10 Gorilla Adventure (3 page)

It was not difficult to figure out what had happened. A gang of natives had attacked the family, hoping to take the baby alive. The other members of the family had desperately defended the youngster and so had met their death. Three animals had been killed to capture one.

If there had been four hundred gorillas in the Virunga country, now there were only three hundred and ninety-seven. There were strict laws against killing these animals. Scores of other animal species had disappeared from the face of the earth because they had been hunted to the death by man. If this sort of murder went on, the mountain gorilla would join the gone and forgotten.

The native gang had evidently made off with the baby of the family. Why?

‘Why didn’t they take a big one?’ Roger wondered.

‘Perhaps they didn’t know how,’ Hal said. ‘It was easier to kill the large ones, then grab the baby.’

‘But if they intend to sell it they won’t get as much for it,’ Roger said.

‘Ten thousand dollars. The same price as for a big one.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Roger objected.

‘Yes it does. Figure it out for yourself. If you were running a zoo, which would you rather have - a big gorilla that would perhaps last only ten years more, or a little one that you could have on exhibit for its full life-span of thirty years?’

‘Well,’ said Roger, ‘I’d like to have both - a big one so that people could see what a giant gorilla looks like, and a little one that would live a long time.’

‘Exactly. That’s why they’re worth the same money.’

‘Okay,’ Roger said. ‘But here’s another puzzle. Why is it forbidden to kill gorillas but you can get a permit to take them alive?’

‘Because a dead gorilla is one gorilla less in the world. But if you take a live gorilla and put it in a zoo you haven’t reduced the number of gorillas. In fact, you are doing the gorillas a favour - because they live better and live longer in a well-kept zoo than they would in the jungle where they have so many enemies. Some people say that animals pine away in a zoo. That’s true in some cases - but generally it’s the other way round - the animal is not at all unhappy to be safe and well-fed, cured of his diseases if he has any, and entertained by watching the funny humans who come to look at him.’

‘Listen,’ Roger said.

There was a crackling in the bushes, then out stepped the giant they had seen beside the stream. He was still talking to himself in a low, contented voice.

He stopped short when he saw what had happened to his family. Then his voice changed to an agonized aoo, aoo, aoo. He ran forward and stooped over the body of the young male, probably his son. Then he dropped between his two wives. With his great hands he tried to stop the blood that still trickled from their wounds. He shook them as if trying to bring them back to consciousness. Then he put one great hairy arm around each, drew them close to him and rocked back and forth, moaning pitifully.

Suddenly there was a change. The giant dropped the two warm dead bodies and leaped to his feet. He looked all about him and one could guess the thought in his mind, ‘Who did this?’

His eyes came to rest on the men not too well concealed in the bushes. He let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed back from the crags of Karisimbi, the next volcano. It was so chilling a sound that it numbed the nerves and the men stood as if paralysed.

Gog beat upon the ground with the palms of his hands. What hands! Each as big as a baseball glove. He began to walk towards the men, bellowing as he came, and slapping the great drum of his chest.

The men stood like statues, their hearts thumping. Their first impulse was to turn and run. But they knew very well that this would only invite an attack. Their only chance was to stand firm and out-bluff the beast.

If he behaved in true gorilla fashion he would come within perhaps ten feet of them, then stop, and turn aside.

But the giant Gog did not stick to the rules of the game. His natural fear of man was wiped out by his rage and grief over the slaughter of his family.

The expression on the monster’s face was enough to chill your blood. It was not just because the wide-open mouth showed teeth as big as a lion’s. The face was terrible because it was so like the face of a man when he is in a deadly rage.

Hal and Roger had been charged by other animals, and that was bad enough, but this was more terrifying. A charging rhino’s face is completely without expression. The features of the buffalo are the same whether he is nibbling grass or coming to kill. A hippo may be full of fury but his pig-like eyes don’t show it. A charging elephant spreads his ears and raises his trunk, but there is no change in his face. The face of a charging lion, except for his open jaws, is calm and ordinary. So it is throughout the animal kingdom - until you come to the great apes. They alone, and that other animal, man, have a face that can truly express their emotions.

