The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
‘It was obvious that I might soon be dead’
Explorer Benedict Allen contemplated death in the wilds of Papua New Guinea before the intervention of generous-hearted locals led to his dramatic rescue
‘OIt had come back to me, as we’d made our way, how much I loved this country
utside, they are very kindly praying for me,” I scribbled in my diary. This was back in November 2017, when I had found myself not only stranded in a disused mission station somewhere in the vast, steaming forests of Papua New Guinea, but now going down with both malaria and dengue fever. “Normally, the ladies at least wait till dawn,” I continued, feebly. “Each day a little more fervent.”
I don’t recall much more about that night, particularly about those spirited “ladies” who were so thoughtfully appealing to heaven on my behalf. I suppose I would have been stretched out on the floor with my torchlight, aching and shivering, my shirt sopping wet, trying to remain calm, painfully aware that before morning I might be delirious – but what else?
Lately I have been trying to piece what I can together, if only to get this moment right for Explorer, my new book, but more seriously to address the bigger question of whether, at this pivotal moment – it was all too obvious that I might soon be dead – I’d felt it had all been worth it.
At first light I rose to my feet, I remember that. I looked out of the window. Ranks of dense, trackless vegetation spread up the slopes to each side of the mission station, while somewhere further through the trees two rival Papuan communities were fighting with home-made guns.
I opened my notebook again, knowing it was important that I put down my thoughts for anyone who might come looking for me. “On a separate page I have set out my intended route. I’m writing these last words here in case something else occurs. Already I’ve checked the medicines and bandaged up my feet. I have thought through the usual protocols, everything that will help me stay alive over the next few days.”
I paused to assess, one last time, what lay ahead – a lone seven-day slog to safety through an unappetising thicket and warzone, undertaken while occasionally perhaps semiconscious: “At such a moment, it’s hard not to think back – to times I might have died but didn’t. To the life I’ve lived – and the life I haven’t.”
The irony was that on this occasion I hadn’t left home to undertake anything particularly hazardous. I hadn’t been wading for months through the malarial swamplands, or traversing the Arctic pack ice with sledge dogs, or marching through unrelenting sands with my camels. Actually, I’d retired. I was no longer an “explorer”, one of those apparently stoic types you read about who is seemingly forever Up Against It, but just a dad rearing three boisterous children in Twickenham.
But then came a chance encounter with Frank Gardner, the BBC security correspondent. “Ben Fogle!” he had exclaimed, spotting me in the street. “Always been a fan!”
Over a drink, he had cheerily suggested we might head off to Papua New Guinea – he had always wanted to see their birds of paradise. “Frank, I haven’t been to PNG for almost three decades,” I explained. And, more to the point, Frank nowadays used a wheelchair, having narrowly survived being shot by Al-Qaeda in 2004. With the best will in the world, it might not be such a good idea for him to head off into the fetid interior with so many life-threatening injuries.
However, I liked Frank – his enthusiasm, his tenacity. No matter what it took, he was determined to set eyes on these birds as they cavorted among the treetops. And eventually, we did indeed set eyes on them. Through the lowlands we hiked, then up into the cloud forest, Frank borne on a litter carried by various Papuan villagers. But never did they slip, never did they complain. They too could sense the purity of Frank’s dream.
And it had come back to me, as we made our way, how much I loved this country – the glorious trees heaped with their orchids, lichens and bolsters of moss but also the generous-hearted and welcoming people. Certain individdeveloped uals stood out especially, among them a quiet fellow by the name of Korsai. Once, some 27 years ago, this gentle chap, from an isolated community known as the Yaifo, had shown me a great act of kindness, at considerable risk to himself, guiding me – a naive young stranger – right over a mountain.
After that trip to PNG with Frank in 2016, I had became more and more determined to check up on Korsai, to see if he was all right. And eventually I did just that, returning on my own to PNG and picking my way upslope through the dripping branches.
“Benedik, Benedik!” Korsai shrieked, seeing me approach. We hugged, repeating each other’s names – the only words of each other’s that we knew. And perhaps those words were all that we needed.
We hugged some more, and that whole week I pondered on the splendid tree kingdom that was his home and how it was still so untrammelled by the outside world. Now, all that remained was for me to get out – which meant a repeat of that strenuous journey over the Central Range. “But I cannot come with you this time!” Korsai lamented. “I am too old!”
“So am I,” I thought – for we were the same age. But no problem; as is often the case in PNG, there was no shortage of volunteers to help me along. Chief among those who would accompany me was a softly spoken lad called Samwell, a relative of Korsai’s who was notable for his powerful physique and floppy hat, which he wore pulled down over his eyes. All might have been well had we not encountered, on the other mountainside, the two communities battling it out.
For days we walked on through the trees – Samwell and three young Papuans I now counted as friends. Our best chance was to skirt the fighting and make our way to Fiyawena, a mission station apparently run by fervent American evangelicals.
It was only on arrival, finding the place hastily abandoned except for a few bewildered converts, that I had a fever. Samwell said I should stay put. He would fetch help.
“Benedik, we will do our best,” he had reassured me shyly as he departed. “You know this.”
“Of course I know!” And he smiled a small smile before pulling down the rim of his floppy hat.
That had been 10 days before – and not a word since. Gradually I had grown weaker as I lay in the Americans’ sitting room, my mosquito net strung between the armchairs just as it had been all the way here between convenient trees. Somehow, despite my worsening state, I knew I must find a way out myself.
I laced up my boots and took a last look around my sanctuary – the dirtied windows from which I had hung up my socks to dry, the Christian motifs on the wall (“Jesus had compassion on them”) and the blue vinyl floor where the missionaries once held hands in prayer but where I sweated out my fevers.
We should never have regrets in this life but I did regret now that this comparatively short excursion to PNG, just a bid to shake hands with an old friend, might be the one to finish me off. I’d been reminded of the beauty I had been witness to through the years; people like Korsai had provided me with so many windows into barely recorded habitats and peoples.
Time to be going. The mist was now lifting, the birds of paradise calling out as they did each morning as the sun rose, opening their wings in a shower of vanilla and gold. How Frank would have loved that.
It was then that I heard a quite different sound, off to the south-east – something alien to the rainforest, rattling through the sky and coming ever nearer. Only slowly did I begin to understand that this was a helicopter – and that I was to be saved. Samwell had finally managed to get word out, as he said he would.
And with that realisation came another: that this was not an end for me but rather a new beginning. Somewhere in the process of looking up an old friend, I had reawakened my desire to head out again to experience the wider world. Far from being put off by my experience, I had been encouraged. Left here alone, I’d been made to reflect on those such as Korsai, Samwell and so many others who had given me precious access to their lands, their worlds.
There was much to be done, not just here but around the planet, seeking to glimpse through these fastdisappearing windows and better understand what lies beyond.
Explorer: The Quest for Adventure and the Great Unknown by Benedict Allen is out now, published by Canongate (£18.99). To buy a copy for £16.99 (or £11.39 as an e-book), visit books. telegraph.co.uk or call 0844 871 1514