Python Adventure

by Anthony McGowan

  He nudged the old elephant towards the wall and hit the button with the butt of his gun. There was a crank and a grind, and very slowly the doors began to swing open – they were wide enough to drive a big truck through.

  And, just as Frazer had hoped, he saw – or rather felt – Ellie grow tense. She raised her trunk and sniffed the air. She had caught the scent of the hated Drexler. She began to pace back and forth in that fast walk that in the elephant kind passes for a run. She put her shoulder to the great iron door to speed its progress.

  Harsh light from the blue sky poured in, dazzling Frazer and Amazon. They could not see, for a second, what was outside. It didn’t matter. Frazer knew that surprise was everything. He dug his heels into Ellie and yelled at the top of his voice, and then fired off a quick burst from the AK-47, which sounded in the enclosed space like a rolling peal of thunder.

  And then Ellie, with Frazer and Amazon on her back, became thunder herself. She charged from the enclosure, and suddenly she was a young elephant again.

  A young elephant in a murderous mood.

  Now that his eyes were used to the light, Frazer looked ahead. And what he saw dismayed him. He had hoped that the sight of a herd of charging mammoths might make the hunters panic and break. But there they still stood in a neat line, their heavy weapons trained on the elephant and her riders.

  Frazer strained to look back over his shoulder. And he despaired. The door had become jammed somehow, and there was only enough of a gap to let out one beast at a time. And because they were all trying to get through, it meant that none could.

  They were on their own.

  There was no giant hairy backup.

  A withering hail of bullets was going to cut them down before they came close to reaching their killers.

  Frazer gritted his teeth. There was no turning back now. They were going to ride on into legend.

  Ahead of him he saw the unmistakable hunched figure of Kaggs, his craggy face beginning to split into a grin.

  And then he saw something else. Something strange. The huge African – he couldn’t remember the man’s name – dropped his own weapon, a long-barrelled rifle with a telescopic sight, and turned to the hunter next to him – the Englishman, Smethwyck – and pulled the shotgun out of his hand and hurled it away. Smethwyck’s face was almost comically baffled. Then the African picked him up as easily as if he were a child, held him high above his head and hurled him into the bushes.

  Frazer just could not understand what was happening. It was simply inexplicable …

  But it didn’t stop. Next the African – Amunda Banda, yes, that was his name – produced a savage, downward swinging punch that landed at the base of the gangster Big Zee’s neck. He fell to his knees and, as he did so, he accidentally discharged his bazooka, which blasted into the gates behind Frazer.

  Frazer looked back and saw that it had blown one of the gates off its hinges. Suddenly the mammoths were out, and their pent-up fury sent them charging after the matriarch. Frazer faced forward again and saw the hunters, and the guards with them, looking dismayed, terrified, astounded. Their line became ragged. They turned and began to flee.

  Kaggs alone stood still. He raised a machine gun to his shoulder and aimed it at the face of the elephant. Before he could pull the trigger the African was on him. They wrestled for control of the gun, and Frazer heard a short burst. He saw the flowing garment that the African wore billow out and then a red stain spread across it.

  Kaggs had the gun again, but now it was too late for him. The mammoths were upon him. He fled with the others, trying to find refuge from those massive trampling feet among the trees.

  Ellie was not concerned with Kaggs. She was looking for Drexler. And there he was, running away on his long legs.

  Then Frazer, whose heart had almost burst with adrenalin-fuelled joy at their victory, saw something that made him groan in despair. A line of big trucks was coming towards them. Reinforcements, he knew, from the Maharaja’s private army. This fight was not over. This fight had barely begun.

  Things now became utterly chaotic. The mammoths charged hither and thither, and it was hard to know if they were simply exultant at their freedom, or enraged at their former captors. Random shots rang out, hitting nothing. Drexler still ran towards the oncoming trucks, seeking salvation and safety there. Ellie, who most certainly was enraged, thundered after him, with Amazon and Frazer still clinging to her mighty back.

  Amazon didn’t know what to think. Should she be elated or distraught? Stuck behind Frazer, she couldn’t properly see what was going on. There was dust everywhere, and the noise was deafening. Screams, shots, trumpeting. The rumbling of the trucks.

