Project - 16 Read Free Page A

morning
breeze and I was happy with that. The rest of me was snug, gently
swaying and eager to stay put.
    A long time ago, probably a few months before he died, my Dad
took me out into the woods near the camp and we hung our hammocks
in a patch similar to this one. The pines in a plantation were
usually quite uniform, for obvious reasons, and yet, he pointed
out, each one seemed to always grow in a strange, unique way that
made no two look the same. Maybe it was the diffusion of light
through the canopy or the refusal of each tree to grow exactly
where it had been planted. Still, he'd said, you could tell each
one apart if you had the eyes to see it. He'd loved the outdoors
until his dying day, even after it had all changed and we'd become
the last of the English. I think, perhaps, he was almost glad. He
got to see nature claim it all back and I think it made him happy
to see it.
    Eventually I pulled an arm out into the cold and reached for
my stove. It was an alcohol burner and it was filled with the
product of my still which didn't burn as well as other
mass-produced American fuels but it did the trick. I got some water
boiling and led there, waiting, breathing, doing the every-day
stuff that just being alive required. Then I turned my attention to
finding what I was sure would be a corpse and not a casualty. I'd
resigned myself to that fact as I'd poured my coffee grounds into
my aluminium mug and rooted in my pack for the cold bacon sandwich
I'd made the night before. I chewed it thoughtfully as the water
came to a second rolling boil, then held it between my teeth as I
carefully let the coffee cool off the stove. Coffee in the woods
was a delicate matter and I'd perfected the technique long ago. I
laughed aloud, remembering a team of US Rangers who'd been a bit of
a handful early into their three week course. They'd found a new
respect for me once they'd seen me make them a cup of 'Cowboy
Coffee' as they called it.
    I drank the strong, hot brew whilst I began to pack up,
washing down mouthfuls of hard bacon and bread as I went. The birds
began their chorus and fluttered in the tree tops above me, often
sending small showers of rain drops down onto my head that had
ricocheted off the points of the sharp pine needles. In a few
minutes my stove was cool enough to be packed away and I slung the
black sludge from the bottom of my cup before stowing that away
also. Then with the bottom of my boot I dragged the trampled grass
upright as best I could, replaced any of the debris as I'd found it
and set off back the way I'd come. No traces.
     
    I tracked my way back to the site of the vomit - a task I
found much easier in the daytime, then searched the ground once
more for spoor. I found my own boot tracks mingled with the
walker's and began searching in an ever widening circle until I
found another patch of blood-puke. It was to the south this time on
the other side of a wall which is why I'd missed it. The walker had
all but back tracked to this point and now the tracks went due
south in a stumbling fashion, the distance and pace looking frantic
and disorganised. Left and right they veered, sometimes turning
back on themselves completely, other times stopping in one spot and
pacing in circles to form a bare patch of muddy black earth. I
followed them further and noted that the distance between steps was
growing shorter and shorter until the tracks become less of a
defined footprint but rather a smudged line a foot long as each
shoe was dragged through the mud. It was the shuffle of someone too
ill to stand let alone walk much further.
     
    At the base of a huge oak I found her.
     
    It was a young girl, 17 or so with hazel brown hair that
feathered her pale cheeks in the soft breeze of the morning. She
sat with her back to the great gnarled trunk, her legs splayed in
front of her and her hands flopped loosely on the ground at either
side. Her cheap waterproof coat was open at the zip and a greasy
streak of bloody vomit ran down