Catch Me a Colobus, Page 2

‘I do apologise for Daddy,’ she said, ‘but I’m afraid he’s not quite himself. Please don’t take any notice.’

  The telephone was wrenched from her, and his lordship came on again.

  ‘I will do anything,’ he said. ‘Fasht cars, planes, anything you like to get the bird to you.’

  ‘I’m afraid even if you got it to me, I could do nothing for it,’ I said.

  ‘Here I’ll put you on to my captain; he knows all about it,’ said his lordship.

  A dour Scottish voice came on the phone.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  ‘Good evening,’ I said.

  ‘You say you think the bird’s a Stormy Petrel?’ asked the captain.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m almost certain. But in any case, the only thing to do is to keep it warm and in a dark place, send it out on one of your ships tomorrow. As soon as they are as far out to sea as they think necessary – two or three miles, perhaps – they can then let it go.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘I must apologise for worrying you at this hour of night, but his lordship insisted.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I . . . er . . . I understand the circumstances perfectly.’

  ‘His lordship, you understand,’ went on the Scots voice, ‘is a very kind man, and very, very keen on birds, but he’s not quite himself tonight.’

  ‘So I gather,’ I said. ‘I wish I was in the same state.’

  ‘Er . . . yes sir,’ said the captain. ‘Well, er, I’ll be saying goodnight, then, sir.’

  ‘Goodnight,’ I said, and put the phone back.

  ‘What on earth was all that about?’ said Jacquie.

  ‘A drunken lord, trying to send me a Stormy Petrel,’ I said, sinking into my chair.

  ‘Really!’ she said, angrily, ‘this has got to stop. We must get an ex-directory number.’

  And so we did, and since then this spate of extraordinary telephone calls has mercifully ceased.

  The following morning I related this incident to Catha, and she was amused though sympathetic.

  ‘Have you heard the story about Jeremy and the mole?’ she inquired.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t. What is it?’

  Apparently, Jeremy had been driving the zoo lorry from the mammal house through the two great arches that guard the courtyard, carrying the debris of the day’s cleaning out. When he reached the second arch he saw, crawling across the gravel, a mole. He immediately clamped on his brakes, stepped out of the lorry, and approached the mole with the idea that he would carry it to an adjoining field where it would be safe. When he got closer he discovered that the mole was not only very dead, but attached to a length of twine, and it was being slowly pulled across the gravel. Following the twine to clear up this mystery, he found the entire bird staff at the end of it, pulling gently. The practical joker was Shep Mallet (known as Shep since, when he had first arrived, he had been nicknamed Shepton Mallet). He had not, for some time, played any practical jokes on people and I greeted this as a very good sign. It meant that the air of gloom and despondency, which I had found so prevalent on my return, had disappeared and was being replaced with hope and enthusiasm.

  However, at this point, although hope and enthusiasm were things that were vitally needed, they had to be backed up with sufficient money. It was hard cash that we needed to rebuild cages that were by then five years old, and rebuild, moreover, not in a haphazard way but with some overall plan in mind. Every day it seemed that cages had to be shored up when really they should have been pulled down and rebuilt. Among the smaller animals and birds this did not matter so much, but when it came to the larger and more dangerous creatures, the problem became acute. In spite of the help that I had had from Hope and Jimmy in setting up the Trust, we were still desperately short of money and, in particular, money to create satisfactory caging for those animals that could be potentially lethal if they escaped. This was brought home to me forcibly by certain events that followed each other in alarmingly quick succession.

