Trying to ignore the stabbing
agony, he hauled himself up to join Stephen who murmured. “I said it wasn’t
your day!”
“Just lead on. Aw, bugger it
hurts,” Roger replied through clenched teeth. He checked his watch. It was
nearly five o’clock! Worry helped push the pain aside. What were Graham and
Peter doing all this time?
Fifteen hot and sweaty minutes
later Roger and Stephen finished their climb up through the jungle. They
emerged from a particularly thick patch of wait-a-while onto the main
road. Stephen was in front. He crawled up the steep slope and took a
cautious look over the top.
“We are just around the bend from
the track junction I think,” he whispered.
Roger, feeling hot and flushed,
made his way painfully up to join him. He wasn’t sure if that was from the
stinging tree or the start of heat exhaustion. The two cadets climbed up onto
the road and looked at the steep slope of the cutting opposite them.
“Which way will we go? We can’t
climb that,” Stephen said.
“Just walk around to where we
left Peter and Graham,” Roger replied.
“Their guard might see us,”
Stephen reminded. He took off his glasses and gave them a worried polish.
“Not if he’s still at their
vehicles,” replied Roger. By this time he was too sick and sore to care very
much.
Stephen shrugged. He didn’t feel
like arguing. The two began walking along the road. There was no breeze and
everything was very still and quiet. The tree tops had sunlight on them but
they were in the evening shade.
They slowed as they rounded the
corner where the timber track joined but there was no sign of anyone. As they
reached the actual junction they became even more cautious and went forward a
step at a time till they could see down the side track. It was deserted.
“Pssst.
Hey! Psst.”
Roger jumped with fright and
looked around at the soft noise. At once he saw Graham and Peter. They were up
on top of the cutting opposite. He nudged Stephen and pointed.
“Oh, thank God! Come on,” Stephen
said.
The pair walked quickly along the
road to where the cutting came down to the small re-entrant. Peter and Graham
met them there.
“Where the hell have you two been?”
Graham hissed angrily.
“We went to have a look; to see
what the crooks are up to,” Roger replied.
“You what!”
Graham gasped. “You pair of
bloody fools. We’ve been sitting here nearly an hour worried sick.”
“Sorry,” Roger replied. “But it
was worth it.”
“What did you see?” Peter asked.
Stephen replied. “The men are
searching for something.”
“They’re digging up the treasure
right now,” Roger added.
“Not all of them,” Peter
answered. “Your mate Bruno walked out to the track junction not ten minutes
ago. He had his rifle.”
Roger felt ill at the thought of
how close they had come to disaster. “He’s on guard,” he replied.
“Well you are damned lucky he
didn’t see you,” Graham replied. “He stopped and looked down the slope where you
two came from. Then he took something blue off the back of a tree beside the
turnoff, looked at it and walked back down the track.”
“Took something blue?” Roger
asked. He had to swallow to prevent the words coming out as a croak.
“Piece of paper I think. It
was hard to tell,” Peter replied.
The boys were standing just in
the edge of the trees at this point.
“Should we move further in?”
Stephen asked.
“I need a drink. Let’s go to our
webbing,” Roger replied.
“What about watching the
turnoff?” Stephen asked.
Graham shook his head. “We will
hear their vehicles if they start up.” He looked at his watch. “It’s five
twenty. It will be dark in half an hour. We’d better have tea while it’s light
and plan our next move.”
“Why? What did the police say?”
Roger asked.
“We didn’t get to contact them.
There was no-one there. Come on. We can talk about it later,” Graham replied.
Graham led the way back through
the scrub above the road. A few minutes walk brought them to where their
discarded gear lay scattered on the ground. Roger and Stephen both took out
water bottles and drank greedily.
“Where will we go?” Peter asked.
“To the top of
the hill.
There’s a good spot to camp,” Graham replied.
“Is it out of sight and sound of
those men?” Stephen asked.
Graham nodded. “Yes it is,” he
replied.
“Not too far. We want to be able
to hear if they drive off,” Roger said.
“We’ll be able to,” Graham said.
He swung on his gear and started up the slope.
The twilight was setting in fast
so they walked quickly, making no effort to be silent, other than talking
softly. After about fifty paces the rain forest opened out to be mostly tall,
thin trees with almost no undergrowth and a carpet of dry leaves.
The top of the hill came into view
after another hundred paces. By then Roger was sweating and puffing. He was
sharply reminded of the stinging tree sting after grabbing a sapling to haul
himself up the slope.
The crest of the hill levelled
out and they came out onto an old timber road. This was thickly carpeted by
leaves and obviously had not been used for years. The line of the road was
quite clear as no undergrowth grew on it. Roger assumed this was because the
overhanging tree canopies blocked most of the sunlight.
Peter looked around. “This is
what we want,” he said.
“I think I know where this old
road joins the main road,” Roger added.
Graham pointed ahead. “Just down
there. We came up it half an hour ago,” he replied.
Peter nodded and added. “This is
the old road we walked along during Senior Ex last year, when we went to attack
the pretend fort.”
Stephen agreed and they began to
discuss the exercise. Graham stopped them when both took off their packs. “We
won’t stop here. We will camp just along there, in that bit of a dip.”
He led the way a hundred paces
westwards along the old track to where it ran onto a low bench cut. An old
bulldozer scrape in a small hollow right on the crest of the ridge provided a
convenient flat space.
