6.
Once or twice, I recall, I experienced a moment of fear
and  it
was fear bordering on panic. What on earth was
there to protect us if a gorilla suddenly appeared out
of the bushes only a yard or two away? We had no rifle.
It would be quite impossible to run away in this scrub.
I
did not now for one instant believe all those stories
about how the gorilla was always more frightened of
human beings than they were of him. Here
was I in the jungle, a human being, or at any
rate what was left of one, and
I knew, with that certainty that only a profound
searching of the heart can reveal, that I was more frightened
than any gorilla could ever be. There
was no question whatever of my standing my ground and
looking him firmly in the eye. I was going to
stiffen
into paralysis
with my eyes tightly shut and wait for my head to be
torn off.
7.
But then fatigue
created a kind of mental anaesthetic.
We had been climbing now for more than four hours and
were evidently getting nowhere. Suddenly it became more
important to stop and lie down than to see a gorilla,
and fear was overwhelmed by the sheer physical pain
in my chest and legs. Let the others go on and see all
the gorillas they wanted. I was going to stop here and
now. As I subsided
on to a patch of open ground I called to the others
and waved them on. A little surprisingly, I felt, they
did go on and left me alone. But then what did it matter?
Let all the gorillas in the world come and get me: I
really did not care.
8.
The next ten minutes were as timeless as only the amnesia
of utter exhaustion could make them, and it seemed that
I had been resting there in a daze
for an hour at least when I opened my eyes and saw my
companions standing above me excitedly urging me to
get up. They had come on a fresh gorilla track at last,
an entire family on the move just ahead of us. And indeed
as we scrambled
on again I saw fresh droppings on the ground and broken
branches that clearly had only recently been wrenched
from the trees. But it was no good. After twenty minutes
my legs had turned to water again and against the evident
displeasure of the guides I demanded lunch.
|
