‘Then what do you do to show that you are a man?’
‘Act like one. Use your own head, and don’t bother about other people’s heads. Surely they wouldn’t think you were a man if you killed a woman or a baby.’
‘lt makes no difference so long as I get a head. Until I do I am just a boy. You go with me over the mountain to the village of our enemies? We will hide in the woods near the village. Perhaps a child will be playing there. We will chop off its head and bring it home.’
‘Pug, do you really think that would be a brave thing to do?
Pug did not answer at once. They walked on in silence.
‘Not brave,’ Pug admitted. ‘It is just our custom. I don’t like it. I hate it. But what can I do?’
‘You can be man enough not to do it.’
It was a new thought to Pug. He stopped and studied Roger as if he had not seen him before. ‘You really think that? But the custom?’
‘Change the custom. You are the leader of all the boys in your village. If you refuse to do this, I think they may follow your example. Your people have a lot of good customs. This is a bad one. Get rid of it.’
Pug did not reply. But he seemed to brace up, walk with a stronger step, and seem more like a man already.
‘There’s a kangaroo,’ he said presently.
Roger scanned the underbrush but saw nothing.
‘Up in the tree,’ Pug said.
‘Kangaroos don’t climb trees.’
‘Our kind does. See it, away up there? I will get it.’
Hal and Pavo who had been walking ahead, came back to watch.
‘That will be a real prize if he can catch it,’ Hal said. ‘It’s quite different from the Australian kangaroo. We call it the tree kangaroo because it is the only sort that climbs trees.’
Pug was already halfway up, climbing swiftly from branch to branch. He was a sort of tree kangaroo himself. The animal climbed a little higher. It was a female, and in the pouch
or pocket below her breast she carried an infant that looked out over the edge with big eyes.
The regular kangaroo does not use its hands much and they are rather small and weak. But clinging to branches had made this animal’s hands powerful and both they and her feet were armed with sharp claws that made climbing easy.
‘Her tail is longer than her body,’ Roger said. ‘Does she hang on with it like a monkey?’
Hal shook his head. ‘It’s not that kind of a tail. It acts like another foot. Watch and you’ll see how she uses it.’
The kangaroo was going out on a branch to get farther away from the climbing boy. It’s not easy to walk out on a branch and keep your balance. But with a tail like this one it could be done. The tail was stretched out to another branch for support and the animal walked as steadily as an acrobat on a tightrope.
Pug crawled out on the branch. He was just about to lay his hand on the kangaroo when it jumped to the ground. The distance was a good forty feet, the height of a four-storey building.
‘It will be killed,’ Roger said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said his naturalist brother.
The ‘roo landed neatly feet first. It had come down with almost the speed of a bullet. Yet its legs easily took the shock.-T]hey were like steel springs.
‘They’ve been known to drop even farther than that,’ Hal said. ‘Quick, let’s grab it before it gets away.’
But the creature had disappeared. ‘Where is it?’ said Roger, looking about.
‘Up there.’ Sure enough, the great jumper was ten feet above their heads, in the middle of a long leap that carried it to a distance of almost thirty feet.
Hal dashed after it. He was there to catch it when it landed. He seized one of its hands. It twisted about, tied itself into knots, but could not escape Hal’s firm grip. Roger seized the other hand.
‘Will it bite?’ he asked.
‘Not likely. But look out for the feet. It can kick the daylights out of you.’
The grass-eating animal was not vicious, only frightened. Roger talked to it in a low tone. ‘Don’t be afraid. We won’t hurt you.’
The baby ‘roo was not to be seen.
‘Did it fall out? If so, it must have been killed.’
But the baby was only hiding. Hal put his hand down into the mother’s pouch. He brought up the wide-eyed youngster. It was only as long as Hal’s hand.
‘How small it is,’ Roger said. ‘It must have just been born.’
‘No, it was only about an inch long when it was born.’
‘Won’t it jump out of the pouch and escape?’
‘Not a chance. Instead of jumping out it will get as far down inside the pouch as it can.’
