Rogue Element

Central Sulawesi, 0758 Zulu, Friday, 1 May

Suryei ran her hand over Joe’s back. Blood seeped from the innumerable weeping sores left by an army of leeches. Her dirt-blackened thumb flicked the lighter’s small friction wheel until the gas caught. It was now on the highest setting but the flame flickered low. She managed to sizzle one last grey-black tube the size of a small cucumber, sending it spinning to the ground before the Bic went out for good. She put it in her pocket. If she managed to escape from this with her life, she’d recycle the lighter into a good luck charm.

‘I’ll pick the rest off with my fingers.’

‘I can take it,’ said Joe, forcing a smile.

They had climbed a low ridge in an attempt to confirm their bearings but, again, it proved a useless exercise. Joe hoped they were going in the right direction but feared that they were just turning blind circles, going nowhere. They could wait an hour or so and see which way the sun dipped, but that was a luxury. Staying in the one place might come with a mortal head wound. Several times they had heard, or imagined they’d heard, footsteps behind or beside them in the dense bush. They had to keep moving in the direction they thought was the right one. Without proper bearings it was a flawed plan, but its simple purpose was giving them a goal to strive for, even if that was just to put one foot in front of the other.

Suryei was starting to doubt her ability to go on. The muscles in her legs ached so badly from the constant effort of walking that she dared not stop in case they cooled down and cramped solid. But they had to rest, even if only for a few minutes every now and then, to remove the swarming, crawling parasites that hitched a ride and feasted until they dropped off, bloated.

Joe found a large tick behind Suryei’s ear that hurt her like hell when he removed it. It was so drunk with her blood that the little bugger could hardly waggle its legs when Joe held it upside down and examined it in the palm of his hand. Suryei hoped that there weren’t more of them hiding in her hair and armpits. They injected a nasty poison to keep the blood from clotting. It could bring on nauseous attacks, vomiting, and the sweats: all the good stuff.

She examined Joe’s scalp and found it clear. Leeches were Joe’s bane. They seemed to like his blood. He had two on his skin for every one found on hers. Following him along a trail, Suryei had even watched them standing up on the ground and turning their blood-sucking mouths in his direction as he passed.

And, of course, there were mozzies everywhere. One landed on Joe’s back and wasted no time burrowing its proboscis deep into his flesh. Malaria. There was plenty of it about in this part of the world. It started with symptoms that were a bit like flu, with fevers and chills. Things went downhill from there. They had warned her about it on East Timor.

She felt okay, all things considered, but it was impossible to know what was happening inside her body. People often came down with diseases weeks after they arrived home, which meant that both Joe and she could have something now and not know it: dengue fever, filariasis, viral encephalitis. She knew all the names. She shivered, wondering what the tick had left behind after having had its fill.

‘How’re you feeling, Joe?’

Given the situation, Joe thought it an odd question. ‘I could do with a holiday,’ he said.

‘No, I mean, do you feel sick at all?’

‘I’m alright,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘If we don’t get out of here soon the wildlife will kill us even if the soldiers don’t.’

Joe swatted ineffectually at the miasma of insects around them. A couple of mozzies landed on his arm. He squashed them against his skin, leaving a smear of blood. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘know what you mean.’

Joe looked up at the violently swaying canopy. ‘Must be blowing a gale up there.’ It was breathless as usual at ground level. A cloud drifted across the sun and took the ferocious burn out of it. Joe unshouldered his rucksack and dug around for a bottle of water. They were all empty.

‘I’ll carry that for a bit if you like,’ said Suryei, holding her hand out for the rucksack. Joe thought about protesting, but then handed it over. Joe swung his axe through the air a couple of times. It felt good to have unrestricted movement, and he was now used to the weight of this souvenir from the 747. It had become his link with reality, reminding him that there was a world out there that he’d been wrenched from only days before. His axe. He swung it again. It was actually a pretty useful weapon, as one of the soldiers he’d introduced to it could attest. He swung it again and felt a vague primal surge.

‘Er, Conan?’ Suryei was looking back at him impatiently from the edge of some thick, chest-high grass. ‘Can we go now?’