Longshot. Part 60

'What do you mean "you"?' Gareth demanded. 'You're coming too. You've got to guide us.'

'I thought,' I said, 'that it would be more fun for you to find your own way back. And,' I went on as he tried to interrupt, 'so as you don't get lost if the sun goes in, you can paint the trees as you go with luminous paint. Then you can always come back to me.'

'Cool,' he said, entranced.

'What?' Coconut wanted to know.

Gareth told him about finding one's way back to places by blazing the trail.

'I'll follow you,' I said, 'but you won't see me. If you go really badly wrong, I'll tell you. Otherwise, survival's up to you.'

'Ace,' Gareth said happily.

I unzipped the pouch round my waist and gave him the small jar of paint and the sawn-off paintbrush.

'Don't forget to paint so you can see the splash from both directions, coming and going, and don't get out of sight of your last splash.'

'OK.'.

'Wait for me when you hit the road.'

'Yes.'

'And take the whistle.' I held it out to him from the pouch. 'It's just a back-up in case you get stuck. If you're in trouble, blow it, and I'll come at once.'

'It's only a mile,' he protested, slightly hurt, not taking it.

'What do I say to your father if I mislay you?'

He grinned in sympathy, giving way, and put the best of all insurances in his pocket.

'Let's go back the way we came,' Coconut said to Gareth.

'Easy!' Gareth agreed.

I watched them decide on the wrong place and paint the first mark carefully round a sapling's trunk. They might just possibly have been able to find the morning's path if they'd been starting again from the road, but tracking backwards was incredibly difficult. All the identifiable marks of our pa.s.sage, like broken twigs and flattened gra.s.s, pointed forward into the wood, not out of it.

They consulted their watches and moved north through the trees, looking back and painting as they went. They waved once and I waved back, and for some time I could see their bright jackets in the dappled shade of the afternoon sun. Then, when they had gone, I began to slowly follow their splashes.

I could go much faster than they could. When I saw them again I dropped down on one knee, knowing that even though they were constantly looking back they wouldn't see me at that low level, in my nature-coloured clothes.

Besides the map I'd brought along my faithful compa.s.s, and by its reckoning checked the boys' direction all the time. They wandered off to the north-east a bit but not badly enough to get really lost, and after a while made a correction to drift back to north.

The pale cream splashes were easy to spot, never far apart. Gareth had intelligently chosen smooth-barked saplings all the way and all the marks were at the same height, at about waist level, where painting came to him most naturally, it seemed.

I kept the boys in sight intermittently all the way. They were talking to each other loudly as if to keep lurking wood-spirits at bay, and I did vividly remember that teenage spooky feeling of being alone in wild woodland and at the mercy of supernatural eyes. Even in sunshine one could be nervous. At night a couple of times at fifteen I'd been terrified.

On that day, as I slowly followed the trail, I simply felt at home and at peace. There were birds singing, though not yet many, and apart from the boys' voices the quiet was as old and deep as the land. The woods still waited the stirring of spring, lying chilly and patient with sleeping buds and b.u.t.terflies in coc.o.o.ns. The smells of autumn, of compost and rot, still faintly lingered into the winter thaw, only the pines and firs remaining fragrant if one brushed them. Pine resin, collected by tapping, dried to lumps that made brilliant firelighters.

It was a slow-going mile, but towards the end one could hear occasional cars along the road ahead and Gareth and Coconut with whoops crashed through the last few yards, again, as the week before, relieved to be back in the s.p.a.ce age.

I speeded up and stepped out behind them, much to Gareth's surprise.

'We thought you were miles back,' he exclaimed.

'You laid an excellent trail.'

'The paint's nearly finished.' He held it up to show me and the jar slipped out of his hand, rolling the remains of its contents onto the earth. 'Hey, sorry,' he said. 'But there wasn't much left.'

'Doesn't matter.' I picked up the jar which was slippery on the outside from dripped paint and, s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g its lid on, dropped it with the brush into a plastic bag before stowing it again in my pouch.

'Can we get some more?' Coconut asked.

'Sure. No problem. Ready to go home?'

The boys, both pumped up by their achievement, ran and jumped all along the road to the Land Rover that we found round the next bend, and rode back in euphoric good spirits.

'Terrific,' Gareth told Tremayne, bursting into the family room after we'd dropped Coconut and returned to Sh.e.l.lerton. 'Fantastic.'

Whether they wanted to or not, Tremayne, Mackie and Perkin received a minute-by-minute account of the whole day with the sole exception of the discussion about

Angela Brickell. Tremayne listened with veiled approval, Mackie with active interest, Perkin with boredom.

'It's a real wilderness,' Gareth said. 'You can't hear anything. And I took lashings of photos-' He stopped, suddenly frowning. 'Hold on a minute.'

He sped out of the room and came back with his blue knapsack, searching the contents worriedly.

'My camera's not here!'

'The one I gave you for Christmas?' Tremayne asked, not over-pleased.

'Perhaps Coconut's got it,' Perkin suggested languidly.

'Thanks.' Gareth leaped to the telephone in hopes that were all too soon dashed. 'He says he didn't see it after lunchtime.' He looked horrified. 'We'll have to go back at once.'

'No, you certainly won't,' Tremayne said positively. 'It sounds a long way and it'll be getting dark soon.'

'But it's luminous paint,' Gareth begged. 'That's the whole point, you can see it in the dark.'

'No,' said his father.

Gareth turned to me. 'Can't we go back?'

I shook my head. 'Your father's right. We could get lost in those woods at night, paint or no paint. You've only got to miss one mark and you'd be out there till morning.'

'You wouldn't get lost.'

'I might,' I said. 'We're not going.'