by Wilbur Smith
When Caleb worked out that it was me who’d killed the rat he made a good show of being unimpressed. ‘Not really an act of conservation as such, was it?’ he said.
He had a point, but I didn’t bother answering him.
There’s no way I’d have touched the thing with my bare hands but Patience, completely unfazed, picked it up by the tail.
‘It was old,’ said Innocent. ‘Grey hair, look.’
Whether that made my having killed it better or worse I didn’t know.
11.
The following morning we set off in search of chimpanzees. Innocent said the national park we’d be visiting was ‘local’, but the journey still took all day. The easy bit was crossing the lake by boat. After what Amelia had said about the gas in it, I expected the lake to be bubbling, but it was just a huge green-brown mirror reflecting a sky full of enormous clouds, pinpricked with birds. Innocent pointed out a pair of eagles riding a thermal and handed round his battered binoculars for us to take a better look. The birds were huge wedges of black with wide, ragged wings and short white tails, and while I was watching them the bigger of the two dived down towards the other and seized hold of its talons and the pair spun towards the lake like a huge sycamore leaf, only breaking apart just in time to stop themselves from hitting the water.
‘They’re friends,’ Innocent explained. ‘Male and female.’
Caleb, who’d brought his own binoculars with him, had also watched the birds fall. I overheard him tell Amelia, ‘They could have hung on to one another a second longer and still made it.’
If I’d said anything that stupid she would have given me a lecture on terminal velocity or something, but annoyingly she left his statement unchallenged.
Xander, ever the smooth-talker with adults, got Innocent to tell us his life story – or some of it at least – on the journey. He was raised by his mother in the capital, the eldest of four kids. They had little money, so to help support the family he’d joined the army as soon as he could. This, he ruefully suggested, was, ‘Very silly, a big mistake.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Caleb.
Smiling, Innocent simply shook his head.
‘How old were you when you joined up?’
Still with the faraway smile, Innocent replied, ‘Very young, very young indeed’.
‘Where did you serve? And in what capacity?’ Caleb asked in a voice that seemed to imply he’d be able to relate to Innocent’s experience, whatever it had been.
‘Here and there. Mostly they sent us to fight in the east.’
Amelia nodded. ‘Makes sense. That is the part of the country that has been most at odds with itself. And it still is, with all the militia groups fighting each other for control.’
‘That’s why Innocent here is the best man to keep us out of harm’s way,’ said Xander. ‘Isn’t that right? We’re lucky to have you.’
Innocent’s face said, Oh yes, for sure.
And with that the conversation would have ended, if Caleb hadn’t ploughed on. ‘I bet you experienced some stuff, eh,’ he said. ‘What was the sketchiest action you saw?’
Now Innocent’s smile faded. Rather than answer, he turned to Patience and said, ‘Our guests must be thirsty. Pass round the water.’
Caleb jerked his head back, annoyed to be ignored. For an awkward nanosecond I thought he might insist on an answer. But as Patience pulled bottles of mineral water from the cardboard box at her feet Xander cut in with, ‘How did you make the switch to safari guiding?’
Innocent’s face lit up. ‘It’s my passion,’ he said. ‘Ever since I was small I loved animals. Stray dogs, cats, chickens, even little mice.’
I felt bad about killing the rat, but didn’t say anything.
He went on. ‘My mother tore her hair out over the number of creatures I brought home.’
‘Very David Attenborough,’ said Amelia. ‘He’s a TV naturalist on –’ She cut out when I dug my elbow into her side.
‘Yes,’ said Innocent. To Caleb he continued, ‘Only one good thing came from the army for me. It was that I saw this beautiful country, the national parks, Virunga and so forth, the paradise of them. And also I saw the threat to it all, from bad and greedy men – desperate men. In time I will tell you how we resist them if you like.’ Turning back to Xander, he continued, ‘So the first thing I did when I escaped the army was to train as a ranger, using my skills to help protect the park and its animals. I did that for five years. Then, because I had learned to speak English, I could start with the tour guiding too. And now I do both, guiding and the ranger work. I help defend the parks and show them off. Because the more people who see what’s actually in the rainforest, the more people will fight to save it.’
