Beck had one vital piece of equipment that had come with him when the kidnappers took him. This item hung around his neck and he almost never took it off, except to sleep and when he was travelling by plane. (Airlines had hang-ups about passengers bringing fire-starting equipment on board.) It was his fire steel — which actually came in two pieces, a flat metal plate and a rod of ferrocerium. When you scraped the two together, sparks flew off in all directions — as many as you could possibly want. If you had a fire steel, and air, and combustible material, you could start a fire anywhere.
He assembled a small pile of the dry needles tucked in tight behind the base of a large fir tree, hidden from view on almost all sides. Beck huddled over the small pile of pine needles, shielding them with his hunched form. He then struck the fire steel over them. Sparks sprayed into the pile and a few caught as he leaned close and blew gently through pouted lips. Fire consumes oxygen, so in stationary air a spark will go out almost at once as the local oxygen is burnt up. Blowing steadily produced a stream of fresh oxygen, enough to keep the spark glowing, and then making it spread.
While the sparks spread through the pile, Beck began to assemble Jonas’s pieces of wood above it. The fire needed something to spread to, otherwise it would quickly consume the needles and then go out. He sat back on his haunches and studied the growing fire carefully. The air above it began to shimmer with heat and some of the wood crackled and popped — but there was nothing substantial enough to start smoking. Good.
Beck knew the physics behind making a smokeless fire and it was satisfying to see it work. Smoke happens because fuel doesn’t burn completely: so, the more efficient the fire is at burning its fuel, the less smoke there’ll be.
The other way to conceal a fire would be to dig a pit, with a separate chimney going up through the earth. You could easily convert a rabbit burrow for the purpose. You put the fire at the bottom of the pit and as the hot air rose, fresh air would come whooshing along the burrow and up the chimney to replace it. This simply creates a steady stream of oxygen, using the same principle as Beck blowing on the needles — but on a larger scale. The extra oxygen would make the fire much more efficient, and everything would be consumed and nothing smoked.
They didn’t have the time or resources to dig a pit or look for a burrow, so they had to settle for a smaller fire using a different principle. The principle of concealment. Tucked low in behind the base of the tree and burning fuel efficiently and without smoke, they could have a small fire and heat their food.
Jonas was soon back with more thin small twigs to burn, and now they could start cooking.
The great thing about cattails was they came with their own built-in spit handle — you could hold the edible bit safely out over the fire, turning it gently and watching it cook. Beck kept the fire going, feeding it with pine needles, while Jonas did cooking duty. Because everything burnt so quickly, he had to keep up a steady supply. The heat turned the cattails crispy, and when the boys ate them, the flavour was like roasted seeds, slightly piney.
“This is way better,” Jonas said as they tucked in, and Beck agreed with a nod and a smile around his mouthful. A stomach full of hot food was just what was needed to push them onwards.
“So … do you think we shook her off?” Jonas brought them back to the essential considerations with a few words. Beck swallowed his mouthful and said out loud what he had worked out earlier about the woman not getting across the lake quickly.
“True,” Jonas agreed thoughtfully. “But — that’s only true if she fell for it.”
Beck paused chewing, then ground his teeth down on a mouthful that had suddenly lost its flavour.
“And,” Jonas pressed on, “our families — both of ours — will have heard by now that we’re missing…”
Beck thought for a moment.
“Plus, if we reckon someone’s out to get the Erikssons, then you can bet your dad has too,” Beck pointed out. “We’ve already warned them, just by disappearing.”
“I figure.” Jonas stared miserably into the fire. “But they still don’t know where we are.”
“So think of how happy they’ll be when we call them tomorrow from Riksliden police station.” And with that Beck wanted to cut the conversation short. The hot meal had been a good idea, but now was not the time to sit about fretting. Getting back on the move would help them both focus on their immediate needs.
He climbed to his feet. “We should get on.”
But there was one more thing they needed to do — and Beck suddenly realised that, well, he wasn’t ready to do it.
“Um,” Beck said. Jonas looked at him expectantly. “Do you need to… you know…” He gestured. “To pee?”