Tracks of the Tiger (10 page)

‘And another thing,' Peter added, as if he had been giving the matter deep thought. ‘If the tigers are anything like our cat at home, they won't be following us here! He hates water.'

Beck grimaced. ‘Yeah, but Sumatran tigers have one thing Tiddles doesn't . . .'

‘What's that?' Peter asked suspiciously.

‘Webbed feet.'

‘You're kidding!'

‘Nope. They evolved in swampy ground. They don't mind the water at all.'

‘Oh, great . . .' Peter scanned the jungle on either side, as if expecting half a ton of striped muscle to leap out at them at any moment.

‘Hey, don't sweat it. The tigers'll be asleep at this time of day. What we really want to look out for now is crocodiles, especially as it looks like the river is widening.'

‘Lurking just beneath the surface . . .' Peter said.

‘With their eyes sticking out,' Beck agreed.

Peter came to a complete halt, and nodded over at the far side of the river. ‘Like that?' he asked quietly.

It looked like a log drifting towards them, a small lump of wood jutting above the surface. But it wasn't a lump of wood: it had two cold, unblinking reptilian eyes. And behind it, only the slightest ripple gave away the five metres of crocodile that was cruising slowly down the river towards them.

‘Yes,' Beck murmured. ‘Like that.'

The boys stood very still. They were up to their knees in the shallows.

The crocodile's dark hide made it almost exactly the same colour as the river. You could imagine it was just a lump of slightly more solid water that was cruising gently by. The line of ripples were the ridges along the croc's back. Its tail moved silently from side to side as it propelled itself downstream. It was incredible that anything as hard and knobbly could move through the water so effortlessly.

And Beck had just a few seconds to decide what to do. His thoughts raced through the options. Run? Stay? Climb a tree? Crocodiles like to sneak up on you and pounce from a very short range. This one was still only halfway across the river.

OK. He tried to say it, but his mouth was too dry. He had to swallow to get some spit going so his words would come out. He tried again.

‘OK. I'll count to three and then we run. You go left, I'll go right . . .'

‘We can't outrun it.' Peter was as white as a sheet; his eyes were fixed on the approaching reptile. ‘You said.'

Beck remembered Peter happily telling him that these things could swim at twenty miles per hour. That meant it could cover the distance between them in a few seconds.

‘You don't need to outrun it,' he pointed out. ‘You just need to outrun me.'

Peter looked at him, aghast, then quickly turned back to the crocodile.

Beck repeated: ‘Ready to run? It can only chase one of us.'

‘Oh dear God . . .' Peter mumbled.

Beck stared into the croc's eyes. He could imagine little red laser dots on his and Peter's chests. The crocodile's food detection system had locked on. It wanted one of these skinny hairless apes in its larder at the bottom of the river. It would wedge their bodies under a rock or a sunken log. They would rot away in the water. Their flesh would drift loose from the bones until eventually it was tender and tasty enough to be devoured.

‘One . . .' he said. Peter tensed. ‘Two . . .'

A whoop and the gibbering of many voices made Beck look away from the croc and across the river. A group of dark furred apes had swung down from the trees to the water's edge. They were on the far side of the river, a bit further down. They looked like a cross between an orang-utan, with its long arms, and a chimpanzee. Beck recognized them as siamangs, a kind of gibbon.

There were five or six of them. Beck remembered that they travelled in families. There would be a dominant adult male and female, and their offspring, and maybe a couple of teenagers waiting to be dominant adults themselves. It wasn't hard to spot the two adults. They were larger and they waited at the back, one perched on a log, the other up in a tree. They kept a suspicious eye out for danger while the rest crouched by the edge of the river and drank.

But the lookouts weren't doing a very good job because the crocodile had changed course. It was heading straight for them. There was barely a ripple now – even the eyes had submerged.

The boys stared, transfixed.

It was like being a witness to a murder. Beck's heart pounded, knowing what would come. He wanted to shout a warning, throw a stone, do something to warn the helpless prey. But he was only too well aware that the croc might just go back to plan A, eating the hairless ape that had spoiled its meal.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the crocodile lurched forward in an explosion of spray. A huge sheet of water splashed up into the air and hid the details. There was a glimpse of the croc's body, long, armoured and deadly; a dim impression of panicking, scattered furry bodies. By the time the spray dropped back into the river it was over. There was just a final impression of jaws clamped over a siamang, and the gibbon screaming before the water closed over its head.

The other siamangs shrieked and howled their protest. They stood on the river bank and leaped up and down, baring their teeth and thumping their chests and the ground. They looked and sounded fearsome, and the display would have scared off just about anyone . . . except for a crocodile that really didn't care what the gibbons thought. It had already got what it wanted.

‘Let's get out of the water,' Beck said quietly. Peter just nodded and turned towards the bank.

Beck bit his lip. That had been way, way too close. He should have known better. He knew what killing machines crocodiles were. Kill, eat and make baby crocodiles – that was a croc's entire life. He knew how well they could hide in a muddy river. If those gibbons hadn't been there to distract the croc . . .

It was one more example of what he was always telling himself anyway. You had to
take care
. Be constantly on the lookout. Keep thinking. Keep alert. Never let your guard down.

They clambered back up the bank.

‘OK, we'll still follow the river . . . but from now on we won't get too close, right?'

Beck felt the water slosh about in his waterlogged shoes. It gushed and gurgled around his toes like an extra layer of slime.

