by JH Fletcher
Not a path, no sign of humanity at all. The only evidence of life was the grey-green foliage of the scattered trees.
As for the plane … Nothing.
The echo of his thoughts came back to him. Cancel the order for grass. If we don’t eat there’ll be that much less weight to carry.
Bravado, he thought now. His heart was grey with the idea of trying to walk out of such a place.
Cal turned and began to work his way back down the slope. It was harder even than it had been coming up; in no time the muscles of his thighs were telling him all about it.
Without boots, he thought, it would have been impossible, and wondered how Hennie was doing. Once again he crossed the watercourse, forced his way through the brush covering the red-stone ridge and saw, a hundred metres below, the pilot struggling up to meet him.
He raised his hand, but Hennie showed no sign of having seen him. Cal waited, watching the pilot’s slow progress. He came on, but barely. It was a quarter of an hour before he arrived. He was sucking air through his open mouth in great, noisy gasps as, earlier, Cal had watched him suck water.
‘I thought you’d have been back down by the creek by now.’
Beyond speech, Hennie did not answer. He half sat, half fell at Cal’s feet, a sack of lard spilling across the rocky slope.
Cal waited.
Eventually Hennie said, ‘No point …’
‘Why?’
‘I heard the plane. When it didn’t come back, I knew it must’ve missed us, so there was nothing for it but push on up here to join you …’ Bloodshot blue eyes stared up at Cal. ‘We’ll have to walk out. You know that, don’t you?’
‘I climbed as far as the ridge. It’s hellish country on the other side. Like the moon. I’m not sure we’ll be able to manage it.’
Hennie’s body might be collapsing, but his spirit burned as bright as ever.
‘Manage it? Of course we’ll blerry manage it. What choice have we got?’
Words were cheap. Cal shook his head dubiously. ‘I don’t see how …’
‘I’ll tell you how we’re going to do it,’ Hennie said. He fumbled in the breast pocket of his bush shirt, pulled out treasure.
‘Something me old dad taught me. Never go nowhere without a compass. So this is what we do, you see. We know more or less the direction we got to take to get us out, right?’
‘You’re the pilot,’ Cal said.
‘Damn right. First thing, we climb up to that ridge. From there we take a bearing on a peak in more or less the direction we want. We follow the bearing until we get there, take another one on the next place, walk to that. Over and over. Keep it up long enough, we’ll be out in no time.’
Which was all very well, Cal thought, if you hadn’t seen the country. If you didn’t know that to walk from point to point you had first to climb down into the depths and up again.
‘Some of those slopes are damn near vertical —’
‘Listen. It’ll be a doddle. You know that? Like a walk in the park. The Gammon Ranges National Park. That’s why it’s got the name, see?’
‘So we can stroll in it?’
‘Damn right.’
In one sense Hennie was right; it was the only way they would get out. Whether it would be possible was another story.
‘How’re your feet?’
‘Good for a thousand miles. Heh, it’s my blerry gut’s killing me, not my feet. Own fault; I always knew I should go on a diet.’
‘You’re on a diet now,’ Cal said. ‘Like it or not.’
‘Damn right. Think how fit we’ll be, time we gets out of here.’
Cal laughed. ‘It’s madness. I suppose you realise that?’
‘Mad?’ Hennie grinned back at him. ‘Hell, man, if we wasn’t mad we wouldn’t be here.’
‘Even so —’
‘Even so nothing. Listen, I’m telling you. We’ll stroll along, look at the scenery. When we’re tired we’ll take a rest. I’ll tell you stories of the old Suid Afrika, before you know it we’ll be eating steak and chips at Arkaroola.’
‘You tell me stories, I’ll be asleep before I know it.’
‘People walk best when they’re asleep. Ask me, I’m an expert. You ever hear of a bloke called van der Merwe?’
‘No.’
‘Great South African hero. Thickest thing on legs. I tell you stories about him, you’ll die laughing.’
