The Trials of Adam Gurney - Part Two

Adam sets out to get help for his stricken father...

A little more than an hour after they had paused to admire the views the hills afforded, Adam and his father had stopped again, this time to eat the hastily cobbled lunch Juliette Gurney had prepared for them. While his father liberated an assortment of sandwiches from the swathes of cling film in which they were imprisoned, Adam relieved his bladder behind a conveniently placed nearby bush.

　

They were at the top of a cliff that overlooked a rubble-strewn valley some sixty feet below. This view was in complete contrast to that which had filled them with such awe earlier, but no less impressive for that, Adam thought. The barren and wild vista brought to his fertile imagination images of prehistoric beasts roaming this land, untroubled by the presence of the few Neanderthals who would one day become the dominant species on the fledgling planet they ruled.

　

Adam had no idea whether dinosaurs did actually roam this part of the British Isles, but the images in his mind and the prehistoric-looking landscape that he was viewing suggested at least the possibility.

　

He sat cross-legged as he munched contentedly on a sandwich and crisps, still basking in the warmth of this special time with his father. They ate in silence, words being superfluous. Adam sipped thoughtfully on the vitamin-enriched fruit drink his father insisted they bring "for energy". It wasn’t Adam’s favourite flavour, but he sucked the fluid gratefully through the straw that came with the soft carton, feeling more relaxed and at ease in his father’s company than he ever had. ‘Perhaps’, he mused to himself,’ today is the beginning of a new start for us’. He refused to allow the nagging voice of doubt to cloud his optimism. Today, nothing was going to spoil his good mood.

　

"Finished?" his father asked pleasantly, indicating the drink carton Adam held.

　

"Just a moment" he replied, sucking the last of the drink through the straw, the gurgling, bubbling noises sounding rude and almost obscene in the still and quiet. To Adam’s surprise, on a day of surprises, his father smiled genially as he reached for the proffered carton and Adam returned his smile warmly.

　

"Listen, son" his father began in a businesslike and lecturing tone, "nothing annoys me more than seeing beautiful places like this spoilt by ignorant people, morons most of them, who leave their rubbish all over the place". Adam said nothing, but nodded in agreement. It was a familiar gripe of his father’s and he had, at times, railed at length and with vehemence at inconsiderate picnickers who despoiled beauty spots with their litter. If litter bins were provided and not used he was, if the mood took him, likely to fume for hours. However, today was not to be one of those times and he continued talking in a pleasant, if patronising, tone.

　

"Responsible people take their rubbish home with them if they can’t dispose of it sensibly" he said. "Alternately, they conceal it where it won’t be a nuisance. As I don’t want to carry a load of rubbish around for the rest of the day - and I’m sure you don’t either..?" he paused, looking at his son, waiting for the obvious answer to his unasked question. Adam shook his head in the negative. "In that case, we’ll bury it" he said decisively.

　

While he collected their rubbish together into a supermarket carrier bag Adam, as instructed, scoured the surrounding area for a large stick or sharp piece of rock with which to dig a hole. It seemed to Adam that all of the stones and pebbles in the immediate vicinity were wholly inadequate for his father’s purpose and there was not a stick of any description to be found.

　

"Ah, this’ll do" his father said from the cliff edge.

　

A sharp, triangular point of grey rock protruded about eight inches from the dusty ground. As Adam approached, his father sat on his haunches and began to tug vigorously on it. The rock, which had lain undisturbed for many, many years, was unwilling to readily relinquish its hold on the soil in which it was embedded. However, the man’s determination and strength weakened its position and it gradually worked loose under the attack it was subjected to.

　

"Bigger than it looked" Greg Gurney grunted to his son as the stubborn rock gave up the uneven contest and revealed its damp lower half to the warm air for the first time in many decades. With his son alongside him and the rock in hand, Adam’s father stood upright and made to step back from the cliff edge. Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet, weakened by the removal of the large rock, fell away. For a split second, as realisation dawned on father and son, they both wore identical expressions of horror as their world literally fell away from them and they were plunged helplessly into space.

