Gold of the Gods (6 page)

The secret was to drag the raft to the
point beyond where the waves were breaking
– as far as they could before the water
became too deep to stand in. By the time
Beck was in a position to hold the raft
steady, the water was already over his
shoulders and he could taste the salt water
in his throat.

The rip of the undertow sucked at his
legs and he knew he would not be able to
continue walking on the bottom for much
longer. 'Now!' he bellowed as, flexing every
muscle in their bodies, he and Marco
dragged themselves onto the raft.

As Beck had instructed, Christina clung
onto the tiller for all she was worth to keep
the raft pointing out to sea. If a wave caught
them side on now, all their efforts would be
in vain and they would be swept back up
onto the beach.

And then suddenly the rocking movement
of the raft began to ease as the breeze
caught the sail and they began moving
smoothly out to sea. Within minutes the
beach had disappeared into the inky blackness
as a silver trail of moonlight stretched
out across the Caribbean Sea.

'There's no way back now,' shouted Beck
in triumph. 'Lost City, here we come!'

As if in mocking answer to his cry, the
crew felt a shudder. The raft stopped dead
in its tracks as the surf surged and fell
beneath them. For an instant it seemed to
hover in mid-air. Then a surge of water
picked them up and threw the raft sideways,
knocking the crew onto the deck.

'We've hit a reef !' screamed Marco. 'Hold
on, hold on!'

Ringo cawed and circled overhead.
Christina felt water under her feet as she
clutched desperately at the tiller to avoid
being swept overboard. Beck and Marco
were clinging to the mast for dear life. And
then, just inches from Beck's outstretched
hand, the hamper began to slide slowly
across the deck.

Slipping this way and then that as the raft
juddered against the reef, for a moment the
hamper looked as if it might have wedged
itself between two strips of bamboo. But as
Marco made a final despairing lunge, a
wave swept it into the foaming surf
beyond the despairing clutch of his fingers.

And then suddenly it was all over. The
deck was level once more and the shuddering
ceased. Beck felt for the machete, still
safely attached around his waist. The swell
beneath them settled into a gentle undulating
motion and the raft was sailing sweetly
towards the open sea. Behind them they
could see the froth of white water over the
jagged peaks of the reef from which they
had so narrowly escaped.

The
Bella Señora
was sailing safely once
more.

But the hamper – and all its contents –
was gone.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The crew of the
Bella Señora
lay exhausted
on the deck. Like a horse let loose from its
stable, after a flurry of bucking and tossing
its head, the raft was moving smoothly at
last. The sail, stretched tight like a balloon,
reminded Beck of the belly of one of Uncle
Al's beer-drinking friends, and soon the stiff
breeze had blown them beyond the headland
of the bay.

Beck held the tiller while the twins sat on
either side, holding the vines that controlled
the sail. No one spoke. Even Ringo had
stopped cawing and was perched, still as a
statue, at the top of the mast. Only the
slap-slap,
gurgle-gurgle
of the waves broke the
silence. The loss of the hamper with all their
provisions for two days at sea was a terrible
blow.

It wasn't the lack of food that worried
Beck. Humans, he knew, could survive for
up to three weeks without eating. And there
would be plenty of jungle food once they
were back on land again. But the loss of the
water container was serious. They would
lose water from their bodies quickly in the
hot sun, and drinking sea water would be
fatal. Their kidneys would be poisoned by
the salt and afterwards each little swallow
would feel like their throats were being
scraped with sandpaper.

But now was not the time to worry the
twins. And besides, he had another
confession to make. 'It's my fault,' he said at
last. 'I should have checked that the hamper
was properly lashed to the mast.' He winced
and closed his eyes. 'And there's something
else you should know.' The twins gazed
questioningly back at him. 'The GPS
slipped out of my pocket. I had it tied to my
belt but the coral must have sliced through
the string when we hit the reef.'

A brooding silence fell over the crew.
Then Beck laughed. An ear-splitting guffaw
that caused the startled Ringo to jump from
his perch and fly in circles around the raft.
He came to rest again on the edge of the
deck, as far from Beck as he could get without
landing in the sea.

'Come on, guys. Look on the bright side.
Things can only get better,' Beck pleaded.
'Uncle Al says the first rule of survival is to
keep smiling. If you're still alive, there's
always hope. Once me and Dad survived for
five days on a raft much smaller than this
one. Dad was on a mission on the
Green
Warrior
and we were attacked by pirates in
the South China Sea. We had to live off
rainwater and fish until we made it to land.'

'Yes, but how do we navigate without a
GPS?' asked Christina, unable to disguise
the catch of fear in her voice. Her question
hung accusingly in the night air.

