08 Safari Adventure (11 page)

A thin spiral of smoke rose from the trees.

‘A poacher’s camp,’ Hal guessed.

‘And there’s a trap-line,’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Oh boy -what a long one. It must be a good five miles.’

Hal did some mental arithmetic. “That would come to around twenty-six thousand feet. And if there’s a trap every fifty feet that would come to something more than five hundred traps. Suppose only half of them caught animals.’

‘Suppose nothing of the kind,’ said Roger. ‘Yesterday there was an animal in every single trap.’

‘All right. And the poachers clear the traps once a week. Five hundred dead animals a week - more than two thousand a month. I can’t believe it. Must be something wrong with my figures.’

‘What does it matter?’ Roger said. ‘Even a hundred a month would be a hundred too many. And don’t forget,’ this is just one trap-line. And the warden says there are others two or three times as long. And hundreds of trap-lines all over East Africa.’

It was easy navigation. All you had to do was to follow the road and railway. Actually the road could not be seen because it was concealed beneath a continuous cloud of red dust stirred up by traffic. The ribbon of red wound down to Mombasa, already visible on its coral island set like a jewel in the blue of the Indian Ocean.

The plane landed lightly on the broad airfield eight miles from town and the boys took a taxi across the causeway and through the busy streets of the island city to the court-house.

Hal peered in through the crack between the double doors.

At the far end of the room behind a desk on a high platform sat Judge Sindar Singh. He did not look so little now. His black robe gave him importance and dignity. Before him stood the poachers, all of them. The rest of the room was full of spectators, also standing. There was no jury, no prosecutor, no defender. Judge Singh was the sole authority. This was not a criminal court - strangely enough, the murder of helpless animals was not considered a criminal offence.

‘I’d rather the judge didn’t see us,’ Hal whispered. “Let’s duck our heads down and sneak in as quietly as we can.’

They slipped through the door and stood behind the crowd.

An interpreter was questioning one of the prisoners in his native dialect, then passing on the answers to the judge in English.

‘He says,’ explained the interpreter, ‘that he is a poor man. He has eight children. And four more on the way.’

‘Four on the way?’

‘Yes. He has four wives.’

The judge looked severe. ‘Does this man realize that I could send him to prison for ten years for poaching?’

‘Yes, he knows that.’

‘But this court has mercy upon the poor and unfortunate. I will not punish this man. Any man with four wives is being punished enough already.’

The crowd laughed. What a jolly little judge this was!

‘Case dismissed,’ said Judge Singh.

But not everyone was amused. An intelligent young African standing next to Hal whispered angrily, ‘He’s being too easy on them. You can never stop poaching that way.’

Hal nodded. He thought of all the trouble and danger he and his men had gone through to catch these fellows. And now they were being let off with little or no punishment. Of course they would go right back to poaching.

The judge was questioning the next man. ‘Don’t you know it is wrong to kill animals?’

‘No. My tribe has always killed animals. It is our custom. Our fathers killed, their fathers killed, for ever it has been so.’

The judge meditated. ‘How can we ask this man to go against the custom of his tribe? Case dismissed.’

The next man had a different excuse. ‘I am a kind man. I do not like to kill. But the black-bearded one, he makes us kill.’

The judge nodded solemnly. ‘You do not do it of your own free will?’

‘Never.’

‘This black-bearded one is a devil. You are afraid of him, are you not?’

‘We all fear him.’

‘That is good. I mean,’ stumbled Judge Singh, ‘it is good that you do not do this willingly. How can I punish you if you do only what you are forced to do? Case dismissed.’

The next prisoner when asked why he was guilty of poaching explained that he had a flock of goats, and wild animals were killing and eating his goats - so he must kill the wild animals.

‘What wild animals do you kill?’

‘Mostly rhinos, giraffes, elephants, hippos, zebras, antelopes.’

‘You cannot be blamed for defending your flock against these wild beasts,’ declared Judge Singh. ‘Case dismissed.’

The African at Hal’s elbow boiled over. ‘Every one of those animals eats grass and nothing else. Not one of them ever ate a goat. This whole thing is a farce and a fraud.’

He turned and left the room.

