The Forest God Parts 9-12
By Rex Mundy
9: AN UNCOMFORTABLE DISCOVERY
The girls were nude but for twists of leopard skin and strings of cowrie shells covering their loins. Leopard tails hung behind them. More village maidens joined them, similarly dressed, their dark faces wreathed with sunny smiles, and began to dance vigorously, leopard tails swaying and jiggling as the sunlight gleamed on glossy thighs, flanks, and breasts. The villagers sang and clapped, the drums throbbed, the girls danced. The witch doctor capered up to Professor Venables, shaking his staff. He removed his lion mask, handing it to a villager, and I saw that despite his white skin he had the thick lips and kinky hair of a pure blooded negro.
‘An albino,’ the professor muttered. ‘Africans fear them. Often they are persecuted. Here, it seems, things are different.’
The witch doctor danced round the professor, tapping him on the shoulders with his feathered staff. The professor smiled genially, looking back unafraid as the albino gazed commandingly into his eyes.
‘Much African magic is derived from mesmerism,’ the professor declared, his lecturer’s tones audible over the singing of the villagers and the pounding of the drums. ‘All one requires is a strong will and a refusal to be cowed.’
The witch doctor swung away from the professor, and capered up to each of us in turn, each time tapping us with the staff and gazing deep into our eyes. Storey and Weismann stared back levelly. Gallagher glanced about anxiously, unable to meet the witch doctor’s eye, and although I was firmly resolved to return that reptilian gaze unafraid, I looked away after a few seconds. The witch doctor danced on to face Sister Veronika, who gazed back like a mouse hypnotised by a cobra. He tapped her with his staff, then whirled away.
Some of the girls took us by the hands and led us into the big hut that I had inspected earlier. Inside, the grossly fat woman still sat upon her stool, flanked by warriors armed with assegais. With their help, she rose to her feet and waddled down to join us, taking us by the hands and kissing each one of us full on the lips. While she was entirely too Rubenesque for twentieth century Paris fashion, this woman possessed considerable animal magnetism.
The villagers entered the hut carrying woven reed mats and banana leaves piled with mealies, rice and yams; we were encouraged to sit upon the one and eat from the other. Two women staggered in under the weight of a big pottery vessel, which they set down, then poured from it pots of sour but potent native beer. A dusky maiden sat with each one of us and proffered food and beer until I, for one, was feeling more than a little tipsy. Still the villagers sang, still the drums beat. I realised that they could be the very drums we had heard out in the swamp, that had struck such fear into us. But what had we to fear from these simple, friendly, generous people?
Sister Veronika sat near me. She had drunk deep, and her eyes were bloodshot as she leaned over. ‘They make us very welcome,’ she shouted.
‘Most hospitable,’ I agreed. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been treated so kindly by strangers before.’
Gallagher sat nearby, a girl on each knee, one pouring beer into his mouth, the other proffering mealies. ‘Oi’d loike some good red meat if ye have any, ladies,’ he pleaded. ‘Any meat? Beef, maybe, or mutton.’
‘They are certainly very kind,’ cried Sister Veronika, as the girl beside her offered her more beer. ‘And so are you, Herr Mundy.’
‘Me?’ I asked, astounded.
‘Yes,’ she said solemnly. ‘You’ve been very kind ever since I met you. I think I’m in love with you.’
This was what I thought I heard, but the singing and the drumming was so loud that I could have been mistaken. Leaning forward, I tried to ask her to repeat herself, but she was drinking and failed to hear me.
My own attendant became quite importunate, plying me with food and drink, and kissing me tenderly between each mouthful. When next I had a chance to speak with Sister Veronika, I saw no sign of her in the gloom and confusion of the hut. Professor Venables had begun dancing with one of the girls. There was much laughter as he tried to teach her the polka. This went on some time, both partners hampered by the beer they had drunk.
Presently, cooking smells drifted in, as if more food was being prepared for us in another part of the village. Despite the amount I had already eaten, I found myself looking forward to it. The fat woman, who I took to be the queen, and the albino witch doctor, watched from the dais, laughing immoderately as the professor staggered through the dance. To my surprize the queen was drinking from a bottle of cognac.
With a great drum roll, men strode into the hut bearing with them a series of banana leaves upon which smoked pieces of meat. The tribes-folk contented themselves with offal for the most part, eating hunks of liver or kidney, but we guests received the rarest of cuts. A platter of grilled steaks was placed before me, and my girl fed me pieces that she tore up with her fingers, squeaking a little at how hot they were.
‘What meat is it?’ I asked, remembering what the colonel had said about monkey. But the girl could not understand me, instead urging me with signs to eat it. I tried it and to my pleasant surprize it tasted like roast pork. I ate hungrily, despite the rice and mealies I had already devoured, allowing the girl to wash it all down with pot after pot of beer.
