Tracks of the Tiger (13 page)

For a few hours they made good progress. They were energized after their hot meal. Drinking was more important than eating, though; it wasn't long before their bottles were empty, but they could always refill them easily.

On one occasion they paused to refill their bottles where a stream cut across their path. To their right it fell down into the river in a two-metre-high waterfall. It was a wonderful sound.

Suddenly a deeper mechanical growl cut through the noise of the water. The boys looked at each other and hope danced in their hearts.

‘That sounded like an engine!'

‘I think it was.' Beck peered into the trees but there was no way to see through them yet. ‘We must be close to civilization.'

Peter's smile split his face. ‘Think they'll have a phone? Or a radio? We could call Mum and Dad, and—'

Beck held up a hand as a sign for quiet, then strained his ears. The noise had already died away. Then it started up again for a couple of seconds, and once more died down. For a third time it started up, and this time it persisted. A high-pitched revving that went on and on and on.

‘That's not a car,' Peter said, puzzled.

‘No,' Beck replied grimly. He thought he recognized the sound and it was not good news. ‘Keep quiet and come this way.'

They moved cautiously forward through the trees, and before long they saw movement. Beck waved Peter down low and they crouched behind a bush.

A scar of cleared land slashed its way through the jungle. The ground was dotted with severed tree stumps. There was a group of five men ahead at the end of the scar, laughing and chatting in Malay. One of them had a radio that was churning out Indonesian pop music. A dirty flatbed truck was parked behind them.

Each man was stripped to the waist, but they all wore safety helmets and goggles, and each was carrying a chainsaw. That was the source of the noise the boys had heard. As they watched, one of the men held his spinning blade to the trunk of a tree, and sawdust spewed out as if the tree were gushing blood.

The other men yanked on the starter cords of their own saws, which joined in the noise. Five dirty petrol-driven saws spewed out a harsh, throaty noise that drowned out the natural rhythm of the jungle.

Cold fury seized Beck's heart. There would be no help from these people, he realized. This was a logging operation, and it was about as illegal as it got.

‘They can't do this!' Peter's whisper was outraged. ‘This is a protected area. Orang-utans live here!'

Nakula had set it out for them quite plainly. Orang-utans lived in trees; trees got cut down; orang-utans had nowhere to go and died. Beck also remembered what the keeper had told them about the other problems. The damage to the environment, the erosion, the knock-on effects.

Both boys already knew it in their heads. But seeing it was something else. It was the difference between reading about an assault and then seeing someone get mugged in the street in front of them.

‘I don't think they care . . .' Beck murmured. But he knew Peter was right, and that just made him even more determined that these men weren't going to see them. How difficult would it be for a group of grown men to ‘lose' two boys in the jungle so that no one ever saw them again?

He peered up and down the cleared area. It wasn't large. They hadn't been working that long – probably not more than a day or so.

‘They'll be taking advantage of the volcano erupting, I'm sure.'

‘Yeah,' Peter whispered. ‘They know the police will be too busy clearing up to bother them.'

The fury inside Beck burned even more brightly. He thought of the contrast between these bandits and Nakula, who had dedicated his life to protecting the jungle and had died trying to save the boys. The volcano had killed the kind keeper and probably wrecked many more lives, but these people just took it as an opportunity for crime.

The noise of the saws was deafening. That was good because it meant the boys weren't likely to be overheard. It was also bad, Beck realized, because they wouldn't be doing this if there was anyone else close by. They must still be a long way from civilization.

Peter was shrugging off his pack. ‘I'm going to take some pictures. We're going to get back to Medan and we're going to make sure people see these—'

Beck laid a hand on his arm to calm him down. ‘Not yet.'

‘Not yet?' Peter squeaked indignantly. ‘They're destroying the jungle!'

Beck didn't remind his friend of the fact that his camera, or his determination to use it, had got them into trouble once before.

Then the boys froze. The nearest man had cut his saw's engine and laid it down on the ground. He took off his helmet and wiped his brow, then leaned back against a tree trunk and swigged from a can of beer. He was only about five metres away from them.

Eventually the man finished his drink. He picked up his saw and went back to attacking the tree.

Beck put his mouth close to Peter's ear. ‘People's minds are programmed to notice human faces,' he murmured. ‘They're all basically the same shape and we can pick them out from any kind of background. If that guy just glanced in our direction, he'd see us. So . . . look . . .'

He gestured very carefully at the scar the men had left in the jungle. ‘If we make our way round over there, we'll be a safe distance away and they'll have their backs to us. Then you'll be able to use the zoom to get some good pictures. Plus, you can get a shot of the truck's number plate from that angle. That should help the police. Right?'

‘Right.' Peter nodded vigorously.

‘So follow me. And step super-carefully through all the bushes and branches. One tiny movement down here on the ground can make something really wave about a couple of metres up. Ready? Let's go.'

