A thick, foul-smelling fug of body odors, and smoke, and human grease reached out for him from the dark recesses of the cave. The last of his native carriers were huddled together in there on sheets of beaten bark. He’d set out from Amyen with fifteen stout boys. The last four had gone down with a fever in the cave the previous night. Ryan knew he’d get no more work from them. His native sergeant, Kari, had offered to try and get the bearers to their feet, but Ryan told him not to bother. They were best left there, under the watch of Constable Dinkila, while the two of them made the last push up to the ridge.

“We’ll move faster without them or the baggage,” said Ryan.

“They won’t be here when we get back, boss,” Kari argued. “Then we won’t need baggage. Just coffins.”

Ryan essayed a weak smile at his friend.

“Needs must when the Devil drives, Sergeant. There’s something quite odd going on up this mountain. And I’m Johnny-on-the-spot.”

Just before dawn a freezing gale howled down from between the jagged, broken teeth of the Saruwageds, blowing away the mist and their last excuse for staying tucked up in the relative warmth and comfort of the cave. Ryan and Kari ate three tins of bully beef and a packet of biscuits, washed down with a canteen of water collected from the many trickles of condensation running down the smooth black rock face outside their shelter. They put on their last dry socks and best boots, gave Constable Dinkila strict instructions about caring for and guarding the carriers, and then they set off, carrying their Owen guns and long lengths of vine rope.

They traversed a sickeningly steep, razor-thin ridgeline on their hands and knees before plunging back into the forest. Ryan thought it akin to stepping into a darkened basement from a bright-lit garden. A soft dark green, evil-looking moss covered everything, sometimes to a thickness of a foot. Trees took on the appearance of fleshy, bloated green monsters from one of Grimm’s fairy tales. Walking was a matter of sinking their feet into a spongy, moss-covered sludge of rotting vegetable matter. Sometimes they sank in up to their thighs. At one point, curious about the true depth of the strange, clotted mulch, Ryan pushed in sharpened stick. It was eight feet long and met no resistance. They trod more carefully after that.