Fish (10 page)

We set off down the path, the Guide, then the donkey, Mum, me and Dad, in that order. We had only taken a few paces when it happened. There was a terrible sharp crack sound, then another, and a whistling sound passed my shoulder and ear.

What happened next was all panic and confusion. I remember turning and looking up at the mountain
above us and seeing a man there outlined black against the sky and rock behind him. He looked like one of the group who'd come to our camp.

Then someone knocked me down—I think it was Dad; he and the Guide were shouting, “Get down! Get down!”

Once down, I think we all realized that we were in trouble. The man and at least two others were running toward us, and lying on the ground seemed a bad idea to me. I wrestled Dad's arm out of the way as he also got to his feet and saw the men practically on top of us, guns in hands. In sheer panic I dived into the bushes and trees on the left and ran through and under them, half blinded, with twigs whipping my eyes, until I thought that they might follow the crashing sound I was making, so I stopped, and wriggled right into the middle of a practically dead bush, where I could pull my knees up in the dark and was fairly sure I couldn't be seen.

You have played chase and hide-and-seek games, like me. I knew enough, then, to remember to gasp
quietly
. After a moment or two, though, when I didn't
hear the men's feet coming, I was horrified to find I was going to cry. It must have been because I didn't know what had happened to Mum and Dad. I bit my lip very hard and pinched some skin on my arm and held on tight to it until the feeling passed, because if I cried, someone was bound to hear me.

After a while, I breathed more easily and wiped my eyes—biting my lip had made them run anyway. I listened. There was complete silence. Why this seemed more terrible than the sound of running, shouting, or gunfire, I don't know, but it did. I sat and I waited for a very long time, and slowly, slowly, I felt cold, although it wasn't, really, and my teeth began to chatter.

I tried to make them stop because of the noise they seemed to be making, but they wouldn't. That decided me. I ought to move.

Very slowly, I unwound my legs, which had gone dead, and slithered out of the bush. My knees had stiffened and hurt as they took my weight and I straightened up. I realized then I must have been in the bush for a lot longer than I'd thought.

I started to walk—among the trees still, and keeping hidden, away from the path. I admit, I was very, very scared. If the grown-ups had been all right, they would be out there now, calling me. There was no sound.

I put each foot down silently, carefully. I had played this game with friends and it was important not to make two stones clack together, or a twig snap. It had seemed like life and death when you were playing. Now it really was. In a flash, I looked back at the Tiger from only days ago, and realized how young I had been. I was cross with that silly little child, but suddenly sorry, too, that
that
Tiger had gone forever. I swallowed a big lump in my throat for the second time, and concentrated on where I was going.

With every nerve and muscle tight like a bowstring, it only took a bird launching itself from a tree nearby to send me rushing into a panic again. I was near a small hole, not big enough to be called a cave mouth, in the side of the outcrop, and I flattened down and wormed my way in.

Once inside, I lay and listened and tried to pull myself together. Even then, I was sure it was men I had heard, crashing through the trees. I decided to carry on along the passage as I would be safer there than outside.

It was dark and cool, even cold, but once my eyes got used to it there was somehow enough light to see. Surely that meant it had to open out somewhere ahead?

The last part was quite hard to crawl along like a caterpillar, because your backside hit the ceiling as you pulled your knees underneath you to shove forward again. Every so often my backpack, which I'd forgotten about, would catch on the ceiling. I heard Fish's water glooping about from time to time, and wondered what he thought of all this, as his little world turned dark and chaotic.

Suddenly I came to an opening at the end, held on to the sides, and lowered my legs onto a convenient ledge. I was out of the passage, and into a large cave, but high up on a ledge. It was just possible I could
jump down and land without hurting myself, but that wasn't what was worrying me.

The cave had obviously been lived in, and recently. There were the remains of a campfire in the middle and goatskins around on the floor. I started to think about crawling back down the tunnel, but at that moment angry voices, men's voices, froze me to the spot. They were walking right into the cave, arguing, and it was too late to move.

