The Lost City of Z (32 page)

For the media, Fawcett’s disappearance had only contributed to what one writer called a “romantic story which builds newspaper empires”— and few were as adept at keeping the story ablaze as Dyott. A former managing director of a company called Travel Films, he was one of the earliest explorers to bring along motion-picture cameras, and he knew instinctively how to strike a pose and talk like a character in a B movie.

The North American Newspaper Alliance sponsored his rescue effort, which it advertised as “an adventure that makes the blood race . . . Romance, mystery—and Peril!” Despite protests from the RGS that the publicity was threatening the expedition’s objective, Dyott planned to file daily dispatches with a shortwave radio and to film his journey. To succeed, Dyott, who had once met Fawcett, claimed that he would need “the intuition of Sherlock Holmes” and “the skill of a big-game hunter.” He
pictured Fawcett and his companions “camped in some remote corner of the primeval forest, unable to come or go. Their reserve food supply must long since have been exhausted; their clothing torn to shreds or rotted to pieces.” In such a prolonged “hand-to-hand” combat with the wilderness, Dyott added, it was only Fawcett’s “supreme courage that will have held his party together and instilled in them the will to live.”

Like Fawcett, Dyott had developed over the years his own idiosyncratic methods of exploring. He believed, for instance, that diminutive men—men, that is to say, built like himself—were best able to endure in the jungle. “A big man has to exert so much energy to carry his bulk that he has no surplus,” Dyott told reporters, and he would be “difficult to stow in a canoe.”

Dyott posted an advertisement in several American newspapers seeking a volunteer who was “small, spare, of wiry build.” The
Los Angeles Times
broadcast his appeal under the headline “Dyott Needs Young Unmarried Man for Perilous Jungle Trip in Search for Scientist: Applicant Must Be Single, Quiet and Youthful.” Within days, he received offers from twenty thousand people. “They have come from all over the world,” Dyott told reporters. “England, Ireland, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Peru, Mexico—all are represented. Letters have come from Alaska, too.” He noted, “There are applicants in all ranks of society . . . There are letters from lawyers, physicians, real estate dealers, steeplejacks. . . From Chicago an acrobat wrote, and a wrestler.” Dyott hired three secretaries to help him sift through the applications. The
Independent,
an American weekly newspaper, marveled, “Perhaps if there were a sufficient number of jungles available and enough expeditions to go round, we would see the spectacle of our whole population marching off in search of lost explorers, ancient civilizations, and something which it vaguely felt was missing in its life.” Nina told the RGS that the outpouring was a “great compliment” to the enduring reputation of Colonel Fawcett.

One of those who applied to join the expedition was Roger Rimell,
Raleigh’s brother, who was now thirty years old. “I am
most
anxious naturally,” he informed Dyott, “and do consider I am as entitled to go as much as anyone.” Elsie Rimell was so desperate to find Raleigh that she consented, saying, “I know of no greater help I can give them than to offer the services of my one remaining son.”

Dyott, however, not wanting to take someone with so little experience, politely declined. Several adventurous ladies also applied, but Dyott said, “I can’t take a woman.” In the end, he chose four hardened outdoorsmen who could operate a wireless radio and a movie camera in the jungle.

Dyott had strictly enforced a ban on married men, insisting that they were accustomed to “creature comforts” and “always thinking about their wives.” But, on the eve of the party’s departure from New York, he violated his own edict and married a woman nearly half his age, Persis Stevens Wright, whom the newspapers portrayed as a “Long Island society girl.” The couple planned to honeymoon during the expedition’s voyage to Rio. New York City’s mayor, Jimmy Walker, who came to bid the expedition farewell, told Dyott that his bride’s consent to his risking his life in order to save the lives of others was “a display of unselfish courage of which the whole nation should be proud.”

On February 18, 1928, in the midst of a blizzard, Dyott and his party drove to the same piers in Hoboken, New Jersey, where Fawcett had departed with Jack and Raleigh three years earlier. Dyott’s group was preparing to board the SS
Voltaire
when an anxious middle-aged woman appeared, bundled against the storm. It was Elsie Rimell. She had flown from California to meet with Dyott, whose expedition, she said, “fills me with new hope and courage.” She handed him a small package—a present for her son Raleigh.

