07 Elephant Adventure (10 page)

When the animal was let down and the artificial shoulder removed, he showed his appreciation so plainly that there could be no mistake. He nuzzled his head against Roger and then against Bo, all the time demonstrating his contentment and affection with a low rumbling sound deep in the throat.

Now the people were not laughing at Roger - they were laughing with him. It had been a great show. They were proud of their young guest. And their joy over his success made him happy too.

But what he appreciated most was Hal’s hand on his shoulder and his brief but sufficient praise: ‘Attaboy!’

The men carried the raft back to the edge of the lake, Roger and Bo helping.

‘Are there any fish in this lake?’ Roger asked.

‘Plenty,’ said Bo. ‘Would you like to go fishing?’

Without waiting for an answer he ran to his father’s house and brought back two lines made of papyrus fibre. At the end of each was a home-made hook fashioned from the bone of some animal. Also he brought a sort of scoop or shovel which had once been the jaw-bone of a wild pig.

‘What’s that for?’ Roger inquired.

To get a worm.’

Bo began digging into the soft wet ground.

‘We’ll need two worms,’ Roger said, looking at the two bone hooks. He had forgotten for a moment what he had been told about the earthworms of the Mountains of the Moon,

Bo looked up in surprise.

‘One will be enough,’ he said. ‘One is enough for a hundred hooks.’

He had dug about six inches deep. Suddenly the dirt moved at the bottom of the hole. Then a brown head popped out

Take care,’ Roger said, drawing back. ‘A snake!’

‘Not a snake,’ Bo assured him.

He grasped the thing just behind the head. He dug until he was able to draw the whole body free. Then he held the wriggling thing high in the air.

It was as long as a pygmy and as thick through as Roger’s wrist The head was brown and the body a fiery red. The ugly mouth was wide open. Otherwise the face was a blank. Hal came up to have a look.

‘It has no eyes,’ Roger said. ‘And no ears.’

‘Just like our own earthworms/ Hal said. ‘It can’t hear, or smell, or taste. But it can see a little.’

‘How could anything see without eyes?’

‘It has tiny organs that tell it the difference between light and dark. By day it stays under the earth. At night it comes out Shine a torch on it and it will promptly go back underground.’

Down each side of the giant earthworm were two rows of bristles.

‘What are they for?’

Those are the pushers - to propel the worm through the ground while it is making its tunnel.’

‘But how can it make a tunnel? Where does the dirt go?’

‘Right through the worm. He swallows the dirt ahead of him, it passes through his body and is left behind him.’

‘A neat trick if you can do it,’ Roger admitted. ‘But you said ‘he’. How do you know it’s a he?’

‘I don’t. I could just as well have said ‘she”. It’s really a he-she. Both sexes in the same body.’

‘Another neat trick,’ Roger said. Tm beginning to think it’s rather wonderful. I always thought that worms were - well - just worms.’

‘I know. Usually they’re so small, they don’t look like much. But when they’re as big as this you can see plainly what a good job Nature has done on them.’

Roger wouldn’t have minded in the least slipping an ordinary worm on to his hook, but when Bo took his knife and slashed off two chunks of the squirming monster to bait the hooks Roger actually found himself feeling sorry for the worm.

Roger and Bo boarded the raft and poled it out into the lake. There they settled down to fish. Almost at once there was a strong tug on Roger’s line and he pulled in something that looked like a catfish, but far larger than any he had ever seen. Bo soon took another like it

‘Beats me,’ Roger said, ‘how everything here is more than life-size - except the pygmies. You Watussi are the tallest people in the world, the elephants are the biggest the flowers and the trees are huge, even the worms.’

A thundering crash came from the hidden mountains. Roger had heard the like before, and Hal had said it was probably caused by a few million tons of ice breaking from the edge of a glacier and plunging down the cliffs. But the Watussi had a different explanation, and Bo’s eyes suddenly became large and round and full of fright.

‘You think we are big,’ he said. ‘We are small. He is the big one.’

‘He?’

‘Yes. The Thunder-man. He is as tall as the tallest tree. When he steps the earth shakes. When he speaks it is like the roar of a thousand lions. What you call lightning - it comes from his eyes when he is angry. If it strikes a tree the tree falls. If it strikes a village, it burns. He comes in the night. First he took only our cattle. Now he takes boys, or girls. They are here in the evening - they are gone in the morning. He will take your elephants - the big one, and the little one.’

