Greenways

by D. B. Reynolds-Moreton

  They climbed down the rocks to the plain below, and were soon on their way again, only to come across another group of similar rocks with a pool, and then Moss expounded on his theory.

  ‘I think these pools are linked together underground, and the creature can swim between them when it needs to, that’s why we could use the water for so long before it appeared, as it was probably some distance away and heard us through the water as we splashed about.’

  As Kel couldn’t refute this argument, and wasn’t too keen to disprove the theory by tempting the water monster to emerge from the second pool, he just agreed with Moss and promptly changed the subject.

  ‘It looks as if there’s something on the horizon, a high ridge or maybe another cliff like the one we saw when we were with Jay’s people.’

  There was something, but it only showed as a faint smudge, a mere difference in visual texture to that which surrounded them.

  The little troop marched on, passing several other outcrops of volcanic rock, which inspired Moss to expound on his theory of the underground tunnels linking them, and the water monsters ability to travel between the outcrops.

  As they travelled on, the terrain began to change again, shallow valleys nestling between slight rises in the ground produced a plentiful supply of recognizable fruits and pods, so there was little difficulty in feeding themselves.

  The precious supply of dried berries which Mec had provided were still almost intact.

  The further they travelled, the more pronounced the hills and valleys became, and on the sixth day since leaving the river they saw the sea for the first time in their lives.

  They had camped on the top of a particularly steep hill, finding a cosy opening in a rock formation which was easily guarded, but as the light had diminished somewhat upon arriving, they hadn’t noticed the full significance of what could be seen from their high vantage point.

  The next morning was a different story, the mists of the night rolled away, showing a long sloping plain leading down to a vast stretch of water, still greyish in the early morning light.

  Jay was the first one to see it, as the others were still busy gathering their equipment together, ready for the next stage of their march.

  ‘Come and look!’ she called, ‘a great water has gone over all the land for as far as I see.’

  The other two rushed up to the vantage point, and were stunned by what they saw.

  ‘I know the river spilled out over a great space, but that is even bigger,’ Kel said. ‘and if it’s in our way, how can we cross it? It might go on for ever and ever.’

  ‘One good thing about it, we shan’t go short of drinking water.’ Moss added, trying not to look as overwhelmed at the sight of it as he felt.

  It took two more days to reach the sea, and that surprised them all as it didn’t look that far from the hilltop.

  But they were in for another surprise on the way, as they came upon their first encounter with a relic from the time of the giants other than the remains of the concrete building in the forest.

  They had just panted their way up a grassy slope, and as they paused for a rest at the top, Moss pointed out the light reflecting from what he thought was a pool of water.

  ‘I don’t think it’s water.’ Kel remarked, not sure what it was. ‘It’s too shiny for that, let’s go and see what it is.’

  They almost ran down the hill, not just because it was so steep, but because curiosity had got the better of them yet again.

  Moss, being the one with the longer legs, arrived at the half buried stainless steel silo first, and stood in amazement at the tall shiny structure.

  Raising his arm, he hit the smooth surface with his clenched fist, and jumped back startled at the dull hollow boom which followed.

  ‘What is it, and what is it made of? I’ve never seen anything like this before.’

  ‘I have.’ Jay joined in, ‘The hairless man who wanted our men to go into the forbidden lands had little pieces of shiny stuff like that, he called it meetel, I think. He said it was good, and he would give our men lots of good things if they get little bits of it for him.

  ‘When they come back, they get ill, and some go to the sky, and all lose their hair and look ugly.

  ‘Now they all gone, only females left. They leave the shiny bits in a hutt outside our group, but no one go there, and the hairless man not come back to take the shiny bits’.

  Moss stood back from the silo, deep in thought, and said,

  ‘Somehow I don’t think it’s the meetel which causes the illness, because plants are growing all around this huge piece of it, and they are no different than those over there.’ he said, pointing up the long slope, ‘So it must be something else in the area where the little pieces of meetel are found which is so bad.’

  Moss dug about in one of his equipment bags, and withdrew a small flint blade.

  ‘Let’s see if we can cut a little piece of this meetel off, it may be useful at some time.’ and with that he ran the blade across the surface of the silo. The screech of flint on hardened alloyed chrome steel made them all jump back, as though the silo had spoken to them.

  ‘It hardly left a scratch,’ remarked Kel, going up to the silo when his fear had subsided a little, ‘if we could get little pieces of this strange stuff, we could make some very good Cutting Knives from it.’

  ‘Perhaps that was why the hairless man wanted it, so there must be some way of making knives from the meetel pieces.’ Moss was quick to see the possibilities of such a material.

  Try as they might, they were unable to obtain the metal they wanted, and eventually gave up the idea, Moss saying that they should keep an eye out for any little bits that might be lying around as they journeyed on.

  ‘As we are near the water, let’s fill up our water bags.’ Kel suggested, all agreed, and they set off for the beach.

  On the way, they passed several stumpy remains of old buildings, only a small section of them still showing above ground as over the years, wind drift and the usual upheavals of nature had buried most of them from sight.