From time to time, through swaying figures silhouetted by the firelight that was the hut’s only illumination, I glimpsed Gallagher, or Professor Venables, and once Leutnant Weismann, surrounded by adoring natives, eating, drinking and laughing.
It had been a busy morning, and what with the food and drink I had consumed, I began to feel sleepy. Cradling my head drunkenly against the girl’s chest, tired and replete, I fell asleep.
Darkness had fallen by the time I awoke, curled up on the mat in the hut, with someone shaking me.
‘Mundy, you fool.’ It was Storey. ‘Wake up, Mundy!’
I sat up, yawned and stretched, and failed to repress a belch. The hut lay in darkness, illuminated by glowing embers from the fire and starlight filtering in through the reed thatch. Snoring bodies lay all around, like the fallen of some army defeated by its own gluttony.
‘What the devil is it, Storey, old man?’ I asked in an undertone. Two other figures loomed behind him.
‘Take this,’ he said, pressing a rifle into my unresisting hands. ‘At least we could wake you. Gallagher is out for the count. You didn’t drink as much as him, but you certainly didn’t stint yourself.’
‘Would be against all the rules of hospitality, my dear chap,’ I protested. ‘I suppose you didn’t drink at all.’
‘Enough to be civil,’ he said, ‘but not so much as to make an ass of myself.’
Professor Venables spoke. ‘I fear that Mr Mundy is not as guilty of that crime as am I. I really don’t know what came over me. Still, I managed to speak with these people when the feast was winding down.’
‘They’re the Kaluana,’ said Weismann. I wrinkled my brow.
‘Aren’t they supposed to be an unfriendly tribe?’ I asked.
‘Indeed,’ said the leutnant.
I laughed. ‘There’s something wrong with the German imperial spy network,’ I said, ‘if that’s what you’ve heard. I’ve never met such friendly people. Charming, quite charming,’ I added, looking down at the sleeping girl beside me. ‘Simple, unspoiled children of nature, generous to a fault…’
‘Wrap up, Mundy,’ said Storey, ‘and don’t talk such rot. We’re in the worst pickle we’ve been in for a long time.’
I frowned. A thought struck me. ‘What’s happened to Sister Veronika?’
‘I was coming to that,’ said Storey. ‘She’s gone missing.’
I rose to my feet. ‘The Great White Ape?’ I asked fearfully. ‘Here? In this village?’
Storey shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.
‘While you were sleeping,’ said Weismann, ‘we explored the village. The villagers were only too happy to shew us round, but there was one place that remained taboo: the juju house. The witch doctor and Queen Marandi were quite firm on that point. Now they’re all asleep, we intend to investigate.’
‘Looking for what?’ I asked.
‘We came here on a mission, if you recall,’ said Weismann. ‘Looking for my superior officer. I have good reason to believe they have him imprisoned in that house.’
‘Hauptmann von Schaumberg?’ I said. ‘You think he’s here? But why would they imprison him?’
‘For the same reason they have taken Sister Veronika,’ said Professor Venables. ‘And no doubt they are plotting to seize us all, as soon as we have eaten and drunk ourselves into a state where we are easy pickings. But we won’t let them.’
‘Well, what are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘Follow me,’ said Weismann, ‘and bring your rifle. This could get nasty.’
And we crept from the hut into the starlit village square.
Confronting us was the juju house. Leaning against the carved pillars that stood by its curtained entrance were two snoring blacks, their assegais propped against the wattled walls. Weismann led us past them. They had evidently drunk and eaten as well as anyone in the village, and were sleeping on duty. Storey paused and soundlessly took the two assegais and flung them into the shadows of a nearby hut.
Monkey skulls ornamented the lintel. Ruthlessly, Weismann ripped back the woven curtain and we crowded into the warm, dark space beyond.
I heard a gentle dripping, splashing sound, as if the roof was leaking. At once I realised our mistake. From the coppery stink of fresh blood, we had not found the juju house at all, but the village abattoir.
This was confirmed in my mind when Weismann struck a match from a dwindling supply he had nursed all the way from the coast. The first thing its light revealed was a butchered carcase hanging over an earthenware pot in which glistened a dark red liquid. This I glimpsed momentarily, before Weismann held up the flaring match to shine its light on the far wall.
Sitting on a chair, surrounded by offerings of food and wine and cloth, still clad in fragments of khaki, was a skeleton. Black scraps of skin adhered to its grinning skull face. A spiked helmet sat upon its fleshless brows. Empty eye sockets seemed to come to life in the wavering shadows created by the sputtering match.
‘Hauptmann von Schaumberg, I presume,’ muttered Storey.
Weismann did not speak but on his face was a look of utter horror.
‘So your superior did come here, leutnant,’ murmured Professor Venables. ‘And this was journey’s end. What became of his command we may never know… It seems the blacks worship him as some kind of fetich. He must have made quite an impression before they murdered him. But what of the nun?’