  The trucks began to pull up and fan out across the track. Drexler had almost reached them when he stopped dead. Frazer wondered if they could still escape, riding the elephant out into the jungle. He dug his left heel into her side, which should have got her to turn that way … But Ellie was too intent on her prize. She carried on towards Drexler and the trucks. Trucks that were now disgorging their passengers. And yes, there were guards in khaki uniforms. And others. Civilians.

  Amazon peered over Frazer’s shoulder, and tried to wipe the sweat and dust from her eyes.

  It.

  Couldn’t.

  Be.

  There, striding forward, was the solid, muscular form of her Uncle Hal. And behind him came her mother and father, who was leaning heavily on a serious-looking Bluey.

  And, at the back, Miranda Coverdale.

  Amazon felt a huge pang of guilt for leaping to the conclusion that Miranda was the traitor.

  And, last of all, Mehmet. Somehow he must have got through.

  The guards weren’t guards at all. They were Indian policemen and women. Although, faced with the sight of stampeding prehistoric animals, most were hastily climbing back into their vehicles.

  Amazon couldn’t blame them – the sight of fifteen woolly mammoths and one very annoyed she-elephant rampaging before them must have been quite something to behold.

  Even the Hunts were flabbergasted – but their children were there and so they had no intention of running.

  The first to reach them was Drexler, his clothes ragged and torn, his face a mask of terror. He threw himself at the feet of Hal Hunt and begged, ‘Save me, save me.’

  Hal looked up at the approaching elephant – which had, in fact, slowed down. But it was Roger Hunt who came forward and spoke – not to Frazer or Amazon, but to the elephant.

  ‘Hey, old girl,’ he said in a clear voice, ‘good to see you again after all these years. You remember me, don’t you?’

  And Ellie, who had been rampant with rage, stopped, stretched out her trunk and sniffed at the face of Roger Hunt, and then knelt down and allowed the children to scramble from her back, while Roger stroked her old head.

  ‘We were friends a long time ago,’ said Roger to the gawping watchers around him, ‘back when we were kids, and collected animals for zoos. I’d recognize Ellie anywhere. She used to carry me and a very mean sloth bear around on her back … I knew she was here, but that was when we thought the Maharaja was running a game reserve and not a slaughterhouse.’

  ‘Get in the back of the car,’ said Hal Hunt to the cringing Drexler, ‘before I let this elephant turn you into chicken-liver pâté.’

  Drexler did as he was told. The Indian police officers had, by this stage, regained their nerve and begun to spread out, picking up the surviving hunters.

  The mammoths had lost interest in charging about, causing mayhem. This was their first taste of freedom and they had some exploring to do.

  ‘Mammoths …?’ said Ling-Mei, looking for the first time, in Amazon’s experience, totally perplexed. ‘How? Why?’

  ‘It’s a long story, Mum,’ said Amazon. ‘And at last we’ve got the time to tell it. But how did you find us?’

  ‘It was Mehmet,’ said Hal Hunt. ‘He made it to the police. Must have had a heck of a job getting his meaning across, but luc
kily I’d used my contacts to get the word out that you were missing, and they must have put two and two together. We found your mother and father lost as usual in the woods across the river. Lucky Roger here had Ling-Mei with him – he never did learn a blasted thing about surviving in the wild. He’d have been tiger food without her.’

  ‘Brother,’ said Roger, smiling, ‘if my ankle was up to it, I’d kick your ass. But I might just get my daughter to do it for me.’

  ‘And she could too,’ chipped in Frazer, which brought a peal of laughter from them all. And then the Hunts – Frazer and Amazon, Hal and Roger and Ling-Mei – came together in what might just have been the greatest, longest, most heart-felt group hug in the history of the world.

  And then Amazon drew back from the hug, a look of sadness on her face.

  ‘Chung,’ she said. ‘He saved us …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hal, ‘it would take more than crocs and hippos to finish that rascal off. He was picked up further down the river. He’s recovering in hospital. He’s looking at some serious jail time. Unless he happens to slip away, which, frankly, I wouldn’t put past him.’

  And then Frazer remembered something important.

  ‘Dad, there was a guy, an African guy … when we first came out, it was just us – I mean me and Zonnie and the elephant – and they were all there waiting. They would have cut us to ribbons. But this African guy started fighting them – he took the guns off them … he totally saved our lives. But Kaggs shot him before he ran off.’

