The morning dispensary had closed; John was off hunting meat, and the children were playing quietly. Whispering a prayer of thanks, Beth had just laid her tired body down for a short nap. It seemed she had barely closed her eyes when the rhythmic ringing of an elephant bell outside the tent began to insinuate itself into her dreams. She was reluctantly awakened by the increasing sound of the chattering villagers, gathered in a curious crowd.
"Yes? Come in," Beth called, hurriedly pulling on the clothes she'd discarded only moments before. The ayah was scratching on the tent flap, apologizing profusely for having interrupted memsahib's rest.
"I am very, very sorry, Memsahib," the nurse said in her heavily accented English, poking her head into the tent, "but it seems that there is a very urgent elephant here. Yes, a very sick elephant, and the mahout is saying that he is the rajah's most important hunting elephant, and he is begging the doctor sahib to look at this most painful hurt foot."
Taken aback, to say the least, Beth stopped lacing her boot to stare at the ayah.
"An elephant! My goodness! I can't treat an elephant! Why in the world would he bring an elephant here? Tell the mahout to take him to one of their own people who can care for animals!"
"I am again begging your pardon, Memsahib," the ayah earnestly replied, "but the mahout is most insisting that he must speak to the doctor sahiba, and that the ones who care for animals in his city are fools, worse than fools! And this is the prince's most especial favorite elephant, and the rajah has decreed that the mahout may not return home until the elephant has been treated. He is begging me to bring you to him."
"Ok, all right," Beth sighed, donning her topi with resignation and shaking her head, "but I don't know what I can do for an elephant! Oh, and Ayah, please go get Gladys. She needs to see this."
When Gladys arrived, running swiftly on her gangly eight-year-old legs, she found quite a scene. The great bull elephant rose like a gray mountain in the midst of the crowd of fascinated villagers, while her mother and the mahouti, dwarfed by the huge beast, stood in front of him, arguing with great animation. They were the same size; the tiny white woman and the small, dark-skinned barefoot man. He was clad only in a loincloth and a turban, as was traditional for the mahout, or elephant boy, who was the personal trainer, best friend, and closest thing to a family that domesticated elephants had. The two were arguing in Hindustani, and the boy was pleading with Beth not to send them away.
"For the rajah has told me not to return until the elephant has been treated by the doctor sahib, for he is a favorite with the entire palace, and most especially well-mannered. I, myself, trained him, and he is indeed a most marvelous beast, smarter than any other elephant, and as gentle and biddable as a child."
By way of demonstration, he had the animal kneel, then sit up on his hind legs, lifting his trunk into the air and trumpeting. This, in turn, made the villagers squeal and run in different directions, like an anthill that had just been kicked. Gladys stood stock still in amazement, watching while the mahout ordered the elephant to lift him onto his back with his trunk, then gently set him down again. The great pachyderm performed these tasks at a single word or gesture from his trainer, in spite of the obvious pain his injury caused. He seemed sweet natured indeed, and very gentle, although he towered above Gladys, three times as big as a house, and had tusks that were as long as she was tall. She sidled up next to him and began softly stroking the wrinkled, dusty, leathery skin. She didn't flinch when his trunk came seeking her acquaintance, snuffling her all over. It kind of tickled, and left dirty slime marks, but she just laughed.
The wound was on his right front leg, a raw and ugly, suppurating sore, and the mahout explained that it had happened on a tiger hunt. The rajah had been riding him through a strip of jungle in which a storm had broken down a number of trees. The sharp end of a fallen tree had caught the elephant's leg as he was thundering by with his long, swinging stride. It had torn the tough skin and left a splinter in the flesh, and in the heat of the hunt had not been noticed until later. The mahout had removed a large splinter, but the wound had begun to fester in spite of his ministrations.
The huge patient was so docile and in such obvious pain that Beth finally acquiesced, spreading out her medical kit and telling Gladys to run go get her a basin of potassium permanganate solution. Gladys knew exactly how to prepare it, and by the time she returned, trying not to slop the bright purple liquid over the sides of the basin, Beth had begun probing the wound. She was talking softly to the elephant, and gently patting his massive leg with one hand, while the other deftly wielded a pair of long forceps. With a small cry of triumph, she slowly extracted a four-inch splinter, and bloody pus began to ooze out of the fist-sized wound.
