Extract: Blood River by Tim Butcher

Tag : jungle boot

The advancing jungle had choked the old road to a single-trackfootpath, snaking around mature trees growing up from the centre ofthe old carriageway and past vast mudslides and dramatic rockfalls.Bridges had been washed away making us pick our way down to thebottom of water courses and then charge up the other side. Recentrains made the whole exercise a dirty and dangerous one as themotorbikes slithered in the gluttinous mud, time and again,pitching me onto the deck...
Suddenly, our convoy stopped. One of the bikes needed refuelling,or one of the riders had taken a tumble, I don't remember. But whatI do recall was the sense of Africa at its most brooding. Theengines had been switched off and the silence was absolute. Therewas no birdsong, no screech of monkeys. Everything edible had longsince been shot or trapped for the pot by local villagers, and thethick canopy way above our heads insulated us from any sounds ofwind swishing branches or rustling leaves.
The ground was brown with mud and rotting vegetation. No directsunlight reached this far down and there was a musty smell of dampand decomposition. Above me towered canyons of green, as layerafter layer of plant life filled the void between forest floor andtreetop. I felt suffocated but not so much from the heat as thechoking, smothering forest.
I took a few steps and felt my right boot clunk into somethingunnaturally hard and angular on the floor. I dug my heel into theleaf mulch and felt it again. Scraping down through the detritus, Islowly cleared enough soil away to get a good look. It was a castiron railway sleeper, perfectly preserved and still connected to apiece of track.