Tracks of the Tiger

by Tracks of the Tiger (retail) (epub)

  ‘Yup,’ Beck said with a grin as he zipped up his pack. ‘I believe they do.’

  ‘So, burning termite poo?’

  ‘The new scent for men! C’mon, let’s keep going.’

  Beck maintained a constant, steady pace to press on through the jungle. It meant they covered ground but they didn’t get the break or respite that both of them soon craved. Meanwhile Beck’s arm was throbbing. Clammy sweat soaked every inch of him and he could feel the salt stinging the gash. Struggling through the jungle made his back and legs ache – the constant bending down, straightening up and twisting round; you could never just walk.

  He thought of all the jungle movies he had seen where the heroes boldly slashed their way through the undergrowth. In fact, as Beck well knew, the real way to negotiate the dense jungle is not to fight your way through it, but to become cat-like, stealthy, easing your way through the vegetation. But sometimes the whole jungle just grows together into one big tangled knot and you grind to a halt.

  ‘Can I hear water?’ Peter asked suddenly.

  Beck stopped and cocked his head. Peter had been following on behind without complaint. He hadn’t noticed anything in particular about the jungle, apart from the fact that it was getting thicker and harder work. But he was certain he had heard the sound of running water.

  Both boys stood motionless in the tangled jungle, listening.

  All at once Beck felt a huge wave of relief wash over him. Peter was right. Through the bushes he could hear a distinct trickling, splashing noise like one pipe pouring into another.

  ‘Well done, Peter. Quick. Follow me. It’s this way.’

  It only took another minute of thrashing and twisting through the undergrowth, and then the boys were standing at the edge of a small river.

  The splashing sound came from the far bank, where another stream dropped down from some slightly higher ground in a metre-high waterfall. The water bubbled and chuckled where the two flows met.

  ‘Whoa!’ Peter exclaimed. He craned his head back. ‘I can see the sky!’

  The sky was a blue strip through the jungle canopy. The vegetation came down almost to the water’s edge. There was a narrow strip of river bank, sand and gravel, and then the river was a five-metre-wide watery highway. It flowed from right to left, the waters slow and brown. With no trees to block it there was also a slight breeze – it was still hot and humid, but the air felt a little fresher simply because it was moving.

  Beck looked on the river like a gift from above. Gratitude swelled in his heart. This was good in so many ways.

  ‘We can make our way along the bank,’ he said, ‘or even in the shallows. Easier than fighting our way through the jungle! And the great thing about rivers is that they often lead to people. If we follow it, we’ll either reach the sea or a town . . .’ His voice trailed off thoughtfully and he started to look up and down the river very, very carefully.

  ‘All the water we can drink,’ Peter pointed out, though his voice was distracted. He held his arms up in front of his face and studied them closely. Beck could see the mottled red skin. ‘I think I’m getting a heat rash.’

  ‘It’s sweat build-up. All that salt and gunge going nowhere.’ Beck took one more look at the river, first downstream, then up. He couldn’t see any signs of what he was searching for, so he relaxed and started to unbutton his shirt. ‘We should take every chance we can to wash – let’s do it!’

  His first thought was to check on his wounded arm again. The bandage had to be soaked off and the cut looked just as open and raw as before. With all that salty sweat getting into it, Beck wasn’t surprised it wasn’t healing. He cupped water in his left hand and poured it up and down the cut to wash the grime out.

  Then he scooped up handfuls of grit and rubbed them up and down his arms and legs. He could feel the rough mixture scraping off the grime that seemed to cake him; it left his skin feeling fresh and tingling. ‘Try it!’ he told Peter. ‘It’s nature’s exfoliator!’ Again, though, he checked up and down the river.

  This time Peter was watching him. ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘Crocodiles.’

  Peter stopped rubbing and took several steps back from the river.

  Beck kept talking as he rubbed himself down. ‘They love rivers like this. Murky water, slow flow, and packed with fish no doubt. They’re responsible for so many attacks on unsuspecting humans, you can’t be too careful.’

