Later we followed him to see what he was doing, and we found he had constructed a trap of great simplicity and ingenuity. My spirits rose on seeing it. He had dragged two of the long boats half out of the water, leaving a narrow gap between them. This channel was spanned by a noose, so that anything swimming up it would have to push its head through to get at the bait, a rotten fish on a stake. As soon as the fish was touched it released a cord, which was holding a sapling bent like a bow, and as the sapling whipped up it pulled the noose tight. The end of the rope with the noose on was attached to a branch of a tree that stood on top of the small cliff above the bay.
‘That should do,’ said McTurk, examining his handiwork with justifiable pride. ‘We’ll see what we get tonight.’
The sun was setting when we went down and baited the trap. McTurk was of the opinion that if we caught a cayman at all we would not do so until late that night. So Bob and I decided to take a last walk across the savannah to get the smell of fish out of our lungs. The sky was barred with pale pink clouds on a jade green background, and a distant line of mountains stood out against it like the curved black backs of a line of leaping dolphins. In the long, crisp grass the crickets were making musical-box noises to one another, and in the distance, from the reeds by the river, we could hear the great frogs coughing their nightly chorus. A pair of burrowing owls flapped up from under our feet and flew thirty paces away on silent wings; they settled and watched us nervously, pacing a solemn circle and twisting their heads round and round. We lay on the red earth, warm as fire, and gazed up at the sky. It changed from green to dove-grey as the sun slid under the rim of the world, and then suddenly it was black and trembling with enormous stars seeming so close that, from where we lay, we could reach up and gather handfuls from the sky.
The moon was up when we made our way back to the house. We had decided to take our hammocks down to the river and sling them among the trees so that we should hear if we caught anything in the trap. We found suitable trees, slung our hammocks and then went back to the house for supper. After food and a smoke we strolled down towards the river in the moonlight, a dozen small bats drawing intricate geometrical patterns in the warm air above our heads. As we drew near the river I thought I heard a sound.
‘What’s that?’ I asked Bob.
‘What’s what?’ he replied.
‘A sort of banging noise.’
‘I didn’t hear anything.’
We walked on in silence.
‘There it is again. Can’t you hear it?’
‘I can hear something,’ admitted Bob.
‘I think we’ve caught something,’ I said, starting to run towards the river.
As I reached the bank I could see the trap rope stretched taut from the tree branch. I switched on the torch, and the rope started to vibrate and dip, and from the base of the small cliff there arose a fearsome noise, a combination of snorts, splashings, and loud thuds. I ran to the edge of the cliff and looked down.
Ten feet below me the boats that had formed the sides of the trap had been pushed wide apart, and in the water between them lay one of the largest cayman I have ever seen, with the noose firmly tied round his neck. He was lying quietly after his last spasm, but as soon as the torch beam picked him out a shudder ran through his gigantic body and he curved himself up like a bow, his great blunt mouth opened and then snapped shut like a door, his tail swept from side to side in a whirlpool of foam and water, and with each stroke it hit the boats with an echoing thud. In the swirling water between the rocking boats the huge reptile rolled and snapped and beat at the boats with his tail, while the rope twanged and thrummed and the branch to which it was attached creaked ominously. The tree was next to where I stood on the small cliff, and placing my hand on the trunk I could feel it vibrating with the cayman’s struggles. In my excitement I was obsessed with the idea that this magnificent reptile might, in his struggles, break the rope or the branch and escape, so I did something so futile and dangerous that even now I cannot realise how I came to act so stupidly; I leant forward over the cliff edge, seized the rope with both hands and pulled hard. The cayman, feeling the tug, rolled and lashed again, so that the rope was pulled taut. I was pulled forward, so that I found myself with only my toes on the edge of the cliff and my body hanging out into space at an angle of forty-five degrees, ten feet above the rocking boats and the snapping and infuriated reptile. I should have fallen, eventually, straight down into the water, to be bitten by the cayman or more probably lashed to death by its tail, if Bob had not arrived at that moment and laid hold of the rope. The cayman rolled and tugged, and we were both jerked backwards and forwards on the cliff edge, clinging madly to the rope as though our lives depended upon it. No drowning man ever clutched a straw with such a grip. Between jerks Bob turned his head.
