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Hercules' crate was open-topped, and by climbing up the side I could look down on his steaming armour-plating. He was standing calmly enough and showed little sign of the effects of the sedative. I had not unloaded a hippo before. My inclination would have been to forgo the second phencyclidine injection, but Whipsnade, with much more experience of these matters at the time, had made the point strongly. They had even sent a measured dose of the drug.
I filled a syringe, bent down over the side of the crate, and slapped my stoutest needle through the hippo's rump. Hercules reacted by slamming my wrist hard against the wooden side of the crate. I was trapped securely. Hercules maintained the pressure against my wrist with all his might. He wiggled his hips a bit and ground my hand excruciatingly into the wood. Biting my tongue, I slapped vainly at the hippo's bottom with my other hand. It was some minutes before he pulled away and I was allowed to retrieve my extremity, now numb, black, and horribly scuffed. I still have no feeling in that part of my wrist.
After a quarter of an hour Hercules was still standing, but his ears were drooping slightly and there was a string of saliva hanging from his jaw. I decided to let him out. The bolts were removed from the reinforced rear door and the door itself was opened wide. We wanted to make him back out so that he would be less likely to charge. Hercules did not budge. No matter what we did, tapping his nose with a stick, tempting him with food, or slapping his back, he would not go into reverse gear. So we cautiously opened the front door and gazed on his bucolic features for the first time.
Hercules stared blandly at the inside of the tropical river house where he was now to live, sniffed disdainfully, and blinked his drowsy eyelids. Then he saw the shining pool of warm water before him, its surface wreathed in misty vapour. Very sedately he began to move forward. He emerged from the crate, paused briefly, then walked slowly towards the pool. He went down the ramp at the side of the pool as if on tiptoe, sniffed at the water, found it to his liking, and gracefully slipped in. Through the clear water we could see him settle peacefully on the bottom of the pool.
A cluster of icicles formed in the pit of my stomach. "It looks as if he's going to sleep," I told the keepers around me." Get some ropes, fast. We could be in big trouble!"
The second dose of phencyclidine, together with the soothing warm bath, was having a potentially lethal effect. A conscious hippo can hold its breath underwater for many minutes but will eventually come to the surface to take in a fresh gulp of air. A doped hippo might very well be a different matter. Suppose Hercules inhaled blissfully while dreaming on the bottom of his pool?
Some of the men dashed off. The zoo director and I stood at the water's edge looking anxiously down at the recumbent form of the hippo, his head three feet below the surface. When the ropes arrived there was only one thing for it. Stripping to our underpants, the head keeper, Matt Kelly, and I jumped into the water and dived for the submerged hulk. It is no easy task to feel one's way over a hippo's anatomy without the benefit of a pair of goggles while towing a length of thick rope. Spluttering, we both surfaced for a quick discussion on a plan of action.
"You try to get a rope on the back legs, Matt," I said. "I'll see if I can get one round the neck."
Matt dived again and I followed. Hercules slumbered on, unaware of the visitors struggling clumsily about his submarine bedroom. I would not have dared to take such liberties with a hippo in full possession of its senses.
After much effort and repeated returns to the surface with bursting lungs, we managed to place the ropes more or less as we wanted them. The keepers hauled mightily and to my relief Hercules, most un-Venus-like, rose to the surface. The great nostrils opened as his head cleared the water, and he exhaled gently. His eyes were half closed and there was a pleasant softening of the hippo's usual grim smile.
It was impossible to drag the heavy creature onto land. There were not enough of us, hippos have no convenient handles, and I was afraid that excessive use of ropes on Hercules' limbs and neck might injure him. In water he weighed much less. We would have to support him in the pool by passing ropes under his belly until he was no longer under the influence. We kept his head up by wrapping towels round it and slinging it to a beam. Hercules looked for all the world as if he was suffering an attack of toothache and had taken to the whisky bottle to alleviate the pain.
After some hours Hercules began to wriggle on the supporting ropes. His eyes opened fully and he surveyed the strange scene sombrely. When he realized that his towel bandage inhibited chomping, he became restless and we decided that he had come round enough to look after himself. After being untangled he retired to the bottom of the pool, from which secure position he looked up at us lugubriously. Several minutes later I watched him come to the surface to breathe deeply. Hercules was going to be all right.
Hercules was indeed all right. He immediately fell in love with his pool, which was set in an imitation tropical jungle with waterfalls, islands, and luscious vegetation. His arrival, however, spelt disaster for some other denizens of the Manchester jungle. Sharing his habitat were tapirs, capybaras, and an assortment of exotic birds. These Hercules proceeded to stalk and, if possible, eat. He would play the crocodile, lurking beneath the surface of the water, now dark with his droppings, and using his protuberant eyes as mini-periscopes. When a tapir came down to drink or a bird perched on a rock at the water's edge, Hercules would glide stealthily in like a killer submarine. With a sudden charge when he was within inches of his prey, he would seize it in his jaws, kill it instantly with one powerful crunch, and feast until not a scrap remained. So much for vegetarianism: Hercules fancied meat. He still does. Sometimes when he is off-colour I stand on the rocks by his pool and toss him loaves packed with pick-me-ups or stimulants. I have to watch carefully for a pair of gleaming eyes that just about break the water surface and come slowly but steadily towards my feet. At such moments I skip back smartly backwards.
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