Wild Spirit (3 page)

We whirled around. Why was everyone in town with a Brisbane connection converging on this spot now? The speaker was a tall man, tanned, around forty, wearing an open-necked business shirt, tropical slacks and horn-rimmed spectacles. He could have passed for Cary Grant; his clipped speech even carried the hint of an American accent. He stepped forward and extended his hand. ‘I'm Doug Hunt. We lived in Brisbane for three years. Is there something I can do to help?' By now we were beyond surprise. Anything could happen.

Win's face creased into a wry smile. ‘We're desperate to get into this bank to see whether some money has arrived for us. We were robbed last night and we've got no cash.'

‘No problem,' Doug said, ‘I know the manager personally. Follow me.'

By the time we discovered this was the wrong bank, it had closed for the three-hour lunchbreak and we still had no money. We waited on tenterhooks as Doug exercised his persuasive powers on the French bank manager to get him to cash our one remaining traveller's cheque. Eventually, I grasped a small pile of Central African francs, thanked the bank manager in French, and we walked with Doug back out into the street.

‘We're very grateful,' I said. ‘It's been a rough twenty-four hours.'

‘No trouble. You might have difficulty finding the Banque Nationale de Paris though: it's hidden away at the other end of town. How about I take you there now, then you'll be right for when it reopens?'

The bank was on the first floor of a nondescript building. He was right, we'd never have spotted it.

We'd worked out that Doug was a Kiwi – the vowels gave it away. The chances of meeting a fellow Antipodean in this francophone slice of Equatorial Africa must have been millions to one.

‘What brings you to Gabon, Doug?' I had him pegged as a professional of some kind.

‘I'm a geologist. I'm running a mineral project up in the mountains.'

I glanced at Win. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same: a geologist in the mountains of Equatorial Africa? How romantic was that! Doug seemed reluctant to leave: ‘Look, when you've collected your money, why don't you call around to my office for coffee late this afternoon, and we'll talk about Brisbane. We loved our life there. I'd be interested to know what it's like now. Here's my card – the office address is on it.'

‘We'd love to.' Win smiled and shook his hand. ‘And thanks again for your help.'

‘Okay. See you then.'

The card showed Doug was the director of a company called SOMIFER. We stood on the footpath, our heads spinning. In only three hours, we had a network of contacts in the city – people of goodwill, people we could call on for help, people who spoke English. We even had money for
food and a dinner date. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. The whole thing was bizarre. I half-danced back to the van with relief, light-headed from hunger and lack of sleep.

We drove down to the esplanade and parked on a grass verge under the coconut palms. Thick cloud hung low over the bay, a murky grey with no breaks. We stretched out on the bed in the van and closed our eyes, hoping for sleep while we waited for the town to wake from its three-hour lunchbreak.

I must have dozed off, because the next thing I knew it was two o'clock. To while away the last hour, I pulled out our
Travellers' Guide to Africa
and opened it at the chapter on Gabon. The country relied heavily on imported food and consumer goods. There was no commercial agriculture, and much of the population depended on subsistence agriculture, hunting and fishing. The only major manufacturing industry was a massive plywood mill at Port-Gentil on the coast. Gabon's economy was critically linked to world demand for its minerals, offshore oil and timber. The
Guide
also highlighted the government's flagship project – a plan to build a railway from the port of Owendo near Libreville to a vast iron-ore deposit at Belinga in the remote north-east. When completed, the railway would bring out the mined ore for export. Construction on the railway had not begun, and no ore had been mined.

 

At three o'clock we were back at the Banque Nationale de Paris, where I explained to a melancholy French clerk about our funds transfer. I wasn't hopeful. After a thorough search of the records, he returned with the news that the
money had not yet arrived – perhaps we would care to call back next week? Out in the street we took stock again. We had nowhere to camp legally, and probably just enough cash for one day's food. Our new contacts in town would be critical for our survival.

Hunger and fatigue set in again, so we drove to the far end of town, where we found a European-style hypermarket, Mbolo, crammed with luxury French food and alcohol.

‘We'll try for some salami,' Win said. He chose a piece twenty centimetres long, looked at the price and instantly dropped it, hissing an expletive under his breath. It cost four times what it would in Paris. Stunned, we chose a piece half that size and a small baguette from the bread display. By the time we had paid, it was almost four o'clock and there was no time to eat. We were due at Doug's office for coffee.

 

On the walls of Doug's office, geological maps jostled for space with black-and-white aerial photographs of a minuscule clearing in thick forest, where a scatter of tin-roofed buildings perched on a hillside. Above the desk, the latest official portrait of the president of Gabon, El Hadj Omar Bongo, looked out imperiously.

