Caleb, his face still a circus of guilt-stricken disbelief, blinked from the bloody knife to me and back again. He was in front of me, with Marcel and Patience and Amelia and Xander behind us. I wanted to turn and spell out what had happened, shout it beyond the rainforest canopy and all the way through Goma to Kinshasa. But instead, in silence, I carefully wiped the blade clean on the leg of my trousers and handed the knife over to Caleb.

25.

After I gave Caleb back his machete he sat down in a heap with it, still a mess, and the sight of his fingers worrying at his buzz-cut made me want to deal with the horror of what had happened. Xander was hurt. Though he carried the first-aid kit, Marcel was trying to comfort a stricken Patience, so it was up to Amelia and me to fashion a splint and stretcher using the bandages in the kit, straight bamboo poles we cut from a nearby thicket and the roll of duct tape I’d brought: though I knew there was no end to what that stuff could fix, I’d never imagined I’d end up using it for this.

Droplets of sweat stood out on Xander’s brow as we taped the makeshift splint to his leg. We’d already given him as many painkillers as the box said it was OK for him to take, and he claimed they were working to dull the fierce ache in his leg, but when we rolled him onto the stretcher he couldn’t stop himself shrieking. Amelia stood back once we had him settled in place.

‘Caleb,’ she said.

He snapped out of his reverie. ‘Yes?’

‘A stretcher has four handles. We each need to take one.’

In the dappled light that filtered through the trees at that moment he looked less substantial. ‘Of course,’ he agreed meekly.

‘You’re feeling guilty. It’s understandable,’ she went on. ‘Yet this was an accident. You didn’t intend for it to happen. None of us did.’

As ever there was logic in what Amelia was saying, but also as ever she was kind of missing the point: accidents happen when people are careless, stupid or so fixed on one outcome that they ignore other possible consequences of their actions. I know because I’ve had enough of them myself. Remembering that was possibly why I didn’t press the point then.