Marcel’s group melted into the trees in seconds, Patience last, reluctant not to be coming with us. A jolt of fear went through me: had Innocent sent her away because of the danger? I calmed myself with the thought that he probably just wanted her to stay with Amelia. If our little tracking mission had been that risky a prospect, he wouldn’t have agreed to it at all, surely?

17.

As it turned out, retracing our steps through the jungle was easier than I’d expected. Innocent’s tracking skills were unnecessary; even I could spot the signs of where we’d been: machete-hacked vines, stick-swiped stems and stomped vegetation. We made faster progress in reverse, mostly because we were following a sort of path, but also because we were in a different kind of hurry, racing against nightfall. The Democratic Republic of Congo is bang on the equator; unlike at home where the sun goes down slowly, here it sets fast. And what’s more it sets at roughly the same time, 6 p.m., right through the year: there’s no putting the clocks back for winter in the tropics.

We’d split up around mid-afternoon so had just a few hours left of daylight to catch up with the poachers. Without seeming to hurry, Innocent somehow set a pace that required Caleb and I to half-trot. Though we’d cleared a bit of a path the ground was at best uneven and not long after we started I caught my foot in a tangle of creeper and fell over. Caleb relished this; I’m sure I heard him laugh. When the same thing happened to him just minutes later, I made a show of checking he was all right; people like Caleb find sympathy harder to take than ridicule.

We soon reached the spot where we’d encountered Bingo’s troupe. Innocent paused, but I would have recognised the forked tree with the ring of peeled bark anyway. The chimps were nowhere to be seen now. Innocent had told us to conserve our water. Now, from a packet he unexpectedly plucked out of his top pocket, he gave us each a boiled sweet. I hadn’t realised how thirsty I was until the sugar hit my tongue. I’ve no idea what fruit it was supposed to taste like and I didn’t care: it was the best sweet I’d ever eaten.

We were only stationary for a minute or so, and admittedly we’d turned to face each other, but when Innocent asked if we were ready to set off again Caleb said, ‘Of course,’ and started off back the way we’d come. I’ve always had a good sense of direction; his was apparently haywire. Innocent called him back. I didn’t comment.

The going got tougher from there. Though the poachers had been a bigger group, they must have been moving through the rainforest more carefully, leaving less of a trail. I was tired. Everything ached. The boiled sweet had tamed my thirst for a while, but it had also triggered my hunger. A weakness pulsed in my belly. And yet Innocent kept up the fierce pace, and Caleb kept with him, and that meant I had to keep up too. It was a struggle.