The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

82

Their Big Mistake

By setting off so early, I was hoping that Zeph and Sammy would still be with their raft. Finding them would be a lot harder if they’d already entered the jungle. I was also trusting that they’d have landed on the same stretch of beach where Étienne, Françoise and I had first come ashore. I was fairly confident that they would have, but you never knew. They might have tried to circle the island, not realizing they’d passed the only open stretch of sand. Either way, the more time I gave myself to play with the better.

At least dodging the guards wasn’t a problem. They were dozy enough at the best of times, but at seven a.m. they’d definitely still be sleeping off their dope hangovers. In a way, my biggest problem was Mister Duck. He was badly out of shape, wheezing like an old coalminer, frequently pausing to lean against trees and catch his breath. I tried to tell myself that his ghostly status made it unlikely that anyone else could hear him, but all the same, each time he barked a swear-word my heart would miss a beat. I’d turn and glare at him, and he’d raise his hands apologetically. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered after a stream of abuse at a razor-leaf thicket. ‘I’m not as good at jungle warfare as I’d imagined.’ A few minutes later he tripped and fell on his gun, letting off a round into the bushes. He didn’t have his safety-catch on, the idiot, and he’d been walking with his finger on the trigger. After that we decided the gun was more trouble than it was worth – seeing as it couldn’t kill anything real – and we left it hidden in the undergrowth.

About thirty metres before the tree-line along the beach, I made him wait behind. Even though I was sure that no one else could see or hear him, he distracted me. If I wanted to get close to the rafting group, I couldn’t afford to be compromised.

Unexpectedly – though clearly hurt – he took it in good grace.

‘I understand, Richie,’ he said gamely. ‘You hate me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ I sighed. ‘But like I said, this is serious.’

‘I know, I know. You go ahead. Anyway…’ His eyes became slits and flicked to the side. ‘In my experience these types of jobs are one-man affairs.’

‘Exactly.’

I left him under a coconut tree, using a serrated bowie knife to pick the dirt from under his nails.

♦

The early-morning effort paid off. The rafters were still on the beach.

Even though I’d been watching them for months, it was a shock to see the group close up. It confirmed that it actually was Zeph and Sammy we’d been watching; that our assumption had been correct and that the blame for their presence could only come down to me. It was also curious because I’d been anticipating this moment for what seemed like ages, but the reality of their presence left me feeling cold. I’d anticipated something more dramatic than the bedraggled figures who sat huddled around their raft. Something a lot more sinister, considering that – as outsiders – they represented a threat to the secrecy of the camp and a threat to me. I still hadn’t worked out what I was going to say to Sal about the map. I didn’t have the nerve to countermand her orders, so I just had to rely on the island’s obstacle course. That failing, my only hope was that I could explain the situation to Zeph and Sammy while I kept them delayed above the waterfall.

From my spy point – about twenty metres from where they sat, lying flat under the shelter of some ferns – I could see only four of them. The fifth was obscured behind their raft. Of the two visible Germans, one was a boy and one was a girl. With some satisfaction, I saw that the girl was pretty but not as pretty as Françoise. No one on the beach was as pretty as Françoise and I didn’t want her usurped by a stranger. The girl would have been prettier if it weren’t for her nose, which was tiny and turned-up so she looked like a tanned skull. The guy, however, was a different matter. Even though he was clearly exhausted, weakly hauling his (pink-pastel) backpack off the raft, he had the same build and appearance as Bugs. They could have been brothers, even down to the long hair which he kept having to flick out of his eyes. I took a comfortably instant dislike to him.

Eventually the fifth popped up to finish off the team. Another girl, and annoyingly, I was unable to find anything to hold against her. She was short and curvy, and she had an attractive quiet laugh that rolled cleanly across the sand to where I lay. She also had very long brown hair that at one point, for a reason I couldn’t fathom, she wrapped around her neck like a scarf. It was a surreal sight, and it made me smile, until I remembered I should be scowling.

♦

I was mildly put out that the rafters didn’t make the same mistake as I had with Étienne and Françoise – walking to each end of the arrival beach before realizing that the only way to get around the island was to go across it. But this was more than compensated by another, far more serious, mistake they made.

Actually, I knew they were about to make the mistake even before it had happened. Firstly, they hadn’t properly hidden their raft – only dragging it up beyond the high-tide mark – and secondly, they chatted loudly as they walked. In German, I noticed with grudging respect. (Grudging respect for Zeph and Sammy rather than the Germans, obviously.) To me, this clearly suggested one thing: they were entirely unaware of any need for caution. Mister Duck, who had rejoined me when the group turned inland, noticed it too.

‘Not very perceptive,’ he said, just under an hour into the trek.

I nodded, putting a warning finger to my lips. I didn’t want to talk because we were following them so closely. Not closely enough to see them through the thick foliage, but always close enough to hear.

‘If they carry on like that they’ll get caught,’ he continued, undeterred.

I nodded.

‘Maybe you should do something, don’t you think?’

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘Now shut up.’

I was a bit perplexed by Mister Duck’s concern, but no more than that. The next time he opened his mouth I put the warning finger to his lips instead of mine, and he got the message.

So anyway. That was the rafters’ big mistake, not being very perceptive. When they came to the first plateau, not one of them realized they were in a field.