Luckily there were plenty of rocks around big enough to weight down the sheet. Andrew Parker, who was still dazed and largely useless, came over to watch them at work. He seemed to take an interest, nodding as if to give the project his blessing. They didn’t have spare words for Andrew; but it seemed that watching survival theory being put into practice stirred some part of his brain. He mumbled something.
I can’t tell what he’s saying, Jill said; can you make it out?
George took a step closer to Andrew and asked him to repeat.
He’s asking what message you left with the truck, George told her.
Jill dropped the spade and slumped down to a sitting position. That was one more obvious thing she had missed. They should have left a note on the windscreen explaining at least how many there were of them and in what direction they were setting off. For all they knew, someone may have already come across the abandoned truck. Once the footprints were obscured in the shifting dust, there would be no way to know which way they´d headed.
Andrew Parker remained standing, watching her with innocent interest. George had obviously had the same realization as Jill. He came to squat beside her.
No good blaming ourselves, he said. We can’t go back now. Anyway if someone finds the truck, they’ll follow us as easily as we can follow Bloom. Let’s face it we won’t have gone far at the rate we can travel.
But it’s so stupid; and I keep missing the basic things.
Not only you.
George; I have the feeling that the others are relying on me, though I don’t know why they should.
We are relying on you Jill. We have to rely on someone and you’re the best of us to lead.
Why me?
I don’t know. It’s just happened that way. Maybe it has something to do with your work.
How could that be? All I do is move numbers around all day.
George smiled.
I count things for pay too. Dull isn’t it? And Andrew assesses insurance claims and Simon teaches history. None of us does anything that’s useful out here.
At least you can smile about it George.
You have to admit we are pathetic enough to be funny. But then I keep thinking about what Jonathan did to Michael and Mr. Kriegman. It was so horrible.
You call him Jonathan. I can’t even bring myself to say Bloom’s name.
I know what you mean; but hating is no good. He must be terribly disturbed in his mind to have done those things. He needs to be in a hospital.
He needs to be lying stretched out on the sand, you mean; with the vultures pecking at his eyes. I’m not as forgiving as you, George.
George shifted uncomfortably: he’d been squatting too long in the same position. He eased his plump legs down and sat next to Jill. There was something else he wanted to say.
Have you really thought about that though? He asked. It’s possible that Bloom didn’t get very far after all. Maybe he only wandered off into the bush with some crazy delusional idea of where he was, planning to hike across the Sahara or maybe to France. We could find a body a little further on; or maybe not if the hyenas get to him first. We’re following a madman. Doesn’t that strike you as a little mad?
It was the same thought that Jill had, but to hear it from George surprised her.
Why didn’t you say that before, when we were arguing about what to do? She asked him.
We had to set off in some direction. You were right that staying with the truck was no good; and retracing our steps would take longer than we have. We need to hope that we´ll find something nearer, but where, we don’t know. Following the man with the map and the plan seems like the best option even if we know that the man is insane.
Jill thought about that.
You’re quite brave, George, she told him. You see our situation clearly, but you don’t panic.
George shook his head.
I’m not brave. I was throwing up in the back of the truck when the bad things were happening: too scared to do anything. And even now, I couldn’t do what you’re doing, so I hope that you’ll keep doing it; for all our sakes.
Jill wasn’t sure what it was that she was doing, or whether it was any use; but for now the still was finished. Next it was time to collect wood for the fire and try to plan what they should do the next day.
Chapter Twelve - Day Eleven
That night was less comfortable than they’d hoped. Their sleeping bags didn’t feel as warm as they should when they were lying on the ground with no mattress beneath and only a tarpaulin above them for shelter. The earth was hard and they were packed so tightly together that it was not possible to move without disturbing someone else; so you endured the swelling ache of a hip or shoulder that was supporting more than its share of weight for as long as you could; and when your neighbour shifted you felt stiff and irritable.
The side of the tent nearest the fire was open, but the weak flame gave no heat in the cold night air; only a little area of half-light that made the darkness beyond seem more threatening than ever.
By the time some light started to creep into the sky, Jill could remember only brief moments of sleep through the long night. Her dreams had been no more reassuring than her waking thoughts.
It took time before all of them could fully wake. There were some people who were able to sleep normally in any circumstance, Jill supposed. Some of the bags lay still and unmoving even as the others were twitching back to consciousness or fidgeting, half awake but unwilling to emerge into the morning.
Let them rest a little if they can, she thought. Jill and Simon were already up and about, as was old Mr. Johnson and strangely enough, Andrew Parker. Parker was still confused, but clearly he was an early riser by habit. Maybe he was starting to recover from concussion or whatever it was that had affected him.