Weismann turned, holding the sputtering match high. His face white, his eyes widened and he pointed.
‘Look!’ he hissed.
In the last flickering light I saw clearly the carcase I had noticed when we entered. Hands and feet had been removed; it had been cut open along the breastbone and its guts removed, like a pig carcase in any butcher’s stall in Smithfield. White ribs glimmered in the match light, a contrast with the darker hide. With a sense of deep foreboding I noticed that, contrary to English butchers’ custom, the head had not been removed. It hung over the pot that had been placed below to catch the blood that still dripped from a slit throat.
It was no pig. Hanging upside down, stripped of her habit and wimple, her hands and feet missing, her torso cut open and her guts removed, was Sister Veronika.
10: THE VENEER OF CIVILISATION
‘That sweet, sweet girl,’ I said bitterly, my voice echoing in the cloying darkness of the juju house. ‘All she wanted was freedom. And they’ve been… eating her!’
‘It’s worse than that, I’m afraid, old man,’ said Storey. Something in his tone alarmed me.
‘You don’t mean…’ I choked.
‘We were eating her,’ Weismann said brutally. ‘They took her away, butchered her, cooked her and served her up to us, and we were so entranced that we didn’t even notice.’ I heard the click of his rifle as he pulled back the bolt. ‘It’s about time they were taught a lesson.’
‘Let us not be too hasty,’ said Professor Venables. ‘It is possible that they did this to honour us.’
‘How so?’ asked Storey.
‘It is a widely held belief amongst the jungle tribes,’ the professor went on, ‘dating back to slave trading days, that white people are cannibals. That they take black people away to eat them. It could be that the Kaluana, seeing we had a young lady of colour with us, believed that we had brought her along to eat. And so they served her up to us themselves.’
A fusillade of shots rang out from outside the juju house. ‘Who the devil is that?’ I cried.
‘Gallagher!’ said Storey, ‘it must be. They’re attacking him. Fools that we were to leave him behind.’
We ran outside. The moon had risen over the jungle and everything was bathed in its silvery light. On the far side stood the big hut, from which burst the sound of gunfire.
A figure appeared abruptly in the doorway, a burly fellow wearing a pilot’s cap. From within came angry shouts and wails of despair.
Gallagher blundered out into the moonlight, shooting frightened glances about him. He held a smoking rifle in his hands. As he staggered drunkenly across the bare earth, dark figures appeared behind him. One held a bow. As Gallagher ran across the square he loosed, and the Irishman flung up his hands with a cry. He scrabbled at the long arrow that jutted from his left arm, and dropped his rifle with a clatter. Another native threw a spear, which caught Gallagher in the leg.
Firing wildly, I ran forwards. I don’t think any of my shots went home, but the noise itself was enough to frighten the natives, who went to ground, hiding behind huts. More appeared from the big hut. The Irishman had half fallen and was propping himself up, hampered as he was by the arrow and the spear, both of which still pierced him. But he still lived.
I assisted him, holding my rifle in one hand, helping him up with the other.
‘T’ank ye, t’ank ye,’ he mumbled, his breath stinking with native beer. ‘I woke and ye wasn’t there, just the blacks, all fat and sleeping-like. I t’ought dey’d eaten yiz! So I shot wan, and den…’
The air whistled and an arrow thudded into the ground. ‘Get Gallagher over here, Mundy,’ bellowed Storey. ‘We’ll cover you.’
With a manful effort I hauled Gallagher across the square as my companions provided covering fire; Weismann with his Luger, Storey with Colonel Playfair’s Express.
‘Where’s his gun?’ Storey asked, lowering his hunting rifle as we reached the edge of the square.
I panicked, looked back. ‘He dropped it,’ I said. ‘It’s over there!’
I saw it lying on the ground in the middle of the square. Creeping towards it was a native; from his ghastly white hue, I knew him to be the witch doctor. Without thinking I levelled my own rifle and fired. He dropped to the earth.
‘Zur Hölle damit!’ said Weismann. ‘We need all the guns we can get.’
Howling, waving spears, the natives rushed us, heedlessly trampling Gallagher’s gun beneath their bare feet. I fired again and again. No longer was I a civilised man, classically educated in one of the most powerful and cultured nations on Earth. I was a frenzied savage fighting frenzied savages, reduced to the bloodthirsty barbarism of these tribal warriors, wanting only to kill, kill, kill.
Weismann bellowed, ‘Retreat! To the lakeside!’
With Storey and I as a rear-guard, Weismann led the professor and Gallagher at a run down to the bank where the canoes sat. They hauled three of the vessels down into the water; Weismann climbed into one, followed by the professor; Gallagher got into another. Storey and I joined them, leaping into the third canoe, and we began to paddle away across the moonlit swamp.
The howling of the natives receded as we glided away, and I looked over my shoulder to see the bank alive with spear bearing figures, singing war chants. Amongst them, propped up by two strapping black warriors, was Queen Marandi. I was tempted to fire at her, but by gad, I supressed the ungentlemanly impulse.