‘As good a way as any, I suppose.’
So they chatted and joked to heal the hurt of the plane having missed them and their apprehension at what was to come, which they both knew would be no joking matter at all.
At length Hennie struggled to his feet. Even that small effort made him puff, but he was grinning, despite all. He punched Cal lightly on the shoulder. ‘Best get on with it, heh? I’d hate to waste away altogether.’
It took them an hour to gain the ridge. Long before they reached it, there was no more breath for jokes. They rested on the summit. Later Hennie took fresh bearings with his compass, and they began to clamber down into the gorge below.
It went better than Cal had dared hope.
As they headed north-east down the slope, the sun was hidden almost at once by the ridge they had just left. Down they went into the shadows. Soon the ridges both in front and behind them were high above their heads. Two hours after they had set out, with darkness beginning to fall, they reached the bottom of the gorge.
There were some tea-trees along what was obviously a watercourse, although there was no sign of water now. On the far side of the gorge, the slope was patterned with isolated native pines seemingly growing directly out of rock that now, in the shadows, glowed with a sombre red fire. Above and beyond them, the ochre cliffs were darkening to purple as the daylight seeped away.
‘No water,’ Cal said.
Water was the one essential commodity. He could tell himself they could manage without anything else, could almost believe it, but water they had to have. He had drunk his fill before setting out, since then had swallowed only the three disciplined mouthfuls when he had reached the ridge for the first time. That was all, yet the bottle felt much lighter than it had at the start. As for Hennie … Judging by the rate he’d been drinking, his bottle must be half empty by now.
‘Don’t be too sure there’s no water. These ranges are full of surprises.’
Hennie seemed much stronger after their downhill journey but, in the back of Cal’s mind, the reverse slope of the gorge still loomed, formidably.
‘I’d noticed,’ he said, thinking of the crash.
‘Good surprises,’ Hennie insisted. ‘They say there’s no end of water if you know where to find it.’
Which was the point, of course.
‘Listen,’ Hennie said. ‘You wait here. Take the weight off your feet. I’ll go and have a look-see, check out if there’s any water around here.’
And began to work his way cheerfully along the creek bed.
It was hard to imagine a greater contrast: Hennie as he was now and the half-crippled man who had barely survived the climb. Of course it was early days yet. They would be doing a lot more climbing before they were through. Even if they found water, Cal couldn’t help wondering how they would manage without food.
His body cried out for rest, but there was still one more thing that had to be done before it got too dark to see. He left Hennie to his water hunt and crossed the dried-up watercourse, hopping precariously over boulders as shiny as glass. When he reached the far side, he forced his way back up the gorge, looking for a way out. In the morning they had to go on, and to climb the cliff that faced them was impossible. There had to be a way around; he could not bring himself to imagine what it might mean if there were not.
Yet the unforgiving cliff ran without a break; indeed, the higher he climbed, the steeper it grew. It was like looking for a way through Ayers Rock. Uluru, he corrected himself, and grinned, feeling his lips chapped and sore. Let us build a monument to political correctness in the middle of the Gamm
on Ranges, he thought. Never mind what you call it. The whole eastern wall of the gorge was a bloody great rock; there didn’t seem any way of getting around it.
He looked back. No sign of Hennie. Let’s hope he’s having better luck.
He had certainly come to life over the downhill stage. It was a huge relief. By the time they had reached the ridge, Cal had been wondering what he would have to do about him. Hennie had looked close to collapse. To abandon him would be unthinkable, yet to carry him would be impossible.
The stark options — to go, to stay — had cast a dark shadow over his mind. Now, if only for the moment, he need worry about it no longer.
Hell, he thought, if he keeps this up, he’ll be carrying me before we’re through.
