Tracks of the Tiger Read online

  It was like plunging into cool, liquid silk. Water rushed and gurgled in his ears. It gently washed away the sweat and grime of the jungle and left his skin tingling. He felt the scab on his arm crack and dissolve beneath the bandage. Beck opened his eyes. The world was blue and hazy. The depths grew darker and he could see the outlines of submerged branches, crooked and twisted at the bottom. Sunlight was a rippling shimmer above. And then a much smaller streamlined shape flashed past his eyes and his thoughts latched onto a new thought. Fish! Food!

  There was a muffled explosion in his ears and a shape plunged past him in a cloud of bubbles. Beck came up to the surface and watched Peter streak across the pool like a small torpedo. His friend had overcome his worries about crocodiles: he was doing the crawl, the stroke that had helped him win swimming prizes back home. Arms and feet churned the water into white foam. The gibbons took one look and fled.

  Beck swam around for five minutes before returning to the bank, where their clothes were lying in discarded piles. So, he thought, how to catch some fish? You needed bait, and you needed something to catch them with.

  He mulled it over for a few seconds, and then his attention was caught by a brown bulge on a nearby tree. It was another termite nest. Well, that was the bait problem solved.

  While Peter continued to cruise around the pool, Beck cut a couple of lengths of rattan vine, each one about a metre long. Then he picked up his trousers and threaded the vine through the belt loops. The vine was flexible but it didn’t bend too much, and that kept it firm. The result was a loop that held the waist of his trousers open, as if they were being worn by an invisible man.

  While Beck waited for Peter to rejoin him, he did the same for his friend’s trousers. Then he tied the legs into knots.

  ‘Proper heaven!’ Peter emerged from the pool dripping and grinning. ‘Whatcha doin’?’

  ‘We’re gonna catch fish.’ There were a couple of long, drooping branches that stuck out over the water. Beck pointed at the nearest one. ‘Think you can hang off that without falling in?’

  He explained what they were going to do as he cut up some liana vine. This was more flexible than rattan and better for using as rope. He cut one length for himself and another for Peter. Then they each tied the ends of their pieces to the belt loops on either side of their trousers. Now they had effectively turned their trousers into cloth buckets, each with a handle.

  Beck went back to the termite nest and plunged the knife in deep. Clumps of termites dropped straight out and swarmed over his fingers. He passed a handful to Peter and took another for himself.

  The hardest part was crawling out on the branches over the pool. In one hand each boy held a handful of termites; in the other he held his trousers. It didn’t free up much for holding on. Beck managed it by leaning forward, clutching the branch with his knees and elbows, and inching forward. Peter copied him, a bit more clumsily but managing to hold on.

  They chose branches almost on opposite sides of the pool. If one of them scared the fish off, hopefully they would go straight to the other side.

  When they were far enough out, they dropped their trousers into the water by the vine handles. At first the improvised buckets just floated on the surface, but eventually the waterlogged material grudgingly sank beneath the surface.

  ‘Now pull it up until it’s just under the surface,’ Beck called. ‘A few centimetres, no more. And give it some bait . . .’

  He sprinkled a few termites onto the water above his sunken trousers. The little insects speckled the surface like confetti and wriggled about indignantly.

  Wriggle away, Beck thought. Lots of nice movement. Let the fish know you’re small and edible and not dangerous . . .

  And now it was just a waiting game.

  Neither boy spoke as they concentrated on the clear blue depths beneath them. Perched out on their long-limbed branches, there was no shelter from the sun. Beck felt himself slowly bake, and the sparkling water below him made him incredibly thirsty as well as hungry. But he had to be patient.

  It wasn’t hard to see the fish from up here. They looked streamlined and graceful as they emerged from the dark depths. The boys’ splashing about would have driven them down, away from predators, but now they sensed that life in their pool was back to normal. And here were some nice tasty insects that had foolishly crash-landed on their water. But the fish were in no hurry. They weren’t starving. They were as happy as their little fishy brains could be.

