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"Behind Charleston to the South lay Firle Beacon and its supporting downs, like a row of half-submerged ancient elephants. Their massive grey humps protected us from the west wind, which brought not only the rain but a sea mist which rolled down their sides and hid them from view."
Angelica Garnet (daughter of Vanessa Bell and niece of Virginia Woolf) in Deceived with Kindness, Chapter 2, p.46.
The Woolly Mammoths of Sussex Part 1 : -
The Four Mammoths
Find Their Whereabouts
Really, it was ever such a misty morning. Ever so.
“Wherever are we?” asked Firle. “I’ve got no idea what our whereabouts are.”
“Can you see anything, Wolstonbury?” asked Caburn.
They all turned around to look where they thought Wolstonbury was. There was no reply, and right now none of them could see each other, through the mist.
“Wolstonbury?” Caburn asked again.
“Just presently,” said Wolstonbury, breaking the silence at last, “I can’t see very much at all.”
“Neither can I,” said Firle, “and if I can’t, none of us can, as I’m the tallest.” The other three wondered why he’d said such a silly thing.
“Actually,” said Caburn, who was the shortest, “I think you’ll find, Firle old fellow, that Wolstonbury is the tallest. Aren’t you Wolstonbury?”
“Yes, I think I probably am.”
“And you can’t see anything?” checked Harry.
“I didn’t say I couldn’t see anything; I said I couldn’t see very much at all.”
“So you can see something, then?” said Harry.
“Yes.”
“How intriguing,” said Firle. “What is it, do tell, this not very much at all that you can see?”
“The top of your head,” replied Wolstonbury.
“That’s not a not very much,” said the not-quite-so tall-mammoth. “That’s a good deal, even a very much indeed. Besides, if you can see me, why can’t I see you?”
“I think you’ll find if you stand up tall, you’ll see me just fine,” said towering Wolstonbury.
Firle stretched up onto the mammoth equivalent of tip toes.
“Hello there old thing,” said Wolstonbury, as their eyes met.
“Can Firle and Wolstonbury see each other above the mist?” asked Caburn.
“Sounds like it,” said Harry.
“Yes we can,” said Firle. “Not a pretty sight.”
“It is a pretty sight over there though,” said Wolstonbury, indicating the direction with a swash of his great trunk - a swash that sent little spiralling wisps of mist dancing in the morning air. Firle turned and looked towards where Wolstonbury was indicating, and saw the rosy pinks and mauves in the East where the Sun was just about to rise.
“I must admit,” said Firle, “that sight is rather fetching.”
“I wish I could see it,” said Caburn.
“You’ll see it soon,” said Wolstonbury. “The mist is subsiding. I can already see the top of Harry’s head.”
“Can you?” said Harry. “So if I stand on my tip toes I might be able to...” and then he did so, and he was able to...and he just said “Good Ganesh! What a sight!” And this of course made Caburn want to see it all the more.
“Tell me more about it,” said Caburn, waving his trunk up above the mist like an articulate hairy snorkel as if to make sure they didn’t forget he was there. “Is it very beautiful?”
“Yes it is,” said Harry.
“Is the Sun rising yet?” asked Caburn.
“Not quite yet,” said Wolstonbury.
“Is there orange?” asked Caburn.
“There’s orange all across the sky,” said Firle, “lit up on the little puffs of cloud.”
“And purple?”
“Why don’t you get on your tip toes and have a look for yourself,” said Wolstonbury.
“Yes,” said Harry. “We can all see the top of your head now.”
“Really?!” said Caburn, and did exactly that straight away.
He let out a gasp, and then just a moment later the first droplet of bright golden sunlight was visible breaking on the horizon, and he said “Great Ganesh!”
They stood in amazement for a minute or two, and then Wolstonbury said:-
“Of course, now we know where we are.”
“Where’s that?” said Harry.
“Well, we’re this side of Firle,” said Wolstonbury.
