Behind them, the bull hippo charged, racing down the shallow river like a powerboat, churning water in a wake from both sides of his body, bellowing in anger.
"Hold on, bold on!" Kahega shouted, and fired again. The hippo disappeared behind a cloud of gas, and the boat drifted around another curve. When the gas cleared the animal was gone. The magnesium flare sputtered into the water and they were plunged into darkness again. Elliot grabbed Amy as the boat sank, and they found themselves standing knee-deep in the muddy water.
They managed to beach the Zodiac on the dark riverbank. In the lead boat, Munro paddled over, surveyed the damage, and announced that they would inflate another boat and go on. He called for a rest, and they all lay in the moonlight on the river's edge swatting mosquitoes away.
Their reverie was interrupted by the screaming whine of ground-to-air rockets, blossoming explosions in the sky overhead. With each explosion, the riverbank glowed bright red, casting long shadows, then fading black once more.
"Muguru's men firing from the ground," Munro said, reaching for his field glasses.
"What're they shooting at?" Elliot said, staring up into the sky.
"Beats me," Munro said.
Amy touched Munro's arm, and signed, Bird come. But they heard no sound of an aircraft, only the bursting of rockets in the sky.
Munro said, "You think she hears something?"
"Her hearing is very acute."
And then they heard the drone of a distant aircraft, approaching from the south. As it came into view, they saw it twist, maneuvering among the brilliant yellow-red explosions that burst in the moonlight and glinted off the metal body of the aircraft.
"Those poor bastards are trying to make time," Munro said, scanning the plane through field glasses. "That's a C-130 transport with Japanese markings on the tail. Supply plane for the consortium base camp - if it makes it through."
As they watched, the transport twisted left and right, running a zigzag course through the bursting fireballs of exploding missiles.
"Breaking a snake's back," Munro said. "The crew must be terrified; they didn't buy into this."
Elliot felt a sudden sympathy for the crew; he imagined them staring out the windows as the fireballs exploded with brilliant light, illuminating the interior of the plane. Were they chattering in Japanese? Wishing they had never come?
A moment later, the aircraft droned onward to the north, out of sight, a final missile with a red-hot tail chasing after it, but it was gone over the jungle trees, and he listened to the distant explosion of the missile.
"Probably got through," Munro said, standing. "We'd
better move on." And he shouted in Swahili for Kahega to put the men on the river once more.
2.Mukenko
ELLIOT SHIVERED, ZIPPED HIS PARKA TIGHTER, AND waited for the hailstorm to stop. They were huddled beneath a stand of evergreen trees above 8,000 feet on the alpine slopes of Mount Mukenko. It was ten o'clock in the morning, and the air temperature was 38 degrees. Five hours before, they had left the river behind and begun their pre-dawn climb in 100-degree steaming jungle.
Alongside him, Amy watched the golf ball-sized white pellets bounce on the grass and slap the branches of the tree over their heads. She had never seen hail before.
She signed, What name?
"Hail," he told her.
Peter make stop.
"I wish I could, Amy."
She watched the hail for a moment, then signed, Amy want go home.
She had begun talking about going home the night before. Although the Thoralen had worn off, she remained depressed and withdrawn. Elliot had offered her some food to cheer her up. She signed that she wanted milk. When he told her they -had none (which she knew. perfectly well), she signed that she wanted a banana. Kahega had produced a bunch of small, slightly sour jungle bananas. Amy had eaten them without objection on previous days. but she now threw them into the water contemptuously, signing she wanted "real bananas."
When Elliot told her that they had no real bananas, she signed, Amy want go home.
"We can't go home now, Amy."
Amy good gorilla Peter take Amy home.
She had only known him as the person in charge, the final arbiter of her daily life in the experimental setting of Project Amy. He could think of no way to make clear to her that he was no longer in charge, and 'that he was not punishing her by keeping her here.
In fact, they were all discouraged. Each of the expedition members had looked forward to escaping the oppressive heat of the rain forest, but now that they were climbing Mukenko, their enthusiasm had quickly faded. "Christ," Ross said. "From hippos to hail."
As if on cue, the hail stopped. "All right," Munro said, "let's get moving."
Mukenko had never been climbed until 1933. In 1908, a German party under von Ranke ran into storms and had to descend; a Belgian team in 1913 reached 10,000 feet but could not find a route to the summit; and another German team was forced to quit in 1919 when two team members fell and died, about 12,000 feet. Nevertheless Mukenko was classified as a fairly easy (non-technical) climb by most mountaineers, who generally devoted a day to the ascent; after 1943, a new route up the southeast was found which was frustratingly slow but not dangerous, and it was this mute that most climbers followed.
Above 9,000 feet, the pine forest disappeared and they crossed weak grassy fields cloaked in chilly mist; the air was thinner, and they called frequently for a rest. Munro had no patience with the complaints of his charges. "What did you expect?" he demanded. "It's a mountain. Mountains are high." He was especially merciless with Ross, who seemed the most easily fatigued. "What about your timetable?" he would ask her. "We're not even to the difficult part. It's not even interesting until eleven thousand feet. You quit now and we'll never make it to the summit before nightfall, and that means we lose a full day."