by David Alric
14
Waiting to be Eaten
In the crater the three marooned scientists had settled into a survival routine that, apart from one or two unexpected encounters with animals during their foraging trips – fortunately none serious – had succeeded in keeping them alive and unharmed. They did their best to keep up one anothers’ spirits but the near-certainty that they would never escape from their terrible situation preyed constantly on their minds.
Finally, inevitably, tragedy struck. By patient application of the stick technique Richard had finally removed the worms from the sole of Helen’s foot and one of her toes, but the blister marking the site of the third worm had suddenly become very inflamed and sore and her lower leg was very swollen making it extremely painful for her to walk. One night Julian was ill, and though he felt better in the morning he didn’t feel strong enough to go out on the food expedition, so Richard went by himself.
It was the first time he had walked alone in the crater, and as he got further and further from the plane he felt progressively more uneasy. He told himself that it was silly to be more frightened on his own than in company: if a pack of sabre-tooths fancied a meal it didn’t really make any difference whether he was with Julian or not, but it was an eerie feeling just the same, walking alone through prehistory. On the way to the grove he passed a herd of the hose-nosed camel-like creatures he now knew to be machrauchenia and they gave him a wide berth, fearing him to be some unusual predator. He reached the grove safely and spent an hour digging up some wild yams, gathering different kinds of nuts and fruit and collecting botanical specimens for himself. He was on the point of leaving the grove when he heard a curious noise. It sounded just like a cricket ball being hit by a bat but it was repeated at regular intervals, sometimes louder, sometimes softer. It was a noise that saved his life for, instead of walking out of the grove, he peeped out between two trees at the edge to see what the source of the noise was. An amazing sight met his eyes.
Two giant armadillo-like creatures faced each other just beyond the trees concealing Richard. The creatures were massive in comparison with the modern armadillos Richard had seen in zoos, and from Helen’s books he recognized them as glyptodonts. Each was three metres long and the size of a small car. As Richard watched, the origin of the curious sound he had heard soon became apparent. The giants were hitting each other with swipes of their formidable tails, each of which ended in a knobbly horn like a mace, or a knobkerrie with spikes on it. Any one of those blows would have felled an ox but the creatures’ armour was so thick that most of the blows seemed to have little effect. Clearly this would go on until one of the antagonists was hit in a vulnerable spot or became exhausted. As they swivelled and jockeyed for position clouds of dust rose from the ground and one or two jackal-like creatures began to circle the adversaries, clearly hoping that one of them might be injured enough to end up as a meal.
As he watched, fascinated by the titanic struggle, Richard became aware of something moving along the path he had just been going to take towards the plane. He turned to get a better look and then froze in his tracks. Barely a hundred yards away four sabre-toothed cats were tearing apart the carcass of one of the ‘camels’ Richard had passed on his way to the grove. They must have killed it just after he had entered the trees and he realized he was extremely fortunate that it was a camel and not him being ripped to pieces. He had also been lucky that the glyptodonts had decided to disagree about something. If he’d blundered out of the grove instead of furtively watching them he would undoubtedly have provided the big cats with their after-camel pudding. But now he was trapped. As he watched, one of the cats looked straight towards the grove and sniffed the air. Richard remained as still as a statue, his heart beating like a drum until the cat returned to its meal. He breathed a fervent prayer of thanks that he was downwind of the feeding party. But now he had the problem of getting back to the plane. The cats looked set for a long meal and lay directly in his path. Moving desperately slowly and watching the sabre-tooths all the time, Richard backed away deeper into the grove. When he was invisible to them he moved as fast as he dared and followed the line of trees back towards the cliff. Once at the cliff he knew he would be hidden from the cats by the slight rise in the ground that he had limped across on the first day with the help of Julian and Helen. Sure enough, when he reached the crater wall the cats were invisible and he then moved at a crouch along the base of the escarpment, praying that he wouldn’t break a twig or kick a stone as he edged towards the part of the cliff containing the cave where Helen and Julian had first tended to him.
He knew that it was close to the plane, which was also now concealed from his view. As he drew near the cave he was astonished to see Helen and Julian standing in front of it. He waved to them and put a finger to his mouth to warn them to remain silent. When he got close he whispered to them what had happened. Then he added, ‘What are you guys doing here, anyway, aren’t you both supposed to be invalids?’ He had been so taken up with telling them about the sabre-tooths, he hadn’t really looked at them but now he realized that they were both out of breath and empty-handed – Julian went nowhere without his spear. He felt a sudden chill of fear.
‘What’s happened?’ he whispered. Julian simply pointed in the direction of the plane, dropped to a crouch and indicated to Richard that they should move forward. As they crept nearer he could hear roaring and crashing and as he peeped cautiously over the ridge he saw three ground sloths, a female and two males, the males engaged in fierce combat. As they reared and roared and slashed at each other with their giant claws they were oblivious to their surroundings, and trees and bushes were crushed and swept aside in their struggle. Julian leant over and whispered in Richard’s ear.
