That was what actually made Beck pause and think. Rescue might arrive, whisk Jian away to a decent hospital…

  Might arrive. But if they didn’t do this, Jian would definitely die.

  He had never been to a single scout medical talk that discussed field amputation. They would have to proceed based on what they did know. They both knew basic biology – enough to say there are two bones in the lower arm, and how they connect together – and they both knew basic first aid. Beck knew how to cut up an animal, and all mammals have basically the same skeleton, only varying in size and shape.

  After that, they were on their own.

  Ju-Long had thought she remembered hearing something about an American who had had to cut his own arm off. Beck knew the story.

  “A guy called Aron Ralston,” he had said as he continued nervously to sharpen the blade. “A boulder fell on him when he was out hiking, miles from anyone else, and it trapped his arm. The only way he could get free before he died of thirst was to cut it off. But he only had a blunt knife and he knew it would never get through his bones, so had to break them first…”

  Fortunately his knife was sharper than Ralston’s had been. No bones would need breaking.

  They were almost ready to go.

  Then Beck faltered.

  “I can’t do this, Ju-Long. I really can’t.”

  Ju-Long reached out and held his hand.

  “You can’t alone – but together we can. Jian needs us to be strong if he is to live. Together we have to do this.”

  Beck looked away. He remembered his mother once telling him, never give up, Beck. However desperate or dire the situation, keep going. Just keep going.

  He took one final deep breath and looked at Ju-Long.

  “Together. OK. Let’s save Jian’s life. Put the tourniquet on.”

  Ju-Long nodded, and wrapped a piece of rope a couple of times around Jian’s upper arm. She tied the ends together over a piece of wood, then twisted the wood so that the leverage pulled the tourniquet even tighter, biting into Jian’s flesh. Almost immediately the arm above it started to grow red as blood pooled up, and the skin below the rope slowly turned pale. She used another piece of rope to fix the wood in position.

  Last of all, Ju-Long squeezed a small length of wood into Jian’s mouth, between his teeth. With what was about to happen, Jian might grind his teeth together so hard he could bite his tongue off. He needed something safe to chomp down on.

  Beck had a sudden memory of Ju-Long as he had first met her, at a getting-to-know-you party before their ill-fated expedition. Intelligent and alert, smart in her Young Pioneers uniform, confident in the success of the trek because of all the badges she had earned for this and that. Well, she was still intelligent and alert, but her confidence came from somewhere else now. She had been in survival situations she had never dreamed of, and come through them because of her own inner strength and ability. She didn’t need badges to know she was good.

  They don’t actually give badges for what I’m good at… he had said at the party. And now, neither of them would be getting a badge for what they were about to do.

  “This is it,” Beck said. He had to act quickly, before the loss of blood in the lower arm just added to the damage. They knelt either side of Jian’s motionless form, tied firmly to the wooden frame they had put around him to hold him still. Ju-Long braced herself and pinned his shoulders down, one more defence in case he suddenly started to move.

  Just below the elbow, Beck thought – that should do it. Well above the red marks. He bit his lip and took hold of Jian’s arm, then put the edge of the blade to the skin, and began to cut. With a few deft flicks of his wrist, he drew the knife all around Jian’s arm. Blood immediately welled up.

  Even in his swoon, Jian began to moan and breathe heavily. Beck shut his ears and his mind to the sound, and kept cutting. His friend’s flesh put up resistance, almost like warm rubber. A knife that wasn’t as sharp as Beck’s had made his would have had difficulty. But he kept at it, drawing the blade back and forth, until he felt it hit bone. It was the thicker of the two bones, the radius. He immediately switched the knife around in his hand so that the serrated blade was foremost, and began to saw.

  Jian’s mumbled, incoherent sounds didn’t get any louder: Beck hoped that if pain was penetrating his unconscious mind, then it had peaked. He couldn’t imagine hurting Jian more.

  Jian began to twitch: arms and legs jerking at where he was bound to the frame. Ju-Long laid a damp strip of cloth on his head, and stroked his hair, and murmured reassurance in Chinese into his ear. Her voice shook a little but she kept it mostly level, with a massive effort. The noises and the movements didn’t go down, but they didn’t get worse either.

  The sawing blade made a sound like slicing through soggy wood, and Beck had chopped enough wood to know the secret was to just keep going – firm, steady strokes, and a constant downwards pressure. And just like sawing wood, the sound grew higher and higher the further he got through. Then there was suddenly no resistance and the first bone was through. He switched again so that he could cut another couple of centimetres through flesh, while Jian’s blood coated the blade and his hand. Then he switched blades again for the ulna.

