I Married Adventure

by Osa Johnson

  The chief hastened to assure us that these were trained hunting dogs—the best anywhere—and that in no time at all they would track down a gorilla and hold it at bay until his men had made the capture.

  During all this, Bukhari came closer to laughing than I had ever seen him. Dewitt, Lou, and Dick looked skeptical, and I took my cue from Martin.

  “Of course they can,” I said, sort of generally. “Why not?”

  The chief and his men stood about then, apparently a little uncertain how to start, so Martin led the way up a familiar mountain path. Some twenty minutes later we struck a gorilla trail, and Chief Pawko, who was both plump and oily, instantly looked smug. His men jabbered like mad, and the dogs set up a dismal howling. This seemed to us to be a very odd way to capture any sort of wild animal, and Martin spoke to the chief about it.

  Chief Pawko was ready with an answer. He explained, very learnedly, that since the gorilla was used to both natives and dogs, it paid no attention to them. My husband seemed about to say something but changed his mind and forged ahead.

  Chief Pawko’s general idea seemed to be to keep after one gorilla even though there might be others about, so for two hours we struggled up mountain slopes and down again, sometimes on hands and knees, and always to the accompaniment of yelling natives, yapping dogs, and the clatter of wooden bells.

  On and on we plodded, with our quarry keeping well in the lead.

  Suddenly Pawko stopped and held up his hands. Now was the time! The natives spread out in a semicircle. The dogs—on leash all this time, of course—were brought to the center of the circle. The excitement was almost more than I could stand. I was even convinced by now that the chief knew what he was about. Chief Pawko gave a sudden and dramatic signal. The dogs were turned loose. There was a mighty canine chorus—and the dogs bolted for home!

  “Aw, nuts!” said DeWitt, and left for camp.

  Completely undaunted, Pawko next divided his hunters into two groups, sending one into the jungle and putting the others to work clearing out a hundred-yard patch of undergrowth.

  We waited, gloomy and detached.

  After about two hours we heard the stalkers closing in; they made a wonderful noise. Chief Pawko’s black eyes darted brightly from Lou to Dick, to Martin and me. He looked very proud.

  Yelling at the tops of their lungs, the stalkers crept hopefully into the clearing. Their disappointment as they stared about showed plainly that they had expected, as a result of their efforts, to see the clearing full of gorillas.

  Chief Pawko, still undaunted, had another plan which, according to his lights, was simply colossal. He told it to his men. They also thought it was colossal. During this, we left and went back to camp.

  My husband’s permit from the Belgian government to capture a gorilla was pushed out of sight in one of our traveling bags, and the subject was dropped. Martin wanted a few more pictures and sound effects of the big animals, and we went about getting them in the usual way.

  Some two weeks later we had finished a good day’s work and started down the trail on the Alimbongo slope about five miles from camp.

  “Well,” Martin said, “I think our record of gorillas is about complete. I don’t know of another thing we need. Do you?” he asked.

  “Not a thing,” I replied promptly. I was a little tired of gorillas after these many months, and besides, I was looking forward to going home to the States.

  Suddenly, around a bend in the trail, we came upon a pack of comparatively young apes headed by an old silverback. He was enormous, standing well over six feet tall. With no particular reason that I could figure out, we started in pursuit and soon were all running back up the mountain.

  The huge silverback acted as a rear guard for the pack, and our chasing after them had put him in a state of diabolical fury. He charged and retreated, pranced on stiffened legs, screeched with frenzy, and pounded his enormous chest. Suddenly, however, he seemed to grow tired not only of us but of his job and, leaving the trail, struck off through the matted undergrowth, cursing as he went.

  The rear guard gone, Martin rushed the pack. All but two ran off screaming. The two laggards, also screaming, lost their heads and scrambled hand over hand up a somewhat isolated, sixty-foot tree.

  “Wonderful!” my husband exclaimed. “That’s perfect! Great!”

  I knew then that my husband had not forgotten his permit to capture a gorilla.