The boys also had had about enough. But they stuck it out - they listened to the lame excuses of all forty-seven prisoners. The judge, realizing that it would look too ridiculous for him to say ‘Case dismissed’ every time, imposed a few light sentences.

One man was sent to prison, not for ten years, but for three days. He grinned when he heard his sentence. He could rest in prison and would get better food than he would have at home.

Another man who had a small farm on which he raised melons was fined one melon.

Another who raised chickens was ordered to pay a penalty of two eggs.

Most went scot free.

Hal and Roger left the court-room without having been seen by the judge. They were gloomy, angry, and bewildered.

‘We break our necks to catch poachers,’ grumbled Roger, ‘and he lets them off.’

‘And that means we’ve really done more harm than good,’ said Hal. ‘Now these fellows know that they can poach all they like and if they’re caught they’ll just have a nice trip to town at somebody else’s expense.’

‘What’s the matter with that crazy judge?’ wondered Roger. ‘He had so many big things to say about what he would do to the poachers. All that big talk about protecting the wild animals. He certainly has the warden buffaloed. You know what I think? I think he’s in league with Blackbeard. I’ll bet they’re in this thing fifty-fifty. They’re splitting the profits right down the middle.’

Hal shook his head. ‘He seems like such a kind sweet little man. And Blackbeard is such a devil. How could they possibly have anything to do with each other? Until we know more about it we’ll have to give the judge the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he really thought he could win those poachers over by kindness.’

‘Kindness my hat!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘Is it kind to the animals to let a gang of killers loose on them?’

They walked slowly down the street. Roger, irritated because his brother refused to think ill of the judge, stopped short.

‘Look here. We’ll do some detective work. You say he’s an angel and he’s just trying to be good to the Africans. I say he’s a devil and he’s working with Blackbeard. We’ll just see who’s right’

Hal smiled and said nothing. He had a suspicion that they were both wrong. There must be some other explanation for the judge’s strange conduct. He really didn’t think that the judge was an angel. In fact he might be even more of a devil than Roger imagined. Time would tell.

In their aimless wandering they had left the main streets with their fine modern buildings and found themselves in the maze of narrow alleys of the old Arab town.

Open doorways led into dark, mysterious shops. From some came the odour of fruits and vegetables, from others the smell of fresh meat.

One had the peculiar scent of wire and iron and something prompted Hal to step inside.

He saw that he was surrounded by traps, traps of every description, but particularly the cruel wire snares like those he had seen in the trap-line of death the day before.

A long-nosed Arab came out of the gloom rubbing his hands. ‘You are interested in traps?’

‘Very much interested,’ Hal said. ‘You sell these to poachers, don’t you? Isn’t that against the law?’

‘The law,’ laughed the Arab. ‘In this country, now that the British have gone, we don’t worry too much about the law. Do you run an operation?’

‘What do you mean, an operation?’

‘A poaching operation - like Blackbeard’s.’

‘So you know Blackbeard?’

‘Of course. He’s our best customer. We sell him a thousand snares at a time.’

‘How much are they?’

‘Well, the average snare requires two and a half yards of wire. The price is one shilling.’

‘And a thousand snares - how many animals would they catch?’

‘It depends on the season. And every operator has his own figures. Now, take Blackbeard - he estimates that from January to July each snare should take four animals a month. For a thousand snares, that’s 28,000. During the dry season, August to October, only one a

month. That’s 3,000. During the big migration season, November and December, ten a month for each snare, and that’s 20,000. Total for the year, 51,000.’

‘Big business,’ said Hal.

‘The biggest business in the country,’ the Arab said proudly.

‘How do the animals like it?’

The Arab looked startled. ‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those animal-lovers.’ His face turned purple with anger. ‘You’ve just been leading me on, haven’t you? Get out of this shop before I throw you out.’

Farther down the street, Hal paused again. From the doorway came a musty, leathery smell that reminded him of the piles of hides and heads, at the poachers’ camp.

Entering, he found himself in a large warehouse that reached as far back as he could see. On each side it was piled from floor to ceiling with heads of lions, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, buffaloes, zebras, wildebeests, rhinos, elephants, hippos, and antelopes; also tails by the thousand, elephants’ feet hollowed to make waste-paper baskets or umbrella stands, rich stores of great ivory tusks, rhino horns beyond number, stuffed monkeys of every sort, and hides of everything from elephants to bush-babies.

