SEAN OF THE CONGO

by Sean McCarthy

  “You ought to be grateful we’re offering you anything!” he ended.

  But ‘The Dragon’ wouldn’t have it. The expressions ‘fair play’ and ‘public relations’ were not in her vocabulary, and she gave him a dose of flaming verbal. In retort and merely agreeing to play by her rules, Shaggy countered with words comparable to his earlier, “take hold of that manky little pirogue…and shove it, sideways!” Alas, she wasn’t too happy about this (maybe there wasn’t a pirogue to hand) and hit the roof, again insisting we pay for five nights and no less. Too angry to persevere, Shaggy simply slapped the price of three on her desk and turned to go. The Dragon, however, was not the defeatist kind and, barking more verbal flames at him, seized his rucksack and refused to release it. So the only way he could leave now would be to (a) haul her out with him, (b) pay for five nights, or (c) snuff out her puff. Sorely tempted by the last option, Shaggy remained the gentleman and just snatched up the cash, though did let fly with a few more, “and shove it, sideways!” But his antagonist refused to budge and hit back with yet another fiery tirade, the resulting slanging match continuing until Shaggy changed his approach and persuaded her to let him speak to the husband and wife owners instead; he was duly led to where the latter could to be found.

  Sat in her cabin stuffing her fat chops as seemed usual, the wife was reputably an even bigger dragon than The Dragon. With this in mind, once Shaggy had been given the green light, I decided it best to wait outside, as you do. After a short while I heard another argument, upon which Shaggy’s voice came ringing out loud and clear.

  “And fuck you an’ all!”

  Then he came flying out of her cabin, face like thunder, rushing past me and The Dragon, and then off out through the hotel’s exit so fast it took me a while to catch up with him.

  “What happened?”

  “The fucking bitch.”

  “What? What?”

  “The fucking bitch. I wasn’t even halfway through the story when she just cut me off and said, ‘Oh, I can’t be bothered with you anymore, pay what you want.’ Then she waved her hand for me to go and carried on shovelling food into her fat fucking face. Fuuucking bitch. Just ignored me like I was some kind of insignificant piece of shit…”

  “Which of course you are.”

  “Tell you what, I felt like taking every last zaire I had on me and stuffing them straight down her fat fucking, slimy toe–rag throat. Oh, I’d have loved it. Big handful of cash. Right down her fucking manky throat. Eat that, you fat git.”

  “Then what?”

  “I stormed out here, didn’t I?”

  “But you didn’t pay, right?”

  “Of course not. I’m not that daft.” Shaggy started to laugh. “Once I’d left the fat fuck’s cabin, I couldn’t have given a shit about her anymore, but I figured that that manageress bitch might come after me, so I just kept my anger going and buggered off as fast as possible.”

  “You crafty…”

  “Well, what do you expect? Right pair of fucking dragons.”

  Although we had remembered the route back from Woody Strode’s fishing village, once we began closing in on it we still managed to lose our way. Rescue came in the form of a small group of youths, who in the event had only to lead us around a set of bushes, yet maintained we pay them for their energy–sapping labours. Still smarting over his treatment at the Olympia, Shaggy just politely told them to “Fuck off” but after having saved some accommodation cash I was feeling charitable and gave them a small tip. Besides, the last thing I wanted before paddling 230 miles in a sawn–off tree was for some whipper–snappers to take the hump and go jinxing us.

  The problem now was how to set about shifting the pirogue overland to the banks of the Congo, so as to circumvent the waterfall. Deciding he’d had enough discussion for one day, Shaggy wandered over to the water’s edge, leaving me to wade in amongst at least one hundred villagers, all of whom had decided they were going to help. The trouble now, apart from the pirogue being incredibly heavy and any means of transporting it plainly limited, was that there were just too many people determining how it should be moved. I even found myself having to referee one or two minor scuffles, such as in the case of one small boy who was particularly keen to lend a hand. So much so that when we finally heaved the pirogue from the water (tug–of–war–like, with a rope and many bodies lined up, pulling it in unison), the boy did everything he could to squeeze in the line. Unfortunately he just kept getting in the way and, despite his good intentions, ended up being whacked all over the place. Every time he approached an adult to offer his services, it would culminate in their giving him a dig and telling him to get lost. Remaining resolute, he’d move on to the next adult, and sure enough they would give him a clout too — to the point where it actually became funny to everyone, myself included, and even the boy started tittering. Soon he was getting a wallop left, right and centre, all the way down the line. To add to his woes, in an effort to emulate the adults, all his friends came rushing over with their own elbows, cuffs and pushes. Having witnessed this and not to be outdone, when he eventually came to me for assistance, I slapped a mock look of contempt on my face and pretended to backhand him, which had the whole village and even the boy hooting with laughter — thankfully.

  Once the pirogue had been dragged from its mooring and on to a cart–like set of wheels, the villagers transported it overland, until we had passed the waterfall, where it was placed — almost symbolically — on the waters of the Congo.