‘What are we hanging on for?’
‘In case the rope breaks,’ I gasped. ‘He’ll get away.’ Bob pondered this for a bit.
‘But if the rope does break we can’t hold him,’ he pointed out at length. This idea had not occurred to me before, and I suddenly realised how silly we were being. We released our grip on the rope and lay on the grass to recover; below us the cayman fell quiet. We decided that the best thing to do was to get another rope round the beast, in case the first one broke, so we rushed back to the house and woke McTurk; then, armed with ropes, we returned to the river.
The cayman was still lying quietly between the boats; it seemed as though his last struggle had exhausted him. McTurk went into one of the boats alongside him to attract his attention, while I scrambled down the cliff and, with infinite caution, dropped a noose over his jaws and pulled it tight. With his jaws thus out of commission we felt safer, for now we only had his tail to reckon with. We got another noose round his chest and a third one round the thick base of his tail. He rolled about once or twice while we were doing this, but it was a half-hearted effort. Feeling that he was now more secure with all these additional ropes round him we retired to our hammocks on the banks and slept fitfully until dawn.
The plane was due in at midday, but we had a lot to do before it arrived. The collection, with the exception of the anteater, had to be transported out across the savannah in the jeep and left near the landing strip with an Amerindian in charge. Then we started on the job of getting the cayman well roped up and hauled out on to the bank, where he could be picked up by the jeep when the plane arrived.
The first thing we had to do was to tie his fat and stumpy legs close to his body, and this was easily accomplished; then we had the more difficult job of sliding a long plank underneath him and tying him to it. This took us some time, for he was in shallow water, and most of his body and tail was resting on the mud; in the end we had to float him out to slightly deeper water so that we could get the plank under him. When he was trussed up to the plank we had to haul him out of the water and up the steep bank, and this was a long and laborious process. It took McTurk, Bob, myself, and eight Amerindians an hour to do so. The bank was wet and muddy, and we kept slipping and falling. Each time we fell the cayman’s enormous weight would slide him back the few precious inches we had gained. At last, covered with mud and wet with water and sweat, we eased him over the top and slid him to rest on the green grass.
He was about fourteen feet long, his head as broad and as thick as my body, his shining scaly tail like a tree trunk and packed tight with iron-hard muscles. His back and neck were covered with great nodules and bumps, and his tail boasted a tall, serrated crest along it, each triangular scale the width of my palm. His top parts were ash-grey, patched in places with green, where the river slime still clung to him; his belly was bright yellow. His unblinking eyes were as large as walnuts, jet-black, and patterned with an intricate and fierce filigree of gold. He has a magnificent creature.
We left him lying in the shade while we went to take the anteater down to the landing strip, for we could hear t
he distant drone of the plane. The anteater, of course, caused as much trouble as he could, hissing and snorting and lashing out at us as we manhandled him into the jeep and held him quiet while we bumped across the savannah. His uncooperativeness had delayed us, and the plane was landing as we arrived at the strip. I ran forward and found, to my relief, that Smith had sent a large pile of boxes; there was no time to lose, for we had to get the animals boxed up and go back for the cayman.
‘You hold the capybara, and I’ll get the anteater crated,’ I said to Bob. The anteater, never having been in a box before, strongly objected to the whole process, and he galloped round and round the crate while I made ineffectual efforts to slow him up and push him inside. After a few minutes of this both he and I needed a rest, so we paused for breath, and I looked round desperately for help. Bob, however, was fully occupied with the capybara. They had been thoroughly alarmed by the plane and had proceeded to run round and round him in ever-diminishing circles, while Bob, rapidly enveloped in yards of string, was reeling about like an animated maypole. He was obviously too engrossed to be able to help me; but fortunately McTurk came to my rescue, and the anteater was bundled into his crate. Then we unwound Bob, boxed up the capybara and loaded them on the plane with the rest of the collection. When we had finished, McTurk approached me gloomily.