  The soft golden sands of the beach stretched out for some considerable distance before they came to the water, and they approached it warily as they hadn’t seen waves of such a size before.

  Moss was first into the water, and having gone in up to his knees, cupped his hands to scope up some water to drink.

  ‘Don’t drink this water!’ he exclaimed in disgust, spitting it out and rubbing his mouth. ‘it’s bad, and tastes awful, even worse than the river water after the floater broke up.’

  ‘Quick, come back to the sand! There’s something coming towards you and moving very fast.’ Kel screamed.

  Moss needed no second warning, he turned and rapidly splashed his way back to the others just in time as the expected set of jaws snapped behind him, the creature thrashing about in the shallow water in frustration.

  ‘You really must be more careful,’ Kel chided, not wishing to lose his friend, ‘any new thing we come across should be studied first for possible dangers.’

  The trio sat down on the soft sand, wondering why the plentiful supply of water was so bad to the taste, and more to the point, how they were going to cross it, as the Direction Pointer indicated that they should go straight out to sea.

  ‘We can’t make a floating log bot, or whatever the giants called it, as there are no trees near here.

  ‘Swimming would only provide food for the monsters which are no doubt out there, and if they didn’t get us, we couldn’t possibly swim such a great distance anyway.’

  Kel had stated the obvious, which the others were thinking, and they had to agree with him.

  ‘The land curves away on both sides of us in the opposite direction to which we should go, so what shall we do?’ asked Moss, not really expecting an answer to the problem, as he had none either.

  ‘Do you think it would be worth while climbing that hill over there to see if the land does curve back towards the water again? And if it doe
s, we would at least be going in the right direction.’ said Kel.

  ‘We can do that, but I don’t think it will get us much closer really. We need to go over the water, but without something to float on it, we can’t, so we must find something.’ Moss made it sound like an order rather than an opinion. All three turned away from the water, with little hope in their hearts.

  They trudged back up the sandy beach with little enthusiasm, as their goal seemed to be blocked for the time being by the massive extent of the ocean, and they had little hope of finding anything which would float.

  After a long walk they reached the top of the hill, climbed the rocky outcrop which crowned it and had their worst fears confirmed. They had been on the end of a peninsula which had reached out some considerable distance into the ocean, and the land curved back from it in both directions for as far as they could see.

  ‘We shall have to find some means of making a Floater of some description if we want to carry on in the direction indicated.’ Moss mumbled, almost to himself, but the others heard it and felt the same dismay as he did.

  ‘It looks as if there are some more remains of the giant’s work over there.’ Kel pointed to a collection of rocky stumps which protruded from the otherwise smooth undulating downland which lay between them and the beach.

  ‘Well it’s worth a look at, there’s nothing much for us up here and who knows what we might find.’ Moss seemed to have brightened up a little, having something positive to do.

  The stubby remains of the old farm complex was far bigger than it had appeared from the hilltop, and the trio were soon lost in a labyrinth of decaying concrete walls, which to them seemed massive.

  ‘The giants must have been very big indeed if these are the remains of their hutts.’ Kel commented, standing on one of the walls and surveying the outline of the building.

  Later, a piece of glass caused a great deal of excitement, as they had seen nothing like it before.

  ‘It looks like the hard water which used to sometimes fall from the sky,’ Kel remarked, ‘except that was always round, and this is flat, and it isn’t cold like the hard water was.’

  ‘It must be something the giants have made,’ Moss added, ‘let’s see if there’s any more.’

  They spent some time looking for more glass, but found none, but Jay stubbed her toe on the slightly protruding end of a buried stainless steel feeding trough, and that more than made up for the lack of glass.

  They dug the end of the trough free from the ground which had imprisoned it for so long with the aid of their staves, using the blunt end rather than risk breaking the precious cutting blades. It was only when the entire end of the trough was made visible that Moss gave a cry of excitement and said, ‘If the other end is like this, we may have our bot.’

  All three dug with renewed vigour as they now had a real purpose in mind, and the trough slowly came to light.

  ‘Do you think it a giant’s bot?’ asked Jay, panting a little from the exertion.

  ‘I don’t know, we may have a better idea when we have all of it revealed.’ answered Moss, now a quarter the way along its length, although he didn’t know it.

  As the light began to fade, they called a halt to the digging operation, deciding that a good rest was called for as there was little need to rush the excavation. The next day would reveal the trough, or so they hoped.

  During the meal, Moss outlined his plan for using the trough as a floating carrier to take them over the sea, but the one thing they couldn’t resolve was the means of propelling it.

  The idea of using their hands as paddles was put forward, but was soon dropped as it could have meant having them bitten off by what ever took a fancy to them as a tasty morsel, and they had no doubts there would be lots of takers for that option.

  Moss knew what he wanted, a flat piece of material to put on the end of the staves to act as a paddle, but there wasn’t anything around which would serve that purpose.

