10 Gorilla Adventure (14 page)

Roger knew the bird by reputation - how the female lays one large egg in a hollow tree and her husband shuts her in by plugging the entrance with clay leaving only one small hole through which he can feed her while she incubates the egg and cares for the baby.

She willingly stays in this prison for five months, never once stirring outside, while her mate stuffs insects, fruit, and best of all - chunks of snake meat through the hole.

For the hornbill is death to snakes and will attack even the most poisonous.

This one, seated on a branch above the cobra, was peering down at it with great interest. Doubtless he was saying to himself, ‘Mama would like that!’

Suddenly he dropped with a loud laugh like that of a hyena and his nutcracker closed on the snake’s neck just behind its head. At once the snake came to life, wrestling to reach the bird with its fangs. The enormous wings began to flap and in another instant would have carried both bird and serpent away to the waiting wife.

Both of them were well off the ground when the loop of Roger’s lasso settled down upon them, binding together the snake’s neck and the bill of the bird.

This was a little more than Roger wanted. Plenty of zoos had hornbills. Besides, he had a mental picture of mother and infant waiting patiently for the return of their provider.

When the bird struggled to free itself of the noose, he did not draw it too tightly. The horabill drew out its nutcracker and flapped away. He was not laughing now. With his best booming voice he was telling the whole world what he thought of boys with lassoes.

Now what? Roger had the snake noosed, but if he pulled the snake towards him it might make a sudden lunge and bite.

It would be hard to use the forked stick. That is good if the snake’s head is flat on the ground. Then you may pin it down by the fork, one prong on each side, and hold it while you grasp the neck. But how do you fork a head swaying in mid air?

Roger tried time and again. He could get the head in the fork, but when he tried to bring it to the ground it would slip out.

And the snake was becoming more and more angry. Its eyes were fixed on its tormentor and the hood was expanded to its full width. That meant it was fighting mad.

Roger thought he was playing it safe. He kept at least ten feet between him and the Cobra. Certainly he couldn’t be bitten at that distance.

‘It’s going to spit,’ Joro warned.

‘Let it spit. It can’t shoot this far.’

What was Joro afraid of? Many animals, such as the cats, could spit. Perhaps a foot or -two. Anyhow, the spit was harmless.

In the next instant the young naturalist learned a lesson he would never forget. Two white streams shot out from the snake’s poison fangs like bullets fired from a double-barrelled gun. Instead of losing their speed after going a foot or two, they covered the ten feet between snake and boy in a fraction of a second and exactly hit their target - Roger’s two eyes.

He would never have believed it possible. How could the snake project so far and with such accuracy? It might have splashed his bush jacket, or missed him entirely. How did it know that the tenderest part of an enemy was the eye? ; He brushed the moisture away with the back of his hand. It did no good. Enough had penetrated to give him intense pain. It was as if hot irons were digging out his eyes. Worst of aiL he found himself half blind. The trees, the men, the snake, all blended in one great agonizing blur.

He was not aware that he had slacked up on the line. The cobra at once tried to make good its escape but Toto was in its way. The frantic snake bit him on the arm. The fangs went deep and the venom was still plentiful and potent.

Roger dimly realized what had happened. Though aching, twitching, burning up. he jumped to save Toto from a very quick death. He gave the line to Joro, first slashing off a yard of rope. He stumbled over to Toto and tied the rope around his arm just above the bite as a tourniquet. He staggered towards the supply truck and fell. Two men helped him to his feet and stayed with him. He blundered about, finally got his hands on the Fitzsimmons snake kit and was helped back to Toto who lay on the ground jerking convulsively.

Roger, though unacquainted with the spitting cobra, did know something about snakebite and how to treat it. He drew out his knife. Toto’s arm swam before his eyes. He couldn’t see the fang wounds. A man had to guide his hand.

He cut a deep criss cross through each puncture and robbed in permanganate crystals. Then his hand searched the kit for the hypodermic. With a wobbling uncertainty that would have disgraced any doctor he finally got the needle into the flesh of the bite area and injected the anti-venom serum.

‘Take him to the cabin,’ he said. ‘Lay him out and keep him quiet.’