It was nonsense, of course. By morning all the old doubts and problems would have re-emerged but, for now, it was sufficient not to have to think about them at all. I shall find a gully leading uphill in the direction we want to go, he told himself. It will be smooth, with patches of grass here and there so that we can dine on grass, after all, if that is what we want to do. The way will be easy, not too steep, with positively no huge boulders to get around. We shall stroll along until we reach the summit, and then we shall see the planes looking for us.
It was a nice thought. As much nonsense as the rest, of course, but he did not want to know about that.
In the meantime the rock face continued as before, straight and harsh and unclimbable, and Cal knew that if they could not find a way out, their confidence would burst like a ruptured balloon, their courage would whistle away, they would die. Because to go back the way they had come, all the way up and then all the way down again, to start all over from the beginning with nothing in their stomachs but bile, would be impossible. Not physically, perhaps, but psychologically it would be out of the question. Even to think about it turned his courage to soup. There had to be a way; had to be.
He pushed on, turned yet another corner and there it was. Facing him was the gully that he had been seeking.
It was not in the least as he had told himself it would be. It was steep and boulder-choked, and there was not a blade of grass to be seen. It was very steep and, at least at the beginning, headed south-east, a long way from the direction they wanted. None of that mattered. It was a way out, it re-opened the door to hope, and he was delighted to see it.
Delighted was not the right word, Cal thought. Delight was not a feature of their lives at the moment. Pleased and relieved, yes. Neither was quite as sensational as delight, but would do. Would do very well, in the circumstances.
He went quickly back down the gorge to the place he had left Hennie. The pilot was there before him, his face one big grin.
‘I told you …’
And held up a bottle brimming with water.
‘A kilometre down the gorge,’ he explained. ‘A ledge of rock, slap against the face of the cliff. This side of it there’s a pool where the ledge has trapped the water.’
‘Is it any good?’
‘Sweet as a nut. Deep, too. Deep enough to swim.’
It all sounded delightful. That word again, Cal thought, but this time it seemed the right one.
‘What are we waiting for, then?’
He followed Hennie as, proudly, the pilot showed him the way. He had something to be proud about, Cal thought. They both had. Hennie had found water, he had found a way out of the gorge. Hope had returned to their lives. Delightful, indeed, if only for the moment.
The water was indeed there. They stripped off and got into the little pool. Around them the rocks were a mixture of purple and russet and umber, with traces here and there of madder and cinnabar. The silky cool water was dark and shining, almost black. The tap roots of plants extended across the face of the rock into the water; here and there upon the cliffs above them a number of plants spread emerald leaves.
It was paradise.
Eventually they got out, used their shirts to dry themselves, struggled back into their clothes. Hennie was cursing softly under his breath.
‘What’s up?’
‘I think I’ll leave my shoes until the morning.’
Cal looked at Hennie’s feet, saw ruin. The skin was broken in a dozen places, blood oozed between toes as fat as apricots. To Cal it was miraculous that he was able to put his feet on the ground at all. All that way, he thought. Up that damn gorge to the ridge and now down this side and never gave a hint of what he must have been feeling. And I never even thought to ask.
‘How you going to manage?’ he asked.
Hennie threw him a larrikin grin. ‘Tell you tomorrow.’ Saw Cal’s sober face and laughed. ‘Don’t you fret, my mate. I’ll be hokay.’
Between the high rock walls it was almost dark; they decided to stay where they were for the night.
‘Pity we can’t make a fire,’ Hennie said. ‘Cheer the place up a bit.’
‘How did the blacks manage?’ Cal wondered.
‘I heard they rubbed sticks together.’
‘Tried it?’
‘Once.’
‘Did it work?’
‘No.’
That would be right, Cal thought. We’ve grown so far from our roots that we can no longer survive without our matches, our take-away stores, our television sets. Yet our ancestors, too, must once have kindled fire in the wilderness. We’ve learned other things, of course, that on balance are much more knowledgeable — which is not to say wiser — but it’s a pity we’ve forgotten so much as well. Especially now. Hennie’s right; a fire would have been good.
