Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius (43 page)

Caroline saw the implications.
 
“We must conserve our water and our food.”

“The outlook does not appear good, my friends,” Fergusson said at the end of a long afternoon.
 
Caroline frowned at him for stating the obvious.

“The heat will expand our balloon,” Nemo pointed out.
 
“The extra buoyancy should keep us aloft longer.”
 

But in the dead calm of the Sahara, they still made no progress whatsoever.

Then, after interminable hours of sunburn and sweat and parched throats, Caroline sniffed the air and held up her hand.
 
“There is a breeze.
 
We’re moving again.”

Fergusson grasped one of the support ropes and looked around.
 
Nemo stared at the dunes below and saw that they had indeed begun to crawl along.
 
“Now we are moving due northward.”
 

Behind them, a hazy shimmer appeared in the air, moving across the desert.
 
Caroline perked up.
 
“If that is rain, can we refill our water tanks?”

Sickened, Nemo took out the spyglass.
 
“Not rain, Caroline -- that’s a sandstorm.”

The pillar of gusting winds picked up fine dust from the desert, leaving heavier sand grains at ground level.
 
They had little enough time to fasten down loose objects.
 
Thinking fast, Caroline gathered cloth for makeshift hoods to pull over their heads, mouths, and noses, leaving only a slit for their eyes.
 

The three huddled in the basket as the murky wind slammed the balloon off on a careening course.
 
Choking grit coated them all with a layer of chalky, tan residue.
 
The wind howled and shrieked, buffeting them back and forth.
 
Caroline and Nemo clung to each other.

Fergusson said something unintelligible, then spat grit from his mouth and rubbed his dirty sleeve across his teeth, looking annoyed.
 
The wind carried so many particles that it made a hissing sound.
 
Static electricity created blue fingers of St. Elmo’s Fire that skittered up and down the netting.

The storm drove them along for many miles.
 
When the whipping gale cleared and dust settled out of the air, the newly washed landscape of gentle sandy slopes appeared unchanged.
 
Nemo scanned the dunes with the spyglass, while Fergusson and Caroline used rags to clear clinging dirt from the basket.

“Battered, but still intact, eh?” Fergusson said, optimistic.
 
“If that storm cooperated, it could have taken us halfway to the coast by now.”

They each took a ration of food and water, and drifted for another day on a brisk westward breeze.
 
Like a miracle, the terrain changed again.
 
The vagaries of weather had nudged them beyond the southern fringe of the Sahara, and even the scrub brush looked like a comparative paradise.
 

But Nemo realized to his dismay that their altitude was decreasing.
 
He didn’t voice his suspicions until he had stared at the balloon, watching the patterns of dust that clung to the silk.
 
“The sandstorm weakened our seams.
 
We’re losing hydrogen faster than I had expected.”

“We still have two hundred pounds of ballast to toss out, don’t we?” Fergusson said.
 
“Even though we have you aboard, my friend, we decreased our weight by six hundred pounds by removing the outer balloon.”
 

Fergusson bent to pick up one of the heavy sacks at the bottom of the basket, but Nemo stopped him.
 
“No.
 
If we’re going to descend anyway, let’s take advantage of it.
 
We can anchor for a while and replenish our supplies.”
 
By now, the near-empty water container held only a few cups of tepid liquid.

When they drifted close enough to the ground, they would tether the
Victoria
long enough to take on supplies; then they would get rid of ballast and hope to stay aloft all the way to the Senegal coast.
 
From there, outposts of Portuguese, Dutch, British, or French would be within reach, even if the three explorers had to trudge overland and ask the locals for help.
 
Coastal Africans were familiar enough with white traders and explorers that Fergusson expected to receive assistance without much risk.

After studying her charts, Caroline pointed out a river in the distance -- the Niger perhaps -- near which stood a city larger than the thatched villages they had seen before.
 
Nemo looked through the spyglass, studying towers and walls.
 
“It must be an important trading center.”
 
It reminded him of Zanzibar City.

“It cannot be . . . but it must be!”
 
Fergusson’s voice was filled with delight.
 
“That, my friends, is the fabled city of Timbuctoo.
 
You must have heard the legends?
 
A magnificent metropolis filled with treasure, the caravan crossroads from desert and coastal dwellers.”

Caroline looked at the settlement.
 
“I’ve heard stories, but I don’t believe them.
 
Roofs made of pure gold, vast libraries to rival even those of Alexandria.
 
Its citizens are said to be doctors, judges, priests, or scholars.”

Though it was a large town by African standards, Timbuctoo proved disappointing in light of the legends surrounding it.
 
The beige towers and mosques were fashioned from hardened clay mixed with sand, supported with timbers of dried wood.
 
Window holes in the mud-cement gave the structures the appearance of wasps’ nests.
 
Men moved about the narrow streets wearing loose robes.
 
Camels and desert asses hauled loads from what appeared to be a bazaar near a water well at the center of the city.
 

Fergusson leaned over the side of the balloon.
 
“Only one white man has ever laid eyes upon Timbuctoo and returned to tell the tale.”

