John Halkin - Squelch

The day Jeff rang about the lizard experiment Ginny had already been out twice on emergency calls. For the first she’d arrived too late: a twenty-year-old mother with her baby had taken a short cut to the clinic along a woodland path, despite all warnings. Both dead. The second had been in Lingford in a car park behind the supermarket, a typical double attack with the moths first blinding the victims, leaving them helpless against the caterpillars. What made it even more disgusting, they now knew that if no rescuers arrived in time, the moths would return to hover over the corpses. The proboscis would uncurl and hang dabbling in the wounds, drinking up the plasma. On this occasion they came across another example of it — a young assistant manager lying dead among the shopping trolleys. No one had known he was there.

She got back to the house worn out, hot, sick of the whole mess, only to be greeted by the phone ringing the moment she was inside the door. She picked up the receiver and yelled at it through her helmet: ‘Hang on till I’m undressed!’ Her mobile unit had been equipped with Army protective suits which were completely secure against caterpillars but a bastard to get on and off. At last she managed to free the upper half of her body. She grabbed the phone. ‘Yes?’

What met her ears was a chuckle, followed by some sexist joke about ‘can’t wait for videophones’.

‘Jeff, I’m in no mood!’ she snapped. ‘What is it?’

‘You’ve been to the supermarket?’ he guessed right away. ‘I heard about it. Sorry, Ginny, I’ve obviously caught you at a bad moment. Look, it’s about tomorrow. Can you come to London? I’ve arranged a demonstration of what lizards can do — your idea, Ginny! A couple of Ministry people will be there. I’d welcome your moral support. More than welcome it — I desperately need it if we’re to convince them.’

‘Convince them of what?’

‘These aren’t your tiny lizards. They’re two foot long and they chew up caterpillars like they were cocktail sausages. We tried them out today.’

‘Where?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘I’ve a client who supplies zoos. Didn’t I mention him? I must have done. He’s got me into trouble often enough. You must remember the famous chimpanzee case when half of them were found dead on landing at Heathrow? Not my fault, I was only the bloody pilot, yet tell the press that! They really put me in the stocks. Anyway, he’s the man with the lizards. Keen to help, as well.’

‘You think it may be the answer?’

‘It’s worth trying isn’t it? At least it might jolt the Government away from pesticide spraying. Oh, I know it’s my bread-and-butter, but on this scale it’s mad.’

At eight o’clock they met in the car park behind Lingford Station. To be sure of a seat they took first-class tickets but — blaming caterpillars — British Rail ran a reduced service and they passed the journey standing squashed in the corridor. Two girls near them were talking about a new attack at Oxted during the night; one declared from now on she was going to stay in London where it was safer.

Yet both were dressed in ordinary clothes, Ginny marvelled; as though they were immune from the moths. She herself wore a close-fitting safari costume, with her head and face covered by an improvised Iranian chador, plus sun goggles to protect her eyes. A scattering of other passengers were similarly covered, perhaps a third of them in all. Jeff had equipped himself with a sort of balaclava helmet which made him look like a medieval hangman, and he crowned it with a soft felt hat.

The demonstration was to take place in a rented drill hall near Bryanston Square. An area in the centre of the hall was boxed off. Two lizards were already on display there, drowsing under the heat from the high-powered lamps arranged on stands around them. It was obviously intended to video the event, using three cameramen who were busy setting up their equipment.

A small cheerful man bustled forward to greet them, holding out a muscular hand. Jeff introduced him as Andrew Rossiter, responsible for organising the occasion. The two people from the Ministry had already arrived, it seemed. The woman, in a dark costume, seemed rather tense and did not smile even when shaking hands. The man was fidgety and obviously bothered by the heat. His grey suit had seen better days.

‘Right, we’re all here now!’ Rossiter called out when the introductions were over. He clapped his hands to ensure the attention of the video crew as well. ‘This is a private experiment. No press; no outsiders. It’ll happen once only, so keep your eyes open everybody, specially the cameramen. No rehearsal, no second chances — right? Now Fred here has ten caterpillars in his box — the big kind that have been causing all the trouble. When I give the word, he’s going to empty the box into the confined area where you see the lizards.’

They were a kind of monitor lizard, Ginny had learned, roughly two feet long and not yet fully grown. Their tails tapered until at the tip they were no thicker than a washing line, while their dark, speckled skin had a desiccated look about it.

To one side of the boxed-in area Fred stood waiting, clad in full protective gear and clutching an old biscuit tin in his arms. Rossiter checked that the cameramen were ready, then gave the signal. Fred removed the lid and checked the underside. On discovering a long, curling, green caterpillar clinging to it, he tossed it towards the lizards. It landed with a clatter.

Neither lizard moved.

Slowly the caterpillar began to explore its surroundings.

Fred calmly picked the remaining caterpillars out of the tin one by one and dropped them into the enclosure. Counting them as he did so, Ginny guessed. He wouldn’t want to leave any unaccounted for.

Suddenly one of the lizards — without apparently moving — caught the fattest of the caterpillars and swallowed it. It was so quick, Ginny could not be sure she’d actually seen it. She watched more closely, next time just glimpsing the forked tongue as it shot out to seize another.

The second lizard ran forward a few paces, then stopped. In quick succession it took three caterpillars. There was no way they could have escaped.

Within three or four minutes every caterpillar had been gulped down.

‘Right! That’s it — cut !’ Rossiter shouted. ‘They ate all ten, did they, Fred?’

‘Gobbled them up like they hadn’t been fed for a week,’ came Fred’s muffled voice from inside the rubber shield he wore over his face.

‘A wonder they don’t get indigestion,’ the woman civil servant murmured to her colleague. ‘How long d’you think they live inside those lizards?’

‘A few seconds is my guess,’ Rossiter told her confidently. ‘Once those digestive juices get working, bob’s your uncle! Like to see one of the recordings? Let’s have one in slow motion.’

They watched all three recordings. It was obvious to Ginny that the civil servants were impressed, though the woman worried about how dangerous to humans the lizards themselves might be.

‘There’s a place in Nigeria called Bonny where they used to think monitor lizards were sacred,’ Jeff attempted to calm her fears. ‘A hundred years ago, or more, this was. The travellers who went there said they were lying around all over the place — in the doorways, in the road, in the houses themselves. They didn’t harm anyone, it seems.’

‘Then why did they get rid of them — if they did?’

‘Oh, a missionary came along. Attitudes changed. Usual story.’

They coaxed the civil servants into a nearby burger house to discuss the matter further over coffee. If the Government would authorise the shipment of just one plane-load of monitor lizards into Britain they could find out within twenty-four hours whether this was the answer or not. Ginny supported him. It was at least worth trying, wasn’t it? Use nature to fight nature; that was better than poisoning the earth.