The Male Response. Brian Aldiss
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which rose conquering from the pit of the stomach.
‘Is breakfast ready?’ Soames asked.
In the frying pan, deliciously, joyously, six eggs sparkled and wallowed like suns in the lively fat; close by, waiting to welcome them when they were cooked, stood two plates already loaded with crisp bacon and gleaming rounds of potatoes. A groan escaped Soames’ lips.
Even as he wondered if Timpleton had been intending to eat all this glorious food himself, Soames caught sight of Deal Jimpo propped with his back against the bole of a tree a few feet away. The young negro was covered by a rug; his eyes were closed, he breathed heavily.
‘I had a dickens of a job getting His Highness out of the plane,’ Timpleton said. ‘Nearly broke my back. Of course, it was dark when I came to, and that didn’t make things any easier. He was already conscious and groaning like a boat. I got to him and brought him down here somehow. Then I fixed his leg up in splints. He’s broken it badly. Funny a big chap like that should get his leg smashed up and here’s these eggs with their shells not even cracked.’
‘You did jolly well, Ted,’ Soames said warmly.
‘I don’t know. I was in the Navy in the war.’ The word of praise embarrassed him. He gestured awkwardly at the sleeping man and said, ‘We’ll wake old Jimpo up now and give him a plate of grub. He’ll feel twice the man. I got some coffee out the galley, too.’
He squatted by the stove, slightly smiling, a little wiry Londoner turning grey above the ears, conscious of Soames’ eager looks. Producing a third plate he put the eggs, now done to a turn, two on each plate and shovelled bacon and potato beside them until the plates were equally loaded. He produced knives and forks from a box and handed a pair to Soames.
‘Eating irons coming up,’ he exclaimed. ‘Blast! Forgot the salt! We’ll have to rough it this time. I can’t climb back up there again till I’ve had my grub.’
‘Quite,’ agreed Soames, and before Timpleton could get over to the sleeping man he had begun the attack on his plate.
After coffee, all three of them felt much better. Jimpo, as both the white men had instinctively dropped into the habit of calling him, bore the pain in his leg stoically and assumed command of the party, to Soames’ secret relief.
For the first time, Soames had an inclination to look round. They were at the bottom of a thickly forested slope, among whose branches monkeys chattered. The open ground before them was churned by the crash landing and littered with small branches. Two hundred yards away, forlorn and innocent now, lay the culprit length of wing.
‘One of you must climb to the nose of the aeroplane and see if the two men there are alive,’ Jimpo said. ‘That is first essential.’
‘I will go,’ Soames offered, eager to show his readiness to do anything, for he wanted his two companions to realise as quickly as possible that he was a good chap.
It was not an especially hard climb. Soames took it stage by stage up through the aircraft and, with a final jerk that it would have done his old scoutmaster good to behold, hauled himself up into the pilot’s cabin.
The chimpanzee had vanished. Silence reigned here now. A mighty bough had crashed through the small compartment, shattering the instrument boards and pinning both the pilot and the Birmingham engineer, who had taken the spare second pilot’s seat, beneath it. The Birmingham man’s torso had completely caved in; he lay with his profile turned from Soames, glass frosting his hair. His tongue had been forced out of his mouth like a length of tie. When Soames pulled back the leafy branches, so incongruous in this little, man-made shell, it was to find that the pilot’s skull had been shattered. His face was indistinguishable; a few large blow-flies were inspecting the damage.
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