  The methods he applied were both efficient and effective. First, every tall tree within jumping distance of the one containing the gorillas was cut down. Next, the ground under this tree was cleared of undergrowth in a complete circle for a space of a hundred feet. Dick and Lou were stationed at the sound camera and apparatus, and I took another camera from a different angle. My husband sent some porters to the cars for tarpaulins and blankets. I admired the way—in spite of his excitement—that he seemed to think of everything.

  “You, DeWitt,” he shouted above the screech of the frightened apes and the bedlam in general, “when the tree falls, you grab one and I’ll grab the other.”

  DeWitt eyed him wildly. “Me?” he said.

  Martin had turned, however, and given the order for the waiting blacks to apply their axes to the trunk of the lone tree. “All right,” he said, “start cutting her down.”

  DeWitt looked anxiously at his bare hands and rubbed his cheek. Clearly, he was wondering how he’d come out in an encounter with a gorilla’s claws and teeth.

  The sharp blades, meantime, were biting quickly into the tree trunk, and, tardily, DeWitt’s doubts also assailed my husband. The pair of gorillas, while young and obviously frightened, were far from being babies and were indubitably powerful.

  “Hey, DeWitt,” he shouted, “we’d better borrow the fellows’ coats. Put on as much as possible.” Then, off to one of the blacks, “You,” he commanded with an anxious eye on the tree, “get the gloves out of the cars—driving gloves!” With this hasty padding, both Martin and DeWitt took on the look of deep-sea divers.

  Automatically I cranked the camera and felt sorry for the two apes. Sweethearts, I decided from the way one seemed to be trying to console and protect the other. The female would be the one doing the protecting, of course.

  The tree cracked a signal and tottered with momentary uncertainty. Martin, I saw, was jumping up and down.

  “All set, DeWitt?” he yelled.

  DeWitt nodded vaguely, his mouth open, his eyes fixed on the apes in the top of the swaying tree.

  The tree crashed. Bukhari threw a tarpaulin over one slightly stunned gorilla and trussed it up. Three other blacks, working under his command, trussed up the second gorilla, and it was all over before Martin and DeWitt, in their heavy paddings, could move from where they stood.

  Bukhari strutted with pride from then on and appropriated the right to say how the two animals should be transported to camp, how they should be cared for, and, very particularly, how and by whom fed. The fact that we had two gorillas and one permit was also a matter of simple solution for him. Just ask for another permit, he said in his best Swahili.

  Actually, by the time we left the Congo, we had three gorillas. For as we started our return trip to East Africa, we met a group of natives carrying a very sick baby gorilla. I insisted on stopping to look, and just then the infant opened his eyes. Turning to Martin, I said, “We have to buy this poor little baby.”

  Martin didn’t argue. “All right,” he said, “we’ll straighten things out with the Belgian government somehow.”

  It was not quite as simple as that, of course, but after a number of cablegrams to Brussels, we received the necessary permits to take the gorillas with us.

  The gorillas attracted much attention to Nairobi. Congo and ’Ngagi, for so we named the two gorillas we had captured, adapted themselves to captivity, and are now happy citizens of the San Diego Zoo. Snowball, as we called the
baby gorilla, regained his health and now lives at the National Zoo in Washington.

  The Johnsons’ houseboat with the Spirit in tow.

  Simba.

  Tearing at his favorite food, a juicy zebra steak.

  Patriarch of the plains in the familiar pose of the Lions of Trafalgar Square.

  A gorilla emerging from the forest in the Alumbongo Mountains.

  Mt. Kenya camp and the two Johnson Sikorskys.

  Mr. and Mrs. F. Trubee Davison arriving in Africa to join the Johnsons on their aerial safari in search of elephants for the African Hall group of the American Museum of Natural History. Left to right: Pete Quesada, Mr. Davison’s pilot; F. Trubee Davison; Vern Carstens, Martin’s pilot; Mrs. Davison; Osa; Martin; and Wah, the Flying Ape.

