And Did Those Feet ... (12 page)

AS it grew lighter the scene slowly revealed itself. The flat area of the campground was now gone; it was all part of the lake below the falls. The river was forty metres wide and flowing fast. The falls gushed out over the lake in a plume of brown water, the sort of thing thrown up behind a jet-boat. One thing stayed the same, though, and that was the way the rain was still falling. It was bucketing down and there was no sign of it letting up. The splatting on the tent wrapped over our heads along with the roar of the falls made me feel alone and blocked off from the others around me. Talking was nearly impossible.

After about an hour or so everyone was awake and Boyne went round taking stock of the situation. Nearly everyone had lost something in the midnight scramble to get clear of the rising river. Two girls had lost their packs. One boy had no raincoat. We had lost Uncle Frank’s precious hatchet. I wondered what he would have to say about that. Several of the kids were soaked to the skin and now were getting cold. There were two cell phones in our group but both had got
soaked and didn’t work. We were up a mountain, cut off by streams, getting colder with no way of communicating with the outside world. Great! Call this the modern age? We might as well have been cave men. God I hate the
countryside
!

The adults bunched together for some sort of conference. I could see that they were working out what to do next. After a while Boyne stood up and walked down the front so he could talk to us.

“We’ve been talking and we have decided what to do. There is no sign of the rain letting up. I know this was meant to be a two-night camp, but that isn’t going to happen. The best thing … the safest thing … is if we all walk out at first light.”

There was a muffled hooray, which came from various tent clumps positioned on the bank. It was the first
indication
that everyone else was feeling like we were. That this was no fun, the camp was over, and civilisation was looking better all the time.

WE were a different group coming down the mountain. When we started out we had been a light-hearted, noisy group. Admittedly gravity and heavy packs knocked that out of us, but not for long. Now we were just a bunch of silent plodders. There were no pauses for Boyne to tell us any
interesting
nature facts either. I could tell from his face that he was just worried about his own little family group. Up ahead I saw Lara stumble and fall heavily on her behind. No one in her group helped her up, they just stood there as she slowly and painfully got to her feet. I would have liked to help her but I was too far back on the narrow path. It wasn’t long after this that I noticed that several of the kids were crying. One of them was a boy. It was Noel Cudby’s friend, the one who used to tease the twins. I felt sorry for him now, crying in front of everyone. The other two were girls so that wasn’t so bad. It was almost non-stop. A soft, low crying like the bleating of lambs. They had had enough and had given up.

Up near the front of the line I saw one girl had lost a boot in the night and was now just hobbling over the sharp rocks.
Boyne and his wife and kid didn’t seem very interested in anyone else now, they were only concerned with helping each other. Everyone seemed sad and beaten.

Even though our packs were lighter (we had lost all the cooking gear) it was still slow going downhill. The track we climbed up had turned into a little stream now and we had to pick our way down it as best we could. I kept wondering how we were going to cross the three little streams near the bottom. We had got over them on the way up without even getting our boots wet but it would be a different story now. I glanced back and saw Noel Cudby’s face in a group
following
us. He looked really scared. For the first time I felt sorry for him, a little kid trapped in a big kid’s body.

“You okay, Noel?” I called, surprising myself, as well as him.

He nodded and managed a weak grin. I thought of Aunty Lorna’s words and knew that for once I had done the right thing.

FINALLY we reached the first of the little streams. It was bad but not impossible. Iain pointed out an old tree further up that lay across a ravine. It looked as if it had lain there for fifty years, slowly rotting away. Everyone sort of
shuffled
across it with their legs astride the trunk. No dare-devil balancing now. The bark peeled away and the wood beneath was greasy and unbelievably slippery. Iain rigged up a sort of handrail with a long piece of manuka. I think that this was the only reason that no one fell into the crashing stream below.

The next one was not so easy. No handy trees. The water fast and deep. We all came to a halt, waiting for instructions. This time it was Boyne who picked up the leadership again.

