Rogue Officer (27 page)

‘They don’t bite, they squeeze. I admit, that one would have hugged an elephant to pulp. Big bastard, wasn’t he? Ate a few cows in his time, eh? Still, you gotta respect him. Saw a bunch of us and thought, not today, Alphonse – too many of ’em. While I’m crushing one, the others will knock me on the head.’

‘You can’t give wild creatures like that rational thought,’ said King, ‘any more than you can give a soul to a heathen.’

‘I can do what I damn well like, so long as it ain’t against army regulations,’ replied the laconic corporal. ‘Snakes have thoughts, same as any other critter. Might even have souls as well.’

King drew a sharp breath. ‘I suppose you’re one of those who follow the blasphemies of that madman Darwin?’

‘Never heard of him. What’d he do?’

‘Only said we were monkeys.’

Jack interrupted. ‘I don’t think Charles Darwin said we
were
monkeys – I believe he said we were descended from the same stock.’

‘And what’s the difference, sir?’ cried King. ‘If you come from monkey stock, you
are
a monkey, surely?’

Everyone fell into silence after this, contemplating their unhallowed position in the new chain of being that Mr Darwin had presented them with. Right at that moment King would have actually given his eye teeth to be a monkey. He could have shinned up one of those cathedral-tall trees and scuttled along the canopy.

‘Can’t get any worse than this,’ he grumbled.

But it did.

At midnight it started raining. As was often the case in the tropics, it was a deluge. The noise of the continuous heavy rain hitting the wide waxy leaves of the foliage was deafening. And of course, everything was soaked through within a few seconds. The men huddled together around the trunk of a tree, but if they expected the canopy to keep them dry, they were wrong. Water poured down the trunk as if it were a drainpipe, washing over their equipment. They remained, miserably trying to breathe in the torrent that fell from the heavens on their heads. Then their misery turned to alarm. The ground was beginning to swim with water. It rose rapidly and soon they realized the glade was in danger of becoming flooded.

‘We must move to higher ground,’ said Jack. ‘Pack up and leave, men.’

They gathered together their sodden belongings, much heavier now that they were soaking wet. Off they trudged, battling their way through thorny bushes, slimy succulent plants, entangling creepers and vines. It was hard going, through this waterfall of the gods. Eventually they reached a place which seemed to be higher than the rest of the land around them and they fell in an exhausted heap. Some slept, others could not.

It rained all the next day, and the next, during which it was impossible to see more than a foot in front of a face. Those that tried to eat found the food washed from their hand before it reached their mouth. King’s fever reached a pitch whereby he was shaking from head to toe, sometimes gently, sometimes violently. When he was thrashing they pinned him down at the corners. Jack, Raktambar and Gwilliams managed to make a bivouac out of foliage which kept some of the rain off the sergeant’s face, but it was not greatly effective. Since Raktambar was not well either and Jack was more concerned about King, Gwilliams spent much of his time forcibly diverting the snakes that fought to reach the high ground too. Serpents, he found, were not overly fond of floods either, and though they arrived exhausted he needed to get a stick under them and flip them back out from whence they came. He whipped the same snakes up and out several times, before they were deterred from returning.

On the third day the rain stopped as suddenly as it had started.

King had got over the height of his fever and had returned to the land of the living. He found he was hungry, but there was not a lot left to eat. The group were saved by a small deer which had got bogged down in the flood. Since no fire could be started Gwilliams skinned the creature and they gnawed the meat raw off the bone. Raktambar said it was fortunate that Wynter was not with them for he had only two teeth in his jaw and could only manage stew.’

Once they felt ready, Jack called for King.

‘I think we can say we’ve lost the rebels,’ Jack said. ‘Find us the quickest way out of this unholy forest, Sergeant.’

King said nothing in reply and when Jack looked at his NCO he saw something in the man’s expression he did not like.

‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Are you still sick?’

‘No, sir,’ replied King, miserably. ‘Not sick – lost.’

Jack instinctively glanced around him. ‘What do you mean, lost? Look, we know we came in here from the east – retrace our journey.’

‘I – I’ve lost the compass. It must have fallen out when we were in that storm, sir. I have no means of finding the direction.’

‘Lost the . . . ? Well – ’ Jack fumbled with his still wet pockets – ‘use mine then.’