We sat in black vinyl armchairs and sipped the strong coffee brought by Doug's bilingual French secretary. Intrigued, Doug eyed us both in our soiled jeans. ‘So what have you been doing in Africa? Where've you been?'

Win and I exchanged glances, took deep breaths, and began. After we'd finished the story, Doug sighed deeply. ‘That's a hell of a tale. My wife would love to hear that!'

Doug had worked as a geologist around the world and had been in Gabon for just six months. On arrival, he had spoken no French and had no African experience. His brief as director of SOMIFER was to: reopen an old mineral exploration camp in mountainous forest 600 kilometres from the coast, in a region with no roads, airfields or railways; coordinate surveying, mapping and test drilling of the area; establish supply lines for provisioning the camp; and provide housing for up to twenty expatriates and over a hundred Gabonese workers and their large families.

‘What is this project?' I asked.

‘It's an iron-ore exploration project at a place called Belinga,' Doug said.

‘Belinga?' We both sat bolt upright. ‘We read about that only today. Isn't it supposed to be the biggest iron-ore deposit in Africa?'

‘It is! Come over to the desk and I'll show you.' He spread out prospectuses, photographs and maps, and on an aerial photo, pointed to a clearing in dense forest. ‘That's the camp. We're cutting a road through to it at the moment, but it'll be a while before we reach it because of the wet season.' This was the flagship project for which the Trans-Gabonese Railway would be built.

‘We've been slowly opening up the camp over the last five months. At the moment, we have a Sicilian geologist and a handful of Gabonese labourers up there. They're manually clearing the old tracks through the forest ahead of our team of British surveyors, who're due here in a fortnight.'

‘How do you get up there?' Win asked.

‘It takes two days. We fly to the nearest town, Makokou, then go upriver in a motorised pirogue – a dugout – which
takes between five and twelve hours, depending on the height of the water. Then we go by Land Rover seventeen kilometres up into the mountains. The route is steep and full of hairpin bends, so it takes about forty-five minutes.'

Win's eyes had lit up. ‘How do you communicate with people in the camp when you're down here?'

‘We have an army-style field radio here in the office, another one at our base in Makokou, and one in the camp. Twice a day we have scheduled radio links to coordinate movement of supplies and people and sort out any problems.'

I sat on the edge of the armchair. The project sounded like the plot of an adventure film. It had all the right elements – remoteness, danger, challenge and the mystery of Equatorial Africa. I forgot how tired and hungry I was. I just wanted to hear more. For Doug, the project was clearly more than a job – it was a way of life that combined his love of wild places with a satisfying career.

‘We're about to embark on an accelerated building program at the camp,' he said. ‘We need six timber houses built quickly.' Doug was unaware he was sitting opposite a builder. A flicker passed across Win's face; he had always believed that when opportunity knocked, one should race to open the door. A hint of a smile played around his mouth. ‘Not looking for a good builder, are you?'

‘Matter of fact, I am. I'm about to telex someone I know in Brisbane to see if he's interested. But it's hard to get people to come here.'

‘Well look,' Win said, still playing with the idea and not really serious, ‘I'm a builder. If you pay me US$30,000 a year tax-free, I'll build your camp for you.'

I think he expected a flippant reply to the effect that it wasn't so simple. Instead, Doug leaned forward, focused: ‘Okay, you're on. There's no problem with the salary, as long as you only work for six months. But it won't be much fun for your wife. You'd have to live in a tent.'

Win's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Doug turned to me. ‘How would you feel about being the only white woman there?'

How would I feel? The ‘only white woman' part wouldn't faze me at all, but going back into that forest, to those minuscule biting insects, for six whole months – I couldn't face it. Mosquito nets and insect repellents were useless against their onslaughts. I glared at Win as he began to discuss the possibility seriously, without even asking my opinion. His imagination was on fire; I was speechless. Thoughts ricocheted in my head: ‘What is he doing? I won't go back into that jungle – we've just escaped from it!' I kicked his foot hard under the table.

It was now dark outside, but Doug was wound up, deadly serious about recruiting this builder who had dropped into his lap. ‘Look, why don't you come home to my place and we'll have a drink and talk about it?' We still had not eaten, and it had been a long and tumultuous day. The last thing we felt like was socialising over alcohol, but Doug wasn't about to give up: ‘If you give me a few minutes, I'll be finished here and we can drive there in convoy.' It was settled before I had a chance to demur. Only much later we remembered our arrangement to meet the Frenchman with the Australian wife at seven-thirty that night for dinner – by the time we had, it was too late.

