My new hips meant that I could walk without agony but I had to be careful not to subject them to too much strain or they protested with vigour. They were a constant and irritating reminder that one was not growing younger, regardless of how one may feel inside.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘everybody we’ve talked to said the road was OK. I mean, most of it runs along the edge of the sea and it’s flat, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Everyone says the road is awful,’ said Lee, stubbornly, ‘and it will affect your hips, I’m sure.’
John and Q, natural cowards, evinced enormous interest in their empty glasses and hoped they would not be drawn into the altercation.
‘What do you think, John?’ asked Lee. John took a deep breath and gave one of his masterly fence-sitting replies which would undoubtedly have deposited him in the House of Commons, had he taken up politics.
‘Well, some people say the road is good, other people say it’s bad. Unless we actually travel it, I don’t see how we can know. On the other hand, if Gerry wants to go by air it would be comfortable, but if he wants to risk the road, er … er … well, I think it’s a decision only he can make,’ he ended lamely.
Lee gave him the sort of look on which eggs are fried.
‘Good, then that’s settled. Let’s have another round of drinks,’ I said, cheerily.
‘You’ll regret it,’ said Lee and, to my annoyance, she was right.
The next day, the television team arrived and, for a brief period, chaos reigned as their strange and highly diverse gear was extracted from the eager fingers of Customs, brought to the hotely and piled high in an adjacent room. Later, when each piece of equipment had been unpacked and closely scrutinized to make sure it had not disintegrated during the flight from Jersey, we all repaired to the bar to fortify the team and lay plans. There were, of course, a hundred and one things to be done: visiting the appropriate ministries; picking up last-minute items from the zoma; and having last-minute drinks with friends whose tales of horror on the roads (and particularly our road) grew more fearsome and unbelievable as the alcohol flowed freely.
We knew most of the team of old, for they were always popping up to the zoo to film a recent birth or arrival and had made an excellent educational series on our work. There was Bob Evans, our producer, small, neat, with sparkling brown eyes, as pert as a spring robin. The cameraman, Tim Ringsdore, had tight, curly hair, slender good looks and an elegant and well-cosseted moustache lying on his upper lip like a rare moth. If he had had a straw boater, knife-edged white flannels and a striped blazer, he was the sort of ‘nut’ who, in Edwardian times, would have propelled his lady in a punt down the Thames and, in a suitably shady and remote spot, serenaded her with his ukulele.
Our sound recordist, Mickey Tostevin, was so beefy that he made Q look like a reject from a home for consumptives. His auburn-orange hair grew aggressively in seventeen different directions and his moustache alone would have earned him a fortune on the boards in old-time music halls. Graham Tidy was the dogsbody, expected to mend anything broken and to know at any given moment where everything was. He seemed young for his years and, with his round cherubic face and shy smile, he looked like a schoolboy voted the pupil most likely to succeed, the sort who always gets first prize at the end of the term – generally a calf-bound volume of Hymns Ancient and Modern.
Our director, Frank Cvitanovitch, reminded me, for some obscure reason, of a musk ox, that strong, phlegmatic animal who rarely makes a sound. Not that I mean to imply that Frank was taciturn, it was just that he did not believe in talking for the sake of talking, as the rest of us did, so the bulk of his conversation was confined to interrogative grunts, the odd sigh or two and an occasional ‘OK’. When, however, he decided to talk, he kept me vastly amused with his tales of his early days in Hollywood, where he had started by directing Gene Autry, the singing cowboy. When I asked him what Autry was like, Frank thought about it for a minute or so and then described him in a few biological words that left me in no doubt that he had not enjoyed that directing experience. Frank was a stocky man, whose hair was receding and leaving behind on his forehead a kiss curl, as a receding wave may leave a seashell on the shore. His meditative eyes were that attractive shade of blue that (dare I say it?) the flowers of love-in-a-mist attain at the height of their glory. He had undergone three heart bypass operations, smoked like a chimney, and had just married his fifth wife. So we knew we were dealing with someone of grit, determination, strength of character and one within whose breast Hope Sprang Eternal.
