Jonas looked surprised at the question.
“No, not really. Why?”
“To put the fire out. Smouldering embers, even if you bury them, can reignite, especially with a lot of dry pine needles around. It only takes one small flicker of oxygen over hot embers to make a small flame and, bam, you have fire again — but this time we won’t be around to stop it. The best way to put it out is to — well. Kneel over it and do what neither of us wants to do.”
“Ah. That’s inconvenient.” They looked down at the smouldering needles and Jonas screwed up his face as though he was thinking deep, important, self-searching thoughts. “No. I really don’t have enough to go at the moment. But I’ll tell you who does,” he added, just as Beck was resigning himself to having to force some pee out himself.
Jonas walked off a few metres and pulled up a clump of sphagnum moss and squeezed it over the fire. Water dripped down onto the embers and quickly extinguished them.
“Some guy told me this stuff is full of water,” Jonas said happily. “Turns out he was right, too.”
Beck had to laugh.
“Okay, okay.” He kicked earth over where the fire had been, eliminating any sign that that they had passed this way. “So, let’s go.”
“So does this mean,” Jonas asked as they pressed on into the trees, “that one of us should always make sure he’s full up? Kind of like carrying a fire extinguisher at all times, only you get to take turns being the extinguisher…”
“What it does mean,” Beck said seriously, “is we’re not getting enough inside us.” He handed the flask over. “So, get half of that down.”
“Yes, mama,” Jonas muttered.
Before they refilled the flask from the lake, Beck carefully studied the far shore again for any signs of movement before he ventured out of the trees. He also looked up at Storkittel behind them, running his eyes up and down both arms of the mountain — the one they had come down, and the one he hoped the woman was taking. He couldn’t see any movement. Problem was, she hadn’t been dressed in bright primary colours like some trekkers. Her outfit had been browns and dark greens — not exactly army camouflage, but it would blend in well against the mountain background and make it very difficult to spot her at this kind of distance.
But then, he and Jonas weren’t exactly fluorescent. If he had difficulty seeing her, she would have the same problem in the other direction. So, Beck scurried out quickly to the water, crouching down below the level of the bushes, to refill.
Then the boys were on the move again.
Half an hour later, the trees ran out.
The boys stopped abruptly on the edge of the forest. For the next hundred metres or so there was a patch of flat, bare land, with more of the ubiquitous moss underfoot. On one side of them was the lake, on the other was more open land. The forest continued about a hundred metres in front of them.
It was a hundred metres they would have to get across without being seen.
Beck crept slowly out of the trees, just enough to peer back at Storkittel again. The arms of the mountain were cut off from view to a large extent by the trees. If she was still up there — coming down on either side — then he was pretty sure she would have to look very closely to see them. If they hurried.
“There’s no choice, is there?” Jonas said, guessing his thoughts accurately. “We can’t dig a tunnel or wait until dark.”
“How fast can you run a hundred metres?” Beck asked grimly.
“When there is a woman with a gun behind me, quite fast. That’s if you don’t think the fast movement will just catch her eye?”
Beck grated his teeth together as he made his mind up.
“We can spend forever second-guessing what she’s going to do — or we can just do it.”
“So let’s just do it,” Jonas agreed. “But shall we run or crawl?”
“I think we are more likely to catch her eye if we are running. Sharp movements attract attention in the wild.”
“But we will get soaking crawling through this wet moss.” Jonas argued.
“Better wet then dead.”
And that seemed to settle it.
The boys got down on their bellies and started to crawl. Like a leopard, elbow, then knee, then the other elbow and then the other knee. Pushing, wriggling, crawling, pushing. On through the damp moss, with the freezing water oozing in past their waterproof layers, and seeping through to their clothes and bodies.
The far line of trees wavered in front of them, but didn’t seem to get any closer. It was like dreams that Beck sometimes had, trying to run from some approaching danger but not being fast enough, or not moving at all.
Soon, they were over half way across. But Jonas was getting tired and their progress was so slow.
“This is crazy,” he suddenly said. “Let’s just run it from here. Come on, Beck.”
Jonas then jumped up and started to run. Beck tried to grab him and stop him, but he was gone. Beck had no choice. He jumped up and raced after Jonas.
The moss was spongy and absorbed their footsteps instead of bouncing them back, so each step forward used that little extra bit of energy to lift the foot up and move it. But they were covering the ground faster than crawling. They were almost across when Jonas suddenly let out a whelp and staggered, waving his arms for balance.
Jonas was now splashing through knee-deep water — a hidden pool in the ground, covered with the moss, which he hadn’t noticed until too late. Beck was a few metres to the side of Jonas and was also now thrashing through the knee deep moss, mud and water.
The water splashed up around both their thighs.
It only took a second, but it was enough for an alarm to sound in Beck’s mind. Moss, covering mud and water … They were warning signs.
“Jonas!” he shouted with sudden urgency. “Look out for—”
And then the ground turned to nothing in front of Beck. He pitched forward, and knew even as he fell that it was too late to save himself.
Beck instinctively braced himself for the impact but the moss parted and he just dropped straight down into a deep hole of water and mud, sticky and freezing cold. The gloop sucked him into the depths and closed off the sun and the air as it sealed itself above him.
Beck had disappeared.