The warriors climbed into canoes and began paddling after us. ‘Faster!’ Storey urged me. ‘We’ve got to get away from them!’
We rowed past Gallagher. Weismann had snapped the arrow near its head and ripped the spear from his leg, but the Irishman seemed to be flagging. I shouted encouragement and he responded with some Gaelic jargon I could not understand.
The air filled with arrows as archers in the canoe loosed. I heard a cry. Professor Venables had been transfixed by an arrow that entered at his left shoulder and came out somewhere in his midriff. I put down my paddle, lifted up my rifle, and blazed away at our pursuers as Storey continued to paddle.
Dawn found us drifting somewhere deeper in the swamp, tired and dispirited, but for the moment at liberty. Mist hung wetly in the air. The natives had given up pursuit after I almost emptied my last magazine. With our superior weaponry we must have killed more than half the men in the village, and the few survivors had fled. But now we were lost, low on ammunition, and weakening fast.
‘Those arrows must have been poisoned,’ said Storey. Weismann paddled over, the professor unconscious in the back of his canoe.
‘Professor Venables may survive,’ he said in an undertone, ‘with suitable medical care. But where is he going to get it?’
‘The convent,’ Storey jerked. ‘We must return to the Mother Superior.’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Weismann, drawing his forearm across his brow. ‘But to get there we will have to go back through Kaluana country. And they will not be happy to see us again. They have their witch doctor to avenge, and many others.’
‘Can’t go back,’ the professor muttered feverishly. ‘Impossible. Must… must go on. Must find… sauropod.’
I looked pityingly at him. His obsession had driven him this far, and even now, with a native arrow through his body, he still wanted to find this elusive chimera.
‘Where is Gallagher?’ Storey asked suddenly.
I looked around. Wreathed with mist, trees stood on every side, rising from the waters like the pillars of some flooded hall. We had drifted into a small clearing while talking, but it seemed that Gallagher’s canoe had not followed.
‘There he is!’ said Weismann, pointing. A canoe bobbed into sight round a swamp tree.
‘But where the devil is Gallagher?’ Storey asked. There was no sign of him. Assuming he was lying down, I paddled us across, and tugged the canoe closer.
I looked up, shaking my head. ‘He’s gone.’
‘Gone?’ Weismann was uncomprehending. ‘Gone where? For a little swim?’
‘Perhaps he saw a public house,’ I said, in a feeble attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
‘We would have heard the splash if he had fallen overboard,’ said Storey darkly.
‘The Kaluana?’ Weismann said. ‘Have they been following us?’
On every side the flooded avenues of the swamp were empty and silent. Not a crocodile was to be seen, let alone a spear carrying tribesman.
I heard a rustle from the branches above and looked up. The leaves were thrashing, as if something had just swung away into the canopy. Gradually they fell still.
‘We must find him,’ I said. ‘He must be somewhere…’ I trailed off, still staring into the leaves above.
‘Did you see something?’ Storey asked.
‘See something?’ I shook my head. ‘No, I didn’t see anything. But…’
‘What?’ he said. ‘What was it?’
‘The leaves, moving,’ I said at last. ‘As if something had passed overhead. Probably a monkey,’ I added, again trying to make light of it.
‘…or an ape,’ Weismann muttered darkly. ‘A Great White Ape.’
Storey took up his paddle. ‘We must accept that Gallagher is lost,’ he said. ‘Perhaps we will see him again. For the moment, however, we must concentrate on getting away. The professor still needs medical attention.’
‘I would not be so certain of that,’ said the leutnant, who had been inspecting the professor’s unmoving form. He checked for a pulse, then looked up. ‘He must have… passed away as we spoke.’
We were all silent. The news brought home to us our own helplessness. We were lost in the swamps, dying one by one. We had escaped the cannibals, but now it seemed that something else was stalking us.
‘But in what direction do we go?’ Weismann said, after we had flung the professor’s corpse over the side. It seems heartless, but the carcase was already beginning to attract scavengers. Vultures circled overhead.
The leutnant gestured about him. ‘In every direction it is the same story. Swamp, endless swamp. I have no recollection of how we got here.’
‘It was still night time when the pursuit died down,’ Storey said. ‘Almost impossible to get any sense of direction here. We need to find somewhere where the tree cover is thinner.’
We paddled onwards, leaving Gallagher’s canoe to drift. Slowly the trees began to thin out. A wind ruffled my hair, a sweet, cool breeze that came as a blessed relief from the foetid warmth of the swamp. Were we nearing the river?
Still the trees thinned out. I saw blue sky, green reeds, ethereal expanses of mist-hung water stretching away into the distance. It seemed we had come to a lake of considerable size.
Only one tree remained, standing alone in the waters. Something hung from it, but whatever it was, it was too far away to be clear. Birds circled high overhead, too high up to be recognisable by the naked eye.
