Some airlines will let animals fly with passengers. Household pets, for instance, are allowed to fly in kennels or cages. But anything like a snake or a lizard or a ferret is not. You’d be surprised to know how many people actually think they can get away with putting their lizard in their handbag, or travelling with a goldfish on their lap. We’ve had ferrets in rucksacks, guinea pigs in holdalls and tarantulas in jars. In the States, however, they do make an exception for ‘celebrity pets’, which are apparently allowed to travel just like any well paparazzied human being. Regulations state that ‘cats/dogs that are seen on popular TV programmes/commercials usually travel in the first-class cabin’. They may also travel in a seat provided that it is ‘a celebrity animal’ and does not just have ‘a celebrity owner’. Also ‘the animal companion must provide own seat cushion and seat belt adaptor for animal to be strapped in seat’. So I suppose the Dulux dog must be a regular up front from New York to LA along with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
‘What did its head look like?’ asks Jeremy again.
‘It was big and pale,’ says Rachel through curled lips.
‘OK,’ says Jeremy. ‘Sounds like a python to me.’
‘A python!’ says Rachel, edging ever closer to the toilets. ‘You’re kidding! D’you mean we’ve done a full service with a python on board?’
‘Possibly,’ mumbles Jeremy.
He is already standing on one of the chairs, peeling back the Sellotape from around the overhead locker. His thick rubber-gloved hand and forked stick are poised and he is looking to open the hatch.
‘Um, do you really need me standing right here?’ I ask.
‘What?’ he says.
‘Do you mind if I step back a bit?’
‘That would be right,’ says Rachel. ‘You take a step back.’
I ignore her, like I rather wish I had done three years ago.
‘No, be my guest,’ says Jeremy, slowly opening the locker. ‘Anyway, by my reckoning the snake’s not poisonous.’
‘It’s not?’ My shoulders come down from around my ears; my heart flutters a little less.
‘No, it’s a constrictor,’ he says, poking his head over the parapet.
The relief is short-lived. I take rather a large step back.
‘Ahh,’ says Jeremy. ‘Sweet . . .’ Since when has a snake been sweet? ‘It’s asleep.’
‘It is?’ I take a step forward.
‘Oh, no,’ he says. ‘I’ve just woken it up.’
A couple of swift, deft stick-and-glove movements later and Jeremy has the albino snake out of the locker and into a waiting bag. He knots the top and starts to move up the aisle towards me. I give him a wide berth.
‘OK if you come back to the centre with me, mate?’ he asks me.
‘Yeah sure,’ I reply, trying to sound as relaxed as I can about travelling in a car with a bloody python.
‘I need to go through your passenger’s import and export papers, check to see if the snake is OK, if it needs some food, and make sure it’s not a rare breed or anything like that. And work out if we need to fine the airline for bringing it in.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘I’m right behind you.’
That’s not strictly speaking true. It’s more like a good ten yards, but he gets my drift.
9–10 AM
I SIT SO rigidly quiet in the front of Jeremy’s van that by the time we arrive at the Animal Reception Centre my whole body is stiff and immobile. I have tried to explain in sign language exactly what is going on to my Thai passenger who, according to his passport, turns out to be called Mr Narkpreecha, a thirty-eight-year-old textile dealer from Bangkok. But I’m not sure how much he understands. Judging by his well-tailored suit and pale blue Ralph Lauren shirt he clearly has plenty of money and does not seem perturbed or unduly worried about being carted off to the ARC. Indeed, he seems much more interested in the welfare of his snake, which is curled up in a sack in the back of the van. I’ve radioed through to Andy to track down a Thai speaker and send him or her along to the ARC pronto.
I have been to the ARC many times before but I am always struck by the smell. It’s like nothing on earth. It assaults the back of your throat as you enter and is a mixture of strong disinfectant, acrid urine and dead parrots – which they get a lot of, apparently.
My mate Don, who runs the place, is always telling me how lucrative the rare-bird-smuggling business is. Apparently they come through in suitcases, crammed down cardboard tubes or plastic drainpipes. I remember a big case a couple of years back in which a whole load of birds of prey from the Far East were found, all shoved inside plastic piping. Most of them were dead on arrival; it was the rotting smell that had alerted a Customs officer. The smugglers apparently don’t care if the animals live or die. They make £5,000–6,000 on the one or two that get through, the rest they can sell on for taxidermy.
