The Jungle Warrior

by Andy Briggs

  “You have another home with your real family—the Greystokes in England.”

  She had expected him to get angry, but instead Tarzan looked bemused and gestured to the apes. “This Tarzan’s family.”

  Jane opened her mouth—then shut it again. She had tried to explain that there were people out there who would be desperate to know he was alive, but he refused to understand.

  “I think D’Arnot spoke to your family, your human family, and told them you were alive.” Tarzan’s face darkened at the mention of his friend. Jane pressed on. “I think he returned to the jungle to persuade you to go back with him. To prove to them that you were alive.”

  For a long moment Tarzan said nothing. An awkward tension hung in the air and Jane feared that she had overstepped the boundaries of his patience. Karnath sensed the atmosphere and jumped from Jane’s arms so he could roll around Tarzan’s feet, reeling head over heels. The little gorilla’s clowning brought a sharp laugh from Tarzan. He ruffled Karnath’s head.

  “Tarzan belong here.” He looked long and hard at Jane, then his expression softened. “I care for them, not Greystoke.”

  •••

  Clark’s injury slowed them considerably and it took the best part of two hours to reach the crashed jeep. Robbie was dismayed by the damage Jane had inflicted on the vehicle and it took another hour to fix the damaged shock absorber. Robbie kept a small toolkit in the back of the vehicle, but it wasn’t the best equipment for such a task. However, with a little ingenuity and a lot of brute force, he managed to reattach it. It took a further forty minutes for him to get the jeep off the tree branch by hacking at the thick wood with his machete, eventually managing to cut just enough for the weight of the jeep to snap it.

  Clark had been forced to watch from his seat on a rock. Whatever herbal remedy Tarzan had given him to ease the pain had worked to a degree, but now the slash on his thigh was throbbing under the improvised bandages.

  While examining the engine, Robbie found a folded piece of paper wedged under cables. He recognized Jane’s handwriting and admired her thinking. Under the bonnet was the driest place in the car and the one place Robbie was sure to look. He sighed loudly as he read it.

  “What’s she gone and done now?” asked Clark.

  Robbie read out the note. “Gone with Tarzan, don’t wait up. Two days max.” He crumpled the paper and threw it into the footwell. “She’s just asking for trouble.” He also held up her sat phone. “Smashed.”

  Clark shook his head. “She’s as stubborn as her mother. At least we know she’s safe. Don’t think there’s a safer place in this whole damn continent than with him.”

  Robbie bristled. He’d always treated Jane as a surrogate sister and tried to look after her as such. Clark’s comment made him think that he’d failed. He felt a pang of jealousy toward Tarzan. The ape-man was making him feel worthless.

  “Could be a good thing too,” said Clark thoughtfully, then he suddenly hissed with pain and clutched his leg. Whatever Tarzan had given him to numb the soreness was rapidly wearing off. “I’d better get this looked at. It’s startin’ to sting. Few leaves and monkey spit are OK, but I’d prefer professional medical attention an’ I’m only gonna get that in town, ain’t I?” He was referring to the Doctors Without Borders base in Sango. That the international medical aid organization had established a post in Sango showed what a remote and desperate place it was; otherwise it would have no access to medical care. “Least we can drive there now.”

  Robbie helped Clark into the passenger seat. “So why is Jane wandering off into the jungle a good thing?”

  “Because Archie won’t like it. It’s all very well gorilla-boy savin’ us now an’ again, but it’s not the kinda company he wants around Jane. This is good ammunition, mate. Maybe we can start bringin’ him around to our thinkin’. If we could mobilize everyone at the camp we could be a step closer to findin’ that plane. Find that and we got proof we can show ’em. In the meantime, I wanna make a few more inquiries about this soutpiel.” Robbie didn’t understand the derogatory South African term, but he could guess what Clark meant.

  There was little conversation during the drive to the town, as both were lost in their own thoughts. Clark was imagining the reward they could claim for delivering a British lord, while Robbie wrestled with the idea of using Tarzan as a tool to get rich. If Tarzan wanted to hide away in the jungle then so be it. It was exactly what Robbie was doing, so he understood the desire to be left alone. And Tarzan had now saved them on more than one occasion, so he felt indebted to the wild man. However, a nagging jealous voice pointed out how much better it would be not to have Tarzan around to upstage him and how much his life would improve with the reward money. Perhaps he could even head to Australia to start all over again.