We passed a flock of flamingos standing on the edge of the lake, but they paid us no attention. The great ruddy sun of Africa shimmered on the eastern horizon.
‘Is this open enough for you?’ Weismann shouted from the lead canoe. ‘I don’t recognise this lake from any maps.’
Storey gestured towards the rising sun, which stained the lake waters with its rays. ‘That is east,’ he said. ‘We must go west.’
‘That will take us back into Queen Marandi’s territory,’ said Weismann anxiously. ‘We don’t want to go there in a hurry.’
‘Would you rather go east?’ Storey asked. ‘East, until we reach the border with French Equatorial Africa?’
I tore my gaze from the lone tree and its enigmatic burden. ‘We don’t want to enter French territory!’
Weismann laughed. ‘I thought as much,’ he said. ‘You’re on the run from the Foreign Legion, aren’t you? You had come a long way before I met you.’
‘Are—are you going to turn us in?’ I asked fearfully.
Weismann laughed and looked away.
‘No, Mundy,’ said Storey, ‘the leutnant isn’t going to hand us over to the French. He’s working against them.’
‘There is peace between Germany and France,’ said Weismann loftily.
‘But an undeclared war exists between the Deuxieme Bureau and Sektion IIIb,’ Storey said. ‘And one of its fronts is colonial Africa.’
‘Sektion IIIb?’ I echoed. ‘What on earth’s that?’
‘German military intelligence, old man,’ said Storey. ‘And Leutnant Weismann is one of their agents. Isn’t that right, leutnant?’
But the solitary tree had seized Weismann’s attention. ‘Gott in himmel!’ the German cried suddenly.
Strapped to the tree with lianas, head hanging at an unnatural angle, was Gallagher’s corpse. Protruding from his mouth, thrust halfway in by paws or hands unknown as some grim, final jest, was his hip flask.
‘Daddy won’t be coming back for Christmas,’ murmured Storey.
11: LAKE OF HORROR
‘So that’s what happened to Gallagher.’ I was sickened. ‘But how did he get here?’
‘I should think the Forest God brought him, or at least his body,’ said Weismann. ‘Just as he did with Mosoni.’
‘Apes can’t swim,’ Storey said. ‘At least, no species I’ve heard of can. So how did this so-called ape get him here?’
Weismann shuddered. ‘These are not natural matters,’ he muttered. ‘These are creatures out of savage folklore. They cannot be judged by our narrow scientific standards.’
I laughed a little wildly. ‘So much for your German materialism,’ I taunted him. ‘You are falling prey to the superstitions of the rabble.’
Despite my bravado, fear had seized my own heart. I looked back at the dark wall of swamp trees. Was the Forest God in there? Watching us? Waiting for its chance to pick us off, one by one? Whence came this malignancy? We had trespassed upon its forest, molested and murdered its people and its animals. Was it wreaking an awful revenge?
Would any of us get back to the coast alive?
A vulture swooped down and began pecking at Gallagher’s face. I put my rifle to my shoulder and fired. With a squawk the foul bird fell into the lake. The flamingos were put to fight and wheeled above us while the other vultures circled higher up as if nothing had happened.
Storey scowled at me. ‘We’ve little enough ammunition as it is,’ he said. ‘Don’t waste any!’
‘Storey, old man,’ I murmured.
‘What is it?’
‘What are we going to do?’
Weismann paddled closer. ‘This stretch is uncharted,’ he said, ‘and we must be the first white men to look upon this lake. But going by what I know of the geography of the colony, the river we were following upcountry must have its source here. We will paddle north along the shore until we find the place where the river leaves the lake. Then follow it westwards.’
As we began paddling through the reeds, more vultures flew down to squabble over the carcase of Gallagher. It was sickening to have to abandon his mortal remains to the carrion eaters, but we had little choice. He had been too far up the sheer side of the trunk for us to have any chance of getting him down, and should we have succeeded, what then? We would not be able to bury him under these conditions, any more than we could have interred Professor Venables.
The reeds gave way to open water, stretching almost as far as the eye could see. A thin dark green line, running between blue skies and slate grey waters, marked the far side of the lake. Flamingos browsed along the hither bank, crocodiles basked in the morning sun, and out in the water hippos were swimming. To our north the waters rushed as if towards a river leaving the lake.
I noticed a bow-wave travelling across the lake surface in the same direction. When I pointed it out to my companions, we hove to, drifting side by side as Weismann took out his field glasses, but he could not identify what creature was responsible.
‘And it is travelling at some speed,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Faster than any river hippo, that’s for certain. Perhaps a species of lacustrine hippopotamus unknown to science.’
‘You still hope to glean some credit from this failed mission?’ Storey asked.
Weismann grinned wryly. ‘Discoverer of a new lake…’ he mused, ‘of a new species, perhaps… Perhaps I could become a naturalist, after I am summarily dismissed from the colonial service.’