　

Adam was tired and thirsty. He had expended a lot of energy in moving, first himself, then his father. His abused body cried out for rest, but still high on the adrenalin rush he had experienced a short time ago, Adam felt he could accomplish anything. However, the nagging voice of reason cautioned against rashness: to be of further assistance to his father or himself required a cool head and carefully thought-out actions. He knew that he had done well so far, given the circumstances. An old adage about a battle won does not win a war came to his mind. This ‘war’, the teenager acknowledged, was a long way from being won. It was time to assess and plan.

　

His throat was parched and raw from his exertions so far. He remembered the two spare cartons of drink on the cliff top.

　

"Might as well be a million miles away" he thought sourly as he surveyed the bracken-covered and rock-strewn slope between himself and the thirst-quenching fluid. Mentally tearing his thoughts away from the imaginary feel of the liquid wetting his throat, Adam turned his attention back to the more pressing and urgent problem of getting medical help for his father.

　

The idea of somehow trying to carry the unconscious man flitted through him mind, then flitted away as quickly as it has arrived. Lame himself and his father comatose and weighing probably three times as much as Adam himself, the idea did not even warrant momentary contemplation. On his small but determined shoulders had fallen the onerous burden of responsibility for finding a way out of this dilemma in a calm and adult manner. The teenager sat and pondered.

　

His father’s car was the most obvious point to make for, he reasoned. In his mind’s eye he could see the mobile telephone that was neatly fitted to the dashboard. it was potentially a life-saver... if he could get to it.

　

He estimated that, allowing for their stops en route he and his father had walked at a leisurely but steady pace for about two and a half hours, covering at most, he calculated, about five miles. His heart sunk at the thought of having to retrace their route alone and in falling darkness. However a quick, guilty, look at his father’s pallid face was all the motivation he needed to tell himself that not only could he do it, he had to do it.

　

Before he could contemplate that stage, there was the small matter of a sixty feet rise to negotiate first. The cliff appeared to extend for some distance in both directions and Adam was wary of using up valuable time in trying to find a way it round rather than taking the more direct route; back up the way he and his father had fallen.

　

For a reasonably fit person the climb would pose no more than a strenuous, but not altogether unpleasant, exercise. For a less-than-physically-imposing fifteen year old boy with a possibly broken ankle..? Refusing to become overawed by the scale of the task ahead of him, Adam nodded to himself confidently, more confidently than he actually felt, as he made up his mind to attempt the ascent.

　

"Dad, I'm going to get help" he told the recumbent figure. "I don't know how long I'll be, but I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?" he added. Only the sound of his father's breathing answered him. Leaning towards his father's ear Adam whispered an emotion-choked 'I love you, Dad' and patted him affectionately on the shoulder before turning his mind and body to the task ahead of him.

　

Adam immediately realised that his previous method of moving was not going to be adequate or practical to tackle the climb. The cliff sloped gently, but was too steep to enable him to negotiate it from a sitting position. Only by getting himself upright could he hope to achieve his objective. Using his father as leverage, Adam cautiously eased himself upright on his uninjured leg, wobbling uncertainly before plucking up the courage to stand unaided, his injured foot as close to the ground as he dared for balance. Satisfied that he was not going to fall, he muttered 'right, hop to it, Adam', giggling nervously at his own pun before hopping forward.

　

Crying out in pain he collapsed to the ground again as sharp bolts of pain travelled the length of his injured leg, numbing his mind for long moments. Bright dots of light filled his eyes and a wave of nausea brought the sour taste of bile into his throat as he lay as still as he was able, waiting out the waves of agony. The shock from the single hopping movement seemed to have bypassed every other part of his body and centred on his most vulnerable point: his injured ankle. He gasped and panted as he fought the despair that threatened to overwhelm him. For several minutes the teenager lay with his eyes closed until the pain receded to a manageable level and rational thought returned to him.

　

"Okay, it hurts to do that, right?" he asked himself. "I knew it was going to hurt, didn't I?" The question was rhetorical. He had subconsciously accepted that there was likely to be some discomfort, but had been utterly unprepared for the degree of actual pain he had experienced. "So, do I just give up?" he scolded himself as he struggled to an upright position again. "No pain, no gain, right? he muttered through gritted teeth as he braced himself for the pain to come and prepared to hop again. He clenched his jaw tightly shut, closed his eyes and hopped.