  It was late into the afternoon when they arrived in Sango. The transition from the isolation of the jungle to the bustling, polluted town always jarred on Robbie. The single-story buildings were nothing more than wooden huts with corrugated-iron roofs. Power and phone cables hung low, zigzagging across the potholed dirt roads that were piled with rubbish. A few stray dogs picked amongst the litter and looked up hopefully as Robbie climbed out of the jeep. The aromas of civilization hit him hard: cooked food, gasoline generators, and open sewers. It was overwhelming.

  He left Clark at the doctor’s office—just an open gazebo with grubby canvas sheets draped around it for privacy. There was a queue of people waiting on benches in the shade. Robbie quickly glanced at them and saw eye infections, terrible sores, and a host of grim-looking injuries made all the worse by the tropical climate.

  Robbie headed for the café containing the town’s only Internet connection and waited patiently for the man using it to finish.

  “Izvinite,” said the man as he nudged past Robbie in his haste to leave.

  Robbie didn’t recognize the language, but wasn’t surprised. People came to this lawless town from every culture around the globe. He intended to use the thirty minutes’ Internet access he’d paid for to do a little more digging on the Greystokes. He angled the screen so that the café’s young owner couldn’t see what he was looking at.

  Several pages came up about the story he now knew well. Just over a decade and a half ago, Lord and Lady Greystoke had been flying over the Congo when their plane was lost from radar and never found. He glanced through reports of the French UN officer, Paul D’Arnot, who claimed to have discovered the mythical White Ape that haunted the jungle and who was in fact the son of the Greystokes. Without evidence, the Frenchman was scorned by the media and placed under psychiatric evaluation before he disappeared, never to be seen again.

  It was the same research he had printed out for Clark and, after fifteen minutes, he concluded they had everything the Internet had to offer on Tarzan and the Greystokes. He was about to leave when he suddenly had a thought. Jane had used the web to discover that Robbie’s stepfather was still alive and that the police were searching for him. It had never occurred to him to check for news about himself. Robbie typed in his own name and hit “search.”

  Ten minutes later he quickly left the café and headed to the jeep. His mind was racing with conflicting thoughts of anger and fear over the new information he had just discovered. He didn’t know what to do, or who to turn to.

  Should he tell Clark? After all, Clark had deliberately not wanted to know anything about Robbie’s past. He didn’t even ask any further questions when Jane had let slip about his stepfather. How would he react? He was afraid that Clark’s opinion of him would sour and he would risk losing a friend and mentor. The only person he could speak to was Jane, but did she already know about the things he’d just read? If so, why hadn’t she told him? Was she trying to protect him? Then again, every time she tried to raise the issue, he changed the subject. That made him feel rotten. Here he was, using Jane to extract information about Tarzan, and all the while she was looking out for him. He knew he was being an awful friend and he was now certain tha
t he was in terrible trouble. Far worse than he’d ever suspected.

  On his way out of the café he failed to notice that the man who had bumped into him earlier was sitting at a table inside drinking a beer. He had been positioned at just the right angle to observe what was on Robbie’s screen. Once he was sure the boy had left, Nikolas Rokoff stood up and crossed over to the computer. With a few mouse clicks he called up the web browser’s history and rapidly read through all the pages Robbie had visited . . .

  7

  Jane looked out in awe. Never had she seen a landscape that looked so beautiful or so deadly.

  They had been on the go for several hours, mostly in Tarzan’s preferred high-speed mode of travel through the canopy. Sometimes Jane clung on to him as he performed death-defying leaps, other times she felt confident enough to run along broad branches and make the smaller jumps to trees whose boughs intersected. She was unable to match Tarzan’s energetic parkour-style ballet through the dizzying heights and he often had to stop and wait for her to catch up, but he was always patient, never complaining. Jane caught glimpses of their destination as they traveled, but she was not prepared for its full beauty, revealed only when they emerged from the dense foliage onto the very edge of a cliff top.