Now his greatest desire was to faint. And lose the cobra? He tried to look through the clouds that seemed to cover his eyes.

‘Where is it - the snake?’

Joro pulled it over within reach. Roger knew he must hurry to get this thing done before he blacked out completely. He didn’t bother about the forked stick. He wasn’t afraid of the snake now - it must have used up its venom in its double attack. He groped for its neck. Again a black hand guided his. He clutched the neck just behind the head.

‘The bag,’ he demanded.

It was put in his hands. Now he got plenty of help. While he firmly held the neck, the men stuffed the tail and body into the bag. Then Roger thrust in the head and closed the bag.

Roger, with his job done, now thought he had a right to faint. When he came to he was lying on his bed and something was pouring into his eyes. At first he thought the snake was giving him another shot. He put up his hands to cover his eyes.

‘Lie still,’ Hal commanded, and the pouring continued.

‘What’s that?’

‘Condensed milk.’

‘Are you crazy? What good is that?’

‘It wont do much good,’ Hal admitted. ‘But it will help to relieve the pain and neutralize the poison.’

‘Poison? It was just spit.’

‘It was pure poison,’ Hal said. ‘The poison glands are just back of the fangs. Strong muscles shoot it out through the fangs. It works like a water pistol. Except that it’s a lot more accurate than a water pistol. The spitting cobra is the only creature on earth, so far as I know, that carries a gun in its mouth. Steady. I’m going to give you an injection.’

‘But you already dosed me with milk.’

‘That was just for the eyes. This is for the rest of you. The poison must have travelled through your whole system.’ Roger felt the sharp prick of the hypodermic needle.

‘How’s Toto?’ Roger asked.

‘He’ll come round. It’s you I’m worried, about. You got the full dose - Toto only got what was left. You’re a lucky boy.’

‘Lucky?

‘Lucky not to be totally and permanently blind. How do things look to you?’

Roger screwed his eyes open. ‘Where are you?’

‘Right over you. Within two feet of your face.’

‘You look like a bad dream.’

‘Good. That’s better than looking like nothing at all. I don’t suppose there’s a single village in cobra country without at least one person stumbling around blind as a bat for the rest of his life, thanks to the spitting cobra.’

‘How do the Africans treat it?’

‘By magic. I can’t say much for milk but at least it’s better than magic/

All night Roger squirmed, twitched, and twisted. Every nerve in his body screamed. He wanted to let the scream get out. but firmly kept his mouth shut. Spasms and cramps doubled him up. His heart throbbed and his head seemed about to explode. He couldn’t sleep. It seemed the longest night of his life.

Hal gave him the milk treatment every hour. Hal himself was not too comfortable. He was dead tired after his tussle with the black leopard and his wounds burned.

He was surprised to hear Roger do a good imitation of a laugh. ‘A fine pair of hunters we are,’ Roger said. ‘Both of us pretty well bunged up. I’m tired of it. I’ve decided I’m going to be all right in the morning.’

‘Hold that thought,’ Hal said.

Perhaps it was the thought as much as the milk that helped to restore Roger. Anyhow, he felt much better when day came. He could see the sunlit window. He could even see Hal and the other occupants of the cabin. The two young gorillas were snuggling up against him, one on each side. Their warmth, and their affection for him, were comforting.

The dance of jangled nerves had died down. His head, which had been off all night, had somehow got screwed on again. He had wanted nothing more than to go home to good safe Long Island and be babied by his mother and father. Now the man in him was coming to life again. He even began to plan the day.

‘Hal, are you awake?’

Foolish question. ‘Sure,’ said Hal who had not closed his eyes all night.

The men were telling me about a snake with two heads. They know where its nest is. Shouldn’t we go get it?’

Poor kid, thought Hal. He must be having a nightmare. Two heads, indeed!

He raised himself on his elbow to get a better look. Roger’s eyes were wide open.

‘You’re talking nonsense, little brother,’ he said. ‘Get some more sleep. Snakes don’t come with two heads.’

‘But the men said…’

‘They made a mistake. Perhaps they saw two heads. But they must have belonged to two different snakes. How do you feel this morning?’

‘A lot better. Thanks for milking me all night. Things are kind of hazy yet, but my eyes don’t ache the way they did. About the snake - ask Joro.’

