The Forest God:

Parts 5-8

By Rex Mundy

5: ELEPHANT COUNTRY

The evening of the third day after our departure from the convent found us chugging upstream, going against the sluggish flow of the broad river, slowing to pass sandbars where crocodiles lay like driftwood. Trees towered over us, lining either bank like a dark green wall. Monkeys howled from the treetops. From time to time, beasts crept down to the water to drink, pausing to watch our passage with lambent eyes: gazelles, forest antelope, once a lone lioness, twice entire herds of elephants. Longingly, Colonel Playfair gazed at the brutes, fingers clasped around the stock of his ever present Express rifle.

It grew darker as the sun set, sending tentacles of shadow slithering through the jungle and across the river, until all was swallowed up by the night. From the bank came mysterious rustlings and footfalls, and the glow of eyes. We weighed anchor off the hither shore and Weismann convened a council of war on the main deck, which was illuminated by the boat’s lantern. Everyone attended except Gallagher, who lay in a hammock under a mosquito net on the foredeck, guzzling at a bottle of whisky until he fell asleep. He was missing something, though; Weismann had a gramophone player playing German dance numbers in the background while we were all served with Rhenish wine from his personal collection, carried here upcountry by two of his most trusted boys.

Professor Venables was first to speak. ‘It was two days’ journey upriver from here,’ he told us, ‘when we made our brief contact with the sauropod.’

‘Dankeschön, Herr Professor,’ said Weismann, puffing at a cheroot, ‘for this information, and for agreeing to join us, like Colonel Playfair, as a guide.’ He stressed the final word. ‘As you know, our mission is to find out what has happened to my superior officer. It would be preferable if we did not encounter any prehistoric monsters at all, not that I think it is likely…’

‘Oh, you don’t?’ asked the professor in tones of triumph, gazing upwards. ‘Look, then! Look!’

Sailing across the twilit sky, resembling a larger version of the moths that darted about our deck lantern, was a winged shape; as big as a stork but gliding unlike any bird I have seen. 

Weismann shook his head. ‘A fruit bat, Herr Professor,’ he said pityingly. ‘They are a frequent sight in the jungle night.’

‘Megaloglossus woermanni? Arrant nonsense, lieutenant,’ said the professor. ‘That is Pterodactylus antiquus, or as the vulgar would term it, a pterodactyl. If only I had my Kodak at the ready, and a flash bulb….’

Weismann lifted his field glasses and studied the creature as it soared towards the trees. ‘Definitely a fruit bat,’ he said.

The professor turned to Playfair, ignoring the German’s scepticism. ‘That specimen is of vital significance to science. Procure it for me, if you please!’

‘Righty-ho, professor,’ said the colonel, levelling his rifle. As he fired, the sharp report echoed back from the dark walls of timber on either side, answered by a succession of roars, howls, and yells from the jungle. There was a splash as the bat, or whatever it might have been, fell into the river.

The colonel grinned in satisfaction. ‘Got the blighter,’ he said.

The professor rushed to the rail and peered anxiously down into the dark depths of the river. ‘I don’t seem to see it,’ he murmured. ‘Leutnant, send one of your boys…’

He broke off. Several crocodiles were swimming towards the spot where the mysterious flier had sunk. We heard the snapping of jaws and a crunching sound, and a fight broke out between two of them, during which the specimen, whatever it was, was torn apart.

‘There goes your pterodactyl, Herr Professor,’ said Weismann, stubbing out his cheroot.

‘As I was saying,’ the leutnant went on, ‘the purpose of this mission is not a jolly safari, or an opportunity for professors to find prehistoric monsters or for hunters to shoot big game. We have reason to believe that the natives upriver are distinctly unfriendly, in particular the Kaluana of the swamplands. We must keep our ammunition for encounters with these tribes, not waste them on game.’

‘Perfectly fine with me,’ announced the colonel. ‘I’ll shoot anything; elephants, dinosaurs, natives, you name it. I shot plenty of niggers in Africa and India; Abyssinia ’68, Ashanteland ’73, Afghanistan ’78, Zululand ’79, Sudan, ’84, Burma ’85, Sikkim ’88… When I retired I started shooting animals instead; there ain’t any real difference, y’know, ’cept you can’t get away with mountin’ and stuffin’ them; natives, I mean. People tend to talk, in polite society at least. Oh, I’ll go back to shootin’ darkies like a snap. All the same, with provisions runnin’ low, a few huntin’ trips will come in handy m’dear old cabbage eater, you mark my words.’

Storey stood by the rail, listening broodingly. I joined him, and murmured, ‘Is this getting us anywhere?’

‘Anything we learn here will be of potential value,’ he said. ‘Listen and learn.’

‘Listen to what? A mad professor and a big game hunter bickering with a crazy Kraut?’

Before Storey could reply, Weismann rapped out, ‘Mundy, go below and check the stores. I want to know if we have enough food to last the journey upriver.’

I want to go downriver, I should have said, not up; I want to get out of this colony of lunatics. Instead, I went to the hatch and climbed down into the hold. 

As I switched on my electric torch, I thought I caught movement from one of the corners of the packed little space. I shone it around but saw nothing except crates and bales and sacks.

Dismissing the mystery, I crossed over to the food store and checked through a mishmash of the soldiers’ supplies and what remained of the expedition’s rations. 

How long would we be chasing the elusive von Schaumberg? How much food would everyone need? These were not questions I was qualified to answer, but I didn’t think Weismann would want to hear that. I took out a notepad and made a detailed list of what I could find. Biscuit, bully beef, the inevitable sauerkraut… I halted. One of the tins of bully beef had been opened and its contents were missing.

I rose, frowning. Had the blacks been scrounging? More tins were missing from another crate. This was serious. We didn’t want to find ourselves halfway upriver having to live on the prehistoric monsters Colonel Playfair shot. I paused, thinking furiously.