  Despite the fact that they hadn’t found a means of propelling the boat they were so sure of recovering from the ground, they found it difficult to sleep that night as the excitement level grew the more they talked about the forthcoming journey over the water.

  Early daylight saw them up and about, fed, watered and ready to continue the digging, and although it was quite cool in the early morning light, they were soon sweating profusely as the earth flew in all directions from their stabbing staves, and more of the feeding trough came to light.

  By midday the whole trough was exposed, and they had managed to drag it clear of its burial site.

  ‘How do you know it will float?’ asked Kel, ‘It’s nothing like the tree trunks we used before.’

  ‘I don’t really know, I just think it will somehow. Anyway, we can try it out a soon as we get it down to the water, and if it doesn’t, we have only lost some time and a little work.’

  It took them two days and a lot more even harder work to drag and lever the cumbersome feeding trough down to the distant beach.

  Having got it there, they suddenly realized that they would have to go into the water in order to get it afloat, and the possibility of being attacked by the denizens of the deep precluded that action.

  ‘Now what we do?’ It was Jay’s turn to show her frustration at the turn of events.

  As there was no answer forthcoming, they all retired to their little encampment at the top end of the beach, sat down, and generally felt and looked miserable.

  Again it was Moss who saved the day.

  ‘I’ve noticed that the water goes up and down the beach every day, so if we wait until it has gone down as far as it can, and drag the bot after it, we can get in and if the end in the water floats, as I think it will, we shall be able to float away as the water returns up the beach.

  ‘If it doesn’t float, then we can get out of it from the end which is still on the sand, and no harm is done.’

  ‘That still leaves the problem of making it go where we want it to.’ Kel said. ‘And we will still have to collect a lot of fruit to eat on the way, as we have no idea how long the journey will take.’

  ‘We will find a way, sooner or later.’ said Moss, sounding a lot more confident than he actually felt.

  The following day they set about working out a stratagem for completing all their needs for the journey across the sea.

  Food wasn’t too much of a problem, as they could go back to where they had seen plenty of fruit, but how much to take with them was another matter, as it could well get over ripe and rot before they had eaten it.

  The water supply was restricted to the amount that they could carry in their water bags, and as Jay didn’t have one, it meant that they would have to share their supply with her.

  All the other bags in which they carried their equipment could be emptied and filled with water, so increasing their supply a little, but it was their main concern that they couldn’t carry enough for their needs having no idea of how long the journey would take. Jay suggested that they could catch rain water, but they weren’t sure if it rained in this part of the world.

  The lack of a means to make paddles was the only problem which had them beaten, but Moss wouldn’t give up on the idea, and spent most of his time wandering around the old buildings, looking for anything which might be of use.

  The food gathering expedition, when it finally got under way, proved to be most productive, as Jay found a small tree which she recognized as similar to those she had used before, and it provided them with long creeper like strands from which she was able to make carrying bags for the fruit. This enabled them to carry much more in the way of provisions than they had anticipated, and releasing other bags to hold extra water.

  The problem of the flat material for the paddles was partly resolved by Moss, insofar that he had found some thin whip like growths from which he wove paddle like blades, weaving stout bladed grasses in between the frame strands to fill in the gaps.

  The paddle blades were then attached to staves, an
d leaning over a rock so he could reach the water, he practised ‘paddling’ as best he could, and thought that if they made some spares in case they were affected by the water after prolonged use, they should be able to move the ‘bot’ without too much difficulty.

  With all possible water bags full and safely tied off, woven bags of fruit and pods piled in a heap, some not quite ripe at Kel’s suggestion, the staves and coils of vine lashed together and the feeding trough tied to a nearby rock, the trio were ready to try their luck on the ocean.

  When the tide was nearly at full ebb, they moved their supplies down the beach in stages so that when boarding, they wouldn’t have too far to transport their possessions.

  The feeding trough was dragged down at the last moment, and as the tide turned, they piled everything into the ‘Bot’, climbed in themselves, and waited for the rising tide to lift them clear. Slowly the water crept up the beach, and before long the front end of the trough began to rise and fall rhythmically with the incoming waves.

  The occasional larger wave swept in with great force, and the whole trough heaved itself high up into the air, returning to the sand with a resounding thud, while the occupants clung on for dear life.

  By the time the water had reached the rear end of the trough, the rocking motion for those on board was becoming a little too much.

  ‘I hope it’s not like this when we reach the open water.’ Jay said, looking wistfully towards the top end of the beach and the hills beyond.

  ‘It shouldn’t be this bad, I think it’s the slope of the beach which makes the waves so big.’ Moss added, trying to add a word of comfort to the rather doubtful start of their adventure. After several more bone jarring thumps on the beach as the larger waves raced in, Kel had had enough and suggested, ‘if we push with the staves when the next big wave comes in, we should be able to move it out into deeper water. All that’s happening now is that we are being pushed back up the beach each time a big wave hits us.’

  They unleashed three staves, and stood by ready for the next upsurge. As the trough reared up, they drove the staves into the sand and pushed with all their might, the rear end came free, and they were on their way.