Sky Pirates (29 page)

“There are some people out there who would pay a lot of money to get their hands on me.” It was as much as she dared to say.

Dashwood thought about this for a little while. “There is more to this. I can feel it in my bones.”

Above them, thunder rumbled. “We need to find people. We need to find food and shelter,” Elle said. “Who knows how long we’ll last out here—”

Dashwood put up his hand to signal for her to keep quiet. On the tree trunk next to him, a giant black spider had appeared. It was hairy and bigger than the size of a hand. The creature sat perfectly still, its thick, articulated legs poised gracefully, mesmerized by the fire they had made.

Ever so slowly, Dashwood lifted the blade he was holding and skewered the creature against the tree. The spider carried on wiggling even though it was clearly dead.

“Arghh! That is the biggest spider I have ever seen!” Elle shuddered.

“It’s also the tastiest spider you will ever eat,” he said.

She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. But no.”

Dashwood shrugged. “I have seen these in the markets in Siam. The local people fry this type of tarantula and eat them as a delicacy. Apparently they are quite delicious.” He picked up a thin piece of bamboo from their stash and carefully set about affixing the spider to the stick.

Elle stared at him in horror.

“What?”

“You’re telling me you’re going to eat that spider?” she said.

Dashwood shrugged. “Of course I am. It’s food and I am very hungry. And if you’re very nice to me, I might even share it with you.” He lifted the stick in order to examine his dinner, which had now mercifully stopped wiggling. “Don’t tell me you are going to turn all girly and squeamish on me, Mrs. Marsh. I knew it was only a matter of time before your highfalutin sensibilities took over.”

“I am not highfalutin,” she said.

“Oh yes you are. And the sad bit is that you don’t even know it half the time.”

Elle bit her lip. She was not about to be upstaged by this man. Not here. She stared at the spider with a mixture of revulsion and fascination. For some unbelievably strange reason her treacherous stomach rumbled in response. The thought made her entire body break out in goose bumps, but somehow the notion of eating a spider
didn’t seem all that ludicrous. Perhaps if it was cooked properly …

Elle shook her head. It had been two days since they’d eaten a real meal, and if she wanted to live to see the city of Angkor, she had to do whatever was necessary to survive this.

She had to.

The matter decided, Elle hopped off their platform and wiped her hands on her trousers. “Well then, Captain, I will see if I can find us a bit more of that dry wood. You should look around to see if there are more spiders about. Perhaps that one has a friend.”

Dashwood started laughing. “Brave words, but will you put your money where your mouth is when it comes to the crunch?” He waved the spider at her.

Elle crossed her arms and lifted her chin defiantly. “If spiders were good enough for Miss Muffet, then they are good enough for me,” she said, taking the blade from him. “Fire her up, Captain, I’ll see what I can do about finding more wood.”

It had stopped raining. Elle was chopping down whatever she could find that was dry enough to burn in the underbrush. They were going to need a big fire, she decided. Fortunately, the jungle was quite dense where they were and there were quite a few patches of dry bamboo, so it was easy work. When she returned a few minutes later, Dashwood had indeed found another spider and he was slowly turning their dinner on a little spit he had set up over the flames.

“I caught you a tarantula all of your very own,” Dashwood said.

“Oh, how wonderful,” Elle said with growing trepidation as she sat down next to him.

“You know what, Mrs. Marsh?”

“What?” She stared in fascination as the little hairs on
the legs and bodies of the spiders caught alight and glowed red for a few seconds before turning to ash.

“When I first met you in Amsterdam, I thought you were a stuck-up wife of a rich man, playing at flying airships because you were bored and had more money then brains. But actually, you’re all right.” He handed her the tarantula.

“Thank you, I think.” Elle took the stick gingerly and stared at the charred spider on the end of it. She turned it this way and that, somewhat unsure of where to start.

Dashwood watched her with a growing expression of amusement on his face.

“Well, bottoms up,” she said. “This probably tastes better hot than cold.” She shut her eyes tightly and took a large bite of the cooling mass of legs and body. She did this deliberately as she wanted to fit as much of it into her mouth as she could. She knew she might not be brave enough to do it twice.

