Forever Scarred (10 page)

Chapter Seven

The sweat ran down Lucy’s back but there was no way she was going to give up. They had made the pine logs into a high wall using nothing but the wood itself combined with
plenty of initiative and determination. It had taken them a good twenty minutes to actually work out how you could even do it, but one of the staff had suddenly remembered seeing an episode of Little House on the Prairie where they had made a log cabin. They used the same principals and soon had a three sided structure that presented one face as a wall of wood.

David had been somewhat impressed. On most other occasions he had to give massive hints and even had to tell the groups on occasions. This lot had at least some modicum of intelligence and more importantly, were willing to give someone else’s idea a try. It wasn’t how he would have done it
himself because if they were meant to be using it as a wall to keep an enemy out, it had some big flaws, but on the whole it worked. There were groans from the crowd when he advised them that the wall, while sturdy enough, now had nice easy footholds for an enemy to use to climb over it.

“We want to keep the other team off our backs for another hour. They could climb over this in minutes. We need to make the wall solid and a lot higher. This way we have used a lot of the wood as supports. We need to be more efficient
.”

It was Lucy who pointed out that there were four lengths of wood considerably longer than the others.

“Well, if we had something to dig with we could use the longer pieces as braces and slot the other bits between. We would need to dig it down a long way though for it to have enough strength though.”

David gave her a huge smile.

“Well done Miss Collins. And you’re right about the depth of the holes needed, but don’t forget, this is an ancient forest floor. The ground has been built up over centuries with fallen leaves. It’s dead soft and dead easy to dig so the next question is, what are we going to use to dig with?”

There was a short silence and then a faint voice piped up at the back of the group.

“There’s plenty of smaller branches lying about. If we could bend and split a couple so they are pointed we can use them to break the soil and lift it out with some sheets of that bark. We could all work on a digging point at the same time if we measure it all out carefully. That would save time and keep us all occupied. It’s not as though we could work with many more than two on each hole anyway.”

David grinned again.

“Well done! Come on, let’s get this wall built. We’ll keep your boss at bay for another hour!”

There was laughter in the air as they all suddenly walked to the edges of the path looking for suitable branches to split and bark to use as shovels. It wasn’t long before they were breaking the soil and digging into the soft earth.

Half an hour later they were slotting the logs between their poles and in minutes, with a few careful placement of some rope pulleys they had built a twelve foot high wall of solid wood. It was sturdy enough too but someone had found some young willow branches down by the river and for extra strength, instead of using the rope that they decided as a group might come in handy for another project, they bound the supporting poles together at the top with the sinewy branches.

David stood back to admire their work
and found Lucy at his side.

“Just in time I think.” She cocked her ear at the wall of wood. There were distinct groans coming from
along the path the other side.

David gathered the group and held his finger over his mouth to indicate that they needed to be quiet. He gathered them together and pointed over his shoulder along the path. They all quickly made their way to the next activity and left the sounds of annoyed people behind them.

Joe was sick to death of his group. Well, sick to death of two people in it. The last exercise had been a near waste of time.
It was a fairly simple task, a test of the group’s ability to work together but Freeman and Jessica Dennison had taken over completely. And then they hadn’t been willing to share any of the responsibility when it had all gone wrong. They had assumed that getting the group through the spiders web of ropes that Joe had knotted together and stung across the forest path, would be a simple activity, but as each gap was to only be used once it was a little more difficult than they had expected.

A
fter struggling with the weakest people attempting to lift some of the heaviest, they soon found themselves in more problems when they realized that they hadn’t left a gap at the bottom of the web big enough for the last person. Freeman had taken over, instructing his team with bad advice as to who should go through the web where. They had managed it at last, only to find the there was no gap big enough for Freeman to crawl through and the next one large enough for him was right at the top with no way for him to reach it.

Freeman snorted in disgust as he realized that he was trapped
on the wrong side of the web. Joe had started them on the task again, asking others for their opinions, encouraging them to find a better system but this time Miss Dennison had taken over. She sent Freeman through first to help with the lifting on his side, which wasn’t such a bad idea, but then she left herself and another female stuck because neither of them were tall enough to get through the gap at the top without a good leg up and they discovered too late that neither of them were strong enough to support the other single handed.

The team had eventually made it through when Joe put a quiet but thoughtful man in charge. Within minutes the whole
team was on the other side of the web easily, with minimum fuss, but Freeman and Dennison had glared furiously at the man who almost quaked under their combined gaze.

They made their way back along the forest path towards the river but groans went up as they saw the twelve foot high wooden wall
now blocking their way. The wild rhododendrons hemmed them in at both sides leaving them with no other route to follow unless they went back up the trail and through the spider’s web again.

Joe admired the workmanship involved and
as he tested the wall’s strength. It was very sturdy and he wondered who had come up with the idea of lashing the poles together with willow. It made the whole thing very strong.

Fortunately his
group had learned a thing or two in the last activity and they had more of an idea of how to get the group over the barricade. Sensibly they sat Freeman on the top of the wall after two of the strongest men gave him a leg up. Freeman could then help with pulling up some of the less agile and weaker ladies. He could also reach down to the last man left on the wrong side of the barrier, the tallest and fittest guy, to give him a hand up when he took a running jump at the wall.