  A volcano poked up from the lush landscape, plumes of fine grey smoke drifting from it. The conical peak was black and barren and, as Jane watched, glowing coals of rock spat out and rolled down the scree. A thick tangle of vegetation clung midway down the volcano’s flanks. There, in the fertile soil, it was denser than ever.

  They were now deeper into the heart of the jungle than Jane had ventured before. Flocks of African grey and red-fronted parrots circled the cliff, filling the air with noisy chatter.

  “Thunder Mountain,” said Tarzan.

  “And this is where you want to bring your family?” Tarzan nodded. The volcano was clearly active, and although the rich rainforest around indicated that it hadn’t erupted for a long time, she was concerned about Karnath and the others living under its shadow. “Are you sure it’s safe here?”

  Tarzan peered down into the jungle below. His brow creased with concern. “Targarni here, but food for us all.” As he spoke he plucked a green fruit from the tree and tossed it to Jane. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she bit into it. Tarzan crouched next to her, surveying the land. He seemed lost in thought as parrots landed close by and watched them with intelligent eyes.

  “D’Arnot like this place,” he suddenly said.

  Jane was astonished that Tarzan had willingly offered this vague piece of information. She encouraged him. “Tell me about him.”

  Tarzan hesitated, as though he was both wrestling with the idea and groping to find the words. Jane didn’t hurry him and, after a lengthy pause, Tarzan began his tale. It was difficult to follow with his limited vocabulary, but Jane slowly learned the story of how D’Arnot and Tarzan had met.

  •••

  Years ago, a younger and smaller Tarzan dropped from a tree and lay bleeding on the jungle floor for a considerable time. He felt weak and dizzy from the substantial loss of blood from a terrible shoulder wound courtesy of Kerchak’s powerful bite.

  The beast had fought with Tarzan’s ape mother, Kala, in a petty display of dominance. It was a pointless tantrum, and it had led to the accidental death of Kala’s newborn daughter. Even though he suspected he was no physical match to the silverback, Tarzan had flown into an uncontrolled rage.

  With his vine rope and a knife that he’d found on the body of a dead tribesman, Tarzan attacked Kerchak with every ounce of strength he possessed. He sank the blade into the silverback’s folds of fat several times, yet that did little more than irritate him. Tarzan was agile, but all it took was one chance blow from the gorilla’s mighty fist to crack the boy’s rib. While he was down, Kerchak bit deep into his shoulder. The ape was aiming for his neck, but Tarzan had managed to move aside enough to save his life. His only chance of survival was to flee.

  Pulling himself upright, Tarzan tended to his injuries, clipping the flap of shoulder flesh in place with the snapped-off heads of angry army ants. While bathing the wound in a stream he heard gunfire. He was familiar with the noise, which accompanied humans prowling through the jungle slaughtering animals—not for food, but for pleasure.

  Tarzan was in no fit state to confront the intruders, but his curiosity got the better of him. He carefully pushed through the foliage toward the sound. There he found a man, alone, and judging by the sound of his ragged breathing, he was injured. As Tarzan crept silently closer, he pictured the situation ahead just by listening to different sounds. The man was afraid, mumbling under his breath. Cold steel clicked and clacked as he fumbled to reload a rifle. But what was he afraid of?

  Only when he was a few feet away did Tarzan pick out the subtle movement of branches and a familiar low growl. His old foe, Sabor, was hunting in the highlands again.

  Tarzan had defeated the young lioness once before in a terrible tussle by using his vine rope to choke her as he slashed her flanks with his knife. If she chose to fight again today, when he was already injured, then he would undoubtedly die. Tarzan was not afraid of death, that was the way of the world, but he had no desire for it so soon. There was still too much for him to explore and discover. Death could wait.

  Tarzan positioned himself at a good vantage point to watch as the lioness circled the man, who was slumped across a log. The rifle in his hands was shaking so badly that the ammunition was scattered on the floor. He groped for the cartridges, but his fingers seemed unable to grip properly. Tarzan could now see why. Sabor had taken a bite from his left upper arm. The man’s sleeve was soaked in blood and its smell was enticing the beast to attack again.

