Gold of the Gods (5 page)

CHAPTER SIX

Beck's heart sank as the awful truth dawned.
Hiding in the undergrowth, following them
just out of sight, Ramirez the Reptile had
tricked them into revealing their plan to sail
down the coast and find the Lost City.
Their only chance of rescuing Uncle Al and
the twins' father was now gone.

Drawing himself up to his full height,
Beck turned to confront the police chief
with a frosty glare. He was greeted by a loud
screech from behind the bushes, followed
by a burst of hysterical laughter. Marco and
Christina were shaking uncontrollably, tears
rolling down their cheeks.

'Will someone please explain—?' began
Beck.

'
Buenos días, amigos
,' spat Ramirez for the
second time. His words were greeted with a
renewed explosion of mirth as Marco and
Christina doubled up once more.

'Ringo! Stop that, Ringo!' shouted
Christina as she disappeared behind the
bushes.

Beck looked on in amazement, hardly
able to speak. 'Will someone please—?' he
began again as Christina reappeared, clutching
a flapping mass of brightly coloured
feathers that squawked loudly, while every
few seconds pecking at her earrings with
sudden darts of his head.

'Señor Beck,' said Marco in a pompous
voice, as if they were in the presence of
royalty. 'May I introduce Don Ringo the
Gringo.'

'Otherwise know as plain Ringo the
wicked parakeet,' added Christina. 'Dad
called him Ringo because beetles are his
favourite food' – she shook her head with a
despairing look – 'which he thinks is very
funny. When he was young, Dad was a
sailor on a ship that visited Liverpool and he
met John, Paul, George . . .'

'And Ringo,' said Marco as the parakeet
jumped from Christina's arm onto his
shoulder while directing an inquisitive eye
at Beck. 'Ringo was Dad's favourite. He said
he never stopped cracking jokes . . .' He
paused and gave Ringo a sideways glare.
'Which I guess explains everything.'

'Bingo!' exclaimed Beck, a huge smile
lighting up his face.

'No, Beck,
Ringo
,' said Christina, trying
unsuccessfully to hide her impatience. 'You
know, the pop—'

But Beck wasn't listening. 'Balsa,' he said,
pointing excitedly into the distance. 'That
tree over there. The really tall one. It's a
balsa tree. That's what the Indians used to
build rafts like the one in Gonzalo's model.
We've got all the materials we need to build
the real thing right here. And unless we get
away tonight' – he glared at Ringo – 'it
really will be Ramirez jumping out at us
from behind the bushes.'

Beck led the way through the undergrowth.
'You can tell they're balsa trees by
the flowers on the ends of the branches.
They look like ice-cream cones.' He pointed
up at the smooth white bark of the trunk,
which rose straight as an arrow towards the
sky. 'It grows faster than almost any other
tree in the jungle and because it floats so
well, it's brilliant for making rafts.'

'And model airplanes,' added Marco
wistfully.

'How do you know all this stuff, Beck?'
asked Christina.

'My parents lived all over the world and
my father was a survival expert,' replied
Beck. 'He taught me everything he knew.
When I was a kid, he showed me how to
make shelters in the wilderness and find
food and water. Sometimes it was in the
jungle, sometimes in the desert or in the
mountains. I made my first abseil down a
cliff when I was five years old.' He sighed
wistfully, but then turned his attention once
more to the job in hand. 'There's no time to
waste,' he told the twins. 'We must hurry if
we're going to leave tonight.'

There was a note of urgency in his voice
now. 'We need a sharp blade to cut this tree
down. It shouldn't be too difficult as the
wood is so soft but this trunk is more than
half a metre thick. With the logs from three
or four trees like this we should easily be
able to make a raft that's big enough.'

As the boys went in search of more balsa
trees, Christina hurried off in the direction
of the hacienda. She reappeared a few
minutes later, a leather sheath slung around
her waist. Long tassels hung down almost
to her feet. 'Dad's machete,' she said,
pulling the steel of the blade free and
turning it in her hand so that the sharpened
edge flashed in the sunlight. 'He likes wearing
it when he's on his own at home. Mum
says it makes him feel like a conquistador.'

The team set to work. Aiming a series of
heavy diagonal blows at each side of the
trunk of the balsa tree, Beck sent chips of
wood flying into the air. Marco picked a
piece up and turned it over in his hand. It
was as light as a feather and the colour of
porridge oats.

'Stand back behind me,' shouted Beck a
few minutes later. The tree began a slow-motion
topple forward before gradually
accelerating and smashing through the
undergrowth onto the ground with a dull
thump.

Repeating the process with the other trees
they had found nearby, they lopped off the
branches and cut each trunk into three until
twelve logs lay side by side on the jungle
floor like giant matchsticks. As the boys
admired their handiwork, Christina went in
search of some bamboo for the decking
layer. Adrenalin surged through her veins as
the blade of the machete swung through the
air and dug into the base of a clump of tall
bamboo poles with a loud
ker-chunk
.

She remembered the tales her father used
to tell her of the tribe of women warriors
who once lived in the forests of the Amazon
just a few hundred kilometres away over the
mountains. A glint of fierce determination
sparkled in her eyes as, one by one, the giant
bamboo stems fell free.

'All we need now is some long lengths of
vine,' said Beck as they dragged the last
of the bamboo poles back to the beach. 'Not
exactly a problem round here.' He pointed
out the best lengths for the purpose, and
Christina and Marco took it in turns to
hack away at the thick tendrils that clung to
the trunks of the jungle trees.

With all the materials for the raft now
assembled, Beck demonstrated how the
vines should be woven between the balsa
logs at both ends and across the middle of
the raft, and then pulled together under
tension. A top layer of bamboo, laid crosswise,
strengthened the structure and formed
a deck.

