by Bear Grylls
The smile became fixed, then slowly disappeared. ‘Beck . . .’
Beck lifted his eyes from the dog to follow her gaze.
Green eyes shone in the undergrowth, reflecting back the light of the dying sun. Dark shapes moved. Dead ahead, left, right – in fact, all around. Four, five, six of them.
Beck had forgotten the one important fact about African wild dogs. They moved in packs.
And the pack had returned.
Chapter 42
‘Hey,’ Beck said. ‘Uh. Nice doggy?’
One of the dogs growled, then flinched as he turned towards it.
‘Uh. Advice?’ he asked.
‘Move away from the injured one,’ Samora said. ‘They’ll want to protect her if they think you’re going to hurt her.’
The dog that Beck had freed was still struggling to stand on her injured legs, though she was getting stronger. Beck took a couple of slow, careful steps backwards.
One of the dogs had the torn-off leg of an antelope in its mouth. It trotted forward and dropped it in front of its injured friend. She tore into it with muffled yelps of gratitude.
‘That’s amazing,’ Samora whispered. ‘The pack looks out for its own. They were getting her something to eat.’
The rest of the pack was slowly circling the two friends. Beck knew exactly what was going through their doggy minds. Their friend was hurt. The two humans were here. Therefore the two humans must have hurt their friend. They couldn’t understand that Beck had actually freed her.
‘Do they attack humans?’ he murmured.
‘Rarely.’
‘Right . . .’ A pause. ‘That’s not quite the same as “never”.’
‘No.’
Another pause. Another dog took a step forward, then quickly withdrew when Beck moved.
‘Will they let us walk quietly away?’
Samora looked about her. They were surrounded. ‘Probably not. One of them will eventually summon up the courage to make the first move. So let’s make it for them.’
She suddenly waved her arms and ran at the largest and nearest dog – the one that looked like it had humans in mind for its next meal. ‘Hah!’
The dog leaped away from her.
‘Hah! Come on, Beck – you too. Hah!’
She ran at another dog, her arms windmilling. Beck joined in. The pack scattered in front of them.
‘As long as someone is bigger and stronger than they are, they’ll respect them. So we have to be bigger and stronger. Hah! This way!’
Shouting and waving their arms, they reached the edge of the clearing. The pack were clustered together on the far side, surrounding the injured dog.
‘And now, we just move away . . .’ Samora said. She took Beck’s sleeve and gently tugged him into the trees.
The branches closed behind him, and when he turned round, he could no longer see the dogs.
‘And now we move a bit more quickly.’
They hurried out onto the open ground. The sun was very low now; the landscape was red and dusky. There was maybe half an hour of daylight left.
‘And keep moving.’
They walked briskly. There was no point in running at the moment. It would only use up energy. The important thing was just to put distance between them and the dogs, keeping up a steady pace.
‘Will they change their mind?’ Beck asked.
‘They might. They might realize they’re still hungry and could do with a meal. Or they might just forget about us and settle down for the night.’
Settling down for the night was one thing he and Samora weren’t going to do anytime soon, Beck realized. Not with a pack of African wild dogs anywhere in the vicinity. They would have to find somewhere a good distance away; somewhere secure and defendable. If the dogs had come across them in last night’s shelter, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.
He began to think ahead. Maybe a tree – something big and strong with a wide top. A baobab, perhaps . . .
A baying cry sounded behind them. Then a chorus of yelps, then another howl.
‘I think they might have changed their mind,’ Samora said. ‘Run!’
Chapter 43
Long grass whipped against their legs as they fled. Beck didn’t want to look back. It would only slow them down. His mind was already picturing the dogs – sleek, dark shapes that moved across the ground like torpedoes, aimed straight at them.
‘Can we scare them again?’ His voice jolted in time with his footsteps. ‘Make a loud noise?’