I went back to the hatch, and climbed the ladder as noisily as I could. Near the top I switched off my electric torch. Then I waited.

I could hear voices from on deck as Weismann and the rest continued to discuss the coming voyage. ‘Where’s Mundy?’ the leutnant was saying. I was about to go and join them when I heard a soft footfall from below.

It came again. Then a rapid pitter-patter of feet, moving in the direction of the food store. When they paused I switched on the torch, training the beam on that precise spot. A dark figure whirled round, then bolted for the furthest corner. I leapt down the ladder, landing awkwardly, then ran or rather limped after them. 

My light revealed a crouching figure trying to burrow itself into the wall. It looked up, blinking in the harsh electric light.

‘No, no, no!’ came a shrill feminine voice. ‘Don’t send me back! Not to the convent!’

I reached out a hand and hauled Sister Veronika to her feet.

‘You’re coming with me, young lady,’ I said, my voice as harsh as my torch beam.

Curtly, Weismann looked her up and down. Sister Veronika’s habit was torn and dirty, her wimple askew. She pouted. Her eyes were downturned, but from time to time she flung the leutnant resentful glances.

‘Was zur Hölle…!’ he had said when I dragged her on deck, and threw down the empty bully beef tin.

‘A stowaway, leutnant,’ I said grimly. 

‘You’re hurting me!’ she complained, tugging at my hand as I gripped her wrist.

‘Let the little mensch go,’ said Weismann commandingly. He rose and looked down at her, taking her chin roughly in his hand and forcing her to meet his gaze. ‘You ran away?’ She nodded silently. ‘We should take you back,’ he told her. ‘The Reverend Mother will be very angry.’

‘Don’ send me back there,’ she pleaded in her soft, low voice. ‘She beat me! She was always beating me! I hate her!’

‘We can’t turn back for this wretched girl’s sake,’ Professor Venables said fussily. ‘We’ve lost enough time as it is.’

‘For once I agree with you, Herr Professor,’ said Weismann. ‘She decided to join the crew, she can stay and make herself useful. Otherwise we throw her overboard to the crocodiles,’ he added with a roar, and laughed when she squealed and ran a short way across deck.

I protested. ‘She can hardly stay on a boat full of soldiers!’ 

I beckoned them closer, and told them what the Mother Superior had told us. ‘The Reverend Mother knows nothing of her complaint,’ the professor declared, ‘if she thinks it can be cured under these conditions.’

‘Furor uterinus?’ 

‘Agitation of the uterus, better known as hysteria,’ said the professor. ‘Caused by the involuntary movement of the womb. Most common in women who are unmarried. “Nubat illa et morbus eugiet”, as Hippocrates so aptly put it. Untreated, it can lead to the dangerous condition known as nymphomania… Stop smirking, Mundy, you’re a grown man.’

‘I believe I know the requisite treatment,’ said Colonel Playfair, taking out his monocle and polishing it.

‘She can work in the galley,’ Leutnant Weismann announced. ‘I cannot believe she can produce worse slop than the current cook.’ He took my list of provisions and studied it by the light of the lantern. ‘Nein, nein,’ he said irritably. ‘This won’t last long enough, Gott in Himmel. We could be upcountry for months.’ Playfair caught his eye, patting the stock of his Express. Weismann nodded. ‘Tomorrow, take a party ashore,’ he told the hunter, ‘and bring us back meat.’

‘Any preferences, old thing?’ Playfair drawled.

Weismann shook his head. ‘All that matters,’ he snapped, ‘is that it’s edible. Gazelle, elephant, monkey, I don’t really care, Herr Colonel. Now, unless there is any other business, gentlemen, I shall be taking to my hammock for the next few hours. Mosoni, post guards.’

The Unteroffizier saluted and went to shake some of the soldiers awake.

We went ashore at first light. Five native soldiers; Colonel Playfair, who had invited me to join him, telling me he thought I looked like a chap who could benefit from manly exercise; and, rather to my annoyance, Sister Veronika. It seemed that the colonel had been toying with the poor innocent’s affections, and had invited her on the hunting expedition, no doubt to shew off his prowess. I did not think a disturbed girl like her should be treated in such a cavalier fashion. She should have been sent back to the convent where she belonged, regardless of how cruelly the Mother Superior might treat her. But I kept quiet.

‘Look yonder!’ Playfair hissed half an hour later.

We had made our gradual way through the bush, the great white hunter questing for spoor and conferring with the natives while Sister Veronika and I lagged behind. A few minutes earlier one of the native soldiers had discovered elephant dung in a clearing. Sister Veronika, seemingly put out that the colonel was too intent on his hunting to speak to her, had been chattering to me about her aspirations, now that she had escaped imprisonment. As her tongue clattered on, Playfair shot her a quelling glance.

In a stretch of open country, a herd of elephants was browsing. Leading them was an astonishing creature: a pure white bull elephant, so white he seemed to glitter in the sunlight. An albino, I assumed.

‘I’ve heard of white elephants in Siam,’ I whispered to Colonel Playfair. He gave me a weary look.

‘Those are Asian elephants, dear old clot,’ he said. ‘White elephants are not unknown in Burma and Indo-China. But albinism in African elephants is particularly rare.’ He stroked the stock of his Express. ‘Love to see that blighter’s bonce on the club wall, what!’

‘He’s beautiful,’ cooed Sister Veronika. ‘You’re surely not going to shoot him?’

Playfair laughed quietly. ‘Poor gel, you still don’t know the facts of life, do you?’ he said. ‘It’s a man’s world out here, girl, and sometimes you have to kill or be killed.’

But the glint in his eye told me that it was sadism, not manly necessity, that drove him. ‘We’re only here for food, colonel,’ I said. ‘Surely a gazelle or two would suffice…’

‘I’ve seen no gazelle here,’ said Playfair, chuckling.

