“Here
comes
a car,” Roger said, hearing the sound of an engine climbing the range from
Atherton. He hoped it was Peter with the police. To his sharp disappointment he
saw it was a snappy ‘electric blue’ sedan driven by a smartly dressed young
woman. She did not even see them and the car sped through the cutting and on
towards Herberton.
Graham began walking along the
top of the cutting in the direction taken by the Royal Guards. Reluctantly
Roger followed him, wondering how he could stop him. When they descended to the
road they did not cross over as the steep rock face of the cut continued on the
other side and was far too high to safely climb. Instead the boys walked
quickly down the side of the road.
Roger was acutely aware that they
were now in the intended ‘Killing Ground’ of the ambush and his eyes searched
the slopes above them anxiously. Once again he felt his flesh cringing and
tingling in anticipation. Graham went first, eyes also searching, the rifle
carried at the ready, pointing up the slope.
A red car came from behind and
raced past. The driver, a young man in a white shirt and tie, gaped at them and
called something rude. The vehicle vanished around the bend.
“I wish Peter would hurry up,”
Roger said. He looked at his watch. It was half past seven. Peter had been gone
three quarters of an hour; ample time surely?
Graham reached the bend. The road
curved sharp left into the re-entrant; then sharp right around the side of the
next spur before another sharp left took it out of sight. After a searching
scrutiny of the mountainside Graham strode across the road and began clambering
up the steep slope beyond.
“I think I can see them. Yes,
there’s one,” he called, pointing up amongst the trees. He continued on.
Roger crossed the road and began
climbing. He looked but could see no sign of the Royal Guards. “Wait Graham,”
he called. “Shouldn’t we wait here to tell the police?”
Graham stopped and looked back.
“But they will get away.”
“We know where they are going. It
will be to that ruin on top of the mountain.”
“They may not. You stay here and
tell the police. I will follow them,” Graham replied.
Roger felt very uneasy. “That’s
not a good idea. Instead of a group of four we would then be four individuals
scattered all over the place. Remember Stannary Hills.”
Graham hesitated. He moved
restlessly, wiped sweat from his eyes with his sleeve, looked up the mountain
in frustration; then put the safety catch on and swore. He took out his water
bottle and had a big drink. Roger did likewise, feeling immensely relieved.
There was a cool breeze on that
side of the slope, funnelling through the pass, and it chilled their sweat.
Graham put his water bottle away and took up the rifle. “OK Roger, you walk
back to Stephen. When the cops arrive tell them what is going on. I will meet
you at the ruin on top.”
“Don’t be silly Graham!” Roger
cried. He shook his head in annoyance at Graham. He knew he could get very
stubborn and was apt to do things from sheer bravado. “We have taken enough
risks. Someone could get killed.”
Graham turned and began walking
rapidly up the steep, grassy slope. Anger welled up in Roger. “Don’t be such a
bloody stubborn idiot Graham! We’ve stopped the ambush. Leave it to the police.
Besides, what will Captain Conkey say?”
To his frustration Graham ignored
him and kept on climbing. Roger swore and fidgeted in indecision. He had
horrible thoughts of Graham being caught by the men. They would probably shoot
him and his body would be dumped in the rain forest, never to be found.
“Oh blast you, you stubborn
idiot!” Roger cried. He began climbing as well. “I can’t let him go on his
own.”
Graham was fifty metres ahead by
then. He glanced back and Roger saw his face darken with anger. He waited till
Roger had struggled to within about ten metres of him.
“I told you to go back to Stephen
to tell him what is going on,” Graham snapped.
Roger leaned on a tree, gasping
for breath. His heart hammered so fast he feared he was going to have a heart attack.
“Ya...you...puff, puff...you can’t follow ...puff...them on your own. Puff
..cough
, cough...puff. Something might happen to you.”
“Go back.”
“No.”
“That’s an order.”
“No. I will, if you do,” Roger
replied.
“Then you are as silly as I am.
Don’t slow me down. I’ll meet you at the ruin,” Graham snapped angrily, his
chest heaving. He hefted the rifle to ready and went on up the slope as fast as
he could walk.
Roger watched his departing back
with anger and resentment. Then he resumed plodding upwards through the waist
high blady grass, even though his pulse rate was still well above normal.
After a few minutes he had to
stop again. Gasping for breath he leaned on a tree, alternately sweating and
shivering. Anxiously he watched Graham vanish over a false crest a hundred
metres further up. As he looked around he got another shock. He was enveloped
in cloud.
The white vapour came seeping
through the trees, cutting out the view down into the valley and limiting
visibility to about a hundred paces. ‘Stephen is down there,’ he thought. Then
other worries came to him: Was he alright? Had any of the Royal Guard turned up
and taken him prisoner? ‘He must be feeling very lonely and wondering where we
have got to.’ He saw by his watch they had now been gone more than an hour.
Would Stephen be able to work out where they had gone? Yes, the ruin on top was
the logical place. What was the ruin?
Roger had a drink and slogged on
up. He only just reached the false crest before he had to stop again. The cloud
closed in, cold and clammy. It did not effectively restrict his visibility
which was affected more by the trees and bushes but it gave things a creepy,
eerie atmosphere.
With relief Roger saw that the
next section of the mountainside was not as steep. It went up for at least two
hundred metres to another crest, dimly seen in the mist. Was that the top of
the mountain? He hoped so.
After resting for a couple of
minutes Roger continued walking. He found his trouser legs getting wet from the
condensation forming on the grass and he was soon soaked from the waist down.
There was no sign of Graham. The trees were much smaller now and formed a real
thicket, being interspersed with masses of bushes, lantana and ferns.
