Reunion - Chapter Seven

The group stood in stunned silence for a few moments as they watched the shattered remnants of the Notleakie drift further out to sea and get picked up an undertow and taken quickly out of sight. Of Leonarfd Wiltshire and Romney White there was no sign, nor would there be. After a few minutes the group drifted back up the beach to their campsite and tried as far a possible to go about the daily routine they had established for themselves.

*

The next day the group was still in shock from the loss of two of its members and a reminder of the fact they there was still no sign of rescue after all this time. Ian Prince decided he needed to do something to lift the mood and raise morale. Something to keep the group active, or at least some of them and focussed on something else.

“Can I borrow the knife a minute, Walker?’

“Erm yeah ok” replied Stuart, passing over the red swiss army knife, “be careful with it though eh?”

“Yeah yeah of course”

Ian headed off along what was now becoming quite a well worn path along the side of the stream. He returned about half an hour later carrying half a dozen long thin sticks.

“Right lads, “ he announced to the group in general, “we are going hunting” and dropped the sticks in front of him on the ground. The group could see that the sticks had be sharpened at one end to make them into primitive spears.

“OK. Cool. I’m up for it. Err hunting for what,” asked Gareth Laney always the first to agree to any scheme Prince came up with.

“Pigs, well boar probably. I’ve noticed a couple cross the path further from the pool where we draw our water from, reckon we can flush one out and have ourselves a little barbecue tonight.

“Dicty, Copperknob, Spekeys, you in?” The other members of the first XV looked at each other briefly and decided why not, it was something to do at least and it would be nice to have something other than fish or fruit to eat.

“OK grab a spear and we’ll head off.”

“Erm excuse me, “ said Stephan, “What about the rest of us? Don’t we get to go hunting?”

“Well I’ve only got six spears, besides we need someone to be on signal look out and well, we’re you know, just better suited to this sort of thing”

“Better suited, really?” scoffed Stephan, “a bunch of unfit middle aged former rugby players are better suited to hunting wild boar in the jungle.”

Prince bridled at the accusation of being unfit and indeed of Stephan’s whole tone.

“Well better than you pen pushers and geeks, yeah” said Prince.

“Oh well maybe we should just see about that,” said Stephan picking up one of the spears.

“Oi, give that back, Court” said Prince petulantly.

“Let the boys go and play,” said Subbu Esacam dryly.

“What’s that supposed to mean, Camy?” Prince turning his attention to Esacam now who was stretched out languorously on the sands his make-shift palm frond sunhat down over both eyes.

Esacam lifted himself up onto his elbow and addressed Prince, his eyes still shaded.

“It means, that you lot crashing through the jungle don’t have a hope in hell of catching anything. If you want to catch wild boar you need subtlety, stealth, cunning, and intellect. Not something you rugger buggers are renowned for.” He rolled the phrase “rugger buggers” round his mouth, it had a special derisory note to it given more emphasis by his cultured, clipped Anglo-Indian accent.

“Oh really? Yeah? Yeah?’ said Prince somewhat lost for words.

“Yeah”, said Stephan putting the spear back down. “Tell you what you and your boys go and play and meanwhile we’ll do some real hunting and trapping and we’ll see who has had the best results by sunset. How’s that?”

“Deal. Boys, get ready.” Prince reached into the ashes of the last cooking fire they’d had and smeared a black line of ash along his cheekbones under each eye. Esacam laughed.

“What’s that? Camouflage or team colours?”

“You should try rolling in some pig manure to disguise your scent,” suggested Nalesh Mougal partly in jest and partly, as ever, as a serious suggestion to help solve a problem.

“No. It’s to help with glare, actually,” said Prince deliberately, “so I can a good shot in with the spear if I have the sun in front of me.” Mougal nodded as he took this in as a not unreasonable step.

“OK boys let’s get going. Walker, you ok to stay at camp and watch for ships and that?” Stuart nodded, he was keeping well out of it.

“I’ll head up to the promontory for a bit.” He set off in the direction of the steep cliff side terraces.

“Right then here we go. Losers do the cooking. ”

The six rugger buggers headed off along the stream side path. After a couple of minutes when they had disappeared completely from view and ear shot, Stephan sat down between Subbu and Nalesh.

*

“So what’s the plan?”

“Well I thought I might go for swim in a bit, then try some more fishing. I think I saw something like crayfish in one of the rock pools.”

“Not that. What’s the plan to get a boar?”

“What? Oh my god, Stephan you were serious about competing with them?”
“Of course I was”.

“Oh I thought you were just saying that so they would go away and leave us alone until at least sunset.”