During the voyage to Brazil, the ship’s crew dubbed the explorers the “Knights of the Round Table.” A banquet was held in their honor, and special menus were printed that listed each of the explorers by nicknames, such as “King Arthur” and “Sir Galahad.” The ship’s purser declared, “On
behalf of your noble band of knights allow me to wish you Cheerio, good luck and Godspeed.”

After the
Voltaire
reached Rio, Dyott bade his wife farewell and headed with his men to the frontier. There he recruited a small army of Brazilian helpers and Indian guides, and the party soon grew to twenty-six members and required seventy-four oxen and mules to transport more than three tons of food and gear. A reporter later described the party as a “Cecil B. DeMille safari.” Brazilians began to refer to it as the “suicide club.”

In June, the expedition arrived at Bakairí Post, where a group of Kayapós had recently attacked and killed several inhabitants. (Dyott described the outpost as “the dregs of civilization mixing with the scum of the wilds.”) While camping there, Dyott made what he considered a breakthrough: he met an Indian named Bernardino, who said that he had served as Fawcett’s guide down the Kurisevo River, one of the headwaters of the Xingu. In exchange for gifts, Bernardino agreed to lead Dyott as far as he had taken Fawcett’s party, and, shortly after they departed, Dyott spotted Y-shaped marks carved into the trunks of trees—a possible sign of Fawcett’s former presence. “Fawcett’s trail loomed largely before us and, like a pack of hounds on the scent, we were in full cry,” Dyott wrote.

At night, Dyott sent his dispatches over the radio, and they were often passed on to NANA by the Radio Relay League, a network of amateur operators in the United States. Each new item was trumpeted in international bulletins: “Dyott Nearing Jungle Ordeal;” “Dyott Picks Up Fawcett Trail;” “Dyott Finds New Clew.” John J. Whitehead, a member of the expedition, wrote in his diary, “How different would the story of Stanley and Livingstone been written, if they had possessed radio.” Many people around the world tuned in, mesmerized. “I first heard of [the expedition] on my crystal set when I was only eleven years old,” Loren McIntyre, an American who went on to become an acclaimed Amazon explorer himself, later recalled.

Listeners vicariously faced the sudden terrors that confronted the party. One night Dyott reported:

After trekking nearly a month northward from Bakairí Post, the party reached the settlement of the Nahukwá, one of many tribes that had sought sanctuary in the jungles around the Xingu. Dyott wrote of the Nahukwá, “These new denizens of the forest were as primitive as Adam and Eve.” Several in the tribe greeted Dyott and his men warmly, but the chief, Aloique, seemed hostile. “He regarded us impassively with his small eyes,” Dyott wrote. “Cunning and cruelty lurked behind their lids.”

Dyott was surrounded by Aloique’s children, and he noticed something tied to a piece of string around the neck of one boy—a small brass plate engraved with the words “W. S. Silver and Company.” It was the name of the British firm that had supplied Fawcett with gear. Slipping into the chiefs dark hut, Dyott lit a flare. In the corner, he spied a military-style metal trunk.

Without the benefit of translators, Dyott tried to interrogate Aloique, using elaborate sign language. Aloique, also gesturing, seemed to suggest that the trunk was a gift. He then indicated that he had guided three white men to a neighboring territory. Dyott was skeptical and urged Aloique and some of his men to take him along the same route. Aloique warned that a murderous tribe, the Suyás, lived in that direction. Each time the Nahukwás said the word “Suyá,” they would motion to the backs of their heads, as if they were being decapitated. Dyott persisted and Aloique, in exchange for knives, agreed to guide them.

That night, as Dyott and his men slept among the Indians, many in the party were uneasy. “We cannot predict the actions of [the Indians] for we know nothing about them except—and this is important—from these
regions the Fawcett party disappeared,” Whitehead wrote. He slept with a .38 Winchester and a machete under his blanket.

As the expedition pushed on through the forest the following day, Dyott continued to question Aloique, and before long the chief seemed to add a new element to his story. Fawcett and his men, he now intimated, had been killed by the Suyás. “Suyás!
Bung-bung-bung!”
the chief yelled, falling to the ground, as if he were dead. Aloique’s shifting explanations aroused Dyott’s suspicions. As he later wrote, “The finger of guilt seemed to point to Aloique.”

