Brian Aldiss - The Male Response

Sickened, Soames let the branches sweep back into position. He could do nothing here. Yet he stood there, silent, the air heavy with petrol fumes and sunlight coming in horizontally through the wound in the hull. He was regretting he had not been more genial with the Birmingham man while a chance for geniality existed.

Looking up through the shattered glass, he perceived a face watching him from a branch outside. It was a thin, eroded face, lined with despair, from which peered two hanging-judge eyes; its beak was like a tarnished blade. Even as Soames and the vulture regarded each other, another great bird in its funeral garb came clattering down to take up its perch beside the first. Then they both stared down at the living man without comment. By the time he had disappeared back into the body of the plane, two more friends had joined them; the leader stepped forward and flubbed heavily down into the cabin.

‘This is our best plan,’ Jimpo told them, leaning back against the tree. ‘We cannot be many leagues from my country. That is a fortunate chance, for my leg will allow me to proceed only slowly. Just now I have observed a herd of topi, and from their movements, I suspect there may be water in that direction, through the bushes. We will walk to that water. If it should be a river, it is good for us to make camp there and wait for men to come by in boats. They will take us to my father’s republic.’

‘What you say goes, of course,’ Timpleton said, scratching his neck. ‘It’s your country. But I thought the usual stunt in these situations, from what I’ve read, was to walk to safety. Even if we have to take it slowly, it’s better than just sitting spinelessly by the river waiting for someone to show up.’

‘You have read too many adventure stories, Ted,’ Jimpo said. ‘These jungles are bad and we become quickly lost. We are not Biggles & Co. Best to wait by the river! I will teach you to trap crocodile.’

‘If we set fire to the plane, someone would be bound to see it and come and investigate,’ Soames suggested. ‘We could get all the food out first.’

Something like bad temper flitted across Jimpo’s face.

‘You think I get the computer so near to home and then burn it?’ he asked. ‘That is a silly notion, Soames. Help me to my feet and we will walk to the water.’

They trudged slowly through the waist-high grass. While Soames was in the plane, Timpleton had fashioned a sturdy crutch for Jimpo, with which he was able to proceed without too much discomfort.

The sun was high in the sky and they were sweating profusely by the time they reached the water; by English standards, it was a fair-sized river. The approach to it lay through a thicket of head-high bushes, but on the other bank rose true jungle, dense and unwelcoming. The river itself was deep and flowed so sluggishly it had the appearance of being semi-congealed.

‘This is ideal place,’ Jimpo said. ‘Now I will light fires to scare away the snakes and one of you will go back to the plane to collect the equipment I shall name. It can be dragged back here on the rug with maximum comfort. Which of you likes to go?’

‘Toss you, Soames,’ Timpleton said promptly, producing a coin and laying it on the back of his fist with his other hand over it.

‘I always lose these things,’ said Soames hopelessly. ‘Heads, I suppose,’ and lost. Thus it was he who had the surprise, when he got back, sweating, to the plane wreck, of finding a green bicycle with four-speed, propped against the crumpled tailplane and gleaming in the still sunshine.

‘Who’s there?’ Soames called nervously and then recollecting that this might well be what was French Equatorial Africa, ‘Er – qui est là?’

No answer came to him except the superbly contemptuous twittering of an insect in the long grass. He walked quietly about the wreck and saw nobody. The owner of the bicycle must have climbed up the ladder and entered the cargo hatch.

Slightly nonplussed, Soames was staring up this ladder when a black face appeared at the top and a negro wearing khaki shorts and bearing a spear shinned down like lightning to confront him. They faced each other with rather similar silly smiles before the negro began to talk volubly, pointing to the plane.

‘Sorry, I don’t understand a word,’ Soames said, commencing an elaborate pantomime with swooping hands and explosive sounds to depict the whole drama of a plane crash in which all but three passengers, two white and one black, were killed, the other two being by the river about a mile distant, and would you kindly follow there now bringing your bicycle if needs must …

All this the negro watched politely before shrugging his shoulders in a gesture of bafflement.

When Soames, after taking a refreshing swig from the water container Timpleton had left under the tree, began to head back for the river, he beckoned industriously to the negro and saw him seize up his bike, swing it over one shoulder by the crossbar, and follow. ‘Good boy … that’s it … someone who’ll be able to make you savvy when we get there … yes, come on … he’ll make it worth your while … good,’ Soames muttered in a kind of dreary undertone of encouragement as they proceeded.

The negro fell in beside him, cutting off the mumble with a long account of his own which he interspersed with frequent laughter, rather to Soames’ irritation.

‘What’s the good of going on, old boy, when you know I don’t understand a word?’ he enquired, but the negro was still laughing and talking when they reached the river bank. Pushing his way forward, keeping his bicycle miraculously free from entanglements with bushes, he came to where Deal Jimpo was lying.

The latter uttered a few curt sentences, evidently announcing who he was, for at once the newcomer lay down beside him and clutched his hand; he broke into what sounded like an incoherent address of welcome to Jimpo. While they were talking together, Timpleton reappeared, grimy and hot, having set fire to the grass according to Jimpo’s instructions. Soames rapidly explained to him what had happened.

‘We have fortune in some things at least,’ Jimpo said, rising with the newcomer’s aid and leaning on his crutch. ‘This good man, Tanuana Motijala, tells us we are less than a day’s journey – even with my slow progress – from Umbalathorp itself. He will escort us along the trail and we can leave at once.’

This was indeed good news. Both Soames and Timpleton had had private dreams of spending a week by the surly river, beating off crocodiles, rhinoceros and water snakes with fragments of girder from the plane.

‘Thank him very much indeed and ask him where the hell he got his push bike,’ Timpleton said.

A brief exchange between the two black men followed and then Jimpo explained, ‘He won it in a raffle.’

Once more they did the journey to the plane under the blazing sun. Jimpo assured them that directly he reached the capital of Goya an expedition would be despatched to bring back everything from the wreck, including their luggage, and on this understanding they set off light-handed, Timpleton and Soames bearing haversacks containing water and food.

Tanuana’s trail lay some distance beyond the plane. It was a relief to find themselves in the shadow of the jungle, but this benefit was short-lived, for soon the trail was winding uphill fairly steeply. Both white men began to blow hard, and Jimpo’s face was grim with effort; Tanuana, noticing nothing, chattered and laughed in the same cheery way he had done when Soames first met him.

‘Whatever is he talking about?’ Soames enquired irritably at last, when the trail momentarily levelled out.

‘Saying he explore wreck of flying plane before you appear,’ Jimpo said. ‘Saying he kill four vulture birds in nose of flying plane. Saying they eat too much, too fat to get out hole they come in by. Saying he got four good beaks in saddle-bag.’