The Swiss Family RobinZOM (Book 2) (12 page)

Bill and Fritz placed the panel section on the floating platform. Ernest and Jack pulled on the vines attached to the platform, drawing it across the water to the beach.

Bill and Fritz turned back to The Red Flag, where only the top of the stern was visible above the water level, and headed back into the ship.

Water ran freely down the steps and into the corridor and rooms below, rising rapidly by the minute. The water was cold and stabbed them all over like needles. The boat shuddered and groaned. They entered the wheelhouse and pried at another panel.

“It’s going to sink!” Fritz said.

“We need this final panel!” Bill said.

The water was now up to their waists. A disconcerting low groan reverberated through the water and up their legs as the ship prepared to sink beneath the surface.

“It’s not worth dying for!” Fritz said. “Let’s go!”

“I’ve almost got it!” Bill said, putting his foot on the wall and pulling with all his strength.

Crack!

The panel came free, spilling Bill into the water. Fritz seized the other end of the panel and together they waded toward the door.

An almighty groan roared up from the depths. The ship tilted to one side, the water rushing toward them. Bill and Fritz let the water take the majority of the panel’s weight and guided it down the corridor.

Errrghhhhhh!

The boat screamed, and the room rolled to one side, the water sloshing around and half-drowning Bill and Fritz. Up was down and down was up. Fritz crouched in the door frame, now on its side.

“The ship’s rolling!” Fritz said.

“You think?” Bill said, voice dripping sarcasm.

“We have to get out of here!” Fritz said.

“Tell me something I don’t know!” Bill said.

The ship screamed and shook like it was having a fit. Water hissed in through the mismatched joints in the inflamed wood of the hull.

“We have to get out of here!” Fritz said.

“Grab the panel!” Bill said.

“We’re going to drown in here!” Fritz said.

“No we’re not,” Bill said. “I’ve got an idea.”

Ernest and Jack stared with slack jaws and haunted eyes as the ship drove itself into the depths of the sea. Soon, it was gone. The sea lapped gently against the shore like The Red Flag had never existed. The final few bubbles filtered to the top and popped. Neither Ernest nor Jack could speak. They exchanged a look.

“They’re gone,” Ernest said, not believing the words coming out of his mouth. “They’re gone.”

Jack stepped into the water. Ernest held out a hand to stop him.

“No,” he said.

“We have to help them!” Jack said.

“Neither of us are good swimmers,” Ernest said. “We’ll never get into the boat in time to do anything of much use.”

“But we have to do something!” Jack said.

Whoosh!

The water erupted in a spray as something came up to the surface.

“What’s that?” Jack said.

“Nothing,” Ernest said, his heart settling back into its regular rhythm. “Just a cooking pot.”

“They’re not coming up, are they?” Jack said. “What’re we going to do?”

“What can we do?” Ernest said.

The pot washed up on the shore. It grew a pair of legs, and then a second pair.

Bill and Fritz tossed the pot aside, having been hiding inside it. They returned to the water’s edge, bent down, and took one end of the panel. They pulled it a couple of feet up onto the beach, and then fell back, gasping for air.

“Are you all right?” Ernest said. “Are you okay?”

“We thought… We thought…” Jack said.

“So did we for a while,” Fritz said.

“Almost drowned twice,” Bill said, shaking his head. “I am
not
going back in there to tempt fate a third time.”

“If you try to, I’ll strangle you myself,” Fritz said.

They shared a smile and broke into laughter. They lay back on the warm sand.

Bill added the final few items to the cart and lashed it down with vines.

“Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?” Bill said.

Fritz joined Bill at the head of the cart. Attached to it were two thick strands of vines curled into a gaudy-looking necklace. Bill picked up his harness and put it on over his head. Fritz did likewise. He glanced at Ernest.

“No smart-ass comments, please,” Fritz said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ernest said.

He paused.

“Why the long face?” he said.

Fritz snarled.

“We’ll pull the cart together at the same time,” Bill said. “Once we get the cart moving I’m sure it’ll be easy to keep it going. Ready? One, two, three.”

