Transition Plan Chapter 81: In His Majesty's Service Part 31 - Disappearance

The prone bodies of the French Special Forces were sprawled where they fell when the fumes overtook them chaotically in the jungle on the edge of the clearing containing the smoking detritus of the destroyed tower.

The naked body belonging to the nine year old boy stirred slightly and moaned in pain.

Jack opened his eyes, fully expecting to awaken in heaven. But he wasn't expecting there would be any pain in heaven. His head throbbed mercilessly. He quickly discovered he was still in the jungle edge adjacent to the clearly that held the debris of the fallen tower. For a moment he panicked thinking he was in the 'other place' as punishment for killing the radio operators, but he remembered that the German civilians clearly survived the explosion somehow to attack them.

Jack finally realized he was actually still alive, and that the men threw gas grenades at them that only put them to sleep. So he took a deep breath, sat up, stretched, examined himself for blisters and burns, and found nothing. He could breathe with no pain.

He said happily, "Jeanne! Hey! Wake up! We're all right. It was some kind of knock out gas."

He reached for her but touched only air. He startled and looked around, but immediately assumed that she'd already revived and was up, investigating what happened to them.

He called for her cheerfully, but was worried, "C'mon Jeanne. This is no time for 'hide and seek', chere copine!"

He heard no reply. His heart started pounding and he was getting a sick feeling in his stomach that was not gas-induced, "Where are you, Jeanne? This isn't funny."

He quickly grabbed a vine, and climbed up about twenty feet, scanning the jungle around them and the open field back to the tower. He looked at she had fallen and the imprint her shape made on the dirt, and asked with rapidly rising fear, "Jeanne?"

From his perch above all the fallen companions, Jack shouted numerous times in all directions, increasingly more shrill and frightened each time, "Jeanne! Jeanne! Jeanne!"

But all he heard was echoes of his own voice.

Jeanne was clearly missing. And from above the signs of something very wrong were clearer. All of their weapons had been scattered among the trees, most of which had been destroyed. Jack's bow was broken and the arrows shattered and scattered. Several guns were clearly missing. Nearby where she had been was her slingshot, with her bag of shot scattered all over the ground, and some kind of wet white rag. He leaped from the vine to the ground and examined it closely. It smelled like a chemical and made him dizzy. Being a little clearer-headed, he noticed that there were two sets of different boot prints all around where she had fainted. They were not the same pattern as German soldiers' boots. It was clear she'd been picked up and taken, given her toe trails in the dirt. Probably by the same men that threw the sleeping gas grenades.

"How dare anyone touch her but me," he thought angrily.

He picked up her slingshot and found a note wrapped around the handle. He carefully removed the note and unfolded it. It was in basic French. He read it all the way through and his eyes flashed open wide and his jaw dropped. He read it again.

Jack screamed and ran wildly around the area looking for signs of Jeanne and her kidnappers.

…

Jarred back into consciousness by Jack's shouts, screams, and panic, the Frenchmen and Tarzan groaned as they came around, and with same kind of throbbing headaches as Jack had.

"We're alive!" all the men first thought in relief but saw Jack completely running around frantic and distraught.

Tarzan quickly realized his son was in complete hysteria and had to grab him forcibly and hold him tightly. Jack had wild eyes and was shaking out of control, so Tarzan held him for comfort, and asked, "Jack? Stop! Please calm down, son. What is it?"

Jack stuttered in a total panic whimpering and crying, "J-J- Jeanne's gone. They…. they took her!"

Tarzan noted her absence but concentrated on calming his hysterical son by asking simple questions, "I'm here for you Jack. Slow down, son. Who? Who took her? Tell me, please."

He saw utter anguish in Jack's eyes. It was the same kind of anguish that was in Tarzan's eyes when Jane was abducted so many years ago. The flashback brought a terrible feeling with it.

Tarzan's soothing paternal voice calmed Jack, and his speech and volume reduced as he tried to make sense to his father," OK… OK, Dad. The radio men took her. The men who gassed us. Look at this note."

The ape man took the note, and read carefully:

French Army Colonel Jacot and Jungle Man,

We know you killed all the guards and destroyed the radiotelegraph and our business. The station was our property. We operated it for the German government.

France owes us 10 million Deutschmarks. Pay it and you will see your daughter again, Colonel. If not we keep her as revenge against you and the boy.

You will be hearing from us.

Karl-Heinz and Gunter

Tarzan stood in incredulity, making sure he'd read it correctly, and thought as he shook his head, "Ten million Deutschmarks? In the midst of war, how was anyone going to pay that to the enemy?"

