‘Well, there was the American woman who wanted to confirm that the windsock at the airstrip was actually a nosebag for giraffes. And there was an Argentinian woman who wanted to see tigers and penguins and who thought parrots didn’t fly “because they’re always on perches”…’
It seemed that Dan’s application of ointment had worked. Connor found several more examples and was entirely distracted by the time Kate added some of her own. In fact, Dan was fairly confident that Connor would have dismissed from his mind all thoughts of hunter-gatherers and impoverished farmers before lunch had concluded – and would bear no marks of his assault. He was equally confident that this would not be the case with Mike. Even now, he wore an odd expression on his face, and whilst that expected admonishment was not imminent, it was certain. Dan would have to prepare his defence for this evening.
Before then, however, and before the afternoon activity was upon him, he would revisit in his mind that nearly perfect morning that had just passed, and how with Kim by his side it would have been completely perfect…
eleven
Kate was to be their driver for the afternoon excursion. With a young assistant called Ben, she would be taking Dan, Mike, Bruce – and possibly Svetlana – into a new stretch of terrain. There she would attempt to find some new wildlife for her charges before then seeking out a suitable place for a welcome sundowner.
In the event, the Land Cruiser did leave camp with six occupants. A silent Svetlana had appeared with Bruce – and with some trousers on again. She was clearly learning, thought Dan, even though she was a reluctant pupil. She was also a reluctant observer. So when Kate pointed out a stunning white-throated bee-eater she barely bothered to look and instead scrutinised her nails, no doubt checking that their scarlet coating was still in first-class condition. She didn’t even seem to take any interest in Kate’s tale concerning the perils of the track up ahead, a track that ran through a huge expanse of tall grass and comprised no more than a couple of ruts – at best. In places it was just a stretch of marginally shorter grass. However, according to Kate, this covering of grass could conceal a hazard, and this hazard was some deep and yielding mud. And she knew this because only four days before, the vehicle she was now driving had succumbed to this hazard and had become completely stuck. Its passengers had been obliged to walk back to camp and the vehicle itself had to be rescued by its sister Land Cruiser the next day.
Fortunately, the whereabouts of this particular vehicle trap were known, and Kate assured her charges that as they approached it, she would be leaving the track to create a new one through the grass. This would skirt the hazard and allow her to re-join the track where it was firmer and where they could then happily continue on their way. All would be well. And so it seemed when she announced that the hidden quagmire was now just ahead and that she’d therefore be turning off the track to the right.
It worked. The Land Cruiser bulldozed its way through the vegetation and there was not the slightest hint of any pitfall beneath. Or at least, not until there was such a hint, at which point Kate slammed on the brakes and put the vehicle into reverse. When she then let out the clutch, it did reverse – possibly by as much as six inches. And then it stopped, even if its wheels didn’t. They just continued to spin, throwing mud into the air and at the same time excavating four little trenches beneath the car. So that when Kate quickly re-engaged a forward gear and let the clutch out again, the Land Cruiser did not move forwards but just downwards and deeper into the mud. This pride of Japan was well and truly stuck.
Dan knew immediately that there was no escape from this predicament. With its substantial “safari superstructure”, the Land Cruiser was far too heavy to be able to drag itself out of the mud, and it would again need rescuing by its stablemate. Nevertheless, Kate and Ben thought they should try. Or maybe they knew as well as Dan did that their transport was going nowhere but that they needed to be seen to be trying. So, for the next twenty minutes they tried everything they could to get the beast moving: low gears, high gears, rocking backwards and forwards (with no backward or forward movement), bundles of grass beneath the wheels and even bundles of grass beneath the wheels while extra weight was applied from above – in the shape of most of the vehicle’s passengers hanging on to its solid superstructure. Svetlana didn’t join in. Maybe, for once, thought Dan, she was being sensible. She knew that no amount of human flesh above any of the wheels was going to make the slightest bit of difference, and she clearly wanted no part of it. Instead she would just stand back from the action and concern herself with how she might be extracted from this awful predicament and how she might avoid getting even more mud on her designer trainers.
Dan suspected that the reality of their situation only really hit her when Kate finally conceded defeat and suggested that they all had a premature sundowner before they then walked back to camp. Svetlana actually groaned and even the prospect of a sundowner with genuine French champagne failed to assuage her obvious dread of a jaunt through the wild – on foot. It clearly wasn’t just those trainers she was concerned about; it was also her life. This was apparent when she went on to ask Bruce what might be lurking in the grass.
Bruce’s response – that there was probably little other than snakes – did little to alleviate her fears, and she stood close-mouthed and stock-still as Dan and his two male companions quaffed their drinks. For all three of them, this interruption to the planned proceedings was no more than what could easily happen on such a venture, and they all seemed to be actually enjoying it. Dan certainly was, and he even found the stroll back to camp quite invigorating, if more than a little sweat-inducing. When he got back to Lango, he was in urgent need of a shower. Unlike Svetlana, he thought, who would probably first need a session of intensive counselling. And Bruce would probably need to remind himself of his wife’s phone number back in the States.
