06 African Adventure (7 page)

‘But he was putting himself in danger too.’

‘Didn’t you see how fast he got himself out of danger? We stayed to try to right the canoe. Did he help us?’

Hal tried to remember. ‘Now that I think of it, he didn’t. He set out for the shore as fast as he could go.’

‘Right. And when we got ashore, he looked angry and disappointed. His plot had failed. But mark my words, he’ll try again.’

‘But why in the world should he want to kill us?’

‘I don’t think he does want to. But that’s what he’s trying to do.’

Hal looked puzzled. ‘Dad, your bump must have affected your brain. You contradict yourself. You say he wants to and doesn’t want to. Does that make sense?’

‘It makes African sense. It makes Leopard Society sense. This isn’t London. It’s the Dark Continent, and it’s still pretty dark, believe me. A couple of dozen African countries have become independent during the last few years, and they have parliaments and presidents and delegates to the United Nations, and they are making a lot of progress and we hope the best for them. But that must not blind us to the fact that outside the cities, away back in these forests, life is just about as savage as it was a hundred years ago. There are still thousands of cannibals in the African jungle. Ninety per cent of black Africans have never been inside a school. They blame everything on the white man. You’ve heard of the Mau Mau - the secret society that makes its members promise to kill whites. It was at its worst in 1952 but popped up again in 1958, and now it has become more secret than ever and is likely to go on as long as there are white men in East Africa holding land that the blacks think should belong to them. More than twenty thousand people have been killed by this society. Most of the killers don’t want to kill - the society makes them.’

‘How can they make them want to do what they don’t want to do?’

‘Simple. They grab a black man and tell him he will be tortured to death unless he takes an oath to kill whites. If he objects, they begin the torture. When he gives in, they make him take an oath to kill, and to make him remember the oath he must eat a dinner of human brains, blood, sheep’s eyes, and dirt.’

‘And the Leopard Society?’

‘Like the Mau Mau, but very much older. The Society seizes a good man and makes a bad man out of him. He must promise to kill. He is given a leopard suit and told he can change into a leopard and must defend all leopards. The heads of the Society are usually witchdoctors. Africans have a deadly fear of witchdoctors and will do anything they tell them to do. If the new member will not promise to kill, he himself and his wife and children are killed. So what can the poor man do? He is caught in a trap.’

‘And you think Joro has been pledged to kill us?’

It certainly looks that way.’

‘Then we’d better fire him, at once. I’ll take care of it.’

‘Not so fast, Hal. As you said, he’s a good man and a good tracker. We need him. What’s more, he needs us. He needs somebody to get him out of this horrible trap they’ve got him into. Now I know it’s risky to have a man around who’s bent on killing us. But we’ve run risks bigger than that. Now that we know what to look out for, I’m sure we can take care of ourselves. Tell Roger. And both of you, watch your step.’ ‘But just what do you hope to accomplish?’ 1 don’t know yet,’ Hunt admitted. ‘Somehow, a way may open up. In the meantime, carry on with Joro as usual. He must not suspect that we know.’

Hal went out, shaking his head. He respected his father’s desire to help Joro. But wasn’t it pretty dangerous to try to help a man who was out to murder you?

Hal counted his troubles.

Some other time he would count his blessings, but just now he was counting his troubles. Number one was his father’s accident. Number two was the responsibility that had fallen upon him to take charge of the animal-collecting. Number three was the leopard-man. Number four was Colonel Bigg.

The first thing he saw as he came out of his father’s tent was. the colonel, posing for a photograph. He had interrupted the men who had been skinning the leopard. The dead animal lay stretched on the grass. Colonel Bigg stood, gun in hand, one foot on the leopard’s head. Mali was holding a small camera.

‘You are just in time,’ the colonel said to Hal. ‘Take the camera. Mali is not such a good photographer. It’s all set - just get me in the view-finder, then press the trigger.’

‘But what’s the-idea?’ asked Hal, quite puzzled.

Must a picture. Being a White Hunter, I have to have a few pictures. Just to show I can kill leopards and things.’

