‘Probably. But here goes.’
He pulled down with all his strength on the rip line. There was a tearing sound above as a large triangle of fabric was ripped from the top of the bag. Immediately there was a rush of escaping gas and the bag collapsed.
Now, if the plan worked, the twelve lines that ran up from the ring to the balloon would pull the empty bag into something like the form of a parachute and that should ease the fall.
It worked - partly. The drop was slowed, but not enough. They were still sure to strike with terrible force. Directly below was not soft sand but hamada, stony desert.
Hal swung himself over beneath his brother. Roger at least would have something soft to land on.
Then came the crash. The basket already full of holes offered no protection against the sharp stones which jabbed their way through it and into Hal’s flesh. He struck all the harder because of the weight of Roger’s body upon his own. He blacked out.
The billowing folds of the bag settled down upon them as if to give them decent burial.
Roger also was stunned. His brother’s body had cushioned his fall and perhaps saved his life, but, after all, Hal’s bones had not proved a perfect landing pad.
Slowly he returned to consciousness. At first he hazily thought he was in bed, buried under heavy blankets. Strangely enough, the blankets were whipping up and down, beating the breath out of him. Or perhaps the tent had collapsed and was thrashing about in that screaming wind.
The bed was comfortable beneath him except for a hard bump in the middle. It took him some time, to realize that this was his brother’s bony hip. And they were not safe in camp, but stranded in the vast wilderness of the Serengeti.
The body beneath him did not move.
‘Hal,’ he said. No answer. He rolled aside and put his fingers on his brother’s wrist. If there was any pulse, it was too faint to feel. He put his ear to Hal’s chest. There was no sound, or if there was he couldn’t hear it over the shriek of the wind. He put his cheek to his brother’s open mouth, hoping to feel the warmth of the breath. But the cyclonic gusts under the billowing bag made that impossible.
Trembling with anxiety, he began to drag the heavy body out from under the balloon. He found himself weak from lack of food and the shock of the fall. At last he got his burden out into the world of sun and sandstorm.
The Jules Verne decided it had been earthbound long enough. It rose on a whoop of wind and blew away to the west, it’s great empty folds making it look like an enormous flapping bird.
The brisk wind slowly brought Hal back into the land of the living. He opened his eyes. Roger’s heart leaped. ‘Attaboy!’ he said. ‘I was afraid you had pooped out’
Hal looked around dully as if trying to remember where he was and why. Then he looked back at Roger.
‘You all right, kid?’
‘Just fine. Where’s the balloon?’
‘Gone with the wind. How about you? I must have landed on you pretty hard.’
‘Oh, I’m all right. Think I’ll just lie here for a bit. It’s so restful on these rocks.’
‘You got some nasty gouges. Wish I had some water to wash them out.’
‘Don’t worry. No germs on those stones. The sun takes care of that.’
Roger looked around at the vacant horizon. ‘Wonder how far we’ll have to walk.’
‘Plenty far,’ Hal said, ‘and I suppose we’d better get started.’
He struggled to his feet, then went down again with a groan. He put his hand to his right leg.
‘Broken?’ asked Roger.
‘I don’t know. Can’t tell without a picture. You don’t happen to have an X-ray handy?’
‘Sorry.’
‘I’ll try again in a minute.’
When he made another attempt to stand up, he fell on Ms face. ‘It’s no good,’ he said. ‘It won’t hold me up. Limp as a piece of spaghetti.’
‘Okay,’ Roger said. ‘Can you take care of yourself while I go for help?’
‘Go where? Do you realize what hunters call this part of the Serengeti? Middle of Nowhere.’
Roger stood up and looked around, screwing up his eyes against sand and sun.
‘But there must be an African village.’
‘Not out here. Too far from water.’
‘But see all those animals. Where there are animals there must be water.’
