The Angel Expedition

Chapter 4 - The Wild Jackal

"Evangeline?"

Nothing.

"Larry?"

A strained cough broke the silence to Donovan's left, and he forced himself to stand, his joints screaming and aching in pain as he moved. He limped in the direction of the noise to find out which one of his crew members had luckily survived the crash with him, and through the smoke, he saw Larry pulling himself up from the disturbed rainforest floor, leaning all of his remaining weight onto the broken left wing of their plane as he attempted to stand.

Donovan crossed to him as fast as he could and extended his muddy hand, offering support to his injured friend. Larry grabbed it quickly and allowed his Captain to help pull him up.

"Thank you, sir," he was saying. "Thank you."

"Where is everyone else?" Donovan asked as confidently as possible. He walked Larry to a fallen tree and encouraged him to sit down so that he could rest.

"Mr Connolly and Mr Millar are dead, sir," Larry replied, breathing in as much air as his lungs could handle. "They were next to me when I woke up, and..."

"So is the pilot," Bennett said as he emerged from the dust and joined them. He sat himself down heavily beside Larry on the fallen tree and examined the Captain, wondering how he managed to stay so strong. Bennett's right arm had been cut, his head was bleeding, and his clothes were ripped and dirty.

Suddenly, there was another noise behind them, and Darcy Bauer and Bradshaw Rogers also came out from the wreckage, both men limping, their clothes ripped and covered in blood. They were leaning on each other as they stumbled towards the surviving members of their crew, an attempt to help each other, but Darcy was putting all of his weight onto Bradshaw and was making it significantly harder for him to walk.

Donovan looked at the men, studying their injuries and counting the crew in his head. Suddenly, panic steered his thoughts away.

"Wait, where's –"

"I'm here," Evangeline called, her face becoming clearer as the dust slowly settled. She walked to the men with some cuts on her face and over her arms, her eyes locked on Donovan's.

He stood immediately and walked to her, a concerned frown on his strong face. "Are you ok?" he asked.

"Like you care," she scoffed, moving past him and sitting on the tree next to Bennett. She ripped the bottom of her top off and wrapped it around the large cut on his arm, forcing pressure onto the wound to stop the bleeding as she tied it around him. She gave the Captain a stern look as if to say that he should have helped, and Donovan teared his eyes away from her, looking over the remaining members of his group once more.

"Is everyone ok?" he asked them.

"Apart from three people being dead–" Bennett began, but Brad cut him off and began to cry.

"Three people have died. I want to go home," he sobbed, beginning to fall helplessly into a panic attack.

"Mr Rogers," Donovan began calmly, kneeling down in front of him so that they were eye-level. "I want you to stop. Calm down, take one deep breath, as far as your lungs will stretch," he demonstrated, encouraging him to follow, "and release. Better?"

"Yeah. Thanks," Brad breathed, and tried to offer him a small grateful smile.

Donovan nodded once and stood up, observing the situation that they had fallen into and how they could recover from it. "Let's have a look around, we need to try and salvage some things. Perhaps we can try and rebuild the plane. However, the quicker we get to the river the better. Mr Emrys arranged for a boat to be left there for us, so there may be someone there that can help us."