‘Not if I know it,’ Roger said stoutly.

‘You will not know it Not until it is too late.’

Bo looked about nervously. On one side of the lake was the village. On the other side the forest crowded close to the shore. The shadows under the trees were very deep.

‘It is getting dark now,’ Bo said. ‘I think we had better go in.’

They poled the raft ashore. Bo insisted that Roger take both fish, and what was left of the big worm.

‘What could I do with the worm?’ Roger said.

‘Cook it for your supper. It is very good.’

‘I don’t think I’d like it. It looks too much like a snake. You wouldn’t eat a snake, would you?’

‘Of course. Snake meat is very tender - better than chicken. But the worm is still better because it has no bones.’

Bones or no bones, Roger made no bones of the fact that he didn’t want a worm for supper.

‘I’ll take the fish,’ he said, ‘and thank you. I’d rather you had the worm. So long. And thanks for the fishing trip. See you in the morning. Come on, Big Boy.’

The little elephant, which had been patiently waiting on shore for the return of its master, followed him closely to camp. Roger gave the two fish to the cook. During supper he told Hal what Bo had said about the ‘Thunder-man’.

‘Craziest thing I ever heard,’ Roger concluded.

‘Well, yes and no,’ Hal said. ‘It’s crazy all right, but quite natural.’

‘Natural to believe in a bogey-man as tall as a tree that. talks thunder and shoots lightning and steals cows and kids?’

‘Lots of wild tribes all over the world believe such things,’ Hal said. ‘Chances are your own ancestors believed them when they lived in caves and had never seen the inside of a school and didn’t know the scientific reasons for thunder and lightning and earthquakes and forest fires and floods and all that. So they thought they were the work of gods or devils. And the people in this village have been losing things, so they have good reason to be worried. Matter of fact, I’m worried too.’

‘You mean you really believe this Thunder-man stuff?’

‘All I know is that something or somebody is stealing cattle and kidnapping children. And I’m going to post armed guards tonight so we won’t lose our elephants.’

Hal assigned two of his best men. Joro and Toto, to guard duty.

1 know you’re tired,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a hard day. But all our work today will go for nothing if our elephants are stolen. I think it should be all right if you watch turn and turn about - one keep guard while the other sleeps, then change places.’

The men appreciated Hal’s wish to make it easy for them.

‘Don’t worry about us, bwana’ said Joro. ‘Well be all right. And we won’t let anybody take the elephants.’

Hal looked thoughtfully at Big Boy, who stood in the light of the campfire keeping an eye on Roger.

There’s one other thing,’ Hal said. The little one -perhaps he will take it into his head to go off and rejoin the herd. He may forget about Roger - babies do forget, you know. Perhaps he will try to wander away. How will you stop him?’

‘Better put him in a cage,’ Toto suggested.

But when they tried to do it Big Boy objected loudly. He kicked and bucked and squealed. He broke away, ran to Roger and stood close to him, running the tip of his trunk over the boy’s bush jacket. Evidently he found comfort in the smell of it, because it belonged to his master.

‘We could take him into the tent with us,’ Roger said.

‘And have him smash your bed again and carry off the tent the way he did this afternoon? No thanks.’

He watched the little elephant sniffing at Roger’s jacket

That’s it.’ Hal said. ‘Let’s try it’

Try what?’

Take off your jacket Hang it on that branch. Now, while he’s still interested in the jacket, sneak into the tent’

Roger disappeared into the tent. Big Boy saw him go and whimpered once, but knowing his master was near, he was quite satisfied to stand by the jacket, the smell of which had come to mean the smell of a good friend.

The boys turned in. In ten seconds they were asleep. All night they slept as hard as they had worked all day. It would have taken nothing less than an explosion to waken them.

The explosion came at dawn.

It was as explosion of voices - the screams of women, the crying of children, the angry shouts of men.

Roger was out of his bed and out of the tent all in one movement. The bush jacket still hung on the branch. Big Boy was gone.

Hal was out now, and both boys raced to the cage.

It was empty.

