by Bear Grylls
She shrieked and leapt back.
“Oh, that is so disgusting!”
The hole was absolutely crawling with maggots.
“Disgusting maybe, but good news for us,” Bear commented casually. “There’s good energy in maggots.”
She stared at him. “You’d eat maggots?”
“In the desert and trying to stay alive, yes. There’s great protein in a maggot, and you can use them for many other things too. You can use them as bait, and they can keep a wound clean … Don’t knock a maggot.”
Sophie made herself look again at the maggots, crawling in the dead camel. She tried to see them through Bear’s eyes. Useful?
“Our priority out here isn’t food, though. There’s a rule of three: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. In this desert it’s a lack of water that will kill us first,” Bear explained. “Otherwise we’d be having a maggot feast!” He chuckled. “But not today. The priority for us is to keep moving.”
“Phew!” Sophie was very relieved.
They walked for another forty-five minutes while the desert grew even hotter. Sophie started to feel like the heat was a solid obstacle and she was pushing her way through it.
The ground was growing hard and rocky.
A couple of minutes later they were standing on the edge of a small ravine, about five metres deep and twenty across. The rocky sides were steep but they could climb down them. The bottom was flat sand, with smooth rocks scattered along it.
Large parts of the bottom of the ravine were in shadow.
“We’ll shelter in this wadi until the heat of midday has come and gone,” Bear decided. “We’ve done enough for now. We survive by taking our time and playing smart. Out here if you rush and don’t think your actions through, you die.”
“Yes. And we don’t want to die,” Sophie added with dry look at Bear. “Anyway, what’s a wadi?” she asked as they climbed down the side.
“It’s a dry riverbed,” he told her. “I’ve seen places like this go from not a drop of moisture to a raging river torrent within minutes. A flash flood. People drown in them as they hit fast and with huge power. But above all, because people don’t see water, they aren’t prepared for water. So, if you hear me shout ‘start climbing’, just trust me – and climb!”
Sophie could tell from Bear’s voice that he wasn’t kidding, but she was puzzled.
“But how could it flood? There’s no water in a desert – you keep saying it’s lack of water that will kill us.”
“Imagine there is a lot of rain in the mountains, maybe fifty miles away at the source of the river,” Bear explained. “Because the ground is baked so hard, the water doesn’t drain away into the earth. So it comes rushing along the wadi instead. See those smooth rocks? They’ve been worn smooth by water.”
As Bear seemed to be happy to talk now they were out of the sun, Sophie tried another question.
“So what was that I saw earlier?” she asked, remembering the silver flash that had seemed like a lake.
“Just a simple mirage. Hot air bends light. This air is so hot it reflects all the light straight back at you, like a mirror. You would see the same thing on a road, back home, if it was a super-hot day.”
He dumped his rucksack down and passed her the groundsheet.
“I’m going to look for water. You see if you can find us a good spot to rest.”
Sophie looked along the dry, empty canyon, but she couldn’t see any sign of where there might be water. And she was a little surprised that Bear trusted her to find a place. But he seemed to be confident about both things, so she just went with it.
“Uh – sure,” she said.
Sophie started looking, slowly at first. She remembered the rule about always checking for desert creatures that might be hidden in nooks and crannies, so she moved any rocks very carefully, and braced herself in case something was there. And she stamped her feet to spook off any snakes.
She found just the place at the foot of a small cliff at the side of the wadi. The compass said it faced north, so it would always be in shadow as the sun moved around during the day. She studied it carefully for any unwanted visitors, and flicked the groundsheet out.
Just as she was about to lay the sheet down, she saw it. Right in front of her. Its yellow colour had made it blend into the sand.
It was a creature out of Sophie’s nightmares. An enormous snake, coiled, and staring right at her.
Sophie froze. She didn’t want to move, in case it attacked her.
“Bear!” she called loudly. She was scared but she suddenly realised she also felt strangely calm. It was like the desert was changing her for the better, making her tougher. She was learning to deal with shock and trauma like someone who could handle the pressure of the desert. She was a survivor now.
Bear came hurrying over.
“A puff adder,” he said immediately. “Well done – you’ve found one of the most venomous snakes in the world. But remember, they are only dangerous if they bite you. So keep still and never take your eyes off it.” He gently grabbed her hand and led her backwards. “So I guess we won’t be resting there, Sophie!”
Sophie smiled.
“I guess it’s like you said: everything here is locked in a battle to survive.”
8
EMPTY RIVER
Sophie and Bear moved further along the dry wadi looking for another, less ‘occupied’ bit of shade in which to shelter. As they neared a shallow curve in the riverbed, Bear stopped and crouched at the outside edge of the bend.
“Let me show you how to find water,” he said.
“Um, how exactly?” replied Sophie.
“Well, do you notice anything?” Bear asked.
Sophie looked around. All she could see were more rocks and an ugly, twisted little thorn bush.
She was about to say she couldn’t see anything, when she remembered what he had said about the palm tree back at the oasis.
“That thorn bush must be getting water from somewhere,” she said.
