People of Heaven

by Beverley Harper

  Emil had been chased up more trees by charging rhinoceros than the rest of the team put together. This was mainly because, despite his enthusiasm and pleasure in seeing the animal, the object of his interest invariably resented the intrusion and, with no apology or hesitation, was inclined to vent its ill-temper. Totally unfazed by such antisocial exhibitionism, Emil continued to blunder through the thickest of bush, apparently convinced that his love of the great beasts would protect him from harm.

  Thanks to Emil and his dedication to good food and fine wines, the team ate exceedingly well, with fresh food being flown in once a week from South Africa. Beer was banned from the camp because Emil worried about what to do with the empties. Fortunately he was not afflicted by the same concern over empty wine bottles and the produce of Bordeaux flowed freely at dinner. Michael and the others presumed the cost of such luxuries was borne by the project grant, because, whenever one of them queried the expense, Emil would beam and say, ‘C’est possible. Pas problem.’ It was many months later they learned that Emil had been paying much of the expense himself. When the discovery was made Emil reluctantly admitted that his wife’s family owned a fair slice of the Bordeaux region and that, on her death, he had become an extremely wealthy man.

  Technically, Emil Daguin was too old for the physical rigours of fieldwork. His job of translating and interpreting everyone else’s notes into some semblance of order, developing their combined conclusions and writing a comprehensive report, kept him in camp most days, much to the relief of those who had experienced his lack of caution in the field.

  Jennifer had set up a veterinary laboratory of sorts. An army mess tent, it now housed work benches, filing cabinets, paraffin refrigerators and all the scientific paraphernalia she required. Large panels of mosquito netting allowed some movement of air but, in the hot weather, Jennifer still battled to keep her refrigeration units at a constant temperature. Consequently, the tent had been erected so that, at all times of the day, it was in the deep shade of mature wild figs.

  She loved her work with a passion, often becoming so engrossed that she had to be forcibly removed from the laboratory to come and eat. No two days were ever the same. Twigs and leaves were examined, grouped together and either discarded or noted as being suitable black rhinoceros fodder. Water was studied to see if there were any individual properties peculiar to those sources favoured by the animal. Droppings proved a mine of information about diet and intestinal parasites. A stillborn baby rhinoceros removed, at great risk to all concerned, from its angry and very bewildered mother, not to mention an uninvited audience of scavenging hyena, provided valuable clues to the animal’s biological make-up. Bits of the unfortunate creature floated in formalin-filled jars all over the laboratory. The one everyone said they hated most was an eye. It seemed to follow you everywhere, almost as though life hadn’t fled at all, simply been suspended, asking just when it could get the hell out of this jar and back into the bush. Jennifer said they were all being fanciful, it was a lovely eye. But the day it disappeared there was not one member of the team who did not feel bereft, especially when she unemotionally informed them that it had been dissected.

  Michael was in overall charge of the field research. He had expressed doubts when Emil had told him that even the most highly qualified scientists would be answering to him. ‘Poof!’ Emil had scoffed. ‘Academics are often impractical and myopic. To pull this lot together I need somebody who poses no threat to any fragile egos and will not lose sight of the big picture. That, my friend, appears to be you. Are you in or not?’

  As it happened, Michael needn’t have worried. The final selection were hardly hard-core academics and, with one exception, Emil’s instincts for a group who could work together proved to be impeccable.

  Jennifer and Michael had the only reasonably substantial accommodation at the camp – a prefabricated, portable oblong room to which they annexed their large sleeping tent. This had been a surprise gift from the others when, after nearly two years into the project, Jennifer and Michael became the proud parents of a son – Jeremy.

  ‘A nursery,’ Emil had told them. ‘Somewhere the child will be safe.’

  It was perfect, though became somewhat crowded when, eighteen months later, a second son – Andrew – came along.

