Sands of the Scorpion

by Bear Grylls

  Peter held the silk taut and Beck used the knife to slice two long ribbons from the upper layer of the canopy. They were about two metres long and half a metre wide. It wasn’t a clean cut. The ‘silk’ was actually nylon that frayed along the edges where Beck sliced it, and the blade was blunt. But it would do.

  ‘Wrap it around your head like a headscarf.’

  He passed one of the pieces to Peter and demonstrated with the other. His own piece went around his head twice and covered his face so that just his eyes showed. He tucked the loose ends into the neck of his shirt. ‘You need to protect your head as much as possible – if your brain fries, you’re dead. And try to breathe through your nose, not your mouth. Breathing through your mouth just dries up moisture.’

  ‘Right.’ Peter wrapped his piece of silk round his own head, with a bit of help from Beck. When he finished, his eyes peeped through the narrow gap that he had left. ‘What next?’

  ‘Over here,’ Beck said. He took the axe and went over to the thorn tree he had seen earlier.

  The tree’s branches stuck out in different directions as if imitating a mad conductor, arms going everywhere at once. Beck selected a pair of leafless branches that were about a metre and a half long and not much thicker than his own arm. From each length he cut or scraped away the side branches and twigs, then swung the axe at the point where they met the trunk. It took five minutes to cut both branches completely free and they tumbled to the sand, one after the other.

  Next, Peter held the branches upright while Beck used the flat of the axe blade to hammer them into the ground, about two metres apart. The boys were left with two crooked poles standing about shoulder height. One was a little taller than the other.

  Beck turned his attention back to the parachute canopy. ‘And now hold the silk steady again . . . ’ The chute consisted of two layers, the upper and the lower surfaces; between these were empty cells of silk. They filled with air as the parachute moved, giving it its shape. There was plenty of silk for Beck’s purposes.

  The section that Beck cut off was about five metres long and three wide. He then used the knife to cut a pair of holes in the long edge and used parachute lines to tie it to the two poles, about ten centimetres from the top. The cord was made of tough, interwoven strands of nylon. It stretched, it was flexible, and Beck could think of about a thousand different uses for it. Now the layer of silk dangled between the two poles with a flap of silk hanging down at either end.

  Beck cut a pair of shorter bits of wood to act as tent pegs, and used them to stake the other long edge of the silk down to the ground. Out of nowhere, they now had a small, wedge-shaped tent. ‘The entrance faces north, away from the sun,’ Beck added.

  ‘Hey, I’m in!’ Peter said eagerly, but Beck pulled him back.

  ‘Not quite, you’re not. Give me a hand again . . . ’

  They went back to the canopy and Beck started cutting away another piece of silk.

  ‘Look, the sun’s shining right through it,’ he said, nodding at the tent. The silk was thin and light, and it was almost glowing with the light of the sun behind it. ‘It won’t be much shelter. But now . . . ’

  They took the new piece of silk over to the shelter and went through the same process. This time Beck tied it nearer the top of the poles, while Peter again staked down the edges. Now the tent had two layers, about ten centimetres apart. Both ends of the shelter could be folded open, which allowed the breeze through, and the interior was shaded.

  ‘And now,’ Beck said, ‘sir may retire to his room.’

  Peter went in cautiously, ducking his head and brushing away a few twigs and stones from where he wanted to lie. Then he stretched himself out on the sand and breathed out loudly.

  Beck lay down next to him and propped himself up on one elbow. He glanced at the silk. It was still faintly translucent, but inside it was nowhere near as bright as it had been. The second layer made all the difference. In fact it made more of a difference than Peter probably realized.

  ‘This is how the Bedouin make their tents,’ Beck explained. ‘With two layers, air can pass between them and that carries the heat away.’

  ‘Still hot. You could boil a cup of water out there.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not as hot as it could be.’ Beck nodded at the bright sunlight, just a metre or so away from the shade of the tent. ‘Out there it’s about . . . oh, a hundred and twenty.’

  ‘What? That’s more than boiling!’

  ‘Fahrenheit.’

