The conventional fittings were removed and, with extra strength tiling all around, a raised pool was constructed about six feet by six, and eighteen inches deep. Proper heaters and ultra-violet lights completed a comfortable if restricted home for Samson and, again, things were fine for a while.
The beast kept on growing. At the point where I entered the story, Samson was about seven feet long. His owner could not manage him at all. The only contact was at feeding time when the bathroom door was opened a few inches, chicken legs were rapidly hurled in and the door slammed shut before Samson, jaws agape and legs paddling, could make the reacquaintance with his keeper that he so obviously desired.
The pet-shop owner, as intermediary, a friend in need, asked me if the situation could be handled discreetly. The chap had this alligator legally and he didn’t want a fuss with the neighbours or the newspapers. He just wanted Samson to be rehomed ‘somewhere nice’.
I arranged to call round at the house, a smart detached on a leafy residential street in Scorswick, and there met Andy, the owner, a pleasant fellow who was well informed on alligators and was clearly most upset about the mess he’d got Samson into. He felt guilty about leaving things so long and was desperately worried that Samson would have to be put down, but had every confidence that I could find the answer and, of course, somewhere nice.
‘The RSPCA will never let you down,’ I said. ‘Now, I’d better have a look at Samson.’
‘Is that really necessary?’ said Andy. ‘I’ve already fed him, you see.’ I told him I did need to see what I was up against. Anyway, I’d never been close to a big ’gator before, not at that stage of my career anyway. He went through the back of the house to the freezer and returned with two chicken legs.
‘Can I feed him one?’ I asked.
‘Oh no, no, not really. Er, there’s a knack to it.’
We went up the stairs. He had me stand a little to the left and away from the bathroom door, so that I could see in when it was opened.
‘Don’t blink or you’ll miss it,’ he said. I nodded, beginning to feel nervous. Andy was tense, and his tenseness was infectious. He glanced at me to see if I was ready. I swallowed and nodded. He turned the handle, opened the door no more than six inches, threw in the chicken pieces and banged the door shut again, at the same moment as it was almost blown off its hinges by the impact of a seemingly airborne seven-foot alligator.
I’d had enough time to see gaping jaws, huge teeth and malevolent eyes, and when Andy turned to me with his back against the bathroom door, I found I was pressing my own back into the wall, realising I had not made any kind of a plan about which way to run should Samson have destroyed his temple.
It could not be doubted that Andy had a problem requiring an urgent solution. One day soon, he and the bathroom door could turn into a launching platform for an escaped and hungry alligator. The police would have to shoot Samson, and what might happen before they got to him didn’t bear thinking about.
I promised I’d get on to it and spent the next few days phoning every zoo and animal collection in the UK. London, Whipsnade, Chester, Flamingo Land, Edinburgh, all of them. They already had alligators and didn’t want another, but I was given a lead to a Dutchman called Wim, living in southern Spain, who had an exotic wildlife collection. I was on to him straightaway but at first he didn’t seem too keen, mainly because of the logistics implied in transferring such an animal privately – I was to be transport manager – across Europe. I pointed out that the alternative was a bullet in the head or an overdose of barbiturate in a back leg. He was my only hope, and he eventually agreed that he would take Samson if I could get him there.
I got quite excited about this. The climate in southern Spain would mean Samson could spend most of his time out in the open, and Wim had other alligators. Maybe one would be the alligator equivalent of Delilah. I recalled the film from my boyhood. Maybe in Samson’s eyes there would be a ’gator as lovely as Hedy Lamarr, while he strutted his Victor Mature muscles poolside, in the Spanish sunshine.
It’s amazing what you can do if you try, and I went right to the top to find a way of transporting Samson. British Airways agreed to take him for nothing, to the nearest Spanish airport. I was thrilled to bits, problem solved, until I was warned by an expert on Crocodilia that the stress of air travel might prove fatal. I couldn’t see it myself. Samson was not your typical wild-caught alligator, shocked by being put in a foreign crate. He’d lived in a confined space for twenty years. He was seven feet long and three feet wide and as fit as could be, but I had been warned.
