06 African Adventure (9 page)

John Hunt smiled. ‘What other animal could do that?’

Somewhat worried by her experience with the rope, the large baboon seized her infant’s hand and tried to make off, but Hal hung on to the other small hand.

‘I think I’d better slap them into a cage,’ he said, ‘or they will walk out on us.’

‘I don’t believe so,’ his father said. ‘Let them both go, and see what they do.’

The two baboons scampered to the tent opening. When no one chased them, they turned about and looked at Hal with big soulful eyes.

John Hunt laughed. ‘You are the best friend they have and they know it. They won’t need a cage. You couldn’t get rid of them if you tried. If you want to seal the bargain, there are some bananas in that basket in the corner.’

Hal gave each of his guests a banana. The youngster did not know what to do with it and tried sucking it. Then he saw his mother skilfully peeling her banana, and tried to do the same. He made a rather messy job of it, but finally got rid of the skin.

The two sat contentedly, eating the ripe fruit, never taking their eyes off Hal.

From that moment on, they considered themselves regular members of the safari and specially appointed to wait upon Hal at all times.

He named the little one Bab and the big one Mother Bab. Bab rode on his shoulder. Mother Bab stole everything she could lay her hands on and brought it to Hal as a gift of love. Hal was kept busy returning articles to their proper owners.

Both baboons insisted on sleeping with him - a slightly difficult matter, since the narrow safari cot was not intended for three occupants. But Hal accepted the drawbacks of friendship willingly and only regretted that the day must come when his two devoted companions must be shipped away to join the American circus.

Mother Bab was terrified when she saw the two pet leopards.

Baboons and leopards are mortal enemies. A leopard would rather have monkey-meat than any other dish under the sun. Mother Bab knew this, but little Bab did not. Neither did the small leopards know it, for they had not yet eaten monkey-meat, or meat of any sort.

The leopards were tumbling over each other in a wild game when Bab first saw them. He wanted to join in the fun. He waddled over towards them, in spite of his mother’s cries of warning. He made a final jump and landed on top of the two squirming bodies, and all three rolled over on their backs in the grass.

Mother Bab broke into shrill chattering and ran to Hal, looking up into his face, very plainly pleading with him to rescue her child from these horrible monsters. Hal petted the furry head and spoke softly.

‘Now don’t you worry, Mother Bab.’

The small baboon and the two baby leopards sat up in the grass and looked at each other. It was as if they were waiting to be introduced.

‘Roger,’ said Hal, ‘what do you call your leopards?’

‘Well, chui is the native word for leopard. One of these is a boy and the other a girl. So I thought I’d call them Chu and Cha.’

‘All right, Miss Cha and Mister Chu, kindly allow me to present Mister Bab.’

Bab reached forward as if to shake hands with Cha, but he was really interested only in getting his fingers into that lovely gold-and-black fur. Cha gave his hand a playful swat with her paw, then both she and Chu leaped upon the small baboon and rolled him over and over in the grass.

This was a game that both monkeys and cats understand and love. Mother Bab looked on with big, anxious eyes, but her chattering died down.

‘You see,’ said Hal. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

He was not quite so sure that it would be all right when Bab disentangled himself, leaped astride Chu’s back and went careering round the camp like a jockey on a racehorse. But Chu took it all in fun, and finally dumped Bab into a pail of water, from which the young ape scrambled and proceeded to use the fur of the two leopards as bath-towels.

Mischief was the chief occupation of the three playmates and they took special delight in playing tricks on Colonel Bigg. He was afraid of all three and would wake up yelling bloody murder when Chu pounced upon him in bed, or scream when he reached into a box and Cha’s small teeth closed on his fingers. When he dozed off in his camp chair, his mouth hanging open, Bab, who had seen the colonel using toothpaste, would squeeze the contents out of a tube and plaster them over the-colonel’s teeth.

Bab unfortunately could not read the labels on the tubes, and the colonel would wake up to find his mouth full of vaseline or shaving-cream instead of toothpaste.

He woke up in the middle of the night to hear stealthy movements in the tent. At the same time there was a very bad smell.

It must be leopards, he thought, although he had not noticed before that they had an unpleasant odour. He was afraid to get up and investigate. He buried his head under the covers.

