Chapter
8
For breakfast, Madeleine ladled steaming
hot café au lait into colourful African bowls for the researchers. They enjoyed
it with leftover Lituma, the sweet balls of mashed plantain and Christiana gave
each of them a packed lunch with sandwiches wrapped in banana leaves.
The researchers were preparing for a
short hike into bonobo territory. Patty and Celeste, their hair still damp,
were freshly showered and dressed in surplus army fatigues and long sleeved
shirts. Floppy canvas hats lay on their backs suspended from cotton lanyards.
They brought their backpacks with their machetes, a change of clothes, rain
jackets, bug spray, field notebooks, pens, pencils, cameras, etc. and were
stuffing bottled water and fruit into different compartments. They both wore
good hiking boots. Rebecca and Spencer
joined them with their own packs.
Celeste had removed her braids and had long
fizzy hair which was tied back with elastics. She was eternally beautiful with
her round cheeks forming a permanent grin on her blemishless face.
Mike joined them, dressed in his jungle
fatigues. He was carrying an AK47. “You
kids ready to see some bonobos.”
Patty looked at the machine gun with
wide eyes. “What is that for?”
“That, my dear, is for self defense. It’s
more for poachers than it is for wild animals.” Ironically, as he spoke, the
percussion of a rifle being fired echoed through the valley, and then a second
one.
“I rest my case.” Mike said trying to
calculate how far away the shot came from and from what direction. He spoke to
two black men who stood by in uniforms, gesturing for them to leave ahead of
the group. They both picked up machine guns, pulled their camouflaged canvas
hats down low over their heads and headed out.
“Solomon and William are park rangers
and they’re our best scouts. They will leave now.”
A seriousness fell over the group. “I
will lead you guys by about 100 paces. You stay together as a group and if I
tell you to take cover or to run like hell, do exactly what I tell you, okay?”
Everyone nodded and both Celeste and
Patty answered at the same time, “Okay.”
Roger nodded at Mike, checking the .38 revolver
in a holster on his belt. Roger wore olive drab canvas pants tucked into a pair
of high black army boots. A knife was sewn
into a sheath on his right boot top. He also wore a long sleeved camouflage
shirt.
Spencer was dressed in kaki green shirt
and pants with a wide brimmed canvas hat.
He wore round wire framed spectacles on his freckled face. “I’ll bring up the rear.” he said. Spencer
was a quiet person, answering when spoken to but rarely initiating
conversations. Mike nodded at him and handed him a machete.
Mike explained, “It’s about a klik to
where the alpha colony has been nesting at night. With any luck, we can find
them quickly and spend some time doing observations.”
The group pushed back from the table and
got ready to leave. As Christiana cleared their morning dishes away, Roger
patted her arm and they shared a knowing look. He blew her a quiet kiss with
his lips and winked at her as he took his place with the others. She smiled
back at him, her face radiating with the joy he gave her from such small
gestures.
Christiana couldn’t get Roger out of her
mind. Little did she know that this was
the result of one last evolutionary hormone called serotonin, the same hormone
found in over-abundance in persons suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive
Disorder. Once a love induced surge of serotonin
enters the brain, it does not let one forget about their lover, leaving them
obsessed for days after a sexual encounter.
Patty was oblivious to any relationship
between Roger and Christiana, but Celeste was already putting two and two
together. She had noticed the subtle changes in both of them when they were
near each other and there was no mistaking the way Christiana looked at him.
Mike headed down the trail unslinging
his AK47 as he disappeared. He wore a
green army back pack and he had a first aid bag slung around his waist. On his
belt he wore a machete as well as a large holster with a Magnum .357 in it. He
also had a long range walkie-talkie clipped to one of the straps over his
shoulder. The radio was their link between each other and it could be tuned to
speak to the military if needed.
Roger fell in line, followed by Celeste,
Patty, Rebecca and Spencer. As they walked, Roger reached into the underbrush
and picked up a stick which he used as a staff. He began to whistle and beat
the bush from time to time.
“I thought we would be as quiet as
possible out here?” said Patty.
“No, no, quite the opposite. The last
thing you want to do out here is surprise anything or anyone.” Roger struck a young
corkwood tree and as it’s leaves rustled, a flock of birds took to the air. A
squirrel scolded them. The researchers lost
sight of blue skies; rain clouds were closing in, filling the valley with mist.