He let go of the baby and it immediately dived down to the bottom of the pocket.
‘But it has to come out sometime,’ Roger objected. ‘It must eat.’
It’s mother’s nipples are down inside the pouch. It can feed whenever it wants to. It will stay there for five or six months.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Even after that,’ Hal said, ‘when it’s able to come out and eat grass it will hop back again whenever it is hungry or tired or frightened. Look! There’s something else we want.’
Roger looked up. Above him was a great eucalyptus tree and on its lowest branch some child had left her teddy bear.
So it appeared to Roger - but suddenly the doll came to life and started to clamber up to a safer perch. Roger got hold of it just in time. It did not struggle, but looked at Roger with eyes that seemed to ask, ‘Friend or enemy?’
‘Friend,’ Roger said. He looked up into other trees for more charming little beasts like this one.
‘No use looking into those trees,’ Hal said. ‘The koala bear eats nothing but eucalyptus leaves.’
‘It’s so small - is it really a bear?’
‘No. They just call it that because it looks like one.’
‘What does “koala” mean?’
‘It means “the one who does not drink”.’
‘But surely it drinks. Every animal has to drink.’
‘The koala doesn’t. It gets enough moisture from the dew, and the juice in the eucalyptus leaves. Dad will be glad to have this. It’s one of the things he especially asked us to get for him.’
‘Hang on to the kangaroo,’ Roger said. ‘I’m going back to get Teddy a nice lunch.’
Roger gathered the largest and most succulent eucalyptus leaves he could find and fed them to the koala. That sealed the bond between the boy and the beast. The ancestors of this koala for hundreds of years had been loved and not harmed by human beings, so Teddy made peace with Roger at once and clambered up on his shoulder. Since it was mostly a ball of fur it was easy to carry and showed no desire to get away, but just to make sure, Roger held one of its small hands in his.
Several small animals were discovered and dropped into the sacks of the four hunters.
One was a Great Flying Phalanger. Only this one was not great And it did a poor job of flying. It was too young to have fully mastered the art. When it was grown up it would be able to glide from tree to tree like a flying squirrel or flying fox. But this youngster fell to earth just in front of Pug and he grabbed it.
Although young, it was old enough to have a baby in its pouch, but a smaller baby it would be hard to imagine. This bit of life was only a quarter of an inch long.
Now they had three animals that wore pockets - the kangaroo, the koala, and the phalanger.
‘I’ve forgotten,’ Roger said, ‘what you call animals that have pouches.’
‘Marsupials,’ Hal said. ‘And here’s another. A wombat.’
The wombat was easily picked up. It was slow and gentle and did not appear to mind being fondled and then placed in a sack.
This seemed to be the morning for marsupials. The next was a cuscus and Pavo, who had the keen nose of a savage, caught its smell and found it among the leaves on the ground. ft had a lovely woolly coat, a long tail and very bi
g round eyes.
‘We roast it - it tastes very good.’
‘You won’t roast this one,’ Hal said. ‘It is something Dad especially asked us to get.’
It was Roger who found the bandicoot, another marsupial about the size of a rabbit, with long, strong hind legs, a snout like an anteater’s and sharp claws.
That completed the collection of marsupials. The next captive was a small cassowary which, when it grew up, would be five feet tall and as bold and dangerous as an ostrich. It wore a helmet, a ridge on top of its head that was an intense blue, purple, and scarlet, all at once. It had already learned to grunt, bellow and snort like a grown-up and kick both forward and back with great strength. Its -eyes were already fierce and its claws as sharp as needles.
‘We took an animal that flies,’ Hal said. ‘And now we take a bird that walks.’
‘Can’t the cassowary fly?’
‘Not to speak of,’ Hal said. ‘It’s like the ostrich. It’s too heavy and its wings are too short for good flying.’
But the greatest surprise of this very successful hunt was a stranger in New Guinea. There it sat in the low crotch of a tree eating a piece of fruit.
