Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke - Random House (2014)
There are very few things I care more about than the humane treatment of animals. I am not one to smear my naked body with red paint and dance around in front of the Supreme Court, and I like chicken nuggets as much as the next millennial. That being said, I do think that the verbal barriers which exist between animals and humans do not necessarily prohibit all forms of communication. Ask any pet-lover whether or not she believes animals to be capable of complex emotional responses and the answer will always be a resolute ‘yes’. Speaking from my own experiences, there are certain emotional needs that only animals can fill. Chester, my sprightly, overly-affectionate marshmallow of a feline, provides a therapeutic relief from the pressures of constant verbal communication. He takes me as I am—shortcomings, failures, embarrassments, vices and all. All I need to do is make sure he gets his daily rub and never spies the bottom of his food bowl—a sure sign of impending starvation. He expects nothing of me, so I never have to feel like I’m letting him down. Much as I love my friends and family, the pressure to make them proud and provide them with ample love and support can sometimes feel like suffocation to a natural recluse. The inexplicable bond between humans and animals—and here lets assume we’re speaking of creatures a bit more advanced than your average banana slug—is one of the most vital sources of happiness in my life. Perhaps this is why Vicki Constantine Croke’s delicate book Elephant Company poked me right in the center of my gooey heart. Croke’s biography of Billy Williams, a British ‘forest man’ who cared for elephants in Burma during the second world war, is sensitive and insightful to the highest degree. It is a war biography that celebrates the most innocent of creatures. The inevitable consequence of this peculiar focus is that the contrast between the noble giants of the Burmese forest and the bloodthirsty humans in their midst is as sharp and distinct as the Chinese symbol for duality.
Published in 2014, Elephant Company quickly became an international bestseller and was listed among The New York Times ‘100 notable books’ of that year. Croke’s work with animals, however, began long before she decided to try her hand at long-form nonfiction. She wrote The Boston Globe’s ‘Animal Beat’ column for thirteen years, worked on several nature documentaries for Disney and A&E, and is a regular contributor to such publications as Popular Science, Time, The New York Times, National Wildlife, and Gourmet. For more than two decades, Croke has dedicated her life to tracking and preserving vulnerable species like the polar bear, the Tasmanian devil, and the fossa (some kind of vicious weasel-cat native to Madagascar). She has been honored with both a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Public Radio News Directors Award. She is an energetic activist, notable for her efforts to raise awareness for the plight of the giant panda. She is also a brilliant historian, whose efforts to understand the values and beliefs motivating her subjects is commendable. Perhaps it is easy for her to embody Billy Williams because she also knows that the uncomplicated warmth of another creature can save a person from disappointment and despair when faced with the shadowy side of human nature. Croke believes that she and Williams share a deep respect for animals, a sentiment she makes explicit in the introduction to her book:
Williams had witnessed a life among the elephants that would be hard for those outside to fathom—in fact, he reported behaviors that many would not believe until they were validated decades later by biologists in the field. He had seen these creatures thoughtfully solve problems, use tools, protect one another, express joy and humor, stand up for something more important than their own safety, and even, perhaps, comprehend the concept of death. There was a largeness to them that was about more than their physical size, a quality triggered especially when their sense of decency or outrage was provoked.
Any author who writes a book set during wartime, no matter what their intended subject may be, ends up writing about war. When nations face-off across geographical and ideological boundaries, it can be easy to draw rigid lines between distinct groups—to see one’s enemy as another species. Even today, many Americans struggle to identify commonalities between themselves and those fighting a ‘holy war’ in the Middle East. Rather than admit that there are some fundamental attributes we all share as humans—as animals—we prefer to stick labels on one another and recline comfortably in our own La-Z-Boys of superiority. So while Croke is writing about a British man and a herd of Burmese elephants, she is also writing about the communicative gulf that grows between unfamiliar creatures. If we were able to approach other people as we are sometimes able to approach animals, if we marveled at our shared attributes and accepted the limited scope of communication, how many horrifying historical episodes might have been avoided? The persecution of Jews, the enslavement of Africans, the alienation of Muslims in the West, have all been rationalized in part by the belief that we are different from them and can never coexist. Thus, while some might claim that Croke’s book is a distraction from the harsh reality of war, it is in fact directly applicable to the challenges of war when nations—and ideologies—struggle to communicate.
Nonverbal communication is central to Billy Williams’s relationship with the Burmese elephants, especially with a particular elephant named Bandoola. Bandoola and Williams do not need to speak the same language in order to understand each other. Writes Croke,
Bandoola swiveled his trunk, pressing his nostrils to Williams, and breathing in deeply. Even through Williams’s clothing Bandoola was picking up organic clues, especially from the armpits and between the legs. Like all elephants, he was a master chemist, analyzing much of the world through his sensitive nose. Bandoola could ascertain innumerable facts about any animal: last meal eaten, fitness, anxiety level, or hormonal state. Elephants read one another—and people—this way. Bandoola’s prodigious brain, highly evolved to negotiate a complex social world, kept a dossier of the men and women around him, especially Williams, whom he had known for seven years.
