Читать книгу Seven League Boots - Richard Halliburton - Страница 17

Table of Contents

Seven League Boots ... California to Key West to Fort Jefferson to Santiago to Cap Haitien to Santo Domingo ... “go any place in the world you choose, and write about whatever pleases you.”...

Where did I choose to go now? I sat in the park in Santo Domingo before the Cathedral, feeling almost embarrassed by my surfeit of freedom. Other islands in the West Indies attracted me, Martinique, Tobago, Trinidad. They were all beautiful and historic, but I was already familiar with them. I wanted new scenes, new quests for mountain tops unvisited. Why go to the old ones when there was so much of the world I’d not yet explored?

I reached for my pocket atlas and opened it to the map of Europe, to find some inspiration. And I found not one inspiration but two ... my eye fell upon the Alps dividing Switzerland from Italy, over which my special hero, Hannibal, had led his elephant-borne army of Carthaginians. I’d always wanted to follow in his tracks and ride over the Alps on an elephant of my own. “I think,” I said to myself, “I’ll do it now. Hannibal crossed in October. Today is September twentieth. If I hop along I can make the crossing not only by the same route as Hannibal but at the same season. And then when I’ve reached Turin on my elephant, or Rome, or wherever else I decide to halt, I’m going to make a long jump to Ekaterinburg in western Siberia. There, perhaps, I can learn first-hand the story of the massacre of Czar Nicholas and his family. After that I think I’ll go to Abyssinia—and maybe Mecca. But first I’d better get to Paris and see about that elephant.”

There was a boat sailing in six hours for France. I took passage aboard her.

And ten days later, October first, I reached Paris and began to ask the price of every elephant in town.

The season, I realized, was already dangerously late. True, Hannibal’s expedition had taken place when the snow lay deep in the Alpine passes. But as a consequence, of the thirty-seven elephants with which he started his mountain climb, not half of them reached Italy.

The thought of such fearful casualties made me press forward with my plans, for unless cold weather was delayed longer than it had been for twenty seasons past, all roads across the Alps would be closed for the winter in another fourteen days. I had not a moment to lose.

The logical place to look for an elephant properly trained to march down the highway and up the mountains, was a circus. Circus elephants would be accustomed to carrying howdah and baggage and passengers, and accustomed likewise to automobiles, motorbuses, bicycles, with which they must share the road.

Straightway I went to the Cirque d’Hiver, and bought a ticket with the intention of closely watching the elephant act, in order to pick out the beast whose beauty, grace and intelligence most appealed to me.

Of the sixteen elephants performing, one—a lady—completely took my heart. She could stand on her two front legs, sit upright on a red stool, and lift her trainer on her trunk into the air. Her deportment, so demure and genteel, contrasted sharply with the manners of her companions, who pushed, raised their voices and made rude gestures at the audience, putting their noses to their toes.

After the show I called upon my new inamorata, fed her three bags of peanuts and scratched her back with a steel-pronged rake. She rocked with pleasure and seemed to return my romantic glances. Hannibal, I felt sure, never had such a beautiful and affectionate mount as this. I had visions of myself, seated in my howdah, riding Lulu proudly down to Rome.

The circus manager seemed a bit surprised at my request to buy or rent Lulu for an Alpine expedition. Such a project had never been heard of in elephant history since the time of Hannibal himself. Fortunately the manager had a sense of humor and responded properly to my plans. But alas, I could not have Lulu for a rather personal and intimate reason. Lulu was in trouble. Her excessively affectionate nature had led her from one affaire du cœur to another; had caused, in fact, no end of scandal among the other circus performers. And just as all the malicious gossips had predicted, Lulu was about to have a baby. It was expected any time now within the next twelve months. Such a strenuous mountain journey at this critical period would be most unwise.

I was heartbroken. However, the manager had other elephants. There were Marie, Josephine Baker, Yvonne. Whatever elephant I took must be a female—males might become too obstreperous. For a thousand francs a day I could rent Yvonne. Her morals were beyond reproach. I didn’t wonder that they were. She didn’t have half the sex-appeal my Lulu had. Her skin looked dry and old. When she stood on her hind legs she groaned from rheumatic pains. I could foresee that the Alps were going to bore her terribly. But it was Yvonne or nothing; so after considerable bargaining to lower the price I paid down my deposit and found myself the owner, for a month, of several tons of elephantess.

The howdah that went with Yvonne fulfilled all my dreams of glory—gilt wood frame covered with scarlet bunting, and carrying a gilt armchair inside for me to sit on. The native East Indian mahout who was to go along as chauffeur had a costume of red embroidered coat and red leather boots. For me there was a white satin coat, with turban to match studded with huge imitation diamonds. The manager thought it would look nice if I hired a slave to sit in the rumble seat and hold a big palm sun fan over my head. So hire one I did.

Everything was ready now except the insurance. Nobody in Paris would insure Yvonne against death or damage on such a crazy journey. The Alps—at this season! Only Lloyd’s in London would deal with me. And they pondered long and solemnly before naming a rate. They had written policies for almost every known risk, but never had they insured an elephant against the dangers of the St. Bernard Pass.

Even that was settled. “Lloyd’s will insure anything.”

But Yvonne and I never even started. At the very last minute her owner thought of something desperately important which he had overlooked: his enormous circus posters with which he had plastered Paris, announcing his elephant act with sixteen elephants—“The greatest troupe of elephants in the world—sixteen—come and count them!”

And now, if I took Yvonne, there wouldn’t be sixteen. There would be only fifteen. What would his audiences say who came to count the elephants? They would be outraged. They would feel swindled. They would ask for their money back. No, not for any price could he take this terrible risk.

So all my negotiations came to nothing. I still had no elephant, and four precious days had passed.

