When the Sun Blinked Book 2: The Soldiers

When the Sun Blinked

– The Soldiers

by David Harvey

By the same author:

When the Sun Blinked – Book 1 – Search for the Truth

When the Sun Blinked – Book 3 – The Lions

Retribution – Seeds of Revenge

Retribution – Winter Revenge

Retribution – Twilight Revenge

Retribution – Steps to Revenge

Retribution – Unfulfilled Revenge

The novel does contain some swearing, and while not wishing to offend any readers, I believe the circumstances warrant the occasional use.

An unexpected event leads to the introduction of some violence and bloodshed, including the use of torture. That is only once.

Any grammar mistakes are my fault entirely.

All mistakes in aircraft workings or wildlife behavior belong entirely to me and were made unknowingly and purely in a fictional capacity for the story.

Layout and cover illustration by Jonathan Harvey

Solar flare image courtesy of NASA

Soldiers image by permission of the Selous Scouts Association

Copyright © 2017 David Harvey

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in book reviews.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations and incidents are either the results of the writer’s imagination, or where they are real, they are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, events or any other kind is coincidental.

Acknowledgments.

This was a three-year labor of love and dare I say it, hate, (at times). A journey of fits and starts punctuated with frequent bursts of frenzied activity. There were numerous times when random thoughts and ideas would come to me and I would need to send an SMS to myself to capture the thought at that moment and not lose it.

Numerous trips across Chapman’s Peak Mountain in Cape Town were undertaken to study and walk the mountains around Simons Town, Western Cape, South Africa, to firmly entrench images in my mind.

Countless hours were spent in the creation of these books and that would not have been possible without my wife Ellouise giving me the time to start and finish. Without her support, this book would not have been born and developed.

Thanks too to Gweneviere for helping correct many things during the early part of this work. Her feedback was very much needed and gratefully received.

My sincere thanks to my brother Jonathan for his tireless dedication in the evolution of the first version of this book through to its landing on kindle.

I thank the many different people who in small ways helped to keep me going.

Thank you all

SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS

Chapter 1

They were going for an early start. Andy had been up, washed and then woken everyone else up early, resulting in the entire group being up with the sun climbing over the bay, and after a quick breakfast and final last check, good to go.

He wanted them up to the furthest point they’d gone previously before they had time to think about what they were doing and once they were more than five hundred meters from camp there was no individual bail-out.

Jon had the FN rifle and enough ammunition to start a small war. Andy had his Remington, the day/night vision binoculars, the spotting scope and Gordon had the shotgun and forty slugs.

Between them, they had two portable showers, tents, personal items, and enough food for ten days. Anything forgotten or left behind was bad planning and tough luck.

As they left, Jon grabbed Andy by the shoulders and looked up at him searchingly. ‘Be careful out there. Find someone, soldier boy. Find something, anything.’

‘You be careful here too. Look after these guys. Now before I break down in tears, we’re outta here,’ nonetheless giving Jon a quick hug at the same time.

‘Idiot.’

With a last hug between Mario and Carlo, exaggerated promises from Jamie and her friends that they’d keep him out of mischief, they left.

‘Mario … if you believe that, you’re nuts,’ Andy grinned. ‘They’re going to give new meaning to his life!’

‘I know, but maybe he’ll grow from it and maybe he’ll get laid or something?’

‘I am so shocked,’ Cheryl smiled. ‘Is that what all Italian fathers hope for?’

‘Hey,’ he replied, ‘better out here,’ he gestured expansively, ‘than some of his friends back in Palermo. Here, I trust everyone. Back there … maybe not so much.’

‘Just a quick thought to keep us going,’ Gordon said. ‘What are the odds that, as we disappear into the long grass up the mountain, we’ll see twenty helicopters come roaring over the horizon?’

‘I’ll shoot the bastards down for doing this to us,’ Andy replied. ‘I promise you.’

But it would be typical, given how fate kept on eking out its little messages to them.

They were barefoot, for now, carrying their boots. Walking on the beach was easier without them, but even so, it was tough going. Andy had known from the beginning it was going to be a push, but he was ready for it. Hell, he looked forward to it.

Which made him think about why the other eight were on what was never going to be a lot of fun. With Jeffrey and Lucas, it was obvious – they would crawl over broken glass to find a way home.

Mario was probably still trying to make amends, even though none was needed. But sometimes the world of unintended consequences just kicked you in the balls harder than you thought possible. Mario had thought he was doing his job, but instead, he’d gotten himself into a mess.

Tom and Cheryl, he figured, were trying to be proactive and were not the kind of people to sit around and wait for answers, although Andy had a vague feeling that their compass was somehow out.

Gordon was Gordon. He was big, bold and Andy was pleased he’d joined. They would need his strength and consistency.

