07 Elephant Adventure (3 page)

He felt nothing but a whiff of air as the feet sailed over him. He opened his eyes and looked back. The chief was standing behind him, smiling, not even breathing heavily after his violent exertion. He picked up his robe and put it on.

‘Again let me ask,’ he said, ‘can I do anything to help you?’

‘I am sure you can,’ Hal replied. ‘First let me explain why we are here. Our father is John Hunt He is an animal collector, and we help him. Our work is to capture animals alive and ship them to zoos, menageries, circuses, film companies, and such all over the world.’ ‘And your father - is he with you?’ ‘No. He has had to return to New York.’ ‘But this is dangerous business - now you must carry k on alone?’

‘Not alone,’ Hal said. ‘We have thirty men. They are Africans, they know Africa, and they know the ways of wild animals.’

The chief shook his head.

‘Africans know how to kill,’ he said. ‘They don’t know how to take animals alive.’

These men have learned how,’ Hal said. ‘While our father was here we took quite a few animals - giraffes, buffaloes, hyena, leopards, baboons, a hippo, a python, wart-hogs, bush-babies, honey badgers, and a lot more.’ ‘

‘You have done well. You have taken everything.’

‘No - we must still take the greatest’

The greatest? Ah - you must mean the elephant’

‘Yes, the elephant In fact we want several elephants.’

‘And have you taken one yet?’

‘No,’ Hal admitted. ‘We nearly had one - but he got away.’

The chief smiled. ‘I fear you will take no elephants here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because they are so large and strong. There is no animal on earth so powerful as the elephant of the Mountains of the Moon. And I will tell you the reason for this. The elephants - they truly are mountains.’

He looked about at the mountains appearing and disappearing in the ever drifting mists, and for the first time Hal saw fear in his eyes.

This is no ordinary place,’ went on the chief. There is magic here. Things are not what they seem. You will think what I have to say is foolish. But our witch doctors tell us it is so and I believe it is so. This land is sacred to the elephant The mists cover the mountains and then an elephant stands before you. The elephant vanishes in the mist, and there again is the mountain. Who can fail to believe that the elephant and the mountain are one? And you who think to match your little strength against an elephant - you might as well wrestle with a mountain.’

Strange ideas, thought Hal, looking about at the mists swirling around the giant flowers and snaky coils of vine as fat as pythons - but who wouldn’t have strange ideas in this world of monsters?

Then you think if we try to take an elephant it will change into a mountain?’

‘I cannot say. The white man’s magic may be different from ours. But do not ask us to help you take an elephant.’

‘Very well,’ agreed Hal. ‘But there is something else you may be able to do for us.’ He pointed to the group of men huddled together arguing in loud tones. ‘Our men are afraid to go on. Could you speak to them? Perhaps you can tell them that it is safe.’

‘I cannot tell them it is safe because it is not safe. Especially if you are going after elephants. You are walking into the jaws of death. These mountains will, close in upon you and trample you under foot. The evil spirits that live in these things’ - he waved his hand towards the monstrous plants round about - ‘will turn into wild animals and devour you.’

Hal could not help smiling at the chiefs superstitious dread, but he replied politely:

‘Suppose you let us worry about that. You need not tell them it is safe. But perhaps you will be so good as to tell them where there is a good place to camp.’

‘Ah. yes - that I will do with pleasure. You will do us the honour to camp at our village. It is not far. But where

are your men? There are only a dozen here and you say you have thirty.’

This is just a scouting party,’ Hal explained. ‘We came ahead on foot to explore the trail and see if it is good enough for motor cars. The other men are down at the foot of the mountain with our jeeps and Land-Rovers. They will drive up at once if we send down a messenger to tell them it is all right. But if our men turn back now it will spoil the whole plan.’

1 will see what I can do,’ said Chief Mumbo, and he walked over to the group of shivering, terrified men. The group opened to receive him, and the men listened respectfully as he told them in Swahili that they would be most welcome as guests in his village just a little farther up the trail. They cheered up at once, and the march up the mountain was resumed.

