We pulled up just ten metres away, with Rodo close behind, and climbed out. In the glare of the headlights it could not have seen us, but it would have smelled our scent and heard our whispered exclamations. It was so close we could see its tiny amber eyes glinting, and the pattern of wrinkles in its hide. Its tusks were tinged with pale pink just as Jacques had described. Moved beyond anything I could have expected, I swallowed hard to subdue the lump in my throat.
We must have stood watching it for ten minutes, although any sense of time had vanished. The elephant calmly stood its ground, the only acknowledgement of our presence a turn of its head in our direction. I wanted to fix this encounter forever in my mind, because I doubted it would ever happen again. I took in every detail – its sloping back, its round feet, the hypnotic swaying of its body. Its ancestors dated back to the woolly mammoths, and just as I had in the bat cave, I felt drawn back to an ancient world. I thought back to all the elephants I had seen in circuses and zoos, and the ones we had encountered on the roads in India with their mahouts on their backs, moving with grace and dignity through a dust-drenched landscape. They had all spoken to my spirit. Now the great African forest had delivered me another gift.
We could go no further until the elephant chose to move away, and it had only two alternatives: continue down the road or move off into the forest. The latter choice was hazardous, as the road followed a ridge, and off to the sides, the land sloped steeply away. We watched it look around, assessing the options. In the end, it chose to re-enter the forest, moving slowly towards the mass of fallen trees, stopping to make sure the way was safe, then picking its way delicately over the logs and through the tangle of branches. On the muddy slope below it never once lost a foothold, placing its huge feet with total precision. We followed its progress with the spotlight until it had negotiated all the obstacles and disappeared among the trees.
Win sighed. ‘That was really beautiful.’
‘Ja, he wasn’t scared of us, was he?’ Rodo said.
‘Eamon was spot on,’ I said. ‘He promised us one.’ All the way to the Djadié, I thought about the elephant. I hoped it would never be hunted, and that the new road would not spell its death warrant.
At the river campsite, bright moonlight lit the expanse of white sandbank and shone off the surface of the water. Rodo had brought his small tent, so we helped him erect it on the sand close to the Toyota.
‘Oh, this feels good already,’ I sighed. ‘What a glorious night.’ I was cut dead by a throaty half-cough, half-bark that erupted from the swamp just metres away. Win reached for the spotlight and trained it on a line of branches overhead. I half expected to see a crouched leopard preparing to spring, but in the dappled moonlight there was nothing to see.
Then it came again – a roar, louder, more guttural, that sent the three of us running for the safety of the Kombi. We squeezed into the front seat, locked ourselves in, and shone the spotlight through the closed window. Again and again the sound shattered the silence of the river and set our imaginations galloping.
‘Maybe coming here wasn’t such a brilliant idea,’ I muttered. We sat immobile for half an hour, scanning the darkness, alert for any movement. But none came, and eventually there was only silence.
‘I’m going to sleep in the tent anyway,’ Rodo announced.
‘Rather you than me,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t get me out there.’ Win and I climbed over the front seat of the Kombi onto the bed to avoid getting out, while Rodo made a dash for his tent.
‘What do you reckon that was?’ It was a rare occasion that Win couldn’t answer a question about wildlife, but he had no idea about this one.
‘I can’t pick it. It’s not one I’ve heard before.’ We lay awake for what seemed a long time listening for a scream from Rodo, but it never came.
We woke to a bright, clear dawn. ‘I’ve had a visitor in the night,’ Rodo called out. ‘Come and look.’ A pattern of neat cloven hoof prints in the sand around his tent revealed that a small antelope, perhaps a duiker, had been nosing around.
I put the kettle on and made tea, and we sat on the sandbank and drank it in the cool of the morning. Flocks of egrets stirred on branches overhanging the river. Hornbills and touracos called raucously from the canopy. As the sun climbed higher, it bathed the tree crowns in golden light. Before breakfast, we swam in the silky coolness of the river and floated on our backs, looking up at the sky. I could feel all the tension of the week ebbing away and the peace of the forest taking over.
