Devoured (Hatton & Roumande) Page 11

  ‘You can have anything you want in this country if you are prepared to work, ja? Why, I could buy ten of these boys,’ a wave at San, who cowered from him, ‘for a box of cigars.’

  I gave him short shift but he continued. ‘And don’t think I haven’t noticed you peering at my ledger trying to see what names I have in there, but I can assure you, it’s none of your damn business.’

  ‘Settle down now, Mr Ackerman,’ despaired Emmerich. ‘Mr Broderig hasn’t been anywhere near your ledger. None of us would dream of being so presumptuous.’

  Mr Ackerman shot everything that moved, even if the creature was not worth the ammunition. I watched him eyeing a sick Presbytis rubicunda which I would normally have shot myself, its skin being a glorious auburn colour, but this one was shabby, dragging its feet, its life almost over. We all knew that it would disappear into the depths of the forest to die quietly, its final resting place a nest of leaves.

  Bang. One shot. A brutish laugh, then up hopped Ackerman and seized the dead monkey with his hands and tossed it into the bushes. San and Uman were silent, but I read their eyes. This is not how we treat Nature. This is not the way. But I said nothing, nothing at all.

  Emmerich had no interest in catching the mighty Mias. It was a creature, he said, that when you looked in its eyes, looked back at you pleading for its life. Instead, he came only for plants and flowers.

  ‘Benjamin, stay close to me and learn. Mr Ackerman would choose to walk past this little botanical treasure but he would be foolish, for this, gentlemen …’ We all stopped in our tracks as he pointed at a hideous plant. ‘Nepenthes villosa. Extremely rare. Prise it open, Uman. That’s right, slowly does it.’ Uman slid the blade between the teeth. The plant opened, revealing two scaly bodies, blank eyes.

  ‘Are those lizards inside?’ I asked, astonished.

  ‘It’s not just the mighty that’s king in this forest, Benjamin. This plant doesn’t need to beat its chest or break a neck. It merely opens its mouth, thus.’ He prized the pitcher plant open further. ‘A lizard climbs in and das schmeckt gut, ja?’

  A slow and menacing ‘clap … clap … clap’ came from the wings. ‘I think you have made your point, Professor Mann. Now gather up your little pets because some of us have a living to make.’

  Emmerich smiled as if to say ‘Take no notice of him,’ but something about Ackerman’s manner troubled me. Even little San looked anxious and sprang to Emmerich’s help to gather up the pitcher plants. Five boxes filled and we started up again.

  It was only a few minutes of trekking back along the mountain trail when I heard a distinctive rustling in a tree above my head. ‘Mias,’ whispered the tribal chief. He waved us to lie down, stay silent, as a fully grown male crashed through the canopy showering us with leaves. I glanced back at Emmerich who smiled, nodded.

  The crack of the gun twisted in my stomach, like a knife. Ackerman. I didn’t see him keel up and point the barrel of the gun, but without a flicker of hesitation, I knew the shot was his.

  The great beast fell to the ground and the jungle roared its disapproval. Birds screeched and monkeys howled as the dust rose up into the air, then all was deadly silent.

  ‘Bullseye. Straight through the heart. My aim is getting better, ja?’ The others held back for a moment, afraid the sleeping giant would stir, but Ackerman was right about death. And I asked myself, could I really shoot these creatures? Bringing down a hornbill or a squirrel was easy. But something made me ache in the pit of my belly. Was it guilt? Mourning is too strong a word, but it was loss. And yet this was the work we were here for.

  Ackerman gave the ape a kick. ‘It’s dead. No question.’ He was still panting from the kill. ‘What are you waiting for? Hurry yourselves. I want at a whole troop before the sun is down. Amsterdam Museum will pay a fortune for these skins. We’ll leave this one by this myrtle till we have finished the hunt.’ Ackerman continued haranguing the servants. San scurried around, avoiding Ackerman’s odd swipe at his head as he went about his tasks.

  ‘Maaf, tuai rumah. Maaf, maaf.’ Over and over poor San muttered, pleading his apologies to the dead ape for doing the white man’s bidding. And as I watched them, I saw Uman stroke the creature’s hair then crouch down and listen to its heart, his head cocked like a bird. ‘Its spirit hasn’t left,’ Uman said, and then began to hum a low long chant. ‘Ummmm toh Urang. Ummm toh Urang.’

