Ghost Flight

by Bear Grylls

  He plotted the grid on the map – and immediately saw exactly where they were.

  He took a moment to consider their predicament.

  They were twenty-seven kilometres north-east of their intended landing point – the sandbar. Bad, but he guessed it could have been worse. Between them and it lay a wide bend of the Rio de los Dios. Presuming that the rest of the expedition team had made it to the sandbar as intended, the river lay between them and Jaeger and Narov’s present position.

  There was no way around that river, and Jaeger knew it. Plus twenty-seven kilometres through dense jungle with a casualty wasn’t going to make for any holiday, that was for certain.

  The agreed procedure if anyone failed to make the landing zone was for the rest of the team to wait there for forty-eight hours. If the missing person(s) wasn’t there by then, the next rendezvous point was a distinctive bend in the river, approximately a day’s journey downstream, with two more RV points each set a further day’s travel downriver.

  The Rio de los Dios flowed in the direction they needed to go to reach the air wreck – another reason why they’d decided to make that sandbar their landing point. Travelling on from there by river should have proven a comparatively easy means to move through the jungle. But each successive RV was set further to the west, which put it further away from Jaeger and Narov’s present position.

  The sandbar was nearest, which meant they had forty-eight hours in which to make it. If they failed, the main body of the expedition would move off more or less due west, and Jaeger and Narov would very likely never catch them.

  With his Thuraya satphone kaput, Jaeger had no way of making contact with anyone to let them know what had happened. Even if he could somehow get it working, he doubted he could get a signal. The satphone required clear sky to see and acquire satellites, without which no message could be sent or received.

  Presuming they made it over the Rio de los Dios, they would then face a further daunting trek through the heart of the jungle. Plus there was one other major problem that Jaeger was aware of – apart from the near-impossibility of Narov undertaking such a journey.

  Colonel Evandro had treated the exact whereabouts of the air wreck with strictest confidence, to protect its location. He’d only been willing to pass the GPS coordinates to Jaeger in person, shortly before their departure on the C-130. Jaeger had in turn agreed to keep the location to himself, in large part because he harboured doubts about who exactly he could trust on his team.

  He’d planned to brief the rest of the team on their exact route once they had boots on the ground at the sandbar – at which point they were pretty much all in this together. But when Jaeger had set the emergency RV procedure, he’d never imagined it would be him who failed to make the landing zone.

  Right now, no one else knew the coordinates of the air wreck, which meant they could only proceed so far without him.

  Jaeger glanced at Narov. Her condition seemed to be worsening. One arm was cradling the hand where she’d been bitten. Her face was slick with sweat, and her skin had taken on a sickly, deathly pallor.

  He put his head back against the buttress root and took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t simply about the expedition any more: it was about life and death now.

  It was a survival situation, and the decisions he made would doubtless dictate whether he and Narov got through this alive.

  31

  Narov’s white-blonde hair was tied off her face with a sky-blue headband. Her eyes were closed, as if she’d fallen asleep or lost consciousness, and her breathing was shallow. For a moment he was struck by how beautiful she looked, not to mention vulnerable.

  Suddenly her eyes opened.

  For an instant they stared into his – wide, blank, unseeing; an ice-blue sky torn with storm clouds. And then, with a visible effort, she seemed to pull her mind back into focus; back to the agonising present.

  ‘I am in pain,’ she announced quietly, between gritted teeth. ‘I will not be going anywhere. You have forty-eight hours to find the others. I have my backpack: water, food, weapon, knife. Get going.’

  Jaeger shook his head. ‘That won’t be happening.’ He paused. ‘I get bored by my own company.’

  ‘Then you are a damn Schwachkopf.’ Jaeger saw the hint of a smile flicker through her eyes. It was the first time he’d seen her show any hint of emotion, apart from a thinly veiled animosity, and it threw him. ‘But it is hardly surprising you get bored by your own company,’ she continued. ‘You are boring. Handsome, yes. But also very boring . . .’