  It had been pre–decided that we would pay only at this juncture, and scores of people counted loudly as one by one I handed over nineteen of the Z 1,000 notes that Shaggy and I had pooled. Upon the last thousand, everyone gave a terrific cheer. Then we exchanged goodbyes and climbed into the pirogue — with me at the back, where I had always pictured myself. As for why Shaggy had straightaway gone to the front, when later queried he told me, “So that I could see any danger first and get out first!” (thanks, friend), before admitting he had, “No reason really, I just got in.”

  When settled, we took up the paddles and requested the villagers to push us as far into the river as they could. At long last, we were on the Congo. Seconds later we were away from the bank and heading for our new finish line of Bumba.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE WRATH OF THE CONGO

  I suppose the fact that neither of us had ever paddled any form of canoe didn’t matter to Shaggy and me. We were adventurers in a land awash with the possibility of derring–do, after that we didn’t care. On the other hand, when you are in what is essentially a whittled–down log, on a titanic ocean–like river, and you’re anything but Olympic swimmers, it might prove to be a pretty bad idea. Especially when we at once realised we hadn’t the faintest clue how to keep the pirogue from spinning in circles — we later sussed our new toy had a natural leaning to the right, although I’m convinced we would have been all over the place during that first hour regardless. To really rub it in, the crowds on the bank began howling with laughter, as the pirogue spun firstly one way and then the other, erratically criss–crossing the waters irrespective of our best efforts. The result of this was obvious — deep embarrassment — and Shaggy and I swapped countless insults, both furiously blaming the other. But there was no escape, and the villagers kept on howling.

  Fortunately some fishermen were passing in their pirogue, and one offered to show us how to paddle correctly. We were happily about to let him, until we learned he wanted payment for his time — clearly he didn’t know that fifty pence coins are that shape so they can be prised from Shaggy’s hand with a spanner. So on we carried unassisted, and while there seemed to be little we could do to fix our dire technique, besides time and practice, once out of everyone’s sight we had enough nous to change something we did have control over. Whenever there appeared a village — which invariably meant a gathering of mud huts — to save face we would down paddles and pretend to be taking in the sun. Only once we had floated past would we go back to lo
oking like Laurel and Hardy in a remake of Dumb and Dumber.

  After a couple of hours of rotating every which way, smacking into the banks, and travelling backwards half the time, we finally mastered some kind of direction to our strokes and succeeded in keeping the pirogue in a straight(ish), forward–facing line. Now our only problem would be newly blistered hands. Well, that and wild animals. And the heat. And a worry that we hadn’t brought enough provisions. And, to cap it all, the realisation that our sluggishness was due not only to the cumbersome pirogue and our distinctly amateur paddling, but also a lethargic current. Combine that with the ever–worsening ache in our backs (I would hate to think how excruciating the pain would have been without our rucksacks to use as makeshift stools) and the idea of the escapade being exhilarating soon turned sour, as paddling sank from glamorous notion to downright boring pain in the back — and arse. No fast adventure. No romantic ideal come true.

  Another hour passed. No current. No rapids. No speed. More pain. Still no ‘adventure’. I look at my map. Bumba: ‘sixty–trillion light years’. Needless to say, we began jesting about how we were glad we’d binned Kinshasa. And that we should have stayed for the riverboat, despite the fact that the latter started to sound like a genuine wish. Of course, simply catching the riverboat would have gone utterly against not just our central objective, to literally paddle down the Congo, but also our hunger for excitement, for true adventure. Taking a boat was a breeze. Real adventure came in the mode of one’s own bodily endeavours, of daring to risk the elements, of sheer physical effort, of being right in the thick of nature, of being part of it, if not the battle against it. And this meant doing precisely what we were doing. At least that’s what I told myself, since I was now desperately clinging to the belief that we had done the right thing, even though in my heart I knew we had. Evidently the war of attrition that had started on my body had now moved to my psyche, the very place where wars are often won or lost.

  More time passed. More listless currents. More pain. More mind games, as again I was forced to tell myself that one cannot live an adventure by ducking the tough stuff. Anyone could do that — and I wasn’t just anyone. I was the little boy with big dreams and aspirations. The little boy who was going to be different. The little boy who was going to boldly go.

  The pep talk didn’t work. There was something wrong. But what?

  Whatever the answer, it didn’t lie with fatigue and a crippled back, though obviously these things didn’t help. Stuff like this I could cope with. I was an athlete after all; I had a gift for endurance, a history of handling pain. No, the solution to the problem was something else, and my mind harked back to scenes of Tarzan swinging through the jungle, Indiana Jones dashing from the huge boulder, Enid Blyton’s characters fleeing down the slippery–slip. There was a common theme running throughout — they each had excitement, had pace, had an edge to them. Like a tennis match that goes into the last set, naturally there is always going to be exhaustion, be aches and pains, but these are equalized by the passion of the moment. At this moment, however, the passion just wasn’t there. It was so slow and laborious I’d have found more pleasure in rolling a square boulder up a hill — and we had another God knows how many days of it.