‘They’ve been at this for twenty minutes. Fortunately they’re making such a row that we heard them in time to make our escape, but they’re getting nearer and nearer to the plane.’
Even as he spoke the men watched in horror and disbelief as the titans blundered into the plane and sent it crashing over. One of them put his gargantuan hind paw straight through a wing and the other, losing his balance, fell against the fuselage, splitting it wide open. In their pain and fury the beasts temporarily ignored each other and focused their attention on the plane, smashing it to pieces before resuming their fight. Suddenly one turned and lumbered off on his knuckles, chased by the victor. Their path took them straight to where the sabre-tooths were still at their feast and as the sloths burst through the scrub Richard saw the cats scattering away from the oncoming leviathans and disappearing into the banana grove.
Helen had by now appeared beside them and seen the plane’s final moments. The three were speechless. Their one protection from the predators was irretrievably damaged and dusk would be upon them in an hour or so.
Helen was the first eventually to speak.
‘We’ve got to make a fire. It’s our only chance of surviving the night.’ She saw Richard glancing at the ashes of one of their small cooking fires. ‘No, something far bigger than that – a campfire, just like the old explorers used to make on the plains of Africa to keep the lions away. Thank God we built the beacon; we can use the wood from that but only as much as we need so it lasts as long as possible. We must build it near the cliff so we can sit with the crater wall behind us and the fire in front of us. The cave would be ideal but it’s a bit too far – we must just go to that nearest bit of cliff.’ She pointed as she spoke. ‘The cats could return at any moment and we have to get as much wood as possible from the beacon before nightfall – oh, and we mustn’t forget the matches and fire-lighters.’ Nobody argued. Richard and Julian worked frantically to transfer wood from the beacon to a spot near the cliff, keeping a constant eye out for any returning sabre-tooths. Helen stacked the wood against the cliff and used some to make a fire a few yards from the rock face.
She lit the fire and they huddled close to it and ate the fruit Richard had brought. They took it in turns to remain awake and keep the fi
re going. They couldn’t possibly risk all falling asleep together, so two kept each other awake while the third slept.
During the night they saw several pairs of eyes reflecting in the light of the fire but no animals attempted to come near. As dawn broke they all felt an intense sense of relief at having successfully survived their first night outside the security of the plane, now wrecked beyond repair.
They were shocked to see how much their supply of wood had dwindled, and during the morning the men made repeated journeys to the beacon to replenish their store of fuel. Helen remained near the fire, which they had decided to keep burning even during the day, as they no longer had the plane as a final refuge.
At about midday the last piece of the disaster jigsaw fell into place. The scattered pride of sabre-toothed cats returned to their kill, which lay downwind of the humans, and they immediately came towards the remnants of the plane to investigate. Helen fortunately spotted them and shrieked a warning to Richard and Julian, who dropped their loads of wood and ran towards the cliff and the safety of the fire. The four cats came towards the fire but were cautious of it and, instinctively separating as if working to a plan, settled themselves in a neat semicircle each about thirty yards away from the fire, completely cutting off access to the beacon and the shattered fragments of the plane. The three marooned companions looked askance at each other.
‘Well, that’s it,’ said Julian. ‘We’ve got plenty of water from the cliff but no food and no chance of getting any.’ He turned to Richard. ‘You’re the doctor. How long can we survive on water without food?’ Before Richard could answer Helen broke in.
‘Food isn’t the problem, Julian – it’s wood. When the fire dies out, so do we. We can’t get to the beacon because the game plan the pussycats out there have for us certainly doesn’t include trips to the woodpile. We’ve probably got enough fuel to keep them at bay for tonight and most of tomorrow. Then – I just don’t know.’
But they all did know and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, they could do to help themselves.
After the most wretched night of their lives dawn eventually arrived, only to reveal that their worst fears had been realized. The cats were still waiting, but they had been joined by two others, making a total of six, and had moved considerably closer to the fire – the nearest was now just ten yards away.
‘One of the worst things about this,’ said Richard as they sat looking out at the sabre-tooths, ‘is that I have made a discovery in this crater that could make an enormous contribution to the world’s food supply.’ He drew his rucksack towards him and started to open it. Then he paused. ‘But I suppose there’s really no point in telling you now. We certainly aren’t going to tell anyone else.’
Helen and Julian leant forward.
‘No,’ said Helen, ‘you must tell us. What is it?’
‘Yes,’ said Julian, grimly, ‘as it so happens, we haven’t got any other plans for the day, so fire away.’