  Beck shifted uncomfortably. The rough wood of the branch dug into places he didn’t like anything digging into. The sun beat down on the pool and gently roasted the back of his neck. His arm ached and he wanted to re-bandage it. But there was food down there and they had to get it . . .

  ‘Ooh yeah!’

  Peter sat up suddenly and hauled in on his trousers. Water drained noisily back into the pool. Even from a distance Beck could see the cloth shake as something inside thrashed about.

  ‘Go, Pete!’ he called. ‘Well done!’

  ‘Uh . . . what do I do with them now?’

  ‘You need to . . .’ Beck registered the exact words Peter had used. ‘Them? How many?’

  ‘Two. That’s two for me, none for you!’

  ‘OK! Well, keep them there and get back to the bank.’

  It took another ten minutes for a fish to take Beck’s bait. His patience was wearing thin. Meanwhile Peter had left his two fish on the bank and gone back for a another go. Beck caught his one, and Peter caught his third, almost at the same time.

  ‘Two each!’ Peter said when they met back on the bank, both grinning wide with triumph. ‘Almost as good as eating palm grubs!’

  ‘Yeah, when you don’t have any insects to eat, sometimes you just have to make do with roast fish.’

  Beck had eaten fish raw before, and it was a tempting thought this time too, as he wanted to get out of the jungle as quickly as possible. But apart from a few insects the night before, they hadn’t had proper cooked food in over a day. They could do with the energy.

  Peter got a fire going while Beck cleaned and gutted the fish. He held them securely, with finger and thumb in the gills – the only way to get a grip on their slithery bodies. Then he cut off their heads. Very gently he sliced all the way down their fronts, taking care not to puncture the guts. After that he could just stick a finger in and hook it round the insides. They seemed to squirm round his finger like worms, and came out like a load of slimy string all twisted together.

  The boys roasted the fish over the fire. The rumblings in their stomachs were almost as loud as the snapping of the burning wood. While the fish cooked, they used the time to check Beck’s arm and change the bandage again. The gash was still sore but it had clotted over. It didn’t seem to be doing much healing beneath the clot, though. It only took the slightest knock to start the bleeding again. Beck knew the only way it was going to heal for good was if he let the arm rest for a few days. That wasn’t going to happen until they were back in civilization.

  Then they ate the fish. The flavours of the hot juices were the most delicious thing they could remember tasting. Ever. Beck knew it was a good sign when Peter burped.

  They had dried off from their swim in the warm air. Now they dipped their hands and heads into the pool’s blue waters again, and filled up their bottles. Beck swung his pack onto his back.

  ‘So, which way?’ asked Peter.

  ‘Same as before. We follow the river towards the coast – but we don’t get too close to the bank.’

  Peter stood up and gazed around the clearing. ‘Uh, Beck . . . which way did we come from?’

  Beck followed his gaze. The edge of the clearing was just jungle, all the way round. There wasn’t an obvious path. There were no obvious landmarks. However, he’d made sure to take note of where they’d entered the clearing.

  ‘It’s that way,’ he told Peter, pointing.

  They bade the pool a final reluctant farewell and pushed back into the jungle.

 
Within five minutes they heard the sound of running water again and were soon back on the river bank. The river had cut itself a little canyon in the floor of the jungle. The sides were three or four metres high, and the river tumbled over rocks and ledges. There wouldn’t be any crocs down there, and even if there were, they wouldn’t be able to leap up and get the boys. They exchanged pleased looks, and without saying anything they turned to follow the course of the river.

  For a few hours they made good progress. They were energized after their hot meal. Drinking was more important than eating, though; it wasn’t long before their bottles were empty, but they could always refill them easily.

  On one occasion they paused to refill their bottles where a stream cut across their path. To their right it fell down into the river in a two-metre-high waterfall. It was a wonderful sound.

  Suddenly a deeper mechanical growl cut through the noise of the water. The boys looked at each other and hope danced in their hearts.

