Two in the Bush (8 page)

The launch chugged on for half an hour or so and then, through the spray-distorted windows of the wheelhouse, we could see two humps of rock on the horizon, rather resembling the large and small
humps of a camel. I went out on deck and peered at our destination through the binoculars: the smaller of the two humps appeared to be nothing more than a desolate lump of rock, unrelieved by
anything except the white frill of breakers it wore round its base; the larger of the two humps, however, appeared to have some vegetation on it, and at one end stood the tall shape of the
lighthouse. These, then, were the Brothers, and it was here (depending on whether we could get ashore) that I hoped to see the reptile that rejoiced in the name of
Sphenodan punctatus,
or
the tuatara. Brian had sent a telegram to Alan Wright who, together with two companions, ran the lighthouse, asking him if they would (a) put us up for a couple of days, and (b) whether he could
catch a couple of tuataras for us. The reason for the last request was that now our time was growing short in New Zealand, and as we could only afford to spend a couple of days on the Brothers, we
did not want to spend the time chasing elusive tuataras to try and film them. In due course we had received a laconic reply saying that Alan Wright
could
put us up, would see what he could
do about tuataras, and would Brian please put ten bob each way on a horse called High Jinks, which was due to come romping home at about a hundred to one in some race or other. Brian had been
pleased with the telegram but I had felt that the frivolous tone of the whole missive boded ill for us. However, we were there now and all we could do was to wait and see what happened.

As we got nearer to the larger of the Brothers we could see that it rose sheer out of the sea, the cliffs being some two hundred feet high. On top of a flat area at the edge of the cliff
crouched what appeared to be a baby crane looking, as cranes always do, like a surrealistic giraffe. The launch headed for the cliffs below the crane and we could see a group of three people
standing around its base; they waved vaguely at us and we waved back.

‘I suppose,’ I asked Brian, ‘that that crane’s the way they get supplies on to the island?’

‘It’s the way they get everything on to the island,’ said Brian.

‘Everything?’ asked Jim, ‘What d’you mean by everything?’

‘Well, if you want to get on to the island you’ve got to go by crane. There is a path up the cliffs, but you could never land on the rocks in this sort of weather. No, they’ll
lower the net down in a minute and have you up there in a jiffy.’

‘D’you mean to say they’re thinking of hauling us up that cliff in a
net?’
asked Jim.

‘Yes,’ said Brian.

Just at that moment the skipper of the launch cut the engines down, and we drifted under the cliff, rising and falling on the blue‑green swell and watching the breakers cream and suck at
the jagged cliff some twenty-five feet away. The nose of the crane appeared high above, and from it dangled – at the end of an extremely fragile-looking hawser – something closely
resembling a gigantic pig net. The crane uttered a series of clankings, groans and shrieks that were quite audible, even above the noise of the wind and the sea, and the pig net started to descend.
Jim gave me a mute look of anguish and I must say that I sympathised with him. I have no head for heights at all and I did not relish, any more than he did, being hauled up that cliff in a pig net
slung on the end of a crane that, from the sound of it, was a very frail octogenarian who had been without the benefit of oil for a considerable number of years. Chris, wrapped up in his duffle
coat and looking more like a disgruntled Duke of Wellington than ever, started Organising with the same fanatical gleam in his eye that Brian always had in similar situations.

‘Now I want you to go up first, Jim, and get the camera set up by the crane so that you can film Gerry and Jacquie as they land,’ he said. ‘I’ll go up next and get shots
of the launch from the net, and then Gerry and Jacquie will follow with the rest of the equipment. Okay?’

‘No,’ said Jim. ‘Why should I have to go first? Supposing the thing breaks just as I get to the top? Have you seen the rocks down here?’

‘Well, if it breaks we’ll know it’s unsafe and go back to Picton,’ said Jacquie sweetly.

Jim gave her a withering look as he reluctantly climbed into the pig net, which had by now landed on the tiny deck of the launch. The skipper waved his hand, there was a most terrifying screech
of tortured metal, and Jim, clinging desperately to the mesh of the pig net, rose slowly and majestically into the air, whirling slowly round and round.

‘I wonder if he gets net-sick as well as sea-sick?’ said Jacquie.

‘Sure to,’ said Chris callously. ‘To the best of my knowledge he gets sea-sick, train-sick, car-sick, plane-sick and home-sick, so I can’t see him escaping being net-sick
as well.’

