Golden Bats and Pink Pigeons

by Gerald Malcolm Durrell

  Within a couple of hours, we had caught all the guntheri that we were permitted to catch, and so, we sat and roasted in a minute carpet of shade provided by a group of palmettos. John managed to find sixteen new joints in his body and to curl up in an area that would have been cramped for a chihuahua. Wahab wound himself round the palm tree and distributed glutinous sweets of thirst-provoking quality. Tony squatted on his haunches against a convolvulus-covered rock and vanished completely against the background, to reappear unnervingly at intervals, like the Cheshire Cat, to offer us orangeade or a marmalade sandwich. Dave sprawled between three patches of leaf shade the size of soup plates, and carried on a long and acrimonious exchange with the tropic birds that, with their long, needle-like tails and pointed wings and beaks, wheeled and dived above us like some constellation of mad shooting stars, uttering their shrill, whining cries. Wahab showed us that, by waving something white, a handkerchief, a snake bag or a shirt, you could get them to dive low at you. This excitement, combined with the endless cacophony of repartee that Dave indulged in, soon had some twenty or thirty birds around us, wheeling, diving and calling, white as sea foam against blue sky.

  ‘Now,’ said John, starting to quiver with eagerness again after our brief rest, ‘what do we do now?’

  Well,’ said Tony, re-emerging from his background, ‘if you want to... you know, want to catch some of the smaller... the smaller skinks, they tend to live on top of the island, so we’d better go straight up to the top.’

  He jerked his thumb behind us. I thought he was joking. The slope we had been walking along was so steep that it made you feel that you would have been happier if one of your legs had been three foot longer than the other, but behind us rose something as sheer, as unfriendly, and as dangerous-looking as the Jungfrau in a heat wave, devoid alike, as far as one could see, of both foot and hand-holds.

  ‘I was growing to like you, Tony, ‘I said, ‘but you really must try to curb this macabre sense of humour you display. If anyone took you seriously, someone of my noble proportions and youthfulness, for example, he might easily suffer a cardiac arrest by dwelling on your facetious remark.’

  ‘I’m not joking,’ said Tony. ‘It’s the best way up, and it’s quite easy if you zig-zag.’

  ‘Zig-zag,’ said Dave. What sort of a God-damned nonsense is that? You’d have to be a mountain goat with adhesive feet to zig-zag up that.’

  ‘I assure you, it’s not nearly as bad as it looks,’ said Tony, firmly. We forgot the oxygen mask,’ said Wahab, ‘so if we hold our breath until the top, it will help.’

  ‘I cannot think why I associate with you all,’ I said. And I can’t think why I was stupid enough to come to this place in the first place.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have missed this, would you?’ asked John, incredulously, as if I had uttered a blasphemy.

  ‘No,’ I admitted, as I got to my feet and picked up my camera. ‘I probably wouldn’t. They say there’s no fool like an old fool.’

  We started tacking up the precipitous slope. Reluctant though we were to admit it, we found that Tony was right, and that which had seemed unclimbable, when viewed from below, became more or less possible if we zig-zagged like a drunken centipede. Here and there, we were startled by loud, belligerent, witch-like screams, apparently issuing from the bowels of the earth. These proved to be caused by Red-tailed tropic birds, sitting in their nesting cavities under the slabs of lava, endeavouring to frighten us away. They were the size of small gulls, with tern-like heads, large, melting eyes and sealing-wax-red beaks. The plumage on the head, breast and wing butts was a delicate, glittering, pale rose-pink, as if they had been bathed in some vat of ethereal dye. When their maniacal screams proved to be unsuccessful in frightening us off, they just sat there and stared at us. It is this stupid habit of sitting still and accepting their fate that is the chief reason for their slaughter, for they are an easy prey for the fishermen who land on Round Island to kill them and take their bodies back to Mauritius, where they are sold to the Chinese restaurants.

