Tracks of the Tiger
Page 1
Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Also by Bear Crylls
Dedication
Mission Survival: Tracks of the Tiger
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
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Epub ISBN: 9781409096146
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TRACKS OF THE TIGER
A RED FOX BOOK 978 1 862 30481 9
First published in Great Britain by Red Fox, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books
A Random House Group Company
This edition published 2010
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Copyright © Bear Grylls, 2010
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ALSO BY BEAR GRYLLS
Mission Survival: Gold of the Gods
Mission Survival: Way of the Wolf
Mission Survival: Sands of the Scorpion
AND FOR OLDER READERS
Born Survivor
Great Outdoors Adventures
Facing the Frozen Ocean
Facing Up
To my brilliant godchildren: Hubie, Scarlett, Emmeline and Alfie. Here’s to some great adventures ahead!
CHAPTER ONE
The three volcanoes seemed to be moving steadily towards the rickety bus. They looked like a child’s drawing – perfect cones that rose up above the Indonesian jungle for hundreds of metres. Puffs of smoke rose from the top. One was far away on the horizon, one was slightly nearer, and one was so close you had to press your face to the swaying window to see all of it.
The bus tilted as its load of tourists crowded over to one side to peer out. Beck Granger had been sitting nearest the window and he felt himself being pushed against the glass.
From the plane the jungle had looked like a sea. Its waves were the endless canopy of leaves that rose and fell with the ground beneath it. Its spray was the mists that burst out of the saturated air when it could hold no more water. Instead of fish, it was home to countless reptiles, insects and mammals. In place of sharks, crocodiles patrolled its rivers, and tigers roamed in the dark depths beneath the trees. It stretched as far as the eye could see and covered most of the island of Sumatra.
Now they were down in the jungle’s heart. It was right outside the windows, rattling past at thirty miles an hour. A tangled mass of hundreds of square miles of virgin rainforest. And within it, thousands of different plant species all scrabbled for growing space. Each plant had only one objective, and that was to be slightly higher than the others so that it could reach the sky and soak up the sun’s rays. The searing heat and the humidity meant that they had all the energy and water they needed. Now all they had to do was grow.
The volcanoes had been hidden by the tangle of trees and undergrowth that crowded in on either side of the bumpy road. Then the bus drove through this clearing and they just appeared. The nearest was so close you couldn’t tell it was a volcano – it just looked like another mountain, until you looked more closely. The steep sides were covered in thick vegetation but wisps of smoke rose from hidden clefts in the rock. It looked like the kind of place dragons might be hiding. Beck smiled to himself at the thought, but then the smile faded.
He had visited this part of the world before. For a while he had lived with his parents in a village in Borneo. The native people had taught him how to survive in the jungle, how to live with the land rather than against it, how to find food and water and, most importantly, how to look after himself. But he had never been near an active volcano. That was something he didn’t know about, but he had naturally been intrigued.
Beck knew that if you were properly prepared, there was no reason you couldn’t survive . . . well, anywhere, really. But he also knew that if a volcano exploded in the wrong place, you were dead – end of story. Volcanoes were a force that humankind couldn’t control and probably never would. They looked magnificent from a distance, but Beck was quietly glad that this was as close as they were going to get.
Behind him, someone breathed in awe. ‘Good grief.’ Mr Grey, his friend Peter’s dad, was looking out of the window over Beck’s shoulder. ‘What a sight.’
‘Dad, we’ve been up Vesuvius.’ That was Peter in the seat beside Beck, practical and matter-of-fact.
‘Yes, but you don’t normally expect to be able to see three volcanoes together without even moving your head.’
The tour guide was saying much the same thing to the rest of the bus. He was a small, wiry Malay man with a big grin. The tourists listened avidly as he told them that a line of volcanic activity, known as the ‘Ring of Fire’, ran all around the Pacific Rim. It started in New Zealand, then ran up past Australia, through Southeast Asia, past Japan and China, then round and down past the west coasts of North and South America. Indonesia sat smack on the Ring and had over a hundred active volcanoes. Its collection included possibly the most famous of the lot, Krakatoa.
The guide continued, ‘Now, this gentleman on our left’ – he indicated the closest of the volcanoes – ‘would be Mount Lasa. He’s quite safe – hasn’t erupted at all recently. The Lasa National Park, where we are now, is named after him and he looks after us all. We will be passing around the base of the volcano and will arrive at the sanctuary in about an hour . . .’