‘I’ve seen monkeys,’ I ventured. ‘Leutnant Weismann mentioned monkeys.’

He gave me a look. ‘Have you ever eaten monkey meat?’

‘Well, no, now you come to mention it …’

‘Take my advice, old thing: don’t bother,’ Playfair told me brusquely. ‘Just the ticket for native wallahs, right enough, but you wouldn’t like it, young fellah. Worse than goat.’ 

I’d never eaten goat either.

The elephants were drawing nearer. Colonel Playfair rose suddenly, put his Express to his shoulder, and opened fire.

6: A SNAG IN THE RIVER

Sometime later, we were heading back down to the river bank, limping through the bush loaded down with elephant meat and elephant teeth. Sister Veronika had refused to carry anything. While Playfair and the soldiers butchered the white elephant she had clung to me and sobbed. I understood perfectly; I’d been a member of the Vegetarian Society myself back in London, although it was difficult to maintain such austere principles while on the run in darkest Africa.

Nor was Colonel Playfair overloaded, carrying only his Express rifle and strutting along like cock of the walk. The natives and I had been the ones burdened by the fruits of his labours. 

As we set off, I looked back to see the carcase of that proud beast scarlet with blood, flies swarming round it, vultures tearing at what meat we had left, while sorrowful elephants watched helplessly from nearby. One thundered forwards, trunk lifted, trumpeting loudly, and the vultures flew up, shrieking. That was the last I saw.

Playfair halted suddenly and unslung his gun, gesturing for everyone to halt. Up ahead, through the trees, something large was moving ponderously. Sister Veronika cried out.

‘Another elephant?’ I said. ‘We’ve got enough meat here, surely, colonel. And that ivory will fetch a pretty price on the coast.’

Playfair glanced at me. ‘Does that sound like an elephant to you, old clot?’

I tried to work out what it was that was forcing its way through the trees but it was too far off, the tree cover too thick. I glimpsed something brown in hue through a gap between two trees, but it was gone so fast I might have dreamed it.

‘Elephants are known to cause damage to woodland,’ I said. ‘But you’re the expert, colonel. Perhaps it’s a rhino. Or a hippo, gone for a stroll.’

‘Maybe,’ said Playfair grimly. ‘Alright, men, proceed, but carefully.’ He repeated his order in the Ugabu language, and the soldiers crept after us as the beast, elephant, rhino or whatever it was, continued to blunder through the trees.

Sister Veronika walked at my side, so close that her thigh brushed against mine. ‘I’m frightened,’ she whispered confidingly.

I squeezed her hand. ‘Don’t be,’ I said. ‘It’s only another elephant. And you saw how the colonel dealt with the last one.’

‘All those poor elephant calves without a daddy,’ she snuffled.

We stepped out into a clearing where vibrant jungle blooms exuded a sickly sweet perfume. A ride had been opened up through the trees on either side, forced apart by the passage of some great beast, crossing our own trail at a thirty degree angle. I heard a crashing sound from the far end, and two trees came down just as if they had fallen to the woodsman’s axe. 

In the distance, a great splash was followed by the sound of something huge submerging.

‘That’s the river down there,’ I cried. The spreading waters were visible now that the forest had been opened up, but I still could not see the creature that had created this devastation; trees and bushes trampled underfoot. ‘It must have gone for a swim. I was right when I suggested a hippo.’

‘Those ain’t hippo tracks.’ Playfair pointed at a set of prints in the soft mud.

The blacks dropped their burdens and went to examine them, horrified. I joined them. The tracks were about five feet wide, giving an idea of the size of the beast that had made them; clawed prints like those of a monitor lizard, but much bigger, Playfair told me.

‘A reptile?’ I asked, rising. Sister Veronika gasped and looked about her wide-eyed. ‘It must be the size of an elephant!’

‘N’yalama! N’yalama! N’yalama!’ the blacks were muttering.

Colonel Playfair laughed. ‘Maybe the dear old professor’s not such a loon after all,’ he said, gripping his rifle possessively. ‘The niggers think it’s the monster. Follow me, you chaps.’

But the soldiers refused to accompany us, clustering round on the path, their white eyes wide, even when Playfair offered to shoot them. ‘Colonel!’ I said diplomatically. ‘We need a rear-guard. Come, we’ll investigate while they keep an eye on the path.’

Playfair lowered his Express, shrugged, and smoothed out his moustaches. ‘Come on then, young fellah,’ he said.

To my surprize Sister Veronika trailed after us. ‘Do you realise we’re going after a monster?’ I asked her.

She shuddered. ‘Anything is better than staying with these low, ignorant persons,’ she said with a sniff. ‘I would rather be with you.’

We followed Playfair down the trail. Several times I saw the reptilian claw marks. The creature that made them had passed this way only a quarter of an hour earlier, but we saw no sign of it even when we reached the river. Except that the water was lapping against the bank. And a bow wave was travelling upstream with nothing visible to make it, as if something was travelling underwater. Sister Veronika clung to me.

Playfair watched the river with his field glasses, but he admitted that he could see nothing more definite than what we had already glimpsed. 

He lowered them and glanced at me.

‘Better get back to the boat,’ he said.

It began to rain. I had learnt to hate the thick, greasy rain of the jungle. It was unpleasantly reminiscent of the worst “rain stopped play” rain of the cricketing season. But Playfair led us back the way we had come, refusing to seek shelter. A true Englishman, our colonel.

Shortly after the rain eased off, we boarded the Wild Rover to receive a curt welcome from Weismann. Professor Venables was in the wheelhouse talking urgently with Gallagher, and smoke was drifting from the chimney as if they were preparing to get under weigh.

‘Took you long enough, didn’t it?’ the leutnant said irritably. ‘Get that meat cured and stowed. What’s this? Elephant’s teeth? Dankeschön, I’ll requisition them. This ivory is now the property of the German Empire. Get aboard! The pilot reported something that might be the Herr Professor’s monster and he wants to go after it.’