The proprietor was an Indian. Hal picked up the beautiful antlered head of a Tommy gazelle.

‘How much?’ he asked.

‘In what quantity?’

‘How much for this head?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, we can’t sell you one only. We don’t sell retail - just wholesale.’

‘You mean, by the dozen, or by the gross?’

The Indian smiled. ‘No, no. We don’t deal in such small amounts. Our minimum order would be for about ten thousand specimens. In fact we usually sell by the shipload. We outfitted three ships yesterday. They’re sailing this morning.’

‘Where from?’

‘The Old Harbour. Just down at the end of this street”

Mombasa’s ‘Old Harbour’, nestling among the coral cliffs at the north-east corner of the island, was full of large high-pooped Arab dhows. Those ready to leave were easily picked out, for their great lateen sails had already been raised and were idly flapping in the breeze.

A dark-skinned Arab who looked every inch a pirate stood by the gangway of the biggest dhow.

‘Are you the captain of this ship?’ Hal asked.

The man nodded.

Hal looked up admiringly at the great sweep of sail. He pulled out his camera.

‘May I ?’

The captain nodded again. Hal took the picture.

‘Where are you off to?’ he asked.

‘Bombay.’

‘A fine looking ship,’ Hal said. ‘I could get a better shot at that sail from the deck. Do you mind?’

The captain waved his hand towards the deck. Hal and Roger went aboard. Hal took a couple more pictures. He turned to find the captain beside him. Hal took his picture and the piratical face lighted with a smile.

‘Do you speak English?’ Hal asked.

‘Pretty good.’

‘What are you taking to Bombay?’

Hal did not expect an honest answer. But the captain evidently had no fear of possible spies, plain-clothes police, or customs officials.

‘I show you.’

He lifted the edge of a tarpaulin so it was possible to see below deck. The great hold was crammed to the limit with the same sort of specimens that the boys had just seen in the warehouse. The dark face beamed with pride.

‘Good, no?’

‘All of these - how many?’

The captain pulled out his bill of lading. The number of trophies of each kind was set down. The grand total of all specimens was 180,000.

And this was but one of three vessels to sail in a single day, all chock full of trophies representing the death of thousands of Africa’s animals.

‘I can’t understand it,’ said the warden after Hal had made his report concerning the trial of the forty-seven poachers. ‘Why Sindar was so easy on them baffles me. Perhaps it’s just because he’s so tender-hearted - can’t bear to hurt either animal or man.’ He dismissed the matter as if it were too painful and puzzling to think about.

‘Anyhow,’ he said,’I have another plane trip mapped out for you. But this time I ‘d like you to take two passengers. One is a colobus and the other is an okapi. Come over to the hospital and I’ll introduce you to them.’

The animal hospital was alive with the grunts, groans, squeals, and squawks of everything from baby elephant to crowned crane.

‘Meet the most beautiful monkey in all Africa,’ said Crosby. ‘This is the colobus.’

Truly it was handsome. It was pitch black and snow white. The rich black hair on its back contrasted with the flowing robes of white on its flanks and the picture-frame of white that encircled its black face.

‘Its coat is gorgeous,’ Hal said.

‘Yes,’ agreed the warden. ‘And that may mean the death of it. The fur is in great demand for women’s garments. High prices are paid for it, so the poachers are hot on the trail of the few colobus monkeys that are left. If something isn’t done to stop the poaching, the finest of the monkeys will soon be as extinct as the dodo.’

‘What a tail,’ exclaimed Roger, looking at the great white bushy plume that restlessly fanned the air. ‘Why, it must be longer than the monkey.’

‘You’re right,’ replied Crosby. ‘The body is usually about thirty-two inches long, and the tail forty inches.’

‘What do you want us to do with it?’ Hal asked.

‘Take it where it will be safe. If we turn it loose here it will soon be picked up again by poachers. It doesn’t belong here. How it ever got here I don’t know. Colobus monkeys do best in a higher altitude than this. There are some of them left in the Aberdare Mountains - they feel at home there in the very tall trees and the cool mountain air, and they are pretty safe. So it would be fine if you could fly this one up to the Aberdares.’