‘But you found the rebels you were looking for,’ Storey said. ‘You accomplished your mission, even if you lost your command.’
‘How did you know I was looking for rebels?’ Weismann lowered the field glasses and fixed Storey with a steely glint. ‘My stated mission was to find Hauptmann von Schaumberg.’
‘And in that you were entirely successful,’ said Storey wryly, ‘but you were also searching for evidence that the rebels von Schaumberg was sent to investigate were being stirred up by the French.’
I looked from one to the other, barely able to follow the exchange. ‘What the devil’s all this about, Storey?’
Weismann’s face twisted with anger. ‘You’re not Legion deserters after all!’ he said. ‘That was just a cover. You were sent to infiltrate my mission. To infiltrate and destroy! No wonder it went so badly. It was you who was responsible for those deaths, not some mythical ape! You! You’re the killers!’
Storey shook his head. ‘You’re getting over-excited, old chap,’ he said. ‘The killings… I can’t fully explain them. But they have nothing to do with the French, or any French agents I know of. However, the recent raids on the railway near the coast were carried out by Ugabu in tandem with the Kaluana, with the backing of the French.’
Weismann’s eyes narrowed. ‘You want to make an exchange of intelligence?’ He seemed astounded; certainly I was. Two drifting canoes in a hitherto undiscovered African lake made for a strange venue for a clandestine meeting. ‘We guessed as much. But what more can you tell me?’
‘They were reprisals for German encroachment into the French sphere,’ said Storey. ‘But what are your plans?’
Weismann sneered. ‘I’ll tell you nothing, you dirty spy,’ he said, and began paddling north.
Storey and I paddled grimly after him. All that could be heard was the plash of our paddles in the grey waters. The shore was quiet, and the lake was tranquil, a stark contrast with the turmoil of emotions surging within my breast.
‘What is going on, old man?’ I asked. ‘I know you hoped to obtain information so we could make a bargain with the French. But you’ve given away more than you have gained. Now Weismann has it from the lips of a French agent what the Bureau is up to in a German colony.’
‘It was a gamble,’ Storey admitted. ‘But all is not yet lost. Weismann is only one man, and unless he reaches the nearest telegraph station a hundred miles downriver, this news will not get any further. You keep after him. I’ll use the Express. She’s still loaded.’
I did indeed keep paddling, but I was unable to believe my eyes when Storey put his own paddle down then lifted up the powerful hunting rifle from the bottom of the boat. In the time it took to do this, Weismann almost reached the edge of the lake where a broad stream rushed away through the trees.
‘Paddle closer,’ Storey said after a while. ‘It’s impossible to draw a bead on him from here.’
Unspeaking, I did so. I was reluctant to be complicit in the murder of a man from a country at peace with my own, in pursuit of the political agenda of another power. I didn’t want Storey to shoot a man who I had begun to look upon as a friend. But somehow I felt powerless to intervene.
I saw the bow-wave again, much closer. Whatever was making it was now following a line between us and Leutnant Weismann, as if it too was heading for the river. I glimpsed something huge and dark beneath the surface, moving rapidly forwards.
‘Storey,’ I said anxiously. ‘There’s something there. In the water. Between us and him.’
Storey lowered his Express and looked at me irascibly. ‘What the devil are you talking about, Mundy?’ he demanded.
‘Look!’ I said.
Leutnant Weismann had seen it too. He hove to, studying the dark shape in the lake with his field glasses, oblivious to our own proximity.
‘What has got into him?’ Storey murmured, then noticed it. ‘A hippo walking along the bottom,’ he said, relaxing. ‘Let us hope it capsizes the blighter.’
‘That’s not a hippo,’ I said ominously. ‘It’s far too big!’
‘Whatever it is, it’s getting closer to the leutnant,’ Storey observed. ‘His attention is entirely focused on the brute.’
Seizing his chance, he pumped the bolt, and aimed at the German officer. Hearing the noise, Weismann dropped his field glasses, seized his Luger, and fired.
The shot whistled straight past me. The retort echoed back from the surrounding forest, causing flamingos to fly up again in wheeling flocks and crocodiles to plunge off into the water.
‘What are you waiting for?’ I yelled at Storey. ‘Shoot him! Shoot him now!’
The creature burst from the lake.
Its size was enough to cause my mouth to dry up. Water cascaded from its smooth brown mottled sides, splashing back into the lake. Its torso was broad, humped, narrowing into a long, rearing, serpentine neck that ended at a head jam-packed with huge teeth.
Weismann, who was closest, dropped his gun and grabbed onto the sides of his bucking canoe. But to no avail. Uttering a deep, resounding roar, the monstrosity brought its head and neck crashing down, smashing the vessel clean in two.
