Tracks of the Tiger (8 page)

Peter stood proudly by the pile. ‘All ready for you to light.'

‘Well, OK, but . . .' Beck felt for the cord round his neck. ‘Why don't you do the honours?'

Peter's eyes lit up. ‘Really?'

‘You've watched me do it enough times.' Beck pulled his fire steel over his head and chucked it over.

The fire steel, Beck's most vital possession, consisted of a small metal rod and a flat steel square. The rod was made of ferrosium, a volatile combination of metals that gave off extremely hot sparks whenever it was scraped with something hard and sharp. That was what the steel square was for. Beck had taken it with him all over the world.

The principle was simple, but the technique needed some practice. With each scrape the ferrosium sheered off sparks, and in the gloom beneath the trees it gave off an orange light that was quite spectacular. But they didn't have time to admire it: both boys were huddled over the small pile of tinder and kindling, willing the sparks to catch. Just as Peter was beginning to get frustrated, a flurry of orange sparks showered down, and a small corner of the stuffing started to smoulder. Immediately Peter leaned close and blew on it gently, giving it a steady supply of oxygen to turn the embers into a flame. Finally the stuffing caught light. It slowly grew into a glowing ball of fibres, and then the bamboo began to catch too. The shavings curled slowly in the heat, blackening in the flame. And finally the flame reached the sticks.

Beck always reckoned a fire was a success when he heard that
crack
– the distinct sound wood makes when water trapped inside it turns to steam and bursts out under the pressure. More and more cracks sounded as the flames spread up through the pile. The warmth beat against the boy's faces. An equatorial rainforest is not a cold place, but this warmth was comforting. It was dry and hot and life-giving. Just the sight of a good fire, Beck had always found, raised his spirits.

‘Supper time!' he announced. He unzipped his daysack and pulled out the dead lizard. The smell of blood and dead meat came out with it.

‘Man alive.' Peter pulled a face. ‘I think your pack's going to need a wash, Beck.'

‘Maybe I'll just give this one to you as a present – if we get out of this mess, that is!' Beck held the lizard up for inspection. It hadn't had time to go off in the time since he killed it, and because he had kept his pack zipped up, the flies hadn't been able to get at it. ‘Could you set up a spit?' he asked. ‘A couple of tall sticks either side of the fire and a horizontal piece over the top . . .'

While Peter did that, Beck cut the lizard open with the knife, being careful not to puncture any internal organs. If he cut into the stomach or the intestines, the acid would leak out and ruin the good meat. It wasn't hard to avoid them, though. The lizard's body wasn't tightly packed, like a mammal's. It felt like a leather bag of innards, and you could tell what was where just by feel.

Beck was only after one thing here, and that was the liver, three quarters of the way down the body. It was the size of his fist, clammy and dark rusty brown. When he pulled it out of the lizard's abdomen, it glistened in the firelight. The bile sac clung to it and looked like an abnormal green growth. Bile was disgustingly bitter, not something Beck wanted to eat. The rest of the liver, though, would be rich in iron and nutrients, and pretty tasty once cooked. Beck carefully cut the bile sac away and set the liver aside. He threw the sac into the undergrowth.

Finally he sliced off the lizard's tail. There would be nothing else in the body worth eating, but the tail was almost solid meat. The skin was tough and almost fireproof, so he left it on. They could cook the meat in the skin and remove the outer layer when it was done. He threw the body well away from the camp. It would attract armies of ants, and he didn't want to lead them to where he and Peter would be sleeping.

Meanwhile Peter had set up the spit. Beck skewered the tail and the liver on a long stick and propped it up over the flames. The two friends then used more sticks to sweep the ground clear of leaves and anything else that might be lurking; finally they sat on either side of the fire and watched the meat cook.

‘End of the first day,' Beck said cheerfully. ‘Nothing's eaten us yet.'

‘Uh-huh.' Peter sat and hugged his knees, and looked thoughtfully into the flames.

Beck sensed his friend wasn't quite as cheerful as he was. ‘We're going to be all right, buddy – you know that?'

Peter looked up, his expression serious. ‘Yeah. I know.'

‘What are you thinking?' Beck asked gently.

Peter sighed. ‘Just remembering Nakula. And wondering about Mum and Dad. We were meant to be getting back to Medan about now, so they'll soon work out we're late. And if they haven't already heard about the volcano, they soon will. And then they'll be going out of their minds with worry. OK, they know about you – they know you can survive just about anywhere, and if I'm with you they'll know I'll probably be OK . . . but what about Nakula's family? If he had one. They said goodbye to him this morning like normal and now they're . . . they're never going to see him again . . . It's too awful . . .'

Beck thought of his own parents. He had waved them off at the start of a perfectly normal trip – and never seen them again either. ‘Awful' didn't even begin to describe it.

‘I see my mum and dad every day,' Beck whispered gently. Peter looked up at him in surprise. ‘Every time I do something they taught me or I see some difference they made in my life. I always feel Mum around me. I bet you, in time, Nakula's family will find that too. I mean, hearing someone you love has died is the worst thing ever, and that never goes away, but think of the difference he made. Think of the sanctuary.'

‘I'm so sorry about your mum and dad, Beck. I never really said that properly before.'

Beck smiled at Peter warmly. Until someone close to you actually died it was impossible to know what it was like. Beck prayed his friend wouldn't have to find out for many years.

‘Hey, Peter, your parents are going to be so proud of us,' he told him, lightening the tone. ‘They'll realize we had no option but to head into the jungle. And we are going to get through this. Sure, it's not going to be like a walk in the park back home, but if we stick together and work together, we'll survive. Just like in the Sahara. What's important is that we focus on getting through this
alive
.'

