He decided he would watch the level of the river for a few minutes and see whether it was still rising while he also looked for a way to support this broken leg. It would be very difficult to travel far the way it was, and the continual movement of the bone ends must be doing further damage, not to mention the pain.
First he carefully examined the seat. Apart from a few jagged bits of metal which had come with it when it was torn from its mountings, that was all it was, a single vinyl covered pilots seat along with a piece of the floor, perhaps two feet square that ended in the bubble doorway on his side. There was also a small bit of metal attached above the seat’s left side where the seat belt mounting to his seat had torn away from the rest of the helicopter body and his belt was still attached. He looked more carefully at the piece of floor. He realised that this is what had landed on the side of his leg and trapped it, breaking the bone, somewhere in his fall down the cliff to the ground. He felt lucky he had remained strapped to the seat as he fell. It seemed to have protected him from being smashed apart on the rocks. He was also lucky that his leg had been struck by the rounded edge of the floor piece, where the door met the floor, not by some of the other jagged pieces of metal. Hence the skin on his lower leg was bruised but not torn open. His shoe also seemed to have protected his foot from serious damage. He was wearing just shorts and a tee shirt. He remembered he had put his other clothes in a small overnight bag which went into the space behind the seats when he left Wyndham yesterday. That was gone. He felt his front pockets, wondering if his wallet was there with that infernal memory card, cash and ID. No sign of it; must have fallen out too. Not that it was useful now. Still he had his boots on and they were a good solid pair, he would need them to try and walk to help if he could escape the river.
He resumed his search. In the back pocket of the seat he found his plastic covered flight map of this part of the NT and with it was one other thing. The map was handy but the other thing was of immense value. It was a pocket knife of sorts, one of those multi tool ones. He vaguely remembered having it a couple years ago when he bought this helicopter. But he could not remember having seen it in more than a year. Here it was, this discovery was very timely now.
He looked around the rock shelf where he was to see if anything else useful was in sight. There was no vegetation but there were a few small bits of timber and one reasonable sized stick that he could see; maybe four or five feet long and one to two inches think, a bit knobbly but fairly straight. He wondered if he could use that as a splint for his leg. If there was some wiry grass or bark handy he could use that to wrap around his leg and tie it to the timber to make a splint.
He wondered what else he could use. He knew he needed to support and protect his leg to give it a chance to heal if he was to find his way out of here. He wondered about cutting up his map, maybe the plastic would be strong enough to use to tie the splint together.
Then it came to him. He had all he needed right here, the seat itself. He could use part of the foam lining to provide padding and he could cut the seatbelt and vinyl cover into strips to tie it all in place. He worked away for an hour dismembering the seat with his little pocket knife. Now he had a pile of foam rubber pieces, about twenty pieces of seatbelt strapping and vinyl strips in various sizes up to few feet in length and a few bits of cording and wire from the seat’s internal contents. His tool even had pliers with a cutting edge that he could cut wire with.
He set to work binding his leg. First he padded his leg with pieces of foam tied into place with some of the thinner strips of vinyl. Then he broke the piece of stick into two lengths, each about two feet long, one of which was placed on each side of his leg, running from knee to ankle. He took the stronger and longer seatbelt and vinyl pieces and with them he tied the whole contraption together in several places. Finally he wrapped the cord and wire around as well for good measure. It was not perfect but it kept his foot and leg straight and felt like it would not fall apart when he moved.
As he worked he watched the water level. Now barely a foot of clearance remained from his work space to the water’s edge and it was still rising steadily. That storm further up the catchment last night must have been a serious one, he thought. He suspected there was lots more water to come through yet.
Well, there was nothing for it but to follow the crocodile’s lead and head down river. He looked out and then down the river. It was funny, even though the water was continuing to rise, he felt as if the flow had slowed. Last night’s foaming and thundering white-water river seemed to have eased into something else, still fast and dangerous but less wild, the tumbling whitecaps were gone. It was now almost a metre higher than when he had gone to sleep and the volume flowing was huge, but the broken surface had smoothed to a tea coloured swirling, running tide.
He looked up the river – the cloud above had broken into threads and patches, one of which obscured a weak sun. Sitting below it, between the cliffs, was a thin crescent moon, palely seen in the morning light. Something in his brain clicked, new moon, running tide – that was it. At least part of the rising water and slowing flow was due to the in-running tide.
He remembered yesterday morning that at this same time, as he flew across the coast from Wyndham, it was high tide in the big estuaries then and still running in. It was one of those king tides which came up twenty feet. Around mid-morning the tide was full. Today high tide would be about an hour later. It was acting like a huge dam, holding the new water pouring into the river back and forcing it to rise. The tide was slowing the flow to something more manageable than last night’s thundering rapid. That would have smashed him to bits; maybe he could swim or float in this. He chucked a piece of stick out beyond the protruding rock. It moved downstream at a fast running place, tricky but manageable, he thought.
