LAURA THE JUNGLE
I recall seeing episodes of a comic strip on a similar theme to this and I’ve tried to give this a flavour of vintage comic or British pulp story. I’m aware this has led me to use some words that may not be familiar, so let me know if you want a glossary. I’m also aware that, in comic style, the action keeps shifting from one situation to another. Sorry if that confuses, but I think it’s important for the style.
While the First World War rages in more civilised lands, a light aircraft crashes deep in jungle. The pilot is killed, but the passengers, a young missionary couple, give thanks for their survival, and, scouting the vicinity of the crash to see if they are anywhere near a telephone, are eaten by leopards. Their blonde eight-year-old daughter Laura, left in the wrecked plane, is found by monkeys and brought up as one of them. She does not forget that she is English and she retains the language she had learn from her literate parents, though sadly, it remains the English of a girl of eight. Her intelligence and obvious differences soon give her a privileged position in monkey society, but her idyllic life is disrupted by the arrival, in increasing numbers, of brutal hunters. Employing the help of the monkeys, Laura sets about defeating them. Her intelligence, her animal helpers and her better knowledge of the jungle enable her to defeat and humiliate several groups of these wretches despite all their guns, nets and other fiendish devices. She is assisted by a second human, Lulu, a local girl whom Laura rescued from a cannibal band, a girl of Laura’s own age, of great courage, loyalty and breasts.
At the time our story starts, Laura has been in the jungle nearly eleven years.
Rumours of the curvy blonde leader of a marauding monkey band had been dismissed by respectable sources, but had come to the attention of a man who, though famous, was not respectable – the bearded American adventurer, writer, hunter and tough guy “Serious” Hellaway. He listened to the accounts, he studied them and decided they were true. He was going to get this semi-naked blonde dame. She belonged to no nation, she had chosen to be a monkey, so she was a monkey, and monkeys could be hunted. He could already see her head mounted in his Caribbean home from home. It was not only a personal project, it was a knightly act in support of other hunters.
But Hellaway was not the only man bent on Laura’s downfall. The rich and reclusive (though much-travelled) German aristocrat Baron Heinrich Von Krapp was also on Laura’s scent. His aim was not to place Laura’s head on the wall, but to secure her for experiments of great scientific significance and also advantage to his friends in a growing German political movement. Money was no object and his expedition, meticulously planned, landed in Bigabuti just three days after Hellaway. At this stage, Von Krapp knew of Hellaway’s involvement, but Hellaway knew nothing of Von Krapp’s presence.
Laura and Lulu know nothing of either. They have just had a small argument. Lulu has got, in Laura’s opinion, a little too close to a male monkey and Laura has told her sternly that this is “Not very English”. This puzzles and annoys Lulu, who wanders off on her own to sort out her thoughts. She is almost pleased to come on yet another hunter encampment: she can report it back to Laura and get in her good books again.
Peril nears! Is this camp that of Hellaway – or of Von Krapp? Neither. It is the camp of Lucan Twitt, Lord Nunsuch. Twitt’s distinguished family can be traced back to William IV, but he has squandered the family fortune on rash investments and hare-brained projects, so that now he is scraping a living in Bigabuti telling tales of rhinoceroses and naked monkey-girls to visitors. Britons of his social origins regard him as “A white man, of course, but not quite the thing”, while those of lower social origins regard him as a *****, or alternatively, a ****.
How can this wastrel have financed an expedition into the interior, complete with bearers and a guide? Because Von Krapp has paid him. He is the bait.
Waiting for Lulu to return and regretting her harsh words, if not her moral stance, Laura hears the engine of a light aircraft over the treetops. It sadly brings back memories of her parents. But the pilot does not wish her well. Hellaway is conducting his initial reconnaissance from the air. He can see little through the dense canopy, but there is a large river and such rivers generally have a small number of favoured crossing-points. Now he needs to find a landing-strip. He is running short of fuel to get back to his base camp when he spots just the thing, a patch where evil men had burnt away the forest before being interrupted by Laura. The work of the day is done. Tomorrow, he starts the hunt for serious.
