01 Amazon Adventure (11 page)

‘But while we’re trapping animals, he’ll catch up.’

‘Perhaps so, but there’s a chance that we can lose ourselves so that he can’t find us.’

‘What do you mean, ‘lose ourselves’?’

‘The river is miles wide and full of islands … there are dozens of channels between the islands. How will he know which one we have taken?’

‘I hope you’re right,’ said Roger devoutly.

Hal called Banco and told him to have the men ready to embark within an hour.

‘No, no, senhor,’ said Banco in Portuguese. ‘We cannot go before morning.’

‘We are sailing at ten o’clock tonight,’ said Hal firmly.

‘It is dangerous to sail the river at night. No, no, we cannot go.’

Hal understood that it was hard for Banco, an older man and well-acquainted with the river, to take orders from a boy. But it was necessary for Banco to learn at the start who was to be boss of this expedition.

Hal took out his wallet. ‘I’ll pay you for this evening’s work and we’ll go without you.’

Banco was thunderstruck. ‘You can’t go without me. You don’t know the river.’

1 don’t know why you think you are so necessary, Banco,’ Hal said. ‘We’ve gone this far without you — we can go on without you.’

Banco refused the money. ‘We’ll be ready to sail at ten, senhor,’ he said, a little sullenly.

The animal show being over, the onlookers drifted away to the cafes and plazas. Within an hour the waterfront was deserted. Then a flotilla of three boats slid silently out into the rolling current of the Amazon. The raft was left behind.

‘Sunny Boy wanted it,’ Roger said. ‘He can have it now.’

Banco stood at the helm of the little platform in the stern of the Ark. Up forward, four men stood at the oars. Hal was one of them. The men would have to get used to the idea that the master was going to work right along with them. The dugout was towed behind. Roger was in the montaria with two oarsmen.

The animals were on the Ark inside the toldo where they would not be worried by the presence of so many strangers on board. Vamp hung upside down in her cage suspended from the roof. The pigmy marmoset clambered from one rafter to another, making nervous chirps. Nosey put his trunk out of the door once in a while, but always retreated, whinnying like a frightened horse. The

giant iguana lay on the floor sound asleep, and Stilts maintained his dignity on one foot in a corner.

Charlie, the Jivaro mummy, was the only one allowed to enjoy the fresh air. He was far aloft in the masthead, his black hair waving against the stars.

A tired old last-quarter moon hung in the sky. It was not a bright and cheerful moon, but a moon of mystery and dread. Roger did not like to look at it. Hal was too busy rowing to notice it.

But his blood ran chill as he heard the forest gnashing its teeth. Savage cries from the mouths of hundreds of wild animals combined into one great roar that seemed to be the savage voice of the jungle itself. Most bloodcurdling of all were the earsplitting howls that one could imagine as coming from a hundred packs of ravenous wolves, or from an army of man-eating lions — but Hal knew that they were merely the night songs of howler monkeys. Although no bigger than a dog, the howler can make more noise than a jaguar. The sound is a deep rumbling roar that would naturally come only from an animal many times as big. A single howler can easily make himself heard at a distance of three miles. The sound is hard for human nerves to endure. It is as if all the agony in the world were being let loose at once. Hal remembered the comment of a naturalist who said that the first time he heard the howler he was so startled he thought all the tigres on the Amazon were ‘engaged in a death struggle’.

He could well believe that this was one of the most sullen, morose and savage of the monkeys. If cornered, it would attack viciously and could inflict a severe bite. Its jaws were amazingly powerful. The naturalist Up de Graff had tried to keep one off with the muzzle of his gun — the infuriated creature clamped with his jaws upon the muzzle and bit so hard that he closed the bore.

Hardly less hair-raising were the voices of millions of frogs and toads, booming, moaning, thundering and screeching. They nearly drowned the hoarse croaking of crocodiles which were evidently numerous along the bank, the whinnying of tapirs, the wild cry of a bird called the horned screamer, the sharp little grunts of peccaries, and many other sounds that were unknown to Hal.

