10 Gorilla Adventure (7 page)

Here again it was gorillas they found, not gangsters. But the gorillas were dead. Jackals that had been feeding upon the bodies ran yelping into the woods, and vultures rose in a cloud.

This had not been a single gorilla family, but a tribe. Hal counted sixty bodies of adult males and females. There were estimated to be about four hundred mountain gorillas in the region of the Virunga volcanoes. The loss of sixty was a serious matter.

There were no dead babies. They had been taken alive after the older apes had been killed. Not every gangster had escaped the angry adults. Two Africans lay dead.

Roger picked up something that was not African. He showed it to Hal. It was a small notebook full of figures and scribbled notes - in English!

‘It seems to be a sort of account book. It tells where catches were made, how many were taken, cost of shipment, receipts in dollars or pounds. And here’s a name on the flyleaf. It seems to be ‘J. J. Nero’.’

Roger looked over the field of the dead. ‘Do you suppose he’s at the back of this whole thing?’

‘More than likely. I hope we have a chance to deliver this notebook to Mr Nero in person.’ ‘Then what would you do?’

‘Invite him down to see the authorities. I’ll bet he has no permit for what he’s doing. He ought to be put away.’ ‘If he goes to jail, will that stop the killing?’ ‘Chances are it will. The gang doesn’t kill for fun. If there’s nobody to pay them, why keep on? No pay, no

work.’ ‘Look,’ Roger said. ‘Two live babies.’

The two youngsters had been lying unseen close to their dead mother. Now one of them sat up and the other climbed on its mother’s chest, took the long hair in its two little hands and tugged vigorously. When it did not get any response it sat mournfully looking about, making no sound. A chimp would have been chattering. But gorillas are not talkative and an infant is no cry-baby.

‘They look mighty lonesome,’ Roger said. ‘And they must be hungry. Do you think they would let me pick them up?’

‘If anybody can do it, you can,’ Hal said. ‘You get along well with the beasties, I don’t know why. I think you must be part beastie yourself.’

‘Thanks for the compliment,’ Roger-said. He picked his way over the bodies. He stood looking down at the two small apes and they returned his gaze without stirring. They were too young to know how dangerous a human being is.

Roger stooped beside them. They inspected him soberly. After a moment he put out his hand. He let it lie quietly between them where they could both sniff at it. He spoke to them in a low voice. His words would mean nothing to

them but the gentleness of his voice was easily understood.

Slowly he moved his hand and petted one of them, then the other. They seemed to like it.

Still, he knew he couldn’t rush matters. He did not attempt to take them up. Instead, he rose slowly and started to walk away. He turned and found them following close upon his heels.

He had been elected. From now on, he was their mother.

He stooped again. One of them clambered up on his shoulder and the other he took into his arms.

‘A neat job,’ Hal said.

Hal showed the notebook to Joro. ‘Where do you suppose we could find this Nero?’

‘Perhaps he and his whole gang would be at Kala village today,’ Joro said. ‘One of my scouts brings back word that they’re having a big ceremony there in honour of a new chief.’

Let’s go and see,’ Hal said.

Tieg was pouting. He was supposed to be the guide of this expedition but it was Joro who was leading the party. Tieg felt left out. He must assert himself. He must do something to make these people think he was a great guy -that he knew something about these woods.

But he didn’t know enough to recognize a honey bird when he saw one. It sat on a branch, fluttering its wings and chirping loudly.

‘It’s trying to attract our attention,’ Hal said. Tf we’d follow it it would lead us to some honey. But we won’t take the time for that now.’

Tieg saw his chance to be important. Tt would be time well spent,’ he objected. ‘All of us would like some honey. I’ll go and get it for you. I’ll meet you at the village later.’

Everyone in Africa knew about the honey bird. Even Tieg had heard of it, though he had never actually seen one. The honey bird, or honey guide as it was sometimes called, loved wild honey, but didn’t enjoy being stung by the bees, before it would guide a man to the nest in the hope that nan would get it down, scare away the bees, take some

of the honey, and leave the rest for the honey guide. This was important to the little bird, because it cared for nothing so much as honey.

