The Elephant's Tale (9 page)

Ben burst out laughing. “Boy, have you changed over the past year. But you’re totally right. We’re a zillion miles from anywhere and boiling alive in the desert sun with one tiny carton of apple juice and no transport. We have to think positively if we’re going to get out alive. Okay, let’s get on Mr. James’s trail. But first we need shelter, water, and food—in that order.”

“I agree. Ben?”

“Yeah.”

“Deep down, I’m terrified, you know. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life. But I’m also very determined. I’m going to save Sawubona and all our precious animals if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

Ben looked from her to the endless cliffs of burning red sand and back again, his dark eyes serious. “Let’s hope it’s not,” he said.

The most critical course of action was for them to escape from the sun. Since there was no shelter of any kind for miles and they could not risk getting dehydrated searching for one in the fierce heat, they returned to the airstrip and rigged up a canopy using the blanket. They stayed there until mid-afternoon, dozing and daydreaming about food and icy drinks. The apple juice had been finished by lunchtime. With the last of it, they used a survival trick, keeping it in their mouths for as long as they could so that their tongues and lips didn’t dry out.

Late afternoon, they ate a glucose tablet each and set off into the energy-sapping heat. They had hoped the airstrip might be in regular use and they’d soon be rescued, but they never saw a soul. Both of them knew that in a lot of survival situations it was best to stay where you were until you were rescued rather than move and make your situation worse, but, since nobody was aware they were in need of rescuing, it was up to them to seek help.

They followed the road in the direction the safari vehicle had taken earlier that morning. It was a lot less strenuous than climbing the dunes, and there was always the chance that a busload of tourists or a park warden with a vat of water on board would drive by. That was their hope, at any rate.

It didn’t happen.

As the hours ticked past and the sun slipped lower in the sky, Martine’s mouth became so dry that her tongue kept sticking to the roof of it, and her lips cracked and bled a little. She’d put on her Windbreaker and pulled up the hood to protect her from sunburn, but all it did was make her hotter. Her limbs weakened. She put one foot in front of the other and tried not to think of the stories she’d read about people dying in the desert. The longest the body could go without water was three days. In this heat, a person could be dead in twenty-four hours.

Her biggest concern was that they might be walking in the wrong direction. The safari vehicle might not have been heading for a tourist lodge at all. If Ben was right about the contents of the boxes, it could have been taking Reuben James to a mine or perhaps a secret storage unit. There might be armed guards there. She and Ben might be walking into a trap.

A lizard with a snout like a shovel shot streaked across a nearby dune with a swimming motion. Apart from beetles and a distant eagle, it was the only sign of life they’d seen all day.

“We’re not going to die,” Martine said out loud with a lot more confidence than she felt. “Grace would have mentioned it if we were.”

“She might have left that part out, so as not to alarm you,” Ben teased. “Don’t fortune-tellers abide by some sort of code where they don’t tell people if they see something ghastly?”

Martine suddenly felt exceedingly hot and irritable. “That’s really not helpful, Ben,” she said crossly. “Anyway, Grace is not a fortune-teller. She’s a
sangoma
who can commune with the spirits and read the bones. It’s not like she’s some charlatan with a sequined vest and a crystal ball.”

Ben stopped. “Hey, I know that. Grace is completely amazing. I’m sorry, it was a stupid thing to say. I was trying to keep things light, that’s all.”

Martine squeezed his hand. “Sorry I snapped at you. I’m just hungry and tired and I keep blaming myself for the mess we’re in.”

Ben grinned. “That doesn’t sound like positive thinking to me. Come on, we can do it. Quick march, quick march, quick march . . .”

Sunset brought a breeze so cool and soothing it was like being wrapped in silk. Martine and Ben used the last of their strength to climb the highest dune in the area, where they hoped they’d be out of reach of predators, snakes, and scorpions during the long night ahead. They were also hoping to catch a glimpse of a tourist lodge or some indication of water.

Before they climbed, they removed their shoes again. The warm red sand slipped through Martine’s toes. Close to the top, they paused for breath. The sunset did not have the exotic hues of those Martine saw regularly at Sawubona, but the colors of the desert made up for it. Bathed in the pure light of evening, the great rippled dunes turned every shade of brick red, burnt orange, and chestnut brown.

It was a sight so lovely, so lonely, and so ancient that Martine momentarily forgot their plight and felt lucky to be witnessing it. According to the guidebook, the Namib Desert was an estimated eight hundred million years old. In terms of evolution, she was about as insignificant as an amoeba. She lingered on the slope even after Ben began to climb again, only emerging from her reverie when he let out an agonized yell.

Martine did the last few yards in double time. Ben was lying on the summit of the dune holding his foot, his face contorted with pain. Nearby was the cause of his distress—a thorn bush with vicious, curving thorns.

“Typical,” he said through gritted teeth. “We walk for hours without seeing a single tree or blade of grass and the first bit of vegetation we come to is a thorn bush.”

He let go of his foot and Martine saw five bleeding punctures on the sole. Before he could object, she’d unzipped her survival kit and was cleaning the tiny wounds with an antiseptic wipe. She followed it up with a dot or two of Grace’s wound-healing potion, and wrapped his foot in gauze bandage to keep it sand-free while the
muti
did its work.

It was only when she’d finished and Ben was sitting up again and smiling that she noticed two things. The first was that there was a valley on the other side of the dune, spread with blond grass and a few trees. The other was that the thorn bush had yellow-green melons on it.