My lord Nunsuch likes just one thing about this nasty jungle. He can pick his nose with abandon. It wouldn’t do, though, to carry out this intricate operation too close to the natives, as stories might get back and ruin his social standing. So he has wandered to the edge of the camp; and there, he suddenly finds himself with a twine around his neck. He drops what was between his fingers.
“Gk!” he protests.
“Stop struggling, or you might strangle yourself. That would be nasty,” says Laura. He may not be the greatest intellect in the British upper classes, or have the best judgment, but he understands the wisdom of this advice. Besides, telling him the best thing to do is nothing often finds a receptive ear.
Watching round the trunk of a Baboab tree, Von Krapp makes one decisive movement. He taps Olfalu on the shoulder. Olfalu is the best tracker in the colony. Not for Von Krapp, squirming between creepers and getting bitten by snakes: he employs others for such things. He will only be hands-on when he has the girl. Olfalu slips off after the girl and her captive.
Hellaway’s Cessna has landed unobserved by Laura, for she is busy elsewhere. His first plan is to wait in hiding, reckoning the landing will have been observed, and if not, if he leaves the plane out in the middle of the clearing, the stupid dame or her damn monkeys will come on it soon.
Lord Nunsuch is calming down, in a manner of speaking. He knows perfectly well he’s bait and he assumes old Von Krapp will sort all this out and rescue him. In the meantime, being manhandled round various obstacles by a luscious teenage girl in a liana cache-sexe is not the worst thing that has happened to him. He just wishes the damn monkeys would stop chattering.
Lulu is still a bit sore about the lecture she got from Laura about Urk. It can’t have been the company of monkeys that made the white girl so particular. Just as well Laura doesn’t realise Lulu is not her real name, but is what her people call the girl thing. Laura’s gone off – with thanks, admittedly – to catch yet another hunter and she herself has nothing to do but wait. So when Urk comes to her chattering and pointing, she happily follows.
There in the clearing of the fire is a huge gawky bird. It must be a giant eagle, so she stays well hidden. But the thing doesn’t move and it doesn’t look to be at rest or dead. She remembers Laura’s attempts to explain how she got here. Is this a flying machine?
She could throw a stone at it to see if it reacted, but there are no stones round here. A bit of wood couldn’t get anywhere near the thing. Very well: she can climb a tall tree. From there she can look down on the thing and maybe also spot anyone in hiding. She picks a tree and climbs. Urk climbs with her, chattering.
Hellaway wouldn’t have heard her, but he heard the chattering monkey. He arrives under the tree as she gets almost halfway. He stares up at a big, bare, black ass. He caresses his favourite gun and aims at the point where the ass-crack and the line of under-buttocks cross.
It is chattering and pointing by monkeys that alerts Laura to her being followed. She swiftly ties her captive’s ankles together and leaves him, as comfortably placed as possible, while she doubles back to intercept whoever is following her.
It is chattering monkeys that alert Olfalu to his prey turning on him. He cannot use his knife, for the cold but lucrative white man with the glass in his eye wants the white cunt alive. But he is a man, she is a woman, so he can prevail. She is tricky, though, it is said, and lithe, so what is she likely to do? She does not know he has no gun, so she will not rush him. Ambush from behind a tree – or jump on him from a branch above?
Hellaway pauses. There are stories that the blonde bitch has a native sidekick, and if this is her, she’s fair game, but he doesn’t want to kill some villager out collecting coconuts. Do they have villages in this goddamn crap? He hasn’t seen any, but maybe hunter-gatherer tribes? In any case, the sidekick isn’t his target. Get her alive and she might point the way to the blonde. He adjusts his aim slightly. Can’t wait much, or that fat black ass will be out of sight.
The slightest sound above. Olfalu looks up and sees a cunt descending towards his face – a white one, with legs on either side of it. The next moment, he is buried in fragrant squishiness.
Laura has brought the grey-bearded native down. There is no sign of a hunter and the old man doesn’t have a gun. Has she assaulted some innocent? Then she spies his weapon, stiff, blunt-ended, sticking out, shorter than a spear, longer than a knife. Yes, he is an enemy. Disable the weapon. She tries to pull it from him, but he won’t let go. He screams, or she thinks he screams, for she’s sitting on his mouth. Then the secret weapon reveals its identity. It spurts some sticky substance into her face. She is momentarily blinded. His flailing hands encounter her left breast and squeeze. The weapon fires again.
