By the time they were nearly ready to get their raft into the water, the sun had already passed its highest point overhead, but they’d been allowed to go about the build without anything attacking them. It seemed that, if their escape had been noted, nobody was all that bothered about finding them. But that thought only got Banks thinking about snakes again, and to wondering how long it might be before they returned to human form, to themselves.
He didn’t want anything more to do with Buller than he had to, but he had questions, and the man might have answers. He left the others to get the raft in the water and test it out for strength and buoyancy, and went to talk to the man they were tasked with rescuing.
“Where are they?” he said, without preamble.
“They mostly come out at night,” Buller said, not looking around. “I think they don’t like the sun.”
“Then we’re safe?”
Buller laughed bitterly.
“That’s not the word I’d use. But we’re as safe as we’re going to be as long as we stay out here in the open. But I’m not a fucking expert, you know?”
Oh, I know that just fine.
He didn’t say it, and didn’t push for more information, for by that time the others had the raft floating below them, with Wiggins using a large paddle as a rudder. McCally and Hynd were using two smaller, spade-like paddles to propel the structure, somewhat unsteadily, along the side of the quay.
Banks got Buller to his feet and the two of them stepped gingerly aboard. The raft wasn’t that much larger than a wide door, and it rocked alarmingly, then steadied under their weight.
“Careful, Cap,” Wiggins said from the back. “She goes well enough in a straight line, but she’s a bit too chunky for anything complicated. A bit like the sarge’s wife.”
Buller sat squarely in the middle, cross-legged, and already looking off into space. Banks ignored the man and knelt at the front where he could give direction, and warn them of anything ahead in the water.
The quay sat in a sheltered inlet, and they managed to navigate easily enough in the relatively still waters on their way out to the river itself. Banks looked up, to the wall that towered high above to his left, and picked out his climbing route of the night before, now marveling that he’d managed it without falling and getting dashed on the rocky hill below. He was also looking out for any attack, for now would be a good time for one, if their opponents had any tactical savvy. But no arrows, rocks, or spears came down from higher up, and they emerged out into the Amazon, where the current hit them side on and immediately threatened to tumble them away at its mercy.
The first few minutes were a frantic flurry of paddling and rearranging their weight while Banks tried to gauge the river ahead and shout out a course of least resistance to the flow. Several times they nearly tumbled over completely and river water washed over the top of the raft, threatening to sink them. But eventually Wiggins got the hang of the makeshift rudder, and McCally and Hynd were able to work in tandem to stabilize the raft and get it moving with rather than against the flow. By the time they got going in a straight line, they were 30 yards and more from the right-hand bank, heading down river almost sedately.
Banks had a last look back at the high tower where they’d been held. It already looked much smaller, almost insignificant when measured against the magnificence of the wide snaking river. Then all his attention was on the water itself, as he watched for eddies or cross currents that might throw them off course.
- 12 -
The squad seemed to have the hang of controlling the raft, and they made good time with the help of the current, but now the main thing worrying Banks wasn’t the river itself, but the baking sun above them, and their complete lack of protection from it. They had hours on the water ahead of them yet, and he already felt a vise-like grip around his skull, and a tightening of the skin across his shoulders. Heatstroke, and crippling sunburn, was an all too real threat.
The left bank of the river was in shadow and would stay that way now for the afternoon and evening to come, but that was 100 yards away across the strongest of the current — there was no certainty they could make it across without being toppled. When he saw a large inlet on the right side bank ahead, with a heavy overhang of canopy, he didn’t hesitate.
“Hang a right, Wiggo,” he shouted. “Over to the bank. Let’s get out of the sun and wait it out for a bit.”
Buller looked up at that, and for the first time Banks saw a worried look on the man’s face.
“It’ll be dark again before you know it,” he said. “We haven’t come far enough yet.”
“We’ll fry if we try to go any farther in this,” he replied.
“It might be worth the risk,” Buller said, but still wouldn’t look Banks in the eye. And although Buller was the mission, the squad needed to be strong and fit enough to see it through.
And for that, we need to find shade. Right now.
Wiggins didn’t hesitate, and steered them, hard and fast, toward the bank. Helped by a cross current at the mouth of the inlet, they got pushed inside, only to come up hard against the keel of a boat that was already berthed there.
As luck would have it, they had found their guide.
Giraldo was in no state to welcome them. When they clambered up into the boat, they found the guide in a cot under the makeshift tent that covered the rear end of the vessel. The man lay, staring into space, eyes wide open. At first, Banks thought he was dead and gone, but as he got closer, he saw the sweat at the man’s brow, and the slow, too slow, rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.
“Giraldo?” Banks said, bending over the man. The guide’s eyes flickered, and, painfully slowly, he turned his head. He had tears, whether of pain or sorrow Banks could not tell, in his eyes when he spoke.
“I could not save Mr. Wilkes,” he whispered. “Then I waited, but you did not come. And I waited too long to do anything about this.”
He raised an arm, and Banks saw the two black holes three inches apart in the man’s upper arm. The skin around the wounds was already gray and necrotic.
“I am sorely bit, Captain,” the guide said and, as if that had used all his strength, he slumped back onto the cot, staring at the canvas above him.
“Wiggo, Cally, get us out of here. We need to get this man a doctor, right now.”
Buller spoke at his side.
“It’s too late for him,” the man said, with about as much emotion as if he was commenting on the weather. “I’ve seen the like before. He’ll be gone by nightfall.”
“Aye? Is that so?” Banks replied. “Well, maybe not. We can call in aerial support from the dredger. And if not, I’d prefer it if you shut the fuck up and let the man die in peace.”
“People don’t talk to me like that.”
“Aye, you’ve told me that already. And I just did, again. If you don’t like it, you can always fuck off for a swim.”
Despite the heat, Buller went to sit up the front of the boat, out from under the shade of the tent.
“If the wanker wants to fry, that’s fine by me,” Hynd said at Banks’ back.
“And me, Sarge,” Banks said, and bent again to check on Giraldo, but the guide had said what he needed to say, and had gone back to concentrating on staying alive.
“Hang in there, man,” Banks said. “We’ll get you home.”
Wiggins got the engine running at the first attempt, and minutes later they were out of the inlet and back on the river, pushing along as fast as they could manage, heading for the dredger.