Jim was now about halfway up, still twisting round and round, his white face peering down at us from between the meshes of the net.

‘We’re all
mad
,’ we heard him yell above the sound of the sea and the infernal noise the crane was making. He was still yelling presumably insulting remarks at us when
the net disappeared over the edge of the cliff. After a pause it reappeared again and was lowered to the deck, where Chris stepped stoically into it. He stuck his nose and the lens of the camera
through the mesh of the net and started to film the moment he was lifted from the deck. Higher and higher he rose, still filming, and then suddenly, when he was poised halfway between the launch
and the top of the cliff, the net came to a sudden halt. We watched anxiously but nothing happened for about five minutes, except that Chris continued to go round and round in ever diminishing
circles.

‘What d’you think has happened?’ asked Jacquie.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps Jim’s jammed the crane to get his own back on Chris.’

Just as I said this the crane started up again and Chris continued his majestic flight through the air and disappeared over the cliff edge. We discovered later that Jim had set up his camera and
tripod in such a position that Alan Wright could not swing the crane in, but Alan was under the impression that Jim had to be in that particular position, so he kept Chris dangling in mid-air. It
was only when he saw Jim leave the camera, find a convenient rock and, squatting on it, take out a bar of chocolate and start to eat it, that he realised that he had been keeping Chris dangling
like a pantomime fairy to no good purpose, so the camera and tripod were removed and Chris was swung in, demanding vociferously to know why he had been kept suspended in mid-air for so long.

The net was sent down once again, loaded up with our gear, and Jacquie and I reluctantly took our seats.

‘I am not going to like this a bit,’ said Jacquie with conviction.

‘Well, if you get scared just close your eyes.’

‘It’s not the height so much,’ she said, glancing upwards, ‘it’s the strength of that hawser that worries me.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,’ I said cheerfully. ‘I expect it’s been carrying loads like this for years.’

‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ she said grimly.

‘Well, it’s too late now,’ I said philosophically, as the crane started its banshee-like screech and we zoomed up from the deck of the launch at the speed of an express lift.
The wide mesh of the net gave you the unpleasant impression that you had been rocketed into the air without any support at all, and as you revolved round and round you could see the waves breaking
on the jagged rocks below. The launch now looked like a toy and, glancing up, the top of the cliff appeared to be a good deal higher than Everest, but at last we reached the cliff edge and were
swung in and dumped unceremoniously on the ground.

As we disentangled ourselves from the net and equipment, a stocky man who had been operating the crane came forward and shook hands. He had a freckled face, vivid blue eyes and bright red
hair.

‘I’m Alan Wright,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘There were moments,’ I said, glancing at the crane, ‘when I began to wonder if we should ever meet.’

‘Oh, she’s all right,’ said Alan, laughing, ‘she just maithers a bit when she’s got a load on, that’s all.’

We got the equipment up the final slope to the lighthouse on a sort of elongated trolley, drawn up the hillside by a cable and winch. The others decided to walk up but I thought it would be fun
to ride up on the trolley and so I perched myself on the camera gear. We were halfway up when I glanced back and suddenly realised that – potentially speaking – this was every bit as
dangerous as the trip in the net, for if the hawser that was hauling the truck broke, the truck, weighted down with equipment and myself, would run backwards down the rails and shoot off the edge
of the cliff like a rocket. I was glad when we ground to a halt by the lighthouse.

When we had got the gear safely installed in the one wooden hut which we would all have to share as bedroom and workshop, I turned to Alan eagerly.

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘did you manage to get a tuatara for us?’

‘Oh, aye,’ he said casually, ‘that’s all right.’

‘Wonderful,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Can I see it?’

Alan gave me an amused look.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

He led Jacquie, Chris and myself to a small shed that stood not far from the hut we were to occupy, unlocked the door and threw it open; we all peered inside.

I have, at one time and another, had many zoological surprises, but, offhand, I can never remember being quite so taken aback as when I peered into that tiny shed on the Brothers. Instead of the
one tuatara I had expected, the whole floor was – quite literally – covered with them. They ranged from great-grandfathers some two feet long to babies measuring some six inches. Alan,
glancing at my face, misinterpreted my expression of disbelieving delight for one of horror.

‘I hope I haven’t got too many,’ he said anxiously. ‘Only you didn’t say what size you wanted or how many, so I thought I’d better catch you a fair
selection.’

