Gerald Durrell (17 page)

My Watchnight was
a tall, slim young man, clad in a tiny loin-cloth, and armed with a spear of
incredible dimensions. He would arrive at sunset and leave again at dawn. To
begin with he was under the impression that I paid him in order that he should
get a good night’s sleep by the kitchen fire. I quickly put an end to this idea
by finding him asleep during his first night’s duty, and firing the shotgun off
by his ear, with the most gratifying results. He never again slept unless he
was sure that I was too tired to wake up and detect him. At first he did not
take his duties very seriously; during the day he was employed as a wine tapper
and, as all good tappers should, he tasted the wine as he tapped it in order to
make sure that it was fit for his customers. Then he would arrive at night,
unsteady with the fatigue of this public duty, and fall asleep by the kitchen
fire. The shotgun method, when I caught him, never failed to wake him up. But,
try as I would, I could not impress him with the danger of ants. His patrol was
a half-hearted affair, and only the largest and most widespread attack on the
part of the driven would have come to his notice. Then, one night, he got the
fright of his life, and this cured him of his lackadaisical ant-watching.

Every fortnight
the village would hold a dance in the centre of the main street. This was a
great social event, and everyone would dress themselves in their best print
clothes and turn up, to spend the entire night shuffling and swaying in a
circle by the flickering light of a small hurricane lamp to the plaintive
twittering of one flute and the solemn thudding of drums. I had been invited to
one of these dances and I had gone clad in dressing-gown and pyjamas, armed
with a table and chair, the necessary stimulants, and my largest Tilly lamp.
The arrival of this monster lamp was greeted with screams of joy by the
dancers, for the greatly increased illumination allowed them to see where they
were dancing and to perform even more complicated steps. They threw themselves
with great zest into the task of entertaining me and when, some two hours
later, I went back to bed, I left the Tilly lamp in the midst of the swaying
hypnotized circle, with the instructions that it was to be brought back in the
morning. This gesture of goodwill had a very good effect and after that, even
if work prevented me from going down to the dance myself, I always sent the
lamp, and always it was greeted with shouts of joy, handclaps and cries of
“Tank you, Masa, tank you . . .” which I could hear even in the camp.

One evening I
received a message that the villagers were putting on an extra special dance in
my honour and would I, and my lamp, care to take part in the festivities? I
said that I was honoured and that, even if I could not manage it, I would be
represented by my lamp. It so happened that I finished work earlier than usual,
and so I found I could attend. Before going down to the village I gave strict
instructions to the Watchnight that, should anything happen in my absence, he
was to call me immediately. Then, preceded by the lamp, and followed by my
table and chair, I went to join the revels. The dance was good and prolonged.
At length I decided that, if I wanted to get up early the next morning, I would
have to return to bed. Leaving the light to the dancers I walked back to camp,
preceded by a hurricane lamp, and followed behind by my table and chair. On
reaching the edge of the compound we discovered the Watchnight performing
strange antics by the light of his lamp. He was dancing around, occasionally slapping
himself and swearing roundly in Banyangi, and sweeping wildly at the ground
with a small bundle of twigs.

“Watchnight, na
whatee?” I called.

“Na ants, sah,
na plenty ants.”

I rushed across
the compound and found the Watchnight covered with driver ants and the ground a
moving carpet. A steady stream of reinforcements was pouring out of the bushes.
Already the ants were spreading over a wide area, and some of the advance
exploring parties were within a few feet of the animal-house wall. There was no
time to be lost if I wanted to prevent the ants getting in amongst the cages.

“Pious,” I
yelled, “Augustine, George, Daniel, come quickly.”

They came
running across the compound. By this time I was also covered with ants, and
there was nothing for it but to remove every stitch of clothing. Stark naked I
organized my equally nude staff for battle.

“George, go get
dry stick and leaf . . . quick . . . bring plenty. Pious go get the tins of
kerosene. Watchnight and Daniel, go make the kitchen fire big and bring fire
here . . . quick . . . quick. . . .”

They ran to do
what they were told, and I gathered a handful of leafy twigs and started an
attack on the advance column nearest to the wall of the animal house, sweeping
with all my might with one hand, trying to pluck the biting ants from my body
with the other. George arrived with a great armful of dry branches and leaves,
and these we piled on top of the main column which was streaming out of the
forest. We soaked the dry sticks with kerosene and set light to them. Grabbing
a tin of kerosene I rushed round and round the animal house pouring it as I
went, while Daniel ran behind piling sticks on and setting them on fire. Having
ringed the animals with fire I felt a bit better, but the fire had to be closely
watched to see the sparks from it did not fall on the palm-leaf roof and set
the whole house ablaze. It had been a near thing: another few minutes and the
vanguard of the ants would have been through the wall and amongst the cages
piled in tiers inside. Leaving Pious and George to keep the protecting ring of
fire alight, I turned my attention to my tent. To say that it was full of ants
means nothing: ants oozed from every part of it, and its green canvas walls
were a black moving curtain of ants. Three boxes of skins pinned out to dry
were full to overflowing with ants, and the skins were ruined. My bed was being
explored very thoroughly by a party of several thousand soldiers, as also were
my gun-cases, my clothes box, the traps and nets, and the medicine chest. It
took three hours to clear the tent alone; dawn was breaking before we had the
invasion under control. We gathered together, naked and dirty, and proceeded to
pick the ants from each other’s bodies.

