Claws of the Crocodile

by Bear Grylls

  Beck had brought a book to read and music to listen to, but for the time being he sat back to feast his eyes on sandstone bluffs that rose out of the savannah like ancient castles, and landscape that was old when the dinosaurs were still around.

  Al had only taken a little persuading. He had looked politely doubtful, but he hadn’t said ‘no’.

  ‘Sometimes your travels take unexpected turns . . .’

  Beck had had all his arguments ready. They were in a First World country, he had pointed out. Yes, the coach would be travelling across some of the most inhospitable terrain on Earth, but the worst that could happen was that it broke down – in which case the driver would radio for help, and that would be that. A few hours and they would be rescued: no need to go walkabout to fetch help. And at the end of the journey was Broome, a modern town. Beck would be met by Brihony’s mother – he knew that her father was no longer living with them – who was someone Al knew and trusted.

  He felt guilty that he hadn’t told his uncle about Jim Rockslide. Then he told himself that, if he knew, Al would certainly want to come too and would then miss his award ceremony.

  Eventually Al had accepted that he was being overcautious. More importantly, he had generously paid for the ticket. And here was Beck on the Greyhound, on his way to find out who this Jim Rockslide was. The only surprise so far had been the colour of the Greyhound: it wasn’t grey, but bright red. That was the sort of surprise that Beck felt he could live with.

  Beck came awake with a start as the sound of the tyres changed. He was slouched against the window with his cap pulled over his eyes, and he pushed himself upright. The coach was pulling in to a roadside stop: a small shop and some toilets – and beyond that, just miles and miles and miles of Outback.

  Beck stepped down, stiff-legged, from the coach. The heat hit him like a sledgehammer as he left the air-conditioned interior. The passengers spread out slowly – some heading for the conveniences; some like Beck just stretching their legs. A few seats back from Beck, a family was travelling with a small toddler. The mother headed into the shop while the father supervised the little boy tottering around the car park. Beck headed for the edge of the tarmacked area, and stood gazing out at the wilderness. It was like the modern world just stopped at his feet. He could take a single step forward and enter a world that hadn’t changed for thousands of years.

  ‘Hey, look – roos!’

  He dimly heard the comment and glanced back. Sure enough, a small group of kangaroos had emerged from the tall grass at one end of the car park. Kangaroos liked the roads that humans had built. Water collected in the drains, which gave the animals something to drink, and encouraged thick grass for them to eat. Beck didn’t know enough about kangaroos to say what kind these were, but he knew their habits. They had scruffy brown fur and were about his height, with sleek, pointed heads and massive thighs.

  Some of Beck’s fellow passengers aimed their cameras and clicked. The kangaroos lifted their heads from grazing and looked at the humans like they were Martians, then went back to their eating. Beck smiled and looked away.

  He checked his watch. The coach would be leaving in five minutes. He ought to use the facilities himself before he got back on board, so he started to stroll towards the building.

  Suddenly he stopped in his tracks, stared, and then broke into a run. ‘Hey!’ he shouted. ‘Hey!’

  The father of the little boy was chatting to another passenger and had taken his eyes off him. The child was making a beeline straight for the smallest kangaroo, one hand held out. Beck knew exactly what he was thinking: Cuddly animal – want to stroke it.

  A larger kangaroo lifted its head suspiciously. Then it hopped towards the boy, raising itself up to its full height. The child kept coming. Beck’s feet pounded on the tarmac and he started to shout at the top of his voice, waving his hands in the hope that it might frighten the kangaroo off.

  But the animal raised its front legs and balanced on its massive rear feet. Beck grabbed hold of the little boy and whisked him away just as the kangaroo leaped into the air and kicked out with both rear feet. Beck felt the blow whistle past him, but the kangaroo missed. The little boy burst into tears as Beck carried him to a safe distance.

  The kangaroo obviously felt it had made its point and went back to its grazing.

  The father was now sprinting towards them. ‘What the . . .?’