“Yes -- a Frenchman, Rene Caillié,” Nemo said with a knowing smile.
 
“He posed as an Arab, learned Arab ways, and joined a caravan.
 
He started at the Senegal coast and journeyed inland until he reached Timbuctoo, where he spent a month recording his observations.
 
Instead of returning the way he came, he headed north across the Sahara and finally reached Morocco two years later.”

Dr. Fergusson desperately wanted to descend, to be the first
Englishman
there, but Nemo didn’t dare waste their precious buoyancy.
 
As the balloon drifted beyond Timbuctoo toward a green line of hills, Caroline put a hand on Nemo’s arm.
 
They still had a long journey to the coast.

xi

Ahead, a black and brown buzzing cloud shifted with the winds, and then came straight for the balloon as if it were an intelligent, destructive storm.
 
Fergusson stared perplexed at the oncoming apparition, trying to figure out what to write in his logbook.
 

But Nemo understood what it was.
 
“It’s a plague of locusts!
 
They’ll eat everything.”
 
In the distance, they could all see that the grasslands had been completely razed.
 

Helpless and adrift, the travelers had no way to defend themselves as the locusts attacked like a hurricane.
 
A hail of winged grasshoppers pelted them, striking the basket, the ropes, and the balloon fabric itself.
 
The insects chewed every scrap of vegetable matter.
 
Nemo tried to keep Caroline covered at the bottom of the balloon car, but she insisted on fighting back and climbed up to swat the locusts off the basket and her clothing.
 

Coughing, Nemo slapped the insects away from his face and knocked them from the vital ropes.
 
The voracious grasshoppers chewed at the cords and netting, clustering on anything they could devour.
 
The sheer weight of the winged vermin made the balloon droop.

Fergusson hauled out his rifle, as if that might do anything, and then set to work crushing the insects himself with the wooden stock.
 
Nemo, his hands smeared with ichor from hundreds of smashed locusts, crawled up the rope to reach the outer netting.
 
He clambered around the cords, brushing grasshoppers off into the air, but they merely circled back.

The buzzing sound was deafening.
 
Caroline shouted to Nemo, but he couldn’t understand her words.
 
He watched her climb the opposite side of the balloon, working desperately, and then he saw what she had realized.
 
If they didn’t keep the insects away from the surrounding mesh, the balloon and the ropes would all fall apart, and they would plummet to their deaths.

Fergusson stamped on the locusts chewing the
Victoria
’s basket.
 
The humming made the air itself vibrate, as the swirling cloud of grasshoppers kept coming and coming.
 
Nemo reached the top of the balloon and nearly lost his grip as a frayed strand of netting snapped.

“It’s like one of the plagues of Moses.”
 
Caroline spat out a grasshopper that had flown into her mouth.
 
Surprisingly agile, she climbed around the balloon, keeping the ropes clear, while Fergusson hurled curses at the grasshoppers.

Then, a few moments later the lush grasslands to the east proved a more tempting feast to the locusts.
 
As the mindless swarm flew onward, some alighted, gnawed a mouthful of the basket frame or rope fibers, then moved on.
 
They watched in awe as the buzzing cloud continued like a school of tiny piranhas to clear vegetation across the African countryside.

Nemo and Caroline at last lowered themselves into the
Victoria
’s basket, then spent several minutes picking grasshoppers from each other’s hair and collars, pockets, and folds.
 
At any other time, they might have found it amusing.

In the aftermath of the swarm, the balloon looked ragged and tattered, as if the whole vessel had been chewed by some giant beast and then spat out.
 
The ropes were frayed, the colorful fabric of the inner balloon stained and spattered.
 
Numerous tiny holes showed through the woven basket.

Luckily, according to Caroline’s chart marks and Nemo’s positional measurements, the
Victoria
had finally entered the environs of Senegal and Gambia, and they should be within a day of the west African coast.

This news cheered the travelers somewhat, but still the leaking balloon sank with discernible speed.
 
After replenishing their supplies beyond Timbuctoo, they had discarded the last of their ballast.
 
And now they needed to lighten their load more dramatically just to keep moving.
 

But the
Victoria
still had to pass over one more mountain range before they reached the coast.
 
Unless Nemo could find some way to improve their buoyancy, the balloon would crash into the slopes.

xii

Covered with dense jungles, the line of low mountains loomed larger and more ominous by the hour.
 
Beyond the hills, according to their maps, lay a river and lowlands that extended to the long-sought coast.

Then they would be across the continent, after five weeks in a balloon.

The sagging
Victoria
traveled in a weaving drunkard’s course on the erratic winds.
 
When they dropped to within a hundred feet of the treetops, they were close enough to see terrified animals even without their well-used spyglass.

Near the base of the rugged foothills, the balloon passed over a streamside village, where they observed a huge commotion.
 
At first, Nemo thought the frenzied activity must have been caused by the natives’ superstitious fear of their arrival, but then he noticed men tossing torches from one straw roof to another.
 
The thatched huts went up in flames.