After a few minutes it was obvious he did not have his compass either.

‘I don’t understand it,’ muttered Jack. ‘It was here a few days ago. I remember taking it out . . . What is it, Sergeant King?’

The other man was looking even more devastated.

‘I – I borrowed yours. You were not around, having gone off to shoot a meal with Gwilliams. You left your waistcoat hanging on a tent pole. I took the spare compass from your pocket, sir.’

Jack was thunderstruck. ‘For what purpose, Sergeant? Have you not got it with you still?’

‘I gave it to Sajan. He . . . the boy wanted to copy me, as I took our position. He still has it, I’m sure. It’s not lost.’

Jack raised his voice. ‘It’s not lost, but we don’t have it here – where we damn well need it. Sergeant, I could kill you. Did you not think? Did you not for one moment stop to think?’

Raktambar and Gwilliams looked across at the pair.

King hung his head. ‘I’m very sorry, sir. I will do my best to take us out of here – only . . .’

‘Only what? We can’t see where the sun is in the sky, below this bloody canopy. Raktambar has his brass astrolabe but we can’t see the stars either and an astrolabe is useless without the stars. We could roam around in here for days, weeks, perhaps months before finding a way out. Do you realize what you’ve done, Sergeant?’

‘Yes, I do, and I’m very sorry.’ King lifted his head and his face suddenly became very fierce. ‘But I said I’d find a way out, sir, and I will. We must just stop and think.’

Jack suddenly realized his shouting was doing no good whatsoever. In fact it was making matters worse. King was right. They had to pause to think. About what, he could not be sure, but certainly shouting was not the way out.

Jack stared around him. They had left tall tree country and were in an area of high shrubbery. Some of the bushes around them were over thirty feet tall, but they were flimsy plants. King tried to climb one but the slim branches would not hold him and the thickness of the growth prevented him from getting more than a few feet off the ground. There were trees there, certainly, but they were weak saplings and no easier to climb than the tall shrubs which robbed them of their light.

Gwilliams was pursing his lips, a sure sign his brain was working.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘this here is new growth, these young trees.’

Jack nodded, hooking on to the corporal’s train of thought. Jack kicked around some of the lumps in the moss. Sure enough he found rotten stumps beneath.

‘Someone cut the trees down,’ King said. ‘Sir, why would they cut timber this far into the jungle? Firewood? Canoes? Do you think there’s a village in here?’

‘It doesn’t seem possible, does it?’ replied his lieutenant. ‘The atmosphere here is foul and unhealthy, not to say poisonous. The insects are numerous and highly carnivorous. There appears to be no fresh water, only stagnant pools. It’s the worst location for a village I’ve ever seen. There’s no agricultural ground to be seen anywhere. The hunting is not that good. Where there’s a village there are usually worn pathways through the jungle. We’ve seen nothing.’

‘No village then – but I know who would clear trees,’ King said, inspecting the stump that Jack had uncovered beneath the carpet of moss and creepers. ‘Yes, I know for certain.’

‘Who?’

‘Engineers, sir. British engineers. These trees have not been chopped down with an axe – you’ll agree the locals would use axes? These trees have been
sawn
down. Look how clean the cuts are. Good steel saws made in British workshops and wielded by men with experience in tree felling. Army engineers, for certain. A railway, perhaps? Do you think they were building a railway?’

‘Can you see a damn railroad?’ muttered Gwilliams. ‘Wait!’ He cupped his hand to his ear. ‘I hear a toot-toot in the distance. Train’s comin’ this way, I guess, to pick us up and carry us to paradise.’

‘Shut up, Gwilliams,’ ordered Jack. ‘King, why else would engineers clear the jungle?’

‘A road? But no road here. No road, no railway, no bridge needed, no township. A building of some sort? A building?’ He stroked his beard, then cried, ‘Wait?’ Then he let out a laugh. ‘I think I have it, sir. Could we make a star search, each going off in a different direction, but staying in touch by calling to each other? I suggest we don’t go
too
far – and make a trail as you go, of broken branches, so that you can find your way back again to this spot.’

‘What are we looking for, King?’ Jack was aware they were all weak and not likely to have the energy to search for long.

‘You’ll know it, sir – when you find it.’

‘King, you’re not over the ague yet – are you sure you can walk?’