The expedition’s equipment – to say nothing of our personnel – had now increased to such proportions that we had to hire two more vehicles and drivers to add to our entourage. The senior one, Bruno, looked as though he would be quite happy running a stall in Petticoat Lane and doing the three-card trick on the side. With his rainbow-coloured shorts and a battered hat tilted over his magpie-bright eyes, he looked the complete Mr Fixit that he was. His second-in-command, Tiana, was a handsome, gentle boy, who gave us the impression that he had been put on earth only to ease our path through life and that our wish was his command. They were both delighted when we decorated their cars to match the Toyotas with the Trust’s emblem, a white dodo on a scarlet background.
‘Now we have four Plucked Duck Trucks,’ said John. ‘Looks impressive.’
‘Don’t try to say that after a few beers,’ I advised.
‘What is this Plucked Duck thing?’ asked Bob Evans.
‘Well, one of the young scientists working on our project in Brazil asked us why we had a plucked duck as our emblem, as he’d never heard of the dodo,’ John explained.
‘So now we have four Plucked Duck Trucks,’ I said, enunciating slowly and clearly.
‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ said Bob, thoughtfully. ‘After a few drinks one could run into trouble saying that.’
Finally, our impatience was rewarded. All our preparations in Tana were completed and the great day dawned for our departure. The Plucked Duck Trucks were loaded up, everybody kissed everybody in sight, we ploughed our way through the host of itinerant beggars, squeezed ourselves into our vehicles and were off.
The beginning of any journey is exciting, but in this case it was doubly so, for we were to visit areas of Madagascar we had never seen before and we were in pursuit of one of the strangest animals on the planet. What more could anyone ask for?
For a time, we drove through the eroded hills that surround Tana on the central plateau. The only vegetation was Ravenala palm trees and rice paddies clustered round villages. No natural forest could be seen on either side and the hills were covered in tinder-dry yellow grass with great red gashes of erosion like sabre cuts. I was glad to see, however, that people were ploughing the rice paddies with wooden ploughs drawn by oxen, so that not only did the plough itself turn over the dark soil, but the zebus’ hooves helped in the process and, of course, the zebus were manuring as they ploughed. If only more farmers would return to ploughing with oxen or shire horses and wooden ploughs, it would do the soil so much good, for this is the gentle way of turning the earth, not with the ferocious slicing of the modern plough that contributes to the death of the soil.
Presently, the road left the plateau and dropped down in a series of loops towards the sea. The road was excellent, having just been refurbished by the Chinese. It is a curious and unfortunate thing that the Chinese road-builders taught the Malagasy to eat snakes, a culinary peculiarity they had not indulged in before. The loss of these harmless constrictors will, of course, mean an explosion in the rodent population which in turn will increase the depredation of the rice crop. However, nobody looks so far ahead, biologically speaking, and this is one of the reasons why mankind is in such a mess.
This was one of the most depressing drives I have had in Madagascar. The road wound its way through miles and miles of beautiful hills which should have been covered with forest to act as watersheds, but each hillside was bare. Nothing but grass could be seen with red cicatri
ces of growing erosion showing glaringly. In the valleys around small villages we saw Ravenala palms, coconut palms, a few mango and lychee trees. Very occasionally, on the top of a hill we saw a pathetic little patch of original forest, like tufts of hair on the chin of a badly shaved man. These remnants showed what the hills were clad in before the destruction. In places the raw, red earth had been cleared on such steep slopes that the soil, with no vegetation to hold it in place, had no option but to slide into the valley, causing flash floods.
