Gold of the Gods

by Bear Grylls

  Christina was grim faced. 'I don't need a survival expert to tell me that, Beck. Those clouds look like they could sink the Titanic, not just the Bella Señora.'

  The breeze was now blowing fiercely towards the land. The sea was surging beneath them, lifting the raft and dropping it again in the troughs between the waves. Beck could see strips of white sand where the beach was sandwiched between the green of the jungle and the blue of the sea. All along its length, the line was broken by the dark gashes of rocky headlands.

  He gazed anxiously up at the sky. If the storm had come just a few hours later, they could have chosen their landing spot at leisure. But with the strength of the wind and the current, steering with the tiller was becoming almost impossible. As the shore came closer, Beck winced. His worst fears were being realized. The raft was being blown straight towards a headland between two bays. Stretching out towards them was the telltale white froth of a line of surf where a sandbank had built up beyond the headland, and the waves split in two like the traffic on a motorway intersection.

  Further in, on either side of the headland, giant rollers thundered onto the beaches. 'It won't be long now,' shouted Beck above the roar of the wind. 'I'll do what I can to keep the raft in the hollows between the waves. If we start surfing on the crests, we'll be thrown straight onto the rocks.'

  As Beck shouted instructions, Christina and Marco did what they could to steady the raft. Ringo had abandoned his perch on the mast, his screeches blown away on the wind as he circled above them. But now a huge wave was raising them up and the twins felt themselves being lifted skywards, as if a giant hand were hurling them towards the sandbank.

  When it came, the impact shook the raft with a terrifying shudder. A corner had hit the sea bed, and as the next wave picked them up once more, the raft spun round, flinging the twins into the raging surf. For a split second Beck could see them flailing desperately in the tossing waves and he heard a squawk from Ringo, far above. Then he lost sight of them as another huge wave crashed over the deck, throwing him against the mast. His legs felt like jelly as he fought desperately to cling on against the suck of the undertow.

  But the water was getting deeper again now and the waves more regular. The raft had been lifted off the sandbank and was hurtling towards the beach. As the mountain of water around Beck grew taller, the back of the raft was being sucked upwards by a following wave.

  Realizing the danger at the last moment, Beck threw himself clear as the wave hurled the raft up the beach. Pitched forward in the seething foam, he felt his body smash against the hard sand before the drag of the undertow locked around his legs and began pulling him out to sea once more. In a fleeting moment he could see Marco being tossed around in the surf before a second wave came crashing down, pummelling him into the sand. Breaking free of the waves, he gasped for air and struggled to stand as the suck of the surf dragged his legs from under him.

  Marco was beside him, tumbling over and over like a rag doll in the merciless surf. Throwing out a hand, Beck grabbed the boy's shirt just as another huge wave lifted them up and threw them up the beach. And now at last they were free of the waves as they staggered forward and collapsed exhausted on the sand.

  'We've done it! We're alive!' Beck was picking up handfuls of sodden sand in relief. But a look of horror had crossed Marco's face. His cheeks were ashen and his eyes staring.

  'Christina . . .' he whispered quietly. 'Christina.' His voice rose to a crescendo as he jumped to his feet and began racing along the beach, scanning the waves. 'Christina!' he screamed. 'Christina!'

  Beck was behind him now, his eyes desperately scanning the line of the beach and the raging surf in front of them.

  But the third member of the crew of the Bella Señora was nowhere to be seen.

  Christina was gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Beck shook the sleep from his exhausted body. He'd collapsed under a palm tree, his limbs leaden and bruised. Not far off, he could hear Marco groaning and turning restlessly. After a fruitless hunt for Christina, their shouts drowned out by the roar of the surf, the boys had reluctantly abandoned the search until first light.

  After they landed, Marco had been hysterical, running blindly back and forth along the beach, screaming Christina's name. Realizing the danger of sapping their remaining energy, Beck had eventually calmed the boy down and convinced him that Christina had probably been washed ashore further up the coast. 'We're still alive, so there's no reason why she won't be,' he had reasoned, trying desperately to keep Marco's spirits up. He wished Ringo were around, but there had been no sign of the parakeet since the raft had started to pitch in the surf. At least they still had the machete, safe in its sheath around his waist.