　

The pain was as intense as before, but before it could overwhelm him, he hopped again, then again, gaining in confidence as the base of the slope grew larger in his sight as the distance shortened. Panting loudly from effort and the intense pain every hop caused him, Adam hopped awkwardly forward. He almost lost his balance when his lead leg landed on a large stone and twisted his foot away from the direction in which he was moving. Only willpower and defying the laws of gravity kept him upright. It was with huge relief that moments later he leaned against a sparse, leafless tree trunk that could have been any one of a hundred varieties, and paused momentarily to regain his breath.

　

He allowed himself but a couple of minutes to bring his breathing back to a more normal level before casting a final glance at his father. Urging himself to continue he pushed himself away from the tree.

　

A large rock was several feet in front of him at the base of the slope. He hopped toward it and grasped its rough surface gratefully with his sore hands. He pulled on it as hard as he was able to test how securely it was wedged before entrusting his weight to it. Leaning against its solidity, Adam surveyed the slope in front of him.

　

A healthy-looking gorse bush was within easy reach. Adam placed his lead leg in front and propelled himself forward, his fingers gratefully grasping the bush securely. Without pause he groped blindly for his next hand-hold - another lump of the coarse grey rock that dotted the slope - and began his slow ungainly climb.

　

The discomfort from his injured ankle was a constant reminder to him to exercise caution as the first ten feet were negotiated. It was slowing his progress considerably, having to be kept raised and avoiding contact with the ground. His other leg was tiring quickly with the demands he was making on it. Adam realised that his inadequate stamina would not enable him to complete the climb in the manner he had so far employed. Looking up the slope he saw that there were far more potential hand and footholds than he had thus far been able to use. Making the decision before he gave himself time to dismiss the idea, Adam lay himself as flat on the slope as he was able to and began to crawl his way up.

　

He discovered that his progress became much swifter and considerably easier. As the ridge loomed closer, his confidence grew and his spirits began to rise again. He thought he must have presented a ridiculous picture had anyone been there to see him: a skinny kid in a filthy tee-shirt and ripped jeans scrabbling crab-like up the slope, one leg cocked behind him. He uttered a humourless bark of a laugh as he manoeuvred himself to his next position, his attention concentrated on the near-enough-to-touch ridge above him.

　

Rivulets of sweat traced their way down his back and chest, dripping off his nose and running from his forehead into his eyes. He paused only to irritably wipe the moisture from his eyes before moving onwards again. He was unaware of the passage of time or the harsh rasping sound of the breaths he exhaled with every movement from one point to the next. His only thoughts were of reaching the next, higher point which would bring this part of his ordeal to an end as quickly as possible.

　

Sheer tiredness and arriving at a naturally formed niche in the cliff-face gave the teenager a good excuse for few moments respite. Adam slumped gratefully against the hard rocks and waited for his heart to stop pounding, looking around at his surroundings.

　

Looking up at the cliff’s overhang, Adam soon understood how and why the accident had happened. From the top of the ridge, the edge looked as solid as the rest of the surface he and his father had walked on. However, from his perch under the ridge Adam saw that the underside consisted of little more than roots, soil and small stones, all tightly packed together.

　

In removing the large rock as he had, Adam’s father had weakened a small section of the overhang to the point where it could no longer support their combined weight. The resultant collapse had been inevitable. Adam surmised that, in removing the rock, and by association an integral part of the fragile structure of the overhang, his father had hastened the process.

　

Another of those unwelcome thoughts rose unbidden into Adam’s mind: how could his father have been so stupid? He quashed it as soon as it surfaced. This was no time to be finding fault and laying blame. He could not undo what had already happened. Instead, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand: negotiating his way over the cliff overhang above his head.

　

"If it broke away that easily once", he reasoned aloud, "then it shouldn’t be too difficult to break some more away so that I can get up on top" After assuring himself that he was in no immediate danger of falling he moved himself into a semi-crouching position and raised both of his hands, then began to pull at the entanglement of soil and roots. He was showered with the detritus, his upper torso and face becoming quickly covered in dirt. He spat out anything that fell near his mouth and paused twice to clear his glasses when they became too densely covered for him to see what he was doing.

