Dian had to wait until February 1972 to even the score with Munyarukiko, but when the opportunity came, she savored it to the full.
Come home from Group 5 and find park guards here with Munyarukiko. Really pleased! It took four of them to catch him. Even then he escaped while the guards were talking to me and made a run for it, but they caught him again and brought him back. I spit on him and hit him, and then we went through the magic routine, this time with tear gas added. Then we tied him up with chains in the men’s cabin.
In the morning Dian accompanied Munyarukiko’s armed escort down the mountain to the office of the prefect of police in Ruhengeri, where he was locked up. A few days later he was sentenced to two years in prison for poaching. Dian gave each of the four park guards twenty-five dollars, a small fortune for them and no trivial amount for her either, but she looked upon it as an investment in improved park patrols.
Dian had no tolerance for those who abused animals.
When I was working on the ranch in Montana, there was a real jerk hunter type who delighted in snaring ground squirrels alive. He would then hang them kicking and wiggling from a fence and practice shooting them with his big game rifle. When I told him to stop, he simply laughed and told me where to go. He was practicing for the hunting season when he would go after deer and anything else that moved. Well, somebody must have poured some mud in his rifle because one day, blooey, it blew up in his hands and the shock broke his nose. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!
On a visit to Ruhengeri, Dian and a student were driving along the crowded, dusty main street when they saw a man beating a sick and half-starved Alsatian. Almost before the combi could be stopped, Dian shot out the door and across the road to the rescue. The dog’s tormentor fled, but Dian learned from bystanders that the dog belonged to an American woman married to an African. She lifted the animal into the back of her combi and drove to the woman’s house, there to inform her through clenched teeth that, like it or not, the dog was going to Karisoke to be looked after until it regained its health. The owner, who was considerably shorter than Dian, wordlessly acquiesced, although she later gathered enough courage to telephone Dian’s hotel to accuse her of stealing the animal.
At Karisoke a grumbling student was assigned to construct a chicken wire dog-run and, under Dian’s supervision, nursed the animal back to health. It was eventually returned to its owner with stern instructions for its future care and a warning that it would be removed for good if it was again mistreated.
Dian continued to view most of the students coming to work at Karisoke with a jaundiced eye. She especially disliked their book-bound softness and their youthful preoccupation with self, which she called “me-itis.” She may also have envied them their youth and lack of responsibilities.
I’ve just returned from a visit to Kabara. I had to set up six nasty little census workers there some four days ago, so I didn’t get to really enjoy, remember, and breathe the spot with all of its beauty until today, when I came back through the saddle with just one porter…. Changing nappies for six kids at Kabara took most of the joy out of the four days.
Of a dozen or more students from universities in Britain and the United States who worked at Karisoke between 1970 and 1974, no more than four met with her approval. These were the ones who, in Dian’s view, placed the interests of the gorillas above their own. They showed their worth by adopting Dian’s own Spartan attitude toward the discomforts of their surroundings: by being willing to risk life and limb in the continuing battle against poachers and herders, by unflagging devotion to the task of locating and observing the animals no matter what the weather, and, most of all, by treating the gorillas with respect, recognizing that these superb creatures were according them a great privilege by tolerating the human presence.
One student stood out among that small handful of worthies: a Cambridge undergraduate named Sandy Harcourt. He had first approached Dian after an informal slide show she had given at Cambridge, asking if there was any chance to work for her at Karisoke. His academic credentials were impressive and she liked his lean, hawkish good looks. She agreed to hire him for three months in the summer of 1971 to help with the census. With her encouragement he returned the following year to begin a behavioral study of gorillas for his Ph.D.
Dian saw little of Sandy Harcourt during his three-month census stint since he spent most of that time in remote bush camps. However, when he returned to begin work on his Ph.D. study in June of 1972, just days after Dian’s final break with Bob Campbell, she put him in the cabin the photographer had vacated and which she was painstakingly redecorating.
