When the army truck stopped he saw it was full of soldiers, who all stared at him confused, and the driver jumped out and marched up to him and stood smiling, examining the mess he was in and the mess in the pool – looking as if he had a mud fight with himself – and Cameron gasped at his body’s impression in it where he had been lying.
“What in the hell are you doing?” a sergeant in the passenger seat finally moaned, as he lowered his window, unable to control himself and stay silent any longer.
“I don’t understand how I got here!” he moaned back, unable to see what else he could do.
All the soldiers in the truck shifted out the end of the vehicle to see what was happening.
“Come off it, buster!” the sergeant shouted, and examined a piece of dung on his mouth with disgust. “What have you been doing here?”
The sergeant examined the nearby cows with slanted eyes and all his footsteps and movements in and around the pool.
“What’s your name, private?” he shouted.
“I don’t know!” he finally admitted, seeing that he couldn’t avoid it.
“You have to be kidding me!” he gasped. “You don’t even know your own name?”
Suddenly an army Land Rover raced up behind the truck and an officer, called Lieutenant Waring, jumped out from the backseat, and shouted at the sergeant, “What’s going on, Sergeant Malone?”
“This private doesn’t even know his name!”
“How could that be? He had to give it to get in the army I assume! Well soldier what have you to say?”
“I’ve lost my memory, sir!”
All the soldiers at the truck stood startled and Malone got out the front of the vehicle and they all stood in front of Cameron.
“Alright then! Has anyone here got his name?” Waring moaned.
To Cameron’s surprise three of the soldiers immediately shoved up their hands and eagerly waited, and Waring smiled brightly, just as a beam of sunshine beamed down over him through a hole in a large cloud, and he walked up to Cameron and studied his face, still covered in a thin layer of muck.
“I’m sure I’ve seen you ...”
“His real name’s Dave!” one of the three soldiers who knew him shouted.
Malone removed a pen and paper, and moaned, “What’s his second name, private?”
“Cameron!”
“Is that right!” he groaned loudly, and sighed and firmly held his forehead in his hands and stayed that way for a few minutes and returned to what he was doing, entirely ignoring the problem.
Cameron tried to recall the name but could not, and thought the soldier looked familiar though and tried to recall his name.
Suddenly Waring gasped and looked at his watch and realized something and that he was late for something!
“Well, Malone, handle this man would you! I’ve business to attend to! And try to find a way to give him his memory back!”
“I’ll surely do that!” Malone muttered sadistically, and they saluted and Waring rushed away.
Malone ordered Cameron to go into the back of the truck with the other soldiers where he sat slouched and grasped the gravity of the situation and that he could not recall anything and sat dazed and confused and shifted next to the three soldiers that knew him, as they were the only ones that knew anything, and he soon got their names – as Tod Simpson (who was the soldier who had told him his name), and Johnny Fogler and Harry Hanks.
As the old truck slowly bumped up and down through the field Cameron’s name went through his mind rhythmically, vanishing and reappearing, and he failed to recall a single thing. What was he doing there? Simpson treated him like he was part of a crime, with Simpson and the other two soldiers, which they refused to say and which they were sure he would eventually recall.
At a field (behind where Rudolf Hess’s plane had crashed during the Second World War), he saw a large group of big army tents and he examined them in detail trying to see what they were doing there, as he expected to be taken to a real army base.
From their conversations he pieced together that they were all new recruits and on an army mission there, which he never grasped, and the others gave occasional gasps at, which grasped his imagination and he wondered why he could have done such a thing as join the army as he was sure he had no interest in it.
As the truck rolled into the army site he even wondered if they were playing a joke on him and that they had not known him!
The situation was unbelievable! He did not know what the future held and if he was in danger!
In the sleeping tent he examined everything about his bed looking for clues and found little and realized the three soldiers had been close to him as his bed was in the middle of theirs and they communicated regularly as though they knew him well.
Yet when he went away and got cleaned up, and washed away all the muck that had been covering his face and head, and put on new clothes and returned, they sat on their beds gasping and examining him, giving occasional whispers, staggered mainly at his face, and the other soldiers sat staring over for long periods contemplating things and carrying out silent conversations.
In the end they laughed and cracked silent jokes that he was unable to hear, leaving him wondering what the hell was happening and what the future was.
One of the men eventually entered the tent, after having left a few minutes earlier, and walked straight up to Cameron and stared right in his face, and moaned, “Malone wants to talk to you!”
“What about?”
“Don’t know! Probably to do with what happened today!”
Cameron jumped up and drank what was left of a can of beer beside him and rushed out.
When he entered Malone’s tent Malone was sitting in a seat at a desk moaning to someone on a phone, with another soldier standing in front of the desk, and Cameron stood beside him.
