Nelson Demille - The Quest

“Right. But we are restricted by our supplies and stamina.”

“That is always a problem,” Gann conceded.

Vivian said, “Let’s move on.”

Mercado cautioned, “We need to be sure we can find and reach Shoan before our provisions run out. I say three more days of this, then we need to start back.”

Gann agreed. “But by a different route so we can explore new territory.”

They moved on and came to a fork in the trail. They explored down both paths, and for no particular reason decided on the left fork.

They continued on, and saw that the trail was getting narrower.

Vivian had taken a few photos, but there was not much to photograph on the tight trails, and she seemed to lose interest in recording their quest to find the Holy Grail. If you’ve seen one jungle trail, Purcell knew, you’ve seen them all.

After an hour, Purcell spotted a tall cedar off the trail and made his way through the brush to get to it. He climbed the trunk to the first branch, then climbed branch by branch until he was about thirty feet off the ground. He scanned the terrain with his binoculars and saw that they were a few kilometers away from the higher ground to the west and the triple-canopy jungle he’d seen from the other tree on the road, and seen when he flew to Gondar. The sun would be below the tree line in about an hour.

He climbed down from the tree and made his way back to the trail. He informed them, “Farther west is triple-canopy jungle, and I suggest we head there.”

Gann nodded. “That is also where I’m told an old quarry exists.”

Mercado pointed out, “We’ve been traveling the better part of the day, and the villagers apparently traveled one day to the meeting spot, and we are at the end of that time period.”

Gann informed him, “Traveling time is not distance, nor vice versa. If you know where you are going, you probably know how to get there by the quickest and most direct route.”

Purcell assured everyone, “We can’t be lost if we don’t know where we’re going.”

They continued on the trail, which now turned to the south, and they saw no intersecting trails to the west. Gann did not want to do any backtracking, which he said was a waste of time and energy, and also a sign of desperation that would lead to bad morale.

Vivian said, “Avanti.”

The sun was below the highest trees and the jungle light took on that strange quality of shadowy darkness before dusk.

They knew they needed to stop for the night, but there was no suitable clearing, so they set up camp on the narrow trail.

Gann posted a guard-Mercado, Vivian, Purcell, and himself-for two hours each, until first light, when they would move on.

They had not found water, and their canteens were nearly empty. Gann said, “Our first goal tomorrow is water. Without water we will have to sample some of these fruits we see, and edible and poisonous often look similar.” He smiled. “It’s the jungle trying to kill you.”

They spent a restless night sleeping on the bare ground of the path, head to toe, listening to the night sounds of the jungle.

The second day was more or less a repeat of the first, but they found a small, vine-choked stream and filled their canteens.

Purcell noticed that the trails seemed to meander, and most of them headed north, south, or east. Every time they picked up a trail to the west, it turned in another direction, as though the god of the jungle did not want them heading west into the higher ground and the great triple-canopy jungle.

Purcell thought that Mercado was starting to drag, and he suggested to Gann that they slow their pace, which Gann did, but then an hour later Gann picked up his pace. Gann, Purcell thought, was driven, but maybe not the way Vivian and Mercado were driven to find the monastery and the Grail; Gann was driven by Rudyard Kipling-something hidden. Go and find it. If they’d told Gann they were looking for a basketball court in the jungle, he’d have been as enthused as he was to find the Holy Grail. Well… maybe not that enthused. But this had become a challenge for Colonel Sir Edmund Gann. Also, of course, he wanted to save the Grail from the godless Marxists. Then he could meet his princess in Jerusalem, and have a whiskey at the King David Hotel. Next stop, his club in London, where his friends would have to coax the story out of him. Bottom line, Purcell was glad they had Gann with them, but he was starting to wonder if Gann was with them or if they were with Gann.

As for himself, Purcell sometimes felt he was just along for the ride, though he knew there was more to his motives. Vivian was one reason he was here in this godawful place, and Vivian might also be his second and third reason. He wasn’t normally that good a boyfriend. So there were other and more complex reasons for this journey into the literal heart of darkness.

The tropical dusk spread over the rain forest, and they again set up camp on the trail they were on.

Purcell was one of the few war correspondents in Vietnam who had been allowed to travel with a team of the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol-the Lurps, as they were called. The sergeant of the ten-man team had told him, “Short patrol. Ten days.”

Ten days, deep inside enemy territory in a very hostile environment. He was younger then, and the Lurps had every advanced piece of field equipment known to man, plus enough dried rations to last twice as long as the patrol. They also carried the best weapons the army could offer, and they had three radios if the feces hit the fan, as they said.

Here, however, in the jungles of Ethiopia, they were very much on their own, and none of them knew the jungle, except maybe for Gann, and Purcell was beginning to have doubts about that. Also, the goal here was not recon; it was to find the Holy Grail of Holy Grails- The Holy Grail-and that was the only reason they were not heading for the French Somaliland border, which in any case was the other way.

Days three and four were more trail walking, except now they had made their way west, and the jungle had become triple canopy, and it was hotter, more humid, and darker. The only good difference was that the underbrush had thinned out and they could wander off the claustrophobic trail if they wanted to and walk between the towering trees.

Purcell told Gann, “As I said, the monastery would not be at the end of a trail. It could be that we need to walk off the trail and through the rain forest to find it.”

Gann replied, “If that’s true, then what we are dealing with is a trackless expanse, in which any direction is possible, but only one direction will lead us to where we wish to go.”

“Right. But maybe that’s the best way to cover some of these four thousand square kilometers.”

Gann suggested a break and they sat and looked at the map, which showed the same sea of green ink as it had last time they looked at it.

Gann was trying to determine what ground they had already covered, and he drew pencil lines on the map, saying, “We’ve gone in circles a bit, I think.”

“In fact, that snake back there looked familiar.”

“Hard to tell with snakes, old boy.”

Vivian reminded everyone, “A rock, a tree, a stream. And perhaps a cluster of palm trees.”

No one had been talking about those possible clues since Vivian mentioned them four days ago, but everyone had been at least alert to what seemed so important back in Addis.

Here in the bush, however, the reality changed, or reality became altered. The mind played tricks, as it does in the desert or at sea. The eye sees, and the ear hears, but the mind interprets. They had been so thirsty the day before that they all kept spotting things that were not there, especially water.

Also, they had not seen any signs of human presence since the first day when they’d found the wide trail. This was a good and bad thing. Humans were the most dangerous animals in the jungle, but the Grail seekers needed to go where other humans-Falashas and monks-had gone to meet. They had not even found evidence of a campfire or a dropped or discarded item made by man.