  ‘They look cute but they’re dangerous.’ Beck put the boy down, and he promptly ran into his father’s arms and started howling. Beck pointed at the smaller kangaroo, then at the one that had attacked the boy. ‘That’s the joey, the baby, and that’s the mother. If you get between them, then the mother will attack. And a blow from those feet could rip a small kid right open.’

  The father looked like he had been about to accuse Beck of attacking the child himself, rather than saving his life, but Beck knew he was just in shock.

  ‘Well . . .’ he began, and then was distracted by the voice of his wife, who was hurrying across the car park towards them. Beck left it to him to explain how he had taken his eye off their child and almost got him killed.

  Welcome to Australia, he thought as he headed for the toilets, where appearances can be deceiving and even the cute can kill you.

  Chapter 4

  There was no coach terminal in Broome. The Greyhound simply drew up outside the Tourist Information Centre on the edge of town. Brihony was waiting, but when Beck staggered off the coach, he managed to look right through her. He had noticed the girl with the shoulder-length auburn hair, but had turned away because he was still expecting to see a little kid.

  But then he looked again. The girl had her hands on her hips and was tapping a foot. She craned her neck as she studied each passenger in turn, dismissing those who weren’t Beck with an impatient shake of the head.

  Then she noticed that he was looking at her, and he saw the realization dawn. She had been doing the same as him – looking for someone much younger.

  ‘Beck . . .?’

  ‘Brihony . . .?’

  And then they laughed, and it just felt right to give each other a hug.

  Brihony’s mother was waiting at the back of the crowd. Beck didn’t have any difficulty recognizing her, though he could have sworn she was taller when he last saw her. Dr Mia Stewart was like an older, more weathered version of Brihony. The hair was shorter and turning grey. The eyes and the smile were very similar.

  ‘Glad you could come, Beck. Welcome to Broome!’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said with feeling. He was mighty glad to have arrived.

  Beck had always found that the only thing he disliked about travelling was, well, the travelling. There had been more stops along the way, but fortunately they hadn’t met any more angry kangaroos. Every time they stopped he felt a little stiffer and his arms and legs took more persuading to get moving again. And the last twelve hours had been spent in darkness as the coach drove through the night, so there was no landscape to look at – just his own reflection in the windows. He had tried to sleep, but succeeded only briefly.

  ‘The car’s this way,’ Dr Stewart told him.

  The car was a station wagon parked by the kerb. Beck threw his bag into the back. Dr Stewart swung the door closed and he smiled at the sticker in the window. Next to the remains of a tent, a cartoon crocodile with a napkin around its neck was licking its lips. A couple of stick men were fleeing into the distance. Bright letters below the picture announced: DON’T SASS A SALTIE. Under that were the words: SALTWATER CROCODILE CONSERVATION CLUB.

  Dr Stewart saw Beck looking at it and laughed. ‘Brihony’s really getting into crocodile conservation.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Brihony said casually. ‘They’ve been here for millions of years, and I know all about respecting ancient, scaly people – I mean, animals.’

  Her mother pretended to clip her ear, and they got into the car. Beck sat in the back with Brihony as they drove down the long, wide streets. Beck had the feeling that the tow
n had just been plonked there, on a peninsula between the Indian Ocean on one side and Roebuck Bay on the other – a very thin layer of civilization laid down over a continent that barely noticed it. If you dug down a couple of centimetres, you would find native Australia again.

  ‘Did you have a good trip, Beck?’ Brihony’s mother asked.

  ‘I did, thanks, yes, Dr Stewart,’ he said politely. It felt a little awkward to call her that, but he knew she was an expert on Australian wildlife, and if someone has earned the right to be called ‘Doctor’, it’s usually best to stick to it.

  ‘Oh, please, call me Mia!’ she laughed. ‘I think you’re old enough. Ever been to Broome before?’