'With the stars and the moon,' replied
Beck. 'The first sailors crossed huge oceans
on rafts just like this one. And I'm pretty
certain they didn't have a GPS.'

He pointed up into the inky darkness,
where the stars sparkled like diamonds in
the night sky. 'Each one of those little pinpricks
of light is a sun just like ours,' he
went on. 'But our ancestors didn't know
that. What they saw were their gods striding
about the sky. Men, horses, fishes – all the
creatures of the jungle. Beats telly any day.'

'But how does that help us find our
way to the Lost City?' asked Marco,
unconvinced.

'According to Gonzalo's map, we need to
keep sailing east from here. So as long as we
know which way is north, it's easy,' Beck
explained.

'But which way
is
north?' asked
Christina, a note of exasperation in her
voice. 'I can hardly tell which way is up or
down. There's nothing but sea, sea and
more sea out here. We're on a floating
prison surrounded by nothing but water.'

'There's one star that never moves,' said
Beck. 'It's like there's a huge maypole in the
sky and the rest of the stars dance around it.
And that one solitary star is always pointing
north. And guess what?'

'What?' said Marco, sounding cross now.

'It's called the North Star, dumbo,' said
Beck.

'Yes, but how do you know which one it
is?' shot back Marco. They gazed up at the
pinpricks of light that twinkled in the velvety
darkness. 'There are millions of them.
It's like trying to find a needle in a
haystack.'

'More like a grain of salt in a sugar bowl,'
said Christina. She took a deep lungful of
the cool night air and sighed. 'Sometimes at
home I just lie on my back on the lawn and
stare up at the sky. It makes me feel so tiny.
I wish we were . . .' Her voice tailed off.

'You've got to think of the night sky like
a friend, not a like a bogeyman out to get
you,' said Beck. 'But you have to get to
know it first.' He pointed up into the darkness
and traced a pattern across the sky with
his outstretched finger. 'The Plough – Ursa
Major – call it what you like. It's one of the
easiest constellations in the sky to find. It
looks like an old-fashioned plough.'

'Looks more like a saucepan to me,' said
Christina. She paused and stared up at the
heavens with her head on one side. 'But I
see what you mean now. And I suppose "the
Plough" does sound a bit more poetic than
"the Saucepan".'

Now Beck was tracing a W in the sky not
far to the left of the Plough. 'Cassiopeia,' he
said before the twins could ask. 'Draw one
imaginary line through the central point of
the W and another between the two stars
that make the outer edge of the saucepan.
And that's it. Where the two lines meet is
the North Star. If we sail towards that, we'll
eventually arrive at the North Pole.'

'But we're trying to find the Lost City,
not the North Pole,' said Marco.

'No problem,' Beck replied. 'We know
the Sierra Nevada mountains are directly
east of Cartagena so all we need to do is sail
. . . thataway.' He pointed at right angles to
the star. 'Which happens to be exactly the
direction the current is taking us.'

For the second time that night, Christina
had reason to be thankful for Beck's quiet
reassurance and the panic in her stomach at
last began to subside. It seemed incredible
that this schoolboy Brit, only a few months
older than the twins, had learned so much
about nature and how to survive against all
the odds. But her eyelids were beginning to
droop now as the night drew on.

Beck let the twins sleep as the
Bella
Señora
sailed on into the night. Hours later,
Christina woke with a start. Something
slimy had brushed against her face and she
let out a stifled cry. Whatever it was had
tangled itself up in her hair. Flapping her
arms and shaking her head wildly from side
to side, she desperately tried to brush the
creature free. But just when she thought it
had gone, something else was moving
against her legs. And then her arm. And
then her face again. A torrent of slime was
raining out of the sky.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun,
everything was still. Christina peered
nervously out through the gaps in her
fingers, which were now clasped tightly
around her face. It was already light and the
sun, like a giant tangerine, was slowly rising
above the horizon. There was a weak sound
of slapping all around the deck.

This time it was Beck's turn to collapse in
helpless laughter at the twins' discomfort.
'Sorry to wake you,' he said. 'I thought you
might like room service for breakfast, but it
arrived a bit sooner than I thought.'

Five flying fish lay on the deck, their
mouths opening and closing as their wings
flapped vainly in the silent spasms of their
death throes. Marco made a grab for one as
the creature made a last attempt to spread
its wings and fly before falling lifeless to the
deck.

'Hit them over the head with the
machete handle,' shouted Beck, handing it
over. 'It'll put them out of their misery.'

Marco floundered around the deck on his
mission of mercy as Christina watched in
silent horror. Finally all five fish lay still.

