Tracks of the Tiger (2 page)

‘It's a long trip for a baby,' she explained. ‘Hannah and I will stay here and do some exploring. Won't we, darling? Yes we will,
yes
we
will
 . . .'

Hannah had cried for most of the plane journey here. In the last week Beck had learned more about babies than he'd ever thought possible, and he was pretty sure you were meant to keep them in the shade.

‘Is it just us going?' Peter asked his father.

‘Er, no. There's a tour organized through the hotel – what are you smiling at, Beck?'

‘Nothing!' Beck assured him. ‘Nothing!'

But the truth was, it had suddenly struck him how strange it was to be doing something like this with a family. He was abroad on an actual, proper holiday, and the only purpose was fun and relaxation. No conferences to go to, no tribes to study, no environmental projects to examine. It was a strange concept – not something he had done much of in his nearly fourteen years of life.

Beck would never be surrounded by his own family because his family consisted of just Uncle Al. He was currently somewhere in the Russian steppes, interviewing nomadic tribal leaders. Beck's parents had died very early in his life and they had always been too busy to produce any siblings for him. He remembered them always on the move, simultaneously working on at least two or three projects for the Green Force environmental action group. If they were alive, if Beck had a brother or sister, would they ever have been relaxing by the pool of a tourist hotel in Indonesia? Or taking organized tours to orang-utan sanctuaries? Beck doubted it. They would have made their own private visit. They would have arranged an action plan with the locals to help preserve the orang-utans' habitat. They would have met with local politicians and worked to raise consciousness around the world. Just go to look? Never!

Beck loved the way he had been brought up. If he'd had a normal family, he wouldn't have spent time with remote tribes in deserts and jungles around the world, and he wouldn't have learned the things he knew about staying alive in the most extreme places. On the other hand, he could have maybe done without the escaping drug smugglers in South America, or the diamond smugglers in North Africa . . .

Beck was proud of the good work undertaken by Uncle Al and Green Force. There was nothing wrong with it. But there was also nothing to say you couldn't have a relaxing holiday too!

‘We need to be up early,' Mr Grey told the two boys. ‘The coach leaves at seven. And after the sanctuary, we're going on to look at some fantastic ruins left over from the Sailendra dynasty.'

‘What did the Sailendra dynasty do?' asked Peter.

‘No idea. Died, and left a lot of ruins . . .'

Ruins, eh? Beck thought.

The air that gusted through the bus was jungle air. It had the taste and smell of a billion tons of vegetation. In Medan, on the coast, the air smelled of salt from the sea and petrol from the traffic. But the jungle air lurked outside the city limits, ready to pounce on you like a tiger as soon as you left.

The road was potholed. Tarmac didn't stand a chance. Plants constantly burst up out of it, pushing it aside, before being crushed to death by the traffic. The jungle was the life form that ruled this island. Beck had the feeling that even a large city like Medan could only really exist here because the jungle temporarily allowed it.

The bus was battered and dented too. Its springs had been crushed into submission a long time ago. The only air conditioning was the open windows, so there was a good through draught – but the air wasn't cool. It was hot and sticky, and had hardly any cooling effect on your sweating body.

Every now and then the trees vanished on one side or the other and they passed through paddy fields, perfectly flat and a vivid green. Indonesian farm workers laboured here, bent double as they reached down to the ground. From a distance it looked like they were up to their knees in tall green grass. In fact, Beck knew, they were wading through muddy water. This was how rice was grown. The work was dirty and wet and back-breaking, but rice had been the staple diet for generations here.

A hand patted him on the shoulder.

‘Are you sure you're not too hot, Beck?'

Mr Grey sat in the row behind them. There had been a minor clash of wills before leaving the hotel. Mr Grey's thinking was:
It's hot, like summer, so the boys should wear T-shirts and shorts
. Beck's thinking was:
It's the jungle, and I know what that's like, so I'm wearing long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt and I'm making sure Peter does too
. The clothes were lightweight and well ventilated. They were also strong enough to provide protection against thorns and insect bites and anything else the jungle could throw at them. Not that Beck was expecting anything to be thrown at them, but you never knew.

Mrs Grey had been on Beck's side. Her son was fair haired and fair skinned and never took well to bright sun. A couple of months ago, stranded in the Sahara, only Beck's quick thinking had kept him from dying of sunstroke. So she was quite happy to go with Beck's suggestion for what they should wear. Mr Grey had given in. But every ten minutes or so he still had to ask if the boys were too warm.

So Beck smiled politely again, and said, ‘No, I'm fine, thanks.'

The boys exchanged glances – Beck winked and Peter grinned. At least they could all agree about hats to keep the sun off, and sensible footwear – shoes that were sturdy and tough. Everyone on the bus wore them – the tour guide had told them to. Peter's dad might have preferred them to wear sandals, but if it came from an adult in authority, then it was all right . . .

Peter pulled his camera out for a last shot of Mount Lasa before it disappeared behind the trees again. Sometimes he seemed to treat his camera like another baby sister. He had even bought it a watertight carrying case for this trip, to protect it from the humid air.

Beck had to smile again when he saw it. That camera had got them into a whole host of trouble, back in the Sahara. It had been Peter's determination to take some good shots that had got them trapped on that aeroplane in the first place.

Peter caught his eye and brandished the camera. ‘Ready for lots of pics of the monkey zoo!'

Beck laughed. ‘I don't think they like being called monkeys,' he told Peter with a grin, ‘and it'll be much more than a zoo . . .'