“You mean…”

“No I have no idea how you go about trapping a pig, a wild boar or any other animal for that matter.” Stephan looked crest-fallen.

“But what are we going to do then? The competition”

“Nothing, they won’t catch anything and neither will we. It’ll be a draw but they’ll have spent the day getting all hot and sweaty running round the jungle chasing their own tails.”

“No, no,” protested Stephan “I won’t have them beat us, they might get lucky. We have to show we are better at this survival thing than they are.”
“Oh no , not this again,” Subbu sighed.

“You know it seems to me,” said Mougal clearly having been giving the matter some thought, “ we could rig up a simple snare along where the pool is, the pigs or boar or whatever they probably use it to drink from like we do. The one area does look a bit trampled. We wouldn’t have to do much, just sit and wait and then trigger the snare if piggy comes along. Not that I’ll be partaking you understand, not in the eating anyway.”

“Yeah that would work, use some of the cord from the travel iron disguised in the grasses, that would be strong enough,” said Stephan getting slightly excited at the prospect of getting one over on Prince.

“Hmm ok we’d need some sort of hair trigger and fast closure, maybe some sort of contained spring from a tree branch,” said Subbu unable to prevent himself from responding to the intellectual challenge.

“See! That’s it. Sorted. Come on then, we’ll need to make a start. It could be a long wait once the snare is set.”

Subbu eased himself up to his feet and brushed the sand off his trousers and pushed his sunshade further back on his head.

“OK then we might as well lie about in the shade of the watering hole as down here.”

*
First they went up to the promontory to see Walker and ask to borrow the knife. He was distracted and not really interested, handing it over without questioning what they wanted it for. He had taken the death of White and Wiltshire harder than the rest for some reason the others couldn’t really fathom and none of them wanted to pry too closely, Perhaps for fear of giving voice to their own concerns and grief too strongly. At the moment the three “geeks” were far too pre-occupied with their own wonderful scheme to catch a pig.

They headed up to the pool that acted as the natural filter and barrier between the brackish inlet and the fresh water.

“See, over there,” said Nalesh Mougal as he pointed to an area at one edge of the pool where the was a muddy slope that could well have been churned by the foot prints of their porcine prey. They edged their way round to the patch of muddy ground and there were quite clearly several sets of cloven hoof marks visible.

It was a confusing set of marks but there were some big and some small. They decided this meant some sort of family unit, a mother and piglets perhaps.

They set to work experimenting with different way to set the snare with the travel iron cord half buried in the mud in a loop and then trailing back to a sapling they were able to bend down to reach the ground without breaking and secure with a simple stake and some twisted vine. This was their trigger.

They used the vine to disguise the last remnants of the travel iron cord as it left the mud. They ran their vine trigger further back round the edge of the pool where, lying on their stomachs, they had a view of the snare but felt they were suitably hidden from view, and, crucially downwind in what little breeze there was. They were about to settle in for their first stint of lying in wait when Subbu, got up suddenly.

“Ooh just a moment” he said disappearing back down the trail on the other side of the stream back towards the beach.

“Call of nature?” suggested Nalesh.

A few minutes later Subbu re-appeared with his arm full of some of the soft purple fruit they had been eating, but these specimens were well passed their prime. Far too overripe to the point of rotting to be eaten.

“A little enticement to stay around,” said Subbu squeezing one of the fruit in his hand and releasing a sickly sweet juice with a pungent undertone like scrumpy cider.

“Partially fermented fruit,” said Nalesh quick to follow what Subbu meant, “ probably a bit of alcohol in there for sure.”

“Exactly, we’ll squash these up by the watering hole and maybe piggy will like the taste and be more likely to step into our trap.

“Brilliant,” said Stephan feeling sure they were going to win the competition now.

So the trap was set and now baited with the fruit.

“You know there’s a chance we might lure one of the rugger buggers into the trap with that booze,” said Subbu and they all fell to a fit of giggles for a moment.

“OK, ok settle down. We may still have a long wait,” Stephan said, regaining his composure. The three lay in wait watching the snare.

*

They settled down to watch the watering hole and wait to see if their plan would work. It did take quite a while for anything to happen and they decided to take it in turns holding the trigger and watching the area more closely whilst the other two could slack off a bit and engage in whispered conversation or just doze in the warmth and humidity of the day.

