Tracks of the Tiger (19 page)

The chief sat them down on the veranda and told one of his men to bring soft drinks.

‘There is all-points alert out for you! They find jeep? Burned out. Whole area burned out – you make right choice to move on. But no burned boy bodies. Everyone say, they get eat by tigers? But' – he nodded at Peter – ‘his father say, no, no, Beck Granger look after them both!' The man laughed heartily. ‘And Beck Granger here! Beck Granger pretty good!'

‘Peter pretty good too,' Beck replied.

‘Can I talk to my mum and dad?' Peter asked eagerly. ‘Have you got a phone?'

‘Of course we have phone. Not primitive.' The chief pushed himself to his feet. ‘I bring. You have much tell! Much danger in jungle. Tigers, snakes, crocodiles . . .'

‘Loggers . . .' Beck added seriously, and the chief's friendly face grew suddenly very stern.

‘Loggers? No logging here! This national park!'

‘They were logging,' Beck insisted. ‘We saw them.'

Peter patted his daysack. ‘Got it on camera too.'

The chief bit his lip thoughtfully, then disappeared inside. When he came back, he was carrying a phone and a laptop.

‘I tell you,' he insisted with a grin when he saw the boys' look of surprise, ‘not primitive!'

The laptop had a card reader installed in its side. It took just a few minutes to put in the card from Peter's camera, download the pictures and send them off to the regional headquarters.

Peter wasted no more time and called his parents. They were relieved and delighted to hear from him, although his mum was so tearful it took a while to talk any sense. Then they wanted to speak to Beck, but they couldn't because he had already taken the opportunity to be first into the shower.

‘It will leave a scar.'

The doctor had arrived by the time Beck re-emerged, fresh and scrubbed clean. He probed the cut on Beck's arm with long, gentle fingers. His English was a little better than the chief's.

‘I would have put a stitch in it when it happened,' he said. ‘Too late now. You looked after it well.'

‘Thank you.'

The doctor wrapped Beck's arm up in a proper surgical bandage and turned to Peter. ‘And now you, young man, with your foot?'

Peter had to sit way back in his chair with his leg stuck out while the doctor examined him.

‘Nice dress, by the way,' Peter commented to Beck. The chief's wife had taken Beck's clothes – to wash or maybe just burn after three days in the jungle. She had loaned him a T-shirt and a sarong – a large tube of cloth that wrapped around his waist. It was printed with bright red checks.

‘She's got one for you too in a minute,' Beck said as he sat down. ‘How's it feel?'

‘Still hurts.'

‘I can give you something for the pain,' the doctor said, ‘but some of those spines went deep. They won't dissolve quickly on their own.'

‘Are you going to have to operate to get them out?' Peter didn't look as if he was looking forward to the idea.

‘Operate? No. We have other methods.' The doctor stood up and crossed over to the table where he had put his bag.

Beck grinned and Peter's face fell.

‘Oh, no. What? Please tell me it doesn't involve peeing . . .'

‘It's a little more physical than that.' Beck looked very grave. ‘The traditional way is to get a piece of wood . . .'

‘Yes . . . ?'

‘. . . and they bash the foot with it. Hard. To break up the spines. That way the body can absorb them quicker.'

‘
What?
' Peter went pale. ‘You're kidding!

The doctor was fiddling with something in his bag. He didn't turn round. ‘Your friend is absolutely right. A very effective traditional method. The only way of getting the spines out . . .'

Peter groaned and let his head fall back. ‘This adventure just gets worse and worse.'

‘. . . until modern times.' The doctor turned round; he was holding a small syringe. ‘Nowadays a simple injection to dissolve the spines has the same effect. It will sting a little, but it's better than being hit with a piece of wood.'

Peter glared at Beck, who felt his straight face crumpling into a big grin. And then Peter started to smile himself, until finally a laugh burst out of him, joining in with Beck and the doctor.

‘You know, that's the first time ever I've been glad I don't have to rely on you!'

‘Look familiar?'

Peter was still limping a little but he was determined to keep his foot exercised. The doctor had said that this would speed up the process of dissolving the spines. He hobbled over to where Beck, Mr and Mrs Grey and Hannah were having lunch. They sat beneath a large sunshade at the side of the pool on the last day of their holiday.

Peter was holding a copy of the English-language
Jakarta Post
. He laid it down in front of Beck. ‘I got it in the lobby . . .'