  He felt, rather than heard, the ulna go. He was through, and Jian’s hand was only attached to the rest of him by a few centimetres of meat. And then they came away, and Jian’s arm with it. The bite marks were dark cavities, homes of bacteria that would not be causing Jian any more harm.

  “Done,” he said quietly. Ju-Long had the first of the bandages ready to wrap around the stump. The fabric immediately soaked through with dark red blood.

  Beck carried the severed arm to a small pit he had dug earlier. He laid the arm in it and scraped the soil back in to cover it, then rested several small stones on top of it as a safeguard against any small animals that might want to sniff it out for food.

  The daylight had grown colder and greyer as he worked. Thunder suddenly rumbled through the treetops and he glanced up. The sky was completely covered by dark, roiling clouds.

  Ju-Long wrapped as many bandages as she could around the stump, then tied the arm across Jian’s chest.

  “A wound like this should be elevated,” she said. Her voice sounded almost detached, like someone had taken it from a parallel world where they hadn’t just cut someone’s arm off – a world where everything was normal. “It should be higher than the heart if possible. And we must protect him against shock.”

  Beck nodded. He certainly wasn’t going to argue.

  They lifted Jian back into his hammock and covered him up with the two other hammocks and as much extra netting as they could manage, without burying him altogether. It was the best thing they could do without proper blankets.

  Beck slowly released the tourniquet and they both peered anxiously at the bandages, to see how the surgery would cope with the renewed blood flow. No blood dripped through.

  “We must change these twice a day,” Ju-Long said, still in that voice.

  “We’ll keep ’em boiling, then,” Beck said. And suddenly he had to turn away. If he stayed looking at Jian then he would never be able to think of anything else.

  Would Jian live? If he lived, would he understand why they had done it? How would he adjust to life –

  Stop, Beck told himself. Just stop. Always remember this – he would have died. Anything else we did, anything at all, there’s a way of coming back from. But not from dying.

  He thrust his hands into his pockets and looked out to sea. He had dealt with another problem, that was all. To survive, to keep surviving, he had to shelve that problem in his head and move onto the next. The next thing to do, if they were to stay alive. Care for Jian. Find resources. Plan what to do if still no rescue came. How long would it be for Mr Zhou to realise they were missing? How far would he look…?

  He sensed Ju-Long behind him, and then felt her hand rest gently on his shoulder. He reached up to cover it with his own and for a while they just stood silently.

  They looked up as another burst of thunder sounded, louder than before. They both heard the familiar hiss, quiet at first, then growing louder and louder until they could barely hear themselves speak, as the rainclouds broke above them.

  Chapter 35

  Beck stood on the beach and let clean, fresh water sluice over him from the sky. It soaked into his clothes and plastered them to his body. He turned his face up and felt the grime, the sweat, and above all the salt of the last couple of days wash away from him. Boy, did that feel good. He ran his fingers through his hair, then held out his arms and turned slowly beneath the shower.

  It was a tropical rain storm. The water was the same temperature as the first drops that might dribble out of the hot tap back home. Back home, that would be a disappointment but here, after the heat of the last few days it was like every drop was infused with a fresh energy that soaked into his body.

  On the mainland, after the storm, the water that had soaked into the ground would soon turn into vapour and the glorious freshness would turn into a steam bath. Out here, though, the sea breeze would keep the air flowing and it would stay fresh.

  But not as fresh as it was now, when every drop was immediately followed by a new one.

  But this wasn’t about him. He had a job to do.

  With an armful of empty bottles, he walked along the beach until he saw what he had expected to see. The rain had recharged the island’s water systems. The dry gullies were flowing with clean water and streams coursed down the beach. So much so that he could fill the bottles, and shake them hard to dislodge all the salt and gunge that had inevitably accrued on them, and pour it away and fill them again. Water, water, everywhere – a life enhancing resource, a gift, and theirs for the taking, safe to gulp down immediately without having to be boiled first.

  But eventually he was out of excuses to stay out in the rain, so he turned and carried his fresh load back up to the camp.

  “You are soaked!” Ju-Long exclaimed.

  She was sheltering beneath the cover she had built over the hammocks, alongside Jian. The rain had put the fire out, but she and Jian were dry. Water dripped through the trees and ran down the V-shaped palm fronds above the hammocks. Of course, sheltering under trees during a thunderstorm wasn’t generally wise, but there were a lot more trees around, and many of them were higher. Lightning took the easiest route to hit something, which meant it often hit whatever was highest. They were probably safe, Beck thought.

