‘You OK?’ he asked.
Kerry got up slowly and took a few nervous steps on her weak knee.
‘No worse than usual,’ she said.
The helicopter flew off. James shielded his eyes from the swirls of sand. They dragged their backpacks out of the wash and up the beach. The sun made the white sand dazzle.
‘Let’s get into the shade,’ James said.
They settled under a palm. James rubbed wet sand off his hands on to his trousers. Kerry found the mission briefing in her pack.
‘Oh crap,’ Kerry said.
‘What?’
Kerry showed James a page of her briefing. It was in Japanese. James quickly found his own copy. His heart sank.
‘Great, all in Russian,’ James said. ‘If I’d known my life would depend on it I probably would have paid more attention in class.’
They realised the two briefings were identical. James could understand half the Russian, Kerry was a bit better with the Japanese. By comparing the two versions and making a few assumptions they worked out almost everything.
There were a couple of sketchy maps, marked with the position of the first checkpoint, but no indication of where they had been dropped, or where they had to go after that. They had to reach the first checkpoint by 1800 and sleep there overnight.
‘I suppose there’ll be another briefing when we get there,’ Kerry said.
James went through his backpack. There was tons more than they could carry. What was worth taking? Some stuff was obvious: machete, compass, plastic pool for collecting rainwater, emergency rations, empty water canteen, first-aid kit and medicine, water purification tablets, sunscreen, mosquito nets, matches, Swiss army knife. A roll of plastic bin-liners weighed next to nothing and had a dozen potential uses. There was also a tent with metal poles.
‘Leave it,’ Kerry said. ‘It weighs a ton and we can make a shelter out of palms.’
They threw out a lot of heavy items: spare boots, umbrellas, cutlery, thick jackets. Some items were bizarre. They couldn’t think of any use for a rugby ball or a table tennis bat. The paperback edition of The Complete Works of Shakespeare might have helped start a fire, but they decided it was too bulky. The packs were manageable once they were stripped out. James kicked through the stuff in the sand, hoping they hadn’t left anything that would turn out useful.
‘What now?’ James asked.
Kerry held out the map and pointed to a mountain in the distance.
‘The checkpoint is on the bank of the river,’ Kerry said. ‘That mountain over there is marked on the far side of the river so we walk towards it.’
‘How far?’
‘Impossible to tell. There’s no scale on the map. We’d better move fast though, we’ll never find the checkpoint once it gets dark.’
The plan was to follow the coastline until they hit the river mouth, then walk upstream to the checkpoint. Walking inland was more direct, but there would be no way to tell which direction to turn when they reached the river.
Walking on the beach was impossible because of the bright sun and heat. Instead they stuck to the jungle a hundred metres or so inland. The trees here formed a shady canopy filled with screeching birds. The only plants beneath the canopy were a few mosses and fungi. Apart from giant tree roots and the odd detour around a fallen trunk, the terrain was level and they made a steady pace.
It was a battle keeping insects off. Kerry had a screaming fit when a ten-centimetre-long millipede tickled up her leg. Its bite swelled into a red lump. Kerry reckoned it hurt worse than a wasp sting. After that they tucked their trousers into their socks.
Once an hour James and Kerry moved on to the beach. Trees nearer the beach were smaller and more spread out. They knocked down coconuts and, once they got the knack of opening them, gorged on the sweet milk. There were fruit trees everywhere, but they only ate fruits they recognised in case any were poisonous. After drinking they would put down their packs, kick off their boots and run fully clothed into the sea.
The biggest risk in the jungle doesn’t come from predators but mosquitoes. The tiny flying insects stick their proboscis under the skin to drink your blood. The bite only leaves an itchy red mark, but the microscopic malaria parasites they spread from one victim to the next can make you sick or even kill you. The kids hadn’t been given malaria tablets, so all they could do was cover up their skin, try to keep dry and wear insect repellent.