Now and again they saw Mike up but for
the most part, he stayed well ahead of them, his weapon now slung across his
chest as he watched and listened. As they walked up the trail, the jungle
echoed with the cries of parrots and other small birds. Twice the group saw
small flocks of peacocks and peahens as well as flying squirrels and a small
herd of tiny antelope in a meadow across the valley.
“Duikers” said Rebecca. “Those are pygmy antelope.”
The group came to a small stream and
stopped for a moment while they drank from their water bottles. Mike was
waiting for them.
The humidity in the air was palpable.
Rain began to drizzle. Everyone dug out their rain jackets and pulled them on along
with their hats.
“Everybody doing alright?”
“Yes, thank you, we’re fine.” Celeste
said as the others nodded.
As they surveyed the landscape, Celeste
pointed to patches of bare earth on the mountains around them. “Illegal
logging?” she asked.
“Yes. It’s an issue for us. These forests are protected on paper but
exploited by people. All of these trees are at risk of being taken for lumber
and for fuel.” Mike pointed up the trail. “You will see what I mean up the
trail here.”
After a few minutes, the group could hear
the porters coming along the trail. Mike
pushed on. This time, he took a trail which branched off to the left heading
higher up into the mountains. The trail did not show as much use and he used
his machete to slash the encroaching undergrowth back as he walked. The
researchers followed in his footsteps a few moments later.
The trail meandered for several hundred
meters and then veered up into a new valley. Patty stopped in a small clearing
and took a picture of the emerald green foliage, the mist gathering in a valley
in the background. Somewhere up the valley, a volley of gunshots sounded. The
researchers stopped walking and listened for several minutes. A burst of machine
gun fire broke out.
After several minutes, Mike came back to
them breathing hard and gestured for them to take cover off to the side of the
trail. He spoke into his radio and listened to the responses. “There is a group
of poachers on the trail between us and our advance party. They exchanged gun
fire and William has a bad cut on his hand. Stay put.” He headed back up the
trail, his rifle cocked and ready.
A burst of adrenalin entered Patty’s
blood stream. Patty’s could feel her
heart beating through her chest. Brain scans confirm that the arousal of fear
in the human brain leads to activation of a stress response throughout one’s
body. In less than a heartbeat, the
adrenal glands situated on the kidneys release stress hormones which lead to the
“flight or fight” response in our sympathetic nervous system. Once released, these hormones provide
feedback to the brain and influence emotions such as fear, worry, crying and
praying as well as an increase in cognitive thinking.
Suddenly Patty’s senses were tuned to
every sound and movement. She grasped her machete by the handle and fled into
the jungle with the others, squatting down under the cover of some wide palm
leaves in a grove of trees. Patty’s heart was beating out of her chest. Roger drew his .38 and checked the chamber.
“Don’t worry, this happens all the time out here. The poachers seldom make a
stand. They will try to make a run for it as long as they have somewhere to go.
We don’t corner them unless we have the army along for support.”
The researchers squatted down against
the trunk of a carapa tree. More shots were fired. A woman screamed in the
distance. People were yelling. Time
stood still while they waited to hear from Mike. The seconds counted like
minutes and the minutes like hours. Then they heard footsteps running towards
them. A couple of pairs of bare feet ran past them down the trail. They waited
a few more minutes before Roger spoke, “I’m going to go have a look.” He got to
his feet.
“No, please. Please don’t go.” Patty
grabbed his arm. She was terrified.
He turned to her and smiled. “It’s okay.
They’re on the run now. You’ll get used to this.” He patted her shoulder
reassuringly, smiling at both the girls as he slipped out into the open. Spencer
was a quiet person and he kept to himself for the most part. His native tongue was German though he spoke
adequate English albeit with a strong accent.
He touched Patty’s shoulder and smiled at her. “It’s okay. We’re safe
here.”
After a couple moments, they could hear
Roger talking to Mike. Roger whistled and Spencer and the two girls came out of
hiding. Roger had holstered his handgun.
“It’s okay now. They caught one but the
rest are gone. Scattered.” said Mike. He was still breathing hard.
Patty was still breathing hard too, her
heart felt like thunder in her chest. She asked what had happened.
