Reunion - Chapter Eleven

Reunion

By Simon Stanford

Chapter 11

Teamwork

Thus it was, after their evening meal, they passed the night in turns, two hours shifts seems to give a reasonable chance of getting some sleep. One sleeping and two on watch then rotate round so at worst you ended going four hours without sleep before getting your two hours.

Court and Prince were on watch in the early hours of the morning, the sun just below the horizon casting a pale yellow and pink glow over the sky and reflecting down on to the island. At the start of their two hour session they had found little to talk about, the underlying enmity and distrust still palpable between them but with nothing to do but sit and watch the glowing embers of the fire they eventually found themselves discussing how their lives had turned out and how they had been shaped by their early experiences at school.

“I certainly never expected anything like this,” said Prince.

“Well who could have, it is pretty remarkable,” replied Stephan.

“Yeah I mean not just that. But anything so real, so visceral. Seeing people die in front of my eyes. Friends, people I knew.”

“I know what you mean but we have soft middle class lives, the worst we expect to deal with is a bit of soft middle class guilt that is easily assuaged by a donation once a year to Children in Need or Comic Relief. Or maybe if feel really guilty for your comfortable life you sponsor a street child in Brazil or somewhere.”

“When I get back home, I going to sponsor a whole villages worth of street kids.”

Stephan smiled and noted the note of optimism still in Prince’s tone.

“When” I get back home, not “if”.

Himself, he wasn’t so sure though he would never give voice to his concern. The one thing he felt was in their favour now was that they were aware of what was going on that the island, well someone on it was trying to kill them. Although it was of course still possible it was one of them who was actually doing this, even so the other two would always be aware of the possibilities and not go sleepwalking to their deaths like so many of their colleagues had.

This knowledge hadn’t helped Nalesh Mougal but maybe at that point there was still room for doubt that there was a hand, an agency, at work and not merely a series of catastrophic accidents. Now there was no doubt, however grim the prospect, someone was trying to kill them.

Prince and Court carried on chatting for a few minutes and then fell silent, lost in their own thoughts about home and friends and their lives so far.

The sun was just peeking over the horizon the golden light crossing Stephan’s face startling him awake and his head slid off the palm of his hand. Damn he must have nodded off at some point, still at least Prince would be…no he was sound asleep too in a similar position, elbows on knees and head in his hands. How long had he nodded off for? It might only have been a couple of minutes, he couldn’t really say.

“Prince,” hissed Court loud enough to wake him but hopefully not to wake the sleeping Walker.

“Ugh, hmmm what,” Prince jerked awake, “ I wasn’t asleep,” he said vehemently and a little too loudly.

“Ssssh you’ll wake Walker, and yes you were asleep. You are supposed to be on watch with me.” Stephan was angry at himself for nodding off but he directed that anger at the easiest target rather than admit he was as bad.
Stephan checked his watch, it was just coming up to the time to change shifts again. He would be replaced by Walker.

Still no harm done. Stephan got up and stretched and walked over to the entrance to Walker’s shelter.

“Walker…Stuart,” he said softly, “your turn on watch.” No response, he must be in a deep sleep. He guessed Walker must have got off to sleep quickly and so was now deep in the land of nod.

“Stuart. Come on, wake up. You’re on watch.”

Still nothing. Stephan was slightly worried now and knelt down in front of the shelter to look inside, a soft edge of light penetrated the front of the shelter but Walker could easily be curled up asleep further in. He stuck his head in the shelter, it was empty as he had feared and he could see daylight at the other end of the shelter. The back had been removed.

“He’s gone!” said Stephan from within the shelter.

“What? Where? How can he have gone without you seeing him?”

“He’s gone. Maybe he went to the toilet. Anyway what do you mean ‘without you seeing him.’ Don’t you mean without us seeing him? You said you weren’t asleep.”

Stephan emerged from the the shelter, stood up and moved round to the back. Prince followed him his body stiff with tension and anger barely held in check. Any rapprochement the two might have made with the heart to heart chat by the firelight was gone now.