There were more monsters, but the men were not quite so afraid of them now. They shied away from the man-high nettles with spikes as long as darning needles. Roger, with boyish eagerness to get to the village, did not quite watch where he was going and plunged headlong into one of these giant pin-cushions. The sharp spikes went through his bush jacket and heavy safari trousers like a hot knife through butter, and he came out howling.

‘I’m punctured all over,’ he cried.

He got little sympathy from his older brother. ‘Better watch where you’re going,’ Hal suggested. He examined the sharp, strong needles of the giant nettle and looked over the path for broken branches. ‘If we run over any of those our tyres will be full of punctures too,’

The chief came back to see what the trouble was. Seeing blood oozing from holes and scratches on Roger’s arms and face he said:

‘I am sorry. The claws of the leopard are very sharp.’

‘Leopard?’ said Roger, puzzled.

‘When a leopard dies it becomes this/ said Mumbo. ‘When this dies it becomes a leopard.’

Hal stared. How could this intelligent chief believe such things?

‘And these other great things,’ he said. ‘Are they all wild beasts in a new form?’

‘Not all,’ said Mumbo. ‘Some are the spirits of our ancestors.’

‘Then they are nothing to be afraid of,’ Hal said. ‘Your ancestors were probably good and kind.’

‘Ah, yes,’ agreed the chief. ‘Good and kind. But after death they become bad and cruel.’

‘Why should they?’

‘Because we do not bring them food. We cannot. There are too many of them. The ones who do not get food become our enemies and seek revenge upon us. They lie in wait for us with sharp claws, they make us sick with poisonous juices, they fall upon us and crush us to the earth.’

As if to show what the chief meant, a flower fell from a lobelia. A man beneath jumped just in time to escape being hit.

Hal stooped down to examine the flower. It was a great blue mass with petals like steel plates. It was as big as a teenage boy, and so heavy that Hal could hardly lift it

‘A very interesting specimen,’ Hal said. ‘I think I’d like to keep that. Joro, get two of the men to carry it’

The chief raised his hand. ‘No, no - I beg of you. Leave it alone. It would be death to carry it Unless you wish to lose two men, let it He.’

Roger whispered to Hal, ‘He’s nuts. Let’s carry it ourselves - you and I.’

‘No,’ Hal said. That would offend him. He’s the chief - we must respect his opinion, or pretend to.’

With his foot he rolled the barrel-like flower to one side of the road. ‘Well just leave it there. One of the trucks can pick it up later.’

New wonders appeared as they climbed towards the village. Besides the moss that stood four feet high, there was moss eighteen inches deep on the trunks of trees. Owls had made holes in it and set up house inside. In very wet places the trees were completely smothered in moss - trunk, branches, and all - so there were no trees to be seen, but only great towers of moss. Many of these towers were plastered with gorgeous orchids - red. pink, blue, green, all the colours of the rainbow.

Then there were no trees for a while, but only grass. But what grass! It reached far above the men’s heads.

Again the scene changed and they passed among huge banana trees with bananas as big as water-melons. Roger, who liked bananas, found one that had fallen to the ground and slashed it open with his bush knife. He was disappointed, for it contained nothing but large seeds.

Then the chatter of voices could be heard and presently they arrived at the village. Beside the path as it entered the village was something that looked like a doll’s house. It was covered with flowers. On a shelf inside were fruits, grains, and bits of meat

‘What does this mean?’ Hal asked the chief.

‘It is to keep the evil spirits out of the village,’ Mumbo explained. ‘If we feed them they will not come in and trouble us.’

‘And does it work?’

‘Not too well,’ the chief admitted. ‘Some of them still come in. They bring bad luck, they bring sickness, they steal our cattle, they do far worse than all this. They have even begun to take our children. Our boys and our girls-they vanish during the night. In the morning we search for them, through the forest, over the mountains, but we cannot find them. They never come back.’

The chiefs face was very sad. ‘Our magic has failed us,’ he said. ‘We do not know what to do. But we must not worry you with our troubles. Welcome to our village.’

It was far better than most African villages. It was clean and neat The walls of the huts were made of thick moss tied to a bamboo framework with lianas as strong as ropes. The roofs were thatched with stalks of papyrus-the same papyrus from which the Egyptians used to

make paper. It would last four times as long as a thatch made of palm leaves. The roofs extended far out over the moss walls to protect them from the rains.