Bear gave her a smile.
“Correct. And, you see we’re on the outside bend of the wadi? Where the flowing water has made the channel deepest? When the river was flowing it would have stayed wet here longer than anywhere else. In fact, the water should still be here …”
He started to dig with his bare hands.
The sand was dry and loose, and the sides of his little pit kept trickling back down to fill it in. Bear widened the pit and kept digging.
“The water, if it is here, will be maybe half a metre under the surface,” he said. “If it isn’t, then it’s not worth going deeper.”
Sophie could see that the sand got darker as he went down, and suddenly she could smell damp. There was a kind of wet-stone whiff to the pit that made her think of pavements after the rain.
“There!” Sophie said.
There was a tiny speck of water at the bottom of the pit. It didn’t look much at all. Certainly not enough to fill a bottle with. But it was growing. It welled up, taking over the sand, grain by grain.
Bear stood up, looking pleased.
“We’ll let it fill in its own time.” He paused. “You see, Sophie – it’s all about being smart. We’ve chosen our battles out here. We moved away from that puff adder, we found the shade, we dug this hole – and now it’s time for nature to do its part.”
Sophie nodded. “And we’re surviving,” she said.
“That’s right,” Bear replied. “Many other things out here don’t. Including some humans. Think about it: most of us have two arms and two legs, a set of lungs and a beating heart. But not everyone will make it out here, because we all make different decisions. Just always be patient and avoid danger where possible, but when it is time to work hard and fight, then give it your all. That’s how to survive the desert.”
They found a new spot for the groundsheet, tucked against the edge of the bank, nicely in the shade, and settled down to wait out the hottes
t part of the day.
“Sophie,” Bear said quietly, “can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Sophie replied.
“I noticed that you screamed when you first saw the camel spider and the scorpion, and the maggots, but not when you saw the puff adder. What changed?”
“I guess it’s because …” Sophie thought. “Because I knew I had to deal with it to survive. I mean, compared to everything else, it was nothing. This is the desert. It’s way bigger and nastier than any bug. You either get on with it or you get hurt. Plus, it becomes easier the more you do it.”
He grinned.
“You’re turning into a survivor, Sophie. Good for you. Respect.” He paused. “Like I said, the best way over your fears is straight through the middle.”
“And like you said, even things like maggots can be useful,” Sophie added. “I guess everything’s got its purpose even if we don’t know what it is. So, why get upset about it, when it’s just doing its thing?”
“That’s life, eh?”
The sun moved slowly across the sky and the shadow of the cliff stretched itself out across the wadi. At long last, Bear stood up, stretched, and went over to inspect the water hole. It was almost full. He gave the bottle a shake. There was still a little left in it. “You know the best place to carry water?” he said. “Inside you.”
So they drank down what was left in the bottle together. Then Bear held it under the surface and let it refill, with many glugs and gurgles.
Then they wrapped their shemaghs around their heads and climbed together up the far side of the wadi to continue their trek.
Sophie clambered to her feet at the top, and blinked in surprise.
There was a mountain range ahead. It looked seriously high. She could see snow at the top of some of the peaks. It hadn’t been there when Sophie and Bear had climbed down into the wadi.
“Now, that is a sight,” Bear said.
“So are those mountains a mirage?”
“Oh no, they exist, but they’re a hundred miles away,” Bear said. “The hot air bends the light and seems to plonk them down in front of us. I’ll show you.”
He headed over to a large rock at the edge of the wadi, and leapt up it with a couple of quick steps. He stood a metre above the desert and held his hand out to help her up.
“Come and see.”
Sophie took his hand and clambered up to stand beside him. The mountains wavered and wiggled, and then melted back into the distance.
“You just have to be a little bit higher or lower and the optical illusion stops working,” he said, jumping down off the rock. “Nature is pretty cool, eh? And weird sometimes.”
“I had no idea just how weird,” Sophie replied. “Weird but wonderful.”
She crouched down and stuck one leg out to reach the sand but her other boot caught on a bump in the rock. With a shout of alarm she ploughed face first into the sand.
“Sophie? Sophie! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, through a mouthful of sand. She spat it out and worked her mouth to get more saliva going. She had to blink fast to get the sand out of her eyes.
And then suddenly she was staring with astonishment at a worried-looking Fatima.
9
HANDOVER
“Sophie, are you okay?” Fatima said. “You were really moving fast when you fell off.”
Sophie looked around. She was on her hands and knees in the sandpit at Camp. Two zipwires ran overhead. Her pole was a few metres away, shaking and waving from side to side, as if she had just fallen off it. The Reds were just handing the baton over to the next person. Everyone was shouting and cheering.
“Come on, Sophie!”
The other Yellows were waiting at the end of the zipwire, urging her on, shouting and waving their hands. She was dazed but didn’t have time to work out how all this had happened. The race was still on and she was holding things up.
Sophie picked the baton up. And then she remembered that she was meant to be passing it on to Fatima. She started to hand it over, but Fatima was already running for the edge of the pit.
