Behind Mt. Baldy (7 page)
Roger smiled. He was used to
their jibes and they were his friends. He poured hot water into his cup canteen
to make Milo; squeezed condensed milk into it, then sucked the tube before
recapping it. Already he was starting to feel better. The hot drink made, he
opened the can of food and emptied it into the mess tin, put the other half of
the hexamine tablet into the stove and began to heat his meal.
After stirring the food he sipped
at the hot drink. “Ah! That’s better. I needed that,” he murmured.
The meal proceeded for about half
an hour. It was completely dark by then. There was no moon and apart from the
lights of the other campers there was only the twinkle of some distant
farmhouses far across the lake.
Roger cleaned his mess tin and
put on water for another cup of Milo. He then took off his boots and socks and
began to examine his feet by the light of his torch.
“Roger! What a pong!” Peter
called.
“Nearly got a blister on my
heel,” Roger replied, examining the pink flesh critically.
Graham had begun measuring
distances on the map, using the edge of a piece of paper to follow the curves
in the road.
“How far have we walked?” Roger
asked as he took out a roll of Elastoplast.
“About ten kilometres,” Graham
replied.
“Not too bad, considering,” Peter
commented.
“Where do you think Captain
Conkey planned on us to be tonight if we hadn’t
.. ..
er
..
hadn’t
been delayed?” Roger
asked.
Graham looked at the map.
“Probably at ‘The Chimneys’,” he decided.
“That looks a long way,” Stephen
said.
“About another
twelve or thirteen k’s.
Four hour’s easy walk.
We lost about four hours don’t
forget.”
“I’m glad we did,” Roger said. “I
don’t think I could have walked much further.”
“You should be fitter,” Peter
chided.
“I know it,” sighed Roger.
Stephen cut in. “Don’t you break
down on us Roger, and spoil our chances of covering the hundred k’s.”
Roger felt anger rise. “I won’t.
Don’t worry. I’ll make the distance. As I get fitter I’ll get better.”
“Tomorrow will be worse,” Peter
cautioned. “The second day is always more painful than the first. It’s not
until about Day Four that your body adjusts and your muscles get into the
swing.”
Roger agreed. He knew that. He
poured another cup of Milo, stirred it and leaned back against his pack. A cold
breeze was now coming off the lake. He wrapped his hands around the metal cup
for warmth and sipped.
“I wonder who murdered that man?”
he asked.
Stephen seemed to spring to his
feet. “Shut up Roger! Don’t talk about it!”
“I was just
..”
“Well don’t! Just don’t, do
you hear!” Stephen cut in.
“OK. Sorry.”
Graham and Peter exchanged glances
and looked uneasily at Stephen. He seemed to suddenly sag and he sat down.
“Sorry,” he mumbled. “It just got
at me.” He began to rummage in his pack.
Roger had a long swig from his
cup, feeling both embarrassed and nettled. He was curious! ‘I really
want to know who had murdered the old man, and why,’ he thought. He went back
over the day’s events in his mind, staring absently out over an arm of the lake
at the wall of black jungle beyond.
“Do you think it will be cold
tonight?” Peter asked, changing the subject.
“No cloud.
Lots
of stars.
Could be.
But we are beside the lake
and that will help keep the temperature mild. Mr. Conkey explained it in
Geography,” Graham said. He went on to talk about differential heat transfer
hoping that the others would forget the body.
Roger finished his Milo. He
pulled on his socks and settled to munch a chocolate. It was only about 8pm but
he felt very tired. They had all been awake since 5:30 that morning and it had
been a wearing day, on the nerves, if not on the body.
Peter made the first move.
“Bed for me.
I’m buggered.”
Graham agreed. “Good idea. If we
have a good early start we might make up some lost time.”
They dragged their gear into the
shelters, unrolled their bedding and prepared for sleep.
“I need a hip hole,” Roger
grumbled. Being on a lawn in a camping area meant he couldn’t dig one.
“My head’s downhill,” Peter
complained.
“Then turn around,” Graham
suggested.
“No. Then I’d have my nose too
close to Stephen’s smelly feet.”
After a few minutes of joking and
wriggling they settled down.
Roger snuggled into his sleeping
bag in an attempt to avoid a persistent cold draught which seemed to seek out
the left side of his neck. Then he tried to relax and go to sleep.
But sleep would not come. He was
aware of all his little aches and pains but that wasn’t the real problem. It
was the body. He couldn’t get the dead man out of his thoughts. Again he
relived every moment of the day.
As he speculated on what it must
have been like for the old man as he ran for his life down through the pine
forest Roger realised his hands hurt because he was gripping his sleeping bag
so tightly. He tried to relax, to think of something else, but he couldn’t.
The thought came to him so
suddenly he half sat up. If the old man was shot in the forehead he must have
turned to face his pursuers (there were two men after him for sure). Roger sank
back down and mulled over the scene. ‘They emptied his pockets and dragged the
body to the lake. If.....’ He drifted off to sleep.
Lights went out. A radio was
turned off.
A few voices.
A car door slammed.
Silence settled on the picnic area, other than the lap of the waves and the
wind in the trees.
-----
Roger started to run. But he
couldn’t. The weeds seemed to cling around his ankles. He looked behind. Two
men in black were flitting through the trees, coming towards him at an
appalling speed.
He turned and tried to run again.
“No!” he murmured in a strangled groan. “No! No!”
The voice wasn’t his. It penetrated
his dream. Other voices intruded; Graham’s voice. ‘Graham will save me
from the men in black,’ Roger thought.
“No!” the voice shouted.
Roger sat up, his hair on end
from fright. A torch shone. Stephen was sitting up beside Graham, his eyes wide
and staring.
