by Bear Grylls
They sat in thoughtful silence for several minutes watching a hawk soar below them on invisible thermal currents before it plunged downwards after its prey.
Then suddenly a sound drifted towards them from the distance. It was shouting.
Mak cupped his hands behind his ears and slowly turned his head. The action helped focus the sound, amplifying everything he heard. He’d almost turned a full one hundred and eighty degrees before the muffled sound of arguing became clearer. It was in Hindi, but the anger in the tone was unmistakable.
‘Buldeo?’ Diya whispered fretfully.
‘I’m not sure. I can’t make out the voices clearly enough. But they’re behind us, so I think we can bet that’s exactly who it is.’
Mak was annoyed at himself. Since crossing the river they hadn’t made any effort to conceal their tracks, which must have made Lalu’s life much easier. But it was too late to do anything about that now.
It was also hard to say how far away their pursuers were; sound could carry for miles in the valleys around them.
But one thing was for certain: they had to move quickly.
The race was on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
There was urgency with every step. This was not a time to be stealthy – it was about putting as much distance between them and Buldeo’s gang as possible.
With each twist, the track hugged the side of the hill. Every so often, it would hook sharply round and they were greeted with a sheer cliff centimetres from their feet. At such drops Hathi would become noticeably more nervous, and he’d slow down.
Mak learned to distract the elephant by having several strips of succulent bamboo wedged in his belt with which to coax him.
The trail was becoming ever more treacherous, and they were still very high up. Mak was thinking about ways of getting further ahead of Buldeo when Diya suddenly shrieked and fell to the ground.
Mak ran to help her up.
‘What happened? Are you OK?’
She winced as she rolled on to her back and sat up. ‘My foot. I twisted it on that rock.’ She indicated a gnarled stone that had tripped her.
Mak gently examined her foot and heard Diya murmur in pain. Her ankle was already swelling. ‘Can you move it?’
Diya rotated it in an arc, wincing with pain. ‘I don’t think it’s broken. Just twisted.’
She tried to stand, leaning on Mak’s shoulder for support. When she put weight on her ankle, she sagged and dropped to her knees.
‘I can’t believe this.’ She buried her head in her hands. ‘What will we do if I can’t walk?’
Mak looked back up the track, half expecting Buldeo to walk into view. ‘We can’t stop here.’ He spoke softly. ‘We need to think of something.’
‘But I can’t walk,’ Diya whispered.
Mak felt a wave of panic. They’d got this far only to be sabotaged by a twisted ankle. He took a deep breath to calm himself. He knew that even the most minor injury could prove fatal in the wild. But he also knew that getting frustrated would achieve nothing. They needed a plan . . .
Hathi’s trunk delicately nosed Diya’s face as if sensing her pain. She patted him.
‘Thank you, Hathi. I just need to rest it and not put weight on it.’
‘Yes, you need to rest it,’ said Mak, looking between Diya and the elephant. ‘But Hathi is raring to go.’
‘Then I could ride on his back,’ said Diya excitedly. Mak looked uncertain. ‘Come on, help me get up.’
Mak helped her stand. ‘Are you sure?’
Hathi may be at ease around them, but he was still a wild animal. Buldeo hadn’t managed to beat that out of him yet.
‘Gently help me up. He won’t mind.’ Diya rubbed the elephant’s back for emphasis.
As carefully as she could, Diya placed her arms over Hathi’s neck and, with a boost from Mak, threw her injured leg over the animal. The elephant didn’t seem to mind the extra load, and Mak fed him a piece of bamboo for good measure.
Diya shuffled forward so she was sitting over Hathi’s front shoulders rather than on his spine. ‘Do you know Indian royalty used to ride elephants?’ she said in a posh voice.
Mak gave a mock bow. ‘Your Majesty should twist her ankle more often, then. Come on, Hathi. Try not to drop her.’
The elephant followed Mak, and they were soon making swift progress again. Mak started to think they might outrun Buldeo after all. But his building sense of excitement was suddenly extinguished when they heard shouting from behind.
