‘And did it get better after that?’
‘Nope. I made dinner for the two of us about nine o’clock and we slept in the van – the gendarme in the front and me in the back – and the fourreaux feasted on us all night. We left early next morning with just 300 kilometres to go. The route was drier, but littered with rocks. We’d just started when we had the first blow-out. I fitted the spare, but you won’t believe it, within half an hour we’d had another one. By then, the gendarme had had enough, he flagged down the next vehicle and left me to it. It took me till mid-afternoon to limp into town on three good tyres and a flat. I’m staying at a cas de passage here in the African quarter. I haven’t slept. The place is full of mosquitoes and surrounded by barking dogs.’
‘A month to go, sweetheart,’ I soothed. ‘The worst’s over now.’
‘On the bright side, I’m having dinner with Roger tonight. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow.’ I knew that a night of Roger’s cooking and conversation would soon restore his spirits.
When we spoke on the radio the next time, Win was full of good news. He had spent the morning at the port and booked the Kombi on a container bound for Bordeaux. Better still, since all containers from Libreville normally returned to Europe empty, only a nominal charge had been payable.
‘And I’m bringing Roger back to camp with me for a visit,’ he said. ‘He’s going to be in Makokou anyway to install a new aviation beacon. We’ll be up on either Monday or Wednesday.’ It was wonderful news. We could return some of his lavish hospitality, and he would see Belinga at last.
They arrived on the Wednesday night, Roger in high spirits after the river trip by pirogue. He could hardly wait to see the countryside. He’d never lived in the interior, and now we – who had been new to Gabon just a year before – would be his guides. We chatted late into the night: he wanted to hear all about the project and what our life had been like.
The following day was one of those rare sparkling ones where every leaf shone, the sky was clear, and it hadn’t rained for a week. After breakfast, I took Roger out in the Méhari to Babiel, where we could look out over the mountains and forest to the north. After lunch, Win took him on a tour of the camp to see all the new buildings, especially Eamon and Noni’s house. Then in the late afternoon we drove down to Mayebut and walked to the abandoned gold settlement at Camp Six. We knew the area was a favourite haunt for elephants, because the old houses were surrounded by banana trees. The elephants hadn’t long gone: we arrived to find the ground strewn with freshly flattened vegetation and the red mud scored with their footprints. We stood and listened for any hint that they were still around, but there was none – we had missed them. Just before dusk, we drove up to Belvédère, the highest point on the mountain behind camp, and watched the sun set over the camp.
That night I cooked lapin moutardé for the three of us – rabbit in mustard and wine sauce. We lingered long over the meal, reminiscing and telling our African stories. So much had happened since our first meeting at the beach campsite in Libreville a year before.
Roger left early next morning to return to Makokou. We would see him in Libreville in the days before we left, and better still, he had invited us to visit him in France during the summer while he was home on leave.
By early July, I thought all the most confronting events were behind us, and we would coast gently up to our departure date. Yet, unwittingly, we were about to put ourselves in the way of critical danger.
It was a fine balmy afternoon with no wind, and we were not needed in camp. As we had many times before, we decided to go out game-spotting in the Méhari. We planned to be gone only an hour, and as usual we didn’t bother to tell anyone where we were going. Win was dressed in lightweight shorts and rubber thongs, and I had on my standard work clothes – jeans, a T-shirt and sneakers. We took the road to the Djadié along Bakota South, with the vinyl top of the Méhari folded down so we could see all around.
Bands of monkeys shrieked their alarm calls ahead of us and giant casqued hornbills called raucously overhead. Dense secondary growth two metres high flanked the route. We skirted piles of fresh elephant dung in the middle of the road.
We drove far out, scanning ahead for any sign of gorillas or a leopard. Soon it was dusk, when the bats left their roosts to feed, and flashes of reddish brown darted across in front of us. Their numbers quickly swelled to a continuous stream. Thick cloud had blanketed the sky, and visibility was low as we began the return journey, listening to the first stirrings of the insect chorus.
That was when the Méhari’s engine faltered and cut out.