When they had finished, Beck went off
into the undergrowth; he reappeared a few
minutes later dragging more wood behind
him.

'Mangrove,' he said. 'It's much harder
than balsa but grows just as fast. We can
make the mast out of this and lash bamboo
across it in a frame for the sail. The Indians
would have used palm leaves woven
together, but I seem to remember sleeping
in some cotton sheets last night.'

As Christina set off back to the hacienda
to raid the linen cupboard, the boys lashed
together the mast and the bamboo frame for
the sail. Then they lowered the finished
structure into place through the circular
hole that Beck had cut in the deck. 'Perfect,'
he said as they slotted it into place. 'Just
enough movement to let it swivel. Now
we'll be able to change direction when the
wind gets up.'

When Christina returned with the sheets,
Beck cut four lengths of vine about the
thickness of his little finger and threaded
them through the edges of the sheet like the
stitching on a wicker basket. Once the sail
was in place, he lashed more lengths of the
mangrove together in the shape of a large A.
When he had finished, he wedged it into
the deck platform at the other end of the
raft from the sail. 'One tiller,' he said,
rubbing his hands together with the satisfaction
of a job well done. 'All we need now
is a long pole to use as a rudder.'

By now the sun was sinking in the sky
and the shadows of the trees were growing
longer by the minute. 'Just one more rather
important thing,' said Beck as they looked
at the raft in the gathering gloom. He
swung the machete down hard into the
green spongy skin of a large object like a
giant football that lay under a nearby palm
tree. As it split open, a milky sap oozed out.

Picking up the coconut and shaking it, he
sent arcs of milk squirting over the deck of
the raft before passing it on, first to
Christina and then to Marco, so they could
do the same.

'I name this ship the
Bella Señora
,' said
Beck solemnly as they passed around the
coconut, drinking a toast. 'Long life to all
who sail in her.'

'To the
Bella Señora
,' echoed the twins.

When the ceremony was over, Marco led
the way back to the hacienda, where Beck
disappeared upstairs and the twins began
filling a large hamper, ransacking the
kitchen for provisions. Marco had
persuaded Señora Cordova to go home
early, saying that they were too tired to eat
much supper and would be going to bed
early. She had left them some food out to
make sandwiches.

As they were adding a few last afterthoughts,
Beck reappeared. He was
clutching a shiny black object with a large
colour screen. 'Global Positioning System,'
he explained. 'Otherwise known as a GPS. I
take it with me everywhere I go with Uncle
Al. He's forever getting lost so it comes
in handy every time. It talks to satellites in
space to pinpoint your position. With this
we'll know exactly where we are to within
about two metres anywhere on Earth!'

The twins watched as Beck punched
instructions into the keypad and the
familiar outline of South America appeared
on the screen. As he repeatedly punched a
button marked ZOOM, Christina felt as if
she were landing in an alien spaceship: the
outline of Colombia drew ever closer, until
at last they were hovering over the streets of
Cartagena itself.

'This little gizmo tells you everything.
High tide tonight is just after midnight, and
once we're out at sea, the current should be
running east. Exactly where we need to go.
I've calculated it should take us less than
two days to reach the shore where Gonzalo
landed. We'll be able to find more food and
water in the forest. But let's eat something
now and then sleep for a few hours.'

The hacienda was quiet as the grave when
Beck woke the twins, just before midnight.
Out of his bedroom window he could see
two police cars blocking the driveway
beyond the electric gates, the tip of a lighted
cigarette and the silhouettes of two policemen
chatting idly together. A full moon
hung in the sky like a ripe cheese.

The three ghostly figures made their way
across the lawn and along the forest path to
the beach, the twins carrying a hamper
between them.

Beck fetched the machete from where it
had lain hidden and slung the belt around
his waist. The GPS was safely in his pocket,
the map strapped around him under his
shirt.

'We're in luck,' he whispered as the twins
dragged the raft from its hiding place under
a clump of palm trees near the water's edge.
'The breeze is strong and it's blowing offshore
so it should be easy to get clear of the
bay. But no more talking now until we're at
sea.'

Working in silence and following the
instructions Beck had given them earlier,
the crew of the
Bella Señora
dragged the raft
down a short strip of sand to where the
waves were breaking on the beach. As they
reached the water, Christina felt the hairs on
the back of her neck stand on end: a dark
shape was swooping out of the jungle
towards her. She ducked as it swerved
around her head and Ringo came to rest on
top of the mast.

'Looks like we've got a stowaway already,'
muttered Beck. 'Who said he could come
anyway?'

'He's our mascot,' said Marco.

'Always best to have stocks of fresh meat
for the larder, I suppose,' replied Beck, eyeing
up Ringo, who put his head on one side
and glared at Beck suspiciously.

As Christina climbed onto the raft, Beck
and Marco swung the hamper into place
beside the mast before Beck waded into the
surf, dragging the raft behind him.
Steadying it from the beach end, Marco
followed behind. As Beck had warned,
launching a raft from the beach at night was
not going to be easy.

As he dragged the raft into the surf, the
words of the famous Beaufort Scale came
into his mind. He had learned it as a child
on a sailing holiday in Cornwall with his
dad. Invented by an admiral called
Beaufort around the time of the Battle of
Trafalgar in 1805, it helped sailors guess the
strength of the wind from the telltale signs
of the sea. Flat calm – 'sea like a mirror' –
was force zero, while a hurricane – 'air is
filled with foam and spray' – was a force
twelve.

Beck looked out to sea, where the wind
was already blowing spume off the tops of
the waves. '
Many white horses are formed. A
chance of some spray
,' he chanted. A force
five at least, he guessed.