‘There they are!’
Buldeo, Girish and Lalu stood at the stop of the hill, silhouetted against the horizon. They were still some distance away, but their voices carried in the canyons.
‘You little thieves! Stop right there!’
Mak flinched when they heard the distinctive clap of a gunshot. He saw Buldeo swat Lalu’s gun aside.
‘You idiot! You’ll hit the elephant!’
Then the trio vanished from view as they hurried in pursuit.
Mak had dived for cover behind a stout tree, and Hathi had half stumbled in fear of the sound, but Diya had held on tight.
‘What do we do now?’ Diya shouted down to Mak.
‘We keep going. We never give up!’
And with that they pushed onwards and down into a narrow canyon.
But both of them got a sense that they were rapidly running out of time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Mak’s footsteps echoed in the rocky canyon, which constantly twisted and turned so they couldn’t see what lay ahead. He’d coaxed Hathi into a run, and Diya was now desperately clinging on as each jolt threatened to knock her off. However, Hathi was not a quick creature, and Mak knew that the inevitable was looming.
Buldeo would eventually catch up with them.
He would catch them and take Hathi back to a life of imprisonment. And what would he do to the two witnesses? Nobody knew Mak and Diya were out here – not even their parents – and he doubted the men would risk a life behind bars by letting the children return to civilization to tell the authorities about Buldeo’s cruelty. They’d already been shot at.
Buldeo could easily throw them off the edge of the cliff . . .
Mak needed more time. But that was impossible.
Unless . . .
He glanced ahead at the narrow canyon through which they were hurrying. Boulders and rocks had fallen at various times from the steep sides. Over the years, they had lodged against one another, turning a potential avalanche into a sturdy rock wall they were forced to squeeze past. It reminded Mak of a huge natural game of Jenga.
‘Of course!’
He stopped Hathi and quickly looked around the canyon for anything that could assist him with his rapidly forming plan. Diya watched him, concerned.
‘Why are we stopping?’
‘Jenga!’
‘What do you mean, Jenga? The game?’
Mak ran to a set of boulders and studied them. Thirty or more had fallen and were now wedged firmly on top of one another. Some were as big as a car, while others looked more manageable.
‘I used to love it when I was a kid,’ he muttered to himself. ‘And I will love it even more if it slows those thugs down.’
‘I don’t understand.’
He leaned over and slapped his palm on one of the boulders. ‘This is the one. If we move it, then the rock above it will move. If we’re lucky, then the whole house of cards will come tumbling down.’ He pointed out the precariously balanced rocks to Diya. ‘Always the best bit of playing Jenga! Destroying the tower at the end!’ He smiled.
Diya looked at him in disbelief. Then she looked at the stack of boulders. It was a lethal plan, one that could easily go wrong and crush them all to death.
But she also knew it was their only chance.
‘How can we move something so heavy? Even with the two of us and Hathi, it can’t be done.’
Mak was searching for something else now, waving his finger in the air as he did so. �
�Then we need to be smart. That’s what I learned from my magic tricks. Be smart and always remember KISS.’
‘Kiss?’
‘Keep it simple, stupid. And the simple solution is a lever.’
‘We don’t have a lever.’
Mak stopped and smiled at her. ‘But you and the jungle have taught me that we can always make what we need.’
He gestured to a small tree attempting to grow from the side of the canyon wall. It was about twice his height and as thick as his leg. All he had to do was pull it down.
Mak flung his arms round the tree and pulled with all his might. It didn’t budge.
‘It’s a tree . . .’ said Diya, shaking her head.
Mak shifted position and pressed his back against the trunk. When it didn’t move, he raised both legs against the cliff wall and pushed.
‘It’s not . . . breaking . . .’ he wheezed through gritted teeth.