“OK I dropped off but only for a second, can’t have been more than that. Not in that position, but you should have seen something.”

“Well I didn’t ok. He must have…..” Stephan stopped in mid sentence.

The back cover of Walker’s shelter was lying to the side and clearly visible in the sand leading away into the jungle were a set of shoe prints and two parallel tracks as though something had been dragged away. Like a body.

Every couple of feet there was a dark spot on the sand of some sticky liquid. Something they were both used to recognising now. It was blood.

“He’s been taken,” said Stephan.

“You mean you, you’ve taken him!” shouted Prince.

“What? Me? Don’t be ridiculous I didn’t do this?”

“You did it whilst I was asleep!” Prince backed away and squared up to Stephan, his fists clenched at his sides.

“I didn’t I tell you…..I couldn’t have. I was, I fell asleep too,” Stephan admitted , “though only for a minute I’m sure.”

“Ha!”

“But that might have given you enough time to do this and then pretend to be asleep yourself,” Stephan said.

“What? I didn’t do this. It’s you!” Prince drew himself up ready to lunge at Stephan and tackle him to the ground when he was stopped by a muffled cry from somewhere deep in the jungle, it just carrying on the breeze.

“It’s Walker,” cried Stephan, “he’s still alive, we’ve got to find him, help him.”

He started to move into the jungle following the trail then stopped.
“You go first,” he said, stepping to one side.

“What? No you go first!”

They stood side by side neither moving, at a stand off. Deep down they both knew this mutual suspicion was ridiculous, if Walker was alive in the jungle having been dragged away by someone then the chances of it being one of them was remote, it didn’t really make sense. Unless it was some kind of trap.

Prince thought this was just the sort of clever trap one of the brains trust would come up with to catch him off guard. Stephan meanwhile was having similar thoughts about Prince. He wasn’t necessarily the most gifted academically but he was no idiot and he had cunning, street smarts if you will, and a vindictive nature.

Then they heard another muffled grunt from the jungle and this was enough to snap them out of their standoff. Then they both went to move forward to follow the tracks, bumping into each other.

There was a brief tussle which Prince won out by virtue of his superior bulk and he then set set off first following the tracks in the sand that faded way to the occasional scuff mark in the softer darker soil of the jungle floor. Stephan followed close behind.

*

The path through the jungle they were following became more overgrown. The foliage bent and in places stems and stalks snapped off as Walker had been carried away. Prince and Stephan continued forward though they had not heard anymore sounds and that worried them both. Then the track broadened out into a slight natural clearing caused by a fallen palm both flattening the low lying plants and clearing a space in the leaf canopy overheard for the morning light to shine through.

Prince pulled up sharply causing Stephan to bump into him. Stephan stepped to the side on the wider track to see why Prince had stopped. There hanging from the thick bough of another tree was Walker.

In a grotesque analog to how they had bled the boar they had eaten the other day he was hanging upside down his feet bound together, beneath his shirtless body was a broad pool of the now too familiar sticky life blood that had been drained from his body by virtue of a large gash in his neck. Still stuck deep into the wound was Walker’s ubiquitous and precious swiss army pen knife. The body was pale, the eyes rolled back into his head. There was no chance he was still alive.

Stephan stepped forward and pulled the knife from his neck, there was only a slight trickle from the edge of the wound. He looked down at he bloody, slippery knife in his hand. Walker had been bled to death by a short tapered spike from the knife.

“For getting stones out of horses hooves, “ remarked Stephan unable to take his eyes off the body, “the one nobody ever uses.”

“Alright, put that down and step back,” said Prince.

“What?”

“You heard, put the knife down and step back. I’m warning you.”

“Warning me? I didn’t do this. How can you think I did this, Prince?”

“Look just put the knife down. You’re not getting me like that.”

“What? You think whilst you were asleep, however briefly that was, I dragged Walker off by myself hung him up and stabbed him then came back to camp and woke you in time to hear the poor guy’s death cries?”

Put like that it didn’t make a lot of sense to Prince but even so he couldn’t give up the notion that Stephan was responsible and if he didn’t act now he would be next.