I was perched sideways on the ledge opposite and above them, with the narrow hole of the tunnel behind me offering the only hiding place. If I moved, though, there was no way they could miss seeing me, and I couldn't make it back down the tunnel quickly enough—they would be waiting at either end for me to come out. Unable to move anywhere, I stayed rigid and silent, with my toes and fingers touching the sandy ledge, and my knees almost on my chin. I told myself that, unbelievable as it might seem, they might not look up and notice me.

As they paced around the ashes of the fire, waving
their arms about and discussing fiercely, I recognized them as the men who had visited us. Though I couldn't follow what they were saying, it became clear that the one I'd nicknamed Stocky was picking on the young man who had seemed so uneasy about the Guide.

The younger man said little, but, with the same scared eyes of the night of the visit, firmly kept repeating something and putting his hands up in front of him, shaking his head in a way that clearly enough said “No way.”

Leader, with his impressive beard, was saying very little, shaking his head now and then as if tired of the younger man. He said something briefly in a pause, and the argument seemed to die down for a moment.

Now I looked at Stocky, his back to the light coming in through the cave mouth, I recognized him as the man who'd opened fire on us. The same man who had smiled so much at my parents, and said what wonderful work they'd done. A chill ran through me and I felt pins and needles in my legs. I felt I would have to move soon, or I'd be stuck like this forever.

Just then, he stirred the ashes of the campfire with his foot in a cross way, and I saw that it wasn't quite out. It came to life with a soft red glow, and a waft of smoke drifted up toward me with the gorgeous smell of some kind of roasted meat. I could see a few burnt bits of bone on the edge of the embers, their leftovers from breakfast. They'd obviously had plenty to eat after all.

I was just thinking that they had been lucky getting away with a fire in a cave like that without anything like a chimney to take the smoke away, when I had a new and terrible problem to deal with.

My mouth started to water and my poor stomach, hungry as ever, came to life and let out a loud, rumbling gurgle. Horrified, I stiffened all over. none of them appeared to have heard it. They continued moodily staring at the fire and saying nothing. I willed them to start arguing again. You will know, if you have ever had a rumbling stomach, that there's nothing you can do to stop it.

Again, my stomach growled—this time, surely they would hear it.

In fact, the youngest man looked around, but luckily behind him, at the mouth of the cave, and said something that might have been “What was that?”

That was all it took for Stocky to start having a go at him again—I guessed it went along the lines of him being scared of everything and imagining things.

Then Leader stood up and spoke low and menacingly to the youngest man, who, to my surprise, began to get very agitated and shout back, flinging his arms about.

The echo of his voice bounced and crashed around the cave walls as I cowered on the ledge—Stocky began to shout too, till all the echoes met each other and made a booming that seemed to hum between my ears, and make my heart in my chest shake with the vibration. Just when it seemed unbearable and I thought if I didn't get out of there, I'd fall, there was a tremendous blast that thumped through my skull.

I opened my eyes; to my surprise, the roof of the cave was still there, and I was still on the ledge. But the youngest man was doubled over, clutching his
side. I saw the sunset glow from the fire streak along the barrel of a gun that Stocky was lowering from his hip, and realized that he had shot the younger man.

The injured man turned in a flash and ran, staggering out of the cave mouth. Leader, who seemed almost bored by the whole business, said something to Stocky, and they hurried out too. Now was my chance, I decided. I had to get out. They could be back any moment.

I tried to haul myself back into the hole, but found my arms had no strength left and I could barely straighten my legs. Again I tried, but just could not lift myself.

With no choice, I sat on the ledge, looked down, and making sure I missed the fire, pushed off.

As I'd expected, my useless legs buckled on impact and I rolled over and over on a floor that had looked sandy from above, but that just about every part of my body told me was in fact very rocky. There was no time to check Fish's bottle. I trusted and somehow felt that it would be OK.