‘Well, you gave me a short lecture on the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs,’ said Richard, ‘so I’m going to get my own back and give a short lecture on the banana. It so happens that it’s the world’s favourite fruit and, quite apart from the additional eating pleasure it gives to millions who have quite enough to eat anyway, it provides almost half the daily calorie intake of countless people in Africa, Asia and Central America – for them it is an essential food. There’s a problem, however – a big problem.’ Helen and Julian looked at Richard expectantly. It was remarkable that scientific curiosity could temporarily displace from their minds the fact that this was their last day on earth, but it did.
‘Most of the bananas we eat in the world today are descendants of a seedless variety dating from the Stone Age. As they are seedless they can’t change to resist the pests and diseases which are devastating crops all over the world. The bananas you’ve been eating from the grove are delicious but they also contain seeds. I’ve little doubt that these plants …’ He opened his rucksack and withdrew some specimens. ‘… could improve plantations across the globe and provide more food for hundreds of millions of people. The only problem,’ he concluded with a rueful smile, ‘is that between the grove and here they have probably already completed the longest journey they are ever likely to make.’
They all sat silently for a while. It was a bizarre scene: three scientists who had made world-shattering discoveries sitting next to a dwindling fuel pile waiting to be eaten by creatures thought to have been extinct for one hundred thousand years.
The sun rose higher in the sky. There was no shade, for the long axis of the crater valley ran from east to west and a sabre-tooth now sat at the entrance to the cave a little way along the cliff. Their final day would be a hot one: Richard couldn’t help wondering if the cats preferred their food medium or well done.
15
Jungle Quest
Lucy was asleep on the boat, dreaming of her home and family. She dreamt that she was sitting at her mother’s dressing table trying on her mother’s make-up and had spilt powder on to her shoulder. For some reason Tibbles was sitting on her knee during this activity. She heard her mother coming up the stairs and Clare, who now magically materialized in her dream, started to brush off the powder.
‘Promised One!’ she heard her mother call out. ‘That’s funny,’ she thought. ‘Mum’s never called me that before.’
‘Wake up, O Promised One!’ Suddenly she awoke. The queen monkey, not Clare, was pawing at her shoulder and speaking to her. Katy, her coati, was snuggled up to her in her lap. For an instant Lucy felt a pang of intense homesickness – how nice it would be if she were at home and it had been Clare brushing her down, with Mum about to appear at the door.
The monkeys were very excited. Sitting on the other end of the boat was the harpy eagle and Lucy noticed that all the monkeys were now clustered in her part of the boat, even though that meant they were nearer to the panther. There was no doubt which of the predators they feared most. The eagle was a magnificent bird. It stood over a metre high, dark grey and black with a white breast and a vivid black ruff on its throat. On its head was a double crest of feathers that looked like the headdress of a native American chieftain on the warpath.
‘Greetings, Promised One!’ grated the eagle. Lucy found his voice really scary. ‘I bring good tidings.’ Lucy’s heart leapt for joy – her daddy must be alive. The harpy glanced up to the sky and Lucy instinctively followed his gaze. At first she could see nothing, but shielding her eyes against the glare, she could just make out a tiny black dot, unbelievably high, slowly gliding in a great circle. ‘I sought the aid of the soariquills,’ the harpy continued. ‘When they heard the Promised One needed their assistance they flew from the great mountains of the west where they soar and glide. Their sight is matchless in a quest such as ours. They can see a thunderquill resting in the Crater of Antiquity and there are three Tailless Ones, one of whom is beardless.’
‘Three people, and one of them a woman,’ Lucy thought in astonishment. Chopper and Sam had only mentioned her father and the pilot during their conversation in Rio. But the coincidence was too great. One of them had to be her father. Maybe the pilot had taken his daughter for a day out or maybe she was a relief pilot. The harpy continued:
‘The soariquills will guide us to that place before they return to their mountain crags. I will stay with you now for I can fly where the forest is dense and yet still see where the soariquills wish to lead us.’ Lucy was sure she detected a flutter of dismay among the monkeys at this news. ‘And now,’ the eagle continued, ‘the river becomes very narrow and turns away from the path you need to tread. You must leave the house that floats and the arborikin will help you through the jungle.’ The animals leapt out of the boat and two monkeys assisted Lucy to the shore. She turned to the caymans; she still couldn’t bring herself to call them Dreadful Ones even though she knew it was their name in the animal kingdom.
‘Thank you for your strength and patience, O ye with the mighty tails.
I will return one day when I reach full womanhood and assist your kin in their struggle against the evil that men do for your beautiful skins.’
The great reptiles flicked their tails in pleasure.
‘It has been the greatest honour of our lives to serve She Who Speaks. Fare thee well in thy quest for the Paterpromise.’ And with a swirl of the dark waters they were gone.