Our native soldiers trotted up the gangplank, ostentatiously shouldering their burdens. Playfair grinned sardonically at the leutnant. ‘We also saw something rather peculiar in the bush, found tracks too… But I thought you told us that this expedition was purely military in nature.’

‘The Herr Professor reminded me,’ Weismann said wearily, ‘that I am under orders to aid the expedition if I can. The Fatherland has a reputation for scientific endeavour that is second to none. But that drunken Irish dummkopf no doubt imagined the brute.’

‘Wait until I see it,’ said Playfair, and he went below to replenish his ammunition. To my surprize, Sister Veronika followed him.

Weismann flung up his hands. ‘Why in heaven’s name did you hire that verdammt Irishman?’ he asked the professor.

‘He did come very highly recommended,’ said Venables defensively. ‘Besides, we needed to make economies. Funding was hard to come by, and he did not demand as high a fee as others of his kidney.’

‘Typical British inefficiency,’ Weismann remarked. ‘A German expedition would not so badly organised be.’

While Professor Venables expanded on the theme of inefficiency vis-a-vis German grammar, I joined Storey. He stood at the rail, gazing towards the descending sun. 

‘It certainly could have been a prehistoric monster,’ I murmured, ‘but I saw damn’ little of it.’

‘I should imagine it was simply another hippo,’ he told me.

‘You didn’t see those tracks,’ I said.

The deck lurched, the bell rang, smoke belched from the chimney, and we were under weigh. After getting a good head of steam, Gallagher piloted us out into mid-stream and soon we were chugging up-river again. The native soldiers stood along the side, Mausers at the ready. The Maxim had been deployed beside the rail like an old style swivel gun. Despite his doubts, Weismann was leaving nothing to chance.

The professor joined us, clinging onto his topper with both hands, the wind blowing his lank hair into his face.

‘I really don’t believe all this firepower is necessary,’ he said anxiously. ‘The sauropod is an herbivore.’

‘So is a hippo, professor,’ Storey commented. ‘But they can get pretty tetchy.’

There was a sudden crash. The deck lurched, and men and materiel were sent tumbling as it abruptly adopted a 45 degree angle.

‘That drunken Irish beggar has run us aground!’ I shouted. ‘We’ve hit a sandbank!’ 

Another crash reverberated through the deck. I flung out an arm to grab a passing stanchion as the steamer heeled over. Black smoke choked me, obscuring my view. Another crash, and I could tell we were sinking. 

A shot rang out from the stern, but I couldn’t see who had fired.

As the smoke whipped away in the wind I saw several soldiers in the water. Professor Venables clung to the rail, staring in wonder at something out of sight. Storey was shouting at him to come away. Despairingly my friend seized the professor and dragged him bodily across the sloping deck.

’Mundy, abandon ship!’ he bellowed, manhandling the professor who was trying to climb back up to the rail. ‘We’re sinking.’

My sweaty hands slipped from the rail and I was thrown overboard.

Surfacing, I swam desperately for the bank. Men were shouting and threshing on every side. Storey was towing the professor behind him. ‘I want to go back! I want to go back!’ Venables was shouting.

I heard a scream. Crocodiles had joined us, any number of them, and the water flowed red where they had attacked two swimming soldiers. I turned again and struck out for the bank.

Gallagher was there already, sobered by his swim. He and a bedraggled Leutnant Weismann hauled me out onto the bank. Playfair rose from the waters, monocle still insouciantly in place, rifle slung over one shoulder, Sister Veronika’s sopping form cradled in his arms. With the aid of Mosoni and other surviving soldiers, Storey dragged the professor ashore. At a loud hiss from the river, we looked back to see the chimney of the paddle steamer sinking inexorably beneath the surface.

Crocodiles still tore at bloody chunks that bobbed in the water. But I saw no sign of anything that might have sunk us.

Playfair plopped Sister Veronika down, unslung his Express, and fired at the crocodiles, but they paid him scant attention. ‘Where’s that brute?’ he muttered. ‘I saw it momentarily, exactly as my dear old pineapple described it. Just let me get a shot at it…’

‘Into the bush,’ Weismann commanded. On his coldly handsome Prussian face was a look of uncomprehending horror.

That night we camped as far from the riverbank as we could, on an area of solid ground in the middle of swamps, where we lit a fire and erected another thorn boma. Unteroffizier Mosoni, Colonel Playfair, Storey, the four surviving native soldiers, and I, did the work. Leutnant Weismann kept watch over the professor. The latter was very weak and dispirited after a second encounter with the beast—if that was truly what had sunk us. Sister Veronika was suffering from fits of hysteria. Gallagher had somehow salvaged a flask of whisky before abandoning ship, and he lay beside the fire in a drunken funk.

By the time we finished work on the rough fence, Sister Veronika was quiet, and we were all feeling exhausted, native soldiers included; all of us except for Colonel Playfair. This man of iron stood up, shouldered his rifle, and elected himself for first watch. Weismann waved a hand dismally in agreement. ‘Mundy next, then Storey, then Mosoni,’ he said with a sigh.

I lay down by the fire and fell asleep.

I was woken by strange, soft, gentle moans from the forest.

Was it an animal? I peered out into the darkness. Otherwise the night was still and silent but for the crackle of the fire.

Rolling over I saw Storey, propped up on one arm, gazing curiously at me. Everyone else was asleep. Colonel Playfair was not there, but of course, he was on guard. Sister Veronika was also absent.

‘What the devil is that noise?’ I asked as the moaning grew louder.

‘I believe the good colonel is administering treatment for Sister Veronika’s complaint,’ said Storey.

I stared at him. The penny dropped.

‘You don’t mean…? Why, the cad!’

