The Killer Koala (3 page)

Roger
was a slight, bushy-haired, bearded little man of about forty. He had
very bright intelligent eyes and a large hooked nose. He looked
somewhat like a bearded parrot
—
a
likeness enhanced by his habit of wearing very bright floral shirts.
He also had a high-pitched, chirpy voice and was rather excitable.
Nevertheless, he was a very engaging and informative travelling
companion.

He
didn't take up much room in the boat, which was just as well, because
I did
—
some call me obese
but I think of myself as stout, say, a hundred kilograms
—
and
we were carrying all sorts of radio gear designed to be clipped to
the heads of co-operating crocodiles so that we could follow their
movements. We also had a lot of nets and ropes with which to capture
and tie up crocodiles with the help of bands of Aborigines whom we
were to hire as required. There was also half a tonne or so of food
and liquor and on the whole we were pretty low in the water.

It
all seemed great fun as we puttered down the Alligator, through the
petals of the wild frangipanni floating on the blue-green-brown
surface, under the eyes of the dingo and buffalo on the escarpment.

Roger
was passionate about crocodiles and bewailed the fact that until a
few years before they had been hunted relentlessly for their hides.
Fortunately, it seemed, they had been declared an endangered species
and heavy fines had been imposed on people guilty of killing them.
Their numbers had begun to rise and there were increasing reports of
their taking cattle and Aborigines.

'Even
two white truck drivers over near Broome,' Roger said brightly. 'They
were sleeping by their truck and all that was found was the marks
they'd made clawing the ground as they were dragged into the water.
It was almost certainly a giant crocodile that got them.'

'Of
course,' he added soberly, 'it's hard luck for the people involved,
but it's encouraging to think the crocodile is on the increase up
here.'

Enthusiasts
are different from other people. Not better or worse, just different.

We
had only been travelling a couple of hours when Roger spotted a
likely place to find estuarine crocodiles. It was a gap in the cliff
face of the escarpment which seemed to lead into a small lagoon.

'It's
the sort of place they like for mating,' said Roger as he steered for
the gap.

'Shouldn't
we hire bands of Aborigines before we go chasing crocodiles?' I asked
mildly. After all, Roger was the crocodile expert and no doubt he
knew what he was doing.

'Might
as well locate the crocodiles before we spend money,' replied Roger,
reasonably enough, I thought at the time.

We
went through the gap in the cliff. The water was very shallow at
first, barely knee-deep, but then it fell away into black unguessable
depths. We found ourselves in a backwater as big as a football field
surrounded by high, sheer cliffs. There was one small beach area and,
sure enough, on it was a large crocodile
—
about
three metres long.

'Lovely!
What luck,' said Roger as the creature slid quickly into the water.
'That's a nice female. Means the bull is almost sure to be here.'

I
uncertainly eyed the black water and the meagre freeboard of our
vessel and wondered whether the luck wasn't just a shade mixed.

'Well,
now,' I said stoutly, 'off to get the band of stalwart Aborigines,
eh?'

'I
just want to look at that beach,' said Roger. 'There should be tracks
on it that'll tell me what's in here.'

I
looked again at the black water. Then I reached into my personal gear
and took out my automatic shotgun.

'You
won't need that,' said Roger impatiently. 'Besides, it's illegal to
shoot crocodiles.'

'I'll
just keep it as a security blanket,' I answered, checking the
magazine to make sure the gun was loaded.

Roger
ran the boat up onto the little beach and we stood up and studied the
sand. It was covered with tracks which consisted of long shallow
troughs made by crocodile tails with footmarks on either side.

'By
jove, there's at least four females here,' said Roger
enthusiastically. And you can see how big the bull must be.' He
pointed at a couple of tracks made up of much bigger troughs and
footmarks than the others. 'He could be six or seven metres long.'

'Well,
a few Aborigines and on with the job, eh?' I fiddled with my gun.

'No
hurry,' said Roger. 'You see, what happens is that the bull finds
place like this and then waits until females come past. When one
does, he forces it in here and keeps it here. By the time the mating
season's over he might have eight or ten females penned up.'

'So
what's he doing now
—
waiting
on the bottom looking at us?'

'No,
I shouldn't think so,' said Roger. 'He's probably out in the main
stream waiting for another female.'

'Why
do you say that?'

'Well,
if he was in here he would probably have made his presence felt.
Bulls tend to be a bit aggressive in the mating season.'

I
thought for a moment. 'Roger,' I said very clearly, 'in view of the
fact that we are in a very small, grossly overloaded boat, surrounded
by cliffs a lizard couldn't climb, in a lagoon infested with female
crocodiles, with a sex-mad bull about to return in a moment
—
in
view of all that, don't you think it's time to get the bloody hell
out of here?'

Roger
looked at me, frowning. 'You know, you could be right,' he said. 'It
could be quite dangerous in here.' So to my great relief we pushed
the boat off the sand and headed for the gap leading back to the
river.

'But
what a find!' Roger was saying. 'We'll get back here with some
helpers and net the whole place . . .'

We
were almost at the entrance to the lagoon when it seemed to blow up
in our faces. Great spurts of water rose high in the air. Vast clouds
of spray swept across us. Small waves perilously rocked our boat.
Strange black shapes were writhing in the watery turmoil ahead and
there was a succession of mind-shattering bellows of such force and
ferocity that they seemed to come from a creature not of this earth.

Roger
turned the boat around, which was the only thing to do, because a
battleship would have hesitated to sail through that maelstrom.

'What
the hell?' I said, although I had a pretty good idea.

'Crocodiles
mating,' said Roger excitedly. 'He's just caught a new one and he's
breaking her in. He needs that shallow water in the entrance for
that.'

