07 Elephant Adventure (14 page)

This isn’t going to work,’ Hal said. It would take us all day to go a mile through this stuff.’

‘How do the animals get through it?’ Roger asked.

That’s a good question. If we can just get the answer, well be in business. The answer may be tunnels. Let’s go back and start again.’

They struggled back to the beginning of the moss and followed the edge. They found tunnels, but they were too small - probably made by snakes or rodents.

‘I think I could wriggle through this one,’ Roger said:

‘And run die chance of meeting a cobra face to face? We can do better than that.’

A bush pig suddenly dashed out of a larger tunnel in the moss thicket, then stopped abruptly when it saw the two boys. It snorted angrily and seemed quite ready to make trouble. Its tusks looked as sharp as knives.

‘Just stand still,’ Hal advised.

The big boar glared and grunted and made a few false starts towards these strangers who had invaded his domain. But when they did not stir he decided to give them the cold shoulder. With a final snort and a toss of his head he plunged on down the mountain-side.

They peered into the tunnel. It was about three feet high and two wide. It was as dark as a coal cellar.

Roger didn’t like the look of it ‘We’d have to go through on our hands and knees/ he objected. ‘And suppose we met another bush pig. It’s so dark - anything might happen in there.’

‘Just keep in mind,’ Hal said, ‘that a bush pig probably doesn’t like it any better than you do. He never knows when he might meet a leopard or something equally unpleasant So if you hear a grunt, just grunt back. I’m sure you’re as good a grunter as any bush pig.’

Thanks for the compliment,’ Roger said. ‘But just in case a grunt doesn’t stop him. 111 have my knife handy.’

‘In your teeth,’ Hal suggested. ‘You’ll need your hands for crawling.’

Down on all fours, with long knives clenched between their teeth, the two looked savage enough to terrify a bush pig.

Hal led the way into the tunnel. If there was any trouble ahead, he would be the one to meet it This made Roger feel better - until it occurred to him that the trouble might come from behind.

In that case he would be the one to suffer. And if he were attacked from behind, how could he use bis knife? The tunnel was too tight a fit to allow him to turn round.

He had thought Hal was quite brave to go ahead. Now he wasn’t so sure. Hal was guarded by a knife in front and a knife behind. Roger was protected in front, but his rear began to twitch and itch with quivering fear of the sharp tusks of a bush pig or the claws or jaws of a leopard. And there was nothing he could do about it.

‘Okay?’ Hal said. His voice had a muffled sound, deadened by the moss.

‘Okay.’ Roger replied.

But now he had a new worry. Who could tell how long this tunnel might be? It might go on for miles and miles. The twigs and stones on the floor of the tunnel were already punching into his hands and knees. How much of this sort of thing could he stand?

Again Hal called but his voice, smothered in moss, was fainter now. Roger shouted back.

He crawled on for several minutes. Suddenly he butted his head against a solid column of moss. He stopped and explored with his hands. He found that the tunnel forked at this point and became two tunnels.

Now what? Which one had his brother followed?

‘Hal!’ he shouted. His voice sounded as if his mouth were full of feathers. The moss choked the sound. He heard no reply. He shouted again, and heard nothing.

Why hadn’t Hal waited for him? Probably because he hadn’t noticed the fork. Roger .wouldn’t have noticed it himself if he hadn’t happened to bump into the moss between the two passages. Roger tried to be calm and think this thing out reasonably. If Hal had not noticed the fork lie would naturally have gone straight ahead. Now, which direction was straight ahead?

That was hard to tell in complete darkness. The two tunnels were both nearly straight ahead.

His heart was beating like a trip hammer. He tried to tell himself that this was just because of the altitude. After all, they were far up the slope of a high mountain. And crawling on hands and knees took a good deal of energy.

But he didn’t fool himself. He knew the chief reason for his fast pulse and rapid breathing was that he was scared. He felt like a mouse in a trap.

