Of Rice And Men (No longer being updated)

Chapter 8

Sleep was uneventful, no surprise there. All it did was refuel my energy for the morning. We set off early, around six o’clock, driving up and over a grassy knoll to take a peek at what awaited us on the other side of the tangled, matted knot of vines they called a jungle. Lady luck was in our favour that day, as we saw a gravel track, extending far over the horizon.  Rolling hills and one large mountain lay in the way, blocking the path like a natural barricade.

Nonetheless, we rolled on, the tracks throwing up mud in a whirlwind of dirt. Slowly but surely, the mud and bog of the rice paddy field gave way to rocks and baked mud mountain trails. Civilisation gradually trickled into our path, only the odd few though. As we ground closer and closer up to the towering mound of stone and bird droppings, the occasional native crossed our view. Goat herders, making their way back up the mountain to their shacks.

The natives here didn’t exactly live in the lap of luxury. The lucky few, the ones who made it to this area first, managed to grab any and all flat ground on the mountainside. Hastily constructed shacks, barely keeping out the wind and snow that occasionally plagued the mountain’s peak, provided them with a little shelter. Billy goats clung to any small pieces of ground on the rocky outcroppings, the only source of these local’s livelihoods. If it wasn’t for the money they made by selling goat milk, goat meat, and the goats themselves, they would have starved and died a lonely, cold death.

The ones who weren’t so lucky, who got stuck eking out a living in the shadow of the mountain, were subsistence farmers. Anything they grew, they ate themselves, unless they, on the very rare occasion, had an excess of rice in the harvest. Then they sold it and bought themselves a little variety in their diet. Most of the people were thin, sickly and horrifically malnourished. Any carbohydrates they got, they expended straight away toiling themselves to exhaustion and ultimately their demise. Only so long could a human survive on rice while spending every day knee deep in irrigation and sloppy muck.

Most of the shit they lived in was secondary jungle, thick brush and drowning, constricting canopies. The stuff that if you tripped and hit your head in, your body wouldn’t turn up unless some logging company decided to strip your grave for resources. The underbrush was thick; almost snow like, your boots disappearing under the leaves and branches. In all honesty, I was glad to get out of it and up onto the mountain, even if it too was terrain I’d never experienced before. At least you didn’t have to lift your legs a foot in the air just to take a step.

The mountain road, the one we were following, wound around the rock for a while before tailing off to the north west and back to the flatlands. As the incline steepened and the gradient became almost un-traversable, the engine of our Viking whined and groaned, the pressure pushing it to breaking point. Revving the engine, and the exhaust spluttering out toxic fumes, Carter managed to push the rolling metal hulk up the first straight slope. Worse awaited us around the corners, this only being the first leg of our journey over the perilous boulders of the mountain.

Turning was the hardest part, the tracks slipping and almost giving way as the crumbly limestone abraded beneath the rubber. On one hard right turn, our tracks slid too far. It was almost like a power slide, except we weren’t moving when we finished sliding. The engine was still very much on, and the wheels inside the treads were still very much turning. But they gained no grip on the slowly disintegrating rock, and the tracked trailer attached to our tail end spun out from the road.

We made little progress in stopping the trailer, only gaining about a foot of ground up the slope. It still slid out to the side, before tipping over the edge. The top of its tracks caught on the ledge, but the rest of the trailer was dangling over the Cliffside. A huge, probably fifty meter drop lay underneath the sheer face of rock and bird nests. I dropped from my place in the turret to help get out of this very dangerous situation.

Sam screamed at all of us in the back, including our friend the diplomat.

“Get to the front, bring the weapons in the crate, come on, drag them the fuck over here!”

We all climbed across the seats, using the seatbelts to hoist ourselves up and into the driver’s area. Slowly, we got more and more vertical, although not completely tipping. As we one-by-one jumped up onto the dashboard, we counterbalanced the weight of the trailer. It tipped back, almost latching on to some ground as the treads spun and whipped up clouds of dust. Our combined weight at the front almost did it, but it simply wasn’t enough to get back on the road.

I decided to solve this problem on my own, with a little common sense and a hint of ingenuity. My gloves slid on to my sweating, filthy hands as I climbed up onto the rigging on the roof. Tightly gripping the ropes and straps, I swung like an ape over to the hole in the roof where my turret sat. Using the rigging as almost stirrups, and the M2 Browning’s grips as hand holds, I heaved myself up onto the roof, my boots imprinting onto the thin film of dust that coated it.

Using my combat knife, I sawed through the thick straps and brought up a few more metres with me. With gymnast like poise, I balanced on the hood and stepped slowly and deliberately towards the back. I spun my knife nonchalantly on both ends of the rigging, drilling two small holes at either end. Two karabiners clipped on, fitting snug to the holes, and one clipped straight onto a bar on the Vikings roof. The other slipped around a strap on my combat webbing.

I lowered myself down over the edge, a perilous fall to my certain death below me. If this strap failed, my doom surely awaited me at the bottom. But it held true and strong, dangling me over the thick canopy underneath. I descended, tapping my feet on the metal to keep close to safety, before nestling my feet onto the bumper and turning to face the trailer. It was still barely gripping onto the limestone, creeping closer to the fall evermore.

I jumped and let my legs drift above my centre mass, my upper body leaning down towards the coupler that kept our troubles attached to our backside. Focusing on the task at hand, my arms extended in front of my face and into my visual workspace. I clasped my palms around the thick metal rod that held the two parts of the vehicle together and pulled with all my might. It slid out a little, grinding against the slightly rusting metal as I tried to rip it out of place. It was almost out, just caught at the end of the metal. But the weight of the trailer yanked it back to place.

Little by little, I swung like a pendulum over to the trailer and smashed my foot hard against the thin steel walls. I swung more, further out every time, and gained more momentum to slam into the trailer with. Its weight, coupled with my leg muscle’s explosive power, was its downfall. The weapons and ammo it was laden with dragged it down into the abyss, as my last kick sent the metal coupler down the long fall, bouncing off the Cliffside.

My strap slipped and I knocked into the metal cabin, my skull echoing with the sound of ringing metal. I struggled to regain my footing and frantically flapped at the thin strip of cord, just about getting a grip on it before I slid down to a painful death by strangulation. Even if I did manage to avoid a snapped rope and a nasty mess of limbs splattered on the floor, getting my neck caught in the rigging would still choke me out faster than you could say “Holy shit, this fucking hurts!”

I kicked the side of the still grounded part of the Viking, and shouted at the occupants to get it moving. The engine kicked into gear and pulled out from the small hole the treads had dug themselves into. I bumped around on the back, thumping my head onto the metal as I swung around on the rigging cord. Left handed clamped on the handle on the roof, my right sliced through the strap with my combat knife. My webbing jolted as it gave way and I clambered back onto the roof.

I slid back through the gun turret and resumed business as usual. We all knew it would be perilous when we came out here, and our experiences so far had been no different. Hell, by this point, I’d begun to expect the stench of death waiting for me at every corner and ditch, stalking me through the jungle. Ambushes and one hundred metre drops were a common sight out here, and that little adventure over the cliff wasn’t really out of the ordinary.