  The hint of laughter in her eyes died in a spasm of convulsions.

  Jaeger suspected he knew what she was trying to do here. She was trying to provoke him; to drive him to the point where he would abandon her, just as she had suggested. But there was one thing she didn’t appreciate about him yet: he didn’t leave his friends hanging.

  Not ever. And not even the crazy ones.

  ‘So this is what we’re going to do,’ he announced. ‘We’re going to leave all but the bare essentials, and Mr Boring here is going to carry your sorry arse out of here. And before you protest, I’m doing so because I need you. I’m the only one who knows the coordinates of the air wreck. If I don’t make it, the mission’s over. I’m now going to give the coordinates to you. That way, you get to take over if I go down. Got it?’

  Narov shrugged. ‘Such heroics. But you will never make it. All you will do is part me from my backpack, and without water and food I will die. Which makes you not just boring, but stupid also.’

  Jaeger laughed. He was half tempted to reconsider and leave her. Instead, he got to his feet and dragged together the rucksacks so he could sort out the bare essentials: a medical pack; forty-eight hours’ food for the two of them; poncho to sleep under; ammunition for his shotgun; map and compass.

  He added a couple of full water bottles, plus his lightweight Katadyn filter, to get them drinkable water, fast.

  He took his rucksack and packed two canoe bags into the bottom, followed by lighter gear. The heavier items – food, water, knife, machete, ammo – he threw on top, so that as much of the load as possible would lie high on his shoulders.

  The rest of their kit would be left where it was, no doubt for the jungle to claim.

  Gear sorted, he heaved the Bergen on to his back, slinging both his shotgun and Narov’s weapon over his shoulder so they lay across his front. Lastly, he placed the three most crucial items – two full water bottles, his compass and map – in the pouches he had strapped around his waist on a military-style belt kit.

  That done, he was ready.

  His GPS worked on a similar system to the satphone – from satellites. It too would be next to useless under the thick forest canopy. He would have to cross almost thirty kilometres of trackless jungle via a process known as pacing and bearing, a means of navigation as old as the hills.

  Thankfully, in this age of modern technology, it was a skill that the SAS still relied upon, and had all of its members master.

  Before reaching for Narov, Jaeger gave her the air wreck’s coordinates – making her repeat them back to him several times over to ensure she had them memorised. He knew it would help her mentally if he reminded her that he needed her.

  But there was a part of him that wondered if he really would make it: such a distance across such terrain, carrying such a weight – it would kill most men.

  He bent down and took hold of Narov, raising her up in a fireman’s lift until she was face down across his shoulders. Her stomach and chest were directly on top of his pack, so that it took much of her weight, just as he’d intended. He tightened the belt and chest straps of the Bergen, drawing it closer to his torso, so that the load was spread across his entire body – hips and legs included.

  Lastly, he took a bearing on his compass. He fixed his eyes on a distinctive tree lying a hundred feet ahead of him, marking that as his first point to head for.

  ‘Okay,’ he grunted, ‘so this isn’t how it was supp
osed to happen – but here goes.’

  ‘No shit.’ Narov grimaced with the pain. ‘Like I said, boring and stupid.’

  Jaeger ignored her.

  He set off at a steady pace, counting his every footfall as he went.

  32

  The noise of the forest closed all around Jaeger – the cries of wild animals high in the canopy; the beat of a thousand insects pulsating from the bush; the rhythmic croaking of a chorus of frogs, signalling that wetter ground lay somewhere in front of him.

  He could sense the humidity rising and the sweat pouring off of him. But something else was niggling at him – something beyond the precariousness of their present predicament. He felt as if they weren’t alone. It was an irrational feeling, but one he just couldn’t seem to shake.

  He did all he could to leave as little sign as possible of his passing, for as time went on he felt more certain than ever that they were being watched – the eerie sensation burning into the back of his neck and shoulders.

  But movement was painfully difficult, especially with the weight he was carrying.