‘What the hell?’ Win pumped the accelerator, turned the ignition off and on, and pushed his foot to the floor again. In the gathering darkness, the only sound was the insects. We waited ten minutes and tried again, but nothing happened. The fuel gauge showed half full, and the instrument panel gave no hint of the problem.
By then, all light had gone. With no torch, no weapon, no communications equipment and no protective clothing, we were totally vulnerable. We knew no-one else would use the road that night. We had no food or water, and in the unlikely event that anyone missed us, they wouldn’t know where to start looking. The choices were stark: huddle in the Méhari until daylight, or walk back to camp in the dark. The risks were enormous either way. The Méhari’s soft vinyl top and plastic windows would be no barrier to a hungry leopard, and the mosquitoes would guarantee us a sleepless night. In the end, we chose the path of action: we would take a gamble and set out on foot.
It must have been after six o’clock, but we couldn’t be sure because it was too dark to read our watches. Heavy cloud obscured the moon so that only a faint glimmer came from the wheel tracks on the laterite. I was conscious of fear, but I knew I couldn’t afford to let it take hold – I needed to stay focused on the task and have faith that everything would be all right.
‘We’re going to have to feel our way by following the wheel tracks,’ Win said. ‘We’ll go in single file. You set the pace and I’ll stick close behind you.’ I peered at the ground and placed my right foot in the shallow depression of a wheel track, then my left foot in front of it, heel to toe. Either side of the route, beyond the wall of secondary growth, the mountainside dropped away steeply. If we encountered a female elephant with young, we would have nowhere to run. We’d heard that a leopard usually wouldn’t attack when there were two or more people. I held on to that thought.
‘We need to avoid brushing the leaves at the sides and disturbing anything venomous,’ Win said. ‘Just keep to the middle.’ We were climbing a steep rise. Win’s rubber thongs slipped and slid and he struggled to keep them on.
‘You know, if we could make enough noise, we might scare off any animals ahead,’ I said after we had been going perhaps fifteen minutes.
‘It’s worth a try,’ Win’s voice sounded behind me. I began to bellow out a nursery rhyme at the top of my voice, ‘Three blind mice, three blind mice, see how they run …’ over and over, pumping up my confidence. In time, my footsteps fell in with the rhythm. When I got tired of that tune, I switched to another, then another. The longer I kept them up, the stronger I felt.
We’d been going about an hour when Win shrieked, ‘Aaagghh! Something’s just bitten my toe. I think I’ve trodden on a line of safari ants!’ He ripped one thong off and flailed blindly at his foot and leg with it. If the ants attacked us, we would be in desperate trouble. They moved in columns of millions, and nothing could stop their advance. They marched straight through people’s houses, and if an injured or trapped animal lay in their path in the forest, they devoured it alive.
‘Don’t stand still here!’ Win shouted. ‘Keep going as fast you can.’ I stamped my feet hard and strode out as fast as I dared. All around us, the insects clicked and whirred.
Just then, something moved in the vegetation beside us. We both froze. Goosebumps formed on my skin and my heart thumped. I held my breath. All I could hear was the drumming of my pulse in my ears. There was s
till no moon and blackness enveloped us. I had no idea what we would do if something came at us at this range. We had no way of knowing what had made the noise, and my imagination leapt into overdrive: was it a leopard, a wild pig, an elephant? Perhaps it was just a small antelope, timid and harmless. I knew that panic would be disastrous. I had to remain calm and have faith that we would make it. We waited for a minute, perhaps two, but the sound didn’t come again, so we moved off, warier than before.
‘How long do you think we’ve been going?’ I said after a while. It was as though we were moving through an endless black tunnel, and time was meaningless.
‘Oh, maybe an hour, maybe more – it’s hard to say.’ I thought back to our time in the Sahara when we had broken down. It was the only other time I had felt my life could be in danger.
We must have been walking for an hour and a half when Win called out, ‘Stop! Listen!’ It was the faint low-pitched throb of a motor way off in the distance.
‘That’s the generator!’ Win shouted. ‘We’re probably only half an hour away!’ We quickened our pace as much as we dared. The danger had not passed, but I felt a surge of confidence – we’d covered most of the distance.
