Tracks of the Tiger (15 page)

Beck laid the lens cap on the ground and carefully half filled it with water. Then he looked around for something that the pin could float on without sinking. A small green leaf did the trick.

‘OK, you can stop stroking now . . .'

Beck took the pin and laid it on the leaf that bobbed around in the middle of the lens cap. It spun gently, slowed down, stopped, and drifted over to one side of the cap. He poked it with the tip of the knife. It spun again, stopped, and again drifted to one side while the boys peered down at it. It came to rest in the same position.

‘See,' Beck said happily, ‘it's always pointing in the same direction! We've got a compass! Now let's go back up the river, back to where the water's clean, and fill our bottles. It'll be something like ninety per cent humidity in the reeds – we're going to get thirsty. And then we'll go for it.'

Ten minutes later, they slid into the watery gunk of the swamp.

At first it felt revolting, but that was just in the mind. Beck tried to tell himself that it was no worse than walking into a muddy river with his clothes on. But the goo felt slimy as it trickled into his shoes, soaked his socks, worked its way up his trousers. He tried to imagine it was clear and blue, like the pool back in the jungle.

Then they started to walk – or rather wade – and the real yuk factor hit them.

They couldn't see the bottom through the black mud but they could feel it. It was a twisted mat of rotten wood and roots and silt. The tsunami had laid down a whole new layer of debris which had sunk to the bottom. It was impossible to get a sense of balance. The boys wobbled and wavered, and several times they nearly tripped. It was like wading through wet cement. Meanwhile the disturbed mud sucked and gurgled, releasing gas and vapours from the rotting matter: it was like sticking your head down a loo.

In no time at all sweat was pouring down their faces. Swarms of flies buzzed around their heads, relentless and aggressive. Beck knew this was truly hell on earth, but he kept his arms above his head, protecting the compass – and his injured arm – and pressed on.

When you're going through hell, keep walking.
Beck's father had often quoted Winston Churchill to him as a boy. He'd been one of his father's heroes.

And so they walked. Every step was an effort. First you had to twist your foot free of the swamp's invisible grip. You had to be firm enough to break the suction, gentle enough not to leave your shoe behind. Then you had to find somewhere more or less secure to put your foot down again. It was slow, hard work, and that was just crossing the open swamp to the reeds. The boys were up to their waists in mud and black water, and the man-high reeds loomed above them like a wall. There was no break in it, no obvious way through.

They looked at each other.

‘Backwards?' Peter asked.

‘Backwards.'

They turned round to face the way they had come, and then started to move backwards into the mass of reeds.

Immediately it was twice as hard. Every step was a struggle: it took longer to lift up their feet, longer to find somewhere to put them down again, and longer because the sheer weight of the reeds was pushing back at them.

‘Ow.' Peter hissed and held up his finger. The edge of a reed had sliced along it. Now there was a thin red line, like a paper cut. It wasn't deep but it stung. He pressed down on it.

‘That's why we walk backwards,' Beck reminded him. This way, their daysacks were the first thing to meet the reeds and the reeds could slash away all they liked.

The creepiest thing was the way the reeds rose up again once they had passed. Closing off their way back, hiding their escape, shutting them in.

As Peter had predicted, the sun was often hidden from view; there were no landmarks at all. The reeds were too tall. Sometimes big objects under the water got in their way and knocked them off course – a large tree root or rotting trunk – and they had to work their way around it.

Every five minutes they stopped for a drink out of their bottles. A single mouthful, careful not to let any of the swamp water pollute their supply. They used this time to check their bearings as well. Everywhere looked the same, and visibility in any direction was only about two metres, so they were doubly grateful for the compass. Without it they really would have been effectively blind. They would inevitably go round and round in circles until they collapsed with dehydration and exhaustion. Beck clutched the compass tightly.

The depth of the swamp varied. Sometimes the mud only came up to their waists. Sometimes the bottom fell away and it almost reached their shoulders. Beck still had both arms held up, one to keep the compass steady and the other to protect his cut, and his shoulders felt like lead weights. It also made balancing hard, and before long the muscles in his arms were shrieking, but he had no choice but to keep walking.

Peter shuddered as they started to push their way slowly through the sea of reeds again. His gaze darted all around nervously.

One of Beck's main concerns here was snakes. They loved dark, dank swamps, and in the black water the boys couldn't see where they were treading. And Beck was in front. The first to get bitten if he trod on one. But he was powerless to do anything except trust fate and press on.

‘That trick you taught me . . .' Peter muttered. ‘How to fight claustrophobia? It's not working.'

‘Don't think too much, just focus on keeping moving.' When Beck had taught Peter how to look through the jungle, that had assumed there was something to see. Different kinds of tree, different levels to the terrain. You could get the shape of the jungle around you. But the swamp had no shape. It was just flat, and all you could see after the reeds was more reeds. Their best tactic was just to push on as fast as they could.

Not only was it hot, it was also unnervingly quiet. They had got so used to the background noise of the jungle that they had stopped noticing it – until it was gone. The reeds were perfect sound insulation. Not a single squeak got in from outside. The only sounds came from their shoes squelching in the water and mud. The rustle of reeds around them. And, of course, the maddening buzz of the insects that swarmed around them. It was like being in their own little universe – hot, humid and claustrophobic. Beck wondered if and when there would be an end to this hell-hole.

‘If it's any help, swamps are formed near large bodies of water.' It was the only helpful thing he could think of.