‘Hathi. Over there! Come on, boy!’ Diya gently coaxed the elephant, squeezing him with her heels as if he were a horse. Hathi approached the tree and watched as Mak tried once again to pull it over. Diya clung on to Hathi’s back as, with a playful bellow, the elephant pressed his forehead against the trunk and pushed.
Mak was still hanging, propped between the wall and the tree, when it shuddered, the wood cracking as Hathi uprooted it, exposing a big clump of fat, tangled roots.
Mak tumbled, groaning, to the canyon floor.
Hathi’s trunk snuffled Mak’s face to check he was in one piece.
‘I’m OK, pal,’ he said, pushing the wet trunk aside. ‘But a little warning would have been nice.’
Bent almost double, Mak dragged the little tree to the boulders he’d marked out. The tree was heavy and he was forced to roll it, using the roots as a pivot, as if wielding a giant mop, but he eventually managed it.
With a final grunt of effort, Mak angled the trunk across his back and thrust the rooted end into a gap between the boulders. It travelled a couple of metres before becoming wedged and leaving the rest of the tree hanging at an angle.
He extended his hands like a showman. ‘OK! We have a lever!’ He turned to Hathi. ‘You’re going to have to help again. Ready?’
Mak took position at the end of the improvised lever. He used all his weight to pull on it – but only succeeded in hoisting himself off the ground.
‘You’re never going to move the side of a canyon,’ said Diya as she urged Hathi to join Mak with a little nudge of her heels. ‘Not even with an elephant. We’re wasting our time.’
Mak grunted as he leaned all his weight on the lever. ‘We don’t need to move the entire thing. Just one . . . single . . . rock.’
At that moment, the sound of voices and scuffling feet echoed from the canyon behind them. Buldeo had caught up with them! Already!
‘Hathi – help!’ Mak guided the elephant’s trunk to the tree and patted it. The elephant knew what was expected, strengthened his grip and heaved.
Wood creaked with the strain – yet nothing appeared to move. Then the boulder Mak had identified suddenly popped loose.
The sound of Buldeo and his henchmen grew louder. Seconds passed and Mak’s heart sank. His plan had failed.
Suddenly a loud crunch reverberated through the stack of rocks. Loose dirt trickled – then increased until it became a curtain of dust. Large rocks began to slide and then bounce down.
‘Now we run!’ shouted Mak.
Hathi didn’t need prompting and raced ahead with Diya holding on for dear life. Mak lost his balance several times as the floor shook, but quickly recovered and sprinted after them.
The entire side of the canyon came crashing down behind them in an avalanche of debris and rock. The noise was deafening. Mak glanced over his shoulder. All he could see was a giant cloud of dust. He hoped with all his heart that the canyon was now blocked.
Then several car-sized boulders bounced out of the cloud – and headed straight for him!
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The walls of the canyon trembled, casting more rocks and dust down from above.
One boulder bounced straight over Mak. He threw himself flat just in time to avoid being crushed, then saw another massive rock bearing down on them. He sprang to his feet and ran after Hathi and Diya.
‘Move!’ Mak yelled as they raced towards a bend in the canyon.
Hathi took the turn at speed, his feet skidding on loose stones making him slide into the wall. His momentum pitched Diya sideways. She threw her arms round the elephant’s neck as she lost her balance and slipped right off his back. For a moment, she was running on her swollen ankle, then with a grunt of effort Diya leaped back onboard.
Mak was struggling too. The quaking ground flowed like water beneath his feet. As he took a turn, he almost slid under the elephant’s feet. He caught his balance just as another rolling boulder smashed into the curving wall behind.
Then, suddenly, they emerged from the canyon. And straight in front of them was a huge cliff.
Hathi wailed in panic, his back legs buckling as he tried to stop. His backside scraped through the earth. Diya shrieked as she slipped off his back and slid along the floor. The little elephant skidded for several metres, wailing frantically as his feet pedalled into the ground to stop him.
‘DIYA!’ Mak yelled, reaching out for her as she overtook him.
With a crunch of compacted earth, Hathi’s feet dug into the ground, bringing him to an abrupt halt centimetres from plummeting over the edge.