‘That sounds logical, but it isn’t. Most of the animals you see don’t live here. They just pass through, thousands of them, migrating to rivers hundreds of miles north at one time of the year and south at another. And animals that need water frequently don’t come here at all.’
‘Look here,’ said Roger impatiently. ‘I can’t stand here gabbing. I don’t know where I’m going but I’m going.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Hal said. ‘How do you think you will find your way back?’
It was a new and sobering thought. They had no compass, no sextant, no way of fixing their position.
‘I have my watch,’ Roger said. ‘Point the hour hand at the sun - halfway between the hour hand and twelve is south. So I can keep my direction and come back in the opposite direction and I’ll find you.’
‘Good try,’ Hal said, ‘but it’s not exact enough. You could miss me by thirty miles.’
‘I have another idea,’ Roger said. ‘I’ll drag a stick -then follow the line back.’
‘What kind of a mark do you think your stick would make on this rocky ground? And when you come to stand, the mark you make would be covered by drifting sand in half an hour. I think you’d better just go ahead and forget about me. No use of both of us staying to feed the vultures.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Roger said sharply. His eyes swept over the plain. A quarter of a mile away a herd of zebras was going north. They kept in close formation. Following them were several hundred wildebeest. They too kept close together, not scattered all over the desert.
‘I’m going over there to take a look,’ Roger said.
The animals refused to change their course even when he came close.
Just as birds fly south to spend the winter in the tropics, and fly north at the beginning of summer, so the warmth-loving animals of Africa follow the sun.
This was one of many animal trails across the Serengeti. Thousands upon thousands of feet had ground a trail through stones or sand a yard deep and several hundred yards wide.
Roger went back to his brother. ‘The beasties have solved our problem. They’ve made a perfectly grand road - all I have to do is to follow it until I find somebody. Then I’ll bring him back by the same trail,’
‘Don’t forget that it isn’t really a road,’ Hal said. ‘I mean it doesn’t lead to any village or camp. In fact the migrating animals try to stay away from any spot occupied by humans. You might go a hundred miles without finding anything on two legs, except an ostrich.’
“Well, can you suggest anything better?’
‘No, I can’t. Go ahead, and good luck.’
Roger whipped off his bush-jacket. ‘You’d better have this. It will get cold tonight’
‘You’ll need it yourself.’
‘No I won’t. I’ll be walking. That’ll keep me plenty warm.’
Chapter 18
Night walk
Ignoring his brother’s protests, Roger set out into the unknown.
It was really a pleasure to be walking once more, after being cooped up so long in the flying basket. He left the animal-made road to the animals and strode along beside it. If he made good time, perhaps he might even find somebody before dark.
He kept straining his eyes for the smoke of a campfire or cabin. There was no sign that any man lived here or had ever lived here. Yet he did not feel alone - so long as the sun shone and so long as he had the animals for company.
He admired the sleek striped coats of the zebras and laughed at the long homely faces of the wildebeest and marvelled to see the giraffes cover ten feet at each step.
Roger was
fast on his feet, yet he was surprised at how easily these travellers passed him. Here came a herd of elephants. These huge beasts could be expected to move slowly - yet they went by as if he had been standing still. As for the gazelles, they could not even wait for the elephants, but leaped through between them and sped on towards grass and water who knows how many miles away. Perhaps they knew.
The equatorial sun blazed down fiercely and the sweat streaming down his forehead together with the flying sand made mud in his eyes. He wished he could cover them, but he had to see. But he didn’t have to breathe sand - he got out his handkerchief and tied it over his nose and mouth. Now he understood why the Tuaregs of the Sahara wear veils.
Hunger gnawed at his insides. It was almost twenty-four hours since he had had a bite to eat. But he told himself that he was not suffering any more than his animal companions. An elephant, for example, needs six hundred pounds of grass and leaves a day to keep that huge machine in operation. That was why these beasts did not stop to spread their ears when they saw him, or threaten him with raised trunks. They were only interested in getting on as fast as possible towards the dinner table. Their babies had to run to keep up with them, and tried to snatch a little milk from their mothers while going at full speed.