“I know it’s hard but there is no way we can get across here. We are going to have to make our way upstream until we find a narrower place.” Then he squeezed his way up through the thick vines on the side of the track and began working his way up through the undergrowth. It was really slow because the bush was like jungle here. Full of creepers,
some of them thorny, others sprang back in your face. We came to a waterfall. It would have been a pretty little trickle on the way up; now it was a junior version of Niagara Falls. Dark rocks, noise and spray.

Still Boyne went on, climbing up the bank until we had reached the quieter water above the falls. It was slow,
slippery
work: everyone’s packs were getting hooked up on low branches and the front climbers sent mini landslides onto the faces of those coming behind. By the time we stopped I noticed that many of the kids, including Jamie, had blood on their faces. I stood next to Boyne, watching the kids
struggle
out of the undergrowth one by one. They all looked so sad, so beaten, I tried to cheer them up. Even my wittiest wisecracks raised only tiny half smiles, but at least it was something.

The place Boyne had chosen looked dangerous to me, but then what did I know? I was in one of those situations where I had to try not to disagree, but to do my best. The water was thundering down a sheer bank and then ripping a new channel across a forty metre plateau. I could see where its usual course had been: there was only a trickle in the bottom now, such was the force of the fall.

We all stood on the edge waiting for the last of the stragglers to come up the hill. There were about six now, all crying, two barefoot and hobbling along, their faces frozen with pain or fear.

“Wait here,” Boyne yelled, “I’ll try first to make sure it is do-able … then I’ll give the signal to come across.” With that he did the heroic thing and stepped into the racing brown
water. We all just stood there, watching the water jumping up the side of his legs as it rushed for the edge. It was now deeper than his knee, which, because he was a lanky bugger, would be about waist deep for us kids. He finally made the bank and yelled out his instructions.

“Link arms in your buddy groups. Mr Tilson, go with those three girls…” Most of it was carried away in the wind and rain. We formed a line to cross the river with linked arms. There was an adult, three or four kids, then another adult, and so on. The first of them were climbing the far bank by the time I entered the water. I walked really slowly because the bottom was covered in big rocks on their way down the mountain. I could feel the smaller ones hitting me on the legs. It would have been so easy to trip and drag the whole snake-line downstream and over the bluff.

The rain, which had showed signs of dying down, began to fall in thick sheets again. Now I could hardly see the
people
on the far bank through the flailing bush, which hung low over the river. All I could do was sink my head deep into my coat, grit my teeth and stumble on.

As I reached the middle of the stream one of the barefoot girls stood on something sharp and fell over with a scream. She let go of Noel Cudby’s hand and we all floated off down the stream. It all happened so quickly that there was no time to do anything more than keep our heads up. I didn’t realise how much force there was in that water until I sat down in it. I tried to get up but it was impossible, there was no way of getting my footing. All I could do was hang onto Iain’s hand as we bounced our way to the edge. At this point
time began to mean nothing. There were screams, voices, mouthfuls of brown river water and things belting into me under the water. I knew that we were only metres away from the waterfall. Metres from that big drop. Those sharp black rocks. I could do nothing except wonder for a moment why it had all turned out so badly.

Just as it seemed that there was no way of stopping, we stopped. One moment I could see the sharp horizon line of water marking the edge of the falls looming up in front of me and the next moment I felt an enormous yank from Iain’s hand. I looked along the line. Cudby had hold of a manuka root and the whole line paused for a moment and then swung slowly towards the bank. Being at the end of the line I was directly over the drop. There was another boiling torrent thirty metres below. I got a good grip on the exposed roots of a tree and held on.

One by one all the others found a way of pulling themselves up the bank. All except me. I tried to move but I couldn’t. Whether it was the force of the water or the fact that I was locked onto this tree root I’m not sure. I just couldn’t move. I watched the others assemble on the bank and look back at me, as if I was a hopeless case. I looked away and just focused on holding onto my tree roots. My hands now were frozen on, I couldn’t have released them even if I had wanted to. I was stuck.