To the uninitiated eye, these hills looked pleasantly green and lush but in twenty or so years they would bring disaster for those that lived amongst them and endeavoured to obtain a living from the ever-decreasing soil. With no forests acting as the lungs of the hills and holding everything together in a web of roots, the soil was simply sliding away like sand in an hourglass. How can we persuade these charming, poverty-stricken people that ‘slash and burn’ agriculture simply edges them and ultimately their children and grandchildren nearer to starvation? Even with millions of dollars, pounds, marks and yen, it would take hundreds of years to counteract the ravages that have been perpetuated on the land and replace the forest. It seems a terrifying and insoluble problem.
As we got nearer to Tamatave, we drove through some enormous and splendid palm-nut plantations. The palm nut is a handsome tree some forty feet high with a thick, solid trunk and delicate fronds sprouting like a fountain from the top. Each trunk was protected by a thick layer of fibres and on some grew innumerable ferns, epiphytes and orchids which made each palm look as though it were wearing a massive, green fur coat. This ‘clothing’ must have provided a wonderful mini-jungle for a host of geckos, centipedes, frogs, spiders and so on. I wished that we had the time to stop and dissect one or two of these palms, to see what the inhabitants were. I remember once investigating a large epiphyte the size of a small bush in Guyana and, to my astonishment and delight, extracting no fewer than ten vertebrates from it – from tree frogs to a tree snake – and a host of invertebrates. This glorious epiphyte was in fact a teeming little city. As these epiphytes are numerous, you can imagine that the felling of one tree eliminates a dazzling array of living creatures.
At last, we arrived at Tamatave. An enormous white sand beach ran along in front of the town leading to rather murky water and, far out, as a guardian, lay a long white-ruffed reef. It was certainly an attractive beach but, apparently, the reef is breached at several points, allowing the entrance of sharks. Every country, of course, boasts that it has the worst sharks in the world, even if the last sighting was fifty years ago, but it is said that in Tamatave these beasts follow the ships into the port and those foolish enough to be lured into the warm sea have lost their limbs, if not their lives.
The houses that lined the beach were large, built in the colonial style, with wide verandas and each set well back from the road in thickly planted gardens. In many ways, it reminded me of a sort of tropical Deauville. We stayed at a large and very elegant hotel on the seafront. The veranda was as wide as a ballroom; the service was impeccable; and the view over the lush gardens to the beach and the sea and reef beyond restful to the eye.
I was delighted to find the town full of one of my favourite forms of transport, the push-push or, as it is known in other parts of the world, rickshaw. Why it is called a push-push in Madagascar I could never find out, and it was really a misnomer because it is operated more as a pull-pull. If you can imagine an upright chair with a hood (and a fringe, if you’re lucky) perched up on two extra large bicycle wheels and furnished with miniature shafts, like a pony trap, that is a push-push. You take your place in the chair, the driver picks up the shafts and you are away at a gentle trot to your destination. It is an ideal means of transport; calming in its smooth, gentle progress and almost silent, moving at a safe speed or, at any rate, a speed that protects life and limb. All you hear is the faint whisper of the wheels and the soft padding of the bare feet of your driver. It does not pollute the atmosphere by noisiness or noxious smells. In these wonderful inventions you can see elegant ladies with their piles of shopping or stout businessmen with beetle-shiny briefcases and worried frowns being propelled to and fro, shaded from the glare and heat, cooled by the wind of their progress. Sometimes you will see a push-push simply piled high with luggage being moved from one destination to another and I once saw a four-year-old boy, immaculately outfitted and with a straw trilby perched on his glossy head, exchanging badinage with his driver so ribald that both of them were overcome with wild gusts of laughter and they almost got run down by a large noisy and extremely smelly lorry. The impulse to hire nine of these delicious vehicles and have an expedition race along the seafront was almost irresistible, but reluctantly I had to discard the idea for I felt that it would distract from the high scientific profile we were trying – against the odds – to maintain.