  Ackerman hissed in my ear, ‘You see why Orang Putus is Master here, Mr Broderig? Still, we have to let the Natives have their mumbo jumbo nonsense. But tell the chief we need to find another now. Make haste or I shall leave the lot of you behind.’ But before we all moved on, I looked back at the great ape. Its brown eyes staring out into its forest kingdom, lost forever.

  We shot the apes all day, as Ackerman insisted. Five in as many hours. I took a young female down from the trees with a single shot. She limped away, howling, as Ackerman rasped in my ear, ‘Finish her off. Did you see the baby clinging to her back? Finish her, Broderig, before I do.’

  I shot again. Another crack and I reloaded for a third. But someone pulled my gun down. ‘It’s enough, Mr Broderig.’ It was Uman. ‘The Mias is dead.’

  I peeled the baby off its dead mother and it gave out such a yell I almost dropped the creature. I gave the little Mias over to San, who held it tight.

  ‘It won’t live,’ said Ackerman. ‘Shoot it now. It will only sicken and then the skin’s worth nothing. Here, give me the Mias and I’ll deal with it.’ But the little boy was too quick for the Dutchman, and in a flash he had shimmied up a tree with the Mias clinging to him.

  ‘Leave him alone, Mr Ackerman.’ It was Uman who stood directly in front of Ackerman, neither threatening nor afraid. And for a fleeting moment, I think Ackerman saw what I saw. If there was a hierarchy on this trip, it wasn’t simple.

  We piled up the bodies and built a fire. San sat playing quietly with the infant, whispering, ‘Maaf, maaf,’ meaning sorry. Ackerman skinned his prizes. Orang-utans are magnificent creatures even in death. Mine was left till last. I worked the skin myself. I felt murderous, but still I scraped. The skin was a good one. I boiled the bones. I asked San to leave the baby and help me finish my work, but when the boy tried to prise the clinging Mias off, it gave out such a scream, I told San not to bother. Ackerman scowled at me, and I believe he would have hit the boy, but tropical nights are sudden, and this one fell before the deed was done. And so, we burrowed down to sleep. The little creature had tucked itself into the boy’s arms and they curled together, like innocents, their faces gently lit by the dying embers until the darkness took them.

  The crack of the whip brought me to my senses. I opened my eyes to see Ackerman, standing over me like some vile prison warden. I’d noticed his whip the day we left Sarawak. He hadn’t touched it until now, but as I cursed him and staggered to my feet, I sensed his mounting agitation.

  ‘Our guide here,’ the towering Ackerman embraced the tuai rumah in a menacing grip, ‘has just informed us that he wishes to return to Empugan, giving us only one day’s more hunting. So, English boy, if it’s not too much trouble?’

  Uman and the others were already up finishing the skinning and tagging. Emmerich was squatting by the fire. I smiled at my benevolent botanist, surrounded as he was by a cluster of orchids. ‘I gathered these this morning. The forest is full of them. Mr Banta knows more about my chosen field than he would at first let on, isn’t that right Mr Banta?’

  ‘I bow to your superior knowledge, Professor Mann, but what do you think we should call this?’ asked Mr Banta, looking at me for an answer. The orchid in his hand was spectral white and covered with flecks of silver. We named it there and then. An incomparable beauty. Paphiopedilum katheriniadum. Your namesake, Katherine, and as I held the petals in my hand, a damsel fly weaved above my outstretched palm. Its needle body a flash of violent, brilliant blue, its wings crossed with a labyrinth of ebony veins. And at that very moment, a stream, a beam, a thread of gold pierced down and lit th
e insect from the sky and it cast a tiny, hovering shadow across the luminous flower. And then the fly lifted its membrane wings and, in a flutter, was gone.

  ‘San. Get here, now boy. We’ll tag and measure in Empugan.’ Ackerman sweated as he loaded his gun. ‘The sun is rising fast and I have a hoard of creditors to pay.’

  Packing up our kit and picking up our boxes, we moved off.

  For three hours we moved liked ghosts. Ackerman went ahead of us, sprung like a coil, his gun pointing this way and that. San clutched the baby Mias, which was sucking his thumb, keeping it quiet. For three weary hours we followed the guide who urged us onwards, hold back, lie down, with just a show of his hand. But there was nothing except empty forest. The Mias had gone.