‘But you didn’t kill this leopard.’

‘What of it? I might have done.’

‘But you’re claiming credit for something you didn’t do’

‘Oh, I see, you’re jealous, young man. You killed the leopard and you think you did something great. Why, I’ve killed hundreds of leopards, thousands. Just didn’t happen to have a camera with me. Now I have the camera and here’s a leopard, and what does it matter whether it’s one of mine or not? Tell you what I’ll do - you take a shot of me, and I’ll take one of you. That way well divide the credit, fifty-fifty. That’s fair enough, isn’t it?’

Hal laughed. ‘Thanks, Colonel. I don’t want either the credit or the photograph. Hold it.’ He snapped the picture and gave the camera back to Colonel Bigg.

Hal walked away, chuckling. He had never met anybody quite like the colonel. The man was harmless enough, so long as he only wanted his picture taken. But a fool was a dangerous person to have along on a safari. This fake White Hunter would have to be watched. He might get himself and everybody else into serious trouble.

A scream behind him made him turn round. The colonel was already in trouble. He was dancing and prancing, yelling at the top of his voice, ripping off his jacket, shirt, and trousers, slapping his body, and stamping his feet

Hal could guess what had happened. He had seen soldier ants at work during his Amazon journey. Now the ants had been attracted by the leopard’s carcass, and when the colonel placed his foot on the animal’s head the ants had swarmed up his legs and were puncturing every part of his body with red-hot needles.

Hal ran back into camp. He did not run fast enough to suit the colonel.

‘Hurry up! I’m being eaten alive. Do you want ‘em to kill me?’

He was astounded when Hal paid no attention to him. Hal had something else to think of besides a dancing colonel.

Soldier ants are one of the greatest terrors of the tropical jungle. They march across the country like an army and devour everything in their path. They swarm over their prey in a thick blanket. They can strip the hide from an elephant

‘Make fire!’ he yelled to the Africans. ‘A ring of fire all round the camp.’

The ants already in the camp were bad enough. But behind them would be a column of soldiers perhaps a mile long, marching steadily towards the camp.

The colonel would have to take care of himself. Hal dashed into his father’s tent. If the ants attacked a helpless man he might be killed. ‘Ants!’ Hal cried.

His father needed only that one word to get the whole story. ‘None here, Hal. The hippo. Quick!’ Hal was out again and racing to the hippo’s cage. He would open the cage door and let the animal escape rather than allow it to be murdered by the ravenous ants. The hippo was trembling with fear, for even the largest animals know this danger and dread it. But the ants had not yet climbed the wheels of the truck. Hal jumped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and drove the truck several hundred yards out of camp.

His next thought was for the baby leopards, and the dog. He came running back to the camp-site, whacking as he ran the few ants that managed to get on his body.

He found the dog and the spotted kittens huddled together, while Joro thrashed the ground around them with an old shirt, driving away the ants.

To Hal this was an amazing sight. Here was truly a man divided against himself. Joro was pledged to be a murderer. He was ready to kill men. The savage was strong and fierce within him - yet also inside him was a very gentle heart that prompted him to protect two leopard cubs and a dog.

His own body was not free of the biting ants, but he let them bite as he beat away the danger from the whimpering animals.

Who could hate this good-hearted killer? Hal at last saw clearly that his father was right. Even if it was dangerous to keep Joro, he must he kept and somehow freed from the deadly grip of the Leopard Society.

The ring of fire that the men had made round the camp prevented more ants from coming in, and those already inside were either killed or driven out. The marching army had changed its course to go round the camp and beyond into the jungle. Hal made sure that their path did not take them near the caged hippo.

Now at last he had time to think of the yelping colonel. Bigg had got rid of his last scrap of clothing and was grabbing himself here and there and wherever he felt a new bite. The huge ants, never less than half an inch long, dug their pincers into the flesh and did not relax their hold, even when their entire bodies except the head had been torn away.

The tingling of his own arm reminded Hal of the line of heads that closed his wound beneath the bandage, and he could sympathize a little, not too much, with the cavorting colonel. He pulled out his knife and ran the back of it over Bigg’s body, scraping off the heads.