In the morning he found that his safari boots were gone. He padded out in his bare feet, looking for them. Scorpions sometimes wandered through the camp ground, so when he felt a sharp prick on the sole of his right foot he thought he had been stung.

Shouting for Hal, he stumbled back into his tent and threw himself on the cot. When Hal came in, the colonel was foaming at the mouth.

Tm dying,’ he said. ‘A scorpion got me. Bring a shot of anti-venom, quick.’

Hal, knowing that if it was really a scorpion bite it could be serious, did not stop to make an examination but rushed out to get the hypodermic, fill it, and come back on the run to the perishing colonel.

‘Ouch!’ gasped the colonel, as the needle plunged into his thigh. ‘You were so long about it, it’s probably too late now. I feel the poison creeping up my legs and into my chest. Pretty soon it will reach my heart.’

‘By the way,’ said Hal, ‘where were you stung?’

‘On the bottom of my foot. I feel very faint. I’m afraid I’m going to leave you any minute now.’

Hal studied the soles of the colonel’s feet. There should be a small hole made by the scorpion’s stinger. But there was nothing - nothing but a slightly brown spot like a tobacco stain.

Hal went out and looked over the ground. He picked up a cigarette butt. It was still burning. He brought it in and showed it to .the colonel.

‘This is your scorpion,’ he said. ‘You just stepped on a hot butt. I think you’ll live.’

The colonel recovered with amazing speed. Now that he knew he had suffered only a slight burn, not a poisonous sting, his pains disappeared as if by magic.

Of course, he could not admit his own foolishness. He found a way to put the blame on Hal.

‘I should think you’d be red in the face,’ he said, ‘after a blunder like that. Young man, you must learn to think before you act. Imagine - poking a hole in me with that needle and filling me with snake dope for nothing but a cigarette burn! Scorpion, indeed! Where ever did you get that idea?’

‘From you,’ Hal reminded him.

‘I don’t recall saying anything about a scorpion. You must learn to use your head, boy, use your head.’

Hal let it go at that.

Mali came in with the colonel’s boots. They looked as if sharp teeth had been chewing on them.

‘Are these yours?’ Mali inquired. ‘We found them just at the edge of the clearing.’

‘Of course they’re mine, you stupid fellow. Why didn’t you find them first thing this morning instead of waiting until now?’

He took the boots and turned them over, examining the tooth-marks. ‘Ah-ha, I know exactly what happened. It’s those cursed leopards. You let them roam all over the camp. They must have been in here during the night. Now look at the boots - they’ve almost ruined them.’

‘Perhaps it wasn’t the leopards,’ Hal suggested.

Bigg raised his voice angrily. ‘What else could it be? Now let me make this plain, young fellow. Those cubs must be kept in their cage at night. Why, they’ll be attacking us in our beds next. In their cage, do you understand? Otherwise I leave this safari. Yes, sir, I’ll leave you flat.’

Hal grinned. ‘Now, Colonel, you wouldn’t do that. What would we do without you?’

‘In their cage, is that clear?’

To humour the touchy colonel the leopards were put in their cage when night fell. They didn’t like it much, and mewed to get out. Leopards are night animals, and enjoy playing or hunting during the hours of darkness. Chu and Cha were quite unhappy about the whole thing, and Roger sympathized with them.

‘Why lock them up just to please that crusty old grouch?’

‘If we don’t,’ Hal said, ‘he’ll keep on blaming them for what happens. And I have a hunch something more is going to happen.’

‘What can happen? The cubs can’t get out’

‘I don’t believe this was done by the cubs. It must have been a bigger animal.’

‘Lion?’

‘Who knows? But I know how we can find out. Would you like to stay up with me tonight and keep watch? We might have some fun, and perhaps catch something.’

Roger was more than willing. All other members of the camp turned in. The two boys sat with their backs against a tree and waited.

Roger was much excited. The mysterious jungle was talking with a hundred tongues.

‘What’s that?’ he kept asking. Hal could not give him all the answers, though he had listened every night and had looked up the cries in his manual.

‘I think that boom-boom comes from the hornbill. I know that snort - the wildebeest blasts out air from his lungs through the nostrils. Hear the zebras - there must be a lot of them - chatting like a crowd of people at a cocktail party. The jackal makes that yip-yip. Of course those way-down-deep grunts come from the hippos.’

