Crack - the barbed head broke off.
Now for the most painful part of the operation. Roger hoped to make his patient suffer as little as possible. One good jerk and he would get the shaft out of the arm.
He laid hold with both hands, gritted his teeth, and gave one mighty tug. The shaft held fast. The plane staggered. Crosby at once brought it back under control.
‘Must be wedged between muscle and bone,’ Hal said. ‘Give it another try.’
Roger had once thought he would like to be a surgeon, Now he changed his mind. His body was streaming with sweat and it wasn’t because this country, Kenya, is crossed by the equator. He knew the agony he was causing. He laid his bloody hands on the shaft again, gathered up all his strength and yanked. No luck.
He worked the shaft up and down to enlarge the hole. He knew this must hurt like the devil, but he didn’t know what else to do. Once more he yanked and the shaft came free.
The warden opened his mouth, and Roger expected him to shout something like, ‘You clumsy kid!’ but all he said was, ‘Good boy!’
‘Give me that,’ Hal said. He took the shaft and looked at the part that had been embedded in the flesh. Through the blood he could see a black sticky substance.
‘I’m afraid that’s it,’ he said.
What chance did the warden have? He might live, he might die. Hal had .seen Africans preparing this stuff. They themselves were deathly afraid of it. They took great care not to get a bit of it on themselves. They boiled it out in the bush, not in the village - that would be too dangerous. A drop might spatter out of the pot on to the skin of a man, woman, or child. If there was a scratch on the skin, even though it might be no larger than a pin point, the poison would enter.
What happened then would depend upon the strength of the poison and the physical endurance of the person who was poisoned. A child might die in a few minutes. One woman died while she was being carried a few hundred feet to her house. Another died within twenty minutes. Hal had heard of a man who lasted three hours before he died. A strong man who had been struck by the arrow of an enemy tribe lay unconscious for two hours and then recovered.
It made a difference whether the poison was fresh or stale. If it was new it acted quickly. If it had been on the arrow-shaft for many days and had dried and been covered with dust it might not cause death.
The warden slumped against the stick, pushing it forward. Immediately the plane plunged towards the earth in a steep spiral.
Hal seized the stick in front of him and tried to pull it back. He couldn’t do it - Crosby’s weight against the other control was too much.
The earth was approaching at terrifying speed. ‘Pull him up,” Hal shouted to Roger.
Roger had plenty to do to hold himself up in this crazy contraption whirling on its nose like a top. His seat-belt helped a little. He supported himself against the back of the front seat with one arm, got his other arm around the warden’s neck and heaved. Crosby was not a light man and if Roger had not been big for his years he could not have budged the heavy body. He raised it a few inches, then a few inches more, and, with Hal pulling on the control at the same time, the plane hesitated in its dizzy dive and began to point upwards.
A few more head-over-heels revolutions and the wings steadied, the whirling stopped and the plane swooped upwards just in time to escape the reaching arms of a tall kapok tree.
Roger still held back the warden’s unconscious body while Hal settled down to the uneasy business of flying a strange plane without either practice or instructions. He had to guess his way across the instrument board and some of his guesses were pretty wild.
Where was the gizmo that controlled the brakes? Or were they governed by the foot pedals? The most ticklish job would be landing. He must get ready for it. How did you lower the flaps? Any one of half a dozen levers might do it. He tried them until he found one that produced the right effect - the sudden check of extra lift and drag.
Once on the ground, he must apply the brake so that he wouldn’t taxi right off the strip into a tree or a cabin. How to do that he couldn’t tell until he was actually on the ground. Then it might be too late.
Meanwhile he peered ahead through the whirling propeller, looking for the landing field. His eye travelled all round the thatch buildings of the safari camp without finding an asphalt runway.
Finally he spotted a wind-sock. That must mark the airstrip, but where was the strip? The landing field appeared to be just that and nothing more - a field.
He was now directly over the camp. He circled the field, calculating the chances of getting down to it without striking the trees that blocked it at each end.