This detailed, almost erotic, description of the encounter between man and elephant is crucial to Croke’s underlying thesis. Bandoola is unable to tell Williams what he is feeling and vice versa, but they gather all the information they need through touch and observation. Again, the lessons contained within this brief scene can be liberally applied. To truly understand another creature, one must be in physical proximity to them. It is easy to reduce a man to his religious views or country of birth when an ocean separates you from him. Things get quite a bit more complicated when you meet him face to face and realize how nuanced and contradictory he really is. Part of the reason Croke is so successful a writer is because she refuses to gloss over the details. Each elephant is portrayed as an individual with singular characteristics. Each man benefits from a thoughtful, empirical consideration of what distinguishes his elephant from the others. Writes Croke,
Williams ran his palms along the male’s spine: rough, wrinkled skin punctuated all over by harsh, wiry hairs. Sand and dirt, which had lodged in the folds of the tusker’s hide when he had dusted himself, loosened and rained down on Williams’s head and arms. It was an elephant baptism.
Williams spent more than a decade working as a ‘forest man’ in the dense jungles of Burma before the war arrived at his doorstep. By that time, he had developed a productive, harmonious relationship with both the elephants who hauled the logs and their Burmese handlers. When the Japanese invaded Burma and the English teak companies began to evacuate, the future did not look bright for Williams and his elephants. Elephants were stolen under cover of darkness or brutally murdered in a sinister interpretation of the ‘scorched earth’ policy. Williams knew that if his superiors were forced to choose between saving British lives and saving a bunch of working elephants, they would choose the humans every time. So he made his elephants indispensable. The elephants now became ‘Elephant Company,’ a herd of highly trained war elephants who could clear the way for allied soldiers and build bridges in record time. Within a short period of time, Williams and his elephants became one of the most valuable units active within the strange battlefield of Burma. Writes Croke,
Only a teak man understood the scope of their ability. Building anything could be a snap since they could act as cranes where no crane could be transported, deftly lifting logs into place at a height of nine or ten feet. They could tow vehicles bogged down in mud, or haul timber for boat construction at the major rivers. Most of all, the elephants could move the army farther and faster across undeveloped terrain by building bridges and enlarging tracks. Tanks and jeeps wouldn’t be thwarted by wide rivers and deep jungle.
It is incredible to think that while molecular physicists raced the build the first atomic bomb, elephants were dragging tanks through the hostile jungles of Burma. As the later conflict in Vietnam confirmed, modern weaponry does not always guarantee victory in the exotic, mysterious East. Having spent more than a decade surrounded by the alarmingly fertile Burmese foliage, Williams was uniquely able to assess the situation and address it efficiently. By the time the war reached Burma, Williams had completed his transformation into an ‘Elephant Man.’ Writes Croke,
All the things Williams had become acclimated to—the heat, the threat of disease, the terrain—were daunting and deadly to the new soldiers. They might hike across hot dry plains one day and then be mired in mud with fifteen inches of rain falling the next. Roads turned into rivers. Tracks became quagmires. After the rains came smothering heat and humidity that made their skin bloom with fungus and rot, and caused corpses to bloat and blacken.
Despite the alien environment, despite the natural obstacles threatening to trap a modern army within an ancient forest, Williams somehow managed to lead a herd of elephants across the border into India. The climax of this journey came when Williams and his men cut a stairway into the sheer side of a cliff and the elephants climbed—in single file, on ledges barely wider than their feet—to the top of a perilous escarpment. Looking over the dense jungle of Burma on one side, and the country of their salvation on the other, Williams experienced something close to transcendence:
Everything he had learned from elephants and about elephants was put to use in one stroke: All those lessons about trust, confidence, the meaning of leadership. The way they had always intuited his intentions. The fact that they could assess situations. That they were loyal. That their courage surpassed even their physical strength.
Elephant Company is, despite the grim backdrop of world events, a thoroughly hopeful book. Vicki Constantine Croke’s love of animals is evident in her playful, affectionate tone, and her observations on the emotional complexity of elephants will strike a chord with anyone who has ever loved a fellow creature. Her insights into nonverbal communication are critically relevant to the atrocities of war escalating around Billy Williams and his elephants. Croke presents her readers with contrasting examples of evil and innocence, compassion and indifference. Elephant Company is, at its core, a lesson in finding common ground—in identifying the flickers of one’s own emotions in the eyes of a stranger. It is a book about touching, and watching, and seeking the good in others. It is a book about clinging to joy wherever it can be found. In the early days of WWII, Billy Williams made a deliberate choice of perspective, one I hope to replicate:
It was the same, and was never the same. This time, fuzzy-headed babies rolled over and over in the water, chasing one another with their tails sticking straight up in excitement. They still had so much hair it often looked in need of brushing. They planted themselves in the mud, or slid down the banks into the water, bulldozing each other and running with abandon despite the presence of two big bulls.
Every human reader can learn a little something from these baby elephants: run, and play, and plan for the future, ‘despite the presence of two big bulls.’
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