When it raised its head again, there was no sign of Weismann, but the broken halves of the dugout canoe bobbed on the water. Two beady, intolerant eyes blazed in the sauropod’s skull. The lake water sloshed around our canoe’s hull as the massive brute began wading towards us.
Storey fired both barrels.
12: THE FOREST GOD
A great spray of water soaked us, a huge, sinuous tail erupted from the water before crashing down again with a deafening slap. The ensuing wave bucked our canoe and I lost my grip on the paddle, dropping it overboard. The water closed over the fallen sauropod and the lake grew quiet again, leaving barely a ripple to hint at the gargantuan horror we had seen.
Storey lowered the Express, placing it down beside him. He began paddling towards the river mouth.
‘That—that was what Professor Venables was looking for,’ I shouted. ‘That was the dinosaur! By Jove! We’ve just seen a living dinosaur!’
‘It’s as dead as all its prehistoric ancestors now,’ said Storey. ‘And it’s time we were going, before more come after us. Or even…’
‘Even what?’ I asked. He did not answer, but instead kept paddling. We passed the bobbing fragments of Weismann’s canoe, but of the leutnant there was no sign. This lake kept its secrets well hidden.
With nothing else to do as Storey rowed towards the river mouth, I checked the magazine of my rifle. Only one round left. And we still had to fight our way back through Kaluana country, all the way back down to the river to the convent. We had no supplies, only two rifles; one a hunting rifle admittedly, and almost fully loaded, but my own rifle was almost useless. Wildly I considered pitching it over the side; it was little more than dead weight. But without it, I would be equally worthless. I could not help Storey paddle, I could not defend us against monsters or natives… One shot was all I had.
Soon we were drifting down the river, between tree-lined banks. It was dark and shady, with only a few glimmers of sunlight sparkling on the water. Jewelled insects danced in shafts of light. From time to time I saw gazelles drinking from the bank, or heard monkeys yelling high up among the treetops. But otherwise the river was dark and silent.
‘Let me paddle, my dear chap,’ I pleaded with Storey. ‘I’m not doing my bit at all.’
Storey halted, eased his muscles, and handed the paddle over. ‘By all means,’ he said. ‘I would appreciate the rest.’
As I began paddling, I nodded at his Express. ‘Good thing you’ve still got that. You can bag us some luncheon.’
The monkeys had ceased their distant howling, and I had not seen any beast come down to drink for some minutes. ‘Not much to shoot,’ Storey said. ‘This is a quiet stretch. Almost too quiet.’
‘A shame that dinosaur vanished into the lake,’ I said. ‘We should have hauled its carcase out and cut a few steaks off its scaly flanks.’
‘I have no doubt it would be indigestible,’ Storey muttered.
There was a crashing sound from the trees above, and I looked up. Something vanished into the canopy, as if it had just leapt across. Signs of life? Or was it…?
‘Keep going,’ Storey said. I had raised the paddle and let us drift on the fast flowing stream. ‘We should get out of this dark forest as soon as we can.’
The further we went the more the trees seemed to lean over the water, vines and creepers dangling so low they almost brushed the water. My paddle splashing monotonously in the dark, glutinous water was the only sound except for strange, stealthy noises from above us. Storey gripped his rifle. Was it the Great White Ape, following us again?
After a while, he took the paddle from me. This time there were only two of us. Who would the Forest God claim this time? In a moment of utter selfishness, I hoped it would be Storey, but what would happen to me? I had no hope of surviving the long leagues of jungle that lay between here and civilisation. And I had little hope of surviving civilisation itself. It was a jungle to me now. Storey and I were both cut off from our own way of life, renegade Englishmen condemned, like Cain, to wander the earth…
‘What’s that?’ Storey hissed, as something slithered stealthily through the darkness above. I raised my rifle, only to see that it was a long, dark skinned snake winding itself round one of the thicker branches. It raised its head and hissed at me as the canoe shot under. I followed it with my eyes, keeping my rifle at the ready.
Something else swung down from the canopy, swished past, and vanished again. There was a quiet splash. The canoe drifted onwards. Only then I saw that Storey had been taken.
I dropped my rifle into the boat, and grabbed the paddle. Where the hell was he? The branches and leaves were crashing as if something was bounding through them. I paddled faster, and as I rounded a bend in the stream, I saw it. A great shaggy shape, apelike, yet manlike too, luminescent in the gloom as it swung by one hand from a branch, carrying Storey’s struggling form.
I snatched up my rifle again as the Great White Ape vanished into the leaves. The boat shot onwards. Now I looked desperately behind me. Suddenly I saw them; Storey fighting in the grasp of a white figure, atop a bough that hung over the river. But it was no ape. His captor was a man, a white man, preternaturally strong and as agile as any arboreal anthropoid, yet a man. Naked but for a twist of leopard skin around his loins, with a shaggy mop of hair on his head. In his right hand glittered the blade of a steel knife.
I fired.
My shot struck the ape-man dead in the chest, knocking him head over heels from the bough. Storey fell with him and both plunged into the water.