Michaela, he figured, well, he was sure she had a bit of the hots for Megan, so was coming along because of her, which suited Andy just fine. If it got the three of them into a Jacuzzi at least once before he left for the Kruger, it was something to look forward to. Megan, he knew, was going because of him. Which was great and no matter what, he needed her. A week or more out in the unknown without her was just so not going to happen.

They stopped next to the lagoon, made final adjustments to their packs, put their boots on and performed a rigorous search of the entire area. Andy removed the rifle from its carry bag, checked it was loaded and set the safety. There was a bit of déjà vu going on at the lagoon as on the far side of the water, spread out across the plain were pretty much the same animals, probably the same numbers and probably the same bemused expressions when they looked up and saw the group.

From here it was single file past the foreboding tree line to the actual start of the valley, the furthest point they had come to previously. The rhino midden seemed to still be growing, making the area stink worse. Despite this, it had still only been the very first group on their exploratory trip up the coastline that had seen anything.

Andy called a quick water stop. ‘Just a thought,’ Cheryl asked. ‘What happens if the game trails are in fact hiking trails?’

‘Then I guess anyone of them could take us to a camp or a rest stop, which would be a win. Obviously, if we start in one direction then see a bunch of rubbish or something on another, we need to follow the rubbish.’

The quick water stop over, Andy checked; ‘Is everyone ready?’

They nodded. Andy set off and then stopped. ‘We should probably talk a bit and act as if we are enjoying ourselves, even if we’re not. I’d rather anything out there hears us, as opposed to getting a fright because we sneaked up on them by mistake. On top of that, this whole valley here is a bit unsettling.’

The terrain was perplexing. The trail followed the general path of the river, but at times meandered in and out of the forest and thick shrub. At times, there was pretty much zero visibility due to thick forest, which exacerbated anxiety levels, whilst at other times they were in shrub only, and not necessarily heading in the direction they wanted.

But leaving the river and striking out on their own did not make any sense. It was way too thick and dense, with so many rocky outcrops that the better route appeared to be the same path the animals traveled which, they surmised, was for a good reason.

To their right, the land sloped upwards towards high mountains covered in a thick shrub. There were several game trails moving in that direction, but what they needed was the burnt scrub. And that lay somewhere to their left. The path they were following next to the river continued to wind its way up the valley, and they could only hope that at some point they would find themselves headed in the same direction they’d seen the smoke.

There was no magic road that was going to make the trip easy. They would need game trails until the burnt vegetation, which hopefully would then allow some choices. But already, it seemed it would unlikely be the best fun ever in my life moment.

Where they were now, the environment, the valley, the forest, the rhythm of the air, all felt strange. On the ground, nothing appeared to be moving at all. In the air, it was an unrelenting rhythm of insects and birds and they could no longer hear the one thing that had dominated every aspect of their lives since the crash, which was the sound of the sea.

Taking everything together, it felt as though between the time they’d left the beach and getting to where they were standing now, the birds, the insects and the nine of them, were all that was left behind after a sudden apocalyptic event.

What there was in terms of dung, both on and just off the trail showed a constant flow of animals, whatever they may have been. At times the trails were wider than average due to what looked like scattered browsing in large groups as well as places where the amount of dung scattered around suggested some grazing areas tasted better than others.

It did, though, make them more aware of their surroundings, ensuring a state of constant alertness. Over the time they’d walked, they had probably climbed no more than two hundred meters above sea level, but it gave them nothing new except thicker vegetation, particularly evident when they looked back and saw how dense the forest behind them actually was.

Several hours and a few water stops later, the trail they were following veered away from the valley and river. It looked well-worn and heading towards their left, the real direction they wanted to be moving in.

Finding a reasonably large, partially shaded spot, they stopped for a meal break, sitting in what was obviously also a stopping point for whatever game used the trail, as the entire shady area was a mass of dung piles. The only good thing was that none of it seemed particularly fresh.

Looking around the group as they settled down, Andy could see that they were all riding on the back of some stress and turmoil from the walk so far and the actual environment. Jeffrey, though, was looking particularly haggard.

Scraping a clear place to sit, Andy settled next to him and leaned across. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘You mean as okay as it can be stranded in the middle of nowhere or…?’

‘I mean are you okay?’

‘I guess,’ he replied looking away into the distance. ‘I just really, really have to get out of here. I know that everyone has their own issues and I’m being incredibly selfish but …’ his voice trailed off.

He placed a hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder, squeezed it gently for a moment and left it there until Jeffrey looked away from wherever he’d been and faced Andy.