  What to do? Call it quits and return to Kisangani? No, that was never an option. Okay, what then? Regrettably there was no answer other than to arrive at Bumba ahead of the riverboat, and that was beyond our reach. Or was it? On our visas we had sixteen days to get there. In spite of the leisurely speed, I didn’t see that as too great a test. Making Bumba before the riverboat however? Hmm ...was it truly so unattainable? It was certainly a challenge. In fact, it was a veritable race — my game. Suddenly my zeal picked up, and with a new way of thinking there was just one part of the problem to deal with: putting the stratagem to my unhurried friend.

  “Listen, I’ve been thinking about something...”

  “Ouch.”

  “Ha, good one. Anyway, what I was saying was that, I know that Eugene said we would never get to Bumba before the riverboat, but if we give it everything we’ve got, you never know.”

  I hadn’t expected a resounding “Yee–ha, let’s push on!” but then again I wasn’t prepared for the deathly silence that did follow. Even so, I could tell Shaggy was mulling over the idea, so tried to help sway things my way by using the same ‘shouldn’t we include all forms of adventure’ line of reasoning as when plane bargaining back in Goma.

  “Let’s face it,” I resumed, “if we ever get home we may never come back, so I reckon we would be far more satisfied with ourselves if we can take the riverboat, rather than do the same–old, same–old hitchhiking.”

  My near–duplicated “more satisfied” tactic didn’t fool him one jot.

  “You mean you’re pissed off with this pirogue and you don’t fancy waiting for lifts at the end of it.”

  “Where on earth did you get that idea?”

  “Well,” said Shaggy, the sigh in his voice betraying his own disappointment, “let’s just see how it goes. If we get to Bumba before the boat, we can get on it. If not, we’ll hitchhike.”

  “Either way makes no difference to me.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  With the thought of missing the riverboat at Bumba and having to spend another however many days sitting around waiting for lifts, I then pressed Shaggy to go on paddling as far beyond sunset as possible — something I later came to regret. Being in the jungle when it’s dark is one thing, but floating in the centre of the Congo at night opens up a whole new can of worms, particularly if you have a serious case of overactive imagination.

  It was practically pitch black. The mainland we guessed was about a quarter–mile away, and with my faith in our ability to remain afloat about as valuable as a second–hand toilet roll, my nerve started to ebb ‘Captain Kamikaze meets Bad Max’ style. Thankfully not alone in my dread, Shaggy’s courage followed suit when the strange, unidentifiable noises that often accompany darkness began to envelop us, especially since they were magnified by the Congo, a river whose banks were filled with every type of wildlife and creepy crawly — the worst was the shrill of what sounded like a banshee being tortured.

  “What in the world is that?” I asked.

  “Don’t know, but it’s got severe constipation.”

  Shaggy’s witticism did little to offset our fear of either upending in the dark, being attacked by a large creature, or plunging into an island bank crammed with overhanging, scary jungle. Even later, when we discovered the ‘banshee’ noise had come from some sort of primate, it still managed to put the frighteners on us.

  Another hour passed, and we decided our best approach would be to find a clearing along a bank somewhere, preferably an extensive one, and set up a big fire — to discourage any inquisitive animals — then resume paddling when dawn broke, at around six o’clock.

  Our eyes now slightly more accustomed to the dark, we noticed the faint outline of an island to our left and decided to head for it, but succeeded only in making the pirogue spin in circles. With a bit of luck, though, we managed to travel in its general direction. The trouble was, not only did there appear to be no clearing, but neither could we stop. More alarming for me, it looked as though my end of the rotating pirogue was about to be selected as jungle fodder — and dinner for whatever lurked within.

  “Get your torch out!” I hollered.

  “Hang on, I’ll just find it.”

  “You haven’t got it to hand?”

  “It’s here somewhere. Could have sworn…”

  “Bloody hurry up!”

  “I can’t see it anywhere.”

  “Feel for it!”

  “I am, I can’t find it.”

  “Oh shiiiiiiit!”

  The next thing I knew, yep, my end of the pirogue had delved into the island’s overhanging trees, and while smacking into these banks and being engulfed by the forest during daylight hours had proved frightening enough — I mean, who knows what’s in there —
at least I could see. To have it close in around you at night, however, feeling the thicket about your body while effectively blind, is another thing altogether. Yet all Shaggy could do was look on with despair, as my cowering outline disappeared under a shroud of dense, ‘life ending’ jungle.

  Up until now I had managed to act fairly cool and had kept a tight grip on my feelings of terror. Not any more, as this new predicament cast a grim shadow over any gallantry, and proved to be another cause of any remaining ‘tough guy’ image heading straight out the window. Petrified in the extreme, all I could think about was whether I would be landed on by a snake, creepy–crawlies, head–hunters, or varying combinations of all of them, and I let out a volley of abuse, screaming at my comrade–in–arms to get me the hell out of there. True to form, rather than panicking, Shaggy found my hysteria far too funny to pass up on and started to roar with laughter.

  Fuck that.

  Paddling frantically, my trepidation refused to let up until we were heading away from danger (although now moving towards the centre of the Congo, as if that were a safe haven), where I managed to reflect on my silliness and broke into a hearty chuckle. But Shaggy wasn’t so quick to let me forget.