The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn

by Harry Collingwood

The liability to incursions by the apes seemed to be the only source of anxiety on the part of Bowata and his people. In all other respects they appeared to be perfectly happy; for their wants were few, and so fertile was the soil of their own island that it amply supplied all those wants, with very little exertion on the part of the easy-going inhabitants. The trouble was that the products of their industry unfortunately appealed so strongly to the appetite of the anthropoids that, to gratify it, the brutes were willing to swim a channel a mile wide. And the trouble was serious enough, in all conscience, for—as I gradually learned, in the course of frequent conversations with the chief—the apes not only destroyed far more than they ate, but, until my introduction of the bow and arrow as a weapon, they were only driven off with the utmost difficulty, and frequently with serious loss of life on the part of the savages. It was indeed to put an effectual end to those frequent raids upon their property that the natives, in desperation, had finally resorted to the drastic measure of setting fire to the island that harboured the monsters.

The longer I meditated upon the problem of how to meet the shortage of material for the completion of the cutter the more reluctant did I become to resort to so extreme a measure as the breaking up of the sailing boat, still more the bungalow, to supply the deficiency. In my perplexity I visited East Island, and here a possible way out of the difficulty was suggested to me by the discovery—as I then for the first time particularly noticed—that certain of the trees flourishing on that island appeared to be if not actually cedars at least a species very nearly akin thereto. And if upon closer investigation this should prove to be the case, here was a supply of timber admirably suited to my requirements and ample beyond my utmost needs. It was a matter worthy of my most particular attention; and accordingly I selected a group of the supposed cedars, and forthwith proceeded to operate upon them. They were three in number, of just about the right size for my requirements, and they were within a quarter of a mile of the cove. I began my investigation by hacking off a good stout branch, stripping off its bark, and testing its working qualities. I found that the wood gave off the characteristic odour of cedar; that it was close-grained; that it was easily workable; and that it was, in short, everything I could possibly desire. I therefore started work in earnest by felling the tree that I had already attacked and trimming off its branches. This brought my day’s work to a close, and I returned to Eden with a mind relieved of a heavy load of anxiety, for there was now no longer any need to contemplate the breaking up of either the boat or the bungalow.

True, I had found the wood I required; but what I needed was thin planks, not heavy balks of timber such as one might be able to hew out of a tree trunk with an axe; and how was I to obtain those planks? I considered the matter and suddenly remembered that cedar splits easily; I therefore determined to ascertain by actual experiment whether it would be possible to procure the planks I required by splitting the felled trunk. The experiment was on the whole successful; for although I wasted more timber than I anticipated I nevertheless succeeded in securing several very fine planks that, when operated upon with the plane, could be reduced to the exact thickness required. Thus encouraged, I made an estimate of the quantity of planking required to complete the hull of the cutter, and then proceeded to fell as many trees as were needed to furnish that quantity.

It was while I was thus engaged that I one day received an urgent visit from Bowata and his son, who came in great distress to inform me that the watchers posted at the western extremity of Cliff Island, to guard against a surprise attack on the part of the apes believed to have retreated to West Island, had that morning reported that the anthropoids were recrossing the Middle Channel to Apes’ Island; and that, from observation of the creatures’ movements, it was strongly suspected that they meditated an attack in force upon Cliff Island and its inhabitants. Bowata concluded his communication with an entreaty that I would lend my aid to repel the threatened attack. I at once acceded to this request, and, with the two natives aboard the sailing boat and their punt in tow, proceeded to Eden, where I collected all the arms and ammunition we possessed, and, taking Billy with me, made sail for Cliff Island.

As we approached the northern extremity of Apes’ Island, from which point the brutes usually started on their swim across the channel to Cliff Island, my telescope revealed numerous apes clustered together upon the beach, while many others could be seen wending their way toward the same spot; but I could see none in the water, so concluded that the threatened raid had not yet started. I inquired of Bowata how many of his people were now armed with bows and arrows, and was gratified to learn that every male above the age of fifteen had been so armed. This meant that there were more than a hundred archers to defend the island; learning which I came to the conclusion that the best form of defence was attack, and made my plans accordingly.

Landing Bowata and his son to conduct the defence of their island, I took aboard the boat seven natives, who, the chief assured me, were among his most expert bowmen, and headed across the channel toward Apes’ Island, my plan being to cruise to and fro opposite the spot where the apes were mustering, and to pick off as many of the brutes as possible while passing.

At this point the channel was only about a mile wide; ten minutes, therefore, sufficed us to accomplish the passage and to round to at a distance of twenty yards from the beach, where some fifty or sixty of the gigantic brutes were now assembled, most of them squatting upon their haunches, as though awaiting a signal of some sort, while others were joining them at the rate of two or three per minute. As the boat approached, the monsters eyed her malignantly, while several rose to their feet as though preparing to repel an attack. This suited our purpose well, and as the boat, under Billy’s skilful handling, rounding to into the wind, with her sails a-shiver, glided slowly past the spot where the apes were congregated, we each deliberately selected our target and, drawing our bows to the full length of our arrows, let fly with deadly effect. Every arrow went home, many of them finding the heart, and with screams of mingled pain and rage eight of the apes crashed to the ground, a few of them writhing convulsively in their death-agony but most of them dead. There was time for a second discharge before the boat drifted too far away, and three more of the brutes went down, while five of their comrades, screaming and bellowing with pain and rage, wrenched the arrows from their wounds, some of them in their blind fury turning upon and savagely attacking their fellows. The manoeuvre was so successful that it was repeated with equally satisfactory results.

Thus far the unwounded apes appeared to take little or no notice of the havoc we were working among them; and I feel certain that none of them connected that havoc with the appearance of the boat upon the scene; but when the manoeuvre was repeated a third time, and still more of their number fell dead or wounded, it seemed at last to dawn upon their imperfect intelligence that the strange object with white sails, which glided to and fro upon the water opposite them, must be somehow associated with the casualties occurring among their companions, and with yells of concentrated fury and eyes ablaze with deadly malice about a dozen of them shambled down the beach into the water, and, striking out, started to swim in pursuit of the boat.

Nothing could have better suited us than this senseless act of the great anthropoids, for, although they swam fast, the boat could easily out-distance them in the breeze then blowing, and I signed to Billy to edge away toward a wider part of the channel, so that when they should discover how impossible it was to overtake the boat they might have the farther to swim, should any of them escape us and attempt to make their way across to Cliff Island. But the precaution was unnecessary, for when they were in the water and swimming we could do as we would with them, and within a few minutes every ape that had started in pursuit of the boat was slain.

By this time, however, others had also taken to the water, there being now at least thirty of them swimming, some in pursuit of the boat while others headed directly across the channel toward Cliff Island. This necessitated an alteration of our plans, yet we still contrived to keep the boat between the apes and the island, crossing and recrossing in front of the brutes at a distance of five to ten yards, so that it was impossible for us to miss them. Thus the slaughter went on until my very soul revolted at such terrible destruction, for the brutes continued to come on by dozens and scores until there seemed to be no end of them. Most creatures would have had intelligence enough to recognise eventually that their persistence meant death to them and would have turned back, either discouraged or terrified, but the apes seemed to be incapable of either emotion and pressed resolutely on, so that their destruction became imperative if the natives of Cliff Island were not to be abandoned to their tender mercies. But that sort of thing could not go on for ever; the number of the brutes gradually decreased, and at the end of about three hours the last ape in sight succumbed to our attack, and it then appeared probable that we had exterminated the entire tribe of the dangerous and formidable creatures.