All morning we swam, picnicked and explored, looking for tree orchids and ferns growing along the riverbank. Only one trial clouded the day for Rodo: tsetse flies attacked his legs and neck so badly that by midday his skin was covered in bright pink lumps the size of boils.
After lunch, we lay on the sandbank and let the warm sun dry us off. Already I felt myself bouncing back. When the time came to head back to camp, it seemed we had only just got away. I wasn’t ready to go, but we wanted to return before dark. On the way we stopped at the place where we had seen the elephant, and I photographed its deep footprints in the soft mud.
All the benefit of our day away vanished the moment we pulled up at the guesthouse. We were just in time to hear one of the men asking Eamon for a vehicle to go out and collect the carcass of a huge male gorilla he had shot that afternoon. The hunter’s face glowed with pride and elation.
Eamon told them they could take the Toyota utility. If I’d had a say they would have had to drag the carcass back on foot, if they could move it at all. The hunter had several others with him to help lift it. As they drove off, I caught Eamon’s eye and shook my head.
He read my thoughts. ‘You’ll never stop ’em, you know. It’s in their blood.’
At dusk, the Toyota pulled up in front of the guesthouse, and we came out to look, despite our revulsion. In the back, an old silverback lay slumped against the cabin, his massive face frozen in a mask of agony and shock. Half his hair had turned white, and his huge potbelly rolled over the tops of his legs. A gaping mouth revealed broken, dirty teeth. Win lifted up one of the silverback’s hands and placed his own inside it – the small pink human one was dwarfed by the enormous leathery black gorilla palm.
Rodo, Win and I leaned in silence on the side of the ute tray and stared sadly into the animal’s rigid face. Meanwhile, the hunter repeated over and over, ‘Lui était très méchant! He was very wicked. He attacked me.’
‘Some attack!’ Win grunted in disgust. ‘The bullet’s entered in the middle of his back!’ In the background, the other men crowded around murmuring ‘beaucoup de viande, beaucoup de viande’ – plenty of meat.
The tragedy was that the silverback had probably died trying to defend his family, but we guessed by his condition that he couldn’t have moved very fast. He looked about fifty years old and we estimated he weighed over 200 kilos.
I realised then that Eamon was right: we were powerless to influence these hunting behaviours. They were part of a pattern that would be repeated over and over, irrespective of the ban the company had on paying for gorilla meat, and despite the fact that gorillas were protected by law. Trying to change these practices was like trying to stop the sun rising. Once again we could only look on, mute in the face of reality. Gorillas had no hope against guns combined with the hunger for bushmeat and a belief system that demonised them.
That night, we told Eamon about the roaring we’d heard at the Djadié.
‘What do you think that would have been?’ Win asked.
‘Most likely a crocodile, I’d say. There are certainly some in those swamps. You’re lucky it didn’t come after you.’
Our weekend at CNRS was set for the middle of March. We would spend two days there and watch the field biologists at work. I thought about it constantly for weeks, and could hardly wait. The research station was not open to tourists, so for us to be invited there was a special privilege.
Win, Rodo and I left on the Friday afternoon for the drive to the Djadié. The day was crisp and f
ine. We crossed the river in a small pirogue, and were picked up in a company vehicle on the other side. At noon the next day, Louise called for us at the Roux house in a Land Rover. Already my heart raced at the prospect of what lay before us at the reserve. Again, I reflected on my transformation since we first arrived at Belinga. In the process of tackling my difficult job and learning about the forest and the animals, I had become a different person. My whole focus had shifted. The world of cities, traffic, consumerism and packaged entertainment meant little to me now – the life of the forest had pervaded my mind so deeply that I felt I belonged in this remote place. It was an identity I wore with pride.
As we bumped along in the Land Rover, I tried to picture the encounter with the great apes that awaited us. I believed it would be one of the most memorable days of my life, but even so I could not begin to imagine the wonder I would soon experience, and the profound effect it would have upon me. The half-hour drive took us along a red dirt road that ran parallel with the river and passed through small villages. At the gate of the reserve, a sign proclaimed ‘Laboratoire de Primatologie et d’Écologie Equatoriale’.