  In so many ways, the jungle was by far the toughest of all environments to operate in. In the snows of the Arctic all you really had to worry about was remaining warm. Navigation was simplicity itself, for you’d nearly always manage to get a GPS signal. In the desert, the key challenges were staying out of the heat and drinking enough water to keep you alive. You’d move at night and lie up during the day in the shade.

  By contrast, the jungle offered a plethora of dangers – ones that nowhere else could equal: fatigue, dehydration, infections, trench foot, disorientation, sores, bites, cuts, bruises, disease-bearing insects and ravenous mosquitoes, wild animals, leeches and snakes. In the jungle you were forever fighting the close, suffocating terrain, while the Arctic and desert were wide open.

  And then of course there were the killer spiders – and hostile tribes – to contend with.

  Jaeger was reminded of all this as he weaved his way through the dense undergrowth, the ground slippery and treacherous underfoot. His nostrils were assailed by the heavy scent of dark, musty decay. The terrain was dropping away from him as they approached the Rio de los Dios. Soon they’d hit the northern bank of the river – at which point the fun and games would really begin.

  The higher you climbed in the jungle the easier the terrain tended to get – for it was invariably drier underfoot and the vegetation thinner. But sooner or later the Rio de los Dios had to be crossed, and that meant dropping down into denser, boggier ground.

  Jaeger took a moment to catch his breath and survey the route ahead.

  Straight ahead lay a deep ravine, which no doubt drained water into the Rio de los Dios during the rains. It looked wet and marshy underfoot, the ground starved of any sunlight. The gully was thick with medium-sized trees, each boasting a crop of vicious spikes that protruded several inches or more from the trunk.

  Jaeger knew those spine-covered trees well. The spikes weren’t poisonous, but that didn’t matter much. He’d fallen against one once, during a jungle training exercise. The tough wooden spines had pierced his arm in several places, the wounds quickly turning septic. Ever since, he’d called them the ‘bastard trees.’

  Strung between those perilous trunks were thick vines, each armed with cruelly hooked thorns. Jaeger pulled out his compass and took a quick bearing. The ravine led due south, the way that he needed to go, but he figured it was best avoided.

  Instead he took a bearing west, fixed his eyes on a tall, mature stand of hardwood trees and proceeded to head that way. He’d box his way around the ravine, then turn south a little further on, which should bring him directly to the river. Every twenty minutes he allowed himself to put Narov down, both for a breather and to grab a slug of water. But never longer than two minutes and then he was on his way again.

  As he climbed, he shrugged Narov’s weight higher on to his shoulders. He wondered for an instant how she was holding up. She’d not said a single word since they’d set out. If she’d lost all consciousness, the river crossing would be next to impossible, and Jaeger would be forced to come up with a different plan of action.

  Fifteen minutes later, he skidded down a shallow slope, coming to a stop at a solid-looking wall of vegetation. On the far side he could just make out a moving mass – the odd glint of sunlight flashing through to him.

  Water. He was almost at the river.

  Mature jungle – vegetation that had remained undisturbed for centuries – generally consisted of a high forest canopy, with relatively sparse growth on the forest floor. But where such virgin rainforest had been disturbed – like having a highway slashed through it, or here where a river carved into its depths – secondary vegetation would spring up in the clearings formed.

  The Rio de los Dios cut a tunnel of sunlight through the jungle, and on either side it was a riot of dense, tangled bush. The vegetation that loomed before Jaeger was like a dark and impenetrable cliff face – high forest giants, fringed with smaller palm-like bushes, with tree ferns and vines reaching right to the forest floor. Next to impossible to negotiate with his load.

  He turned east, following the riverbank until he hit the ravine that he’d boxed his way around. At the point where it plunged into the river, the terrain was largely swept clear of vegetation, leaving a tiny rocky beach no wider than your average English country lane.

  It was enough. From there they could launch their river crossing – if Narov was still capable of making it.