  Jennifer had no difficulty juggling her work with motherhood. Aside from having employed a young African nanny, the other members of the team found any excuse they could to spend time with the children. Their presence in a camp filled with dedicated and work-focused adults introduced a family atmosphere, appreciated by all.

  There were four others involved in the fieldwork. Terry Silk, a recent graduate in wildlife management from the University of Natal, was an enthusiastic, though somewhat easily diverted, twenty-two year old from Zululand whom Michael knew slightly as the younger brother of an old school friend. He had a tendency to wander away from the main theme, often bringing back interesting, but entirely useless information on anything from elephants to dung beetles.

  Each time Michael steered him back to the project he would say, ‘But this could be relevant, man.’ It became a catchphrase among them all and, for a year or so, was done to death until even Terry stopped using it.

  Andre van der Merwe, an Afrikaner with a masters degree in animal genetics from Stellenbosch University, was a quietly spoken young man of twenty-five who, at first, far from being interested in or concerned about the fate of the black rhinoceros, applied for the job seeking a couple of years’ bush experience. He soon became totally focused on the project even if some of his photographic observations were more concerned with composition rather than the subject matter itself. There was just one problem with Andre. He discovered, in his very first week, that he was terrified of snakes. Unfortunately, his aversion to that particular reptile guaranteed that close encounters would become a regular occurrence.

  It was Andre’s bed in which a black mamba chose to spend a night, coiled up and dozing happily until it was rudely awoken by his strangled scream of fear. Of all the trees Andre might have chosen to climb in order to watch a wallowing rhinoceros better, with almost fatalistic inevitability he chose one with a boomslang in residence. Happily for Andre, the snake decided the tree wasn’t big enough for both of them and left for more solitary surroundings. This was especially lucky since the antidote serum was so rare and had to be kept under such strict laboratory conditions in order to maintain its efficacy that it could only be procured by written request to Pretoria! If a puff adder was out sunning itself, it was inevitably Andre who nearly stepped on it. It was hardly surprising, therefore, that within a very short time he had developed such paranoia it took him twice as long as anyone else to go anywhere or do anything. The others made fun of his fear but it did occur to Michael that Andre seemed to cop more than his fair share of narrow escapes from some of the world’s most deadly inhabitants.

  Bruce Jenkins was Australian. A veterinary surgeon from Perth, he’d headed for Africa and whatever it offered when his marriage of seven years collapsed in divorce. He had literally been hanging around the bar at Riley’s Hotel in Maun when the team arrived to spend a night en route to the Linyanti River. Emil, impressed by Bruce’s qualifications and willingness to ‘try anything once’, liking the way he spoke of his ex-wife with affection and respect, cheerfully accepting fifty per cent of the blame for their break-up, decided to include him in the team. Bruce was as Australian as his name and, before long, everyone was saying, ‘Gawd’s struth.’ Even Emil, though when he said it it came out as, ‘Caw’s strute.’

  The last member of the team was Emil’s godson, a young American in search of adventure for a year before returning home and going to college. Bobby Peach had always intended to study and qualify as a medical practitioner. He was still with the team after five years, planned to stay in this part of Africa for the rest of his life and was talking about joining a safari company when the project was finished. Cheerful, easygoing and ruggedly good-looking, Bobby had the
uncanny knack of finding girls where it was thought none existed.

  There had been one other at the beginning. Professor Athol Rogers, another American, who called himself a Doctor of Animal Behaviour. He had turned out to be everything Emil said he didn’t like about academics – self-opinionated, selfish, concerned only with his own theories, impossibly arrogant and, on top of that, convinced that all women lusted after him. Bruce, a man ahead of his time who detested Professor Rogers’ predatory behaviour around members of the opposite sex, quickly dubbed him Rogering Athol. After three months of listening to the professor expound his views, a pastime he seemed to prefer over going out and actually doing anything, Emil allowed his Gascony temper the freedom of the afternoon, stunning everyone within earshot with his inventive creativity in about eight languages. Rogering Athol left the project.