‘This is my fault, sir,’ replied the ravaged sergeant, swaying on his feet, ‘if I don’t help, I shall be forever ashamed.’

They all went off in different directions, shouting to maintain contact the whole while. It was not King that found it, but Raktambar. The Rajput soldier let out a whoop which stopped the others in their tracks. Jack called out to meet back at the spot they had left from. When he arrived back himself he found Gwilliams and Raktambar, but no Sergeant King. They followed his trail and found him face down near an ants’ nest. He had passed out and had suffered bites on all the exposed parts of his body, but was still alive. They carried him back to their gathering place and bathed his face with water. After twenty minutes King opened his eyes.

‘Did you find it?’ he croaked. ‘Is it there?’

Raktambar said, ‘I found it, Sergeant – what is it?’

King smiled, weakly. ‘It’s a survey tower.’

‘Why did they build it here? In the bloody wilderness?’ asked Gwilliams, reasonably. ‘Rak here says it’s covered in creepers now – moss and such, and plants growin’ out of the cracks. Why build somethin’ like that and leave it to rot?’

‘That tower was probably built by the Surveyor-General George Everest,’ explained King, ‘who would have used it once and then left it to nature. Everest would have needed it to take measurements from one point to another – there’s probably a line of towers through this countryside. We were lucky to be near one.’

‘So, one of your mapmakers left a tool behind,’ said Jack, ‘which we can use to see our way out.’

‘A very tall
tool,’
said King, managing to sit up and drink some water Gwilliams was offering him. ‘I think this is the area where Everest was set upon by the natives. They didn’t like him messing around with their temples – he used them for survey towers too, which saved him building them – and they didn’t believe he was a mapmaker. They had seen mapmakers before, simply walking the roads and drawing pictures on paper and that wasn’t what this man was doing. This man even had to ask directions to the next village. If he was a great mapmaker he would surely know where he was and where he was heading for.’ King laughed and coughed, almost in the same breath. ‘So they came at him with matchlocks . . .’

‘Was he killed?’ asked Gwilliams.

‘No – he survived. Some of his men were shot, I believe.’

Later, when King had recovered enough to totter along with them, assisted by Gwilliams, they set out for the tower. It was indeed in a dilapidated condition. However, Jack managed to haul King to the top, despite the rotten timbers, and from there one could see over the tops of the tall shrubs. King gauged their compass direction from the position of the sun, but that way lay a large expanse of forest. He could not be sure, but in the far distance westwards, he could see a faint line running through the trees, like the shadow of a long snake.

‘Sir,’ he said, ‘that could be a river. That line out there. Do you see it?’

Jack stared. Indeed, he could make out a fine wriggle in the pattern of the trees about a half a mile west.

‘Are you sure? That it’s a river?’

‘No, sir – not certain – but I can’t think what else it could be.’

‘Any idea which river?’

‘No, sir,’ replied the sergeant truthfully.

‘Well, rivers often have settlements along them – looking the other way . . .’ He sighed. ‘I just don’t like it.’

Jack and his men left the tower behind and struck westward. They were soon back in the dense forest. Somehow they managed to keep a fairly straight line and at noon they reached a fast-flowing, dangerous-looking river. King had recovered somewhat from his fever, but Raktambar was now looking the worse for wear. He had to be supported between Jack and Gwilliams as they first tried to make progress along the east bank. However, there was too much debris – driftwood tangled on the banks – which impeded their progress. Finally Jack ordered a raft to be built. They used vines and some of their clothes as ropes to bind together bamboo poles to make a rickety vessel. The only way to stay afloat was to lie full length on the raft. If one tried to stand the poles parted and feet and legs went through. Spreading bodyweight was the only answer.

They passed at least two villages at such a rate they could not paddle the raft to the shore. Then there came a point when the river widened and turned, and they were able to get nearer to the bank. When they next rounded a meander they crashed into a loosely built jetty which broke up the raft. Gwilliams immediately grabbed Raktambar and dragged him to the shore, while King was left clutching at one of the support poles from the jetty. Jack struggled through the current, his legs thrashing away madly to counteract the fact that he had only one hand for swimming. However, since his disability his right arm had grown in strength – and his left forearm was not completely without power. Still, it was all he could do to save himself, without concerning himself with others.