When The Jaguar Sleeps: A jungle adventure (2 page)

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D
idier forced his eyes open. The sudden light stung his irises like a thorn, and he blinked several times, squinting and rolling his head from side to side. He felt utterly disorientated. Why did his head hurt so badly? Why a sharp, stabbing pain tore through his body, shaking it every now and again in quick successive shocks? All he could do was lie still and wait patiently for each to pass afraid that even the slightest movement might intensify the suffering.

When a few minutes later he finally dared to run the flat of his hand across his forehead he felt a thick, sticky liquid underneath his fingers. Holding them up in front of his face he saw that they were stained with blood. Wavering slightly, afraid of what other awful things he might discover, he looked around.

Next to him, among broken branches and fallen tree trunks, lay the shattered body of an airplane, and a little farther away, chaotically scattered around, various parts of its structure.

In the distance was a stretch of intense-green tangled thicket shrouded in a dense grey fog. Here and there a single tree trunk emerged like a huge column topped with a leafy dome. Other trees, gnarled and bizarrely bent, were draped with all sorts of vines and thick woody lianas. Their long tendrils hung loosely down, veil-like, swinging imperceptibly in the air, almost reaching the ground or they intertwined with ferns, mosses and splendid bromeliad and orchid flowers and looked then like a hanging garden, patches of vibrant colour standing out against the dark-green misty background.

Where was he?

What was he doing here?

How did he get here in the first place?

Didier frowned, there were so many questions swirling in his mind, but no answers to any of them. The last thing he remembered doing was going to bed in his hotel room in Quito. But what had happened afterwards?

From the scene in front of him, it appeared that he had survived a plane crash. He checked his body. He could easily move his arms and legs. It seemed that apart from a head wound and a few cuts and scratches, he had come out of it unscathed.

‘I guess I’m pretty lucky to be alive. It all looks really bad… incredible…’ he murmured softly to himself.

Then some sounds caught his ears, dull, stifled groans, hardly audible at first but getting stronger by the minute, underlaid with the noise of twigs breaking somewhere close by in the forest. It was not long before a lone, tall blond man emerged from the fog, walking with a slight limp.

‘Ah, everything hurts,’ he complained, ‘but luckily nothing’s broken, I have just a large wound on my left leg. I fell on the branches of a tree. That’s what probably saved me,’ he said.

His face was swollen and scratched, his clothes were torn, and his left leg was soaked with blood up to the knee.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘And what about the others? Have you seen any of them? Are they still alive?’

‘What others? Sorry, but I cannot remember anything at all. I do not even know who you are or how I got here. My head is bursting with pain,’ complained Didier.

‘I can’t believe it. You were sitting next to me on the plane, we talked. Look, it’s me, Florent. Don’t you really recognise me?’

‘Florent? No, no . . . nothing,’ he began uncertainly staring intensely at the young man in front of him.

‘You must have hit your head badly because you’re bleeding from your forehead.’

‘I know and that’s what must have caused the memory loss but I can’t. . .’ His eyes narrowed suddenly and his mouth twisted in a grimace of pain.

‘We were flying together with a guide and a Swiss couple, going for a short trip to the Amazon jungle.’ Florent explained right away, not even waiting for him to finish the sentence. ‘The plane crashed. I don’t know if anyone else survived. Maybe they are nearby and need help. We shouldn’t waste time but start looking for them immediately.’ He spoke with impatience in his voice.

They did not hurry, however, to start the search because deep down they were both afraid of what they might find. And so they lingered for a while, as if unable to decide where to begin.

Eventually Didier gathered what was left of his strength, rolled over, and stood slowly up, first planting both feet firmly on the ground, then raising his body and holding it erect. Hesitantly, still feeling unsteady, he approached the hanging wall of lush greenery. Florent followed close behind. They walked a few yards and then stopped and observed their surroundings. Up close they began to distinguish more and more individual elements in the green forest tangle. Omnipresent strangler creepers clung to most of the tree trunks and branches, wrapping themselves tightly around them, climbing to the top of the canopy. Sometimes there were only a few small dark patches of bark visible, so dense was the ropey web of lianas.