After about two hours of this, with Subbu Esacam on his second stint at the trigger, they heard a rustling in the bushes from behind the muddy patch where the trap was laid. The rustling got louder and then they could just make out a large pink snout right on the edge of the grasses and reeds that circled the pool. The snout lifted slightly, taking in the air. The other two were now totally silent and focussed on the watering hole along with Subbu. After a few seconds a large gingery black sow broke cover and squelched through the muddy patch right down the shallow slope and began to drink, she was followed immediately by a litter of six piglets, all of them smaller copies of their mother. They too began to drink.

At this point the scale of the task the three of them had taken on had started to dawn on them. The mother was huge, easily weighing 50 kilos, the piglets were perhaps a third that size, adolescents clearly rather than young infants. There was no way their trap would hold the mother.

“Go for one of the young ones,” whispered Stephan. Subbu nodded silently in agreement. Stephan figured even a 15 kilo piglet would be enough to beat the Rugger Buggers whom he fully expected to return empty handed and there would be more meat than they could consume even there without having to make some provision for preserving it.

The pigs had finished drinking and whilst the mother decided now was the time for a good lie down and wallow in the muddy shallows, the piglets, like typical teenagers with short attention spans decided they wanted to do something more interesting. They scented the air again and clearly the pungent aroma of the half-fermented fruit was attracting them, they wandered further over towards where the bait was laid half buried in the mud along with the snare. Subbu gently wrapped more of the trigger wire round his hands and carefully took up a little of the slack. The three trappers held their breath as the six piglets began snuffling in the mud and started to consume the fruit. The mother looked on unperturbed no doubt thinking it was time her kids learnt the pleasures and pains of alcohol if indeed she was capable of such thoughts. Pigs were supposed to be intelligent after all.

The piglets began to jostle for position to get at the best, or worst depending on your point of view, of the fruit. Concentrating more on this than on being aware of their surroundings, one of the piglets stepped right into the snare, planting it’s foot firmly in the centre of it. Subbu knew he would only get one chance at this and he tugged on the trigger wire as soon as the piglets foot touched the ground. The stake holding the sapling back was released and the trap was sprung.

The ironing cord snare tightened in an instant round the hind leg of the intended victim, it gave a brief squeal before being lifted clean off it’s feet and shot up into the air. Unfortunately the combination of the strength of the spring on the sapling and the thickness and softness of the snare meant there was not a proper grip on the piglet and it was launched up into the air and shot over the heads of the three expectant trappers accelerating as it was propelled by the force of the sapling returning to it’s upright position.

The piglet gave a long high pitched squeal that faded into the distance followed by a soft “whoomp” noise several dozen meters away in the jungle. It was followed a second later by another much fainter squeak, it appeared the piglet had survived its impromptu inaugural flight.

The mother looked up at hearing the distress of its young but clearly for a moment was confused as to where one of their number had gone. Perhaps pigs have trouble counting. The other piglets appeared not to have noticed , too busy scoffing down the fruit but after a few seconds and with surprising speed the mother pig got to her feet and crashed through the undergrowth back the way it had come the five remaining piglets dashing obediently if a little unsteadily after her.

For a while no one spoke then Nalesh said:

“On balance I think we may have chosen too big a sapling to use to spring the trap.”

He was being his usual analytical self without a trace of sarcasm or irony. Subbu, Stephan and Nalesh got up from their hiding place and went to inspect the trap.

“We need a thinner wire to catch the leg in the snare as well, “ added Nalesh.

“Impressive distance though,” said Subbu, “launch velocity was several metres a second clearly.”

‘So you think we could go and look for it? It might be injured and not got far. We could still catch it,” said Stephan half-heartedly.

“I think not, “ said Subbu, “the forest is virtually impenetrable to us by the look of it and I wouldn’t like to meet up with the injured piglet if it happens to have met back up with it’s mother and siblings.”

“Hmm ok lets strip the iron cord down the bare wire and try a less springy sapling.”

“You don’t think the pigs are going to come back do you?”

“Well a different group maybe?”

‘I doubt there would be another, what’s the collective noun for pigs? Another herd of pigs in the same small area, they would be territorial.”

“Not herd, “ said Nalesh Mougal, “It’s flock isn’t?”

“No that’s sheep?” countered Subbu.

“Litter? No that would just be the piglets not the family group. Hmmmm”

“Look never mind that you two, we have to catch a pig, we can’t go back empty handed,” insisted Stephan.

“I really can’t see us having that sort of luck again. Besides the Rugger Buggers won’t catch anything, it will be an honourable draw but we will definitely have the best ‘one that got away’ story.”

“We’ve got to try.”

“Really?”

