by Andy Lucas
The first hints of daylight were very subdued beneath the near total cover of a canopy fanning out high above their heads. With the increase in still and flowing water, they were soon joined by swarms of insects that fell upon the intruders looking for an easy meal of fresh blood.
Apart from the biting insects, the humidity within the forest quickly became overpowering as the fog of vapour grew ever thicker with the rising temperature, swirling off the ground to shroud them in an eerie white blanket. Slowing his speed and peering through murk as hard as his eyes would strain, visibility dropped to barely a few feet.
‘A forest like this,’ began Ruby suddenly, ‘has four or five distinct layers; I’d say four on average. At the lowest point you get the forest floor, with bare earth, ground roots systems and low growing herbs. The second level up contains juvenile trees and giant ferns. This can be anything up to ten feet off the ground. The third is the main canopy, reaching up between thirty and fifty metre, depending on where you are. This is the main level but there can be a fourth level of flowering deciduous and emergent trees that sprout up above the main body of the canopy.’
‘I didn’t know that,’ Cosmos muttered over the airwaves.
‘But the canopy is where all the action is,’ she went on enthusiastically. ‘That’s where most of the growth goes on and the animals live. The forest floor is almost dead by comparison, with just creepers and aerial roots to hack our way through.’
‘You know your stuff,’ Pace replied. ‘Sorry, but I need to focus now so could we continue this a little later?’ A little offended, but not too much, Ruby ended the lesson and watched the man’s broad back moving with assured strength in front of her eyes. She allowed herself a moment to imagine him naked, then shook the image from her head and replaced it with one of Sasha. She’d always preferred women but had been known to occasionally sample a man when she came across an interesting one. Soothed with another forced image of her girlfriend, she walked on.
After they had gone a couple of miles, Ruby offered to take over the lead so he handed her the machete and slipped into line behind her. The camera in his hand had filmed little of use yet, except swathes of mocking fog, so he put it away.
Ruby walked confidently in the lightening gloom and he noticed how gracefully she moved. It was easy to imagine her deftly shinning up a sheer cliff-face or competing in a demanding international triathlon. Her frame was small and slender but she was surprisingly curvy at the hip now that he had little else to look at and it was not the most unpleasant thing, he thought, to be moving behind such femininity.
A few minutes later, a cry sounded from the back of the line of marchers. Hammond had taken a nasty spill over an exposed root and twisted his ankle.
‘At least it wasn’t a snake,’ he groaned, his pride feeling more hurt than his ankle. Attia checked it over and pronounced it fit to walk on but five minutes were lost strapping it up before they could continue moving.
Pace’s wrist alarm beeped only ten minutes later, telling him that it was time for the main rest of the first twenty-four hour cycle. All but Hammond then worked together to set up the shelter. The accountant rested his foot while Pace secretly filmed him looking thoroughly miserable.
It would make a powerful statement about personal suffering in the final edit, he decided.
Fortunately, none of them had any idea, at that moment, of exactly how much suffering was coming their way. The jungle would have seemed a great deal more frightening if they had.
16
Three and a half hours in the middle of the damp, dingy jungle, that was the duration of the sleep break. Unless he was strapped in the pilot’s seat of a helicopter cockpit, Pace had never been given to real clarity of thought, instead his mind tended to flit from subject to subject like a deranged butterfly. Amongst the ancient trees, though, it was different. There were no pressing matters to attend to other than getting through the race. The rest of the world ceased to exist for him, except the link provided by the all-singing, all-dancing transmitter.
After eating a cold meal of dried fruit, salted crackers and cooked meat sticks (in foil wrapping) washed down with another litre of fruit drink, every person collapsed into the shelter and did the best they could to get comfortable. Somehow they all fitted together but the smell of unwashed, stinking bodies quickly stagnated the air inside
Before settling down to sleep, Pace checked in with base. McEntire wasn’t there but O’Toole, one of his associates, was. With nothing really to report, Pace cut the call short and forced himself to take a few shots outside with the camera. He set it to normal mode and used his torch to lift the dull daylight in his immediate vicinity.