  At the far end of the mammal house, where the gorillas had their quarters, we had had a small collection box constructed, and above it a notice telling of the aims and objects of the Trust, in the hope that kindly members of the public would put donations in it. In due course they did. One lunchtime, when there happened to be nobody about, I went into the mammal house to have a look at a marmoset that was supposed to be pregnant. I saw to my alarm that the door on the orang-utan cage was open and hanging crookedly on its hinges. I hurried down there and, to my relief, found both the orang-utans still sitting in the cage, but Oscar, the elder orang-utan, must have found some sort of a tool in order to have wrenched the door open. Having done that, he had then explored the mammal house. The only thing of interest, which he had found that he could detach easily and take back with him as a souvenir, was the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust collecting box. As soon as he discovered that this rattled, he rattled it vigorously. Finding that the coins wouldn’t come out of the slot, he’d soon tracked down the door at the back and wrenched it open. ‘When I arrived on the scene he was sitting in a pile of half crowns, sixpences and pennies. He was most irritated with me when I went into the cage, seized the box and picked up the money. I wasn’t sure how much money there had been in the first place, so it was a little difficult, but I felt sure there must be some more hidden around in the straw which I had missed. Then I looked at Oscar and I noted that his face was swollen and looked more puffy than usual.

  ‘Oscar,’ I said sternly, ‘you’ve got some in your mouth. Give it to me.’

  I held out my hand and, with the greatest reluctance, he spat out five half-crowns and about four sixpences.

  ‘Is that the lot?’ I demanded.

  He just sat and looked at me with his little almond-shaped eyes. I put the money back in the box, climbed out of the cage, and made a temporary repair to the door. Then, just as I was leaving to go and tell our maintenance man that the door needed fixing properly, Oscar spat a defiant penny at me.

  But the incident that really made us realise the importance of getting new ape cages done as quickly as possible was when the chimps got out. It was a Christmas Day, and we had invited Catha and her husband, Sam, over to have Christmas dinner with us. Christmas Day is the only day that the zoo closes, and it was extremely fortunate for us that all the staff were still in the zoo and had not dispersed to their various Christmas dinners. Our turkey was done to a turn, the chestnut stuffing smelt marvellous, and all the vegetables were ready at a quarter to one, when the door burst open and a member of the staff rushed in, shouting, ‘Mr D., Mr D., the chimps are out!’ I’d had Cholmondley (or Chumley, as he was more commonly spelt) since he was quite a tiny baby, but even in those days, when he’d gone to do something disobedient and my mother had tried to stop him, he’d bitten her in the arm, which had necessitated seventeen stitches. Now he was almost as big and heavy as I was, so I had no wish to tangle with him or with Sheena, his wife, who was about the same size.

  ‘Where are they?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re just going into the courtyard.’

  I rushed to the drawing-room window and looked out. There was Chumley walking along with Sheena, her arm draped affectionately over his shoulder, looking for all the world like an elderly couple enjoying a walk along the Bournemouth seafront. Just at that moment Catha and Sam’s car swept into the courtyard and came to a halt at the front door. Sheena was inclined to be a little nervous of this new apparition, but Chumley greeted it with hoots of delight. He knew all about cars as he had driven in them with me a number of times when he was a baby, and had thoroughly enjoyed watching the scenery and the passing traffic. He went up to the car, where Catha and Sam had wisely rolled up their windows, and banged on the glass in the hope that Catha would open up and give him a lift. However, she did no such thing.

  I rushed downstairs, telling Jacq
uie to lock the flat door behind me, shut my office door, opened the door leading into the big main offices, and then flung open the front door. Chumley, on seeing me, gave several hoots of greeting and started ambling towards the houses. I scooted out through the office, opening the door that led into a passageway which, in turn, led to the stairs up to the staff quarters and to the big kitchen which served the cafe. I felt that if we could get the chimps in there we could trap them one way or another. I then went outside the house, round the back, in through the back door, and took up my stand peering through the crack of the door leading to the offices.

