Wild Spirit (20 page)

Louise explained that the reserve had been divided into a grid, with numbered areas marked on maps and a system of named tracks. Using these, the scientists could record precisely the location and movement of animals. The normal work of the station always had to go on, but we were welcome to watch whatever interested us.

We had just returned to Louise's bungalow when her Gabonese assistant ran in breathlessly from the forest, shouting, ‘
Madame! Il y en a! Le porc-épic! Venez voir!
' It was the breakthrough Louise had been waiting for – a porcupine had been caught in her trap. We followed her at a run out into the forest, and minutes later came to the wicker basket set on the ground. A small grey animal covered in spines, with a raffia-like brush at the end of its tail, crouched inside. To Louise's excitement, it was a female. She had been trying for six weeks to capture one so she could fit it with a radio collar. Now she would be able to track the nightly interaction between this female and the males she'd been tracking for some time.

Back at the house, we watched while she assembled the collar. They couldn't be made up in advance – once the battery was encased in its covering of epoxy resin, it started to use up power. I watched, fascinated, as she gathered everything in a canvas shoulder bag – some ampoules of
anaesthetic, a syringe, thick gloves and the transmitter collar.

We all trooped back to the trap: the porcupine had to be anaesthetised before the collar could be fitted.

‘This is going to be difficult,' Louise said. ‘They're not easy to handle at the best of times, and she'll be panicky.' Her assistant had brought a soft, open-weave bag with him. They both pulled on gloves and, working together, transferred the animal from the trap into the bag. While the assistant held the bag tightly, Louise would inject the anaesthetic through the fine mesh.

We stood back and watched as the porcupine struggled and the first attempt failed.

‘I must have hit a bone,' Louise muttered, withdrawing the bent needle. On the second try the needle went in, and within moments the porcupine was still. But when she lifted the limp body out of the bag, the porcupine's lips had turned blue. Louise felt for a heartbeat, but there was none. The porcupine had died of shock.

Louise said nothing, but the fatigue and disappointment showed in her face. It was a depressing outcome after six weeks of trying. We packed up the gear in silence and walked back, carrying the porcupine's body in the woven bag. Back at the house, she measured and weighed it and noted its general condition. I thought as I watched what a lonely and unforgiving life she had chosen for herself, and how tough she needed to be to survive it.

Louise squared her shoulders and looked us in the eyes. She was not about to allow this crisis to ruin the plans she had for us: ‘Tonight we're going to visit some singing bats,' she announced.

At nightfall we assembled on the riverbank, where a
pinnassier
had a small pirogue waiting. The bat colony was accessible only by river. Louise issued each of us with a miner's headlamp, so that when we had to scramble up the muddy bank we would have both hands free. We sat quite still, one behind the other in the pirogue with our knees drawn up to our chests, and it moved out into midstream. To me, the river felt altogether different by night – small noises were magnified, the insect chorus sounded clearer, the call of a night bird echoed hauntingly through the darkness. In the prow, the
pinnassier
shone a light on the surface ahead.

We travelled for perhaps four kilometres before pulling in to a thickly overhung bank, then switched on the headlamps and climbed out onto a slippery mud track. On all fours, we mounted the steep bank and came out on a narrow trail that ran parallel with it.

Louise led us silently in single file for perhaps half an hour, then suddenly motioned us to stop. A sound like a miniature hammer striking a tiny anvil came from directly over our heads: ‘Tuc! Tuc! Tuc!'

‘There they are!' Louise whispered. I recognised the call immediately. It was the same one we had heard many nights and early mornings at Belinga – clear, regular and metallic. I nudged Win and whispered, ‘That's it! That's what that sound was!' We stood quite still and listened to the metallic taps cutting through the night air. As more bats began calling, the ‘tuc, tuc, tucs' crosscut each other in complex syncopated rhythms.

The owners of these extraordinary voices were
Hypsignathus monstrosus
, hammer-headed fruit bats, the largest bats in
Africa, with wingspans of ninety centimetres. We couldn't see them, but I had seen pictures of them. The males' huge, elongated heads resembled miniature horse's heads, and their nasal area, a mass of convoluted fleshy membranes, gave them a grotesque aspect. Their enormous voice boxes extended for half the length of their bodies, and were what produced the powerful call, which was critical to their reproductive strategy.

During the dry season, the males congregated in vast numbers at well-established locations on riverbanks, and sang in chorus at dusk and dawn. These all-male aggregations were part of an extraordinary pattern of mating behaviour. Females were drawn to the colony from far off in response to the chorus. Then, from all the potential mates, they chose the one whose call attracted them the most. The scientists at CNRS knew this colony well, because the bats returned there every year.

We had left too late to hear the chorus at its peak, Louise explained. Only a handful of bats were still singing, and soon they would fall silent for the night. I tried to imagine the hypnotic effect of these syncopated metallic sounds when the whole colony was calling at once, and wished I could have been there to hear it.

We waited until the ‘tuc, tuc, tucs' had ceased altogether, then began our trek back to the pirogue. On the way, Louise narrowly missed stepping on a hooded cobra that lay across the path.

At the station we turned in early, because in the morning we would travel out to meet the great apes on the island. I lay in bed and thought about the lives of these dedicated biologists. When we finally left Africa, I didn't want to return to the empty world of officework I had left
behind. I believed I was destined for something better, a profession that would be intellectually satisfying. My thoughts turned to the three ‘ape ladies', and the idea that had been haunting me for months – that I might one day follow in their footsteps.

 

It was another fine clear day. We met Hugo at the riverbank, where a pirogue loaded with bunches of ripe bananas was beached on the mud. Hugo was about thirty, with clear olive skin and fair wavy hair. He had a ready smile, and a gentleness that fitted him perfectly for working with great apes.

