The Drunken Forest

by Gerald Durrell

  ‘And how are we going to get to Belgrano?’ I asked.

  ‘We will get a taxi,’ said Bebita.

  I had a swan under each arm, and felt rather as Alice must have felt when she took part in the famous croquet match with the flamingoes.

  ‘We won’t get in a taxi with this lot,’ I said; ‘they’re not allowed to carry livestock . . . We’ve had this trouble before.’

  ‘Wait here and I will find a taxi,’ said Bebita, and she floated across the road to the rank, picked out the car with the most unsympathetic and unsavoury-looking driver, and brought him round to where we were standing.

  For one startled moment he stared at the sacks under my arm, from which the swans’ heads protruded like albino pythons, then he turned to Bebita.

  ‘These are bichos,’ he said; ‘we are forbidden to carry bichos.’ Bebita smiled at him.

  ‘But if you did not know we had b-b-bichos you would not be to b-b-blame,’ she explained.

  The taxi-driver reeled under the smile, but was not quite convinced. ‘But one can see they are bichos,’ he protested.

  ‘Only these,’ said Bebita, pointing at the swans, ‘and if they were in the b-b-boot you would not see them.’

  The taxi-man grunted sceptically.

  ‘All right, but I haven’t seen anything, remember. If they stop us I shall deny all knowledge.’

  So, with the swans in the boot and the front seat piled high with cages from which came a chorus of flutterings and twitterings which the taxi-man endeavoured to ignore, we drove towards Belgrano.

  ‘How d’you manage to get these taxi-men to do what you want?’ I asked. ‘I can’t even get them to carry me sometimes, let alone a menagerie.’

  ‘But they are so sweet,’ said Bebita, regarding with affection the fat neck of our driver; ‘they will always try and help.’

  I sighed; Bebita had a magic touch which no one else could attempt to emulate. The irritating part was that, when she made the obviously ludicrous statement that some person who looked like a fugitive from a chain gang was an angel, he then proceeded to act just like one. It was all very puzzling.

  This load of last-minute specimens created several difficulties for us. Before we could get on the ship the following afternoon, we had to have them all caged properly, and this was no easy job. A frantic phone call brought Carlos and Rafael scurrying to Belgrano, bringing with them their cousin Enrique. We rushed out in a body to the local wood-yard, and while I drew designs of the sort of cages I wanted, the carpenter worked his circular saw frantically, cutting out pieces of plywood to the correct dimensions. Then, staggering under the weight, we carried the wood back to the house in Belgrano and set about nailing it into cages. By half past eleven that night we had succeeded in caging a quarter of the birds. Seeing that it was going to be an all-night job, we sent Jacquie back to the hotel, so that in the morning, when we would feel terrible, she would feel rested and refreshed and able to cope with feeding the animals. Carlos made a rapid pilgrimage to a nearby café and returned with hot coffee, rolls, and a bottle of gin. Consuming these supplies, we carried on with our cage-making. At ten to twelve there came a knock on the outside door.

  ‘This,’ I said to Carlos, ‘is the first outraged neighbour wanting to know what the hell we’re hammering at this hour of night . . . You’d better go; that gin hasn’t done my Spanish any good.’

  Carlos returned soon, and with him was a thin bespectacled man with a marked American accent who introduced himself as Mr Hahn, the Buenos Aires correspondent of the Daily Mirror of all things.

  ‘I heard that you all escaped from the Paraguayan revolution by the skin of your teeth, and I wondered if you’d care to give me the story,’ he explained.

  ‘Certainly,’ I said, hospitably pulling up a cage for him to sit on, and pouring him a cupful of gin. ‘What would you like to know?’

  He smelt the gin suspiciously, glanced into the cage before seating himself, and took out a notebook.

  ‘Everything,’ he said firmly.

  So I started to relate the story of our Paraguayan journey, my highly coloured account being interrupted by bursts of hammering, sawing, and even louder bursts of Spanish oaths from Carlos, Rafael, and Enrique. At length, Mr Hahn put his notebook away.

  ‘I think,’ he said, taking off his coat and rolling up his shirt sleeves – ‘I think I could concentrate better on your story if I had some more gin and joined in this woodcutters’ ball.’

  So throughout the night, fortified by gin, coffee, rolls, and bursts of song, Carlos, Rafael, Enrique, myself, and the Buenos Aires correspondent of the Daily Mirror laboured to finish the cages. By the time the first coffee-shops opened at five-thirty we had finished. After a quick coffee, I crawled back to the hotel and flung myself on the bed to try to get some rest before starting for the docks.