‘Hang in there Jeffrey … we’ll find something, some answers, whatever. Before, we were just sitting waiting. Now we can roll the dice, we are going to find whoever looks after this place and get ourselves out. The initiative, however good or bad, is now with us, and those have to be better odds than what we were doing before.’

‘I know Andy, I’m hearing you … but tell that to my mind. It doesn’t really listen to me anymore. Instead, it listens to the demons camping in my head and so long as I’m out here, they own that space. And they aren’t really going anywhere.’

‘Have something to eat, and then we’ll hit the road again.’

His next stop was Tom and Cheryl. ‘Are we on the right track do you think?’

‘I think now that we can leave the valley, we’re as good as we’re ever going to get,’ Cheryl answered. ‘Ignoring the fact that we may end up walking around in circles, let’s just keep the faith and keep going.’

‘We may need to cut across through the shrub at some point,’ Tom added. ‘Although we do need to weigh that up against possibly of getting ourselves lost. I’m also even more confused about the forests here. I mean down there,’ he pointed towards a thickly forested outcrop some distance away, growing alongside one of the mountains, ‘those really look like Stinkwood and Yellowwood trees.’

Andy looked where Tom was pointing and said, ‘And I’m thrilled because?’

‘Because hundreds of years ago, the bulk of Yellowwood trees were cut up and used for building. Yes, there are still Yellowwood forests around and there are some huge individual trees around, but they generally tend to be small and isolated instances. Here, it’s like they’re out of control almost. Something like this out here is … well … out of place.’

‘I know you want to go exploring Tom, but it can’t happen. Right now, we have somewhat more pressing things to do? We need to keep going and find some sign of civilization; even though we don’t seem to be getting closer to anything that I can see.’

‘Not much closer right now,’ Cheryl agreed. ‘But sooner or later we should see where the fire was?’

‘That would be so much easier,’ Tom added, looking at Cheryl. ‘But I think we’ll find that it was behind the mountains in front there.’

Andy got up, walked across the clearing, picked up his backpack and settled next to Megan and Michaela. ‘How are the feet?’

‘Mine are good,’ Michaela answered.

‘And mine,’ Megan said. ‘So far, no-one seems to have any problems, thank God.’

He pulled his pack closer then reached in and pulled out meal packs. ‘What would you like?’

‘Surprise us,’ Megan held out her hand, took two from him and passed one to Michaela. Andy took the third, opened it, put water in and while it heated up, passed the water across. He fished around a pouch on the backpack, pulling out a fork and waited expectantly, idly scratching his rapidly growing, increasingly itchy facial hair.

‘You’re not really a beard kind of guy, are you?’ Megan commented.

‘Not at all … the only time I’ve had beards before was in Afghanistan obviously. But I am not into them at all. They’re itchy, ugly and funny things hide in them.’

As his meal reached the correct temperature he pulled it from the pouch and ate, then rearranged himself so that he could rest against Megan’s knees facing out towards the distant mountains, where the only things they could see moving and hear were masses of birds and the endless drone of insects.

Pulling binoculars out, he began to scan the area ahead of them. In the distance, he could faintly see where the fire had been, but it was still a long way from them. Between where they were and where the fire had been, the only thing visible was thick shrub.

The side of the mountain now visible, was blackened in parts and he could see where game trails stood out in sharp contrast against the sides and surrounding areas. However, beyond the birds and insects, nothing else except for thick shrub, rocky cliffs and jumbled piles of rock was visible. Whatever wildlife was out there remained hidden or sheltered from the heat.

‘Somehow, this idea seemed a whole better idea a few days back,’ he murmured, keeping his eyes firmly glued to the binoculars.

‘Hey soldier boy,’ Megan ruffled his hair. ‘We have faith in you.’

‘Thanks, but I’d have way more faith in me with a map and a GPS, but time to go I think.’

He finished up, got to his feet and using a portable spade, went to one edge of the clearing and began to dig a hole in the earth. Into this, he dumped the rubbish and remains of their meals, covered the hole and scraped as much dung over it as possible. He hefted his pack and rifle, made sure they were all ready, then stepped back out into the sunlit path and continued.

They were still going uphill as they had been doing pretty much since they moved out of the valley. The only difference now was it seemed hotter and noisier with, if anything, even more birdlife. Somehow though, it was just as foreboding as the valley had been.

‘Something to think about,’ Tom called out.

Everyone stopped and turned to face him. ‘Just watch where you are putting your feet … this is great puff-adder territory.’

‘Puff Adder?’ Michaela queried.

‘Seriously nasty snake,’ Tom answered. ‘Sometimes they like to lie on or next to a path like this and they can be hard to see. Just watch your step is all I’m saying because now would not be a good time to find one. Especially you Andy, being in front.’

