The Call of the Thunder Dragon (36 page)

Once, a line of elephants stopped
listening to the drone of the engine as it passed. Falstaff wished
he had a camera, reflecting that the story of their journey to the
west would be better presented if told with pictures. Zam jumped,
tugging at Falstaff, encouraging him to turn about as she spotted a
tiger stalking from a log into the long grass.

“It is your brother!” she teased.
“Look a Tiger! He is bigger than you!” Zam smiled with a delighted
shrug.

They marked the border with Assam
as they crossed into British India over another long north-south
ridge. The horizon filled with sight of the high undulating Patkai
Hills, where the Pangsau-pass crossed from Burma into India and
Assam. Falstaff crossed the border to the south of the pass and
over the main ridge, aiming for the heart of Naga land. Naga was
one of the least known states of Indian, almost unexplored. Below
them, the entire kingdom was laid out to view. The distant Mount
Saramati, prominent in the south against the blue sky, made a
welcome milestone as they approached Assam.

Chapter Eight - The Gods of the Monkey men

The Caproni’s engines had
continued running smooth without a hitch or sign of a leak since
take off. As they crested another ridge, Falstaff throttled down.
Dropping down to cruising speed on the far side. The wind had been
coming from South or South east for most of the journey. However,
around the ridges wind tended to cause unexpected squalls,
temperamental gusts that could take inexperienced pilots by
surprise.

Falstaff carefully adjusted his
speed as they descended into the high valley. As they slowed to a
cruising speed Falstaff felt the yoke shudder, the Caproni yawed to
starboard. Glancing to port Falstaff was startled to see the port
engine slow. The propeller emerged intermittently from the buzzing
blur. There was a trail of vapour, probably un-burnt fuel,
streaming out behind them. The engine coughed to a halt.

“Bugger!” Was all Falstaff had
time to say. His hands were full trying to compensate for the loss
of power. As they yawed further to port, he throttled down the
Starboard engine and revved up the pusher engine behind. Trying to
steadying their rapid descent with the rudder. Falstaff strained
his eyes to search for a suitable landing site as they rapidly
descended towards the thick canopy of the trees below.

The high encircled valleys he had
seen so far were frequently spotted with ponds and lakes. Falstaff
scanned around, hoping to see something similar amongst the blur of
the dense jungle below. Zam sensing their dilemma started looking
out from her side of the cockpit, sitting forward, straining to see
over the nose of Caproni. Through a veil of thin cloud, she spotted
a long narrow lake, glistening in the sunlight over to the
North.

Falstaff acknowledged her
jubilant cries and turned immediately, revving up the engines to
maximise their lift. Compensating for the yaw caused by the
rotation of the engines, Falstaff applied a turn, leaning on the
rudder to bring the Caproni round on course towards the lake. The
sparkling water lay tantalisingly ahead just level with them.

Falstaff’s heart sank as the
Caproni’s nose dipped as their airspeed continued to fall. The lake
disappeared from view above them. A steep rocky slope now lay in
their path.

Falstaff seeing disaster ahead
stopped fighting the yaw and turned into it; pushing the engines up
to full throttle and the rudder hard over to the opposite extreme.
They flipped around, climbing at last, in the opposite direction.
The landscape fell away below them, the jungle, the sharp
perpendicular rocks that offered nowhere to land slowly
retreated.

Taking a deep breath, Falstaff
let the turn continue, hoping they would have gained enough height
to clear the crest of the rise and let them land on the lake, if
not crash into it by the time they had circled around.

As Falstaff straightened, the
nose dropped just as the lake came into view. There was no room for
error. Skimming the tree canopy, Falstaff saw a group of native
Naga men duck as they passed over head.

Zam squealed, screaming at the
sudden drop and closeness of the ground. Her heart was in her
mouth, the unexpected loss of momentum made her light headed. They
were now within the grasp of the treetops. Birds flew from their
perches, scattering into the air while thin pig-tailed macaques
jumped showing a flash of pale fur in the tree tops.