He didn’t enjoy being all alone in this black hole, and still he was afraid he was not alone - who could tell what things with tusks or claws or poisonous fangs might be waiting in the dark? If he could only see where he was and where to go I

He slashed at the ceiling with his knife. The stout rope-like branches of moss were intertwined in a solid mass. He kept cutting and sawing and slashing until his arm was lame. Then he caught a glimmer of light through the roof. He kept up the attack until he had made a hole large enough for his head to pass through.

It was a good feeling to get his head out’ But all he saw was moss, moss, and more moss. On every side it was visible for only a little way and then was swallowed by the fog.

He was even more uncertain of direction than he had been down below. There he had at least a choice between two tunnels.

He drew in his head and plunged into the tunnel that bore to the right He called again. No answer. No use wasting his breath calling. On sore hands and knees he hurried along, expecting to lay his fingers on the smooth round body of a snake at any moment.

Presently he came to another meeting of tunnels. Here he could turn either right or left. It was all the same to him. He turned left.

Soon he stopped to listen. There was a rustling somewhere ahead of him. Something was coming.

He hoped it was something small and harmless, perhaps a hedgehog or a hare. No, a small animal would not make so much noise. The scraping against walls and roof told him it was something almost as large as the tunnel.

Swiftly, his mind pictured the possibilities. The thing could be a gorilla, or a giant ant-bear,or a hyena. It could be a bush pig or a wart-hog, and either one of these mean beasts carried razor-edged tusks.

Worst of all, it could be a leopard. The thought paralysed him. Perhaps he should try to back up. But a leopard could come forward foster than he could go backward.

Besides, if he showed fear the leopard was sure to attack him. He must put on a brave front

He remembered what his brother had said about grunting. He would do better than that - he would roar.

Roar he did, and no leopard could have roared better. At the same time he charged. His only hope was to scare this beast, and make it back down.

A terrific roar answered him. Roger tried to top this roar with one that almost burst bis lungs. He scrambled ahead as fast as his hand and knees would carry him, giving roar for roar. His head crashed against the head of his enemy. ‘Ouch!’ said the leopard. . ‘Ouch!’ said Roger.

The two leopards sat down on their haunches and laughed. It was a nervous laugh, for they had both been thoroughly frightened.

‘Imagine meeting you here,’ said Hal.

‘Why didn’t you wait for me at the fork?’

‘Was there a fork? Now I’ll ask you a question - how come you’re going the wrong way?’

1 got mixed up on a detour.’

‘Can you turn around?’

Roger tried it. He squirmed and twisted and gave it up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘This tunnel is too tight a fit’

Then you’ll just have to crawl backwards the rest of the way. Don’t worry. It can’t be more than five or ten miles.’

‘You’re so funny,’ Roger groaned. 1‘11 bet I can turn around in five minutes.’

‘If you can, you’re more of a magician than I take you for.’

Roger crawled backwards until he reached the side tunnel from which he had come. He backed into it and waited for Hal to pass him. Then he fell in quietly behind his brother.

Hal, supposing Roger to be still in front of him, was startled by a savage growl behind him and the prick of a leopard’s claw in his rear - then he realized it was just the point of Roger’s knife.

‘You scared me out of my skin,’ he admitted. ‘How did yon get there?’

‘Easy,’ Roger said. ‘It’s just as you say - I’m more of a magician than you take me for.’

Wearily they crawled on for another hour. Then Hal stopped to rest

‘I’ve been on my hands and knees so long,’ he said, 1 don’t believe 111 ever be able to stand up on my hind feet again.’

Roger lay fiat on the ground. ‘I’m going to take a nap.

You’ll find me here when you come back.’

But the sound of small things, perhaps snaky things creeping through the moss, was enough to keep him awake. Presently he found himself shivering.

Tm getting cold. Let’s get a move on.’

‘Seems to me there’s a cold draught,’ Hal said as he started forward. ‘Perhaps we’re getting near the end of this thing. Look - isn’t that a spot of daylight ahead?’

They crawled with new energy, the spot of light grew, and they came out at last into a glare that made them blink. There was no sun, but they had been so long in the dark that even the white pillars of fog drifting round them hurt their eyes. A cold wind was blowing. Roger hunched his shoulders.

‘Hey, I thought we were on the Equator.’