Peter's smile in the firelight was warm and genuine. ‘Yeah, we'll do that,' he said confidently.

Beck felt his own heart lift as well. ‘But we should get some sleep,' he added.

Climbing onto the sleeping frame took some careful manoeuvring. It creaked and groaned with their weight, but it held together. The boys lay head to toe and back to back on a thin mattress of palm leaves.

‘Beck?' Peter murmured after a few minutes.

‘Uh-huh?'

‘What about tigers? This thing isn't exactly a cage, is it?'

Beck had mentioned earlier that they were in tiger territory. They hadn't discussed this since. There hadn't seemed much point. It wouldn't change anything.

‘Tigers are very solitary,' Beck told his friend. ‘The chances of one wandering past us in the night are pretty slim.'

‘Oh.' Peter was quiet for a moment or two. ‘And anyway, I guess they'll be asleep soon, like us?'

‘They're nocturnal—' Beck started to correct him, but stopped when he realized what he was saying.

Peter sighed. ‘You know, that's really not comforting!'

Despite his worries (and the fact that the creepers
did
dig in, leaves or no leaves), Peter had dropped off almost immediately. He was worn out in body and mind, and he had a good meal of lizard inside him to digest. Beck lay awake for a little while longer, listening to the jungle. It was like a living creature all around them. Crackles and crunches, whoops and whistles – a million life forms getting on with the business of living and dying. But at some point sleep took him too.

It was a rumble of thunder that woke him up, briefly. The fire had gone out and it was pitch dark. Rain drummed down relentlessly all around them. It pattered on the roof of palm leaves above, and he could hear streams of water pouring into his bamboo water collectors. Drops of it inevitably got through and landed on him, but he could live with that. Beyond the roof of the A-frame he could hear it hammering down. It washed the air clean, and made it fresh and cool once more. It was like being surrounded by an invisible waterfall.

The sound of the rain finally sent him back to sleep again.

They woke up early the next day, their second day in the jungle. The moment he was awake, Beck felt an extra layer of slick sweat clinging to his body. The freshness of the night's rain was already a memory. The sun had come up as quickly as it went down, and the moisture left by the rain was now turning to steam.

Beck swung his legs down and reached for his shoes beneath the sleeping frame. They had left their shoes propped upside down on sticks, to keep them dry. He gave each one a shake and looked carefully inside before putting it on. When he shook the second one, a scorpion as long as his middle finger fell out. Beck watched it scuttle away as he laced up his shoes. He smiled, grateful for the advice his father had given him about always checking inside your shoes first thing in the morning.

He bent over to touch his toes, then stood up straight and rotated his arms like a windmill for a few seconds. A stab of pain reminded him of his cut: he needed to change the bandage. Meanwhile he felt the blood and energy start to flow back into his sleepy muscles.

Beck was pleased to see the water collectors were brimming with clear, fresh water.

Peter twitched and stirred. ‘Ugh.' His mouth was dry and sticky; he had to swallow a couple of times just to be able to speak. ‘Aching. And thirsty.'

‘Better get up, then. There's plenty of water.'

While Peter got up, Beck filled the bottles from the collectors. As he carefully poured out the half-bamboos' contents, he savoured the
glug-glug
sound.

Beck passed a bottle to Peter, who drank almost half of it in a couple of swallows.

‘I could just keep drinking and never stop.'

‘You're not wrong,' Beck replied. ‘We need to drink whenever we can. The humidity means we're going to sweat a lot. It's like a steam bath already and it's only going to get worse. You only need two and a half per cent less water in your body to make it twenty-five per cent less efficient, and we're going to need all our strength today.'

‘So . . .' Peter quickly did the sums in his head. ‘Ten per cent less water and you just grind to a halt.'

‘I think you'd be dead before then.'

‘Yeah, but think of the advantages. If you had ten per cent less water – or even less than that – you could be sort of freeze-dried. Then someone else carries you through the jungle and they just add water at the end of the trip to restore you.'

‘Keep having good ideas like that,' Beck promised with a straight face, ‘and you'll be a millionaire before you're twenty.'

‘I'll cut you in on the deal,' Peter assured him. ‘I'm also going to launch a new range of jungle survival food. Lizard tails, still in their own skin, available at your local supermarket. I'll grow them in vats.'

‘Yeah?' Beck rummaged in his pack for the crowbar. ‘Don't forget the new, healthy jungle breakfast range. More protein per ounce than beef.'

Beck's smile widened as his friend's froze. Reality crowded in on Peter's fantasy.

‘And that would be . . . ?' he asked reluctantly.

Beck led the way over to a fallen log near their camp. The outer layers of bark were rotten and loose. He dug the crowbar in and levered them off. A few dozen insects and grubs scuttled and writhed around in protest.

‘Insects. Of course.'

‘You've eaten them before,' Beck pointed out. In the Sahara they had eaten spiders, grubs, scorpions . . .

‘Well, yeah, I've also fallen off my bike and broken my arm before. Doesn't mean I want to make a habit of it,' Peter replied, quick as a flash.

He came over and looked down at the breakfast spread without enthusiasm. Then he sighed and picked up a large grub between thumb and forefinger. ‘What's this one?'

Beck studied it. It was as thick as a finger, a translucent blue-white, and curled like a prawn. ‘Beetle larva, I think. Don't eat the head. Hold it there and bite the rest of it off.'

‘OK, here goes . . .' Peter screwed his eyes shut and bit into the larva. He chewed it and swallowed, eyes still closed.