He hoped he was creating some atmospheric shots but was too tired to really care if they were any good or not. His wrinkled nose protested at the foul smell on re-entering the shelter but he squashed down with the others and soon dropped off to sleep.
For his melodramatic part, he awoke feeling near to death. As he tried to move, tired muscles shrieked their protest and pain was etched onto his face. He’d awoken to find himself curled up tightly with Ruby; their faces barely inches apart and her soft breath on his cheek. In any romance novel it would have been described as sweet breath but nobody had cleaned their teeth for a day and it smelt as sour as his own mouth tasted. Her eyes flickered open and she sat herself up. Unlike his grimace, she immediately broke into a broad grin.
‘Morning,’ she breezed. Strictly speaking it was nearly ten in the morning. ‘Feeling it, I see.’
‘You tell me I’m the only one and I’ll shoot myself,’ he countered testily. Pain plucked at each vertebra of his bent spine with sharp hooks as he straightened, his movements mirroring the agility of a geriatric sloth.
‘There is a cure. Outside everybody!’ she commanded. ‘We need to shake ourselves down.’ Groans of displeasure started to rumble around the shelter but she wasn’t standing for any of it. ‘Besides, I can’t stand the stink in here. Come on!’
Outside, the surrounding jungle seemed brighter than before. The fog of water vapour had finally evaporated and their eyes were still accustomed to low light through sleep. They clearly spotted the patrolling swarms of blood-sucking insects waiting to dive-bomb some prey. Rain still fell steadily.
They had also awoken to anything but a silent rain forest. The air was alive with the shrill chatter of birds, and the grunts and calls of mammals, echoing all around them but mainly coming down from above their heads. As Pace glanced above him, he studied one of the small breaks in the high canopy where the rain fell through. Through this tiniest of natural windows, he saw only the washed out drudgery of heavy rain clouds. Attia had been right next to him a minute earlier but when he turned to speak to him, the man had vanished. He mentioned it but nobody had seen him leave.
‘Probably gone to see to his business,’ suggested Cosmos wisely. ‘I know I have to.’
‘Nobody should leave the camp without telling someone else,’ said Ruby firmly. ‘It’s a rule we have for everyone’s safety. He knows it.’
Pace checked their time. ‘We have to get packed up and be on our way in ten minutes so whatever anyone needs to do, do it now. We must stick within the time rules or our race will be over.’ He volunteered to help Hammond deflate the shelter while everyone else discreetly disappeared into the jungle to answer various calls of nature. Pace took himself off into the nearby foliage and returned from his own minute of relief to a sight that left him gaping, open-mouthed with surprise.
In the space of time he’d been gone, everyone had shed their clothing and selected a natural shower to stand beneath, some doubling up. It looked like a nudists’ convention, as his comrades hurriedly soaped their bodies and revelled in a sensation of freshness as warm rainwater rinsed away sweat and temporarily soothed the irritation from multiple insect bites. Attia had returned from his own mystery tour and was showering with the rest of them. He spotted Pace and waved towards a small, unoccupied gusher.
With only five minutes remaining before they had to leave, Pace shook off his surprise and stripped off as fast as he could. Cosmos threw him a bar of soap, which he caught deftly, and soon stood beneath his own hole in the canopy, allowing the rain to soak his skin before soaping his body like mad.
More conscious of the dwindling time than of showering in front of everyone, he couldn’t help but admire Ruby’s toned, pert body. Shimmering wetly in the tropical heat, her skin gleamed pure ivory. She caught his gaze and smiled. The thoughts that sprang to mind at seeing the curve of her breasts, her large excited nipples and the neatly trimmed triangle nestled between her legs immediately wracked him with guilt. He turned away and concentrated on getting clean.
‘How long?’ called out Ruby, addressing his back and returning the secret glance of admiration as it wandered up and down his muscular frame. She'd already stolen a glance at his front and a warm glow still stirred in the pit of her belly at what she had seen.
‘About four minutes, that’s all,’ he replied without turning.
