by David Alric
There were two potential sources of information and help that they planned to use. The first was the UNESCO site at Salonga where they had worked on their previous visit and where the staff would undoubtedly have a great deal of local knowledge. The second was the British Embassy which, they felt had a duty to assist them in searching for what might be a lost British citizen. While the local enquiries were the ones they were principally pinning their hopes on, the British Embassy for the Congo was in the capital, Kinshasa, where their plane was about to land so it made sense to go there first before making the journey out to Salonga.
Joanna and Richard went straight to the Embassy from the airport. They introduced themselves at reception and explained that they had come for information about the feral child who had been reported in the news. They were asked to wait for a while and after a few moments an assistant appeared and took them to sit in a large office in front of a large desk. A distinguished-looking man came through another door, greeted them warmly, and introduced himself as the Ambassador.
Joanna and Richard exchanged astonished glances. They had expected some vague offer of assistance from a junior official.
‘Can I start by just checking I’ve got this right?’ said the ambassador. ‘You are Dr. and Mrs. Bonaventure and you worked at the Salonga reserve thirteen years ago?’ Richard tried to speak but his mouth was dry – so he just nodded.
‘Yes, we are,’ said Joanna.
‘This is most curious,’ the ambassador continued. ‘In fact, I think it is the most curious thing that has happened to me in all my years in the service.’ Joanna and Richard stared at him expectantly. For some reason Joanna found herself trembling as he continued. ‘This very morning I received a package from the UNESCO office at Salonga. It had been taken there by a maid who said she had found it in the house of a Salonga park conservateur. He and his family had been arrested on suspicion of espionage a few weeks ago and, I understand from enquiries I have just made, exiled to Rwanda. On receiving this package the UNESCO officials, reluctant to get involved in something that might have political repercussions, sent it to me as I had been cited as an alternative recipient. Now we come to the interesting part and I think I should warn you to be prepared for some astonishing news. He opened the file and removed a letter and suddenly Richard leaned forward and peered more closely.
‘Good heavens!’ he exclaimed. ‘Those – those are our old passports… and my papers and journals!’
‘Precisely,’ smiled the ambassador. ‘And now I think you should read this letter.’ He stood up and came round the desk and put Neema’s guardian’s letter gently into Joanna’s shaking hands. She and Richard read it together. They sat in stunned silence for a while then, both weeping, turned and hugged each other as the ambassador rang a bell and asked an attendant to bring some tea.
‘So it’s true,’ Richard eventually whispered. ‘She survived that ghastly day.’
‘But where is she?’ asked Joanna, ‘and what has she to do with the feral child?’
‘Ah, that I don’t know,’ answered the ambassador.‘We are, of course, making urgent enquiries but you’ll appreciate that I only learnt about any of this a few hours ago. We’ve established that the girl was not present when her foster family were arrested and the people at Salonga have not seen her since. I’ve sent someone in the area to have a quiet word with the maid. She may well know something but is obviously terrified of being arrested herself. There have been no reports of recent accidents or deaths in the area, so I think there’s every possibility that the child running wild in the reserve really is your daughter.’
‘But isn’t she in great danger alone in the forest?’ burst out Joanna.
‘I don’t know,’ said the ambassador gently, ‘and I don’t wish to raise any false hopes. I have, however, just reviewed all the local reports that gave rise to the press article you saw and it is clear that the poachers who saw the mystery child– sorry, alleged poachers – were emphatic that the child was playing with the chimps. These bonobos have a reputation for being friendly and gentle and, incredible as it seems, it’s just possible they’re looking after her.’
‘What do you think we should do next?’asked Richard.
‘Well, we’ll continue our own enquiries of course and let you know immediately of any developments.’ He took a card from a carved wooden container on his desk and handed it to Joanna. ‘Here’s our contact details. Get in touch when you know where you’re staying and we can then keep you posted. In fact –’ he took back the card and scribbled on it with his pen, ‘–here’s my home number. You can ring me any time of day or night if you need help.’
Joanna and Richard thanked him for all his help and kindness and turned to go.
‘Just one more thing,’ said the ambassador. ‘We’ll do our best but, to be honest, you’re doing the right thing by going to the reserve yourselves. It’s by far your best chance of finding the girl. I have to pick my way through a tricky political situation whereas you know the locality and the UNESCO people and you don’t have to handle any sensitive diplomatic issues.’ He looked at Joanna’s distraught face and patted her on the shoulder as he ushered them out. ‘When you find your daughter we’ll have to fix her up with a passport. It’s a unique situation so I may have to bend the rules a bit. I hope to see you again soon,’ he said with a reassuring smile.
It was getting on in the day and they were both exhausted from the flight and the extraordinary meeting that had just had at the embassy. They decided to postpone the long and difficult journey to Salonga until the morning, and booked into a hotel in Kinshasa for the night.
When they eventually arrived at the reserve they found some suitable accommodation, rang the embassy with a contact number, and then visited their old haunts – those at least that had managed to survive two civil wars and endless civil unrest. The UNESCO officials gave them a warm welcome and told them about Neema and the long hours she used to spend with the animals. One of the rangers took them in a dugout canoe to the cabin where she had spent most of her time and as they looked out into the vast forest they realised the true enormity of their task.