He was just about to come in for a landing when he saw something peculiar in the middle of the field. Something yellow and black lay on the green grass. Then a part of it moved and he knew what it was: a family of lions.
They were basking in the sun, quite undisturbed by the noisy plane. Hal knew that lions were not afraid of planes, trains, or cars. More than once he had driven his Land-Rover close to a pride of lions and stopped within fifteen feet of them and they did not budge an inch. Kings of the animal world, they were not easily frightened.
He could not wait for them to wander off. They might not move for an hour or more. He had a patient on board who required prompt attention. He had to get rid of those lions, and fast.
He swooped down to within twenty feet of them. They were all stretched out comfortably in the grass. Some looked up at him lazily, others did not even open their eyes.
One huge black-maned male lay on his back with all four paws in the air. He did not even bother to roll over.
Hal circled and came in again, lower this time. He kept the throttle full open in order to make as much thunder as possible. It was a dangerous business, roaring in at a hundred and forty miles per hour so close to the ground. This time one lioness with a brood of cubs decided they would be safer on the sidelines and led them away.
Encouraged by this success, Hal made another dive. This time he would really singe the fur of these haughty beasts.
He didn’t quite do that, but he came so close that when he circled up again he saw that the lions were on their feet, the males roaring angrily, and even the upside-down animal had taken notice of this buzzing gadfly that was disturbing his slumbers. The whole pride moved away with slow dignity to the edge of the field.
Hal at once lowered his flaps, throttled down to a glide and came in for a more or less perfect landing. The brake linkage seemed to be as he had hoped, and he brought the plane to a bumpy halt within a few feet of the trees.
Chapter 4
The judge
The warden seemed dead to the world. Hal felt his pulse. The heart was beating, though faintly. So there was still a chance.
The helpless body was eased down to the ground. A man came running from the camp. He was dressed smartly in a light-coloured uniform that ended at his elbows and his knees and contrasted with his very black skin. His military-looking cap had an insignia in front and a thin cloth kepi behind hanging down over the back of his neck to keep off insects, after the fashion of the old-time French Foreign Legion. This must be one of the warden’s ten rangers.
‘What happen?’ he asked, stooping beside the body in the grass.
‘Poison arrow,’ Hal said.
The ranger put his ear to the warden’s chest.
‘No dead. We take to the judge. Judge, he fix.’
‘He needs a doctor.’
‘No doctor. Judge, he good, he fix.’
Hal didn’t wait to ask questions about the judge who could fix. There was one thing that could be done at
once. He whipped out a handkerchief and tied it round the arm above the bleeding wound.
Together, they carried the warden to the main building. The interior was furnished with comfortable chairs and a large desk. It evidently served the warden as both home and office. The unconscious warden was carried into his bedroom and laid on the bed. A l
ittle man came bustling into the room.
‘This is the judge,’ said the ranger. ‘He fix.’
The judge’s slightly dark skin marked him as a native of India. There were many Indians in Kenya.
‘An accident?’ he said.
Hal explained briefly what had happened.
‘Ah yes,’ said the little judge. ‘How fortunate that I was here. I know exactly what to do.’
Roger, whose eyes had a way of seeing things that other people did not notice, saw the bright light that came into the judge’s eyes. The judge seemed almost happy. Perhaps it was just his kindly nature. Perhaps he was happy because he could help.
‘First,’ he said, ‘off with that tourniquet.’ He quickly untied it and flung it aside.
‘But I just put it on,’ said Hal. ‘I wanted to stop the poison from going through his system.’
‘You meant well,’ said the judge kindly. ‘But, you see, it’s better to allow the poison to be diffused through the entire system than concentrated in one spot.’
Hal had never heard this theory before, but it sounded logical.
‘Shouldn’t the wound be syringed with distilled water?’ Hal asked.
‘Wrong again, my boy.’ The judge spoke like a father gently reproving his foolish son. ‘What he needs is an injection.’
‘Ammonium carbonate?’ asked Hal.