  Peter winced, before saying, ‘I saw one in a zoo in Sydney once – and I was so glad there were several centimetres of armoured glass between us. It was just lying there – until feeding time, when they dropped a lump of meat in and it lunged faster than you could see. The keepers told us they can swim at something like twenty miles an hour, and when they bite, those jaws pack about three thousand pounds per square inch.’

  ‘And once they’ve got you,’ Beck added, ‘you aren’t going to escape. They drag you underwater and leave you there until you rot and they can eat you . . .’

  Peter’s mouth was hanging open and he looked a little green. Beck realized that his information wasn’t helping Peter’s confidence any.

  He smiled and went on, ‘So, anyway, look out for them. They lie underwater with just their eyes sticking out . . .’

  After that, Peter kept his gaze fixed firmly on the water.

  The rub-down left them both feeling cleaner and refreshed. They soaked their clothes and wrung them out as hard as they could. They were still damp when they put them back on, but at least fresh water had now replaced the sweat.

  Then they set off along the river, heading downstream. The brief break had lifted their spirits considerably. Sometimes the river dropped down a couple of metres, coursing over smooth rocks that the boys had to clamber down. Sometimes the banks narrowed, forcing them to wade through the water instead, sending sheets of spray up into the air. Even when it came up to their knees, it was much easier than clambering through the jungle.

  ‘And another thing,’ Peter added, as if he had been giving the matter deep thought. ‘If the tigers are anything like our cat at home, they won’t be following us here! He hates water.’

  Beck grimaced. ‘Yeah, but Sumatran tigers have one thing Tiddles doesn’t . . .’

  ‘What’s that?’ Peter asked suspiciously.

  ‘Webbed feet.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Nope. They evolved in swampy ground. They don’t mind the water at all.’

  ‘Oh, great . . .’ Peter scanned the jungle on either side, as if expecting half a ton of striped muscle to leap out at them at any moment.

  ‘Hey, don’t sweat it. The tigers’ll be asleep at this time of day. What we really want to look out for now is crocodiles, especially as it looks like the river is widening.’

  ‘Lurking just beneath the surface . . .’ Peter said.

  ‘With their eyes sticking out,’ Beck agreed.

  Peter came to a complete halt, and nodded over at the far side of the river. ‘Like that?’ he asked quietly.

  It looked like a log drifting towards them, a small lump of wood jutting above the surface. But it wasn’t a lump of wood: it had two cold, unblinking reptilian eyes. And behind it, only the slightest ripple gave away the five metres of crocodile that was cruising slowly down the river towards them.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘Yes,’ Beck murmured. ‘Like that.’

  The boys stood very still. They were up to their knees in the shallows.

  The crocodile’s dark hide made it almost exactly the same colour as the river. You could imagine it was just a lump of slightly more solid water that was cruising gently by. The line of ripples were the ridges along the croc’s back. Its tail moved silently from side to side as it propelled itself downstream. It was incredible that anything as hard and knobbly could move through the water so effortlessly.

  And Beck had just a few seconds to decide what to do. His thoughts raced through the options. Run? Stay? Climb a tree? Crocodiles like to sneak
up on you and pounce from a very short range. This one was still only halfway across the river.

  OK. He tried to say it, but his mouth was too dry. He had to swallow to get some spit going so his words would come out. He tried again.

  ‘OK. I’ll count to three and then we run. You go left, I’ll go right . . .’

  ‘We can’t outrun it.’ Peter was as white as a sheet; his eyes were fixed on the approaching reptile. ‘You said.’

  Beck remembered Peter happily telling him that these things could swim at twenty miles per hour. That meant it could cover the distance between them in a few seconds.

  ‘You don’t need to outrun it,’ he pointed out. ‘You just need to outrun me.’

  Peter looked at him, aghast, then quickly turned back to the crocodile.

  Beck repeated: ‘Ready to run? It can only chase one of us.’

  ‘Oh dear God . . .’ Peter mumbled.

  Beck stared into the croc’s eyes. He could imagine little red laser dots on his and Peter’s chests. The crocodile’s food detection system had locked on. It wanted one of these skinny hairless apes in its larder at the bottom of the river. It would wedge their bodies under a rock or a sunken log. They would rot away in the water. Their flesh would drift loose from the bones until eventually it was tender and tasty enough to be devoured.