A few steps further they noticed something bulky lying behind a bent tree stem, embedded in a thick tangle of vines and roots. Straining their eyes, they made out the outline of someone’s motionless body.

Florent approached it first, limping awkwardly on his injured leg. By the time he reached it he had already realised who the person was. It was Anna. He leaned over and listened for a moment, trying to detect any breath. She looked very pale and her blouse was soaked with blood.

‘She’s alive but she’s got a weak pulse and her breath is shallow,’ he said whispering, as if he were afraid a louder voice might hurt her.

Meanwhile Didier had cautiously approached the shattered wreck of the plane and looked inside. Aircraft debris and backpacks littered the interior, some of them ripped open, their contents spilling out all over the place. At the very back lay a bloodied man’s body squeezed unnaturally in a small gap between two seats. He did not move but a few weak moans escaped from his bloodless lips. His eyes were half open in a fixed stare.

‘Can you help me, Florent? I’ve found someone, but we have to get him out of here as soon as possible. I can’t manage it alone.’

Together they managed to loosen the seats and free the inert body trapped in between. It was Sandro. At first glance, it was difficult to assess what was wrong. When they tried to lift him, Sandro writhed in pain and his moans intensified. As soon as Florent took hold of his right leg he noticed that it was somehow unnaturally bent. He put it down immediately and gently ripped off the trouser. The leg underneath it looked broken. It was livid and swollen, with a gaping bloody wound in the spot where the fractured bone pierced the skin. Florent found a straight wooden stick and tied it against the broken limb, using some pieces of fabric from his torn shirt. It was impossible to say yet what other internal injuries Sandro might have.

‘Do you think we can risk moving him? Won’t we do him more harm than good?’

‘Do we really have a choice? He cannot stay here. Look at all this mess! Everything is nearly torn to shreds. There is no place for him to lie down comfortably. And what if the whole thing explodes or if help does not come today, and some wild beast, prowling around at night picks up the scent of blood and attacks him?’

Wasting no more precious time, Florent and Didier carried the wounded body very carefully out of the wreck and put it down alongside Anna’s.

Didier returned to continue his search of the remains of the fuselage, but found no one else. However, he did discover the shattered pieces of the aircraft radio and a pair of backpacks, barely damaged. He reached into a pocket of one of them and felt something flat and hard under his fingers: a mobile phone. It looked all right; its display illuminated the moment he pressed it. Filled with new hope, he quickly punched a few buttons. Unsurprisingly, it proved useless because there was no network coverage in this remote area.

Outside of the wreck he examined again the surrounding foliage and noticed something red gleaming on the large oblong leaves of a tree. Was it blood? It certainly looked like it.

Slowly he lifted his eyes, following the course of the stains. A bit higher up, from a thick, gnarled, knotty branch a body was hanging, swinging gently in the air. At the same moment Florent’s terrified voice came from behind him, making him jump.

‘Oh my God, that’s Carlos.’

Florent recognised Carlos only from the clothes still wrapped around the body. Where his head should have been was a bloody mass, and both legs were missing, ripped away up to the thigh.

Didier turned aside, bent forward and started gagging and retching until he finally threw up some bile and mucus. Then he sank to his knees, heaving for air, his face twisted in a grimace of disgust and revulsion. He could not look further. But he had no doubt that the pilot must also be dead because the cockpit had obviously taken the full force of the impact. Later during the day his suspicions were confirmed when in the surrounding undergrowth they found the remains of his body.

The two young men sat down on the backpacks under a knotty tree in the shadow feeling completely drained. The hot, humid and stuffy air around them congested their chests. Breathing became difficult and their clothes were sticking disagreeably to their clammy, slippery skin. The sweet smell of blood mixed with the sharp odour of sweat lured swarms of mosquitoes. They were circling around them, persistently biting into both bare and covered skin. At first they tried to ward them off, but quickly gave up seeing that it was useless. The enraged insects would just return anew, attacking them with redoubled ferocity.

