Elephant Company: The Inspiring Story of an Unlikely Hero and the Animals Who Helped Him Save Lives in World War II

In this chapter, the author recounts the first meeting between Williams and the incomparable Bandoola: “Williams reached out to pat Bandoola’s trunk and felt a very odd sensation. A meeting of souls. He was certain that a current of mutual recognition had passed between him and the elephant. [...] It was destiny” (69). Bandoola’s uzi, Po Toke, had initiated a new kind of training program for Bandoola, “built as much on love as it was on logic” (70). Rather than breaking a wild elephant’s spirit, Po Toke brought Bandoola in as a calf—his mother, a logging traveler, had mated with a wild elephant—and taught him with rewards rather than punishment. Bandoola himself displays remarkable intelligence, mimicking his mother's moves when given commands for inspection, for example. He is named “after a courageous Burmese military hero who had fought the British in the 1820s” (71). Today, the name is typically spelled “Bandula.”

The author also relates the dangers that a captive calf faces. Mothers are often be sent out on logging expeditions directly after giving birth, so a calf might not get enough food and nurture to thrive. Most logging companies did not see the point in investing in a calf, as it takes at least 20 years for them to be physically capable of engaging in the hard work of logging. Thus, most calves died of malnutrition, neglect, or attacks from wild animals. But Po Toke convinces the workers at his camp that Bandoola is special; he even consults an astrologist—popular sources of wisdom in Burmese culture—“hoping to have Bandoola designated a white elephant” (73). The Buddha had come to earth on a white elephant, so these rare creatures are considered spiritually exalted and were revered. For his part, Williams also recognizes the special nature of Bandoola, and he sees in Po Toke’s methods an escape from the brutal practices of the past. Unfortunately, just as he begins to realize the possibilities, “it was time to report back to Harding” (75).

Williams returns to base camp to find Harding is not the adversary he once was. After an argument over the death of the elephant Pin Wa, wherein Williams discloses his autopsy results that clearly show the animal was overworked, Harding softens toward the new recruit. Impressed with his skill and interest in elephants, he invites him for gin before the customary whiskey, and they engage in mutually enjoyable conversation. However, Harding becomes quite intoxicated and falls into the campfire, burning his arm badly. When Williams tries to assist him, Harding roughly shoves him away, shouting, “Do you insinuate that I am drunk?” (78). The fragile truce is taken up again once Harding sobers up and needs help dressing his injured arm.

Harding finally suggests that Williams might be the man to undertake “a serious study of elephant management” (79), which had heretofore been left up to the Burmese uzis. Williams enthusiastically agrees, seeing the opportunity to meld “[h]is ambition and passion,” as he could climb the ranks within the company while ensuring more humane treatment for the elephants (79). Still, he is not naïve about the challenges he will face: “He knew he wouldn’t change their minds”—or the brutal practice of kheddaring—“until he could prove that his plan was financially beneficial” (79). Thus, he draws up a detailed plan to prove that not only raising and training calves would be financially lucrative in the long run, but that this method also would produce better workers, more “trustworthy” than their wild counterparts (80). Harding had agreed to back Williams’s proposals with the company; now Williams must trust him to follow through.

Williams again returns to Harding’s camp, where the older man complains that Williams is getting too much mail. It seems that Williams is “corresponding with every young woman he knew from London to Rangoon” (81), and all his replies are making less room for Harding’s English treats, like the blue cheese of the chapter title. While Williams expects Harding’s gruff nature, he is surprised by his request—nay, order—that they play cricket and horseshoes. Their tentative friendship continues to grow.