Roast tarantula tasted exactly how one would imagine a spider would taste. Burnt crispy with a hint of ash on the outside and all gooey on the inside. Elle swallowed, feeling every nerve in her body shudder in revulsion, but she persevered. The spider was food, she told herself. And she needed food to survive. And besides, she was not going to allow Dashwood to show her up.

She swallowed the chewed mass and opened her eyes. Strangely enough, it really did not taste that bad once you made a point of forgetting that it was a giant, hairy spider.

Dashwood was staring at her in shock, his own spider still untouched and cooling on the stick in his hand.

“Is something the matter, Captain?” she said sweetly. For effect, she took a second bite, finishing off as much of her dinner as she could in one big gulp.

Dashwood had turned a little green around the gills as he stared at his spider. “I was only kidding. You know,
doing it to see if you’d scream. I didn’t think you’d actually
eat
the spider,” he said.

“Oh no you don’t, Captain. You’ve killed and cooked it, so you had better eat it. Those poor creatures did not die just so you could tease me.” She put her stick aside, immensely grateful that the spider had not been bigger. “Come along now, chop-chop. Waste not, want not.”

She watched Dashwood, a smile hovering on her lips, as he took a bite. He looked as if he was about to expire with revulsion as he chewed and swallowed and gagged.

Elle sat back on the platform with a growing sense of satisfaction. What a story this would be to tell one day. If they survived long enough to tell it.

The next morning, bright, dappled sunshine broke through the chilly mists that lurked on the forest floor.

Elle woke with her head on Dashwood’s shoulder. In search of heat and comfort, they must have gravitated toward one another during the night.

“Good morning,” Dashwood said next to her.

“Good morning.” Elle rubbed her face. She looked about her. “Well, that was rather silly. Both of us falling asleep like that. Who knows what could have crept onto us in the night,” she said, looking about.

“You looked like you needed the sleep, and I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” he said.

“How very gallant of you,” she said.

Dashwood slipped out from under their tarpaulin and stretched. He straightened his crumpled shirt as much as he could and strolled off into the bush to attend to nature’s necessities.

Elle sighed and pulled out her compass. It was most fortunate that she always carried it in her pocket for good luck, as she would have lost it in the crash if she had stowed it. She stared at the needle as it wound round and found north. Knowing the general direction was reassuring,
but without a fixed point of reference she needed to take a bearing, they were still as good as lost. She looked around.

“So, where to next?” Dashwood said as he stepped out of the underbrush.

“Well, we have been walking in an easterly direction, sort of. That’s the best I can do,” Elle said. She looked up at the tree that formed the basis of their makeshift sleeping arrangement. The trunk was split into a number of thick boughs that had been most useful for lashing their tarpaulin to. In the morning light the boughs also looked infinitely climbable.

“I think I’ll go up there and see if I can find a landmark,” she said. “At least we know there are no tarantulas left in the tree.”

“I’ll give you a hand up,” Dashwood said. He knitted his fingers together in order to form a stirrup for her. Elle clambered up the tree. Higher and higher she went until the branches started bowing.

“Can you see anything?” Dashwood called out.

Elle scanned the sky through the boughs of the tree. “Looks like there is a mountain to the southeast,” she said.

“Yeah?” Dashwood was looking up at her.

“Let me just take a bearing.” She pulled her compass out and started lining it up with the sun. It was a tricky task as she needed the compass to lie straight, which meant she had to lock her legs in order to let go with her hands. Carefully she wedged her boot into the notch between two thick branches.

She was so engrossed in her compass that she did not notice the green snake she had disturbed with her boot. Silently, it slithered up the branch next to her.

“Got it!” Elle called down as she placed her compass in her pocket. She put her hand out to steady herself and it took her a moment to realize that instead of the
branch, her fingers were wrapped around the cool scales of the snake.

“Whoa!” Elle called out in fright as she let go. The snake hissed at her and Elle reared backward, losing her foothold. She let out a scream as she tumbled to the ground.

