by John Lilley
‘Let’s have a break here,’ suggested Harry.
‘Perhaps this would be a good place to set up camp?’ asked Jane.
‘Yeah, that’s fine by me, I’ll call Dennis,’ said Harry after checking his watch. ‘We’ve made reasonable progress on our first day. There’s no real rush anyway.’
They busied themselves setting up the tent and cooking equipment. Within ten minutes things were sorted, and they had some water on the boil. They sat together on a nearby rock while they ate their supper and continued to watch the crows. Harry had his binoculars out for a better view.
‘They’re bigger than I thought. Nearly two feet tall,’ he said. ‘No wonder that buzzard is taking its time. I reckon that the Crows could see it off if they worked together. Something which I think the Buzzard knows they can do.’
‘There must be a couple of hundred of them,’ said Jane, ‘I think that Alfred Hitchcock had a point, but compared with some of the other creatures which allegedly live here, I’d take my chances with the Crows any day.’
They were both deep into that last thought which is why they jumped a little and Jane knocked her tea over when a pine cone landed on Harry’s shoulder.
‘Wow, I think we need to chill out more,’ said Harry with a nervous laugh.
‘On that last call I made the radio signal was down to 30%, but Dennis reported no activity near the plane,’ said Jane.
There was plenty of time to chill out before darkness came. Slowly the air grew cooler, and the shadows lengthened. The sun was setting behind them so was not visible from their eastern-facing vantage point. All they saw was the sky colour changing from blue to red then indigo before the stars came out and the creatures and sounds of the day were replaced with those of the night. As their eyes adjusted to the starlight, the pale band of the Milky Way became visible, stretching across the whole sky. The crows were now quiet in their roost, but the bats (Lasiurus Borealis) were everywhere, squeaking as they skimmed the treetops harvesting the bountiful supply of evening insects. The insects had, in turn, things to feed on and it was quite a relief for Harry and Jane to escape behind the mosquito netting of their tent. It had been a long day, and sleep came quickly.
They couldn’t avoid waking at first light because of the sheer volume of the dawn chorus. Breakfast was a quick affair as they were both keen to get on the trail again. They walked downhill for two miles to the banks of a small shallow river where they removed their socks, boots and the lower part of their trousers before crossing. Both of them regretted doing so when they reached the small beach on the other bank as they had to pick off a few dozen leeches (Hirudo Medicinalis) from each foot.
Harry was just tying his boot when he saw them: ‘Footprints, Human,’ he said, pointing to the edge of the beach.
Jane looked to where Harry was pointing. There were two, maybe three sets of prints just skirting the beach.
‘I wonder how long they’ve been there?’ asked Jane. ‘They look quite fresh, but what do I know?’
‘Well, they seem to be heading in an easterly direction, perhaps they have a camp nearby? There’s little to disturb them down here so they could have been there for some time? Keep your eyes peeled and try not to make too much noise. I suggest that we widen the gap between us, keep me in your sights but try to leave a good hundred yard gap,’ said Harry.
They left the beach and followed the next convenient track for another two miles. Through the trees, they could see the light of another clearing growing stronger, and as they watched, a human figure darted across it. Harry froze and signalled a stop and crouch to Jane. As he did so, there was a sudden sharp cracking sound from just behind him.
Damn Jane, he thought as he slowly turned around.
From twenty yards away a voice shouted: ‘Don’t move. Put your hands on your head and stand up slowly. One false move and it will be your last.’
Harry raised his hands slowly upwards and rose to his feet. His only thought was: Has Jane managed to get to cover, he scanned the forest, but almost silently the Natives appeared from the undergrowth and had him surrounded in seconds. They were dressed from head-to-toe in camouflage deerskin clothing that was an exact match for their surroundings. Even their exposed skin was coloured with camouflage paint. Only the whites of their eyes gave them away, and all of their eyes now focused on Harry. The two leading Natives held compound bows at full draw, pointing directly at Harry. At this distance, their arrows would pass straight through him.