A shot rang out. Sister Veronika’s scream tore through the velvet night.

I sprang to my feet. Weismann woke shouting, and the other sleepers burst awake. Storey jumped up. I seized a burning brand from the fire and ran.

Almost immediately I found them. Sister Veronika lay on her back in the middle of a small clearing, her habit hauled up to her midriff, blood spattered across her naked belly, as she shrieked hysterically. Playfair lolled on top of her, his shorts round his ankles, his Express on the ground nearby. I seized the bounder’s arm and angrily swung him round.

My rage dissipated at once. A red bullet hole had been drilled neatly between his eyebrows. As I let go of his body in horror, and it keeled over to sprawl on the ground, I heard a crashing from above. As if some primate was swinging away through the trees.

‘Wh-what happened?’ I demanded of the nun. ‘Did his rifle go off?’ 

But Sister Veronika wouldn’t stop screaming. ‘I know another traditional cure for hysteria,’ said Storey grimly, joining me. He slapped her hard across the face, and she subsided, sobbing.

‘Someone shot him with his own rifle!’ he added, inspecting the corpse. ‘Who did this, girl? Was it a native?’

She looked up again, her face white as milk, struggling to speak. As the others hurried up to join us, she managed to spit out:

‘It… it was him… it was the… the Great White Ape! The Forest God!’

7: DRUMS IN THE FOREST 

‘It seems,’ Leutnant Weismann said thoughtfully, ‘that we have two enemies.’

‘Both apparently creatures from native superstition,’ Storey commented. ‘If this new murder is the work of the same killer he has changed his modus operandi.’

‘White Ape kill those who anger him,’ Mosoni said. ‘Him angry god,’ he added, clutching at his crucifix as if it were a juju fetish.

Professor Venables took off his top hat and mopped at his brow. ‘In folklore these types of spirits always display some kind of judicial aspect,’ he explained in the dry tones of a lecturer. ‘They are personifications of retribution.’

‘Thank you, professor,’ said Storey, ‘but I was talking with the Unteroffizier. Precisely what angers the Forest God?’ he asked Mosoni.

The black looked scared. ‘Killing his people, killing his beasts,’ he said.

Gallagher lurched forwards. ‘The colonel shot the white elephant!’ he slurred. ‘Cut the poor little crature up and stuck the bits in me hold. Jayzus Mary and Joseph forgive us our trespasses as we forgive dose dat trespass against us..!’

‘But what of the sauropod?’ Professor Venables asked. ‘It was he who sank the Wild Rover.’

‘I saw no dinosaur,’ said Storey. ‘Gallagher struck a snag, or perhaps a larger than usual hippo tore out the bottom of the boat.’

‘Oi saw it, Oi did!’ Gallagher cried. ‘After we hit, as we wis goin’ down!’ He took a long swig from his hip flask. ‘Eyes like fire, skin like a snake’s. It wis the devil himself, or worse!’

The native soldiers clutched each other, moaning. ‘We should go downstream,’ said I, from where I had been trying to comfort the sobbing Sister Veronika, ‘to the coast. We’ve lost the boat, most of the boys, and most of our supplies. And we’re being hunted by creatures out of native myth. Time we returned to civilisation.’

‘Ye’re right, sorr!’ said Gallagher. ‘We can’t shtay in dis horrible forest any longer! But we’ll never get home. The devils have got us marked. What did Oi tell ye? Oi’m a true prophet, so Oi am. We’re all doomed to tirrible deaths!’

‘It is our duty to science to remain here,’ said Professor Venables in forthright tones. ‘Now we have encountered the sauropod twice, there can be no doubt as to its survival in these backwaters. But this will not be enough to convince the Royal Society.’ He tutted. ‘I have lost all my luggage. My Kodak and all my photographic equipment are at the bottom of the river, my priceless butterfly collection too. But we must go on. We must find proof positive that the sauropod exists.’

‘How?’ said Weismann with a cold laugh. ‘Shoot it? We only have three rifles and a pistol left, and barely any ammunition. Capture it? Impossible! I did not see it. Storey could be right that it was only a large hippopotamus.’ He tugged thoughtfully at his little beard. ‘But I agree that we must go on. This mission will not end because of a small snag.’

Everyone started talking at once. Storey called sharply for quiet. ‘If the leutnant says we go on, we go on,’ he said. Weismann gave him a grateful, slightly suspicious look. ‘We are under his orders. But might I suggest that we bury Colonel Playfair before we catch some sleep? Oh, and Gallagher, I think you should share that whisky with Sister Veronika. She has had a terrible shock.’

I prised Gallagher’s hip flask from his shaking fingers and put it to Sister Veronika’s lips. I had already tugged down her habit to cover her modesty, and once I had dribbled enough whisky down her throat to calm her, I assisted her back into the boma. Weismann left the soldiers on guard while the rest of us slept. I lay down beside Sister Veronika, who had already fallen into a slumber, disturbed, unsurprisingly, by terrible dreams.

My own dreams were far from pleasant. I was back in the courtroom, while the judge read the sentence. All at once he and the constables all turned into monsters from a Chinaman’s opium dream and chased me through an endless series of swamps where giant apes hung from the trees, trying to snatch me away. They began shouting angrily, but soon the shouting died away…

I awoke with a start, drenched with sweat, to see the sun had already risen. What had woken me?

I sat up. Mosoni stood in the entrance to the boma, clutching at his head. Staggering, he clung onto the thorny fence for support. I ran to his aid, supporting him and bringing him back to the fire, which still gave off some heat although it was mostly white ashes. Storey had sat up and was watching us, Playfair’s hunting rifle over his knee. The rest still slept.

‘What happened?’ I whispered fearfully. ‘The White Ape?’

Mosoni grunted. ‘Me say we stay, sah. Them say go. We fight. One strike me.’

