06 African Adventure Read online

  They were all looking at the camp with the greatest curiosity. It is said that curiosity killed a cat. If curiosity kills, then all giraffes would have been dead long ago. There is no animal on earth more curious about things, more anxious to see what is going on.

  Hal remembered the native story about the giraffe’s curiosity. In the beginning, God gave them normal necks but long legs. Their long legs raised them so high that they couldn’t see beneath the trees. So they tried to see over the tops of the trees. They stretched and stretched and stretched their necks, and the higher they stretched the better the view, and so they stretched some more. And now they stand twenty feet high and can look over the usual flat-topped acacia tree. And if they keep on getting taller some day they will be able to look straight into heaven, so say the tellers of tales.

  In the early morning sun the golden hides looked very rich with their dark-brown spots.

  ‘What I want to know,’ Roger put in, ‘is how he ever pumps blood up that skyscraper neck.’

  ‘Just by having a big pump. His heart is forty times as big as yours. It weighs twenty-five pounds. He has the world’s highest blood-pressure. The jugular vein in Ms neck is nearly two inches across, and blood shoots up it like water through a fire-hose.’

  ‘But when he puts his head down to the ground, what then? All that pressure would blow his head off.’

  ‘No. He has a fancy set of valves that slow down the blood. Don’t worry. Nature has done a good job on him.’

  A snort behind them made them look round. There was Colonel Bigg with his gun.

  ‘What do you kids know about the giraffe?’ he said sarcastically. ‘I’ll tell you about the giraffe. He’s the silliest thing on earth. Look at those long, skinny legs - what good are they? One crack with a cricket bat and they’d break like pipe stems. And that neck - you could tie a knot in it. Giraffes eat nothing but leaves. They can’t even growl. They’re not dangerous. Tell you what I’ll do.’ Colonel Bigg was feeling bigger every minute. His efforts so far to prove himself a great hunter had failed. Now he had his chance - he was sure he was more than a match for this flimsy, absurd imitation of an animal. He had heard that the giraffe is as timid as a mouse. ‘If you’re going to hunt ‘em, I’m going with you. I’ll show you how easy it is to tackle one of those walking telegraph poles.’ ‘If it’s so easy,’ Hal said, ‘you won’t need your gun. I’ll take it.’

  Reluctantly, Bigg parted with the gun. He set his hat at a jaunty angle. He was very proud of that hat. It made him look like an honest-to-goodness professional hunter.

  ‘Who wants a gun?’ he growled. ‘AH I need is my bare hands and a bit of rope. Come on, lads, I’ll show you how it’s done in a real safari.’

  The boys and Bigg, with plenty of black helpers, climbed into a Land-Rover and a Bedford lorry. The lorry was a big four-ton job and carried a cage especially intended for the tallest of all living animals. The sides of the cage were fifteen feet high, but there was no roof - the last five feet of the bean-pole beast could project upwards into space.

  ‘Run in on them fast,’ Bigg told Mali, who was driving. But Roger ventured to correct him. ‘No. Go easy. Don’t scare them.’ Mali could choose between these two contrary orders.

  He evidently thought Roger’s idea more sensible, for he made the Land-Rover crawl as quietly as possible towards the inquisitive beasts. When he got within fifty feet of them and they began to show signs of nervousness, he stopped.

  Now Roger could study them closely. Perhaps Bigg was right - they certainly looked very gentle and harmless. Their great brown eyes were as beautiful and tender as a girl’s. Their eyelashes were long and lovely and a glossy jet black.

  ‘Look as if they used mascara,’ Roger said.

  They were the Baringo type, the so-called five-horned giraffe. And there were the five horns - but they certainly didn’t look dangerous. They were just stubby nubbins a few inches long and covered with hair. Roger asked Mali about the horns.

  ‘Just decoration,’ Mali said. ‘He doesn’t use them for fighting.’

  ‘He’s not a fighting animal,’ Bigg put in.

