Free Behind Mt. Baldy by Christopher Cummings Page A

separated due East
will bring you back to the road.”
    At that moment Roger had another
awful thought. “What if there are more of them, in there?”
    The others looked at him, Stephen
with undisguised dismay.
    Graham shook his head. “No. Those
two came in their car. They’re gone.  Let’s go or we’ll be seeing phantoms
next.”
    “He does live in the jungle,”
Peter said.
    “Who?” Roger asked as he pushed a vine
aside.
    “The Phantom, you know, the Ghost
Who Walks,” Peter replied.
    Roger sniffed. “Don’t be silly
Peter. Not now.”
    The boys lined themselves out and
began walking slowly into the rainforest.  Roger tried to look everywhere.
He scanned tree trunks for bruising, palm fronds for damaged leaves or stems,
and the black, rotting leaf-mould for tracks. There didn’t seem to be anything
unusual.
    They went into the jungle for
about a hundred metres. To avoid trees, vines, fallen branches and clumps of
wait-a-while they had to weave to and fro but Graham kept them roughly on
course with his compass. It was a skill they had been trained at in cadets so
presented no new experience or technical difficulty.
    “That’ll do,” Graham called,
looking at his watch. “Turn around and we will go back. Try to follow a
different route.”
    Roger wanted to keep searching.
He found it frustrating as well as exhilarating. He also found he was sweating
profusely and had a scratch on his right hand and had tipped a stinging tree
with the little finger of his left hand. He didn’t remember seeing one but as
he made his way back he noticed the furry, heart-shaped leaves in time to avoid
a worse sting.
    Back on the road they stood
uncertainly for a moment. Stephen took the initiative. “Come on. We are
supposed to be on a hike. They probably weren’t doing anything. Let’s go.”
    They made their way back to their
packs. Roger had a big drink, draining his second water bottle. He felt oddly
frustrated but knew he could not explain quite why.
    Graham looked at his watch. “Twenty to eleven! Come on. Packs on! Let’s march!”
    “Packs on! Let’s march!” echoed Roger in a
resigned voice. Reluctantly he hoisted on his webbing and pack. On the way out
to the road his foot caught in a vine, nearly tripping him. Then his pack
caught in another, pulling him sideways. He swore and wrenched himself free and
stumbled out into the open.
    Graham set off as fast as he
could go.
    “Bloody hell!” Roger swore and lurched after
him.
    The road curved around to the left,
up over a low hill then down over another narrow concrete bridge before winding
up over a steeper ridge. Thick jungle with lots of secondary growth hemmed them
in. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the sun blazed down on them.
    “This is supposed to be winter,”
grumbled Roger, wiping drops of sweat clear of his eyes.
    “Could be
worse. It
could be cold,” Peter reminded.
    Somehow Roger managed to keep up
as they slogged along. He found himself counting paces. Then he called The Step
to himself, “Left, Right, Left, Right, Left!”
    The road wound down across
another narrow bridge. They passed a cattle yard full of beef cattle and
several overgrown side roads. At the next bend to the left a side road went off
on the right into a clearing among more pine trees.
    Peter gestured towards it and
said, “That’s where we had the pretend fort in last year’s Senior Exercise.”
    Graham pointed along an overgrown
road which led into the jungle on their left. “That is where we rescued the
girls from a camp.”
    “That’s when you fell in love
with Tina, the navy cadet,” Peter teased.
    “Oh I did not! She’s Andrew’s
girlfriend,” Graham replied hotly. They fell to discussing how Tina had gone
missing, kidnapped by the bird smugglers. Andrew Collins had saved her in quite
dramatic circumstances. As they talked Roger could only listen enviously. He
had not been allowed to take part as he had only been a ‘First Year’ cadet at
the time.