Monkey Business

Content warning: traumatic injury, non graphic

With a clatter and squeal and rumble, the enormous black steam train and its carriages roll forward, exposing Uitenhage Station's unfortunate safety inspector.

James, nicknamed Jumper, is known for his antics of jumping from one moving train car to another in the rail yard. This time, Jim has missed his jump. His lower legs have been crushed. 

Doctors amputate both crushed legs just below the knee. Without the ability to walk easily and crawl under the trains, Jumper Jim automatically loses his job as train inspector of Uitenhage Station.

Jim has enjoyed carving as a hobby for years, so he carves himself a pair of peg legs and finagles a way to strap them to his stumps. He also carves himself a cane to help him balance on his homemade prosthetics.

Able to walk on his own again, Jim writes a letter to the offices of the South African Railways, explaining his predicament and asking whether there’s any job they can give him which fits his condition. A telegram comes back from the offices of the S.A.R. offering the job of Signalman at Uitenhage Station to James Edwin Wide.

Jim lives in a cottage just down a side track from the station. To save himself a long, difficult walk, Jim heaves a hand cart onto the track outside his door and pumps the lever while seated, all the way to the station, and all around the station yard as he checks to ensure the switches are all in operable condition.

On one of his trips to the local market, Jim notices an unusual sight: a man leading a baboon on a chain, and the baboon in turn leading a team of oxen down the dirt street. 

The large brown monkey hops along on two legs and one hand. Its other hand grips a rope tied to the horns of one of the cart-oxen. The bigger animals readily obey the directing pulls of the smaller one, and the baboon appears intent on its task despite the bustle and noise all around.

Jim stops the man responsible for the spectacle and converses with him. He tells Jim that his baboon is a young male of the type native to the region, and it’s trained to do a few tricks besides lead oxen. He also says the baboon is strong and can move heavy things with ease.

Pointing out his rather obvious prosthetics, Jim explains his idea that this baboon might be a great help to him, if trained to do tasks he himself now has trouble with. The two men strike a bargain, money changes hands, and the baboon's chain is given over to Jim. 

Jim names his new companion Jack and sets about teaching him household tasks. The baboon learns to sweep the floor, the wooden broom handle waving above his head and looking like a second tail. The monkey takes refuse out of the house, and pumps water outside in the garden. He works the pump hard, until he is so out of breath and his arms are so tired he must sit down and rest. Then he jumps up and goes at it again, much to the amusement of Jim and his guests. He learns to lock the door when they go out and give the key to Jim, and nobody can come anywhere near Jim or the house without Jack alerting him, loudly.

Jim also teaches Jack how to help him with his commute to work. The baboon's strength makes it easier for him to move Jim's handcart than it is for Jim himself. Jack takes care to flick his tail out of the way as he lifts and twists first one end, then the other onto the tracks and settles the metal wheels in place. Once Jim is seated, his peg legs sticking off the front of the cart, Jack pushes from behind, gripping the wide wooden ties with his toes. 

There are a few gentle hills between Jim and Jack’s cottage and the station. When Jack reaches the top of a hill, with a rattle of his chain against the wooden boards of the cart, he leaps aboard and rides down with Jim.

Jack hoots, and Jim laughs. When the cart runs out of momentum, Jack jumps off and pushes again.

On coming up beside the signalman's hut, Jim gets off the cart and traverses the uneven ground with his cane. Jack heaves the cart off the tracks and pushes it across the uneven ground until it bumps against the platform. Jim gets up and leans against the little hut for balance. Jack sits down beside him to wait.

A whistle blows twice in the distance, and Jim pushes off the hut and takes a a few steps to the switch levers, which are nearly as tall as him. The long metal rods slant away from the signal hut's platform, so Jim must get a good grip on one and brace well with both legs before he can pull it. 

Since he lost his legs, Jim's arms have gotten stronger as he uses them more to support and move himself. He heaves against the tension of the cable running from the switch to the movable part of the rail, yards away from where he stands. With a squeak and creak of metal, the switch moves, the track shifts, the switch flag snaps up, and the train roars by. Then Jim pushes the switch back. 

