Stephen Leather - The Hunting

CHAPTER 46

Raj was breathing heavily and was starting to stagger under Jaffar’s weight. Luckily the terrain was reasonably flat but even so it was tough going. They reached a clearing and Raj called a halt. He lowered Jaffar to the ground as Erol and Sid placed Mo next to a tree. Raj knelt down and examined Jaffar’s wounds through his ripped trousers. Fresh blood was still oozing out. Jaffar was groggy but conscious.

‘I’m going to have to take your trousers off,’ said Raj. Jaffar grunted but didn’t say anything. Raj took the tourniquet off the thigh and then unbuttoned Jaffar’s trousers and gently pulled them off. Sid and Erol peered down. ‘Is he going to be okay?’ asked Sid.

‘It could have been worse,’ said Raj. ‘I think she was only toying with him.’

‘That’s not funny, bruv,’ said Jaffar through gritted teeth.

‘Seriously mate, she just swiped you, she could have taken the leg off if she’d wanted to.’ Raj prodded the top wound and fresh blood appeared. ‘I’m going to have to stitch this,’ he said. He looked over at Mo who was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed. ‘How is he?’

‘Not good,’ said Sid. ‘His leg is a mess.’

Raj pulled the knife from its sheath, unscrewed the compass and slid out the plastic container. He opened it and took out the fishing hook and the nylon line.

‘You’re fucking joking,’ said Sid.

‘It’s not how I’d choose to sew up a wound, but it’ll have to do.’

Jaffar squinted at the hook. ‘No fucking way.’

‘It’s just a curved needle, mate,’ said Raj. He threaded the line through the eye of the hook. ‘It’s going to hurt, but you’re a big boy.’ He looked up at Erol. ‘Have you got any of the willow left?’

‘Yeah,’ said Erol. He took some of the bark from his pocket and handed it down to Jaffar. Jaffar thrust it between his lips and chewed.

‘Do you want to bite on something?’ asked Raj.

Jaffar shook his head. ‘Just do it,’ he said. He closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.

Raj pushed the tip of the hook into the skin and pushed it through. He grabbed the point and eased the line after it. Then he pushed it through the other side of the wound and pulled the line. He smiled grimly when he saw that it was working. He tied the line, pulling the two sides of the flesh together, then cut it with the knife. ‘Nice one, bruv,’ said Sid.

‘Are you done?’ asked Jaffar, his eyes still closed.

‘That’s the first stitch, there’s a few more to do,’ said Raj. He looked up at Sid. ‘We’re going to need to replace Mo’s splint,’ he said. ‘Can you and Erol grab some branches? You know the sort, an inch or so thick and straight as you can get.’

Sid patted Erol on the back. ‘Come on. And I could do with some more berries.’

‘Remember, we need to move quickly,’ said Raj. ‘The hunter can’t be too far away.’

As the two men went into the forest, Raj threaded the hook again and used it to insert a second stitch. The top wound was just over six centimetres long and Raj managed to close it with five stitches. He worked as quickly as he could. Jaffar kept his head turned to the side and grunted occasionally.

The wound below it was deeper and longer, almost ten centimetres, and took eight stitches to close. The final wound was less deep and took just four. Eventually Raj sat back on his heels and admired his handiwork. Considering he had been using a fish hook and not a needle, the stitches weren’t bad at all. He wound up the surplus line.

‘Is that it?’ asked Jaffar.

‘All done,’ said Raj.

Jaffar turned his head and opened his eyes.

‘The bleeding will stop soon,’ said Raj. He put the hook and the remains of the line back into the handle of the knife, then stood up. ‘Stay where you are, I’m going to see if I can find something to help.’

He walked to the edge of the clearing and looked around. He saw Sid in the distance pulling a branch off a tree and walked over to him. ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Sid. ‘More willow?’

Raj shook his head. ‘The willow bark’s a painkiller. I want something to act as an antiseptic to stop the wound getting infected.’

Raj moved slowly through the undergrowth looking at the smaller bushes. He pushed his way through a clump of large spreading ferns, then walked around a giant redwood that had died and fallen over, exposing rotting roots. The roots were covered with lichen and moss. Some varieties of moss had medicinal qualities but they could also be poisonous, and Raj wasn’t knowledgeable enough to take the risk.

There were more ferns beyond the dead tree, and a cluster of evergreen shrubs. Raj smiled when he saw a bush dotted with white flowers. He grabbed a handful of its fern-like leaves and crushed them. When he held the leaves to his nose he caught the distinctive bitter aroma that let him know he was right – it was a yarrow plant. He grabbed several handfuls of leaves and took them back to the clearing. Sid was still pulling branches off the tree and Erol was gathering berries. Raj left them to it.

He reached the clearing and sat down next to Jaffar who frowned at the leaves. ‘Do I have to eat that?’

‘Nah, mate. We’ll use it like a poultice. I just need something to keep it in place.’

‘What does it do?’

‘The leaves contain chamazulene, which is good for staunching bleeding and making sure infection doesn’t take hold,’ said Raj. ‘Native Americans have been using it for centuries.’

He put the leaves on the ground and then used the knife to cut two strips of cloth from the bottom of Jaffar’s shirt. Then he crushed the leaves, pressed them against the wound and used the cloth to tie them into place.

‘It hurts like fuck, bruv,’ said Jaffar.

‘I know. There’s nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid. But the willow bark should take the edge off it. Let’s get your trousers back on.’

Raj helped Jaffar pull his trousers back up, then looked at his watch. It was just after 4 p.m. There were about five hours before the sun went down. He frowned. They had run out of time. There was no way they could reach the house before dark. Jaffar was going to have real trouble walking and the more he put pressure on the leg, the greater the chance that the wounds would reopen.

Sid and Erol returned. Sid was carrying eight small branches and Erol had used two large leaves as a makeshift tray to hold several handfuls of berries. He shared them out and tossed the leaves away. ‘Will he be okay?’ Sid asked, gesturing at Jaffar.

‘If he was in hospital, sure,’ said Raj. ‘But we’re in the middle of a forest.’ He straightened up. ‘We need to talk.’ He looked across at Erol and waved him over. Erol limped towards them with his crutch. ‘We need a rethink,’ said Raj. ‘We’ve just over twenty-five kilometres to go and it’ll be dark in about five hours. We’ll need an hour to get a shelter together, so whichever way you cut it, we’re not going to beat the dark. And assuming the hunter heard those shots, he’ll be heading in our direction.’

‘So what do you want to do?’ asked Jaffar. ‘You want to dump me and Mo, don’t you? So that you three can go off on your own.’

‘You need time to heal, Jaffar. Even if we carry you, those wounds are going to reopen and you’ll bleed to death. And Mo, you really are on your last legs, no pun intended.’ Raj pointed west. ‘Assuming the helicopter dropped the hunter over there this morning, he probably headed to the clearing. At that point he would have picked up our tracks, and Sal and Abdullah’s too. We don’t know if he went after them or us first, but he’s either to the west or the north of us. We can keep heading towards the house, but eventually he’s going to catch up. And if our tail-end Charlie is having to look at the rear all the time, we’ll make even slower progress.’