Bear Grylls - Ghost Flight

Jaeger knew those spine-covered trees well. The spikes weren’t poisonous, but that didn’t matter much. He’d fallen against one once, during a jungle training exercise. The tough wooden spines had pierced his arm in several places, the wounds quickly turning septic. Ever since, he’d called them the ‘bastard trees.’

Strung between those perilous trunks were thick vines, each armed with cruelly hooked thorns. Jaeger pulled out his compass and took a quick bearing. The ravine led due south, the way that he needed to go, but he figured it was best avoided.

Instead he took a bearing west, fixed his eyes on a tall, mature stand of hardwood trees and proceeded to head that way. He’d box his way around the ravine, then turn south a little further on, which should bring him directly to the river. Every twenty minutes he allowed himself to put Narov down, both for a breather and to grab a slug of water. But never longer than two minutes and then he was on his way again.

As he climbed, he shrugged Narov’s weight higher on to his shoulders. He wondered for an instant how she was holding up. She’d not said a single word since they’d set out. If she’d lost all consciousness, the river crossing would be next to impossible, and Jaeger would be forced to come up with a different plan of action.

Fifteen minutes later, he skidded down a shallow slope, coming to a stop at a solid-looking wall of vegetation. On the far side he could just make out a moving mass – the odd glint of sunlight flashing through to him.

Water. He was almost at the river.

Mature jungle – vegetation that had remained undisturbed for centuries – generally consisted of a high forest canopy, with relatively sparse growth on the forest floor. But where such virgin rainforest had been disturbed – like having a highway slashed through it, or here where a river carved into its depths – secondary vegetation would spring up in the clearings formed.

The Rio de los Dios cut a tunnel of sunlight through the jungle, and on either side it was a riot of dense, tangled bush. The vegetation that loomed before Jaeger was like a dark and impenetrable cliff face – high forest giants, fringed with smaller palm-like bushes, with tree ferns and vines reaching right to the forest floor. Next to impossible to negotiate with his load.

He turned east, following the riverbank until he hit the ravine that he’d boxed his way around. At the point where it plunged into the river, the terrain was largely swept clear of vegetation, leaving a tiny rocky beach no wider than your average English country lane.

It was enough. From there they could launch their river crossing – if Narov was still capable of making it.

He lifted her off his shoulders and lowered her to the ground. There was little sign of life, and for a horrible moment Jaeger feared that the spider toxins had claimed her as he’d carried her through the jungle. But when he felt for her pulse, he noticed the odd shiver and spasm ripple through her limbs, as the Phoneutria venom tried to work its way deeper into her system.

The shakes were nowhere near as bad as they’d been at first, so the antidote was clearly working. But still she seemed dead to all his attentions; comatose to the world. He lifted her head, supporting it with one hand as he tried to get some liquid into her. She gulped down a few mouthfuls, but still there was no sign of her opening her eyes.

Jaeger reached for his backpack and pulled out his GPS unit. He needed to check if it could see enough sky to acquire a usable signal. It bleeped once, twice, and thrice, as satellite icons flashed on to the screen. He checked their position, the grid provided by the GPS proving that his navigation had been bang on.

For a moment he stole a glance at the river, contemplating the crossing that lay before them. It was a good five hundred yards across, maybe more. The dark, sluggish water was interrupted here and there by slender mudbanks, which barely broke the surface.

Worse still, on one or two of them Jaeger spotted what he’d most feared to find here: the sleek forms of giant lizard-like creatures, sunning themselves in the mid-morning heat.

The beasts before them were the largest predators the Amazon had to offer. Crocodiles.

Or more accurately, this being South America – caimans.

The black caiman – Melanosuchus niger – can grow to five metres in length, and weigh anything up to 400 kilos, so more than five times a man’s bodyweight. Immensely powerful, and with skin as thick as a rhino, they have no natural predators.

Hardly surprising, Jaeger reflected. He’d once heard the animal described as ‘a croc on steroids’, and they really didn’t come any bigger or more aggressive. Note to self, Jaeger thought: be wary.

Still, he reminded himself that the black caiman had relatively poor eyesight, mostly adapted for hunting in the dark. They could barely see underwater, and especially not in rivers as silt-laden as this one. They had to get their heads above the surface to attack – and that meant they made themselves visible.

More commonly, they used their sense of smell to guide them to their prey. For a moment, Jaeger checked where Narov had nicked him with her blade as he’d tried to parry her knife thrusts during their crazed freefall. The wound had long ago stopped bleeding, but it would be best to keep it out of the water.

In the absence of any alternative plan, he pressed on with the only one he had. He opened his rucksack and pulled out the canoe flotation bags. He emptied out the pack’s remaining contents and divided them between the two liners, so the weight was shared evenly.

Next he placed one of the liners inside his pack, inflated it, and closed it, folding the seal over twice and clipping it tight on to itself, before inflating and sealing shut the second liner.

Using the fastenings on his pack, he proceeded to strap it and the canoe liner together. He then took his and Narov’s weapons and tied a longish length of paracord to each, attaching the loose ends to the two corners of his makeshift flotation device with quick-release knots.

That way, if either weapon fell in, he’d be able to retrieve it again.

Next he selected a thick bamboo from a grove that grew near the water’s edge. He felled it with his machete, and cut the trunk into five-foot lengths. Using the sharp blade, he split two lengths of the bamboo in half, to make four cross poles. He then placed four lengths of whole bamboo in a row, lashed the cross struts to these with paracord, and tied it all together to make a simple frame, which in turn was roped to the flotation bags.

He dragged the makeshift raft into the shallows and sat astride it, testing for strength. It took his weight comfortably, floating high on the water, just as he’d intended. That done, he figured he was ready.

He had little doubt that it could manage Narov’s weight.

He moored the craft and paused to filter some water. It was always smart to keep your bottles full, especially with the amount he was sweating. Using the Katadyn, he sucked up dirty brown river water via the intake tube, the filter jetting clear, crisp liquid into his bottle. He drank as much as he could before refilling both bottles.

He was just finishing when a fatigued voice cut through the clammy heat: fragile; tight with pain; hoarse with exhaustion.

‘Boring, stupid… and half crazy.’ Narov had come to, and she’d been watching him test his raft. She gestured to it weakly. ‘No way do you get me on that. It is time to accept the inevitable and go on alone.’

Jaeger ignored the remark. He placed the weapons to either side of the craft, facing forwards, then returned to Narov, squatting down before her.