  Our lorry, with Carlos and Rafael perched on top and Jacquie and I in the cab, rolled on to the docks alongside the ship at two-thirty. By four o’clock nearly everyone in the place, including several interested bystanders, had examined our export permits. At four-thirty they told us we could carry the stuff on board. It was then that something occurred which might not only have put paid to the trip entirely, but finished me off as well. They were loading enormous bales of skins, which, for some obscure reason, were being swung on to the ship over the gangway up which we had to carry our animals. I descended from the lorry, took the cage containing Cai, the monkey, in my arms, and was just about to tell Carlos to carry Sarah himself, when something that felt like a howitzer shell caught me across the back and thighs, lifted me into the air and hurled me flat on my face some twenty feet from where I had been standing. The shock of this was indescribable. As I soared through the air, I could not even imagine what it was that had delivered such a blow. Then I hit the ground and rolled over. My back was numb, my left thigh was aching savagely, so that I was sure it was broken, and I was shaking so much with the shock that I could not even stand when a horrified Carlos tried to get me to my feet. It was five minutes before I could stand upright and discover to my relief that my leg was not broken. Even then my hands were shaking so much that I could not hold a cigarette, and Carlos had to do it for me. While I sat and tried to control my nerves, Carlos explained what had happened. A crane-driver had swung a bale of skins off the dock, but had kept them too low. Instead of clearing the heavy wooden gangway, they had struck it amidships, and then the bale of skins and the gangway had swept along the docks and hit me. Luckily, this murderous missile had almost reached the end of its swing when it struck me, or else I should have been split in half like a soft banana.

  ‘I must say,’ I pointed out shakily to Carlos, ‘it’s not the sort of farewell I expected of Argentina.’

  Eventually the animals were safely stowed on deck, with tarpaulins over them, and we could go down to the smoking-room, where all our friends were gathered. We drank and talked with them in the usual bright and rather inane way that one does when one knows that parting is imminent. Then, at last, the time came when they had to go ashore. We stood by the rail and watched our string of friends go down the gangway and then assemble in a crowd on the docks. We could just see them in the fast-gathering dusk: Carlos’s moon face and the flash of his wife’s dark hair; Rafael and Enrique with their gaucho hats tilted on the backs of their heads; Marie Rene and Mercedes waving handkerchiefs; Marie Mercedes looking more like a Dresden shepherdess than ever in the dim light; and Bebita, tall, beautiful, and calm. Her voice came to us clearly as the ship drew away.

  ‘Good journey, children; b-b-but don’t forget to come back.’

  We waved and nodded and then, as our friends started to disappear into the fast-gathering dusk, the air was full of the most mournful sound in the world: the deep, lugubrious roar of the siren, the sound of a ship saying good-bye.

  Acknowledgements

  B
RITAIN

  Our trip would have had little hope of maturing had it not been for the enthusiasm and kindness of Dr Derisi, the former Argentine Ambassador in London, who gave the whole plan his official blessing and helped in a variety of ways. Mr Peter Newborn, of the Argentine Embassy, was most helpful and gave us much valuable advice on complicated matters of currency and custom permits.

  At the Foreign Office, Mr Hiller gave us much valuable help and advice.

  Mr Peter Scott and the Severn Wildfowl Trust also gave us much assistance and provided us with numerous introductions.

  At the BBC the following people gave us help and advice on sound-recording equipment, and also supplied us with letters of introduction: Mrs Nesta Pain, Mr Laurence Gilliam, Mr Leonard Cottrell, and Mr W.O. Galbraith.

  Miss Rosemary Clifford of the Latin-American Department of the Central Office of Information did a great deal towards smoothing our path on arrival in Buenos Aires.

  Mr Norman Zimmern gave us many valuable introductions in South America.

  Messrs A. P. Manners Ltd of Bournemouth were most courteous and helpful in advising us on photographic equipment and in developing our films.

  To Joseph Gundry & Co of Bridport go our thanks for making a number of flight-nets in record time, all of which were excellent.

  ARGENTINA

  We should like to express our gratitude to Señor Apold and Señor Vasquez of the Ministry of Information.

  At the Ministry of Agriculture the following people gave us help without which we could have achieved very little: Señor Hogan, the Minister of Agriculture; Dr Lago, Secretary General, and Dr Godoy, who was in charge of the Department of Animal Conservation, and who was so efficient and helpful over our collecting permits.

  We met with nothing but courtesy and efficiency from all officials during our stay in Argentina, and we should like to thank all those members of the Airport, Docks, and Customs with whom we came in contact.

  The Head of the Aduana was extremely kind in granting us import and export licences for our weird assortment of equipment.

