by Jem Poster
‘I’m dead-beat,’ he said. ‘You go on. I’ll rest here for a moment.’ He leaned back against a spur of sandstone and closed his eyes.
‘We can’t be more than a couple of hundred yards from the shelter now. You’ll rest more easily there.’ I stretched out my hand, but he ignored it.
‘Water,’ he said dully. ‘Where’s the canteen?’
‘I thought you were carrying it.’
His hand went up to his shoulder and fumbled the crumpled fabric of his shirt where the canteen-strap should have been; dropped to his lap again. ‘Billy,’ he whispered. ‘Billy had it.’
‘I believe we may have a little water in the shelter,’ I said. I knew for certain that we had none, but I wanted Bullen on his feet and walking.
‘Bring it here.’
I stood silent, embarrassed by the exposure of my childish stratagem. He leaned forward, suddenly animated, prodding the air with his forefinger in a febrile show of anger.
‘Don’t play games with me, Redbourne. Do you hear? I’ll get down to the camp in my own good time.’
‘Please yourself.’ I turned and walked away, but I hadn’t gone twenty paces when I heard the clump and shuffle of his boots on the track behind me. He called out once, his voice thin and tremulous, but I judged it expedient to ignore him and I didn’t slacken my step until I reached the shelter.
I had already lit the lamp by the time he joined me. His face, as he ducked under the flimsy lintel, was blank with fatigue, and he barely glanced my way before lowering himself to his couch. I removed his boots and drew the blanket over his shivering body, and after a few moments his eyelids flickered and closed.
Once I was sure he was asleep I unfastened the satchel and laid our specimens on the ground beside the lamp, the three parrots a little apart from the smaller birds. In the cold yellow shine their colours seemed oddly lusterless, and such small pleasure as I was able to derive from close examination of their plumage was quickly stifled by darker emotions. He’s out there, I thought, imagining Billy’s slender form spreadeagled on the valley floor, the white cloth of his shirt stained and tattered, his thick hair matted with blood and dust; out in the dark alone. I bowed my head, meaning to pray for him, but no words came.
I gathered up the stiffening bodies and dumped them in the corner, beside the wallaby skins. Then I eased off my own boots, doused the lamp and curled up on my spartan bed, tugging the blanket tightly around me.
22
It was still dark when I woke, roused by a soft scrabbling, the rustle of shaken vegetation. Some small marsupial, perhaps, moving through the brush outside? But the sounds continued, and as I listened, I was able to locate them more precisely: not outside, I realised, but within the walls of our flimsy shelter.
Lying in bed as a small child, I would shiver as the owls called from the beechwood or feel the hairs on my neck prickle at the vixen’s scream as she quartered the dark fields in search of a mate. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of out there,’ my mother would say, leaning over me with a candle in her hand, her fine features irradiated like those of the angel in the east window of the church; and when I was a little older, no less fearful but ashamed to call out, I would repeat her words like a charm as I lay listening to the stir of nocturnal life in the darkness outside. Now, in a wilderness shared with blacksnakes and death-adders, I was learning a fear scarcely less intense than my childhood terrors, and altogether more rational. I felt my arm trembling beneath me as I eased myself forward and fumbled for the lamp and matches.
But it was Bullen, I saw, as the flame steadied on the wick, who had disturbed me. He was lying on his back, arms raised, groping blindly to and fro across the ferny ledge behind his head. I threw back my blanket and scrambled towards him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘My pillow.’ His voice was hoarse and plaintive, like a troubled child’s. ‘I can’t find my pillow.’
‘You have no pillow,’ I said. ‘Lie still now and rest.’
He screwed up his eyes as though he were about to cry. In the dull lamplight his brow and neck glistened with perspiration; his shirt was drenched.
‘My mother’s gone for water,’ he said, ‘but she’ll be back soon. She knows where my pillow is.’
I pulled a shirt from my pack, folded it neatly and slipped it beneath his head. He lay quiet for a moment, then rose awkwardly on one elbow, leaning towards me but with his gaze fixed fiercely on the shadows at my back. His tongue moved restlessly between his cracked lips.