  ‘Oh. What’s that in real temperature?’

  Beck thought for a moment. ‘Uh . . . roughly fifty degrees. So it’s only halfway to boiling. But in here, in the shade, it’ll be way cooler.’

  ‘Neat trick,’ Peter commented after a moment. ‘The tent. The Bedouin thing.’

  ‘Well, they’ve lived in the desert for thousands of years, so they know a bit about it. Did you ever wonder why desert people wear long flowing clothes?’

  ‘Because they haven’t invented T-shirts?’ Peter’s deadpan voice made it quite clear he didn’t really think that.

  Beck grinned and shook his head. ‘Same principle as the tent. Layers of air between the robes help cool them down, and they need to cover up to keep the sun off them. Maybe we can’t quite match that but we can still protect our bare skin. The wind blows like a hairdryer. You sweat and it dries you up before you even notice. So you sweat some more, and it dries you up again, and in no time you’re completely dehydrated. Plus you get a lovely dose of sunburn into the bargain. So we need to keep the sun off us during the day and we need to wrap up warm at night.’

  Peter propped himself up, looked at Beck and then at himself. At least he was wearing long, loose trousers and a long-sleeved shirt. He was protected against sunburn. Beck was in a T-shirt and long shorts that stopped halfway between his knees and his ankles. Good for lounging beside the hotel pool. Not great for surviving in a desert.

  ‘So where do we get . . . ?’ Then Peter mentally answered his own question. ‘Duh. Of course.’

  He nodded upwards. They had two parachutes with them – all the extra material they could possibly need. Then he looked thoughtful. ‘And what else do we need to do? Better tell me everything now.’ He sat cross-legged, attentive and waiting.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Beck pushed himself up and sat facing Peter. His thoughts went back to what he had worked out coming down on the parachute. ‘We’re more than halfway to Morocco, so we’re going to head north. I’ve no idea – and I mean, no idea – where we are – what country we’re in—’

  ‘Probably northern Mauritania or western Algeria,’ Peter said unexpectedly. Beck looked impressed. ‘So I got high marks in my geography project on northern Africa,’ his friend explained.

  ‘OK. But wherever we are, if we head north then we should reach Morocco . . . eventually. If we can stay alive that long.’

  ‘Sure. Makes sense.’ Peter traced circles idly in the sand with his finger. ‘I also know that if we’re walking to Morocco from the south then we will eventually meet the Atlas Mountains. That’s our best chance of finding people.’

  Beck remembered the mountains he had seen in the far distance, after his chute opened. He hoped they were the start of the Atlas Range. ‘But for now we need to wait for the sun to die down.’

  ‘OK.’ Peter seemed to accept this. Beck realized he was showing the same calm trust he had shown back in the plane. Peter didn’t know anything about survival, and Beck knew loads, so Peter was calmly putting himself in his hands. Beck hoped that if he ever had to rely on Peter for something that his friend was good at – photography? geography? – then he would be just as trusting in return.

  ‘And as much as we can,’ he went on, ‘we’re going to rest by day and travel by night. I have to warn you, the desert can get pretty cold at night, but we’ll keep moving. If we have to, then we can wrap ourselves up in parachute silk. It won’t be comfortable but it’ll be a lot more comfortable than frying our brains ou
t during the day.’

  ‘Oh, and, er, Beck . . . ’ Peter was back to drawing circles in the sand. It was obviously his signal for an awkward subject that he didn’t want to bring up. Then he lifted his head and looked Beck in the eye. ‘What do we do about food and water?’

  ‘We get hungry and thirsty,’ Beck said simply. Peter looked so surprised that he couldn’t help laughing. ‘Not completely. But we’re going to be on very limited rations. If you eat just a little at frequent intervals, that’s as good as having a proper meal every few hours. And if you eat too much you just use up water. Anyway, a guy can go weeks without food . . . but only about twenty-four hours out here without water.’

  ‘And we need how many litres of water per day?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Four if we are resting in the shade. Thirteen if we’re moving,’ Beck said shortly. ‘That’s a lot of water—’

  Peter interrupted: ‘Well, we have a couple of bottles, and whatever’s in those cans we brought. So you can see why I’m interested.’