Roger, burning with thirst, envied the baby elephants. They didn’t know how lucky they were to get even those few driblets of moisture.
Roger imagined himself in a lush meadow beside a stream. He dropped down on his stomach and buried his face in the water and gulped great draughts of the sweetest liquid on God’s earth. Then he lay in the grass and slept.
But his legs were still moving and the sand was cutting into his eyes. And his injured brother was depending upon him to go and come again with help.
The sunset was not a thing of beauty. It was not red nor pink nor golden. Seen through flying sand, the sun was a bilious yellow ball and the whole western sky
looked as if it had jaundice. The dark closed down swiftly. And a boy who had thought he was a man discovered that after all he was only thirteen years old and very much alone in spite of the animal train that moved beside him.
In fact the animals seemed to change their character. Instead of being pleasant companions they were now perils of the night. At this hour the carnivores were likely to attack anything that couldn’t defend itself, and of all creatures man was the most defenceless.
In the daytime, Roger had thought of the animals as friends. In the dark, the desert seemed full of enemies. What beasts did he have most reason to fear? He began to list them in his mind.
First, the lion. This was lion country. There were said to be more lions in the Serengeti than in any other equal area in all Africa - in fact, more than anywhere else in the world. There were known to be man-eaters among them. Lions wounded by hunters develop very bad tempers and would attack any man, women, or child they happened to find. Night was the time when they were most active.
Second, the leopard. He was even more of a night-lover than the lion. He was seldom seen by day. Now he was most certainly on the prowl. Roger began to see spots in every direction.
Third, the caracal. It was a desert cat, quite at home in the Serengeti, Though smaller than a lion or leopard, it was even more savage and did not hesitate to attack anything ten times its size.
Fourth, the hyena. He had already seen hyenas in the procession. With the coming of night, they were quite likely to begin to think about fresh meat, either animal or human.
Fifth, the wolf-like jackal. Also its cousin, the Abyssinian wolf. One jackal was not to be feared. But multiply one jackal’s courage by twelve or twenty, and the pack was quite capable of making trouble.
Sixth the snake. Such snakes as the cobra, the mamba, and the python would not travel by day because they could not stand the heat of the sun. They would lie under a bush or in a hole until night came, then they would be on their way. Besides these travellers, Roger knew-that there were other snakes that lived permanently in the desert, and liked it. The horned viper and the sand viper buried themselves in the sand and were too sluggish to get out of your way - but if you stepped on one he would strike like lightning. By daylight, you might see a part of the snake through the sand and avoid it. But now in the dark, every step Roger took was taken with tingling muscles ready to leap if anything squirmed underfoot.
Of course even the grass-eating animals were more dangerous at night than in the daytime. The rhinos were more irritable because they could not see well, the buffaloes would horn anything they did not understand, a bull elephant straying from the track might easily bring down his huge foot with ten tons behind it upon a boy and reduce him to a pancake.
But, in spite of all his wild imaginings, there was one enemy he had not thought of. He did not think of it even when he stepped on something that seemed to be a rock and it rolled under his feet. He began to fall but did not reach the ground before he was struck a terrific blow and. knocked straight into a pair of huge jaws.
But as the teeth closed on his arm, he knew. It was a crocodile; but who would have thought this water-loving beast would come trundling over the desert? Still, he remembered the statement by Colonel Stevenson-Hamilton, once warden of Kruger National Park: ‘By night these reptiles often travel great distances overland.’ If their water-hole goes dry, there is nothing they can do but seek another.
Here was one croc who was quite willing to give up seeking long enough to grab an unexpected but very juicy dinner. His powerful tail had thrashed Roger within reach of his jaws. Roger did his best to pull loose. He was held as if in a vice. The croc’s teeth turn inward like those of a python, so once it has taken hold it is not easily persuaded to let go.