  The summit seemed unreachable. Every time we breasted a slope, thinking it was the top, another wall of rock faced us. At last we really did arrive at a completely flat area covered with slabs of rock, lying scattered about as if dropped haphazardly from the skies. It was a much hotter terrain than the cliff-sides, since nothing but sparse mats of convolvulus grew between the rocks, and not even the most spindly of pandanus provided shade. Here there were no guntheri, but instead small skinks, some four-and-a-half inches in length, with a long tail and pointed head, and such small legs they looked almost snake-like. They slithered like drops of quick-silver, their movements baffling the eye, as quick as a humming-bird’s.

  ‘Well, will you look at these? Will you just look at these?’ panted Dave. ‘Aren’t these the smallest God-damned things you’ve ever seen? Aren’t they the cutest little fellas?’

  The skinks, bright-eyed, fluid and quick as raindrops on a window, continued their never-ending movement, oblivious of the lavish praise that was being bestowed upon them. Their smooth, shiny scales, pale-green and coffee-coloured, shone in the sunshine, and they did not deviate from the stern task of food hunting, except to hurl themselves at each other in mock combat, should their paths cross. Dave wiped his hands on his trousers, took a firm grip on the lizard stick, and approached a rather large and well-built skink which was going through the crevices of a rock with all the thoroughness of a Scotland Yard detective searching a tenement building for drug smugglers. His efficiency and dedication to duty would have won him a recommendation from any Chief of Police. He took no notice whatsoever as Dave loomed over him.

  ‘Come along, then, little fella,’ crooned Dave, noose dangling expectantly. ‘Come on, then.’

  He dangled the noose in front of the lizard and the glitter of the nylon caught its eye. It paused and raised its head and Dave deftly slipped the noose round its neck, pulled it tight, and lifted. You might as well have tried to catch a rainbow. The smooth scales formed a polished surface for the nylon to slide on, and the weight of the lizard’s body slid its head out of the noose with no difficulty. The lizard, which had been lifted and then dropped some six inches, was completely unperturbed by his brief flight. He paused to lick his lips thoroughly and then proceeded on his insect hunting as if nothing had happened. Twice more, Dave got the noose over his head and twice more it slipped off, as if the skink had been buttered.

  ‘God damn it, the little bastards are as slippery as a barrel of lard,’ said Dave, mopping his face. ‘Did you ever see anything so damned agile? And the little bastard’s not scared, either. Are you, you son of a gun? Now, are you going to let Dave catch you, or aren’t you, little fella?’

  Thus adjured, the lizard paused, licked his lips, yawned in Dave’s face and continued on his quick, excited hunt for six-legged comestibles. Four more times, Dave attempted to catch the skink, and four more times he failed. The amusing thing was that the skink seemed totally oblivious to the fact that he kept making short journeys into space; whenever he slid out of the noose and landed with a thump, he resumed his hunting, unflurried and with unabated enthusiasm.

  In the end, since it was obvious that the noose would not work on such an apparently liquid species, John caught him by hand. We unanimously agreed that this was the best (if the most exhausting) way of doing it. We’d been employing this method for some time, when I became aware of an almost total lack of shade on the summit. There were no trees, and the only shadows were cast by the tumbled landscape of rocks, but now it was getting on for midday, and the sun was almost vertical above us, so that the shade the rocks were producing was negligible. I became worried about our bags, full of precious guntheri; so it was decided that I would leave the others hunting, and make my way back to the picnic tree, which would provide enough shade for our precious specimens. So I departed, carrying the bundle of cloth bags in the shade of my body, leaving the others quartering the hot, dry terrain like hounds, shouting to each other
: ‘Look out! He’s going under there.’ ‘Quick! Quick! Get on the other side as he comes out,’ and: ‘Hell! I can’t turn the bloody rock over.’

