Killing the Bayawak (Eating a Monitor Lizard)

A loud shriek echoes through the jungle. The crickets fall silent, leaving only the chorus of rain. Fear instantly grips my heart. Perhaps it would have been less terrifying if it were in a language. Then maybe I would know if it was a plea for help. Or a declaration of anger. But no. This was an outburst of primal emotion. Was it crazed? Demented? Perhaps it was a hallucination conjured up by my shrinking stomach. Too early to tell. I clutch my rifle close to me and hug the rainforest floor, straining my ears and crossing my fingers in pitch darkness.

Temburong Jungle. Brunei. I had googled it before I left. Who would have known that a patch of sickly green, enclosed on four grid boxes on Google Earth would be so large? And the shrieking. There was nothing about the shrieking.

For the past three days I have slogged through alone in an endless maze of trees, vines and ferns with the occasional marsh. Upon signing an indemnity form, I had left the relative safety of the command post to embark on the Jungle Confidence Course. The baptism of fire, they called it. One of the most intense programs in the Singapore Armed Forces. Candidates are given one day’s worth of rations, a compass and a map. They are then deposited into the remote wilderness, expected to navigate towards an extraction point.

“Yraagghhh!”

There it is again. Its coming closer. I strain my ears to hear past the rain and it is unmistakable now. It is the laughter of some creature, I tell myself, watching me high above the trees. My mind wanders to the stories I have heard about Brunei. Soldiers going missing, and corpses emerging days later. Unreported deaths. Reported deaths. And numerous stories. Stories about attractive women that appear in the jungle, befriend you, and proceed to rip the intestines from your abdomen.

That one is the pontianak. She was a young mother that perished in childbirth, along with her child. Now a male-loathing demon, she seeks to sustain herself on a diet of entrails and blood. Always dressed in white, her claws are long and sharp. I laughed about her existence on the boat ride here but now, moments from death, I suspect that I am now a believer.

The shrieking now shifts directly behind me and I remain completely still.

She’s near now.

The shrieking has stopped.

The breathing is heavy and laboured.

The leaves behind me rustle.

And then stop.

She sees me. A tiny morsel sprawled on the ground, poorly camouflaged. A fool believing in the values of staying still in the face of danger. My neck is aching from supporting the weight of my helmet, dragging my head towards the forest floor. I can picture her. Rotting flesh barely hanging off her face, eyes black as coal and a mouth full of ivory blades. A putrid stench settles. The sourness invades my nostrils and rises up my throat. The rustling resumes. I struggle to retain my sanity as I feel her nudge my left foot. Hundreds of stinging ants scurry out of my sweat glands. I hold my breath till floaters emerge and my head spins. Chest pounding. I strain my eyeballs to steal a glance. No white dress. No pale white feet. Instead from the corner of my eye I see a pair of hairy trotters.

We are both equally surprised. Her black mohawk stretches the length of her back. Mucus-lined bristles on her snout glint under a small patch of moonlight. Her coat is caked in mud. The rustling starts again, this time along with high-pitched squealing. She is not alone. A sow with piglets is not to be trifled with. She may lack tusks, but she is still 70 kilograms of pure muscle. She snorts at me and I instinctively scramble to my feet. It is a poor decision and the watermelon-striped piglets cower behind her.

“No sudden movements,” the sergeant had told me.

“If you make any sudden movements, they will feel threatened. And then they will charge at you.”

Without warning, the boar lunges whilst snorting. I adopt the classic goal keeper stance. Legs wide apart, weight forward, hands stretched out.

But goalkeepers rarely practice to catch wild boars.

I feel a sharp pain in my left thigh and taste a foul mix of mud and fur as I roll off her back. The face-first fall jolts my sense of self-preservation. I reach towards for my SAR-21, now a metre away. There are only blanks in the magazine, but I am counting on the shockwave to inflict some pain. Hopefully enough to drive her away.

Plastic has never been more comforting. Prepare rifle. Cock rifle. Adopt high-knee firing position. Safety off. Take aim.

And the pig is gone. I spot the younglings prancing into the distance, trying to keep up. I reach to feel where she bit me. It is dry. No blood. Miraculously, I have escaped with only a temporary graze.

This calls for a celebration. I drop my pack where I stand and call it a day. The rain has drenched me but I set up my basha — a temporary shelter — whilst shivering. Some part of me still believes that a thin sheet of plastic will protect me against the creatures of the night. I fall asleep amidst the fading cries of pontianak.

In the morning I check my mesh traps I set last night in hopes of finding some poor unfortunate animal. Maybe a Mynah. Nothing at the first one. In the second one what awaits me is an angry specimen of Varanus Salvator. Water Monitor. Bayawak, as the locals call it. I decide to check number three just to consider my options. Nothing. Back to number 2.

