Attached is a short story I found in my father's papers. It was written circa 1950.

As we approached a headland there was a great splashing and with an angry loud snort the bull hippo charged from the water up the bank at us. I raised my rifle to shoot but I could not find the safety catch no matter how much I felt for it with my finger and thumb. I was watching with growing panic as the hippo came closer and did not have time to look for the safety. I expected John, my companion hunter, to shoot. When the hippo was about five yards from me –.
My companion hunter was an Assistant District Commissioner in the Western province of Uganda and he and I, the Police Officer in charge of the district, had been investigating a case which we had closed more quickly than we expected giving us a day to spare before we had to be back at headquarters. We both had a licence to hunt elephant and decided to make use of our spare time.
We were near the Queen Elizabeth National Park and had crossed Lake George to the Ankole plain where we had set camp on a headland overlooking the lake. In the distance towered the ice capped mountains of the Moon. In spite of their being no evidence of villages, two Africans had appeared and asked if we wanted to hunt elephant. “The night before they had seen some with “very big tusks and karibu sana (very near)”, standard for any African even so we had agreed to go with them. Better to have local guides than none at all.
The next morning we were up before dawn. There was one problem, John had a fine Alsatian dog which was deeply attached to him and went everywhere with him and we both felt he would be a liability and therefore should stay in camp. He was tied with a leash and the cook was instructed to make sure he stayed on the leash.
We had been walking for about an hour when the dog came bounding up to John, very pleased that he had found him. We were too far from camp to take the dog back without ruining the day's hunt so accepting the inevitable we carried on. The dog was permitted to roam free.
The bush here was very thick and we were limited to the animal paths. We came upon a beautiful little lake about half a mile in diameter with a pink tinge round the edge from the flamingo, the still surface reflecting the blue sky and surrounding green trees. At the far end was a herd of elephants splashing, playing and spraying. They were far enough away that we could not see clearly whether there were any shooters in the herd.
We worked our way round the lake through the thick bush. The dog now became a problem and needed to be under tight control. John used his belt as a leash. This was fine, unfortunately his rifle did not have a sling and he was having difficulty controlling the dog and carrying his rifle.
I had a sling on my rifle so I suggested we swap.
Immediately in front of us the lake was covered in weed. Slowly from the weed rose the head of a hippo with strands of water weed trailing across his head like a Ceaser at a drunken orgy.
He took one look at us with his piggy eyes and with an angry snort plunged through the shallows disappearing round a low headland. As we approached the headland the bull hippo charged:-
With the hippo about five yards from me the dog started barking and lunged forward. The hippo checked his charge and swerved, missing me by a yard, before stopping some 15 yards away, glaring at us with his piggy eyes. John and I swiftly exchanged rifles and were ready but the hippo snorted and trotted off into the bush. When we had calmed down we profusely thanked the dog and turned our attention back to the elephant only to see the last of them disappearing into the trees.
We trekked back to camp wiser men having learned an extremely important lesson when hunting dangerous game:- never hunt unless you are complete master of your weapon. The safety on our rifles were located differently and we had not checked and thus could not shoot at a critical moment.

Experience IS the Best Teacher...

That's one major reason I am trying to build all my rifles on the same action. I'm very familiar with them.
It only takes a couple seconds to get you in deeper than you can get out of. This was a very good read, thanks for sharing with us.
George