by Bear Grylls
They walked through the afternoon, with occasional breaks for a rest and a sip of water. Every estimated five kilometres, Beck continued to take measurements from the sun. It wasn’t easy because they weren’t always heading in a straight line. Sometimes geography got in the way – a drop too sheer to negotiate or a slope too steep to walk up – so they had to go round the obstacle. Samora also contributed her own expertise: she made them give a very wide berth to a family of hyenas they saw in the distance.
‘They have good eyesight, day and night, though they’re not so good on smell. But even they would smell those zebra pieces if they got close enough – so let’s not give them a reason to investigate us,’ she told Beck.
Skirting round the hyenas to Samora’s satisfaction must have added a kilometre to their journey, though Beck felt that was a reasonable price to pay to avoid being eaten alive.
The hyenas weren’t the only creatures they saw, or the only ones to steer clear of. Samora avoided the places where lions might be around. They would probably be resting at this time of day – lying down, almost invisible . . . until two humans came stumbling in amongst them. At which point they would realize that they still felt hungry!
Even vegetarian animals could be dangerous. Buffalo looked slow and placid, but those horns could split an intruder in two if the animals felt threatened, and they could run a lot faster than a human. The pair also gave elephants a wide berth, not wanting to give the mighty creatures any excuse to sense danger and charge.
Out here, Beck knew, you only got it wrong once. And as his dad used to say: complacency kills. Always stay alert.
And so they made their meandering way across the Kruger National Park. The sun drew alongside, then gradually overtook them, heading for the western horizon. Shades of red and orange began to make their way into the sky. Beck guessed they had about an hour of daylight before the abruptly falling night of southern Africa.
‘We should stop soon.’
Samora sagged in relief. ‘No more walking? Yay! And we can make a fire! We can actually cook our zebra meat!’
‘Well . . .’ Beck looked doubtfully back the way they had come. ‘I don’t know. The smoke could be visible for miles.’
Her face twisted unhappily. ‘Oh, please?’
‘Well . . . OK, I may be able to do something.’
Half a kilometre away the ground sloped gently up towards a thicket of trees the size of a football field. Beck pointed it out to Samora.
‘Any animal dangers? Lions . . .? Leopards . . .?’
She studied it thoughtfully. ‘Probably not. They prefer open spaces. Of course, we won’t know until we get there.’
Beck bit his lip, and decided. ‘Then that’s where we’re spending the night. And I’ll see what I can do about that fire.’
They pressed on into the trees.
It wasn’t long before Beck had found exactly what they needed.
Chapter 35
‘So what’s so special about this place anyway?’ Samora asked.
She and Beck stood among the trees at the foot of a short bank of earth. Above them, a tree lay on its side. Its trunk was pitted with holes – slowly eaten away from within by termites.
‘There are no obvious animal tracks, for a start,’ Beck said. He’d been glad to see this. It meant that it wasn’t a trail regularly used by animals on their way to find water, shelter or food. And Beck knew that it was critical to survival in the bush to avoid setting up camp at a spot used as a route by rhinos, cheetahs – or worse.
‘And as you can see, we have branches for a shelter.’
Samora squinted at the fallen pile. ‘We need a shelter? The nights are warm – the weather’s OK.’
‘It doesn’t have to be anything fancy – just something simple that will protect us . . . and give the animals something to think about if they want to get at you,’ Beck added. ‘And it’s always better to be inside than out. Warmth, protection and morale.’
Samora nodded. It was true: you always felt better sleeping inside something, rather than just being out in the open, however simple the shelter was.
‘OK. So we sleep under this lot . . .’
‘We can do better than that, I reckon . . .’
If Beck had been properly prepared for their journey across the African bush, he would have had a machete with him – something with which to cut off the branches and make a proper shelter, with a roof and walls and a platform to keep them off the ground.
As it was, he knew that their accommodation for the night would be more than a little rough and ready.
