10 Gorilla Adventure (17 page)

The return of Bubu to the bedroom menagerie was welcomed by all the other members - and Bubu himself crooned with delight as he took his old place in Roger’s bed at night.

But it was not to be a night of carefree sleep. Both boys sat bolt upright in bed with popping eyes when the crash of glass told them that the small window had been broken to bits. Hal turned his flashlight on the window and saw that a writhing, twisting, hissing serpentine form was being pushed into the room. It looked very much like the deadly mamba they had captured near the volcano.

Instantly the room was in an uproar. From every corner came howls, screams, shrieks, and whistles, for there was not a creature in the room that did not dread the mamba.

The men also were roused. Hal heard someone - it sounded like Joro - shouting, ‘Bring the net.’

Something strange was going on outside. The boys sprang towards the door - then realized that their first job was to take care of the mamba. It was strutting about the room with its head six feet in the air, trying to decide in what creature it should sink its fangs. The rough treatment it had just had and the confinement within four walls, not to mention the rushing about of all the terrified inmates, were enough to increase its usual bad temper.

Hal got his revolver. Roger yelled, ‘No - a sack.’

A sack over a snake’s head was usually enough to quiet it.

‘We have no sack,’ Hal said.

He prepared to shoot - making sure that there was no animal beyond the snake in line with its head.

‘Wait a minute,’ Roger cried, and ripped the blanket from the bed. He faced the snake, whose head was a foot above his own. The mamba lunged, with the evident intention of sinking its fangs in his face. But Roger was too quick for it. He flung the blanket, and the poison-squirting teeth spilled their venom in the thick cloth. He brought the blanket down over the snake’s head.

Hal was right there with a length of rope which he flung round the blanket just below the head and tied it tight. The mamba dropped to the floor and lay still.

‘We’ll take care of it later/ Hal said. ‘Let’s see what’s going on.’

Outside they found the men trying to get the heavy net over a dark monster about the size of Tieg. But it was not Tieg. Hal’s flashlight revealed the features of a huge gorilla. Roger recognized him.

‘It’s Gog!’

There is no gentler ape than the gorilla - yet Gog’s face, at this moment, was distorted with anger and agony. Now he was ninety-nine per cent killer.

He overtopped all these petty humans and he had the strength of any ten of them. He tried to clutch them with his long arms as big around as a ship’s boom with fingers the size of Coca-Cola bottles.

‘The men got the net over him. It was made of heavy green vine, stronger than rope, but he tore holes in it. He tossed the men around like paper dolls. He shrieked like a maddened elephant.

Plainly, someone - perhaps more than one - would be killed. The net wasn’t enough. Hal plunged into the cabin and came out with the dart gun. He fired. The dart embedded itself in the upper arm and the tranquillizing M99 flowed into the gorilla’s system.

It was enough to put a zebra to sleep. But not enough for the giant Gog. Hal ran to get another dart of the same strength, and delivered its contents into the other arm.

The infuriated beast completed the job of tearing the net to bits. Now his arms were free. He thrust them both forward, seized two men, and knocked their heads together. He swept both arms backwards, mowing down men on both sides as if they were ninepins in a bowling alley. From tip to tip those arms had a reach of a good eight feet - so that the fantastic creature was actually a foot broader than he was tall.

The men who were still standing lost no time in getting out of the way of those deadly arms. One of those terrific twelve-pound hams could kill a man.

Since no one was within reach at the moment, the ape vested his fury by screaming and slapping his chest. What a barrel of a chest it was, five feet round. He drew in his breath to inflate it as much as possible. The pounding of this great air-filled tank produced a sound like the beating of a huge African drum.

It was his last act of defiance. His arms dropped to his sides, his eyes closed, and he fell in a heap.

‘Quick!’ Hal exclaimed. ‘The rhino car.’

The Powerwagon was backed up to within a couple of feet of the prostrate giant. It was equipped with a cage large enough and strong enough so that even the most furious rhino could not break his way out of it.

‘Lay hold!’ Hal ordered.

How do you take a hold of a gorilla? Everything about him was too large to provide a convenient handhold. It took a deal of puffing, straining, and grunting before the men succeeded in hoisting the seven-hundred-pound monster into the cage.