Beck calmly picked up the nearest one
and drew the wings apart. 'Flying fish
actually have four wings,' he explained, as if
he were a teacher in a school biology lesson.
He laid the fish in front of the twins. 'When
they're chased, they accelerate through the
water. Then, when they reach the surface,
they spread their wings and just glide over
the top of the waves. Neat way to escape,
huh? Unless you end up landing on a passing
raft, of course. Feeling hungry?'

Christina was looking at Beck in
disbelief. 'You're not really suggesting we
should eat these things, are you? Raw?'

'Not the guts, of course,' said Beck.
'Although we can always use those for bait
or suncream.' He looked towards the
horizon, shielding his eyes against the giant
orb of the sun. 'And we're going to need
some today by the looks of it.' Lining up
the fish carcasses, he carefully removed the
wings. 'I'm not sure what we can do with
these, to be honest.'

'Maybe stitch them together and make
our own wings,' said Christina. 'Then we
could fly to the Lost City. It would be a bit
quicker than this.'

Ignoring her, Beck picked up the
machete and, with quick swipes of
the blade, expertly removed the heads one
by one. Then, after slicing the blade
through the soft white underbelly of each
fish in turn, he pushed his finger inside the
cavity so that the guts flopped onto the deck
with a liquid squelching sound.

'Now that's what I call bait,' said Beck
with a satisfied smile as he sifted through
the gooey mass. 'And the oil from the livers
is brilliant for sunscreen. We'll dry them in
the sun and it'll be better than anything you
can buy in the shops. It's full of vitamin D.
That's what protects your skin against the
sun. And it rubs on nicely. Smells a bit but
great when it's do or die. Factor twenty at
least, I reckon.'

'Yuck,' hissed Christina. 'That is really
gross.' She wrinkled her nose with disgust at
the line of little orange sacks that Beck was
carefully lining up along the side of the deck.

'It's amazing how much less they seem to
smell when you're really hungry and thirsty,'
said Beck in a matter-of-fact voice. 'Anyway,
I suggest we tuck in now before the sun gets
too hot and the fish go manky. But before
we eat, we need to get as much fluid inside
us as we can. If we don't, we won't be able to
digest the fish properly.'

Beck lay down on the deck and, taking
hold of one of the flying fish in both hands,
he squeezed. A dark liquid the colour of
plum juice oozed out of the pinky-brown
flesh and dripped over his lips. 'Tastes rather
bitter,' he said nonchalantly when he had
finished drinking. 'But it sure does cool
your mouth down.'

Disgust and thirst battled it out on the
twins' faces. This was a good lesson,
thought Beck. His new friends would need
to learn fast.

'OK, who's next? Chrissy, hold out your
hands.' As if under a spell, Christina held
out her cupped hands. Her stomach felt
queasy and she was breathing heavily.

Beck gathered the fish heads into a pile
before picking up the machete in one hand
and one of the heads in the other. Then,
with a deft turn of the blade's tip, he flicked
an eye out of its socket and watched it drop
into Christina's hands. The girl flinched but
kept her hands locked out in front of her as
Beck removed both eyes from all five of the
fish heads.

Christina looked down. Ten glassy eyes
stared back at her. She could feel the
contents of her stomach rising towards her
throat and swallowed only just in time to
stop the follow-through. Marco breathed
deeply and turned his head away.

'No takers?' asked Beck. 'Well, guys, if
you're not going to have yours, I certainly
will. If we leave them any longer they'll start
to ferment.'

Christina watched, frozen to the spot, as
Beck took one of the eyes from her cupped
hands. Then he threw back his head and,
with the eye pinched firmly between his
thumb and first finger, squeezed. A thin
watery fluid dripped onto his tongue. Then
he dropped the eye into his mouth and
began to chew. One at a time he picked up
two more eyes and repeated the process.

'That is absolutely disgusting,' said
Marco, trying hard not to gag. 'You're very
welcome to mine if you're still thirsty.'

'I wouldn't give up your share of anything,
Marco. You can't be squeamish if you
want to survive,' replied Beck. 'Wow, that
feels better,' he said, wiping his sleeve over
his mouth. He reached over to pick up
another of the fish eyes from Christina's
cupped hands. But this time Christina drew
her hands away.

'Mine, I think,' she said. Her voice
sounded fierce and determined. Transferring
the eyes to her left hand, she used
her right to pick up one of the jelly-like
discs, then threw back her head. And
squeezed. Keeping her eyes tight shut, she
grimaced as a dribble of fluid slid slowly
down the back of her throat. Then, keeping
her mouth wide open, she dropped the
shiny disc onto her tongue, lowered her
head and, without opening her eyes, began
to chew. Then she swallowed.