‘What luck,’ Hal exclaimed. ‘It’s an orang-utan.’
‘But I thought they lived in Borneo,’ Roger said.
‘They do. But ships carrying animals from Borneo have put in at New Guinea ports and some of the orang-utans escaped. Not many, but they have multiplied, and they find New Guinea as good a home as Borneo. They like the forest - in fact orang-utan means “man of the woods”.’
The animal acted like a man - he did not have the least fear of these men.
He slipped down out of the crotch and stood up. He was a good six feet tall. His hair was a shaggy, reddish brown, his face dark yellow.
But the most amazing thing about him were his huge hands, as big as footballs, and his tremendously long arms. Though he stood erect the knuckles of his hands touched the ground. When he lifted his arms and spread them out they spanned eight feet.
‘I never saw such arms,’ Roger said. ‘I’d hate to have him hug me.’
‘Look up there,’ Hal said. ‘That’s his tree house. We’ve seen a bird that prefers the ground and now here’s a beast that lives in the trees. He can swing from branch to branch and from tree to tree faster than a man can walk. That’s pretty good for a creature weighing more than two hundred pounds.’
‘He has whiskers,’ Roger said. ‘And a double chin. Just like an old man.’
‘In some ways he’s more manlike than a chimp or a gorilla,’ Hal said. ‘His brain is built more like man’s.’
Roger pulled a papaya from his pocket and held it out. The orang fearlessly stepped forward and took it and muttered something that was probably orang language for ‘Thank you’. He ate it, then looked at the four hunters as if he would like to join their company.
‘He’s probably lonesome,’ Hal said. ‘He probably hasn’t many orang friends, if any. Let’s see if he will go along with us.’
He quietly reached down to the ground and took one of the orang’s ham-size hands. Pavo took the other. Together they turned towards the village. Behind than came Roger and Pug holding the hands of the kangaroo. It was a curious procession and quite amazed the people of the village of Eilanden. Captain Ted came ashore in the dinghy and took the entire zoo to the ship.
He particularly admired the great orang-utan.
‘Now there’s a rare one,’ he said. ‘What’s he worth?’
‘Anywhere from ten to twenty, thousand dollars. But I think Dad will want to keep him for a while. He’ll be almost like a member of the family.’
Chapter 25
Shark trouble
The next day Pug came with bad news. Roger met him as he climbed on board. He knew at once that something was wrong. His pal’s eyes were red from weeping.
‘What’s the matter, Pug?’
‘My sister - dead.’
Hal came up. ‘Did I hear you say something happened to your sister?’
‘She was bathing in the river. A shark killed her.’
‘Are you sure it was a shark?’
‘It was white all over - except the thing on top - you call it a fin. It was black. Very big fish. Almost as long as this ship. Mouth as big as the door to your cabin.’
‘Sounds like a Great White to me,’ Hal said. ‘The one they call the White Death. Worst of all the sharks. Let me look at your sister - I’ll see if she is really dead or just stunned. Where is she?’
‘Gone.’
‘How could she be gone?’
‘Inside shark.’
Captain Ted heard this. ‘That’s a tall story,’ he said. ‘It must have been something else. Sharks live in the sea. They don’t come up rivers.’
‘I’m inclined to believe the boy,’ Hal said. ‘You know the sea, Ted, but perhaps you haven’t had as much experience with rivers. Sharks go up the Amazon two thousand miles. Sharks swim up the Ganges and attack bathers at Benares. Sharks are in fresh-water lakes like Nicaragua.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the captain. ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
‘Well, you won’t have to wait long. Take a look over the side.’
The old salt looked over the side and saw it - an enormous object as big as a submarine, all white except the black fin projecting above the surface.
‘I’ll take it all back. That sure is a White Death. Folks in Australia call it the Man-eater. Most savage of all sharks. Must weigh over three tons. But I doubt if it could really swallow a twelve-year-old girl.’
‘The Great White has been known to swallow a horse,’ Hal said. ‘Look lively, Cap, it’s trying to bite a hole in your ship.’