  Now the sun was rising over the headland into a deep blue sky. The tattered remnants of the previous night's storm clouds were strung out along the horizon like rags on a washing line. Scattered along the white sand of the beach lay the wreckage of the Bella Señora. The broken mast and the balsa logs rolled listlessly in the waves. The sail, battered and torn, had been tossed onto the beach like a sodden rag.

  Beck shook his head. Something was flashing across his closed eyelids like a doctor's bright torch. He tossed his head irritably, as if flicking hair out of his eyes, and groaned. The beginnings of a headache for sure. One that would get far worse as the sun rose higher in the sky. He swallowed. He could already feel the dryness in his throat and the day had hardly begun.

  But then the flash came again. And again.

  Shielding his eyes with his hand, he peered out across the beach towards the headland, where it stuck out from the bay like a crooked finger. Something very odd was happening. Marco was awake and skipping down the beach, dodging from side to side as if playing a game of touch rugby. The beam of light was dancing over his body as he chased it along the beach towards the headland.

  But now the beam was still again and had settled into a pattern. The flashes came in bursts of three: short, long, and then short again. Beck recognized it at once. Morse code. SOS. The international distress signal. The lost crew member of the Bella Señora was signalling to them from the cliff on the headland.

  'I just did as you told me, Beck,' said Christina when the three teenagers were reunited later that morning. Marco was beside himself with joy and Christina wiped tears of relief from her eyes. 'All I remember was a huge wave picking me up and dragging me into the sea. I didn't fight it but just went with the current. I must have been dragged into the next bay. Then, suddenly, there was sand under my feet and I was thrown up onto the beach.

  'I couldn't see the raft anywhere and I just prayed you'd been taken into the other bay,' Christina went on. 'When it got light, I climbed out along the headland and saw the wreck of the raft, and I guessed you must be nearby. Then I remembered my mirror. I'd forgotten I had it on me. I keep it in a little vanity bag in my trouser pocket for real emergencies like parties. I couldn't believe my luck when I found it was still in one piece.'

  By now, the sea was flat and calm. In the shallows of the bay it had turned the colour of lime juice, a few gentle ripples throwing shadows on the sandy floor like clouds on a summer's day. 'It looks just like one of Mum's holiday brochures,' Christina commented. 'But somehow I don't feel like I'm on holiday. Paradise isn't really paradise when you've just been shipwrecked.' She looked around, and then asked, 'Hey, where's Ringo? Have you seen him? Surely he must have reached land OK?'

  The others shook their heads and Beck tried to reassure her that the parakeet would turn up soon.

  The reality of their situation began to dawn on him. 'We need to get sorted fast,' he told the twins. 'Otherwise we'll end up fried and starved and we can forget about seeing Uncle Al and your dad ever again.'

  Christina pointed back along the headland towards where the jungle started to climb towards the mountains. Massive boulders, smooth and circular like giant cannonballs, had tumbled down from the cliffs onto the beach, as if a race of giants had been playing marbles a
long the seashore. 'There are some caves up there, left behind by the boulders,' she said. 'I slept in one earlier.'

  'Perfect,' replied Beck. 'If we make camp in one of those, it should keep us warm and dry tonight, especially if it rains again. It'll save having to build a shelter until we get further into the jungle. But we need to make a fire and find some water. There'll be no shortage of seafood round here.' He pointed towards the rocks further along the headland. 'After all, we never got a chance to use these . . .'

  Beck felt in the pocket of his trousers and drew out a small, soggy piece of rag, a tiny remnant of what had once been the proud sail of the Bella Señora. He opened it carefully and held up a couple of objects that dangled from his fingers like a pair of upside-down question marks. The sharpened points of Christina's earrings glinted in the sunlight.

  'But first we need to get some water inside us. Fast.' He ran his hand over the wrinkled grey bark of a tree that arched up through the undergrowth towards the sky like the trunk of an elephant.