The water began to pull hard at my pack. I knew that if I let the pack go I might have some chance; but to do that I had to let go of the root. I couldn’t win, yet my hands were getting tired anyway. I just didn’t have the strength to hold
on a moment longer. As my hands loosened I felt someone getting a good grip on my shoulders. They scrunched up my oilskin and pulled. I looked up straight into the baby face of Noel Cudby. He was draped down the bank with Iain and Jamie on each leg. I was amazed by the strength in his fingers. It reminded me of the day of our fight. He must have spent years dragging sheep around. I reached up and grabbed his arms. We both pulled and slowly we came together until our faces were almost touching. Now new hands were grabbing my pack and I was rising from the water. It was Jamie and Iain. They held me while Noel Cudby repositioned himself. We grabbed each other’s wrists and I slid up over the bank. Everyone was gathered in a circle around me as I lay
gasping
and dripping like a beached fish. I didn’t say anything to Noel or my cousins, I was too tired. I just gave them a look. They knew what it meant. Words weren’t needed. I had this giant feeling of relief. Relief that it was all over.

But it wasn’t.

THERE were three more streams that we had to somehow get across. An hour after our plunge we were finally at the banks of the last one. By this time everyone was soaked to the skin, cold and silent. The third stream seemed less
intimidating
than the others, but no one wanted to get into the water. Boyne set out across it and reached the far side quite easily so we all knew it could be done, but still no one was willing to do it.

We all sat in a dense, dripping mass while Boyne first
demanded
, then pleaded with us. It was no good. The third river was one river too many. No one had anything left for it.

“Well, I can’t drag you all down. If you won’t move I’ll have to go alone and see if I can get help.”

He waited, maybe he was expecting an answer.

“Well, is th..that what you w..want?” His voice was
beginning
to get that stuttering echo. I knew he was about to lose his rag.

We all thought Boyne heading off on his own was a good idea because it meant we could just sit down and do nothing.
No one said anything. It was as though even a word or a nod of the head was too much for us.

Mrs Boyne spoke. It was a shock because she had said nothing all the way down. “That’s not going to work.”

Everyone looked at her, waiting for an explanation.

“That’s not going to work because those two girls can’t wait that long.” She pointed at the two girls who had now lost both their boots.

“Those two are showing signs of exposure.” She looked about. “There may be others.”

I’d heard the word before but hadn’t paid much attention. I knew it was something to do with losing all your body heat. Hypothermia, she said. Serious.

I looked at the girls. They were all huddled together in a tight clump, like newborn puppies. The crying had stopped but the two with bare feet had lips and cheeks that were a pale blue colour.

I could tell it was bad. Beyond just being cold. Dying maybe. Didn’t matter though. No one was moving, didn’t matter what anyone said. I guess we were beyond reason. It was a deadlock.

Then something happened. Something I wouldn’t have dreamed of in a thousand years. Jamie began to sing, softly at first and then louder and stronger.

We all stared at him in disbelief. Then Iain joined in and the two of them both stood up.

Then I stood up. Me. Who can’t sing for crap.

We stood there, the three of us singing out for all we were worth. It was crazy. Why were we doing it? Then Mrs Boyne joined in and her voice sounded like golden light pouring down on our heads. And Boyne himself. Tunelessly thundering the bass line from the far bank.

By the time we got to the end where it goes “
And was
Jerusalem, builded here
…” everyone was on their feet and
really
going for it. Then into it for a second time and a third. No one wanted to stop. We could all feel the song lifting us up, somehow it was powering us up too. I thought this would be a good time to make the crossing. The only time maybe. I linked my arms with Iain and he did the same with Jamie. We began to move down to the water. Noel Cudby saw what we were doing and came down and linked up too. Then everyone did. The two hypothermic girls rose slowly to their feet and we all formed a chain. There was a moment of hesitation but then I stepped out into the rushing brown flood. The song now died down a bit but still continued. I knew we could do it. We were a tight group, linked together for the first time and singing the same song.

As I neared the far bank I saw Boyne stepping in. He reached out to me. I took his hand and he led the group up onto the bank. As each person emerged from the water we all stood in a close group with our arms around each other. We knew about exposure now. We knew we had to keep in what little warmth we had. The girls clustered in the middle and the boys formed a ring around the outside. Like warriors.