Slowly his mind absorbed the implications of this. He could not stay here, that was apparent; the tide had another hour or two of rise yet and this water would flood his rock shelf completely within the hour. But it was now possible that he could float downstream in this river, at least until he came to a place where there was a break in the cliffs which would give him a place to drag himself out.
So, rather than fleeing the rising water, he needed to use it to help his escape. If only he had a boat or raft, something that would give him buoyancy as he went down river. He looked around. There were not enough pieces of dead wood to make a raft. Could he tie some small bits together? It would help a bit but there was not really enough to add much flotation. His eyes fell again on the seat. It came to him with a flash of clarity.
The seat was full of foam rubber, full of tiny bubbles of air. He thought of trying to use the whole seat. It would probably float but the metal parts would weight it down, and it would be cumbersome to hold on to it and to swim with it. No, what he would do was cut out pieces to use. He had cut some out to pad his leg, but the vast majority remained in two big lumps, one at the bottom and one at the back. He would cut these out in the largest pieces he could manage. Then he would tie them together with more strips of vinyl. The strips would give him something to hang onto. If he managed it right he could largely float as he was carried along by the flow of the water.
Somehow he had left that huge crocodile out of his consideration. Sharing the water with it gave him a pang of fear. But it had had plenty of opportunity to harm him already and had done nothing. And it was not like he had any choice. If the water kept rising he would be forced into it soon enough. Then he and the crocodile would be in it together. Better to do it with control, perhaps he could break off a piece of metal from the seat and use this to push it away if it came too close.
He looked at the size of this enormous animal and realised this idea was ludicrous; it could swallow him in entirety in a single mouthful. Still he felt better with the idea of some protection, even if only token, and a piece of metal might come in useful somewhere else in his trip. Come to think of it, he should pull the seat apart and look for anything else useful in it before
he left. It was the only vaguely useful object in his surroundings.
So Vic set to work. First he cut out two large pieces of foam which he tied together. It was nice and light so the buoyancy would be good. Then he stripped what remained of the vinyl which he cut into long strips for future ties. It was hard work with the little knife, and his bad shoulder pained.
At the back of the seat was an elastic mesh holder, with gaps of about a centimetre between the threads. Perhaps, if he could make up a frame, this could be used as a fish net. He packed all these pieces into his broken helmet which served as a useful basket and then stripped all other pieces of cord, wire and any other metal fittings he could remove.
Now he really only had the metal frame remaining. He cut it free of the seat remnants. He looked closely at it. It was only light aluminium so it should be brittle if he could find a way to break it. A fissure ran into the cliff face just behind him so he jammed one end into that. Then he found a rock to bash into the middle where the metal curved around. After several blows he had cracked it through. Now he worked on the other end and broke it through too.
That gave him two curved pieces of aluminium, each about four feet long. As gently as he could he bent each one into a reasonably straight shape, though one had a hook like bit at the end. The pieces did not break or buckle so that was good, they looked strong and could be used as poles to push off rocks and otherwise guide his passage.
Now, only the broken shell of seat remnants remained. He poked around at it seeing if there was anything else useful left. He picked it up to look underneath. As he did he saw a small object fall from a crack between the upright portion of the seat and the base, which were still held together with fragments of fabric.
He looked at it in amazement. It was a transparent plastic cigarette lighter, not something he would ever use as a non- smoker himself. But someone else must have; perhaps the previous owner of the machine was a smoker. It must have sat there for at least a couple years, fallen out of a pocket into that gap, unnoticed.
Remarkably he could see it was still about half full of what looked like lighter fluid. It seemed too good to be true; if he could think of a single extra thing he would need to survive beyond his knife this was it. He felt almost scared to touch it, but he flicked it open. Sure enough a spark and flame came. Quickly he shut it off. Its precious contents must be preserved.
Now the water was starting to bubble around his feet and he knew that, ready or not, he must take to it. But he had one last thing he needed to do. He still had his plastic flight map of the area. He must survey it and determine where he might find a way to get out of this river valley. Even though it was at a large scale the detail was surprisingly good.
So he located the Fitzmaurice River and followed his route of yesterday, up the course of the river until that tight bend there and the fatal cliff. He remembered a big creek off to the other side just back. If he was on that side it would be an obvious way out. But despite his float there was no way he could get to the other side of this huge torrent.
His best bet was to stay close to this edge, where rocks and ledges slowed the flow a bit. So he followed the valley down on the map with his eyes. He had a vague memory of a steep and jagged gully cutting down a couple miles back. Not much more than a crack in the cliff really, but something to aim for. Sure enough that looked like it and the map showed it running back into the hills for a way, so it looked like a creek ran down it in the rain. Now he had a destination to aim for.
The water almost completely covered the rock shelf now. He clipped his helmet to a strap around the foam float, he pushed the metal poles into the straps where they would not fall out and pushed the lighter into the smallest pocket of his shorts and zipped it closed. He half stumbled, half crawled to where the rock shelf fell away into the deeper water. He deliberately avoided looking at the crocodile lest his nerve failed.