‘I’ll put a stop to that.’ The captain ran down the companionway and came up with a rifle. He aimed and fired. The bullet ricocheted from the shark’s armourplate and went zinging off into the village.
‘Better not try that again,’ said Hal. ‘You’re apt to kill somebody on shore instead of the shark. I’ll get the death needle.’
The weapon called a death needle was like a hypodermic needle but much larger. It was loaded with strychnine nitrate and fired from a gun. It could penetrate even the tough hide of a shark. The poison forced into the body of a big fish would ordinarily kill it within thirty seconds.
The needle was fired and pierced the shark’s flank. The thirty seconds passed with no results. A minute, five minutes, ten. Nothing doing.
A crowd of villagers had collected on shore. Some of the men carried bows and arrows and they let fly a storm of arrows at the huge enemy of their village. The shark did not seem to mind. Some of the arrows bounced off, most of them pierced only an inch or two and stuck there, looking like the quills of a porcupine.
Mulo, the biggest and boldest of the men, heavily built and standing nearly seven feet high, came to the water’s edge holding a strong, sharp-pointed spear. The crowd cheered and came closer. Surely their hero would be able to conquer this devil.
Mulo did not throw the spear from the bank. He bravely waded into the river until he stood almost face to face with the monster. Then he raised his right arm, huge muscles bulging under the brown skin, and with all his force plunged the spear into the brute’s forehead. It went in farther than the arrows but did not cause even a tremor in the great body of the shark. It stuck there, standing out not like a quill but like the single horn of the fabled unicorn.
Mulo began to back up towards the shore. He was not quick enough. With one swish of its mighty tail the shark caught him in the middle, sank its great triangular teeth into his body’ then proceeded to swallow him head first.
Goliath had conquered Goliath. But now the three-ton Goliath met a ridiculously small hundred-pound David: Pug, smarting from the loss of his sister, felt it was his duty to tackle the big killer.
‘Will you lend me your hard-nosed axe?’ he asked Hal. Hal knew that he was referring to the steel axe that was kept on board.
; ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘but what do you want it for?’
‘To kill the shark.’
‘You’re crazy. If your greatest warrior can’t do it, how can you expect to get away with it?’
‘I have to try.’
‘But do you expect that the shark will lie still and let you hack it to death?’
‘Yes, I think it will - but not the way you think. Will you lend me the axe? And let me have a big chunk of raw meat?’
Hal admired the boy’s courage. He gave him what he asked for.
He was surprised when the boy did not go over the side where the shark lay but over the up-river side and swam upstream a short distance to a ridge or reef that rose to within a foot of the surface. He stood on the reef in water only up to his knees with the axe in one hand and the raw meat in the other, and waited.
While he waited a man lay unconscious on the shore of a small cove downstream. The White Death, on its way to the village, had stopped to visit Kaggs, attracted by the smell of food. Trying to force its way into the boat’s galley, it had crunched a large hole in the keel and almost got its head inside before Kaggs noticed what was going on. Kaggs had just finished writing in his diary and had put the book back into the briefcase in which he always carried it. Disturbed by the noise, he left the briefcase on the bank and ran to the boat. He picked up a heavy stick and began to attack the unwelcome visitor.
The shark paid no attention to him. It had found some pots and pans and was swallowing them down, for a shark is not particular about its diet.
But as Kaggs continued to beat it, the big fish became curious to know what sort of gadfly was annoying it, and withdrew its head from the hole. Immediately the boat sank to the bottom. The shark could not reach Kaggs with its jaws. But the long powerful tail swept the bank, giving Kaggs a knockout blow. The man fell heavily and lay as if dead.
The Great White swam out of the cove, stopping only long enough to snatch up and swallow the briefcase. Then it swam upstream to the village where it breakfasted on a bathing girl and a foolish fellow who poked it with a spear.
Pug, standing on the reef holding the ship’s steel axe and the chunk of raw meat, did not have to wait long.
12 Cannibal Adventure Page 13
