Behind Mt. Baldy (50 page)
“OK. Stop for a rest. I think
we’ve given them the slip for the moment,” Inspector Sharpe said. Graham
switched off his torch. Roger sat down and leaned on a rock. Prince Peter bent
over Hauptman Ritnik as Peter lowered him to a sitting position.
“How are you Hauptman Ritnik?”
“I am feeling not too good Your
Highness. My head hurts and I am very much dizzy. I feel I will fall over at
any moment. I am very thirsty.”
Graham groped his way back up and
passed a water bottle to the Hauptman who drank deeply. Once again Roger
regretted his lost webbing.
Inspector Sharpe pushed closer.
“How much water do you have CSM Kirk?” he asked.
“Another two full water bottles
and this one is half full sir.”
“Give everyone a drink. If
they’ve been sweating as much as I have they will need it.”
Roger was handed a canteen. He
had one long swig and passed it to DS Crowe. It certainly tasted good and he
felt better.
They lay there for nearly half an
hour before Inspector Sharpe spoke. “OK. It’s nine O’clock. Let’s move again.”
9 O’clock! How did three
hours pass! Roger rubbed his eyes then groaned as he stood up. All his muscles
had stiffened up. They had to wake Hauptman Ritnik who was quite disorientated
for a while. He began to babble and call out till Prince Peter quieted him.
The slow movement resumed. They
slithered and stumbled down the steep slope with Graham again using his torch.
Twice Roger fell and once he banged his finger so hard between the rifle and a
tree that he feared he had broken it. He hadn’t, but it made holding the rifle
painful. Another three hundred paces had been covered when Graham’s torch began
to flicker. It abruptly went out.
No amount of tapping, fiddling or
coaxing would get the torch to work again. They tried moving without its aid
but after only another fifty paces they were again hopelessly ensnared in
wait-a-while.
Inspector Sharpe spoke over their
muted curses: “OK. That will do. We will wait here till daylight. I want a
sentry roster maintained. Prince Peter, you and Hauptman Ritnik sit next to me.
Crowe, you sit beside the Hauptman. Now, you four cadets sit behind me side by side.
Rest for a minute while I work out a roster.”
“We can do that sir. We do it all
the time in the cadets,” Graham said.
“Fine.
Work one out please, and keep it
simple.”
Graham thought for a minute,
then
said: “We are in two rows. We just wake the person next
in line. We do two hours each, with a staggered relief, that is changing every
hour so we have a fresh person and a tired person on at once. No talking, no
fires or lights and no moving away.”
Graham then went on to detail the
timings for each person. This got a bit muddled in the dark and he had to
repeat it before they were all sure who they woke up and when. Roger was fourth
so he wedged his boots against a tree to stop himself sliding down the slope
and lay back. He was too tired to care about ticks, mites and leeches. He just
closed eyes which felt hot and scratchy and settled down as best he could.
Sleep claimed him within minutes.
Peter shook him awake with difficulty
two hours later. For a moment Roger wondered where he was and felt a surge of
panic. Heart beating rapidly he sat up and rubbed sore eyes. Stephen was still
awake but lay back when he was sure Roger was fully awake.
Sentry duty was something Roger
was familiar with but he had never experienced it like this before, with armed
enemy soldiers hunting for him. He strained his ears but the only sound was the
wind in the trees and the dripping of condensation. It was so dark that the
only thing he could see was the whitish glow of luminous fungus and the faint
paleness of the clouds overhead. He could not see Peter beside him. To test the
old saying he waved his hand in front of his face and could not see it.
A tiny flickering light appeared
further down slope. Roger tensed,
then
smiled.
Only a firefly.
When he looked for them he saw more and also
the tiny pin-points of pale green which showed glow-worms among the rotting
leaves.
Roger was surprised that he
wasn’t all tense over every little rustle and creeping noise but decided it was
partly because he was too tired to care, but mostly because experience told him
no-one could creep silently towards them in that jungle, even if they knew
where they were. What did prey on his mind was how they could escape from the
partisans when daylight came.
