‘Please help!’ I pleaded in a trembling voice. My hand was shaking uncontrollably as I held the button down on the handset of the farm radio. I released the button and listened in desperation for one of our neighbouring farmers on the same channel to respond, but there was only the crackle of static. My stomach sank. I had to try again. ‘Please help! My little boy is lost somewhere below our farm. He took his dog and went to look for marula fruit two hours ago. They might have strayed into the Zambezi Valley. It’s dark now. There’s no sign of him. He’s only five years old. We need search parties, please!’ No one responded.

This radio was our only reliable means of communicating with the nearest Zambian farms in the 1970s. Our phone was out of order again. The copper wiring from our landline was constantly being cut down to reappear in tourist bracelets during the country’s struggling economic times.

I was alone. My husband had taken our car to Livingstone for a farmers’ meeting. Had our neighbours also gone? They must have. My brave boy was out there with his little dog on one of their mini adventures. They have been inseparable from the day he opened his gift box on his third birthday and found a bright-eyed puppy staring up at him.

We had made a tough decision when our son was five and becoming more adventurous. It would have been difficult to keep him at home all the time for the bush was his playground. He would have felt stifled and become resentful. We didn’t want him to grow up in perpetual fear, so we set some boundaries. When we went on walks, we pointed out landmarks around the farm, which he was to stay inside. The furthest southerly one was where the marula trees were growing wild. This was my son’s favourite destination. We would sometimes see bushbabies and duiker attracted by the marula fruit on the ground.

We trained his dog to head back to our farmhouse at the end of our walks with the command, ‘Home’. It was only after our son gave the command, and his dog unfailingly responded, that we allowed them to go out for an hour without us. We bought my son a wristwatch to monitor the time. He treasured the freedom it gave him. We trusted the dog to lead him home if necessary. They had always returned after one of their jaunts but not this time.

The African sun had set half an hour ago. Below our farmhouse lay the wild untamed scrub woodland reaching down to the Zambezi River. My mind was reeling with the potential horrors that my son might encounter. A vivid image of the massive Mamba that had bitten our livestock refused to fade. It merged with another of a Puff Adder that had hidden in the woodpile behind the kitchen. Most terrifying of all was the presence of ZIPRA freedom fighters, who were on the Zambian side of the Zambezi Valley camping in the bush. They were heavily armed and launching incursions into Rhodesia which lay on the other side of the river. The Rhodesian Bush War had been simmering for a long time and was spreading along the Zambezi River. How would they treat my little boy if he stumbled into them? So far, they had kept a low profile melting into the bush if their camps were approached by local Zambians. No farmers had been approached by them as they were well supplied with food from Tanzania and Angola as well as Zambia. Unsettling rumours indicated that the war was intensifying, and the Rhodesian Light Infantry and Selous Scouts were now crossing the river into Zambia to ambush the ZIPRA fighters. Was the battle zone moving closer to our farm? Cold fingers of ice ran down my spine.

My thoughts were interrupted by the noise from the diesel generator that I had rushed to start when darkness fell. I had turned on the lights in the house and pointed torches into the night sky praying the beams might be seen by a little boy through the miombo trees below. The terrain in front of the house was rough and sloped down in the direction of the valley. I kept shouting my son’s name from the veranda and calling his dog, but all I could hear was the night chorus of crickets and cicadas. Something was terribly wrong.

The fear I felt was unimaginable. My son was so young. I couldn’t attempt to drive a farm tractor downhill over rough terrain in the dark. It would be sheer madness. My only option was to walk in the direction of the marula trees and try to find him.

I grabbed the snake antivenom from the fridge. After placing it in the first aid kit, I threw this into a rucksack with a bottle of water, some biltong and a spare torch. I had to cover as many scenarios as possible. With trembling hands, I ripped a bedsheet into large strips which could act as extra bandages or be used as a sling to carry a little boy.

Tears streamed down my face and splashed onto the note I was scrawling to explain what had happened and where I had gone if my husband returned sooner than expected.

Picking up the most powerful torch, I set off down the slope. As I ran and stumbled over loose stones, I called out my son’s name, again and again. When I was forced to stop to catch my breath and ease the ache in my side, I listened and swept the beam of the torch over the ground for any trace of footprints. I called for his dog, but there was only the hum of insects intermittently broken by nightjars and a lone African Wood-Owl.

With a breaking heart, I plunged on and on through the miombo woodland calling out their names. The marula trees were now behind me. Suddenly I lost my footing and crashed down screaming in pain as I landed on a rock. The rucksack saved me from cracking my head on it, but my ankle was throbbing.

It was then that I heard the faint yelp of a dog. I yelled his name. There was the responding sound of his bark followed by a little boy’s quavering voice shouting, ‘Mom!’

Adrenalin pumped through my veins. Ignoring the searing pain in my ankle, I hobbled in the direction of my son and his dog. Through the trees, my torch picked up two little shapes on the ground. With tears and gasps of distress, I lurched towards them. 
My little boy was holding onto his dog which had its paw trapped in a vicious poacher’s snare. He was keeping his dog from struggling and damaging its paw further. His face was white from the effort.

‘I couldn’t undo the wire, Mom. It’s too tight, and I couldn’t leave him here. He might have died. I knew you’d find us.’ 
‘It’s alright, my darling.’ I knelt down and hugged my son never wanting to let him go again.

‘I’m OK, Mom. When we got to the marula trees, we saw a young duiker and followed its spoor after it ran into the bush.  We lost the trail, so we turned back. That’s when Pickle stepped into the snare. I’m sorry we went too far.’ My son had crossed the boundary we set, but I was too relieved to find him alive. I could barely shake my head.

Trembling with emotion, I turned to the little dog. ‘Let’s get you out of this, Pickle.’ It was an appropriate name. I tried a rueful smile, but I could only grimace as I looked at the blood around the snare.  While my son held Pickle’s collar, I used both hands to loosen the wire and free his paw. It was raw and bleeding. I wrapped it with dressings and bandages from the first aid kit. My son cradled him while I bound my ankle and made a sling to carry his dog. A Jack Russell would be light.

The pounding in my heart began to die down as I gave my son and his little dog some much needed water. Then I shared the biltong between them and watched the tension drain from their little bodies while they chewed their favourite treat. They were safe at last.

Before we set off for home, we sat together on the ground locked in the closest timeless embrace. I will never, ever forget this day.

I had lost and found the most precious thing in the world. My little boy.

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