Return to the Jungle

by Bear Grylls

  During all the shouting, he knew that Buldeo and Girish would be snatching at their boots to get ready to give chase.

  It was with a deep sense of glee that Mak heard a piercing scream as one of the men thrust his foot into his boot.

  Buldeo had toppled backwards, into Girish, who was also howling in pain. Both men rolled into the fire, casting embers everywhere.

  The last thing Mak saw was the men rolling in the stream to put out the flames that singed their clothes, while at the same time clawing at their boots with increasingly deranged screams.

  Then the men were lost in the darkness, their hollering fading away. And Mak felt a surge of pride that he had just saved his friends . . .

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  There was only so far they could run in the dead of night. Mak decided they should stop when they reached a wide but shallow river. His torch was beginning to die and he knew that the risk of getting hopelessly lost almost outweighed Buldeo and Girish catching up with them.

  Hathi stood in the water drinking deeply as Diya and Mak sat on a large boulder and stared at the stars overhead.

  ‘Thank you for saving me. Us, I mean,’ said Diya.

  ‘Never leave a man behind.’ Mak grinned. ‘Or a girl or an elephant. Especially not a friend.’

  They both closed their eyes, chatting about anything but the horrors of the giant snake and their capture . . . and before they knew it, they were fast asleep.

  Mak woke with a start, annoyed that he’d fallen asleep. The faint dawn light made the landscape appear dusty. He was relieved to see there was no sign of anybody else. Hathi was reaching as high as he could to pull tender leaves from a tree, while Diya was already awake and soaking her ankle in the cold running water.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, lifting her foot for inspection. The cold had helped the swelling go down, but it was still badly bruised.

  ‘You should have woken me,’ said Mak, stretching. He slid down from the boulder to join her.

  ‘Why? I think you did enough last night to earn a little sleep. Besides, I kept busy by making myself a crutch.’ She picked up a Y-shaped branch, which she had shaped with the machete to be the right size. ‘And breakfast.’

  Mak’s face broke into a grin as she held up a pair of fish, using her fingers to hook them under the gills. ‘How did you do that?’

  ‘I was born and raised here,’ she reminded him. ‘You don’t grow up in the jungle without learning a thing or two.’

  Mak made a small fire, lighting it with his last waterproof match, while Diya used the penknife to delicately cut the fish open and gut it. Mak remembered when that kind of action would have made him feel squeamish, but since he’d been forced to eat raw meat in the wild, that revulsion had disappeared. Instead, he watched hungrily, appreciating her skill.

  They were picking the last morsels of flesh from the fish spines when Mak decided he had put off the inevitable for long enough. He took the satellite phone out and they both stared at it. The broad banks of the river gave them a good enough view of Spiny Ridge. They could see the nape of the valley where, from the air at least, it tapered into a V. The very place they hoped to intercept Hathi’s herd.

  ‘You have to call her,’ said Diya gently. She indicated above them. ‘And you will get the best reception here.’

  It had been two days since he’d convinced his sister they were birdwatching close to base camp. It would certainly have been noticed that he and Diya were missing by now. He’d faced wolves, leopards, killer monkeys, poachers, madmen and giant snakes in this jungle, but his hands were trembling at the thought of speaking to his sister or his parents. He thumbed the power on. The screen illuminated, showing only one bar of battery remaining. His throat went dry as he dialled Anula’s number.

  She answered it almost immediately. ‘Mak?’

  ‘Hey, sis—’

  ‘Where the heck are you?’ She sounded panicky.

  ‘With Diya—’

  ‘I know you’re with her. Everybody is going crazy. I covered for you for the first day and night, but since then Mum and Dad and everyone else here have been sick with worry. I had to tell them.’ She paused to catch her breath. ‘We were beginning to fear the worst. I mean, we hadn’t heard anything from you. Where exactly are you?’

  Mak hesitated. He’d never meant to put his sister in such a difficult position. He felt guilty.

