Gann stepped off the road now and then and smacked the brush with the side of his machete. After half an hour, Purcell said, “We’re going to wind up in Shoan soon.”
“That will be another two hours, Mr. Purcell.”
Up ahead was a huge gnarled tree, and Purcell picked up his pace. He got to the tree and said to his companions, “I am going to do some aerial recon.” He took the binoculars from Mercado, dropped his backpack, and shimmied up the wide trunk, then got hold of a branch and pulled himself up.
Gann said, “Watch for snakes, old boy.”
Purcell continued to climb the twisted branches and got about forty feet off the ground.
He sat on a bare branch and scanned the area around him with the binoculars. The trees near the road were not tightly spaced, though there was very dense brush between them. As he looked west, he could see the beginning of a great triple-canopy rain forest.
He turned his attention to the road and looked north, toward Tana and Gondar, but he saw no one approaching. The road was probably better traveled before the revolution and civil war, he thought, but now only armed men roamed the countryside, and he didn’t want to meet any of them—unless they were friends of Colonel Gann.
Purcell scanned the road to the south, and it was also deserted, though he saw some sort of catlike animals crossing a hundred yards up the road. He watched them go into the bush, then he focused closely on the area where they’d disappeared.
Gann called up softly, “See anything?”
“Maybe.” He made sure he knew where the cats had disappeared, then climbed down and jumped onto the road.
Gann asked, “How was your view?”
“Lots of trees out there.”
“What type of trees, old boy?”
Purcell described the terrain and suggested to Gann, “You can climb the next tree.” He told everyone, “The good news is I saw some sort of… medium-sized cats going into the bush. So maybe there’s a game trail.”
“Excellent.” Gann guessed, “Some sort of lynx, I would think.”
Mercado asked, “Are they dangerous?”
Gann replied, “Only if they have something better than my nine-millimeter Uzi.”
Purcell led them up the road, and over the drainage ditch, to the ten-foot-high wall of tropical vegetation. He said, “Right about here.”
Gann got on all fours, like a cat, and said, “Here is the trailhead.” They all crawled through the tangled brush onto a shoulder-wide trail, overhung with branches that formed a natural ceiling above their heads.
The trail itself was clear, and it was obvious that this was a well-used route.
Purcell said, “This could be the trail used by the villagers.”
Gann agreed. “Someone is using it on a regular basis.”
Vivian asked, “Does anyone but me think that those cats were sent by God to show us this trail?”
Purcell assured her, “Only you, Vivian.”
“Well.” She smiled. “I don’t think that either.”
But Purcell thought she did. And maybe this time she was right.
Gann said, “We will travel about twenty feet apart, but always within sight of one another. Maintain sound discipline, no smoking, and alert everyone if you hear something.”
Mercado asked, “Where are we going?”
Gann replied, “I don’t know, but we’ll make good time getting there.” He took Purcell’s map and looked at it. “Don’t see this trail.” He said, “We’ll see what we see, and we will fly by the seat of our pants.” He added, “We’re in the right area, and if we read the land correctly, I feel confident we can find at least one of the abandoned stone quarries, which may be a clue to the location of the black monastery.”
Purcell was impressed with Colonel Gann’s outdoor skills, and he asked him, “Can we live off the land? I mean if the food runs out.”
“I don’t much fancy jungle pickings, old boy.”
“Me neither.”
“Let’s make certain we can get back to Shoan before the victuals run out.” Gann informed them, “If everyone’s gone, there will be a food cache there for us.”
Purcell said, “If you’re gone, where would we find that cache?”
“You should look in the stone cisterns which are high up. This is the dry season, and they will be suitable for food storage.”
“Which cistern?”
“Don’t know, old boy. Each house has one. You’ll find the right one.”
“Couldn’t they have left the food in the palace kitchen?”
“We don’t know who will be coming around after the last person has left.” He explained, “Goats, chickens, and such will be left behind, and that draws hungry people.”
“Well, let’s hope the Gallas don’t come around.”
“More likely soldiers or partisans.” He added, “We need to be careful when we enter the village.”
Mercado asked, “How will we actually get out of here after we’ve completed our mission?”
“There is a Royalist partisan point about fifty K west of Shoan, and I can find it without a map. Been there. Chaps there will guide us to the French Somali border, as I mentioned.”
Purcell asked, “And if you’re not with us to find that place?”
“Dead, you mean?”
“Or just not feeling well.”
Gann smiled, then said seriously, “I’d advise you to walk to Gondar. You should be able to blend into the population, though it’s a bit tricky with all the Western tourists and businesspeople gone, and the soldiers everywhere. But it’s not impossible to do that.”
Purcell suggested, “We could pose as journalists.”
“There you are.”
“What do we do after we blend?”
“You should try to get to Addis by plane, or get someone with a truck to drive you over the Sudan border.” He handed the map back to Purcell and asked, “Have we covered everything?”
“We have.”
“Miss Smith? Any questions or concerns?”