Mosquitoes are attracted to the smell of sweat, so after each dip James and Kerry put on dry clothes. They wrung out the sea-drenched clothes and draped them over their backpacks, knowing the heat would dry them before the next stop. After changing they smeared on mosquito repellent and sunscreen before heading back into the shade under the dense trees.
The coconuts and fruit juice were too rich to keep drinking in large quantities. The fruit acid gave James a sickly burn in the back of his dry mouth. By early afternoon thirst was slowing them down.
Sea water is too salty to drink and all they could find in the jungle were stagnant pools, swarming with mosquitoes and probably contaminated by animal urine. There was no chance of finding a spring unless they diverted towards higher ground inland. They wouldn’t get fresh water until it rained. A storm was a certainty. The tropical heat evaporated so much water that by afternoon the skies were bursting with clouds. James and Kerry watched the sky gradually darken. When the first lightning cracked they ran to the nearest stretch of beach, inflated a plastic paddling pool and waited.
The rain was like nothing they’d ever seen. The first spots were the size of ping-pong balls. James tipped his head back to drink. When the sky opened properly it was like being under Large’s fire hose. The water blasted holes in the smooth sand. James wrapped one arm over his face and struggled to hold the pool as it filled up.
Kerry sheltered their packs under a tree. They stuck their faces in the pool and gulped. When the shower finished there was enough in the pool to fill both canteens. Rather than risk going thirsty again they tipped the rest into a plastic sack and took it with them.
Once they reached the river mouth the going was easier. The river was bordered by an unmade path, chewed up with tyre tracks. Kerry counted the bends in the river to find the checkpoint. They arrived an hour inside the deadline, feet killing them after walking for nearly seven hours.
The checkpoint was marked by a flag. A three-metre-long wooden boat with an outboard motor stood at the edge of the river under a tarpaulin. James lifted back the cover and was pleased to discover junk food, cooking pots and cans of fuel inside the hull. Then something moved. At first James thought it was just a trick of the light, but it moved again and hissed. James dropped the tarp and scrambled backwards.
‘Snake,’ he screamed.
Kerry rushed across from the riverbank.
‘What?’
‘There’s a bloody enormous snake in that boat.’
‘Are you sure?’ Kerry asked. ‘The manual says snakes are very rare out here.’
‘The instructors must have put it there,’ James said. ‘I suppose if we pull off the cover it will slide away.’
‘How big did you say it was?’ Kerry asked.
‘Huge,’ James said, making a twenty-centimetre circle with his hands.
‘There’s no snake in Malaysia that big,’ Kerry said, puzzled.
‘You’re welcome to stick your head in there if you don’t believe me.’
‘I believe you, James. But I don’t think we should let it go, I think it was put there for our dinner.’
‘What? That thing could be poisonous. How are we going to kill it?’
‘James, were you listening during survival training? The only snakes that size are constrictors: snakes that crush you by wrapping themselves around you. It’s not poisonous, but if we let it go what’s to stop it coming into our shelter and squishing us in the night?’
‘OK,’ James said. ‘You want snake for dinner. How do you plan to kill it?’
‘Pull back the
cover, poke it till sticks its head out then hack it off with the machete.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ James said. ‘This is your idea, so I’m poking it and you’re doing the hacking.’
‘Fine,’ Kerry said. ‘But if I kill it, you’re cutting all the guts out and cooking it.’
*
There was loads to do before dark. Kerry made a clearing near the river. James built a fire and butchered the snake, throwing the remains into the river to keep scavengers away.
Kerry put the finishing touches to a shelter made with giant palms as the sky blacked out. She protected the floor with the tarpaulin and lined the inside with mosquito nets.
They ate the snake meat with coconut and instant noodles. James made wire traps baited with leftover meat and pressed them into the river bed by torchlight, hoping they would have fish in them by morning. Well-fed but exhausted, they climbed into the shelter. They tried to translate the briefing while pricking the blisters on their feet with a sterile needle.