The main picture on the front page showed armed police surrounding a battered truck. The driver and passengers were climbing from the cab with their hands on their heads. Beck then noticed another picture inset into the main one. It showed the same truck in the middle of a large cleared area of jungle.

‘It's your photo!' he exclaimed. ‘They used the picture you took to arrest the loggers!'

Peter smiled proudly. His parents scrambled to have a look. Mr Grey read out:

‘
Acting on information received from a pair of English tourists—
'

‘Tourists?' Beck exclaimed with mock indignation. ‘Rugged adventurers, more like!'

‘—
armed units of the National Police apprehended a gang of illegal logging criminals on Thursday afternoon. Photographs taken by the tourists helped the police to identify the criminals' vehicle and the registered address of the owner. Faces in the photographs were also matched against police records of suspected criminals. The gang was apprehended when their truck was surrounded and all the miscreants are in custody
. Well done!' A proud smile stretched across Mr Grey's face. ‘You not only survived, you also helped the police catch the bad guys.'

Beck shrugged. ‘There were just a few of them. The whole illegal logging industry is way bigger. We didn't make much difference really.'

‘Don't do yourself down,' Mrs Grey scolded. ‘No one expects you to save the world on your own, Beck. But if everyone does just a bit – and you guys here have done way beyond that already – the world gets saved in the process. Right?'

The boys looked at each other and grinned.

They had spent a night with the police chief in the fishing village, then a jeep had come from Medan to collect them. Back at the hotel it had been hugs, tears and kisses from Peter's mum, while his dad tried to clear a path through the lobby. Beck had the impression he might have been in the doghouse for letting the boys stay behind in the jungle in the first place. But all seemed forgotten and the reunion was emotional and joyous.

Peter had grinned down at Hannah in her baby chair. ‘You didn't even notice I'd gone, did you?'

Hannah had stared up at her brother as if it was the first time she'd ever seen a human. Then she abruptly lost interest and went back to trying to put her toe in her mouth.

But now that everyone was safe and the drama was over, there was no reason why they couldn't get on with actually enjoying the holiday. They had a fortnight booked, so they were going to use it. And use it they did. Beck finally got what he had been looking forward to on the first day – a regular family holiday. A bit of sightseeing. A bit of scuba diving. A bit of windsurfing. They bathed in hot springs where the steaming water was warmed by volcanic action. They sunbathed and splashed about in the hotel pool. But above all, they ate and drank until they were fit to burst. Cool, fresh water had never tasted so good, Peter kept repeating, and every day Beck put extra croissants in his pockets at breakfast for later. ‘Just in case!' he said with a smile.

It was the perfect antidote to all their jungle adventures.

And now it was their last day. In an hour's time they would be in a taxi heading for the airport.

The plane trundled to a stop at the end of the runway, then started to turn. Out of the window Beck caught a glimpse of the long stretch of tarmac, swinging round as the plane aligned with it. Then the engine sound rose to a roar, the seat pressed into his back and the plane moved forward to take off.

‘You're doing it again,' Peter said as the plane tilted up. Beck had been fingering his neck thoughtfully. It always felt odd without his fire steel dangling there. The airline crews had a bit of a thing about passengers taking fire-making equipment on board. Whenever he flew he had to put the fire steel with his main luggage in the hold.

Sumatra fell away beneath them. The suburbs of Medan turned into small, tightly packed squares. The ground around the city was flat and green with paddy fields. And then the plane banked and turned over the jungle. Beck looked down at the canopy – the rises, the falls, the wisps of steam, all the way to the horizon – with wary respect. He couldn't say he'd enjoyed the experience. But he couldn't say he hadn't enjoyed it either. He was just glad to be seeing the back of it – for the moment, anyway.

And then he thought of the one thing they would have liked to do. He and Peter would have liked to meet Nakula's family to pay their respects. But that had not been possible; it turned out he didn't have any family. They had met Nakula's fellow keepers and learned that the job was his life. Protecting the orang-utans, keeping the jungle safe and free from human greed – that was all Nakula had ever done.

Beck was consoled that they had achieved something the dead keeper would have approved of. Mrs Grey had been right. Maybe they couldn't bring all the illegal logging activity to its knees, but they had done what they could, and Nakula would be proud.

Over the noise of the engines, Beck reckoned he could hear the roar of a tiger, agreeing with him.