  ‘I’m sorry, sis. I love you. We’re OK.’ He paused. ‘We’re in the jungle. I mean . . . quite a long way in.’ He heard the harsh intake of breath on the end of the line. He talked faster so she couldn’t get a word in edgeways. ‘I don’t have much battery life left on this phone and we desperately need your help. We rescued an elephant, a baby, from the village and are bringing him back to the herd. The same herd Anil is monitoring. We’re very close to them now, but I need you to get on the drone and find out exactly where they are.’

  The silence on the line forced him to check the phone hadn’t died. Then Anula spoke again. She sounded out of breath.

  ‘I heard about that in the village. Everybody thought it had escaped on its own.’

  ‘Anula, I need that drone—’

  There was silence except for the muffled sound of running footsteps.

  The battery icon was now blinking in warning.

  Then he heard the clack of a keyboard as Anula accessed the drone.

  ‘Right, I see them. They haven’t deviated from the path they were on and . . . I can see your satellite phone signal. You’re just over the hill. If you head slightly north-west . . .’

  For Diya’s purposes, Mak pointed in the direction. ‘We’ll get ahead of them?’

  ‘Yes. Hold on. Anil had the drone positioned a little way off . . . the cameras have longer range. I can see the village they’re heading towards.’ She paused. ‘Mak. It’s bad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It looks like they’ve dug trenches and are setting up some very nasty logs. Sharpened to points. Mak, I think they’re—’

  That was the moment the phone’s battery decided to die.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Mak and Diya travelled fast but in silence, lost in their own thoughts at what lay ahead.

  Mak regularly checked their course against the sun, aware that even the slightest detour could cause a delay that would bring the herd into conflict with the farmers.

  Diya rode on Hathi’s back. The elephant was now used to his passenger and had even quickened his pace. Mak was certain the little elephant knew his family was close at hand. He’d read reports that elephants could sense ultra-low frequency waves through their feet and they could communicate that way. He wondered just how true that was.

  By noon their stomachs were rumbling, but still they didn’t stop for food. ‘We won’t starve to death,’ said Mak as they passed trees laden with fruit. ‘We have to keep moving.’

  They finally crested Spiny Ridge and stopped to check their direction. From midway down the ridge, the trees had been cleared and the ground transformed into a patchwork of fields. At the very bottom of the hill was a small village of basic thatched huts. Mak counted thirty-four. They could even smell the wood fires as smoke drifted from huts, making the air hazy.

  A wide dirt track cut through the village, and beyond that the jungle started again.

  Then they spotted what Anula had also seen from the drone.

  A barrier of logs had been thrust into the soil at forty-five degree angles, their sharpened points ready to skewer anything emerging from the jungle. Trenches had been dug and, as they watched, a farmer ignited them. A terrifying wall of flames shot a dozen feet in the air.

  ‘Little Wolf. Look up! Over there!’

  Mak had to shield his eyes from the sun to see Diya was pointing at a smudge in the sky.

  ‘A bird?’ he guessed.

  ‘No. It’s not moving. It’s the drone. We’ve got to go!’

  As they hurried down the side of the hill, Mak could see that the whole village w
as watching them. Men, women and children stared at them with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. Several farmers had guns over their shoulders. They were old rifles, but that didn’t dull their danger.

  ‘They are nervous, and that makes them dangerous,’ Diya muttered under her breath.

  ‘I can understand that,’ Mak said quietly. ‘They are all ready to defend their village against a herd of elephants, and we come along instead.’

  Mak also knew they looked battered and dishevelled, but he drew himself to his full height and raised his hands as if in surrender, while trying to muster the warmest smile he could.

  ‘Please can we speak to whoever is in charge,’ Mak said slowly, his hands in a prayer position in front of him.

  Nobody replied and the air of suspicion became thicker.

  ‘We are here to help.’ He looked pleadingly at Diya who repeated his words in Hindi. That got a reaction from the crowd.

