Edmund Cooper - Transit

‘Later,’ said Avery impatiently. ‘Let’s see what kind of people they are first.’ He raised his head cautiously and gazed over the top of the boulder.

The strangers were magnificent specimens. Avery judged that they there both well over six foot tall. The woman’s body was soft and feminine, but each of her movements suggested power. The man had the shoulders, narrow hips and careless grace of an athlete. Even at that distance both of them seemed to exude confidence —physical and spiritual. Or perhaps it amounted to something more than confidence, thought Avery, as he watched the way they carried themselves. Perhaps it was more akin to arrogance.

Tom was studying them also; and he, too, was impressed. Crouching behind their boulder, the two men felt disconcertingly like a couple of schoolboys spying on the private world of adults.

The strangers appeared to be chatting and laughing to each other, though any sound they made was drowned by the sound of the waterfall. The man was carrying what seemed to be three short javelins: the woman had what looked like a miniature cross-bow.

Evidently they considered the pool and the waterfall to be a very attractive discovery. After a moment or two, the woman laid her cross-bow down on a broad slab of rock and dived into the pool. The man sat down on the rock and watched. She splashed about and appeared to be trying to tempt her companion to join her. But he, clearly, was determined to stay on watch.

Suddenly, along the edge of the pool about ten yards away from the boulder that hid Avery and Tom, there was a muffled splash followed by a brief arrow formation of ripples that disappeared almost immediately.

‘Hell, what was that?’ asked Tom.

Avery had caught a glimpse and was still recovering from the shock. ‘A crocodile—Mark One,’ he said hoarsely. ‘About four yards of it.’

‘We’d better do something. Maybe it likes goddesses for lunch.’

That was the natural impulse—to stand up and shout. To do something—anything that would get the girl out of the water. But the man at the other end of the glade looked a tough customer. Before anybody could get the concept of crocodile into his head, he might translate the message as warlike intentions; and however things turned out, it was quite possible that somebody might get hurt, or killed—especially if these were the people who had worked off their aggressive feelings on Camp One. It would be ironic, thought Avery, if a pitched battle started because they had tried to save somebody’s life. He was caught in an agony of indecision.

‘Christ, we can’t do nothing! ’ exploded Tom.

But even as he spoke, the problem had been solved.

The man at the other end of the glade stood up on his slab of rock. He peered intently at the pool for a moment or two. Then he stooped, picked up one of the javelins and balanced it speculatively in his hand. He had seen the crocodile. Avery sighed with relief.

But the puzzling thing was that the stranger made no effort to call his companion to safety. He let her splash about and enjoy herself. Only when the crocodile was obviously a few yards away did she appear to notice its shadow. And the next puzzling thing was that, instead of making a panicky dash for the edge of the pool, she just looked at the man—who made a slight motion with his head—pointed towards the crocodile and calmly trod water, waiting.

She did not have to wait long. The man’s arm swung back, then the javelin, released from the flash of his extended hand, sped through the air in a smooth arc. It pierced the surface of the water not more than two yards ahead of the woman. But a foot below the surface it clearly found a target, for it hung like the mast of a sinking ship for a moment, quivering. Then the crocodile rose almost bodily out of the water, its jaws transfixed by the terrible weapon.

But by that time a second javelin was on its way; and that one took the crocodile in its soft belly.

Calmly, the woman swam clear of its death throes, then turned to watch the spectacle. To Avery’s incredulous eyes, she seemed to be enjoying it.

The crocodile took quite a long time to die. When, at last, the body was still she swam back to it and with considerable effort tore out the javelins. Finally, she returned with them to the bank.

The man helped her out of the water; and together they stood laughing and talking for a while, and pointing to the floating body. For some reason completely beyond Avery’s comprehension, they seemed to find it vastly amusing. Eventually they turned away from the pool and made as if to go back the way they had come.

‘I’ve just about seen everything now,’ breathed Tom in awe. ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane. Who in the world would have thought it could be for real?’

‘Depends which world you are thinking of,’ said Avery drily. Then he added: ‘This might be a golden opportunity to find out where those two live.’

‘Golden, perhaps. Dangerous, certainly,’ observed Tom. ‘The way he handled the javelins fills me with respect. I should hate to be on the receiving end Not to put toe fine a point upon it, you and I can hardly be considered silent trackers of the forest.’

‘Maybe you’re right. Besides, it might be a long haul, and we have been away from camp quite long enough.’

‘What about the food problem?’

‘We’ll have to be temporary vegetarians once again.’

It took them the best part of an hour to collect enough fruit and find their way back to camp. The threatened thunderstorm did not materialize; and by the time they had returned to the sea-shore, the sun hung low in the sky. The air was still. A thin spiral of smoke rose from Camp Two. Somebody had obviously lit the fire. Somebody was obviously hoping to have something to roast. Somebody was going to be disappointed.

‘Shall we tell them,’ asked Tom as they approached the rock, ‘about Tarzan and his mate?’

‘Not unless we have to,’ said Avery enigmatically. ‘Well, blessed be the saints—look at that! ’

Tom followed his gaze. ‘A rock pool, So? The tide is out.’

‘Look closer, my old one.’ Avery knelt by the pool and gazed at the thick smooth stones that were not stones. He prodded one with his knife, and it attempted to scuttle away.

‘Crabs!’ exclaimed Tom joyously.

In a couple of minutes they had scooped out half a dozen.

‘The problem is carrying them.’

‘Problem solved,’ said Tom. He took off his shirt. ‘If the little devils puncture it, Mary can go all womanly and do some darning.’

Looking and feeling like a couple of beachcombers, they ascended the rickety ladder with their precious loads of food.

They did not mention the incident at the pool to Mary and Barbara. But after the evening meal, when they were all settled comfortably round the fire, the topic came into the conversation tangentially.

There had been a brief and relaxed silence, when they had each been staring into the patterns of the fire and thinking private thoughts. It was a pleasant time of the day, thought Avery. It was the time between action—or the need for action and decisions—and oblivion. It was itself a twilight world of semi-nirvana, when journeys could be taken without moving (one of these days he would prove that they were on an island: it was so, because he felt it was so), when speculation could take on the appearance of reality, and when memories, dulled by warmth and relaxation after a good meal, could be indulged in without pain. He was all set to treat himself to a succulent and leisurely dessert of memories when Mary broke the spell.

‘Suppose,’ she said suddenly, ‘there were two sets of guinea-pigs.’

‘If you are going to talk about guinea-pigs,’ said Barbara, ‘I’m going to indulge in a little whisky. Anybody else want some?’