Peter had the same problem. His feet made the kind of noise you usually only hear from the rear end of a well-fed cow. ‘Squelch, squelch, squelch . . .' he said, and it seemed much funnier than it should. It punctured the tension of their narrow escape from the croc. Deep down, both boys knew they had got lucky.

‘We need to get our shoes off for a moment.' Beck checked a log and sat down on it to untie his laces. Then he held each shoe upside down so that the water could drain out. But instead of putting them back on, he got the glass knife and used it to poke holes in the side of each one, just above the instep. The leather put up a brief resistance but then the point of the glass slid in smoothly. He saw Peter's enquiring glance.

‘We need shoes to protect our feet,' he explained, ‘but if we walk around with water in them we'll end up with trench foot. Ever had athlete's foot?'

‘Yeah, a couple of times.'

‘It's about ten times worse. You get blisters and sores, which turn into fungal infections, which turn into gangrene. Give it a few days and your feet could need amputating.'

‘And I suppose you'd eat them too,' Peter said thoughtfully.

Beck pulled a face. ‘You're sick!'

Peter laughed.

‘Just give me your shoes . . .'

Their shoes were still damp, but at least now the air could get in through the new holes. It meant their feet weren't steaming, which was all that a nice fungal infection needed. Still, Beck resolved they would need to dry their shoes and socks out the next time they stopped for the night.

Speaking of which . . . He glanced at his watch. It was mid-afternoon, about twenty-four hours after the crash that had got them into this situation. That was food for thought. Twenty-four hours and they still hadn't seen anyone else. They had to see signs of people eventually. But right now all Beck could see was jungle and more jungle.

Give it another hour, he decided, and they would call a halt for the day.

‘Listen!' Peter stopped dead in his tracks. A faint rumble drifted down through the canopy. He looked at Beck with wide eyes. ‘That wasn't another eruption, was it?'

‘No,' Beck replied, looking aloft. ‘That was—'

Suddenly it started to rain.

Rain in a rainforest was like someone in the sky turning on a tap. Back home there would be a few tentative drops. They would gradually get stronger until someone noticed. Here it was either raining or it wasn't. There was no in-between. And when it did rain, it was like every drop of moisture in existence was just dumping itself out of the sky on top of you.

‘. . . rain,' Beck finished.

Even with the shelter of the tree canopy, it was only about ten seconds before the boys were completely soaked. Beck felt his hair plastered against his head. His clothes were as wet and clinging as if he had just jumped into a river. Peter's glasses had turned into steamy circles.

The jungle was already dim. The rain made it even gloomier. They needed shelter and there was no point in waiting any longer. Beck decided to use the available light now – before it got too dark.

‘We need somewhere to make camp.'

‘You going to make another sleeping frame?'

‘I suppose. We'll need more bamboo . . .'

Beck looked around. A bamboo cluster a short distance away was a likely looking candidate, but his attention was caught by what was next to it. It was a tall tree – he wasn't quite sure what type – with a trunk so thick he couldn't have put his arms around it. And about halfway up, in the fork of some branches, was what looked like a pile of driftwood.

‘Hey.' He nudged Peter. ‘Does that look familiar?'

But Peter was blind with his glasses on in the rain, and was busily trying to wipe them.

‘Wait here . . .' Beck told him.

The tree trunk was encrusted with old vines, thick and secure enough to provide footholds. Beck clambered up quickly while rain sluiced down all around him, taking care to keep three points fixed at all times. It only took him thirty seconds to reach the fork in the branches.

Where they met they formed a shallow bowl in the trunk. It was not quite flat but it was wide enough for two people. And someone – or more accurately some
thing
– had laid down a pile of logs and leaves to pad the bowl out a bit and create more room.

‘It's an orang-utan nest!' he called down to Peter excitedly. Rain thudded onto the branches and the leaves around him and he had to raise his voice. ‘Ready made!'

He was amused to see that the branches of a fig tree were intertwined with this one, and there were clusters of figs within easy reach. He remembered what Nakula had said about the lazy orang-utans.

The nest hadn't been used recently. The wood was old, the leaves withered. The boys could use it without being thrown out by an irate owner who was twice as strong as them. And the position was good. Not so high up as to be really dangerous but well off the ground and out of harm's way.

Beck started to climb back down again.

‘Not very sheltered, is it?' Peter pointed out when Beck reached the ground. He had put his glasses away and was peering up at the nest short-sightedly. Rain spattered against his upturned face.

‘Not yet,' Beck corrected him. ‘That'll change. Look, could you start searching for more firewood? Like last night?'

Peter raised an eyebrow and looked around the sopping wet jungle.

‘Look in the same places,' Beck told him patiently. ‘Under bushes, under leaves – some of it will still be dry. Put it straight in your pack to keep it that way. And I'll see about the shelter.'

The nest was going to need a roof, and the narrow palm leaves Beck had used the previous night probably wouldn't do the trick. While Peter looked for dry wood, Beck scouted about until he found some wild bananas. The banana bush was matted and intertwined with half a dozen other types of plant, but the leaves made it stand out. They were almost as long as he was, and nearly as wide. He cut off a cluster of them and brought them back to the foot of the big tree. Then he went back to pick a couple of bunches of wild bananas. They were smaller than the bananas back home but grew in much bigger clumps, twenty or thirty at a time.

‘Plenty of energy,' he explained to Peter. ‘And we've got plenty of water to wash them down with!'