The next train shrills its whistle four times. Instead of pulling a switch, Jim reaches into the signalman’s hut through the open upper part of the half door and takes a key from a hook. 

With a whoosh and wheeze and squeal, the train palls up in front of Jim. He carefully leans out over the side of the platform and passes the key up to the engineer reaching down from the engine cab. The train proceeds on to the station’s coal yard to refill with fuel from the locked warehouse. Before leaving Uitenhage Station, the engineer backs the locomotive past the signal hut and hands over the key, and it is once again hung up.

Wild baboons spend most of each day searching for food and eating it, but Jim feeds Jack when he eats his own meals, and Jack forages in the garden and the yard at home. There's not much food for a baboon growing in the well-trodden rail yard.

With nothing to do but sit and wait for most of the day, every day, Jack watches Jim doing his job, his brown eyes following every move the man makes.

One day, when a train whistle-signals for the coal yard key, Jack leaps up and clings to the closed bottom portion of the signal hut’s half-door. Before Jim can even begin puzzling over Jack's unusual behavior, the monkey has plucked the key from its hook, jumped to the edge of the platform, and is holding it up to the astonished engineer of the incoming train, exactly as he has seen Jim do. When it is brought back, Jack is the one who takes the key and hangs it where it belongs. Four whistle blasts and the key that goes with them sends Jack jumping for the key from then on. The unexpected sight of the monkey eventually dulls from flabbergasting to familiar.

Jim notices Jack watching him every time he operates the switches, and decides to try an experiment.

The next time a train whistles for a track change rather than the coal yard, Jim gets Jack’s attention. He holds up his fingers to correspond

with the number of whistle blasts before pulling the correct switch.

When he thinks Jack has grasped the connection between the number of fingers displayed and the particular switch, Jim checks the train timetables to see that none are due soon. Then he steps back, shows Jack a finger signal, and encourages him to pull a switch. 

The switches are taller than Jack, so the baboon must reach up to grasp the stiff handle. To move it, he must lean back with all his strength. He pulls the correct switch. Then, just like Jim, Jack looks down the track to where the switch flag pops up, as it has done now.

Jack eventually proves capable of pulling the correct switches by listening for the whistles, without any finger signals or other help from Jim. Jim starts bringing along the decoys he carves or the taxidermied birds he stuffs. He sits in the hut beside the telegraph machine and works on his projects while Jack mans the switches outside. It feels wonderful not to stand on his prosthetic legs all day. 

When Jim attends evening meetings with the other station staff, they unanimously declare that Jack cannot accompany Jumper. Because Jack is perfectly able to open the office door if left outside, Jim is forced to lock him inside the signal hut. 

Through the whole meeting, the staff can hear Jack’s "Ba-hoo, ba-hoo" call. It's a sound used in multiple contexts by male baboons. One use is when he is anxious, such as when he is out of sight of his troop members and wants to find them again. 

When the meeting is adjourned and Jack is let loose, he wraps both arms around Jim in an embrace, and then begins grunting softly as he picks stray pieces of lint, grass, and other debris off of Jim's clothing. The other men on staff hold their hands out to Jumper’s pet, waiting for the baboon to shake hands, as he usually does.

Jack refuses to look at them, turning away and keeping one hand on Jim. 

Jim's colleagues keep speaking to Jack and coaxing him for several minutes. Finally, he turns round and shakes hands with a few before setting out for home, pushing Jim's cart through the darkness. The tracks are a solid, sure path under Jack’s strong feet.

One day, a man approaches the signal hut with faltering step and weaving path. When Jim calls out a greeting, the man jeers at him. 

Jack doesn’t understand the words the man says, but he can see and feel the meanness they convey. 

The baboon stands tall on his hind legs between Jim and the stranger. He opens his mouth, jaws gaping wider than a human’s can, displaying his long, pristine teeth. They have yet to be tried in a fight, but the four sharp canines, three inches long at least, certainly look quite fearsome. 

Jack makes his “Ba-hoo” call in anxiety, as all males of his kind do when having a fraught interaction. A dirty coal sack was left on the platform by an engine crewman in a hurry. Jack picks it up and flaps it at the stranger to back up his threat yawn. 