Roger
stopped the boat in the middle of the lagoon and we looked back at
the watery love nest. You couldn't see much except vast volumes of
water splashing up from the surface. It was as though somebody had
plunged a huge kitchen mixer into the entrance to the lagoon and
turned it on. The only evidence of crocodile was the occasional
glimpse of a huge black shape flailing away. They were obviously at
it hammer and tongs.

Roger
was rummaging in his gear for a camera. 'Oh, what luck, what luck!'
he was chirruping. 'I don't think anyone's seen this before
—
not
in Australia.'

'How
long do they take?' I said practically.

'I
don't know,' said Roger happily. 'That's the point
—
we'll
find out.'

'I
mean, does it take minutes, or half an hour, or what?'

Roger
was clicking away with his camera. 'I just don't know. Lots of
animals couple for an hour or more.'

A
terrible bellow rolled over the lagoon, rebounding off the cliff
walls.

'The
tape recorder,' muttered Roger. 'Where did I pack the tape recorder?'

'Roger,'
I said gently, 'how do you propose to get us out of here?'

'We
couldn't possibly go before they finish. We have to photograph what
we can, and record it. It's a most brilliant stroke of luck,' he
said.

'Roger,'
I said, with a great effort keeping my voice low and level, 'we
couldn't possibly go anyway. Nothing could get through that storm of
reptilian frenzy and I at least can't climb those bloody cliffs.'

Roger,
realising at last that I was genuinely disturbed, stopped fiddling
with his tape recorder and stared at me with his bright bird eyes.
'You're not nervous, are you?'

I
was standing in the stern clutching my shotgun to my breast, my ample
flesh shaking with fear. 'Nervous? I'm bloody terrified!'

Roger
contemplated me quietly, then shook his head regretfully. 'Well,
that's hard luck,' he said, 'but we can't get out of here anyway, so
we may as well enjoy it and learn what we can.' And he turned back to
his recorder. As I said, enthusiasts are different from other people.

'Roger,'
I said, 'don't you think we should at least get up on the beach? I
mean, if those bloody things get any more passionate the waves will
swamp us, quite apart from what will happen if they come this way.'

This
made sense to Roger and, after taking a few more pictures and
recording a few minutes of bellowing and splashing, he took the boat
onto the beach.

At
my insistence we dragged it up almost to the cliff face.

'Why?'
asked Roger.

'So
we can get behind it if the crocs feel like joining us on the beach.'

'That's
not very likely,' said Roger. 'Still, I suppose it's a reasonable
precaution.'

So
we squatted behind the boat under the blue, hot, northern winter sky,
me clutching my shotgun and Roger clicking his camera while the
crocodiles kept at it enthusiastically. At least they'd need a sleep
after this, I thought.

'What's
all the fuss about?' I asked Roger. 'I wouldn't think either of them
was enjoying it much.'

'No,'
said Roger, lapsing into a pedantic style of speech. 'The female
crocodile is seemingly very reluctant to mate. The male has to force
her and she fights every inch of the way. It's probably some natural
selection process whereby only the biggest and strongest males get to
fertilise the female. In effect, crocodile copulation is straight-out
rape.'

There
was a quick succession of even-louder-than-usual bellows from the
mating site. I thought the bull may have achieved his end or else the
female had discouraged him forcibly. Either had happened, because the
water suddenly became quite still.

'Now,
I wonder where he'll go?' mused Roger.

He
didn't have to wonder long. The thing emerged from the water thirty
metres from where we squatted. It was enormous. At first we saw only
the head, mottled black and brown, wet and gleaming in the sunlight,
uncannily evil eyes peering remorselessly at me, vast teeth just
visible under the rubbery lips, black nostrils seeking the scent of
blood. Slowly the short stumpy forelegs appeared, hauling the rest of
the wide scaly mass clear of the water. It just kept coming out.
Metre after metre of lethal crocodile. It must have been eight or
nine metres long.

'What
a beauty,' breathed Roger.

I
slipped the safety catch off my shotgun.

Roger
grabbed my arm. 'Hey,' he said, 'that's a protected species.'

'So
am I,' I replied shortly.

'But
he's not hurting us,' said Roger.

'No,
but he doesn't look friendly.'

'I
positively forbid you to shoot,' said Roger severely.

He
needn't have worried; I wasn't going to. A 12-gauge shotgun would
kill a dinosaur a metre away, but our crocodile was twenty metres
away and the shot would be as damaging to his scaly hide as a handful
of dried peas. I had brought the gun in case it was needed in the
boat when the range would be point blank. Here I would have to wait
until the creature's breath was stirring my hair.

'I
don't think he's necessarily going to charge us,' said Roger, whose
voice had unaccountably dropped to a whisper.

As
though confirming Roger's thoughts, the crocodile sank onto its belly
with a great sigh of repletion and lay still on the sand. So it
wasn't a case of bed to board, or not immediately, anyway.

'There,
we'd better go now,' said Roger.

I
was fast losing my respect for experts. The beach was very narrow. To
drag the boat out, we would have to go within spitting distance of
the crocodile. Even if I'd had the spitting talents of a llama I
wasn't going that close.

'Listen,
Roger,' I said, 'I suggest I fire a shot over his head to see if I
can get him to go away.'

Roger
considered this with his head on one side, like a parrot
contemplating an unusual seed. 'Yes,' he said at last, 'crocodiles
aren't sensitive creatures. You wouldn't shock him too much. But make
sure you don't hit him.'

I
pulled the trigger.

The
sound in that rock-walled canyon was mind-destroying, and the echoes
rocketed backwards and forwards for seconds. The crocodile didn't
move. It didn't even blink.