Joe congratulated them all on a good job and then wished he hadn’t as Freeman took all the credit for being the only helpful member of the team as he had been on top of the wall. He had entirely forgotten all of the lifters
and carriers who had pushed, pulled and cajoled their team mates over and then helped them down at the other side.

They arrived at the river just in time to see David’s team swinging over
the water on the ropes they had saved from the wall building exercise. Loud whoops accompanied the general camaraderie and Joe’s team looked on with envy.

Freeman immediately went to the riverbank and stood with his hands on his hips. He turned to face Joe.

“And this is meant to teach my team what exactly? I’m not paying sixty grand for this lot to just muck about playing Tarzan.” His tone was acidic.

Joe held his gaze and answered.

“David is showing them how to rely on their own strength as well as on that of others. That wall must have taken some building to get done in the short space of time. Now they are letting off some steam. Looks to me as though they are having a good time while they are doing it, so it was a good idea to keep hold of the rope pulleys.” He smiled and his heart soared as he saw Lucy fly through the air, her hair streaming out like a golden cascade behind her as she screamed her way across to the other side of the river.

Jessica came up beside her boss.

“That’s not hard. Anyone can hang onto a rope and let themselves go.” She smirked up at Freeman who stared at Joe in turn.

“So is that what we are doing next?
Swinging about on ropes?”

Joe frowned at the man in front of him
and then decided to play along.

“Yes, actually it is. And you can go first.” He turned to David who was watching the exchange from the other side of
the river along with two of his group. The rope was situated on a narrow bend in the river and David looked on expectantly as Freeman grabbed hold of the rope. He stood and waited to catch the man as he came over, but freeman motioned him and the others away with his hand. The two men holding the other end of the rope looked at David for a second but he just shrugged and waved them back.

“Mr. Freeman clearly thinks he knows what he’s doing.”

“This will be a doddle.” Freeman raised his arms and settled them high on the rope, then he took a running jump and suddenly leapt from the edge of the bank.

But h
e hadn’t considered why David and two of the other team had been waiting at the river bank. The rope jerked through their hands as he launched himself and the overhead branch plunged down once his weight was hanging from below it. Joe had to grin at the horrified look on Freeman’s face as he realized that he was now below the bank on the other side. There was nothing he could do. The men were no longer holding the rope as a counter weight and he had leapt so violently that he spun out of control. His back hit the bank hard and he let go of the rope.

The water was only waist high but he wasn’t in a good position and he sat down in the water which promptly closed over the top of his head. He came up spluttering just as Joe
slithered down the bank and waded across to him to help him up.

Freeman spat out river water and fury in the same measure.

“Why the fuck didn’t you warn me that the men were holding the weight or that the damned tree would do that? My phone and my watch are going to be ruined!” He raged as he stood up and shook the water out of his hair and then raised the cuff of his shirt. The gold band encircling his wrist dripped water and Freeman wiped the face of what appeared to be a top of the range Rolex.

Joe surmised that
the Freeman didn’t need rescuing and scrambled up the other bank. He held his hand out to give the man a pull up but it was brushed angrily away.

David looked down at him
as he struggled with the weight of his own wet clothes and only spoke when Freeman had eventually hauled himself up to the bank.

“
You waved us away. We thought you had a plan of your own.” He said innocently. “And the tree doesn’t bend nearly so much if you don’t leap off the side of the bank. In fact it hardly moves at all if you are gentle enough with it. You need to learn to work with the equipment you are given, not against it. And as to your phone and valuables, well you were warned not to bring them with you.” He turned away from the furious man and waved towards the others. “I think we should all take an early lunch. Mr. Freeman needs a change of clothes and I’m sure you could all do with a break too. We’ll head off back to the chateau and then come out again this afternoon, but first, unless you all want to climb over that wooden wall again then you are going to have to swing over here or wade through. Please don’t jump, just let yourselves swing. We’ll hold the rope as a counter weight and make sure that you don’t take a bath.”

Jessica took position in the rear of the group. She wanted to
see how the others fared before she gave the swing a go. The others all made it over with varying success. A few of them needed help landing. But David and Joe were on hand to grab them. Jessica took her turn and squealed as she landed against Joe’s chest. She flung herself back from him as he held out a steadying arm.

“Don’t touch me!” She spat at him harshly and visibly shuddered
as she lowered her gaze from his face to the forest floor.

For a moment Joe couldn’t understand her problem but then Freeman stepped forwards and spoke very quietly
in Joe’s ear.

“How dare you frighten my
staff. You shouldn’t get too close to them with a face like that. It’s off putting enough at a distance. Close up it’s horrendous.”

For a moment
Joe wasn’t sure he had heard the man correctly but then he staggered away from him, unable to believe what he had just heard. Freeman moved quickly over to Jessica and bent to say something to her. She gave a snort of derisory laughter as she listened to the man whisper something in her ear.

David looked at Joe
curiously. Even with a near expressionless face he could see the pain etched in Joe’s blue eyes. He moved to his friend’s side and frowned at him.

“Anything wrong?
Are they getting at you?” David’s tone was full of concern.