Peter and his father sat down again. Beck settled back in his seat and closed his eyes. They had got up early to catch the bus. He would rest for the next hour, while the bus carried them away from the volcano and towards what he was really looking for
ward to.
‘Bohongit!’
‘Bless you, Dad,’ Peter said.
‘Ha, ha.’ Mr Grey was an older, taller version of Peter. Same fair hair (but receding), same lanky build, same glasses. It made Beck wonder if there had been a scientific breakthrough in human cloning about thirteen years ago. Mr Grey tapped the map. ‘I mean, the Bohongit Orang-utan Sanctuary, where we’re going tomorrow!’ They had been lounging by the side of the hotel pool in Medan, shaded from the equatorial sun by huge parasols. When Mr Grey sat down next to them he was wrestling with a map about the same size as him.
Peter was jiggling his baby sister, Hannah, on his lap. They were playing a game in which he would hand her a rattle. She would take it, and shake it, and maybe put it in her mouth. Then she would lean over and drop it. When it hit the ground she would look up at her brother with wide eyes that seemed to say, Wow, that’s amazing! And Peter would pick up the rattle and give it back to her so that the process could repeat itself. Hannah seemed certain that with enough patience she could catch gravity out.
As far as Beck was aware, none of the Grey family except Peter had ever been out of Europe before. Now they had decided to remedy that with a holiday in Indonesia. The Greys had invited him along out of the kindness of their hearts, and because Peter was his best friend at school, and because they had some strange idea that they owed Beck for their son’s life.
As far as Beck was concerned, he owed just as much to Peter in return.
The Greys had thrown themselves in at the deep end with a strange mixture of enthusiasm, careful planning (activities carefully timetabled for each day) and leaving things to luck (bringing a baby on a holiday like this in the first place). Beck could see where Peter got it from.
‘Where you’re going tomorrow,’ Peter’s mum corrected. She had a smile for everyone and everything. Her level, calm approach to life balanced out the enthusiasms of the men in the family. Beck had once made the mistake of thinking she was a bit of a pushover, until he and Peter got back from their adventure in the Sahara. Then there had been tears of joy that her son was safe, yes, but she had also made it quite clear what she thought of the way they had got into the trouble in the first place. They had recklessly followed some men they thought might be smugglers. Then they had recklessly managed to get trapped on a plane with them and an illegal cargo of diamonds . . . Peter’s mum had told them in no uncertain terms that ‘reckless’ was not to happen again.
Beck now knew she ruled the family with a rod of iron that she kept carefully out of sight. They all realized it was there, and that was what counted. She had no intention of letting them get into any more trouble, and Beck had no intention of getting into any either.
‘It’s a long trip for a baby,’ she explained. ‘Hannah and I will stay here and do some exploring. Won’t we, darling? Yes we will, yes we will . . .’
Hannah had cried for most of the plane journey here. In the last week Beck had learned more about babies than he’d ever thought possible, and he was pretty sure you were meant to keep them in the shade.
‘Is it just us going?’ Peter asked his father.
‘Er, no. There’s a tour organized through the hotel – what are you smiling at, Beck?’
‘Nothing!’ Beck assured him. ‘Nothing!’
But the truth was, it had suddenly struck him how strange it was to be doing something like this with a family. He was abroad on an actual, proper holiday, and the only purpose was fun and relaxation. No conferences to go to, no tribes to study, no environmental projects to examine. It was a strange concept – not something he had done much of in his nearly fourteen years of life.
Beck would never be surrounded by his own family because his family consisted of just Uncle Al. He was currently somewhere in the Russian steppes, interviewing nomadic tribal leaders. Beck’s parents had died very early in his life and they had always been too busy to produce any siblings for him. He remembered them always on the move, simultaneously working on at least two or three projects for the Green Force environmental action group. If they were alive, if Beck had a brother or sister, would they ever have been relaxing by the pool of a tourist hotel in Indonesia? Or taking organized tours to orang-utan sanctuaries? Beck doubted it. They would have made their own private visit. They would have arranged an action plan with the locals to help preserve the orang-utans’ habitat. They would have met with local politicians and worked to raise consciousness around the world. Just go to look? Never!
Beck loved the way he had been brought up. If he’d had a normal family, he wouldn’t have spent time with remote tribes in deserts and jungles around the world, and he wouldn’t have learned the things he knew about staying alive in the most extreme places. On the other hand, he could have maybe done without the escaping drug smugglers in South America, or the diamond smugglers in North Africa . . .
Beck was proud of the good work undertaken by Uncle Al and Green Force. There was nothing wrong with it. But there was also nothing to say you couldn’t have a relaxing holiday too!