Suddenly the current picked him up and he was floating down the river about 5 metres from the edge. He decided to go out a bit further, it gave him a better view forward along the cliff and he was also less likely to be bashed into rocks on the edge. He looked around, the crocodile was nowhere in sight.
He tried to estimate the distance he was covering and his speed by taking reference points along the cliff, estimating their distance away and counting how long it took to reach them. It was far from accurate but his estimate was that he was doing something around 10 kilometres per hour. He barely kicked or paddled, deciding to save his energy and watch as the cliff faces swept past him.
He estimated that at this rate it would take between twenty and thirty minutes to reach the place he wanted to try and climb out from. It was only a guess but it was good to have something to occupy his mind as he felt very vulnerable floating down this large river knowing that at least one crocodile was somewhere nearby. He just hoped that the place he was heading for would have somewhere to climb out of the water; where he was travelling now the cliffs rose sheer from the water for more than a hundred feet.
After what seemed like about fifteen minutes he noticed a thin crack visible high on the cliff line, a few hundred yards in front of him. He wondered if this was it, but there was nothing further down the cliff and as he reached and passed under this place he realised that this crack must be a creek which ended in a waterfall. He watched a thin line of water fall a hundred feet into the river below. He moved a bit further out into the river as he passed below it, both to avoid its spray and to widen his angle of view. Another green line in the cliff was coming up in a few hundred yards. This one seemed to track all the way to the bottom. He began to paddle and kick his way back towards the edge. It was slow work as he could only use his good leg. Each time the broken leg got jerked around by the current pain shot through his body.
Now he could see it clearly. There was no obvious rock shelf but a ribbon of green ran all the way to the water’s edge and a couple of the trees at the bottom appeared to have their trunks partly covered by water. So if he could get into those it would give him something to hang onto and stop his passage.
Now the gap to the trees was closing and he could see better. One tree looked like it had two trunks about a foot apart. He would try to aim for the point where the water ran between them and jam himself tightly into the gap while he grabbed on to one side. He looped his arm through the strap between the bundles and tried to maintain his line. As he closed the gap, the trees seemed to be rushing towards him very fast.
He was there, his body slammed into part of the trunk with a huge weight of water behind him. His broken leg bashed into the trunk lower down and he almost screamed aloud with the pain. He wondered if his body would be torn through the gap with the still rising water but it jammed firm. The weight of the water was too strong to get out of this place, he could not push free. He must hang on and hope that the water either slowed further on the incoming tide, or fell low enough later in the day for him to get out of this tree and up the bank. It would be easier said than done. From here he could see no way out up the creek; the crack in the cliffs just vanished into gloom behind a wall of trees and creepers though he could hear the noise of running water coming down the hillside from behind. He forced himself to relax and stay calm, to savour the pleasure of having made it thus far.
Now he felt very tired and his body craved rest. He realised it was mostly hunger; it was over a day since he had eaten anything and in this cold water he was burning energy fast. He felt a light headed dreamy feeling steal over him. He thought of bars of chocolate, bowls of steaming stew and slices of bread and butter as his stomach growled. He decided to let the fantasy take him to block out the reality and pass the time.
The sun sat in a mid-morning position. He thought of yesterday’s breakfast, a large plate of fried eggs and bacon, on thick toast slices, washed down with steaming coffee. Then he thought of his mother’s cooking, her light and fluffy cakes, served with cream or ice cream. He deliberately followed the food trail in his mind; great slabs of st
eak, hot buttered potatoes, bowls of pasta and rice.
He may have dozed in this dreamy state. He realised that his body was being lifted up the tree, now the gap was widening between the two trunks, he had risen at least a foot, maybe more, and in about another foot the gap would let him pass through. Now he must turn his attention to what to do next, the force of the water had definitely eased.
He measured the distance to the edge, where other trees grew and where the flow was slack. There was a batch of trees about five metres downstream and a similar distance across from where he was. If he could get to them they may allow him to get to the bank or the rock face edge, or whatever lay out of view beyond the trees. He thought about how best to do it. When his body was high enough to pass between the trunks he would use his good leg to push off from this tree trunk as far as he could go toward the next destination. Then kicking with his good leg he could put out an aluminium pole and try to hook a tree before the current carried him past.
It did not quite work out that way, the flow was still strong and he was not yet high enough to pass through. But it had eased enough to let him slide around the side of the trunk, away from the centre. He pushed his way out and around, inch by inch, his injured shoulder hurting as he used this arm to help force himself back against the current. But at last he got free and then got his float free.
Now he rested for a minute holding tightly to the one trunk; that exertion had taken a big part of his reserve of strength. When he felt the tiredness ease he bunched himself up with his good leg against the trunk, took a deep breath, pushed and struck out. The current was much stronger than it looked and he was rapidly being swept along the bank and back towards the main river. He only had two more metres to cross but was fast coming to the edge of the treed place, just a bare rock cliff again.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 62
