In Search of Goliathus Hercules (24 page)

Everyone was finding it difficult to sleep because of the high-pitched noise of the mosquitoes. They had assumed that they wouldn’t have any trouble with mosquitoes—one wave would arrive, and Henri would negotiate with them. But no sooner had that lot gone than they’d be replaced by another group, and the procedure would start at the beginning again.

This misery was compounded by leeches. One only needed to stand still for a minute and the leeches, sensing a warm body and juicy blood, would find their way to the legs of the unsuspecting victim. So stealthy were they that none of the party ever saw or felt the bloodsuckers attach themselves. Robin took off one of her hiking boots at a lunch stop and found nearly half a dozen sucking at her toes. She screamed and tried to pull them off.

“They’re vile,” exclaimed Robin in tears. “Henri—try to talk to them.”

“I can try, but I don’t think it will work. I’m only good with six-legged creatures. These don’t have any legs,” and he was right. His reprimands did no good.

On the eighth day of their journey, they arrived to a great welcome at their final stop before entering the jungle. The people in this remote village were farmers, but they frequently entered the forest to hunt for game and collect plants for herbal remedies. The expedition party was paraded through the village as honored guests to the house of the headman, who happened to be Mat’s brother. It was wonderful to change into dry clothes, and that night everyone slept well under the protection of the house’s thatched roof and bamboo walls. It was decided that they would stay a few days to regain their strength and good spirits.

The next morning, village elders gathered in the headman’s house and regaled them with tales of
Goliathus hercules
. Several wore charms around their necks, which they claimed were made with the elytra of the insect. Excitedly, Henri, Billy, Robin, and Maestro Antonio examined the charms, and it seemed possible that indeed these were authentic. Robin and Billy brought out the cameras to document their first finding related to the quest. Maestro Antonio feverishly sketched, and Henri pulled out the five-year diary to make his first-ever entry.

Yet no one wearing the charms claimed to have seen
Goliathus hercules
alive. They’d found the pieces alongside the path that follows the river to the next village, a three-day walk from theirs. When Henri asked the elders why they thought they had never seen one alive, some responded that it was too clever to be seen, while others said that it was possessed by a spirit that made it invisible.

“Surely it must have unique and exceptional camouflage,” said Maestro Antonio. “How have people who live in the jungle and wear amulets with its wings not seen one alive? Or…perhaps they choose not to see it?”

On their final night in the village, an old man was carried to the headman’s house. He told a story from his childhood of a boy killed by
Goliathus hercules
. “No one saw the insects attack the child, but his body was found in the jungle,” he said. “How do we know it was the giant insects and not a tiger attack? Well, here is the very strange part. All around him were the remains of several of the creatures. It was as if the boy had interrupted a fierce battle between the insects themselves! What kind of barbaric animal attacks its own kind?”

A low murmur arose from the crowd that had gathered to hear the story. Then the old man lifted his left hand. He was missing his index finger.

“My finger, bitten off by the demon you call
Goliathus hercules
! I was a young man. I was climbing a tree in the forest. I had seen a bird’s nest, and I wanted to collect the eggs. As I reached up and put my hand upon the next branch, I felt the most unbearable pain! My hand was wet and pouring with blood. I thought that I might faint. Scurrying away, I looked up and saw the beast. Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t exist! This creature was about the length of my hand and wearing a golden crown!”

H
enri lay awake the night before they entered the jungle. This had all been his idea, and his friends were putting themselves in harm’s way for something that might well be a fool’s errand. Between
Goliathus hercules
and Agatha Black, someone was bound to get hurt.

And where was his nemesis? Henri had no doubt she was lurking somewhere. He rolled over on his mat, sleep unattainable. It seemed that he was finally within reach of capturing
Goliathus hercules
, but he’d made no progress in finding his father. He could not leave Malaya until, good news or bad, he knew the truth about him. He had uncovered nothing new despite numerous inquiries in Kuala Lumpur. Here in the village no one could recollect seeing a British man walking into the jungle. Henri’s only hope was that if his father had come to Kuala Selangor, he might have entered the jungle through another village.

Henri turned over again. It was hard to get comfortable. The problem wasn’t the hot weather. In fact, it suited him. No, it was a considerably more serious issue that caused his discomfort now. Where should he put his extra set of limbs? When he slept, they always seemed to be in the way so that he could not find a relaxed sleeping position. In the day, he tucked them under his shirt, but then it felt like he was wearing a straitjacket.

The people in the village immediately recognized Henri’s insect-like qualities, but rather than being repulsed, they were amazed. To them, he was the living embodiment of the popular character Serangga-orang, hero of a dozen tribal legends. Serangga-orang, or Insect Man, was a wily inhabitant of the jungle. In the tribal tales, he was a master of disguise whose cleverness got him out of scrapes with tigers, crocodiles, and pythons. He had a beautiful singing voice that allowed him to entrance his enemies and escape harm every time. And so Henri had become a celebrity in the village. He was like the Pied Piper. Wherever he went, he was followed by at least twenty children. At times he got tired of his audience and would shoo them away, but before long they would creep back to observe him again.

At last Henri succumbed to sleep, but it was interrupted by nightmares in which he was Serangga-orang trying to outwit his sworn enemy, Agatha Black. This time she was a bat that flew toward him with her mouth open wide as if to swallow him in one gulp. Instead of flying away upon his new wings, he opened his mouth to sing the song that would enchant her, but for some reason he couldn’t utter a sound.