Graham’s voice came again. “Wake
up Steve. You’re having a nightmare.”
Peter groaned and sat up too.
Graham shook Stephen, who started a scream which suddenly cut off.
“Where am I?” Stephen gasped.
Graham turned his torch away.
“In your tent with us Steve.
You were having a bad dream.”
Roger struggled into a sitting
position. He switched on his own torch. Stephen slumped and hugged himself. He
looked thoroughly scared.
“The body!” he began. “It came up
out of the lake, just a hand, clawing the way they do in the movies. You
remember that movie?”
They all did. Roger felt a thrill
of terror and swung his torch nervously around. He got another fright. The air
was white!
“Fog!”
Peter said.
A fog so thick they could hardly
see from one end of the double shelter to the other had rolled in off the lake.
They shone their torches out into it and talked about the fog because they
couldn’t bring themselves to talk about nightmares. Or at least Roger couldn’t
and he suspected the others felt the same.
The clammy, moisture laden air
made Roger shiver.
Peter swore. “Oh blast and
bugger. The fog is all condensing on the underside of the hutchie and dripping
on us.”
“We need a fire,” Graham
commented.
Roger looked at his watch. 2
am
. Middle of the ...mind don’t say it! ...The mind
did...the Graveyard Watch. He shivered again and shone his torch out into the
fog. ‘We will never see anyone who is creeping up on us in this mist,’ he
thought. He tried to tell himself he was being stupid. Why would anyone bother
to creep up on them?
Stephen was obviously feeling a
bit embarrassed at his performance.
“I’m going to make a brew. Anyone
else
want
one?” he offered.
Graham and Peter both said ‘no’
but Roger suddenly felt thirsty. And he needed to go to the toilet badly.
“I’ll join you,” he said. He
slipped out of his sleeping bag and pulled his boots on, then crawled out of
the hutchie. Stephen crawled out, dragging his webbing.
“I’ll just have a leak,” Roger
said. He turned and began walking in the direction of the toilet, his torch
cutting a dazzling pattern in the thick fog. He glanced back and saw the black
shape of the hutchie and the dim glow of Stephen's torch.
After twenty paces Roger stopped.
He knew he didn’t have the courage to go all the way to that toilet up in the
darkness of the jungle. For a minute or so he stood uncertainly, listening.
Then he turned off his torch and stood staring anxiously into the darkness.
Without the light the fog seemed
to close in and to physically envelop him. He seemed to have trouble breathing.
With mounting alarm he looked rapidly in all directions. The glow of Stephen’s
torch steadied him. ‘I can’t just sneak back,’ he thought unhappily. And he did
need to do a pee, urgently.
So he stood there and did it,
eyes searching around him in fear; half ashamed at his cowardice and half
ashamed at his poor hygiene. As soon as he was finished Roger turned his torch
on and walked quickly back to join Stephen.
“Don’t sit down, the grass is
soaked with dew,” Stephen warned. He was crouched over his stove.
Roger joined him, dug out his own
stove and got it alight. The flames were very welcome but nothing could be seen
beyond ten paces. It was eerie.
The two boys stayed up for nearly
half an hour talking quietly. Roger nibbled some more chocolate and then they
made their way back to their sleeping bags. Both Graham and Peter were
asleep, Peter snoring softly.
Roger took off his boots and slid
into his sleeping bag again, then lay
back,
sure he
would not sleep a wink. He listened to Stephen adjusting his bedding.
“Wake up Roger!”
Roger groaned. He tried to roll over
to escape the hand shaking him. Graham’s voice came again. Reluctantly Roger
opened an eye. He saw Graham grinning at him.
“Breakfast time, up you get.”
“Bugger breakfast!”
Graham pretended horror. “What’s
this? Roger doesn’t want food!”
“Is it cold?” Roger asked,
lifting his head to look out of the tent. It was light but everything was still
enveloped in the fog.
“No, it’s quite mild,” Graham
replied.
Peter and Stephen appeared at the
entrance of the tent. Stephen towelled his head and called in, “Come on Roger.
Get up or we’ll chuck you in the lake.”
“What’s the time?” Roger parried,
hoping for a few more minutes in bed.
“Ten past six,” Peter replied,
crouching to move into the tent. A shower of cold drops fell on Roger.
“Oy!
Don’t make it rain,” he
wailed. He looked up. The inside of the plastic was coated with droplets.
Reluctantly Roger crawled out of
his sleeping bag and pulled on his boots. The cold leather soon woke him
up. He got out and stood up. As he stretched he was instantly aware of all
sorts of twinges and aches from the previous day’s hike. He wasn’t really
looking forward to the day’s march.
Graham struck a match and lit a
hexamine tablet. That seemed to break the spell. Roger looked around. He could
just see cars and other tents but no other campers seemed to be awake yet.
“Go and wash your face. That’ll
wake you up,” Peter suggested.
“No thanks,” Roger replied. He
dragged out his webbing and squatted to light his stove. A cup of hot Milo
cheered him up. He followed this with a tin of ham and eggs and two muesli
bars. Then he heated another cup of Milo.
The other boys all included a
shave as part of their morning routine. Roger surreptitiously ran his hand over
his chin but it merely confirmed what he knew. It would be another week before
his downy fur needed a scrape. It gave him a twinge of jealousy, particularly
for Graham and Stephen, both of whom seemed to sprout several millimetres of
bristle overnight.
Instead Roger concentrated on
polishing his boots and then on washing his mess tins and cup. To do this he
walked down to a small beach on the edge of the lake and crouched to scoop up
some sand to scour the utensils. It was only then, as he felt the relative
warmth of the water, that he remembered the horrible events of the previous
day.