Publicity is always the bait in operations like this. Wim wanted some for his reptile park and BA wanted some for their charitable work, so I turned to the good old BBC who were delighted at the prospect of a story featuring a dangerous wild animal in suburbia.
British Airways insisted that a paying passenger should accompany Samson, not unreasonably, in case of any trouble. There would be no question of the RSPCA paying for me to go on the flight. I didn’t even bother asking. I phoned Wim, obviously a fairly wealthy man, and got him to come over, ready to act as courier and nurse. Now, all we had to do was put Samson in his travelling case.
Then my boss intervened. Fred Sheriff had been on holiday at the crucial moments when the arrangements all fell into place, and somehow I had neglected to inform him before, when (I said to myself) there was nothing to tell because it wasn’t fixed up yet. Anyway, my proud little message about rehoming Samson was on Fred’s desk when he came back to work, and my ear was welding itself to the telephone a few minutes later.
‘Now then, Carter, what’s all this about an alligator?’
‘Hello, Fred. You got my message. Yes, well, it’s got to be rehomed. I mean, the man’s got it in his bathroom.’
‘This is way outside your responsibilities, Inspector Langdale.’ Oh dear. That was a bad sign, not calling me Carter. ‘Rehoming alligators, lions, tigers and camels is not your job. You know what your job is, and if you want to keep it you had better stick to it.’
I tried to ask him whose job it was, if it wasn’t mine, but that only turned up the roasting temperature. I harboured unworthy thoughts. Next time he came to our house for tea it wouldn’t be Carol’s chocolate cake. It would be beetroot sandwiches and a Carr’s water biscuit.
I reviewed the situation. In the blue corner were British Airways, disappointed that a neat little PR coup could not be pulled off; Wim, who had now become really enthusiastic about the whole thing; Andy, who still had his alligator; the BBC, fed up that a memorable news story would not now be made; me, totally frustrated and, although he didn’t know it, Samson, due to exchange a new life of sun, sand and lady alligators for oblivion. In the red corner was Fred, the judge who had given his verdict.
If I couldn’t do it as an RSPCA man, I would do it as a private individual. I got a hire firm to lend me a Ford Transit free. A local joiner agreed to make the crate for nothing, big enough but with no extra room for Samson to thrash about and injure himself. I got P&O to give me a free ride across the Channel. I’d have to pay for the petrol but I persuaded Dan, an RSPCA colleague and old pal, to agree to share the driving with Wim and me. We would take Samson there and drive back over a weekend. I phoned the BBC. We were on again, next Saturday morning.
The first phase of our not entirely cunning plan was to have Andy turn off the heat in Samson’s pool on the Friday night. Reptiles thermo-regulate, that is, they are only active when the ambient temperature is suitably warm. If Samson was cooler than usual, he would be lethargic, slow, and easier to deal with.
The TV crew assembled, cracking unnecessary jokes. Wim stood ready, armed with a towel and some gaffer tape. Dan and I stood ready, not armed with anything.
‘It’s all right,’ said Wim. ‘I’ll get the towel over his head, then he won’t be able to see. If he can’t see, he’ll be still, like a chicken in a sack.’ Some chicken, I thought, and where’s the sack? ‘Don’t worry, my friends. I have done this befo
re. All I need is enough time to get the tape around his jaws.’ I could see Dan was wondering the same as me. How much time is enough?
Andy, relegated to concerned spectator, looked on like a boxer’s mother, wanting her boy to win but without anyone getting hurt. We opened the bathroom door. Samson looked up but didn’t move. Three hearty cheers for thermo-regulation, we thought, as Wim began the countdown.
‘Three. Two. One. Go!’ and he jumped on Samson’s head with his towel, gaffer tape in hand. As a mere safety precaution, with no danger whatsoever to ourselves, Dan and I jumped fractionally after Wim, me heading for the midriff while Dan sat on the tail, slamming the door shut behind us, and we immediately discovered several things about alligators. One was that ‘cooler than usual’ counted for nothing. We now knew that whatever regulations apply in freestyle bathroom alligator wrestling, thermo is not one of them. Two was that alligators are very powerful.