  Mali smiled. ‘You’d be surprised. He uses his head -and not just for thinking. He strikes his enemy with the side of his head, not with his horns. And because his neck is so long he can give that head of his a terrific swing. I’ve seen one kill a leopard with a single swat’

  ‘A tall story,’ Bigg said scornfully. ‘They wouldn’t hurt a fly. See that one with his mouth open. Why, he has no upper front teeth.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Mali admitted. ‘But he has plenty of big grinders back where you can’t see them. Look at that one feeding on the thorn-tree. He has to have good teeth to grind up those thorns.’

  ‘And a tough tongue,’ Roger said, amazed to see a tongue a foot and a half long flick out and draw in the four-inch thorns where they could be crushed by the molars. Here again the giraffe was unusual. The whale had a longer tongue; but no land animal except the giant ant-eater could beat the giraffe.

  ‘Another thing about these silly animals,’ Bigg said with an air of superior knowledge. ‘They can’t make a sound.’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Mali objected. ‘A lot of people think that - but it isn’t so. The giraffe can make a moo or a grunt.’

  Bigg snorted. ‘A fine thing, that! An animal twenty feet tall and all he can do is moo or grunt! Even a jackal can make more noise than that.’

  Mali turned and looked at Bigg gravely. ‘Perhaps the giraffe doesn’t need to make much noise. Animals are like people. Sometimes it’s the people who talk the most who do the least.’

  Bigg glared at him. ‘I’ll ask you to keep a civil tongue in your head. Remember who you are, you black scum. And if you think I talk too much and don’t do anything, I’ll show you.’

  He opened the door and slid out into the catcher’s seat. Roger was disappointed. He had hoped to do the catching himself.

  ‘Let’s go,’ cried the colonel.

  ‘Strap yourself in,’ Mali suggested.

  ‘Don’t need to. We won’t bump much. These creatures are as slow as molasses. Step on it. Go after that big one.’

  Mali stepped on it. The bull giraffe cocked his head to one side and studied the car with his great brown eyes. Then he turned slowly and began lumbering away.

  ft was a very awkward lumber. The front feet went forward together, then the back feet came forward together outside the front feet. It was a sleepy, slow-motion kind of gait. The creature moved like a lazy rocking-chair. Bigg laughed.

  ‘Clumsy fool! We’ll catch him in no time.’

  Roger watched the speedometer. It touched ten, then climbed to twenty, went up to thirty, and the giraffe was still rocking along well ahead of the car. The colonel was bouncing like popcorn. Now he tried to strap himself in, but could not. ‘Hey!’ he cried, ‘Let up.’

  But Roger nudged Mali, and Mali, with a grin, stepped a little harder. The speedometer showed forty miles an hour.

  Now they were alongside the giraffe. He showed no signs of tiring. Every movement took him a good twenty feet. Bigg tried to unlimber his lariat, but he had to hold himself to his seat with both hands.

  Suddenly a wall of heavy underbrush blocked the giraffe’s path. He found himself trapped. He tried to cross in front of the car to more open country on the other side. He didn’t quite make it. There was nothing for it but to leap over the car, and this he tried to do.

  Bigg screamed with terror when he saw the great golden brown body soaring over him. He would never have believed a giraffe could look so enormous. He cringed in his chair, expecting to be mashed to a pulp.

  The flying giraffe, more than twice as tall as the car, easily rose above it. But his leap was not quite long enough, and one foot came down on the roof.

  It was a stout steel roof, and Bigg would never have thought it possible that one of those skinny, weak-looking legs could go through it. But what he had never realized was that this creature which
looked so thin and frail actually weighed up to two tons.

  When a foot with two tons of push behind it struck the roof, it went through like a knife through butter.

  The colonel had left his precious hat on the seat beside Roger. The great hoof, a foot wide, was just the right size for that hat. It came down upon it squarely and turned it instantly into a brown pancake.

  The foot had no sooner come down than it went up again, getting a few scratches from the torn metal, and the giraffe came to earth on the far side of the car and floated away.

  Mali turned the car to follow him. The speed was forty and the ground was rougher than ever. Roger looked out and could see no colonel. He had bounced off.