There were animal tracks all around the camp. Some living things had been close enough to almost touch them; while staying just outside the light of the fire. Jill had heard hyena cries in the night, as well as the sound of something much heavier crashing through the bush not far away. She assumed that the crashing must have been elephants: she knew that they didn’t normally stop in the darkness, even though they had poor night vision. They were always on the move, following some route only known to themselves. If your camp was in the way, it was just bad luck.
But it was a shock to see how close the night predators had come to them without being noticed. The only good thing about that was that it meant that there was life in this place which seemed so dry and dead. And where there was life there had to be water somewhere.
Birds, Simon told her. Birds and insects.
Jill remembered that these creatures were supposed to be signals of water, but when you started to watch out for them, there were more birds everywhere than you first thought. They didn´t have a bird watcher in the group unfortunately: all of them were more interested in the mammals. Even so, Jill knew that it was only certain types of birds that couldn’t live far from water: waders and fish eaters obviously, but that was no help because there were none of them to be seen out here. Apart from that; doves and pigeons, if there was a difference between the two; and bees of course. That was what you looked out for.
But they didn’t see any bees or doves as they set out, reluctantly, into the early morning. The idea was to travel as far as they could before the sun was so high that they would be forced to rest. The only signs of life were fresh elephant droppings and the broad flat impressions in the dust which told them that a lone animal, presumably a young male, had passed close to them in the night. Jill must have been sleeping more deeply than she imagined not to have heard it clearly.
They picked out the human footprints easily enough, so they knew they were still following the trail set by Jonathan Bloom, even if they couldn’t be certain that it led anywhere.
Her conversation with George the previous evening continued to worry Jill; and the still experiment turned out badly. There had been some water in the bottom
of the polythene sheet that morning, but it was hardly a cupful and barely worth the effort of transferring to one of the canteens, losing precious drops in the process.
Not enough to replace what we sweated out digging the hole, Jill commented.
George seemed more disappointed than her, as if he’d wasted their time. She had to remind him that they needed to use their imagination and try things. It would have been more stupid not to try. The failure reminded her once more how little water they had left: and now they were reduced to looking for birds and bugs.
Before they started, she’d reminded them of Andrew Parker’s warning that they should not try to ration what water they had left. They had to keep drinking properly, because too little water was not much better than none; and heatstroke would be a killer for any of them. No one stated the obvious, that once the supply was gone it would be a matter of time in any case.
Heat didn’t normally bother Jill, or any of them, she supposed. Anyone who didn’t like feeling warm wouldn’t keep coming back to Africa. But now it felt as if the heat was doing its best to kill them; to leave them dried up like fruit spread out in the sun. That made the experience of heat different. The dust was trying to put an end to them, too. They weren’t breathing it in as much as they had done in the back of the truck (in spite of the bandanas and scarves they’d wrapped round their faces) but here it was more of a constant thing, like a taste in the air. It dragged at their feet, making each single step a little bit more of an effort than it should have been and holding them back in the frequent places where the dust deepened to thick sand.
There was no path that they could see. It appeared that Bloom was only following the compass reading; blind to the terrain. Perhaps he was as crazy as George feared; but anyway they didn’t dare seek out more passable routes and risk losing his trail.
Today the Johnsons were holding them back even more than before. There was nothing Jill could say to them: they were doing the best they could in their uncomplaining way. Mr. Johnson didn’t look too bad, but his wife could barely catch her breath now. Around her eyes, the skin was so dark that it looked black rather than grey. Her mouth hung open as she walked, stooped over and taking impossibly small steps that hardly seemed to carry her forward any distance.
When they finally lost Bloom’s track, it seemed that the day couldn’t get any worse.
They’d been walking for some hours. It was easy to lose track of time. In the distance they saw an area with a few trees; and then the boot marks they were following deviated from a straight course towards that place. Perhaps Bloom had found water where the plants were able to grow: Jill hoped so.
As they came closer, they saw that the vegetation grew in a ring that surrounded a flat open space in which nothing green lived. The pale earth was hard and cracked; littered with fragments of volcanic rock, elephant dung and bones.
Still they didn’t give up hope of finding water. This place was a pan, which meant that, when the rains came, all of it would be underwater, like a giant shallow pond. It was dried up now, but in places it would hold depressions where water would lie deeper and longer before the sun and the animals completely drained it. By now there might be nothing; or perhaps a little muddy water in the bottom of a dip that would keep them alive for a few days more. At least it was something to hope for.
But when they came to the edge of the pan, where the trees and scrub ended, the boot prints of Jonathan Bloom disappeared at the point where he’d first stepped onto the hard, dry ground.
Jill estimated that the area of the pan was something over half a kilometre square. They’d noticed that Bloom had moved off his steady course to come here, so she reasoned that he would have spent some time exploring; maybe finding water. Then he’d have headed off again from the far side, following the compass again, from somewhere maybe just to the right of that tree she was looking at now. She pointed the tree out to Simon and tried to fix it in her mind. Then she sent the Johnsons and Andrew Parker off towards it with instructions to rest and wait for them there once they arrived. The rest of them split up and spent the next half hour looking for water.
