08 Safari Adventure (14 page)

‘So African children really do care?’

‘Yes. I only wish their parents cared as much.’

A strong blast of snow-cold air struck the plane as it passed the glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro. Then Hal brought it down skilfully on the Tsavo strip.

They found Mark Crosby at his desk. The two Englishmen, Tony and Mark, greeted each other heartily.

‘Nice to see there’s a bit of England left in Kenya,’ said Tony. ‘I rather expected that by this time I ‘d see an African behind that desk.’

Crosby laughed. ‘It will happen one of these days. Now that this country has its own government, official jobs like yours and mine will sooner or later be given to Africans.’

‘Are you going to wait for it to happen? Or resign now?’

Til wait. For two reasons. One is that there’s no African yet with enough training to take over my job. The other reason is personal. I ‘d rather take my chances here than face going back to England. What would I do there? I couldn’t get a job. They’d ask me, “What experience have you had?” “Well, I’ve been a game warden in Africa.” What use is that in England?’

Hal thought that both men looked tired. They faced an uncertain future. They had given their lives to saving the wild life of Africa. Would all they had done go for nothing? It was only natural for an African government to give important posts to Africans. But would Africans care as much about protecting the wild life? For hundreds of years they had been used to killing animals, not protecting them. Would the national parks be split up into farms for the rapidly increasing African population? Was there no way that people and animals could live together in peace? Hal could almost see these thoughts running like a motion picture through the minds of the two Englishmen.

‘Well,’ said Tony, ‘we can’t moon around about what may be. We can only do the best we can right now. I understand you have four rhinos ready for Rubondo. I’ll see them through. I’ll need a cage for each animal, and two lorries. I’ll take them by road to Mwanza, and I’ve chartered an old car-ferry for the trip to the island.’

While the two wardens discussed the transfer of the rhinos, Hal and Roger went to their banda. They found a. note wedged under the door. Hal unfolded it and read it aloud.

‘Go home, yanks, this is your first warning, if another is needed it will be written in blood -

yours.’

Bb

‘Somebody playing cops and robbers,’ said Roger contemptuously.

Hal did not take it so lightly. ‘I have an idea he means it You know who it is, don’t you?’

Roger studied the signature, Bb.

‘I can guess,’ he said. ‘Blackbeard.’

‘Right Don’t brush it off. He’s a man who would go to any limit, even murder, to save a business that is bringing him in millions.’

‘So you think we should go home?’ said Roger sarcastically.

‘No. Not until we get done with Bb. You remember that five-mile trap-line we saw from the plane? We’ll go after it tomorrow morning.’

‘But what’s the use? We nab a gang of poachers and send them to court and the judge lets them off.’

‘This time we’ll try to nab Blackbeard, not his poachers. But we’ll give them a surprise too - something they won’t like. Perhaps it will make them think twice before they do any more poaching.’

‘We’ll be turning in early,’ Hal told the warden after reporting the delivery of the colobus to Treetops and the okapi to Rubondo.

‘Good idea,’ said Crosby. ‘It was a hard trip. Thanks for doing a good job.’

‘Tomorrow morning we want to visit that trap-line we saw from the plane. We’ll make another try to grab Blackbeard.’

‘Fine. Sorry I can’t go with you. I certainly wish you the best of luck.’

After they were in bed they heard a car drive up. Before they got up at dawn they heard a car drive away. They thought nothing of this coming and going until later.

After a sunrise breakfast the boys and their crew set out in jeeps and Land-Rovers for the trap-line. When they came within a mile of it Hal brought the cars to a halt and gave the men final instructions.

‘You will find canisters of tear gas in the supply truck. Each of you take one.’ He went on to explain carefully the plan of attack.

The cars rumbled on. When they arrived at the trap-line they drew up in front of it just as they had done before. They blew their horns lustily to attract the poachers. But as the poachers began to come out through the gaps in the trap-line, Hal led a dozen of his men round through the woods to come up on the poachers’ camp from the rear.

If Blackbeard behaved as he had before, he would stay safely behind his men and, when he saw them being defeated, he would try to sneak out the back way. But this time he would find himself trapped.