  Mali stopped the car and backed up. Bigg got unsteadily to his feet. He did not try to get back into the catcher’s chair.

  ‘Come, boy,’ he managed to say, ‘don’t expect me to do all the work. It’s your turn.’

  Roger gleefully got out into the catcher’s chair and firmly strapped himself in. Bigg climbed into the cab and surveyed his pancaked hat with amazement.

  If he had stopped to think it out, he would not have been so surprised. After all, this two-ton weight on his hat was equal to that of twenty-five men each weighing twelve stone. And twenty five men sitting on a hat would not be too good for the hat.

  With many a leap and bounce the speeding car pursued the smoothly gliding giraffe.

  But suddenly the big fellow veered off to avoid something that had been concealed in the long grass. That something turned out to be a pride of five lions. (A group of lions is called a pride - why, don’t ask me.)

  The lions took off after the giraffe. Lions as well as humans find giraffe meat very tasty.

  The lion is the one dangerous enemy of the giraffe. A single lion doesn’t dare attack - but a whole pride of lions rushing in at once may sometimes turn a giraffe into a good dinner.

  The big bull giraffe was tiring. The lions streaking through the grass came up around him.

  ‘Now you’ll see,’ Bigg declared. ‘They’ll turn him into mincemeat in ten seconds.’

  One lion leaped for the giraffe’s back, but it was too high a jump and he fell back sprawling on his rear end. Another leaped for the throat. The giraffe swung his sledge-hammer head and caught the air-borne lion in the stomach and sent him flying with all the wind and half the will knocked out of him.

  Two attacked the front legs. Up went the great twelve-inch hooves and came down with a savage chopping effect that evidently caused severe internal injuries, for both the marauders slunk off, feeling very sick.

  But it was the hind hooves of this magnificent, mild-mannered fighter that really took the cake. They flew out with such a powerful two-ton thrust that one lion died at once of a dislocated neck and another was knocked head over heels and lay on his back waving his feet in the air.

  The Land-Rover rolled up, and the big cats that were still able to move crawled away. The giraffe was still watching them warily. That gave Roger his chance. He flung the lasso and the noose settled over the bull giraffe’s neck.

  The big bull began to lay about him furiously, and Hal, who had come up in the Bedford, feared for his brother’s safety. He came running with the curare gun and fired the drug into the animal’s thigh.

  The medicine was given time to have its quieting effect. Then, without too much difficulty, the animal-was led up into the cage, the cage door was closed, and the car driven back to camp - very slowly so that the hide of the magnificent beast should not be bruised by the iron bars.

  The conquest of the female giraffe, the one with the six-foot baby, was more easily accomplished. The baby presented no problem at all. When he saw his mother in the cage, he promptly followed.

  So the boys had a good report to make to their father. They not only had the big male and female, but a baby as a bonus.

  ‘But I suppose it’s not worth much,’ Roger remarked.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ said his father. Tt will bring just as much as a grown-up, perhaps more. I think Rio will be very happy to get the little fellow along with the others. Giraffes are enormously strong, as you found out, but their nerves are very delicate. The adults are apt to be much worried on this long trip to Rio and might even get sick, but the little fellow won’t mind a thing so long as he is with his mother. He’s really the best bet of the three. By the way, while you were gone Toto bagged a python. You’ll see it in the snake cage. It’s a beauty and ought to be worth almost as much as a giraffe, if only we can get it to a zoo alive. We have enough animals now for a shipment. The cargo ship Kangaroo will be arriving in Mombasa at the end of this week. I think that tomorrow morning we should start our animals to the coast, so that they’ll get there in time to be put aboard that ship,’

  Chapter 20

  The deadly whiskers

  The boys found the python getting his dinner.

  The great snake was nineteen feet long and as big round as Roger. It was as colourful as a rainbow, as graceful as a girl, and as mad as a hornet.

  Ten men were with it inside the cage. One held its head, one its neck, and others gripped its body all the way down to the tip of its tail. They tried desperately to keep it straight, and it tried just as hard to whip loose, wrap its body round one of these pestiferous humans, and squeeze the fife out of him.