  ‘One . . .’ he said. Peter tensed. ‘Two . . .’

  A whoop and the gibbering of many voices made Beck look away from the croc and across the river. A group of dark furred apes had swung down from the trees to the water’s edge. They were on the far side of the river, a bit further down. They looked like a cross between an orang-utan, with its long arms, and a chimpanzee. Beck recognized them as siamangs, a kind of gibbon.

  There were five or six of them. Beck remembered that they travelled in families. There would be a dominant adult male and female, and their offspring, and maybe a couple of teenagers waiting to be dominant adults themselves. It wasn’t hard to spot the two adults. They were larger and they waited at the back, one perched on a log, the other up in a tree. They kept a suspicious eye out for danger while the rest crouched by the edge of the river and drank.

  But the lookouts weren’t doing a very good job because the crocodile had changed course. It was heading straight for them. There was barely a ripple now – even the eyes had submerged.

  The boys stared, transfixed.

  It was like being a witness to a murder. Beck’s heart pounded, knowing what would come. He wanted to shout a warning, throw a stone, do something to warn the helpless prey. But he was only too well aware that the croc might just go back to plan A, eating the hairless ape that had spoiled its meal.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, the crocodile lurched forward in an explosion of spray. A huge sheet of water splashed up into the air and hid the details. There was a glimpse of the croc’s body, long, armoured and deadly; a dim impression of panicking, scattered furry bodies. By the time the spray dropped back into the river it was over. There was just a final impression of jaws clamped over a siamang, and the gibbon screaming before the water closed over its head.

  The other siamangs shrieked and howled their protest. They stood on the river bank and leaped up and down, baring their teeth and thumping their chests and the ground. They looked and sounded fearsome, and the display would have scared off just about anyone . . . except for a crocodile that really didn’t care what the gibbons thought. It had already got what it wanted.

  ‘Let’s get out of the water,’ Beck said quietly. Peter just nodded and turned towards the bank.

  Beck bit his lip. That had been way, way too close. He should have known better. He knew what killing machines crocodiles were. Kill, eat and make baby crocodiles – that was a croc’s entire life. He knew how well they could hide in a muddy river. If those gibbons hadn’t been there to distract the croc . . .

  It was one more example of what he was always telling himself anyway. You had to take care. Be constantly on the lookout. Keep thinking. Keep alert. Never let your guard down.

  They clambered back up the bank.

  ‘OK, we’ll still follow the river . . . but from now on we won’t get too close, right?’

  Beck felt the water slosh about in his waterlogged shoes. It gushed and gurgled around his toes like an extra layer of slime.

  Peter had the same problem. His feet made the kind of noise you usually only hear from the rear end of a well-fed cow. ‘Squelch, squelch, squelch . . .’ he said, and it seemed much funnier than it should. It punctured the tension of their narrow escape from the croc. Deep down, both boys knew they had got lucky.

  ‘We need to get our shoes off for a moment.’ Beck checked a log and sat down on it to untie his laces. Then he held each shoe upside down so that the water could drain out. But instead of putting them back on, he got the glass knife and used it to poke holes in the side of each one, just above the instep. The leather put up a brief resistance but then the point of the glass slid in smoothly. He saw Peter’s enquiring glance.

  ‘We need shoes to protect our feet,’ he explained, ‘but if we walk around with water in them we’ll end up with trench foot. Ever had athlete’s foot?’

  ‘Yeah, a couple of times.’

  ‘It’s about ten times worse. You get blisters and sores, which turn into fungal infections, which turn into gangrene. Give it a few days and your feet could need amputating.’

  ‘And I suppose you’d eat them too,’ Peter said thoughtfully.

  Beck pulled a face. ‘You’re sick!’

  Peter laughed.

  ‘Just give me your shoes . . .’

  Their shoes were still damp, but at least now the air could get in through the new holes. It meant their feet weren’t steaming, which was all that a nice fungal infection needed. Still, Beck resolved they would need to dry their shoes and socks out the next time they stopped for the night.