There was another extraordinary thing about the honey guide. If honey were not left for it, it would take revenge. Many hunters had suffered because of this peculiar habit. The angry bird would lead you again - but this time not to a bees’ nest, but to a serpent or lion or leopard or some other dangerous creature, in the hope that you would be scratched, bitten, or stung.

Some people, like Tieg, who had not studied the honey guide, did not believe all this. This co-operation between a man and a bird was too strange to be true. They did not realize that symbiosis, which means teamwork between two different kinds of animals, is not uncommon in nature.

The rhino and the egret are friends, the bird rides on the beast’s back and gobbles up the insects that annoy the rhino.

The tick-bird performs a similar service to the buffalo, picking out the ticks that have burrowed into the animal’s hide.

The crocodile bird fearlessly enters the open mouth of the crocodile to pick bits of food from between the teeth. Also it eats the leeches that infest the creature’s body. The crocodile is a bad-tempered reptile, but has a soft spot in its heart for this bird.

A small fish swims about among the arms of the sea anemone. Those arms are covered with stingers but the little fish is not stung, because it is the anemone’s good friend and assistant. It tempts big fish which rush in to take it, and are promptly stung and swallowed by the anemone.

There were dozens of other examples of symbiosis, all unknown to big Tieg.

With a noisy cher-cher-cher the little brown-bodied, white-tailed honey guide fluttered farther away and Tieg followed. The bird impatiently waited for him to catch up, fluttering and twittering constantly, then moving on.

Presently Tieg noticed that he was not the only one following the honey guide. The other was an animal about two and half feet long and a foot high with long sharp claws. This was the famous honey badger or ratel. He also loved honey. Honey badger and honey guide were glad to work together.

Tieg hurried. He must not let this animal beat him to the feast of honey.

The bird had now stopped going forward and was circling round and round a branch that cradled a large nest Tieg smacked his lips. This was going to be good. The tree was not hard to climb. He clambered up the trunk and out on the branch.

Bees are not fools. They saw him coming and prepared for battle. When he came within two feet of the nest they pounced upon him. They stung him on the neck and nose and cheeks and arms. Trying to beat them off, he lost his grip on the branch and fell.

He had the bad judgment to fall on the honey badger, which promptly bit him on the leg. This animal is a ferocious fighter and will take on an opponent a dozen times its own size. It proceeded to rip holes in Tieg’s clothes with its sharp claws. Tieg shook it off and ran.

He stopped when he found that the ratel was not following. Instead, the animal was climbing up to the bees’ nest.

Tieg felt as happy about it as if he had planned it that way. What could be better? The ratel would do the work and he, Tieg, would get the honey. It occurred to him that he was pretty smart, after all.

The bees swarmed around the ratel but their stings did not disturb him in the least. His tough hide was like a coat of armour. He clawed the nest from the branch and it fell to the ground. The bees still buzzed around the branch that had been their home.

This was easy picking. All that Tieg needed to do was to take the big honeycomb, treat himself, then carry all the rest to the village, give everybody a little of it, and allow everyone to think what a clever fellow he really was.

But the honey badger was clawing open the comb and eating the sweet contents. The bird fluttered about constantly, waiting its turn. Tieg also waited. His heart sank when he saw that the ratel was tearing the honeycomb to bits. There would be nothing much left to take to the village.

Finally the ratel stopped eating and looked up at the bird as if to say, ‘Now it’s your turn’. He ambled off, full of honey and quite content. He had left enough for his flying

friend.

The bird promptly sailed in to get its own dinner but was as promptly scared away by Tieg. What could he do now? He wasn’t going to eat after an animal. Besides, what was left, though satisfactory to a bird, was so crumbled and mixed with dirt that no man would want to eat it.

Tieg was angry. Angry with the honey badger, and angry with the honey bird which had led him here on a fool’s errand. Instead of allowing the bird to enjoy its dinner in peace, he fiercely ground every bit of honeycomb deep into the dirt, then, quite proud of himself, stood off to see what the bird would make of it.

