Doctor Who_ Combat Rock - Mick Lewis [70]
The canoes were where Tigus expected them to be, nestled on the north bank of the Sclachtenmoord, next to an abandoned river station.
The Doctor eyed the long vessels dubiously. They were hollowed-out tree trunks that looked like they’d been used for many years, judging by the state of them. He looked along the jungle’s edge, where the tall, palm-like trees crept down to the muddy banks for miles in either direction with nothing to break the monotony, wondering if this might be an opportunity to escape. The same answer he always received came back to him, his own answer: escape to where, exactly?
‘You won’t catch me climbing in those,’ Drew said, hands on hips.
‘Then you die here,’ Tigus said simply. He patted the haft of his machete where it jutted into the belt of his khaki trousers, and looked around at the group, at Santi and Wina, at Ussman, at the Doctor and Jamie, looking for any further signs of protest. There were none.
‘Good. We go.’
Two guerrillas pushed one of the canoes out, and held it while the Doctor,Wina,Wemus and Kepennis waded out to climb aboard. The vessel rocked alarmingly as the guerrillas let go and Wina went tumbling into Wemus, emitting a parrot-like squawk. Wemus settled her securely next to him as the guerrillas guffawed with amusement.
Drew, Santi, Jamie and Ussman occupied the other canoe.
Oars were thrust into the men’s hands and they were ordered to start paddling. Jamie glanced over at the Doctor, whose canoe was already drifting away from the Scot’s, and shrugged.
‘Don’t worry, Jamie!’ the Doctor called. ‘We’ll find Victoria eventually.’
‘Aye, well we don’t seem to be going about it the right way, if you ask me!’ he hollered back.
‘Well, we... we don’t appear to have a choice,’ the Doctor muttered despondently, and gave Tigus a reproachful glare.
The two canoes were moving downstream fairly rapidly now, with Jamie’s party forming the rear. Drew looked behind him and noticed that Santi had not been supplied with an oar, and promptly stopped rowing himself. A guerrilla ordered him to begin again.
‘Hey, if she don’t have to row, nor do I.’ he said, entirely satisfied with his point of view.
‘If you not row,’ the guerrilla said, lifting a machete from the bed of the canoe, ‘what good your hands to us?’ He sliced a line of blood along the offworlder’s left wrist. The blond man yelped and delved for the oars without further complaint.
Santi folded her arms and smirked happily.
She was tired of walking.
It had been a long night, and Victoria had not slept at all well. She had spent it in a military outpost deep in the interior of the Papul jungle. The outpost consisted of a muddle of huts filled with hammocks for soldiers to sleep in when on patrol and a cache of supplies hidden away to provide for all their needs: at least, that was how Agus had described it to her as they flew in the night before.
Of course, the outpost in reality was nothing like that.
The hammocks had been taken, the food too, the huts burned by rebels. Agus had been half-expecting this, which was something of a relief, and had therefore brought emergency supplies, if no hammocks. Victoria slept on the grass floor of a temporary shelter erected by soldiers next to the ashes of the former huts. She had lain on her back peering up at the stars above the small clearing that housed the
‘outpost’, and wondered about the Doctor, about Jamie. She wondered about them perhaps bickering in their affectionate way: Jamie always exasperated and headstrong, the Doctor always seeming to be daunted by events but yet resolute under it all. She knew they would be desperately worried about her, and only wished she could let them know she was all right. If, of course, they were all right themselves.
Her thoughts had turned to Agus, the handsome Indoni officer, and how badly she had misread him. His graciousness, urbanity and thoughtfulness must all have been a sham then.
He was a killer, as bad as the men he hunted, it seemed. And although he had not been cruel to her, or hurt her in any way so far, she knew