All in all, for Dan, it had been a drive – and a walk – to relish. It might even help him in preparing himself for the forthcoming onslaught from Mike…
It started as soon as they were alone again in the bar. There had been no hint of a skirmish during dinner, but now that Mike had Dan to himself, he clearly wanted to commence his assault. He did it with an innocuous question.
‘Dan,’ he said casually, ‘do you have many friends?’
It wasn’t the question that Dan had been expecting, and he hesitated before he answered.
‘I used to. But now… well, maybe not so many…’
‘Why?’
This question he answered without hesitation – and with a subdued, ‘You know why.’
‘Yes. You’re not exactly the life and soul of the party, are you? More the death and the downer really. And I suspect you hardly ever fail.’
‘Dinner was OK.’
‘Dinner was more or less OK, but only because you barely said anything. Oh… except when you joined in that debate about choice. You know, when it was just ticking along nicely and we’d all agreed on how life in the West is all about being able to make one’s own choices – about everything – except, of course, as you were keen to point out, one’s own life. We can’t, as you impressed upon us forcefully, choose when to end our life. And whilst I have to say I do agree with you on that, it was just the way you hijacked the discussion. You used what was a fairly light-hearted exchange to deliver yet another of your downbeat missives, another helping of gloom from what I can only imagine must be a bottomless well of the bloody stuff. And even if we could have maybe managed to ignore that particular unwelcome package of woe, there was no way that the ruddy great shipment of the stuff at lunchtime could be ignored. And poor old Connor didn’t stand a chance…’
‘I didn’t mean…’
‘I know you didn’t mean. I don’t think you have an agenda, Dan. I just think you have a problem. An effing big problem.’
Dan engaged Mike with a penetrating stare. Then he spoke, slowly and firmly.
‘If being able to see the world for what it really is is a problem, then yes, I do have a problem, an intractable problem.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Well, that lunchtime discussion was all about hunter-gatherers and farmers, wasn’t it?’
‘It was.’
‘Right. But it was also about how we, the supposedly brightest primates on the planet, are overwhelming this planet and how we will soon end up ruining it completely…’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes. I can’t help it, Mike, but it’s just that I think…’
Here, Dan stopped himself. It had suddenly occurred to him that Mike might not want to hear what he thought. He might not want yet another gloom-ridden lecture. But then Mike egged him on.
‘Well? Come on. I want to know what you think.’
‘I’m not sure you do.’
‘I’m sure,’ he insisted. ‘So just get on with it.’
Dan had been left with no option. So he restarted his address.
‘Well, what I believe is that what now defines us as a species is our ability to delude ourselves. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, we somehow still hold on to this notion of “progress”, when this so-called progress is actually entirely illusory. It doesn’t exist. And the reality is that we are well on the way to destroying ourselves, to say nothing of all the “less-gifted” life forms on the planet. Basically, you can’t have a plague of us and then expect anything to survive that plague, ourselves included. But we just won’t accept this, and so we continue to breed like bloody bacteria whilst at the same time convincing ourselves that life’s never been better and will only get better still, even if, as a species, we might get just a little bit lonely. And so, you see, I feel this need to wake us all up… to banish this absurd delusion and…’
‘…save the world?’
Dan smiled. He’d asked for that one. Then Mike spoke again.
‘So advances in science and medicine, great leaps forward in technology and our growing understanding of the world around us – and of the universe – don’t constitute any sort of progress at all?’
‘No. Because to start with you can’t lose sight of the fact that there isn’t a species on Earth, us included, that ever makes any real progress. All they do – and I mean any species you care to mention, whether it be lions, dodos, passenger pigeons or even Homo sapiens – all they do is just carry on as a species or not carry on as a species. They survive – often by evolving into another species – or they become extinct. And, as is becoming increasingly clear, for most, it is not the indefinite survival path.’
And here, Dan hurried on before Mike could protest.
‘And if you think that’s a cop-out, then I’d also like to point out that those so-called advances that we have made are what have been instrumental in creating the plague. If it wasn’t for advances in agriculture, with their consequent increases in crop yields, and advances in medicine, with their consequent increases in “birth yields”, we wouldn’t have managed to balloon in numbers from maybe four or five million ten thousand years ago to the seven thousand or so million we’ve got now. And the Earth’s population wouldn’t have more than doubled in just fifty years, with the prospect of it becoming totally unsustainable before the end of this century – even if we take every available resource for ourselves and bugger up the planet entirely.’
‘Right. So even if “progress” leads to falling birth rates… I mean, in some of the more enlightened parts of this planet?’