On the front line, arrows began to fly. The safari men did not fire back but stayed behind the barricade of cars.

The poachers grew bolder. Shouting insults at the men who seemed afraid to come out and fight, they came closer. The safari men looked to Roger for a signal.

When the poachers were within fifty feet Roger threw his canister and at once the air was full of the bombs which burst among the animal-killers upon striking rocks or the hard ground. Within seconds the poachers could hardly be seen amid the clouds of yellow-white tear gas. Choking, suffocating, weeping, they fell over each other in their mad rush to escape. They squirmed on the ground, and buried their faces in the grass. Some staggered back towards the camp. No arrows were flying now.

At the same moment Hal’s men rushed in from the rear among the grass huts and into the gaps in the trap-line looking for Blackbeard. He was nowhere to be seen. Nor was there any sign of his boot-prints. The search was continued for half an hour, but without any results. By this time some of the poachers were able to stand,

but still could hardly see through their tears. AH the fight had been taken out of them. They waited to be loaded into cars and transported to Mombasa.

But if they hoped to spend a few days resting in jail, they were disappointed.

‘Tell them,’ Hal said to Joro, ‘to go back to their villages and stay there. Tell them if they are caught poaching again something worse will happen to them.’

All the animals still alive in the snares were set free; some were taken to the hospital, the dead were left to the hyenas and jackals. The wire snares were collected, and all the trophies, some of them very valuable, some very odd.

Among the odd ones were bracelets made from the hairs of elephants’ tails, and leopards’ whiskers which had been gathered to sell to African witch doctors. When mixed with a drink and swallowed, the sharp, stiff little hairs pierced the walls of the stomach and caused death.

The grass shacks and the five-mile barricade of thorn bushes were burned to the ground.

Back at the lodge, Hal told Crosby the unhappy story. Blackbeard had not been caught.

‘Never mind,’ the warden said. ‘You destroyed the camp, and you scared the poachers. That’s something. As for Blackbeard, you’ll get him yet. By the way, Judge Singh wishes you luck.’

‘Was he here?’

‘He drove in last night after you had turned in. He left very early this Morning - said he had important business.’

‘Did you tell him where we were going this morning?’

‘Of course. He is always interested in these raids. He is very happy about the fine work you are doing.’

Hal hesitated. ‘Warden, I hate to say this, because I know the judge is a personal friend of yours - but I’ve begun to wonder whether he is really with us or against

OS.’

The remark took Crosby by surprise. He stared at Hal.

‘That is a very strange thing to say about a man who has always been one of the chief supporters of the anti-poaching campaign. Of course he’s a personal friend of mine. You remember, he saved my life. He’s also a friend of the wild life. He never fails to speak up against poaching.’

‘Does he just talk? Or does he really do something?’

‘He really does something.’

Crosby opened a drawer of his desk and took out a cheque. He laid it before Hal. ‘The judge gave me this last night. I will send it on to the treasurer of the Wildlife Society.’

The cheque was for two hundred pounds. It was made out to the African Wildlife Society and it was signed Sindar Singh.

‘You see,’ Crosby said, ‘he does more than talk. In this country a judge’s salary is very small. Two hundred pounds represents a real sacrifice for him. Now, do you doubt his sincerity?’

Tin sorry,’ said Hal. ‘Perhaps I’m wrong.’

‘I am sure you are,’ Crosby said with a touch of severity.

Hal returned to his banda. He told Roger about the conversation and the cheque.

‘He certainly caught me flat-footed,’ Hal confessed. ‘Perhaps we’ve been mistaken all along.’

Roger was not ready to give in. ‘I Still think he’s a crook.’

‘Then how do you explain that cheque?’

‘Simple enough. If he’s really mixed up in this racket he isn’t living on a judge’s salary. He’s making millions on the side. To him, two hundred pounds is nothing. It’s just to pull the wool over the warden’s eyes and make the society think he’s on their side. I still think he’s Blackbeard’s buddy.’

‘You think so and I think so, but we can never convince the warden. We’d better give up trying. If we keep on, we’ll only get him down on us. First we must get some real evidence.’