‘Don’t move,’ they order once more.
Jane adjusted her position from within the bushes to help dissipate the cramp that was building up on her thighs. She was breathing fast but desperately trying to hear what was going on up ahead. She could hear voices, but not clearly enough to make out what they were saying. Then her radio vibrated, it was Dennis. In a panic she didn’t know what to do, if she pressed receive then Dennis’s voice would broadcast her presence, fumbling with the radio she dropped it onto the leafy forest floor. Simultaneously some noises were coming from the track to her right; she froze, her heart thumping. Two figures walked past her heading for where Harry was. She didn’t dare look up so just saw their moccasin’d feet pass by. She counted to five and reached for the radio. As a sudden strange wave of calm came over her, she pressed the mute button, and then sent a text: ‘Hiding - no talk.’
Dennis replied: ‘Attacked - airborne - heading your way can see your beacons.’
Jane: ‘Where is Harry?’
Dennis:’100 yards from you. Captured?’
Jane: ‘Can you get me out?’
Dennis: ‘Trying drone. Found clearing 200 yards SW of you. Go there now.’
Jane: ‘Roger over.’
Jane slipped off her heavy pack and slowly broke cover, checked her compass and in a slow crouching run headed for the clearing. After just ten paces she stood on a dry twig which snapped with what seemed to be a thunderclap. From behind she could hear some raised voices, and she knew they were on to her. With nothing to lose she ran full pelt down the track. As she did so, she was aware of a humming noise that was getting rapidly nearer. She risked taking her eyes off the track and took a quick look up into the canopy: the large grey shadow of the Osprey appeared above the tree tops accompanied by the deafening sound of its engines. She looked back at the track just in time to avoid a fallen tree branch, and as she did so, the first arrow struck home in the tree trunk just in front of her. She could hear shouting from behind, but the Osprey drowned it out, keeping her head down she accelerated and began to weave along her route to the clearing.
Up above Dennis had lowered the cargo ramp and had just slipped the safety off on the light machine gun. The plane had been programmed to reach the clearing and hover. He had tethered himself to the bulkhead and had the display screen wedged under his left foot. He could see Jane’s radio beacon shown in red, the other heat signatures, shown in blue, were about fifty yards behind her but closing fast. He pointed the gun down into the trees and let off three short warning bursts. The blue blobs on the monitor stopped in their tracks.
Jane was now in the clearing and looking up as the Osprey came overhead. What few other creatures there were in the clearing were now desperately trying to escape. She was immersed in a whirling cloud of leaf litter, forced off the forest floor by the Osprey’s downdraught. The shots from Dennis’s gun rang out and startled Jane before she realised where they were coming from. It seemed to do the trick, no more arrows and she could now see the harness which Dennis had lowered. Obviously, the Osprey could not come any lower. She fumbled her way into the harness and had just clipped the straps together when an arrow grazed her shoulder, spraying her face with a mist of blood. She screamed. Overhead Dennis’s gun spoke once more, a longer burst this time.
Dennis had to drop the gun as he ran for the cockpit. It was the only way he could get the plane out of its current hovering state. He cracked his knee on the bulkhead as he jumped into the pilot’s seat and immediately hit the auto-take
-off button.
Jane was now shaking with fear and gripping her torn shoulder, trying to stop the blood, wondering when the next arrow would come. Then she felt the harness tighten and begin to lift. Looking up at the Osprey, Jane could see it moving forward and upwards, but as she did so, there was a large flash and the smoke from an explosion just beneath the plane’s port wing. Small fragments of metal and plastic showered down, she instinctively curled up in the harness and felt something hot touch her back. Before she could think about it, she was hauled skywards, crashing into several branches before exiting through the top of the canopy.