I next went to one of the Paris zoos, located in the Bois de Boulogne. Perhaps the manager there could make some suggestions.

He was delighted with my idea, and insisted that he had an elephant made to order—Elysabethe Dalrymple. She was the pet of the zoo, tame and gentle as a puppy, and conveniently small. The size of the elephant was a serious consideration since I would have to quarter her at night in stables and garages. A full-size beast would never get through the average stable door. The zoo-keeper said he frequently took six children at a time for a ride on Dally’s back along the quieter paths about the park. The children’s saddle I could use for myself and baggage. He regretted the fact that he could not provide me with a gilt howdah and white satin coat and turban, but reminded me that Hannibal didn’t have them either.

Once more the price was agreed upon, the insurance settled. We were to leave the next noon on a freight car especially reinforced to keep Dally’s weight from breaking through the floor.

That morning I brought my suitcase, typewriter and cameras to the zoo and loaded everything aboard Dally’s uncomplaining back. A French mahout sat on her head with his sharp iron hook, and I climbed up beside the baggage.

Several hundred people had gathered to watch our trial trip to the freight yard which lay three miles away, across half of Paris. Just for the sport of it I had charted our course along the Avenue de la Grande Armée leading straight to the Arc de Triomphe and then right down the Champs Élysées to the Place de la Concorde.

We left the Bois in perfect order, Dally stepping along gaily at four miles an hour. But outside the zoo we entered the Porte Maillot—a typical Paris square seething with motor traffic, and Dally, brought up in the quietness of the Bois, had never seen such a bewildering sight. She began to tremble and shy like a timid horse. One experimentative taxi-driver, approaching from behind, sounded his electric horn, full blast, within two feet of Dally’s tail. The poor beast leaped panic-stricken into the air, and then with trunk turned skyward, and trumpeting in terror, she bolted wildly and blindly down the Avenue de la Grande Armée at what seemed like forty miles an hour.

I was the first of her burdens to be flung off—then the typewriter, then the suitcase and camera. One final toss of her head got rid of the yelling mahout ... and some six thousand pounds of elephant went hurtling along the street, scattering pedestrians and bicyclists, banging into taxicabs, oblivious of every obstacle. Frenchmen shouted and Frenchwomen screamed. Gendarmes and urchins and dogs ran after her as she plunged on, leaving consternation and destruction in her wake. A solid mass of motors halted by the traffic light finally blocked her course, but not till she had bolted nearly half a kilometer. Jammed in the middle of this tangle of motorcars, Dally, still squealing frantically, found herself trapped. The chauffeurs in the surrounding cars, once they got over their surprise, had the good sense to hold their places and keep Dally imprisoned till the pursuers overtook her.

When the mahout and I arrived she was still shaking from fright and breathlessness. Another block and she would have gone head-on into the Arc de Triomphe.

By now a huge crowd had gathered, and no wonder—the neighborhood hadn’t known such excitement since the French Revolution.

It took us an hour to get Dally back to the Bois de Boulogne.

The zoo-keeper apologized no end. He had never suspected the poor beast would be so frightened by motor horns. But we both agreed that since she had this fear, it would never do, without long and careful training, to take her on a mountain motor road where another runaway might mean death to us all.

He gave me back my francs—and I stood in the Place Maillot, elephantless. And in six days more the St. Bernard would be closed till spring.

There was just time for one more effort—in Germany. I knew that both in Hanover and Hamburg trained elephants were for sale. Perhaps I could secure one of these.

A long-distance telephone call turned the trick. Hanover offered a magnificent giantess, nearly eight feet high at the shoulders, named Big Bertha. Her specialty was marching about the streets carrying cinema placards on her mountainous sides. Consequently, automobiles were no bad news to her. But I would have to buy her outright and sell her back, at considerable loss, to the owner when my journey was over. Also I must agree to feed her not less than three bales of hay and twenty pounds of bread each day.

Bertha was obviously too big and too expensive, but I had no choice. Racing against the Alpine snowstorms, I scraped together the purchase price in marks, and crossed the frontier into Germany.

In Hanover my beast, saddled and insured, awaited me. Telegrams began to fly back and forth to Switzerland. The Great St. Bernard leading directly into Italy was still open, though flurries of snow had already fallen and all the lakes and streams in the neighborhood were frozen.

This pass climbs to eighty-one hundred feet and is the most difficult and dangerous of all, but it is the most direct. Also it gave me the opportunity of calling upon the famous St. Bernard monastery. The monks there, being fond of dogs, would surely be pleased to greet an elephant. The Swiss police agreed to let me use the highroad up their side of the Alps, and the Italian foreign office instructed their frontier guards to facilitate in every way my descent down the Italian slopes.

November first had now arrived. But I still had hope of getting over, for the weather, at least in Germany, was unusually mild and sunny. It encouraged me to take the chance.

But just in time to prevent my going on to Switzerland, the weather suddenly changed—and won the race. A telephone call came through: “Since last night blinding snowstorms raging in the passes. Snow in Great St. Bernard already two feet deep. Little St. Bernard likewise blocked. No traffic of any sort possible.”

I realized there was now nothing left to do but give up all hope of success, for the time being, and try again next spring.

This postponement of my elephant expedition by no means left me at loose ends. My interest in the elephant march over the Alps was only one of two interests that had brought me to Europe from the West Indies. The other, equally strong, was a desire to learn more of the facts about the Romanoff massacre at Ekaterinburg. With the first of these interests folded up and put away for at least eight months, I was free to pursue the second.

So, after a brief visit in Berlin arranging for a Soviet visa, I boarded an airplane and sped on to Moscow. And a few days later, at the end of an eighteen-hundred-mile journey across the Urals into Siberia, I descended at old Ekaterinburg, destined to experience one of the most extraordinary encounters that ever befell a journalist.