  ‘No, never.’ When he’d visited with his parents, they had stayed with the Jungun – they hadn’t got as far as Broome. Beck looked from mother to daughter and wondered whether it was possible that he or his dad had mentioned Jim Rockslide last time. Did the Stewarts know about him? If so, then maybe this was simply a silly joke and no mystery at all. And so he watched carefully for any kind of reaction as he added: ‘I had a friend who told me all about it, though. Jim Rockslide.’

  Neither of them looked like he had just spoiled their game. Mia was politely interested, but had clearly never heard of him.

  Brihony just laughed. ‘Good name.’

  ‘Does Jim live here?’ her mother asked.

  ‘No. And I’ve not seen him for years.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ No, Beck decided, neither Mia nor Brihony knew anything about Jim. ‘Anyway, I’ll take you home now – you can get a shower, have some breakfast, and then we’ll show you Broome.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said earnestly. ‘I’d really like to see it.’

  The message had said Follow the White Dragon. If he went about asking people about white dragons, then he would probably be locked up. Or he could try to find it for himself, and that meant having a look around.

  ‘You’re just in time for the festival,’ Brihony added.

  ‘What festival’s that?’

  ‘Shinju Matsuri. It’s a really big thing around here. It’ll be great.’

  A few hours later, Beck was bristling with impatience. He had come to Broome to find Jim Rockslide, not . . . go to the museum . . . walk on the beach . . . or even surf in the Indian Ocean . . . All those things were fun, but none of them helped him with his mission. There was no sign of a white dragon anywhere, and he really didn’t want to ask if anyone had seen such a thing.

  But he started to feel excited again as they strolled towards Broome’s Chinatown for the start of the big parade. Mia had dropped them off, arranging to pick them up an hour later. They heard music all around them. Crowds gathered, laughing and chatting. It was impossible to feel uninspired when so many people were just having a good time.

  ‘Shinju Matsuri means “Festival of the Pearl”,’ Brihony explained. She had to raise her voice to be heard. ‘It celebrates all the different cultures that have come together in this town.’

  ‘It sounds Japanese,’ Beck said.

  ‘It is. There was a big pearl-fishing industry here, which was started by Japanese divers. But it celebrates all the cultures. Like Chinese – see?’

  She pointed, and Beck’s eyes went wide. Above the heads of the crowd lining the street he saw a dancing dragon.

  It wasn’t white. It was red and gold and green, and held up by a dozen people. The head had a pair of flashing eyes, and gaping jaws. The body was long, winding from side to side like a snake. Beck had seen this kind of thing at festivals before.

  The dragon danced and swayed to the music, and he felt himself being caught up in the rhythm. After the dragon came floats and a marching band, then more floats and another dragon.

  Brihony was telling him more about the festival: how there would be a carnival of the sea on Cable Beach, and a dragon boat regatta out on the bay, and – and something about stairs going up to the moon . . .

  But suddenly he was no longer listening. Not to her; not to the music; not to the noise of the revelling crowd. Following the parade he’d seen another dragon. This one was smaller and much less gaudy than the ones that had gone before. It had all the usual tassels and decorations but they weren’t coloured. There were no golds, no reds, no yellows, no blacks.

  Everything was just white.

  Chapter 5

  Like all the others, the white dragon swayed and danced to the music. Beck couldn’t take his eyes off it. He had travelled over a thousand miles, not knowing what he was looking for, not even sure that it wasn’t some kind of stupid joke. But here was a white dragon. He almost expected it to stop in front of him, the dancers to take off their costume and tell him all about it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

  But the message had told him to follow the white dragon. That was easy enough, but how was he going to explain it to Brihony?

  Brihony solved the problem herself.

  ‘Hey, Beck, fancy a hotdog?’

  ‘Sure! Thanks!’ He had to shout to be heard. ‘I’ll wait here!’

  She smiled and said, ‘OK,’ and ducked into the crowd.

  Beck took a deep breath and darted left. He was already following the dragon.

  The parade meandered along. Beck was pushing through the people jostling him on all sides, but he was able to keep up with the dragon as it danced to and fro. He strained his eyes for some sort of clue as to what was going on – something about the dragon’s decorations, or maybe a glimpse of someone inside it. There was a hidden grille in the dragon’s throat that allowed the lead person inside its head to see out, but he couldn’t make out the figure. When his eyes met the dragon’s, they were just blank and painted.