  Slowly, picking my way among the tumbled boulders, I made my way along the spine of the island until I felt that I was more or less opposite the picnic tree site. Then, I approached the precipitous slope and looked for the Dorade as a landmark. While we’d been stupid enough to leave the safety of the boat and blunder about in the sun after a load of lizards, the Henley regatta crowd had done no such thing; they had paid a visit to a reef some half a mile away to indulge in cool underwater swimming and fishing. As I looked down the hillside to the sea, I could see the Dorade, white and trim, looking about the size of a matchbox, steaming towards the landing spot. I made my way a short distance down the slope and found a young palm tree that was giving something approximating to shade. There I squatted, sheltering my precious cargo, watching the Dorade and waiting for her to anchor, so that I could get my bearings. From the top of the island, the whole terrain looked completely different, and I could not see the picnic tree at all. As I had no desire to walk farther than was necessary in that blistering heat, I thought that I would wait for the Dorade to act as a marker. Presently she chugged from the royal blue and purple deep sea into the jay’s-wing blue and jade-green of the shallow water, and dimly I heard her anchor rattle overboard. I mopped my face, hoisted my camera on to my shoulder, picked up my bags of geckos and started down towards the sea.

  I very soon discovered that to attain my objective was as difficult as Alice had found making progress in the Looking-Glass garden. Normally, if you have a high vantage point, you can more easily pinpoint your goal than if you are on a level with it, but in the case of Round Island things were different. As I have said, the island is like a stone crinoline dropped on the seas surface, and whichever pleat you happen to be standing on, it is almost impossible to see the rest of the garment. After I had lost the boat twice, and had had to turn back or aside three times because I had reached such sheer sheets of rock that it seemed imprudent to go on, unless I was seeking a broken leg, I suddenly spotted, far below me a flash of scarlet. This, I knew, was a towel I had brought and had draped over the spare film and various foods under the picnic tree to provide some sort of shade.

  This, then, was going to act as my marker.

  I clattered and slid on my way, keeping the little red splash firmly in sight. I rested for a second time under a small group of pandanus, whose tattered leaves drummed against each other nervously and whispered sibilantly in a sudden puff of hot wind from the sea. Carefully, I felt my geckos in their bags to make sure they were not being affected by their journey. The sharp nip which one of them administered led me to believe that they were faring a good deal better than I was. I had sweated so profusely that I felt that if I lost another cupful of moisture, I would turn into a ginger-bread crumble and blow away. It was only the thought of the iced drinks that awaited me under the picnic tree that kept me going.

  Grimly, I shouldered my load and plodded on. I came presently to a great, almost sheer precipice of rock, the top half of which was decorated by a tiny mat of convolvulus-like weed, starred with pale pink flowers. To reach a ravine that led down towards a lower level, I had to cross this dangerous bit of rock, and so decided, in case the exposed portion was slippery, that I would walk on the carpet of weed. Slowly, I edged my way across, making sure of one step before I took another. I was just congratulating myself on my climbing skill, when I inserted one foot into a natural noose formed by the creeper, tripped, and fell heavily on to my back My camera went skittering off joyfully, and I held my bag of lizards aloft, so that at least I wouldn’t fall on them.

  I’d landed on my spine with such force that I heard what appeared to be my whole vertebral column play a rapid tune, producing the sort of noise that is usually only obtained by the use of maracas. I had landed on the bare rock and as there was nothing I could grab hold of to prevent my sliding, I proceeded down the rock face on my back with ever-increasing speed, gathering around me an avalanche of loose tuff and bits of extremely sharp lava. As my momentum increased, my body started to turn so that presently I knew I should be on my stomach. I was terrified lest I should twist and inadvertently roll on to my bag of lizards, which I still held in a tenacious grip. I didn’t dare let go of them, for if they had lodged on that inhospitable sheet of rock it was probable that I would not be able to climb up to retrieve them.

  There was only one thing to be done, and that was to use my elbows as a brake. This I did, and was gratified to discover that the pain I suffered was not in vain. Not only did I remain on my back and my shredded elbows but I slowed down my pace of descent, and eventually actually stopped. I lay still for a moment to savour my wounds to the full, and then moved bits of my body experimentally to see if anything was broken. To my surprise, nothing was, and the amount of gore my right arm was producing was out of all proportion to the wounds it had sustained. Painfully, I shuffled sideways across the rock face, retrieved my camera, which was intact, and gained the ravine where the going was easier. At the first group of palms I came to, I sat down, made sure my geckos and my camera had sustained no injuries, and mopped up the blood from my elbows. Then after a brief pause, I got to my feet and gazed down towards my red landmark, by the sea.

  It had completely disappeared.

