‘Move!’ I said urgently, and then we were running into the night.
Chapter 22: Conflict
Behind us came a strident shout. A familiar voice rang out.
‘Stop!, stop right there.’ It was David. I turned to look and saw him at the gate.
We ran. Down the road and back up through the residential streets. The kids were fast and I had been training for months. I turned to look back at every junction. He wasn’t gaining at all, in fact we seemed to be lengthening the gap. At the railway line, Mark and Freya were waiting; they looked up in alarm as they saw us approach in full flight.
‘What went wrong?’ said Mark, as he helped Jasmine over the fence and onto the tracks.
‘It’s David.’ I gasped out, as I scrambled over. Ruth looked up sharply, ‘Are you sure?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I replied, breath heaving, checking that everyone had made it across the railway. I began to climb the fence on the other side. ‘He must have been staying at the hostel.’
We gathered on the golf course and looked back; no David. I doubted he would climb the fences as we had done, but he would find a way to get across. We turned and began running again, over the greens and through the trees, falling into sand bunkers in the dark. Finally we reached the fields at the edge of the town.
There was another shout behind us; David had found a way onto the golf course. In the bright moonlight we raced across the field. By the time we had found the hole in the fence I could hear David yelling at the soldiers on guard at the base, and there were noises coming from the barracks. Mark quickly released the bungee cords and passed out the bikes and rucksacks. We were on and cycling away in less than a minute, but behind us we could hear the squeal of a large gate opening and the roar of motor bikes throttling up.
We raced back over the railway line and through the hamlet, cycling along the road with the sound of the motorbikes getting louder. The headlights shone on our backs, casting long shadows in front of us. My feet pumped the pedals as we flowed over the humpbacked bridge where Mark, instead of turning left, kept going, leading us through a narrow path until we reached the main road. In front of us, the moonlight revealed a narrow footpath between white tipped fence posts.
We sped across the road onto the path, leaning in as it veered sharply left. A bridge appeared beside us and the kids in front screeched to a stop and turned a hundred and eighty degrees, cycling up a footbridge ramp and then across the motorway. The other side ended in darkness, steps leading downwards. I ran down carrying my bike, adrenaline giving me speed and strength.
‘There’s a large wood just up ahead,’ Mark called, ‘stick together and don’t get left behind.’
I could hear the bikes roaring over the footbridge and then come to a rumbling halt, working out how to get down. We had managed to cycle to the edge of the trees before we heard the bike engines throttle up again. Mark was at the front twisting and turning along the paths beneath the bare trees. The others were stringing out, further and further apart, I was near the back, tiring quickly. Turning to look, I saw that only Alisha and Jasmine were behind me, but they were barely in sight and being left further behind every second. The motorbikes weren’t visible yet but light from the headlights of the lead motorbike shone through the trees. I turned forwards just in time to see the rider in front of me trail the others into a narrow passage. I followed them through and down to a carved out streambed. A chain link fence crossed our path and the others were pushing their bikes through the gap where the streambed passed under the fence, one by one assembling on the other side. There was no way the motorbikes could follow us. I waited, desperate to get through to safety. Hurry, hurry… one of the bikes was stuck. I turned as I heard a sharp cry behind me. Where were Jasmine and Alisha?
I scrambled back up through the passage and up out onto the trail. Jasmine was on the ground, tangled with her bike, Alisha standing beside her. I could hear the lead motorbike getting closer. I looked up at the headlights dancing on the vegetation in front of me and then back at the passage to safety. Then I looked across at the girls. We were so close.
A slash of light cut my face as the motorbikes bounced into view. Survival; it was all I had thought about for nine months. But as I looked at Alisha and Jasmine there was no hesitation any more. I leaped across the trail, grabbed them both, and dived into the bushes on the other side.
I heard the bikes screech to a halt. We scrambled upright and raced through the trees together. I heard crashing behind me as the soldiers entered behind us, and we ran, weaving between the trunks and ducking low branches. Then I heard a voice. It was unmistakably David.
I froze and pulled Jasmine and Alisha close. The chasers had stopped also, and the woods were silent. I was scratched all over from the vegetation and sweat was dripping down my face, cuts stinging from the salt, but I didn’t move, focussing only on the murmuring of voices and the small bodies shaking silently by my side. The moonlight dappled the trees as I heard David’s voice rise and fall. Had they found the fence? Or were they just coordinating the search? The woods weren’t big, we would be found quickly if we continued to run. We needed to hide. My eyes swept the woods. There; a thicket of brambles. I tugged the girls towards it, crouching to the ground to crawl beneath the arching stems, but the shadow beneath was an illusion; the undergrowth was impenetrable.
We didn’t stand a chance. We couldn’t go forwards and we couldn’t go back. My eyes skittered over the moonlit bracken… what was it Freya had said? People never look up? My gaze locked on a knobbly tree trunk and followed it up into the sky. The branches were silhouetted against the moon, bare of leaves, and at the top of the trunk there were several horizontally branches, forming a space that we could perch in. In our dark clothing, we would blend right in. invisible in the dark.
I crouched down to Alisha and Jasmine’s level and put my mouth to their ears, ‘Can you climb that tree?’ I whispered.
The two girls looked at me uncertainly, then up at the tree, they looked at each other and then slowly nodded. The three of us stood by the tree looking at it hesitantly, should I let them go first so I could catch them if they fell… or go up first and help pull them up?
I stepped up to the tree and put my foot on its side above one of the knobbly bits of bark. I pushed upwards and grabbed the trunk. Digging my fingers into the gaps in the bark, I pulled myself up, scrabbling with my feet to find footholds. Some of my climbing experience came back to me and I began clamping my hands tight, so I was secure, and then reaching up with my feet to find new footholds, pushing myself higher with my legs. My arms grew tired and I found a couple of good footholds and paused, breathing hard. I looked up, the first branch was just above me, I stretched up but couldn’t quite reach it. Steadying myself on my left foothold, I brought my right foot up. Heart in my mouth, I pushed against the trunk and jumped up to grab the branch scrabbling for a new foothold. I hung for a second my full weight on my fingers until my toe snagged on a protrusion. I pushed up and folded an elbow over the branch, gasping. The ground looked very far below and I closed my eyes, psyching myself for the next push upward. I swung myself up onto the branch and collapsed against the trunk.
I looked down; Jasmine and Alisha were staring up at me, their eyes wide in the darkness. I waved to Alisha to come up. She stepped up to the trunk immediately. Her smaller feet could squeeze into the cracks in the bark, and she scampered up until she reached the place I had paused. I could see her searching for handholds but there were none. I swung myself around, clamped my legs around the branch and leaned down. She reached up, grabbed my hand and scrambled up over me, onto the branch. Then it was Jasmine’s turn. She copied her sister exactly and we all sat on the branch, regaining our breath, and listening intently to the forest surrounding us.