We left Doug's office in silence and walked to the Kombi, parked just outside. Flushed in the face, I climbed
into the passenger seat, and let fly. ‘What do you think you're doing? Don't I have any say in this?'

‘You do realise I was only joking at first, don't you? I had no idea he'd take me up on it. But can't you see? It would be a way out of the mess we're in. Besides, I think it could be really interesting. Let's just hear what he has to say.'

‘But what about the biting insects? It was bad enough for three days. How do you imagine we'd cope with six months of that misery?' I could handle staying in Africa, but I couldn't begin to contemplate a situation where we couldn't escape the torture of those insects. But Win was already there in his mind – I knew that look in his eyes well. I call it the Boys' Own Adventure syndrome. He couldn't resist a challenge, and this one would be a whopper.

‘Why don't we just wait and see?' he asked calmly. He seldom rose to my anger – a fact that sometimes exasperated me – and I knew this was his way of saying I was overreacting. Reluctantly, I had to admit to myself the idea had merit – being on a payroll would solve all our problems. But I was in no mood to say so.

We followed Doug's car in silence to the luxury residential quarter on the seafront. He pulled in to a paved entryway surrounded by flowering tropical shrubs and vines. My jaw was set – I wasn't about to be bulldozed into anything, especially six months of sustained insect attacks. Then we climbed out into the fragrant early-evening air, and in an instant I was back in Brisbane, in the garden of my grandmother's home, gulping in the perfume of star jasmine and frangipani, familiar smells in this alien environment. I wondered what she'd have thought of my global wanderings. She had died the year before, at ninety-four. She had been a rebel in her time – five feet nothing in stockings, feisty as the devil and tough as leather. I liked to think I had inherited some of her gritty determination.

‘Hello, you two!' It was Doug's wife, Gina, framed in the front doorway. Tall and elegant, in spotless white tapered slacks and a black knitted top, she could have been a diplomat's wife welcoming foreign dignitaries at an embassy.

‘Come on through.' She led the way into the living room. I took several steps onto the deep-pile cream carpet and paused, open-mouthed. The vast room could have been a Hollywood film set. Plate-glass walls on the western side gave views on to a floodlit tropical garden. Low-set glass coffee tables with chrome legs stood between deep cane armchairs with mock-zebra-skin cushions. Metre-high silver table lamps threw a muted glow over the room, and high on the walls, huge Gauguin murals depicted languid Tahitian women in a sensuous floral paradise.

Just then, three fresh-faced and beautiful young girls came into the room to be introduced. ‘These are our daughters – Penny, Prue and Pippa. Girls, this is Mr and Mrs Henderson.' The girls all had long hair and wore jeans and long-sleeved T-shirts. They smiled demurely. Penny was in her early teens, Prue looked a couple of years younger, and Pippa was about nine, and they all looked so healthy I could imagine them as models for some up-market skincare product.

‘Come and sit down.' Gina motioned towards the cane armchairs.

I perched on the edge of a chair, hoping none of the dirt on my jeans would rub off on the cushions, while Doug strode in and headed for the drinks cabinet. ‘What'll you have? We've got most things.'

‘I'm a whisky man – a Scotch, thanks.' Win had settled into an armchair, his builder's eye taking in every detail of the architecture. ‘This place is an absolute gem. What's the story?'

‘It was built by the millionaire pilot who founded Air Gabon.' Doug poured the drinks. ‘A guy named Jean-Claude Brouillet. He was a daredevil flyer, and as you can
see, he had a passion for the South Pacific. We're just renting here: we're building a place of our own up the beach in a suburb called Tahiti.'

A tall, slim Gabonese man wearing a pink apron came in carrying plates of savoury snacks and placed them on a coffee table. ‘
Merci, Louis-Marie
,' Gina nodded and smiled at him.

‘
Merci, madame
.' Louis-Marie looked briefly at us and a hint of a smile played around his mouth. Gina made the introduction. ‘
Voilà Monsieur et Madame Henderson, Louis-Marie
.' He nodded shyly, ‘
Bonsoir, M'sieur et 'dame
.'

‘Louis-Marie is employed by the company to help me with the cooking and housework,' Gina said. We had been plunged into a post-colonial world of incredible luxury and privilege, where African staff filled the same roles as they had before independence – except that now they earned decent wages and the country belonged to them again. I smiled at him. ‘
Bonsoir, Louis-Marie.
'

If I had drunk whisky, I would have fallen asleep. I opted for a fruit juice and eyed the food on the platters: boiled eggs with savoury filling, biscuits with spread, cheeses and nuts. It was the first food we had had in twenty-four hours, and I had to restrain myself to eat slowly and delicately. We hadn't enjoyed the luxury of an egg since London. I rolled each mouthful around on my tongue.