  ‘There’s water in the desert,’ Beck said. ‘Even here. Look. There are plants growing.’

  He gestured out of the shelter and Peter leaned forward to peer out.

  ‘OK,’ he said. He sounded surprised. ‘So there’s water. A little.’

  ‘A little,’ Beck agreed. ‘We’re going to get thirsty but, if we’re smart, we’re not going to die of it.’

  ‘Suits me. Which way’s north?’

  Beck was pleased to get off the subject of water. Peter was absolutely right in everything he had said. There was water, and he did know how to find it. But there was precious little to be found. It was easy to waste time looking for it and just make yourself thirstier than before.

  ‘Here, Peter, if you’re travelling during the day, you can use your watch to navigate by. Look – hold it horizontal . . . ’

  ‘OK.’ Peter levelled his wrist in front of his eyes.

  Beck continued to explain how to find north using the hour hand and the sun.

  Peter was impressed. ‘Cool.’ He studied his watch, thought for a moment and then twisted round again. He pointed straight out of the shelter. ‘That’s north.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Beck was smiling. Then he noticed . . .

  ‘Pete, you’ve got a digital watch!’ he exclaimed.

  Peter looked innocently at him. ‘Well, yeah, but if I know the time then I know where the hands would be if it had them, don’t I? I just imagine a clock face with an hour hand and point the imaginary hand at the sun.’

  Beck looked at him silently, and Peter grinned, and then they both dissolved into laughs.

  ‘You know, I’d never thought of that.’

  ‘I wish we had a GPS . . . ’ Peter said wistfully.

  ‘Hmm.’ Beck thought back to his previous two encounters with a GPS. ‘The last time I used one of those the batteries ran down. And the time before that I accidentally dropped it into the sea.’ He changed the subject. ‘How hungry are you?’ he asked Peter.

  His friend looked thoughtful. ‘Um. Not really. I had a huge breakfast.’

  ‘OK. We’re going to try and rest for the remainder of the day, then we’ll eat something before we set off tonight.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Peter said complacently, and he lay back on the sand with his hands behind his head. After a while his eyes closed. The wind blowing past ruffled the silk with a soothing sound. The sand inside had cooled down and the air was nicely warm. The shelter was pleasant to be in. It was possibly the only pleasant two square metres in the entire desert, but it was theirs.

  Beck lay down too. His thoughts were still full of what lay ahead and it took him much longer to drop off.

  He had been putting on as positive a face as possible for Peter’s benefit. He had survived the Kalahari Desert and the Australian Outback. He could do so here too. But those other expeditions had been undertaken with plenty of planning, and with experts to help him. Here there was no planning at all, and he was the expert.

  They could head north. That bit wasn’t hard. But Beck knew he could be leading them both into a furnace from which they would never escape.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Getting sleep was easier said than done. Both of them snoozed for a little but that was all. The sun crept down as if it was reluctant to give up the chance to fry them. The shadow of the shelter slowly moved round.

  Peter hugged his knees and gazed gloomily out at the desert. He seemed lost in a little world of his own. Beck didn’t know what thoughts were running through his head but he couldn’t afford to let his spirits sink.

  ‘OK,’ he said suddenly. Peter jumped. ‘To work!’

  There were preparations to make. Beck had already studied himself and Peter critically. They had to protect their bare skin – their arms, their legs, and above all their heads. Clothing was the most basic form of shelter in the desert. Ideally they should both be dressed like Peter, in shirt and trousers, both loose and long. During the day the clothes would let the air circulate around their bodies but keep their sweat from evaporating. During the night they would just help keep them warm.

  But Beck wasn’t wearing clothes like that and there was no point wishing he was. So with Peter’s help he cut off another layer of parachute silk and a few more lengths of cord. This time he sliced the silk into squares about half a metre long. Then he poked holes along opposite edges and threaded more cord through. Finally he wrapped each square around one leg and used the cord to tie it just above the knee and then above the ankle. Now he had a silk legging that hung down to the ground.