“No. Let’s go.”
Gann, in military style, restated their mission objective. “We are looking for two things. One is the place where the Falashas meet the monks. We will look for signs of human presence—food waste, campfires, footprints, and all that. Our primary objective, not completely dependent on the first objective, is to find the black monastery.” He reminded them, “From Shoan, which is a few hours’ march south of here, give or take, to the meeting place is, as we know, a day’s march. From the meeting place to the monastery is, we believe, or assume, another day’s march.” He concluded, “If we find the meeting place, then we know we are a day’s march to the monastery—though we don’t know in which direction.” He added, “It’s possible, of course, that we don’t find the meeting place, but do find the monastery.” Gann looked at Purcell, Mercado, and Vivian and asked, “Is that clear?”
Purcell thought it had already been clear why they were in Ethiopia. But to be a good soldier, he said, “Clear.”
Mercado nodded.
Vivian said, “A rock, a tree, and a stream. And maybe a cluster of palms.”
Gann looked at her. “Yes, all right.” He glanced at his watch, then said, “We will let Mr. Purcell take point and I will bring up the rear.” He smiled. “Follow those cats.”
Purcell began walking up the trail. Somewhere between here and where they wanted to go lay a vast expanse of unknown. And the end of the trail was also unknown. From the unknown, through the unknown, to the unknown. Put your hand into the hand of God. It will be all right.
Chapter 51
What started as a hopeful beginning was becoming a long day in the jungle.
The trail remained wide, but it was soon obvious that it was not the only trail; many smaller trails intersected the main one, though none had any signs of recent footprints or hoofprints, or signs of cut vegetation.
Gann stated the obvious. “There seems to be a network of trails in this area.”
/> Purcell had checked his compass as they moved, and they were headed generally west, but also veering south.
Mercado inquired, “What are we actually doing?”
Gann explained, “We are trail walking, following the paths of least resistance to cover as much ground as possible.”
Purcell recalled an army ranger once saying to him on patrol, “We don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but we’re making really good time.”
Gann and Purcell looked at the map to try to determine where they were, but the Italian Army maps showed no trails under the dense overhanging canopy. And with no landmarks visible on the ground, it was nearly impossible to determine their position on the map. All they had to go by was the compass and their traveling time.
Gann put his finger on the map and said, “I believe we are here.”
Purcell asked, “Where is here?”
“Where we are standing. Give or take a kilometer.”
“I’m not even sure we’re on the right map.”
“I believe we are.” He said, “All we can do is continue to run the trails.”
“Right. But I can see now that we could pass within fifty meters of the monastery and walk right by it.” Purcell added, “We can assume the monastery is not directly on a trail.”
“That is a good assumption.”
Mercado said, “I think we should have stuck to the original plan and checked out what we saw in the photographs east of the road.”
Vivian said, “No, I am convinced that Frank was right—Father Armano was headed this way to return to the black monastery.”
Mercado did not reply.
Purcell reminded Gann, “You said you thought you could find one of these stone quarries.”
“Yes, I did say that. Unfortunately, now that I’m here, I see the difficulties.” He added, “No soldier or explorer has ever had a good experience in the jungle.”
“And we’re not going to be the first.”
“We need to just push on, trust our instincts, look for a clue or two, and pray that fortune is with us.”
Vivian reminded them, “Also, we are meant to find the monastery.”
Gann said, “The good thing is that we are not restricted by time, as we would be with a military objective.” He added, “We have all the time we need.”
Purcell reminded him, “The monks may be packing their suitcases right now.”
“Yes, but the monastery is not going anywhere.”
“Right. But we are restricted by our supplies and stamina.”
“That is always a problem,” Gann conceded.
Vivian said, “Let’s move on.”
Mercado cautioned, “We need to be sure we can find and reach Shoan before our provisions run out. I say three more days of this, then we need to start back.”
Gann agreed. “But by a different route so we can explore new territory.”
They moved on and came to a fork in the trail. They explored down both paths, and for no particular reason decided on the left fork.
They continued on, and saw that the trail was getting narrower.
Vivian had taken a few photos, but there was not much to photograph on the tight trails, and she seemed to lose interest in recording their quest to find the Holy Grail. If you’ve seen one jungle trail, Purcell knew, you’ve seen them all.
After an hour, Purcell spotted a tall cedar off the trail and made his way through the brush to get to it. He climbed the trunk to the first branch, then climbed branch by branch until he was about thirty feet off the ground. He scanned the terrain with his binoculars and saw that they were a few kilometers away from the higher ground to the west and the triple-canopy jungle he’d seen from the other tree on the road, and seen when he flew to Gondar. The sun would be below the tree line in about an hour.
He climbed down from the tree and made his way back to the trail. He informed them, “Farther west is triple-canopy jungle, and I suggest we head there.”
Gann nodded. “That is also where I’m told an old quarry exists.”