Short, wiry, and given to rolling his sleeves up above his elbows to display his sinewy arms, Harcourt possessed classic, angular Anglo-Saxon features. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, he had the intensity of a young Battle of Britain pilot. He was twenty years Dian’s junior, and she found him endearing. Before many months had passed, he was signing his notes to her “All my love, Sandy,” and her replies began, “My dearest Sandy.”
Dian’s journal reveals the tenderness she felt for him.
We went down the mountain to Ruhengeri for some shopping errands and on the way back ran into some Tutsi herders and their cattle. Sandy took out after them like a tiger, and a Tutsi youngster got so scared he ran to me for shelter. When Sandy got back to camp he was crying and yelling with anger and frustration at finding cows on the trail where Group 6 was this morning. I gave him a strong gin and tonic and he apologized for losing control. Poor boy, I feel so sorry for him, but he must learn to live with it. A week ago we were out to Group 5 and I was so tired by the time we found them. Had a horrid coughing fit, but Sandy was so sweet and gentle with me. He is a joy to have at camp.
In November, Dian left Karisoke in the care of Sandy Harcourt and another highly regarded Cambridge student, Ric Elliott, while she flew to the United States to assist in editing the National Geographic film shot by Bob Campbell and Alan Root. From Washington she would fly on to Cambridge for another three-month stint at university.
Parting from Sandy was not easy.
I had cooked a farewell breakfast, which turned out all burnt and horrid. He sat there without eating, very quiet, then just broke up. He said he didn’t know how he was going to stay on without me and grabbed me so hard he left a huge bruise on one arm. We were both in tears when I went down the mountain.
Harcourt was determined to earn Dian’s admiration, and to this end he devoted himself almost fanatically to fighting poaching and to driving the Tutsi cattle off the mountain.
Harcourt had been looking for Group 5, which had taken to ambling about in the farmers’ fields near the foot of the mountain. Harcourt was uneasy that they came “so close to the wogs.” Believing that the massacre of the gorilla group during Goodall’s time at Karisoke had been intended as retaliation for Goodall’s antipoaching activities, Harcourt feared similar vengeance might be visited on Group 5, because he had now shot several poachers’ dogs and a cow. He told Dian that he regretted the shootings but that he’d become so angry at the poachers that “all I remember not to do is actually shoot a person.”
When he told her of having beaten a Tutsi, she was very concerned; however, he justified his actions because the man had tried to “brain” him. If the police investigated him, he would be able to plead self-defense.
On her return to Karisoke, Dian and the students continued the campaign of harassment against the herders. Early in July 1973, she and Sandy and Ric Elliott went on a cattle raid. Much of the day was spent rounding up cows scattered over the rugged, heavily forested terrain. Finally, the herd was driven down the trail to the shambas below, where it stampeded through fields of potatoes and peas. The Hutu farmers were justifiably incensed and swarmed angrily around the exhausted trio of whites. A shoving match developed between Sandy and some of the men; then one of the farmers grabbed Ric Elliott and tried to tie him up. With the situation threatening to get completely out of hand, Dian pulled her gun and cove
red their retreat up the mountain.
She seemed to be winning the battle against the herders, but the severe measures she sometimes felt compelled to take sickened and depressed her.
Near the end of August the study area was inundated with cattle in what seems to have been a final concerted effort by the Tutsi to reassert their ancestral claims to the region. Dian and her students reacted with a ferocity that won the war—but the resultant shooting spree left a score of cattle dead and dying and Dian in the depths of self-disgust.
I hate myself for doing this. The poor cows just won’t die, won’t die. I can’t stand seeing this. I climbed to Thermos Ridge to get away. The fog swirled in and then rain, rain, and more rain. I lay on the grassy ridge in a break in the fog and looked down on camp and wondered why I bothered. In another couple of years or so I’ll be dead, and the cabins will probably end up rusty skeletons when the wogs get through with them. One Ph.D. and a lot of rot will come out of the study-that’s about it!