‘We need to be up early,’ Mr Grey told the two boys. ‘The coach leaves at seven. And after the sanctuary, we’re going on to look at some fantastic ruins left over from the Sailendra dynasty.’
‘What did the Sailendra dynasty do?’ asked Peter.
‘No idea. Died, and left a lot of ruins . . .’
Ruins, eh? Beck thought.
The air that gusted through the bus was jungle air. It had the taste and smell of a billion tons of vegetation. In Medan, on the coast, the air smelled of salt from the sea and petrol from the traffic. But the jungle air lurked outside the city limits, ready to pounce on you like a tiger as soon as you left.
The road was potholed. Tarmac didn’t stand a chance. Plants constantly burst up out of it, pushing it aside, before being crushed to death by the traffic. The jungle was the life form that ruled this island. Beck had the feeling that even a large city like Medan could only really exist here because the jungle temporarily allowed it.
The bus was battered and dented too. Its springs had been crushed into submission a long time ago. The only air conditioning was the open windows, so there was a good through draught – but the air wasn’t cool. It was hot and sticky, and had hardly any cooling effect on your sweating body.
Every now and then the trees vanished on one side or the other and they passed through paddy fields, perfectly flat and a vivid green. Indonesian farm workers laboured here, bent double as they reached down to the ground. From a distance it looked like they were up to their knees in tall green grass. In fact, Beck knew, they were wading through muddy water. This was how rice was grown. The work was dirty and wet and back-breaking, but rice had been the staple diet for generations here.
A hand patted him on the shoulder.
‘Are you sure you’re not too hot, Beck?’
Mr Grey sat in the row behind them. There had been a minor clash of wills before leaving the hotel. Mr Grey’s thinking was: It’s hot, like summer, so the boys should wear T-shirts and shorts. Beck’s thinking was: It’s the jungle, and I know what that’s like, so I’m wearing long trousers and a long-sleeved shirt and I’m making sure Peter does too. The clothes were lightweight and well ventilated. They were also strong enough to provide protection against thorns and insect bites and anything else the jungle could throw at them. Not that Beck was expecting anything to be thrown at them, but you never knew.
Mrs Grey had been on Beck’s side. Her son was fair haired and fair skinned and never took well to bright sun. A couple of months ago, stranded in the Sahara, only Beck’s quick thinking had kept him from dying of sunstroke. So she was quite happy to go with Beck’s suggestion for what they should wear. Mr Grey had given in. But every ten minutes or so he still had to ask if the boys were too warm.
So Beck smiled politely again, and said, ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
The boys exchanged glances – Beck winked and Peter grinned. At least they could all agree about hats to keep the sun off,
and sensible footwear – shoes that were sturdy and tough. Everyone on the bus wore them – the tour guide had told them to. Peter’s dad might have preferred them to wear sandals, but if it came from an adult in authority, then it was all right . . .
Peter pulled his camera out for a last shot of Mount Lasa before it disappeared behind the trees again. Sometimes he seemed to treat his camera like another baby sister. He had even bought it a watertight carrying case for this trip, to protect it from the humid air.
Beck had to smile again when he saw it. That camera had got them into a whole host of trouble, back in the Sahara. It had been Peter’s determination to take some good shots that had got them trapped on that aeroplane in the first place.
Peter caught his eye and brandished the camera. ‘Ready for lots of pics of the monkey zoo!’
Beck laughed. ‘I don’t think they like being called monkeys,’ he told Peter with a grin, ‘and it’ll be much more than a zoo . . .’
CHAPTER TWO
‘Look,’ the guide whispered. ‘Down there . . . by the rocks . . .’
Twenty tourists held their breath.
The river was shallow and rocky, flowing over a gravel bed as wide as two roads. It was a soothing sound that blended in with the jungle noise of innumerable birds and animals and insects. On either side the rainforest formed ten-metre walls of trees and bush beneath an impenetrable canopy of leaves and branches. Tangles of vines and trunks were like vertical cables. It was difficult to say what was holding the tree canopy up and what was hanging down from it.
But on the far bank, something moved. A small figure wrapped in orange-brown fur crawled out from behind the rocks at the water’s edge. It looked mostly human with a bit of spider thrown in. A body the size of a small child and absurdly long arms and legs. The orang-utan had been washing itself in the shallows at the edge of the water.
The tourists let out their breaths again with a collective ‘Aaah . . .’
There was a whirring by Beck’s ear as Peter zoomed in with his camera.