　

It proved to be a slightly more difficult task than he had anticipated. Some of the thicker roots proved difficult to pull away or to break completely. However, within a few minutes he had created an opening wide enough for him to clamber onto the ridge. He unconsciously wiped the dirt off himself as he contemplated the next difficult step on his journey: that of getting his tired body up and over the overhang and onto the flat surface above.

　

Gingerly he stood fully upright, standing stork-like on his undamaged leg. Almost immediately both legs began to tingle with pins and needles. Even his injured ankle tingled uncomfortably. Adam waited impatiently for the tingling sensations to pass as he surveyed the relatively flat area in front of him for suitable hand holds with which to haul himself over the edge. He was slightly dismayed to note that there was nothing within arms’ reach. Undaunted, he placed both of his arms flat onto the dusty surface and, using only muscle power, attempted to launch himself over the crumbling edge.

　

For several moments only his arms and sheer willpower were the difference between success and plunging all the way back to the bottom of the slope. His feet dangled uselessly a couple of inches in the air as he tried to garner the impetus to propel himself those agonisingly close last couple of feet to relative safety. He was on the point of giving the idea up as unworkable when his ‘good’ leg found a sturdy toe-hold in the roots of a nearby bush. With a final, all-or-nothing, surge of untapped energy Adam Gurney rose into the air and threw himself forward.

　

He flopped ungracefully, but intensely gratefully, onto the stony path, exhaling nervous, shaky breaths. As soon as he could he scrabbled away from the treacherous cliff edge as though he was in fear of the Gods changing Their minds and casting him back the way he had come. He rolled tiredly onto his back, ignoring the sharp stones and pebbles that cut into him, gasping in lungsful of the rapidly cooling air.

　

The temptation to simply lay where he was and not move again was one that Adam found difficult to resist. Every muscle and bone hurt and ached, even those that Adam had never realised could ache. He began to gain an intimate understanding of the expression ’bone weary’.

　

He wanted nothing more than to sleep, then awaken in his soft, comfortable bed, his duvet fallen to the floor as usual. He wished to be able to open his eyes and see the rows of his books neatly lined-up on the bare wooden shelves he had eventually badgered his father into putting up for him, after his father had complained repeatedly about them being stacked in untidy heaps on the floor and every other available surface.

　

More than anything, Adam wanted all this to be nothing more than a particularly vivid dream, one in which his stricken father rose up and nagged him into doing this chore or that task. Adam would have gladly borne anything right then to hear his father’s exasperated voice complaining about anything in the world.

　

The sharp stones and pebbles digging into his back along with his various aches and pains were pointed remainders that this situation was all-too real and that his hidden-from-view father was relying on him, albeit unconsciously, for his rescue. Sighing resignedly, Adam pulled himself into a sitting position after only a few precious, but much-needed, minutes of rest.

　

Now that he had made it to the ridge, Adam's thoughts turned again to the cartons of fruit drink he had not allowed his mind to dwell upon earlier. His thirst was now unlike anything he had experienced before and he thought he was a good candidate for dehydration. His frail body had sweated like it had never done before. His sodden tee shirt and sweat-dampened jeans bore stark testament to his labours and the amount of fluid that had passed though the pores of his skin.

　

Adam was not at all sure how long it had been since he had last had a drink, but guessed that it was somewhere around three hours, when he and his father had stopped for their lunch. Under normal circumstances such a long gap between taking drinks would be considered acceptable, but these were hardly normal circumstances by any stretch of the imagination. His parched throat was demanding moisture... and quickly.

　

The tantalising cartons could not be too far away, Adam reasoned, although he was not exactly sure in which direction they lay from him. Gazing around at the uniform sameness of the terrain, trying to regain his bearings, provided him with few clues. He remembered that the cliff had been to their left as they had been walking and, as it was now on his right, he surmised that he was facing in the wrong direction. He swivelled himself around on his buttocks and allowed a small smile to crease his face as he recognised the bush behind which he had peed some thirty feet in front of him.

　

Too tired to get to his feet and hop again, Adam began to crawl to where he thought the bag his father had gathered their litter into lay. He studiously studied the ground in front of him, clearing away all the loose stones and other detritus to avoid further injuries. Within minutes he espied the red and white polythene bag he knew he'd see.