‘Don’t close the gate,’ Hal said.

He climbed into the cage, knelt beside the ape, and ran his hand through the long matted hair.

‘Here it is,’ he said at last. ‘The place where the bullet got him.’

Now everything was clear. This really was Gog. Somehow he had broken into the mamba’s cage and had put the snake into the boys’ room with intent to kill. He must have been the one who had thrown the leopard into the pit with Hal, and had twice tried to burn down the cabin. All because of love for his family and the pain of a festering wound.

Hal drew out his fingers. They were covered with green pus. ‘Poor devil,’ Hal said. ‘Worse than I thought.’

‘Can you treat it?’ Roger asked.

‘I’m afraid it’s beyond me. The bullet is lodged in the shoulder joint. I might have gotten it out if we could have nabbed him just after he was shot. But by this time it has set up a very bad infection. I’ve never seen a worse abscess. And the bullet must be wedged in between the humerus and the scapula where it must grind every time the arm is moved. I’d hate to think how painful it must be. No wonder he’s turned rogue. I won’t tinker with it - this is another job for Dr Burton.’

When Gog was laid on a hospital bed, it promptly collapsed under the seven-hundred pound patient.

‘No matter,’ the doctor said. ‘If he won’t stay up, hell just have to stay down. We haven’t anything strong enough to hold him. First of all I think I’d better give him an anaesthetic to keep him asleep while I’m digging for that bullet.’

Roger was shaking his head. ‘If he’s asleep, he won’t know.’

‘Won’t know what?’ Hal said.

‘Won’t know we’re trying to help him.’

The doctor looked surprised. ‘Why is that so important?’

Roger explained. ‘He thinks we killed his family. And the man who was with us put that bullet into him. It’s made a rogue out of him. He just has no use for the human race. He’s one great big hate.’

The doctor looked at Hal. Hal said, ‘I think perhaps my brother has something there. The way this gorilla feels now he’s too dangerous to be put on exhibit in any animal collection. He’s quite likely to murder somebody. In fact he tried to murder us last night. Stuffed a mamba in through the window. And twice he’s tried to burn us out. And thanks to him I had to fight a leopard in an elephant pit. Those things were a mystery to us, but now we know he was the guilty one.’

‘You two are pretty amazing,’ the doctor remarked. ‘I think if I were in your shoes I would just put another bullet into this rascal and finish him off for good and all.’

Hal smiled. ‘Killing animals doesn’t happen to be our business. We take them alive, tame them, and send them home for other people to enjoy. And there’s nothing that tames an animal so quickly as the knowledge that you’re trying to do it a good turn.’

‘But do you think this animal is intelligent enough to realize that I’m trying to do him a good turn when he wakes and finds me digging into his shoulder?’

Hal nodded. ‘I think any animal that’s intelligent enough to plan murder the way he planned it is bright enough to know when he’s being helped. But perhaps you’d rather not risk it.’

‘I’ll risk it.’ said Dr Burton. ‘But first I’ll get these three other patients out of here.’

The three men were transferred to another room. Then the door was locked and the doctor went to work.

The probing in the wound woke the gorilla. Gog slowly opened his eyes. He growled when he saw his two mortal enemies. He was still too sleepy to do more. Hal was bending over him and Roger was sitting on the floor holding the ape’s hands as if he were a baby to be comforted instead of a giant who could kill the boy with one slap. And someone was easing that painful thing out of his shoulder.

It came away at last in the grip of the forceps and the doctor held it before the eyes of the ape. Gog looked searchingly into the faces of the three men. There was no growling now. He winced a little when the doctor proceeded to clean out the abscess but he bore the treatment patiently.

Then came the dressing - it soothed the inflamed nerves. What a blessed relief!

When Gog closed his eyes Roger began to remove his hand, but the ape held on to it. Only after he was sound asleep was Roger able to withdraw his hand and join Hal and the doctor in the corridor.

‘Well,’ the doctor said, ‘I’ve just seen a miracle. You certainly seem to know what makes an animal tick.’

The same thing that makes a human animal tick,’ Hal said. ‘Gorillas respond quickly to good treatment. But don’t take it for granted that Gog has suddenly turned from a devil into an angel. That would be expecting a little too much.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Burton said. ‘I won’t take any unnecessary chances. No other patients will be put back in that room. Your Mr Gog shall have the distinction of being the only patient in the hospital to have a private room.’