‘Those damn mosquitoes are going to eat us alive.’

Florent looked at his watch. It was two in the afternoon. Their stomachs had started to groan with hunger. However, the extreme thirst they were experiencing was far worse. Every now and then, with a stiff and swollen tongue, they would lick their chapped lips but could do nothing to bring relief. Their throats felt parched, as if someone had sandpapered them.

‘Let’s search the backpacks,’ Didier suggested after a while.

They were pleased with what they found: besides a few bottles of mineral water, each rucksack contained something to eat as well. There was even an insect repellent spray in one of them. If they handled the food stocks with care they should last for at least two days and by then help might have reached them. Rescue teams must already be on their way, searching for the lost plane. They should arrive soon. Of course, this was assuming that they knew the exact location of the crash. But both men chose to stay positive.

Fog had thinned only here and there and still hung motionless on the branches of some of the trees like a thick, milky white cobweb. In other places, timid sunrays began to penetrate the dense wall of greenery, illuminating distant corners of the jungle that had so far been mired in darkness. The light shone on droplets of moisture suspended in the leaves, making them glitter with a diamond-like splendour. Calming silence reigned everywhere, broken only from time to time by the vigorous buzzing of insects, chirping and clicking noises of cicadas, a loud cry of a monkey, or the singing and squealing of an unfamiliar bird. In the heat and humidity, both men found themselves panting and gasping for air as if after a long run. The debilitating conditions slowed their brains, making them feel indifferent and lazy as if reacting to everything in slow motion.

Finally, Florent forced his body to move again. He soaked a cotton shirt in water and gently washed the blood from Didier’s face. His head wound, although still bleeding, was superficial and should easily heal without leaving scars. The wound on his own leg looked more serious; the skin around it was flushed and swollen and it hurt badly when touched. He also noticed several cuts and scratches on his arms and stomach that needed to be cleaned. Fortunately, in Anna’s backpack he found a good first aid kit.

The lazy minutes dragged on.

Another hour passed.

The Swiss couple remained unconscious, but Anna’s breathing was becoming gradually more regular and her pulse was clearly perceptible. Sandro was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed, his head turned aside without showing any signs of consciousness, only moaning weakly from time to time. His body felt very hot to the touch and his forehead was pearled with thick beads of sweat. When they removed the makeshift dressing, they saw that his leg at the fracture site had become more swollen and turned a bluish-violet colour. They cleaned the wound again and bandaged it carefully.

Afterwards they removed their blood and sweat stained clothes and found some dry and clean long-sleeved shirts and trousers to put on. Then they meticulously applied an insect repellent to all exposed skin.

‘Maybe those damn mosquitoes will finally leave us in peace,’ said Florent

He turned to Didier. ‘How long will it take before someone finds us here?’

‘How should I know? I doubt any help will arrive today, but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, who knows? I am optimistic. But soon we better start to get ready for the night.’

‘I’m worried about Anna and Sandro,’ he added. ‘They need urgent medical care. Without it they are not going to last long. How are we going to sleep? There’s no suitable place to lie down and feel safe. I can’t imagine spending the night in the open air, unprotected. Surely some wild beast would come and attack us. What a horrible way to die. Far worse than in a plane crash.’

‘Worrying is useless. Believe me, it gets you nowhere. So why waste your energy? We have done all we could to save Anna and Sandro. Now we must think about our own survival. Is it your first night in the jungle?’ he asked Florent. ‘Four years ago I was in Borneo and went for a short three-day trip to a tropical forest. We slept in cabins with basic equipment and went everywhere with a guide, but I learned from him a few useful things about survival in the jungle, how to move around, build my own hut, avoid toxic plants.’ As soon as the words left his mouth Didier sighed with relief, realising that the memory of his life’s earlier events remained intact. He just couldn’t recall the moment of the crash or any event immediately preceding it. But he remembered well his journey to Borneo. It was all coming back now. And his father’s death a year later...