Tracks of the Tiger (6 page)

‘The jungle's not on fire. That's maybe the key thing.'

‘There won't be any helicopters flying while the volcano's erupting,' Peter pointed out. ‘They'll miss us but they won't be able to come looking.'

‘Nope. We need to go to them. So . . .' Beck thought for a minute. ‘The question is, do we head back or go on? I mean, if we just went back along the road, we'd get to the sanctuary. Eventually. And walking along the road'll be a whole lot easier than getting through the jungle.'

‘Yes, but the volcano will be throwing out lava and hot pumice in all directions. We want to head away from it.'

Beck grinned. ‘Let me guess – you did a school project on volcanoes?'

‘No, I just paid attention when we went to see Pompeii. You've heard of Pompeii?'

‘Ancient Roman town buried by a volcano? OK, we go forward.'

And that, Beck thought, was a key decision. That simple little choice put them into a survival situation. Instinctively he began to run through a list in his head. The four priorities of survival – protection, rescue, water, food. Protection? First of all from the lava – that meant they had to get moving. Rescue? Not while the volcano was erupting – if they were to survive, they would need to make it happen themselves. To self-rescue. Water and food? Plenty of that around . . .

‘We need to head south-east,' Peter said firmly, derailing Beck's thoughts. ‘The coast is to the east, so that's where we'll find people, and west would just take us further into the jungle.'

Beck blinked in surprise. ‘Absolutely,' he agreed. ‘But Medan's to the north-east. Let's just skirt around the volcano. We can move faster than lava . . .'

‘No.' Peter shook his head emphatically. ‘We
really don't
want to go under that cloud. Not if we can avoid it. For a start, it'll be raining ash down on us. And then there's the pyroclastic flow.'

Beck felt like his friend had just lapsed into a strange new language. ‘The paralytic
what
?'

‘Pyroclastic flow. It's when you get this huge column of rock and ash and stuff, right, all getting blown into the air by the volcano. And because the air is so hot, superheated, it stays up. That's what you saw. And we're talking thousands, millions of tons of it. But sooner or later the volcano cools down again, and the air isn't hot enough to hold it up . . . and all that stuff comes crashing down on top of you.'

‘OK . . .' Beck shifted uneasily. ‘So if it happens, we take shelter—'

‘No. No.' Peter was waving his hands in the air in frustration, trying to weave his words together in a way Beck would understand. ‘Doesn't work. Look. Pompeii was destroyed by Vesuvius, which is five miles away. Witnesses saw the pyroclastic flow get there in about a minute, and it buried the whole town completely. That's how much there is of it, and that's how fast it travels. And did I mention – yeah, I think I did – there's thousands of tons of it – and, oh, it's about a thousand degrees . . .'

‘Tell you what.' Beck held up his hand to shut off the flow of words. ‘I've had a really great idea. Why don't we get out of here and head south-east, away from the volcano?'

‘Wow,' Peter said admiringly. ‘That's leadership! Take my idea and make it yours!'

They pushed themselves up to their feet.

‘We can argue those finer points on the move.' Beck smiled in return. ‘Oh – but there's one other thing you need to know . . .' he added.

‘What's that?' Peter replied, all unsuspecting.

‘We're also in tiger territory,' Beck said grimly, and this time he wasn't joking.

‘This,' Peter muttered, ‘is blinkin' tiring.'

The sounds of the volcano were muffled behind them and the jungle was regaining its natural voice. Beck's sense of direction and the occasional glimpse of sky told him they were heading the right way.

They had paused in the green gloom of the jungle to finish off their water bottles. The best way to carry spare water was inside you. Back in the Sahara, every drop had counted and an accidental spillage had almost caused disaster. Many things might happen to them here in the jungle, but one thing that was not on the cards was dying of thirst. There was plenty of water around and Beck knew how to get it.

But Peter was struggling already. In the Sahara you could choose a direction and start walking. Even here, the jungle wasn't an impenetrable barrier as long as you approached it properly. But Peter was finding that with every step the vegetation seemed to push you back.

‘Imagine you're back home in London,' Beck said. He tried to put it in terms that Peter could understand. ‘Oxford Street, the last weekend before Christmas, right? What's it like?'

‘The streets are totally packed,' Peter said with a shudder.

‘Exactly. Crowds everywhere, blocking your way. There's no way you can walk straight from A to B. So you have to twist and turn and bend your body and shorten or lengthen your stride. You don't walk straight ahead, you slide through at all sorts of angles.'

‘Oxford Street, weekend before Christmas,' Peter said ironically. He took a look around at the branches and vines that hemmed them in. ‘Got it.'

‘Think twice before you do anything or touch anything,' Beck added. ‘One bite from the wrong creature can kill you. Even one sting can disable you, and that'll kill you in the long run.' He stomped on the ground for emphasis. ‘Don't sneak about. Walk with a good heavy footfall.'

‘Because of snakes?' Peter guessed.

‘Because of snakes,' Beck confirmed.

‘Wow, it's like being in the desert again, isn't it? Apart from, you know, all the trees and rain and animals and total lack of sand.'

Beck laughed. ‘There's differences too. The snakes are less afraid of you here. They won't get out of your way so quickly. If one's on a branch that's next to you, say – well, it might not move at all. Until you accidentally reach out and touch it. Then it'll bite you.

‘And here, we
do not
walk at night. Not at all.'

In the desert they had done most of their walking by night, out of the blistering heat of the sun.