  ‘That sounded like an engine!’

  ‘I think it was.’ Beck peered into the trees but there was no way to see through them yet. ‘We must be close to civilization.’

  Peter’s smile split his face. ‘Think they’ll have a phone? Or a radio? We could call Mum and Dad, and—’

  Beck held up a hand as a sign for quiet, then strained his ears. The noise had already died away. Then it started up again for a couple of seconds, and once more died down. For a third time it started up, and this time it persisted. A high-pitched revving that went on and on and on.

  ‘That’s not a car,’ Peter said, puzzled.

  ‘No,’ Beck replied grimly. He thought he recognized the sound and it was not good news. ‘Keep quiet and come this way.’

  They moved cautiously forward through the trees, and before long they saw movement. Beck waved Peter down low and they crouched behind a bush.

  A scar of cleared land slashed its way through the jungle. The ground was dotted with severed tree stumps. There was a group of five men ahead at the end of the scar, laughing and chatting in Malay. One of them had a radio that was churning out Indonesian pop music. A dirty flatbed truck was parked behind them.

  Each man was stripped to the waist, but they all wore safety helmets and goggles, and each was carrying a chainsaw. That was the source of the noise the boys had heard. As they watched, one of the men held his spinning blade to the trunk of a tree, and sawdust spewed out as if the tree were gushing blood.

  The other men yanked on the starter cords of their own saws, which joined in the noise. Five dirty petrol-driven saws spewed out a harsh, throaty noise that drowned out the natural rhythm of the jungle.

  Cold fury seized Beck’s heart. There would be no help from these people, he realized. This was a logging operation, and it was about as illegal as it got.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘They can’t do this!’ Peter’s whisper was outraged. ‘This is a protected area. Orang-utans live here!’

  Nakula had set it out for them quite plainly. Orang-utans lived in trees; trees got cut down; orang-utans had nowhere to go and died. Beck also remembered what the keeper had told them about the other problems. The damage to the environment, the erosion, the knock-on effects.

  Both boys already knew it in their heads. But seeing it was something else. It was the difference between reading about an assault and then seeing someone get mugged in the street in front of them.

  ‘I don’t think they care . . .’ Beck murmured. But he knew Peter was right, and that just made him even more determined that these men weren’t going to see them. How difficult would it be for a group of grown men to ‘lose’ two boys in the jungle so that no one ever saw them again?

  He peered up and down the cleared area. It wasn’t large. They hadn’t been working that long – probably not more than a day or so.

  ‘They’ll be taking advantage of the volcano erupting, I’m sure.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Peter whispered. ‘They know the police will be too busy clearing up to bother them.’

  The fury inside Beck burned even more brightly. He thought of the contrast between these bandits and Nakula, who had dedicated his life to protecting the jungle and had died trying to save the boys. The volcano had killed the kind keeper and probably wrecked many more lives, but these people just took it as an opportunity for crime.

  The noise of the saws was deafening. That was good because it meant the boys weren’t likely to be overheard. It was also bad, Beck realized, because they wouldn’t be doing this if there was anyone else close by. They must still be a long way from civilization.

  Peter was shrugging off his pack. ‘I’m going to take some pictures. We’re going to get back to Medan and we’re going to make sure people see these—’

  Beck laid a hand on his arm to calm him down. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Not yet?’ Peter squeaked indignantly. ‘They’re destroying the jungle!’

  Beck didn’t remind his friend of the fact that his camera, or his determination to use it, had got them into trouble once before.

  Then the boys froze. The nearest man had cut his saw’s engine and laid it down on the ground. He took off his helmet and wiped his brow, then leaned back against a tree trunk and swigged from a can of beer. He was only about five metres away from them.

  Eventually the man finished his drink. He picked up his saw and went back to attacking the tree.

  Beck put his mouth close to Peter’s ear. ‘People’s minds are programmed to notice human faces,’ he murmured. ‘They’re all basically the same shape and we can pick them out from any kind of background. If that guy just glanced in our direction, he’d see us. So . . . look . . .’

