As it happens, we’d only made it a hundred metres in this formation before we met the team of rangers deployed to pick up Innocent’s body. There were a lot of them. They met us in virtual silence. Two of the rangers checked Caleb’s splint with deft fingers. Since they left it as it was, I assume Amelia and I had done an OK job. While they were doing that, Marcel took the only member of the team with grey hair to one side. I watched them closely. Sure enough, though I couldn’t quite hear the French, much less understand it, Marcel shot a quick nod in Caleb’s direction before pursing his lips and dropping his chin. The older guard snorted and his mouth set hard and something flickered in my chest. I was worried for my cousin. There’d be repercussions, the guard’s face said. This wasn’t over for Caleb.

26.

Four of the rangers escorted us back to camp, carrying Xander on the stretcher. They weren’t big guys. One was smaller than me in fact, with skinny little legs, but we struggled to keep up with them, and while I arrived on the brink of collapse, those guys barely broke a sweat. They managed to carry Xander dead level the entire way too. We made it back to camp just as night fell. I don’t know whether Xander was exhausted by the pain, zonked by the pills or out of it because of those twigs he kept chewing, but he’d actually drifted off by the time we made it back. Amelia went with Marcel to give an account of what had happened to the head ranger. She had the French. I sat with Xander while he slept. On his return, Marcel made it clear we’d be setting off for Goma in the morning.

I slept badly and was awake before dawn. At first light I saw Caleb emerge from his tent in a rush and stagger away into the brush. Not quite out of sight, he bent double and threw up. The sound of him retching woke Xander.

‘Did he eat something dodgy?’ he muttered.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Perhaps it’s exhaustion.’

‘My money’s on something else.’

‘What?’

‘Guilt, I think.’

Another bout of heave-groaning reached us.

‘Possibly,’ said Xander.

‘I think it is,’ I said. ‘I reckon that’s the sound of things sinking in.’

Xander didn’t respond, just pushed himself up on his elbows, winced and looked forlornly at his immobilised leg.

‘We’ll get that sorted in no time,’ I said.