‘Look,' the guide whispered. ‘Down there . . . by the rocks . . .'

Twenty tourists held their breath.

The river was shallow and rocky, flowing over a gravel bed as wide as two roads. It was a soothing sound that blended in with the jungle noise of innumerable birds and animals and insects. On either side the rainforest formed ten-metre walls of trees and bush beneath an impenetrable canopy of leaves and branches. Tangles of vines and trunks were like vertical cables. It was difficult to say what was holding the tree canopy up and what was hanging down from it.

But on the far bank, something moved. A small figure wrapped in orange-brown fur crawled out from behind the rocks at the water's edge. It looked mostly human with a bit of spider thrown in. A body the size of a small child and absurdly long arms and legs. The orang-utan had been washing itself in the shallows at the edge of the water.

The tourists let out their breaths again with a collective ‘Aaah . . .'

There was a whirring by Beck's ear as Peter zoomed in with his camera.

‘She's got a baby!' Peter said in delight. ‘Look!'

He passed the camera to Beck so that his friend could see it in close-up. He had already noticed the much smaller orange lump clinging to its mother's back. She loped on all fours up the bank, away from the river and the watching humans.

‘Hey! Monkey! Over here!' one of the tourists called. The reverent atmosphere burst like a balloon. The orang-utan paused and looked back at them. Her face was long and grave, as if wondering how anyone could be such an idiot. Then she turned away again and disappeared into the trees.

‘Hah!' The man clapped his hands, very pleased with himself. Then: ‘What?' as he noticed the expressions on some of the faces around him. ‘I made her look, didn't I? We travel for three hours in a hot bus, you want to see something at the other end!'

Beck gave Peter a nudge. ‘Yeah, but do
they
want to see
you
?'

Peter grinned.

Their guide was a middle-aged Malay man called Nakula. His keeper's uniform made him look a bit like an overgrown Scout. His face was lined and inscrutable, but as he had met the tourists getting off the bus, Beck reckoned he saw a flash of utter dislike. Beck could understand that. If you worked as a keeper in an orang-utan sanctuary, presumably you would want to spend your time keeping orang-utans, not looking after rich western tourists. Unfortunately, though, that was how the sanctuary actually made the money to care for orang-utans in the first place . . .

This particular tourist really wasn't doing anything to improve the reputation of westerners.

‘The orang-utans are fed twice a day, sir,' Nakula said with icy politeness. ‘That will be your best chance of seeing them up close. Now, if you would like to come along . . .'

‘It's like we're guests in their home, isn't it?' Peter said to his dad as they followed after Nakula. ‘We're the ones who should be living up to expectations, not them.'

At the back of the group the loud tourist was explaining to anyone who would listen why he thought the whole trip was a rip-off. Peter shook his head angrily. Nakula noticed Peter and Beck's annoyance, and for a moment it looked like he might be prepared to dislike these two tourists a little less than everyone else.

‘They are very solitary, private creatures,' he explained, for the benefit of the group. ‘And why should they not be? This is their home' – he half nodded to Peter in acknowledgement, and Peter flushed a little, as if he had been praised – ‘and humans spoil it.'

‘Pollution?' someone asked.

‘Loggers,' Nakula answered. The loathing in his voice made it sound like a swear word, something you wouldn't use to describe your worst enemy. ‘The wood of our rainforest is in demand in your west. The orang-utans live in trees. The trees are cut down – where can they go? They die. How easy would it be for us all to survive if the orang-utans started to knock down our houses?'

‘But they're protected here,' a woman pointed out.

‘They are protected
here
, madam, but those in the wild are not. Fewer and fewer survive each year.'

They walked on through the jungle. Beck was pleased to see that the sanctuary made a minimal impact on the environment. The paths were artificial, packed with gravel and woodchip, but otherwise it was just pure jungle around them: hot, humid and heaving with life. It was a couple of years since he'd last visited a jungle properly. He enjoyed renewing the acquaintance.

Every now and then the shadowy form of an orang-utan swung through the trees around them, but they were surprisingly hard to see. You assumed that their colour would stand out a mile, but they easily blended into the shades and shadows of the treetops. You heard them more than anything else. Branches crackled and leaves rustled, and you got the briefest glimpse of a vaguely human shape gliding effortlessly through the canopy. Peter tried to take a couple of pictures but they moved too fast.

He tugged on Beck's elbow. ‘Do you think it's safe to leave the path?'

Beck shook his head, smiling. ‘Leaving the path is a
bad idea
, Peter.' His friend looked crestfallen and Beck pounced. This was too good a chance to miss to wind Peter up. ‘There's tigers lurking behind every tree just waiting to bite your head off the moment you stray off it,' he said dramatically. ‘That's if the poisonous snakes and insects don't get you first. But tell you what – if you're lucky, the snakes and tigers and insects will distract each other and then you'll be OK, but I suppose that leaves the man-eating plants . . .'

By now Peter had guessed it was a wind-up. He tilted his head and looked sceptically at Beck.

‘Of course you can leave the path,' Beck told him. ‘Why?'

‘I just want to take a picture.'

There was a cluster of bright red flowers a couple of metres away. They were enormous, the size of plates, and gave off a sickly smell that had already lured several insects to their death. Peter stepped off the path and zoomed in close with the lens.

‘I suppose there really are tigers and things in the jungle, though?' he asked, not looking up from his camera.

‘Well, yeah. But they won't come near the inhabited areas unless they're desperate.'