He scrambled up the bank and ducked under the canopy of branches. Some of them had snapped off when the tree fell over; those that were still attached to the trunk ranged in diameter from the thickness of his wrist to limbs that he couldn’t even wrap both hands around. He grabbed a thin one, and pulled.
‘We . . . can’ – he gave an extra hard tug on the branch – ‘pull . . . this over . . . to make a roof.’
The branch had been angling away from the trunk. With Beck’s weight on it, it now stuck out at ninety degrees to the trunk and sloped down towards the ground. He let it go and it immediately swung back to where it had been. He turned and saw that Samora was biting her lip, trying not to laugh.
Beck unwrapped one of the ropes from around his waist and tied a loop around the branch. He gave the loose end to Samora to hold, and resumed his grip on the branch to pull it back over to where he wanted it. ‘Now, take up the slack . . .’
Samora braced herself and pulled on the rope. Beck took it from her and tied it to a thinner branch that stuck out from the trunk. Now it was held firmly where he wanted it. It was joined to the trunk at one end, and the other end almost touched the ground.
‘Now we can get smaller, loose branches and pile them up on either side. Plug the gaps with anything else that you can find . . . Then we’ll have a shelter. Can I leave you to do that? We can tie them all together once you have them in place.’
‘Uh, sure.’ Samora studied the branches available with a critical eye. ‘And you’ll be doing what . . .?’
‘Keeping my promise,’ he said with a smile. He searched around for what he wanted, and picked it up – a short, sturdy length of wood that wouldn’t break easily. ‘You wanted a fire – you’ll have a fire.’
Chapter 36
Beck left Samora to wrestle with the branches, and went back down below the fallen tree. He studied the sides of the bank for a good place to start what he had in mind. Then he spotted it, about halfway up.
There was a small hole where it looked like some animal had burrowed its way in. He needed to dig a hole too, and there was no point in expending energy doing that when some animal had already done part of the work for him.
First of all Beck stuck the chair leg into the hole, to make sure it wasn’t still occupied. He couldn’t feel anything at the other end; just solid earth . . . The hole was empty. Good.
He took the bone knife from his belt and studied the tip. It was sharp, but it was also fragile – it would snap if he used it for what he had in mind. He set it aside and picked up the wooden chair leg again. Wishing he had a proper spade, or even that machete he had been dreaming about, Beck gripped the blunt piece of wood in both hands and rammed the sharper end into the earth next to the hole. He twisted and levered it back out so that a clod of earth tumbled out. Then he repeated the action, again and again.
It took time, and the deeper in he got, the more packed and hard the earth was. He kept going – slowly but surely. He had to exert force to get the chair leg into the earth, but he didn’t want to work up a sweat and use up his reserves of water.
Little by little the cavity in the bank grew bigger, until it was wide enough for Beck to put his head into. He could now just use the leg to hack away at the earth at the back of the hole. Then, using his hands, he scooped out the loose earth. Once he’d cleared that, he would go back to using the chair leg for the next lot.
Samor
a had done her work with the shelter, and came down to watch. ‘Anything I can do?’ she wondered.
There wasn’t really room for the two of them to work on the hole side by side.
‘Could you gather up some firewood?’ Beck asked her. ‘Small sticks, and a few large ones’ – he made a circle out of his thumb and forefinger – ‘about that big.’ There wouldn’t be room in the hole he was digging for anything larger.
‘OK.’ Samora went back up to the tree to start gathering wood, and Beck went back to his work.
By the time he was finished, he had opened up a hole about the length of his arm. There was no point in making it any deeper – he wouldn’t be able to reach the back otherwise. But there was one last, important thing to do.
The roof of the hole was about twenty centimetres below the top of the bank. Beck hadn’t wanted to leave any less than that in case it crumbled and fell in. Any more, and his plan wouldn’t work.