‘Gotcha Tom, and thanks, but if you could see me from the front you’ll see I’m the original chameleon. My eyes are swiveling around on stalks, upwards, downwards, sideways, only a little faster, though.’

They continued at a steady pace, pausing only for water breaks, before finally moving towards a sheltered grove of trees. It was some distance away from the trail they were following and blessedly free of piles of dung which had characterized the hike so far.

‘We should stop here for the night unless someone has a better thought?’ Andy suggested. Here was a large grove of tall trees shading a reasonably large grassy area that appeared to provide more than enough space in which to pitch their tents. The trees also provided a natural shelter that gave them an illusion of relative security.

‘Probably as good as it gets out here,’ Jeffrey agreed. ‘Are we going to get a fire going?’

‘We must. Let’s dump everything and see what we can find.’

It was not like the beach camp where firewood had been plentiful. Here the forest and shrub grudgingly gave up its bounty, but eventually, after hacking away with machetes and knives, they managed to gather what they hoped was a large enough pile.

They would have to use glow sticks until they were ready to sleep before getting the fire going, as their experience to date had taught them just how fast the fires burned down. This way they could minimize the wood usage and hopefully ensure it burnt all night. It was their first night away from the relative safety of the camp on the beach and the prospect was taking some getting used to.

With tents pitched, some ablutions performed, they prepared meals and sat out the time between dusk and full darkness as comfortably as they could. On the beach, the sun disappeared behind the mountain ridge and darkness gradually grew from the light. Now they watched the sunset and experienced the emerging correlation starting between the growing darkness and growing anxiety.

Everyone had brought their own tents, except Michaela who was going to share with Megan and Andy while Cheryl and Tom also had a double. The final step for the night was to get the fire going and hope like hell there was enough wood for it to last until morning. After final ablutions and a water-bottle-hand-wash, they settled down for the night. They hoped for but had no real expectations about a peaceful night.

The walk had probably been more strenuous than realized. Andy woke once, got up to check the entire area with the night vision binoculars, then added more wood to the fire, and moved away slightly to where he could just listen and concentrate.

Other than the sounds of snoring, the normal night stories from whatever nocturnal birds and creatures lived in or around their immediate vicinity, it was actually more peaceful than down on the beach. It was only away from the beach and in the middle of the night that it was possible to realize how much the sounds of the sea and streams dominated everything.

Poking at the fire to stir the flames, he slipped back into the tent, cuddled up to Megan and promptly fell asleep, until waking as usual with the faint glow of early dawn.

Chapter 2

Getting up, he walked around the perimeter, hearing and seeing nothing. Moving towards the path they’d followed in, he studied the terrain with binoculars. From this viewpoint, it was a different sky that heralded dawn as the mountains on the other side of the bay over which the sun normally emerged were no longer visible.

Also not visible, even with the binoculars, but, judging by the numerous game trails and patches of dung, had to be a whole world going on that he couldn’t, or didn’t, see.

Going back to the fire he dumped the last of the wood on it, grabbed his kit and headed off to what he hoped would be a peaceful morning ablution and a chance to brush his teeth. Unlike back at the beach, the thick bush out here was somewhat intimidating, so he needed to be fast. He missed the early morning wash and mostly only slightly warm shower, besides being a lot safer than he had going right now.

With dawn finally breaking, he went back, shook a few tents and worked on getting everybody up. He needed someone with the shotgun to watch the males and then swap out to Megan or Cheryl for the females, which took time to organize but eventually, having packed, eaten, burnt what debris they could, buried what wouldn’t, they ensured the fire was well and truly out and left.

The problem for Andy was that in the Marines, he had trained with like-minded individuals. For people not used to this type of environment, the need to remove any trace of yourself was not necessarily second nature. He did not want some curious predator to dig up what had been buried and decide to follow them looking for more, so the learning curve would take time and patience.

The morning passed much the same as the previous day, except it was harder. Previously they were following the river through the valley but now they faced a slow relentless climb up the side of the mountain. But at least they kept moving in the direction they thought they needed to be. The biggest problem they had was that nothing resembled anything.

From the beach, what had looked like a simple concept, bore no reality to where they were. Now, as far as they could see, there were just more mountains, ridges, and valleys. And shrub – lots of it. Lots of thick anything-could-be-hiding-in-it-shrub which scared the hell out of them. But all they could do was continue.

Eventually, perseverance paid off and the trail took them into an area with fewer trees and shrub, but more numerous rocky outcrops.

If not broken up with isolated patches of shrub, it could have passed for some type of lunar landscape, which made their path even more arduous, as it wound its way over and across many of the outcrops. With some luck, the trail would hopefully intersect with a water source, which was something they had not seen since leaving the valley.

It did not come anytime soon but eventually, following a rest break, Andy called a halt and pointed into the distance towards where another tree line started again.