‘I’m done anyway,’ said Hammond. ‘Let’s get cracking.’
‘One more minute,’ protested Attia.
‘Your fault for being late,’ Ruby shot him down good-naturedly. ‘Let’s hurry this up.’
Pace finished rinsing away his own dirt and felt a hundred times better for it, despite having to put damp, dirty clothing back on. They all carried a couple of spare outfits but there were many days of the race ahead of them so they made do.
Hammond and Cosmos checked they hadn’t left anything behind and Team Two made it back on the trail with barely five seconds to spare. Ruby took up the lead where she’d left off, having swiftly consulted the map card again. Confident, especially now the track was clearly visible, she strode with purpose, determined to make up some time on Bailey’s team.
The target waterway lay about eight or nine kilometres further inside and the track supposedly led all the way there. The going remained soft, on a mixture of red mud and brown leaf litter. No one wanted to be in the forest depths when night fell again so they naturally picked up speed. Pace took position at the very rear this time and shot some film of anything interesting they passed, which wasn’t much. Ruby’s shapely hips no longer filled his eyes; Cosmos walked in front of him and he was just too massive to see around.
Ruby kept them to the tiny jungle track as best she could. She kept up a running commentary over their headsets as she moved, warning each of them to any danger. As leader she also had the honour of checking the edges of the track for deadly snakes, all too easily mistaken for forest roots. Occasionally they were forced to stop when the trail vanished in a clearing or cluster of thick roots, but a quick scout around and they soon picked it up again. Tell-tale boot prints often gave the best clue, thanks again to Bailey’s crew.
Conversation over the radio headsets was generally light because nobody could afford the luxury of allowing their thoughts to wander as they moved along the winding trail. Hammond had already proved they were vulnerable to accident.
The air in Pace’s nostrils remained steeped with the scent of the jungle; earthy, strangely rich, interspersed by sickly decay wafting through the near colourless murk like the ebb and flow of an invisible river. At times sweetness would reach out to tickle his senses and his mind’s eye would be positive the flowers giving off such wonderful scents would be brilliantly coloured; probably orchids. He did see some flowers, several as large as his head, but they were high up above him and the grey-green spectrum of light that managed to penetrate below the canopy painted them all with a drab brush. He was adamant the colours would have been vibrant under direct sunlight.
Seven hours of heavy slog later finally brought Attia to call out for them to stop. They’d reached the target. Relieved just to be able to stop, team members sank to their knees on a muddy bank gratefully. Any sense of freshness after their showers was a distant memory.
As usual, Pace found himself slicked with sweat and his chest rose and fell in ragged, laboured gasps from the sheer effort of the trek.
He thought for a moment that he felt some hints of pain around the site of his gunshot wound but the signals from his body were not clear so he forced the thought from his mind.
Suddenly, an explosion of rustling erupted from deep within the foliage to his left, perhaps as close as twenty feet away. A squeal of terror, a lengthy snarl-cum-roar, shrieks of agony and then abrupt silence, broken only by the agitated ripples of startled birds and frightened monkeys from high in the treetops. It was doubtless a jaguar and it sounded too close for comfort but common sense told him they would be safe during daylight. The mood switched immediately from one of exhausted apathy to alert tension.
‘At least somebody’s having dinner,’ remarked Attia lightly.
‘Yes, but something’s being had for dinner,’ added Cosmos.
‘Everyone just sit and wait,’ said Ruby, trying to sound braver than she felt. She shivered, despite the heat, at the thought of razor-sharp teeth tearing living flesh so close by.
‘The beast has its food, so it will ignore us,’ soothed the giant Kenyan. ‘There is nothing to fear, I promise.’
So they sat, or knelt, and waited quietly. Soon after, they heard the distinct sound of something being dragged bodily through the undergrowth, slowly receding into silence.
‘How about getting started on this challenge? Then we can all sit down and eat something ourselves. Frankly, I’m jealous.’ Hammond’s grin was infectious and broke the moment. Suddenly everyone was up again and raring to get on with the task.
