Tikaani let out a whoop of triumph. Beck joined in, but not quite so eagerly. He had felt the raft shift under them when it crashed into the rocks. He lifted up a corner of the tarpaulin to look at the nearest tie. It was looser than it had been. The raft’s whole frame was weakened.
‘We need to get to the bank,’ he said. ‘We need to dry out . . .’
He was already pushing with the pole, but the water was still moving too fast. It was like it had been before the rapids. He could steer from side to side but the speed of the current always undid his work. Well, it didn’t matter that much. The current would die down more and more the further they went, and then he could steer properly again.
‘Uh, Beck . . .’
Beck didn’t like the way Tikaani’s voice rose as he spoke. The noise of the rapids had been dwindling – but now it was rising again. And since they hadn’t turned round and they weren’t heading back to the rapids behind them, that could only mean . . .
With a sinking feeling, Beck craned his neck to find out what Tikaani could see.
For a heart-stopping moment he thought that he was wrong; that there weren’t any rapids at all. He couldn’t see any rocks or any broken water . . .
And then the truth dawned. There weren’t any rapids ahead because the river simply fell away. They were heading straight for a waterfall.
Various options flicked through Beck’s head at lightning speed. They could bail out and swim for the bank. No – at the speed the water was moving, they would probably be swept over the falls anyway. They could stay in the raft and hope it bore the brunt of their fall. No, it might well land on top of them and pin them under. They would simply be battered to death on the rocks at the base of the falls and the raft would be smashed to pieces.
And that was it. No more ideas. So, since everything was impossible, Beck had to decide what was the least impossible and go for that.
He started to push the Ptarmigan towards the bank again. They could maybe get close enough to jump and swim for it, without being swept to their deaths.
Or . . .
Hope surged within him. On the left-hand bank he saw a fallen tree overhanging the side of the river. Its branches drooped down, almost dragging in the water. It must have fallen down quite recently, during the winter; it hadn’t had the chance to decay. It might be their salvation.
‘I’m heading for that,’ he instructed Tikaani. ‘We’ll go under it and grab the branches.’
Tikaani had already seen the tree and nodded vigorously. ‘Got you!’
‘Untie the rucksacks and put yours on . . .’
They had barely a minute to get ready. Tikaani scrabbled at the knots he had tied, but eventually the rucksacks were loose. He pulled his on and knelt at the front of the raft, ready and poised. Beck spent the time making sure the raft was exactly aligned. He couldn’t steer and climb at the same time. The water had to carry them right under the tree without suddenly taking them off to one side.
At the last moment he dropped the steering pole and shrugged his own rucksack on over his shoulders. And then they were under the branches.
Tikaani leaped for the nearest one and the whole tree seemed to sag under his weight. He shouted in alarm and his feet dragged against the deck of the raft. Beck scrambled forward and seized his friend’s thighs, propelling him up. Damp leaves scraped against his face, as if the tree was trying to push him back into the river. Tikaani grabbed for a higher branch and pulled. Beck managed to push one of Tikaani’s knees over the branch so that he was lying flat on it, out of the raft.
But the Ptarmigan had already passed under the tree. Now Beck had to clamber back to the rear of the raft to get a branch for himself. He could see just the one he wanted, a branch next to Tikaani’s that looked strong enough to take his weight. He leaped for it—
And pain jabbed into his shoulder. A smaller branch that he hadn’t seen through the leaves had pushed into him, holding him back. He fell back onto the raft, which wallowed beneath him.
‘Beck!’ Tikaani shouted.
Beck scrambled to his feet, waving his arms for balance. But, sickeningly, he knew that the branch was now just out of reach. He couldn’t even jump for it.
He dropped to his knees again to balance the raft. His eyes met Tikaani’s and saw only despair. Then the raft was swept down the river, Beck still on board, Tikaani safe and helpless on his branch. Beck turned away from his friend to face the edge of the falls.