She then filled a foot-long copper syringe with the solution from Gladys' bowl and began squirting the disinfectant in a steady stream into the center of the wound. She continued to syringe the opening, cleaning out the gore, and effectively cauterizing the surface, thus discouraging the flies that had been driving the animal to distraction. Gladys faithfully clutched the basin and watched the proceedings with wonder, amazed that the elephant moved not a muscle; only his rolling eyes and twitching trunk gave evidence of his discomfort.
The ayah was sent to fetch some ointment from the dispensary. After lavishly smearing it on the sore leg, Beth packed the rest in a small pot, and gave it to the grateful mahout, instructing him to apply it twice a day, and to return in the morning for a check up.
For seven mornings thereafter, Beth tended her huge patient. Since it was too far for them to return home each day, the mahout and his charge camped outside the village in a small clearing down by the river. Nothing in the jungle can hurt a full grown bull elephant, and the boy was completely safe sleeping curled up between the great forelegs of the slumbering pachyderm.
"Hathi," the children called him, for that is Hindustani for elephant, and they were completely fascinated by everything about him. Hathi, in turn, developed an obsession with Beth, for she had taken away the terrible pain in his leg, and had touched him with gentleness and love. He had tumbled trunk over tail in love with her, all eight thousand pounds of him, and he followed her everywhere. If she stopped moving for a moment, he would reach out his great trunk and wrap it around her waist the original elephant hug. She'd slap it and say, in an indulgent tone, "Now, be a good boy and let go, do!" He would reluctantly comply by lumbering back and releasing her, but nothing could keep him from trotting devotedly after the object of his adoration wherever she went.
Nothing, that is, except the prospect of a bath.
Every morning, after his treatment, Gladys and the other children crowded around, hoping to be one of the lucky few who were lifted onto the elephant's back by his long, snakelike trunk, and carried down to the river. His back was big and flat, and warm, and the bristly hair scratched their bare legs, but oh! it was glorious to be up so high. Trooping down to the riverbank, they were led by the mahout and surrounded by the other children, and when they got there, they all played in the water for hours. The squirming pile of delighted children laughed and screeched when Hathi lifted his trunk high in the air and showered them with the warm water. It was a rare treat, for normally they were forbidden to swim in the river, on account of the vicious muggars, the man-eating crocodiles that lurked in the shallows, and the pythons that dropped in deadly coils from the overhanging trees. But an elephant, in all his great gray gargantuan glory, can crush a muggar's skull as easily as a ripe cantaloupe, so the predators kept their distance, and the children played freely through the long hot days of that magical week.
At last the wound was healed to Beth's satisfaction; she gave her adoring patient a clean bill of health and sent him on his way. The children took one last ride on their Hathi and then he was gone, plodding disconsolately down the dusty road. The mahout rode astride the great neck, calling back effusive thanks and promises of everlasting service.
Gladys sat in the dirt and cried, heartbroken.
A few weeks later, by way of appreciation, the rajah sent several bolts of the finest sari cloth, embroidered with gold and silver, and flashing with tiny round mirrors.
But Gladys remained inconsolable and moped about with a long face until her ayah took her to task.
"Oh, certainly sure, the hathi is gone from here, back to his home where he is needed, but he is most assuredly not gone from your heart. Do you think, my little one, that simply because he is not here in this place, do you think you cannot visit that most especial place in your heart where he is still dwelling? That place where you are still laughing and playing with him?"
The ayah wiped the streaks of tears from Gladys' grubby cheeks with the edge of her sari, and continued in a softer tone.
"Listen to me, my child when you love something, you can never truly lose it. This is the truth I am telling you, and you would do well to learn it, and smile and be happy again. For truly, once you have wrapped someone in the love of your heart, and have memories to visit, nothing can take that one from you not death, not distance, not even a broken heart. Now, come, stop this great tamarsha and eat your curry, for it is getting cold. And give your ayah a smile, for I want my sunshine back again." Gladys took the wise words to heart, and was soon herself again, laughing and clowning and fighting with her brothers.
And to this day, the image of an elephant reminds her of childhood laughter and sun on the river, and of how the wisdom of a simple woman helped heal her first broken heart.