‘If we can get there we should be able to set up a camp?’ From where they were, there weren’t many competing options. The heat was relentless, and they had anticipated easy access to either a river or some streams at least, but now they could run out of water if they were not careful.

Certainly, right now, there was nothing spare for further washing purposes, although Andy was not overly concerned yet. The approaching tree line looked promising given how green everything around looked and hopefully, somewhere in its vicinity there had to be something.

So far, the good news was that they had not had any reasons to be concerned and other than innumerable mountains of dung, they had not seen anything and nothing they could see was trying to stalk them or eat them.

But the bad news so far, was that they had also not seen any sign of any infrastructure of any kind.

In two different areas, Andy studied the sky as vultures appeared to be continually circling, at times peeling off and spiraling downwards somewhere way in the distance, presumably onto kills. There were definitely vulture meals out there, which meant wildlife and predators.

The path to the tree line seemed to meander around at the whim of whatever had created it. Closer to the tree line there were increasing signs of rhino dung, but what was more disconcerting now were increasing piles of old elephant dung. Although old, this was something new and placed yet another perspective on things, adding even further apprehension and fear. It did, however, seem to answer the question concerning the numerous broken and dead trees that littered the landscape.

In silence, they walked along the trail that followed around and over several high rocky outcrops, crested one particularly high one and suddenly they were in a different landscape entirely.

All around them was a mix of shrub nestled between rocky outcrops. It looked almost as if millions of tons of boulders had been shot into the sky by some long-dormant volcano and fallen back to earth either together, individually or in clusters forming rocky hills.

For Tom and Cheryl particularly, it was an amazingly beautiful landscape filled with a staggeringly multicolored world of fynbos plants, proteas, and flowers. Within this world now were the continuous movements of innumerable brightly colored birds engaged in a ceaseless pursuit of nectar and food.

For them, it was the real deal ‘oh my God’ moment. For the others, it was simply an alternating mix of sparse and thicker than normal shrub as well as crazy looking rock formations – with an incredible array of birds. This whole back of the mountain thing though was becoming too weird to enjoy.

There was now sand in many areas, and for the last hundred or so meters, as they approached the tree line, they walked across the sand, scattered rocks, boulders, and shrubs. The sheer intensity of sound from birds and insects made hearing difficult and taken together, made for a singularly surreal landscape.

Once inside the tree line, there were several places where a camp could be set up, this time with an endless supply of firewood as well as a respite from the heat and noise. It was way better than the previous stop as, in addition to dead branches and shrub, there were numerous trees that appeared to have been pushed or ripped out of the ground long ago, presumably by elephants if the masses of old dung scattered around was anything to go by.

Dumping their kit, Andy grabbed Gordon. ‘Leave the shotgun with Jeffrey and let’s take a walk around and see what’s happening. I’m pretty sure we have to be close to water if you look at those trees down there.’

Following a path which led directly up a mound of rocks, they crested the low peak and there at the base below them was what Andy had hoped for – a small strongly flowing river that seemed to disappear into a heavily forested area away to their left.

Equally important was that the area immediately behind the forest seemed to split between the hills, with what looked like, from where they were, a valley heading left, exactly where they needed to go. In front were just more hills and rocky outcrops while on their right, a range of massive mountains heading into the distant horizon seemingly going on forever.

Towards their left, the direction they needed to go, there were numerous rocky hills, some open areas and in the far distance, what could have been the top of the mountain they thought of as their destination.

‘We should go back, get the showers and set them up now while the sun is still intense,’ Andy suggested.

‘Why not just camp down there?’

‘I am guessing there would probably be a fair amount of four-legged traffic and we may want to avoid that closeness. Back there, where we dumped the gear, seems more off the beaten track, so to speak, even if it is still a bit close.’

‘Then let’s move and make this happen.’

The showers were set up next to the river, way before it disappeared into the forest. The women would shower first, once the water had heated slightly and Megan and Cheryl would take turns being on guard. They would be followed by the men. Down near the river, closer to the forest, the amount of dung scattered around confirmed their fears. The showers and wash would be enjoyable, but they would want to be fast.

Which they were. With full water bottles, a process to fill the solar showers and step through a rapid wash, the afternoon went without incident despite the length of time needed to warm each cycle. There was simply no time for hot. Luke-warm was the best they could expect to get, but at least they were clean and hydrated.

Andy was the last to wash with Gordon standing guard, and as they made their way back to camp, they saw that the mood was buoyant. Everyone was clean, some clothing had been washed and hung up, they had all the wood they needed, and they appeared to have a way forward. Life was sort of good if not quite life as usual.