He still had the water bottle slung over his shoulder. It thumped into his waist with every step he took. He thought of maybe throwing it away, saving himself a little weight. But throwing away water . . .? Bad idea.
‘If they’ve . . . decided to hunt’ – Samora’s words came out in gasps as she ran – ‘they’ve found . . . their courage.’
‘OK . . .’ Beck scanned ahead. The ground wasn’t smooth. In the distance he could see clumps of trees, piles of rocks. Maybe they could find a spot that could be defended. Somewhere the dogs could only attack from one direction. If there was something – a branch, a rock – that he could wield, he could keep them off, make them change their minds again . . .
Samora was slowing down.
‘What?’ he asked, aghast.
She bent down, her hands on her knees. He couldn’t believe she was tired out already.
She wasn’t. She only took a couple of breaths before she straightened up and looked him in the eye. ‘We’ve got to split up.’
‘Split up?’
‘They’re a pack. They stay together – hunt together. And that means they can only chase one target. There’s two of us. Worst case – they come for just one of us. Best case – they get confused and give up altogether. But, Beck, that means we have to do it now. We’ve got two minutes, max, before they catch up.’
Beck stared at her with his mouth open. His mind instinctively rebelled against the idea. They were friends. They did not split up! They stayed together . . .
But Samora knew more than him about pack dogs. There wasn’t time to argue.
‘OK . . .’ They looked at each other, and Beck realized with a pang that this might be goodbye. ‘You know how to get where we’re going, right?’ he asked. Samora nodded. ‘So we’ll keep going through the night, and look out for each other when it gets light . . .’
On a sudden instinct, they hugged each other. Then, without any further words, Samora went right, Beck went left, and they ran for their lives.
There was a lump on the horizon that Beck really hoped might be rocks. About a hundred metres further on was a group of trees. Dogs don’t climb trees. But could he make it across in time? The rocks it was. If he could climb to the top of those, he should be able to fight off any dog with ideas above its station. His feet pounded on the dry ground. Then, after about thirty seconds, he suddenly slowed down to something not much faster than a jog.
‘Come on, doggies . . .’ he muttered. ‘Woof, woof.’ Then he whistled. ‘Here, boy!’
He could run faster than Samora. He was taller and his legs were longer – which meant that, if he ran as fast as he could, as Samora was doing, she would be the easy target. She would be slower and the dogs would go after her.
He had to become the easy target. Let the dogs think he was the one they could catch without hurrying too much. There was no way they were going to tear his friend apart if he could help it.
A bark snapped through the darkness behind him. The dogs had taken his bait. Immediately Beck exploded into speed.
‘Usain Bolt,’ he grated between clenched teeth, ‘eat your heart out!’
If ever Beck Granger was going to run like an Olympic gold medallist, then it was now – with a pack of wild dogs at his heels.
Then his foot caught on a root and he stumbled forward, arms windmilling to keep his balance. He ploughed into the ground, rolled over, and was up on his feet and running again, all in one movement.
But the dogs were closing.
Fast.
Chapter 44
They were silent now, committed to the chase. They didn’t need to bark. The only sound was Beck’s boots pounding on the ground and the air rasping in his lungs. But somehow he could sense them behind him – getting closer.
The strange thing was, he couldn’t hold it against them. They were doing what it was in their nature to do – hunting prey for the pack. This was how the wild worked. It was nothing personal. They weren’t plotting to end his life because he was inconvenient and threatened to expose their lies and stop them making money. In other words, they weren’t Lumos.
They just wanted to eat him.
And they were faster, stronger and more numerous than him.
To survive, he was going to have to outsmart them.
Dark shapes moved into the corners of his eyes, flowing over the ground on each side of him. The dogs were alongside. So if they could catch him up, why wasn’t it all over? Because, said a logical voice at the back of his mind, they also needed to get into a position to pounce and take him down.
And so, for now, they just encircled him, and hemmed him in – and ran with him. They were in no hurry. They knew that he would be the one to tire first. And when he slowed down, they would be upon him in a flash – and that would be that. Beck knew he couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer.
