Gerald Durrell: A Zoo in My Luggage

‘Yes, sah.’

‘Now, you no go forget, eh? You go find me Eshobi man one time.’

‘Yes, sah,’ said Phillip, and clumped off to the kitchen. He never wasted time on unnecessary conversation.

Two days passed without an Eshobi man putting in an appearance, and, occupied with other things, I forgot the whole matter. Then, on the fourth day, Phillip appeared, clumping down the drive triumphantly with a rather frightened looking fourteen-year-old boy in tow. The lad had obviously clad himself in his best clothes for his visit to the Metropolis of Mamfe, a fetching outfit that consisted of a tattered pair of khaki shorts, and a grubby white shirt which had obviously been made out of a sack of some sort and had across its back the mysterious but decorative message ‘PRODUCE OF GR’ in blue lettering. On his head was perched a straw hat which, with age and wear, had attained a pleasant shade of pale silvery green. This reluctant apparition was dragged up on to the front verandah, and his captor stood smugly to attention with the air of one who has, after much practice, accomplished a particularly difficult conjuring trick. Phillip had a curious way of speaking which had taken me some time to understand, for he spoke pidgin very fast and in a sort of muted roar, a cross between a bassoon and a regimental sergeant-major, as though everyone in the world was deaf. When labouring under excitement he became almost incomprehensible.

‘Who is this?’ I asked, surveying the youth.

Phillip looked rather hurt. ‘Dis na man, sah,’ he roared, as if explaining something to a particularly dim-witted child. He gazed at his protégé with affection and gave the unfortunate lad a slap on the back that almost knocked him off the verandah.

‘I can see it’s a man,’ I said patiently, ‘but what does he want?’

Phillip frowned ferociously at the quivering youth and gave him another blow between the shoulder blades.

‘Speak now,’ he blared, ‘speak now, Masa de wait.’

We waited expectantly. The youth shuffled his feet, twiddled his toes in an excess of embarrassment, gave a shy, watery smile and stared at the ground. We waited patiently. Suddenly he looked up, removed his headgear, ducked his head and said: ‘Good morning, sah,’ in a faint voice.

Phillip beamed at me as if this greeting were sufficient explanation for the lad’s presence. Deciding that my cook had not been designed by nature to play the part of a skilled and tactful interrogator, I took over myself.

‘My friend,’ I said, ‘how dey de call you?’

‘Peter, sah,’ he replied miserably.

‘Dey de call um Peter, sah,’ bellowed Phillip, in case I should have been under any misapprehension.

‘Well, Peter, why you come for see me?’ I inquired.

‘Masa, dis man your cook ’e tell me Masa want some man for carry book to Eshobi,’ said the youth aggrievedly.

‘Ah! You be Eshobi man?’ I asked, light dawning.

‘Yes, sah.’

‘Phillip,’ I said, ‘you are a congenital idiot.’

‘Yes, sah,’ agreed Phillip, pleased with this unsolicited testimonial.

‘Why you never tell me dis be Eshobi man?’

‘Wah!’ gasped Phillip, shocked to the depths of his sergeant-major’s soul, ‘but I done tell Masa dis be man.’

Giving Phillip up as a bad job I turned back to the youth.

‘Listen, my friend, you savvay for Eshobi one man dey de call Elias?’

‘Yes, sah, I savvay um.’

‘All right. Now you go tell Elias dat I done come for Cameroon again for catch beef, eh? You go tell um I want um work hunter man again for me, eh? So you go tell um he go come for Mamfe for talk with me. You go tell um, say, dis Masa ’e live for U.A.C. Masa’s house, you hear?’

‘I hear, sah.’

‘Right, so you go walk quick-quick to Eshobi and tell Elias, eh? I go dash you dis cigarette so you get happy when you walk for bush.’

He received the packet of cigarettes in his cupped hands, ducked his head and beamed at me.

‘Tank you, Masa,’ he said.

‘All right … go for Eshobi now. Walka good.’

‘Tank you, Masa,’ he repeated, and stuffing the packet into the pocket of his unorthodox shirt he trotted off down the drive.

Twenty-four hours later Elias arrived. He had been one of my permanent hunters when I had been in Eshobi, so I was delighted to see his fat, waddling form coming down the drive towards me, his Pithecanthropic features split into a wide grin of glad recognition. Our greetings over, he solemnly handed me a dozen eggs carefully wrapped in banana leaves, and I reciprocated with a carton of cigarettes and a hunting knife I had brought out from England for that purpose. Then we got down to the serious business of talking about beef. First he told me about all the beef he had hunted and captured in my eight years’ absence, and how my various hunter friends had got on. Old N’ago had been killed by a bush-cow; Andraia had been bitten in the foot by a water beef; Samuel’s gun had exploded and blown a large portion of his arm away (a good joke, this), while just recently John had killed the biggest bush-pig they had ever seen, and sold the meat for over two pounds. Then, quite suddenly, Elias said something that riveted my attention.

‘Masa remember dat bird Masa like too much?’ he inquired in his husky voice.

‘Which bird, Elias?’

‘Dat bird ’e no get bere-bere for ’e head. Last time Masa live for Mamfe I done bring um two picken dis bird.’

‘Dat bird who make his house with potta-potta? Dat one who get red for his head?’ I asked excitedly.

‘Yes, na dis one,’ he agreed.

‘Well, what about it?’ I said.

‘When I hear Masa done come back for Cameroons I done go for bush for look dis bird,’ Elias explained. ‘I remember dat Masa ’e like dis bird too much . I look um, look um for bush for two, three days.’

He paused and looked at me, his eyes twinkling.

‘Well?’

‘I done find um, Masa,’ he said, grinning from ear to ear.

‘You find um?’ I could scarcely believe my luck. ‘Which side ’e dere … which side ’e live … how many you see … what kind of place … ?’

‘’E dere dere,’ Elias went on, interrupting my flow of feverish questions, ‘for some place ’e get big big rock. ’E live for up hill, sah. ’E get ’e house for some big rock.’

‘How many house you see?’

‘I see three, sah. But ’e never finish one house, sah.’

‘What’s all the excitement about?’ inquired Jacquie, who had just come out on to the verandah.

‘ Picathartes ,’ I said succinctly, and to her credit she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Picathartes was a bird that, until a few years ago, was known only from a few museum skins, and had been observed in the wild state by perhaps two Europeans. Cecil Webb, then the London Zoo’s official collector, managed to catch and bring back alive the first specimen of this extraordinary bird. Six months later, when in the Cameroons, I had two adult specimens brought in to me, but these had unfortunately died on the voyage home of aspergillosis, a particularly virulent lung disease. Now Elias had found a nesting colony of them and it seemed we might, with luck, be able to get some fledglings and hand-rear them.

‘Dis bird, ’e get picken for inside ’e house?’ I asked Elias.

‘Sometime ’e get, sah,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I never look for inside de house. I fear sometime de bird go run.’

‘Well,’ I said, turning to Jacquie, ‘there’s only one thing to do, and that’s to go to Eshobi and have a look. You and Sophie hang on here and look after the collection; I’ll take Bob and spend a couple of days there after Picathartes . Even if they haven’t got any young I would like to see the thing in its wild state.’