The rhythmic hum of the generator gradually grew louder, until finally we rounded a bend and saw lights glinting through the trees.
‘We did it!’ I whooped, and punched the air. Soon we could make out the shapes of trees around us in the faint glow. Then we were at the edge of the clearing, where the brightly lit guesthouse beckoned with warmth, safety and familiarity. I stopped to hug Win, and we strode towards the pool of light.
It was after eight o’clock: we had walked for two hours. If someone had suggested we would ever do that in the African forest at night, I would have laughed in their face. Back at the flat, Win examined the stinging red lump on his toe and discovered a safari ant had embedded itself in his thong. We decided not to disturb Eamon with the news about the Méhari that night, as there was nothing anyone could do until morning.
After breakfast, he received the news with characteristic calm, drove out in the Toyota and towed the Méhari back to the workshop. Eamon was not given to exaggeration, so when we saw him later in the day, his solemn expression and few words left us in no doubt about how close he felt we had come to disaster. ‘You were twelve kilometres out,’ he said. ‘You are two very lucky people!’
Twelve kilometres through the forest at night, unarmed and utterly defenceless: it was a feat only for the brave, the foolhardy or the desperate.
Monsieur Bertin pored over the Méhari that afternoon, and by the time we called in, late in the day, he’d found the problem. He leaned on the bonnet and wiped his hands on a greasy rag. ‘Water in the petrol!’ It was the handiwork of the pinnassiers. Yet again they’d been selling off petrol to villages along the river and topping up the 200-litre drums with muddy river water, and somebody had forgotten to filter the fuel when the Méhari had been filled up. Win and I exchanged glances and quietly groaned. ‘C’est l’Afrique,’ I muttered, and we drove down to the flat to celebrate our survival.
Rodo was on leave in Germany for the whole of July, but we would see him briefly in Libreville on our way out. Doug had taken holidays for a month, too. In their absence, Sam Sims, a senior American geologist, moved into camp as acting director. We took to him immediately. Beneath his ready humour, Sam seemed sensible; he would run a tight ship, and that was what the place needed.
Win’s work in the camp was almost over. Every construction project had been completed, and he had more free time than he’d had in a year. One afternoon we drove down to Mayebut just for the pleasure of being out, and so I could take photos of the people.
It was another fine, clear afternoon, with gentle sunlight playing over the thatched mud huts. When we arrived, a group of children were playing at the river’s edge, the little ones naked, the older ones splashing about in their clothes. I listened to their laughter as I stood on the riverbank photographing. Then a voice behind me, calling out ‘Madame! Madame!’, caused me to whirl around. It was one of the teenage boys. He had something to show me that he was excited about. I thought it might be a large beetle on a string, or perhaps a frog or a lizard. Instead, he produced from behind his back a severed gorilla’s foot on the end of a piece of rope, and twirled it triumphantly over his head.
I felt the familiar horror, and a knot formed in my stomach. The foot had not begun to putrefy, so I knew the kill was very recent. I took it in both my hands and looked at it closely. The four smaller toes were separated from the big toe by a wide gap – that was how gorillas gripped tree trunks and branches. The foot looked as if it had been hacked off with a machete. It was large enough to have belonged to an adult. Win and I stared at it in silence and sadness. These hunting patterns were never likely to change, laws or no laws. There was nothing to say, and all the joy had gone from the afternoon. I handed the foot back and we drove away.
We were back at Mayebut later that week to meet an incoming pirogue when we discovered the grizzly sequel to the episode. A massive gorilla’s skull, picked clean by ants, lay propped up on the ground against the wall of a hut. Its heavy sagittal crest, like the ridge on a centurion’s helmet, projected across the top from front to back. The large eye sockets gaped as empty black holes. The bare nasal bone gave no hint of the unique nose print that had once covered it.
The skull looked too big to have belonged to the same animal whose foot I had held, which suggested that at least two animals had been slain. This was a memory of Mayebut I would rather not have taken away with me, but to these hunters, a gorilla was of no more intrinsic worth than an antelope or a pig. It was all edible meat, and besides, a dead gorilla couldn’t raid banana plantations. Even if I lived my life out here, I would never get used to the slaughter.