Williams also takes Harding to Bandoola’s camp, wanting the boss to be impressed with the calf, who has quickly grown into a strapping bull. While there, however, Williams is distracted by a bull from another camp who is suffering from an untreated abscess “twice the size of my fist” (83). Fearing Harding’s criticism, Williams tackles the wound himself, draining and cleaning it. Later, Po Toke—the injured bull’s primary handler—appears before Harding, kneeling in supplication, and Williams kneels with him “an extraordinary act for a British man here” (83). Harding reveals that the reason the bull had not been treated was its reputation for violence and is amazed that Williams was able to get close to such a dangerous elephant. It is becoming clear that “Williams could get away with liberties around elephants that no other man could” (83). Still, Harding excoriates Po Toke and warns Williams not to trust him; Toke’s desire for Burmese independence endangers the colonial order.

When Williams returns to his jungle territory, his health is compromised by several bouts of malaria. Harding recalls him from the jungle to take a trip to company headquarters in Rangoon. The boss informs Williams that he will be on leave for a few months, replaced by a man named Millie, and that Williams’s territory will be expanding. However, Harding is concerned about the younger man’s health, waking him up the morning after a “marathon card game” and ordering him to drink a glass of “Champagne and stout,” claiming it would “[d]o you a world of good” (85). At the close of the chapter, Williams notes that this “would be the last order he gave me as my No. 1” (85).

One year into his tenure with the logging company, Williams has learned to embrace—or endure, depending on the weather—the cycle of the seasons, as “the rhythms of forest life were becoming the patterns of his own” (86). He learns quickly that large predators are less of a concern than “the repulsive creatures that flourished in the rains” (87) during monsoon season, including the mosquitoes that carry the often deadly malaria parasite. Otherwise, Williams begins to see the forest as a mystical place, filled with the spirits the locals called nats.

He also receives good news: “He had passed his formal probationary period, and elephant school was granted a trial run” (89). While Harding has not yet returned, Williams knows he owes him gratitude for this turn of events. Williams sets about formalizing the elephant school, establishing protocols and timelines for the training of calves. Young Burmese boys are to be paired with calves, training and working with them for 40 years or more. The training emphasizes reward rather than punishment, and even though the calves are taken from their mothers far younger than would be the case in the wild, Williams knows that they still have a better chance of survival in elephant school than in traditional camp circumstances. He begins to observe and admire the social bonds between elephants and their ability to remember each other over long periods. Po Toke becomes an instrumental instructor in elephant school, though he worries about Bandoola, from whom he is apart for the first time: the young elephant is becoming an adult bull, which marks the onset of mating instincts—and the inevitable fights that accompany the contest over females.

Williams and some uzis from the camp are searching for Bandoola: the elephant has gone into musth—a hormonal frenzy that accompanies mating—and has been missing for several days. Everyone is concerned because bulls in musth are dangerous to themselves, other elephants, and humans: “Impervious to pain, intractable, and reckless, bull elephants in musth go berserk with their own virility” (97). Captive elephants are restrained during these times to keep them from harming themselves or others—this would affect the logging companies' bottom line—and the workers are particularly concerned about Bandoola.

When they find him, however, it appears as if the peak of his musth is over, though he still “maintained an enormous erection” (99) and appears to be admiring a large stone as though it is “a receptive female elephant” (100). The men guide him back to camp, on which journey Williams is delighted to discover that Bandoola has found a wild female with which to mate. He “was enchanted. The intercourse lacked the brutishness that he had witnessed in some other animals,” as if they fell “in love with each other” (100). Nevertheless, the plan to trim Bandoola’s dangerous tusks moves forward once they return to camp. Po Toke and the other uzis chain the tusker to a tree, and Po Toke begins to saw at the tip of the elephant’s tusks. Bandoola reacts immediately and ferociously, snapping the chains and charging at the tree until it crashes on top of him. Williams and the others are horrified, thinking Bandoola must be dead or seriously injured. However, it turns out that he is unscathed except for a few scrapes. Still, “[t]he matter of tipping his tusks was never revisited” (102).

