look dramatically red in the right light. The course of the river stands out as a slash of bright green in the distance with the far bank rising away to higher ground. George had asked Terence to build the camp at the foot of Kora Rock for a reason, not just for the view. He judged correctly that it was excellent lion country and easily defendable. If Christian could mate with wild lionesses, they could take control of the Rock, George thought, and it would make a great place to bring up a family. There were all sorts of nooks and crannies where cubs could be hidden safely, lairs where lions could hide and rest by day. I often took Christian up there on walks with Lisa and Juma as our relationship developed. It was obvious that the more we went there, the more he thought of it as his. He was not the only one. Mine was a