Reaching the second checkpoint involved a twenty-five kilometre cruise upstream, navigating a complicated network of channels and tributaries, until they reached a giant lake. The checkpoint was located aboard an abandoned fishing trawler on a mud bank near the far side of the lake. They had to get there by 1400. It would be an early start.
*
The temperature hardly dropped in the night. It was boiling in the shelter, hard to sleep. The wailing birds were harmless, but served as an eerie reminder that civilisation was a long way off. They kept a small fire burning to deter animals and insects.
James was awake to see dawn. Sun burst over the river and in minutes the dry ground was too hot to touch. James checked inside his boots for nasties before slipping them on his painful feet and walking to the river to check the traps. Two of the four traps had caught fish, but one fish had been ripped apart by a predator. James grabbed his catch and held it in the air until it stopped struggling. It was enough to make breakfast for the two of them.
Kerry built up the fire and began purifying river water. She boiled it for ten minutes, then dropped in chlorine tablets. James cooked the fish and picked a heap of mangoes. He saved one each for breakfast and loaded the rest into the boat.
The fish cooked quickly. He sliced one of the mangoes in half and called Kerry. ‘Breakfast’s ready.’
James couldn’t see Kerry either near the camp or at the riverside.
‘Kerry?’ he called, slightly worried.
He pulled the steaming fish off its skewer and split it on to two plastic plates. Kerry emerged from behind some trees.
‘I had to crap,’ Kerry said. ‘All that fruit I ate yesterday cleaned me right out.’
‘Thanks for the detail, Kerry. I’m just about to eat.’
‘Something occurred to me,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Remember we left The Complete Works of Shakespeare on the beach?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I think we were supposed to use it as toilet paper.’
23. CRUISE
James and Kerry stood on either side of the outboard motor with their palms pressed against the back of the boat. It had taken a succession of almighty shoves to nudge the bow over the edge of the riverbank.
‘We should have emptied everything out first,’ Kerry said, wiping a gallon of sweat off her face.
‘Not worth it now,’ James puffed. ‘I think the next one will do the trick. Ready?’
They pushed the hull past its centre of gravity. It tipped forward and began sliding. A backwash ran up the shallow embankment, the muddy water swirling over the toes of their boots.
Water surged over the bow as the boat punched the water. For a second, they both thought it was going under. When the craft stopped rocking, the rim of the hull was only a couple of centimetres above the waterline. Each swell in the river splashed a drop more water over the side. The river wasn’t deep enough to put the boat beyond rescue if it sunk, but the engine and half their equipment would be wrecked, along with any chance they had of making the next checkpoint.
Kerry waded in up to her waist and grabbed a can of fuel out of the boat, being careful not to lean on the hull. James positioned himself nearer to shore, took the can off Kerry and hurled it towards dry ground.
Once they’d pulled out their sodden packs, fresh water and fuel cans, the boat sat higher in the water.
‘Phew,’ James gasped. ‘That was too close.’
‘Brilliant time-saving idea,’ Kerry said furiously. ‘I told you we should have taken the stuff out.’
‘You didn’t,’ James said.
James was nearly right. Leaving the stuff in the boat was his idea, but Kerry’s objection had been on the basis that they wouldn’t have the strength to push it, not that the extra weight might make the boat sink when it hit the water.
James grabbed a couple of cooking pots from the shore and they bailed out all the water. When the bottom of the boat was dry, they turned to the fuel and equipment scattered along the embankment.
‘I suppose it’s the same as yesterday,’ Kerry said. ‘What do we need? What can we leave behind?’
*
It made James queasy when he thought about how close they’d come to failing on the ninety-eighth day out of a hundred. Failing this close to the end of training would completely do your head in. The boat was now trundling upstream, against the current. Their sodden packs and equipment were spread over the deck, drying in the morning sun.