Chapter 3

They left early the next morning as was the norm. From the river they’d used the afternoon before, the trail took them into the forested area, which turned out to encircle a large marsh and not anywhere near as dense as it had appeared from a distance.

Sprinkled around the marsh were the concentrations of wildlife they’d expected from the beginning. In and around the shallow water were large numbers of springbok, duiker, warthogs, a small herd of zebra, more of the presumed quagga and a varied mix of large antelope. On the far side, baboons were either picking whatever ground-based delicacies were available or scrambling through trees.

As peaceful as it looked, the problem lay in the sheer amount of wildlife they had seen since the crash. Something had to be keeping the populations at manageable levels. There had to be a balance somewhere and sooner or later they were bound to find out what and the very real hope was a someone part of the what, as opposed to a something.

The behavior here appeared to mirror what they had experienced previously at the lagoon. Most of the animals appeared largely uninterested in the group, merely looking up and then continuing their rooting around through the muddy edge of the marsh or on the dry grassy open spaces.

Overall, they were looking at an exceptional sight that literally took some getting used to, much like a walk-about safari but with tame wildlife as the animals seemed to reinforce the feeling that they were used to human interaction of some form.

Tom moved up to where Andy was standing with Gordon, both of them looking perplexed and said, ‘Just letting you know. Those massive trees over there, are also Yellowwoods. There’s an entire forest of them in here. Given that there are not supposed to be many forests of them anymore, we’ve seen more in the last few days than should exist in the entire country. And that’s just too peculiar.’

‘Tom, everything about this whole place, since we crashed, not just this marsh,’ Andy indicated an encompassing circle, ‘is a little peculiar. All these trees, the forest, the animals, I’m afraid, are just more of that. But somebody knows about it and that’s who we need to find. Then all of this will make sense.’

Everyone else remained silent when they heard Tom’s words. Maybe a little bit more in awe of their surroundings but wanting to push on and get back out into the open as fast as possible. Appreciation of the bizarre was best done in tiny chunks at a time.

They moved forward carefully, away from the marsh, picking the path that appeared to move out of the valley and through the hills. They were now dwarfed on either side by sheer rocky cliffs, stretching far above them, which brought more unease and a feeling of being hemmed in, even though they moved along a wide game path.

It was a perfect environment for them to walk into something which, unlike back at the marsh, was not necessarily in the mood to ignore them. Uppermost in their thoughts were the lions they had heard on the one night, then not again. Coming around a corner and stumbling into them would change their day in a hurry.

Andy continued to lead, moving several meters ahead of everyone else, holding the rifle ready, relaxed approach gone and moving cautiously. Adding to their unease was that at times they were either in full sunlight as the valley opened to about fifty meters or so in width, or in deep shade as the walls closed in towards each other.

It was not exactly a fun experience but was at least made easier by the fact that the trail looked as though it had been bulldozed by mostly, elephants. The dung and destruction of trees and other vegetation though were old. They had obviously simply crushed everything along their way through the valley, leaving behind thick brush flattened over time. It was a strange experience, and even though it was a relatively easier walk than the previous day, it had been made so by something that had no business being there.

The only things moving appeared to be themselves, birds and the ever-present insects. Levity had long since ceased, as their minds, overtaken by images at every turn of the trail bringing some previously hidden predator to the fore, replaced it with apprehension and fear.

Reaching another open space where the trail disappeared over the rocky ground and the valley itself opened up to about thirty or so meters in width, they took a rest. They were in an area of probably several hundred square meters all told, two football fields of bare rocky ground interspersed with shrub, sand, and of course, piles of dung.

To the left and right, the ridge rose high above them, a combination of rocks and granite that rose into the sky, sparsely covered with small growths of vegetation.

‘It’s like a truck stop for wildlife,’ Jeffrey remarked, looking around apprehensively.

‘Let’s take a break and have something to eat and drink. I want to do a bit of climbing and see what there is to see,’ Andy said.

Dropping his pack at Megan’s feet Andy squeezed her shoulder, took out binoculars and the carry bag for his rifle, slipped the rifle into it and hung it over his shoulder. ‘Anybody else coming? More eyes may make it easier?’

Most of the group looked somewhat weary but Cheryl, Lucas, and Jeffrey were quick to their feet.

‘I’m coming,’ Cheryl said. ‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Straight up if we can. Gordon, will you watch?’

‘I will, but I think I want to go the other side, see if I can climb up a bit and then keep a look out from there.’

The four moved up the ridge. At times they disappeared from the sight of the others below, sometimes seeming to scramble on all fours over the rocks as they moved higher and higher but moving quite easily. Eventually, they stopped, high enough to experience a panoramic view. Far below, the others were clustered together looking up at them, while on the other side of the valley, twenty or thirty meters up the ridge, Gordon was sitting down, using binoculars to scan the entire area.