But he had come to know well one sound, the coughing roar of the jaguar. Although it was not very loud, it had the effect of stilling the jungle as if it had been suddenly struck dumb. ‘Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh!’ it went.

The wind freshened. Both boats had been stepped with masts and Hal now ordered up the sails.

Again Banco protested — it was not safe to race down the river in the dark when rocks, sandbars, or half-sunken logs could not be seen. Hal knew that he was quite right, but the desire to put a long distance between him and his pursuer induced him to take the chance.

With both sails and oars at work, the boats flew downstream like scared cats, dodging islands sometimes by only a few feet. Twice the Ark struck a sand bar but managed to struggle across into deep water. Once it struck a log a resounding plunk and the log gave up a deep croak and swam away.

The exhausted moon did not give as much light as the stars. The Southern Cross looked frosty in the chill night air. The jungle tumult died down during the middle of the night, then grew again towards dawn. The noise was as good as a clock. When it was at its height, you knew that there was only half an hour left before morning. When the rising sun lit the flowering tops of the trees there was no sound left but the gurgle of the Amazon under the keel and the far cries of a gorgeously coloured flock of roseate spoonbills flying north.

After the sun had risen high enough to reach to the bottom of the leafy gorge the boats were following between two wooded islands, everybody relaxed in its welcome warmth and let the vessels drift while enjoying a breakfast of coffee, mandioca cakes and dried meat.

But the animals, too, were hungry. The island on the right seemed to be about a mile long. It would be a good place to forage for food for the animal passengers. Hal ordered the flotilla into a quiet cove fringed by majestic Brazil nut trees.

As the boats touched the beach a huge crocodile moved over a few feet to make room, but was too sleepy to swim away. Only its nose and its eyes that bulged like electric bulbs showed above the surface. Its chin rested on the bottom just off the bank.

After a hard night, everyone was glad to rest a while. Most of the men lay on the shore, but Banco and three Indians, afraid of ants and ticks, stretched themselves out in the bottom of the small canoe.

Everyone took a nap. Everyone but Roger.

Roger forgot that he had sworn off mischief.

The opportunity was too inviting. The crocodile’s nose would suit his purpose nicely. It was sharp and pointed, very different from the blunt nose of an alligator. And the crocodile, when it takes off, is as unlike an alligator as a speed boat in comparison with a log raft.

Roger edged over to the painter of the dugout. One end of the line was attached to the bow of the canoe and the other to a log on the shore.

Roger quietly unfastened the line from the log. He made a slip noose in the end of the line. Then he squirmed ever so gently over to the sleepy saurian.

Suddenly leaping into action, he slapped the noose over the crocodile’s nose and jumped back out of the way.

The crocodile came to life with a vengeance. It made a lunge at Roger but, missing him, wheeled with a mighty thrash of its powerful tail and plunged out into the bay.

The line came taut with a jerk that shook the sleep out of all four men and set them to yelling like demons. The enraged crocodile yanked the boat this way and that, nearly upsetting it every time he changed his course.

For a time he gave them a free ride, shooting across the bay like a meteor.

Then he turned and rushed at the boat with his great jaws open. They closed with a crunching noise on the gunwale just where Banco’s arm had rested an instant before. Splinters flew as the big teeth ground the edge of the boat.

The crocodile changed his tactics. He removed his jaws but brought his heavy tail into action. He swung it like a pile driver against the boat, making it shiver from stem to stern.

Roger by this time had quit laughing. As usual he was having his regrets a little late. Hal and the others had been awakened by the yells. They jumped into the montaria, Roger with them. They set out for the canoe but it shot here and there in such crazy movements that they found themselves going around in circles. It was still a little funny, Roger thought. How could the men in the canoe be hurt? Banco was reaching over with a knife to cut the line. Then the crocodile would swim away and everyone would think it was a good joke.

Comforting himself with these thoughts, he was horrified to see something happen that he had not thought of. The crocodile dived. Straight down he went in deep water and the canoe followed. The bow dipped and disappeared, the stern rose high in the air. All four men spilled out, the leg and arms going like flails and their yells frightening the birds and monkeys so that the forest broke into a sympathetic din.