Falstaff throttled right down,
the engines dropping, revs almost to a tick over. Levelling out
Falstaff set the controls to neutral and pulled the nose up gently.
Sweeping through the reeds, they splashed down hard. Bobbing and
yawing; spinning immediately to one side as one float dug in
completely submerged, the wing tip being dragged down closer and
closer to the water surface as they continued forward. The nose
tipped throwing them forward towards the water. Then the lake
released its hold and the plane bobbed up, rocking violently, then
was still.

Falstaff looked around. “Well, I
thought that turned out alright?”

Zam looked at Falstaff a moment
wondering if she should slap him or hug him.

“l
a
o wan
gu... You, you you too proud donkey person!” Zam leaned over to him
grabbing his arm, holding on tightly. She let her breath go slowly.
“That was too fast? Why did we fall?”

“Port engine stalled when come
over the ridge there.” He looked puzzled towards the engine. There
was no smoke, no tell sign of dripping oil.

“Did you just call me an arrogant
old man? Your Chinese is certainly more colorful than you English?
Where did you learn that phrase ‘too proud donkey person’ was it?”
Falstaff tried to laugh.

Zam punched his arm.

The Caproni was drifting towards
the southern shore a sharp gust picking up from the west, spinning
them around slowly as the drifted towards the edge of the lake.
Falstaff looked around as they bobbed along. To the south, the lake
shore fell away sharply out of view. Falstaff deliberated their
fate. It was unlikely they would get up off the lake again on two
or one engines.

Falstaff reset the magnetos and
tried to restart the engine, it was dead. Even if they dumped
everything but the fuel, right down to their long-Johns. Angry with
himself, he bought down his gloved fist down hard on the rim of the
cockpit. It hurt, his hand throbbing with pain.

“You silly bitch!” Falstaff
exclaimed, directed at Caproni, more than anyone else.

Suddenly he was furious with
himself for taking on the ridiculous mission. He should have gone
to Kunming he fumed. He should have given up and turned back after
the Japanese had shown themselves in Myitkyina.

He realised Zam was watching him,
sucking her lip and looking at him doe-eyed.

“Damn!” Falstaff swore out loud;
it was that face that got me into this trouble. He scowled at Zam
and then looked away fuming. He shook himself. Zam pawed at his arm
like a lost kitten.

“Get off!” Falstaff bawled.
“Don’t you see? We’re sunk! This your fault! We should have gone to
Kunming!”

Zam raised her eyebrows in
dismay, fighting back the tears. “It is not my fault! You flew into
this lake, not me!”

“And if I hadn’t we’d be smeared
all over those rocks down there! We’d be dead! Oh, well, it was
swell while it lasted! We did have fun and no harm
done!
⁴⁵
”

Zam frowned. “What? Do you mean,
you don’t make sense!”

“Thanks for the memory! what? Oh,
it’s just a sentimental verse!” Falstaff folded his arms and sat,
his chin sunk on his chest. “We’re sunk and you lied to me, that’s
what got us here!”

“I’m sorry I owe you my life, but
it is not my fault, the en-gee … the en-gin?” She pointed

“The engine!” Falstaff snapped.
“The engine stopped, yes! And we are stuck here, for good!”

“Where are we?” Zam hesitantly
asked.

“Naga land!” Falstaff declared
spitefully. “If we don’t die of thirst or hunger, we’ll be killed
by the head hunters.”

“Can Falstaff not fix the engine
like before?” Zam asked, finger on lip, fearful that her enquiry
would set Falstaff off again.

“Can I fix it?” He hesitated and
looked at the engine, his lip starting to curl ready to bark back
again. “Can I fix it? I don’t know…” his voice faded out.

The Caproni was rocking gently
side to side, Falstaff could hear the rush of water.

“Waterfall!” He shouted. “Let go
of me!”

He reset the magnetos again.
Firing up the rear, pusher engine, he put the rudder hard over.
Slowly the aircraft turned, giving them a tormenting view of death
on the rocks below as it swung around past the lip of the water
fall. Gradually Falstaff revved up the engine, pushing them away
from the edge. A tense few minutes past whilst the engine roared,
pushing them forward through the water. The floats dug into the
surface now and then, setting them rocking; Falstaff let the revs
drop, only for the gentle current to turn them again.

