‘You worthless conscripts, you’re more bloody trouble than you’re worth! What’d you say if I told you I’ve had complaints from the Hammond family about you?’
‘I’d say produce your evidence,’ Alan said carefully, the educated mind refusing to be quelled though his voice shook as he added, ‘and if you couldn’t I’d say you were a bloody liar.’
‘Why do you think I took you away from Rinsey?’
Alan toyed with a choice of words ranging from ‘jealousy’ to ‘spite’. He was not a man who naturally resorted to violence but it occurred to him that it would have been remarkably simple to tip the snarling major into the raging waters of the jungle river just behind him. In and gone he’d be. He doubted there was even a monkey to witness such a dark act in the green damp gloom of leaf and moss, huge overhanging ferns above their heads and the slippery bank — and he could see where the huge crate was being twirled in the muddy brown water like a matchstick in a plughole.
‘It was a question of standing cock having no conscience, wasn’t it, Cresswell? The girl was there and so were you — and such as you never miss a sniff, do you?’
This, Alan judged, was definitely the time for silence. He was so appalled at his officer’s crudeness that all wish to retaliate vanished. He wanted to laugh now, not kill, astonished and dismayed at the man’s brand of vicious fishwife spite.
He heard a movement behind him and swung round, rifle at the ready, as Sergeant Mackenzie and Dan came along the track they had made.
Sturgess swore. ‘Thought I told you to supervise the unpacking of the other crates!’
‘All under control, sir,’ the sergeant answered, his glance going from his officer to Cresswell. ‘Brought a rope up in case you need one.’ He paused to look over the Major’s shoulder. ‘And looks like we do.’
Alan nodded gratefully at Dan, wondering if he had after all shared some real anxiety with the sergeant which had made Mackenzie come after them.
‘Don’t like the look of that,’ the sergeant added as the crate, hit by an extra surge of water, bounced about in the river like a canoe shooting the rapids.
‘Right! let’s get at it!’ the major announced. Gesturing to Danny, who was carrying the rope slung around his shoulders, he added, ‘think it’s your turn for the dip, Cresswell. Get the rope round yourself.’
Alan wondered if this was why he had lied about being able to swim — to test the major.
‘We could really do with another rope,’ the sergeant said, ‘one for Cresswell to keep round himself, the other to tie on the crate.’
‘Come on, man! It’ll be dark before we’ve finished. He’ll manage.’
The sergeant took up the rope and helped secure it around the guardsman.
Alan thought briefly of alligators and leeches as he waded into the water, but by the time he had gone three steps he felt the water was far too rough for alligators to survive. In another two steps it whipped his legs from under him and he was going downstream at some rate until the rope the others held braced around a tree stopped him.
He soon realised that the only way he was ever going to reach the far bank and the crate was to allow himself to be taken by the current to a bend. Below where they were, he could see the far bank looped towards him, though the water hit and streamed past it at great force.
Trying to signal, he held up the rope with one hand, going completely under as he did so. He tried again to indicate he wanted some slack. The rope suddenly gave, and he hurtled downriver, choking as he spun uncontrollably in the water. In a flash of vision as he surfaced he saw the bank rushing towards him and managed to get his feet forward in the water just before he hit the bank. He thanked God there were no rocks, then he saw there were — either side of where he had landed.
Laboriously he climbed clear of the water, stood gasping, trembling, taking a moment to recover and wave back to the other side. He could see that Danny and the sergeant still held their end of the rope, while the major stood in a critical attitude, hands on hips. His voice came faintly over the crash of the water, ‘Get on with it, man! Get hold of it!’
Alan turned away and swore under the roar of the water, ‘You frigging bastard! I’ll get your crate back, but not the way you want me to and be bashed to death by it.’
As he undid the rope he could hear Sturgess shouting again, but he ignored him. He’d make his own plans.
Without looking across again, he made his way, slipping and hanging from nearby lliang creepers, towards the tree ensnaring the crate’s parachute. With infinite care he lowered himself down by the branches towards the great box bouncing about on the swirling waters.
He was out of sight of the men from the other bank, and he was scared. ‘Father,’ he heard himself saying, ‘make me an ark of gopher wood.’ He was unsure whether he addressed his God or his late father, until he recollected the ease with which Edgar Cresswell approached a new task, a new piece of timber, then he slipped. He was down, able to touch, or, more accurately, fend off, the crate as it first swirled out into the stream, then was slammed back towards the bank.
If it trapped him he could be knocked senseless or have an arm or leg shattered in an instant. “... Careful! No room for errors,” he heard his father advise as he took the force of the crate on one boot sole.
‘Right, you bastard,’ he told it, ‘next time in you’re mine ... Oh, Christ!’ he cried as next time it drove towards him at head height. He crouched and put his hands over his head, but the current pulled it back before it hit. It was like being in the path of a killing pendulum.
His heart thumping, he waited for the next swing, calculating that what he had to do was reach the top of the crate, where its straining harness allowed for a rope to be passed though.
The next time he was surprised by the swinging power and force of the box as it came towards him. The time after that, he managed to push his hand though the harness but was not quick enough to loop the rope through. Instead he felt his hand caught. He pulled back and thought his whole arm might be jerked from its socket; he felt the rough wood of the crate grate at his hand, the sharp angular edges tearing his skin, but then he was free.
He realised that he would quickly become exhausted battling with these forces. Grimly he set himself to succeed the next time.
‘Right! Come on, you — you thing on the side of the bloody high and mighty officers! Come on!’
He waited, but aggression wasn’t his best motivator, and as it swung in again and again he muttered, ‘This time for Liz.’
It came closer this swing, nearly pushing him off balance. Using the extra seconds, he got his arm through the harness, grasping the rope from the other side and pulling it through. For a frantic moment or two he slithered and was drawn down the bank as he held on, then his foot found a root which stopped him sufficiently to secure a knot on the harness.
He climbed the bank until he could see the men opposite. Dan lifted his fist in salute. He motioned to them that he would sever the parachute above the harness, then they should pull the crate across. ‘Take up the slack,’ he bellowed.
He hauled himself up the tree to cut the parachute cords, leaving them as long as he could. Once free of the bonds holding it to the tree, the crate fell and, no longer being pulled by two forces, floated with less agitation. When the other three begun to pull it across, Alan took a tight grip on the trailing cords and was towed back safely after it.
Dan thumped him on his back as he reached the shore. Then all three seemed automatically to glance at their officer, waiting for his comment. The major walked to the far side of the now safely beached crate and released the parachute harness from it.
Sergeant Mackenzie cleared his throat rather like a parent reminding a child of its manners, but, as Sturgess busied himself with rolling and tidying the cords, he took on the leader’s role — as he was trained to do if anything untoward happened to his immediate commander.