Beck’s plan was to eat and drink as they went. If they stopped at all, it would only be briefly. Eating on the move meant they covered more ground, and it suited the ‘little and often’ philosophy. They would take in enough energy to keep them going but not so much that their bodies would start to divert the precious water and energy needed to digest a large meal. And eating on the move gave them something to focus on beyond their immediate predicament.
Sometimes food just presented itself, like a cluster of low-hanging figs. Fig trees in the jungle are distinctive: straggly, with aerial roots – knobbly protrusions just like the roots you find below ground, but taking moisture in from the damp air. The leaves are leathery and evergreen, with rounded bases. The figs look like green balls growing straight out of the plant and can be eaten raw.
There was plenty of fallen, rotting wood around, and that meant plenty more insects. Peter seemed to be getting quite into insects, which surprised Beck. He secretly hated them, eating them purely out of necessity.
Beck couldn’t help noticing that his friend seemed to have more of a spring in his step today. He was looking around, taking an interest in his surroundings, even if his glasses were fogged up with steam most of the time. Everything that had happened yesterday – the volcano, the crash, Nakula being killed – had been a shock. In their hurry to get away from the volcano and set up a camp for the night they’d had very little time to come to terms with their situation.
Beck remembered Peter’s attack of claustrophobia. Yesterday, the jungle had been an oppressive, threatening place. Today it still wasn’t exactly safe – if they ever made the mistake of thinking that, it could be fatal – but Peter seemed to have accepted it.
A crumbling, thirty-metre-long tree trunk lay across their path. It was another type of palm, with long thin leaves neatly spaced along its branches.
‘Hey, more food?’ Peter asked hopefully.
Beck laughed. ‘Could be . . . In fact, definitely. I think this is a sago palm. And that means palm grubs.’
He used the crowbar to lever away the rotten bark, as before, then hacked into the wood. He prised out a chunk of the tree’s heartwood and spotted something trying to wriggle out of sight. Beck dug it out and held it up. It looked like a giant maggot, three or four centimetres long.
‘Definitely palm grubs,’ he confirmed. ‘You can eat ’em raw or cooked, depending. We’ll gather some up for later when we’ve got a fire.’
And so they dug out a handful more, putting them into one of the pockets of Peter’s pack for safekeeping. Then something else caught Beck’s eye.
He strolled over to what seemed to be a giant brown growth on the side of a tree. It obviously wasn’t part of the tree itself. It looked like an enormous mole or scab.
‘Termite nest,’ he called over his shoulder to Peter, who was still gathering insects. Beck dug the knife into the brown mass, and a clump of wriggling, translucent creatures fell out onto his hand and arm. He quickly brushed them away.
‘Don’t let them get onto you or they’ll infest you – hair, privates, everything. But they’re good eating.’ He popped a couple straight into his mouth and chewed. There was definite zing to termites – a bit like slightly off citrus fruit; something in the region of old orange or lemon. But it was still nicer than the grubs they had eaten earlier. ‘One good thing about them – you’ll never run short. There’s thousands in this one nest. They’re a vital part of the jungle – they digest all that rotting wood, and then recycle it!’
‘There’s some interesting-looking ones here too,’ Peter added.
Beck popped another couple of termites into his mouth; there was no point wasting the opportunity. Then, from behind him, he heard:
‘Mm, smells like marzipan!’
An alarm bell rang in Beck’s head. Before he even knew it, he was running back to Peter – who was holding up a very long, black and red millipede, as thick as a finger and as long as a hand. Its thousands of segments made it look like an evil armour-plated CGI war robot from a trashy science fiction movie. It writhed and twisted in Peter’s grip, and what looked like thousands of little legs waved impotently. It might have been the legs that had stopped Peter trying to swallow it. He was about to bite it in half instead.
‘Stop!’ Beck swatted his friend’s hand and the millipede flew away.
Peter stared at him as if he had gone mad. ‘What?’
‘Did any of it get into your mouth? Anything at all?’
‘No, nothing. Why?’
The millipede hadn’t got far. It was heading slowly and steadily back into the undergrowth. Beck picked it up again and sniffed it. Peter was right – there was a distinct smell of marzipan.
‘That’s not marzipan . . .’ Beck’s voice was a little shaky. He didn’t like near misses. ‘This kind of bug secretes cyanide as a defence mechanism. Cyanide smells like almonds. Like marzipan.’
The symptoms of cyanide poisoning. His medical instructor marched through his memories again. Seizures. Cardiac arrest. Coma. Death . . .
Beck added quietly, ‘Definitely not edible!’
Peter was pale. ‘Wow. I almost ate it . . .’
Beck remembered his friend’s new-found confidence. He didn’t want Peter losing that again. ‘Yeah, well, you’re still alive!’ He chucked the millipede as far away as he could and wiped his hand on his trousers. ‘Hey, fancy some citrus . . .?’
A couple of minutes later Peter admitted, between mouthfuls, that he much preferred lemony termites to cyanide-emitting armour-plated millipedes.
‘And there’s another thing . . .’ Beck passed his pack to Peter. ‘Hold this open for me, under the nest . . .’
Peter did so, and Beck cut away a section of nest so that it fell straight into the pack.
‘The nest burns nicely and the smoke keeps mosquitoes away,’ he explained. ‘We can use this wherever we end up this evening.’
‘I think I read somewhere that termites make their nests out of their own excretions?’
‘Yup,’ Beck said with a grin as he zipped up his pack. ‘I believe they do.’
‘So, burning termite poo?’