The whole problem of cattle in the park came to a head late in 1973 when Dian was summoned to the Ruhengeri office of a new prefect of police, appointed after a coup d’état had turned Rwanda into a military dictatorship.
I was scared shitless, as it was about the cows and I was determined to go to jail first before paying for killing them. As it turned out, the new prefect was wonderful, spoke perfect English (he’s ex-ambassador to America, Kenya, Paris, and Belgium), and shrugged the whole thing off. I used my chief porter, Gwehandagoza, as a witness, so he in turn has told all of the people that the prefect is on our side. On only two occasions since then have stray cattle shown up, but we don’t think it wise to kill them anymore. I’ve had enough.
*From Gorillas in the Mist.
*From Gorillas in the Mist.
— 12 —
Another of the handful of students destined to leave a lasting imprint arrived at Karisoke in the summer of 1973. She was Kelly Stewart, daughter of actor James Stewart. Although raised in Hollywood, she was the antithesis of the bubble-headed “valley girl.” With her wire-rimmed glasses and schoolmarmish hairstyles, the young Stanford student was Central Casting’s stereotype of what a bookish female zoologist ought to be like. But her mordant wit and sparkling intelligence were atypical. These qualities, together with the fact that she soon proved her mettle in the daily routine of collecting gorilla data while coping with foul weather, spider bites, nettle rashes, and dysentery, endeared her to Dian.
This was the first time another woman had been in camp on a more-or-less permanent basis; and despite the twenty-year difference in their ages, she and Dian quickly became close, sharing confidences and sometimes getting together in the evenings for a drink.
Kelly wrote amusing doggerel about her encounters with the study groups. Asked by Dian for a report on the sexual behavior of the gorillas she was observing, Kelly submitted one in verse form:
Introduction As regards gorillas in the wild
There’s little known, in fact,
About behavior relating to
And surrounding the sexual act.
Data gathered in the field
Are presented in this text
To clarify some aspects of
Wild gorilla sex.
Periodicity Though swollen labia in chimps
Are rather hard to miss,
The vulvas of gorillas show
More subtlety than this.
We measured cycles from the times
We saw our subjects mate.
Oestrus was about two days,
And cycles, twenty-eight.
Copulation Initiators of the cops
Were usually quite plain.
The females start the engines of
The copulation train….
“Wow, she is so clever!” Dian commented admiringly after reading the report. She was so delighted that she rewarded Kelly with a Raggedy Ann gorilla doll.
By autumn Dian’s admiration had begun to cool somewhat, even as Sandy Harcourt’s mounted. For a time Kelly tried to maintain a balanced relationship between the three of them, but without much success.
Kelly up to my cabin at 8:30 to “return” Cindy-her kindness is killing. The fact is, she is just plain nosy about where I am and what I’m doing. Sandy’s cabin lights went off early, and hers much earlier, but then come on again, and her curtains firmly drawn. Whom do they think they’re kidding?
As the months slipped by, Dian tended to be more and more irritated, not to say jealous, as Kelly and Sandy became increasingly enamored of each other. It was not that Dian had any passionate feelings for Harcourt, but she did have a proprietary interest in him and resented having to compete with a “fat, pimply young girl who ought to stick to the job she came up here to do.”
Doubtless it was fortunate for all concerned that Dian had to leave Karisoke in late October to undertake a lecture tour that would take her and the newly completed National Geographic film about the gorillas right across the United States. Following that, she would spend a further, and final, four months at Cambridge.
This time there was no tender parting between her and Sandy. “No tears, no kiss, he was just plain sulky.” Part of his disaffection may have been due to the fact that he was temporarily losing both women in his life, since Kelly would also be departing for Cambridge to begin her own doctoral program under Robert Hinde.
During the California part of her speaking tour, Dian met Kelly’s parents and some of their famous friends, including Alfred Hitchcock.