  It would have been natural enough working in such close proximity for differences of opinion to escalate into conflict. The fact that they didn’t was down to the individuals themselves, Emil’s insistence that grievances be aired in front of everyone and the fact that each of them took six weeks’ leave a year. With the exception of Michael and Jennifer, no two people could be away at the same time. So, for more than half of each year, someone was always absent. It was amazing how the feeling in camp varied, depending on who it was. In addition to leave, they all had work which involved spending days or even weeks away from camp. So, while it may have seemed as if they were breathing down each other’s necks, in reality, that rarely happened.

  Variety of a different nature added interest to each day. Elephant, lion, leopard, cheetah, hippo, giraffe, warthog, monkey, and innumerable species of buck passed through the camp. Michael and Jennifer had been watching a family of warthog one day when suddenly, one of the youngsters, in a flurry of high spirits, ran headlong into a tree. He was knocked out cold and lay, flat on his back, legs splayed, for a full two minutes while his mother nipped at the soft skin of his belly trying to revive him.

  A leopard tom lived close by and regularly hunted just outside camp. Lion they saw most days and heard every night. Two shy giraffe looked in on them from time to time, peering down through the treetops. A lone bull elephant became a regular visitor having found the wooden support poles of the ablution enclosure – upright poles and yards of hessian – very appealing for scratching his rump. They had lost count of the snapped uprights and torn material that needed replacing and of the times their showers had been rudely interrupted by an elephant with an itch.

  Days were full of interest, nights of good conversation. Rarely were all seven of them in camp together. Last week, however, with the entire team present, Emil sadly touched on the thought that had been on all their minds. Within a couple of months, the project would be finished.

  ‘My friends, it has been almost five years.’ He searched their faces in the flickering firelight. They were as close as family. ‘We have learned as much about ourselves as we have about the black rhino. We work well as a team. It saddens me to think that we will soon go our separate ways.’

  ‘And we’re still learning,’ Andre added. ‘There’s so much more to find out.’ Despite his initial reasons for joining the team, he had become so fanatically dedicated to saving the black rhinoceros that he was planning to publish a book on the subject. His photographs were still more artistic than scientific but they were unquestionably some of the best visual reference material ever assembled.

  ‘Yer right there, mate.’ Bruce slapped at a mosquito on his arm. ‘We’re still scratching the surface, wouldn’t you say, Em?’

  There was not one of them that Bruce called by their proper name. Michael was The King. Jennifer was Doc. Bobby and Terry had their last names tampered with becoming Peachie and Silko, and Andre was simply Van. That’s when he wasn’t calling them mate or sport.

  ‘Five years. That’s what we were given. Where has it gone?’ Emil sipped his wine reflectively. ‘But we’ve learned a great deal.’

  Jennifer nodded. ‘The report will certainly change the way rhino are treated in captivity. There’s been an unbelievable amount of interest in our work. No-one has collected so much data over such a long period. You’re right of course, Andre, there is a great deal more to learn but Emil’s report will be the most comprehensive ever published. We’ve had requests for sneak previews from all over the world.’

  ‘But there are still so many unanswered questions,’ Andre objected.

  ‘Others will continue,’ Emil reassured him. ‘With your experience I can probably get you on to another team.’

  Andre nodded, satisfied.

  ‘Yer better make it in New Zealand, Em. No snakes there.’ Bruce chuckled. ‘What about you, Silko?’

  Terry shrugged. ‘I’m twenty-seven. Probably time I settled down.’

  ‘Got anyone in mind?’ Bobby asked. ‘I know a few . . .’

  ‘Thanks, pal. If you don’t mind I’ll do this on my own.’

  ‘Have you heard from Umfolozi?’ Emil asked Michael. They all knew that he and Jennifer had applied to join their white rhinoceros project.

  ‘Not yet. Might be something in the box. Jen’s going to Maun next week.’ Once every month or so one of them drove down into Botswana to Maun, the commercial hub of the Okavango Delta, to collect mail and pick up extra food supplies.