Mum had done well in her choice of guide. The gentle heat in his voice as he made this speech was heartfelt. I’d already warmed to him. The fact that he’d put himself on the line as a soldier in defence both of his country and its wildlife made me like him even more.
If the lake crossing was a smooth, comfortable ride, the road more than made up for it. A streak of orange dirt weaving through the emerald greenery, it had for years, according to Innocent, been cut to shreds by tyres and rain, then baked hard by the sun, then shredded by rain and tyres again. The result was a rutted, soupy, jolty, bumpy mess. We were in the back of another pickup truck, bouncing all over the place. When I could, I watched the driver in the wing mirror. His eyes, still bloodshot, were slits of concentration as he wrestled with the steering wheel, which was covered in fur that might once have been white but was now the colour of the rat I had killed. For some reason, the man unnerved me.
We spent a night in a permanent camp on the edge of the reserve. Innocent was in one tent, Xander, Caleb and I shared another, while Amelia bunked with little Patience. I think she wanted to take the young girl under her wing, but given where we were I suspect Amelia had more relevant stuff to learn from Patience than the other way around. Hard rain fell in the small hours and the noise on the canvas woke me up. It sounded as if we were inside a drum. In the morning, after a breakfast of salted hard-boiled eggs and strangely sweet bread, Innocent introduced us to the porters he said would be hiking into the bush with us.
‘Porters?’ said Caleb.
‘To help carry, track, et cetera.’
‘But hold on. We’re not fat old Americans, incapable of carrying our own gear.’
Under his breath Xander said, ‘He should possibly can the racist stuff.’
Innocent had a wide, disarming smile, and deployed it now. ‘I know. Strong young guys,’ he said. ‘And girl! But it’s dense vegetation here and difficult underfoot. Also for the tracking, best to have more eyes.’
‘But you’ve been employed to do the guiding,’ Caleb insisted. ‘We don’t need extras. The four of us can carry whatever we need.’
‘Does it really matter?’ Xander muttered.
As if explaining the alphabet to a two-year-old, Caleb said, ‘Age-old scam – rack up the cost with unnecessary extra help.’
‘But Jack’s parents paid in advance,’ Amelia pointed out.
‘Yes, but they’ll all want tipping,’ Caleb replied.
‘OK, no problem!’ Innocent waved Caleb’s concerns – and three of the porters – away. Pointing to the last one he said, ‘Just Marcel. He stays. Marcel is strong as two men anyway, also ex-army, and best tracker in DRC. After me of course.’ He pulled his handheld GPS navigation device from his pocket and waved it at us, attempting to divert our attention with the joke.
Marcel, who happened to have a semi-automatic rifle slung casually over his shoulder, helped him out by saying, ‘Oui, mais moi je n’ai pas besoin de piles.’
Amelia laughed at that and said, ‘He says he doesn’t need batteries.’
For a moment I thought Caleb might argue all help was unnecessary, but Innocent, in his sing-song voice, cut him off by adding, ‘Can be dangerous animals. Security!’ and that seemed to get through to him.
Innocent the
n told us what to include in our daypacks. The usual: spare dry clothes, a hat and water for the day. I added a few bits I’d brought along: a penknife, matches, mosquito repellent, flashlight and a new roll of super-strong duct tape I’d packed because Dad once told me the stuff was capable of mending just about anything. We parcelled out what seemed to me to be more than enough food and water between us. I had to admit Caleb was right: we wouldn’t need any help with what we had to carry. But that just left me with a nagging worry. I liked Innocent. He had a trustworthy face, and I knew Mum and Dad would have paid him properly. I didn’t think he’d been trying to pull a fast one as Caleb had suggested, which meant he must have thought we needed extra local help for some other reason. What did ‘security’ refer to? Which ‘dangerous animals’ did he mean?
12.
