by David Alric
‘Helen and I are palaeontologists – fossil hunters,’ Julian had started once they were settled outside. ‘We met and married while still at college and after years of working at the university we managed to get a United Nations research scholarship to study abroad in unexplored regions of potential palaeontological interest. We’d always been interested in South America because people have thought for years that some animal species which are extinct everywhere else might still be alive in remote areas of the jungle. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his famous story The Lost World about a land that time forgot in the Brazilian wilderness and, though that was of course just fiction, there’ve been occasional reports right up to the present day of native tribes seeing unknown creatures in the Amazon basin. Helen and I didn’t really believe that any weird and wonderful creatures could have survived, but we did think we might find a more complete fossil record here than has been found so far in East Africa, Mongolia and Arizona. We were delighted to learn that our application for a field study grant had been successful, the only stipulation being that we should study at four different sites in at least two continents so that any research benefits resulting from our work could be spread across several different countries. We obtained a year’s sabbatical leave from our university posts and then started on our adventure, making three-month visits to West Africa, Patagonia and Colombia in turn. We saved our final three-month period for the task we thought would be the most exciting – the search for new sites in remote Amazonia. After only a week of flying over unexplored territory we found the crater in which we are now stranded. It’d been the first place we’d seen where the plane could land, and the landscape – mixed forest, savannah and rocky outcrops – was so similar in appearance to the famous Olduvai gorge in Tanzania that we both became excited at the possibility of finding some outstanding fossils.
‘The pilot, David, had a problem with some tricky air currents below the rim of the crater, but we eventually landed safely and decided to set up an overnight camp to do some preliminary exploration. When David tried to radio back to base to tell them what we were up to, he found he couldn’t. He thought the nearby cliff was causing radio interference so he took the radio from the plane with its back-up battery and set out alone, away from the cliff, to see if he could find a better spot for transmission and reception.
‘After a couple of hours had passed Helen and I had finished putting up the tent and began to wonder where he’d got to. We were worried he might have broken an ankle or something; anyway, we set off in the direction he had gone and the first thing we noticed were some herds of completely unfamiliar animals. We also saw groups of large flightless birds that we thought must be rheas – the ostriches of the pampas – though this is further north than we ever thought they existed. After about a mile we saw the radio on the ground, its leather strap still partially slung over David’s shoulder. No David – just his shoulder. It was lying there with the arm, collarbone and bits of chest still attached. His entire forequarter had just been torn out of his body.’ Julian paused. Richard was listening intently to every word.
‘Our first thought was to try to find his other remains but then we realized that he couldn’t possibly have survived such an injury and that we ourselves were probably in grave danger. We decided a jaguar or puma must have attacked him: it was too far from the river for a cayman, which was the only other creature – as we then imagined – that could possibly have killed him. We slept in the plane that night – we didn’t dare stay in the tent in case the jaguar followed our tracks or scent and attacked us as we slept. It was just as well we did because in the morning the tent was slashed to pieces and our belongings scattered.’
He paused for a drink then continued. Richard listened agog.
‘The next day we felt we ought to try to get the radio back, just in case we could make it work. I took the axe that was part of our camping equipment, though quite how effectively I could defend two of us with it against a determined jaguar I wasn’t sure. We had no choice, though: without the radio we were doomed to stay here for ever. As we got near to the place where he’d had been attacked we saw a gigantic bird – much larger than the rhea that I’d first thought it must be, bigger in fact than the biggest ostrich you could ever imagine – and it had a massive head and beak. It was pecking at something on the ground and as we watched it raised its head with David’s entire arm in its great beak. I realized with a sensation I can’t possibly describe to you that I was looking at a terror bird – phorusrhacos – supposedly extinct for thousands of years. As it lifted its head it stared straight at us – we were standing about a hundred yards away, I would guess – dropped the arm and started striding towards us. We both stood stock still, absolutely petrified with fear: I could feel the axe handle beginning to slip through my palms, which were drenched with sweat. I suppose we could’ve started to run but I’m sure it would have been useless – the creature was ten feet high and, with its enormous legs, would have overtaken us in a minute. Anyway, we didn’t need to for at that instant there was a ferocious roar and a sabre-toothed tiger hurled himself at the bird. He’d obviously returned to see if any of his previous day’s kill remained and caught the terror bird in the process of stealing it.
‘I had of course seen sketches of sabre-toothed cats in museums but in real life the animal was much bigger than I’d imagined and those massive eight-inch fangs were truly amazing. They’re not true tigers – their scientific name is Smilodon and they’re supposed to have been extinct for over a hundred thousand years. While the cat and the bird were fighting we dropped to the ground behind some rocks; we then crawled away until we thought it was safe to crouch and eventually got back to the plane as best we could with Helen hobbling along on her bad foot. Once in the plane we had to think seriously about our situation. I think that at this point, at the risk of boring you, Richard, you need to know something about the prehistory of South America so that what I tell you makes more sense.’
‘There isn’t a chance in a million that you could bore me,’ said Richard. ‘Tell me everything I need to know.’