  He gestured very carefully at the scar the men had left in the jungle. ‘If we make our way round over there, we’ll be a safe distance away and they’ll have their backs to us. Then you’ll be able to use the zoom to get some good pictures. Plus, you can get a shot of the truck’s number plate from that angle. That should help the police. Right?’

  ‘Right.’ Peter nodded vigorously.

  ‘So follow me. And step super-carefully through all the bushes and branches. One tiny movement down here on the ground can make something really wave about a couple of metres up. Ready? Let’s go.’

  When Beck had stayed at a village in Borneo, his hosts had an annual tradition of recreating a battle against a neighbouring community. It had taken place a couple of centuries ago but they were proud of their victory. It had been a sneak attack through the jungle, carefully avoiding the enemy’s sentries, and Beck’s present-day hosts had taught him all the tricks they had used. Hence the crash course he had just given Peter in staying unobserved.

  It wasn’t just the human face that was easy to make out. The whole human figure is familiar to human eyes. People are born able to recognize it. To be really successful at hiding you needed camouflage: mud on the face to break up the natural lines; leaves or branches to distort the basic human shape. The boys didn’t have time for a full-blown camouflage spree, and they didn’t really need it. The men weren’t expecting them and they were looking the wrong way. With a little basic care there was no reason anyone should spot them.

  Beck led Peter back the way they had come to put a safe distance between themselves and the loggers. Soon they could no longer see anyone, though they could judge their position from the noise of the saws.

  Then they made their way round in a large circle, keeping the noise always on their left. On this side of the clearing, if they had to run, they would be running back towards the river. If they had gone round the other side, then they would have had to run deeper into the jungle, away from the river, which Beck didn’t want to do.

  Beck felt adrenalin course through him as they crept through the undergrowth. It was a nervous charge of energy that turned each of his senses up to maximum. Every leaf stood out in glowing colour; the shrill of every bird and the movement of every insect was magnified. Every scent in the air – rotting leaves, damp mud, ingrained sweat
– came alive to his nostrils. He felt primed.

  Ten minutes later, as Beck had planned, they were on the edge of the clear area that the loggers had cut. The men were thirty metres away.

  Peter already had his camera out. He was the expert, so Beck let him creep forward to the edge of the undergrowth. His face was grim as he zoomed in and began to take picture after picture. Wide-angle shots that took in the whole scene. Close-ups of each of the men, showing their faces where possible. A couple of snaps of the truck, including the number plate as Beck had suggested.

  It only took a minute to get a good pile of evidence to put in front of any policeman they met. Peter switched off his camera and put it back in its waterproof case. Then he gave a grim nod to Beck: I’m finished. Beck nodded back and they quietly withdrew.

  The sound of the chainsaws was muted through the trees. They couldn’t see the men any more. Beck judged it was safe to stand up straight and start walking again.

  Peter turned, caught his foot on a vine and went headlong. He landed in a tangle of green undergrowth with his face in a large red flower. Beck caught his breath and clenched his teeth.

  The flower was almost a metre across. Five large petals surrounded a central hollow ball. They were red but flecked with yellow specks, smooth and rubbery like a giant mushroom.

  And it stank.

  ‘Eeuagh!’

  Peter scrambled away from it as quickly as he could. His face was twisted in disgust as he pawed at it to remove every particle of the plant.

  ‘That is disgusting!’

  It was worse than a pile of Hannah’s nappies left out in the midday sun. Beck had recognized it just by sight. It was a Rafflesia – or, as the locals called it, a corpse flower. It attracted insects by looking, and smelling, like rotting flesh. And it was probably the most disgusting smell in the entire world.

  ‘Here . . .’ Beck had to fight back a smile as he reached for a bottle for Peter to use to wash the stench off his hands.

  When they’d finished, the boys realized they couldn’t hear the chainsaws any more. The men were obviously taking a break. Peter’s outburst had come at just the wrong time – had they been heard?