‘We have 100 square kilometres of forest here, abutting the river,’ Louise explained. ‘It provides us with a natural laboratory to study the entire ecology of the forest.’
‘It’s fenced?’ Win asked.
‘Yes. It has to be, otherwise people would come in to hunt.’
We approached a complex of low-rise buildings that nestled among flowering shrubs and gardens, and pulled up outside a low-set bungalow just in time to see André Brosset feeding fresh meat to a brown falcon perched on a tree stump in his garden. He strode over smiling and shook hands with each of us. ‘Bonjour! Welcome to the station! I’ll see you soon at lunch.’
At Louise’s bungalow we dropped our bags off and drove straight to the mess for lunch, where a dozen people, all wearing crumpled army surplus shirts and pants, sat around a long refectory table. Annie and Jean-Pierre greeted us warmly and introduced the others. Georges and Sylvie Michaloud, an outgoing young couple, managed the station. Hugo, a young French veterinarian, cared for all the primates. A French radio journalist, sitting at the far end of the table, was there to record field interviews. The others – all young men with tousled hair and intense expressions – barely stopped eating and talking to acknowledge our arrival.
I listened to the rapid-fire scientific conversation that ricocheted across the table. To my surprise, I could follow most of it. Everyone wanted to share their latest field news. The botanist had finally located the fig tree he had been searching for. Hugo was nursing a scratched face from some aggressive chimpanzees, but had made some progress with a sick one. André had caught the falcon and Annie recounted her latest monkey sightings. Around the walls, poster-sized colour photographs of primates, bats, birds of prey, reptiles, fungi and insects gave the room the flavour of a natural history museum.
Louise explained that the reserve had been divided into a grid, with numbered areas marked on maps and a system of named tracks. Using these, the scientists could record precisely the location and movement of animals. The normal work of the station always had to go on, but we were welcome to watch whatever interested us.
We had just returned to Louise’s bungalow when her Gabonese assistant ran in breathlessly from the forest, shouting, ‘Madame! Il y en a! Le porc-épic! Venez voir!’ It was the breakthrough Louise had been waiting for – a porcupine had been caught in her trap. We followed her at a run out into the forest, and minutes later came to the wicker basket set on the ground. A small grey animal covered in spines, with a raffia-like brush at the end of its tail, crouched inside. To Louise’s excitement, it was a female. She had been trying for six weeks to capture one so she could fit it with a radio collar. Now she would be able to track the nightly interaction between this female and the males she’d been tracking for some time.
Back at the house, we watched while she assembled the collar. They couldn’t be made up in advance – once the battery was encased in its covering of epoxy resin, it started to use up power. I watched, fascinated, as she gathered everything in a canvas shoulder bag – some ampoules of anaesthetic, a syringe, thick gloves and the transmitter collar.
We all trooped back to the trap: the porcupine had to be anaesthetised before the collar could be fitted.
‘This is going to be difficult,’ Louise said. ‘They’re not easy to handle at the best of times, and she’ll be panicky.’ Her assistant had brought a soft, open-weave bag with him. They both pulled on gloves and, working together, transferred the animal from the trap into the bag. While the assistant held the bag tightly, Louise would inject the anaesthetic through the fine mesh.
We stood back and watched as the porcupine struggled and the first attempt failed.
‘I must have hit a bone,’ Louise muttered, withdrawing the bent needle. On the second try the needle went in, and within moments the porcupine was still. But when she lifted the limp body out of the bag, the porcupine’s lips had turned blue. Louise felt for a heartbeat, but there was none. The porcupine had died of shock.
Louise said nothing, but the fatigue and disappointment showed in her face. It was a depressing outcome after six weeks of trying. We packed up the gear in silence and walked back, carrying the porcupine’s body in the woven bag. Back at the house, she measured and weighed it and noted its general condition. I thought as I watched what a lonely and unforgiving life she had chosen for herself, and how tough she needed to be to survive it.
Louise squared her shoulders and looked us in the eyes. She was not about to allow this crisis to ruin the plans she had for us: ‘Tonight we’re going to visit some singing bats,’ she announced.