Malone glanced over and gasped, stopped talking and continued, and examined him looking straight into his face as if he saw something he did not fully want to see and could not quite grasp and studied him and left it.
Once he hanged up the phone he instantly dismissed the other solider, who left moaning about him not allowing him to speak.
“I want to ask you some questions!”
Cameron stood straight and copied one of the soldiers he had seen saluting and he waited.
“Why did you join the army, Dave?” he asked, studying him with great confusion and annoyance, while sipping tea from a cup.
“I can’t remember!”
“You can’t remember why you’re in the army!” he gasped, blowing out all the tea in his mouth, in a massive spray, covering the table.
When Cameron offered to clean it, he shouted, “Leave it!”
“Of course, you lost your memory ...” he spoke, recalling the occurrence.
“Why do you think people join?” he finally asked.
“To get out and about! To see the universe!”
“Wow! The whole universe!”
“Or visit places one normally never sees!”
“Let me explain!” he explained, staring into his face, staggered by something, and putting his elbow in a large ashtray. “In the old days, a century ago, people joined the French Foreign Legion to forget things! Problems! Things they wanted to escape from! Escape from weary existences! Even hide away from crimes they had committed!”
“Well, I’m sure I’d have gone further away!”
“Really! How do you know?”
“I have no recollection of anything! So I can’t answer that!”
Suddenly it struck him that he was trying to suggest something and he realized he could have done something and that he could have found out about it! Then he gasped as he realized his mind was blank and he had no memories of anything of himself!
“Have you done something to me?” he gasped, recalling waking up in the pool of mud in the field. “I’ve no memories ...”
He thought of all the things used by the military on prisoners and if they could hav
e done it.
Malone made strange faces, as though in deep pain, and bent over and put his face in his hands, and his shoulders quivered as though he were sobbing, and he remained doing it for minutes until he recovered, and Cameron watched the top of his head shuddering and rise and him calmly return to normal.
“Just leave!” he moaned firmly, no longer looking at him, and Cameron left confused and realized his goal was to find out who the hell he was no matter what!
“I’ve another question!” he quickly asked before he left.
“What?”
“What the hell are we doing out here? Surely the military doesn’t need anyone out here?”
“We’re searching for a killer lion!” he replied, now amused at Cameron’s face expression changing to horror.
“A killer lion is roaming about here! Why are we in tents and out in the open? How the hell did it get out here?”
“We’ve guns! It escaped from a nearby village circus I think! We’ve not confirmed anything yet though!”
Cameron realized some of his memory was returning and he considered how dangerous the lion was and wondered what a circus was doing with a killer lion! He was sure it was illegal to have such an animal!
“What proof is there that it exists?”
“Farmers have reported seeing the thing to the police! We’ve just arrived and are to investigate the incident!”
A shiver ran up his spine as he considered the danger he had been in out in the field in the pool of mud and he considered if it had anything to do with how he ended up there.
Chapter 2
The Treasure
Cameron’s gaze went out into a field through the small group of trees, searching for any disturbances and signs that the lion was about. The thing would surely give itself away there, and he took comfort in there being no signs from the crows flying overhead reacting to anything!
Malone said he was going to visit one of the farmers that had witnessed the killer lion and he wondered what the hell they were talking about! The whole incident seemed strange now!
His gaze returned to the well, and its large circular hole at his front, going deep into the ground.
The top had clearly been recently dug away from being buried under rotten wooden planks and soil, hidden away in the middle of the small group of trees, and he studied Simpson who had a rope and harness tightly attached around him as Fogler and Hanks arrived and brought a torch, from the road on the edge of the trees, on Floors Road, and Cameron wondered why the hell they thought there was anything there! Then he realized that Rudolf Hess had parachuted down there or at the other side of the road, at the farm!
His close inspection of the tunnel showed it clearly had been an ancient well and had been covered over a long time ago, and he wondered why they had not used a nearby stream and if it were something else.
“What’s the hell’s there?” he conclusively moaned, after waiting for them to say something, with him almost screaming for them to tell him! They refused to give him anything about anything, and what they had been doing there before he had lost his memory!
They had secretively left the army camp when the others had not been around, and all four of them were at the mysterious hole searching for signs of what was there.
“Am I the only one going down there?” Simpson moaned, sadistically.
Seeing the other two were not interested in going down, Cameron decided he would like to see what was there. Anything that could give him anything on what he had been doing before he had lost his memory was of more value than anything else!
He announced it, searching them for any sign of disagreements.
He was surprised that they all nodded in agreement and one removed another harness and rope for him and he realized that he might have been down the hole already, going by their reactions, and he had become aware earlier that they had been down the hole searching for treasure.
The hole was large with more than enough room to fit both of them at the bottom and when Simpson left and vanished into its darkness he started attaching the harness to him, and gasped at how he knew how to fit it, and not know why, and he realized that he had to have done it recently.
