Guy Smith: The Wood

And then she sank up to her ankles in another patch of oozing mud, almost screamed hysterically as she faced reality — she was wrong, she was lost! You can't possibly be. I am!

The rain was sheeting almost horizontally now, splattering loudly in the pools of water around her. Wading forward but having to give up because it was too deep here, striking off to the left but only meeting with another mire. One way, then another, biting her lower lip until it bled, sobbing so that she tasted salty blood.

Finally she blundered on to a grassy hummock, wet but firm ground, a spreading osier which had not yet lost its foliage sheltering her from the wind and driving rain. Sinking down, crying her hopelessness as she huddled her naked body into a ball. Cold, exhaustion, terror, all began to take their toll, sleep threatening to claim her.

I can't stay here. You'll have to, you don't have any choice. I'll die of pneumonia. Something a lot worse could happen to you if you go blundering about Droy Wood in the dark. You'll have to remain here until daylight. Still listening. Sounds that were probably only the elements, the wind, the rain, dripping water. Shutting her eyes tightly in case she saw something in the blackness of this awful night. Praying for daylight until eventually she fell asleep.

Andy Dark and his companions had abandoned their badger-watching project shortly after midnight. The creatures were reluctant to venture far from their sett on this wet, windy night. A couple had emerged, dispiritedly gone back inside again. A further wait of twenty minutes but no more had appeared

'We're wasting our time,' Andy had said. They'll probably come out to feed at intervals throughout the night but no way are we going to get anything worth filming.'

Try again tomorrow then?' The tall man in the full-length thorn proof coat was obviously reluctant to abandon the foray. 'If we keep on trying each night, surely by the law of averages we're going to get something worthwhile sooner or later.'

'You're welcome to come back tomorrow.' Andy Dark's reply was abrupt. 'I'm booked up every evening for the rest of the week, but I'm happy for you lot to keep on trying. On your own.'

He was tense, uneasy. Angry, too. Carol had had enough of these nocturnal vigils and he couldn't really blame her. A conservancy officer was at the beck and call of not just the public but virtually every organisation connected with wildlife and the environment. They wanted to see something so you had to go and show them. If it wasn't a success you kept on trying like Robert the Bruce's spider. You weren't expected to have any private life. You were everybody's twenty-four-hour-a-day servant.

'We'd prefer to stop on for a bit longer,' the other ' said. 'It seems a shame to throw the towel in just like that.'

'All right.' Andy nodded, sighed. 'We'll give it another hour then.'

In actual fact they had stayed another three hours. On a couple of occasions they had glimpsed a rather dejected badger coming out to feed and returning shortly afterwards, but as a cine-spectacular the night's operation had to be regarded as a failure.

It was 3.45 a.m. when Andy Dark parked the Land Rover in front of his small bungalow. Even as he switched off the engine he was aware of a telephone ringing somewhere, a muffled jangling, but you got the feeling that the caller was impatient, insistent, wouldn't ring off until you answered. At this time in the morning it had to be something pretty urgent. Andy struggled to turn the key in the Yale lock. Damn it, he had been meaning to oil it for weeks, now having to use brute strength until it clicked open. The phone on the hall table shrieked at him, screamed its urgency. A sudden sense of foreboding had him holding back, not wanting to answer it because you only got bad news at this hour. Like that night the hospital phoned him to tell him that his father had died. For months afterwards the echo of that call had plagued him in his sleep. Now he heard it again. It required a sudden physical effort to lift the receiver, hold it to his ear. A half-whisper: 'Hallo'. No longer was it 'Andy Dark. Chief Conservation Officer'. Because I don't want to know.

'Andy?' A worried voice which he recognised instantly as belonging to Bill Embleton, Carol's father.

'Yes. What's the matter, Bill?'

'Where's Carol?' If you've got her there with you you're a dirty lecherous bastard but I hope you have because then she'll be safe at least.

'Carol? I haven't seen her tonight. ' Andy Dark's voice tailed off and his whole stomach seemed to compress into a tight ball. A feeling that he might throw up. 'I've been out. filming badgers. haven't seen Carol. '

Both men were suddenly silenced by their own fears, a terror which they knew they must share, couldn't bring themselves to put into words, a fleeting futile hope that it would go away.

'I'll be right round,' Andy snapped, slammed the phone down and ran back out to the Land Rover. Trembling, fumbling, grating the gears. Oh Jesus Christ, please, she'll be all right. My fault, those fucking idiots demanding to film badgers. should have told 'em to fuck off or else left 'em to it. Driving recklessly, swaying on the bends, the droplets of rain reflecting the headlights, showering water up on all sides. Alongside Droy Wood, a Mini parked on that lay-by. It didn't register with him, didn't mean anything. Right now he wasn't interested in anybody else.

On through the deserted village street, houses that might have been empty, everybody gone away. Nobody lived in Droy any more, it was a place of the dead. Eerie. Braking, swinging into the small gravelled drive of a long narrow black-and-white timbered cottage, the downstairs windows lit up. Bill Embleton was waiting at the door, tall and grey-haired, scarlet braces holding up ill-fitting grey slacks, his features lined with anxiety.

'She. hasn't come home.' His voice was cracked, a pathetic whisper.

'Where in God's name can she have got to?'

'Don't let's start panicking yet.' Andy pushed past him, nodded to Joan Embleton who appeared at the top of the stairs. 'There's a dozen and one places she could be, quite safe. She was in a bit of a mood, you see, because I had to take out a party of badger-watchers tonight. We had a tiff, in fact.'

'Oh, I see.' Temporary relief on the other's face. 'Then maybe she's just gone off somewhere. She might even be staying overnight at Thelma Brown's. They were big mates once.' He glanced towards the telephone.

'Well, we can't very well ring at this time of night.' Andy pulled a wry face. It would put all our minds at rest, though. 'But I'll certainly check there first thing in the morning.'

'She didn't act strangely at all.' Joan Embleton descended a couple of steps.

*I thought she was going out with you, though it's funny, come to think of it, you didn't come and pick her up. She'd just gone, wasn't in the house any more.'

'I'll get checking first thing in the morning.' Andy Dark turned back towards the open door. There was nothing to be gained by staying here, putting forward all manner of theories. Carol had gone off in a huff, in all probability she was quite safe somewhere. A lot of girls did that sort of thing on the spur of the moment. 'I'll ring you the moment I know anything.'

A slower drive back to the bungalow, his mind still in a turmoil. Past Droy Wood, that Mini still parked there. Probably a courting couple. Andy envied them.

'But she was at the disco!' There was amazement on Thelma Brown's freckled features, still in the act of combing her long fair hair as she stood in the doorway of the semi-detached council house.

'At the disco!' Andy Dark's expression was one of sheer amazement. 'That's absolutely incredible!' A sudden nagging fear had him asking, 'Who was she with?'