Project - 16 (2 page)

I got up before my legs got too stiff and resumed my hunt.
The tracks continued on until I reached a bend in the valley that
eventually began to flatten as they reached a stretch of walled
farmland that had once bred sheep and cattle. The trampled grass
became shorter where wild animals grazed, but the footprints were
still visible here. They carried on to a breach in the dry stone
wall before splitting in a dramatic fashion.

I stopped and looked closely at the trail. The more violent
tracks, the ones that had crushed the grass the most, had broken
off towards the north-east, the direction of the city. A single
track - just a few depressions that could barely be seen, had gone
north-west to another break in the wall of the next field along. A
lone walker had broken away from the group. Why? I didn't know at
that point but the rest of the team, three of them I estimated, had
gone on towards the city.

I checked my map and marked this split in red ink before
looking to see where this solitary seeker could be heading. It
wasn't the US army base, that was for sure. From this point they
would have had to turn south, cut across six or seven fields and
come back on themselves to join the east road. Those going to the
city could only have gone to the city - there was nothing else on
that path worth noticing. But as for the lone walker, I didn't have
a clue where he or she was going.

I put the map away just as the first heavy drops of rain
began to fall and reached into my pack for my poncho. Then I made
up my mind, leaving the others for now and began to follow the
lonely set of footprints that led north-west.

The stride of this walker was about a third shorter than my
own. The grass wasn't as trampled either which led me to believe
that the person was a bit smaller than I - a fact confirmed after
half an hour when I came across a patch of mud and saw a clear
footprint in the soft earth. I bent down to take a look. It was
about a size UK 6, maybe 7 - a lot smaller than my UK 11 and it had
the tread pattern of a pair of trainers. I couldn't make out a
brand or anything but they certainly weren't hiking boots or even
trail runners. Also, the depression wasn't anywhere near as deep as
my own. This person was light, more than likely small in height -
unlike my own 6 feet 2 inches, and he or she walked in careful,
deliberate little strides. He or she had tried to avoid stepping in
the mud directly but had stumbled and planted one foot in the slop.
In my head I saw a muddy left trainer and an angry
expression.

I carried on as the path began to rise, hand-railing the
stone wall to the top of a long, flat hill where the steps broke
away a little more westerly towards a stile in the next field. I
went to my map again, still unable to find a clue to where this
person was going. I still had the tracks so I pressed on, aware
that it would be going dark soon and I'd have to look for somewhere
to pitch up for the night. Ahead the pines grew thick where a
plantation had sprung its wire fence and begun branching out in all
directions. Had this person camped there?

The rain was falling heavily now and it splattered against
the hood of my poncho with increasing violence and I found myself
leaning forward to protect myself from it. I had two walking poles
on my pack and I unclipped one and adjusted its length as the stony
path began to get wet and even more slippery. Occasionally there
were more footprints and at some point the walker had given up
avoiding the puddles and mud slides and just waded through them.
Wet trainers. Wet socks. Blisters. Pain. Moral lost.

A lot of students had the opinion that walking was easy. A
large number of them boasted they could walk for miles. I can tell
you now that by the time I'd finished with them their opinions had
changed. People walk around all day long, but give them twenty or
thirty miles of plodding along, of endless paths in hot or wet or
cold weather and they soon want to give up. Walking long-distance
was a mind game, not a physical one. More often than not boredom is
the enemy and it wants to take every pain, every blister, every bit
of chafe or sore joint you have and turn them on you like a wailing
siren. Eight hours. Twelve hours. Your mind breaks before your body
ever does. I wondered where in that torment this walker I was
following had got to.

As the twilight crept across the damp moorland I lost the
trail. It came to an abrupt end somewhere near the last dry stone
wall three hours from where the tracks had split earlier. It made
no sense to me. The paths in all directions were muddy and couldn't
have been crossed without leaving some kind of mark. But there were
none despite my best efforts to find them. I climbed over the wall
and saw nothing where I might have expected to see two large prints
from a small person dropping down on the other side. I back tracked
a little, wondering if I'd missed a turn or something. Then I saw
it - a patch that had drawn the fat blue bottles from where ever
they live when they're not feeding on the piles of stinking cow
shit. I waded through the tall grass off to one side of the path
and in the quickly fading light I saw that it was a splatter of
vomit. It was definitely puke because it had the tell-tale chunks,
the variety of colours and something far more worrying - it was
swirled with blood like a bad ice cream.

I knelt down and rooted in the small pouch on my hip belt for
a torch. I gave the winder a few turns and pressed the button,
shining the beam down into the mess. I realised I'd stopped
breathing through my nose in anticipation of the smell.

On closer inspection I could see that there was more blood
beneath the surface and it clung in thick, dry globules to the
grass as if scattered with some force. I poked it a bit with a twig
and found nothing more. It was congealed, except where the rain had
moistened it, and at least 12 hours old. I got up and began looking
around until I found exactly what I expected to find. It was just
visible when my torch played over its metal lid and I went over to
the bottle, picking it up with my index finger and thumb. I sniffed
the open mouth and smelled the same stench I'd smelled at the tarn.
The bottle had been led on its side and leaning down towards the
mouth so most of the contents had emptied into the soil. Still, I
reckoned the walker had drunk enough before realising it was
contaminated and the damage had been done.

I was faced with a difficult decision. The light was all but
gone and I knew that the person I was following would either be
seriously ill or dead by now. Should I wait until the morning, or
risk searching in the darkness for either a body or a
casualty?