  ‘Armani eat your heart out,’ Peter commented when he saw it.

  Beck grinned. ‘Now we’ll make a couple of upper-body wraps for the both of us. They’ll be extra protection from the wind and they’ll keep us warm tonight—’

  ‘Eek!’

  Peter suddenly convulsed, scrambling to his feet before he remembered he couldn’t stand up in the shelter. As it was he almost ended up in Beck’s lap.

  ‘What the—?’ Beck began.

  ‘Spider! Big one!’

  Beck peered past his friend.

  The spider was about five centimetres across, with long, arched, hairy legs. It had stopped a little way inside the tent. The legs were yellow, like the sand, but the body was darker and bloated. In place of teeth it had a pair of large pincers.

  ‘It – it just came scuttling in . . . ’ Peter stammered.

  Beck looked at it thoughtfully. He reached carefully for the knife, and pounced. The spider twitched as he pinned it through its head, the pressure pushing it down into the sand. Beck used the blade to flick the head away, back in the direction it had come from. He picked the body up by one of its legs.

  ‘It’s a camel spider,’ he told Peter. ‘Not really poisonous – though it could give you a seriously nasty bite. They can shift along at up to ten miles per hour . . . but usually they just make for shade. It just wanted to get out of the sun. Handy to remember that you’re not the only one who appreciates shade. In fact a snake without shade will die within a few hours. If you ever find a shady nook, or lift up a rock or anything, just be careful in case there’s something else there first.’

  ‘I’ll remember,’ Peter vowed.

  ‘You know, in the desert, if something’s poisonous it’s really poisonous. There’s so little food that it can’t take the chance of its prey getting away. It wants to know that just one scratch will bring it down.’

  ‘We’ve got stinging nettles at the bottom of our garden,’ Peter said conversationally. ‘That’s about as poisonous as home gets—’ He broke off and turned pale as Beck offered him the decapitated spider.

  ‘Fancy a bite?’

  ‘N-not really, no.’

  ‘ ’Kay.’ Beck didn’t want to do this but he had to make the point. He popped the spider’s body into his mouth and crunched. There was a warm fluid explosion on his tongue. The innards were gooey and oozed between his teeth, as if he had just swallowed a gobbet of sno
t and was swilling it back and forth. It tasted even worse. He had to press his lips together to stop the spider’s guts oozing out. The legs were like twigs scraping against his tongue. When he swallowed, he could feel them all the way down his throat.

  But he was now slightly better fed than he had been thirty seconds before. He turned to Peter and spoke earnestly.

  ‘What I just said about the shade is the second lesson you need to learn. The first is that we’re in this to survive. We only get one stab at being alive, because once you’re dead you’re dead for ever. In order to live we must both step outside our comfort zones. In fact, not just step. We must take a long running jump so that we land a long, long way away from normal existence and don’t ever look back. We do whatever – and I mean whatever – it takes to survive. Got that?’

  Peter bit his lip. ‘Got it,’ he said quietly.

  ‘You’re a good buddy, Peter – I mean, my best buddy. We’ll get through this together, OK?’

  ‘You bet, Beck. Thank you.’

  A flash of movement caught Beck’s eye. A sand beetle was picking its way towards the shade of the shelter. It was about three centimetres long, black fading to dusty grey. Like all beetles, it seemed to be slightly lost. It didn’t really know where it was going – just that it was going somewhere.

  Beck picked it up between two fingers and held it out to Peter, eyebrows raised.

  His friend looked at it without enthusiasm. ‘This will be a test to show I can do it, right?’

  He held out his cupped hands. Beck dropped the beetle into them. Peter looked at the insect unhappily, then closed his eyes and crammed it into his mouth.

  ‘Oh my god that is the most disgusting thing ever,’ he mumbled. He screwed up his face thoughtfully. ‘Mostly sand. A bit of old sock. Bits of . . . something. Salty.’

  ‘Salty? Excellent. We’ll be losing salt every time we sweat, which will be a lot. We’ll make sure we eat plenty of these.’