The beast was quite satisfied to hang on, and wait.. His teeth were adapted for holding, not biting or chewing. He would just patiently wait for his victim to die, and then wait some more for the body to rot, and when it was sufficiently tender he would break it up with his sledgehammer tail and swallow it, chunk by chunk.
A brilliant prospect, Roger thought. To die quickly was not so bad, but to die by inches and by hours of pain and starvation, that was something else. And there was his brother’s life to think of as well as his own.
One thing that made Roger unwilling to spend hours or days in the croc’s company was the creature’s breath. This beast had a bad case of halitosis. The birds that go into a croc’s open mouth as he lies asleep on the sand and pick the rotten meat out from between his teeth had in this case not done a good job. Altogether, Roger found his new companion most unpleasant.
What could he do? He had heard that you could free yourself from a croc by punching your thumbs into his eyes. Since Roger’s left arm was in the creature’s jaws, he could use only his right hand. He dug his thumb deep into the croc’s left eye and felt it squash under the pressure. The great jaws did not open.
Roger dug his thumb into the other eye. He hated to do it. He could sympathize even with a stinking croc. The clutch on his arm let up for just an instant. It was long enough for Roger to jerk his arm free. Then the great rows of teeth clacked shut again with a noise like that of a steel trap. The powerful tail swung around to catch the victim before he had a chance to escape. But in that fraction of a second Roger had rolled like a ball out of reach of both tail and teeth. Then he leaped to his feet and ran, for he knew that the crocodile, which seems such a sleepy and slow-moving monster, can move incredibly fast when it wants to.
When he was sure that he had out-distanced his enemy, he slowed to a walk, but he was remarkably careful from now on not to step on another rock that was not a rock.
Chapter 19
Saved by lions
Hal shivered. He was grateful for Roger’s bush-jacket, but even with it to cover him his inactive body was chilled.
Someone wrote a song once containing the words, Till the sands of the desert grow cold’. The writer evidently supposed that the desert never grows cold.
He should visit the Serengeti or the Sahara
any night of the year, even in midsummer. Very shortly after the sun goes down the desert floor loses its heat. The night winds sweeping down from the snows of Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya and the Mountains of the Moon - or, in the case of the Sahara, from the snow-capped Atlas -carrying off the remaining warmth of the desert. This chill wind blows so strongly that it may even pick up the tent in which you are sleeping and carry it off, leaving you quite exposed to the icy gale.
This night it was colder than usual because of the cyclone. It was dying, but still strong enough to whip Hal with sand and small stones. The sand got up his nose and made breathing difficult. He covered his nose and mouth with the edge of the bush-jacket. If there had been a sand dune handy, he would have burrowed his way into it as the nomads do. There he would stay until the storm passed.
But even this small comfort was denied him. Instead of sand, he had a bed of sharp stones.
His leg hurt badly. He would have given a lot for something to quiet the pain. He would have given even more for a drink of water. Sun and wind and worry had dried out his body and worn his nerves. He tossed about, unable to sleep.
It was just as well that he remained awake or he would not have heard the hyenas. His first warning was a stirring of the stones beside him and a snuffling sound. He uncovered his face to find a hyena’s nose within inches of his own. At this movement the animal backed away with a peculiar little laugh.
Hal looked about. He could dimly see a circle of black shapes all around him. A ring of hyenas sitting on their haunches watching him.
He knew that a hyena is generally considered a coward. If a man is on his feet the beast will not touch him. But if a man lies asleep or sick or dying he is fair game for this killer. In such a case, the hyena is even bolder than a lion, particularly if he is not alone but backed up by a good number of his pals. Many a hunter sleeping in the open has lost a foot, or a hand or even a life to these sly beasts.
Hal struggled up on to his feet. Or rather foot. He could not bear to put any weight on his right leg. He must stand only on his left.
09 Lion Adventure Page 11