  Baboon taking a siesta after a full meal.

  The Spirit of Africa and Osa’s Ark, off to conquer Mt. Kenya by air.

  Mt. Kenya, sharp, frigid, terrifying, shot from Osa’s Ark.

  Chapter 29

  The plane made a smooth, three-point landing on the new flying field at Chanute; the folks were there to meet us, Father Johnson and Freda among them; and I was so happy I was beside myself. We had been tied up in New York editing our latest picture, Congorilla, and this was our first trip home.

  My father looked at me approvingly, then beamed at Martin.

  “I see you’ve done what I told you to, Martin,” he said. “You’ve taken good care of our Osa.”

  My husband seemed preoccupied. He was looking off toward the plane on which he had just come from Kansas City. Then he looked at me.

  “Do you like flying?” he demanded.

  “Why—yes. Yes, I guess so. It gets you places in a hurry. We wouldn’t have been here until day after tomorrow.”

  “I asked if you like it.” He seemed impatient.

  “Well—” I temporized. “Of course it’s pretty high up. Do you like it?”

  “No,” he answered shortly. “I don’t.”

  Later that day I was in my grandmother’s room; she was showing me some wonderful new quilts which she had made for our next safari. Mama brought in some beautiful sweaters which she had knitted, two for Martin, two for me. Martin came in, his face sort of puckered.

  “I suppose a person in a plane over Africa could see quite a lot,” he said.

  “Martin, you mean—?”

  “You know, all the places we’ve wanted to explore and couldn’t reach?”

  “Oh, yes, Martin, of course!”

  My husband was gone before I woke up the next morning. He had left a note.

  “I’ll be with Vern Carstens over at the flying field,” was all it said. Vern, the manager of the airport, already had a reputation for being one of the best pilots in Kansas.

  Father was with me when I read the note.

  “Well, Osa,” he chuckled. “If you’re going to keep up with Martin this time, you’ll have to grow yourself a pair of wings.”

  * * *

  —

  Vern worked with me for quite a while, putting me through my paces in 180- and 360-degree landings; shallow and steep banks; turns, spirals, stalls, and spins; wind and temperature and all manner of emergency tests; navigation and meteorology; and ultimately announced that I was ready for a solo flight. My husband had already “graduated.”

  The day was set, and when I arrived at the airport with Martin, all our folks were there, as well as half the population of Chanute, waiting to see me make my debut as an aviatrix.

  I grinned mechanically at everyone. Neither my father nor mother seemed very happy, but Grandma beamed and Martin gave me a close hug. “You’ll do just fine, honey,” he said. “I know you will.”

  I got off the ground without mishap and soon found myself floating in a circle two thousand feet in the air—all by myself. Around and around I flew, putting off the dread moment when I should have to land.

  Gritting my teeth, finally, I pointed the nose of the plane downward. The ground came up with terrific speed and, hitting it, I bounced thirty feet in the air. As I had been instructed, I gave the ship “the gun” and found myself circling the field again, two thousand feet up. My second and third tries at landing were exactly like the first. I bounced and was off. Everybody was staring; Martin and Vern were waving their arms. I’m not quite certain to this day how I managed finally to land the plane without having it bounce off the ground again, but land I did, and sat there for a minute marveling at my good luck.

  I do remember that Vern was the first to reach me. He was livid.

  “Is that the way I taught you to fly?” he yelled. “Coming into the field with your tail in the trees and just missing the telephone wires!”

  I wanted to tell him I thought I was lucky to get down at all.

  “What was the matter with you anyhow?” he continued. “I thought we were going to have to shoot you down!”

  * * *

  —

  I’m reasonably certain that we didn’t go to the Sikorsky plant that bright spring day in 1932 with the idea of buying anything, but the fact remains that when we left we were the proud owners of two beautiful planes. Powered by supercharged “Wasp” motors, they were a ten-seater and a five-seater, both amphibians.