‘It’s best if I hand over to Helen at this point,’ Julian said. ‘She’s the expert on this stuff.’ He stopped and looked past Richard. ‘Look!’ he said, pointing into the distance.
Richard turned. About half a mile away was a cluster of trees that stuck out from the forest surrounding the river. A creature the size of a small house was standing upright on its hind limbs and tearing the vegetation from one of the trees. Even at that distance they could just hear the crashing and rending sounds of its activity.
‘What in heaven’s name …’ started Richard – he had leapt to his feet and knocked his chair over.
‘It’s OK. You can sit down, they don’t come near the plane any more – not since destroying the camp the first night and finding nothing that interested them. It’s a giant ground sloth, Megatherium americanum. It weighs almost four tons. You’re looking at a creature that’s supposed to have been extinct for eight thousand years. It looks remarkably like the museum models, doesn’t it?’ Both he and Helen seemed quite relaxed and Richard sat down again – though Julian and Helen noticed that he turned his chair so he could keep his good eye on the distant monster, and for the rest of the conversation he occasionally glanced in that direction.
Helen took a sip from her plastic camping cup and turned to Richard. ‘For thirty million years South America was isolated from all other land masses and its animals and plants evolved independently into unique forms – just as they did in Australia. Then, about three million years ago, the continent of what is now North America collided with South America and the animals of the two lands intermingled. What a time that must have been.’ She looked wistful and Richard realized how utterly absorbed she was in her subject.
‘Just think what it would have been like. Predators and prey meeting species they had never seen before in their entire history. Some species must have disappeared almost overnight; others would have t
aken longer, with the whole process eventually resulting in the present-day mix of South American animals. Except, that is, in this crater. As you can see, its walls form an impassable barrier to both animals and humans; nothing except birds can get in or out, and the funny air currents around the rim that caused trouble for our pilot seem to bother the birds as well. We haven’t actually seen anything fly in or out since we’ve been here. The crater seems to be a true “lost world” as described by Conan Doyle – a miniature ecosystem in which the animals and plants have remained undisturbed by outside influences since the mid-Pliocene – about three million years ago. It continued to develop on its own, however, and the final result is a mixture of the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs – that’s up to about ten thousand years ago. It’s a palaeontologist’s dream come true – a zoo of living fossils which has exceeded our wildest expectations. The trouble is, we’re trapped here and our situation is getting worse. Every day we risk our lives for food and water and it’s only a matter of time before one of us is caught by an animal or has an accident. It’s a curious twist of fate that after making the greatest biological discovery of our age – probably of all time – we can’t tell anyone about it. It seems ridiculous that we actually have a means of escape right in front of us,’ she nodded at the plane, ‘but we can’t use it. We even thought of trying to teach ourselves to fly in short hops around the crater but we realized the risk of crashing was too great. Even if we survived the crash we’d almost certainly be worse off than we are now.’
The sun had sunk over the western rim of the crater and Helen said that soon they should get back into the plane for the night.
‘How safe are we in there?’ Richard asked. He was thinking of the massive ground sloth he had seen; it could crush the plane with a single blow of its giant paw.
‘The animals don’t pay any attention to it, thank God,’ said Julian. ‘We noticed similar behaviour in the big game on our safaris in Africa. Even when you’re in an open Land Rover the animals leave you alone as long as you don’t get out. It’s as though the vehicle is part of the landscape.’
They clambered into the plane on this reassuring note and talked long into the night. When they finally settled to sleep Richard’s mind was buzzing with all he had seen and heard; it had, without question, been the most unusual day in his life. He eventually fell into a fitful sleep in the cramped conditions of the plane that was at the same time their defensive fortress and their prison.
The next day Helen and Julian fetched food and water but Richard stayed behind. Because his side was painful and inflamed he had difficulty in moving and while the others were away he had the opportunity, for the first time since arriving in the crater, to assess their situation quietly and calmly. On the positive side they were all alive and relatively well, though Helen’s foot was clearly going to be a serious problem if it carried on getting worse. They had the safety of the plane, which the animals genuinely appeared to ignore. Fresh water was no problem for it streamed in rivulets at hundreds of places down the cliff face from the rainforest above and the plane, mercifully, was quite close to one of these. About two hundred yards from the plane there was a grove of bananas and other trees next to a small stream which was formed from several of the rivulets coming off the cliff and ran to the main river a mile away. This grove was their main source of food. As well as the bananas Julian had mentioned there were avocados, some citrus fruits and some edible tubers, similar to potatoes or yams.