Dennis overrode the auto-pilot, then took to the controls and accelerated the plane at maximum, turning south with the drone following. After a short flight, he switched the autopilot back on and started the harness winch before leaving the cabin and running back to the cargo ramp. The drone had just landed back in the cargo bay as he approached the ramp. Jane was being viciously thrown about at the end of the winch cable as she was hauled in. Dennis harnessed himself to the bulkhead again and let the winch do its job until he could get a hand on Jane’s harness. It was a clumsy operation because for some reason the plane was flying erratically: suddenly pitching to port every few seconds. Jane caught her leg on the cargo ramp and pulled Dennis over with her. The winch automatically cut-out when there were four feet of cable left, but by then it had dragged Jane up the corrugated metal ramp with Dennis cushioning the ride beneath her, entangled in the webbing of her harness. He had no choice but to push her off so he could free himself and scramble to the ramp controls. Once the ramp was closing he unlatched the harness from its cable and gave Jane a quick first-aid check, her shoulder looked bad, and there was a nasty bruise on her left cheek. She was not moving, and her eyes were closed.
‘Jane, Jane, are you OK, speak to me,’ he said and shook her slightly.
She opened her eyes with a start: ‘OK, OK, I feel like shit but patch me up later Dennis, get us out of here.
‘Shame that your friends got away, Chief will not be pleased,’ said the leading Native.
Harry’s was trembling now, quite visibly. He wondered what they had in store for him, but felt some relief that Jane and Dennis had escaped.
‘Tie him up,’ the leading Native said, ‘quickly; we need to be on the move’.
Harry’s hands were tied behind his back and a collar with a leash attached to his neck.
‘Move’ he was ordered, as a spear shaft was dug into his ribs.
Off they went across the valley. Harry could barely make out the narrow path they followed as it wound its way up the valley side.
‘Into the Labyrinth,’ the leading Native commanded. ‘Remember the eye in the sky.’
They entered a small cave and headed towards its pitch-black interior. Small white LEDs suddenly illuminated the path ahead. Harry’s mind was racing.
Compound bows, modern camouflage and now motion-sensors with LEDs. Not, he thought, quite the kind of primitives he was expecting.
The tunnel ahead pitched downwards at fifteen degrees with no sign of any exit. The air became damper and cooler as they progressed and after about half a mile the tunnel veered off to the right and started to rise again. There were three other tunnels off to the right and one to the left. His captors ignored these side tunnels and continually prodded him to keep moving past them as quickly as possible. The floor of the tunnel was very uneven, and Harry stumbled several times, only to be rewarded by the choking collar that was yanked tight each time by the Native behind him. They climbed for what seemed like miles but eventually emerged into a large cave where some more Natives were waiting for them.
‘So this is one of them,’ said a distinguished looking older Native at the head of the cave party.
‘Yes John, the others got away, but we think that we’ve damaged their plane, the lookouts report that it seems to be in some difficulty,’ said the leader of the scouting party.
Harry’s mind went into overload: Difficulty?
‘Too bad you didn’t get them,’ said the older Native, then to Harry ‘Don’t worry your girlfriend got away in your museum piece of a plane, but now it’s time for some introductions,’ continued the Native. ‘I’m John Blackhawk, the local Chief of these people and you are?’
‘Harry Hardman from Texas, but formerly from Britain,’ Harry said.
‘Well, well, quite an exotic catch we have today. Have you come to teach us all cricket?’ he asked loudly, to roars of laughter from the others. ‘Chief is going to have hours of fun with you, sonny. I think that’s all we both need to know for now, time to move again. Juan, take the leash.’
A dark-skinned, muscular Native stepped forwards to take over from Harry’s current minder and off they went again. Harry’s eyes had become accustomed to the lighting after he’d remembered not to stare directly at the LED point sources. The current tunnel was considerably wider than the one they’d emerged from. There were some strange looking symbols on many sections of the walls. Juan prodded Harry from behind every time that he tried to look more closely at the symbols.