“Is that a mirage?” she said croakily.

“Is what a mirage?” Ben was examining Martine’s handiwork, impressed at how professionally she’d patched him up. The potion she’d applied had reduced the pain to almost nothing.

Martine was examining the thorn bush. She tapped the forbidding cluster of thorns with her Swiss Army knife and several melons tumbled to the ground. She sliced one open. Inside it looked like a cucumber. She scooped out some of the yellow fruit and popped it into her mouth, grimacing slightly at its sour, burning taste. Next, she removed the shell from a couple of the seeds and ate the soft pellet inside.

“Martine, has the sun fried your brain?” demanded Ben. “Have you any idea how dangerous it is to eat unidentified plants? What if the fruit is poisonous? What if you get sick out here when we’re miles from a doctor?”

Martine popped another few seeds into her mouth. “These are yummy. They’re almost like almonds.”

She cut open another melon and handed it to him. “This is a Nara bush. I’d recognize it anywhere. Grace is always going on about them. She says the San Bushmen love the Nara because it’s the plant with a hundred uses. The oil from the seeds moisturizes the skin and protects it from sunburn; the root cures stomach pains, nausea, chest pains, and kidney problems; and the flesh can be rubbed on wounds to help heal them or eaten to rehydrate you.”

Ben took a bit of convincing, but he was so starving and thirsty that he couldn’t hold out for long, especially since Martine had dramatically revived since eating the first melon and was already tucking into the seeds of the second. Soon he was guzzling the seeds with equal enthusiasm.

At a certain point, they looked at each other, juice running down their chins, clothes and bodies filthy, hair sticking up on end from a night on the floor of the plane and a day in the baking desert, and burst out laughing.

It was almost dark by then, so they built a small fire with the dry twigs and foliage beneath the thorn bush and spread the thin blanket from the pilot’s first aid box on top of the high narrow ridge of the dune. They covered themselves with the space blanket from Martine’s survival kit, which could withstand temperatures of minus sixty degrees. Or so it claimed on the wrapper.

The evening star heralded the coming of the night. Before long it was as if a box of diamonds had been spilled across the heavens, so numerous and glittering were the constellations. A crescent moon rose into the deep blue sky.

Ben and Martine lay with their heads resting on their packs, cozy beneath the space blanket, and gazed up at the Milky Way and Orion and the Southern Cross. From time to time, they heard the sounds of night creatures. It made them feel less alone.

“You know something, Ben?” Martine said sleepily. “I believe we’re going to make it. I haven’t a clue how, but I think we are.”

Ben yawned. “You know something, Martine? I believe you’re right.”

They fell into the dreamless sleep of the young and the truly exhausted, innocent and, for the time being, uncaring, of what was to come.

T
hey were woken by the rosy glow of dawn breaking over the red dunes. Ben sat up and declared the view to be the most breathtaking he’d ever seen. Martine, her voice thick with sleep, stayed where she was and moaned and groaned about the hardness of their sand bed and how freezing it was and how much she needed a shower and more sleep, as well as a breakfast of eggs, bacon, coffee, and orange juice.

“Coming right up, your ladyship. Just let me dial room service.” Ben stood and pulled the blanket off her. “Get up, lazybones. I think you’re going to want to see this.” When she didn’t stir, he aimed a gentle kick at her ribs.

Martine bolted upright and glared at him. “Boy, are you going to pay for that when we get back to civilization. Just you wait.”

She shielded her eyes from the burning orange sun. “What’s so special that I have to get out of bed at five a.m.?”

And then she saw them. In the valley below, scattered across the pale grass, were hundreds of Oryx antelope. They had extra-long horns, as straight and sharp as spears, and their coats and faces were patterned in fawn and black in such a way that they looked uniformed and regal, as if they formed part of some warrior queen’s elite guard. Martine had only ever seen them in photos, but she’d always considered them to be among the world’s most beautiful animals.

Tiredness forgotten, Martine jumped to her feet. “Ben, we have to go nearer. They’re exquisite. A herd that size would need gallons of water to survive. Maybe we can see where they’re getting it from.”

Her change of heart made Ben smile, but he thought the better of teasing her. They packed up their things and slid down the dune. When they reached the valley they worked their way slowly toward the herd. Half an hour later, they were behind a tree and not far from a bare patch of earth where two young bulls were mock fighting. They tossed their magnificent heads and rushed at each other with their sword-like horns, turning aside at the last minute.

Martine couldn’t bear the thought that they might harm each other. Ben had to restrain her from going to stop them.

“You shouldn’t interfere with nature.”

“Of course I’m going to interfere with nature if it means saving an Oryx from ending up stabbed and bleeding,” Martine whispered. “Ouch, did you see that?”

The bulls clashed horns. The mock fighting was turning into real fighting.

Martine stepped from behind the tree. “Bad bulls!” she cried. “Be nice to each other. What’s the point of fighting?”

The bulls halted in their tracks. Their tails tossed as they pondered the apparition that had dared to intrude into their game. Then they galloped for the cover of the dunes, the herd stampeding after them.

“HEY!”

A young San Bushman rose seemingly from behind a tuft of grass. He was bare-chested and wearing khaki cargo shorts, and had a bow and sleeve of arrows slung over his shoulder and a professional-looking camera in his hand.

“I don’t believe it,” he said. “Thirteen thousand square miles of desert out here and you have to ruin my shot.”