‘Let’s hope dinner is satisfying,’ snorted Attia lightly, ‘or he may come looking for dessert.’
‘Biggest person makes the noble sacrifice. Cosmos, my friend, it was nice knowing you.’ Hammond’s quick wit started the large Kenyan laughing and they all soon joined in, allowing the familiar sound to echo over the riverbank they now found themselves on, lifting away all traces of solemnity.
Race officials couldn’t monitor the challenges so there were no faces to greet their arrival. The challenge area was deserted, with no sign of Bailey’s team save for a multitude of footprints smearing and pitting the exposed mud of the riverbank. The prints were fresh and not yet obscured by the renewed drizzle so Bailey could only be a matter of an hour or two ahead of them. Obviously the challenge was achievable because Bailey’s team had already been there, overcome it, and moved on.
The water marked by X was one of the wide tributaries that criss-crossed the basin as they sought out the main channel. The banks were rocky, the dark brown stone slicked with a green sheath of algae and moss. It was a respectable river in its own right. It looked to be about thirty feet wide and the dark brown water hid any inhabitants as well as the depth. Across on the other side of the river, a stump of dead log rose from the water’s edge. Perched on the log, revelling in the light rain spilling down through the thin tear in the canopy above the river’s course, sat two large turtles.
Hammond identified them as yellow-spotted side-neck turtles. They were each the size of a large plate and paid no attention to the intruders. Insects buzzed around their eyes, probably feeding off the eyeball fluid, but they just sat still and relaxed.
A gorgeous blue and yellow kingfisher suddenly darted across from a tree on the other side and plunged into the water, exploding back out a moment later with a small fish flapping furiously in its beak. Although the humans couldn’t see them, a pair of marmosets also eyed them from the safety of the high canopy, munching on the leaves of a nearby cecropia tree as they watched the evening’s entertainment begin to unfold.
Pinned to a nearby trunk was a large, laminated instruction poster, in English. Cosmos clicked on his torch to light up the poster more clearly but even his strong hand wavered slightly with excitement, sending the beam skittering around the edges of the poster. It read:
Your first challenge is to cross the river at the point marked. All competitors must cross to the far side, where
each must collect a marker card in their own name. Each competitor must then cross back again, handing the marker to the team leader. When all competitors have completed the challenge the team must return to the main highway via the secondary trail marked on your map cards. Competitors may not collect markers for others. Please note - the water in this area may contain dangerous creatures so the challenge area has been netted.
Sure enough, an area some ten feet wide had been netted, bank-to-bank, although the net sat barely six inches above the water. Pace was not convinced that the weight of any of them wouldn’t end up dunking both competitor and net below the surface. The rules came next.
Care must be taken. There are ten points allocated to the challenge; two points for each personal marker retrieved. One point will also be deducted for any competitor who falls into the net. The deduction system applies to both the outward and return crossing. Equipment has been provided for your team. Take only the bag marked for your team and remove the items from the area upon completion of the challenge.
‘So, if all of us fall into the net, there and back, we get no points at all, even if we retrieve our own markers?’ Pace voiced the rhetorical question. ‘But at least there is a net, I suppose we should be grateful.’ He eyed the gloomy water suspiciously, wondering what horrors might lurk beneath its less than benign surface.
‘The Amazon is teeming with things that bite, sting and crush. Perhaps they could have been a little more specific,’ Attia suggested lightly.
‘I knew a young lady once who lived in Bond street and she was as dangerous a creature as you’re ever likely to find anywhere in the world,’ quipped Hammond in reply.
‘Does it matter?’ Pace said quickly. ‘Let’s just dig out the bag and have a go at the challenge. The longer we wait, the further Bailey will forge ahead of us.’
Suddenly energised and more comfortable with his surroundings, Pace practically bounded from tree to tree until he located two large duffel bags, propped between large buttress roots nearby. They opened one marked for their team and examined its contents thoroughly, spilling them out on the slippery, print-slicked bank. There were several lengths of rope and an array of varying sizes of foot and handspike. There was also a reel of strong nylon safety line.