‘What is it?’ I seized him by the shoulder, leaning close, trying to intercept his crazed stare.
‘I thought she’d be back by now,’ he said. And then, with sudden, startling vehemence: ‘Damn the bitch. Out dancing while her own son dies of thirst.’ His head drooped and he began to rock back and forth, whimpering softly to himself.
‘Sssh,’ I said, as soothingly as my own unease allowed, ‘lie back now.’ I patted the folded shirt with the flat of my hand. ‘There’s your pillow.’
‘But no water.’ He seemed to reflect for a moment. ‘Are we in hell?’
‘No. Not in hell.’
‘Then there must be water.’
The logic was wild but the fact was indisputable. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘there’s water.’ I picked up the lamp and took the pan and ladle from the rock-shelf. I could feel his eyes on me, anxiously following my movements.
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I shall be back in a few minutes.’ I ducked outside and made my way to the far edge of the platform.
I knew, of course, that it would have been safer to walk back up the track at first light to collect fresh water from the cascade. But think about it: a three-mile trek with no better container than a couple of chipped mugs and a lidless cooking-pan, Bullen helpless with fever and racked by thirst, Billy perhaps waiting for rescue … My reasoning, I would maintain even now, was essentially sound; but if my experience out there taught me anything at all, it was that we live in a world that cares nothing for reason.
The wallabies’ carcasses, I noticed, had been disturbed by scavengers, the soft flesh of their bellies torn open. I raised the lamp. A slick shine off the spilled entrails, off the pooled water around them; a whiff of staling blood. I skirted the remains and picked my way across the plashy ground until I judged myself well clear of their taint; then I squatted down and began to fill the pan, dipping the ladle where the water lay deepest, careful to avoid stirring the sediment below.
As I worked, I became aware of Bullen’s voice drifting out to me on the quiet air, the words incomprehensible but edged with anger or desperation. I finished my task as quickly as I could and hurried back to the shelter.
He was staring up at the roof but turned his face to the light as I entered, scarcely pausing in his monologue, his eyes wide and vacant. I spoke his name softly, but he gave no sign of having heard. ‘Bullen,’ I said again. ‘It’s Redbourne.’
His gaze flickered. ‘I know who you are,’ he said aggressively. ‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing. You were talking to yourself.’
‘Not to myself. To my mother. She’s come back without. Says I can get my own damned water. Her very words. That’s not natural, now, is it?’
‘Your mother’s not here, Bullen. Only me.’ I set the lamp and the pan of water on the ground beside him.
‘And Billy?’
‘Sit up now.’
He eased himself laboriously on to his left side and propped himself on his elbow again. ‘I dreamed I’d killed him,’ he whispered.
‘Drink this.’ I dipped the ladle and held it to his lips.
He drew back, averting his face. ‘Poisoned,’ he said. ‘I can smell it.’
‘Come on, now. You’ll feel better for it.’
‘Poisoned,’ he insisted. ‘Smell for yourself.’ He pushed the ladle away and slumped sideways to the ground.
I bent forward and sniffed at the water. The faintest tang of iron and rot; nothing to speak of. ‘It’s
not as fresh as it might be,’ I admitted, ‘but we’ve no choice at present.’
‘There’s running water somewhere. Listen.’
I could hear nothing but the dry whisper of the breeze in the eucalyptus leaves and the monotonous croaking of the frogs. ‘I’ll get you fresh water when I can,’ I said, ‘but you’ll have to make do with this in the meantime.’ I slid my right hand beneath his head and tried to raise him, but he twisted away.
‘I can’t drink that filth,’ he said.
‘Then you must go without.’ I banged the ladle angrily back into the pan, but he reached out and gripped me by the wrist. ‘Give me the water,’ he said, bearing down on my arm as he raised himself again. ‘I shall have to drink something.’
He grimaced as he swallowed, like a child taking medicine; then he snatched the ladle from my hand, refilled it and drank more greedily, the water spilling in a small clear runnel from the corner of his mouth. He wiped his forearm across his chin and lay back, letting the ladle drop.