When Beck had stayed at a village in Borneo, his hosts had an annual tradition of recreating a battle against a neighbouring community. It had taken place a couple of centuries ago but they were proud of their victory. It had been a sneak attack through the jungle, carefully avoiding the enemy's sentries, and Beck's present-day hosts had taught him all the tricks they had used. Hence the crash course he had just given Peter in staying unobserved.

It wasn't just the human face that was easy to make out. The whole human figure is familiar to human eyes. People are born able to recognize it. To be really successful at hiding you needed camouflage: mud on the face to break up the natural lines; leaves or branches to distort the basic human shape. The boys didn't have time for a full-blown camouflage spree, and they didn't really need it. The men weren't expecting them and they were looking the wrong way. With a little basic care there was no reason anyone should spot them.

Beck led Peter back the way they had come to put a safe distance between themselves and the loggers. Soon they could no longer see anyone, though they could judge their position from the noise of the saws.

Then they made their way round in a large circle, keeping the noise always on their left. On this side of the clearing, if they had to run, they would be running back towards the river. If they had gone round the other side, then they would have had to run deeper into the jungle, away from the river, which Beck didn't want to do.

Beck felt adrenalin course through him as they crept through the undergrowth. It was a nervous charge of energy that turned each of his senses up to maximum. Every leaf stood out in glowing colour; the shrill of every bird and the movement of every insect was magnified. Every scent in the air – rotting leaves, damp mud, ingrained sweat – came alive to his nostrils. He felt primed.

Ten minutes later, as Beck had planned, they were on the edge of the clear area that the loggers had cut. The men were thirty metres away.

Peter already had his camera out. He was the expert, so Beck let him creep forward to the edge of the undergrowth. His face was grim as he zoomed in and began to take picture after picture. Wide-angle shots that took in the whole scene. Close-ups of each of the men, showing their faces where possible. A couple of snaps of the truck, including the number plate as Beck had suggested.

It only took a minute to get a good pile of evidence to put in front of any policeman they met. Peter switched off his camera and put it back in its waterproof case. Then he gave a grim nod to Beck:
I'm finished
. Beck nodded back and they quietly withdrew.

The sound of the chainsaws was muted through the trees. They couldn't see the men any more. Beck judged it was safe to stand up straight and start walking again.

Peter turned, caught his foot on a vine and went headlong. He landed in a tangle of green undergrowth with his face in a large red flower. Beck caught his breath and clenched his teeth.

The flower was almost a metre across. Five large petals surrounded a central hollow ball. They were red but flecked with yellow specks, smooth and rubbery like a giant mushroom.

And it
stank
.

‘
Eeuagh!
'

Peter scrambled away from it as quickly as he could. His face was twisted in disgust as he pawed at it to remove every particle of the plant.

‘That is
disgusting
!'

It was worse than a pile of Hannah's nappies left out in the midday sun. Beck had recognized it just by sight. It was a Rafflesia – or, as the locals called it, a corpse flower. It attracted insects by looking, and smelling, like rotting flesh. And it was probably the most disgusting smell in the entire world.

‘Here . . .' Beck had to fight back a smile as he reached for a bottle for Peter to use to wash the stench off his hands.

When they'd finished, the boys realized they couldn't hear the chainsaws any more. The men were obviously taking a break. Peter's outburst had come at just the wrong time – had they been heard?

Urgent, angry male voices came through the trees, and they were aware of people pushing their way through the undergrowth.

Peter and Beck turned and ran.

There was no time for hiding or camouflaging themselves now. All they could do was put some distance between themselves and their pursuers. It was a straightforward race, driven by desperation. The losers would either go to jail or end up dead.

Vines and twigs lashed at their faces. Fallen branches twisted and moved underfoot. The jungle seemed to be against them, as if it wanted to hold them back and deliver them into the hands of the men who were ruining it. Beck had no idea of direction and no plan for hiding or evading.

The shouts behind them grew fainter, but there was still someone coming after them. It sounded like just one man. One very determined man – which also made him dangerous.

A wall of thorns loomed in front of them. Even as they ran towards it, Beck was scanning it, trying to work out a weak spot where they could squeeze through. But there wasn't one. The vegetation was impenetrable. He cursed under his breath. They were going to have to go round it, left or right. And he could hear the man getting closer and closer, and—

And suddenly every one of his worries became secondary. The hunter chasing them was nothing compared to the hunter that Beck suddenly saw poised on a fallen trunk just off to his side.

The tiger's yellow eyes glared at them. It dug its claws into the tree and bared its long teeth . . . and roared.

Its stripes made it part of the light and shadow of the background. The jungle seemed to shift and shimmer for a moment, then there it was, two metres and 130 kilos of muscle. It felt like the avenging spirit of the rainforest, come to punish the wrongdoers who'd invaded it.

Peter stood paralysed, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Beck's mind raced: blurred images of a thousand different survival scenarios flashed through his mind in a second. He couldn't latch onto a single one. Fear was winning the mental battle to find a strategy. He fought to control the panic. What to do when a tiger is facing you? Maybe there wasn't anything he
could
do. Maybe that was the point. His mind was working better now.
Just stay still
, he told himself.