  Speaking of which . . . He glanced at his watch. It was mid-afternoon, about twenty-four hours after the crash that had got them into this situation. That was food for thought. Twenty-four hours and they still hadn’t seen anyone else. They had to see signs of people eventually. But right now all Beck could see was jungle and more jungle.

  Give it another hour, he decided, and they would call a halt for the day.

  ‘Listen!’ Peter stopped dead in his tracks. A faint rumble drifted down through the canopy. He looked at Beck with wide eyes. ‘That wasn’t another eruption, was it?’

  ‘No,’ Beck replied, looking aloft. ‘That was—’

  Suddenly it started to rain.

  Rain in a rainforest was like someone in the sky turning on a tap. Back home there would be a few tentative drops. They would gradually get stronger until someone noticed. Here it was either raining or it wasn’t. There was no in-between. And when it did rain, it was like every drop of moisture in existence was just dumping itself out of the sky on top of you.

  ‘. . . rain,’ Beck finished.

  Even with the shelter of the tree canopy, it was only about ten seconds before the boys were completely soaked. Beck felt his hair plastered against his head. His clothes were as wet and clinging as if he had just jumped into a river. Peter’s glasses had turned into steamy circles.

  The jungle was already dim. The rain made it even gloomier. They needed shelter and there was no point in waiting any longer. Beck decided to use the available light now – before it got too dark.

  ‘We need somewhere to make camp.’

  ‘You going to make another sleeping frame?’

  ‘I suppose. We’ll need more bamboo . . .’

  Beck looked around. A bamboo cluster a short distance away was a likely looking candidate, but his attention was caught by what was next to it. It was a tall tree – he wasn’t quite sure what type – with a trunk so thick he couldn’t have put his arms around it. And about halfway up, in the fork of some branches, was what looked like a pile of driftwood.

  ‘Hey.’ He nudged Peter. ‘Does that look familiar?�
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  But Peter was blind with his glasses on in the rain, and was busily trying to wipe them.

  ‘Wait here . . .’ Beck told him.

  The tree trunk was encrusted with old vines, thick and secure enough to provide footholds. Beck clambered up quickly while rain sluiced down all around him, taking care to keep three points fixed at all times. It only took him thirty seconds to reach the fork in the branches.

  Where they met they formed a shallow bowl in the trunk. It was not quite flat but it was wide enough for two people. And someone – or more accurately something – had laid down a pile of logs and leaves to pad the bowl out a bit and create more room.

  ‘It’s an orang-utan nest!’ he called down to Peter excitedly. Rain thudded onto the branches and the leaves around him and he had to raise his voice. ‘Ready made!’

  He was amused to see that the branches of a fig tree were intertwined with this one, and there were clusters of figs within easy reach. He remembered what Nakula had said about the lazy orang-utans.

  The nest hadn’t been used recently. The wood was old, the leaves withered. The boys could use it without being thrown out by an irate owner who was twice as strong as them. And the position was good. Not so high up as to be really dangerous but well off the ground and out of harm’s way.

  Beck started to climb back down again.

  ‘Not very sheltered, is it?’ Peter pointed out when Beck reached the ground. He had put his glasses away and was peering up at the nest short-sightedly. Rain spattered against his upturned face.

  ‘Not yet,’ Beck corrected him. ‘That’ll change. Look, could you start searching for more firewood? Like last night?’

  Peter raised an eyebrow and looked around the sopping wet jungle.

  ‘Look in the same places,’ Beck told him patiently. ‘Under bushes, under leaves – some of it will still be dry. Put it straight in your pack to keep it that way. And I’ll see about the shelter.’

  The nest was going to need a roof, and the narrow palm leaves Beck had used the previous night probably wouldn’t do the trick. While Peter looked for dry wood, Beck scouted about until he found some wild bananas. The banana bush was matted and intertwined with half a dozen other types of plant, but the leaves made it stand out. They were almost as long as he was, and nearly as wide. He cut off a cluster of them and brought them back to the foot of the big tree. Then he went back to pick a couple of bunches of wild bananas. They were smaller than the bananas back home but grew in much bigger clumps, twenty or thirty at a time.