“You have to give it to me in the right place,” she called over her shoulder. Sophie stumbled quickly after her to the end of the zipwire, where the handover would have been if Sophie hadn’t fallen.
Fatima grabbed the baton and ran off after the Reds.
“You really held us up!” a boy shouted at her. It took Sophie a moment to remember his name. Oh yes – Omar. “Can’t you even stay on a stupid zipwire? Crikey!”
He hurried off with the others to the next handover point. Probably to shout at someone else, Sophie thought.
Now she had a moment to herself, she looked back at the sandpit.
It was … sandy.
Apart from that, it didn’t look at all like a desert. It was too small and too damp. The sand was a dark, wettish orange – not the amazing, blazing yellow she had got used to. The sun wasn’t threatening to melt her brains out. It was politely asking the clouds if they would maybe mind giving it a bit of space. And she probably wouldn’t find any lethal scorpions or rotting camels, however hard she looked.
Where had it all gone?
Something glistened in the sand, next to the small crater she had made when she fell off. Oh yes, the compass. She picked it up. She seemed to remember the dial growing big. She had thought she was falling through it …
“Sophie!” Chloe shouted. “Come on! We’ll miss the rest of the race!”
So Sophie stuffed the compass back into her pocket and hurried after her friend. She must have hit her head or something, she supposed. Bear and the desert had obviously all been her imagination.
Everyone was waiting at the next obstacle for the runners to come along the track. There were two logs lying on the ground, one for each team, about three metres long. The runners had to walk from one end to the other while the logs tried to roll underneath them. If they fell off, then they had to start again.
It was Omar’s turn to take the baton from Fatima. He was hopping up and down with impatience.
Sophie joined the others shouting encouragement to Fatima. She didn’t make it across the log the first time, or the second. Or the third … but neither did the boy on the Red team. The volume of cheers and shouts went up a notch every time one of them fell off.
Sophie thought Omar might explode with frustration.
“Just run!” Omar bellowed. “You don’t need to stay on it all the way, just get near enough to me!”
On Fatima’s fourth try she did it. She took Omar’s advice and ran along the log with the baton held out in front of her, so that Omar could take it before she stumbled off. Her other arm was waving frantically for balance.
But the Red boy had also followed Omar’s advice, and his arm was a little longer. He handed their baton over half a second before Omar could grab the baton from Fatima. The two boys raced away down the track, with Omar a bit behind.
Everyone headed off through the woods to the next handover point. As they walked, Sophie pulled her scarf off and shook it to get rid of the trapped sand. She was still itching from it. Then she used the scarf to brush her neck down and remove any last pieces of grit. Then –
But there wasn’t another “then”. She was staring at the scarf, and realising something shocking.
She hadn’t been wearing a scarf when she fell off the zipwire.
This was the shemagh that Bear had given her.
10
IN IT TO WIN IT
“Sophie! Come on!” Fatima called impatiently. “Chloe’s on the last leg. Don’t you want to cheer her?”
“Coming,” Sophie called. She wanted to figure out the mystery of the scarf a lot more than she wanted to watch some race.
But she didn’t want to let her friends down, so she hurried with Fatima to the handover point.
When he came around the corner, Omar had gained the lead – but only just. His face was bright red and his arms and legs were pumping.
&
nbsp; Chloe for the Yellow team and Charlie for the Reds were waiting at the end of a pair of plastic pipes. The runners had to crawl through them. Omar dived head first into his pipe without stopping. A couple of seconds later, the baton was the first thing to emerge.
“Now run! Run!” he screamed at Chloe. Chloe took the baton, turned, ran – and tripped right over a root hidden under the leaves.
She landed with a thump and a cry. The baton flew through the air, straight at Sophie. Sophie caught it automatically.
“GET UP!” Omar yelled. He couldn’t control his anger. He’d worked so hard to catch up and now they were going to lose. He looked as if he would explode. But Chloe’s face was twisted with pain and she was holding her knee. It was obvious she wasn’t going anywhere.
Charlie was already on his way, disappearing down the track. And Sophie had the baton. She took a step forward to help Chloe but her friend waved her away.
“I’ll be fine. You’ve got the baton! Use it!”
Sophie held it up for the umpire to see. “Can I …?”
The umpire nodded, and Sophie ran. She was going to do this part of the race to her best ability – and she was going to do it for Chloe.
She fled down the track, pursued by the shouts of the Yellows.
Charlie was just disappearing around a bend. Her feet pounded after him. The trees shot past. The cheers were just a roar in her ears.
Sophie came around the bend just in time to see Charlie’s back disappear around the next one. She had got a little closer. She could do this!
She stepped up the pace until her feet were a blur beneath her.
One more bend, and there it was. The final clearing.
Charlie hadn’t realised how close behind Sophie was. He had slowed down and was just jogging to the finish, cheered on by his team. Their cheers suddenly turned to shouts of warning. Sophie was still going full pelt and she didn’t slow down. Charlie shot her a look of alarm and started to speed up, but she had already overtaken him.