They leaned forward, the vines pulling taut. The cartwheels began to roll. Bill was right – once the cart began to move, Bill and Fritz didn’t have to exert much pressure to force it on. It wasn’t difficult over the damp sand, where the surface held the weight well, but the wheels occasionally got stuck in the small dry dunes. But Bill and Fritz pressed their weight forward and the cart continued.

They got to the edge of the jungle and entered via a path they had already largely cleared free of vines and protruding tree roots. But the ground was uneven, which made it difficult when pulling the cart up the small rises, and dangerous when bringing the cart down on the opposite side: if they didn’t hurtle ahead of the cart it would catch the back of their thighs.

Occasionally they had to stop, the cartwheels having gotten tangled in the undergrowth or impaled on an unseen tree root. They pushed the cart back and steered it around the blockage.

They emerged blinking into the sunlight before an incline that rose at a forty degree angle, the ground slippery with flat flint stones.

“This is impossible,” Fritz said.

“We can do it,” Bill said. “Ready?”

Fritz nodded.

“Whenever you are,” he said, balling his hands up into fists.

“On the count of three,” Bill said. “One, two, three!”

Bill and Fritz leaned forward and pulled with their whole bodyweight. The cart rolled and began to rise up the incline. Bill and Fritz each took a step forward. The cart moved up. The weight pulled on them, and they slid back a step. They leaned down and gripped the slope with their toes.

The cart was a mere few inches from the bottom of the incline. Bill let out a puff of air and pushed forward again. This time he and Fritz took two steps, but the wagon’s weight dragged them back a step. Bill waved his hands.

“Fritz, take it back down,” he said.

They let the cart come to a stop at the bottom of the incline. Bill took his harness off.

“That’s it?” Fritz said, sweat running down his face. “I’d only just gotten warmed up.”

“We have to remove the wheels from the cart,” Bill said. “They’re just dragging us backwards.”

“That makes sense,” Ernest said. “But it’ll be harder to pull the cart up.”

“It’ll keep dragging us back down if we don’t,” Bill said.

He removed the bolts on each wheel.

“Ernest,” he said. “Come remove these wheels. Fritz and I will lift the cart.”

Bill and Fritz braced the cart’s weight. Ernest removed the wheels, and set them down gently. Bill and Fritz lowered the cart bed and wiped the sweat out of their eyes. They repeated the procedure on the other side so the cart bed laid flat on the ground.

“Right,” Bill said, slipping the harness back on over his head. “Let’s give this another go then, shall we?”

Bill and Fritz took position, bracing the cart’s weight with their legs.

“One, two, three!” Bill said.

The cart slid up the slope. It did not slide back down.

“Again,” Bill said.

They pulled the sled up the incline two steps at a time, the wood shrieking over the flint stones like a fork on a dinner plate. In his haste to reach the top, Bill was several steps ahead, and the sled favoured him, sliding in his direction.

“Ernest-” Bill said.

“I’m on it,” Ernest said, moving to the sled and pushing against it so it moved in the opposite direction.

The sweat ran down Bill and Fritz’s faces, drenching their T-shirts. The sun arced overhead, beating down on them. It took fifteen minutes to get to the top of the incline. It felt like fifteen hours.

Bill and Fritz made one last big effort, and pulled the sled up with them onto the hilltop. Bill and Fritz threw the harnesses off and collapsed on the ground, Bill on his back, Fritz on his hands and knees, breathing in deep wracking gulps of air.

“What happened?” Liz said, jogging over.

“Nothing,” Ernest said. “We’ve just brought up the first load of items from the wreckage.”

“There must be an easier way than this,” Liz said. “Get some water. They must be thirsty.”

Ernest ran to the coconut bucket and filled two bamboo cups. Liz helped Bill up into a sitting position. His skin was red from the beating of the sun, his eyes half-closed with exhaustion.

“It’s not good for you to be working this hard in this heat,” Liz said. “You’re a doctor! I shouldn’t need to tell you this.”

Ernest gave Fritz his water, which he spilled down his throat and over his clothes.

“It’s the steep incline there,” Ernest said, gesturing to the hillside behind them. “They were fine until they came to that. It’s slippery with flint and rock and it slowed them down. They could hardly get up it.”

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Liz said.