The honey guide flew down and pecked about but found nothing. It flew up to perch on a branch and peer at Tieg with one eye. For a while it was quite silent. Tieg was highly pleased with himself. It was a pleasure to be able to cheat somebody or something, even if it was only a bird.

Presently the honey guide stirred. It fluttered a bit and found its voice. It took off and flew to another tree, cher-ing loudly and fluttering excitedly.

So this was another come-on, Tieg thought. The bird would lead him to another beehive. This time there would be no honey badger to make a mess of things.

He followed the bird, which flew from tree to tree, finally stopping at a hollow stump and circling about it just as it had circled around the branch.

The hive must be in the stump. The trees cast heavy shade and Tieg could not see into the hollow, but he noticed that there were no bees flying about. That was good - perhaps they were away on an expedition, leaving the home unguarded. All he had to do this time was to reach in and take out the entire honeycomb, perfect and unbroken, and carry it off to the village.

He reached in and was immediately bitten by very sharp teeth. He pulled out his hand and whatever it was that had bitten him clung on to it.

Out came a cat-like animal spotted like a leopard, but smaller, with a black mask over its face.

It was no sooner out than it sprayed Tieg with a shower of evil-smelling secretion so strong that it might have paralysed a skunk. He swung it about trying to free his hand, but only succeeded in provoking it to send out more foul-smelling blasts that soaked him from head to toe.

It was the civet’s method of self-defence. All animals, big and small, had learned to leave the civet alone. The smell was like that of very strong ammonia. It burned the inside of the nostrils of any creature that smelled it. Strangely enough, the stuff was used commercially as a base for perfumes. Of course its odour was completely changed in the process. But in its raw state there was nothing more disagreeable. If a monkey was sprayed, the other monkeys would have nothing to do with him. And, unluckily, the stink had a lasting quality and could not be washed away or rubbed off.

The civet prowls about at night but lies up during the day in some dark hole. The hollow stump was this animal’s home sweet home, and it hotly resented being disturbed. After it had bitten deep and sprayed out everything it had to give, it dropped again into its hollow, giving some low-pitched, throaty coughs as if it could hardly stand its own smell.

Searching for the leader of the gang that had slaughtered sixty gorillas, Hal and his men walked into the village of Kala.

It was a poor village. The houses were small and had no windows. The walls were of mud, the roofs were thatch made of papyrus - the same plant from which the ancient Egyptians made paper.

The people did not look too healthy but they were in a gay mood because this was the day when they would celebrate the election of a new chief. There would be a solemn ceremony when the present chief, now eighty years old, would pass on his authority to his son.

But this morning the old man was still chief, so Hal inquired the way to his house. He found a fine old gentleman with all the best qualities of a chief, but the withered body of a man who all his life had never had enough to eat.

After the usual courteous greetings spoken by Hal in English and translated into Swahili by Joro, Hal asked:

‘Do you know a man named Nero? He hunts gorillas.’

‘Yes, I know him.’

‘Will he be here today?’

‘I hope not. He is not welcome in this village.’

‘We hope he will come,’ Hal said. ‘We want to invite him to go with us to the police and explain why he is killing gorillas without a permit.’

‘Good,’ the chief said. ‘He should be punished for killing our people.’

‘Your people? The people of this village?’

‘No. Our neighbours in the forest. The great tribes without speech.’

Hal was puzzled. Joro explained. ‘He means the gorillas. Many villages do not believe that the gorillas are animals. They say that they are men who have lost the power of speech.’

Hal did not argue this point. He was satisfied to let the old chief believe whatever he chose to believe. He had to admit that the gorillas were better men than some men he knew.

‘Don’t you ever have trouble with these - tribes of the forest?’ he asked.

‘Never. If we leave them alone they never bother us.’

Hal looked out into the gardens surrounding the village. ‘But I see some of them stealing your vegetables right now.’

‘No, no,’ the chief said. ‘Those are not the forest people. Those are baboons. They are only animals. They trouble us very much. They steal our food and we go hungry. And now we have not only hunger but thirst.’