Part Three Safari to the Psgheti A Pleasant Outing Spoiled before Lunch

The lead elephant reaches the village and turns to face the sepoys as they drop back to the jungle edge. They fire a volley, but their military-caliber rifles do not bring down the great beast. One enterprising trooper aims for the mahout and pitches him off the elephant's neck with a single shot. The wounded and riderless elephant hesitates, as the others rumble past him, followed by Lt. von Strickland, two surviving troopers, and, bringing up the rear, one now-unemployed bodyguard, loading his musket on the run.
The sepoys with their slow-loading singleshot rifles have been at a disadvantage in the running firefight with von Strickland's men and the hunters. They are now down to only three troopers plus Havildar Humna and Lt. Sappington. As the wildebeest stampede across their front, blocking fire, they fall back into the cover of the jungle.

Suddenly, the rogue elephant decides to follow the others at a run. Unfortunately, the path he chooses takes him directly over the ramrod back of Lt. von Strickland. For the uncensored version of this picture, click here (I didn't do it; Steve has been playing too much Quake).

A lesser man would have been killed, nay pulverized, but as the fleeing safari leaves von Strickland behind with a crushed pelvis, cracked tibia, split fibula, avulsed patella, bifurcated clavicle, smashed scapula, splintered femur, fractured radius, dislocated ulna, inverted coccyx, ruptured sternum, and a severely abraded generative organ, dragging himself along the ground by his remaining teeth, he is heard to shout "Ich will die Hintergrund verdecken! Das ist nur ein Fleischwunde!"

In the murky jungle, the sepoys conserve their ammunition, but closely shadow the elephants. The Germans fire a few rounds in their direction but the thick vegetation protects them. Even though the elephants slow to a walk through the dense growth, a tree-limb smacks Brut Seifried, and he falls to the ground, stunned but unharmed. Picking himself up he hurries after the lumbering beasts. The rogue elephant suddenly decides not to follow the others into the forest.

Meanwhile, just as von Strickland thought things could not get worse, the path of the stampeding wildebeest takes them directly over his well-pounded body. The Leutnant decides that the Kaiser would not mind if he sits out the rest of the battle and tries to ferret valuable intelligence out of the English nurses later.

At the south end of the table the beaters emerge from the jungle. Sgt. Donnerwetter, in charge of the natives, surveys the field and sees only one British trooper still valiantly battling a tiger. Obviously, something has gone wrong, but he has no idea what to do. The tiger finally finishes off Trooper Howard. Bleeding from multiple wounds, it charges the line of beaters, but six spears fly out, and the tiger, already weakened from its battles, finally succumbs to the inevitable.

Wilhelm's elephants emerge from the jungle canopy, only to find the Fusiliers waiting at the ford. The sepoys have deployed in cover just inside the jungle. To reach undisputed German territory, the bombastic administrator will have to run a gauntlet of steel.

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