Jungle Alli, christened Alice Bradley at birth.
Alice Bradley had been born to Mary Hastings Bradley and Herbert Bradley in Chicago, the “second city” of the Mormon interior of North America. Directly from her first juvenile stirrings of reason and independence, she had resisted the conventional life outlined in advance for her, utterly rejecting a future that included the infamous Mormon polygamous marriage. Partly to tame her rebellious spirit, her parents had sent her to a private girls’ school, Les Fougères, in Lausanne, Switzerland. But this rigid institution suited young Alice no better than her native patriarchy, and at age sixteen, in 1931, she had run away.
The next news of the renegade Alice Bradley came most unexpectedly from the heart of darkest Africa. At this time, the continent was not totally pacified and integrated into the twentieth century as it is today, with its productive citizens indistinguishable—save for the hue of their skin—from their Paris or Berlin cousins. Pockets of sub-Saharan barbarism still existed, and one of the most brutish tribes were the Niam-Niams of Central Africa. Cannibals one and all, they derived their name from their blood-curdling war-cry of “Nyama! Nyama!” Otherwise, “Flesh! Flesh!” Feared by natives and Europeans alike, the Niam-Niams maintained an inviolate sphere of privacy and secrecy.
But even this hostile bubble had eventually to be pierced by the superior forces of technology, culture and capitalism, and in 1940 a trading expedition from Marseilles entered the main Niam-Niam village under a flag of truce.
Imagine the consternation and discomfiture of the Europeans to discover, ruling over the cannibals, a young white woman!
Not precisely white any longer, after nearly a decade under the tropical sun. Nut-brown and nearly naked, save for a lion-skin skirt, with whip-cord muscles and long blonde tresses matted into elflocks hanging down to her shapely rump, Alice Bradley exhibited teeth stained brown and filed to points. She sat on a crude throne, clutching a feather-adorned spear. And she hailed the newcomers in the Niam-Niam tongue.
After overcoming their initial shock, the traders awoke Alice’s long-disused French and were able to converse. She detailed a long history of conquest, first over the Niam-Niams themselves by one lone sixteen-year-old girl equipped with no more than a Krupp repeating rifle, sixty pounds of backpacked cartridges, and an infinite supply of bravado and courage, and then, at the head of her adopted clan, of all the neighbouring tribes.
When asked tentatively what her ultimate aims and goals were, Alice Bradley grinned in her ghastly fashion and replied simply, “Freedom.” When asked if that goal were incompatible with her return to civilization, Alice said, “Not at all—so long as it’s on my terms.”
Thus began the public career of the astonishing woman soon dubbed by journalists everywhere “Jungle Alli.”
For the next two decades, employing her obediently savage (and presumably dietarily reformed) cannibals as shock troops, Jungle Alli participated in the taming of the Dark Continent. Up and down the broad expanse of Africa, a mercenary in service of whichever government could afford her, Jungle Alli contributed to the establishment of law and order in pursuit of profit and fame. Her exploits became world famous, from the overthrow of the dictator of Senegambia to the suppression of the Tuaregs of Biskra. Hundreds of pulpy novels, hardly exaggerated, had been written with her as the star.
However, of late, Jungle Alli had begun to seem like a bit of an anachronism. Now that her work was finally done amidst these former backwaters, Jungle Alli found herself on the verge of being outmoded. The modern pacified world seemed to have few assignments for a rogue of her nature, and she had spent the last few years in frivolous deeds of personal derring-do: mountain-climbing, big-game hunting, motorcar-racing, and so forth.
Nonetheless, to those of young President Philippe Ponto’s generation, she remained an alluring figure of romance and adventure. Even in this era of complete female suffrage and equality—female dominance, some would maintain—when many of the fairer sex had built exemplary careers, the ex-Chicago girl boasted a worldwide celebrity. Having grown up on tales of Jungle Alli’s exploits, President Ponto had determined that she must grace the seminal celebrations of Helenia, confering her iconic mana upon the new nation.
Thus her arrival today.
With Jungle Alli at the controls, the Smoke Ghost manoeuvred delicately until achieving a mooring. Over the decks of the gondola swarmed dozens of Niam-Niams of boths sexes, bare-chested and grass-skirted, fur cuffs at ankles and wrists. They dropped a plank to the platform, and carpeted it with zebra hides. Only then did Jungle Alli condescend to disembark.
Now forty-five years of age, Jungle Alli remained an extremely attractive woman. Her lithe physique was modestly displayed by khaki pantaloons and blouse, complemented by high black boots. Twin pistols were slung at her hips, while bandoliers of cartridges crossed her chest. An unholstered machete slapped her thigh as she walked.
Jungle Alli’s still-golden hair, admixed with threads of grey, had long ago been bobbed neat and short. Fighting aerial freebooters off the coast of Zanzibar ten years ago, she had lost an eye, and that sinister empty socket had henceforth been concealed by a patch. When she smiled, as she did now, the work of the best Parisian dentists was revealed, synthetic caps covering her cannibal heritage.
Accompanied by her honour guard of blackamoors, themselves a daunting entourage, Jungle Alli strode boldly across the gap separating her from President Ponto. She extended her right hand in the manner of her North American forebears, eschewing the more traditional European ceremonial double kisses. President Ponto took her hand and found himself wincing from the strength of her grip.
“Miss Bradley, allow me to extend the unlimited hospitality of our fledgling nation to one whose exploits have ever been—”
Jungle Alli interrupted the sincere but fulsome speech, employing her natal English. “No time for jawing now, chief. I’ve discovered that our planet is under attack!”
The state palace of Helenia consisted of a building inspired by Eiffel’s Parisian Tower. But the Tower that reared over Pontoville was precisely five times as large, rearing a full 1,600 metres into the empyrean and occupying a terrestrial footprint of many hectares. Nor did it feature mainly a lacy openwork construction, its lower reaches being walled off and devoted to governmental offices. And of course, the very tip of the enormous structure had been reserved for the sun-drenched Presidential chambers, serviced by a high-speed ascenseur.
Here, higher than clouds, sat now Jungle Alli, President Ponto, and the President’s father, Mr. Raphaël Ponto, the latter in his capacity as trusted advisor to his son and as representative of the international business community.
The legendary female African mercenary seemed utterly at ease, in comparison to the anxiety exhibited by the two men, and in fact had delayed imparting any more of her startling news long enough to enjoy a noxious cheroot, prefacing her indulgence by saying, “Damn nuisance not to be able to smoke in flight. But can’t risk your whole ride going up in flames.”
After a minute or so of contented puffing, Jungle Alli finally put aside her cigar, leaned forward in her chair, and pinned her fascinated auditors with her piercing one-eyed gaze, no less Gorgonish for its half power. When she spoke this time, it was in the French of her hosts.