But even man, no matter how angry, does not smell like an angry gorilla. A slight breeze brought the odour to Roger’s nostrils.

‘He smells like burning rubber,’ Roger said.

Gog spread his huge hairy arms so that no one might escape him. The arm reach was a good eight feet. The shoulder muscles heaved and it was clear that one of those enormous hands could twist a man’s head off.

The hairs on the ape’s forehead twitched up and down and Roger felt the hair on his own neck do something like it.

Tieg’s huge body was trembling like a leaf. This was actually the first mountain gorilla he had ever seen. All he had told the boys about gorillas he had picked up from men who had hunted them. He knew nothing about them first-hand.

So it was natural for him to do the wrong thing.

He bent down, grabbed a rock, and threw it with all bis strength.

It struck the monster full in the chest but had no more effect upon him than if he had been struck by a feather.

The ape picked it up and threw it back. That again reminded the boys of the stories about the great Gog who fought by hurling rocks at his enemies.

The rock caught Tieg in the stomach and doubled him up.

The gorilla did not stop at ten feet nor at five feet nor at one. A sideways slap of his left arm laid Roger and Joro flat on the ground and bis right arm did the same for Hal.

He reserved special treatment for Tieg. He picked up the big fellow and flung him into a tree where he landed on a branch twelve feet up, then fell to the ground.

Tieg drew a revolver and fired.

The bullet found its mark but did not fell the beast. He clutched bis shoulder, then turned and disappeared into the woods.

Hal bent over the unconscious body of Roger. He felt his pulse’ made sure the boy was breathing.

‘He’ll come round,’ he said and, sure enough, after a few minutes Roger opened his eyes and inquired weakly, ‘What happened to me?’

His tough young body survived a blow that would have killed someone who had not been hardened as Roger had been by many adventures in the African bush.

The men picked themselves up and stumbled in a sort of daze long the path towards the cabin. Hal looked curiously at Tieg.

‘I thought you said not to carry a gun.’

Tieg was embarrassed. ‘Oh, that,’ he said. ‘Well, you see, I thought it was just an extra precaution.’

‘But I thought you said you weren’t afraid of gorillas.’

‘Afraid? Who’s afraid? I just thought I ought to be ready to protect you in case of trouble. You were very lucky that I did bring it along. I saved your lives and I expect a little gratitude for that.’

Hal smiled and let the big coward enjoy his feeling of self-importance.

Roger kept glancing back. After he had done this several times his brother asked, ‘What’s the matter, kid?’

‘I have a nasty feeling that we’re being followed.’

Hal looked back but could see nothing - nothing but trees. Perhaps his brother was imagining things. Perhaps he was still suffering from the shock of having been knocked unconscious by one swipe of the great Gog’s mighty arm.

They came out into the clearing and walked through the flowers to the cabin. Here at last with their thirty men around them they felt safe.

Roger looked back again. ‘I see him - Gog - looking through the bushes - no, I don’t - yes I do - no I don’t.’

‘Get hold of yourself,’ Hal said. ‘Your nerves are all in a tangle. With that bullet in him Gog is still running. He’s probably miles away by this time.’

But he wasn’t too sure about it As they entered their cabin and flopped down on the camp beds to rest, he began to wonder. Suppose the kid had really seen something. Suppose Gog had followed them and now knew where to find them. Gog believed that they had slaughtered his family.

They had put a bullet in him. He had been too tough to kill, but perhaps the bullet was causing him terrible pain and added to his determination to take revenge. Perhaps they had not seen the last of Gog.

Roger was restless. Every time he began to doze off he saw an angry black face in the bushes and a hairy arm five hundred feet long reaching all the way across the clearing to knock him senseless.

He woke and worried. Not just because he was afraid of Gog But also because he was sorry for Gog. The great beast had lost his loved ones. Then Tieg had made matters worse. Now Gog, wounded and suffering, had become a deadly enemy. Half crazy with pain, he was raging through the forest ready to kill the first human he saw.

‘Hal,’ Roger said. ‘Wake up.’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘Listen, Hal. We’ve got to do something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Get that bullet out of him.’