To humour the boy, Hal went to the door and called Joro.

‘My brother is still a bit out of his mind. He’s talking about a snake with two heads. Says you saw one.’

‘Yes, bwana. We saw one. Its nest is in a tree.’

More and more absurd, thought Hal. A two-headed snake with a nest in a tree instead of a hole in the ground. Whoever heard of such a thing?

Something began to stir in his memory. He pulled out his reptile manual and looked up not ‘snakes’, nor ‘nests’, but ‘Siamese twins’.

Yes, here it was. Not only humans could be Siamese twins, but animals too. Sometimes it was a matter of two bodies and one head. Sometimes, two heads and one body.

Scientists had learned much about the operation of the brain by studying the behaviour of two-headed snakes such as the king snake found on the beach at Del Mar, California, in 1967 which was made at home in the Reptile House of the San Diego Zoo. It was the second two-headed snake to be shown in this zoo and there were two or three to be found in other zoos, but so rarely that such a specimen was of great scientific and popular interest and brought a very high price.

Animal collector Hal Hunt’s enthusiasm was at once aroused. ‘I want to see this thing.’

‘Me too,’ came from Roger’s bed.

The two invalids creaked and groaned a good deal as they dressed, but forgot their aches when Joro took them to the acacia tree where the double-headed snake made its home.

Before them was one of the most astonishing sights in Africa. The wide-spreading, flat-topped tree was like an enormous chandelier with dozens of globes hanging from every branch. They were not glass globes and contained no light, but were made of dry grass, golden-yellow, seeming to glow in the light of the early sun.

‘Weavers’ nests,’ exclaimed Hal.

Roger looked at them in amazement. So this was the work of the famous weaver birds. They deserved their name. They had done a beautiful job of weaving the yellow grasses to make nests that could not be blown away by any windstorm.

There must be two or three hundred in that one tree.’

‘More than that,’ Hal said. ‘Closer to five hundred. But that isn’t many. In Rhodesia twelve hundred nests were counted in one tree.’

‘And a family in each nest?’

‘No. One family in two nests. The male does all the building. First he weaves a nest for his mate where she can lay her eggs and care for the chicks. Then he makes another nest for himself.’

‘So much work!’

‘Yes, but he seems to love doing it. Just as anybody is happy doing something he can do well.’

‘But why so many nests in one tree when the forest is full of trees?’

‘The weaver is a very sociable bird. It likes company and plenty of it. Besides, if there are a lot of birds together they can beat off their enemies more easily.’

‘Speaking of enemies, where’s that snake?’

Joro pointed out a nest close to the tree-trunk. ‘It lives there. Killed the bird and stole its nest.’

Joro prodded the nest with the noosing pole he had brought from camp. With a hissing sound a head popped out, then another. They seemed to be competing with each other to see which could hiss more loudly. The heads were followed by five feet of handsome and colourful body. Even with one head, the snake would have attracted attention in any zoo.

‘A boomslang!’ Hal exclaimed.

‘A what slang?’

‘Boomslang. Funny name, but it just means tree snake.’

‘Is it poisonous?’

The Africans say yes. The naturalists who have tested it in the laboratories say no.’

‘Perhaps one head is poisonous and the other isn’t,’ joked Roger. ‘Is that possible?’

‘Anything is possible in this strange world. Of course there’s a way you can find out. Let both heads bite you and see what happens.’

‘Thank you,’ Roger said. ‘After what happened yesterday, I’m steering clear of snake poison for a while.’

‘Give it another poke, Joro,’ Hal said. ‘Perhaps it will put on its special act.’

The result was a surprise even to Hal. The poke had a different effect upon the two heads. One head didn’t notice it because its eyes were fixed upon a bird. The other head was watching the men. Seeing the stick coming and feeling it, the annoyed brain telegraphed its neck muscles and the neck swelled until it looked like a toy balloon.

‘Just like the puffer fish,’ Roger said. In his underwater work he had seen this harmless-looking fish blow itself up to ten times its usual size when it wanted to frighten away its enemies. But here were two brains quite independent of each other. One was angry and the other was only interested in dinner.