Ghost Flight

64

By the time they’d finished burning off the leeches, it was last light. Jaeger figured they’d set camp where they were. He sent word round his team. But as hammocks and ponchos were slung between dark trees slick with rain, he noticed that one amongst their number was in trouble.

He moved across to Dale, who’d yet to change out of his wet gear. The cameraman had swung his legs into his hammock, and was lying back seemingly ready for sleep. He had his film kit clutched to his chest, and was using a can of compressed air to blow-brush the worst of the gunk and the moisture out of his camera.

It had to be tough keeping such equipment functioning in these kind of conditions. Dale was religious about his evening kit-cleaning ritual, and many were the nights when he’d fallen into an exhausted sleep holding his camera like a kid would a teddy bear.

‘Dale, you don’t look too good,’ Jaeger prompted.

A head appeared over the side of the hammock. The cameraman’s face looked horribly pale and drawn. Jaeger didn’t doubt that Dale had yet to discover his load of leeches, for only by changing out of his wet gear would he do so.

‘Just so totally knackered,’ Dale muttered. ‘Gotta clean my gear and sleep.’

Nine days in the jungle had taken a heavy toll. Doubly so on Dale, who was tasked to film the entire expedition in addition to being a part of it. Whereas the others found a little time for basic body hygiene, Dale seemed to spend every spare moment cleaning his gear, changing batteries and backing up whatever he’d filmed on to a spare drive.

Plus he had all the extra weight of the film equipment to carry. On several occasions Jaeger had offered to share the burden, but Dale had demurred. His excuse had been that he needed his kit close at hand, but in truth Jaeger figured that he was just a proud and determined operator – and he respected that.

‘You’ve got to change into dry gear,’ Jaeger told him. ‘If you don’t, you’re finished.’

Dale stared, a crushing fatigue etched in his eyes. ‘I’ve hit the wall. Truly hit the wall.’

Jaeger delved into one of his pouches, pulling out a high-energy bar – part of his emergency rations. ‘Here – get that down you. Plus there’s one other thing you’ve got to deal with right now. No way to break this to you gently: leeches.’

It was Dale’s first close encounter with the revolting parasites, and it would prove a particularly traumatic one. Due to his habit of stopping regularly to film, and often crouching on the wet forest floor to get a low-angle shot, he’d presented the easiest of targets. As a result, he had a bumper harvest.

Jaeger offered him the lighter. As a horrified Dale went about burning off the leeches, Jaeger struck up a conversation to help get his mind off the task at hand.

‘So, how’s it been without Kral?’

Dale glanced at him. ‘Truthfully?’

‘Truthfully.’

‘The downside – I’ve got more weight to carry, ’cause Kral and me spread it across the two of us. The upside – I don’t have that ugly leech carping on the whole time, bitter, angry and self-centred. So on balance, I’m better off.’ He smiled, exhausted. ‘But I could do without these leeches.’

‘One thing’s for sure – the two of you were on shaky ground from the very start. What was it with you guys?’

‘Tell you a story,’ Dale muttered, as he put the flame to another fat leech. ‘I’m an Aussie by birth, but my dad sent me to a fine English boarding school – a place where they beat any residual Aussieness out of me along with my accent.

‘The school was renowned for its sport. Trouble was, I hated the staples – rugby, hockey and cricket. Was crap at them too. In short, I was a resounding disappointment to my father. There were only two things that I excelled at. One was rock-climbing; the other was using a camera.’

‘A fellow rock jock; that was my thing at school too. It’s a good skill to have in this kind of game.’

‘My dad’s a high-flying Sydney lawyer,’ Dale continued. ‘When I refused to follow him into the law and opted for a media career, he reacted like I’d been caught dealing drugs or something. Cut me off. So I threw myself into the shark pool of the London media, to doubly mess him up.

‘I had no option but to sink, swim or get eaten. I chose to specialise in remote-area and high-risk filming. But it’s a hand-to-mouth existence. Totally. Kral could afford to run at the first sign of trouble. I can’t. Not if I want to prove the naysayers – my father – wrong.

‘High-risk adventure filming – it’s what I do. If I quit when it gets too lively, what do I have? Nothing.’ Dale fixed Jaeger with a very direct look. ‘So screw Kral, with his resentment and his envy. But truth be told – I’m shitting myself out here’

De-leeching done, Jaeger volunteered to cover Dale’s watch duties so he could get a full night’s rest. For once, the Australian agreed to the offer of help. Somehow it seemed to signal that the most unlikely of friendships was being forged between the two of them.

As he sat his first sentry, staring into the night-dark forest, Jaeger found himself wondering if he’d misjudged the man. Dale had an independent, maverick streak and a think-outside- the-box mentality – the kind of qualities that Jaeger had valued in his men when in the military.

Had they travelled different life paths, it was just conceivable that Jaeger might have ended up as the war cameraman, and Dale the elite forces warrior.

More than most, Jaeger knew how a man’s destiny could turn on a dime.