  Chumley had decided he might as well pass the time of day with me and wish me a merry Christmas, so he was just walking in through the front door, followed by Sheena. They couldn’t go anywhere but into the main office and this they did. It was the work of a moment to close the sliding doors on them; but I hoped that they would get into the back passageway as quickly as possible, as in the office were all the files and they could do a considerable amount of damage in a very short time. To my relief Chumley, finding that there was nobody in the office, did precisely that. But when he got into the back passage there was a choice between going along it and into the big kitchen, or upstairs to the staff living quarters. Chumley knew all about stairs, for when he was a baby our flat had been up several flights of them, and he thought that this flight might lead him to me. So up he went, followed by a somewhat dubious Sheena. Luckily, all the staff bedroom doors were shut, with the exception of one, and this was the one that the chimps naturally made for.

  We followed at a respectful distance, and when they were safely inside, slammed the door on them and turned the key. Then we went outside, got ladders and climbed up to the windows of the room to see what they were doing. Chumley had discovered, with great satisfaction, that there was a basin and a cake of soap in the room. He had turned on both taps to the fullest extent and was busy washing his hands, a habit he had much enjoyed when young. Sheena, on the other hand, was bouncing up and down on the bed, clasping a pillow to her bosom. She then found out that, by digging her nails in and pulling hard, it was quite easy to burst a pillow with the most satisfactory result that clouds of feathers filled the air. So she burst both pillows and the room looked as though it was having a snowstorm. A large quantity of feathers drifted down and settled in the basin, thus effectively clogging it. The basin started to fill and eventually overflowed, for Chumley by now had lost interest in it and he and Sheena were dismantling the bed with great thoroughness. When they came to the mattress they discovered that this, too, could be ripped open and the contents scattered about the room. Now the room was not only full of feathers but little bits of sorbo rubber, horsehair, and so on. I had a hasty conference with Jeremy. We had one cage strong enough and big enough to put the two chimps in, but this was made of solid steel and required about six people to lift it, and I doubted whether, in fact, we could get it up the stairs to the staff quarters.

  ‘The only thing to do is to try and get them down again,’ said Jeremy. ‘If we can get them to go along the corridor to the end there, where there are the two doors, we can trap them between the two doors and then manoeuvre the cage into place.’

  We climbed up the ladders once again and peered in. Chumley had now found a coat-hanger and had managed to break a mirror with it. Sheena was still busily disembowelling the mattress with all the intentness of a world-famous surgeon doing a heart transplant.

  ‘If somebody were to open the door,’ said Jeremy, ‘he could nip across and lock himself in the bathroom. He’d be safe there. Then, perhaps, they’d go downstairs of their own accord.’

  ‘Well, we can try it,’ I said.

  So a member of the staff went up, opened the door of the bedroom in which the chimps were disporting themselves, then whipped across the corridor and locked himself in the bathroom. The chimps, as I had suspected, were having far too good a time to wish to vacate their quarters. They merely glanced up when the door was opened and returned to their various activities. In Chumley’s case he was collecting together as many feathers as he could and throwing them in the air, while Sheena was still busy on her operation and the mattress was looking as though it would not survive.

  ‘I think there’s only one thing to do,’ said Jeremy. ‘We’ll have to hose them out.’

  Now the curious thing was that, though both the chimps liked water to drink and to play with, they couldn’t bear to get it on their bodies. On some nights, when they had refused to go into their bedroom, we had had to threaten them with the hosepipe, whereupon they went in like lambs. We thought that this method might work equally well now. The hosepipe was solemnly brought up and attached to the tap in the animal kitchen, and we broke a pane of glass in the window in order to stick the end through. Then the water was turned on full force and the jet directed into the room. The chimps looked up in astonishment at this dastardly attack and then, as the stream of water hit them, ran screaming out of the bedroom, down the stairs and into the passage. Here we had two other members of the staff waiting concealed. As soon as the chimps reached the right spot both doors in the passageway were slammed and they were neatly trapped in a small area where they could do no damage and from which they couldn’t escape. I think we all felt relieved at this point, for chimps, being rather hysterical, extrovert creatures, quickly get overexcited and when overexcited could easily attack you. By this time both Sheena and Chumley were thoroughly overexcited, to say the least.

