I was three years old in 1952 when young Princess Elizabeth learnt of the death of her father, George VI. She was staying at Treetops Hotel in Kenya’s Aberdare National Park.

Jim Corbett, the famous white hunter, later charmingly wrote: “For the first time in the history of the world, a young girl climbed into a tree one day a Princess and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience she climbed down from the tree next day a Queen.”

Fifteen years later a young Scotsman on a gap year climbed into a neighbouring tree after having had one of the most dramatic experiences of his life.

On my way back from South Africa I had arranged a three-day stopover in Kenya. In the short time available, a night at Treetops offered the best chance of seeing game. We drove out from Nairobi, a party of about 20 tourists, and arrived in the middle of the afternoon, stopping the vehicles some distance from the hotel, whose flat wooden roof we could just see over the tops of the grassy mounds behind which we had parked.

The original hotel, built in a huge fig tree on the edge of a water hole and salt lick, had been burnt down in 1954 by the Mau Mau in retaliation for the British attempt to dislodge them from their hideout in the Aberdare forest. Its larger replacement surrounded a chestnut tree and spread out on stilts at the edge of the same water hole.

The hunter, our guide and protector, set off to reconnoitre and quickly returned saying there was a herd of elephants milling about by the hotel. Two porters were dispatched to bang pots and pans – the customary method for moving on reluctant animals. But on this occasion nothing happened. The hunter went off for another look and returned with the news that an elephant calf was stuck in the mud right in front of the hotel. The mother seemed to have given up trying to get it out, and since she wouldn’t move, a mood of elephantine solidarity had settled and none of the rest of the herd would either.

It was clearly not safe to lead a party of 20 people into the middle of a herd of wild elephants. But it was a long way back to Nairobi and the hunter, Ken Levet was his name, would have had a lot of disappointed tourists on his hands, not to mention a hefty loss for his employers. He had a decision to make.

I somehow don’t imagine that today he would have been allowed to take the one he did; and that’s a thought that goes against everything he and his ilk stood for, namely superb bushcraft, steel nerves and years of experience. But in May 1967 risk assessments were, happily, a thing of the distant future. He decided that he would lead us all to a ground-level viewing hide, halfway across the 300-yard stretch of open ground between the vehicles and the hotel; then take us on the final leg, under the stilts and up the ladder into the hotel, in pairs.

With the first part of the mission safely accomplished, we crowded into the hide. It was a circular palisade of bamboo, about three metres high and three metres in diameter, erected around the base of a tree. We could see out through slits in the bamboo, but while we were invisible to anything beyond, we were certainly not invincible. One nudge from a disgruntled buffalo, let alone an elephant, would have flattened the whole thing. We settled down to wait. Being the youngest of the party by about 20 years, I knew I would be last out. But we were in good hands. Rifle at the ready, Ken Levet led the first pair on their way.

The word trumpeting doesn’t begin to do justice to the sound made by an anxious or angry elephant. It’s closer to a scream, ear-splittingly, nerve-shatteringly loud and high pitched. By the time our guide had led about half the party from the hide to the hotel, the elephants were becoming anxious and angry.

They couldn’t see us in the hide, but they knew we were there. We could hear them moving about around us. So far they had given Ken a wide berth as he crossed the open ground with his pairs of visitors, but now he told us that the mother of the calf was becoming agitated and he was going to have to proceed more cautiously. 

He set off with another pair – elderly women I thought, although they were probably only in their fifties – and was gone for what began to seem like an uncomfortably long time. I peered out again through a crack in the bamboo just as a large bull elephant appeared to charge straight at us, only to slip in the mud when he was about forty yards away. He recovered himself and wandered off irritatedly swinging his trunk.

Then there was the unmistakable sound of a shot, followed by several moments of terror as the herd went crazy, screaming and trumpeting and thundering about in all directions. I remember glancing at the tree behind me and thinking that I wouldn’t make it to the first branch. The chaos went on probably for only a few seconds, though it seemed like a lifetime, before the noise converged on a single point as the herd gathered and careered off into the forest.

We stood where we were, shocked and silent, wondering what had happened. Ken had probably had to fire a warning shot, someone said. Then he reappeared, grave and obviously shaken. He’d had to shoot the mother, he said, and he was very sorry. I don’t think any of us even asked any questions then. It felt like a solemn and dreadful moment.

With the coast clear we crossed to the hotel. In amongst the stilts there was a mess of splintered timber and there in the middle of it a big grey lump of elephant. She was down on her knees with a trickle of blood coming from her forehead and her trunk trailing limply over a smashed log. I paused long enough to take a photograph, then followed the rest of the party up into the hotel where in due course we learned what had happened.

As Ken had led the two women in under the hotel, the female elephant had approached, put her head down and made a feint charge, then withdrawn again. There was a safety pen, constructed between four stilts. It was about the size of a narrow but deep cupboard and its walls were a criss-cross of thick timbers. At one end was a small entrance, through which Ken had pulled the two women, then turned to face the elephant.  For a second time she had lowered her head and this time charged for real. He had shot her as her head came through the far end of the pen, smashing nine-inch-thick sections of log to matchwood as she did so. The tip of her trunk lay only a few inches from the near end of the pen where the two terrified women had stood, backs pressed against the wall.

Brandy and soda were dispensed and the two women, a Dane and a New Zealander, both seasoned travellers, gradually recovered. Ken radioed Nairobi to report what had happened and ask for cutting equipment to be brought out so that the carcass could be removed. He feared that its presence would deter other game and we would end up seeing nothing. But Nairobi was unable to oblige, so after a somewhat muted dinner, we settled down in the aircraft seats provided on the verandah to take our chances once darkness fell and the hotel’s huge spotlight lit up the waterhole like an artificial moon.

Below us, meanwhile, the elephant calf still lay up to its shoulders in thick, viscous mud, clearly unable to free itself. Dusk was falling and we were wondering what would befall it, when out of the forest like huge silent shadows came the herd. They trooped round to the front of the hotel and waited as two large adults dug the calf out with their tusks, put it on its feet, and once it had the tail of the adult in front of it grasped firmly in its small trunk, proceeded back into the forest again, the orphan in their midst. For the second time in a few hours we were left speechless.

It was certainly the first time, and as far as I know still the only time, that an elephant has been shot at Treetops. To say that there had been no risk assessment, as I did last week was, of course, rather flippant. Ken had very clearly assessed the risk – but it had been the risk to us, not to the elephants. He had made the wrong call, as it turned out, and the poor creature had ended up being sacrificed for our convenience. There would have been some justice if her presence had indeed frightened away the rest of the game and we’d had a blank night’s viewing. In fact, it made no difference. Along with the photograph of the elephant I also have the viewing card. We saw almost everything there was to see.