Tarzan looked into Jack's wide, moist eyes, and put his hand on the boy's shoulders, "Jack, son, this is very, very serious. But she's alive and they want to keep her alive."

Jack sniffed, shook his head affirmatively, and fought back another burst of tears. The strong hand of his father on his shoulder was little comfort.

Coming around and understanding Jack's screaming about his daughter being gone and saw through his fog of recovery that Tarzan reading the ransom note. Jacot ripped the note out of Tarzan's hands and read it. He fought back the panic, as he exclaimed, "Mon Dieu, they know who I am. And who she is!"

While singing Jack's praises just minutes before, the completely unexpected abduction and the lingering dulling effects of the gas caused the natural protective father instincts of Jacot to kick in.

The Colonel went berserk, and screamed at Jack, pointing accusingly at the boy, "Because of you my daughter is gone."

He rushed the boy and Jack recoiled in fear.

Tarzan placed himself between Jacot and Korak and warned, "That's far enough Colonel. I cannot let you harm the boy. I am sorry this happened. But you cannot blame him alone. They did this together."

Jacot hurled his words at Jack and Tarzan, "Sorry? Sorry? That hardly describes what happened here. Jeanne was my only child. This is inexcusable. She should have never been here with him. Or ever listened to him. Jack's little more than a savage and she was fooled by your 'perfect' life here."

Tarzan bristled at Jacot's outlash at them but held his tongue, and Jack did the same but saw his father's restrained anger well. It was sad to see how such a stressful situation could undo everything that had been established between the families so quickly. And Jack felt totally responsible.

Jacot continued his rant, "This is exactly what I warned about. Would you be any less panicked or angry if they had left Jeanne and took Jack?"

That took the anger from Tarzan. Jacot was right. But he didn't know how right.

Tarzan struggled to get Armand to be rational again, "But you just called Jack and Jeanne heroes. You called him 'son', Armand. You even just said…"

Jacot interrupted the Jungle Lord, "Never mind what I just said. A true son wouldn't let a family member be captured by a mortal enemy. I don't care that the kids destroyed the tower. A military victory is not worth the cost of losing my daughter to… who knows what fate now. These men could do anything to her. Why would they keep her if we can't pay? What awful things do they want to do to her?"

The harsh words and Jacot's speculation on all the terrible things that could be happening to Jeanne right now hurt Jack terribly, but Jack was the one for a moment that was rational, "Stop fighting! We have to find her now! We can still rescue her. The trail is still fresh. Every minute counts. Being angry does nothing to find her."

Despite the Colonel's anger, Jack was right.

But none of them really knew they'd been unconscious for hours, not minutes, until Armand looked at his watch, and his hopes fell.

…

The soldiers and the Clayton's searched everywhere on the grounds hoping the Germans had her captive on site, but that vain hope was dashed quickly. Two sets of foot prints went off into the woods, and at a river's edge, disappeared. There were scrape marks from a bow of a boat, and lots of prints indicating preparing for launch into the river. It appeared the boat was heading east.

Jacot thought, "These men had a getaway planned all along. They are not soldiers and have no honor to stand and die as patriots to their country. They are cowards."

He realized that unfortunately they were dangerous cowards who had his daughter captive.

With a boat and enough petrol, they could go anywhere in the region and Tarzan and Jacot both guessed the most likely destination. If they traveled far enough east and south, going around or even through the remotest uninhabited and unclaimed parts of eastern Nigeria, was Kamerun, the next German territory. If the kidnappers got there first with Jeanne, she would be lost to them. Real German Army troops – Schutztruppen - were all over Kamerun because of its strategic significance, and the country itself was one of the most sparsely populated regions of Africa.

Jack's heart sunk but he kept looking around the boat mooring. Partially buried in the mud, he found Jeanne's promise bracelet and broke into uncontrollable tears again, falling to his knees in the muck, and sobbed. He clutched the bracelet like he would embrace her. It was all that was left of her to him for now.

With his head hung low, kneeling in the slop with the bracelet held in both hands, he cried to no one, "What have I done to you, Jeanne…?"

Jacot had worked through his initial anger at the boy somewhat, only enough to take some pity on Jack seeing his deep heartbreak, but still upset enough to be secretly pleased that Jack finally felt the full weight of the consequences of his actions to leave the safety of the treehouse with her. Finally Jack understood what it meant to take both of them into danger or death here, just to protect their fathers, with little thought to protecting themselves.

Tarzan put his hand on his son's shoulder, "We'll find her Jack. The trail is fresh."

Jack knew that was a false hope, "It's been nearly three hours Dad. Neither of us can track a river trail."

"Have faith son. Someone on the river has seen them," Tarzan encouraged.