“Oh, nothing unusual really. Our two
point men heard people coming down the trail so they held their ground. The
poachers were carrying a haul of smoked meat so they dropped it and opened fire
on our guys. Our guys returned fire and
the poachers scrambled.”
“How many of them were there?” asked
Roger.
“I’m not sure… four or five by the
sounds of it. A couple might have been
women. Solomon and William chased them and caught one man, but not before
William got cut with a machete. He’s cut pretty bad.”
Patty was still trembling. She edged
closer to Roger and Mike as she looked around, listening for any movement in
the surrounding jungle. Spencer and Celeste collected the packs from the grove
of trees.
The group headed up the trail once more;
Mike was in the lead and Roger brought up the rear with Spencer. They walked
for a few minutes until they came to two large burlap sacks and a bundle of
firewood laying on the trail. The surrounding bush was trampled and one of the
scouts was sitting against a tree holding his bloody hand in the air. Celeste
spoke to him in French, kneeling at his side while she supported his arm. She
pointed at the first aid kit on Mike’s belt.
While Celeste attended to the deep gash
in William’s hand, Roger pulled out his camera and started taking photographs
of the scene. He dumped out both sacks.
Nothing could have prepared Patty for
the shock of seeing two adult bonobo corpses being dumped out on the ground,
their eyes cloudy, mouths frozen in permanent grimaces. Their hands and feet
had been chopped off and their intestines removed. They each had been shot in
the head and smoked on a fire in their skins.
There were several areas where their hair was singed off and she could
smell the acrid stench. She was nauseated and after a quick look, she held her
stomach, unable to keep from retching. She turned and walked off the trail,
vomiting as she walked. Roger took photos of the bonobos, rolling them over
with his boot.
Celeste irrigated the wound on William’s
hand with saline and cleaned it using antiseptic pads. She wrapped it with clean gauze and put a
triangle bandage on it for a sling, wrapping it tight so the wound had direct
pressure and tying it so that it was higher than his heart.
They heard a rustling of undergrowth in
the bush, and Mike bent down to see who or what was coming towards them. “It’s Solomon.
He’s coming back with the one they caught.” Solomon stepped onto the trail,
leading a young Congolese man who’s wrists were tied behind his back. Solomon
spoke harshly to the man and he got to his knees beside the dead bonobos. Roger
took his photo.
Everyone started talking but Mike hushed
them. He spoke to William first. “Tell
us what happened.”
William spoke in French for a couple of
minutes, using his one good hand to demonstrate a foot chase and a tackle. He
explained that they had started fighting but the man had a machete and had
swung it at him, and would have killed him if he had not blocked the blow with
his hand. William showed how he put his hand out to stop the machete and how it
had cut deep into the flesh of his palm. The wound was very consistent with his
account of how it happened. He pointed at Solomon who had saved him, firing a machine
gun burst into a tree right beside the young man. Solomon nodded, confirming
William’s account.
“What is your name?” Mike asked the man
on the ground. He was silent and motionless. He only stared at the ground. Solomon
raised up his rifle to hit him with the butt but Mike stopped him. The captive
looked to be less than 20 years old. He was barefoot and wore ragged clothes.
Mike said, “I will call ahead for the
army to pick him up at our camp. We will have to take him back. Sorry girls.”
Patty had managed to gather herself
together, though she whimpered and started crying as she looked closer at the dead
apes. “What about the bonobos?” she sniffled.
“What about them? They’re dead.” Said Mike
matter-of-factly. He softened his voice,
“We will take them back to the camp for the army. That’s all we can do. We have
our photos and the army will take statements at the camp. Let’s move out.” He
repacked his first aid kit.
Roger pulled the captive man to his
feet, telling the girls, “Stay really close. They may ambush us and try to set
this one free, or they may try to take one of you girls for trade.”
Mike switched the channel on his radio
and called the military. After a couple of calls, a voice came on and took his
name. Mike reported what had happened and gave the coordinates of the camp.
The men re-bagged the dead bonobos and
tied them to the same pole that the poachers had used. Mike shouldered one end
while Solomon took the other, each with a rifle in their one free hand as they
headed back down the trail. The girls followed with William while Spencer
brought up the rear carrying William’s machine gun.