  ‘Evil spirits,’ whispered Uman.

  I could see the sky begin to darken. A crack of lightning. A rumbling answer.

  ‘A storm is coming, the spirits are unhappy. We must say a prayer, or turn back,’ said Uman.

  ‘No.’ Ackerman spun around, his face smouldering anger. ‘I say we go on. My only master, and yours may I remind you, is money. I need another beast to make it worth my while. Large or small. Young or old. It doesn’t matter. The baby would do it. What do you say, San? A child and his little monkey. Yes, I’ll take the pair of them together. You’re very quiet San. Lost your tongue?’

  San shrunk back, away from Ackerman’s leer, shielding the infant Mias, but Ackerman grabbed him by the arm, stroking his hair, his eyes all the time on Uman.

  ‘What do you think, Mr Broderig? I know the English are very keen on children.’

  Uman grabbed the boy back and shouted at the frightened child, ‘Get on with your work and stay away from the white man.’

  The boy obeyed his uncle, wiping back his tears.

  ‘Leave the boy alone, Mr Ackerman. We understand your meaning and it’s very badly done. You can make up your catch near Empugan. Show some respect, sir, and leave the child alone.’

  Emmerich was shaking as he spoke. His hat askew, his face furrowed by years in the eastern tropics. But despite this sorry appearance, Emmerich moved himself solidly between the malevolent hunter and his latest prey.

  ‘You foolish old man,’ said Ackerman. ‘And what have you contributed to this trip, I’d like to know? I suspect your decision to join this merry throng was not altogether for scientific reasons. Am I right or am I wrong, Professor Mann? Are you not married to a very Christian lady who is waiting vainly for her husband to return? But who needs religious devotion when you can have a beauty like our little San? These dark fellows know what I’m talking about. Heh, I’m speaking to you …’

  Uman looked quickly across at the boy. But Ackerman hadn’t finished.

  ‘So, Mr Broderig? Perhaps you were not aware of Professor Mann’s little … let’s just call it an arrangement, ja? He keeps her quiet, this little beauty, but not quiet enough.’ Ackerman threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’ll wager you didn’t discuss that over cribbage, when you persuaded Broderig to hire you as his botanical chaperone. How much you, and so many others, like to lift a bit of petticoat.’

  It was at precisely those words, Katherine, that I brought him down with one blow. Ackerman fingered his whip but he read the group well. Five men against one. He stumbled away muttering and every now and then spat out gobs of blood, as the rest of us fell quiet. Above our heads, the clouds thickened and another crack shattered across a burnished orange sky. The chief made his offerings but then another crack – nearer this time. The Mias chattered and bore its teeth, grabbing San’s hair. San grinned at me and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘The storm is getting closer.’

  Uman started hacking down great umbrella leaves to shield us from the rain. The sky blazed cinnabar. A million dying embers trailed across the sky. ‘It won’t last,’ shouted Emmerich above the pounding din. I smiled at the others in camaraderie, but our group, despite the storm, was already splintered. Ackerman stood apart, letting the rain drench him to the skin. Was it a show of bravado? Or something else? The only thing he had bothered to cover was his gun. He had placed it in one of the storage boxes, his heavy boot upon it. Then suddenly, as it had begun, the rain stopped. The sun broke out beams of yellow through the blackened clouds, which shifted into whispers, then disappeared. The storm was over.

  After the rains had gone, we settled down for the night, and I must have slept for hours. When I woke, San’s hand was shaking me gently. ‘Mr Broderig. The Mias.’ His eyes had filled with tears.

  ‘Your baby, San? Is that what you mean?’

  ‘It’s gone, Mr Broderig.’

  ‘It can’t have gone, San. Let’s try the riverbank. There are jack there and durian. Maybe your little pet is down there stuffing himself to the brim?’

  It was the earliest point of dawn, when the air is fresh and cool. Basking lizards shot like skirmishes into the pools of circling water.

  ‘We’ll find him, San. I promise.’ The boy looked up at me with half a smile.

  It was a little in the distance but I knew what we’d found. Up ahead, at first all I could see was a curtain of insects, hovering around the drooping branch of a belian tree. I swept the flies back with my hand not caring if they bit or poisoned me. The body hung limp from the tree. The little Mias had been slit from ear to ear. Its dead head lolled to one side. He had hung the baby, Katherine. Not content with slicing the ape’s throat, he had hung it from a branch with a rope of rattan. I took my knife and cut the Mias down. And I knew who’d done this. It was Ackerman.