Eventually, they reached the far
side of the lake. Falstaff let go of the throttles and relaxed for
a moment, taking a deep breath. He pointed them towards a section
of the lake free of reeds and overhanging trees. As they approached
the shore, they were both startled by the sound of a loud plop and
splash close by. They both turned to see something fall or be
grabbed from a trailing branch by a dark shadow.

A circle of ripples expanding
outward from close by the shore, where tree hung down into the
water. Overhead the red and pink faces of a group of stump tailed
macaques could be seen against the dark green of the tree leaves.
They were howling and hooting, agitated by something in the water.
Falstaff turned away from the group keeping his distance just in
case.

“Do you think one of them fell
in?” Falstaff said, almost in a whisper. “Something jumped up at
the branch?”

“A monkey doesn’t fall,” Zam
answer. “That’s what we say, not normally anyway?”

The wind was chill, dark brooding
trees hunched over the shore and filled the air with tense sense of
foreboding. Neither Falstaff or Zam wanted to say anything. The
engine chugged behind them, the air around them disturbed by the
hungry pull of the pusher engine drawing in the air into the
propeller blades.

“This should be far enough,”
Falstaff said as they drifted closer to the open section of the
bank.

Zam pointed and screamed.
Falstaff scrutinized the area Zam pointed towards. Seeing only
rocks at first then he saw the pile of skulls. A tower of human
skulls, carefully placed in a pile looking down at the lake as if
placed in offering to the lake itself.

“Are those heads?” Zam said, “I
mean like our head bones?”

“Our head bones? By George not
yet! Maybe they are monkey skulls, I mean head bones?” Falstaff
throttled down, halting their progress.

“No, those are monkey head
bones!” Zam pointed towards another pile on the rocks facing the
first across the little cove.

A pile as large on the opposite
side contained many skulls with elongated jaws, some small, some
large.

Falstaff looked up and down the
bank in both directions. He could see movement, men running along
dodging between the trees heading towards the cove.

“I think we’ll move on don’t
you?” Falstaff asked. He pulled off his gloves and threw them down,
loosening his revolver in his holster. Revving up the Engine, he
turned them around, struggling against the gentle current and gusts
of the wind catching the rudders. Whichever way he turned to try
and face north, they spun towards the waterfall.

“Damn! We’re getting closer to
them now!” Falstaff shouted as they motored back towards the cove
once again.

A large group of the Naga hill
men were gathering, shouting and pointing towards them.

Falstaff looked at Zam and
wondered if she was thinking the same as him. It was a known fact
that headhunting and cannibalism were common in the hills. Head
taking had been practised by many types of people in remote places
in Asia and the South Seas. Falstaff had been to more than his fair
share of those areas and was one reason he carried a gun, however
this was the first time he’d seen piles of skulls like this.

“Why do they have skulls? Head
bones I mean?” Falstaff said aloud.

Headhunting may well have
originally evolved from cannibalism, but unless Zam felt like
asking, Falstaff decided he’d rather stay well clear of them.

Zam spoke, in a whisper, her
fingers searching for Falstaff's shoulder. “Many people think that
the head represents the person and to take it as an insult to you.
It is belief that person’s essence is in the head and that taking
an enemy's head weakens the enemy's people!”

Falstaff’s throat went dry. “Same
in the Marquesas! They fight and take the head as a test of
manhood. I hope it’s nobody’s birthday today?”

Falstaff kicked himself, he
should have heeded the warnings. There were reasons that the map
was blank. Maybe more consideration should have been paid to map
denotations such as ‘relief data incomplete’ Falstaff reflected,
perhaps more noteworthy would be something like ‘maximum elevation
not received, survey team eaten.’

Falstaff wondered at the
significance of the piles of skulls by the water’s edge. Tribal
ornaments can symbolise valorous deeds, social status, or even clan
identification, so why the lake?

Falstaff had heard that the
practice of head taking was now down to a few tribes in South
America, South Pacific, Burma, Assam, Taiwan and the Philippines,
highland Melanesia and Indonesia. Why did he spend so much time in
such places he nervously thought? The south of France; the Isle of
Wight; Brighton were fun, but no, he had to stick to the areas you
were mostly to end up on the menu instead?