The judge’s eyes narrowed. He seemed surprised that Hal should know these things, and a little annoyed. He covered his annoyance with a sweet smile.
‘Yes, yes,’ he replied. ‘I’ll see if there is any in the dispensary.’
He left the room, walked across the lounge and into another room. Hal quietly followed him. He arrived just in time to see the judge pick up a bottle from the front row and put it back behind everything else on the shelf so that it could not easily be seen.
He turned and saw Hal. ‘No Ammonium here,’ he said. ‘Never mind. I know something better. Coramine. A heart stimulant. That’s what he needs - something to keep his heart going.’
Hal agreed. His confidence in the little judge was restored. He helped him search the shelves for Coramine.
‘Hal!’ Roger called. ‘Come quick!’ Hal ran to the bedroom. ‘I think he’s stopped breathing,’ Roger said.
The warden was as pale as paper. Beads of sweat stood out on his skin. Hal put his mouth to the warden’s and breathed, slowly, powerfully, forcing air in, drawing it out, forcing it in, drawing it out, forcing it in, drawing it out.
He kept it up until the patient breathed again. But the breathing would die out once more if the heart didn’t get a boost. Where was the judge with that Coramine?
The judge came in holding a hypodermic syringe. He inserted it into the wound. That was a strange place to put it. Wouldn’t the thigh be better? Then Hal noticed that the liquid in the syringe was a blackish brown.
In a sudden panic he seized the syringe and drew it out before the judge could press the plunger. The judge stared at him with astonishment.
‘Pardon me,’ Hal said, ‘but isn’t there some mistake? That doesn’t look like Coramine. It looks like Acocanthera.’
The judge gazed at the syringe. ‘I do believe you’re right,’ he said. ‘I am happy that you noticed it. I know now how it happened. The two bottles were side by side and I got the wrong one.’
Hal was already on his way to the dispensary and the judge followed. Hal was suspicious, but his suspicion faded when he saw that it was just, as the judge had said.
The two bottles, one labelled ‘Coramine’ and the other labelled ‘Aco’ the safari man’s nickname for the deadly Acocanthera, really did stand side by side. That was natural, for they were frequently used one after the other. When it was necessary to capture a large animal such as a rhino or elephant, a ranger might puncture the skin with a very light touch of Aco, enough to put the animal to sleep but not enough to kill it, and after the beast was caged it could be revived with an injection of Coramine.
Dismissing his unkind suspicions, Hal helped the judge find a clean syringe and fill it with Coramine.
‘Permit me,’ Hal said, and himself took the syringe to the bedroom and injected the contents into the patient’s thigh.
For half an hour he kept his fingers on the pulse. At first the heart-beat was so faint he could hardly feel it. Then it broke into a rapid palpitation. That was not a very good sign. But it finally settled down to a normal beat that slowly gained in strength.
All this time the judge was pacing up and down the room with every appearance of anxiety.
‘A very fine man, the warden,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t afford to lose him. We need him to help save our poor dear animals from the hands of the poachers. It’s a cause very close to my heart. In fact I am one of the directors of the African Wildlife Society. Really, the tortures these poor beasts undergo would make you weep. No punishment is enough for those atrocious poachers. Of course as a judge I get them through my court - when they come before me you can be sure they will suffer for their crimes.’
Tears stood in the little judge’s eyes as he looked at the helpless body of the warden.
‘We are like brothers, the warden and I . If he should die it would break my heart.’ He dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief.
Hal thought, He’s either a sweet soul or a great actor. Always willing to believe the best of anyone, he decided that the judge was a sweet soul.
But Roger was looking at the judge with his face screwed up as if he smelt something bad.
Chapter 5
Friend or enemy?
The patient stirred. The judge rushed to his side. ‘I’ll take over,’ he said. Hal stepped back and the judge took his place, his ringers on the warden’s pulse.
So when the warden opened his eyes the first tiling he saw was the anxious, tear-stained face of the sweet soul. And the first thing he felt was the pressure of the judge’s warm hand upon his wrist.