‘So we are, almost. But we’re up mighty high, higher than the highest of the Alps.’

Roger stared at him unbelievingly. ‘Aren’t you laying it on a bit thick? Mont Blanc is over fifteen thousand feet’

‘I know. But these mountains nearly reach seventeen thousand. And we’re about sixteen thousand up right now.’

‘That makes us teal mountain climbers,’ Roger said. ‘No wonder it’s cold. Still there must have been a forest fire or something up here to make these ashes all over the ground.’

‘Ashes? You must have fog in your eyes. Put your hand in the ashes.’

Roger did so and came up with a hand covered by a moist white substance.

‘Snow!’ he exclaimed. ‘Snow on the Equator!’

‘And look yonder. There’s White Lake.’

The rolling mist revealed the lake, and it was truly white, iced from shore to shore, and the ice covered by a thin film of snow.

The landscape was rocky and bare. The giant flowers and monstrous trees had been left behind. Somewhere behind the curtain of fog the ice-covered peaks punctured the sky, and river of ice - the glaciers - crawled down the ravines.

Between billows of fog they could catch glimpses of the wonderland below them - grim Black Lake on its terrace, and on the balcony below that the very beautiful Green Lake glowing like a precious stone and surrounded by extravagant jungle.

Far, far down at die foot of the mountain they could make out the roofs of the small hotel where they had seen a guest book containing the names of famous men who had climbed or tried to climb these peaks. Roger remembered the signatures of princes, counts, and dukes, explorers of the Royal Geographical Society, and Americans such as Lowell Thomas Jr. and Adlai Stevenson.

The remarkable thing was not how many names there were, but how few. The hundreds of thousands of visitors to Africa came and went without even reaching the foot of this most fantastic of all fantastic mountain ranges.

Then the grey curtains came together again and blotted out the lakes and the forests of gigantic flowers, stranger than anything on the moon after which these mountains had been named.

The wind-blown fog was constantly changing, taking on weird shapes, like pillars or trees or shadowy men a hundred feet tall.

It gives me the creeps,’ Roger said. ‘See that thing -I know it’s just fog. but it looks like a white elephant’

Hal stared at the strange object. It did not act like fog. If it were fog it would change its shape or drift with the wind or melt away. But it stayed put and it still looked like a white elephant, or at least a grey one.

Hal rubbed his eyes. It was still there. Excitement began to stir in his veins.

It couldn’t be true. White elephants were extremely rare. The Tokyo Zoo had offered his father fifty thousand dollars for a white elephant His father had replied that he couldn’t guarantee delivery because the chance of finding such an animal was very small.

But Hal had dreamed about it The dream was always the same. He saw a white elephant but as he came near it, it turned into mist and floated away. Perhaps he was dreaming now.

‘Let’s see if it’s real,’ he said. ‘Come on -just one step

at a time.’

They advanced, step by step. The monster did not melt It stood its ground without fear, and also without anger.

Perhaps it had never seen men before and knew no reason why it should worry about them.

As they came closer Hal could see that much of the look of whiteness was due to the fog. But he had sees other elephants in the fog and they had not looked as white as this one. The hide now seemed a light grey. He wasn’t disturbed by this fact because he knew that none of the so-called white elephants in all history have been snow-white. They were albinos - and an albino is simply an animal without the usual amount of dark colour in the skin.

If he could get close enough he could tell whether this one was really an albino. There were certain things to look for. He stepped very carefully, his finger over his mouth.

Roger moved just as quietly. He knew what it was all about - they had discussed the Tokyo offer many times and had studied the subject so that they would know an albino when they saw one.

The great animal continued to regard them with mild interest. They crept to within ten feet, then stopped.

It was a moment they would never forget - for now they were sure, and the thrill almost-choked them. The tell-tale marks of the albino could be plainly seen.

The light-grey hide was splashed here and there with a warm pink as if glowing in the light of a rising sun. A definite sign of the albino was the white hair along the back, like snow on a mountain-top. Other reliable signs were the white toe-nails, and the pinkish-white eyes. Splashes of pink tinged the forehead and ears. There was no doubt about it - this was a genuine albino and a real beauty.