‘I guess we can’t prove anything yet,’ Roger admitted. ‘But we’re sure getting some evidence. There was that funny business about the Aco. If you hadn’t stopped Singh, the warden would be dead now. And those silly sentences in court. And that warning signed Bb. How do you suppose it got here? I’ll bet a plugged nickel Judge Singh brought it from Blackbeard.’

Hal nodded. ‘Could be,’ he said, ‘And today we didn’t find Blackbeard at the poachers’ camp. Why not? Perhaps he’d been warned. The warden told the judge last night what we were planning to do. The judge left very early this morning. Perhaps he stopped at the poachers’ hangout and tipped off Blackbeard.’ Hal brushed his hand wearily across his forehead. ‘But these are all perhapses. We’ve got to get some real proof.’

‘Well, we won’t get it sitting round here. Let’s go.’

Twice they had spotted camps from the air. It was worth trying again.

In the Stork they flew over hill and valley, scanning the ground through binocular&i^^

They looked for another trap-line. A trap-line would be a dead give-away. It was a sure sign of poachers, and easy to see.

But there was no trap-line. No camp of grass huts. No spearmen or bowmen searching for animals. Mile after mile, no sign of human life.

‘Perhaps we’ve scared them off,’ Roger said.

‘No such luck. Perhaps they’re just hiding in the woods.’

‘Swing over to that waterhole.’

It was solid with animals - elephants, rhinos, zebras, everything under the sun. But no poachers.

Suddenly the waterhole blew up in a mighty fountain of spray and smoke that reminded them of Old Faithful. The explosion made the plane bounce and stagger. Small animals and torn-off parts of large ones were shot into the sky. What had a moment ago been a source of cool refreshment for hundreds of creatures was now their grave.

‘Dynamite,’ Hal exclaimed.

Out of the woods poured the poachers, spearing animals that were still alive, chopping off tails, horns, heads, anything that would bring a price.

Suddenly they saw the plane, and ran for cover. Hal circled and flew back at full speed to the lodge.

There he lost no time in mobilizing his men and their vehicles but, hurry as they might, it was nearly an hour before they could get through to the dynamited waterhole.

They were too late. The poachers had taken all they wanted and made good their escape.

The mangled corpses of animals filled the waterhole. If they were allowed to remain there they would rot and poison the water.

Hal’s men with the help of a few rangers worked long and hard at cleaning out the spring. At nightfall they returned to the lodge, blue and moody. Roger expressed what they all felt:

‘A tough day, and what have we got for it? One big fat nothing.’

Early morning found the two scouts aloft once more. This time their flight took them far to the north, forty miles, fifty, sixty, but still over the wilderness of Tsavo Park. Then, another ten miles farther north, they saw a column of smoke.

Coming closer, they could see a milling madhouse of several hundred elephants, surrounded by a ring of fire.

The poachers were at a safe distance. The elephant-grass in this plain was twelve feet high - they had set it on fire in a great circle round the elephant herd, and all they had to do was to wait for the animals to be roasted alive.

The crazed beasts charged into the roaring flames in a last desperate effort to escape and were so severely burned that they died lingering deaths of agony. Those that did not perish at once danced about curiously, because the soles of their feet had been burned away. Even if they should escape the flames they would not escape death, for they could not travel in search of food on the burned stumps of feet. They would soon be overtaken by poachers and killed.

Among the bare-skinned black poachers the boys could make out a black-bearded white face above a bush jacket and safari trousers.

‘That’s Blackbeard,’ Roger exclaimed.

They swept close to take a look. Blackbeard glanced up, smiled, and waved.

‘The devil!’ Hal said. ‘He knows he’s safe. Before we could get back here with the trucks he could be a hundred miles away.’

They did get back with the trucks, but it was as they had feared. The poachers had taken all they had time to collect and had fled.

The boys had failed again. But it was not a complete failure. In their haste the poachers had left behind the most valuable trophies.

They had had time to remove such items as tails, feet, eyelashes, and some of the great ears - which would stiffen and could be used as table tops. But they had been in such a hurry to be off that they had left behind the most valuable parts - the tusks.