Before we set off, Innocent gave us each a long stick to walk with, explaining that it might come in handy for bashing a path through the jungle. He and Marcel had straight-edged machetes. When Caleb saw them, he leaned his pole up against the gnarled tree we were standing beneath and ducked back into the tent to fetch his own machete from his kitbag.
‘Almost forgot it,’ he told Innocent. ‘Thanks for reminding me.’
I could see doubt behind the guide’s eyes, but he didn’t object, just watched as Caleb strapped his knife, which came in a commando-style black rubberised sheath, to his thigh. When he drew it out the blade flashed blue silver. He waved it around a bit, trying to look as if he used it often, but the machete was obviously brand new and, combined with the lime-green hiking boots he was wearing, also clearly just out of the box, he looked ridiculous. I wasn’t the only person who thought so. I noticed Patience, dressed only in a vest top, tatty shorts and ancient trainers, watching his little display with the beginnings of a smile on her calm, round face. It vanished when she caught my eye.
The hike into the jungle started out easily enough, but Innocent was right; as soon as we left the established path the going got tough. It felt as if the impossibly lush vegetation was sprouting around us as we walked. And it was, I know, but what I mean is that I could almost see and hear and smell it pulsing upwards, reaching for the light. The day grew hotter, the air thicker, chewier. It smelled strangely like cooked broccoli. At one point I stepped over a moving line of bright green ants, each as big as a paperclip, some carrying leaves or bits of twig. Where were they going? Where were we, for that matter? There were no clearings as such, just patches of less dense tree-tangle. We had to push aside fronds and stalks and whole bushes to make progress, and despite the thick tread of my walking boots I slipped and slid when the earth beneath us became a reddish clay sludge. I wasn’t about to complain though, and not just because Patience, carrying a load that looked suspiciously heavier than mine, was just ahead of me much of the time, floating along with ease, even pausing to hold the occasional branch clear of our makeshift path, and she didn’t appear to have even broken a sweat.
With so much going on at ground level, as we pushed through the foliage I didn’t really have time to look beyond my feet. But we hadn’t been on the move long before Innocent paused, motioned for us to be quiet and pointed up at the canopy above us, indicating a group of brown and grey monkeys gathered among the branches.
‘Red colobus,’ he said. ‘Resting now, after early-morning feeding.’
I craned my neck to get a better look. The name made sense; on closer inspection their brownish backs were more a coppery red. They looked thoughtful up there, meditative almost, and their fur was improbably stylish, like a show-dog’s. Through the zoom lens of my camera I could clearly make out three young-looking monkeys dangling their legs over a thick branch, and closer to us still a bigger, older specimen sitting in the crook of a branch, leaning right back, with his hands clasped behind his head. If the first lot looked as if they were on a park bench, he was definitely kicking back in a sunlounger. I snapped a few good photos while we watched them; by zooming in I could fill the frame with individual faces.
‘That’s a good sign,’ said Amelia in my ear.
‘Why?’
‘Chimpanzees eat colobus monkeys.’
I know Amelia well. She was pointing out a fact, not hoping to see the beautiful creatures above us torn apart.
Xander, however, looked worried. ‘And that’s a good thing?’ he said.
Caleb answered for Amelia. ‘Means they might be close. If we’re lucky we could even get to see them hunting, I suppose.’
Happily – on all counts – Innocent corrected him. ‘That’s unlikely,’ he pointed out gently. ‘If there were chimps nearby, the colobus wouldn’t be so relaxed.’
13.
We pushed on further into the jungle, with Innocent telling us the names of the plants and trees. They mostly went in one ear and out the other, if I’m honest, but the most common plant we had to hack through at ground level was a straggly thing about my height, with longish blue-green leaves. Innocent told us the pigment in those leaves was hypersensitive to light, little of which managed to filter through the canopy above.
Though I don’t know what those straggly plants were called I do know the name of the bird responsible for the ‘ka-ka-ka’ noise that erupted close by while Innocent was telling us about the pigment. The kaka bird. Obviously. Later he pointed out an aardvark hole, twice the size of the entrance to the badgers’ set on the north slope of Pitch Hill back home in the south of England, and later still he stopped beside an enormous mound, the surface of which was alive with termites, shimmering in the gloom like petrol on tarmac.