Despite the odd smell, the Welfare office is something of a sanctuary. Bathed in natural light, it is a totally different world from the rest of the airport. The walls are lined with detailed charts and diagrams of bees, wasps, British beetles and butterflies. There are six white clocks in a row on the wall, showing the times in LA, Toronto, London, Cyprus, Bangkok and Sydney. The shelves are stuffed with big leather-bound volumes, everything from the Dog Law Handbook to the Bird Wings and Butterflies of Papua New Guinea. There are chains hanging up on the walls and weird-looking equipment used to restrain dangerous dogs, plus the odd cleft stick for picking up poisonous snakes. There are plants all over the place, a giant wooden tortoise on top of a cupboard, bottles of sherry and port on the shelves, model airplanes on every surface, and two stuffed penguins on the desk.
Standing in here, surrounded by so many curious things, I always think this must be one of the most interesting jobs at the airport. If I hadn’t hankered after being a pilot so much perhaps I might have ended up working here. Although I know most of the guys here are incredibly qualified with zoology degrees. Don spent twenty years at Longleat. There are also three vets contracted to the unit; some are local, while others work for the International Zoo Veterinary Group. Still, if it weren’t for the snakes, I’d quite fancy it here.
I pick up a jar from the row of jars on the desk. I hold it up in front of me, letting the sunlight shine through the glass.
‘I always think this is such a great place— Jesus Christ!’ I shout, nearly dropping the jar on the desk in front of me. ‘What the fuck . . .?’
Mr Narkpreecha starts to laugh.
‘It’s snake whisky,’ says Jeremy rather nonchalantly as he leafs through a book on his desk. ‘All the jars are full of snakes. They’re dead, mind you . . .’
‘That hardly makes much difference,’ I say, my toes curling up inside my shoes.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘You really don’t like them much, do you?’
‘No shit, Sherlock.’
‘They can’t do you any harm.’
‘That’s not the point. Anyway, what are they doing on the desk? They’re not normally here.’
‘Yeah, I know, they shouldn’t be there really. Don brought them in. They’re from the Far East. Some of the snakes are in whisky and the others are in rice wine.’
‘Oh, right, I know the stuff.’ I nod, slowly bending over to take a closer but safe look.
Mr Narkpreecha laughs some more and makes a drinking gesture.
‘They’re supposed to be an aphrodisiac or some such thing,’ Jeremy explains.
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway, it gets confiscated at Customs and we have to check to see if the snakes are actually dead or if they are rare species. The passengers can hang around and wait for us to do our bit and then get the stuff back, but most of them are tourists and can’t be bothered.’
‘So you get to keep it?’
‘That’s right.’ He looks up. ‘D’you want one?’
‘No thanks,’ I say quickly.
‘They make great Christmas presents.’
‘Who for?’
‘My
mum’s got loads.’
‘Lucky her.’
‘Oh, hang on,’ he says, running his finger over the page of the reptile book he is studying. ‘I think we’ve found our man. An Albino Reticulated Python.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Well, I have had some practice, but I might just get Don to check it out as well.’
Jeremy goes off to have another look at the stowaway snake that he has thankfully caged up next door.
I don’t know why I’m questioning his judgement. He knows what he’s doing, they all do – they get enough practice. Something like half a million reptiles pass through the centre every year. They deal with some ten thousand dogs or cats, thirty-five million fish, over three hundred thousand birds, and up to six hundred racehorses. They even get more than the occasional lion, tiger or elephant stopping over for a rabies check before they are sent on to a zoo or safari park. Elephants are normally only transported as small calves, but a while back a seven-year-old came through which went on to father two calves at Whipsnade Zoo. Apparently, he was a bit of a handful. Although not as tricky as the boxes of crocodiles Don had to deal with the other day. The smaller ones weren’t too bad, he said: they were about seven inches long and packed fifty-to-a-hundred in polystyrene boxes. The large ones, however, were a different story. Packed in wooden cases, they weighed a ton and kept flipping around as soon as anyone tried to move them. It took eight blokes to shift each one of them.