Bigg was not grateful. ‘Took you long enough to get to it,’ he grumbled. His voice was hoarse from much squawking. He pulled on his clothes. He was still shivering and shaking. Hal turned to the cook.

‘Got any coffee?’

‘Plenty,’ said the cook cheerfully. He had not been bitten, since the ants had kept well away from his fire, so he had been able to attend to his duties as usual. He filled the canteen with strong, hot coffee and passed it to Hal, who poured some of it down Bigg’s throat. Hal kept the canteen strapped over his shoulder, in case anyone else needed some of the same medicine.

As Bigg began to feel better, he seemed to expand and grow until he was once more the great White Hunter. He surveyed the camp like a general inspecting his army.

‘This would never have happened,’ he said, ‘if I had been running this safari. All this trouble could easily have been prevented.’ ‘How?’

‘With ant-poison. Surely you have some.’ 1 believe there are some boxes of it in the supply wagon,’ said Hal. ‘It’s good for ordinary ants. I don’t think it would have stopped the soldiers.’

‘You don’t think? That’s what’s wrong with you young fellows, you don’t think. This camp is still in danger, you know. Those ants are going round us just now, but they may change their evil little minds at any moment and come straight through the camp. But don’t you worryI’ll fix them.’

He went to the van that held the supplies, rummaged about among boxes and packets, and emerged with a tin of ant-poison.

He just wants to show how clever he is, thought Hal. Well, let him have his fun.

Bigg stepped over the burning bunches of grass, twigs, and sticks with which the men had ringed the camp, and began to sift ant-poison on the hurrying ants, taking good care to keep his feet well away from the line of march.

The ant army came on in a column about a foot wide, the soldiers marching so close together that they touched. They did not seem to mind the poison that sifted down upon them like a miniature snow-storm.

Bigg followed the column back to where it emerged from the forest, sifting as he went. He walked on into the woods until he could no longer see the ants because of the thick underbrush.

Then, well satisfied with himself, he returned to camp. The ants, however, kept marching by. For an hour they kept coming. Then the last of them passed and the protecting fires were allowed to die out.

Bigg, his self-conceit completely restored, beamed upon Hal.

‘Well, my boy, it’s a good thing I thought of the ant poison, isn’t it? You see how well it worked. Next time you’ll know what to do.’

Hal was about to point out that the poison had not worried the ants in the least But what was the use of arguing? He would never convince Colonel Bigg. So he smiled and said nothing.

A loud clatter of voices came from the woods - shouts, barks, what sounded like the wail of a suffering infant, and high-pitched screams like the voices of women in distress.

Hal stopped to listen. The sounds were almost human, but he knew they came from the large troop of baboons that inhabited the forest. What was bothering them?

He pulled out his father’s order-sheets. Baboons - yes, a travelling circus wanted two of them.

Perhaps if he wandered down to the woods and took a look at the troop, he could think out the best way to capture two baboons. Besides, he was curious to find out what was the cause of all this disturbance.

He walked slowly down to the edge of the forest, following the poison trail laid by Colonel Bigg. As he came in under the trees and saw angry baboons in every direction, he realized that he should have brought a gun, or at least some staunch companions, for these brutes were in anything but a good mood.

Everywhere, on the ground, in the branches, the baboons, sometimes called dog-headed monkeys because of their long, dog-like faces, peered angrily down at him. He made a hasty estimate of their number. There must be three hundred of them.

As a naturalist, he had learned enough about baboons to know that he was in real danger. All the scientific reports on animal behaviour that he had read, and all the hunters he had talked with in Nairobi, agreed that baboons are among the most quick-tempered of animals. At one time they might be as mild as milk, but when they become excited there is no animal more savage.

The big fellows weigh eleven stone, and one of them is a match for a man. Two of them can tear a leopard to bits.

They are more to be feared because they are remarkably intelligent. They react much like human beings. Throw a stone at a baboon and he will throw one back, and his aim is good. He will pick up a stick and use it as a club.