‘You can’t take your cayman,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ I asked, horror-stricken at the very idea.
‘Pilot says there’s not enough room. They’re picking up a load of meat at the next stop.’
I pleaded, cajoled, argued, all in vein. In desperation I tried to persuade the pilot that the vast reptile would hardly be noticeable inside the plane; I even offered to sit on it to make room for the meat, but the pilot was a singularly obstinate man.
‘I’ll try and get him on the next plane for you,’ said McTurk; ‘make arrangements in Georgetown and let me know.’
So, very reluctantly, I had to leave my gargantuan reptile, and boarded the plane casting dirty looks at the pilot.
McTurk waved as the plane roared over the golden grass, gathering speed. As we rose in the air we saw the great grassland stretched below us, McTurk’s tiny figure walking towards the jeep, the ragged rim of trees along the glistening river where the cayman lay; and then the plane banked sharply and we were flying away. Ahead we could see the distant dim blur where the great forest began, split by the deep rivers that flowed down to the coast; behind us lay the savannah, vast and unmoving, golden, green, and silver in the sunlight.
7. Crab Dogs and Carpenter Birds
We had been back in Georgetown for twenty-four hours; the anteater and the other specimens had been properly caged and had settled down well in their new surroundings. Both Bob and I were beginning to feel a bit restive and confined in the town, after the spaciousness of the Rupununi, and so we decided that the best thing we could do was to get out of Georgetown again as quickly as possible. One morning Smith approached me with a peculiarly smug expression on his face.
‘Didn’t you say that you wanted to go up the creek lands, beyond Charity, on your next trip?’ he asked.
I said that I had thought it would be a good idea.
‘Well,’ said Smith, preening himself, ‘I’ve got the very man to act as your guide; he’s a first-class hunter and he knows the whole district and everyone there. I’m sure he’ll get us some good specimens. He seems to know where everything’s found.’
This paragon turned up in the afternoon. He was a short, coconut-shaped East Indian, with an ingratiating grin that displayed a glittering facade of gold teeth, a rolling cumulus of belly and a fat and unctuous laugh that made him wobble like a quagmire. He was impeccably clad in beautifully cut trousers and a mauve silk shirt. He did not look like a hunter to me, but as we intended to go up the creek lands anyway, and as he assured me that he knew many people up there, I thought it would do no harm if he came along with us. I arranged that he should meet Bob, Ivan, and myself the following day, down at the ferry
‘Don’t you worry, Chief,’ said Mr. Kahn, giving his rich oily laugh and dazzling me with his teeth, see you get so many animals you won’t know where to put them.’
‘If they’re not good specimens, Mr. Kahn,’ I replied sweetly, ‘I shall be able to find at least one answer to that problem.’
Early the next morning we arrived at the ferry with our mountain of luggage, and Mr Kahn was there to greet us, flashing his teeth like a lighthouse, laughing uproariously at his own jokes, organising and arranging things left and right and skipping about with extreme nimbleness in spite of his obese figure. Getting on to the ferry was usually an exhausting enough process in itself, but, with Mr. Kahn to assist, the whole episode took on the appearance of a three-ring circus. He sweated and shouted, laughed loudly and dropped things until, by the time we were safely on board, we were all limp with exhaustion. Mr Kahn’s good spirits were, however, unabated. During the trip across the river he regaled us with the story of how his father, while bathing in a stream, had been attacked by a monster cayman and had only escaped by gouging its eyes out with his fingers.
‘Imagine that!’ said Mr. Kahn. ‘With his fingers!’