　

Moving as fast as he dared on the hazard-strewn path, Adam quickly closed the distance between himself and the carrier bag, his eyes seeking the two purple cartons he distinctly recalled seeing his father placing to one side as his large hands compacted the bag and its contents into a tight ball.

　

For tantalising seconds they remained hidden until he shifted his position and realised that his own shadow was concealing them from his view. With a dry-throated squeak of delight the teenager greedily grasped one small carton in one hand whilst, with the other, he removed the attached straw from its side. In his haste to access the drink, he could not seem to get the angled end of the straw to line up and pierce the special hole for it. Whimpering in frustration, Adam forced himself to calm down. He found the simple procedure that much easier to perform once he had done so. Placing the thin tube to his lips, he sucked the sun-warmed liquid into his mouth and sighed with a pleasure he would have had difficulty articulating.

　

It was only when he was more than halfway through the carton's contents that the voice of caution reminded him that he still had a long way to go and that he really ought to be frugal with what he had left so that he had something to drink later in his journey. "Yeah, you're right" he told his conscience, unwillingly withdrawing the straw from between his lips.

　

The drink had an almost immediate beneficial effect on the teenager. He found that he was able to think more clearly and sensibly for the first time in a while.. He sat down with his legs extended in front of him and thought aloud, fully aware that he was only talking to inanimate rocks and bushes and whatever birds and insects were within earshot, should they be interested enough to listen to him. Unabashed, Adam felt that talking aloud helped him to clarify his thoughts. Unselfconsciously, he talked.

　

"My ankle's killing me, but there's nothing I can do about that so there's no point in worrying about it really... It's dad I should be thinking about... I hope he's alright down there... As far as I remember it's a fairly straight route back to dad's car... About five miles away, I reckon... God! Five miles!... Not far really, five miles... But I'm so tired! Look, Adam, dad's hurt and he's relying on you to get help... He could DIE, you know... Oh well, no use sitting here... I'll just have to do what I can... It's only five miles, possibly less, even... Probably more, knowing my luck, though... Come ON, Adam, MOVE!... The sooner you get going the sooner this will be over, right?... Now, GO!

　

Adam barked an empty laugh at himself as he removed his glasses and cleaned them as best he could on his filthy tee shirt and returned them to his face. "Only five miles" he reminded himself as he pulled himself uncertainly upright and began to slow, pain-filled journey to his father's car, one small hop at a time...

　

He was denied full agonising consciousness. His heavy eyelids flickered open briefly. He was aware of a riot of pain from his left leg and other parts of his broken body. Momentarily, memories of walking with his son and the sickening sensation of falling zigzagged through his disoriented mind before the heavy curtain of oblivion fell once again and Greg Gurney slept in blissful ignorance of the trials and efforts his only progeny was making on his behalf...

　

Efforts that had again reduced his son to crawling. Adam had managed to hop for no more than twenty minutes; twenty minutes of increasingly painful and difficult movement once he felt the first ominous twinges from the tendons in his lead leg. He had paused for a couple of minutes, hoping the twinges would pass. However, upon resuming his journey and with no noticeable improvement in his condition, he had decided that to continue in that manner would probably be more than his weakened body could withstand. He had no other option but to crawl again, hoping that ’resting’ his hopping leg would enable him to use it again later on, should it become necessary. "Which", he thought, "won’t be very long". His hands and knees were raw and sore, not being accustomed to or designed to withstand such misuse and abuse.

　

Doggedly the teenage schoolboy ploughed ever onwards, each forward pace an agony of willpower and determination, fuelled by thoughts of a large mug of hot sweet tea and the comforting embrace of a deep hot bath filled with masses of scented suds from the bubble-bath his mother favoured.

He was almost delirious with exhaustion. Jumbled, unconnected thoughts competed for coherence with snatches of songs by his favourite bands in his numbed mind. Details of the science homework he would have been completing had he not been coerced into this outing fought with images of his bedroom, his mother, his beloved books and his father.

　

Like a cloud of soot, his father’s image overlaid everything: angry at a real or imagined slight, laughing uproariously at the ancient Goon Show recordings he listened to on audio cassette, which Adam (nor his mother, for that matter) could find the humour in; pensive and thoughtful as he mulled over a knotty clue in the newspaper crossword or when reading the paper from cover to cover every day, Monday to Saturday, but never Sundays because he refused to buy them on the grounds they were ’full of sex, scandal and drivel’; genial, like he was earlier today, because it was the version Adam saw least often. All of these images flitted through his mind like butterflies, none remaining very long. However, the one image that did stay vividly was the last image he’d last had of his father, the one of his pale and sickly face.