  ‘Will you go back to Australia?’ Michael asked Bruce who had been fairly quiet on the subject of his future.

  ‘Yeah, reckon. Last time I was over it felt pretty good.’

  ‘Not a patch on Africa though,’ Bobby ventured. ‘All kangaroos and koalas. Pretty tame stuff after this.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Bruce allowed. ‘But I tell yer this for free, mate, give me the Aussie outback any day.’

  ‘Why?’ Terry asked the question.

  ‘Because no bastard puts landmines in it. That’s why.’

  Heads nodded.

  ‘You blokes are headed for trouble,’ Bruce went on. ‘You can’t keep the blacks down forever. Look around you. Botswana got independence three years ago. Zambia’s been on its own for what, five years? Africa’s going back to the blacks and, one way or another, Rhodesia and South Africa will as well.’

  ‘No chance!’ Andre was appalled by the very idea. ‘Anyway, what about Australia?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘You’re always going on about how Africa is going back to the blacks. What about Australia? If you feel so strongly about it, shouldn’t Australia go back to the Aborigines?’

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid. That’s different.’

  ‘No it isn’t.’

  Michael cut in smoothly. ‘I can’t talk about your country, Bruce, but you’ve got a point about ours. What’s happening here is just the tip of an iceberg.’

  It was an old topic, regularly discussed around the campfire, especially since SWAPO, the Soviet and Cuban backed South West Africa People’s Organisation, rebel groups had become active along the Caprivi.

  ‘I hate to think of this place becoming a war zone,’ Emil said. ‘The poaching is bad enough as it is. What happens to the animals? It’s always them that suffer. I hope it doesn’t come to that.’

  ‘It’s already starting.’ Terry Silk adjusted a stick in the fire. ‘I saw a group of so-called freedom fighters only two days ago.’

  ‘How do you know what they were?’ Jennifer asked. ‘They might have been local tribesmen.’

  ‘The locals don’t walk about the bush for the hell of it. They’re going somewhere, fishing, hunting, visiting, whatever. They don’t wear European clothes and they always carry traditional weapons. The lot I saw were lined up along the road trying to look innocent, waving and smiling. Not a spear among them. In fact, they carried nothing. Probably got rid of it in the bush when they heard the vehicle.’

  ‘You reported them I take it?’ Emil asked.

  Terry looked wry. ‘Yes. For what it was worth. By the time the police got there they would have been long gone. What a mixed bunch they were too. One o
f them was a Zulu, I swear it.’

  Andre flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the fire. ‘We should carry guns. Shoot the bastards on sight.’

  ‘That’s a bit extreme,’ Emil remarked mildly. He’d heard Andre say things like that many times.

  ‘Why not?’ Andre asked aggressively. He was growing progressively more impatient by what he perceived to be a lack of retaliatory action on the part of the South Africans. ‘Any fool can see what they’re up to. It’s not Angola or Namibia they want to liberate. They’re after South Africa and they’ve got the commies’ backing.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘I’m telling you, man. Unless the army does something about them pretty soon they’ll be laying their landmines inside our borders.’

  Lying in bed later that night, Michael returned to the fireside conversation. ‘There’s no way around it, Jen. The government won’t give an inch and the opposition, be they ANC affiliated or not, are too committed to give up. There’s no turning back for them. Who knows where it’s all going to end? You’ve got people like Dyson in exile in London beavering away for a peaceful solution. Then there’s his brother Jackson, last heard of heading for Zambia and probably so brainwashed by now that he’s forgotten what he’s fighting for. Bombs are going off at home killing innocent people, black and white, and, half the time, no-one knows if it’s a protest or if our bloody government is responsible in a macabre attempt to curry world sympathy. Mandela’s been in prison seven years and the longer he stays there the more notice the rest of the world takes of us. It’s a mess, Jen. A bloody mess.’