The river varied in size. Some places, shallow water stretched over thirty metres wide. They had to go slowly, with James leaning over the bow, shouting directions so that Kerry didn’t ground the hull. When things got desperate, James used a wooden oar to nudge them away from disaster. In the narrow sections, the river was deeper and the currents stronger. Trees and bushes loomed over the water and they had to duck under low branches.
When it was plain sailing, Kerry would open up the throttle and the gentle put-put of the engine turned into a whine, accompanied by thick blue exhaust fumes. She stayed on the wooden bench near the outboard motor, making gentle adjustments to their course and marking off progress on her chart. James’ job was more physically demanding; but even though the sun was fierce and working with the oar strained his shoulders, he preferred it to taking responsibility for navigating them safely through the dead ends and tributaries leading towards the lake.
*
It was the hottest part of the day when they broke on to open water. The lake ran further than you could see through the glaring sun. James abandoned his oar and sat on a fuel can in the middle of the boat, occasionally bailing out the water sloshing around the hull.
‘Can you see the trawler anywhere?’ Kerry asked. ‘If I’ve read the Japanese in my briefing right, it’s on a mud bank at the north end of the lake, marked by three red warning buoys.’
James stood up, squinting in a vain attempt to cut out the glare off the water. It was a pity they didn’t have sunglasses.
‘I can’t see squat,’ James said. ‘We’ll just have to keep cruising around the edge until we spot it.’
Kerry looked at her watch.
‘We’ve got two hours until the deadline, but the sooner we get to this checkpoint, the longer we have to reach the next one.’
There was no other traffic on the lake. The fishing wharves, shacks and warehouses along the shoreline were desolate. There were well maintained roads and even a couple of telephone boxes, but no people anywhere. Red warning posts were hammered into the mud every few hundred metres. The writing was in Sarawak, so James couldn’t read the words, but the yellow and black stripes and the bolts of lightning sent out a message that was clear in any language: stay the hell out of here.
‘This is freaky,’ James said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘According to this map, they’re building a giant dam upriver,’ Kerry said. ‘I guess this whole area is going to be flooded. Everyone’s had to leave, which makes this the ideal spot for
us to train without any locals sticking their noses in.’
James toppled backwards as Kerry put on full rudder and opened up the throttle. For a couple of nervous seconds he thought he was going over the side.
‘For god’s sake,’ James shouted furiously. ‘Tell me before you do that next time.’
The boat bounced over tiny waves towards the silhouette Kerry had spotted in the distance. The rusting trawler was about fifteen metres long, leaning on its side in the mud. Another boat, identical to their own, was tied to the metal deck rail.
Kerry bumped the boat into the mud bank. James hopped over the bow and tied it off.
‘Anybody in there?’ James shouted.
Connor stuck his head through a window.
‘What took you two so long?’ Connor asked.
The exterior of the boat was crusted in bird crap. They tried not to touch it as they crawled through a lopsided doorway into the bridge. There were masses of holes and hanging wires. Everything of value had been stripped for salvage, including the navigational equipment, the glass in the windows and even the seat cushion off the captain’s chair. Connor and Gabrielle looked muddy and tired. They had maps and briefing papers spread out over the floor.
‘How long have you been here?’ Kerry asked.
‘Twenty minutes or so,’ Gabrielle said
‘Any sign of Shakeel and Mo?’
‘They’d been and gone before us,’ Gabrielle said. ‘They left the envelope from their dossier on the floor. Yours is over there as well.’
Kerry grabbed the padded envelope, tore it open and handed James the half written in Russian.
‘So we’re running last,’ James said.
‘We’ve already worked out most of ours,’ Connor said. ‘Maybe we can help you two catch up.’
James thought it was a kind offer, but Kerry took it the wrong way.
‘We’re quite capable of working it out for ourselves,’ she said indignantly. ‘We’ve all come from different camps and we’re all going to different places. Maybe we had a longer first stint and a shorter second stint. I don’t see how anyone could have done the journey much faster than we did.’