After the school is firmly established, Williams also commissions an elephant hospital where he becomes the primary veterinarian: “without a licensed animal doctor for hundreds of miles, Williams worked on them all” (103). He begins to earn trust with the elephants, as they teach him about “love, courage, and trust” themselves (104). His medical treatments are often ad hoc—antibiotics are not widely available at this time—but he attends to each elephant with care. Several incidents strike him deeply.

The first occurs when he has to care for an elephant, Ma Chaw, who has been attacked by a tiger. This is a tricky proposition because, though elephant hide is extraordinarily thick, wounds can fester beneath the tough outer hide when it is perforated. Thus, Williams has to lance open her wounds to treat the underlying infection—certainly an uncomfortable process. But, over time, Ma Chaw accepts his intrusions without complaint, and she begins to heal. After a short time away from her, Williams returns to check on her progress, and at the sound of his voice, she runs to him. Then, she “did something odd: She lowered her rump to the ground, with her back toward him” (105). Williams wonders if this is an act of submission or gratitude. Later, he discovers an unhealed wound on her back. Perhaps she is signaling to him that she still required his care.

Another event that affects him regarding “trust and courage,” as in the chapter’s title, concerns Bandoola’s mother, who is now caring for her new three-month-old calf. The two have gotten stuck in the river during the monsoon season, and the waters are rapid and rising. Williams watches helplessly, knowing that he can do nothing to rescue them. He watches Ma Shwe repeatedly pluck her baby from the water with her trunk, then try to keep her above the water. But the swirling rapids are eventually too much for her. She heaves the baby up onto a precarious ledge before she is swept toward even fiercer rapids. Williams hopes that Ma Shwe can find purchase at the other side of the river, and soon, he hears her trumpeting calls. She was returning for her calf, reassuring the baby with her calls. Williams retires for the night, wondering how Ma Shwe would pull her calf up to safety. But he need not have worried, as “mother and calf [were] reunited” (109) in the morning. The men of the camp “christened her [the calf] Ma Yay Yee. Miss Laughing Water” (109).

Another incident involves the elephant Mahoo Nee, who is accidentally blinded by poisonous vines. Her fate is far from certain: how would she be able to feed herself or move about the jungle without accident? It quickly becomes apparent that her young male calf, Bo Lan Pya, will not leave her side; his name means “Guide Man” (111). They are sent to the equivalent of a retirement home, where Guide Man helps his mother to thrive: “Her bond with Guide Man was a revelation” (111). Usually, young calves his age wander from their mothers, exploring and feeding independently, but Guide Man always stays close. Tragically, while Mahoo Nee works to push some logs into the river—swollen and treacherous due to the monsoon rains—Guide Man drowns trying to reach her. Her plaintive cries belie her “shock and grief,” Williams believes (112). She dies three weeks later. “The cause of death,” Williams writes in his log, is “obvious” (112).

Williams begins to grow restless in the jungle: after five years, he “was a true jungle man,” and “he began to take stock of his life as a whole” (113). Most of his friends are already married and settled down, but he has hardly even dated. He cannot hope to support a family on his salary until he rises through the ranks, which usually takes a decade or more. He starts to think he will not make it to that point, such is his loneliness. He visits prostitutes and brothels but refuses to take a Burmese companion who would—according to the mores and prejudices of the time—eventually be cast off in favor of a suitable wife.

Instead, he builds himself a makeshift family consisting of some favored villagers and, mostly, wild and domesticated animals. So, he stays, knowing that “[h]e needed the elephants and they needed him” (116). This is especially fortunate for Bandoola, who returns to camp that year badly wounded from a fight with a wild bull—who fared even worse as Williams discovers his bloody, fatal trail. Williams stays close by Bandoola’s side, patiently nursing him back to health; it is far from certain that he will survive as he develops serious infections and other complications. Williams acknowledges that the bull is an excellent patient, though “it seemed Bandoola felt shamed by the erosion of his magnificence” (117). Eventually, Bandoola is better, and Williams reluctantly allows him to return to his logging work.