He lay quiet for some time. When he did speak his weak voice gave some idea of the ordeal his strong body had suffered.
‘Thank you, judge,’ he said. ‘I can always depend upon you.’ Then he noticed the boys. ‘You have met?’
‘Not exactly,’ the judge said. ‘We were too concerned about you to take time to introduce ourselves.’
‘Then shake hands with Hal Hunt. And his brother Roger. Boys, meet Judge Sindar Singh, my dearest friend. This is not the first time he has saved my life. However did you do it, Sindar?’
‘It was nothing, my friend,’ Judge Singh replied in his softest, smoothest voice. ‘Just a matter of knowing what to do. Coramine and all that.’
‘The judge is a very modest man,’ Crosby said to the boys. ‘I hope you watched him closely so that you’ll know what to do if you ever have a case of poisoning to deal with.’
‘Yes,’ Hal said. ‘We watched him closely;’
It was on the tip of his tongue to add, ‘If we hadn’t watched him closely, you would be dead now.’ But he didn’t say it. After all, anyone could have made that mistake - getting the wrong dope in the syringe. It must have been a mistake. What possible reason could the pleasant little judge have for wanting to kill the warden?
Of course if anyone really wanted to commit murder that was a perfect way to do it. There was already Aco in the wound. If more were injected in the same place, no one would be able to tell, even in an autopsy, that it had not come from the arrow. Hal brushed away the evil thought. The beaming smiles of the little judge over the patient’s recovery were strong evidence of his devotion to his friend.
‘You’ll be glad to know, Sindar,’ - the warden’s voice was stronger now - ‘that the boys are going to help us round up the poachers.’
‘Very nice,’ smiled the judge. ‘But, with all due respect, I’m afraid two boys won’t get far against those gangs of killers.’
‘Ordinary boys would not. But these are not quite ordinary. They’ve already had a lot of experience. Their father is a famous animal collector and
he has taught them how to get along in rough country. They’ve taken animals alive, even the big ones - don’t you remember reading in the papers about their capture of the fifty-thousand-dollar white elephant in the Mountains of the Moon?’
‘But catching an animal is a bit different from a war on poachers,’ suggested the judge mildly.
‘They’ve had a taste of that sort of thing too. Anyhow,
they’ll have thirty men to help them - they’re on the road now.’
‘When do they arrive?’
‘Tomorrow at midday.’
The news seemed to electrify the little judge.
‘Well, well, I must be going. I just dropped in to see you on my way to Nairobi. I must move along or I won’t get there before night. Take Care of yourself, Mark. Sorry you picked up that arrow. Where did you say the gang is operating?’
‘I didn’t say. Their camp is due west, about seven miles.’
‘Good luck with your raid. I do wish I could be with you but I’ll be pretty busy tomorrow. Glad to have met you, boys. Watch your step. Remember, this isn’t Long Island.’ He gave them a sweet smile, and was gone.
‘You boys have had quite a day,’ Crosby said. ‘You’d probably like to rest. Don’t bother any more about me -111 be all right. Your banda is Number Three. It’s unlocked. Just move in and make yourselves at home. If there’s anything you want, ask a ranger.’
As the boys left the building they saw a car driving, away. It must be Judge Singh’s.
But there was something wrong. The car was not heading north on to the Nairobi road. It was going west.
They squinted into the descending sun and watched until the car disappeared down the forest trail. Roger said uneasily, ‘There’s something a little fishy about everything that guy does.’
The banda - to use the African name for a cabin or cottage - was very comfortable. In fact, to the boys, who had been living in a tent during their adventures in the Mountains of the Moon, it seemed luxurious. It had a large living-room with big chairs. You could sit. back and look up at the inside of the thatch roof where lizards clung upside down and every now and then pounced upon a fly. There was a small bedroom with two beds, a large bath, a pantry, and, best of all, a broad porch with camp chairs and a dining-table.
08 Safari Adventure Page 2