10 Gorilla Adventure (2 page)

‘I’m being precise,’ Hal said. ‘We’re going to have one egg for breakfast.’

‘One egg for thirty-three men?’

‘Exactly.’

Tieg looked at Hal with an expression that would turn milk sour.

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ he snarled. ‘Anyhow, I want no egg. Just coffee and toast.’

But he changed his mind when the mountain of scrambled egg came on the outdoor picnic table. He still pretended to be indifferent, but he took a large helping.

‘One egg indeed,’ he said, looking at the luscious yellow mountain. ‘It took at least three dozen eggs to make that.’

‘No. just one,’ Hal said. ‘Cook, bring the shell.’

The cook brought the shell. It was unbroken except for holes he had made in the ends so that he could pour out the contents. The shell was as large as the cook’s own head.

Tieg flushed angrily. An ostrich egg, of course. He should have guessed. He had been stupid. The men were smiling, but Tieg lacked a sense of humour - he was not amused.

Hal saw that the big fellow’s vanity was hurt and tried to make things right.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘you were very smart. You took one look at that pile and said it must have taken three dozen eggs to make it. You hit the nail right on the head. The egg weighed four pounds. That’s almost exactly the weight of three dozen large hen eggs. Enough for thirty-three men and three helpings to spare. And because you were so clever, you get what’s left.’

He scraped out the remainder on to Tieg’s plate.

Tieg’s cockatoo hair seemed to stand up more proudly than ever. While one eye stood still, the other swept around the circle of men.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it’s just a matter of experience. When you reach my age, young man, you’ll be a lot wiser.’

‘I can’t wait,’ was the retort that came to Hal’s lips. But he didn’t say it. He saw that he must be careful not to scratch this big fellow’s thin skin.

‘Suppose we get going,’ he said. ‘What do you advise, Andre-? By the way, may I call you Andre’?’

Andre’ Tieg’s eyebrows went up. ‘I shall call you Hal. But I think it would be more fitting if you should call me Mr Tieg.’

‘Of course, Mr Tieg. What do you say - shall we scout around first before we actually try to capture a gorilla? Just the three of us - and Joro. He’s our chief tracker. Too many men might scare the animals. After we locate a family of gorillas, we can go in again with the men and nets and all.’

‘As you please,’ Tieg said. ‘But Joro will hardly be necessary. I think probably I know the pug marks of the gorilla better than he does.’

‘I’m sure you do. But suppose we let him come, just to protect us in case of trouble. I must confess you scared us pretty badly when you told us how fierce these beasts can be.’ ‘

Tieg smiled indulgently. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be with you. But your tracker may come, provided he keeps quiet and doesn’t get in the way.’

They plunged into the woods. It was not easy going. The forest was not open like a park. The undergrowth was thick and consisted largely of nettles and thistles six feet high. They slapped across one’s face, leaving red welts. The thorns of wild blackberry bushes tore at their clothes. Their feet sank in moss so deep that it was hard to pull them out again.

Tieg led the way. He had said he knew this country. For an hour they pushed and scrambled and scratched. Tieg stopped.

‘We must be a good three miles from the camp now. Perhaps we’ll begin to see gorillas - they like the wild spots. There’s an open space ahead. We may find them there.’

They came out into the clearing. It was the one they had left an hour before. There was the cabin and the little lake and the men, surprised to see them back so soon. Tieg had made a complete circle.

Tieg did his noble best to think of an excuse for this blunder.

‘No sun,’ he said. ‘You can’t keep a straight course through the woods if there’s no sun.’

His companions began to realize that if they were to find gorillas they must do it without Tieg’s help.

Hal went to his pack and pulled out a pocket compass. ‘Now we’ll know our directions at least,’ he said.

Roger was tired. ‘All that slogging through moss and morns for nothing! Aren’t there any trails through these woods?’

‘No trails,’ Tieg said.

‘But all the animals that come to this waterhole every night. Surely they must make a path.’

‘No path,’ Tieg insisted. ‘Animals don’t need paths.’