  At the British Embassy our thanks go to the former Ambassador, Sir Henry Bradshaw Mack, KCMG; Mr Allan, First Secretary; Mr Stephen Lockhart, Head of Chancery; Mr King, the Consul-General; Mr Leadbitter, First Secretary of Information. Our very special thanks go to Mr George Gibbs, assuredly the most long-suffering Assistant Secretary for Information that any Embassy has ever had. He managed to cope successfully with problems so far removed from his job as the best way to bottle-feed an ant-eater while on an aerodrome, and the cheapest place to buy wire-netting. He was throughout our stay a tower of strength, and we are for ever in his debt. Also of the Embassy we should like to thank Mr Kelly, Mr Roquet, who sorted out our photographic problems, and Mr O’Brien, who arranged all our baggage difficulties.

  We should also like to thank the Blue Star Line for allowing us to bring our animals back on one of their ships. Mr Wilson, the Manager, and Mr Fraser, the Passenger Manager, at their Buenos Aires office did everything they could to help us. Captain Home and the whole crew of the Uruguay Star went out of their way to make our return voyage as pleasant as possible.

  In Argentina we had so much help and kindness shown to us that the list is necessarily a long one. We should like to thank the following: Mrs Lassie Greenslet, who so kindly put her delightful Buenos Aires flat at our disposal, in which we stayed for so long she must have wondered if she was ever going to get rid of us. Her sister, Mrs Puleston, was most kind to us, and we are indebted to their niece, Miss Ada Osborn, for some nice specimens she collected for us.

  Mr Ian Gibson for acting as our guide and assistant. Mr and Mrs Boote and their family for allowing us to stay on their delightful estancia and for displaying such enthusiasm in helping us with our work. Mr Donald McIver, who gave us a lot of very valuable assistance in collecting and putting transport at our disposal. Mr William Partridge of the Natural History Museum, who supplied us with much information on bird distribution and who put at our disposal the magnificent series of skins he had collected from various parts of Argentina. Mr Carr-Vernon of Western Union, who gave us many facilities.

  Marie Mercedes De Soto Acebal, her husband, and family showed us such kindness during our stay in Argentina that it is impossible for us to thank them adequately. The youngest son, Rafael, accompanied us to Paraguay, and without his help we would have achieved very little. When in Buenos Aires, and also when staying on their estancia, the rest of the family readily devoted their time and energies to help us with our work, and we could not have wished for more delightful assistants and friends.

  Bebita Fanny de Llambi de Campbell de Ferreyra, her husband, and their family were wonderful to us during our stay. We practically lived at their flat, and Bebita herself did more than any other one person towards making our stay in Argentina such a happy one. I have repaid her very uncharitably by portraying her in the preceding pages. Her brother, Boy de Llambi de Campbell, and his wife, Bebe, were also charming to us, and without their assistance on our Paraguayan venture we would not have obtained some of our best specimens.

  The President and the ladies of the Twentieth Century Club of Buenos Aires showed us lavish hospitality and much courage in inviting me to address them.

  I should like to make a special point of thanking all those peons and other workers on the estancias, Los Ingleses and Secunda, for the generous way in which they gave up their spare time to helping us.

  PARAGUAY

  In Paraguay we should like to thank Captain Sarmaniego and Señor Axxolini, who both showed us much kindness and assisted us in many ways.

  We should also like to thank Braniff Airways, who took over so competently the last stage of our retreat from Paraguay.

  Last but not least I should like to thank Sophie, my secretary, who did so much of the donkey work in the preparation of the manuscript without being able to share in the pleasures of the trip.

  A MESSAGE FROM

  THE DURRELL WILDLIFE CONSERVATION TRUST

  The end of this book isn’t the end of Gerald Durrell’s story. The various experiences you have just read about gave impetus and inspiration to his lifetime crusade to preserve the rich diversity of animal life on this planet.

  Although he died in 1995, the words of Gerald Durrell in this and his other books will continue to inspire people everywhere with love and respect for what he called ‘this magical world’. His work goes on through the untiring efforts of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

  Over the years many readers of Gerald Durrell’s books have been so motivated by his experiences and vision that they have wanted to continue the story for themselves by supporting the work of his Trust. We hope that you will feel the same way today because through his books and life, Gerald Durrell set us all a challenge. ‘Animals are the great voteless and voiceless majority,’ he wrote, ‘who can only survive with our help.’

  Please don’t let your interest in conservation end when you turn this page. Write to us now and we’ll tell you how you can be part of our crusade to save animals from extinction. For further information, or to send a donation, write to:

  Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust

  Les Augrès Manor

  La Profonde Rue

  Trinity

  Jersey, Channel Islands

  JE3 5BP

  Or visit the website:

  www.durrell.org

  First published in 1956 by Rupert Hart-Davis

  This edition published 2011 by Bello

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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  ISBN 978-1-4472-1414-4 EPUB

  ISBN 978-1-4472-1413-7 POD

  Copyright © Gerald Durrell, 1956

  The right of Gerald Durrell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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