“Scribbling of a madman.”
He sighed and closed the book, and turned to head back to his station. Señor Cartwright was off to meet his maker. Now he needed to see if someone wanted to claim the body, and as a dying man’s last wish must always be honored, he would also see that the book found its way home.
CHAPTER 14
Later that evening, Ben sat in his room with the map sketches laid out in front of him. In the military, all soldiers had to learn basic cartography, map reading, and landmark plotting. Bottom line, if you got separated, you needed to be able to find your way home or to a rendezvous point with a map, sun/star positions, or just your memory.
Following his reading of the notebook, he now believed that there was something unimaginable down there; and something dangerous and unique. Benjamin the 1st had a skilled eye for landmarks and mapping, and today, Ben could use modern maps, satellite images, and even photographic libraries to pick up the trail.
He knew that the fateful expedition of 1908 had been somewhere deep in the eastern jungles of Venezuela — that was good and bad.
The good being that it was still largely thick and unmapped jungle, meaning that if there were any secrets, they still might be hidden there.
And the bad being that it was still a thick and unmapped jungle, meaning that if there were secrets there, it’d be damned hard to get there, find them, and also survive.
Ben knew jungles; he’d been to the Amazon, the Congo, and to the jungles of New Guinea. Frankly, the Amazon was the best and the worst of them, as the humidity was at a constant 90 %, the ground cover was as thick as the overhead tree canopy cover, and everything that could possibly slither, creep, bite, nip, and infect you lived down there.
They’d all arranged to get shots for malaria, diphtheria, tetanus, typhoid, hepatitis, rabies, yellow fever, fungal infections, and a half-dozen other shots for blood-borne parasites. He even knew of certain flies, like the chigara, that burrowed into skin, releasing maggots just under the surface to feed on the living flesh.
“We’re all mad,” he mused. Taking a team of novices was lunacy. Most people when they imagined jungles conjured images of lush green plants, rainbow-colored birds, and maybe clear streams with sharp-toothed fish. But he knew they were really hot and wet miasmas that sapped strength, health, and sanity. “I’m mad,” he added.
He went back to the online map of Venezuela. The first major clue he was given was the large river that wended its way into the northeast of the jungle. He groaned as the number of candidates were listed — dozens and dozens, and way too many to explore in their window of opportunity. And as he only had drawings and descriptions of some aspects of the waterway he was looking for, he’d need more clues. But at least he had a start and a good piece of the puzzle.
The notebook described a place of permanent cloud cover, but it also indicated that this cover was an unusual event that only occurred during the wettest of wet seasons. Still, he knew there were several drainage basins in the Amazon where cloud cover could remain collected for months or even permanently, only ever rising slightly and then sinking back depending on the humidity, temperature, and prevailing winds.
There was a small notation on one of the pages. “Must hurry, only days until Primordia returns.”
A ship for their transport? Ben wondered.
He exhaled through pressed lips. He needed to take it back a few steps. There were clues, but he’d need to tease them out. In the notebook, the original Benjamin and Baxter arrived at the edge of the jungle and then travelled east, overland for several days on horseback, before boarding a riverboat. Given that a fully laden packhorse would only travel about 5 miles per hour, travel for about 10 daylight hours and only break for an hour in that entire time, then that should be between 40 and 50 miles per day, before arriving at their river.
Ben went back to his map, using the scale and plotting to where he believed they ended up. He found a promising candidate — the Rio Caura. It emptied into the Orinoco Basin and was termed a black-water river — that meant the water was the color of dark coffee from being stained by all the tannins leaching out of the rotting vegetation. The problem was it split into dozens of tributaries.
Ben sighed as he tried to find names for them — most didn’t have one — at least not to the mapmakers. He checked the renditions in his ancestor’s book again and read the notes.
He smiled. “Benjamin, I’m afraid the sound of drumbeats or an indication of where Professor Challenger lost some specimens is just not going to cut it.”
But there were other indicators more promising — rocky slopes, large plains of tree ferns, low hills, and spongy morass of swamps — they would be something a local should recognize. And then there was the area that was headed, concealed river. Ben knew that places like this existed, where a narrow and remote tributary had large trees on either side growing up over it to meet in the middle. From line of sight, it was invisible, and if you didn’t know it was there or weren’t travelling along it, it didn’t exist.
He stared hard at the map, concentrating on an area of river and surrounding geography that might just suit the profile for Benjamin’s expedition, making notes as he went.
The knock on the door was almost welcome and he sat back and rubbed tired eyes. Ben checked his wristwatch — 9pm — whoa; he’d been staring at maps, old notes, and pencil drawings for hours. Ben got to his feet and crossed to the door pulling it open.
Andrea stood there in jeans and casual cotton shirt, collar up, and unbuttoned down to just show the top of a pair of full breasts. In her hand, she held two bottles of a local dark beer and a pair of glasses. She held them up.
“Nightcap?” She smiled, showing a neat line of expensive white teeth.
“Um.” He wasn’t sure this was a good idea and wracked his brain for a polite excuse without hurting her feelings. “Well…”
“Well, thank you.” She ducked past him.
“Huh?” He watched her shapely figure walk lightly to the small table and two chairs, and then use a napkin to twist the top off one of the bottles, while the tip of her small pink tongue just touched her top lip.
She poured two glasses of the beer that was the color of dark honey. She sat and slid one of the glasses over in front of the opposite chair. “Come on, sit down and tell me what you’ve found.”
Ben checked his watch again and shrugged. A few minutes wouldn’t hurt. Besides, he kinda liked English beer.
He sat and lifted the bottle — Earl of Brixom dark ale. He sipped and immediately got hints of roasted malt, chocolate, and caramel, and after he swallowed, it turned to a slight, black-coffee bitterness. He liked it, but would have preferred it chilled.
He saluted her with his glass. “Good choice.”
She leaned forward to clink his glass with hers. “All they had, but I still accept your compliment.” She sipped, her eyes on his for a second. “Well…” She nodded to the maps. “Anything interesting?”
Ben bobbed his head from side to side. “Yes and no, I guess. I think I know where we start, but at about 500,000 square miles, if I’m wrong, we’ll never find what we’re looking for.”
“The hidden plateau?” She raised her brows.
“Eventually. We’re just trying to pick up the thread to begin with. Like I said, I think I might know where to start, but the bottom line is we’ll need to rely on Jenny’s contacts on the ground. Local knowledge is going to be crucial once we’re there.”