He climbed up the bank and stood above the hole with his feet on either side of it, so that his weight wouldn’t make it cave in. He picked up the chair leg again and pushed the sharp end straight down into the earth. He twisted it back and forth to drive it in deeper. It took a minute or so, but slowly, bit by bit, he worked it in . . . and suddenly there was no resistance. He had pushed it through the earth into the cavity beneath.
Samora had built up a small pile of wood and leaves. He selected the pieces he wanted carefully. First he used dry leaves to build up a little nest at the back of the cavity, below the vertical hole he had just drilled. Then he laid smaller twigs over them. He slowly built the pile up, the pieces getting larger and larger until he had a bundle about the size of a football.
The theory was that the leaves would catch almost immediately and help to set fire to the twigs. The twigs would then add their heat to the larger pieces and make them burn too.
‘Roast zebra coming up?’ Samora asked happily.
‘Almost . . . almost.’
‘Excellent . . .’ She cocked her head. ‘No offence, but it seems like a lot of trouble just to make a fire.’
‘It’s a snake-hole fire,’ Beck said. He pointed at the vertical hole. ‘That’s for ventilation. When the fire gets going, it will suck in air through the main entrance, which will reduce the amount of smoke. Only a very thin column will emerge from here. It should hardly be visible at all. And the flames are totally hidden inside. Plus, it will act like an oven. All the heat will be confined to a small space, so that will speed up the cooking process. Your roast zebra’s going to be nice and tender, not charred on the outside and raw in the middle like most open fire cooking. That is, once we’ve lit the fire . . .’
He stepped back and studied the hole thoughtfully.
Samora looked puzzled. ‘Problem?’
‘Well, we’ve got to light it with something, haven’t we?’ Beck thought wistfully of his beloved fire steel, his companion on so many adventures. It could start a fire anywhere . . . except that it was now lying at the bottom of the ocean.
‘OK,’ he decided, ‘we’ll use a drill and bow to get it going.’
‘A drill and bow?’ For some reason Samora sounded amused. ‘That’s when you spin a stick to create friction?’
‘Yup. The string of the bow goes around the drill and you move it backwards and forwards. Only you need to have a string in the first place . . .’ Beck paused for a moment, trying to remember the last time he had done that. Oh, yes – with Peter, in the Sahara. That time, the string had been made from a handy length of parachute cord.
‘We’ve used up all our rope on the shelter,’ Samora pointed out, still smiling, as if it was some kind of joke, ‘but maybe we can use our shoelaces . . .’
Beck frowned. Samora looked like she was on the verge of collapsing into laughter.
‘Well, I’ll go and get the wood we need . . .’ he went on.
‘This is all very impressive,’ Samora said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out something really unexpected. It was small, square and plastic. ‘Or you could just use my lighter.’
Beck stared at it.
Then he stared at it for a bit longer.
He slowly reached out his hand to take it. He gave it a flick. A small, hot flame appeared at the end.
‘Don’t tell me you smoke!’
‘No, I don’t. But the electricity supply is pretty bad out in the offices of the park. You never know when you might need to light a candle. So, roast zebra?’
‘Roast zebra!’ Beck agreed. ‘You know’ – he paused – ‘you’re pretty handy to have around, Samora!’
Chapter 37
Beck woke with a start – an instant transition from fast asleep to full alert.
He and Samora had nodded off quickly, lying head to toe, their stomachs full of hot food, their limbs tired after a hard day’s trek.
They had laid out small branches and leaves on the ground inside the shelter to insulate themselves from the chill of the earth. Beck felt them rustle as he half sat up and turned over.
Something big was pushing its way through the trees, and it wasn’t making any effort to hide. A crunch, a snap . . . the popping of sticks on the ground. It had to be some kind of animal. Beck lay there and listened, tensed to wake Samora and flee if it started coming much closer.
But after a while he was pretty certain it was moving away. The noises faded into nothing.
Beck breathed a quiet, happy sigh and began to lie down again. He would try and get back to sleep, though his heart was still pounding with adrenalin. And then he paused.