I do not know if Scarface is indeed male. Mottled yellow on jet black scales can be considered both masculine and pretty in many social circles. Yes, he is aggressive — but so was the female boar that tossed me aside. To deceive myself that it is possible to retain some form of chivalry in the face of adversity, I assume he is male.

More importantly, the reptile’s ferocity robs me of any desire to look at scaly genitals.

Scarface attempts to relieve me of my fingers numerous times through little cage holes as we trudge towards the evacuation point. Thankfully, through the use of 550 paracord, this is avoided. The saliva of bayawaks is venomous and have been known to cause deaths. Fangs are bared as he thrashes violently and whips his tail but the thin wire mesh manages to hold its own. I am thankful. His forepaws look suspiciously like my own hands, but have black sickles extending from fingertips. Great for climbing trees. And digging into soil and flesh. Scarface is large — at least a metre in length. His yellow underbelly spills out at the sides. My hostage is well-fed, at least more than me.

I could trade him in for some biscuits and soup if I can find one of those elusive villages on the edge of the forest. The locals love bayawak meat and would make short work of Scarface. I’ve seen it before. They place his kind on a block of wood, firm grip around the nape of his neck. In one swift motion a machete decapitates the reptile. The head is flicked into a pile of other reptile appendages. Claws are next to go. Then the tip of the bony tail. Chop chop chop. Fast and efficient. I would like to think its a painless way to go. It probably isn’t.

The both of us travel hours as captor and captive. He in his cage, me pulling it. We cut through never ending oceans of green following a faint path in the foliage. Scarface is understandably tired from hissing and thrashing. He lies resignedly in his prison, glaring at me with his beady eyes. His exhaustion is surpassed only by my own. My last decent meal was overly ripe jackfruit. Breakfast a day ago. My mouth is dry. Feet are sore. Blisters have burst. I can’t see it but I suspect my back is riddled with prickly heat rash. This is made worse by a small squadron of mosquitos that have fervently pursued me, slowly extracting life through tiny needles. Also, I am carrying at least eight kilograms of lizard.

My head spins. I find a tree to sit down against. Five minutes, I tell myself. Instead I sit there for hours with my boots off. The sun is perched high in the sky, unrelenting, even under this forest canopy. Rummaging through my rucksack, I find damp biscuit crumbs amongst soiled uniforms and socks. They are scooped up and quickly consumed, only to reemerge minutes later, bitter and soaked in green bile. It is a stark reminder. I need to eat or I’ll run the risk of collapsing alone in the middle of the jungle — there is no way I’m walking the remaining 24 kilometres on water alone. Since catching him, I have pushed the thought of eating Scarface to the back of my mind. Each pang of hunger edges it back towards the conciousness. It is inevitable.

I once voiced my concerns about taking an animal’s life to an instructor. He was demonstrating how to prepare breakfast at the expense of several jungle quails. His reply was simple. “You are a soldier,” he grabbed one by the neck. “If you can’t even kill an animal, how are you supposed to kill the enemy?” He twisted the neck sharply and there was an audible crack. He threw the quail into a pile of other quails and picked up another one. “See? Practice makes perfect,” he grinned. The words always stuck with me. This was after all, the jungle, where jungle laws apply. If someone had to die, it would have to be the lizard.

We have only spent half a day together, but despite his disdain for me, I grow somewhat attached to Scarface. I always wanted something more menacing than a catatonic bullfrog as a pet, but monitor lizards were deemed as ‘exotic pets’ and therefore illegal in Singapore. As a child I would search religiously in holes by rivers for eggs or hatchlings, in the hopes of owning my own miniature Tyrannosaurus Rex. I never found one. But here I was, a decade later, on the brink of collapse with my dream pet. A cruel joke.

How do you kill a giant lizard? Conventional wisdom suggests the use of a rock, brought swiftly down onto its head will result in a quick and painless death. This however, assumes that sturdy rocks are readily available in the jungle. This is hardly the case. British entertainer, Bear Grylls, of Man vs Wild fame, is an advocate in grabbing the tail and swinging said lizard headfirst forcefully against a tree. However, I suspect I lack both the physical prowess and showmanship to attain a favourable result.

The sun starts to wilt as I finally formulate a plan within my capabilities. At this point I have considered other options: drowning in a hypothetical pool of water, roasting over a fire, asphyxiation with a cord, hanging from a tree branch. But Scarface will be released from the cage, restrained and will be stabbed in the head with a bayonet. In most creatures, the brain senses pain. Hence by taking it out of the equation, this would be the fastest and most painless way for him to go. I find a clearing in the forest to carry out the deed. It is important that no trees or bushes are around.

