Gerald Durrell - The Overloaded Ark

“Andraia,” I called, “no be boa, na bat. . . ”

Thus encouraged, Andraia and Daniel scuttled across and joined me.

They peered down into the bat-filled cave.

“Eh . . . aehh!” said Andraia.

Daniel said nothing, but his teeth stopped chattering.

“Now,” I said to him sarcastically, “which side dat big boa, eh?”

He started to giggle, and Andraia joined in.

“All right. Now let’s have no more foolishness, you hear? Go for outside and ask Elias for the rope and the catch-net quickly.”

Daniel scrambled off to the entrance.

“Masa want dis kind of beef?” inquired Andraia, while we were waiting for Daniel’s return.

“No, I no want dis small-small bat; I want the big kind. Some time we go find um for inside, you think?”

“By God power, we go find um,” said Andraia piously, peering into the depths.

To get to the lower cave we would have to lower ourselves down the steep fifteen-feet slope of rock, on the edge of which we were now squatting. Ropes were the only answer, and I looked about for something to tie the end to. There was nothing. In the end, when Daniel had returned with the ropes and net, we had to send him back with one end of the rope and instructions that it was to be tied to a tree outside. This done, we covered the tunnel that joined the two caves with our net, left Daniel sitting there to disentangle any bats that flew into it, and Andraia and I descended into the depths. The slope, at first sight, appeared to be smooth, but on close contact with it we discovered that the surface was covered with fine longitudinal furrows, like a ploughed field, and the ridges between the furrows had an edge like a razor. At length, torn and bloody, we reached the sandy cave floor. Here the bats were so thick that the air vibrated with their cries and the flutterings of their wings. With Andraia holding the torch, I leapt about with the long-handled net, and after much exertion I succeeded in catching four of these small bats. I wanted them merely as museum specimens, for small insect-eating bats such as these are difficult to keep alive, and would not survive the long journey home. They had a wing-span of about eight inches, and their fat, furry bodies were about the size of a walnut. But it was their heads that astonished me, as I examined them by the light of the torch. Their great, petal-shaped ears stood up from their heads, transparent in the torchlight. On their noses the flesh was bare, and fluted and curled and scalloped into an incredible bas-rehief design, like a misshapen Tudor rose in miniature. These gargoyles’ tiny eyes glittered, and their teeth shone white in their open mouths.

After this we searched to see if any of the larger fruit-eating bats shared the caves with these little monsters, but we searched in vain. We sent Daniel up to the surface with the nets, and then I followed. As I crawled, blinking, out into the sunlight, the Carpenter rushed forward to help me to my feet.

“Welcome, sah,” he said, as though I had been on a long journey.

“You think ju-ju done get me, Carpenter?”

“No, sah, but sometimes you go get bad beef for dis kind of place.”

“And ju-ju ?”

“Ehh . . . sometime you get ju-ju also,” he admitted.

Andraia now emerged, scratched and earthy, and we sat in the sun to get the chill of the caves out of our bones.

“Which side Elias?” I asked, having just noticed his absence.

“He go come small time, sah,” said the Carpenter, “he done go for bush look some other hole.”

“Is there another hole?” I asked eagerly.

The Carpenter shrugged.

“Sometime Elias go find one,” he answered, not very hopefully.

But the Carpenter was wrong. When Elias returned he said that he had found another cave, about haifa mile away, which was bigger than the one we had just investigated and, moreover, was full of large bats. We followed Elias there with all speed.

Sure enough, this second cave was bigger than the first: it was a great hollow carved into a cliff face on the hillside, its mouth almost hidden by undergrowth. Inside it proved to be some seventy yards long, and the roof was at least thirty feet high. This was covered with a thick palpitating layer of squeaking fruit bats. It was a most encouraging sight, and I congratulated Elias on this find. However, soon difficulties became apparent: the roof of the cave was too high to reach even with the long-handled nets we had, and the mouth of the cave was so large that we could only cover part of it with our big net. After considerable thought I formed a plan. Two of the hunters were sent into the surrounding forest to cut us each a sapling about twenty feet long; these were then carefully trimmed, leaving only a bunch of twigs and leaves at one end. Having covered as much of the entrance as we could with our nets, I then armed each man with a soft cloth bag to put his catch in. Then I stepped back, and, aiming the shotgun at the floor in the interior of the cave I let fly with both barrels. Then the sudden roar of the gun, and the subsequent echoes, were overwhelmed and lost in the pandemonium that broke loose in the cave. The entire colony of bats, which must have numbered about five hundred, took flight, and as they wheeled and flapped their way, panic- stricken, round the cave, they shrieked and chattered. The noise of their wings beating the air was like the sound of heavy surf on a rocky coast. Pausing long enough to make sure that the roof of the cave was not in imminent danger of collapse from the shock of the explosion, we rushed inside. The air was thick with fruit bats, flying low over our heads, swooping to within a foot of our faces before twisting to one side, leaving our hair ruffled with the wind from their wings. We set to work, and dashed round the cave, whirling our sticks above our heads as we ran. It was useless to try and aim at a bat, for they simply slid away with the greatest of ease. But, by choosing the place where the bats were thickest, we had considerable success, and with each whirl of our bushy sticks several bats would be knocked on to the sandy floor. Then we would drop our weapons and pounce on them before they could regain the air. The knocks they received were not severe, owing to the twigs and leaves on our sticks, but it was sufficient to make them lose control and fall to the floor. Here they would flap their way along the ground, trying hard to get into the air again. Even when in this helpless state they showed a great turn of speed, and it required considerable agility on our part to corner them, and great care in stuffing them into the cloth bags, for their teeth were sharp and very large.

In three-quarters of an hour, during which we vied with the bats in performing strange gyrations round the cave, we had caught twenty-five of these creatures. By now the bats had become wise: some had flown outside, where they hung festooned in the trees like bunches of quivering black fruit, while the others had discovered that if they all crowded to the highest point of the cave’s roof they would be safe from us. I decided that twenty-five specimens would be enough to cope with as a beginning, so we called a halt. Some distance from the cave we sat on the ground and enjoyed well-earned cigarettes, and watched the bats dropping from the trees, one by one, and then swooping into the dark interior of the cave to join their chattering companions. It was, in all probability, the first time in the centuries that the colony had lived and bred there that they had been attacked like this. It would probably be the same length of time before they were attacked again. Taking all things into consideration, it must be a pleasant life to lead: all day they sleep, hanging in the dark, cool security of the cave, and then in the evening they awake hungry and fly forth in a great flapping, honking crowd into the light of the setting sun, above the golden treetops, to alight and feed in the giant fruit trees aglow with the sunset, gorging on the sweet fruit as the shadows creep through the branches. Chattering and flapping among the leaves, knocking the ripe fruit off so that it falls hundreds of feet down to the forest floor below, to be eaten by other night prowlers. Then, in the faint light of dawn, to fly back to the cave, heavy with food, the fruit juices drying on their fur, to bicker and squabble over the best hanging-places, and gradually fall asleep as the sun rises above the trees to ripen a fresh crop of fruit for the next night’s feast.