Plop! — the four disappeared beneath the surface. Four men in bed with an angry crocodile!

Roger reached for a gun.

‘That won’t do,’ Hal cried. ‘One shot wouldn’t kill him. It would only make him worse.’

‘What’ll we do?’

‘Cut the painter. He’s just frightened. If we can cut that painter perhaps he’ll make off.’

Hal was about to go overboard but Roger was ahead of him. He knew that this was his job. He dived into the boiling water that was already beginning to show blood. He found the bow of the canoe. With his hunting knife he slashed the line that held the thrashing monster. The crocodile suddenly leaped out of the water like a bucking horse, then dived.

The men righted the canoe and climbed back in. Roger regained the montaria. He had seen the blood in the water and with a heavy heart he looked across at the canoe expecting to see one of the men badly wounded.

But they appeared to be all right. One of them held a bloody knife. So it was the crocodile that was wounded.

Suddenly there was a new commotion in the bay. Again the crocodile was thrashing about, but this time because it had been attacked by the cannibals of the Amazon — the ravenous and savage fish called piranhas.

Let a bather, either animal or human, have so much as a scratch on him, and the piranhas, attracted by the blood, are upon him at once. They are only a foot long. With their mouths closed they look as innocent as a perch. When they open their mouths, two semicircles of razor-edged teeth are revealed.

The piranhas are the most feared of all creatures that swim in the Amazon, crocodiles included. They come in shoals, a hundred or a thousand or more at a time. Following up a blood trail, they attack ravenously, stripping all the flesh from the bones in a matter of minutes.

Nor do they always require blood to set them off. More than one canoeist has had his fingers nipped off neatly as he dragged them in the water. A single bite is enough for this operation. The strength of the piranha’s jaws is incredible.

A National Geographic Society expedition had found that in catching them it was necessary to use copper wire between the line and the hook. And two strands of the size of wire used for locking turnbuckles on an aeroplane were not enough; three were needed.

The water was churned white by the furious fish. Streaks of deep red appeared in the white.

The Indians in the canoe were jabbering excitedly. They paddled to the scene of conflict. One had a fish spear and proceeded to spear enough food to supply a bountiful fish dinner for everybody. When he had done, more than twenty fish lay in the bottom of the boat. The men kept well out of their way for even a piranha out of water does not become any better tempered.

Close by was a sand bar on which the canoe beached. The fish were spread out on the sand and their heads were chopped off. Roger picked up a head that had been severed from the body for almost a minute and studied the open jaws. He was startled when they snapped shut like a steel spring. He decided to wait until the fish were good and dead before studying them.

An Indian smiled at Roger’s surprise. He put the blade of his hunting knife in the mouth of a head that had no body. The jaws snapped shut with such force that the points of the teeth were broken. The Indian took out the knife — on each side the hard steel was nicked in a semicircle by the piranha’s teeth.

‘At the New York Aquarium,’ Hal recalled, ‘a piranha bit a pair of surgical tweezers made of the very best steel and left nicks in it. They even eat each other. At the Aquarium they can’t keep more than one in a tank. If they do, the bigger one makes a dinner of the other.’

Some of the piranhas had neat slices of meat cut out of their backs. Banco explained that as soon as a piranha is caught on a spear and is helpless to defend himself, all his companions rush upon him. If he isn’t drawn out quickly nothing comes up but a skeleton.

‘And speaking of skeletons, look at that,’ Hal said, pointing in the water. The fish had departed, the turmoil had died down, and a long white skeleton like that of a prehistoric monster lay on the bottom.

‘That’s what they do to our cattle,’ Banco said. ‘The cattle are bled by vampire bats during the night; then when they wade into the river the piranhas smell the blood and go at them.’

Roger spent the rest of the morning collecting food for his wards. When the noon meal was served all the piranha’s sins were forgiven, and Roger’s also for the piranha is excellent eating.

Hal even deigned to say, ‘I don’t care if you get into mischief every day, you young rascal, if it brings us a meal like this!’

But Roger decided within himself that he would get no more fish dinners by tying a canoe to a crocodile.