“Stop that! Don’t do that! Yaroo! Eek!” cries Laura. She punches at the weapon, misses, and hits something soft. The man contorts. The crisis is over. She has won.
Hellaway fires. Always feels damn good. A loud scream. Native slut disassembles from the tree she was climbing. Long way to fall. Hey, what a cunt! Just a minute – isn’t he…
Thud. Big black bottom falls on bristly white face.
The monkeys really aren’t much help as Laura searches for foliage to wipe her face clean while not letting go of the native. She has to stop sitting on his face briefly several times as she reaches out for low branches to harvest the leaves while the monkeys cavort around. She fails to register rustling that signals the approach of a larger animal.
Lulu wails in pain as she tries to make sense of what happened. She’s been shot in the bottom. She’s fallen on something knobbly and uncomfortable. She must have fallen a long way, so she can be grateful she’s alive. But oh, her bottom! She must be bleeding. She knows the thing to do with a bleeding part is to raise it as high as possible above the rest of the body. So she must get off this thing and turn around.
The thing is an unconscious, ugly, bearded white man, blood on his face. She crouches on the forest floor, bottom raised high, breasts resting in leaf litter. Where’s Urk?
Lord Nunsuch returns down the animal track where he was carried. The silly piece tied his ankles, but not his wrists, and he was a boy scout. Now if possible, without too much danger, he wants revenge. And there she is – having dashed funny sex with a native, plonking her arse down on his face repeatedly. He is no expert at wrestling or fisticuffs, but she is distracted. He creeps nearer.
He steps on a dry twig. She looks up. She is surprised. Then she screams. The native has bitten her somewhere jolly funny indeed.
Obvious noises approaching – a water buffalo or a white man. A white man. Von Krapp comes on the triumphant couple holding down the luscious naked teenager. He stares down at her.
“So – this is the famous intrepid Amazon scourge of hunters? This is Laura of the Jungle? This?” His monocle pops out. He replaces it.
“You bad men! Go away!” Laura insists. Lord Nunsuch laughs. Olfalu laughs. Von Krapp laughs.
Hellaway wakes. Where is he? Jungle. The jungle floor. What happened? A fat black ass fell on him. One he’d shot. Where is it now? What’s this goddamn monkey doing? Get off! Where’s his goddamn gun? Hey, the monkey’s pointing. Pointing at…hey, there’s the ass, sticking right up, just over there!
Von Krapp pats Laura’s bottom.
Hellaway pulls himself upright, very carefully, very silently. A few steps. The ass is wobbling as the broad sobs. Looks good. He unbuttons the front of his trousers. Now!
“Do I get extra dosh for catching this piece?” Lord Nunsuch asks his employer.
“I caught her too!” Olfalu protests. And Sir Master, what about her cunt?”
“Yes, jolly good point!” adds Nunsuch.
“Oooooooooooh!” adds Lulu.
“Fuck!” adds Hellaway; and that is what he is doing.
“25% extra pay for both of you,” Von Krapp rules, “and we may fuck her here. Then she is mine and the Fuhrer’s. My experiments such glories promise!”
“That’s beastly! You mustn’t!” protests Laura. The monkeys chatter, but whether it is in agreement, or in disagreement, no non-monkey can tell.
“I go first. I take it, family, social distinctions, being a white man, all that,” says Nunsuch. Von Krapp’s reply is cold and measured.
“I am also a white man, Lord Nunsuch, and my family older and more noble than yours is. Also, I pay. I go first, then Olfalu here, then you. You are the backside guard.”
“Rearguard, old chap. Oh, very well – get on with it and all that.”
“No!” wails Laura; but that is the last coherent communication from her for some time.
Hellaway is still pumping and Lulu has decided that if you can’t beat them, then join with them, and the experience has its positive side.
Von Krapp’s monocle pops out again and he ignores it. At last, he finishes.
“A virgin from both parts!” he declares. Olfalu is the oldest of the three, but by no means lacking in vigour or commitment. This is, after all, only the second white woman he has had.
