Scattered throughout the eastern sector of our hunting area was a number of perennial springs, several of which supported discreet patches of verdant jungle.  The one we had chosen to hunt this morning was about 500 metres across.  On the northern side, a corridor of thick cabbage-palms followed a small trickling streamline several hundred metres out into the woodland, where it disappeared into the parched dry-season soil.  We had already kicked a good boar out of the palm forest, and turned our attention back to the main rainforest patch.  Boy, was it thick in there!

We knew from experience that the only way to hunt these jungles was to send in a 'bird-dog' to hopefully flush the quarry out into the open for a shot.  On this occasion, Yours Truly was awarded the dubious privilege!  With my short-barrelled .577 Light Nitro double at the ready, I put my head down and crashed into the dense vegetation.  It seemed that each liana carried barbed hooks, and every fallen palm-frond exploded with sound as I fought my way through the tangle of stems and vines.  After what seemed like eternity, but was perhaps a hundred metres, I suddenly froze at the guttural "Harrumph!" of a solitary boar giving vent to his anger at having his mid-day nap so rudely interrupted!  He was bedded in a dense clump of low shrubs just 10 metres ahead.  I raised the Greener double but assumed he would break out of the jungle edge into the waiting guns as planned.  However it was not to be: instead he burst out of the covert in full flight and bolted back across my front, heading for the very centre of the thicket!

Following the rapidly-escaping hog over the rifle's express sights, I was just taking up the trigger pressure when he disappeared completely behind a dense screen of green!  "Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained" I thought, so giving him another three or four metres on his presumed path and keeping the rifle moving, I smashed a 650-grain soft-point through the wall of foliage!  By some miracle the bullet found its mark!  The crashing of the retreating boar became quite erratic, then stopped some 20 metres further into the jungle.  Calling my two mates in for 'back-up', we quickly located the copious blood-trail and found the unlucky quarry in a vine-shrouded dead-fall almost done.  A finisher to the shoulder and it was all over.  Although I had drawn the 'short straw' on this occasion, it had paid off with a trophy 'jungle tusker' in the bag!