‘The soldiers?’ Storey asked. ‘They’ve deserted?’

Weismann awoke. Bleary eyed, he interrogated Mosoni. The story was simple: the soldiers had wanted to desert us; our loyal unteroffizier had told them to stay. They had been scared out of their wits by the belief that we had angered the Forest God, and he had set N’yalama on us. Mosoni kept his simple faith in the power of his crucifix and his loyalty to Leutnant Weismann. There had been a fight, someone had hit Mosoni over the head. Exactly when all this had happened he could not say, but it had still been dark. Weismann stamped up and down, muttering about summary executions and firing squads when we caught up with them. If we caught up with them.

‘Now we have no chance!’ Gallagher said when he awoke and learnt what had happened. ‘We should go back!’

Weismann shook his head. Dark circles ringed his eyes, but the latter gleamed like those of a fanatic. ‘We go on,’ he said. ‘We will find another village and recruit more soldiers. Mosoni, you know this country better than the rest of us. Where is the nearest village?’

He looked scared. ‘There is village,’ he said, ‘but…’

‘But nothing,’ said Professor Venables dismissively. ‘We will be unable to continue the expedition under these conditions, but with more bearers and knowledgeable local guides we can keep searching for the sauropod.’

‘Herr Professor, may I remind you that we are looking for von Schaumberg,’ Weismann said. ‘That is the purpose of this mission. As far as sauropods or killer apes are concerned, they are nothing but a hindrance.’ He removed the magazine from his Luger, inspected it, and nodded with satisfaction. ‘I have twelve rounds. They shall be employed in dealing with anyone, man or beast, who retards the objectives of this mission. Do I make myself clear?’

He punctuated his question with a sharp snap as he replaced the magazine.

We continued after a scanty breakfast of bully beef and biscuit, the last of our provisions, which we washed down with nips of Gallagher’s whisky. From now until we entered the village we would live off the land.

We went on as long as daylight lasted, pausing only to shelter from the rain beneath overhanging fronds. The far off throb of a drum began to echo down the long avenues of swamp trees. More drums joined the first, further off. It was difficult to pinpoint their position, and at times it seemed that they were coming from several different directions at once. 

They were monotonous and oppressive, threatening. Professor Venables explained that the sound of drums meant that we were nearing an inhabited district, and I hoped that he was right. But when quizzed, Unteroffizier Mosoni was close mouthed.

‘This village must be nearby, then,’ said Weismann. ‘You can take us there, ja?’

The negro soldier shrugged sullenly, but gestured for us to follow.

Our path led us through the swamplands. The air was heavy, close. Frequently we had to wade thigh deep through murky waters infested with hideous life. Every time we reached solid ground, Storey insisted we check each other for leeches. With no salt we had to light fires to burn them off. 

Sometimes we couldn’t even manage that; we had to pull them off and trust to luck that the jaws would not stay embedded in our flesh. The first time I found them on Sister Veronika’s thighs, she shrieked so loud as to send the jungle birds into flight, while the monkeys screamed back in endless mockery.

Mosoni went ahead, cutting a way through the vegetation with a machete. The putrid stink of rotting vegetation hung in the wet air. Fronds drooped over the path, dripping with moisture. Creepers and lianas hung down like stranglers’ nooses. Snakes coiled menacingly on overhead branches. Flies lurked in clouds and pestered us as we passed. Once we reached a stretch of seemingly solid ground, only to discover that it was quicksand, into which the heedless Gallagher vanished up to his neck. It was over an hour before we succeeded in freeing him.

‘The luck av the Irish, beggorah,’ he said with something of his old merriment.

When it began to grow dark, I thought I heard something following us. Movement from the forest canopy that at first I dismissed as the sound of unseen apes or monkeys. But as we followed a trail between the trees I heard it again; something leaping from branch to branch. 

Several times I stopped and looked back, shading my eyes against the last rays of the setting sun, trying to work out what it was. I saw nothing but endlessly swaying leaves. But the sounds kept following us.

Weismann called a halt. None of us had the energy to erect any kind of boma, and besides thorns were in short supply in the swamp. Instead we bedded down on a dry tussock, and took it in turns to sleep. Storey took the first watch, Mosoni the second, and I came after him. When it came to my turn I sat clutching the Express rifle Storey had taken from Playfair’s corpse, staring out into the darkness and coughing as the fire blew smoke in my face no matter where I sat.

Moving about in an attempt to evade this nuisance, I inadvertently woke Sister Veronika, who rose yawning and came to sit with me. Her nun’s habit was torn and stained with mud, and she had pulled down her wimple so her hair cascaded to her shoulders. Without it the mulatto girl had lost the look of innocence that so beguiled me.

‘Why do we go on?’ she asked.

‘The leutnant wants to find his superior officer,’ I said. ‘Besides, when we reach this village things will be different.’

‘But what village is out here?’ she asked. ‘Out in the swamp? What kind of savages live out here?’

I regarded her coffee coloured skin and thick, frizzy black hair. ‘Where do you come from, Sister Veronika?’

She pouted in that way she had. ‘My real name is Gretchen,’ she confided, moving very close. ‘Gretchen Kaufmann. My father is from Germany, same as Leutnant Weismann.’

‘And your mother?’

She looked away. ‘I never knew her.’ She grimaced. ‘She was a… she was a native. Of the Luganza tribe. My father bought her for a few bags of salt, some brass wire, and a yard of chintz. She died before I was three years old. My father was busy as a trader. He had no time to look after a little girl, so I lived among the natives, on the coast. I ran wild. When he saw how I had grown on coming back from a trip into the bush, he had me packed off to that convent.’ She slid her arm round my waist, pressed herself up against me. ‘I hated it there. I was stifled. I only want to be free!’

‘And now you are.’ I said this in what I thought to be a comforting tone, but to my embarrassment she began to cry into my shoulder.