‘There’s only one way to do this,’ said Richard that evening. Joanna smiled.
‘I know exactly what you’re thinking,’ she said. ‘We need Lucy.’ He nodded.
‘She’s got to know now anyway,’ Joanna continued, ‘so we may as well tell her and get her involved straight away.’
In the morning they rang the hotel in Arusha but, to their surprise the receptionist said that the party had all checked out.
‘Though they did leave a message,’ she added. ‘Just a moment please’. There was a rustling of papers. ‘Yes, here it is. “We’ve gone on tour. Mobiles not working but we’ll keep trying. Leave a contact number with this hotel if you’re now on a land line. Love from all”.’
‘That’s odd,’ said Richard, ‘they never mentioned a tour but maybe they’ve heard of an exciting safari or something.’ He left their number with the Arusha hotel who kindly agreed to act as a “post office” and they decided that there was nothing more they could do until the others got back in touch.
They tried to speak to the maid who had taken the package to UNESCO but she had fled back to her own village before she could get blamed for anything. All they could do now was to visit Neema’s cabin in the reserve every day in the hope of catching sight of her.
* There is always something new out of Africa
13
Captive Cousins in the Congo
Sarah and Ben had settled into an uneasy existence with their captors. After the first couple of days during which they had not gone near any proper town they had both decided that they had been kidnapped and that the stories about returning them to their relatives were all a pack of lies. The stifling heat, the flies and the smell in the trucks were at times almost intolerable, but they comforted themselves with the thought that there had been no attempt to hurt them in any way and, as Sarah pointed out, th
ey were worth much more to the villains alive than dead. They had both seen news stories and TV programmes about hostages and ransoms and just hoped that they would soon be rescued.
The only villain they had any liking for was Fred who was interested in them and was always taking them to see and do fascinating things related to animals and bushcraft. He regaled the children with stories about the jungle in Brazil. About how their camp had been infested with snakes and spiders; how one day an ant army had marched through the camp; how swarms of bees had attacked a plane coming to rescue them; how one of his mates had been blown to pieces by an accident with mining explosives; and how his brother had been eaten by caymans. The children were enthralled by his stories which all had the ring of truth and Fred revelled in being the centre of attention for the first time in his life.
The professor pretended to be kind and concerned for their welfare but they both instinctively disliked and distrusted him. Sid and the other men virtually ignored them. They had a corner of one of the covered trucks to themselves and shared the truck with Fred and two of the others. After leaving the savannah they passed through a mountainous region. Their vehicles roared straight through any town or village that couldn’t be avoided, and the truck containing the children never stopped anywhere where there were signs of habitation. Fuel was always collected by the other truck and only transferred to the children’s truck out in the bush. On many occasions on their long journey the trucks were stopped by soldiers or men in paramilitary uniforms at checkpoints. Ben began to notice that when they were stopped in this way the professor always disappeared into his truck and was not seen again until the obstruction or road block had been safely negotiated. He was accused of cowardice by some of the men but he explained that he was a scientist, not a thug, and if they did their job he would do his. Ben and Sarah, however, noticed a very curious thing which was that whenever these occasions arose the officer in charge of the militia, or any person threatening Sid with a gun or knife, would suddenly collapse as if struck from behind, or his weapon would suddenly point up in the air as he fired. Sometimes an officer even shot some of his own men as his gun inexplicably pointed in a different direction as he fired at Sid or the trucks. The upshot of this was that they never had any difficulty in passing through such blocks, however ugly the confrontation at first seemed. Sid himself seemed somewhat surprised at his own skill in overcoming armed men and soon became proud of his reputation as a block buster. Later, when Ben and Sarah were told about the professor’s invisibility robe, they would recall with great amusement some of these mystifying scenes and realise what had really been going on.
They drove through more and more heavily wooded country until eventually they were in the depths of the rainforest. Sarah had noticed that there were mice living under some old blankets in the truck and she gave them morsels and scraps from her supper every night. Now and then birds came and perched on the tailgate of the lorry. Ben thought they were trying to catch the mice, but one day he was puzzled to see a mouse coming out and approaching a large hawk which had arrived and perched on the tailgate of the lorry.
‘They look as if they’re talking to each other,’ he said to Sarah, and they both laughed at the thought.
One morning the children woke bruised and shaken after the trucks had driven all through the night over particularly dreadful roads. They could hear a continuous roaring and splashing and looked out to see an amazing sight. The river was thundering down cataracts and as they drove along they saw that the falls extended over many, many kilometres. The professor explained that these were the Boyoma falls, originally called the Stanley falls after a journalist who had journeyed through the Congo in search of the famous British explorer, David Livingstone. After leaving the falls the trucks headed south and west towards the Lomela river and the diamond lode that was the professor’s goal. Their route took them into the densest jungle the children had so far seen. There was a great deal of carnage, most of it fortuitously hidden from the children who were in the rear truck of the convoy. Sid had by now developed a zero tolerance policy for road blocks and whenever they approached any group threatening to stop them he simply opened fire with an automatic and carried on driving. The children had by now got so used to the sound of gunfire that they hardly noticed the occasional bursts of automatic fire and the sound of splintering road barriers that punctuated their long journey. They travelled by day and by night along the terrible roads; in some places the track was so narrow that the lorries could barely force a passage through the overhanging trees and the undergrowth encroaching from the roadsides, and occasionally the men had to cut down a roadside tree to let them through.