‘Hey you’re not on a sight-seeing tour,’ he growled as he jabbed Harry yet again.
They continued for several more miles until the tunnel opened out into a large gallery.
‘OK, we’ll camp here. Juan, show Lord Harry of England to his chambers,’ commanded John.
‘Standing or sitting Chief Blackhawk?’ asked Juan.
‘Oh I think we’ll let the boy get some rest, he’ll need it,’ said John.
Juan pulled Harry by the leash over to a thick wooden post that was rooted firmly in the cave floor.
‘Sit down with your back to the post,’ he snapped at Harry and prodded him one more time.
Harry dropped to the ground while Juan manacled his wrists to a chain that ran through metal hoops in the wooden post.
‘No funny business,’ he said and without warning kicked Harry hard in the ribs
32 STRANGE TEMPLE
The convoy of twenty all-terrain vehicles was moving down what was left of an old motorway, 25 hours east of the ruins of Moscow. It had been three days since they’d picked up their supplies at the coast. On either side of the convoy, the huge flat desert plain spread out shimmering in the midday sun. The effects of the reforestation activity were clearly visible even out where they were. Fifty years ago, the whole plain would have been just rocks baking in the midday sun, with not a blade of grass standing and daytime temperatures in excess of 600c. Very few life forms would have been able to scratch a living in such an environment and due to the speed of the temperature change the indigenous creatures didn’t have enough time or a place to migrate to and certainly had no time to or adapt. This new desert area had extended right up into the mountains where the increase in altitude had softened the effects of the temperature rise. The changes had formed a vicious feedback mechanism: increased temperatures rapidly burnt off the vegetation, removing its moderating effect on the climate, the morning dew no longer formed and the vegetation-generated clouds didn’t happen. Once all the anchoring effects of the root systems had gone, the soil was blown or washed away. It was the new lifeless but hot stable state that the Earth was heading for.
The task for the Reforestation Teams would become harder the longer they left it to nature. It was important to get this change moving and break the cycle as soon as possible. The Reforestation Project was part of the overall Global Climate Change plan, which in turn was a major part of Britain’s Grand Plan; with an expected completion date sometime within the next 2,000 years.
However, just 100 years in, some amazing progress had been made. The first stage had been to plant the desert grasses. Starting in phases and moving out from the mountains, these grasses were some of the toughest plants on the planet. They were not indigenous to the area which was why they didn’t take over when things started to dry out. Ironically, many of the areas where they did originally grow were now flooded. The Kew seed-banks had gone into overdrive
to provide the initial plantings. At first, the plants were helped by installing wind-driven pumps to raise water for irrigation, but once the grasses’ two metre deep roots were established they were left to their own devices. With a covering of grass, the soil stopped drying out and blowing away. This then opened the door for second stage plantings of small shrubs and taller grasses which came originally from the arid scrublands. In another 50 years, it would hopefully be possible to plant trees with a denser canopy, probably beginning with Acacias and ultimately deciduous forest. Each planting stage would shield the soil more effectively from the sun and improve the local climate allowing the return of thousands of further plant species and begin the slow reformation of the soils. Wildlife would be reintroduced when the climate and flora could support it, although 80% of all land species had gone for good in the die-back.
Already the survey team in the convoy had noticed a big difference in the temperatures as they moved further away from the mountains, all of which was down to the new vegetation. The old road was becoming very bumpy causing them to make frequent detours around huge vehicle-sized potholes. All of the road’s original furniture: cats-eyes, barriers, lighting and signs had been scavenged a long time ago, and most of the macadam surface had melted and broken up in the intense heat. They passed the old wrecks of two cars some 10 metres off the road, both pointing in the same direction. It looked as if they’d been racing each other when they’d crashed. Only their stripped-out rusting shells remained. All of the team had seen this wreck before it was one of the few remaining landmarks on this desperately monotonous landscape. It also marked the limit of their last excursion.