  I took the boy’s hand and, stumbling, we wandered back together. Along the way, I found some fallen leaves and wrapped the Mias in a shroud and as we made our way back to the camp, I saw Ackerman still lying on his pua-kumbu and I readied myself.

  ‘Get up.’ My anger needed no announcement. ‘Get up and tell the others what you did. Get up, Mr Ackerman, or God knows, I’ll get you up myself.’

  Ackerman stirred. I raised my voice again.

  ‘Get up you coward, for here he is, gentlemen, the Great White Hunter, and look what he got, a real prize catch. Ah, yes, there’s the knife. Why, you couldn’t even be bothered to clean it and cover your tracks. You are a damned coward, sir. Get up, I say.’

  Ackerman pulled himself up. ‘I was doing it a favour, putting it out of its misery, ja? But what do you know about this world? You’re just a passing visitor to Borneo. Has your aristocratic family ordered you here to make your way? To check on the colonies? To prove yourself a man? Some of us have a real living to make. The skin will fetch a bit. The bones, too.’

  ‘Get up, damn you’ was all I could say. His bravado was beyond me.

  The rest of the camp was awake now and I could feel their questioning eyes following me as I lifted my gun.

  ‘For the last time, Ackerman, get up and tell us what you meant by this. The boy has done nothing to you. The skin of this Mias is worthless. This was spite and nothing more.’

  Ackerman swaggered before me, the butt of the rifle jutting ready under his chin, his finger on the trigger. He took a step forward. ‘I wouldn’t point your rifle at me, English boy. I think we both know who’s the better shot. It’s just payment for what you did, Broderig. You might well have slit the beast yourself.’

  ‘Please, Mr Broderig.’ It was San, pleading with me. ‘Please, let’s just bury the Mias.’

  I could have shot Ackerman there and then but something held me back. I knew, when it came to guns, it was an unequal match. That he was the better shot. For all my desire to punish the man, I failed to do it.

  ‘Come, Benjamin. He isn’t worth it.’

  It was Emmerich and I felt my anger abating. It ebbed away like a tide, but something else flooded in to replace it. This was not the trip I had planned. This was not the adventure I had dreamt of when I crossed the seas on The Advancement. I hadn’t come to Borneo to prove myself to the likes of Ackerman. An ill-educated lout brought up by some washerwoman stinking of fish in Holland. I was losing
myself in the forest, Katherine. I was losing my sense of self-worth.

  Uman meanwhile was busying himself, cutting up long pieces of coppery bark, which lay scattered all around our camp. Soon there was enough to make a little box. We laid the Mias inside the coffin, and that done, San placed a little carving on the top. A wooden hornbill, to ward off evil spirits, which were now circling all around us.

  ‘He’ll not have the baby’s skin,’ whispered Uman. ‘But no good will come of more bad words. The orang putus is powerful. We need his work to feed our families. You will go back to England, Mr Broderig, and we will not see you again. But Mr Ackerman will always need us. We must accept that.’

  Of that, I couldn’t argue. I knew that England would always be my home and that this time in the forest was fleeting. That it was men like Ackerman that ruled the day. So there was nothing else for it. We buried the creature and packed up the camp and set off back to Empugan.

  This time, the chief followed the bend of the river. The mighty Simunjan roared. We kept to the high banks above it, slowly and silently, allowing the sound of the jungle to be our words. I was lulled by it. Soothed by it. Admonished by it. Melodic gibbons hurled themselves in acrobatic delight, warning us to stay out of their sight. Proboscis monkeys growled their disapproval. They seemed to know everything, Katherine. What had gone and what would come.

  No good comes of evil. And evil was in the air. It smelt stale and bitter and it had rancour on its face. Now the Mias was gone, San was the weakest, and more than once on that walk, I noticed Ackerman finger his whip and curse under his breath if the child fell behind or stumbled.

  But then a strange thing happened.

  Somehow, we seemed to find ourselves back in the very spot where I had shot my first and last orang-utan. The ground was still crushed from the weight of our boots, and there was a stunted myrtle tree where we had stacked the cadavers. Nothing had changed here, despite all that had changed for us.