  Our next job was to get the big steel cage and bring it down to one of the doors. This took a long time, for the cage had not been in use for ages and so was covered with stacks of timber and other materials which had accumulated in the workshop. Finally, however, we got it clear and six of us carried it and put it in position by the door. The sliding door of the cage was raised and then the door into the house carefully opened. The chimps were sitting there, dripping water from their fur, looking extremely belligerent. For an hour we tempted them with every delicacy we could think of to try to entice them into the cage, but nothing – not even out-of-season grapes – would make them enter it.

  ‘What about a snake?’ I said, for I knew that Chumley had a great fear of snakes.

  ‘No, it won’t work,’ said Jeremy. ‘At least, it will for Chumley, he’ll go in for a snake. But Sheena won’t; she’s not a bit scared of them.’

  ‘Well, it will have to be the hosepipe again,’ I said gloomily. ‘God knows what damage we’ve done already with water.’

  So the hosepipe was carried round to the kitchen and attached to the tap. We then went to the other door, opened it, and directed a firm stream of water at the two chimps. They immediately rushed into the cage, the sliding iron door clanged shut, and they were safely prisoners once more. Together with Bert, our maintenance man, we went down to the chimps’ cage to see exactly how they had managed to escape. They were kept behind thick interlink wire, which was strong enough to retain them, but Chumley had discovered one loose end. Once you discover a loose end of interlink wire you can unravel it as easily as knitting, and this was precisely what he had done. So Bert, who had also just been about to sit down to his Christmas dinner, set to work to repair the cage. Within an hour or so it was ready once more to receive the chimps. So finally, at four o’clock, we got the chimps back into the cage, and made our way to our various Christmas dinners. Catha, Sam, Jacquie and myself, sat down to charred turkey and vegetables that looked as though they had been trodden on by an exceptionally heavy elephant, but at least we had some wine on ice as compensation.

  2. Just Jeremy

  Dear Mr Durrell,

  I am ten years old and in my opinion you are the best zoologist in the British Isles (except Peter Scott).

  Would you please send me your autograph?

  The following year things looked much brighter and we had something concrete to show for our work. Catha worked like a beaver in order to kee
p the Trust and zoo accounts in order, and to control our overdraft, and also to control me, for I have a habit of overspending without thinking. ‘Wouldn’t flamingoes be nice,’ I would exclaim enthusiastically.

  ‘Oh, yes, beautiful,’ Catha would say. ‘How much do they cost?’

  ‘Oh, not very expensive,’ I’d say. ‘Somewhere in the neighbourhood of a hundred and twenty pounds each, I suppose.’

  The happy smile would fade from Catha’s face and a steely glint would come into her green eyes.

  ‘Mr Durrell,’ she would purr, ‘do you know the size of our overdraft?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes,’ I’d say hastily. ‘It was only a suggestion.’

  However, in spite of Catha’s disinclination to part with any cash, we did make progress.

  Added by Jeremy and John Mallet we had completely re-organised the zoo. We worked out a card index of every animal in the place. Each animal had three cards: one pink, one blue, and one white. The white card was the history card and contained such details as where the specimen was obtained, its condition on arrival, and so on. The second card, the pink one, was the medical card and contained a full record of the animal’s health and any veterinary treatment it had received. The blue card was the behaviour card, and probably the most important, for on it were noted such things as courtship displays, gestation periods, territory markings and a host of other things. We also instituted a large Day Book in Jeremy’s office; a sort of diary to which every member of the staff had access so that they could note down anything of interest among their charges. These were then transferred to the appropriate cards. By this means we managed to start amassing some fascinating material. It is really astonishing how little is known about the average animal. I have a fairly comprehensive library of about a thousand books but you consult it for something quite simple, like, let us say, the courtship display of the creature in question, and you will find absolutely no mention of it anywhere.