Wim, loudly deploying a vehement mixture of Dutch and Anglo-Saxon, made it plain, as if we needed telling, that if anyone let go, we’d had it. Dan and I, feeling the full strength of a very angry Samson devoted entirely to the instant demise of his tormentors, were at the limits of our physical abilities. It needed all three of us to subdue Samson and, at several points in the procedure, three didn’t seem as many as we’d have liked. The camera crew, outside the door and unable to see in, were enjoying listening to the sound effects, quite unaware of what would happen if any of us three lost his grip.
After what can truly be termed a titanic struggle, we got Samson into defeat mode and carried him out. Cameras rolled, Andy burst into tears, and we screwed the lid down on Samson with utter relief. Dan and I looked at each other, sweating, shaking, breathing like pearl divers, hoping the other one looked as bad. Wim tried to seem calm, grinning inanely at the TV people, like he wrestled alligators before breakfast each morning except Sunday, and couldn’t understand why everybody else didn’t follow the same low-key exercise regime.
It was the work of a moment to slide Samson’s box into the back of the Transit, and off we headed for the motorway. Once we were down the sliproad and cruising along, the miles flying by, we thought we’d cracked it. Then, there was a banging and crashing from behind us. Looking through the little window in the back of the cab, I could see the nose-end of an alligator jaw sticking up, as if sniffing the air. In retrospect, an escaping alligator probably would have scored enough marks to classify as an emergency and we could have pulled on to the hard shoulder. In our heightened state of adrenalin-fuelled awareness, or panic, all we could think of doing was aiming for the next junction as fast as possible. Dan put his foot down while Wim and I watched Samson’s snout. Occasionally he seemed to give up and retreat into the box. Then there’d be a renewed assault and a further inch of snout would be revealed.
Off at the junction, park at the nearest available spot, leap out, open van doors, feel eternally grateful that Samson was in retreat at that moment, bang in extra nails and more screws until we were quite sure that neither Samson nor Houdini could get out – a predictable scene, made more colourful by the large saloon car pulling up behind us, gaily done out in a fetching combination of white, red and orange stripes.
The motor-patrol police sergeant, in shirtsleeves and sunglasses, put on and adjusted his hat as he strolled towards us. The other officer was on the radio, presumably checking on the last whereabouts of a blue Ford Transit, reg foxtrot juliet wotsit, probably stolen. I reached for my RSPCA identity card and saw the sergeant stiffen.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘RSPCA. We’ve got an alligator.’ He looked at my ID without comment, and peered inside the van. Wim and Dan were still in there, with hammer and screwdriver.
‘He’s called Samson,’ I said, making conversation. ‘He was trying to get out of his box, so we thought we’d better run for it and bang him up quick.’ The other policeman joined us.
‘It’s a hire van, Sarge,’ he said. ‘I asked them to check. It’s for taking an alligator to Spain.’
The sergeant, still without a word, lifted his hat, scratched his head with the same hand, pulled the hat firmly on again, and set off back to his car. We stood and watched as they drove away.
There were no further incidents on our drive to Dover, where we joined the queue for the ferry. There was an unusual amount of customs activity, with maybe half or more of the vehicles being inspected, but we were waved through. On our ticket it said something like ‘Nature of load’ and beside that was written ‘Alligator’.
In France it soon became clear that Dan and I were going to have to do all the driving. Wim could not get on with a steering wheel on the wrong side of the dashboard, which meant that turns would have to be taken trying to get some proper kip, and the only place to do that was in the back of the van beside Samson. Dan went first. I drove.
‘Wim,’ I said. ‘Keep an eye on him, will you? I know Dan. He’s a heavy sleeper.’ Wim rummaged in his bag and took out a neat little camera and, through the window behind us, took a photograph.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘that if Samson gets out, Mrs Dan will want to know that her husband was eaten in action.’