From time to time he or Peter
muttered a few words. The others all sounded as though they were sound asleep.
Inspector Sharpe began to snore so Peter nudged him with his boot until he
rolled on his side and the noise stopped. Time dragged slowly.
Peter checked a watch with a
small light in it. “Graham’s,” he explained. “OK Roger, wake up Sgt Crowe. It
is zero zero thirty.”
Roger shook DS Crowe. He snuffled
and groaned, then sat up.
“Wuzza matter?
Christ
it’s
dark! Where am I?”
“Sssh!”
Roger hissed. “We are in the
jungle hiding from the partisans.”
“Partisans!
I’ll give the bastards a hiding
if I get a chance,” grumbled the DS. He sat up and as he did farted loudly.
“Umph!
Sorry. What’s the time?”
Roger told him. Peter passed
Roger the watch and lay down.
DS Crowe yawned. “Thought it
would be colder,” he said.
“It’s the cloud cover. It acts as
a blanket and keeps it relatively warm. And we aren’t supposed to talk on
sentry duty,” Roger replied.
“Hmmm. Yes.
Sorry.”
They sat in silence. Roger then
realized he was cold. He was shivering slightly and felt feverish. He also felt
extremely thirsty. The hour seemed to drag by. For a while Hauptman Ritnik
muttered and groaned. Roger touched him with his hand and he rolled onto his
back and began to snore. Roger and DS Crowe had to get up and make him
comfortable on his right side, which was difficult as he kept sliding or
rolling down the slope. Then Roger had to find the rifle again.
On one occasion an animal
scampered past and gave them a fright. Lizards scuttled. More glow-worms
appeared. There was a brief shower of rain. On the next ridge a dead branch
fell with a crash. Time dragged. It was dark and cold.
At last 01:30 came. Roger crawled
over and shook the Inspector. Once he was awake Roger handed the watch to DS
Crowe. With a sigh of relief he
lay
back on the wet
leaves and put his hat under his head as a pillow. A few drops of condensation
irritated him but within minutes he was asleep.
Roger was shaken awake by Peter.
His eyes were gummed by sleep and felt hot and gritty. He rubbed them open to
find that it was still completely dark. Every muscle felt stiff and he
shivered. With an effort he hauled himself into a sitting position. He was so
thirsty it felt as though his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. It
took him a minute to generate some saliva.
Peter nudged him. “You awake now
Roger?” he asked.
“Mmmm.
Yes,” Roger mumbled. He yawned
and stood up to stretch. In doing so he slipped and lost his balance. He slid
down slope and was brought to a painful halt by some wait-a-while. It took him
a minute to untangle himself. Gritting his teeth to hold back sobs of misery he
groped his way back up, bumping into a sleeping person as he did. His hand
encountered the cold metal of the rifle. That woke him up and returned him to
reality. He sat down. His stomach grumbled and he felt very thirsty.
“What’s the time?” he murmured to
Peter.
“Just after five thirty.”
“Be daylight in an hour,” Roger
replied.
“Hauptman Ritnik doesn’t sound
very well.”
They listened. The wounded
officer lay near Peter’s feet. His breathing was irregular and to Roger it sounded
as though it had a sort of choking rattle to it. ‘Is that
a
death rattle
?’ he wondered, appalled at the thought.
“He sounds cold,” Peter said.
Roger slid down and found
Hauptman Ritnik’s throat. With cold and trembling fingers he felt the pulse. It
was very weak and rapid and the Hauptman was shivering violently. “He’s
freezing,” he replied. For a moment he hesitated, as he was cold himself. Then
he rebuked himself for being selfish. He peeled off his own field jacket and
gently wrapped it round the wounded man. Carefully he tucked the edges under as
far under as he could. Satisfied he had done all he could he groped his way
back to sit beside Peter.
The two cadets sat in silence.