But Hal and Roger were even more interested in the people than in the houses. Men and women seven or more feet tall were walking out to meet the strangers. Their long white robes made them look like marble statues. They surrounded the newcomers and listened to the explanation of their chief who spoke to them in their own language. They smiled down at Hal and Roger, who felt like dwarfs in this company of giants.

But not all the people were giants.

Moving around among them were little figures who did not wear white robes - nor anything else except a scrap of bark around their loins. Their skin was not the copper colour of the Watussi, but black.

The most amazing thing about them was their short stature. They stood only three or four feet high.

‘It’s like something out of Gulliver’s Travels’ Roger exclaimed. ‘You know, where Gulliver meets the little people, and then the giants. Only here they’re all mixed in together Who are they, anyhow - these midgets?’

‘Pygmies,’ Hal said. ‘That’s the strangest thing about this corner of the Congo. It’s the home of the tallest race on earth and the shortest race on earth - the Watussi and the pygmies. Look over there behind the Watussi houses - do you see those little huts that look like bee-hives, about as high as your belt? Those must be the homes of the pygmies.’

The chief had been listening. ‘You are right,’ he said. That part of the village is for the pygmies. They are our servants. But they are an honourable people and worthy of your respect. I wish you to meet their chief. Abu.’

A man no bigger than a large doll stepped out, bowed, and gravely shook hands with Hal and then with Roger. His head seemed too big for his child-sized body, and the deep wrinkles in his face showed that he was an old man.

Hal had felt like a dwarf in the presence of the world’s tallest men. Now he felt like a skyscraper as he looked down on the chief of the pygmies. The top of Abu’s head was on a level with Hal’s hip.

This small bare black creature of die forest with large head and old face seemed more like a chimpanzee than a man. So what was Hal’s astonishment when Abu said in English:

‘It will be honour to help you. For one year I work with your people who came to make the pictures that talk. I speak English too good, no?’

Hal smiled. ‘If I could speak your language as well as you speak mine, I would be very proud.’

‘Chief Mumbo say you come for take elephants. We will help you.’

Hal felt like saying:

‘A lot of help you would be.’

It was too ridiculous - the idea that these little men the size of eight-year-old boys would be any help against the biggest of all land animals - the biggest animal either on land or in the sea, except the whale.

Tiny little Abu weighed perhaps two stones. What good would he be against a six-and-a-quarter-ton elephant?

Chief Mumbo guessed what he was thinking. ‘Do not think that Abu speaks foolishness,’ tie said. The pygmies are the greatest of all elephant hunters. We Watussi are afraid of little, but we are afraid of the elephant. We believe they are mountains, and who can fight a mountain? But the pygmies have a different magic. 1 still don’t believe you will get an elephant - but if anyone can help you, they can.’

Hal still had his doubts, but he bowed again to the black dwarf and said:

‘We’ll be glad to have your help.’

A messenger was dispatched down the mountain trail, and before night all the thirty men of the expedition and their fourteen trucks, lorries, jeeps, and Land-Rovers were encamped in the great open space beside the village ordinarily kept clear for Watussi dances.

Long-horned cattle, the proudest possession of the Watussi, grazed between the cars and looked with wondering eyes at the tents in which the men were setting up camp-beds and laying out their sleeping-bags in preparation for a cold night. Rain was falling from heavy black clouds.

Hal lay on his camp-bed feeling a bit lost and lonesome. He missed his father. He tried to remember that he was a man now, or almost - nineteen years old, bigger and stronger than his own father, but lacking his experience.

True, this was not the first time the two boys had had to go it alone. It had happened in the Amazon jungle and again in the Pacific islands. But there the sun had shone and the skies were blue and it was good to be alive.

Here it was different. These mountains were the haunt of monsters, giant trees and plants and animals, blinding mists, and baffling mysteries.

The chief said the place was full of evil spirits. Of course the chief was superstitious, but how could you explain the disappearance of cattle, boys, and girls? Perhaps tonight something like this would happen.