The man, showered with a cloud of black grit and facing an angry baboon that seems to be growing larger before his very eyes, turns and stumbles away.

Jack stares after the stranger. It takes some time before he calms and the raised mane of hair on his head and shoulders lies flat again.

Trouble finally strikes for Jim and Jack when a train passenger looks out their window and sees a baboon on a chain pulling and pushing the switches while a uniformed man with two peg legs watches from inside the signal hut, stuffing a bird skin. That passenger lodges an official complaint with the South African Railways. 

A Fred Ormsby is sent to observe Jim and find out the truth about the allegations of monkey business. 

The stranger who has had his eyes on us all morning is approaching. I call out to alert my companion, and to let the stranger know I see him. “Ba-hoo!”

He turns on his branch legs and lifts a hand to the stranger in his usual greeting. I know from this that he does not see this stranger as a threat.

“Ormsby.” Those sounds don't mean anything to me. 

"Wide.” Those sounds do mean something. That is what is often said to my companion. Other sounds often said to him are "Jumper" and "Jim.”

I noticed this stranger watching us earlier. I’ve kept checking his position, but he never came close until now. What does he want? 

My companion and the stranger vocalize back and forth. I watch the stranger for signs he means harm. I remember the time another stranger approached with the gait of one unwell and threatened my companion. His gaze was too hard, the meaning in his voice too sharp, his feeling too unpleasant. I threatened him, showing him my longteeth and my hair on end, and I shook the black dust out of a piece of cloth, and he fled. That was good. 

My companion is growing upset. His muscles are tensing. He gestures at me with his hand not holding the stick he always carries. I hear the sound he calls me by: "Jack."

I can feel the stranger's frustration, but also a softness towards my companion. Finally, he thrusts his hands into his clothes and backs off a little. 

My companion strokes my head and says something pleasant to me. “Just do a good job, Jack, like you always do.” Then he steps back as well. 

A single whoop comes from far away.

I stand and grasp the hot, shining metal branch closest to the shelter and pull. It bends to my strength. I look down the metal and wood path for the metal leaf. It’s erect like a tall tail. 

The big thing runs by like a roaring wind, and I push the metal branch back once it is gone. The little leaf falls down. 

More big things whoop, and I pull the branches and watch the leaves and the running things, and push the branches back. 

A thing whoops for the little metal thing, and I jump to get it. The watching stranger jumps too, frightened. When the big thing comes close, I hand the piece of metal to the stranger riding it, and when he brings it back, I hang it in the shelter. 

Under Fred Ormsby’s watching eyes, Jack never makes even a motion towards the wrong lever. Ormsby reports back to the S.A.R. that Jack the baboon appears to know the signals and switches as well as a man. The authorities allow Jim to keep his job, and they hire Jack, giving him an employment number, and a wage of ¢20 and half a bottle of beer every week. 

Jack becomes a celebrity in South Africa. People ride the trains to Uitenhage Station specially to see the railway baboon. They bring fruit and throw it out the windows onto the platform, and watch as Jack runs about happily foraging. 

Even the S.A.R. superintendent George B. Howe comes for a visit. On the day he comes to meet his famous employees, he finds Jumper Jim seated on his hand cart with Jack. Jack has one arm around Jim’s neck, and with his other hand the baboon strokes the man’s face. 

After nine years with Jim, Jack dies of tuberculosis. Jim cares for his friend and workmate until the end, in April of 1890. It is said that Jack never made a single mistake.

Jumper Jim later moves back to England, but he writes to a museum curator in South Africa to request that if a museum display is ever made about Jack, “I wish him to be sitting in a chair with his left hand resting on his knee, as that was a favourite position of his when he was alive.”

Sources:

Railway Jack written by KT Johnston, illustrated by Ce´sar Samaniego (picture book)

Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_(baboon)

Article 2: https://allthatsinteresting.com/jack-the-baboon

Article 3: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/559031/signalman-jack-baboon-worked-railroad-south-africa

I so enjoyed writing and sharing this incredible story. Thank you for reading!