  He lifted her off his shoulders and lowered her to the ground. There was little sign of life, and for a horrible moment Jaeger feared that the spider toxins had claimed her as he’d carried her through the jungle. But when he felt for her pulse, he noticed the odd shiver and spasm ripple through her limbs, as the Phoneutria venom tried to work its way deeper into her system.

  The shakes were nowhere near as bad as they’d been at first, so the antidote was clearly working. But still she seemed dead to all his attentions; comatose to the world. He lifted her head, supporting it with one hand as he tried to get some liquid into her. She gulped down a few mouthfuls, but still there was no sign of her opening her eyes.

  Jaeger reached for his backpack and pulled out his GPS unit. He needed to check if it could see enough sky to acquire a usable signal. It bleeped once, twice, and thrice, as satellite icons flashed on to the screen. He checked their position, the grid provided by the GPS proving that his navigation had been bang on.

  For a moment he stole a glance at the river, contemplating the crossing that lay before them. It was a good five hundred yards across, maybe more. The dark, sluggish water was interrupted here and there by slender mudbanks, which barely broke the surface.

  Worse still, on one or two of them Jaeger spotted what he’d most feared to find here: the sleek forms of giant lizard-like creatures, sunning themselves in the mid-morning heat.

  The beasts before them were the largest predators the Amazon had to offer. Crocodiles.

  Or more accurately, this being South America – caimans.

  33

  The black caiman – Melanosuchus niger – can grow to five metres in length, and weigh anything up to 400 kilos, so more than five times a man’s bodyweight. Immensely powerful, and with skin as thick as a rhino, they have no natural predators.

  Hardly surprising, Jaeger reflected. He’d once heard the animal described as ‘a croc on steroids’, and they really didn’t come any bigger or more aggressive. Note to self, Jaeger thought: be wary.

  Still, he reminded himself that the black caiman had relatively poor eyesight, mostly adapted for hunting in the dark. They could barely see underwater, and especially not in rivers as silt-laden as this one. They had to get their heads above the surface to attack – and that meant they made themselves visible.

  More commonly, they used their sense of smell to guide them to their prey. For a moment, Jaeger checked where Narov had nicked him with her blade as he’d tried to parry her knife thrus
ts during their crazed freefall. The wound had long ago stopped bleeding, but it would be best to keep it out of the water.

  In the absence of any alternative plan, he pressed on with the only one he had. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the canoe flotation bags. He emptied out the pack’s remaining contents and divided them between the two liners, so the weight was shared evenly.

  Next he placed one of the liners inside his pack, inflated it, and closed it, folding the seal over twice and clipping it tight on to itself, before inflating and sealing shut the second liner.

  Using the fastenings on his pack, he proceeded to strap it and the canoe liner together. He then took his and Narov’s weapons and tied a longish length of paracord to each, attaching the loose ends to the two corners of his makeshift flotation device with quick-release knots.

  That way, if either weapon fell in, he’d be able to retrieve it again.

  Next he selected a thick bamboo from a grove that grew near the water’s edge. He felled it with his machete, and cut the trunk into five-foot lengths. Using the sharp blade, he split two lengths of the bamboo in half, to make four cross poles. He then placed four lengths of whole bamboo in a row, lashed the cross struts to these with paracord, and tied it all together to make a simple frame, which in turn was roped to the flotation bags.

  He dragged the makeshift raft into the shallows and sat astride it, testing for strength. It took his weight comfortably, floating high on the water, just as he’d intended. That done, he figured he was ready.

  He had little doubt that it could manage Narov’s weight.

  He moored the craft and paused to filter some water. It was always smart to keep your bottles full, especially with the amount he was sweating. Using the Katadyn, he sucked up dirty brown river water via the intake tube, the filter jetting clear, crisp liquid into his bottle. He drank as much as he could before refilling both bottles.

  He was just finishing when a fatigued voice cut through the clammy heat: fragile; tight with pain; hoarse with exhaustion.