On the morning of their third day after leaving the falls, they were continuing through similar terrain when Sid suddenly swore as the leading truck he was driving lurched to one side and ran into the bush at the side of the road. He got out and saw that they had a jagged puncture in one of the front tyres. The rubber was torn down to the wheel rim and was obviously beyond repair. Inspection of both trucks revealed that their spare tyres were missing, presumably stolen before the professor had acquired the vehicles. After cursing everything and everybody in sight Sid eventually calmed down and thought carefully for a moment.
‘I’ll take the other truck and go with Fred to find a new tyre somewhere – several tyres in fact; on these roads we’re gonna get plenty more flats.’ He paused and looked at the disabled truck by the side of the road. ‘Get that one into the bush,’ he added. ‘If a bunch of rebels comes along you’ll be sittin’ ducks – ’specially as you’ll be two men down without me and Fred.’ One of the men got in and started up. The lorry bumped and jerked on the flat tyre but he revved up the powerful engine and crashed through a thicket of wild pineapples growing by the side of the road. He drove deeper into the trees until Sid was satisfied that the vehicle was completely invisible to any passing traffic. Then he and Fred set off in the remaining truck.
While the gang were waiting for Sid and Fred to return with the tyres, they pitched camp and ate a meal of roast cassava and monkey. After they had eaten the children sat together on a fallen trunk away from the men’s cigarette and cigar smoke. As they sat Sarah noticed that a bird had settled close behind them and she nudged Ben who turned to look. It was some kind of a hawk they realised from its hooked beak, and it seemed completely fearless.
‘Oh look,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s hurt its eye, poor thing,’ and sure enough one of the bird’s eyes was closed and glistening as if recently injured. The bird hopped nearer and then Sarah gave a gasp. At its feet was Lucy’s leather glasses case. She bent down and picked it up. How on earth had a bird found it and brought it to her? She felt inside for Lucy’s glasses and instead pulled out the note. The first words jumped out at her and she hurriedly glanced across at the men. They were talking, drinking and smoking and paying no attention to her. She smoothed the note casually on to her lap and nudged Ben with her knee to read it with her. When they had finished she made sure she was unobserved as she tore a corner off the sheet, refolded the letter and replaced it in the case. She then slipped it behind her near the log. A few moments later the hawk emerged from a nearby tree and in a graceful swoop picked up the case and soared up into the sky. The children watched, spellbound, as it turned to the east and then was lost to sight as it disappeared above the forest canopy.
‘How on earth did all that happen?’ said Ben. ‘And all that stuff in the note: how can leopards come and not hurt us?’
‘It’s something to do with Lucy,’ said Sarah. ‘She’s always doing things with animals and they all seem to think she’s marvellous. She’s going to be a vet one day. Anyway, at last something is going to happen and she’s got Clare and Clive to help her. I just hope they know these horrid men have all got guns and knives and things.’
‘I’m sure they’ll guess,’ said Ben putting a protective arm around her. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be OK.’
Meanwhile, Sid and Fred were still s
earching for a town where they could obtain some new tyres. They were in a remote area and it took the entire morning to find a settlement of reasonable size. There was a run-down garage but there were no tyres suitable for their army truck. They eventually found another town and Fred spotted a similar lorry to their own outside a cafe. In the cafe a group of rebel soldiers in para-military garb were sprawled across chairs and tables. They had obviously been drinking all morning and Sid’s quick glance through the door went unnoticed.
At a nod from Sid, Fred climbed into the soldiers’ lorry. He had intended to hotwire it but there was no need. The rebels, confident because of their brutal reputation that no-one would even contemplate meddling with them, had left the keys in the ignition. Sid hurriedly got back into their own truck and a moment later the two lorries moved off in convoy; the soldiers not discovering their loss until Sid and Fred had long disappeared into the vast depths of the jungle.
It was a long journey back on the terrible roads and it was late afternoon before Sid and Fred returned. They then transferred all the equipment from the hidden, punctured vehicle to their newly acquired lorry. During the transfer an acute observer might have heard a low hissing noise emanating from the ventilation holes in the ammunition boxes as they were carried from one lorry to the other. It was as well that nobody did, for they would have had a very nasty shock if they had opened the boxes. By the time everything had been transferred it was evening, and they decided to pitch camp for the night. Though the delay was annoying for the villains, losing a day was not critical now that they felt safe from pursuit deep in the rainforest, but the extra day was invaluable to Lucy, Clare and Clive who were now driving day and night to catch up with the kidnappers.