It was not the reply Hal had expected. But it was just like Roger to plan how to help an animal rather than escape from it ‘k.

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Hal said. ‘How can you make friends with a beast that is bent on murdering you?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Roger. ‘But we’ve got to do it, somehow. And you’ve got to fire Tieg.’

‘Unfortunately, we can’t do that. He’s under contract. We had to guarantee to keep him on until we’re done with our job in these mountains. But there’s one thing I can do, perhaps. Relieve him of his revolver.’

Roger laughed. ‘Now there’s something I’d like to see. I suppose you’ll just say, ‘Pretty please, Mr Tieg, I’d like to have your gun.”

Hal smiled. ‘Something like that,’ he said.

‘And if he doesn’t fork it over?’

‘Then I’ll have to try gentle persuasion.’

Joro burst into the room.

‘Python, bwana.’

‘Where?’

‘In the lake.’

‘Keep your eye on it. We’ll be right out.’

Ringling Circus wanted a python. And here was one almost at their front door. Their weariness was promptly forgotten and they ran out to the edge of the lake.

They looked in vain for the python. Joro pointed. There.’

They had expected to see the longest animal in Africa. All they saw was a nose. It projected above the surface just far enough to allow the creature to breathe.

It reminded them of the great serpent of the Amazon jungle, the anaconda. It was a first cousin of the python. They both belonged to the boa family. But the anaconda was a water snake, while the python was supposed to be a land snake. Yet they both had this habit of lying doggo in the water close to shore, ready to leap out and grab any animal that might come to drink.

‘How do we get it out of there?’ Roger wondered. ‘Lasso it? Use a net?’

‘It would go down before we could get a rope or a net on it,’ Hal said.

‘How could it go down? It has to stay up to breathe.’

‘No. It can stay under and hold its breath for a good twenty minutes. In the meantime it could swim away under water and we would have no idea where to find it. We won’t have much luck using force. But perhaps we can give it a good reason to come out.’

‘What do you mean? Do you think you can argue with a python?’

‘Yes. If we have another animal to help us.’ Hal’s eye roamed around the clearing. He spotted a duiker antelope grazing near the edge of the woods.

Mali, one of his men, was carrying a lasso. ‘See if you can snag that duiker,’ Hal said.

Mali roped the unsuspecting little antelope without difficulty.

‘Bring it over here - close to the water,’ Hal said.

Mali dragged the bucking, prancing little creature until it stood on the shore close to the waiting python. Mali himself disappeared into the bushes, still holding the end of the

line.

There was a sudden surge of water as the snake with head raised and jaws open shot towards its prey.

‘Haul in,’ shouted Hal.

Mali hauled the trembling little creature into the safety of the bushes and let it go. A dozen men descended upon the great snake. Wet and slippery, it slithered through their fingers and dived into a hole. The men were disappointed.

‘Never mind,’ Hal said. ‘We’ll get it yet. It must have its nest down there. Sooner or later it will come out again. Be ready to grab it’

They stood and waited - ten, twenty, thirty minutes.

The cook suddenly had an idea. He went to the provision truck and came back with a sprig of garlic. ‘In my village,’ the black man said, ‘they used to say that snakes liked garlic. They just can’t stay away from it’ He put down the garlic at the edge of the hole. ‘That will bring him out.’

Hal was too wise to laugh at such notions. This was only one of many native superstitions.

Another was that the python is sacred. Many tribes worship it as a sort of god. If you kill a python there will be no rain and your crops will die.

Another notion is that a python must have its tail locked around a tree before it throws its coils about you. Naturalists know that this is not so - many pythons have attacked men and animals on the plains where there were no trees.

Another common idea is that the snake uses its tongue as a paintbrush and covers its victim with saliva so it will slip down more easily. Actually the tongue is too small for such a job. It would be like trying to paint a barn with a toothbrush.

The snake has two small bumps underneath and is supposed to press these into its victim’s nostrils so that it cannot breathe. This is not true, but the truth is more strange. The two bumps are the remains of feet. Some millions of years ago snakes walked.