  'Coconuts,' he said. 'God's gift to the shipwrecked sailor. They're stuffed full of good stuff – vitamins and minerals and all that. You just have to be careful to drink from the unripe ones. If you drink too much from the ripe ones, they'll give you the runs and you'll end up more dehydrated than you started. But it's OK to eat the meat from both.'

  Clasping the tree in his cupped hands, Beck wrapped his legs around the trunk so that his thighs were gripping it like a monkey. Then, in short, sharp movements, he hauled himself up with his hands, the trunk held in a vice-like grip between his legs.

  'I learned this trick from a sloth monkey in Borneo,' he shouted down to the twins. 'They move a bit slower but it's a great way to climb a tree. Tough on the nuts though.'

  Marco sniggered and shot a sideways glance at his sister. Christina raised her eyes to the heavens and pretended she hadn't heard.

  'Tough on the coconuts, dumbo,' Beck clarified. 'Mind out below.' Five huge coconuts thudded onto the ground next to the twins as Beck quickly slithered back down to join them. He hacked through the tough husk of one with the blade of the machete. After quenching their thirst with the cool milk, they cut open another and then another before munching on the soft milky flesh inside, which Beck had already chopped into bite-sized chunks.

  The afternoon was drawing on by the time they went in search of shelter for the night. As Christina had promised, a series of holes like shallow caves had been left high in the cliffs where boulders had dropped down onto the beach.

  'We need to build a fire,' said Beck. 'But first we need some tinder and kindling to get it going. Chrissy, can you find some tinder? Ferns, grasses, even dried-out fungus, that sort of thing. It's got to be paper-dry so you can scrunch it up in your hand. Look in the cracks between the branches.'

  He turned to Marco. 'Marco, you find some kindling. Sticks or small branches that can be broken up. Look for dead branches that aren't on the ground but hanging in the trees if you can. After all that rain, most of the wood on the ground will be damp from sitting in pools of water. I'll find some bigger bits of wood for the main fuel once it gets going.'

  An hour later they met up again back in the cave. Along with some dead grasses, Christina was crushing a dried-out bracket of fungus she had broken off from the base of a palm tree. Beck set to work preparing the fire just outside the entrance to the cave.

  'We're in luck. This would have been a whole lot harder yesterday during the storm.' He cleared away the debris and made a circle with some nearby rocks. Then he set out the tinder, kindling and fuel in neat piles so that everything was within easy reach.

  'I think you've forgotten something,' said Christina as Beck stood back to admire his handiwork. 'We don't have any matches.'

  'No, but I do have this.' He fished out a bootlace that was hanging around his neck and held up two metallic objects. Christina examined them curiously. One was a short metal rod; the other looked a bit like a blunt razor blade.

  'Fire steel,' said Beck. 'I carry it everywhere. It's made of magnesium mixed in with other stuff. When you strike the rod with the scraper, it sends off showers of sparks and – hey presto – with a bit of practice, fire! Matches are useless when they're soaking wet anyway. And this'll last ages.'

  He stood over the tinder of dried grass, which he had fluffed up into the size of a tennis ball. Then, with a small stick, he poked a hole into the centre. Striking the metal scraper against the rod with deft flicks of his wrist, he sent a shower of sparks raining down into the centre of the tinder.

  Then, with a whumph, a lick of flame burst into life, followed by a loud crackle as the grass began to burn fiercely. Next Beck built a tepee of small twigs over the grass from the kindling Marco had collected. Within moments it was ablaze and the twins started to pile on thicker and thicker sticks.

  'Be careful now,' warned Beck. 'Fire is fragile. It needs air to breathe. If you smother it, we'll have to start all over again. Just take it easy and we'll be there in no time.' As the twins backed away, Beck blew long, steady puffs of air into the base of the fire. The flames began to leap up through the pyramid of sticks.

  Broad smiles burst onto the twins' faces as the heat warmed their bones. 'Perfect,' said Beck. 'I feel a seafood and coconut stew coming on. Any takers?'

  The twins went in search of more wood to feed the flames while Beck climbed down onto the rocky headland, filling his pockets with limpets as he went. The trick was to dislodge them with a sudden kick before they sensed danger and clamped down like superglue onto the rocks. Then, moving slowly and quietly, he scanned the rock pools, watching for the telltale darts of crabs and stranded fish.