‘Like the sea?' Peter said hopefully.

‘Like the sea. So we can't have that far to go.'

Peter smiled. Beck could see the effort it took and smiled back.

‘Then we'd better get on . . .'

Because they couldn't see or hear anything more than a very short distance away, the end came as a surprise.

They had learned to brace themselves against the mass of reeds at their backs. The resistance vanished so suddenly that they fell backwards with shouts of surprise. Beck felt himself falling and his arms windmilled for balance. Everything seemed to slow down. He even had time for a couple of thoughts. Part of him noticed the compass that he had preserved so carefully fly out of his hand. He felt annoyed that the needle would be lost in the depths of the swamp. Another part warned him more urgently that he was falling backwards into the filthy water. It would get on his arm; close over his head.

And then he hit something solid and the breath was knocked out of him.

Time and his thoughts returned to their normal pace. He was lying on a sandy bank. Only his feet were still in the water. Peter was lying next to him, looking equally surprised; he sat up slowly, pulled his feet out of the swamp, and began to giggle.

‘What?' Beck felt a smile tugging at his own lips. The laugh was infectious – fuelled by adrenalin and relief.

‘You look filthy, Beck.' Peter fell back onto the sand again, shaking with laughter. Beck looked down at himself, then at Peter, and started to laugh too. From the shoulders down their clothes were stained black and brown, and coated with slime and weed.

In this new world of light and air beyond the smothering embrace of the reeds, Beck's ears picked up the most beautiful,
cleanest
sound ever. The sound of waves hitting the shore.

‘Hear that?'

‘Way ahead of you!'

The two boys scrambled further up the sandy bank, away from the swamp. They reached the top and gazed out over a sight that could have come out of a holiday brochure. Gentle waves rolled in from a sparkling blue sea onto a shallow slope of golden sand. They curled into tunnels and collapsed in clouds of broken spray.

Both boys whooped and broke into a run. They shook off their packs as they went and ran straight into the sea, keeping going until the waves broke over them. The salt water felt good and healing on Beck's wound.

They emerged from the sea dripping wet but much cleaner. They would let the sun and sea breeze dry them off. Beck trudged back up the beach to the highest point and looked back the way they had come. The swamp before him was probably a half-mile across, though it had felt ten times that. Then there was the jungle, rising up in a gentle slope for several miles, looking so serene, so peaceful. Like a carpet of green. But hiding a world of chaos and danger beneath it. Then, on the horizon, Beck saw something he had almost forgotten about – Lasa, the volcano that had started all this. There was a gentle puff of smoke drifting up from its summit, nothing more. It obviously hadn't been a major eruption. Beck felt a wave of anger stir inside him. That stupid volcano had chosen to blow off a bit, causing the death of poor Nakula and all the trouble since . . .

‘Doesn't look much, eh?' Peter murmured, coming to stand beside him.

It was a little dispiriting to see how far they had come. Three days in the jungle when a car on a decent road could have done it in half an hour.

‘We did good in there, Peter, but we're not home yet,' Beck said softly, and turned away.

He knew the beach seemed like the answer to their prayers. He also knew it was a false hope. In the jungle the trees had kept in the humidity but they also kept off the sun. Here there was no protection. If they weren't very careful, they could dehydrate and die just as fast in the open.

And they would need water. Their bottles were almost empty. The sea gleamed with cool, blue water they couldn't drink – salt water was a poison that would dehydrate them and drive them mad, destroy their kidneys and ultimately kill them.

We need fresh water
, Beck thought. The swamp was fed by a river. Somewhere that water had to find a way out again, or the swamp would just burst. And it didn't take long to find. About a hundred metres away, a wide, shallow river broke through the sand bank and flowed across the beach to the sea. The water was clear and completely free of particles.

‘We're going to drink that?' Peter asked, aghast, as Beck filled the bottles. ‘We've seen where it's been!'

‘Exactly!' Beck screwed the tops back on. ‘Reed beds are excellent filter systems. All the grot stays in them and what comes out is way cleaner than what went in. There are places back home – all around the world in fact – that use them instead of sewage works – farms, housing estates, any kind of ecological development. More environmentally friendly, better for biodiversity, no chemicals.'

To make his point, he scooped up a handful of water from the river and drank it. Peter reluctantly followed suit, and pulled a face.

‘Cool.'

Beck looked up at the sun, checked his watch, and then looked up and down the beach. They had a few hours of daylight left. But where to go in that time? A good question. So far he had just concentrated on getting out of the jungle. He had followed the river on the grounds that it would either reach civilization or the sea, one or the other. And it had. But now? The beach they had come to was a ribbon of sand between sea and swamp. It could stretch for miles in either direction.

There wasn't a soul in sight, not a hint of which way might be best to go. Not even a ship out on the horizon. But they needed a direction, a plan. It was important to keep going.

He thought out loud. ‘We were south of the road between the volcano and Medan, and we came south-east, so Medan must be to the left. But it might still be miles away and there may be somewhere closer to the right.'

‘Toss for it?' Peter asked, and Beck shrugged.

‘Why not?'

Peter dug out a coin – one thousand rupiahs. ‘Heads right, tails left.' He tossed it, caught it and squinted at the side that was up. ‘It's . . . um . . . some kind of bird.'

‘That's the Indonesian coat of arms, and it's heads. So we go right.'

They splashed through the shallow river and carried on down the beach, while the waves kept breaking on their left and the sun beat down hard on their heads.