What was it with him? Why did I have to rise to it. I’ve no idea. I just know that my shoulders shrugged of their own accord and my voice, though it sounded distant in my ears, was clear enough.

‘Why not?’ I said.

21.

A simple sleeping bag on a cot bed set beneath flapping canvas provided me with possibly the best sleep of my life that night. I didn’t dream, just shut down as if under a spell and awoke ten hours later in daylight. Everyone else was already up, drinking sweetened tea out of tin mugs on benches set around the cooking fire in the clearing beyond our tents. I joined them and Patience handed me a cup. Marcel and Xander were talking together in French, while Amelia listened in. Xander is fluent in about six languages, and Amelia’s general cleverness extends to French too, but I’m shamefully hopeless in anything other than English, so I had no idea what they were talking about. It seemed Xander was telling a joke or funny anecdote, because when he finished the big guide burst out laughing and cuffed him on the shoulder. A second later the penny dropped for Amelia, and she burst out laughing as well. Her laugh is loud and infections: Patience was grinning and I found myself smiling, too. It struck me that whereas the mission Caleb, Innocent and I had undertaken to locate the poachers, survive a night in the forest, escape snares and find our way home had served only to put more prickly distance between my cousin and me, Xander, Amelia, Patience and Marcel had obviously bonded on their return trip through the forest.

Though I’d slept well and felt rested, Innocent appeared tired that morning. His smile was still in place, but it was thinner, more brittle, and his face was tinged grey. After the pickup dropped us at the start point for the trek, he paused us, his singsong voice forced, for ‘gorilla briefing’.

‘What’s there to brief?’ said Caleb. ‘Surely it’s the same as for the chimpanzees.’

‘Yes and no,’ Innocent muttered. He’d had enough of Caleb now for sure. With a sigh he told us that according to the rangers, the troop of gorillas we’d be visiting had spent the night some four hours’ hike away, most of it uphill. The bulk of the walking would be easy enough, on existing paths, but the last stretch would be slow-going. When we found the gorillas we’d have one hour maximum in their presence. We weren’t to approach within thirty feet of them, though they might come closer to us once we’d stopped. It was important that we keep quiet and still and avoid direct eye contact.

‘Why’s that?’ asked Xander.

‘It’s confrontational,’ said Amelia.

‘They’re very peaceful creatures,’ Innocent said. ‘But like any of us they don’t like to be threatened.’