Hellaway is still pumping and Urk is clapping him on. As both are tiring, Hellaway pulls out and demands of the moaning native where the blonde broad is. Laura had taught Lulu some English and she understands Hellaway’s guttural demand except for the word “broad”. She refuses to answer. Hellaway believes in persuasion wherever possible. He shoves his gun up her asshole and repeats the demand. She refuses. But as he is about to fire, a volley of distant shots breaks out. Instantly alert, Hellaway pulls the gun out, whacks the native over the head with it, ties her up (noting for the first time the remarkable size of her breasts) and heads with her over his shoulder towards the sound of gunfire.
Has yet another dramatic turn-around happened? Is a rescue in process?
No. Olfalu, having finished raping Laura, being full of joy and triumph, has seized Von Krapp’s gun and fired off a volley into the treetops, for which Von Krapp leniently fines him 5% of his earnings.
Laura’s cunt receives the honour of a visit from Lucan Twitt, Lord Nunsuch; and after a pleasant half-hour or so, he will repair to her arsehole.
Hellaway is heading towards them. So is Lulu, breasts flapping rhythmically.
By the time Hellaway reaches them, Von Trapp and Nunsuch have withdrawn to what is now their joint camp. The German had travelled light, with only Olfalu and two bearers, but Nunsuch had eight bearers. All the bearers are delighted to see Laura in captivity, because they hope their masters will reward them, because there will be more lucrative hunting parties now the white girl-demon is dealt with, and because they like the look of her breasts, buttocks and cunt, which they are all allowed to inspect. The camp is noisy and no longer guarded. Nunsuch brings out a bottle of Ayala. He pours himself a large glass. He raises it towards his lips. It shatters. One shot.
“None of you go for your guns. I’ve got the jump on you,” announced Hellaway. “And put down that champagne bottle real careful.” Lord Nunsuch is deeply offended.
“My dear chap, whoever you are, I do not need to be told to take care with champagne. I am impecunious.”
“Who are you?” Von Krapp asks.
“Serious Hellaway.”
“So,” says Von Krapp. Nunsuch as more to say.
“I say, just as well you’re not that awful boasting bounder who writes books,” he comments. Hellaway does not look pleased.
“Cut the cackle. You’ve got the blonde dame. I’ve got you. Hand over the blonde and you can go free.”
“And if we do not? Are you truly going to kill us all?” Von Krapp asks.
“No. That would be murder. I’ll just shoot each of you in both knees.”
“Whereas we can easily explain away our actions up to this point, if you try to take a live female captive out of the colony, and one of us warns the authorities, there will be for you problems,” Von Krapp says calmly. “Let us talk.”
“Talk.”
“For what do you want this slut?”
“To put her head on the wall as a trophy – having fucked her too of course.”
“Before or after beheading her?” Nunsuch is curious.
“Shit, before beheading her! I’m not some kind of weirdo.” Nunsuch is an aristocrat. He was educated at Marlborough College. He may be a bounder and a mountebank, but he has not lost all standards of behaviour, even if he applies them mostly to others.
“Old chap, you can only put some animal’s head on the wall if you shot it, not if someone else did.”
“Fine – I can shoot her right now.”
“Herr Hellaway,” Von Krapp says, “the Englander’s point is more general. To the hunter, the spoils. We caught her. Can we not both enjoy her?”
“How?”
“I desire her for experiments. If I promise the experiments will do her no permanent physical harm – I stress ‘physical’ – I can have her for six months, then you for six months have her to do whatever you like to her short of beheading or skinning her. If you a head on the wall desire, you have this native you have brought here.” Lulu has just woken up and does not like what she hears.
“What about me?” Lord Nunsuch asks.
“You will not be beheaded or for sex enslaved.”
“No, I mean, don’t I get a share of the blonde?”
“No, that was not part of our agreement. But perhaps the Amerikaner will let you have a go on the big-breasted native.”
Hellaway is an impulsive man. Besides, he realises that if he does mount Laura’s head on his wall, he may fall down and hurt himself, and rumours may get out that he did not take her, but stole her.
“Done!” he says. “And yeah, Limey, screw this one.”
And so it is agreed. Laura is partitioned between Germany and the USA; and Lulu is the great man’s new prize exhibit.
Urk and the other monkeys do not get to screw anyone, but more hunting suits them fine. Hunters rarely shoot monkeys, they do shoot leopards and snakes and they do often leave scraps of food.