Two days earlier there’d have been discussion about what was the best course of action. Now the rest of them only stood waiting for Jill to tell them what to do and then got on with it. The change made it easier to get things done, Jill she wasn’t sure that their increasing passivity was a good sign.
And they didn’t find water. The closest they came was when Emma signaled Jill and the others to come where she was standing, at the lip of a deep depression that was ringed with dried salt at various levels, indicating how the water had evaporated off in stages. The bottom of the dip was filled with mud that was still wet.
We can’t drink that, said George. He sounded tired and disgusted.
Maybe we can dig down to find the water that’s left underneath, Emma suggested.
What do you think, Simon? Jill asked.
There’s plenty of water under the ground all through Africa, Simon conceded. That’s where the rains go. It’s just a question of getting to it. But I think the water seeps further down before it stays. I never heard of anyone digging it out of a mud hole. I think it’s more like you have to sink a well.
Jill considered for a moment. It seemed possible that if they dug down with their one spade, they might discover water that was still drinkable. On the other hand they could use a lot of energy and come up with nothing but mud.
It was as if she had a limited number of chances left and had to decide where to place her remaining bets. There were fewer chips left after each wager. Finally, she decided that betting on this hole would be more like desperation than sense. They had just about covered the whole area of the pan and they´d found nothing. The time they had left was ticking on.
Let’s go back to the others, she told them.
When they did, they saw no boot prints nor any trace of where Jonathan Bloom might have emerged from the pan. The area was so big that they couldn’t circle all of it looking for the trail. They could be within yards of his tracks and still not see anything.
Bloom didn’t move so far off his course to check this place out, Jill told them. And we know he wasn’t worried about us following him, or he’d have done something to hide his trail before now. He’s been heading more or less due east all the time we’ve been following him, so we’ll keep to the same direction.
And how will I know I’m taking us east when the sun is directly above our heads? Simon asked her quietly as the others were preparing to start.
Jill looked about her.
Do you remember the termite mounds? She asked him.
In this country, the termite mounds were everywhere that the water table wasn´t so deep that even these tenacious creatures couldn´t dig down to it. Rising up from their underground foundations, the insects constructed pillars of earth glued together by termite waste that stood a metre high and more. You were seldom out of sight of at least one of them. One or two of the mounds in their current view were flaking and abandoned, where the colony had failed or been invaded by some animal that managed to break through to the inside and scoop out the valuable protein within. Most would still be full of industrious creatures that you couldn’t see, tirelessly working on for the good of the mound.
Jill remembered that you could tell if a termite mound was dead or not by making a little hole in it. If you came back in an hour and the hole was filled in, it meant there were still live termites inside that you could gather and eventually eat, after some careful preparation. But just now, food was not their problem.
Simon knew what she was getting at.
Yes, it´s what Michael told us, they all lean in the same direction, he said. The prevailing winds bring the rain. The rain washes the mound down at that side. The termites repair the damage, but the mound is always built up more on one side and washed away on the other. And the winds come in from the west; or is it the east, so the steep side is always on the west; or the
east.
That’s the part I don’t remember either. The steep side should be opposite to the direction of the wind; and the sloping side faces the wind. The wind bringing the rain always comes from the same direction, but I’m not sure whether it blows from the east or the west.
We should have paid more attention; but I think the wind that brings rain must come from the west.
Jill grunted with frustration.
We are being completely stupid again, she said. East and west are just our words for something that doesn’t really matter. Look: we came from that patch of ground on the other side of the pan, where the dead tree is. We crossed to this place and we were on course then, I’m sure of it. I was looking over here trying to judge where the trail should pick up.
I was doing the same.
So, see that termite mound there. Look how it faces.
I see it.
When we start walking, all you have to do is make sure that all the mounds you see face the same way as that one. If they start to look different, we’re going off course.
Simon shook his head. That should have been so obvious. They were losing the ability to think clearly through tiredness and anxiety and whatever the country was doing to them that was slowly killing each of them.
They moved on. The group maintained a steady pace now, as if there were something mechanical about them. Every so often they would pause, without a word being said, to wait for the stragglers; Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. They had all settled into this rhythm; although every time the lead group paused it seemed that the Johnsons were further back than they had been the last time; and every time the old couple finally caught up, it took longer for Mrs. Johnson’s asthmatic wheezing to calm to the point where Jill could persuade herself that it would be safe to ask the old lady to continue.
No-one spoke much, but it seemed like days since Andrew Parker had said a word. He kept pace with them easily enough, but his eyes were glazed and vacant as if he was not really there at all. His shirt, that had been drenched with sweat the moment they’d started the march, was now completely dry: his perspiration had stopped completely; though Jill thought that maybe none of them were really sweating any more.
the Disappearance of Jonathan Bloom Page 13