The village was in an uproar. The tall folk and the short folk ran in all directions like frightened ants.

Chief Mumbo came striding over to the boys as they stood looking into the vacant cage.

The elephants are gone/ Hal said.

It didn’t seem to matter to Chief Mumbo in the least He had something far more important on his mind.

‘My son!’ he said. ‘Have you seen my son?’ His voice, usually so deep and dignified, rose to a cry. ‘He has taken my son!’

Others came running to report that two of the best cattle were missing. Cattle were almost as precious as children to the Watussi. But the wailing and weeping of the villagers was not for the theft of their cattle but for the loss of Bo, beloved son of their chief.

What added to the mystery was that the chief lived in a real house, no mere hut, with a lock on the door, the only lock in the village.

‘Wasn’t your door locked?’ Hal asked.

‘Of course.’

Then how could anybody get in?’

‘You don’t understand,’ Mumbo said. ‘He is an evil spirit, the Thunder-man. Locks are nothing to him.’

‘How about the two guards we posted last night?’ wondered Roger. ‘Have they been kidnapped too?’

Hal questioned the safari men. Had they seen Joro and Toto? They had not

A search was made through the bushes near the big cage and the tree of the bush jacket. In one place the bushes were beaten and broken as if there had been a fight at that point

The hunt was carried farther back into the woods. Hal kept calling:

‘Joro! Toto!’

No answer. Hal’s heart sank. Had he lost two of his best men? Then he heard Roger shout:

‘Here they are!’

Hal ran to see. In a hollow behind a great rock lay the two men. They were bound hand and foot and their mouths were gagged. They looked as if they had been very roughly treated, but they were alive. The boys pulled out the gags and cut the ropes.

‘What happened?’ Hal asked.

Joro hung his head. ‘We have very much shame. Toto was taking his turn to sleep. I was watching. I did not close my eyes - but I was very tired. I heard no one coming. Suddenly a hand - over my mouth. I tried to call out They gagged me with that cloth. They gagged Toto before he could awake. We fought - but they tied our hands and feet and dumped us into this hole’. ‘Were there many of them?’ ‘Many.’

‘What kind of men?’

‘We could not see. But I know that they were not black. And they were not white.’

‘You’re talking nonsense,’ Hal said. ‘How could you tell their colour when you couldn’t see them?’

‘By the smell. They did not smell of sun and earth like the black man. Nor of tobacco like the white man. They smelled of tea and mint and they had the smell of the ships with sail that come to Mombasa from the north,’

‘Arabs!’ guessed Hal. ‘But what could Arabs be doing in these mountains?’

Chief Mumbo did not understand this talk about Arabs.

‘They were evil spirits,’ he said. ‘And their great spirit is the Thunder-man. Was he here?’ ‘I know nothing about your Thunder-man,’ Joro said. ‘His head is in the stars. When he speaks it is thunder and his eyes make lightning.’ There was no thunder and no lightning.’ Mumbo nodded. ‘He stilled his voice and made dark his eyes so he would not wake us. But was there not one strong as an ox and tall as a tree?’

‘How tall, I could not tell in the dark. But strong as an ox - yes. At first many men laid hold of me. I am strong and I shook them off. Then two great hands closed upon me. They crushed me. They made me weak like water. Never have I felt hands so strong.’

an

MISSING?

‘Yes, yes!’ said Mumbo in great excitement. ‘That was the Thunder-man. He took my son. We will never get him back. No man alive can fight the Thunder-man.’

‘We can fight him and we will,’ Hal said. ‘Well get your son back if it is humanly possible. Sorry, chief, 1 don’t go for your spook stories. If there was anybody here last night bigger and better than our own men, ITU eat my hat’

Roger was studying the ground.

‘Get ready to eat your hat’ he said. ‘Look at these footprints.’

Most of the prints in the mud were made by bare feet and their size was not unusual. But there were also deep heavy impressions made by huge boots.

Hal suddenly felt much smaller than a moment ago. A thin cool line of fear ran up his backbone. He was sure that his antagonist was no spook. But it was just as clear that he was no ordinary man. He must be a giant to wear such boots. He must be very heavy to make such deep marks in the mud. But his heaviness could not be mere fat - it was muscle, terrific muscle, and Joro had felt the power of it.