I bolted for the cave mouth and darted through it, fear now making my legs work instead of freezing them. I didn't know where I was going, but I turned instinctively in the direction opposite to the one the men had taken.

Only a few paces on, I heard a shout, and glancing back over my shoulder, saw Leader looking behind him and straight at me. I hurtled on, along a path that led steeply downward through scrub and trees, trying hard not to fall over my own feet.

Because the path twisted and turned, I could hear them following, but knew they lost sight of me from time to time. What to do? Come off the path and hide in the scrub? It didn't look thick enough to hide a dog. Outrun them? Where to?

I knew I couldn't run for long, but I put all my effort into a final sprint. If I could get distance between us, I might have a moment to hide—somewhere. I turned a corner and there—in front of me—was the narrow mud-stream. I sized it up in a moment. It was about four feet across, and normally I might have jumped
and cleared it, but I had just used my last ounce of energy in the final sprint. Cramp was seizing every muscle in both legs.

I also saw that the other side was clear and open— if I made the jump, I'd be right out in front of them and they could just stand and shoot. Don't ask me what I was thinking of, or how the idea came to me. It didn't—I just—well, jumped straight into the mud.

I went down slowly at first, and I remember having time to think. It's an odd situation to find yourself willing yourself to sink faster, faster.

Down, down I went, and just as the mud came up to my ears, I reminded myself to take a big breath, and imagine I was swimming, or going under the bath-water.

The most terrifying moment was as I saw the surface of the mud stretching out from the bump on the middle of my nose and I shut my eyes and pulled my head under.

The mud was freezing and it wasn't like being underwater. You can shut your eyes underwater but it isn't
the same dark as the blackness of closing your eyes under mud. You don't become instantly wet, like in water. Even under the surface, the terrible cold oozing and trickling carried on, as the mud rushed under my clothes, around the neck and armholes, crawling everywhere, as if searching out every part to take control.

I hung on to my dad's voice in my head, reading something out of a book of amazing facts, something about: “People can hold their breath for …” What was it? Three minutes? Three minutes, I told myself, whether it was true or not. Three minutes would surely do. It was the best anyone could do.

The blackness and the cold and the complete silence were starting to terrify me. “Pearl divers, however …,” continued my dad's voice. I forgot the rest, but struggled desperately to remember. That was it! I couldn't remember how long they could hold their breath, but anyway, they could go deeper underwater and hold their breath longer than anyone. I found myself thinking that I didn't need to know how long as I couldn't have timed myself with a watch if I had
one, as I wasn't going to be able to look at it right now. At first, that made me want to giggle, but then I was scared I was going mad, so I gave myself a little shake.

My feet had hit the bottom, I realized with relief. That was something, at least. The mud settled and held me very firmly. I could be a pearl diver, with practice, with believing in it, I thought.

But slowly, surely, my chest started to ache and a pulse pounded in my head and I knew I had to get up to the surface again for air. I tried to imagine the men running up to the edge and wondering where I had gone. How long would they stand around and wait? Maybe they would have a lengthy argument again. Surely they'd take the path along to the right? But maybe they had seen the movement in the mud— they'd know what I'd done.

I put that out of my head. There was nothing else I could do now. My chest was bursting and I decided to let the air out, which would at least buy a second or two more time. It was like keeping yourself busy— something else to do.

I had worked out that I would do that, and then surface for air. But as I said, mud isn't like water. I blew the air out as slowly as I could as I started to paddle for the surface with my arms, but it was almost too hard to blow out through the sticky mud, which started to ooze in between my lips straightaway. For a moment I didn't move upward at all, and I thought my feet must have stuck in the mud forever and would hold me there until I died.

But the drought must have made the bed of the stream hard enough to be firm and solid, even under the mud, and a push with my knees meant I was slowly moving upward at last, pushing down with my hands and arms like the slowest, clumsiest bird you ever saw.

The hardest part was pulling my arms up against the mud for another push down, and my backpack dragged painfully on my shoulders and seemed to weigh five times as much as before.