‘Doug tells me you two crossed the Sahara.' Gina and the girls turned expectant faces towards us. ‘We want to hear all about it.'

I lost track of time, but a couple of hours must have passed while we exchanged stories. The Hunts had lived all over the world – the US, Central America, Europe – wherever Doug's work had taken them.

Eventually the conversation turned to business. Doug was employed by Bethlehem Steel of Pennsylvania, the managing partners in the SOMIFER consortium, in which the Gabonese government held a fifty-one per cent share. Other partner countries included France, Germany and Romania. Doug had poured Win another whisky and I watched them interact: already they had a strong rapport. I listened as they discussed Win's long building career in Australia, Papua New Guinea and England. Doug was clearly impressed – this was not just another knockabout carpenter he had stumbled on.

Doug began by outlining what Win's role at Belinga might be. He needed a fully equipped wood machine workshop set up and single men's quarters built urgently. After that, an entire camp had to be constructed – expatriate housing, a geology laboratory, offices, a health clinic for the Gabonese families, furniture for the village houses, and anything else that cropped up.

‘What's the country like up there?' I cut in. I wanted a clear picture of what we would be agreeing to if we accepted the job.

Doug's expression softened, and his voice mellowed. ‘It's magnificent. The camp is sited at 700 metres altitude. It's cool most of the time with regular breezes – so cool that we need a fire in the dry season. The camp overlooks forest in every direction. There are ferns and vines and plenty of wildlife. I just love being up there.'

I took a deep breath and braced myself to take a tough stand. ‘I'm really concerned about the biting insects. It was a nightmare for us driving down through the forest. We were bitten all over and the itch drove us crazy. If that's what we're in for, I wouldn't be a starter.'

‘Okay. Let me try and reassure you. There
are
insects. The ones you're talking about are
fourreaux
. But we've found that after a few weeks, people develop an immunity to their bites and no longer feel them. By the way, you're on malaria prophylactics, aren't you?'

I nodded.

‘Good, because that's endemic through here. The other main thing you need to be aware of is filariasis. That's spread by the bite of a red fly, the
mouche rouge
. They lay their eggs in human flesh and the eggs hatch into long white worms that can accumulate in joints, causing swelling and stiffness. They can also cause elephantiasis. You've probably seen pictures of people with grossly swollen legs? That's it. So you'll need to go on to prophylactics for that too.'

I listened in silence.

‘There are also tsetse flies and
ghiques
.'

‘What are
ghiques
?' Small pricks of revulsion moved in waves along my skin as I listened to this entomology lesson.

‘
Ghiques
live in the ground. They burrow into the soles of your feet and create a blister-like bubble that encloses a long thread-like worm. It's not a major problem. You can kill them by covering the blister with vaseline to cut off the worm's air supply. Once it's dead, you can cut round the edge of the blister with a razor blade and pull it out.'

Oh, a doddle, I thought – I cut my skin with razor blades all the time! It was like reading some nineteenth-century African explorer's diary.

‘The main thing to remember,' Doug continued, ‘is never to go barefoot.' I was sure I'd have no trouble remembering. He hastened to reassure me further. ‘It's
not all bad. There's a hospital in Makokou, 100 kilometres downstream. The company would provide all your food, and there'll be a couple of other wives arriving in a few months' time. And there could be an opportunity for you, too, if you wanted it.'

I brightened up. ‘What did you have in mind?'

‘Well, with your French, you could tutor the expatriate children.'

‘I'm not a teacher, you know.'

‘No, but the opportunity would be there. You'd have plenty of time on your hands.'

By this time, I could see Win had already made up his mind. He could hardly wait to get up there. From his perspective, the job had everything he could wish for – challenge, excitement, wilderness and more money than he had ever earned. Back in Brisbane, US$30,000 equalled a doctor's earnings. If we accepted, our worries about visas, money and accommodation would be over. I could feel myself relenting.

Doug looked from me to Win. ‘So, you're happy for me to set the wheels in motion to appoint you, Win?'

‘Yep. Go for your life.'

At that point I abandoned any thoughts of resistance. I would just have to handle the insect onslaughts as best I could.

‘Okay. I'll telex France and the States tomorrow and seek their go-ahead for a six-month, no-strings-attached contract. But you both need to understand the camp is extremely isolated. There's no entertainment, and it'll be pretty rough going for a while.'