  Martin decided that the larger plane should be named Osa’s Ark, and had it painted with zebra stripes, and we finally chose the Spirit of Africa as the name for the second plane, and painted it in the color and design of a giraffe’s spots. The interiors, like our different cars, were adapted to safari need, and quite efficiently, I thought. Most of the seats, for instance, were removed from Osa’s Ark to make room for equipment. Two light-framed but comfortably upholstered sleeping bunks were installed. We had a tiny washroom, a little gasoline stove with two burners and an oven, a compact outfit of pots and pans, a set of dishes which nested into an extremely small space, and a supply of food staples. Every inch of space was utilized for storage, under the bunks, under the seats, and overhead, and there were baggage compartments forward of the cockpit. One unipod camera mounting specially designed by Martin was installed to facilitate his aerial photography, and I designed a very complete typewriter desk, for I had just received an assignment to do a book and some magazine articles.

  This was to be an air safari to Africa. As pilot, we had with us our good friend and flying instructor, Vern Carstens. The Sikorsky factory “loaned” us test-pilot Captain Boris Sergievsky and mechanic Al Morway to assist in delivering the planes to Nairobi. Arthur Sanial and Robert Moreno were in charge of the complicated sound equipment, and Hugh Davis was to assist my husband with his laboratory work.

  Inasmuch as we had already approached our home in Nairobi from the east coast via Mombasa, and from the north via the Nile, we determined this time to come up from the south for a glimpse of Rhodesia and South Africa. On January 23, 1933, we and our planes disembarked from the City of New York in Table Bay at Cape Town. After the usual unraveling of red tape, we assembled our planes, which were then lifted into the water. From there we took off and flew to the airport.

  After a week of checking and testing the airplanes, we were ready to head for Nairobi. Martin and I rode in the big plane, with Boris at the controls and with Davis and Morway as passengers. Vern flew the smaller plane, carrying Moreno and Sanial. We were proud, of course, of our efficient-looking ships, with their gleaming propellers and bright new paint, but I couldn’t help grumbling a little at the charge of $750 which we had had to pay for the twenty-four-hour storage of the planes on the quay!

  Our 4,400-mile flight from Cape Town to Nairobi over the rough mountainous country was not particularly pleasant. We had implicit faith in Boris and in Vern, but the best pilot in the world could very easily, and with small blame, crash in territory such as this. The fogs seemed always with us; there were neither “bea
ms” nor friendly fields; and even our maps, we found, were fantastically inaccurate.

  Further to complicate matters, due to the difference in loads and speeds, our ships could not fly together. Towns were widely separated, and, all in all, the problem of gasoline was seldom absent from our minds.

  The Spirit of Africa, too, was a great anxiety. A smaller and slower ship than the Ark, she was proportionately as heavily loaded, and the problem of fuel for Vern was an even greater one than it was for us.

  Time after time we lost our way in the fog, frequently, it seemed to me, just as our gauge was in swift descent. I remember the relief we felt as we landed in a small town named Broken Hill, which lay midway between Cape Town and Nairobi. Vern had already landed and refueled, fearing he might have to begin an aerial search. Happily, we took on gasoline and consulted maps. Mpika, we decided, would be our next stop. It was only a three-hour flight and both planes were starting out with a five-hour supply of gasoline; obviously, there was nothing more to worry about. We waved cheery good-byes and promised to meet at Mpika.

  Two and three-quarters hours passed very pleasantly for us. This time we were almost smug in our certainty that not only would we find Mpika in a few minutes, but that we would land with a good two hours’ surplus of fuel in our tanks. Vern had dropped behind two hours before, but that was usual. The fog had cleared, and this alone was enough to give us confidence. No Mpika appeared, however, and soon we found that we had been traveling something over three hours and a half.

  Still another half hour joined eternity.

  Finally, Boris turned back in an attempt to find some landmark, but all we saw below were mountains, deep canyons, cataracts, rocky streams, and an occasional village.