These few positive factors seemed to be overwhelmed by many negative ones. Nobody knew where they were and they had no means of communicating with the outside world. The crater was teeming with wild beasts, many of them fierce predators, and without any effective means of defending themselves they risked their lives every time they moved away from the plane. They were effectively confined to trips to the nearby cliff for water and to the banana grove for food. He could see now how the finding of an occasional fallen animal had been so helpful to Helen and Julian in their struggle to survive, despite the risk from competing scavengers. Julian had tried on one occasion to see if he could get fish from the main river, but he had never tried again. Richard recalled his words:
‘As I got near the river I frightened a small herd of deer-like creatures. They scattered in front of me and the one nearest to the river simply disappeared. It vanished into the jaws of the largest crocodile you ever imagined in your worst nightmare. It must have been forty feet long with a body the height and width of a family car. The minute it saw me it started lumbering towards me – surprisingly fast. I turned and ran and I’ve never been back. The river itself was huge – as you’d expect from all the water coming off the rainforest. Where it goes to I’ve no idea as exploring is obviously out of the question, but I presume it must leave from the crater through some kind of underground cave. It would be a theoretical way of escape if there was air above it but it’s not an expedition Helen or I would begin to consider.’
As he thought over all these things Richard realized the true horror of their predicament. As Helen had said, it was only a question of time before one or more of them fell prey to capture, accident or disease. They were literally living from day to day, and one day it had to come to an end. Richard’s thoughts, inevitably, turned to his family and whether he would ever see them again – it seemed extremely unlikely. He would have been astonished if he had known that his only hope of survival was his daughter Lucy, lying at that very moment in the intensive care unit of a London hospital and as yet unaware of her awakening power.
The next day followed the same pattern. Richard stayed quietly recovering from his injuries while Helen and Julian went foraging for supplies. He sat out in the shade of the plane, gazing in awe and wonderment at the scene before him. As the sun rose in the sky a medley of life-forms paraded before his fascinated gaze as though inhabiting some immense free-range menagerie. Helen had given Richard some of the reference books they had brought with them for their palaeontological work. The most useful was one that described the creatures inhabiting South America during the Pleistocene – the epoch which Helen and Julian believed to be the principal source of the animals in the crater – and he was able to compare the pictures in this book with the real creatures going about their lives before his very eyes. Herds of long-nosed camel creatures and hippidiforms were preyed upon by sabre-toothed cats and packs of primitive wolves; terror birds stalked about fearlessly, preying upon smaller creatures and fighting with jackals and other scavengers for the remains left by the big cats. Strange birds flew through the air with plumage unlike any Richard had ever seen in modern species and the massive ground sloths lumbered about, walking on their knuckles with their giant claws curled away from the ground until they rose up on their hind legs and started stripping foliage from the trees.
Now that Helen and Julian had explained what the crater looked like from the air Richard was better able to understand the geography of his surroundings. He remembered that they were trapped in one of two valleys inside a giant crater. The valleys had for some reason become divided by a midline ridge of rock during some cataclysmic geological event. That ridge was an almost perpendicular escarpment rising hundreds of feet above the crater plain and surmounted by jagged crags, some peaking up to thousands of feet. It was impassable to any living creature that could not fly or walk up a vertical rock face. As he gazed across at the distant feature Richard became consumed with curiosity as to what lay beyond it in the other valley. If only he could somehow get there and look … but his train of thought was interrupted by Helen and Julian coming into view and Richard realized just how relieved he was to see them safely back. He noticed that Helen’s limp seemed to be getting worse and decided to talk to her about it later.
After they had eaten and dusk was falling Richard suggested that they should build a large beacon near their plane.
‘You’re absolutely right, Richard,’ said Julian. ‘We should have thought of it before. There’s only a remote chance of anyone
coming but it’s the only chance we have and if they do come and they miss us then we’ve really had it – they certainly won’t search the same area twice.’
‘Let’s get going in the morning,’ said Richard, ‘but before we start tomorrow I wonder if you’d let me take a look at Helen’s leg. I didn’t mention it to you before but I originally qualified as a doctor before settling on botanical research as my final choice of a career. I loved the intellectual challenge of medicine but I didn’t really enjoy the practical aspects of the job. Anyway, I’ve been watching you, Helen, and whatever is wrong with your leg it looks as if it’s getting worse. I’m not sure if there’s anything I can do without drugs or instruments but I think I should have a look just in case I can help.’
Helen and Julian glanced at each other in obvious relief.
‘I’d be most grateful if you would’, she said. ‘We’ve been getting more and more worried about it and in the last day or two it has got really painful.’ In response to Richard’s questions she revealed that the trouble seemed to have started in her foot during their studies in Colombia immediately prior to this Amazon expedition, the final stage of their South American trip. There were two spots, one on the sole of her foot and the other on the top of her fourth toe. These had become infected and her entire lower leg had swelled up. Helen presumed that she had been bitten by a tick or some other jungle insect and that the bite had become infected but instead of getting better the sores had got steadily more painful.
‘The really curious thing,’ she added, ‘was that they seemed suddenly to get worse after I had a bath. We stayed in a hotel for a couple of nights of civilization between expeditions and I luxuriated in my first bath for several weeks – it was, incidentally, to be my last until the present time, I’m afraid to say.’ She grinned and pretended to sniff at herself. ‘A few hours after the bath these spots became angrier and started to weep and they have oozed ever since.’ Somewhat to her surprise, Richard at once became intently interested in this aspect of her story and questioned her in great detail about it. He now had his suspicions as to what she might have, but said nothing. He wanted to have a close inspection of the leg in good daylight before passing any opinion.
