Elephant walk, a novel
by Robert Standish
Category: Fiction

In the movie "Elephant Walk" (1954) starring Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor is the ravishingly beautiful young bride of a fabulously wealthy tea plantation owner in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). She is overwhelmed by the beauty and the majesty of the place, but soon learns a disturbing fact. The main house where she and her husband live was built directly on a path which the elephants have used for hundreds of years to get to the water. The elephants want their walk back! She learns another disturbing fact. Her new husband, played by Peter Finch, is completely dominated by the memory of his late father, who built the house and the tea plantation. Everything must be done because that is the way his father did it. Soon, a love triangle develops when her husband's overseer, played by Dana Andrews, makes a play for her. At first Taylor resists, but not very hard. She soon asks him to take her to Paris. They try to escape from the plantation, but are stopped because the plantation has been placed under quarantine. A cholera epidemic has broken out on the plantation. Nobody is allowed to leave, for fear of spreading the disease. One by one, her husband's faithful servants start dying. Others escape over the wall or through the jungle. Soon, almost no one is left on the plantation except for Taylor, the husband, the overseer and the late father's faithful servant, Appuhamy (which means "cooking man" in Sri Lankan). By this time, there is an affair going on between the overseer and Taylor. The husband knows about it. "The quarantine is almost over. Then, you both can leave," he wryly remarks. The elephants see their chance. Because of the cholera epidemic, all the servants and plantation workers who used to defend the house from the elephants are now gone. The elephants are wild with thrust because of a drought. Over a hundred elephants attack the house, knock down the walls, start a fire and bulldoze the house, all this with Elizabeth Taylor inside.