Abruptly Roger halted. He looked
down, then left and right. He had stepped onto an old vehicle track running up
the spine of the ridge from his left, from the direction of their camp. It was
just two wheel tracks and had not been used for a long time.
After a careful look around Roger
began following the track. A quick check showed it wasn’t marked on the map but
he guessed it would lead to the ruin which he surmised should be only a few
hundred metres ahead. The slope gradually levelled out and the track entered a
thick belt of chest-high ferns and small bushes which formed a real jungle
under the trees.
Roger slowed down and began
scouting cautiously forward. As he reached the gentle crest of the slope he
heard voices. He froze for a moment. The sound came from down to his
right-front. The belt of scrub appeared to end about fifty paces further on so
Roger crept forward.
“Pssst! Roger!”
Graham’s voice from right beside
him made Roger jump in fright. He looked down. Graham was crouched in the
bushes. He reached up and grabbed Roger’s sleeve and roughly pulled him down.
“Get under cover before that
sentry sees you,” Graham hissed.
Roger went down on hands and
knees. “What sentry?”
“The one standing beside the
track on the edge of the scrub,” Graham replied.
“I didn’t see anyone.”
“He’s there alright. It’s a
wonder he didn’t see you. And he’s got a mate patrolling on the edge of those
ferns.”
Roger cautiously raised his head
and peered through a bush. For a moment he could see no-one. Then a movement
attracted his eye and he clearly saw a soldier dressed in the green uniform.
The man had put the butt of his rifle down and was adjusting something on his
webbing. Realization of how close he had come to disaster made a chill sweep
over Roger. His mouth went dry and his heart began to pound with excitement.
As they watched there was a faint
rustling in the bushes and a second man appeared from their right-front. He was
carrying a sub- machine gun. The soldier crossed the track and spoke to the
sentry for a moment, then went on into the scrub.
“Come on,” Graham whispered. He started
crawling to their right. Roger
followed,
his mouth dry
with fear.
They crawled about twenty metres
until Graham was sure the sentry could not see them. Then he rose and began
‘Ghost walking’, the rifle held ready. Roger did likewise. The pair angled down
through thick scrub towards the sound of voices.
Roger wanted to call Graham back.
He knew that what they were doing was deadly dangerous and stupid. If they met
a sentry unexpectedly it would be ‘shoot first, ask later’. But his fear
battled with the fear of being ridiculed or thought a coward. And he was
curious. Was it the Royal Guard hideout? ‘Maybe I will see the Prince,’ he
thought.
So he continued to creep along
five paces behind Graham. There were a lot of dead twigs in the long grass but
luckily things were so damp from the mist that these did not make too much
noise when trodden on.
After a few minutes they reached
the edge of the scrub, about fifty metres to the right of the sentry post. Ahead
of them was a mass of ferns about a hundred metres across. These were waist
high and covered a gentle down-slope, ending at a clearing. Beyond the clearing
was a dark wall of pine trees and rain forest. Low cloud drifted past,
shrouding everything in mist. There was constant dripping of condensation from
the leaves.
They could not see into the
clearing very well as several bushes and small trees obscured the view but they
could see people, at least their top half. Roger was amazed. There looked to be
a dozen or more, all in the green uniforms and most with guns. One, with the
gold collar badges of an officer, was busily giving orders.
Graham leaned close. “They look
like they are packing up,” he whispered. “Let’s go down to the right and see if
we can get a better look.”
Roger didn’t agree and shook his
head but Graham ignored this. He set off back into the scrub and began a wide
semi-circle downslope. Roger reluctantly followed. They crawled most of the
way, under bushes, between trees and through long grass.
All the while Roger was straining
eyes and ears not only for the first sign of a Royal Guard, but also for any
snakes. He was sure the repulsive reptiles would love this environment: wet and
damp; lots of frogs and small animals! And he was right. Once Graham
hissed and pointed. Roger looked, in time to see half a metre of black snake
slither into a clump of grass, just like a hundred other clumps he had just
crawled through. He shuddered and kept moving. Five minutes creeping brought
them back to the edge of the ferns.
Graham pointed down. A line of
trampled ferns made a rough foot track.
“The sentry on
patrol.
Keep alert,” Graham whispered. Roger nodded and looked to his
left.
His heart stood still. His voice
choked up and he could only grunt as he grabbed at Graham. The soldier was
coming their way and was not twenty paces away!
“Back!
Hide!” Graham hissed. Roger
turned and crawled back behind a bush, using all his training and will power to
resist the urge to run, or even to crawl quickly. As soon as he was behind the
shrub he pressed himself into the long grass and leaf-mould. Rising terror
drove the thought of snakes out of his mind. He curled up his legs and lay
still.
Roger strained his ears to listen
but all he seemed to hear was the surging and pounding of his own heartbeat.
The crackle of breaking twigs and swish of ferns on cloth made him hold his breath.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement- the Kosarian soldier.
Quite distinctly Roger could see
the Royal Guard badge on the man’s cap. The soldier was walking slowly, eyes
searching the bush, finger on the trigger of an Uzi. Just as he drew level with
Roger he stopped. Roger felt fear shrivel his insides.
A voice called from the clearing.
The soldier abruptly turned and raised a hand in acknowledgement and walked
quickly back the way he had come.
Graham whispered, “Whew! That was
close.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Roger
replied, his throat dry and constricted.
“Not yet. Something’s going on.
Let’s go closer,” Graham replied. He turned and crawled further into the scrub,
then stood up and began walking cautiously along, moving parallel to the patch
of ferns.