Don walks into the office. His face is red, his nose is even redder and his white hair looks as if it has been blow-dried by a passing 747. He is wearing a thick coat, boots and fingerless gloves.
‘Hello there,’ he says to me as he walks in. His small blue eyes shine brightly. ‘What a pleasure! I haven’t seen you for a while.’
‘No,’ I say, getting out of my seat and shaking his hard, weathered hand. He slaps me hard on the back. ‘Not for a month at least.’
‘Not since . . .’ He tries to click his fingers but they are too cold. ‘Not since we had to get that racehorse on a flight for one of those Maktoum brothers. Do you remember?’
‘God, yes. The Dubai flight. How much was it insured for?’
‘Something like fifty million.’ He smiles.
‘God knows why it wasn’t flying cargo like any other normal horse.’
‘No idea.’ He shrugs. ‘Do you remember trying to get it into its aluminium stable?’
‘I remember watching you doing that, surrounded by a whole mass of flunkies and vets and stuff.’
‘That would be right. Anyway, how are you?’
‘Great,’ I say, somewhat overenthusiastically.
Although I have known Don for five years he is not the sort of person one shares one’s feelings with. Over the years we have witnessed quite a few incidents together, and we sort of bonded when a macaque monkey escaped from its box on one of our flights – about three years ago now. God knows how it got out of its box. They’re devious things. But it did, and when the cargo door was opened it made a bid for freedom. There were about twenty of us running around the plane, trying to catch the thing. It was all co-ordinated by Don, shouting above the noise of departing aircraft. Eventually we got the bastard after it made the fatal mistake of letting itself get cornered in the toilet on the plane. Don and I were always mates after that. Although, if I were being honest, I’d say that we were canteen mates. We’ve never actually met outside work but we are always pleased to see each other around the terminal.
‘You?’ I add.
‘Fine,’ he says, shaking his head.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Well, I’ve picked up another one of these guys in Baggage this morning,’ he says, taking a Tupperware pot out of his jacket pocket.
‘What’s that?’
‘A scorpion.’ He holds the box up to the light. ‘Can you see?’
‘Yeah,’ I say, watching it sprint furiously around its new plastic prison. ‘It looks a bit cross.’
‘It’s bloody livid,’ Don says with a laugh. ‘It fell out of someone’s suitcase on a flight in from the Ivory Coast. It’s had about ten pairs of boots trying to kill it for the last half hour. No wonder it’s so bloody furious.’
‘I’d be a bit pissed off I suppose,’ I say.
‘It’s the third one in the last two weeks.’
‘Really?’
‘Have you seen the Black Widow behind you?’ he asks.
‘No,’ I say, turning around to inspect another transparent Tupperware pot sitting on the shelf. Strangely, I’m not that scared of spiders, no matter how big, hairy or mate-eating they get.
‘That crawled out of some rucksack that came in from the US last week.’
‘Oh,’ I say, leaning in. ‘It’s big.’
‘Oh yes. Big and black and female.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’
‘Not sure at the moment,’ he mumbles, taking off his coat. ‘What have you brought us today?’
‘A snake.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Came in concealed in an overhead locker.’
‘Does it belong to this guy?’ Don nods at Mr Narkpreecha who is now sitting down, staring at the bugs on the wall.
‘That’s right. Jeremy’s next door identifying it.’
‘Is he? He’s great with snakes.’
‘Good.’
‘D’you fancy a cup of tea?’ Don asks. ‘Or do you have to get back?’
‘I’m here until the snake gets identified and Mr Narkpreecha here can tell us about his animal.’
‘Milk and one sugar?’
‘Please.’
‘What do you think our guest wants?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I’ll get him the same,’ says Don as he walks off down the corridor.
I sit down in a red plastic chair, opposite Mr Narkpreecha. I smile at him. He smiles back. It feels great to be sitting down. I have been running around all morning and my shift’s only really just started. I’ve got check-in to deal with and Andy’s birthday flight. I’m now really regretting having said yes to the trip. It serves me right, I suppose, for feeling so flattered to be asked.
Jeremy walks back through the door with his book under his arm.
‘It’s as I expected,’ he says. ‘It’s non-poisonous, it’s rare, but it’s fine to bring into the UK. All we’ve got to do now is check to see if the paperwork is in order.’