I looked around as my mind tossed the idea back and forth.
Blood in the vomit. Stomach wall dissolved. What were the odds of
surviving it for these last 12 hours or more? I'd taught teams of
special forces to act quickly, to drink plenty of clean water if
they'd drunk something toxic, to dilute it and definitely not to
induce vomiting, then radio for an evac. There was none of that
here. Somewhere out there, in the black, someone was dying and as I
checked the map I realised there was sod-all I could do about
it.

I checked my map but by this time the night was prowling
across the woodland all around me and I needed somewhere to lay up
until morning. I checked my compass and walked slowly through the
tall, wet grass in a roughly eastward direction until I hit the
first of three stone walls. I crossed each one, checking my
orientation before turning north for half a click - say eight
minutes of slow, careful steps, then into the pine plantation for a
minute or so until I had enough room to hang my hammock. I had the
torch in my mouth now and I was so familiar with the contents of my
pack that I was set up in no time. I lit a candle and by its light
I climbed under my quilt and settled in for the night. I had little
appetite for food and once I'd gotten into the warmth I was soon
fast asleep.

If I'd dreamed at all then I woke the following morning with
no memory of it. The first thing I was aware of was the slow,
methodical dripping from a single leaf onto my tarp. I had a vague
memory of rain during the night but the sun was peering at me
through the canopy as I looked out from under my shelter. I didn't
want to move. I was warm and I was groggy from a good nights sleep
and it took me a few moments to recall how I'd come to be there.
Only the weathered skin of my face was exposed to a gentle morning
breeze and I was happy with that. The rest of me was snug, gently
swaying and eager to stay put.

A long time ago, probably a few months before he died, my Dad
took me out into the woods near the camp and we hung our hammocks
in a patch similar to this one. The pines in a plantation were
usually quite uniform, for obvious reasons, and yet, he pointed
out, each one seemed to always grow in a strange, unique way that
made no two look the same. Maybe it was the diffusion of light
through the canopy or the refusal of each tree to grow exactly
where it had been planted. Still, he'd said, you could tell each
one apart if you had the eyes to see it. He'd loved the outdoors
until his dying day, even after it had all changed and we'd become
the last of the English. I think, perhaps, he was almost glad. He
got to see nature claim it all back and I think it made him happy
to see it.

Eventually I pulled an arm out into the cold and reached for
my stove. It was an alcohol burner and it was filled with the
product of my still which didn't burn as well as other
mass-produced American fuels but it did the trick. I got some water
boiling and led there, waiting, breathing, doing the every-day
stuff that just being alive required. Then I turned my attention to
finding what I was sure would be a corpse and not a casualty. I'd
resigned myself to that fact as I'd poured my coffee grounds into
my aluminium mug and rooted in my pack for the cold bacon sandwich
I'd made the night before. I chewed it thoughtfully as the water
came to a second rolling boil, then held it between my teeth as I
carefully let the coffee cool off the stove. Coffee in the woods
was a delicate matter and I'd perfected the technique long ago. I
laughed aloud, remembering a team of US Rangers who'd been a bit of
a handful early into their three week course. They'd found a new
respect for me once they'd seen me make them a cup of 'Cowboy
Coffee' as they called it.

I drank the strong, hot brew whilst I began to pack up,
washing down mouthfuls of hard bacon and bread as I went. The birds
began their chorus and fluttered in the tree tops above me, often
sending small showers of rain drops down onto my head that had
ricocheted off the points of the sharp pine needles. In a few
minutes my stove was cool enough to be packed away and I slung the
black sludge from the bottom of my cup before stowing that away
also. Then with the bottom of my boot I dragged the trampled grass
upright as best I could, replaced any of the debris as I'd found it
and set off back the way I'd come. No traces.

I tracked my way back to the site of the vomit - a task I
found much easier in the daytime, then searched the ground once
more for spoor. I found my own boot tracks mingled with the
walker's and began searching in an ever widening circle until I
found another patch of blood-puke. It was to the south this time on
the other side of a wall which is why I'd missed it. The walker had
all but back tracked to this point and now the tracks went due
south in a stumbling fashion, the distance and pace looking frantic
and disorganised. Left and right they veered, sometimes turning
back on themselves completely, other times stopping in one spot and
pacing in circles to form a bare patch of muddy black earth. I
followed them further and noted that the distance between steps was
growing shorter and shorter until the tracks become less of a
defined footprint but rather a smudged line a foot long as each
shoe was dragged through the mud. It was the shuffle of someone too
ill to stand let alone walk much further.

At the base of a huge oak I found her.

It was a young girl, 17 or so with hazel brown hair that
feathered her pale cheeks in the soft breeze of the morning. She
sat with her back to the great gnarled trunk, her legs splayed in
front of her and her hands flopped loosely on the ground at either
side. Her cheap waterproof coat was open at the zip and a greasy
streak of bloody vomit ran down her chest and pooled in her lap.
Her eyes were open and glazed, staring west in the direction of
home.

I approached slowly and undid the buckles of my pack, letting
it fall softly to the ground. I approached at a half-crouch,
stopped at her feet and looked at her plain features, her pale
skin, her distorted expression. She'd died in pain, died alone and
died very far from her own people. I wasn't a stranger to a dead
person but all the same this one seemed particularly saddening and
I sat on my haunches for a moment and digested the last few hours
of her life.

The toxic water had destroyed her insides and by the time
she'd have realised it would have already been too late. In pain
she'd fumbled her way along, turning round at some point as if to
try and return to the others, maybe to get some help, maybe out of
regret or something. Then, when she'd realised it was over, she'd
found this tree, turned towards the setting sun and thought of
home.

I looked to my left, trying to imagine what she saw. All
there was for me was an empty field and a few sheep on the
hillside. She must have seen cities and skyscrapers and yellow
cabs. Eggs easy-over and big cars. The American dream.