　

The cartons of drink flopped around heavily inside his tee shirt where he’d placed them, having no other means of carrying them. Their smooth, shiny surface kept sticking to his sweat-slicked skin, which was increasingly irritating to him, just another irritation on top of the aches, pains and cramps that threatened to reduce him to a gibbering wreck of a human being at any moment.

　

Yet still he kept going, one small painful arm/leg movement at a time. He was unaware of how far he had travelled or what the time was. Subconsciously, he had noted the changing colour of the sun: it was now a burnt-orange in the lowering sky, ringed with a halo of crimson. The horizon had begun to nibble at its lower edge. Darkness - complete darkness - when it fell would be absolute, Adam knew from his experiences of the many camping holidays he had endured in similar, though less inhospitable, surroundings. "No street lamps or artificial lighting her to alleviate the dark" he thought sourly as he rounded a slight curve he recalled from earlier in the day.

　

His flagging spirits revived a little as he also remembered a tree that had piqued his interest: a lightning-blasted thing of indeterminate age and species. As he exited the curve, Adam altered his course slightly. His heading: the lone tree.

　

It was obviously dead. The only splashes of colour were the green of a spongy-looking moss that grew abundantly around the base of the trunk and in scabrous patches on the trunk itself. Twigs and small, brittle branches littered the ground around the tree, none of them large enough or strong enough to serve the purpose Adam had in mind.

　

As he had been hopping along the idea that a crutch of some description would be of enormous benefit to his efforts as it would take some of the pressure off his ‘good leg (which was in real danger of falling into the ‘not-as-good-as-it-was’ category’) and probably speed his progress, too. Unfortunately, the vegetation along his route to that point had consisted of scrubby bushes and nothing of substance that would even remotely render up a strong, supporting branch to serve as the crutch he wished for.

The lightning strike had rent a four-feet long gash in the now-dead trunk. Adam guessed that it was about ten inches wide at its broadest point, its blackened interior appeared to be grossly moist, ‘almost as though it’s weeping blood’ he thought, shuddering at his fanciful imagination. He quickly turned his attention back to his task.

　

He had already examined the deadfall around the tree, but had found nothing suitable for his purpose. Adam peered into the leafless skeleton of the branches the tree still possessed. And saw exactly what he was looking for.

　

It was a long, straight branch with two growths at its end that formed a natural 'V'. A perfect crutch! Smiling in the gathering gloom, Adam reached his arms up to the limb, but his fingers fell agonisingly short of his target. Not to be thwarted, he balanced himself on his good leg only to be further tantalised by being able to brush the limb with his fingertips, but not quite able to reach that little bit further and actually grasp the thing.

　

Five minutes of trying to stretch his body that extra inch or so beyond its natural boundary to enable him to grab the tree limb produced no noticable result other than to elevate his frustration. Breathing heavily, Adam pondered his choices. The one idea that did occur to him would inevitably mean causing himself yet more pain as it involved using his damaged ankle. However, having slowed his breathing to normal he conceded that he really had no other choice.

　

Crouching down as low to the ground as he was able without toppling over, he propelled himself upwards in the manner of a jack-in-the-box, his arms extended high above his head. His fingers brushed, but failed to grasp, the elusive branch. Encouraged by his 'near miss' and trying to ignore the increased throbbing emanating from his injured ankle, Adam crouched again.

　

He pushed himself upwards with more energy and cried out at the pain he caused himself. He felt a momentary sense of triumph when his hands clamped over the branch. Unfortunately, his sweat-slick fingers were unable to maintain his grip and he lost his hold within seconds. He fell clumsily to the ground again, narrowly avoiding landing on his injured ankle.

　

Pausing only to allow the throbbing to lessen, Adam sat and stared at the branch. "You haven't beaten me yet" he scowled as he got himself into position for a third time. And missed the branch completely.

