Search for the Sunlight
Chapter 28

Together they struck up a good pace. They marched all day, breaking only periodically for a drink and to take the weight off their tired legs, but eventually, with what little light there was fading fast, they were forced to stop and set up camp for the night.

Basil dug a shallow hole in the sand with a stick, while Herbert gathered some brushwood and kindling from the vast selection of broken branches and dead shrubs that littered the ground. He arranged them carefully into the hole and with the aid of a tinder box and some trouser fluff, which he’d acquired from his brother, he successfully lit a fire and put the emergency camping kettle on to boil.

In the amber glow of the flames, Basil checked the map. He was eager to know how far they had travelled. He spread the document out on the sand and began to study the faded contours and grid references. He looked at his watch. They had set off at ten seventeen and now it was six twenty one. Give or take a few minutes, they had been travelling for approximately eight hours. At an estimated walking speed of three miles per hour, and allowing an hour for stoppages, this meant they had covered something in the region of twenty miles. He noted their approximate position in his log book and began to fold the map away. Five minutes later however, stressed out and trembling with frustration, his patience finally came to an end. He grabbed the stubborn document in both hands and following Herbert’s bad tempered example of a few days before, crumpled it up like a discarded paper bag and stuffed it contemptuously into the side pocket of his Lapsack, where it belonged. “Grrr!” he snarled as he turned over huffily onto his side and lay down to sleep.

In the morning, a little chilled but otherwise refreshed, they both agreed how well they had slept. Herbert managed to rekindle the fire from a few glowing embers and whilst they waited for the kettle to boil, Basil checked his diary entry from the night before. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that his notes still made sense.

“If we can strike up the same sort of pace as yesterday, then we should reach the mountains by nightfall.” he said encouragingly.

While Herbert packed up their belongings, Basil took the compass from his pocket and checked the direction in which they would travel. A few minutes later, with everything satisfactory, the duo warmed themselves one last time by the dying fire and struck out in the same north-easterly direction as before.

For almost four hours, they marched in a straight line, stopping only periodically for a drink from the water flask and importantly, to check their bearings. With nothing but desert in every direction, it would only have taken a deviation of a few degrees for them to end up hopelessly lost.

For a while everything was going according to plan until, for some unearthly reason, Herbert began to grunt in time with each step that he took.

Step, step, step, step - Grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt.

In the silence of the bleak treeless plains, his irritating habit was driving Basil to distraction. He was desperate to say something, but progress was good so he chose to keep quiet lest his comments upset the general rhythm of things. Instead, he plucked two wood knots from the frayed lining inside his jacket and stuck one in each ear. On they trundled - grunt, grunt, grunt, grunt - until about a quarter past four when something made Herbert look up.

“Blimey!” he exclaimed, squinting through a break in the fog. “I think I can see the mountains up ahead!”

Basil stopped and took the crumpled map from his Lapsack. He spread it out flat on the soft sand and, by the light of a spark or two from Herbert’s tinder box, he confirmed that they were only eight miles from the foothills at the base of the Gouldong Mountains.

He was about to embark on the map folding exercise for a second time, when it occurred to him that beyond the peaks there were no grid references or contours - at least not that he could see in the poor light. Thinking this a little queer, he called on Herbert. Perhaps his eyesight was better, but after careful inspection, he too agreed that there appeared to be nothing beyond the Gouldong peaks.

With no obvious explanation for the lack of information, and nothing much left to say, they simply shrugged their shoulders and with a wry smile, Herbert stuffed the already creased document back into Basil’s lapsack and together, they marched on.