‘Point taken. And I can’t argue that some humans in some countries have worked out that a golden future doesn’t necessarily entail multiple offspring. But – as I believe we have already discussed – in the first place, these countries are in a distinct minority, and in the second place, for most of the nations on this globe, moderation is not a word ever associated with their procreation habits. The crappier the country, the more war-torn it is, the more dysfunctional it is and the more prone to natural disasters and famines it is, the more it promotes the churning out of babies as the national pastime. In fact, in some countries – like some of those in the Middle East, for example – where permanent conflict means that greater numbers are seen as a key to survival, it’s not so much a national pastime as a national duty. Procreate and save the nation – and don’t give a passing thought to what you’re doing to the planet…’
‘Dan…’
‘No, it’s true, Mike. You look at the increases in population in places like Iraq or Ethiopia – or Pakistan, say – and they are truly amazing. And I know for a fact that since that famine in Ethiopia back in 1985, the population has gone up there by 150%. I mean, 150% in just thirty-odd years! Not exactly the best way to guard against another famine, is it?’
‘No, it isn’t, Dan. But you’re not going to stop it. Nobody is.’
‘I agree. And whether the fecund overwhelm the world or not, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, they’re hardly going to have much time to enjoy the spoils…’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that they’ll just be the last phase of our existence. The last gasp of humanity before it does away with itself.’
‘You think humans will wipe themselves out?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Why! Hell, Mike, how can they not? I mean, those population stats I’ve just mentioned. They’re entirely unprecedented for humans – obviously. But they’re not unprecedented for animals such as mice or rabbits – or rats. Given the right conditions these sorts of chaps can… well, breed like rabbits, and before you know it their population has mushroomed and you’ve got a plague on your hands. Just as we are the plague now. But, of course, as quickly as their numbers spike, so they then collapse – dramatically. Their proliferation will always lead to a rapid exhaustion of their resources, and they die off. It’s unavoidable. And it’s no different to what’s been happening to Homo-rapacious-sapiens. We’re spiking, my friend. And given how close we are to exhausting the whole bloody world, I suspect we are now very close to the peak of our spike – after which there’s going to be the biggest, bloodiest, fastest descent that the world has ever seen. And unfortunately, there’ll be so much “collateral damage” that the world will be left as a ruin. It’ll survive – more or less – but the devastation will be immense. Our extinction will be accompanied with the extinction of countless other life forms and will probably make the demise of dinosaurs look like just a minor glitch, something hardly meriting a footnote in the story of “Life on Earth”.’
‘Rats haven’t disappeared, Dan. Neither have mice and rabbits. Spikes don’t mean eradication. They just mean a return to the norm…’ Here, Mike looked a little distracted, before then observing that, ‘Although, I have to say that I’m not sure what the “norm” population would be for us humans.’
‘Neither am I. But I take your point. We might be stupid enough to decimate our numbers dramatically and even to reduce them to a tiny remnant, but we would have to be really stupid – or maybe really clever – to obliterate ourselves entirely. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I doubt we could do it. We may have exterminated thousands of other species and be on our way to exterminating thousands more, but I suspect we’d find it almost impossible to exterminate ourselves. That would be beyond our collective intellect and our… let’s say, our collective narcissism. Even if we could work out how to do it, we are so in love with ourselves we couldn’t go through with it – and some of us would remain…’
‘You sound distressed at the prospect. You know, that there might be some survivors…’
Dan looked away from Mike, and when he spoke again it was with three slow but deliberate words.
‘Maybe I am,’ he said. And then he looked back at Mike, his eyes now piercing and almost challenging.
Mike reacted to this display of determination with a question. It was clearly desig
ned to diffuse what could have become an awkward situation.
‘So, what are we going to use to initiate the collapse, Dan? Bombs? Bullets? Bacteria? Bingeing on strong beverages? Or something else?’
It worked. Dan smiled a weak smile and then he responded willingly to Mike’s enquiry.
‘If we accept the rat route, then probably resource exhaustion. Although, of course, that in itself wouldn’t cause the vertiginous collapse. It would just act as the catalyst – for stuff like conflict, and the sort of conflict that would lead to greater conflict and then maybe nuclear annihilation. You know, the classic doomsday scenario.’
‘You really think that might happen? Bullets and then bombs?’
‘Man has used warfare to deal with inadequate food supplies ever since he invented warfare. So there’s no reason to suspect that he won’t do so again. Only this time, of course, it might get rather out of hand. After all, when brought into play, fission and fusion tend to be a little more unmanageable than broadswords and spears. And then that’ll be it…’
‘So that’s what you’d put your money on: an old-style, classic nuclear holocaust?’
‘No. Despite our tendency as a species to identify as many reasons as we can to start a conflict – and sometimes to sustain a conflict through generations…’
Darkness Page 8