  ‘Take us to him,’ said Hal. Frazer led the way to where he’d last seen the African.

  He was lying on his back, looking up with open eyes into the pure blue of the sky. For a moment Frazer thought that he was dead. And then the eyes blinked and he looked towards them as they came, and at the same time a half-smile appeared on his lips, and Hal Hunt yelled out a name.

  ‘Joro!’

  Roger looked stunned for a second. Then he slapped his head. ‘Of course! How could I have forgotten?’

  Then the two older Hunts ran to the man’s side. Roger cradled his head, while Hal held his hand. Someone brought over a medical kit, and Ling-Mei staunched the bleeding as best she could.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Amazon, utterly mystified.

  Her father looked up at her.

  ‘Many years ago this man acted as our guide in Africa. He … well, he had to stand up against some pretty tough enemies, and he had to make some hard decisions about right and wrong. I knew that he’d gone on to be a leader of his people, but I just didn’t recognize him.’

  ‘But I,’ said Joro, his laughter turning into a bubbling cough, ‘recognized you. I was aware that this man Kaggs and his slaves were taking animals from my country. I was retired from politics, and I wanted one more challenge. So I came here to discover and expose the truth. When I saw what was happening, I still had to keep quiet and wait for the time to strike.’

  ‘You saved us, Mr Joro,’ said Amazon. She could see that the front of his robe was red and sticky.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Hal. ‘We can get an air ambulance here, and you’ll be in hospital in no time.’

  ‘Don’t worry, my brother,’ replied Joro. ‘I am not ready yet to die. There are too many stories for us all to tell, the young and the old alike.’

  And each of the figures gathered there thought that there was much truth in this, and they began to tell the stories, until the throbbing sound of the rotor blades of the approaching air ambulance drowned them out.

  The snake had been drawn by the vibrations. She was now very hungry indeed. The recent disappointments festered in her.

  She saw the man. He was drenched in sweat that smelled strong and sweet to her. His chest was heaving and his face contorted with exhaustion, fear and hatred. She advanced upon him rapidly, her hunger meaning that she moved with less caution than usual.

  And so Merlin Kaggs was alerted by the rustle of leaves on the dry ground. Without wasting time by looking to see what was coming, he pulled the pistol from the holster at his side.

  It was too late. The huge mouth of the snake was already closing over his face. He managed to fire off one, two, three wild shots, which were heard by other jungle creatures – the dhole in their den, the stalking leopard, the sulking tiger, the chattering monkeys, and by the lions out on the plain.

  And then Merlin Kaggs was silenced.

  Acknowledgements

  As ever, my thanks to Anthea Townsend, Samantha Mackintosh, Corinne Turner and Nelson Evergreen. Thanks also to Robert Twigger, whose magnificent book Big Snake: The Hunt for the World’s Longest Python was a major source of inspiration and information.

  Top 10 Facts: Reticulated Pythons

  RETICULATED PYTHONS are the world’s longest snakes. They can grow around ten metres in length. Female reticulated pythons are usually larger than the males.

  The word ‘reticulation’ means squares and lines that create a distinctive net-like pattern. RETICULATED PYTHONS get their name from their scales, which show a characteristic diamond and crisscrossed-line pattern.

  RETICULATED PYTHONS live in humid, tropical climates in South-east Asia where there’s lots of rainfall. For this reason they like to come out at night when the air is moister. In the daytime they like to find a damp spot in which to hide.

  Most snakes lay eggs, and PYTHONS have been known to lay more than a hundred eggs at a time!

  A snake’s scales are made of keratin, which is the same material as your fingernails! So even though their skin is flexible, it’s quite hard and tough too.

  PYTHONS don’t kill their prey using venom. They suffocate their victim by wrapping themselves round its body, waiting for it to breathe out and then gripping even tighter.

  RETICULATED PYTHONS are ambush hunters, mainly preying on mammals. It can take several weeks for them to digest large prey, such as a pig or antelope.

  The average lifespan for a RETICULATED PYTHON in captivity is between twenty-one to twenty-five years.

  RETICULATED PYTHONS are hunted for their skins and many thousands are killed every year. As a result, numbers of this species of snake in the wild are diminishing.

  The Latin name for a reticulated python is PYTHON RETICULATUS.

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  First published 2014