‘My dear fellow,’ I said in a hushed whisper, ‘you couldn’t have done anything to please me more. There was I, thinking we might be lucky if we just saw
one
tuatara, and here you provide me with a positive sea of them. It’s incredible. Did they take you long to catch?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Alan, ‘I got this lot last night. I left it until the last minute because I didn’t want to keep them shut up too long. But I think there’ll be enough
for your film, won’t there?’

‘How many have you got in there?’ asked Chris.

‘About thirty,’ said Alan.

‘Yes . . . well, I think we can just about scrape through with a mere thirty,’ said Chris with magnificent condescension.

We returned to the lighthouse in a jubilant frame of mind and had an excellent lunch. Then we went back to the shed full of tuataras and started to choose our stars. Crouching there in the
gloom, surrounded by an interested audience of tuataras, was a fascinating experience. All the young ones were a uniform chocolate brown, a protective coloration which they maintain until they are
fully grown, but it was the coloration of the adults that amazed me. Previously the tuataras I had seen had been unfortunate individuals incarcerated in reptile houses in various zoos, where the
temperature was kept at a constant eighty or eighty-five degrees – a temperature which is not only totally unsuitable for the unfortunate creature, but which makes it turn a dirty brown out
of sheer misery. But these wild-caught adult specimens were how a tuatara should look, and I thought they looked beautiful. The ground colour of the skin is a sort of greenish-brown, heavily
flecked with sage green and sulphur-yellow spots and streaks; both male and female develop crests down their backs, but in the male the crest is larger and more prominent. The crests consist of
little triangular bits of white skin of the consistency of thickish paper, that run down from the back of the head to the base of the tail. The tail itself is decorated with a series of hard spikes
of the same shape, but whereas the spikes on the tail are the same colour as the tail, the crest along the back is so white it looks as though it has been freshly laundered. The males had massive,
regal looking heads and huge dark eyes, so large that they resembled the eyes of an owl more than anything. After a lot of deliberation we chose one magnificent male, one young one, and a rather
pert-looking and well-marked female. The rest of the horde we left carefully locked up in the hut: firstly because we could not release them until nightfall, and secondly, should one of our
‘stars’ escape during the course of the filming, we had a hut full of doubles to fall back on. But we had no difficulty like this, for every tuatara behaved perfectly in front of the
cameras and did exactly what we wanted.

Now, although to the uninitiated eye the tuatara looks like nothing more nor less than a rather large and majestic lizard, one of the reasons that it makes naturalists like myself foam at the
mouth with enthusiasm is that it is not a lizard at all. It is, in fact, so unlike the lizards in its structure that a special new order had to be created for it when it was discovered, an order
called the
Rhynchocephalia,
which simply means ‘beak head’. Not only did it have the distinction of having a special order created for it, but it was soon discovered that the
tuatara is a genuine, living, breathing prehistoric monster. It is the last survivor of a once widely spread group that was found in Asia, Africa, North America and even Europe. Most of the
skeletons that have been found date from the Triassic period of some two hundred million years ago, and they show how alike the ‘beak heads’ of those days were to the present-day
tuatara; to have come down through all those years unchanged surely makes the tuatara the conservative to end all conservatives. The other thing about this lovely animal that has captured the
imagination is the fact that it had a third ‘eye’ – the pineal eye – situated on top of the head midway between the two real eyes, and a lot of unnecessary fuss has been
made over this, for tuataras are not unique in having a pineal eye; several kinds of lizard and some other animals have it as well. The young tuatara, when it is hatched, has a curious
‘beak’ on the end of its nose (for tearing its way out of the parchment like shell) and the pineal eye is clearly visible on top of the head. It is an uncovered spot with scales round
it, radiating like the petals of a flower. This eye gradually becomes overgrown with scales and in the adult specimens it is impossible to see it. Many experiments to see whether the eye could, in
fact, be of any use to the tuatara have been tried: beams of various wavelengths have been trained on it and experiments to see whether the eye is possibly receptive to heat have all proved
negative in their results. So the tuatara just ambles through life with its three eyes, a puzzle to biologists and a joy to those naturalists who are fortunate enough to see it. At one time these
creatures were found on the mainland of New Zealand, but they have long since been exterminated there, and now they only survive in limited numbers on a few islands (like the Brothers) scattered
around the coast, where they – quite rightly – enjoy full protection from the New Zealand government.