  The lioness crouched ready to spring. Her hindquarters twitched in anticipation. The man’s death was imminent.

  Tarzan roared as loud as he could, beating his chest with his good hand. He bounded from the tree and landed between the man and the animal. In his weak condition, Tarzan almost passed out from the effort. Concentrating hard, he unsheathed his knife so Sabor could get a good look at it and snapped his vine rope like a whip.

  The lioness roared with fury at being denied an easy meal. Tarzan didn’t flinch as the animal’s warm, meaty breath washed over him. Instead he stood tall and swept the blade through the air. Sabor was stubborn, but not stupid. With a snarl she retreated into the foliage as fast as she could.

  Tarzan’s head was swimming as he turned to face the man. Ordinarily he would not bother to save any of the hunters he encountered in the jungle, but there was something about this man that was different. His clothing was a patchwork of greens that made him blend into his surroundings; the only splash of color was his bright blue beret. The man’s mouth hung open in a look of utter astonishment, an expression that Tarzan would never forget. It made him laugh every time he recalled it. That was how he always remembered D’Arnot.

  D’Arnot would never forget the boy who appeared from the jungle and frightened off a hungry lion, then turned to look at him and laughed as if nothing had happened.

  In the following weeks, Tarzan nursed himself and D’Arnot back to full health. The man was older and took longer to recover but, when he was able to walk properly, Tarzan took him back to his ape family.

  Kerchak greeted them both with a hostile territorial display. It was the first time the silverback had seen Tarzan since their fight. Tarzan gave no sign of fear but kept low and stared at the ground, motioning for D’Arnot to do the same. It was a sign of subordination so Kerchak begrudgingly left them alone and D’Arnot could roam freely across the plateau. His astonishment at being amongst wild mountain gorillas, and effectively welcomed into their band, was overshadowed when he saw the aircraft concealed by the jungle. He had hundreds of questions—none of which Tarzan could answer, so in the months that followed, D’Arnot patiently taught Tarzan how to speak. Based on what he found in the aircraft, he’d concluded the boy was from England, so they le
arned English, but he would have preferred to teach him his native, more elegant French.

  Tarzan picked up English quickly and even taught D’Arnot some Swahili words he had learned from shadowing hunting parties and loggers through the jungle. The Frenchman was fascinated to discover that Tarzan had developed his own language and often pointed out animals on their frequent treks for food: gimla, the crocodile; manu, the monkey; lano, for the annoying mosquitoes.

  After a couple of months, they were able to have lengthy and coherent conversations. The Frenchman marveled at Tarzan’s intellect but was often on the receiving end of the boy’s short temper when he failed to find the correct word to communicate.

  D’Arnot followed the band of gorillas as they migrated around the huge mountain in search of new pastures, eventually coming back to the plateau after many months. In that time, the Frenchman made no attempt to leave the jungle. He often asked Tarzan what he remembered of his past, particularly his family, but as far as the boy was concerned, the ape Kala was his mother. Tarzan was more interested in learning about D’Arnot.

  “Why you here?” he would ask.

  “I was part of a United Nations peacekeeping force in this country. We call it the Democratic Republic of Congo. We came here to monitor the peace efforts after the second Congo war and then we were assigned to watch over the Ituri conflict.” The names were unusual to Tarzan, but over the last few months he had gauged some idea of what the world was like beyond the jungle. “I was on patrol with my unit when we were attacked by Lendu soldiers who had fled into the jungle. I was the only survivor. When Sabor attacked . . . I was a dead man. I owe you my life.”

  Tarzan didn’t understand the gravitas of that statement. He was content with calling D’Arnot a friend.

  Since the jungle had no seasons, measuring the passage of time was almost impossible. D’Arnot could tell he’d been there a while because Tarzan had grown almost as big as him and his language skills had greatly improved. The Frenchman had shared his combat and survival skills with the boy and been surprised to learn new techniques from Tarzan. With their combined knowledge they often hunted food together, although the Frenchman was no match for Tarzan’s stealth or speed—and didn’t share his love for raw meat, so he ate only plants and vegetables.