Roger was not convinced. He wandered away from the group. He walked along the edge of the meadow, peering into the bushes, parting them here and there to make sure that they did not hide a trail. Fumbling among a shower of yellow hagenia blossoms, he startled an impala gazelle. It did not run away, but leaped soaring twenty feet before it touched ground. In a case like this, Tieg was right. The gazelle did not need a path, and did not make one.

But how about buffaloes, elephants, rhinos, and such -heavy beasts that plodded along with all four feet pressing the ground? They wouldn’t soar over bushes. They would plough through them or around them, and those that came after would follow those that had gone before, and the result would be a trail. But the thick shrubbery that grew up along the forest’s edge might hide the entrance to the trail.

So he kept pushing aside the curtain of foliage, the young tree ferns, die bamboo, the strange wild celery six feet high, the blackberry bushes.

And at last, there it was. Concealed behind the fast-growing screen was the beginning of a path, deeply stamped with the sharp hooves of buffalo, the broad pads of elephants, and many other imprints unfamiliar to Roger.

‘I found a trail.’ he shouted, and the others came to join the young explorer.

‘Good for you,’ Hal said, and Joro gave him a smile that was all the more brilliant because of the gleam of very white teeth in a very black face.

Only Tieg was not pleased, and followed sulkily as they struck off along the trail.

To Joro, the trail was a book. It told him what animals had passed this way. ‘Warthog,’ he said. ‘Waterbuck. Kongoni. Topi. Buffalo. Bush pig.’ He stopped and looked about. ‘Watch both sides - and above. A leopard has been here within the last half hour.’

They went on, warily, until Joro said, ‘You can take it easy now. No more leopard prints. Only hyenas and jackals.’

He stopped again and bent down to study the ground. Tieg came up beside him and looked at what he had found.

‘No animal made that,’ Tieg said ‘One of your men must have wandered across the trail here.’

It did look like a human footprint. At one end of the print, the stamp of five toes was plainly visible.

‘But,’ Hal said, ‘look at the big toe. Far away from the other four. It sticks out to the side, all alone. No man’s foot is shaped that way.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Tieg. ‘Feet that have never worn shoes spread out.’

Roger’s sharp eyes had found something else. ‘Joro,’ he said, ‘how does a gorilla walk?’

‘Well, he can stand up like a man. But he generally walks along on all fours. His feet are pretty flat on the ground. But his hands are not. He keeps his hands doubled up into fists. He walks on his knuckles. The thumb is not used so all you see is the print of four knuckles.’

‘Like these?’ Roger said, pointing out a row of four deep dents in the ground.

‘That’s it,’ cried Joro, much excited. ‘That’s it.’ He looked about him to make sure that the great ape was not hiding in the bushes. Then he looked back at the print. ‘He must be a big fellow.’ He pressed his own knuckles into the ground. His row of dents was three inches long. The other print stretched a good six inches.

‘Boy!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘He must have hands like hams. ‘I’d hate to be swatted by one of those.’

Joro was carefully examining the ground. ‘He went on up this path,’ he said. ‘Let’s follow him. But be very quiet These prints are fresh - he can’t be very far away.’

They went on, careful not to step on any twig that might crack underfoot. After about a quarter of a mile, Joro stopped.

‘He left the trail here,’ Joro whispered. He stood still and listened. He evidently heard something. The boys heard it too - a sound like dripping of water from leaves after a storm. But there had been no storm. The bushes were dry. The sound might come from a brook running over stones. No, it couldn’t be that, because it wasn’t continuous. It came and went, began and stopped.

Then there was another sound - a voice - a deep, contented muttering as of a man talking to himself.

Joro signalled the others to come on and as silently as a ghost he left the trail and followed the footprints through the bushes. Whenever the voice stopped, he stopped. He stood like a statue until he heard the muttering again or the tinkle of water.

Now they must be very close to the source of these curious sounds. Joro raised his hand. They halted and peered through the bushes.

Little light came down through the trees. In the half-dark they caught the glint of water. There was a small brook, but it did not babble down over stones. It was as still as a pool. And yet the water sound continued.

They heard the voice again, like the purr of a big cat in a barrel.

‘There he is,’ whispered Hal, pointing.

‘Just a native, after all,’ said Tieg.