Scanning the hills, forested area, and game trails, they could see there was nothing moving other than on the ridge opposite them. Above Gordon were dozens of rock hyraxs, or dassies, watching him and the other four intently. He nudged Lucas and Cheryl and then pointed across the narrow gorge. As they watched, the dassies seemed to settle and go back to sunning themselves.

‘Now that,’ Andy said staring at them, ‘is probably the most normal South African scene I’ve seen in the last ten days.’ Relaxing, they went back to the original purpose behind where they were, which was to try and see what lay ahead. It was Jeffrey, climbing a bit higher, who spotted what they were looking for, which was where the burnt area lay. Going up to where he was, they could now see how the valley opened up ahead, at most two kilometers through the valley.

The trail then became a patchwork of rocky outcrops and burnt shrub, where the fire had been, and subsequently put out by the rain. Even from their height, it was impossible to see the full trail as the trees, and the twists and turns made for poor visual observation. Where they could follow it, it appeared to be just more of what they’d already walked, with nothing visually alarming.

‘What’s happening across there?’ Cheryl pointed across them and down to where the dassies were becoming agitated and restless until eventually most of them were staring intently back down the valley.

‘Something for sure.’ Andy slipped the rifle off his shoulder and took it out of the carry bag. They watched intently, straining to hear until Lucas suddenly said. ‘Listen.’ Very faintly in the distance, they heard baboons barking. It was a long way away, presumably coming from where they’d been at the marsh but the longer they listened, the louder the sounds became.

‘You hear them?’ Lucas asked.

‘It’s now hard to miss them,’ Cheryl said. ‘Are they behind us or ahead of us?’

‘Not sure … it seems to be coming from behind us. They could be coming through from that marsh.’

‘We should get back down,’ Andy suggested. ‘Judging by our experience down at the beach, if they are on their way here, we don’t want to be separated.’

‘Yet they weren’t in the slightest bit concerned when we walked around the marsh?’ Cheryl questioned.

‘I know. I did wonder about that, but I keep wondering about a lot of things here so …’

Jeffrey had already started to carefully make his way down, followed by Lucas who then stopped and asked Andy for the binoculars.

Lifting them to his eyes, he followed the contour of the hill they were on, looking in the direction they’d come from.

‘There, at the top of the hill.’ He gave the binoculars back to Andy, who watched the baboons coming into sight. They were far higher than the four of them, running across the top of the ridge, looking agitated and still sounding off against whatever it was that had gotten them on the go.

The sound of the baboons was louder the lower the four got and by now the rest of the group on the trail were standing up, looking for the source. Gordon had stayed where he was but faced the direction of the increasing noise, the shotgun out of its cover, held in both hands. He switched his gaze between watching the four of them coming down the cliff face and the baboons as they moved swiftly across the rocks high above.

By the time they had climbed off the ridge and were back on the valley floor, the baboons were scrambling rapidly through the cliffs above them, close to where they had been. ‘I would’ve thought they would amble along and continue foraging?’ Jeffrey said.

‘Likewise,’ Tom agreed. ‘Unless something spooked them?’

By now, Gordon was also down, and they regrouped and described what they’d seen. At most, possibly another two kilometers and then they were out of the valley and would come to where the fire had burnt. From what they’d been able to see, the trail would get much easier, as most of the shrub had been burnt and there were several game trails standing out starkly against the blackened ground.

‘It will, though, get a whole lot dirtier,’ Andy said.

‘Dirty I’ll take,’ Megan laughed. ‘This here,’ indicating where they were, ‘is just plain scary.’

‘Take another five minutes, I just need a gallon of water and something to eat quickly.’ He sat, leaning against a large rock, looking at Cheryl and Lucas who were standing together as though undecided on their next move. Whilst the others had gotten their break, the four who had scrambled up the side of the cliff face, together with Gordon, now needed theirs. Megan sat down next to Andy, leaned against him, then asked, ‘How are you doing, soldier boy?’

‘Hot, sweaty, itchy and hairy,’ he said grinning. ‘Finding a swimming pool would be a huge bonus.’

‘With a Jacuzzi?’

‘That would work.’

By now the baboons were long gone, the dassies appeared relaxed and everything had quietened down again. Above them, the variety of birdlife had changed. The previous sheer volumes now mostly replaced by fewer, but larger birds, gliding the thermals high above.

Andy put his head back and idly watched for several minutes, enjoying the feel and comfort of Megan leaning against him. Putting his hand on her thigh, he gently rubbed her leg and thought about the two missed nights of sexual adventures. He needed to get his previously thought out plan working tonight.