They started wading upstream, and were encouraged by several flocks of water birds and turtles, all of whom had seen the trio on the river, but were stopped not far up the river. There was a huge nest of crocodiles sunning on fallen branches. The entourage quickly exited the water with the few weapons they could salvage aimed toward the crocodiles. Tarzan alone went forward warily, knife pulled.

Armand and his men watched with amazement as Tarzan engaged and talked to the crocs with strange, guttural hisses and croaking and clicking noises. Jack held on to every word spoken with the crocs with hope, and listened intently, which also amazed Armand. Tarzan was a stranger to this crocodile family, being far from the land of the Mangani and the crocs there. The ancient reptiles were shocked a human was talking to them, but refused to get engaged in human affairs.

The patriarch croc spoke to the Lord of the Jungle snidely, "Yes, human, three of your kind passed by us, disturbing our sleep in a log that moved fast upstream and made much noise. If you're such a great tracker, find your son's mate yourself. This is not our business. We owe you no favors. There are legends of you from the south. You have never helped our kind here, so be gone before our patience not to eat you and your companions runs out."

Jack muttered at his father's fruitless conversation with the crocs shaking his lowered head, "She's… she's gone. Just… gone."

As they headed back to the radiotelegraphs ruins, Tarzan tried to sympathize with Jack but also teach a lesson, "We just have to wait for them to make the next move, Jack. I'm sorry. I truly am. But I told you as much as the Colonel not to come. You took a terrible risk in coming together, even though you helped save our countries. It's one thing to put yourself in danger. But to do that with someone not of the jungle into this battle…."

Jack was very defensive and interrupted, "She had plenty of jungle skills. If she hadn't, I would have never taken the risk. Besides she insisted. I've never met a girl I couldn't say 'no' to. That's why she's so amazing. And besides, nothing happened to us in the jungle. It was the civilized humans who took her."

Tarzan could think of nothing more to say. It was hard to argue. How did he ever raise such a smart child? And then he reflected fondly that Jack was Jane's son and Archimedes' grandson too.

Feeling just a little more remorse for his earlier violent reaction to the boy, and seeing the extent of Jack's pain over losing Jeanne was just as deep as his, Armand explained more kindly, "Jeanne is like her mother too much, Jack. This isn't entirely your fault. I realize you were in this together willingly and it was all about saving our lives."

Jacot reflected that he'd never been really able to say 'no' to Josephine either.

Jack sat curled up silently away from the men and could not be comforted and said nothing in response.

"Jack… did you hear?" prompted Tarzan.

"Yes I did Dad. Thank you Colonel Jacot, but I need to be alone now."

Hearing the sounds of regular French soldiers beginning to make their way up the hill, "That will have to be later, Viscount. We have to go home. Maroix will be here in minutes. We've searched everywhere for Jeanne. It's clear they are long gone and we have no trail. They have to make the next move."

"Fine…" Jack ran and leaped into the jungle and took a vine to hide the tears once again clouding his eyes. He stayed ahead and far above the men and would not talk to anyone no matter how they coaxed.

Tarzan worried that the boy's heartbreak because of Jeanne's kidnapping would change him forever. He had no idea how true that would be.

…

Maroix broke through the dense jungle, and beheld a scene of destruction the likes of which he could never even imagine. Someone did this deliberately, and did this thoroughly. He never saw the last French Special Forces solider disappear on the opposite side of the clearing into the trees and vines. He picked up the remains of a stick of dynamite that was not completely destroyed on detonation. It had writing on it. French Army writing.

He looked all around him quickly in what he knew was a vain search for clues, suddenly understanding the entire picture, and gave a wry smile to no one in particular as he muttered, "Damn you, Armand…"

The English forces commander Bryant, having combined forces with Maroix at Chra, was nearby, poking his gun stock at some smoldering debris, and asked, "Major?"

"Never mind, Bryant. It was nothing," Maroix noted, pocketing the dynamite stick.

Behind them the Kamina village Administrator limped up the pathway on his cane, waving a white flag and had a roll of paper in his hand.

The Battle for Togoland was over. But the search for Jeanne had only just begun.

...

Author's Notes: ERB Tarzan fans knew that if I wanted to maintain some elements of canon, it was inevitable that in my retelling of "The Son of Tarzan", Jeanne Jacot would be kidnapped, although you didn't know when, where, by whom, or for how long. More detail on this later. Right now, we have unfinished business - what happened three hours ago. In the historical context of the real story, that was indeed the end of the Battle of Togoland, with the surrender on August 26, 1914. Depending on what source you read, it is unsure who actually destroyed the radiotelegraph at Kamina. But you all really know now! hahaha!