The heat pressed in from all sides.
My shirt stuck to my back, my trousers stuck to my legs, my boots stuck to my feet.
We walked for hours.
We didn’t see any chimpanzees.
But just as I was about to give up hope and suggest we head back to camp and try again the following day (somebody had to crack; I wasn’t too proud to do it) Marcel, who was leading the way, stopped dead mid-machete-swing. We all paused. I heard Amelia beside me take in a breath to ask what was going on, and held up my own hand to shush her, just in time. We all stood still.
‘Bingo,’ sang Innocent.
All at once there was a mighty eruption of shriek-chattering and the canopy ahead of us shook as the troop of chimpanzees we’d walked all this way to see dropped and climbed and swung, hand over hand over hand, from branch to vine to branch, some lowering themselves all the way down to the patchy undergrowth, others ricocheting up into the treetops. Innocent motioned for us to squat down next to him and gave us each a blue paper hospital mask. As I fiddled to put mine on he explained that this troop, led by an alpha male called Bingo, were habituated to humans. The cacophonous display was a greeting of sorts. But although they were used to people, and therefore would tolerate us getting close, that made them vulnerable to catching any harmful bugs we might be carrying.
‘By bugs, you mean pathogens,’ said Amelia. ‘That’s the collective term for viruses and bacteria.’
‘Smart-arse.’ I smiled.
She gave me a questioning look.
‘Just put the thing on!’ I said, snapping the elastic round the back of my head.
Masked, we looked like a gang of surgeons about to perform an operation; if I’d been a chimpanzee I’d have run a mile. But Bingo’s troop didn’t seem to mind. If anything, by the time we’d put on the masks and stepped forward into the trees they’d been cavorting through, they’d calmed right down. Some were still milling about on the ground, but most were back up among the branches, ignoring us.
I’ve seen chimpanzees before, at Whipsnade Zoo, and even though I was only about seven I’d found the fact that they were stuck in an enclosure a bit depressing. This was different. They might have been used to humans, but it felt as if we were visiting them on their terms. They seemed content enough to hang – literally – in the trees around us for the time being, but if they had decided to move off, we had no way to stop them and wouldn’t have been able to
keep up with them. That, and the fact that we’d searched for so long to find them, made me really focus on what I was seeing.
The youngster nearest me was picking at the shoulder of the one next to him, parting the long dark fur carefully in search of something or other. He rolled sideways to look more closely at what he was doing, and his short back legs stuck out towards me. I zoomed in on him. How thickly padded his feet were, how pronounced and distinctive the paleness of his face. And those ears. They really did stick out like saucers, comical brackets either side of a serious brow. His fingers mesmerised me most. They were so unhurried and precise. The ape he was grooming had his eyes half closed. The pair of them, sitting right there, not ten metres from us, looked blissfully content.
Having cottoned on to the idea that Amelia knew a fact or two about the natural world, Caleb now started telling her what he knew about chimpanzees. It wasn’t much. ‘You know they’re five to eight times as strong as a man, pound for pound,’ was the best he could come up with. As it happens, Amelia, Xander and I had already speculated about whether that clichéd statistic was true, back at the hotel, and three minutes on Google had dispelled it as a myth. They’re strong, but not that strong. And anyway, looking at these chimpanzees, bumbling about among the vines and sitting placidly together, emphasised their gentleness, not their strength, for me.
I waited for Amelia to correct Caleb, but amazingly she just said, ‘Hmm.’
I fought the urge to say something myself, and won by concentrating instead on what was in front of me again. A female chimpanzee on the ground off to my left had picked up a piece of wood. After inspecting it she brought it down smartly on what I at first thought was a stone balanced on the tree root in front of her. In fact it was a nut. Once, twice, a third time she hit the nut, her face set in concentration, until the shell broke apart, at which point I swear her expression changed to one of satisfaction. I took a photograph of it. Delicately she swept the crushed shell off her anvil-root, retrieved the nut itself and ate it. And then she picked up another nut and repeated the process.