The rocks he was aiming for lay dead ahead – more like a mound that had collapsed down on itself: a small cliff face, four or five metres high, with a jumble of boulders lying at its base. The sight gave him a little extra strength. He aimed for the nearest part and forced himself to keep his speed up. His body told him that he was about to run into solid rock; it wanted him to slow down before he hurt himself.
That’s nothing to what will happen otherwise, he told his body firmly. Keep going.
The nearest rock loomed ahead. Beck prepared himself, then ran and jumped, all in one movement, scrambling up on top of it.
Now he could defend himself. He was standing on a narrow ledge with his back to solid rock. The dogs could only come at him from one direction.
The pack surged around the base of the rocks and broke into confused yelps. As far as the dogs were concerned, he hadn’t played the game. The prey wasn’t supposed to do this. The first dog leaped up onto the rock after him. Its front paws scrabbled for a purchase on the smooth surface.
Beck lurched forward at it. ‘Hah! Go away!’
He aimed a kick at its head. The dog recoiled and fell back. It twisted in mid-air to land on all fours with a thump.
‘Oh, yeah! Round one to the human boy! Who’s next?’
There were growls and grunts from below him. Beck peered over the edge. Several pairs of glaring green eyes met his. Another dog tentatively put its paws up against the rock.
‘Hah!’
The dog didn’t climb back down. But it didn’t jump at him either. Beck wondered if he and the dogs were coming to an understanding. They wouldn’t attack so long as he was still moving . . .
So all he had to do was keep awake all night, and then all day, until Samora finally sent someone to fetch him. At this point that didn’t seem likely.
‘I need another plan,’ Beck muttered out loud.
He still had some water. He even had a lump of zebra meat left. If he threw that to the dogs, would they go away? Or would they just regard it as the starter course? He decided not to throw it. He didn’t know how long he was going to be here with nothing else to eat—
Claws scraped on rock. Beck froze, then slowly looked round.
‘Oh . . . crud.’
The narrow ledge he was standing on stretched away on either side. It must circle the small hill and drop down to ground level. A dog had snuck round the other side and made its way up. It was only a couple of metres away, and all it had to do was pounce.
‘Hah!’
The dog flinched, but it didn’t back away.
Beck tried again. ‘I said hah! Hah! Go away! Stupid animal!’
This time it didn’t even move. This dog wasn’t a coward. It had plucked up the nerve to get this far and it wasn’t going to back down now. It lowered its head, almost to the ground, and bared its teeth. Its big round ears were aimed squarely at him.
Get it while it’s in mid-air, Beck told himself. He kept his eyes fixed on the dog’s, and slowly shifted his feet to get himself into the right position. He crouched down. He would only have one chance. The dog would leap, and when it did, it would be unable to change direction. If he could get under it, lever it away, send it over the edge . . .
One chance. One chance only. Boy and wild animal braced for what was to come.
Then, suddenly, a shot rang out – a high explosive crack that split the dusk apart. A section of rock between Beck and the dog exploded into small chips. At the same time he heard the high-pitched twang of a bullet strike.
The dog spun round and fled back along the ledge.
The pack beneath milled about in confusion. Another shot, another bullet strike – this time on the rocks below Beck. The pack bolted.
Beck sat down and stared out into the dusk, trying to spot his unexpected saviour. And then his heart sank . . . because, striding over the grass towards him, was the familiar shape of the Silverback.
And things were even worse than he’d feared, for now he saw that the Silverback was being followed by James Blake.
Chapter 45
Beck closed his eyes and banged his head against his knees.
Part of him wondered why he was just sitting there when his arch-enemies were casually strolling towards him. The simple answer was that he was exhausted. He didn’t have any more running left in him.
The man approached the rocks and looked up. In one hand he casually held a self-loading, high-powered rifle, with its butt resting against his hip. He wore a khaki shirt and slacks that could have been military surplus.