The shriek of a bat woke Henri. No one else moved, and he knew that it was only his acute sense of hearing that allowed him to discern the bat’s call. Despite the tropical heat, he felt a chill run down his back.

In the morning the expedition party set out. The jungle was a very noisy place. From high in the trees, monkeys swung from branch to branch, often screeching back and forth to one another. The high-pitched voices of cicadas provided a constant drone broken only by birdcalls and crickets’ and grasshoppers’ chirrups.

They walked slowly so as not to miss a thing. Reaching a mossy clearing, they were delighted to see many large grasshoppers hopping and flying about. Their wings varied from pink to blue to purple. The party decided to have their lunch there. Robin and Billy brought out the cameras while Maestro Antonio took out his journal and watercolor paints. As they ate lunch, one of their local porters reminisced about a nearby cave he had visited when he was a child. It was near a waterfall where he had gone swimming. “That might be a good place to investigate,” said Henri. Earlier sightings of
Goliathus hercules
had noted that the creature seemed to like damp conditions. What could be better than a cave?

After lunch Mat and Abdul, the porter, led Henri, Robin, Billy, and Maestro Antonio toward the cave. The bush was so dense that they were frequently brought to a standstill as the leaders hacked at the growth with their machetes.

The heat of the day had reached its peak and it was nearly four o’clock by the time they arrived at the mouth of a large, very dark cave. Trees and bushes obscured the entrance. Again, Mat and Abdul pulled out their machetes and began to hack away at the vegetation. When enough had been cleared, the party entered with lanterns lit. Mat tied a rope to one of the trees near the entrance. As they walked into the dark nothingness of the cavern, he let the rope out so that they wouldn’t lose their way when returning. They could always follow it back to the light and fresh air.

“Ew! It smells disgusting in here,” complained Robin.

Mat laughed. “It’s the bats. Or I should say, it’s their
droppings
that smell. You’ll get used to it.”

Henri and Maestro Antonio lifted their lanterns up, exposing hundreds, if not thousands, of silently sleeping bats hanging from the ceiling of the cave. Robin wasn’t the only one who shuddered as Henri recalled his dream of the previous night.

“Do you think anything else lives in here?” asked Billy as they walked farther into the cave.

“No big animals. There are probably cave toads and some blind snakes that feed on the bats,” said Mat. “Nothing that would be interested in people, I don’t think.”

Suddenly there was a light—a small pinpoint of bright, greenish light. Everyone tensed. A moment later, there were several more lights, and then a second later, there were hundreds all blinking in unison!

“Fireflies!” exclaimed Billy. They all laughed. Much to the surprise of Mat and the porter, Billy, Robin, and Maestro Antonio, Henri called out the traditional insect greeting of “Are you hungry?” A thousand responses came back, all in the affirmative. They laughed some more. Henri began an earnest discussion with the fireflies nearest him.

“Greetings! My name is Henri Bell. My friends and I are on a quest, a quest to find
Goliathus hercules
. Do you know where he or she is to be found?”

“Why do you wish to find the demon?” came the response.

Henri was startled.
Goliathus hercules
must be quite a tyrant if even other insects referred to it as a demon. He wasn’t sure how to answer their question. Why did he want to find
Goliathus hercules
? He supposed because it was a challenge. No one had ever succeeded. Wasn’t that the reason that all explorers faced hardships and risked their lives, simply to do something that had never been done before? How could he explain that to the fireflies?

Rather than answer, he responded with another question. “Why do you call him the demon?”

They laughed. “You shall see soon enough! Follow us to the end of the cave. We must hurry. They sleep. It is safe now. ”Then they flew off deeper into the cave.

Henri told the others the gist of his conversation, and they cautiously moved farther into the cave, following the light of the fireflies. As they moved farther and farther back in the cavern, they saw something glowing a greenish-yellow. They had reached the end of the cave. Hanging from the wall and upon the floor were the largest beetle pupae they had ever seen. Lit by the glow of the fireflies, they had a ghostly appearance. There were at least one hundred of the silently slumbering creatures.

“It’s them!” whispered Henri as he shone the light upon the unmoving masses.

“They’re huge!” whispered Billy.

“They look like corpses all lying side by side,” whispered Robin.

“I saw a mummy in the British Museum, and these remind me of it,” said Maestro Antonio. “It was all wrapped up tight, just like these.”

“Do you think we can take photographs? Will we wake them?” asked Billy.

“I don’t think you can wake them,” said Henri. “This is their last stage before they emerge as fully grown adults. You can see their horns and their legs, but I don’t think that they can move until they have gone through full metamorphosis. It’s like they’re in a deep sleep.”

“I agree,” said Maestro Antonio, “but I think we should be careful. We don’t know anything about their, um…parenting style. There may be adults around to protect the pupae from any harm.”

Carefully, they shone the light around the cave, checking for any movement or sound beyond that of the fireflies. None came. “Nothing,” said Henri, “but I think we should make this quick just in case. This would be a bad place to be ambushed.” And he wasn’t just thinking of
Goliathus hercules
. The bats had disturbed him. There was a menacing presence in the vicinity. He could feel it!