  An old man, his back hunched from years of hard labour, stepped forward. He used a staff to support his frail frame.

  ‘I am in charge,’ he said in English, with a stronger voice than Mak expected.

  Mak nodded his head respectfully. ‘Sir, we have travelled far to be here through many dangers. This calf belongs to the approaching herd. They don’t mean you any harm. They don’t want your crops – they just want their baby, and your village is right in their path.’

  Again, the elder translated, and Mak sensed the mood around him darken. Diya gasped as rifles were pulled off shoulders and their bolts click-clacked. Mak stepped in front of Hathi and raised his hands.

  ‘No! Stop! This is not the way!’

  The elder looked grimly at Mak.

  ‘The elephants come only to destroy.’

  ‘But not if they find what they are looking for,’ Mak interjected, pointing at Hathi.

  The elder paused. Then continued to speak. ‘We will protect our village at any cost. That is all I have to say.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  The elder was about to continue rebuking Mak, but stopped when loud chattering suddenly broke out. They were all looking towards their fortifications and pointing.

  The drone had finally drifted into view, high in the sky. One villager raised his rifle to take a shot.

  ‘NO!’ Mak yelled as he ran over and put his hands up to stop the man from shooting. Despite being several feet taller – and wider – than Mak, the man stopped in surprise.

  ‘You have to trust us!’ Mak panted.

  With a gentle nudge of her heels, Diya urged Hathi forward. The crowd hastily parted for the calf, and then Diya started to speak in rapid Hindi, her voice carrying powerfully as she gestured at Mak.

  Mak had no idea what she was saying, but saw the villagers were now looking at him curiously. The elder’s eyes narrowed as he listened carefully. When Diya finished, the crowd began to talk to the elder.

  ‘What did you say?’ Mak asked out of the corner of his mouth.

  ‘I told them about you surviving in the jungle. They’ve heard the stories about you, even out here. I told them about rescuing Hathi from those thugs and how you fought the snake and saved us from bandits.’

  ‘I didn’t really fight the snake,’ he whispered back.

  Diya didn’t look at him, but her voice lowered. ‘You got in a few good punches . . . and I was a little fuzzy on the details.’

  The village elder silenced the crowd with a single barked command. Then he turned to Mak.

  ‘We do not wish to kill the elephants, only to defend our lands.’ He paused as if the next words were difficult to say. ‘What do you suggest we do, Little Wolf?’

  ‘Oh, and I told them your spirit name,’ Diya added sheepishly.

  Mak pointed towards the drone. ‘That is a camera drone tracking the elephants. Any minute now they are going to walk out of the forest. All they want is their son.’ He gestured to Hathi. ‘Then they’ll turn aound and leave you alone. You need to give us a chance. You need to give them a chance.’

  The elder weighed up Mak’s words, then finally gave a single nod of consent.

  Diya dismounted Hathi and hobbled on her crutch as Mak led the elephant towards the wall of trees. The village elder had instructed his people to extinguish the flames in the trenches so the herd wouldn’t be frightened away, but he refused to lower the sharp log barrier.

  Mak and Diya waited nervously. Mak scratched Hathi’s forehead as the little elephant peered into the dark jungle, ears gently flapping as he searched for any sound.

  ‘I’m going to miss you, buddy,’ Mak said. He felt a lump in his throat, and when he looked at Diya he was relieved to see that she also had tears in her eyes as she gently whispered to the elephant in Hindi.

  He wiped his eyes discreetly.

  The drone silently drifted into view overhead and Mak wondered if his family was now watching. He hoped so.

  Hathi then suddenly reacted, drawing Mak’s attention back to the trees – and his heart leaped into his mouth. A dozen fully grown elephants stood before him, appearing as silent as statues.

  Up close they were huge. The leader was twice Mak’s height.

  She gently snorted and Hathi came running to her side. Their trunks coiled as they were reunited, and the little elephant mewed with delight.