‘Great,’ I say. ‘Good,’ I add, turning to Mr Narkpreecha.
‘Good.’ He nods back.
‘Do you think the snake is hungry?’ asks Jeremy.
‘I have no idea.’
‘It’s been on a long flight.’
‘That much is true.’
‘I could give it some mice.’
‘Sounds delicious.’
‘Or a rat, a rabbit or a quail?’ he continues.
‘Whatever’s on the menu,’ I smile.
The Animal Reception Centre is well stocked when it comes to food. There is a wholesale company on the other side of the airport that supplies the frozen mice, rats, quails and rabbits for the snakes; locusts, mill-worms, crickets and other insects get delivered twice a week for the lizards and birds. The exotic fruits for the non-carnivorous birds and bats come from the local Tesco, and perhaps rather too grandly, the whitebait needed to feed a whole box of kittiwakes that arrived starving off a plane just the other day came from Harrods. So no-one can accuse the ARC of not bending over backwards to accommodate its guests.
Jeremy catches Mr Narkpreecha’s eye. ‘Would he like something to eat?’ he asks slowly, making a munching gesture with his mouth and rubbing his stomach with the palm of his hand. Mr Narkpreecha seems to understand that food of some sort is being offered and gets out of his seat. But if he thinks it’s his hunger that’s about to be sated he is surely going to be disappointed.
Jeremy and Mr Narkpreecha meet Don in the corridor, and Don hands over a cup of tea to Mr Narkpreecha.
�
�They seem to be getting on,’ he says, handing me my tea before sitting down in the recently vacated chair opposite.
‘It’s a mutual love for snakes,’ I observe.
‘Well, someone’s got to love them.’ He blows on his tea. ‘Not my favourite member of the animal kingdom. I much prefer birds.’
As Don blows on his tea, I can see his face slowly defrosting. His cheeks glow less pink, the bright tip of his nose becomes less ruddy, and he begins to sniff. I know Baggage can be freezing, particularly when a plane lands or takes off. It sends blasts of freezing air right through the open building.
‘Did it take a long time to catch the scorpion?’ I ask.
‘Why?’ he sniffs.
‘Because you look bloody frozen.’
‘Oh,’ he says, ‘no. There was a muntjac deer on the runway early this morning, strayed in from somewhere. There must be a hole in the perimeter fence.’
‘Oh God,’ I say. ‘They’re a nightmare, aren’t they? You’ve told me about them before.’
‘Yeah.’ He nods and sniffs again. ‘So dangerous. I thought they’d fixed the fence, but apparently not. All you need is one of those meeting a 747 and it’s curtains for everyone.’
‘I suppose so,’ I say, taking a sip of my tea.
‘We were called out at about eight this morning near runway two.’
‘Shit.’
‘Yeah. It took us forty minutes to catch the thing and then I went straight to Baggage to sort out the scorpion, which is why I’m so cold.’
‘Nice cup of tea should warm you up.’
‘Mmm,’ he says, blowing into his mug. ‘Oh, they had the bird frighteners out this morning as well.’ A broad smile cracks across his face. ‘The most gorgeous pair of Harris hawks I have seen in a while. Scared the shit out of the pigeons.’ He laughs. ‘I think they were supposed to see off the swans but I haven’t seen any of those for a while.’
Wildlife is one of the major problems for any airport. Situated as they normally are out of town and surrounded by barren scrubland with stretches of water, they attract all sorts of animals and birds. Normally animals such as foxes, deer and badgers are kept out of harm’s way by the perimeter fence. But with birds it is a different story. Some airports release crackers or bangers at various intervals to scare them off; others, mainly the smaller ones, employ hawks or falcons to put the frighteners on; the rest just grin and bear it. We only have the hawks or falcons out when some airline has requested them – if they have had a major bird collision with a swan or something and the airport authority wants to look like it’s doing something about it. A swan or any large bird can easily ground a plane. It flies into the engine, totally destroying itself and the machinery. Smaller birds are less of a problem. Given the right angle and the right engine they can do a fair amount of damage, but more often than not they are just toasted. The roast bird smell they give off often makes passengers on the plane think that chicken is being cooked in the galley, and they’re often surprised when they are given a choice of fish or beef at dinner.
Air Babylon Page 6