He swiftly entered the hole once he was ready as he did not want to miss anything, and the action, even though they had been there before, and he wondered again what exactly they were doing.
“What exactly will I be doing down there?” he asked Fogler casually, desperate for anything, and any clue.
But again they totally ignored his request and insisted in not saying a thing, leaving him dazzled, but more determined to get to the bottom of all the mysteries.
What were they after? What in the hell would soldiers want?
He had to leave it and gasped as he released the rope, edging him downwards into the deep abyss, inhaling gasps of air, eagerly seeking the unimaginable and what was hidden away.
As he went down he chuckled as he recalled a story a young soldier had told them in their tent and that a teacher had once asked their class what organ of the body could expand itself ten times its size when stimulated.
When nobody had put up their hand she had asked a girl, and she had stood up blushing furiously, and had shouted, “How dare you ask such a question! I going home and I will have my parents report you to the headmaster and the police ...!”
The teacher had ignored her reaction and had asked the same question over, and a boy had stood and replied with, “The correct answer is the iris of the human eye!”
“Very good!” she had replied, and had turned to the girl and had announced, “I have three things to say to you! Firstly, it’s clear you never did your homework! Secondly, you have a dirty and vicious mind! Thirdly, I fear someday you’re going to be disappointed in willies expanding!”
“What the hell are you doing?” Fogler hollered down, staring at him, and Cameron realized that he had stopped lowering himself, and had been laughing to himself, and he watched his distant face studying him as though he now thought he had gone mad!
He yearned to explore so he quickly continued, while he tried to grasp shapes buried away down in the dimness just below, and he could not figure out what could be there! There was not any suggestion and it reminded him of his memory of himself! What could cause such an occurrence?
He recalled once watching archeologists at work at the top of a construction but he could not recall what he was doing there and certain other things, and it confused him and left him staggered at the dangers he could confront.
Suddenly he flew down the shaft uncontrollably and crashed into the ground and immediately jumped to his feet as the rope above him fell on top of him.
The fall had been a large one and he was staggered at the impact, but he was even more staggered that he had not broken anything and he seemed to have no damage to his body.
The end of the rope, where it had broken, had clearly been worn away for a long time and he could not believe that they had not even seen it, and going by the two soldiers above they had not even noticed.
Simpson examined him in the dim torchlight gasping at him crashing into the ground where he had been earlier, and that he would have been flattened by it, and to Cameron’s amazement he found another thick metal torch smashed into pieces where he had landed on his back, and he examined his back unable to find a bruise or sore.
How could he have fallen so far and not be injured? He surely should have broken bones!
He considered it as he tested areas of his body but there were no signs of anything!
“That was some fall, Dave!” Simpson eventually replied, focusing the beam of light from the torch up the shaft to where he had been, and Fogler and Hanks showed themselves at the top of the well and shouted down.
It looked as if they had been examining the surrounding fields, away in the distance.
Even though Cameron was not sure what would be accomplished anywhere it was mysterious and fascinating now! They were clearly searching for something of value down
in the tunnel, and he could not even imagine what!
Cameron removed objects about him that had been dug up from the muck at the bottom of the well and he played with them seeing what they were or if he could find anything, while Simpson dug away with a spade with some expertise, clearly from being at work there for a while.
In the corner he spotted an old rolled up jacket, and asked Simpson, “Whose is that?”
“Yours!” he replied firmly, while stopping digging. “Has none of your memory returned yet?”
“Nothing about myself! I wondered what happened!”
Simpson continued and started chipping away at a giant boulder with chisel and hammer to break it up, and shoved it over into the muck that he was throwing out at this side.
Cameron played with jacket wondering why he could not imagine wearing the old tattered thing, and decided to check the pockets to see if there was anything.
He groaned in despair and shoved the remains of the rope away from him and he dug his hands deep into the side pockets of the jacket and found nothing, but he felt a hole in one where he could shove his hand into and played around in the lining and finally felt a piece of paper and removed it.
It had smudged lines and writing and he could not see it properly in the dimness and shoved it into his trouser pocket to examine when he could see it properly in normal light, and considered how long the torches would last.
Cameron examined the end of the rope to see how it broke and realized that it broke as he and the others had been moving around a lot while coming down, and he realized that they had not even examined it properly.
He ignored it and returned to watching Simpson enthusiastically rolling parts of the boulder out the hole! He realized the rope could have been cut on a sharp rock by them rushing about, and going up or down the tunnel.
Above him, in the black shaft above, he examined the other part of the rope dangling about, in occasionally gusts of wind blowing in, and he searched for a sharp rock on the side of the tunnel, and then he looked for anything that could do it but in was far too dim, and for some reason he thought he could easily climb there, even though it was completely vertically with nothing to really grip.
The Lost Treasure Map Series Page 59