At one point, as Dyott was reporting his latest findings over the radio, the machine stopped working. “Jungle Cry Strangled,” a NANA bulletin declared. “Dyott Radio Cut Off in Crisis.” The prolonged silence unleashed dire speculation. “I am so afraid,” Dyott’s wife told reporters.

The expedition, meanwhile, was short of food and water, and some of the men were so ill that they could barely walk. Whitehead wrote that he “couldn’t eat, my fever is too bad.” The cook’s legs had swollen and were oozing a gangrenous pus. Dyott decided to press on with only two of his men, in the hope of finding Fawcett’s remains. “Remember,” Dyott told Whitehead, “if anything happens to me, all my effects go to my wife.”

The night before the small contingent left, one of the men in Dyott’s expedition party, an Indian, reported that he had overheard Aloique plotting with tribesmen to murder Dyott and steal his equipment. By then, Dyott had no doubt that he had found Fawcett’s killer. As a deterrent, Dyott told Aloique that he now intended to take his entire party with him. The next morning Aloique and his men had vanished.

Soon afterward, scores of Indians from various tribes in the Xingu region emerged from the forest, carrying bows and arrows, and demanding gifts. With every hour a new canoe arrived with more tribesmen. Some of the Indians wore striking jewelry and had in their possession exquisite pottery, which made Dyott think that Fawcett’s stories of an ancient sophisticated civilization might be true. But it was impossible to
make further inquiries. As Whitehead put it, “Natives from tribes all over the territory, possibly two thousand of them, gradually were hemming us in from all sides.”

Dyott had exhausted his supply of gifts, and the Indians were growing hostile. He promised them that the next morning he would give each of them an ax and knives. After midnight, when the Indians appeared to be asleep, Dyott quietly gathered his men and set out in the expedition’s boats. The men pushed off and floated with the currents. No one dared to strike a paddle. A moment later, they heard a group of canoes upriver coming toward them with more Indians, apparently heading to their camp. Dyott signaled to his men to pull their boats to the side of the river and lie down. The men held their breath as the Indians paddled past them.

At last, Dyott gave the order to row, and the explorers began to paddle furiously. One of the technicians got the wireless radio to work long enough to relay a brief message: “Am sorry to report Fawcett expedition perished at the hands of hostile Indians. Our position is critical. . . Can’t even afford time to send full details by wireless. Must descend the Xingu without delay or we ourselves will be caught.” The expedition then dumped the radio, along with other heavy gear, to hasten its exit. Newspapers debated the team’s odds. “Dyott’s Chance to Escape Even,” one headline ran. When Dyott and his men finally emerged from the jungle, months later—sick, emaciated, bearded, mosquito pocked—they were greeted as heroes. “We want to luxuriate in the pleasant and heady atmosphere of notoriety,” said Whitehead, who was subsequently hired as a pitchman for a laxative called Nujol. (“You can be sure that no matter what important equipment I have to discard, my next adventure will see me taking plenty of Nujol along.”) Dyott published a book,
Man Hunting in the Jungle,
and starred in a 1933 Hollywood film about his adventures called
Savage Gold.

But by then Dyott’s story had begun to collapse. As Brian Fawcett pointed out, it is hard to believe that his father, who was so wary of anyone knowing his path, would have left Y marks on trees. The gear that
Dyott found in Aloique’s house may well have been a gift from Fawcett, as Aloique insisted, or it may have come from Fawcett’s 1920 expedition, when he and Holt had been forced to dump much of their cargo. Indeed, Dyott’s case rested on his assessment of Aloique’s “treacherous” disposition—a judgment based largely on interactions conducted in sign language and on Dyott’s purported expertise in “Indian psychology.”

Years later, when missionaries and other explorers entered the region, they described Aloique and the Nahukwá as generally peaceful and friendly. Dyott had ignored the likelihood that Aloique’s evasiveness, including his decision to flee, stemmed from his own fears of a white stranger who was leading an armed brigade. Finally, there was Bernardino. “Dyott. . . must have swallowed hook, line and sinker what he was told,” Brian Fawcett wrote. “I say this because there was no Bernardino with my father’s party in 1925.” According to Fawcett’s last letters, he had brought with him from Bakairí Post only two Brazilian helpers: Gardenia and Simão. Not long after the expedition, Nina Fawcett released a statement declaring, “There is consequently still no proof that the three explorers are dead.”