‘Before we go, I'll just tell you a bit about our great ape rehabilitation program,' he said. ‘We began eight years ago. We raise the orphaned gorillas and chimpanzees for three years, then, if we think they're ready, we release them on to one of the forested islands in the river, and supplement their natural diet with food drops every couple of days. It's an experiment in rehabituating them to the wild.

‘At the moment, we have all the animals on one large island. They've formed themselves into two separate groups, one entirely of chimpanzees and the other a mixed group of two chimpanzees and two gorillas. We won't get out of the pirogue at the first group, because they're a bit aggressive at the moment. I had to anaesthetise and move them a few weeks ago, and they're very wary of me now. That's how I got these scratches on my face.'

I could feel my excitement mounting as we boarded the pirogue. I had anticipated this day for so long. My new Pentax camera with its 300 millimetre zoom lens was slung around my neck, and Win had brought his movie camera.

A deep silence blanketed the river as we approached the island ten minutes later. The
pinnassier
cut the outboard, and we drifted slowly into the muddy bank. Thick forest cloaked the island – a mosaic of green shapes, clear in the morning light. Huge rope-like loops of mottled grey liana crisscrossed the understorey and hung from the high canopy.

The chimpanzees grew highly excited at our arrival, screaming, hooting and swinging from vine to vine. We watched their performance from the pirogue. It could have been a scene from millions of years ago. I sat speechless and had another of my ‘pinch me' moments – could it really be me, here, seeing this?

Hugo explained that the group comprised one male, two senior females – Dodo and Albertine – another female, and two juveniles. When the initial excitement had abated, Dodo climbed down from a tall tree and headed straight for the pirogue, where she reached into the prow, grabbed the nearest bunch of bananas and hauled it up the muddy path. We watched as she climbed back up the same tree, trailing the heavy bunch behind her, settled herself on a sturdy branch, and began to eat, skilfully balancing the bunch in front of her.

Meanwhile, the
pinnassier
unloaded two more bunches. Albertine came down to the pirogue next with her two-year-old infant Josephine, and dragged a bunch up to the clearing. We watched them for perhaps twenty minutes, filming and listening to Hugo's commentary.

‘Some of these animals have been on the island for five years,' he explained. ‘Dodo is eight now. She's the dominant female.' I had guessed that by her confident behaviour. There were many questions I wanted to ask, but
it was time to move on to the opposite end of the island.

As we approached the shore, there was no sign of the animals.

‘You must be very quiet here, and make no sudden movements,' Hugo warned, ‘and you need to put your camera out of sight. It might frighten them.' The
pinnassier
ran the pirogue up on the bank, and we stepped out.

A narrow earth track led from the water's edge to the line of trees. Suddenly two chimpanzees emerged from the underbrush and bounded down towards us. First one then the other leapt up into Hugo's arms, hugging him tightly and rubbing their faces against his cheek. He cradled each one to his chest, rubbed their backs and talked to them – a ritual of mutual ecstasy. In their excitement, the chimps threw themselves about and greeted Rodo, Win and me in turn. One launched itself at me with its arms outstretched. I scooped it into my arms, hugged it to my chest and stroked its back and head. Lost in the joy of the moment, I looked into its face.

Hugo looked on amused. ‘That's Bouéni,' he said.

Bouéni looked back at me exuberantly and pouted his lips for a kiss. I buried my face in his, nuzzled up to his cheeks, and planted a kiss on each one. He had his legs locked around my waist and seemed set to continue our love affair indefinitely, but I gently eased him to the ground, where he took up a position with his back against my legs while I rubbed his shoulders and head. I tried to picture the years of dedicated nurturing he must have had in captivity to give him such trust in a stranger.

We turned to move up the narrow path towards the vegetation. At that moment, one of the gorillas appeared at the top of the track. He was an impressive sight –
thickset, with a prominent brow ridge framing deep-set eyes. He stood quite still, regarding us with an intense expression, then moved tentatively down the path in a shuffling gait, his knees bent and his arms straight, occasionally touching the ground with his fists.

I was at the front of the group. I was excited, fit to burst, but knew I must maintain an outward appearance of calm. I hoped this magnificent animal might passively accept our presence, but I didn't expect more. I had no idea what the protocol was for greeting a gorilla. I shot an inquiring glance back at Hugo, who watched from behind.

He quickly reassured me. ‘
Celui-là, il est très, très gentil. Il s'appelle Ikata.
' His name was Ikata, and he was extremely docile. Ikata was now just metres away from me. Every hair of his lustrous coat shone in the sun. His eyes, lit with a mild curiosity, fixed on mine. No-one spoke: everyone watched the two of us. Then he reached out both arms towards me, and moved in closer. This was my cue: I stretched mine towards him, palms facing upwards. Would he trust me enough to let me touch him?

There was no precedent in my life for this moment. I was approaching an eight-year-old male gorilla who had never seen me before. He already had the strength of several men. All I had to rely on was Hugo's assurance that he was gentle. In seconds, I'd taken in everything about him: his round-topped head, not yet mature enough to have the sagittal crest that would mark him as an adult male; the leathery texture of his fingers and face; the pushed-in shape of his nostrils; the cleanness of his thick black hair; and the intensity of his gaze. His body language conveyed a deep calmness; his movements were relaxed and deliberate. He was not afraid – so, taking my cue from him, nor was I.

Slowly we approached each other until less than a metre separated us. I held my breath. Then, with exquisite gentleness, Ikata moved forward and enfolded me in an embrace of greeting. In my wildest imaginings, I had never anticipated this. Time seemed to stop. I was both inside the moment and outside of it – abandoned to the ecstasy, yet somehow aware of myself.