‘How long will he need to be here?’

‘Just until tomorrow. Then you can continue the treatment at home.’

Joro came running down the hall. ‘Bwana. Come quick. Ostrich.’

Sure enough, and a very handsome one it was, strutting across the hospital grounds.

Hal had wanted to add an ostrich to his collection. But perhaps this one was a pet.

Ts it yours?’ he asked Dr Burton.

‘No, no. Just a wild bird. But we see it often. It wanders around here and in the nearby villages picking up whatever it can find.’

‘You mean scraps of food.’

‘Not only food, but hard objects, stones, rings that it pulls off the ears of women, anything bright and shiny. It will steal anything from anybody. But it belongs to nobody. You are free to take it if you want it.’

Hal went into action. Luckily he had most of his crew with him, since they had come along to carry Gog into the hospital. He instructed them to make a circle round the ostrich. Then they could gradually close in on it and capture it.

He and Roger came close to the bird to study its plumage and decide whether it would make a good specimen.

The ostrich made no attempt to run off. Instead, it examined the boys curiously, then began to pluck at their clothing. Roger put up his hand to fend off the inquisitive beak.

Quick as a flash, the ostrich plucked the watch from his wrist and swallowed it.

‘My watch,’ cried Roger. ‘How am I going to get that back? What does it want with these hard things anyhow?’

‘The ostrich has no teeth,’ Hal said. ‘So it can’t chew its food. The gravel and other hard objects it swallows do the chewing. They churn around in the stomach and grind up the food.’

‘Look,’ Roger said. ‘Now it’s eating stones. See it making for that flashy one. What kind of a stone is that?’

Hal had only an instant to study the stone before it was swallowed. Reflecting the sun, it shone like a jewel. It was as if there were a light inside it. He suddenly remembered that the geologist Ryan had described a diamond just that way. He searched the ground but didn’t find another like it. But wasn’t it important to learn whether it really was a diamond?

‘We’ve got to get inside that bird,’ he said. ‘Toto, bring the dart gun.’

The tranquillizer worked fast. As soon as the bird closed its eyes and sank to the ground, Hal directed the men to take it up and tote it into the hospital.

When Dr Burton saw his new patient he protested. ‘You must think I’m running a Noah’s Ark,’ he laughed.

‘If I’m not mistaken,’ Hal said, ‘there’s something in this bird more valuable than all the contents of the Ark put together.’ He told of what he had seen. ‘Do you think you can get at it?’

‘A fairly simple operation,’ the doctor said. ‘Just a slit to open the stomach, take out what’s inside, and sew it up again.’

Skilfully, he proceeded to do just that. One of the first things to emerge was Roger’s watch, still ticking away merrily. Out came half-digested lucerne, lettuce, grass, and wild celery, mixed with an odd assortment of grinders, gravel, buttons, keys, spoons, and even a set of false teeth lost a few days before by a village headman.

And the bright stone.

Dr Burton examined it with interest. Tm no expert on diamonds. We could send this to town to be assayed.’

‘We can do better than that,’ Hal said. He told the doctor about the visit of the Williamson geologists. ‘They said they’d be in Rutshuru today. We can go over right now and try to locate them.’

The ostrich, relieved of twelve pounds of gravel and trinkets, was placed in the cage that had housed Gog and taken home to join the mountain menagerie. Most of the men went along, while Hal and Roger drove to Rutshuru. They found the geologists in the town’s one small hotel. They examined the luminous bit of rock and pronounced it a diamond.

‘It’s the real thing,’ Ryan exclaimed. ‘Can you take us where you found this ?’

Within half an hour they were poking around with shovels in the plot of ground where the diamond had been discovered. A few feet under the wind-blown dust, they found what they were looking for - the surface of a diamond lode that might extend downwards, funnel-shaped, for hundreds or even thousands of feet.

‘You have struck it rich,’ they told the boys. ‘We’ll ask you to sign preliminary papers. Then well bring in some of our men and do some actual digging. When we get a better idea of the extent of the lode our firm will make an advance payment to you and a royalty arrangement.’