We ate an enormous lobster for dinner which looked magnificently scarlet and regimental but appeared to have been constructed out of leather and foam rubber. In bed, we could hear the admonitory hush of the sea and the numerous nightjars calling, a strange sound like a small celluloid ball being continually dropped on a table to produce a ripple of little popping noises. It was not nearly as irritating as it sounds and was, in fact, quite soothing.
To our annoyance, the next day it was raining, but we started out despite this along the dreaded road about which we had heard so much. To begin with, it was smooth and sandy, running along the edge of the sea where huge tracts of deserted beaches stretched – not a hotel, house, tourist or beach umbrella in sight. One wondered how long it would remain like that, for they were some of the most magnificent beaches I have seen anywhere in the world, each one beautiful enough to make a developer’s mouth water.
The villages we passed through were tidy, with well-built bamboo houses and thatched or corrugated-iron roofs. Each house had a neat, fenced-in area around it where the sand was carefully brushed. Some of the fences consisted of a row of quick-growing shrubs and these, together with the flowers planted, gave the villages a bright, cheerful and cared-for look. Many of the gardens had large lychee trees growing in them, the glossy, green leaves causing a dense shade, and each tree loaded with the orange-pink bunches of that delectable fruit. There were also, of course, the inevitable coconut palms, their fronds whispering like silk in the occasional breeze, their jade-green nuts fat and glossy. At one village, our caravan stopped and we purchased a couple of dozen of these huge nuts. The owner of the trees shinned up the trunks to get them and then, with his razor-sharp machete, neatly trepanned each one so that we could quench our thirst with the delicious cool liquid inside. When we had drained them dry, he took each nut, cut off a fragment to act as a spoon and then split the fruit down the middle, exposing the core of the nut like a milky white jelly, which we consumed greedily.
On the outskirts of several villages, we saw groups of children carrying fish, presumably caught by their fathers from canoes out on the reef. Some had baskets of small reef fish – a riot of crimsons, blues, glowing oranges, yellows and greens. One tiny tot was carrying a fish almost as long as she was. It was a silvery Long Tom, one of the needle fish with a protracted beak-like mouth that sticks out like a unicorn’s horn. There are several different species and their sub-order rejoices in the name Scomberesocoidei, which sounds like a Malagasy village name. They are unnerving fish, which I had met with while snorkelling in Mauritius. You would suddenly look round and find yourself in a flock of these five feet long and dangerous-looking fish with their huge eyes and lance-like snouts. However, they were quite harmless and simply hung there in the water, watching you in the most dismal and lugubrious manner.
One small boy had a baby hammerhead shark, black as ebony, about three feet long. These must surely be one of the most curious of all fishy creations. My first experience with a hammerhead was when I was swimming in the beautiful bay of Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). There was an area surrounded by netting to discourage the sharks from ge
tting too intimate with you and I was floating gently along the perimeter gazing down at black sea urchins the size of footballs, with spines as long as a carving knife, when there was a sort of disturbance like a current in the water behind me. I trod water and looked around, straight into the face of a hammerhead some twelve feet long, who was nosing the netting in the hope of finding a way in and taking me by surprise. To be suddenly confronted at close range with that huge, incredible head and the inquisitive eyes at such close quarters gave me a considerable shock. Though I knew what they looked like, I had never seen one in the flesh and it was a macabre sight that no Hollywood horror film could ever begin to emulate. I confess it gave me such a fright that I swam rapidly for shore, even though I knew that I was safe behind the wire. I think it is the grotesqueness of the creature that inspires such alarm, as well as the knowledge that it is a fast and fierce man-eater.
Looked at coolly and rationally, the hammerhead is, of course, an amazing piece of zoological machinery. Its torpedo-shaped body forms the handle of the ‘hammer’, then the extraordinary head is connected to it at right angles to form the head of the hammer. In each of these outcrops is embedded an eye and beneath this is an arch-shaped mouth like a medieval church door, with a cynical droop to equal that of the late Somerset Maugham.