Something moved amongst the leaves. I looked up, gripping the rifle, and for a moment the starlight that filtered through the branches was blocked off by something… something that was too big to be aught but the biggest of apes. I tensed. Sister Veronika was too intent on her own misery to notice. I heard a crash from the boughs a short way away and saw that the stars were visible again.

I lowered my rifle, and took Sister Veronika’s hands in mine. She looked up hopefully, blinking away tears. I gave her a chaste, brotherly kiss on her broad brow.

‘I think you had better get some sleep,’ I told her.

She pouted again and turned away.

8: EATEN BY THE ANTS

In the morning, Mosoni was missing.

‘But he was always so loyal,’ Leutnant Weismann said plaintively.

Professor Venables shook his head. ‘Gone to join the other blacks,’ he grunted. ‘They are terrified of the Forest God, and they know that he is following us. Mosoni has gone.’

‘Leaving us high and dry,’ I complained. The mud squelched beneath my boots. ‘Would that it were so,’ I added, with a grim laugh.

‘Let’s face it,’ Storey said pragmatically. ‘The man has gone. We must keep going.’

But we found Mosoni shortly afterwards. All that was left of him. The ants had found him first.

I was at the head of the line, so I was the first to see him. We had found a path leading along dry ground through the swamp, and naturally we followed it. So, it seemed, had Mosoni. At first I barely noticed him, lashed as he was to the bole of a tree; my attention was drawn by a sudden flurry of large birds, shooting upwards from the jungle and vanishing into the morning mist. I stopped dead, staring, and Gallagher, who was right behind me, cursed me as he staggered into my back.

‘Why don’t ye look where ye’re going, ye great English bollix?’ he said. Then, ‘Jayzus Mary an’ Joseph!’

He broke off, staring at the corpse that had been bound to the tree by lianas. Both of us stared. I drew closer, grimacing at the smell as flies flew up in black clouds. Ants were scurrying across the jungle floor, long lines of them that led up the side of the tree, up Mosoni’s already putrefying flesh, to the great gash in his throat that had evidently killed him.

I heard a squawk from high above and looking up I saw vultures gathered on the high branches. By the look of them they were the birds I had seen earlier, and if Mosoni was any guide, they had feasted well on his flesh, as had as the ants. Several took off and began circling restlessly.

A corpse does not last long in tropical jungle, and the putrefaction of Mosoni’s carcase had been exacerbated by these scavengers. Much of the flesh of his jaw had been eaten away. His teeth grinned nakedly. 

I put my hand to my mouth, turning away to Gallagher, who was already spewing beside a big conifer. Storey appeared down the trail.

‘What’s that smell?’ he greeted me. I queasily pointed at Mosoni’s corpse and joined Gallagher.

By the time I had finished vomiting, Weismann, Professor Venables and Sister Veronika had all joined us. The nun fainted on seeing the corpse, and Venables did what he could to make her comfortable. Weismann and Storey examined the rancid remains.

‘Cause of death: a knife, probably of steel,’ said Storey clinically, after a close examination with his magnifying glass. ‘Despite the onset of decay, we know it can hardly have been more than…’ He raised his voice. ‘Who was the last to see the Unteroffizier?’

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. ‘He was on sentry go before I was.’

‘So he was snatched sometime after midnight,’ said Storey. ‘Did you hear anything?’

‘I heard something,’ I said guiltily. ‘But I was… distracted.’

Storey looked knowingly at Sister Veronika, who was sitting up with Professor Venables’ help. I grimaced and went to her side. She smiled palely at me, then saw Mosoni’s corpse and buried her head in my breast.

‘Snatched?’ Weismann said. ‘Why do you say snatched?’

Storey indicated the corpse. ‘Perhaps he left the camp,’ he said. ‘And perhaps he was murdered as he made his way through the midnight forest. But going by earlier incidents, I should think the killer seized him and carried him away, then cut his throat and left him here for us to find.’

‘A steel blade, you maintain,’ Weismann said.

‘Going by the cleanness of the cut,’ said Storey. ‘The hilt has created bruising, by which we know that it was a knife. The blade cut the deceased’s throat from his left to his right, with considerable force. That, and this sadistic taunting of us, adds up to some kind of malign intelligence.’

‘All the more reason to keep moving,’ I said. ‘We don’t have to stay here, and the longer we do, the more the chance of the Great White Ape returning.’

‘What kind of ape is capable of using a steel blade?’ the Leutnant mused as we continued. ‘Could he have stolen it? From a trader, perhaps?’

‘This “ape” also knew how to fire Playfair’s hunting rifle,’ said Storey. ‘A very intelligent ape indeed.’

The countryside began to change. We rose above the level of the swamp to find ourselves amongst pines and monkey puzzle trees. The air was clearer here, less humid. After a while, the conifers gave way to tree ferns. A dragonfly of remarkable size hummed past. Professor Venables looked about him excitedly.

‘You see?’ he said. ‘You see?’

‘See what, professor?’ asked Weismann, looking around in puzzlement.

‘These trees,’ said the professor. ‘Some of them are millions of years old. Oh, not the individual plants,’ he added, seeing a look of scepticism on the leutnant’s face, ‘the species! These trees have existed since the Mesozoic—the Age of Reptiles—if not longer. Proof that conditions in these parts have changed little for millions of years.’ 

‘What of it?’ I asked.

‘Why,’ said the professor, astounded, ‘further proof, if any is needed, that these are conditions in which a sauropod dinosaur could have survived while the rest of his genus died out.’

‘I see no reason to believe that we encountered anything other than a hippopotamus,’ Weismann said curtly. ‘Besides, we have left that threat behind us since we climbed up out of the swamp. What matters more is this so-called ape. Do you know of any ape, extinct or otherwise, capable of using tools and weapons?’