The TV crew had flown out with Andy, to be there to film us arriving and unloading, and it was a magnificent sight. Samson slid out of his box and into his own private pool, about ten feet square and four feet deep, and after a quarter of an hour enjoying that, he climbed out onto one of his selection of basking areas and settled down to absorb a few rays.
To the manner born, we thought, with the most gratifying sense of satisfaction. We all shook hands. Andy had tears in his eyes again and even hardened old pros like Dan and me had to admit to a bit of a sniffle.
We only had time for a quick look around Wim’s place, which was croc heaven for just about every species of the family, and a meal, before were back on the road, driving and sleeping, sleeping and driving, to be home in time for work on the Monday morning.
I’d already alerted my contacts on the local rag, and they ran the story which was picked up by three of the nationals as well as the Yorkshire Post. It was on Yorkshire TV news too, and the BBC gave it the full treatment, so everyone who had helped us got some good PR out of it.
Fred rang. He was not happy. I’d gone directly against his instructions. I said I’d done it in my own time, at my own expense, so it wasn’t an RSPCA matter. Oh yes it was, and he was going to think about it, and consider the pros and cons, and very likely find a ton of bricks which he could use as a model for his future actions regarding himself and me, gravity-wise.
Oh, that’s all right then, I thought. Good old Fred. Without a care I got on with my normal work until, a week or two later, Carol took a message. Fred had been seconded on a sabbatical, or something, and his stand-in seemed to be a completely different kettle of fish. He was going to come and see me, and give me an official interview with a view to disciplinary measures.
I was shocked and hurt by this, and couldn’t understand. If I hadn’t loved my job so much I’d have told them where they could put their disciplinary measures. I talked it over with Carol and we came up with a plan.
The man arrived and he did look like a fish but not the sort you put in a kettle, more one of those that live in darkness at unfathomable depths and lead their prey towards their huge needle teeth with a kindly light. We sat across from each other at the dining table. He shuffled his papers and pretended to read. I was supposed to wait in trembling fear until he deigned to speak.
‘I don’t know if you have it there,’ I said, brightly, ‘but we got a lot of good publicity from Samson. Lots of excellent stuff, in the papers, on the radio and the telly.’ No response. ‘Yes,’ I continued, ‘the RSPCA did very well out of it. Everybody singing our praises. I bet the old collecting tins were rattling fifty to the dozen.’ Still no response. I took a deep breath. ‘What a shame it would be,’ I said, all innocent, ‘if I had to go back to those same media people and tell them I was going to be disciplined over it.’
The deep-sea fish crumpled up his papers, straightened them out again, put his files neatly back in his briefcase, rose, and said that senior management had decided to overlook my extraordinary behaviour this time. As he headed down the path to his car, Carol put the kettle on and cut a couple of slices of chocolate cake.
Still, the story wasn’t finished. The phone rang. It was Wim. How were we all, did we get home okay, yes we did, we were fine, how was Samson? ‘This is it,’ said Wim. ‘I had him checked over by the vet, and I’ve had to give him a new name. I thought about Delilah but decided on Salome instead.’
6
HAPPY CHRISTMAS, YOUR LORDSHIP
It was shortly before Christmas and I was about to set out for York and our annual RSPCA staff dinner. These were brilliant events and I was really looking forward to it. All our calls would be fielded by the neighbouring RSPCA region, as we’d already done for them, and we could have a stress-free evening.
One of our office girls phoned me. There was this problem, it was on my way, I could look in, it wouldn’t take a minute, it’s just that the man was very insistent, and he did own half the county. She filled me in on the details.
Viscount X had been out two days before watching a shoot and had taken his ladyship’s West Highland White terrier with him for the walk. Wanting to see something particular, he’d stuck his walking stick in the ground, fastened the terrier to it and gone off for a few minutes. When he came back the terrier had vanished and my lord realised he’d parked the animal right next to a badger sett. His staff had conducted a complete search of the estate and endured two nights’ vigil by the sett, with no result.
An Alligator in the Bathroom...And Other Stories Page 6
