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AND WHAT RAIN! I’D never know anything like it. Almost solid, it seemed. It was actually difficult to stand upright. Within seconds the track beneath our feet had turned to a thin muddy creek. Within minutes it was over my shoes. The people ahead of me were like ghosts, blurring in and out of sight with each sheet of rain. People slithered and fell everywhere. I must have picked Kaylene up at least five times. Ms Loti must have picked me up about five times too.
Then we came across three girls in a huddle. Brittany had slipped and her leg had gone under a tree root. It was bleeding. Ms Loti stopped, of course, and I stopped with her.
“Nathan, you go on!” she shouted at me over the sound of the million miniature waterfalls all around us, “Tell Mr Prior I’ll be following down last.”
Reluctantly I went on. Time seemed to stand still. Utterly drenched and utterly miserable, I kept on down the trail, following the ghost-like shapes ahead of me. All the bush looked the same, the trail twisted and turned but never seemed to get any-where, and water flowed everywhere, streaming down the track just like we were.
But finally the landscape began to look a bit more familiar, the trees taller and the trail wider, and I knew I was nearly back at camp. Then I heard a new sound slowly getting louder: a sort of thick throaty roar. Soon I discovered what it was all about.
The gentle stream we had crossed earlier that day had become a raging flood, shooting between the boulders down below the bridge like a great brown beast, alive and wild and urgent. I was instantly struck by fear. If I wanted to get back to camp, and to safety, I would have to cross this raging torrent.
And I knew I couldn’t do it.
At the bridge I froze, standing back while the last stragglers emerged from the downpour, plodded wearily past me, and tramped across. Their feet left an ever-increasing slick of mud on the wire-netting that covered the planks; mud that even the pounding rain could not remove.
Mr Prior was there, encouraging everyone across.
“Nearly home!” he was saying, “That’s it, just up the other side. Go get dried off.” And so on. Then he looked at me.
“I’m waiting for Ms Loti.” I explained, “oh, and she told me to tell you, she’ll be last. Brittany hurt her leg.
“Okay. Thanks for the message. Now go get dried off.”
“Um, I’ll wait a bit.”
“She’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ll wait anyway.” And I did.
She finally arrived, carrying Brittany. “Mr Prior,” she said, “I’m pooped. Would you mind?”
“Not broken, I hope?” he said, taking Brittany from Ms Loti.
“Possible sprained ankle,” puffed Ms Loti, “Didn’t want to risk it.”
“Anyone else coming?”
“No, I’m quite sure of it.”
He headed across the bridge, then paused at the halfway point to call back to us urgently, “You’d better get across! I don’t like the feel of this!”
I looked down at the flood. It was still rising, now only a metre or so from the top. I could hear the bridge creaking as if in pain. Then I looked at Ms Loti. She looked terrified.
“Come on!” I said, hoping she would lead me across.
“No.” she whispered, “I’m afraid of water.”
“So am I!” I whimpered.
Her eyes grew wide. “You too?”
Yes!” I must have sounded pretty pathetic.
I could see the turmoil in her face. She glanced across the bridge, now only half a metre above the flood. We hesitated as a floating tree crashed into the bridge, flicking its wet branches across the walkway in the impact. The bridge shuddered and groaned loudly.
“Come on!” she shouted suddenly, seizing my hand and dragging me under the branches. Slithering on the mud, our feet thudding on the planks, we ran shakily across. And it wasn’t just our legs that were shaking, it was the bridge itself.
Moments after we hit solid land on the other side there was a loud crack, half muffled by water, then another and another. We turned, aghast. The bridge was crooked, the far end already under water. Moment by rapid moment it broke in two, snapping, wrenching, twisting, rolling into the floodwater. Going, going...
Gone.