Mercado pointed out, “We’ve been traveling the better part of the day, and the villagers apparently traveled one day to the meeting spot, and we are at the end of that time period.”
Gann informed him, “Traveling time is not distance, nor vice versa. If you know where you are going, you probably know how to get there by the quickest and most direct route.”
Purcell assured everyone, “We can’t be lost if we don’t know where we’re going.”
They continued on the trail, which now turned to the south, and they saw no intersecting trails to the west. Gann did not want to do any backtracking, which he said was a waste of time and energy, and also a sign of desperation that would lead to bad morale.
Vivian said, “Avanti.”
The sun was below the highest trees and the jungle light took on that strange quality of shadowy darkness before dusk.
They knew they needed to stop for the night, but there was no suitable clearing, so they set up camp on the narrow trail.
Gann posted a guard—Mercado, Vivian, Purcell, and himself—for two hours each, until first light, when they would move on.
They had not found water, and their canteens were nearly empty. Gann said, “Our first goal tomorrow is water. Without water we will have to sample some of these fruits we see, and edible and poisonous often look similar.” He smiled. “It’s the jungle trying to kill you.”
They spent a restless night sleeping on the bare ground of the path, head to toe, listening to the night sounds of the jungle.
The second day was more or less a repeat of the first, but they found a small, vine-choked stream and filled their canteens.
Purcell noticed that the trails seemed to meander, and most of them headed north, south, or east. Every time they picked up a trail to the west, it turned in another direction, as though the god of the jungle did not want them heading west into the higher ground and the great triple-canopy jungle.
Purcell thought that Mercado was starting to drag, and he suggested to Gann that they slow their pace, which Gann did, but then an hour later Gann picked up his pace. Gann, Purcell thought, was driven, but maybe not the way Vivian and Mercado were driven to find the monastery and the Grail; Gann was driven by Rudyard Kipling—something hidden. Go and find it. If they’d told Gann they were looking for a basketball court in the jungle, he’d have been as enthused as he was to find the Holy Grail. Well… maybe not that enthused. But this had become a challenge for Colonel Sir Edmund Gann. Also, of course, he wanted to save the Grail from the godless Marxists. Then he could meet his princess in Jerusalem, and have a whiskey at the King David Hotel. Next stop, his club in London, where his friends would have to coax the story out of him. Bottom line, Purcell was glad they had Gann with them, but he was starting to wonder if Gann was with them or if they were with Gann.
As for himself, Purcell sometimes felt he was just along for the ride, though he knew there was more to his motives. Vivian was one reason he was here in this godawful place, and Vivian might also be his second and third reason. He wasn’t normally that good a boyfriend. So there were other and more complex reasons for this journey into the literal heart of darkness.
The tropical dusk spread over the rain forest, and they again set up camp on the trail they were on.
Purcell was one of the few war correspondents in Vietnam who had been allowed to travel with a team of the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol—the Lurps, as they were called. The sergeant of the ten-man team had told him, “Short patrol. Ten days.”
Ten days, deep inside enemy territory in a very hostile environment. He was younger then, and the Lurps had every advanced piece of field equipment known to man, plus enough dried rations to last twice as long as the patrol. They also carried the best weapons the army could offer, and they had three radios if the feces hit the fan, as they said.
Here, however, in the jungles of Ethiopia, they were very much on their own, and none of them knew the jungl
e, except maybe for Gann, and Purcell was beginning to have doubts about that. Also, the goal here was not recon; it was to find the Holy Grail of Holy Grails—The Holy Grail—and that was the only reason they were not heading for the French Somaliland border, which in any case was the other way.
Days three and four were more trail walking, except now they had made their way west, and the jungle had become triple canopy, and it was hotter, more humid, and darker. The only good difference was that the underbrush had thinned out and they could wander off the claustrophobic trail if they wanted to and walk between the towering trees.
Purcell told Gann, “As I said, the monastery would not be at the end of a trail. It could be that we need to walk off the trail and through the rain forest to find it.”
Gann replied, “If that’s true, then what we are dealing with is a trackless expanse, in which any direction is possible, but only one direction will lead us to where we wish to go.”
“Right. But maybe that’s the best way to cover some of these four thousand square kilometers.”
Gann suggested a break and they sat and looked at the map, which showed the same sea of green ink as it had last time they looked at it.
Gann was trying to determine what ground they had already covered, and he drew pencil lines on the map, saying, “We’ve gone in circles a bit, I think.”
“In fact, that snake back there looked familiar.”
“Hard to tell with snakes, old boy.”
Vivian reminded everyone, “A rock, a tree, a stream. And perhaps a cluster of palm trees.”
No one had been talking about those possible clues since Vivian mentioned them four days ago, but everyone had been at least alert to what seemed so important back in Addis.
Here in the bush, however, the reality changed, or reality became altered. The mind played tricks, as it does in the desert or at sea. The eye sees, and the ear hears, but the mind interprets. They had been so thirsty the day before that they all kept spotting things that were not there, especially water.