  Then the dragon started to move away from him. To his surprise, Beck realized it was turning into a side street on the other side of the road.

  ‘Hey!’ he called. The dragon ignored him, and the parade carried on. The crowd on the other side parted to let the dragon through, and then closed up again. And now Beck was stranded with a wall of people and a moving parade between him and the thing he was after.

  He pushed his way through the onlookers on his side of the road, just as a marching band was passing by. Craning his neck and jumping as high as he could to see over their heads, he could just make out the tail end of the white dragon disappearing down the alley. Then the band was past and he hurried after it. He stumbled under the front feet of another dancing dragon, and the operator inside its head had to swerve to avoid him. Beck heard a very human, very irritated ‘Out of the way!’ in a broad Australian accent, but he had already picked himself up and was pushing through the crowd on the far side.

  The alleyway led away from the main street. Then, like so much of Broome, the town just stopped. The alley turned into a dirt track that crossed a stretch of scrub and disappeared amongst some trees. The white dragon was now just a pale shimmer in the gloom – and then it was gone. Beck broke into a run to try and catch up with it. The sounds of the parade – the music, the laughter, the chat – faded away behind him as he sprinted across the open ground. Then he was amongst the trees and saw a single light ahead of him. Thirty seconds later he was in a clearing; in front of him was a warehouse surrounded by an empty car park. The main doors were large enough to accommodate a truck, and a faded sign above them gave the name of a trading company that Beck guessed had probably closed down. But next to the big doors was a normal, person-sized door with a light above it, and it was ajar.

  ‘Hello . . .?’ he called softly. He sidled closer, then pushed the door open and peered round.

  Inside the warehouse was a big empty space. The edges were in shadow, but there was a pool of dim orange light in the centre of the floor, where the white dragon costume lay discarded on its side. Next to it stood an Aboriginal man wearing a T-shirt and jeans. He waved abruptly.

  ‘Come on in.’

  Beck stepped cautiously into the building, and a voice by his ear said: ‘Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

  He spun ro
und and leaped away, but the second man had already pushed the door closed. Beck’s heart pounded as he studied him. The stranger was another Aboriginal man. He had thick dark hair, skin the colour of mahogany, and eyes that sparkled with good humour. He wore jeans and a University of Melbourne sweatshirt.

  ‘Our lives would be in danger if anyone saw us talking. That’s all our lives. All three of us,’ he added.

  The man walked past Beck to join his colleague by the dragon costume. A nod of his head and a smile said that Beck should follow him. The smile was friendly despite his ominous choice of words.

  ‘Who are you people?’ Beck asked. His heart was still thumping, but less wildly now. He carefully hung back so that he could make a break for the door. Still, he told himself, he was probably in no danger. If they had wanted to harm him, the second man could have hit him on the head and he would never have known anything about it. And why go to all this trouble to lure an English boy into harm’s way?

  ‘Told you he wouldn’t remember,’ said the first man. He was shorter and stockier than his friend and his voice was less warm. If Beck had closed his eyes, he might have thought both men were Australians of European descent.

  ‘Believe it or not, we have met before,’ said the second man. ‘I’m Barega. The last time you were here, I worked with your parents as the go-between with the Jungun. Your dad and I had a beer together most evenings – and once I heard him telling you a story. About Jim Rockslide.’

  For a few seconds the years fell away and Beck was a little boy again. He was sitting with his father, listening to the latest exciting Jim Rockslide tale. His father loved the planet, and the Jim Rockslide stories were his way of getting his son interested in it too. The Hero Geologist had been invented when Beck was very small. Every time they were in a new country, his dad thought up new stories based on the countryside around them. He would illustrate them by pointing out different rocks – each millions of years old; each a different shape and colour. They showed what an amazing place planet Earth could be. That was what his father had cared about – a passion he had wanted to pass on to his son.