The Last Place God Made - Jack Higgins [70]
*
A couple of miles and I was obviously close to the confluence of the Negro. I was aware of the currents pulling, the surface turning over on itself. A mistake here and I was finished for I had no hope of keeping afloat for long in such conditions in my chained state.
I turned the canoe towards the left-hand side for I was at least fifty yards from the shore and it certainly looked as if I would be safer there. It seemed to be working and then, when I was a few yards from the mangrove trees, I seemed to slide down into a sudden turbulence.
It was like being seized in a giant hand, the canoe rocked from side to side, almost putting me over, I lost the paddle as I grabbed frantically at the sides to keep my balance and then we spun round twice and turned over.
My feet touched the bottom instantly, but the current was too strong for me to be able to stand. However, the canoe, bottom up, barged into me a moment later and I was able to fling my arms across the keel.
Things slowed down a little after that and we finally drifted into quiet water amongst the mangrove trees farther along and grounded against a mudbank.
I righted the canoe and took stock of the situation. The mouth of the river was about a quarter of a mile away and I didn't fancy my chances in the canoe, with or without a paddle. It seemed obvious that the best, indeed the only thing to do, was to attempt to cut through the mangroves on a diagonal course which would bring me out into the Negro down-river from the Seco.
I managed to get back into the canoe and pushed off, pulling myself along by the great roots of the trees until I came to a clump of bamboo where I managed to break myself off a length. From then on it wasn't too bad. Henley, the Thames on a Sunday afternoon in summer. All I needed was a gramophone and a pretty girl. For a moment, I seemed to see Joanna Martin leaning back and laughing at me from under her parasol. But it was entirely the wrong kind of laughter. Some measure of the condition I was in by then, I suppose. I took a deep breath to brace myself up to what lay ahead and started to pole my way out of there.
THIRTEEN
Balsero
It took me four hours. Four hours of agony, tortured by mosquitoes and flies of every description, the iron bracelets rubbing my wrists raw so that each push on the pole became an effort of will.
The trouble was that every so often I ran into areas where the mangroves seemed to come closer together, branches crowding in overhead so that I couldn't see the sun which meant that I lost direction. And then there was the bamboo - gigantic walls of it that I could not possibly hope to penetrate. Each time, I had to probe for another way round or even retrace my route and try again from another direction.
When I finally saw daylight, so to speak, it was certainly more by accident than design. There was suddenly considerably fewer mangrove trees around although I suppose it must have been a gradual process. And then I heard the river.
I came out of the trees and edged into the Negro cautiously. It rolled along quietly enough and I had it to myself as far as I could see although as it was several hundred yards wide at that point, islands of various sizes scattered down the centre, it was impossible to be certain.
One thing I needed now above anything else. Rest, even sleep if possible. Some place where I could lie up for a while in safety for I could not continue in my present state.
It seemed to me then that one of those islands out there would be as good a place as any and I pushed out towards the centre of the river using the pole like a double-bladed paddle. It was slow work and I missed my first objective. By then there was hardly any strength left in me at all and each