Roger brooded over the events of the previous day; the shocking violence and
sudden death; and on their chances of getting away. He was very scared- and
very hungry.
His stomach gurgled.
Peter nudged him: “Bloody hell
Roger! That sounded like a wild pig.”
“I’m hungry. I’ve missed three
meals now. And I’m cold.”
Roger’s teeth began to chatter as
the chill bit into him. He tucked his hands under his armpits. Heavy drops of
condensation added to his misery.
As 6 O’clock approached and the
first glimmer of daylight showed Peter said: “Let’s wake the others.”
There was a hint of greyness
among the tree tops. Roger turned and shook DS Crowe while Peter roused Stephen
and Graham. There were a few minutes of groaning, yawning and grunting as the
group stirred.
Prince Peter shook Hauptman
Ritnik. “Wake up Herr Hauptman.”
Roger watched the prince try to
rouse the wounded man. His heart sank. Had the Hauptman died? Then Hauptman
Ritnik groaned.
Prince Peter checked the
Hauptman’s temperature and pulse. “He is very sick,” he murmured to Inspector
Sharpe. “Whose jacket is this?”
“Mine,” Roger replied.
Prince Peter looked at him,
then
unwrapped the jacket. He passed it up to him. “Put it
on. He can have mine. You are very good but you are also freezing. I can hear
your teeth chattering. No, do not argue.”
Roger was embarrassed. He took
his jacket and pulled it on. The light was now sufficiently strong to see the
others as dark shapes in the gloom. Low cloud drifted through the trees.
Hauptman Ritnik was eased up to a
sitting position. He groaned and muttered. Prince Peter spoke to him in a
comforting tone and held him up till he was fully awake. Inspector Sharpe
helped pull him to his feet, where he stood leaning on a tree, supported by the
Prince.
Inspector Sharpe said: “We must
start moving.”
“Which way
sir?”
Graham
asked.
“Advise me.”
“Down this spur until it gets
light enough for me to read the map.”
Inspector Sharpe nodded. “That
will have to do. We must put as much distance as we can between us and those
partisans. Let’s move.”
Roger picked up the rifle and
peeled wet leaves off it. At the touch of the cold metal he shivered and his
teeth chattered uncontrollably for a minute. The group began shuffling slowly
down the slope. Within a few paces wait-a-while was snagging them but they
could see well enough by this to avoid the worst of it. A tendril jagged the
sleeve of Roger’s jacket. He cursed and tore free, the cloth ripping as he did.
The darkness slowly changed to
grey gloom. Roger began to discern colours, and then shades of colours. He felt
so cold and sore his spirits were right down. Exhaustion, thirst and hunger
were only dominated by fear. This kept him shuffling along.
The effort of moving, and the
frustration of pushing through the jungle, began to warm him. After a time
thirst became his dominant concern, even eclipsing chafing and sore muscles.
This in turn was replaced by hatred for the ensnaring vines and the
wait-a-while. This generated anger. Next time his jacket was hooked by one he
swore and wrenched himself free, regardless of the tearing sound which resulted.
This earned him a glare from both Graham and the Inspector. If his body had had
the moisture to spare he knew he would have been in tears.
At 06:30 they halted and went
into a huddle around either Graham’s map or Hauptman Ritnik.
“Where do you think we are?”
Inspector Sharpe asked Graham.
Graham unhesitatingly placed the
point of his pencil on the map on a spur line about half a kilometre south of
Walsh Falls.
Stephen made a face. “You mean we’ve
only come about three kilometres since midday yesterday,” he said bitterly.
“A bit more.
About four and a half,” Graham
replied.
“Which way do you recommend we go
now?” Inspector Sharpe asked.
“Those partisans have pushed us
way off course sir. It is about half a kilometre to the edge of the rainforest
anywhere to the north of us. We can go to Walsh Falls and either north along
this ridge, then east; or go down where all these tracks are marked, into the
valley of Sylvia Creek and past the Rifle Range. That would be easiest.”