James had his hands on his hips and a wide grin on his face. He was dressed like a city kid out on holiday – T-shirt, long shorts, sandals.
The Silverback was the one who spoke. ‘You’re welcome. You coming down, kid?’
Every option ran through Beck’s head in less than a second. There weren’t many. And the truth was, he was out of luck and out of escape routes, while a man with a rifle stood right in front of him.
‘No, thanks. I think I’ll stay here.’
‘Kid . . .’ The man tried to sound reasonable. ‘If I wanted to shoot you, you’d be dead by now.’ To make his point, he slung the rifle over his shoulder so that it hung by its strap. His hands were free and he held them up. ‘Or, if we’d wanted the entertainment, I’d have just left you to the doggies.’
James gave him a friendly punch. ‘No, we wouldn’t,’ he scolded.
The Silverback shrugged. ‘Whatever.’
With a couple of swift movements he had clambered up to Beck’s level. He held out a hand for James, who slowly and clumsily clambered up after him. Beck tensed to flee, but there really was nowhere he could go. Even if he made a break for it while the man was helping James, he would catch up within seconds.
And yet – the fact was finally sinking into Beck’s tired brain – the man had been right. He could have shot him already. And he hadn’t.
And so that was why Beck just sat there. Beaten.
James made his way up towards him with a pleased look on his face. ‘May I . . .?’
Without waiting for permission he sat down crosslegged in front of Beck. The Silverback leaned back against the rock face behind him. Beck waited for the other boy to speak.
‘I don’t blame you for not trusting me, Beck.’ James flashed him an anxious smile. ‘But this is the new James you’re looking at. You helped make me. I owe you big time.’
Beck looked at him sceptically.
‘Oh, and this is Ian,’ James added, with a nod at the Silverback. ‘Ian Bostock. You probably ought to be introduced.’
‘Hi,’ the man said by way of acknowledgement.
; Beck still didn’t quite trust himself to say anything polite in return, so he grunted.
James’s smile grew wider. ‘Wow. Where to start . . .’
‘Well, you survived Island Alpha,’ said Beck.
‘Yes . . .’ The smile faded. ‘I survived.’
Beck knew that James’s mother had died on the exploding rig. He had wanted to stay and help her, even though she wanted to kill him. He had wanted to because it was the right thing to do. He knew what it was like to lose a mother. No one should experience that – not even James, and not even a mother like her.
‘I’m so sorry about what happened,’ he said, and meant it.
James shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know you are. Long story short, I ended up in one of the lifepods and washed ashore on an island. Thanks to you, I knew enough to keep myself alive – though it wasn’t easy. But I learned. And one of the things that kept me going was thinking of all the different ways I would like to kill you. There were so many, and I had so long to plan them. I was on that island for two months. Two whole months.’
Casually telling a guy – and Beck was sure James meant every word – that he had wanted to kill him was a funny way of making conversation. But, Beck reminded himself, James had had a funny kind of upbringing. And so he just repeated, ‘I’m sorry.’
James broke into a smile. ‘You know what? It was the best thing that ever happened to me. OK, I barely made it through the first couple of nights, but there were emergency rations in the lifepod for when it got really bad, and you’d shown me how to get water, and find food, and make a fire – that was the longest, hardest bit, I can tell you – and all the time I was raging. I was furious at you. Sometimes it was like you were right there, standing in front of me, and I’d scream and curse at you for abandoning me to die, and I kept myself strong thinking of all the ways I’d get my revenge.’
James had the grace to look embarrassed.
‘And then, one day, I fell asleep with warm food inside me, and when I woke up, the fire was still going, and I already had a little food put aside for breakfast, so I knew I wouldn’t be hungry, and it was a beautiful day . . . And I understood that you’d saved my life. All the things you’d taught me in your efforts to keep us all alive. All of us.’
