by Alex Ward
Chapter 2
It was not a difficult thing to think of. Everyone in the area, Arab and Israeli, knew of the wadi and everyone knew there was an annual picnic. Everyone knew for that period of time, whoever was down there was trapped. The difficulty was what and how.
The answer came purely by chance to the group of men who wished to cause harm to the kibbutz. A local farmer had caught two hyenas on his farm and decided to keep them as a curiosity. Although rare, it was not unheard of for animals from Africa to head north. The men knew that starved hyenas would be very dangerous, especially in a confined area. Even this group of men did not dwell on the fact that their target would not be a nameless soldier of the state, but a group of schoolchildren, from the kibbutz they all worked on. They knew what they were planning was evil, but momentum carried them forward.
The van pulled up as tight as possible to the entrance of the wadi. As the two men tried to release the sliding door, the van began to rock and shake, causing the door to open only partially. The hyenas scratched and scrabbled at the small gap, forcing the door to open suddenly, injuring the man trying to release them. As the two creatures lunged down the dry riverbed, they could smell the food and hear the children enjoying the picnic. The men nervously shut the sliding door of the van and got back into the cab. They needed to stay calm and wait.
"Slowly count to 100 and then drive off" were the orders.
The scream of a child heralded the hyenas' entrance. They exploded into the picnic area starved and hungry, and knew they were the hunter and here was prey. The creatures were desperate with hunger and fear. The picnic area had been a playful scene, now it was changed into a kill zone. Children were running and screaming for their lives, Avi shouted for the children to climb up to safety, Orli grabbed the nearest child and ran to the walls desperate to place the little girl high on a rock to be safe.
Rory was slow to react, his brain overloaded at the horror of the scene around him. He desperately looked around for a weapon, and seeing the bread knife he reached down and grabbed it, cutting his hand in the process. Looking up he waved and shouted at the first beast to draw its attention away from the children. It raced madly at him, howling and snarling. Rory avoided the jaws but was bowled over by the impact. He went down stabbing and slashing at the animal. The pungent odour was all over him, the grease from its coat and fur were clinging to him. He knew he had connected, but the animal came around for another attack. Rory reached for a rock with his left hand, he struck the animal on the head as it lunged for his throat. It went down limp, Rory fell on it, hitting and hitting again until suddenly it stopped moving.
Rory spun round. The second hyena was inches from Avi, who was standing in front of a boulder that had some of the children on top of it. To either side of her stood four of the oldest boys, throwing stones and kicking at the animal as it lunged. Twenty metres away to the right he saw one of the smaller boys trying to help a girl to climb higher on the cliff. The hyena saw the weakest at the same time as Rory and sped towards the little boy, who now stood on his own, reaching for a rock to protect himself. He might have been ten years old. Rory hit the running hyena with a shoulder barge that deflected the attack. The creature turned and charged Rory. The cackling and snarling was horrific. Rory screamed back then attacked the hyena. Throwing rocks to distract it, he waited for it to rush him and did the same move as before. As it jumped at him he smashed the rock in his hand into the creature's head then launched himself into a frenzy of stabbing and clubbing. Fear drove Rory, he could not let this creature get up, it would cause too much harm. Rory was not fighting for his life, he was fighting for the lives of everyone in the wadi. Giving up on his own life gave empowerment and strength—although the creature fought back with teeth and claws, Rory was too much for it. The second hyena died like the first, with its head smashed in by the brick-sized rock that Rory held in his bloodstained hand.
It was done. Rory was hurt, two deep wounds exposing his ribs, and many scratches on his arms and torso. He slumped down and passed out from loss of blood.
He came to as they injected him on the canyon floor. Faces and people he recognised came and went. He knew he was safe and let the drugs take the pain away. The time he spent in Haifa hospital was a mixture of lost time, blurred, painful treatments, and so many visitors. First the children’s parents, then the elders from the kibbutz, then embassy officials, and best of all his parents. They came over and organised a medevac back to the U.K. He thanked all the gods for the insurance his parents had taken out before he left.
The hyenas had left a parting gift of blood poisoning and two massive scars on each side of his rib cage. The wadi had left a gift of sand in his body. The medical team did not get all the sand out, and Rory swore he could feel it around his body. He would literally carry the wadi wherever he went. The prognosis was OK with medical care back in the U.K., and Rory was desperate to go home.