‘What a whopping big fellow,’ Roger whispered.

The great black fellow sat on his haunches at the edge of the stream. He was drinking, but not the way an animal drinks. Nearly every sort of animal drinks by putting its mouth down into the water. So it seemed pretty plain that this must be a man, for he drank like a man, first brushing away the leaves and twigs that lay on the surface. Then, instead of lowering his head, he scooped up the water, using his hands as a cup, and, sitting up straight, he drank.

A little of the water leaked between his fingers and splashed on the surface of the brook. That explained the tinkling or dripping sound the men had heard.

Then he talked again to himself.

‘Do you understand what he’s saying?’ Hal whispered to Joro.

Joro shook his head. ‘It isn’t Swahili. Must be some Congo dialect.’

The black shadow, done with drinking, stood up. He towered almost seven feet tall.

‘Must be Watussi,’ Tieg guessed.

Hal was half convinced. The land of the Watussi, the world’s tallest humans, was not far away.

But Hal had collected animals in Watussi country. ‘He can’t be a Watussi,’ he whispered. ‘The Watussi are skinny. Tall and thin. This fellow must be five feet around. I’ll bet be weighs seven hundred pounds if he weighs an ounce.’

The monster turned so they could see his profile. Now they could get a real idea of the size of that tremendous head, the beetling brows, the fiat nose, the huge projecting jaws, the retreating chin.

There was no doubt about it - they were looking at a gorilla, and a great one. Most male gorillas, Hal knew from his studies, stood some five or six feet tall and weighed from five hundred to six hundred pounds. A lowland gorilla in the San Diego zoo tipped the scales at five hundred and eight-five, and another at six hundred and eighteen.

A gorilla that had been killed in the Forest of Bambio near the Congo River in 1920, and whose photograph was published in a French scientific journal, measured nine feet four inches. But it was a freak and nothing like it had ever been heard of since.

The monster they were now looking at was the greatest living creature on two legs that they had ever seen.

‘Looks like Gog,’ Hal whispered.

Roger knew what he meant. In the Guildhall in London they had seen that huge wooden statue of Gog. The legend was that there used to be a race of giants on earth. Gog was supposed to be the last of these giants. And the monster that stood before them now looked like the giant Gog. He too, perhaps, was one of the last of his race. When the remaining mountain gorillas were wiped out, there would be no more man-like giants on earth.

Hal mentally pinned the name Gog on the giant that stood before them.

He could imagine Gog walking out of the shadows into the full glare of the Ringling Circus - how ten thousand heads would lean forward, how men would gasp, how girls would scream.

A shaft of sun broke through the clouds and brought out the monster in sharp relief. For the first time they could see that he was not all black. Down the middle of his back ran a streak of silver. Except for these almost white hairs, all the hair on his body was black and stood out as if electrified.

Why had not the silverback noticed his audience peering through the bushes? The average animal would have seen them or heard them or smelled them. But not the gorilla.

That was another thing that made him like man. The gorilla is as clever as man in some ways, but also as stupid as man. His senses of sight, hearing, and smell are neither better nor worse than man’s.

But in size and strength, thought Hal, this giant left man far behind. How would they capture him? Four men certainly could not do it. It was a job for the whole crew. He started back towards the trail and the others followed. They must move fast - their prize might wander away before they could bring the crew.

Once on the trail, they broke into a dog-trot. Roger was so busy glancing left and right that he almost stumbled.

‘Watch your step,’ Tieg said.

‘I was wondering where his family is,’ Roger said. ‘Ill bet it’s near by.’

Another ten minutes of running, then Roger said, ‘See that open spot under the big trees? I’m going to sidetrack and take a look at it. Then I’ll catch up with you,’

He dodged into the bushes and a moment later called, ‘Come back. Here it is.’

The others joined him. They crept up quietly, but there was no need of that Here was the family, but they were not waiting for their lord’s return.

Two females and a half-grown male lay on the ground, quite dead. Their bodies were still warm. Blood trickled from spear wounds.

From far away in the jungle came a high-pitched scream. ‘Baby gorilla,’ Joro guessed.

He examined the ground. It was trampled with footprints - and these footprints were human.