Professor Venables did not speak for a while. As we walked on down the trail, he muttered to himself, scowling, ‘Some kind of missing link…?’ But even he did not sound convinced.

To my dismay, the path began to incline downwards again. Swamp was visible on either side of us, deep water, much of it. The path petered out and we began to wade. Where to was anyone’s guess, except Weismann seemed to have some idea.

‘If we’ve got to go t’rough der water,’ Gallagher said as we halted for a rest on a small island, ‘it moight be better if we made some kind of canoes. Pirogues, like the natives use. Oi saw some on the river.’

‘I came upriver in such a canoe,’ Weismann said. ‘Slow going, however. I requisitioned your vessel because I thought it would be faster.’ He sized up the nearby woodland. ‘We have nothing with which to fell a tree,’ he said, ‘and nothing with which to hollow out the trunk.’

‘We can’t just keep wandering in circles,’ I cried. ‘Where are we going, anyway?’

Weismann shrugged. ‘To the village,’ he said. 

‘Mosoni was supposed to be leading us there.’

‘We should go back,’ said Sister Veronika. ‘We are lost.’

‘Missing the convent now, are we, my dear?’ Weismann sneered. ‘But that is precisely why we must go on. We are lost, young woman, as you so rightly say. Our only hope is to keep moving and to endeavour to locate the village or its inhabitants.’

‘Hope, says the man. Hope!’ Gallagher cried. ‘Himself has gone all cracked.’ 

‘Look!’ Storey jerked.

I saw a trail of ripples crossing a stretch of water between two trees, as if a small vessel had just passed that way.

‘What was it?’ Weismann asked.

‘A canoe,’ said Storey. ‘Three or four natives, paddling quietly. It looked as if they had been fishing.’

‘Juhu!’ Weismann whooped. ‘Then the village must be close,’ he said. ‘Quickly, everyone, we shall go in that direction.’

‘Wait a moment,’ I said. ‘Are you sure we want to go there?’

Everyone stared at me. ‘Mosoni didn’t seem very certain,’ I added. ‘And didn’t you say that the people of the swamps are unfriendly?’

The leutnant patted the butt of his Luger. ‘They are subjects of the German Empire,’ he said, ‘and besides, the gun has a way of securing friendship from the most truculent of natives. We need help! And these villagers, whoever they may be, will provide us with it. Then we can continue our search for Hauptmann von Schaumberg.’

We began wading again. Weismann took the lead, Gallagher behind him, taking surreptitious swigs from his seemingly inexhaustible hip flask. Sister Veronika and Professor Venables were in the middle. Storey and I brought up the rear.

‘German metaphysics was always a bit beyond me,’ I remarked in an undertone, ‘but it seemed to me that his argument lacked a certain logic.’

‘The leutnant has his own reasons,’ said Storey.

‘For leading us to our doom?’ I asked. ‘Because that is what he is doing. We’re lost in a swamp that covers half a continent. We have barely anything to eat, very few weapons, and the ammunition’s running low. And we…’

Weismann urgently gestured for silence.

We had reached a large pool. The trunks of the surrounding trees were mirrored in its dark, calm waters. Gorgeous, brightly hued orchids grew on the shore, exuding a scent that went some way to mask the stink of corruption. On the far side a bank sloped up towards a clearing hewn from the surrounding forest. Several cone-shaped beehive huts stood there, smoke drifting upwards. About twenty dugout canoes had been hauled up onto the bank.

‘This is it,’ said Weismann. ‘Now, we must devise a strategy…’

‘We could always just walk in and say hullo,’ I said, and Gallagher laughed until he cried.

Weismann shook his head irritably. ‘We must not shew any weakness,’ he said. ‘We represent the Kaiser! We must impress them from the outset.’ He took off his helmet and polished the spike with the sleeve of his uniform jacket. Then he loosened the flap of his holster, and drew out his Luger. ‘Storey, Mundy, Gallagher,’ he said. ‘Load your rifles. Professor Venables, Sister Veronika, you must remain at the rear.’

We waded round the edge of the pool and approached the village. It was quiet, seemingly deserted apart from the smoke that still trailed up from the huts. Where was everyone? Had they been warned off our approach and gone to ground? Were they waiting to ambush us? The village consisted of twelve or thirteen huts, two of which were bigger than the others. 

Professor Venables said that one of these would be the hut of the chief, the other the juju house. Racks alongside the bank were hung with drying flesh. But all was quiet, except for the clucking of a few chickens pecking in the dirt between the huts.

Weismann led us at a slow march up the narrow village street. We followed, rifles at the ready, looking warily about us, Professor Venables and Sister Veronika at our back. 

We halted in the middle of the village. Weismann nodded to me. ‘Inspect the huts,’ he said.

Reluctantly, I approached the biggest one, the one the professor thought belonged to the village chief or headman. A woven blanket hung over the main door. With my left hand, I pulled it back, and peered inside.

On the far side was a dais, behind which the wall was carved with the figures of men and beasts. Sitting upon a stool in the shadows was a grossly fat black woman. Seeing me peering in, she gave me a big, friendly grin.

Then the other huts began disgorging dozens of happy, smiling black people, men, women, children, all wearing little more than skirts or wraps of homespun cloth. Drums began to beat and throb. From out of the juju house bounded a bizarrely clad man wearing a high mask in the form of a lion’s face. He lifted his hands high, brandishing a staff ornamented with feathers, and began to dance and caper. His skin, where it was visible, was a sickly shade of white.

The people began to sing in deep clear voices and to dance with slow, shuffling steps. Weismann, who had drawn his Luger the moment a black face appeared, lifted it up as if to fire a warning shot.

‘Don’t be a fool, lieutenant,’ said Professor Venables. ‘Can you not see that these people are friendly?’

He pushed past me and stepped out into the open, smiling at the capering witch doctor. Two dusky maidens hastened forwards and placed a wreath of orchid flowers around his neck.