The last thing I need is for my meal to scurry up a tree or into bush.

Scarface is extremely calm as I lay his cage on the ground. Perhaps he has accepted his fate. Fingers trembling, I reach out and unhinge the wire mesh. Black eyes track my movement, unflinching. I feel the bayonet in my white-knuckled fist. Slippery. The door is open. He does not move. Instead Scarface slumps against the other end. To coax him out, I shake the cage gently. He turns to faces the exit, and cocks his head at me.

Man and Lizard share some sort of unspoken understanding.

It happens too quickly.

Scarface bursts out of the cage and makes a beeline for the nearest tree. He is livid when he discovers my boot on his tail. In a split second he has his jaws heading towards my ankle. I am too slow and he entrenches his jaws stubbornly onto the side of my boot. The teeth fails to penetrate but I can feel my ankle being squished. I panic. I release my hold on his tail, but Scarface is relentless. I have changed my mind about eating him — I just want to escape unharmed — but he seems intent on turning the tables. I stomp frantically at the back of his head to encourage him to let go. He doesn’t. With one foot I step down on his neck whilst the other tries pull the trapped boot from his grip. It does not work. Bayawaks are immensely strong. Scarface leaves deep scratches on my boots and lashes my knees with that horrendous tail.

He cannot differentiate between leather and human flesh. It is my only advantage. Spurred on by adrenaline, I steady my rifle and position it over his head. Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times. The buttstock descends, each time with a sickening thud. Scarface releases his grip and writhes in pain and shock. Jaws gaping, he screams in silence. The forked tongue loses its flicker and he flops to the ground.

With one final blow, I put him out of his misery.

At least an hour passes before I decide to approach Scarface. During this time I have done little other than staring at the carcass with my feet outstretched waiting for signs of life, a twitch of some sort. It never comes. Scarface might be dead, but some part of him dwells within those pitch-black orbs. They stare at me unflinchingly, accusingly. I decide to discard them as soon as possible.

Deep breath. I wince as I plunge the bayonet in between his eyes. The blade slides out with little resistance. Now, he is surely dead, but my troubles have just begun. I am fully aware of the limitations of my knife. Bayonets are designed to stab, not chop — they lack the keen edge and heft of a machete. My first attempt at removing the head does not go well. The cuts are messy. The flesh frays — like the ends of a rope — and clings on stubbornly to bone.

Frustrated, I rummage through my pack and find my entrenchment tool. I scrape of crusty chunks of mud from the shovel. The few millimetres of metal work reasonably well as an improvised axe. Using a fallen sapling as a chopping board, I begin hacking away, repeating the procedure observed from the villagers. The shovel is not as sharp, but I get there — eventually. Head first. Then the feet. Then the tail. Eventually the magnificent creature is reduced to a chunk of flesh, a piece of scaly salami. In an act of futility, I bury the head to escape Scarface’s gaze.

The fire is finally started just as the sun starts to wane. With the bayonet in one hand, I dig out chunks of flesh from the dark side of the slab. I am careful not to puncture the other pale, yellow side. It contains Scarface’s last meals and I am not willing to see the contents. Peeling his leathery skin takes immense effort and as time goes, I toss the chunks into my mess-tin with the hope that the skin will soften in the water. One of the basic rules of eating meat of wild animals: when in doubt, boil.

Lizard soup, much like poorly-made chicken soup, is a murky shade of off-white. Small bubbles of foam accumulate near the top. Normally this would send me away from a meal, but at this point I am desperate. I need to consume flesh before hunger consumes me. Fishing a chunk out of the broth , I examine it as it hangs from the tip of my bayonet. White meat. Interesting. The skin still refuses to yield, so I am forced to gouge out the flesh with my teeth — much like eating an orange. I put a small piece in my mouth to test waters — I’d hate if they find me dead, white froth on lips. It is tasteless. Tough and sinewy like beef, but as white as fish. I wait five minutes before my second bite as an additional safety precaution. Its edible. Relieved, I fill my stomach and before long, that ravenous hunger is subdued, pushed back into the depths of my bowels.

After my meal I decide to bury the rest of Scarface’s body, reuniting it with the severed head as a sign of respect. No one should be resting in pieces, I think to myself as I thrust my shovel into the hole I had dug earlier. I tell myself its the least I can do for my reptilian benefactor.

Yet even after two whole minutes of digging, the head is nowhere to be found. In the distance I hear the piercing cries of young boar. Just wild boar, I tell myself. Not pontianak.

No need to be afraid. But my heart pounds. I weigh the needs of my conscience against the chill running down my spin. Scarface’s soulless eyes come to mind. Dark. Dead. Angry. I decide against searching for it.

I shove his body into the pit hurriedly. I gather my belongings. I put out the fire.

I run.