　

Uncharacteristically swearing in his frustration, he tried a fourth time, and let out a yelp of success as his fingers found solid purchase on the troublesome limb. He hung suspended above the ground, breathing hard and feeling both elated and slightly foolish.

　

From the ground it has appeared that the branch would break away easily once it was asked to bear Adam's weight. He could hear small creaking and cracking sounds as the tree complained at the extra burden it was being asked to carry. The sounds suggested to Adam that, with a little encouragement, the trunk would give up its dead limb to him.

　

Using energy he could ill afford to give away, he began to bounce up and down as best he could. He was rewarded with the cracking sounds becoming louder and more frequent as the obdurate trunk began to release its reluctant hold. Even so, the battle of wills continued longer than Adam would have wished. his arms began to ache and he knew that if he was unable to free the branch very soon, he would have to temporarily abandon his mission until such time as he regained some strength in his arms. That was a prospect he was unwilling to consider. Time was passing far too quickly for his liking, and his father's condition would not be improving without the medical attention he needed.

　

With a last-ditch surge of his remaining energy, Adam bounced the branch as hard as he could. With a sound like a pistol shot in the vast emptiness, the branch finally broke away and it and Adam fell untidily to the ground. Grinning in spite of the pain and his aching arms, Adam rose unsteadily to his feet and examined his handiwork.

　

He broke off the two smaller branches that formed the 'V' to within about four inches of the main branch, then tried the crudely-fashioned crutch under his arm. It was several inches too tall to the extent that it was, to all intents and purposes, useless to him. Pondering the problem for a few moments, the teenager scoured the area around him. His eyes alighted upon a large piece of rock. Perfect!

　

He managed to position the branch is such a way that he was able to sit on it while he hammered away ay the end that had held it to the tree-trunk. Once again the wood proved to be tougher than it had appeared to be. It took him much longer to break away the six excess inches. With sweat running into his eyes and arms aching, this time when he placed the 'V' into his armpit, it felt much more comfortable. He reached into his damp tee shirt and located the carton of drink he had opened earlier and allowed himself just a few precious sips of the sweet drink. With a slightly lighter step, he resumed his journey.

The sun set in a glorious blaze of reds and oranges, peculiar to open spaces. On any other occasion it could have inspired Adam to write poetry about the beauty of the event. Of more immediate concern to him, though, was the inevitable cold that would follow the sun’s setting. The teenager’s concern for his father and the potential setting-in of something called ’exposure’ troubled him.

　

Although he had only a vague idea of what exposure was, he had heard that people had died from it and so assumed that his father, in his immobile and unprotected condition, could be affected by it. Adam felt that he was luckier, in a sense, than his father in that he was at least mobile. In fact, he was still perspiring freely, in spite of the cooling air.

　

On the other hand, his father had not moved of his own accord for several hours now and Adam was certain that the loss of the sun’s warmth would be yet another burden for him to contend with. Sighing resignedly and trying to not worry himself about eventualities he had no control over, and moving as fast as he could with the aid of the crutch he’d made, Adam trudged on through the thickening gloom.

One of the very few areas Adam and his father really connected was in their mutual love of old music. Greg Gurney was a teenager in the 1970’s and his music collection reflected the eclectic mix of styles that that decade threw up. From his earliest years, Adam had been listening to music as diverse as the ’bubble-gum’ pop of the earliest years of the decade right through to its Glam Rock, Punk Rock and New Romantic phases. One of Adam’s clearest early memories was of his father singing along in a pleasant baritone to his favourite band of the era: the Electric Light Orchestra.

　

By way of an attempt to alleviate his loneliness and to stop himself thinking about the distance he still had to travel, Adam began to sing, his voice harsh and cracked even to his own ears. He worked his way through all the tracks on a particular favourite album his father had once played often: Out of the Blue by the Electric Light Orchestra. Adam was proud that he knew all of the words to every track, an accomplishment that had him pegged as slightly weird by his school-friends when he’d mentioned it to them once. That they found him weird in general was of no concern to him, and he’d laughed along at their good-natured mocking of him.

　

Full darkness fell very quickly once the sun winked out completely as it dropped below the horizon. The cloak of full darkness soon enveloped the bruised and battered teenager as he sang and hobbled his way step by slow step towards his father’s car.

　

END OF PART TWO