Diya forced herself to roll, cannoning into the elephant and stopping herself. Mak stopped right on the edge too, his arms spinning to catch his balance. He bent over double to catch his breath.
‘Wow, that was close!’ he said, expelling a whoop of exhaustion and relief.
Behind them a massive plume of dust rose from the canyon mouth, obscuring everything. The rumbling continued, echoing from the valley below for almost a whole minute before fading away.
The way back was most definitely now blocked.
After coughing the dust from her mouth, Diya finally spoke up. ‘Do you think . . . they survived?’
‘Probably. Knowing them. They’re like cockroaches,’ Mak said. ‘They survive everything.’ He looked up at the newly formed barrier of rocks behind them. ‘There’s no way they’ll get over that in a hurry.’ Mak punched the air and gave another whoop. Not from joy but from the release of tension that had been knotting his stomach.
‘Let’s go!’
The path they were walking along was nothing more than a narrow ledge along the edge of the cliff, and it forced them to walk in single file. Mak led the way, with Hathi behind and Diya still on his back. She wasn’t happy about sitting so high up as it made the horrible drop seem even more precarious, but she had no choice as her ankle was now even more swollen.
The good news was that the track was descending sharply and Mak was certain they’d reach the bottom within a few hours. They’d outwitted Buldeo, and Hathi would soon be reunited with his family. Mak started walking with a spring in his step.
‘We should still reach Spiny Ridge tonight. Keep your eyes peeled because we should see the drone hovering over the herd, and, Hathi, you’ll get to see your mum!’
‘I can’t believe we did this,’ said Diya. ‘Well, almost.’
‘Nothing can stop us now!’
Mak then stopped in his tracks, his face dropping. ‘Nothing . . . except that.’
The path ahead had reached an abrupt end, continuing far across a wide gorge. And the only thing linking them together was the flimsiest bridge they had ever seen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
‘There is no way we can cross that,’ Diya said flatly.
She dismounted Hathi and leaned against Mak as they stood at the edge of the bridge. A pair of steel cables had been drilled into the rock and stretched across the chasm. Wooden planks had been attached between them to form the floor.
‘I told you miners came here,’ said Diya. ‘They must h
ave built this.’
‘That must have been a long time ago,’ said Mak warily.
The wooden planks were heavily weathered and showed clear signs of rot. Others were missing completely. There were the remains of a hand line, which was just a hemp rope stretched at waist height across the void, but the other one had long ago rotted and fallen away.
Mak peered down. Thirty metres below lay a chasm through which a raging rapid was running.
‘At least we won’t have to worry about drowning.’ He caught Diya’s questioning look. ‘We’ll hit the rocks first,’ he pointed out.
‘Which is precisely why we can’t cross,’ Diya replied quickly.
Every fibre in Mak agreed with her, but there was one problem. ‘We can’t go back. There’s no canyon any more, remember?’
‘But there’s no way we’ll get Hathi over that!’ Diya stared at the bridge in dismay.
Mak helped her lean against a rock, then approached the first plank on the bridge. His sweaty palm gripped the handrail tightly as he placed one foot on the plank.
The bridge gave a tortured metallic twanging noise . . . but held.
Trying to hide his fear from Diya, Mak placed his other foot on the plank. Once again everything creaked but held.
He flashed a weak smile at Diya.
‘You never know until you try . . .’ Mak mumbled nervously. ‘Let me go first to see if this thing will hold . . .’
Diya raised an eyebrow. She didn’t believe it would for a second. Mak gently bounced up and down on the bridge. The wood gave a terrible creak and the cable sounded like rusty guitar strings as waves undulated across the bridge. Mak tried not to show how surprised he was that the bridge held.
‘See? Completely safe.’
Diya threw up her hands in despair. ‘We can’t do this!’
‘Diya, we don’t have a choice. We either stay here and starve, or Buldeo finds a way round that landslide and decides to throw us off the edge of the canyon.’