  Facing the big snake was Toto, who was trying to force large chunks of meat down the creature’s throat, using a broom-handle as a poker. A newly captured python is too nervous to eat. He must be force-fed, otherwise he may starve to death.

  Toto was performing a dangerous job. True, the python is not poisonous. He does not sting. But he can bite, and his savage teeth slant inwards, so that when they once get locked on your hand or your foot they hang on grimly until the snake is killed.

  Therefore Toto, when he slipped a chunk of meat into the mouth, had to be very careful not to get his hand caught between those vicious jaws. Then he poked the meat back into the throat with the broom-handle. Gradually he pushed it farther back through the gullet, while the angry, wriggling snake tried to spit it out.

  To prevent it from being thrown out, a rope was tied round the throat just in front of the bulge of meat. Then black hands massaged the food back until it reached the snake’s belly. Another tourniquet was tied just in front of the stomach to prevent the food from shooting out like a ball from a cannon.

  The same ticklish business had to be repeated with each chunk of meat. The first tourniquet was opened to let it pass, then closed, the food was stroked down the body, the second tourniquet opened to let it move into the stomach, then the tourniquet was once more pulled tight.

  And all the time the men were pushed from one side to the other by the squirming body until it looked as if they were performing some strange, barbaric dance.

  When the feeding was completed, the neck tourniquet was removed, but the stomach tourniquet was kept on for another ten minutes, until the powerful gastric juices had begun their work upon the meat and it was no longer likely that the food would be thrown out by the excited snake.

  Pythons love water - so the cage was equipped with a large water-trough, and as soon as the men had gone the python slid into it.

  There he lay quiet at last, enjoying the cool bath, only his head above water.

  The boys went on to inspect the giraffes. They too were having a meal. Their dinner tables were fifteen feet high.

  They were not exactly tables but boxes, strapped inside the cage near the top and full of acacia leaves.

  Why so high? Giraffes are used to feeding from the top of thorn-trees. They spend much of the day feeding. If they had to bend their necks down all this time to eat, the strain would be too great and they might sicken and die.

  The hippo was happy, at least as happy as a hippo can be without a river to wallow in. Palm leaves had been placed over the top of the cage to protect him from the sun. Tick birds had wriggled through the bars into the cage and were busily digging their dinner
out of cracks in the hide.

  Then there were the three buffalo cages. Two of the buffalo were as savage as ever, but the one Hal had cared for greeted him with friendly grunts.

  The hyenas paced back and. forth in their cage with heads down as if deep in thought.

  The baby leopards, Chu and Cha, needed no cage and tumbled about the camp head over heels in wild games with the dog, Zulu, and little Bab, the baby baboon.

  Mother Bab sat and watched. When her baby played too roughly, or when he got into mischief among the cook’s pans and dishes, she walked in and swatted him and said to him in very plain baboon language:

  ‘Mind your manners.’

  Every day the three hundred baboons of her tribe came to the edge of the camp. They seemed to argue with her.

  ‘Why don’t you come back with us to the trees and the river?’

  But she politely refused. She would stay with the friends who had saved her young one’s life. The other baboons could understand, for they also had come to look upon the men of the camp as friends, and the many bits of food that were thrown to them cemented the friendship.

  In smaller cages were many little beasts and birds that the men had caught in their spare time - mongooses, honey badgers, jackals, bush-babies, wart-hogs, pelicans, storks, and secretary-birds.

  Altogether it was a good collection. It had meant hard and sometimes dangerous work, but it was worth it.

  The boys sat down to dinner with the contented feeling that they and their African friends had really done a job. They were all the more pleased because their father had been able to hobble out of his tent and join them at the table.

  As they waited to be served, Hal noticed Joro half hidden behind the tents talking with a black stranger. They seemed to be arguing violently. The stranger drew his knife and made such threatening gestures that Hal almost rose from his seat to go to Joro’s assistance. Then he decided to wait and see what happened.

  His father and Roger had their backs turned towards this little drama. Hal alone could witness what was going on.