Reluctantly Mougal and Esacam set about helping Court strip down the snare cable and find a smaller sapling situated a bit further away from watering hole. They settled back down to watch the snare but as expected even after another two hours and with the sun starting to make it’s way back down to the horizon they had seen neither hide not hair of any more pigs.

Eventually Stephan admitted defeat and disconsolately followed the other two back to camp.

*

As the group of unsuccessful trappers came out of the forest along the edge of the stream they realised it wasn’t quite as late as they thought it was, tricked by the shade of the canopy they hadn’t yet got a handle on the times for sunset. The Rugger Buggers still had a good hour or more of hunting time which made Stephan a bit anxious but he knew it was pointless trying to persuade Subbu and Nalesh to go back for another try. They were probably right. He would just have to sit and hope that the others would prove to be as ineffective.

Stuart Walker was back from the promontory and sitting on a log seat by the side of the campfire site. Site supposedly for the hog roast tonight. He looked up as they approached and of course the first thing he had noticed was that they were empty handed. Subbu, Nalesh and Stephan related the tail of the flying pig and for the first time in a couple of days a smiled crossed Stuart’s face.

“Do you have my knife, by the way?.” Stephan handed it over.

“Least it’s still nice and clean then.”

“Yeah don’t worry we kept it out of the mud.”

“I was thinking more about the blood,” said Stuart flexing the blade in and out a couple of times.

“Blood?”

“Well yeah, assuming you hadn’t launched the pig into orbit it would have been hanging there caught by it’s leg. You were going to go in and slit its throat right?”

“Oh well yes, of course we’d have done that,” Stephan replied not very convincingly at all.

“Well, all academic for now anyway.” Stuart snapped the knife shut one final time and put it in his back pocket.

It was then that they heard the distant cries of the Rugger Buggers, way back in the forest they could hear the sounds of a hunt in progress. Damn thought Stephan they might actually manage to catch a pig.

*

The four on the beach stood and listened as the sounds of the hunt played back and forth. There was great deal of shouting at various points then a few moments of quiet before more shouting. Then the shouts started to get louder and louder as the hunters got closer and closer until it became a constant consistent half-scream half-wail.

Suddenly they saw movement a little way in to the forest on the track along side the stream. Ian Prince suddenly burst out from the forest still holding a half length spear, he was closely followed by his ever present sidekick Gareth Laney. Hot on their heels came a 100Kg of snorting, snarling, black wild boar. Two huge tusks flashed sharp and white in the sunshine.

Prince and Laney crashed down the beach, the boar in hot pursuit. Bringing up the rear were the rest of the hunters but it was clear they weren’t really trying to get to close to the boar, more keep pace with it and stay away from the business end.

Prince was puffing and starting to slow, his portly form not used to his sustained level of activity. Laney overtook him as they continued their descent towards the sea. Then, just when it seemed the boar was about to catch Prince with a razor sharp tusk, it gave a brief grunt and it legs went completely under it. It’s head dropped and the tusks sent up a great twin spray of sand as they ploughed into the sand. It came to a stop in a couple of metres whilst Prince carried on running.

The boar teetered over on its side and then collapsed, its tongue lolling in its mouth. It wasn’t breathing or moving. It had collapsed and died there on the beach. As Prince realised he could no longer hear the boar behind him he slowed his run and risked a look round. He saw the boar on its side a way behind him, slowed to a stop and tried to regain some of his composure.

The rest of the hunters had caught up and formed a semi-cricle round the stricken beast with whoops and cries. Prince jumped up and punched the air in victory. Stephan, Subbu and the others went over to join the group who where now engaged in an enthusiastic round of high-fives.

“There you go, Courty. One wild boar supper! ” shouted Prince, “what did you manage?”

“You can’t claim you hunted this boar, “said Stephan, “it looked like it was hunting you the way you came running down the beach.”

There were howls of protest from the group.

“What do you mean? Of course we hunted it.”

“Look at it, “ Stephan said pointedly, “it died of a heart attack or something, it’s trotters are all but clutching its chest.”

It was true, the way it had ended up after crashing to the ground it did look as though it had clasped its trotters to its chest as it breathed its last.

“Rubbish! Anyway running an animal to exhaustion is a valid method of hunting. So unless you have anything bigger than this beauty I declare us the winner of the competition.”

With that Prince placed his foot on the body of the boar in triumph. Unfortunately this forced the last remaining air in its lungs out over its vocal chords causing it to emit one final death rattle of a grunt. Prince leapt back in fear immediately some what spoiling the “great white hunter” pose he had been trying to strike.

Regaining his composure once more he took up the pose to chants of “BGSB, BGSB” from the rest of the Rugger Buggers.