Dropping my gun I paddled over to the spot where Storey had fallen.
‘Storey?’ I cried wildly. ‘Ned, old man, where are you?’
Something erupted from the surface, arms flailing; something white skinned. With relief, I recognised it as my friend.
I extended my paddle. Storey seized it with one hand, then the other, and used it to haul himself aboard.
‘Will you have nuts or a cigar, sir?’ I asked, grinning.
Towards evening we moored the canoe in a sheltered inlet. We had yet to re-enter the swamps of Kaluana country, and were a long way from the Mother Superior and her convent. Storey had found his Express, which he had left in the canoe when he took up the paddle, and he was checking the magazine.
‘What was that thing?’ I said. ‘The Great White Ape? It looked more like a man.’
‘It was a man,’ Storey said, looking up. ‘The stories are told around tribal campfires throughout the jungle; they’ve even reached the Quai d’Orsay. An ape-man, deep in the jungles of the Congo. This is somewhat to the north of his usual bailiwick.’
‘A white ape-man?’ I asked incredulously. ‘In darkest Africa? But what of this Forest God the Mother Superior spoke of?’
‘Another form of the same folk tale,’ said Storey. ‘As you said yourself, legends always have some origin in reality. And our antagonist has spawned several. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggests that the truth behind the legend is a feral child, the son of white traders or settlers killed by natives, perhaps. It seems that he grew up in the bush, grew to power and majesty. He has little sympathy for his own kind, favouring the inhabitants of the jungle, fanatically protecting them from the depredations of white men.’
‘A real-life Mowgli,’ I said in wonder. ‘And I shot him. Just as you shot another legend, the sauropod. Is that all we do, we white men? Like Colonel Playfair, we came to Africa to do nothing but kill.’
I remembered the berserk fit that had come over me in the Kaluana village when we discovered Sister Veronika’s butchered corpse. The veneer of civilisation is thinner than you might think, you who read this by electric light in modern suburbia, with a policeman patrolling his beat outside the window. Amidst the horrors of the jungle it takes little for it to wear through—to reveal the primeval man, the savage. And yet our ultimate enemy, the Great White Ape… he had transcended that. No thrill-seeking dilettante hunter like Colonel Playfair, a beast at one with other beasts; yet somehow superhuman, not subhuman.
‘What would our urbane and cultured Leutnant Weismann have thought had he learnt the late Great White Ape’s identity?’
Storey gave me a look. ‘We found no sign of the ape-man’s corpse,’ he reminded me. ‘We have escaped the dark forest, but we’re not out of the woods yet. For all we know he survived. For all we know, he could be following us still.’
‘Let us hope that, if he lives, he has slunk away to his lair to lick his wounds,’ I said with a shudder. ‘How many cartridges do you have left? We’ll need to hunt for food.’
‘Only four,’ said Storey. ‘We must nurse them. Make them count. And pray to God we don’t meet the Kaluana.’ He snapped shut the magazine, thrust the rifle into my hands, and took up the paddle again.
But before he commenced, I said, ‘Is that our only option? To cross a swamp infested with cannibal tribes? There will be other Kaluana villages, and by now they must all know about the massacre. What’s more, even if we do reach the coast, we shall have to explain our presence to some officious Prussian bureaucrat. One way or the other, I don’t rate our chances highly.’
Storey held the paddle poised. ‘There is another possibility. Instead of going west, we could go east.’
‘I don’t follow you.’
‘We’re not far from the border. If we were to double back and cross the lake, less than a hundred miles of jungle would lie between us and French Equatorial Africa. And what we know of German plans in these parts could be sufficient currency to barter for our lives.’
‘The lake?’ I said uneasily.
But his metaphor gave me an idea. Thrusting my hand into a pocket I produced a coin. Not a shiny new Edward VII penny, but a centime of the Third Republic, with a laureate head on the obverse. ‘So the alternatives are cannibals one way, prehistoric monsters the other, colonial officials wherever we go, and quite possibly a vengeful ape-man at our heels. It’s in the lap of the gods. So why don’t we toss for it?’
Our eyes followed the coin as it spun, deciding our destiny.
A few minutes later, as Storey paddled us out into the stream again, I looked back. It could have been a trick of the light, but I thought I saw a figure standing on a tree branch that jutted out above the rushing waters, a thousand yards upstream. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but it was gone.
Perhaps it had never been.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rex Mundy Scholars have tentatively linked this work with that Rex Mundy who, as a young man in 1890s London, was a frequent patron of the Café Royal, a protégé of Madame Blavatsky, and a probationary member of the Golden Dawn, until amid clouds of scandal he departed England for foreign shores. After many adventures, it is to be understood that he converted from Anglicanism to the Greek Orthodox faith and became a monk on Mount Athos, where, many years after his death, a cache of hitherto unpublished pulp fiction was uncovered.