Eamon gave us a farewell party in the guesthouse two nights before we were due to leave. Étienne had picked flowers in our honour and arranged them in a vase at the centre of the table. Carol made pizzas and spaghetti; Michel showed slides of his latest exquisite wildlife photographs; Eamon told jokes; and one of the Canadian drillers played his mouth organ and sang ancient folk songs in the strange nasal patois that we found so hard to follow. I thought, as I moved around the room chatting, that we couldn’t have been a more diverse group, plucked from the corners of the earth and thrown together on a mountain in the wilds of Africa. But there was a sense of community that transcended all our differences.
Next morning, I walked up to the warehouse to say goodbye to M’Poko Lucien. We had worked closely together for a whole year. He had seen me at my most harassed, yet his calm gentleness and honesty had made my days bearable when all around us was in chaos.
He stood at the door of the warehouse in his white hard hat, his eyes sad and his mouth drooping at the corners.
‘When will we see each other again, madame?’
‘I don’t know, M’Poko. We are going back to Europe. Perhaps we will not come to Africa again.’
‘Where can I write to you, madame?’
‘As soon as we know where we will live, I will write to you,’ I promised. ‘It will be somewhere in London.’
‘It won’t be the same without you, madame.’
‘Merci, M’Poko,’ I said. ‘Thank you for everything. You have been kind and gentle and we have worked well together. And now I would like to take your photo.’ He stood up straight with his clipboard in hand, looking serious while I took the picture. Then we shook hands and I promised again to write.
‘Au revoir, madame.’ As I turned to walk back down the hill he had tears in his eyes, and so did I.
When the day came to leave – 2 August – we had little luggage. Most of our things had gone with the Kombi.
My other important farewell was to Étienne. Of all the domestic staff, he was the gentlest, the most sober, the most caring. He had been there since the beginning, always quietly working in the background, a calm presence when everything around was in tumult. I shoo
k his hand, thanked him for all his kindness and wished him and his family good luck. He looked distracted during this interchange. As I turned to go, he called after me, ‘Madame, madame, I have something I want to ask you.’ By this time, we were outside the guesthouse. He took me aside behind the privacy of the hedge, and drew something from his trouser pocket.
‘Madame, I think I am very sick.’ He handed me a small glass jar full of blood and what looked like body tissue. He was embarrassed, I could see, but his alarm overrode it.
‘I have been passing this, madame, for some time,’ and he indicated his bowels. ‘Can you get someone to look at it?’ I was stunned. I thought I knew what it meant.
‘Of course I can,’ I said. I took the jar from him. ‘Please no,’ I prayed silently. ‘Not Étienne, not with seven children.’ It hit me like a physical blow. Étienne was only in his late thirties, perhaps forty. I thought back to our first week at Belinga, when I used to quiz him about witchcraft, sorcery and spirit beliefs as he served our evening meals. He would earnestly recount to me examples of sorcerers’ powers, and assure me that there were people in Makokou who could perform magical acts like restoring felled trees to life overnight. My affection and respect for Étienne had begun in those very early days, and deepened with time. He could neither read nor write, and to me he seemed as innocent as a child, guileless and without malice, yet he had the gift of caring for others. It seemed to me the most brutal turn of fate. Why couldn’t it have happened to one of the wife-beaters in the village? Why this good man?
I looked hard at his anxious face, the furrowed brows, the troubled eyes, and I found no words to comfort him. What could one say to a man who had realised he was dying? I wanted to take his fear away. At that moment, he seemed small and vulnerable. I took a deep breath to still my sadness.
‘Take care of yourself, Étienne,’ I said.
‘Oui, madame,’ he replied solemnly. I stowed the jar safely in my shoulder bag. Sam Sims waited nearby in the Toyota, ready to drive us down to the Djadié crossing, and I turned to take my last look at Belinga, heavy with thoughts of the tragedy that awaited Étienne and his family. This was the day I had both longed for and dreaded for months: on the one hand it brought escape from the madness in the camp; on the other, it meant the end of our time in the forest – the most exhilarating period of my life. Soon we would return to one of the biggest cities in the world.
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