Both Bob and I had heard the same story, with all its infinite variations, many times before, and so we were not impressed. Mr Kahn obviously thought that we were completely green, and I could not allow that, so I retaliated by telling him how my grandmother had been attacked by a mad dromedary and had strangled it with her bare hands. The effect of this fabrication was rather spoilt by the fact that Mr Kahn did not know what a dromedary was. So, instead of silencing him, it only made him try harder, and by the time we were bouncing along in the rickety old bus on the last lap of our journey to Charity we were sitting in a hypnotised silence while Mr Kahn told us how his grandfather had got the better of a tapir by vaulting on to its back and blocking up its nostrils so that it suffocated to death. It was quite clear that Mr Kahn had won the first round.
Charity was a scattering of houses where the road ended on the banks of the Pomeroon River. It was, so to speak, the last outpost of civilisation, for here you gave up the more comfortable forms of transport. From Charity a maze of waterways, creeks, rivers, flooded valleys and lakes spread like a broken mirror through the forest to the Venezuelan border, and the only way of exploring them was by boat. I had thought that Charity would be a suitable base to use while exploring these creek lands, but after half an hour in the place I decided against it; it was forlorn, ramshackle, and depressing, and the inhabitants seemed a dull crowd who were not willing to live up to the name of their village. Accordingly I decided that the best thing we could do was to continue our journey into the creeks without delay. Mr Kahn, who was supposed to know everyone in the place, was dispatched to find a boat for us; Ivan, who had remembered some last minute purchases, went off in the direction of the market, and Bob and I grubbed happily along the lush margins of the river in search of frogs. Presently Ivan returned, and with him he had a small, saucer-eyed negro boy.
‘Sir, this boy says he has a crab-dog,’ said Ivan. ‘What’s a crab-dog?’ I inquired.
‘It’s a sort of animal like a dog that eats crabs,’ said Ivan vaguely.
‘That’s what I like about Ivan,’ said Bob, ‘he’s so lucid.’ ‘Well, let’s see the thing. Where is it?’
This mysterious animal turned out to be at the boy’s house, some hundred yards away along the river bank, so we all marched off to look at it. When we got there the boy dived into the hut and reappeared staggering with a box almost as big as himself. I peered through the slats nailed across the top of the box, but all I could see was a faint grey shape. I prised off two of the slats and had another look. As I was looking a head appeared in the hole and stared fixedly at me. It was a broad, flat head with neat rounded ears and a dog-like muzzle. The creature’s colouring was ash grey, but across the eyes was a wide bla
ck band that made it look as though it was wearing a mask. It gazed at me for a moment with an unutterably melancholy expression on its face, snapped suddenly and viciously, and then retreated into the box again.
‘And what was that?’ asked Bob, eyeing the box with suspicion.
‘A crab-eating raccoon. How much does he want for it, Ivan?’
Ivan and the small boy bargained skilfully for a while, and then I handed over the modest sum agreed upon and triumphantly carried off the raccoon, box and all.
When we got back to the landing stage Mr. Kahn was waiting for us. He had obtained a boat, he proclaimed proudly, and it would arrive in about ten minutes. When he saw the raccoon he beamed like a gold mine.
‘Ah! Already we have success!’ he said, giving a fruity chuckle, ‘I told you I knew where to get animals, didn’t I?’
Ivan gave him a look in which dignity and distaste were nicely blended.
The boat, when it arrived, turned out to be something like a long, narrow ship’s lifeboat. The whole of the inside was covered by a flat wooden deck, or rather, a sort of raised wooden roof; this was a very comfortable vantage point to recline on, and if the sun got too hot you could retire beneath it and sit in the shade on one of the seats inside. I decided that it was altogether an admirable craft. We loaded our baggage into it and took our seats on the flat roof. As we chugged off down the twilit river, Bob and I busied ourselves making a rough cage for the crab-eating raccoon, and when it was finished we managed to get him into it without much trouble. In the fading daylight we were able to take our first really good look at him.