-oOo-
My life as a Jesuit has been long, and, you may by now have gathered, exceeding strange. But perhaps the strangest and most wonderful were those years I spent as a sort of chaplain to Brigadier Sir George Alexander Marius Frederick MacPhail: soldier, adventurer, adulterer, and unwavering Presbyterian.
We met when I was at my lowest ebb. It was some time after the events I last described to you, but I do not know how long. I had collected up all the bones I found in that strange place, assembling them as best I could into sets, although my knowledge of anatomy was not really strong enough to make a good job of it. I had dug holes for them with my new-found mattock, and then gathered sticks and made a poor little cross for each poor little grave. And then three more a little way away, for Olivero, Dalmasso, and Bianchi, because I knew by then that they must all be dead. If I could not find their remains for now, then I would honour their memories as best I could. This impromptu graveyard I began to think of as my parish, and I visited it every day, while my own body perished and the wound on my foot rotted and seethed. I was quite mad.
The meeting went like this. I was tending my graves when I heard some noise in the undergrowth. Live for long enough in the valley of death, and you become extraordinarily sensitive to such noises: they never herald anything good. And so I shinned up a tree, spear between my teeth, and waited. The sounds came closer and closer, and in due course a man appeared.
I almost fell out of the tree. I had not expected to see a man in the first place, and the sight of this man was enough to startle anybody. He was tall and broad, with a purplish complexion and an exuberant moustache; he carried an elephant-gun and a bloodstained leather bag; and he was entirely alone. I scarcely knew what to do. On one hand, to meet a fellow human being in this terrible valley seemed a boon I could scarcely comprehend. On the other, I wasn’t entirely convinced I wanted to meet this particular human being. I clung to my branch and held my breath, spear at the ready, watching to see what he would do.
He seemed entirely unaware of me. He looked around the clearing, gun hoisted, and then abruptly froze. I realised that he had seen my grave markers. My heart sank and rose all at once. I was found—I was betrayed. The man walked towards the nearest grave, which was Bianchi’s, and he lowered his gun and reached out to touch the cross with a meaty, disrespectful hand.
Something overcame me. I dropped from the tree and landed like a cat behind him. He yelled, span and fired—I dropped to the ground—and the forest seemed to reverberate with the boom of that dreadful gun. But I had more nerve than any sane man. Before he could reach for his ammunition, I had the spear at his throat and was shouting at him to pray for mercy.
“Fussake,” he cried. “Fussakeman, leggoame!” I had no English, of course, not then; but the sounds pleased me. I angled the spear and pressed it a little further so it dug into his flesh. “Pray,” I said, though I knew he would not understand me. “Kneel and pray. Down. Down.” I pointed at the ground.
The man sank to his knees and stared up at me. I must have been a hell of a sight: weeks-unwashed and bloody, barefoot and wearing a cassock that was no more than a loose collection of rags, with my rosary still slung around my neck like some kind of barbaric adornment. It was the rosary that seemed to fascinate him. He dropped the gun, raised both hands—see, look, I do not harm you—and then stretched out a tentative finger to point at the little silver crucifix. His other hand stole to his neck, tracing out an invisible clerical collar. “Yes?” he asked. “Yes?” He thought for a moment and brought forth what I now know to be a remnant of his classical education. “Sacerdos,” he said. Priest.
I was delighted. I dropped the spear and stretched out my hands to him. “Yes,” I said in Latin, “I am a priest, and I am terribly sorry to have frightened you, and I beg you to help me. My name is Sebastiano Spada and I am a Jesuit, and I have been lost here for some weeks now. My brothers, as you see, are dead. Please, please forgive me—my nerves—you understand, I am sure. You must have met the beasts that dwell in this place—I wonder that you got this far. Please let me help you up, sir, and let us get to safety.”
He looked blank, and I thought he must be in shock. I did not believe, back then, that any man but a savage could have less than passable Latin—I believe it now. “Please get up,” I said, and reached forward to take his hands. “Come on, now.” He hauled himself up and stood looking at me, quite dumb. After a moment, his face brightened, and he lifted a finger.
“Spectare,” he said. He reached into the leather bag and brought something out: something claw-like and bloody. He shook it at me and grinned. “Tyrannosaurus.”
The thing looked very much like it belonged to the vicious coffin-headed beast of recent memory. The two stiff digits were bent as if making an impolite gesture and, when I touched it, it felt cold. I felt cold.
“Tyrannosaurus,” he said again, enunciating clearly. He crooked his arms before his chest, hands down, and cocked his head. “Ty-rann-o-sau-rus.”
“I know,” I said. “I met one. Put a spear up its nose.” He frowned, uncomprehending. “Tyrannosaurus,” I said, and jabbed the spear upwards into nothing. “Gone.” I mimed running with my fingers, drumming them on air.
The man began to laugh. He must have been heard for miles. Birds shot out of trees—I began to be nervous again. He shoved the claw back into his bag and slapped me hard on the shoulder. Were he not laughing, I would have taken it as an attack on my person. “Bonus,” he said. “Puer bonus.” His Latin seemed to run out there, and he began laughing again.
And then I perceived it—that faint distant reverberation of the soil. My heart began to race. “Tyrannosaurus,” I said, but he did not attend me. “Tyrannosaurus!”
He only laughed harder. “Tyrannosaurus!” he cried, as if it were the best joke on earth.
But I was already half-way up the nearest tree. To his credit, it did not take him long to follow me. We had no sooner made it to a safe berth than the forest seemed to tear itself open and a tyrannosaurus rocketed into the clearing, in hot pursuit of a squealing plant-eater, one of the sort with three horns on a shield-like head. I resolved to find out from my companion later what those ought to be called. Whatever it was, I feared it was doomed—its tail was torn and bleeding, and it ran unevenly, as if one leg were out of order. I only prayed it would get a little farther away before the kill. But this was not to be—the poor creature stumbled, and the tyrannosaurus was upon it, pinning it down with one fearsome foot like a hawk with a mouse. Somehow I could not bear it. I looked away, and saw that my three crosses, those that stood for my three beloved brothers, had all been trampled.
My companion laid his hand on my arm. I am not a sentimental man, but I was so grateful for that simple act of friendship that, had we been on land, I might have embraced him.
“Triceratops,” he said.
© Alix Montague 2018
Into the Valley 