His breathing was quick and his colour high, but the agitation was gone from his face and his movements seemed calmer. After a moment his eyes closed and, judging that he had no further need of me, I extinguished the lamp again and returned to my couch.
23
On the edge, legs braced against the gritty sandstone, my back and shoulders quivering as I pull on the rope. The body bumps slowly up the rock face, the white shirt snagging and tearing on scrub. The head lolls sideways, the arms hang limp. I haul my burden level with the cliff-top, hitch the rope around a broken branch and lean over. The rope twists as I draw it towards me; the face turns, staring into mine. Daniel? My mouth is dry, my whole body shaking. The loop is tight around his neck and I realise, with a spasm of guilty terror, that I have made a terrible misjudgement. Daniel?
What’s happening? The boy’s lips move in response, but silently. In the instant before I wake, it occurs to me that I know what he has to tell me, but as I open my eyes the unvoiced message fades from my mind.
‘Billy!’ I sat up, kicking myself free of my rucked blanket, and hurriedly pulled on my boots. Bullen was stirring, moaning softly and stretching one hand towards me. As I made for the doorway, I heard him whisper my name.
‘I’ll be back shortly,’ I said.
‘I need a drink.’
I took the pan from the shelf and helped him to a ladleful of water. He drank slowly, with evident distaste or discomfort. I dipped the ladle again. ‘Do you want more?’ He grimaced and shook his head. I lifted the ladle to my own lips and drained it. A little like blood, I thought, running my tongue over the roof of my mouth; the same metallic aftertaste. ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said.
He had begun to moan again, burrowing back down among the tangled folds of his blanket, but my mind was on Billy. I scrambled out of the shelter and ran up the track in the early light. The air was cool and moist, but by the time I reached the spot I was sweating profusely, my shirt cleaving to my back.
Apart from a slight roughening of the surface a few feet above the loop, the rope showed no sign of damage. The sun was still far too low in the sky to illuminate the cliff face directly but, peering down, I was able to make out the bulge of the outcrop I’d hung beneath on the previous evening; and then, a few yards below that – I craned downward, suddenly alert, staring into the shadows – the outside edge of a second projection, a flat ledge fringed with scrub.
I had no doubt that I should have to go down again, and less fear than you might imagine about making the descent alone. I retied the knot around the sapling, shortening the rope by a good six feet; then I slipped the loop under my arms and let myself over. This time I could see what I was about, and within a couple of minutes I was braced just above the overhang, the rope at full stretch and my body canted backward from the rock face. I turned my head and looked down over my right shoulder.
The floor of the valley was carpeted with mist but the air around me was brightening by the second, and I was able to see clearly the line of the ledge below. Not an isolated projection, I realised, but a trackway as broad as the one we had been travelling on, running as far in both directions as the crowding undergrowth allowed me to see.
‘Billy!’ I shouted. ‘Billy! Can you hear me?’
My voice reverberated among the rocks and died away. I listened, straining into space, but there was no answering cry.
I twisted round in my harness, leaning out sideways above the ledge now, desperate for a sign. Was that faint localised darkening of the track’s surface a disturbance of the leaf-litter? Even if it were, my reason told me, I could hardly read it as evidence of Billy’s survival. It might denote almost anything: a wallaby startled into sudden activity, a lyrebird scratching for food, the boy’s body – and I felt my own body tighten in sympathetic spasm – striking the shelf before continuing its headlong descent to the valley floor.
It was difficult to see what more I could do. I climbed back to the top, untied the rope and coiled it loosely about my arm before making my way back to camp.
I thought at first that Bullen must be on the mend. He had left the shelter and was kneeling at the edge of the platform, staring out across the swamp. Then his body convulsed and he pitched forward on to his hands, retching violently. His breeches, I noticed as I approached, were unbuttoned and gaping wide, his shirt-front stained. He wiped his mouth and glanced up at me. ‘The water,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t listen, would you?’ His face was white, his whole frame quaking. I could tell that the fever had abated, but his extraordinary pallor made him appear sicker than ever.