  The sun was already setting when, an hour later, he headed back to the cave. Marco and Christina were grinning like Cheshire cats as they sat contentedly feeding wood onto the fire, which was already sitting on an impressive bed of glowing charcoal. The flickering flames of the campfire threw eerie shadows onto the back wall of the cave.

  Beck smiled proudly as he held up his prize catch. His fingers were clasped tightly around the brown shell of a huge crab, the pincers flailing harmlessly in the air. Holding it out towards the twins so they could get a better look, he made a sudden dart with the crab towards Christina.

  'No, inglés! Get away from me, English boy!' she screamed as Marco collapsed in laughter. 'For that you can go without your water ration.'

  Beck looked down at the fire, where steam was rising from the tin can that he had last seen filled with fish guts aboard the Bella Señora.

  'Found it thrown up on the beach,' said Marco proudly. 'And guess what?'

  Beck raised his eyebrows enquiringly. 'You found Uncle Al and your dad at a beach bar drinking cocktails?'

  'That's not funny, Beck,' said Christina. 'I bet they won't be having a crab supper tonight, wherever they are.'

  Beck realized at once he had upset the girl and mumbled an apology.

  Christina remained silent as she fought back tears. Then, without warning, a smile broke over her face. 'I found about three pints of rainwater in the trunk of a rotten tree. And we managed to scoop it out with the tin.'

  'Top girl,' said Beck approvingly. He turned away and sighed quietly. For the time being, the crisis had passed. Survival was as much to do with what went on inside their heads and hearts as their struggle against the elements. Fighting their own emotions was the first step. Beck knew he had a battle on his hands to keep their morale high and their eyes on the prize of finding their father and Uncle Al.

  He soon had the dark, rubbery flesh of the limpets sizzling on a hot stone, then he lowered the crab into the boiling water; its pincers flailed wildly in the air before finally sinking into the depths of the tin can. After their ordeal at sea, their first proper meal in more than two days seemed like the best food any of them had ever tasted. As the stars came up and the fire began to burn lower, the twins slumped together against the back wall of the shallow cave. Beck lay awake thinking and planning, before he too was overco
me by sleep.

  He woke with a start. The fire was almost out now and a chill was creeping up his back. Sitting up, he stared down along the line of the beach as his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. All seemed quiet and yet he could sense in his bones that something was wrong. Then he heard a sound: the gentle pad of footsteps on the sandy surface of the cliff, where it gently descended to the beach.

  His heart thumped in his chest and his eyes scanned quickly from left to right. Both the twins were still sleeping soundly beside him. Beck slowly stood up. Hardly daring to breathe, he walked silently in the direction the sound of the footsteps had come from. As he rounded the corner of the cave, he stopped and listened once more. Only the faraway thunder of the waves crashing onto the beach broke the silence.

  Then he looked down. In the moonlight he could see the distinctive outline of footsteps leading away from the cave. Taking care not to make a sound, he followed the prints back along the headland and down towards the beach, where the dense undergrowth of the forest met the sand.

  The eerie glow of fireflies shone back at him out of the inky darkness. Suddenly, without warning, his eyes came to rest on two shiny discs, which reflected back at him the bright silver light of the moon. In an instant he was back once more among the party-goers in the carnival crowd outside the Hotel Casa Blanca in Cartagena.

  Beck was gazing straight into the eyes of the Indian.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  'You saw what?' asked Marco as the boys huddled around the fire early next morning. Beck had coaxed the flames back to life, blowing gently on the embers until the remnants of unburned wood caught alight once more. As they picked over the remains of the previous night's meal, an unappetizing broth of watered-down coconut milk bubbled gently in the tin can.

  Beck was still lost in thought as he relived the events of the previous night. The instant he had seen the eyes of the Kogi, he had instinctively thrown himself into the cover of some bushes. But when he peered back into the jungle, all signs of the man had gone. His pulse racing, Beck had returned to the cave. He had stared restlessly up at the stars while the twins slept. There was no point in waking them: tracking the Indian before the sun came up was pointless and they all needed rest.