‘Mr Caleb!’ he sang.

Caleb, who was thirty metres upstream and already just about out of sight, shouted, ‘What are you waiting for?’

Innocent took a deep breath to tell him, but before he could there was a rush of leaves and a yelp-scream and what we could see of Caleb through the foliage suddenly changed shape. Both of us sprinted towards him. On arrival, it seemed as if he’d collapsed mid-cartwheel. One of his green boots was wrenched awkwardly above his head, still firmly attached to his foot, beneath which the rest of him was writhing on the ground. He’d stepped in a snare. I was surprised to find myself genuinely worried he’d been hurt. But his ‘Get me down!’ was angry rather than agonised.

Caleb’s machete was on the ground in front of me. The snare was made out of a loop of paracord rigged to a log, itself cantilevered over a bent tree. I couldn’t quite work out the mechanics of the thing, but if how to set Caleb free? was the question, sever the rope had to be the answer. I fired off a quick photo for the record while Caleb was looking towards Innocent, then picked up the big knife and swung it at the knot: the log thumped to the ground, the treetop snapped upright and Caleb’s leg joined the swearing rest of him on the floor.

‘You OK?’ Innocent sounded concerned: did he think Caleb was about to blame him?

‘Of course I’m OK.’ Caleb brushed himself down. ‘I just …’ He trailed off. For a half-beat I thought he might be about to laugh: since he wasn’t injured, surely he could see the funny side? But his face hardened and aside from muttering a brusque, ‘Thanks,’ as I handed him back his knife it was pretty clear ‘funny’ wasn’t on his radar.

‘Dangerous, horrible,’ said Innocent, holding up the snare. ‘Many animals die this way. They do not have a friend to cut them down.’

‘I’d have freed myself eventually,’ Caleb muttered.

He might well have done so – the machete was probably within his reach – yet his lack of gratitude was irritating. I tried not to respond. But once he’d picked the leaves out of his hair and was ready to go again, I couldn’t help pointing back downstream and saying, ‘Right then, shall we head in the actual direction of the others this time?’ with a fake lightness in my voice. I wish with all my heart that I’d held my tongue; if I’d stopped myself from goading him, we might have avoided the awfulness of what happened later.

20.

As it was, we made it back to the others in good time. There was no chat on the way. Silent endurance felt both right and odd at the same time. When we’d reunited with Amelia and Xander things were a little more normal, though somehow there was no way I could tell them about what had happened to Caleb. Not out of solidarity, and not because I was in his thrall. It was more that his inability to take the joke meant that telling it would be cruel. However, the strange thing was that not taking the mick out of him, far from making him grateful, seemed to do the opposite. He bristled, ignored me, gave the others short shrift. The more nobody commented, the more het up he became. Mid-afternoon, when Xander, Amelia and I were on our camp beds playing cards, I heard a whacking, chopping sound outside and went to investigate. Caleb had cut a bough from a nearby tree with his machete and was hacking at the wood as if it was his mortal enemy. A relative of the tree used to spring the snare perhaps? I was about to leave him to it when Innocent also poked his head out of his tent to see what was going on.