‘That’s nonsense, Bullen. You were already ill when you drank the water.’
He screwed up his face as though he were struggling with a complex idea. ‘The fever’s one thing,’ he said slowly. ‘This is another.’ He eased his body wearily to the ground and lay with his knees drawn up, his hands clutching at belly and groin. He glanced briefly up at me; then his eyes closed.
‘You can’t sleep here,’ I said. ‘Not in full sunlight.’
He let me help him back to the rock face and huddled in the shade of the overhang, a few yards from the shelter. I was about to turn away when he stretched his arm weakly towards me, palm upward, like a beggar asking for alms. ‘I need water,’ he whispered. ‘Fresh water. And’ – I leaned down to catch his words – ‘opium for this damned flux.’
‘I’ll try to find water,’ I said, moving away.
‘And opium? Do you have any?’
I hesitated, not turning back but feeling or imagining his gaze fixed on the space between my shoulderblades. ‘Yes,’ I said at last. ‘I have a little tincture in my pack.’
I ducked into the shelter and fumbled among my belongings for the bottle. I removed the cork and sniffed it, the smell taking me back, as it invariably did, to my childhood: my mother stooping above my bed, administering comfort from a tiny silver beaker.
Bullen appeared to be drifting off again, but he roused himself at my approach and leaned forward on one elbow.
‘Open your mouth,’ I said, kneeling at his side.
‘I can dose myself without your help. Give me the bottle.’
He reached out and, as he did so, I caught the stink coming off his body, and felt my gorge rise. I struggled for control. ‘You’re very ill, Bullen. You’d do better to let me attend to your medication.’
He was clearly in no state to prolong the debate. He opened his mouth wide and I sprinkled a few drops of the paregoric on to his discoloured tongue. He swallowed hard. ‘Is that all?’ he asked, eyeing me as I recorked the bottle.
‘For the moment, yes. I’ll give you more later.’
He sighed, letting his head sink back to the ground. ‘And you’ll fetch fresh water?’ he asked.
I nodded. ‘I shall be gone for an hour or two. Try to rest while I’m away.’
I returned the tincture to my pack, collected the pan from the shelf and set out in the direction of the cascade. The smell of Bullen’s sickness seemed
to hang about me like a poisonous fog as I walked, and by the time I reached the site of Billy’s accident, I knew beyond doubt that the sickness was also my own. I squatted at the side of the track and voided myself in long, racking spasms.
To continue would have been out of the question: it was as much as I could do to drag myself back down the track to the camp. I made straight for the shelter, dropped to my knees and rummaged frantically through my pack for the tincture, persisting until it became apparent that the bottle simply wasn’t there.
‘Bullen,’ I shouted, giddy with rage and nausea. ‘Where’s the paregoric?’
No reply. I stumbled back into the sunlight. Bullen was lying, sound asleep, more or less where I had left him, but he had clearly found sufficient strength to make the short journey to the shelter and back in my absence: the bottle stood on a low ridge of stone a couple of feet in front of him. I snatched it up and held it to the light.
He had evidently dosed himself generously, but the situation might, I reflected, have been worse: he had, at least, left more than enough for my immediate needs. I put the bottle to my lips and sipped, feeling the familiar restorative warmth like a golden wafer on my tongue; and then, for good measure, I sipped again.
I should like it to be understood that I tended Bullen throughout the course of that long, bewildering day as conscientiously as my own condition allowed. I assisted him to the edge of the platform as his needs dictated, even, on one occasion, helping him to clean himself – though the fact is that my own needs were almost equally pressing. At intervals I administered small quantities of paregoric. I took no more myself: I was rationing the supply, intending to take a powerful dose immediately before turning in for the night.
Despite the medication, Bullen grew increasingly restless as the day wore on, shifting and turning irritably on the platform’s uneven surface. Some time late in the afternoon, as the sun began to sink behind the trees, he lifted himself on one elbow and called out: ‘I need more medicine.’