“They either come this way or work their way through the jungle,” Ernest said. “There’s still an incline on that side. It’s shallower, but also longer. I don’t think it’d be much easier. We could set up some kind of pulley system, but I don’t know if that would be much easier either. We’d still have to work the crank and pull the sled up.”

“Well, they can’t keep doing this,” Liz said. “It’s going to end up killing them.”

Liz cast her eye over the sled.

“All this effort for just a few items,” she said, shaking her head.

Then she noticed what was on the sled and let out a squeal of excitement.

“Pots and pans!” she said. “Plates! Cutlery! I swear I’ll make you the best dinner ever!”

“So much… for her… concern,” Bill said, his breath coming back to him.

“This isn’t even the heavy stuff,” Ernest said. “This is just a few bits and pieces. The wall panels are much heavier.”

“So, no treehouse?” Liz said.

“Not until we figure out a way to get the panels up here without them killing themselves,” Ernest said. “Unless you’d prefer a home with two fewer members.”

“That depends on the quality of the house,” Liz said.

“I have some ideas on how to make transporting these things a little less taxing,” Ernest said.

“Thanks… for telling us them… before we did any real… hard work,” Fritz said.

“There’s an easier, faster way to get to the wreckage and back,” Ernest said, sweeping his arm to take in the river before them. “At the moment we have to trek through the jungle, but if we build a short bridge across this river we won’t have to. We can cut out the jungle section and proceed directly up the incline.”

“A bridge?” Bill said. “It’ll take longer to build it than the time it saves us.”

“No it won’t,” Ernest said. “We can build a bridge quickly, and we’ll save two hours on each load.”

“And how will we build this bridge of yours?” Bill said.

“We’ll use the bamboo trees,” Ernest said. “The largest ones are long enough to lay directly across the river from one bank to the other. Once we have them down we can secure them.”

“And they’ll hold our weight?” Fritz said.

“Easily,” Ernest said. “Bamboo is one of the strongest natural materials in the world.”

“How long do you think it will take us to build?” Bill said.

“I don’t know,” Ernest said. “A day. A day and a half, at most.”

Bill thought for a long moment, and then nodded.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s build it.”

The Robinsons chopped down a clutch of bamboo trees, their trunks giving way easily to the axes. They fell and made a hollow
koong
noise.

“Are you sure these things are strong?” Fritz said.

“They take weight extremely well,” Ernest said. “Chopping, not so much.”

They laid the bamboo poles out flat and lashed them together. They stood them up on end and pushed them over. The bridge wavered in the wind a moment, as if considering falling back toward them, when the wind abated and it fell forward onto the opposite riverbank.

“I suppose we’d best get across,” Bill said.

Bill and Fritz put their harnesses on and pulled the empty cart behind them. The bamboo canes creaked beneath them, but didn’t seem to suffer with their weight.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Fritz said.

“Say that after we cross with a fully-loaded cart,” Bill said.

They loaded the cart with items from the wreckage and trundled back to the bridge. Bill looked down at the raging white rapids below.

“Well,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”

Bill and Fritz stepped onto the bridge first. The bamboo creaked beneath their feet under the cart’s weight. Fritz looked at Bill with apprehension.

“Keep going,” Bill said.

The thick bamboo poles bent as the cart’s weight approached the middle of the bridge, and then began to straighten out again as they pulled the cart up onto the opposite bank.

“Yes,” Fritz said, wiping the cold sweat from his forehead. “Piece of cake. But this still doesn’t help us with the steep incline.” He turned to Ernest. “Put your big brain onto solving that problem.”

“I have,” Ernest said. “We’re going to need a pack animal to pull the carts.”

“I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before,” Fritz said, rolling his eyes. “Oh no, wait. We did. I suppose we could just pop into the local zoo and ask if they wouldn’t mind us using their horses for a while.”

“We don’t need a zoo,” Ernest said. “We’ve got a jungle.”

“That’s great,” Bill said. “But there aren’t many pack animals, so far as I can tell.”

“Not many,” Ernest said, nodding. “But I did see one.”

Bill and Fritz stopped in their tracks.

“That’s not a nice way to refer to us,” Fritz said.

“I’m not referring to you,” Ernest said.

“What were you referring to?” Bill said.