They made themselves as comfortable as they could, which was not very comfortable at all. After the exertions of the day, Cal had thought he would go to sleep at once, but found himself wide awake, conscious of a dozen pieces of rock digging holes in him. After the day’s blazing heat, it was cold. He huddled as close into himself as he could; to take his mind off discomfort, he tried to focus on other things.
All his sketches, his notes, had gone up in the fire. It was a nuisance, but no more than that. His brain was filled with ideas as hard and bright as Ayers Rock itself. When they got out, it would not be a problem to get them down on paper again. When we get out, he told himself. I like that. When sounds so much better than if.
Let me think about what I shall do when we get out. Two things mattered, each as important as the other. The work and Kathryn.
The work was easy. His head was clear now, all the cogs and wheels working. He would get down to it straight away, would capture on paper every one of the things he had seen in the last three weeks. Including the crash, he thought. The burning helicopter and the cliff down which it had fallen, the creek with the rocks and tufts of grass here and there, the patch of white sand beside it. How I wish I had some white sand here now, he thought, but knew he had no reason to complain; their circumstances were almost miraculously better than he would have dared imagine.
Apart from Hennie’s feet, he thought. There is a huge problem. It won’t have gone away by morning, either. It is very bad and will get much worse. It might even end up killing the pair of us, if I allow it.
Once again, firmly, he put away any thought of what he might have to do if Hennie were unable to walk in the morning. Instead, he thought of the pool of secret water that Hennie had found. It might be the means of saving their lives. Not simply the water itself, but the idea of water, the belief that there was water to be found even in these arid hills. That was very important. They had to have faith. Believe in themselves and they might somehow manage to survive, although it would certainly not be easy. Lose confidence and they would die.
He remembered reading of a sailing ship that had sunk in the Atlantic. The weather had been calm, the sea warm, there were no sharks. There were enough life rafts and jackets, yet almost the entire crew had died because they’d had no faith in their ability to stay alive.
Let us learn from that, he thought. Let us take this one step at a time. Never mind the nature of the terrain. Let us believe in ourselv
es and the Ranges’ hidden treasures of water. As long as we continue to hope, we shall make it.
We’ll be damn hungry by the end of it, he thought. The plunge in the pool had refreshed him, but had also reminded him how hungry he was. Not surprising. Now it was forty hours without eating. Almost two full days. Lack of food would be bound to weaken them, eventually. His stomach cramped painfully at the thought. He turned, trying to find a more comfortable position, knowing that hunger and its implications were two more things he could not permit himself to think about.
Once again the long night’s vigil. Kathryn lay in her room, watching, listening, feeling. For minutes at a time thought she could no longer hear him, that he and everything he represented had gone from her into the dark.
It was hot. She lay naked on her back upon the bed, a sheet covering her to the waist. She needed sleep but could not, would not. Instead, she watched her thoughts as they trod their weary path through her brain.
My mother thinks I’m a fool to turn my back on what she calls security, yet some forms of security do not depend on money. With Cal I shall be with the one man who can offer me fulfilment.
I know he may be so involved in his work that I shall exist only on the edge of his awareness, but I am willing to risk that. I know that, after being his companion during all the good and bad years of our youth, I may have to face old age with memory my only companion. I am willing to risk even that. But I never bargained on this, the not-knowing. Dear God, what a terrible thing it is.
She listened again, desperately, heard only the beating of her own heart.
He is gone.
Would not permit herself to believe it. Because in that case the void was bottomless. She thought, I must go to him, to the places he showed me. His spirit will be strongest there.
Suddenly it was of vital importance that she should get there as quickly as possible. Now. She looked at her watch. Four o’clock. Was at once out of bed, chucking on clothes, grabbing a bag which she stuffed with things she would need. She scribbled a note, left it propped on the kitchen table, went out to her car. She would phone the uni when she got there, make some excuse. For the moment she, who had always been responsible, cared nothing for that.