Graham dropped his pack and
looked around in the gathering gloom. “There’s another old track just there. It
runs down the spur to where we were watching. We will camp here. The men won’t
hear us if we talk but we will still be able to hear their vehicles.”
“Can we light our stoves?”
Stephen asked.
Graham nodded. “Yes. They won’t
see us from anywhere on the main road. And I don’t think the smell of the
hexamine will carry that far. We should be safe here. I don’t think they
suspect we are anywhere in the area, unless they saw or heard you two.”
“I’m sure they didn’t,” Roger
replied, looking to Stephen for confirmation. He nodded.
Peter suddenly pointed to Roger’s
hand.
“You OK Roger?
What’s wrong with your
hand?” he asked.
“Which one?”
Roger replied ruefully holding
up both hands. He recounted his minor injuries as he eased his gear to the
ground.
“I hope it was worth it,” Graham
said.
“It was,” Roger replied. He then
sat and proceeded to describe what he and Stephen had seen. While he talked
they all pulled out hexamine stoves and lit them. The flames gave a cheerful
glow which helped restore their spirits.
Roger put on water to boil and
had another drink. Two of his four water bottles were then empty. He shook one
ruefully then said, “I tell you, when I was standing in the middle of that
track and I saw them two blokes come around the corner I nearly wet meself.”
Stephen added his comments.
“We had to lie in the bloody leaves for nearly a bloody hour and now I’m
starting to itch.”
“Pair of bloody fools,” Graham
repeated, but he and Peter were intensely interested in the story.
By the time Roger had made a cup
of Milo it was quite dark. The air was very still, with no breeze. Through a
gap in the tree canopy he could see there were no clouds. It was very quiet,
apart from a few insect noises, crickets and the like.
“I haven’t heard a car for a
while,” Stephen observed as he stirred a mess tin of meat and onions.
“No. There hasn’t been one since
we left you about two o’clock,” Peter replied. “We hoped one would come
along so we could hitch a ride but none did.”
“What happened?” Roger asked. The
sweet Milo tasted wonderful.
“We walked back to the Forestry
Barracks no trouble,” Graham replied, “but there was no-one there. We looked
around, then sat down and wondered what to do. We thought of phoning but all
the buildings were locked and we didn’t feel like breaking in.”
“So what took you so long?”
Stephen asked.
“Well, we sat there for half an
hour hoping someone would come along. Then we walked back to the old house
beside the road, you know, near Lake Euramo, but it was deserted.”
“Then what?”
Peter answered. “We thought of
walking to Robsons Creek but decided it was too far,” he said.
Roger shuddered at the thought of
that much effort and drained the last of the Milo.
Graham continued. “We sat for another
fifteen minutes hoping a car would come along, tourists or something. But none
did.”
“And we tried to come up with a
story in case the car was the crooks,” Peter added with a grin.
Graham went on, “Anyway, we just started
walking back to here at quarter to four. We came up this track and went down
that overgrown one there which I guessed led to the road junction. When we got
there we looked around for you and got really worried when we couldn’t find
you.”
“I went and checked the gear,”
Peter added. He had opened a tin of corned beef and was eating it cold.
Roger took out a tin of Chinese
sweet and sour pork. It was now so dark he put his torch in his mouth so he
could see while he opened it.
Stephen swallowed a spoonful of
food and then asked, “What will we do now?”
Graham answered. “I thought we
might walk back to the Forestry Barracks again. The men should have come back
from work after five. They should be there now.”
“Who’s going? All of us?”
Stephen asked.
“No.
Only two.
Two can stay and watch; or rather listen,” Graham replied. “I’ll go. Who wants
to come with me?”
Roger had a sudden yearning to
see electric light and other people. To his own surprise he said he would go.
“You sure
Roger?”
Graham asked doubtfully.
“Yeah.
I need more water anyway.”
“Don’t wear yourself out. We’re
going to have to step it out tomorrow to make up lost time,” Graham reminded.
On hearing that Roger mentally
groaned but he merely nodded.
Stephen ate another mouthful then
asked, “How far have we come so far?”
“About twenty five kilometres,”
Graham replied.
“So we now do seventy five ‘Ks’
in three days?” Stephen said.
Roger grimaced. “Steady on. It’s
not a bloody death march,” he snapped.
There was an
embarrassed
silence for a moment. Roger stirred the food heating in his mess tin. The
others busied themselves with cooking and eating.
The warm food helped restore
Roger. His left hand still throbbed and there was a lump in the glands under
his left armpit but the intense sting had subsided. He drank some more and ate
a couple of biscuits. As he munched them he wondered why on earth he inflicted
such pains on himself. ‘I’m certainly not a masochist,’ he told himself. But he
knew why he came on hikes. These were his friends and he had a deep need to
belong to the group.
Stephen spoke next. “Will we
light a fire?” he asked as he wiped his mess tins clean with toilet paper.
Graham shook his head. “No.
Better not. The glow might show in the trees and it will spoil our night
vision,” he replied.
“What about sentries?” Peter
asked.
Graham thought for a moment. “I
suppose we’d better, only one person though.”
“Why bother? Those blokes don’t
know we are here and they won’t come blundering about the jungle in the dark,”
Stephen replied.
“Maybe not.
But it’s better to be sure than
sorry. Besides we need to be sure we wake up early,” Graham answered.
“How early?”
Roger asked. He hated early
rising.