A roar sounded not far from the camp. ‘That’s a lion,’ Roger said confidently.

‘Perhaps, perhaps not. It could have been a hyena.’

‘But hyenas laugh. There’s one now - what a horrible noise!’

The cry was enough to make the shivers go up and down one’s spine. It did sound like a laugh.

‘Tee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-ha-ha.’

This was followed by a sound that seemed to come from a quite different animal. It started low and rose to end in a high squeal.

‘Ooooooo-wee!’

Then there came barks of dogs, yelps of puppies, howls of wolves. Then once more the deep roar of a lion - or so it seemed.

‘All made by the same animal,’ Hal said. ‘The hyena. They’re getting closer. I think we’re going to have visitors soon now.’

Roger was squirming uncomfortably. ‘Weirdest noises I ever heard. They give me the creeps.’

Hal agreed. ‘They sound like lost souls. The Africans think they are the spirits of the dead. They think that old men who die can come back as hyenas. Another story is

that witches ride hyenas about all night and make these horrible cries.’

‘Well, whatever they are, do you think they can get into the colonel’s tent? He zipped up the front tight.’

‘You can’t keep a wild animal out of a tent if it realty wants to get in. Most animals don’t want to. The hyena does, and if he can’t squeeze in under the side flaps, he can easily tear a hole through the canvas with his claws and teeth. And what teeth! The hyena is said to have the most powerful jaws of any living mammal. His teeth will crack the toughest bones.’

‘Not the bones of a really big animal, like the rhino?’

‘Yes, even those. When lions bring down a rhino, they eat the flesh but leave the bones. When the lions wander off with full tummies, the hyenas rush in and crunch those big bones to bits and swallow them. They chew up the inch-thick hide as if it were so much paper, and they seem to find it quite delicious. That’s why they like the colonel’s boots. They are made of cow-hide and some of the animal oils are still in the leather. They eat almost anything. At the safari lodge in Amboseli they sneak up behind the cabins, upset the garbage-cans, eat the garbage, and if there is grease on the inside of the garbage-can they will almost eat the can itself - at least they crunch it so badly that it can’t be used again. In Tsavo a hunter wounded a hyena, then dropped his gun and ran. The enraged hyena took the iron barrel of the gun in its jaws and twisted it into a useless wreck. Hush! Listen.’

There was a rustling in the bushes just behind the tree. A bad smell came in on the breeze.

‘Hyena,’ whispered Hal.

‘Smells as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth,’ whispered Roger. He lifted the catching-rope that lay in his lap.

‘Shall we nab him now? Better get him before he gets us.’

‘I don’t think he’ll bother us. We’re not dead enough for him. He likes something very dead and very smelly.’

The dog Zulu, roused from sleep by the sound or the smell, growled softly.

‘Quiet, Zu,’ Hal warned. ‘Your chance will come later.’

A black shadow about the size of a very large dog slunk out into the camp ground. There was no moon, but the light of the bright African stars was enough to reveal the hanging head and the body that sloped from the shoulders down to the tail.

At once the animal was joined by another, just like it. Hal’s spirits rose. Perhaps they could catch the two of them. His hand itched to throw a lasso. But first he would give them a chance to pay the colonel a visit. Somehow he must show the colonel that it was not the leopards who had made off with his boots, otherwise the poor little cubs would have to be locked up every night.

The hyenas sneaked over to sniff at the cage that stood near the cook’s fireplace. They even walked into the cage. Now, with a quick run, Hal could have reached the cage and slammed the door shut. But he did not move.

If the hyenas knew that two boys were sitting under the tree, they paid no attention to them. Animals bold enough to crawl into a tent inhabited by a man are not easily scared by a couple of boys. They wandered over the camp ground picking up scraps of bread, meat, skin, anything edible.

Coming near the colonel’s tent, they stopped and sniffed again. Would they go in or not? The boys held their breath and hoped.

The hyenas walked slowly round the tent, pausing here and there to poke their noses under the canvas side-walls.

In most places the side flaps were tucked under the ground sheet, making entry difficult. But one of the two discovered a slight gap, and by pulling at it with his teeth he drew out the canvas, then flattened himself to the ground and crawled in through the hole. The other followed him.