‘Night is when the nasties come out, and here on the equator night falls very quickly. Day and night are the same length. So . . .' Beck checked his watch. It was getting on for four in the afternoon. ‘In another hour, five o'clock, we'll stop, and get some food together, and make a shelter.'

Food. The lack of supplies was another matter that was weighing on Beck's mind. When he had been thrown into a situation like this before, he had usually had a small reserve of food to start with. Not this time, though.

‘So where are we walking to?' Peter asked quietly. Beck glanced sideways at him. His friend's face was set and thoughtful. Beck's stomach gave a lurch as he registered it.

They were in an environment even more hostile than the Sahara. The Sahara could have killed them with heat, thirst or starvation. The jungle held all those dangers too, although there was always food and water to be found if you knew where to look; plus there were insects and animals that could poison them, creatures that could eat them, and bacteria that could just make them rot inside. And yet Peter was quietly trusting him to get them through this.

‘If all else fails, we'll keep going in this direction,' Beck said, ‘but if we find a stream or a river then we'll follow that. It'll head towards the sea and we can get help at a town on the coast. Rivers generally go somewhere. Follow one and you usually end up at civilization.'

‘Right.' Peter still sounded quiet, subdued.

Beck shot him another look. He was hugging himself, arms wrapped around himself as if he were cold. Beck wondered if it was some kind of delayed shock, but then he noticed the anxious glances Peter was sending in every direction – up, down, all around. Now Beck thought he understood. He had felt much the same way in Borneo.

‘Kind of presses in, doesn't it?' he said.

Peter immediately nodded, grateful that Beck saw it too.

It was claustrophobia. The jungle does something to your mind. You are surrounded by vegetation on all sides; you can't see the sky; in fact you can rarely see clearly for more than a couple of metres in any direction. It isn't like being in a small room, which you know you can simply step out of.

Here in this jungle, Beck knew that beyond what they could see would be miles more of the same. If you got past that bush over there, there'd just be another beyond it, and then another, and another still. That is why jungles can be such killers: they tend to just keep going on and on, with no way out. And they sap your energy so fast.

‘It's all around,' Peter said. ‘I mean, it's just everywhere. It's like we're at the bottom of a very deep pit . . .'

Beck realized he had to show him. ‘Actually we're on quite a wide, flat bit of ground,' he said, ‘but look – there's a small rise, and a much steeper bit in that direction.'

‘Huh?' Peter strained his eyes into the distance but clearly couldn't see anything different.

‘It's a trick you have to learn,' Beck explained. ‘Don't let your eyes stop at the nearest bit of bush. Look
through
it. Don't just concentrate on what's right in front of you – that stops you seeing everything else. Look, see those ferns?'

Over to one side was what looked like a solid wall of ferns. It was a mad jumble of spiralling stalks and rough, jagged leaves.

‘About halfway along, you can see they bulge out towards you.' The wall of ferns seemed to be crumbling at that point. ‘They're growing up a tree and that's where the trunk is. On the right you can see it's a bit darker between the leaves than on the left. That means there's a little more open space behind it. And you can see the patterns of the leaves are going up. That means it's on sloping ground.'

‘Yeah . . .' Peter said doubtfully. He looked again at the ferns. ‘Maybe. If you say so.'

Beck laughed. ‘You're not going to learn it immediately, but practise as we walk. We're not just surrounded by branches, right? Tell yourself that. There are thousands of different shades of light and textures and contours, and they all mean something. They tells you about where you are.'

‘Still a lot of jungle,' Peter muttered defiantly, but Beck thought he heard a bit more life in his voice.

‘Yeah, there is, and if we stop and mope about it, then we'll just turn into mulch like this.' He kicked at the thick carpet of leaves beneath their feet. ‘So we keep moving, keep achieving something, but we also tell ourselves we're not in a hurry. We keep calm, we take our time and we keep moving at the jungle's pace, which is slow. We don't work ourselves up into a state. We stay relaxed, we go round obstacles, we don't fight it. That way the jungle stops trying to press you back. And above all . . .' Beck laughed again out of sheer joy, then held out his hands and tilted his head back. ‘It's the
jungle
, right? There's plants and animals and insects and birds . . . There's a million different forms of life here, and it's all interconnected.' Peter was chuckling now as well. ‘Everything affects everything else. It's wonderful. It's extraordinary. And—'

Leaves rustled in front of them and a lizard poked its head out. One word blazed out in Beck's mind:
Food!

The head was about thirty centimetres long, blunt and scaly. The eyes met Beck's for just a moment and then, in a flash, the lizard turned and disappeared back into the vegetation.

Beck flung himself forward, hands outstretched. He landed on his front with an ‘
Oof!
' that drove the breath from his lungs, but he managed to grab hold of the tail as the rest of the lizard fought to get away into a thicket. The tail was cool and leathery in his hands. He scrambled to his knees, maintaining his grip, and dragged the lizard backwards out of the bush. Its legs scrabbled on the ground and flung a spray of torn-up leaves up into his face.

Beck stood up, a little wobbly because both hands were occupied holding the lizard by its tail at arm's length. Immediately its feet were off the ground it stopped trying to escape. Now it just writhed, trying to arch and twist its body in order to bite him.

‘Man, watch out! What is it?' Peter shouted.

‘Monitor lizard.' Beck grinned and studied it as closely as he could, though he still held the wriggling creature away from him. It was an ugly animal. Its body was dark brown with white stripes and it didn't just feel like leather, it looked like it too. The scaly hide was loose and baggy, as if a small lizard had borrowed a larger lizard's skin.