  Not only had it disappeared, but the Dorade had disappeared as well, and the view now lying below me bore no resemblance to any terrain I had seen or walked through that day. To say that I was irritated by these circumstances, is putting it mildly; I was hot, exhausted, thirsty and aching all over, and I had a severe headache. For all the indications to the contrary, I might have been in the middle of Australia, fifty miles north of Lhasa, or on one of the more inimical craters of the moon. Making a blasphemous commentary on my own stupidity in falling I set off down the ravine in what I hoped was the right direction. It seemed to be an area singularly lacking in palms, and eventually I was forced to crouch and rest in a tiny patch of shade caused by a hummock in the sides of the ravine. Grimly, I plodded on and soon, to my delight, could hear voices and various nautical noises that told me I was near the landing stage. How close, I did not realise until I rounded I dump of rock and found myself practically on the shore. High above me was the picnic tree and my red towel. I had somehow misjudged my descent, with the result that some two hundred and fifty feet above me lay shade, cool drinks and salve for my various contusions.

  The last climb was the worst. The blood pounded in my ears my head ached, and I was forced to rest frequently.Finally I staggered up the last slope and collapsed in the fretted shade of the picnic tree. A few minutes after, Dave arrived, looking, I was delighted to see, as fragile as I felt. When I could speak, I asked him how he had fared, and he confessed that he had passed out a couple of times with the heat. He certainly looked white and ill-kempt. Soon he was regaling me with an account of his adventures. The worst moment had been when John Hartley, coming upon the recumbent Dave, had made an effort to rally him but had got sidetracked when he spied a large telfairii and various geckos sitting close together. Having captured these and finding nothing more suitable to put them in, he promptly and callously commandeered Dave’s tee shirt and handkerchief and continued on his way triumphant, leaving Dave to make out as best he could. This made John one of the people least likely to succeed in a Good Samaritan contest, according to Dave.

  ‘Just left me there,’ Dave confided to me, croakingly. ‘Just high-tailed off and left me useless as the tits on a boar hog and twice as undecorative. That John’s inhuman, I’m telling you. Can you understand a guy who’d let a fella human die for the sake of a gecko, for God’s sake?’

  He was still busy embroidering his experience, complete with death-rattle, bird calls, and the jeering cries of callous lizards, when the others straggled back to the picnic tree. They were all in various stages of exhaustion, with the exception of Tony who looked, if anything, slight
ly cooler and more immaculate than when he had set out. The others dived for the shade and the cool drinks, whereas Tony squatted in the full glare of the sun and, with a few magic passes, conjured out of thin air a cup of steaming tea and some glutinous, but doubtless nourishing, chutney sandwiches.

  After we had revived somewhat, we set about the last task; to catch some of the Telfair skinks which surrounded us in such profusion that one had to be careful where one sat, and where one placed one’s cup or food. A peanut-butter sandwich that Dave misguidedly placed on the rock by his side while he drank, was seized and disputed by two large Telfair skinks before he could rescue it, and disappeared down the hill in a sort of whirling rugger-scrum. Another large Telfair seized on a banana skin and, with his head held high, rushed off over the rocks like a standard bearer, with a host of eager skinks tearing after him. He reached a group of palmettos some distance away without having to relinquish his trophy, but the ownership of it was still being disputed vigorously when we left the island half an hour later.

  With the skinks behaving like domestic animals, it was no trouble at all just to sit there, choose one’s specimen and simply drop the noose over its head as it investigated a Thermos flask, a sandwich, or a Coca-Cola bottle. Occasionally, there were so many around us at one time that we would make a mistake and catch the wrong one (a male instead of a female, say). The animal would then be released, and having indignantly given us a swift and painful bite, would continue its examination of our belongings as if nothing had happened.

  At last, we had our quota of these enchanting tame lizards and packed up to leave Round Island. We were aching, tired, and sun-blistered, but we wouldn’t have missed the experience for anything. We had not seen either of the two species of snake (which was not surprising, considering their limited numbers) and we had not captured the strictly nocturnal gecko, but our collecting bags bulged with guntheri, the small, sleek skink, and the Telfair skink. We were well satisfied.