Finished eating and resting, he collected all the food debris, dug a hole, buried it, covered it with a mix of earth and dung and said. ‘Let’s move. I reckon maybe an hour and we’re out of the valley.’

They set off as before; Andy leading, followed by Megan, Michaela, and then the others, with Gordon riding shotgun at the rear.

‘Hey Gordon!’ Andy called, as they carried on.

‘Yup?’

‘You were watching something when you were sitting there. Did you see anything?’

‘I thought I heard something, but it could’ve been the dassies or even the wind.’

‘You seemed kind of intense.’

‘My movie star gaze. The great hunter looking into the far distance, ready to deal mayhem and destruction should anything come bounding along his path.’

‘Thank you,’ Mario called back. ‘I feel so much safer now.’

‘I’m your boy, Mario.’

The banter was encouraging Andy thought. It kept everyone’s minds from where they were, but not enough to stop them thinking of the dangers. So far, they’d only seen the baboons and the wildlife by the lagoon when they started and now earlier next to the marsh, but there was enough evidence of numerous other animals around everywhere. Which came back to the original thought. Where were the predators or the people that kept the wildlife balance in check?

‘Hey, Tom?’

‘Hmm?’

‘When you guys go hiking do you normally see much game?’

‘Only the usual baboons and zebra depending where we are, or smaller buck. Most of our hikes are along the coast, except if I’m working and have to photograph fynbos or something like that. Then I’ve seen jackals, klipspringer … even a blue duiker once … which was pretty damn awesome. Why?’

‘Other than what was back at the marsh, I’m wondering where everything is?’

‘I’m guessing the fire probably drove anything away?’

‘The trail we’re on looks busy if you go by the amount of dung and tracks. Yet we’ve seen nothing other than at the marsh?’

‘I was thinking the same,’ Tom replied. ‘At one stage remember, it looked as though the fire had started to spread out across quite a large area, so my guess is that they all moved away … maybe somewhere safer? Now that the rain has put it out, presumably, they’ll start to come back.’

‘Well, hopefully by later today or at least tomorrow we’ll see signs that someone actually came out here to check on the damage?’

‘Your lips to God’s ears,’ Megan said.

‘Amen to that,’ Michaela added softly.

The mood of the group was flip-flopping as anticipation mixed with anxiety and post-traumatic stress resulted in a see-saw of moodiness, uncertainty, and occasional levity. The news of the plane disappearing would by now have alerted the entire world, so the fact that they had to find someone to rescue them was creating resentment.

For Michaela, a born and bred city girl due to start a one-year teacher rotation program and had come out two weeks early, the place was a frightening experience. The leopard and the lions had caused anxious moments and she knew that camping in with Andy and Megan was cramping their style. She knew that he’d be wanting to do Megan but couldn’t because of her. But hell, why not do her at the same time? A sort of two for one special. That would take her night terrors away.

This was her first-ever time in Africa and the whole wildlife thing was a nightmare. Sleeping in a tent on her own out here was just too scary and was so not going to happen. Although she had to admit that, despite being stressed to hell, it had been one heck of a journey so far and she would have a story of note to tell her students when she eventually started.

For everyone else, it was just plain stress and uncertainty. How they handled it, though, was what would slowly separate them.

As they proceeded towards the end of the valley, the vegetation continued to change, from thick shrub and trees to where rock and sand dominated again. Around them, when the trees cleared, and they could see, they were surrounded by hills and mountains.

Andy called a halt, judging that they were now about half-way through from their previous stop. ‘My guess is we’ve probably got another kilometer or so until we come through and hit open space. Does anyone else need a comfort break?’

It was something they all needed. Megan took the shotgun from Gordon, checked the safety and led the women away and out of sight. Once they returned, Andy did the same with the men.

‘It does look remarkably stupid,’ Jeffrey laughed, as they looked for a suitable spot. ‘When you go hiking, you stop, move behind a bush, do what you do and carry on. Here we have Wyatt Earp standing guard, in case something comes whipping through the bush and rips your dick off.’

‘Kind of kinky don’t you think?’ Lucas was also laughing, the first time in a while.

Finished, they continued, and no sooner had they got into a comfortable rhythm when suddenly the valley fell away and ejected them onto the open plain.

In the far distance, they could see the top of their target point, which was the mountain they were looking to try and climb from the back.

Between them and their goal, however, were other mountain ridges that they would need to find a way around, or over, while in front of them and to their right were other rocky outcrops, mountains, and undulating ground.

It was a panoramic vista and a nature photographers’ wet dream, but a terrain that looked like it would be hell to push through without a path to follow.

With the trees and forests behind them, the vegetation was now much shorter, maybe waist high, but brutally thick where there were no game trails or paths. It also made it impossible to see anything lying down. The game trail they were currently on, was now sandy, looking