  The elephants regarded Mak and Diya warily. The children knew that being this close to a wild elephant was incredibly dangerous. But somehow it also felt so safe.

  Just then, with the faintest of sounds, the elephants quietly turned their backs on the village and melted away, back into the jungle.

  Mak raised his hand and waved. ‘Bye, Hathi.’

  He had hoped the little elephant would stop and wave its trunk in farewell. That’s what happened in movies – but Hathi didn’t look back.

  ‘Maybe animals don’t understand goodbye,’ said Mak, his voice cracking with emotion.

  Diya hooked his arm and leaned against him. ‘No. But they understand family.’

  Even as Hathi disappeared into the jungle, they could still hear his trumpets of delight . . . and, Mak hoped, maybe even one of farewell.

  They both wiped away their tears as they returned to the farmers, who had been watching from a safe distance. The elder smiled with admiration.

  ‘That was quite something, Little Wolf.’

  Mak suddenly felt drained as the effort from the last few days began to catch up with him.

  The elder extended his arm towards a hut. ‘Please, eat with us. Rest. We have a truck and can take you to the logging town before nightfall.’

  ‘Home,’ Diya said quietly.

  Mak let her lean on him as they followed the elder to his hut; their stomachs were already grumbling.

  ‘Do you think our families are going to be mad with us?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Mak replied. ‘But I just hope they will have seen what happened on the drone.’ He paused. ‘I still think we did the right thing.’ He reached for her hand. ‘And I would do it all again. For Hathi, of course.’

  Diya smiled. ‘Of course.’

  THE END

  TURN THE PAGE FOR MORE TIPS ON HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE JUNGLE

  NAVIGATION

  It’s important to keep a map and compass with you and know how to navigate with them when surviving in the outdoors. But after Mak and Diya lose their map in the jungle, they’re forced to navigate by the position of the sun and the landmarks around them.

  • To navigate using the watch method, lay your watch flat with the hour hand pointing towards the sun and make sure your eye is at the same level as the watch.

  • Draw an imaginary line between the twelve o’clock position and the hour hand – that direction is south (in the northern hemisphere).

  • From there, figure out which direction you need to go in and take a note of any prominent landmarks along the way (hills/unusual trees/changes in the landscape) and what your destination should look like.

  • Stop periodically to check your position
using the watch method.

  FIRE

  Diya teaches Mak a few new tricks in Return to the Jungle – one of them is how to make a covert fire, or snake-hole fire, great for when you don’t want the smoke to give you away.

  • Dig two holes a few paces apart, one much smaller than the other. Then drive a stick through the earth to create a small tunnel, or chimney between the two.

  • Build the fire in the larger hole, beginning with kindling such as dry moss and twigs, and gradually building up a tepee shape with larger sticks and logs.

  • Once you light the fire, the smoke and oxygen will be pulled through the makeshift chimney into the smaller chamber, keeping smoke to a minimum and making sure the heat stays in.

  • Make sure to put the fire out thoroughly before leaving your camp.

  TRACKING

  Mak and Diya meet plenty of animals during their travels through the jungle, some of them very dangerous, and it helps to be able to know what to look out for.

  Keeping your wits about you is very important and a great way to practise is by playing Kim’s Game, inspired by a game described in Rudyard Kipling’s novel Kim. Gather a number of items from around the house and place them on a tray. Then try to memorize as much as you can about them. Putting the tray out of sight, describe their features and position in relation to the other items on the tray as accurately as you can. It is a technique used by survival experts all over the world.

  • Once you know how to memorize things, you need to learn what you’re looking for, and identifying animal footprints is a great way to start. The quality of animal tracks can vary a lot depending on the ground they are on – fresh prints tend to show up darker than old prints, or if there is rain on the surface of the footprint, the animal will have passed by before the rain.

  • Different animals have different patterns of walking – for example, footprints in a diagonal formation can be from four-legged animals which move two legs at the same time (dogs, cats and animals with hoofs, like the gaurs Mak and Diya meet).