My interview
with the Watchnight, when I was washed and dressed, and more or less in my
right mind, was prolonged and angry. At the end I had him bound and standing
between two husky men who were, I informed him, going to take him to the
District Officer to give him in charge for neglect of duty, attempting to kill
me and my collection, sleeping at his post, failing to sound the alarm, and a
host of other crimes. I told him, with relish, how the District Officer would
take a very stern view of his crimes, and the least he could hope for was two
years in jail. At last, cheese-colour with fear, he begged to be let off. With
a great show of reluctance I promised him one more chance. But, I warned him,
if driver ants came within a hundred yards of the camp again, and he failed to
give the alarm, he would be dealt with in the most severe manner. . . . I even
hinted darkly at life imprisonment. The threat worked, and after that his night
patrols in search of ants were models of perfection, and every driver-ant
column was seen and headed off in time.

Another thing I
had to impress on the Watchnight was that should an animal escape from its cage
during the night he was directly responsible. Twice animals had found a loose
bar, or a corner of wire unnailed, and they had faded into the forest, while
the Watchnight snored on his kerosene tin, supporting his nodding head on his
enormous spear. Apart from a lecture I did nothing, for the animals in question
were common enough and could be procured again. But I determined that, when a
suitable opportunity arose, the Watchnight should have a lesson. It happened
one evening after dark that a hunter brought in a half-grown Pangolin. I bought
it and placed it in the makeshift box with a variety of things piled on top to
prevent its escape. Knowing the strength that these creatures have in their
front claws, I warned the Watchnight to keep a close watch on the box to see it
did not escape. Before retiring to bed each night I would make a round of all
the cages to make sure all was in order, and that every door was securely locked.
On peering into the box which had housed the Pangolin I found it empty: how it
got out was a mystery, for the articles were still piled undisturbed on top.
But I was used to these Houdini-like escapes, and so I did not waste any time
trying to puzzle it out. I called to the Watchnight, and pointed to the empty
box:

“Watchnight, dis
catar beef done run.”

“I no see um,
sah,” mumbled the Watchnight, peering at the box.

“No, I know you
no see um, because you no do your job properly. Now, dis beef no get plenty
power run quick-quick. Sometime ’e dere dere for bush. Take your light and go
look um. If you no find um I go take five shillings from your pay, you hear?”

“I hear, sah,”
said the Watchnight dismally. He took his lamp and his spear and wandered off
into the undergrowth. For an hour I could hear him moving about, breathing
heavily, talking to himself to keep his spirits up:

“Catar beef,
catar beef . . . eh . . . aehh! Now, which side dat beef done run? Eh . . .
aehh! na trouble too much for me dis ting . . . which side dat blurry beef run?
. . . I no see um. . . . Catar beef, you make trouble too much for me. . . .”

At length, just
as I was dozing off, he uttered a yell of triumph:

“I find um, sah,
I done find um here for bush.”

“All right,
bring um quick.”

After some time
he reappeared carrying a Pangolin by its tail, beaming delightedly at me. I
carried it to the box, noticing as I did so that by lamplight the Pangolin
seemed to have grown bigger. Taking the things off the top of the box, I thrust
my hand in to shake up the dried banana leaves in the bottom, and my hand
touched something round and hard and warm. There, buried under the banana
leaves, was the original Pangolin: the Watchnight had caught an entirely
different animal! I thrust this new addition inside and went back to bed. It
was rather a problem, for, by my own laws, the Watchnight should be paid for
this new beef he had caught. But to tell him that I had made a mistake and that
the Pangolin had not escaped under his very eyes would, I felt, destroy the
lesson. So I decided to say nothing, and salved my conscience by heavily
overpaying him for some frogs he brought some days after. He seemed to be an
extraordinarily lucky person, for some weeks later he did exactly the same
thing with a giant spider that had escaped. This time the spider really had
escaped and the Watchnight, hunting for it, discovered another wandering around
camp of similar dimension but of a totally different and much rarer species.
Bearing his capture back to its box, held gingerly on the end of a stick, he
nearly stepped on the original arachnid in the middle of the compound.

These great Palm
spiders were one of the few specimens I had that I could never bring myself to
like wholeheartedly. Their bodies were the size of an egg and their long legs,
spread out, would have exceeded the circumference of a saucer. They were a
deep, shiny chocolate in colour, and covered with a thick pelt of tawny fur.
Their small glittering eyes seemed to have a nasty evil expression. Most of
them, if annoyed or teased with a twig, would retreat, but one or two of them
would attack. They could jump two feet in a bound, leaping six inches off the
ground or more. They would tilt themselves so that their great curved fangs
could come into play, and the first pair of legs would be outspread, welcoming
you into their hairy embrace. That their bite was poisonous I knew, but I doubt
if it could kill you unless you were prone to blood poisoning.

One afternoon a
man turned up with two little wicker baskets, one containing a fat, beautiful,
and deadly Gaboon viper, and the other one of these revolting Palm spiders.
When I had purchased them, the man asked me if I could attend to his hand which
was wrapped up in a filthy piece of cloth. He had a deep wound in the thumb,
which was slightly discoloured and swollen. I examined it, washed it, and put a
clean bandage on. Then I asked him what had caused the wound.

“Beef done chop
me,” he said laconically, gesturing at the baskets.

“Good God,” I
said, really startled, “which beef, the snake or the other?”

“Oh, no, sah,
not de snake . . . dat other beef . . . it de pain me too much, Masa. You no
fit give me some kind of medicine for dis bite, sah?”

I gave him two
aspirins and a strong glass of vivid yellow lime-juice, and assured him that it
would cure him. He was very gratified, and returned the next day to ask for
some more of that medicine that had done his bite so much good. I offered him
two more aspirins, but he refused them. No, he didn’t want that medicine, he
wanted the yellow one, as that was the one that had really done the trick.