Was something else moving out there?
He strained his ears, and narrowed his eyes to stare out through the leaves of the shelter. The moon was out and it was almost full, so all the trees were bathed in silver light. There was no colour, just shades of silvery grey, or pitch black in the shadows.
It wasn’t exactly a noise; more like a sensation. He wouldn’t have noticed it at all if his senses hadn’t been so keyed up by the first noise. He couldn’t actually hear anything moving, but somehow he had the impression that something was creeping through the trees. Then, every now and then, a twig would snap or a leaf would rustle, and that would confirm it.
It wasn’t anything like the first thing he had heard – it was much smaller than that. The previous intruder had just walked through the trees without caring who heard. This . . . this sounded horribly like someone furtive.
Whatever – whoever – it was, it was moving slowly from Beck’s right to his left. It was impossible to guess its distance, but it was inside the trees, so that meant it couldn’t be more than ten metres away.
Beck bit his lip. He and Samora were well hidden here, with the roof of the shelter just looking like a pile of branches.
They shouldn’t have lit that fire, he thought to himself. Its small signature of drifting wispy smoke must have been enough to give away their position.
Slowly, gently, Beck reached out for Samora and gave her a gentle shake. She woke with no more than a slightly startled ‘Huh?’
Beck quickly put his finger to her lips. She looked up at him with wide eyes, and then silently pushed herself up, crouching beside him and staring out. Beck pointed at where he thought the movement was. She nodded.
Then a section of shadow broke away from a tree trunk. It moved off and emerged into a shaft of moonlight. The silver light painted it into the shape of a heavily built man with a mane of hair – a man Beck had seen before, at the shanty town.
The Silverback had found them again.
Maybe one of them made a noise – a gasp, an inhalation of breath – or maybe the guy was just very, very good at what he did. He froze and his head slowly turned to face them. In the moonlight his eyes were shadows, but his features were pale and clear.
Beck was certain they couldn’t be seen through the leaves, but a grin of unholy joy spread over the man’s face, and Beck was sure he heard him whisper, ‘Gotcha,’ before heading purposefully towards them.
> Beck and Samora shot to their feet, bursting through the leafy roof of their shelter.
‘Run!’
Chapter 38
They tore through the trees. Branches came out of the dark, and slapped and whipped against their faces. Beck held up one hand to shield his eyes. The other was firmly grasping Samora’s, though it was hard to say which of them was in the lead.
The Silverback was making no attempt to hide now. Beck could hear him crashing through the bushes behind them, making almost as much noise as the thing that had first roused him.
Occasionally there was a shout: ‘Oi!’ or ‘You!’ or ‘Wait . . .’ And then a curse as he stumbled or encountered a thorny bush. The man was much bigger and heavier than they were. He wasn’t designed for running through undergrowth.
The noises behind them receded, but only a little. Beck could tell they were gaining ground on their pursuer, though it couldn’t last. The Silverback wasn’t going to stop, and the trees wouldn’t go on for ever. Sooner or later they would be back out in the grasslands. It would be a whole lot harder out there.
Their only real hope was to find somewhere to hide, and hide so well that the guy gave up looking for them.
They suddenly found themselves in a clearing. Samora was all for running straight across it, but Beck held her back.
‘No, wait.’
The clearing was lit up by moonlight – they would stand out like sore thumbs. He guessed they had maybe thirty seconds before the man was upon them.
‘Up here.’
They ran over to a tree a few metres away on the edge of the clearing. The lowest branches were about two metres up. Beck wrapped the fingers of both hands together to make a stirrup. Samora put her foot into it and he shunted her up to the lowest branch. She quickly pulled herself up.
The noise of the Silverback was getting closer. Beck made a leap for the branch and just managed to wrap his fingers around it. He swung himself back and forth until his legs were able to wrap around the tree trunk. That gave him enough purchase to pull himself further up, and then he was beside Samora.