‘It couldn't be worse than the Sahara!' Win's wry smile appeared again.

Doug moved back to the cocktail cabinet. ‘Come on, Win. Have another drink! This is something to celebrate!'

‘Oh, no thanks,' Win said. ‘I've had quite enough, really.'

‘Oh, go on,' Doug pressed. ‘Just one more.'

It was late, and fatigue, lack of food and the strain of recent weeks had taken a toll on us both. But our new boss was offering hospitality and Win felt obliged to accept. Doug must have refilled the glass to the top.

We sat back in the armchairs and drifted into a drowsy late-night reverie. Eventually, I looked at my watch. It was after ten. We needed to go, but neither of us had thought about where we would spend the night – events had completely overtaken us.

But when I looked across at Win, his face had turned a pale grey and his eyes were glazed. The next moment, he lurched forward in the armchair, vomited copiously on the deep-pile cream carpet and fell unconscious to the floor.

I leapt out of my chair and dropped to my knees beside him. My first-aid training came flashing back: get the patient into the prone position so they don't inhale their vomit. I rolled him on to his right side. He was breathing steadily, but out to it. ‘Oh well, that's killed it,' I thought. ‘How to impress your new boss: vomit all over his shag-pile carpet.' It was another first: I had never seen Win drunk. The only time I had seen him vomit had been on a rough voyage out to the Barrier Reef – we'd both been sick, side by side over the rail.

‘You're a good little mother.' It was Doug, squatting beside me.

‘I'm so sorry,' I murmured. ‘We don't normally do this. If you have some spare towels, I'll clean up.'

Gina was unfazed. ‘Don't worry. Louis-Marie will take care of it.'

Now I had another problem: with my automatic driver's licence, I couldn't drive the Kombi and Win was unconscious. We weren't going anywhere.

‘We're going to have to sleep here overnight in the Kombi, I'm afraid,' I said. I couldn't remember ever being more embarrassed. The Kombi was parked in the Hunts' driveway, shielded from the road by shrubs and trees.

‘Come on,' Doug offered. ‘We'll carry him out between us.' He took Win's top end and I lifted the legs – eighty kilos of dead weight between us. We shuffled out of the living room, through a hallway and into the warm night, the stench of vomit fresh in our nostrils. Crickets sang in the bushes. In the background, the Atlantic lapped on the shore. I unlocked the sliding door and cleared everything off the bed. We lifted him onto it, then stripped his clothes off down to underwear. I bathed his face with a damp cloth.

‘He just needs to sleep it off,' Doug reassured me. With a sheepish grin, I thanked him for everything, apologised again and said goodnight. I lay awake for about an hour, my mind a rat's nest of jumbled thoughts. It had been the most bizarre day of my life and I couldn't imagine what the next day might bring.

 

Win woke in bright sunlight, with a blinding headache and a raging thirst, rubbed his eyes, pulled on a pair of shorts and slid off the bed. ‘How did I get out here last night?'

‘We carried you, Doug and I.'

‘What a disaster! I suppose all we can do is go in and apologise, then get the hell out of here.' We dressed,
washed our faces and walked up to the front door, ready to face the embarrassment.

But a note fluttered from the door signed by Gina: ‘Good morning! Hope you slept well. Your breakfast is waiting in the dining room. Help yourselves to a hot shower. See you at lunch.' We looked at each other, mouths agape, eyes wide, and laughed with relief.

The whole family was out, but Louis-Marie ushered us to an iron-lace dining table beside the plate-glass wall and brought fresh fruit salad, toast and jam and tea. Just outside, flowering hibiscus and bougainvillea painted the garden purple, blood red, burnt orange and buttercup yellow.

We ate slowly, looking out beyond the garden to the coconut palms, the only sounds the rustle of palm leaves and the whirr of insects. Once again, I felt like an actor on a film set, playing out a fantasy that would soon end. After a second cup of tea, I sat back and tried to picture what our life at Belinga would be like, and how it would feel being the only white woman in a forest that stretched for thousands of kilometres into the Congo. My idea of the camp oscillated between an African Eden and an insect-plagued frontier, a place of isolation and hardship.

I could hardly wait to shower – my hair was caked with salt, and I felt sticky and unclean – and was grateful when Louis-Marie returned and led the way to the bathroom. It turned out to be a cabana perched on a timber walkway that snaked through the coconut palms. Inside, twin copper-lined shower recesses glowed in the soft light, and above them, Gauguin prints decorated the walls. That sense of unreality overwhelmed me again. We were dreaming – we must have been.