“Not from where I’m standing,” said Firle. “I was thinking more that we’re this side of Wolstonbury.”
“You’re the other side of Caburn,” said Harry to Firle.
“So are you,” said Firle back to Harry.
“I feel like Piggy-in-the-Middle here,” said Caburn.
“You’re not in the middle, though,” said Wolstonbury.
“Who is then?” asked Caburn.
Wolstonbury thought hard about this for a moment.
“Well...,” he said at last, “there’s one, two, three, four of us...and half of four is two...so....” And then he thought about it a bit more, and then said:-
“There isn’t a One-Of-Us-Who-Is-In-The-Middle.”
“How very abstract,” said Firle. “I thought everything had a middle.”
“Oh there is a Middle,” said Wolstonbury, still with a look of concentration on his face. “The Middle is right between Caburn and Harry. So you, Firle, are off towards the East, and I, Wolstonbury, am off towards the West, and there’s a line between Caburn and Harry, going from all the way north to all the way south, which, from now, we shall say is the Middle. And because we have chosen the Middle, it’ll be easy from now own to say the eastness or the westness of a thing.”
The others stood there with their mouths open is wonder, then Caburn said:-
“Three trumpets for Wolstonbury’s clever idea!” and they all trumpeted three times.
Then Firle recovered his composure and said:-
“Well I’m sure that’s ever so clever, but now we’ve got our whereabouts all sorted, there are other more pressing matters to attend to.”
“What topic is more pressing, in your opinion?” asked Wolstonbury, only slightly indignant.
“Breakfast,” said Firle, “and the what that we shall partake thereof.”
“Right then,” said Wolstonbury, “so what do you think should be the what that we should thereof partake of...” and then he added, to sound clever: “therein?”
“Bananas,” said Firle, looking as ever so slightly smug as it is possible for a mammoth to ever so slightly look.
It is a little known fact that mammoths love bananas for breakfast.
“Does anyone know where some bananas are?” asked Caburn.
No-one spoke up to say that they did.
“Then we shall have to go on an adventure,” said Caburn.
“A quest, you mean?” said Wolstonbury.
“Precisely,” confirmed Caburn.
Harry, during all this, was staring off over the sea of mist with a far-away look in his eyes, which made it look to the others as if he was dreaming of this adventure, but then he just said: “Did you say bananas? I know where some of those are.”
“Well that’s not much of a quest then,” said Firle, slightly disappointed.
“Where are the bananas?” asked Caburn, who was actually just as interested in breakfast as he was in the having of an adventure.
“Africa,” said Firle. The others looked at him for a bit trying to work out if he was joking. It was impossible to tell, so Wolstonbury asked him:-
“Are you joking?”
“No. Ask anyone. There’s plenty of them there.”
“I think what Caburn meant when he asked if we knew where some bananas were,” said Wolstonbury, “was: do we know where some are that we could have for breakfast?”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” agreed Caburn.
“Oh sorry,” said Harry. “I wasn’t really listening.”
“Right then!” exclaimed Caburn. “The quest is back on!”
“Oh in the name of Great Ganesh,” said Firle, “this is all too much. First there is a quest, then there isn’t, and now there is again. I can’t be expected to just turn my adventurousness on and off at a moment’s notice. Are we definitely on a quest now?”
“Yes,” said Caburn, “we definitely are.”
“Right then,” said Firle. “Well off we go then.”
“Where to?” said Harry.
“Um...this way,” suggested Firle, and they plodded after him through the mist, and after a bit Caburn piped up:-
“I’m going to have my bananas fried. In coconut oil.”
“Do you know where to find coconuts?” aked Wolstonbury.
“I do,” interrupted Harry, but then said, “oh, er...actually: never mind.”
“Were you going to say ‘Africa’?” asked Firle.
“Yes,” admitted Harry, and Firle was so impressed with his honesty that he didn’t make any jokes about it. Which means that for a bit there was just more plodding.
Above: Mount Harry