OF ELEPHANTS AND MEN
The commuter train ran up to London from the South Coast early each weekday morning. Most of the passengers were the typical gentlemen in pin stripe trousers and bowler hats with uniform umbrellas and rolled copies of the Times or Telegraph which they opened and hid silently behind until they hastily folded them preparing to leave the train when it reached the city. The same ones seemed to occupy the same compartment each weekday morning.
There were two exceptions in the compartment every morning. One was a small man in overalls with a cloth cap and he always carried three copies of the Daily Mirror. The other was a large man dressed in a tweed suit and a pork pie hat. He had no newspaper and throughout the journey gazed silently out of the window or read the back pages of the open papers of his fellow commuters opposite him. In that typically English way, other than cursory nods on boarding, there never seemed to be any conversation between them all.
Whilst the others were all engaged in reading papers the little man in the cloth cap would stand up and pull his copies of the Daily Mirror apart and roll the pages up into balls which he would at regular intervals throw out of the window. He would keep looking at his watch as though he was working to a set time and pattern in doing this. The rest of the compartment’s occupants were either too engrossed in reading their own papers, too reserved to ask what he was up to, or just chose to ignore him, apart from the one under the pork pie hat who was becoming increasing puzzled and agitated.
This went on for several months and pork pie hat was working himself into quite an anxiety state over it and finally could contain his curiosity no longer. He blurted out to cloth cap and overalls in a posh voice “Why ever are you doing that every day, rolling up balls of newspaper and throwing them out of the window at regular intervals?”
“Well guv,’” cloth cap responded, looking as though it was something very mundane and every day ”if It’s done regularly, it keeps the elephants down.”
“But there are no elephants in the commuter belt” protested the questioner.
“Damned effective, isn’t it Guv’” cloth cap replied.
A few weeks of silence in the train ensued then pork pie hat and tweeds opened the conversation again. “I used to catch elephants in Greenland” he stated.
“They don’t have elephants in Greenland” said cloth cap and overalls.
“Not now” replied pork pie hat “I captured the lot.”
“How ever did you do that?”
“I’d go to a remote area of Greenland where they lived and set up a blackboard. Then I would chalk on it two plus two equals five. The elephants would come along and stand and puzzle over this. While they stood there, from a safe distance I would view them through the wrong end of my binoculars. They now appeared so tiny I could pick them up with tweezers and drop them into a jam jar.”
“Amazing! That’s amazing” exclaimed cloth cap.
One day at the London Zoo a new companion was introduced to one of the resident elephants. The new elephant asked the other one how she came to be in the Zoo. Nelly explained that her parents had been in a circus touring the South Coast and had escaped and hidden out in woodland close to the commuter line. Unfortunately, Nelly’s parents died and she was left an orphan and taken to the London Zoo.
Jumbo asked Nelly “What did your parents die of?”
Nelly explained that the authorities suspected foul play and an autopsy was performed on her parents. The autopsy found that they died of newsprint poisoning but no one was ever brought to justice.
“How very sad,” said Jumbo looking sorrowful.
“Where have you come from?” asked Nelly.
“I’ve come all the way from Greenland.” came the reply.
“Greenland!” echoed Nelly, ”I was never told me that we had relatives in Greenland. How on earth did you get here?”
Jumbo looked at her warily and replied “I don’t think you are going to believe this…”
About the author
Guy Pratt is a retired octogenarian second hand bookseller who enjoys gardening, long walks with his dog and travel. He gravitated into the book trade after earlier years in farming, the army Intelligence Corps and the civil service.
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