“You had an accomplice,” said Prince scratching round for an explanation to fit his theory, “Esacam, Mougal, they are not really dead. They’ve been helping you?”

“For god’s sake Prince! Don’t be stupid!”

That was too much for Ian Prince to bear, especially coming from Court. He lunged forward taking Stephan down in a text book example of a rugby tackle. The knife flew from Stephan’s hand and landed somewhere in the trees behind him. He was momentarily winded and in that instant Prince was up and bearing down on top of him, swinging his fists wildly. He caught Stephan a glancing blow to the side of the head then one to the nose.

Stephan’s eyes watered and his nose stung sharply, a trickle of blood from one nostril. He brought up first one hand and then struggling to free it from under the weight of Prince’s body. He raised the other in front of his face to protect him from the torrent of blows Prince was dishing out. Prince grabbed one of Stephan’s wrists and forced his arm out and above his head as he lay on the jungle floor. His other hand still clenched in a fist trying to land a decisive blow to Stephan’s jaw to knock him out, but Stephan was struggling hard, his free hand flailing about blocking blows and trying to land one on Prince’s ribs. His knees bucked trying to throw Prince off.

The two struggled and thrashed around on the jungle floor so that they ended up rolling across the sticky pool of blood beneath Walker’s body. They continued to struggle getting coated in the dark red liquid. Prince gained the upper hand again seated on Stephan’s stomach, he had both hands round Stephan’s throat and was squeezing hard, choking him. Stephan scrabbled and scratched in vain and the strong fingers gripping his throat blocking off his air supply but he could not budge them. He tried punching Prince in the ribs and stomach to throw him off but it was difficult to get enough of a swing to have any effect. His vision blurred and he started to feel weaker, the fight was going out of him and he felt was going to pass out and then that would be the end.

Stephan’s arms fell back down to the floor too weak to swing anymore. His hand fell on the fallen branch of a tree. In one final mighty last ditch effort as his hand closed round the branch he brought it up in a high swinging arc. Prince was totally focussed on squeezing the life out of Stephan and didn’t see the branch as it caught him squarely on the side of the head knocking him sideways. He slid down and backwards off Stephan’s body, landing face up , stunned.

Stephan lay back coughing and choking for a couple seconds then he drew himself up to his knees then stood unsteadily in front of the supine Prince, the branch still held in his right hand. He looked down in to the eyes of Prince, they looked back but were unfocussed, Prince was still out of it. He raised the branch above his head in two hands as though to smash down on Prince’s skull. Prince came to his senses at that moment and even as he tried to roll to one side he screwed up his eyes waiting for the crushing blow.

None came. Prince opened his eyes, Stephan was standing over him the branch dropped to one side, panting heavily, sticky congealing blood dropping off him in long gobbets onto the ground and on to Prince.
“There,” said Stephan between gulps of air, “now do you believe me? I’m not the one behind all this? I could have killed you right then.” Prince eased himself up to a half sitting position, his head swam and he leant back down a moment to collect himself.

“Ok, ok. I believe you, “ said Prince after few more seconds of the two of them just getting their breath back and taking stock of the situation.

“Good, now we have to work together against whoever is doing this?
Teamwork ok?” Stephan held out his hand to Prince who grabbed his forearm to lever himself up.

“Teamwork. Right. Ok.”

Suddenly the two of them were swept off their feet but before they could hit the ground they were carried up and into each other, trapped in a rough hewn, well camouflaged net that had been laid out underneath them in the clearing. They were hoisted several feet into the air, their arms and legs twisting against each other. They struggled in the net for a full minute trying to extricate their arms and legs from between the gaps and from each other but the net held them fast and as soon as they got any sort of purchase to get one arm or hand free another would slip through another part of the mesh.

“So much for team work, “ said Prince.

“Hey I’m not the one who tried to strangle someone, remember?”

The two fell to bickering and arguing again when suddenly, a couple of seconds apart they both felt a small sting in their backs and moments later both were unconscious.