At nightfall we assembled on the riverbank, where a pinnassier had a small pirogue waiting. The bat colony was accessible only by river. Louise issued each of us with a miner’s headlamp, so that when we had to scramble up the muddy bank we would have both hands free. We sat quite still, one behind the other in the pirogue with our knees drawn up to our chests, and it moved out into midstream. To me, the river felt altogether different by night – small noises were magnified, the insect chorus sounded clearer, the call of a night bird echoed hauntingly through the darkness. In the prow, the pinnassier shone a light on the surface ahead.
We travelled for perhaps four kilometres before pulling in to a thickly overhung bank, then switched on the headlamps and climbed out onto a slippery mud track. On all fours, we mounted the steep bank and came out on a narrow trail that ran parallel with it.
Louise led us silently in single file for perhaps half an hour, then suddenly motioned us to stop. A sound like a miniature hammer striking a tiny anvil came from directly over our heads: ‘Tuc! Tuc! Tuc!’
‘There they are!’ Louise whispered. I recognised the call immediately. It was the same one we had heard many nights and early mornings at Belinga – clear, regular and metallic. I nudged Win and whispered, ‘That’s it! That’s what that sound was!’ We stood quite still and listened to the metallic taps cutting through the night air. As more bats began calling, the ‘tuc, tuc, tucs’ crosscut each other in complex syncopated rhythms.
The owners of these extraordinary voices were Hypsignathus monstrosus, hammer-headed fruit bats, the largest bats in Africa, with wingspans of ninety centimetres. We couldn’t see them, but I had seen pictures of them. The males’ huge, elongated heads resembled miniature horse’s heads, and their nasal area, a mass of convoluted fleshy membranes, gave them a grotesque aspect. Their enormous voice boxes extended for half the length of their bodies, and were what produced the powerful call, which was critical to their reproductive strategy.
During the dry season, the males congregated in vast numbers at well-established locations on riverbanks, and sang in chorus at dusk and dawn. These all-male aggregations were part of an extraordinary pattern of mating behaviour. Females were drawn to the colony from far off in response to the chorus. Then, from all the potential mates, they ch
ose the one whose call attracted them the most. The scientists at CNRS knew this colony well, because the bats returned there every year.
We had left too late to hear the chorus at its peak, Louise explained. Only a handful of bats were still singing, and soon they would fall silent for the night. I tried to imagine the hypnotic effect of these syncopated metallic sounds when the whole colony was calling at once, and wished I could have been there to hear it.
We waited until the ‘tuc, tuc, tucs’ had ceased altogether, then began our trek back to the pirogue. On the way, Louise narrowly missed stepping on a hooded cobra that lay across the path.
At the station we turned in early, because in the morning we would travel out to meet the great apes on the island. I lay in bed and thought about the lives of these dedicated biologists. When we finally left Africa, I didn’t want to return to the empty world of officework I had left behind. I believed I was destined for something better, a profession that would be intellectually satisfying. My thoughts turned to the three ‘ape ladies’, and the idea that had been haunting me for months – that I might one day follow in their footsteps.
It was another fine clear day. We met Hugo at the riverbank, where a pirogue loaded with bunches of ripe bananas was beached on the mud. Hugo was about thirty, with clear olive skin and fair wavy hair. He had a ready smile, and a gentleness that fitted him perfectly for working with great apes.
‘Before we go, I’ll just tell you a bit about our great ape rehabilitation program,’ he said. ‘We began eight years ago. We raise the orphaned gorillas and chimpanzees for three years, then, if we think they’re ready, we release them on to one of the forested islands in the river, and supplement their natural diet with food drops every couple of days. It’s an experiment in rehabituating them to the wild.
‘At the moment, we have all the animals on one large island. They’ve formed themselves into two separate groups, one entirely of chimpanzees and the other a mixed group of two chimpanzees and two gorillas. We won’t get out of the pirogue at the first group, because they’re a bit aggressive at the moment. I had to anaesthetise and move them a few weeks ago, and they’re very wary of me now. That’s how I got these scratches on my face.’
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