“Elle!” Dashwood yelled as he ran over. He leaped up onto the platform and grabbed her as she fell. They both landed heavily on the bamboo, while the snake dropped into the undergrowth and disappeared.

“Ow,” Dashwood said as soon as he managed to catch his breath.

“Ow indeed,” Elle said. She found herself on top of Dashwood, chest to chest, with his arms around her shoulders from where he had caught her. “Thanks for breaking my fall, just the same,” she said.

“You’re welcome. Did you get bit by that snake?” He made no move to get up.

“No, just got a fright.”

The moment stretched out between them and suddenly things were awkward. Elle started to struggle, pushing herself up and away from his chest.

“Easy there,” Dashwood said as he started moving away too, but their platform had not been built to absorb the shock of heavy falls, and in that moment, the rope and vines they had used to lash the bamboo poles together slipped and gave way. With a groan and a crack the platform collapsed and they both rolled over and tumbled into the mud. To add insult to injury, the water that had accumulated in the tarpaulin above them splashed to the ground, drenching them completely and extinguishing the embers of their fire.

“Get off me!” Elle rolled Dashwood off her and sat up. In addition to being soaked, she was now also covered in the most foul-smelling mud imaginable. Dashwood,
on the other hand, had missed the worst of the mud altogether.

“And thanks for breaking
my
fall,” he said. His teeth were very white against the general dirt on his skin.

He held out his hand and helped Elle up out of the mud.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” he said.

“No, I think the snake got a bigger fright than I did. Apart from a few scrapes and a bruise or two I think I am still in one piece.” She wiped the mud off her face and despite herself, she started laughing. It was the kind of uncontrollable hunger- and fatigue-filled laughter that welled up from deep inside. The kind that cannot be suppressed. She laughed and laughed until she was bent double and gasping for air.

Dashwood started laughing too.

Eventually Elle managed to straighten up. She wiped some of the mud off her brow and flicked it onto the ground. “Well, at least it will deter the mosquitoes,” she said.

“I think it might do more than that,” Dashwood said. “We had better get you washed off. Even small cuts can get very nasty out here if left untended.”

“Well, Captain, then I suggest we follow my bearing to the mountain. That way,” she said, pointing ahead of them. “We will either find people or, at the very least, we will be up high enough to spy where we need to go. What do you say? Are you with me?”

Dashwood gave an exaggerated sigh for effect. “Against my better judgment, Mrs. Marsh, I choose to be with you. But if you end up getting me killed, I am going to be very annoyed with you.”

She stuck out her hand and shook his. “Then we are agreed.”

He wiped off the mud from his trousers which Elle had transferred to him. “A pact sealed in mud,” he said.

She pulled out her compass and studied it for a moment. It had, mercifully, survived her fall from the tree. “It’s that way,” she said.

Dashwood peered into the jungle. “Well, one guess is as good as another right now, so that way it is.” He picked up his machete. “Lead on, Mrs. Marsh. Let’s hope we can find a nice hotel with running hot water along the way.”

The trek toward the mountain through the jungle was not easy, for woman cannot travel on roast spider alone. As the day wore on, it became hotter and hotter. Humidity rose up from the ground, steamy and dank, and threatened to suffocate them. Thirsty and weak from hunger, Elle found that she had little energy for banter. They slashed their way through the never-ending mass of undergrowth and vines with a grim determination, always heading uphill and always keeping an eye on the compass.

After what felt like an eternity of green foliage, the thick undergrowth opened up quite abruptly. Elle and Dashwood stumbled into a clearing, both of them hot, sweating and gasping from exertion.

Elle looked around. Most of the vines were missing, perfectly rectangular rocks were tumbled about as if they had been left there by a giant and in the clearing were some of the biggest trees Elle had ever seen. Between their thick, drooping roots, Elle could make out delicately carved stone arches.

“It’s a building,” Elle said as they stared at the ruins.

“Looks like a temple,” Dashwood said, stepping over a fallen branch.

“Do you think it might be …?” She did not dare say the words. Things never happened that easily. At least not to her.