Wow, what a house the Stewarts have. Quite a jump for Kelly from this to Karisoke. Her parents couldn’t do enough for me and I really liked them both. Told them, without a lie, that Kelly was one of the best students I’ve ever had. Hitchcock wanted to know how scary gorillas are. I think he wants to make a chiller/thriller about them. I told him they were about as dangerous as pet lambs, and he simply grunted and went off to talk to someone else.
The Stewarts’ warm welcome helped ease the antipathy Dian had been feeling toward their daughter. By the time Kelly reached England, Dian was happy to see Kelly again and to hear the latest news from Karisoke. Although the friendship had lost some of its intimacy, the two women enjoyed one another’s company, often dining or going to the cinema together. Occasionally they rubbed each other the wrong way.
“I’m sorry my relationship with Sandy seems to stand between us,” Kelly ventured one evening as they were leaving a movie house in Cambridge.
Dian was glad of the darkness. “How does it stand between us? I don’t follow you.”
“Well, I know you’re annoyed at us—but I really like the guy.”
“My only concern is that the work gets done properly,” Dian cut her off.
“You don’t care for him, do you?” Kelly persisted. “Why don’t you drop the subject. Sandy is young enough to be my son.”
Despite such moments of irascibility, Dian did everything she could to help Kelly get financial backing so that she could return to Karisoke.
It was early May of 1974 before Dian flew back to Africa. Although she was essentially finished with Cambridge, she felt no great sense of relief, nor was she full of anticipation at the prospect of going home. As she stared out the aircraft window at the blank face of the clouds below, she felt apprehensive. During the long stay in England her health—especially that of her lungs—had deteriorated. She had always been careless of her body and unwilling to accept its limitations—or the limitations of increasing age. Now she was entertaining doubts about her physical ability to continue on her chosen path.
There was also Sandy Harcourt to be considered. From the tone of the letters he had written to her during her six-month absence, it was apparent that he had begun to see himself as cock of the walk at Karisoke—and to regard Kelly Stewart as the lady who ought to share it with him. Dian foresaw—and dreaded—an exhausting conflict.
She postponed the inevitable by staying in Nairobi for a week. But this time the city was no great source of s
olace. Shopping and some socializing at the American embassy could not obliterate the memory of Louis Leakey, who had died from a second heart attack late in 1972. She vividly remembered the intensity of his love for her and the comfort and compassion he had offered. Perhaps she wished she had accepted all of that, as she had accepted the ruby ring that had been his last gift to her.
The day came when she could postpone her return to camp no longer.
I flew into Kigali Saturday, and on Sunday, May 5, hired a car to take me to Ruhengeri, where I checked into the hotel. Very frightened about climbing the mountain so decided not to go today. I drank a little, wrote a little about the Harcourt problem to Joan and Alan Root, then went for a walk and saw some Africans I knew, who stopped to gossip. That felt better, so went back to the hotel and had a sleep.
When I came down for dinner, there was Kelly waiting. She’d come down the mountain to have a “chat” before I climbed. Kind of pouring oil on sort of thing. “Are you still my friend?” she asked me after dinner. I said I’d have to wait and see. “I’ve never felt so tender toward a boy as I do toward Sandy,” she told me. “Well, then have fun,” I said, “but I guess you’re doing that.” “Oh, no,” she denied. “If you think we’ve gone to bed together, you’re wrong. He’s afraid to.”
That did it. The oil she was pouring caught on fire, and I was out of there and upstairs to my room before she could get her mouth shut.
I climbed next day with Gwehandagoza and a crowd of porters to carry all the stuff I’d brought back, mostly for the men, from England and the States. Took me nearly three hours and I was beat. Cindy and Kima were very happy to see me and so were the men, but no sign of Sandy. He’d been living in my house and it was a bloody mess. Couch was filthy, everything was filthy. Old shoes, sweaty clothes. Furniture missing. I was furious.