  “I feel better, though. Has…” Beck bit his lip. He had been going to say “has he woken up?” but the question answered itself with one look, and he didn’t need the tiny shake of her head. Jian no longer showed the signs of delirium and fever – but he no longer showed the signs of anything much. His pulse had been faint the last time Beck tried it. He had an image of it hanging on by the tiniest thread, as thin as spider web, which may or may not break under the slightest extra force.

  “You should give it a go too,” Beck suggested instead, as she came forward to take the bottles off him.

  “You will catch a chill as it dries.”

  He shook his head.

  “Warm weather, low air pressure. It’ll dry off in no time.” He tried a very faint smile, but it faded as he looked at Jian.

  “How is he?”

  She pulled a face.

  “But breathing is better,” she added

  They crouched down on either side of Jian’s hammock and Beck leaned his ear close to Jian’s face. Yes, that did sound better. Each breath was going in and out more smoothly, not sounding like it was being dragged over the teeth of a saw.

  But those breaths were very weak.

  He took a bottle and dribbled some drops onto Jian’s lips, just enough to moisten them, but not so much that it would just run down his chin. He tried a little more. Jian’s lips parted slightly and the water ran in. Again Beck kept the flow to a bare minimum, not wanting to flood his mouth and choke him. Just enough that he could unconsciously swallow it, get it inside him without even knowing.

  Jian’s head moved and a long, low breath rattled in his throat. His eyes flickered and half opened.

  “Beck?”

  It was a half whisper, but it sounded like the older boy’s normal voice, not the harsh, angry shouting of his delirium.

  He tried to open his eyes a little further, then winced and closed them immediately. He was as encrusted with salt and dirt as Beck had been.

  “Hang on,” Beck said. “I’m going to pour water on your face…”

  He trickled the rest of the bottle, first over Jian’s eyes, then the rest of his features. Jian himself was able to lift his good hand, with assistance, and wipe it weakly away.

  Ju-Long was at the ready with another bottle. She held it to Jian’s mouth with one hand and with the other she helped lift his head up, so that he could drink it properly.

  “How do you feel?” Beck asked once the bottle was empty.

  Jian laid his head back, a faintly puzzled expression on his face.

  “I… I cannot even say how I feel in my own language, let alone English. I… I think I’m in pain. I don’t know. It is so weird. I remember… I remember… I was unwell, I think? I felt…”

  He looked around.

  “This is not where we…” Another pause. “We moved to a new island. I was on the raft.”

  “That’s right. Do you remember why we had to move?”

  “The… dragons? One of them bit me…”

  At that he tried to lift his injured arm. Ju-Long had tied it so that it couldn’t move and he only looked vaguely puzzled when he felt resistance.

  “May I have more water?” His voice grew even fainter. “I am very tired…”

  He managed to get through half a fresh bottle before his eyes closed and his head lolled. Beck gently pressed his finger against the tendon in his neck, where the carotid artery passed close beneath. It was the best place to feel even a weak pulse.

  The pulse was steady. Steady was good, he told himself. Wasn’t it?

  He and Ju-Long looked at each other over Jian’s still form.

  “We will have to tell him,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, but all in good time.” He didn’t want to say, Let’s see if he lives first…

  “This Aron Ralston,” she said after a pause. “He lived?”

  “Yup. He’s alive and well, but his piano playing days are behind him.”

  She scowled, and Beck remembered she did not always appreciate his sense of humour.

  “While Jian is unconscious, I will change the bandages.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  He lifted Jian’s arm up while Ju-Long unwrapped the bandages. First she dripped water on them to soften the clotted blood, so that she could pull them away from Jian’s skin. The end of Jian’s arm was a mass of raw, red flesh and dried blood, and fresh blood dribbled out of the rough surface immediately the bandages were free. Jian had their freshly boiled replacements ready. She started to wrap – and then paused.

  “Beck. Look.”

  Beck’s spirits, which had been rising as if pulled up by a very thin thread, plummeted. The thread had snapped.

  The red lines that showed the course of the dragon’s infection were creeping up Jian’s skin above the cut.

  Were they there because the bacteria were still fighting Jian’s immune system? And if so, were they winning or was Jian? It had been nearly twenty four hours since Jian got bitten. How far had the bacteria spread around his body in that time? How much damage had they done that he couldn’t see?

  In theory, with the source of the infection removed, Jian’s body should be able to fight back and defeat them. But Jian’s body was hardly in the best shape. It might simply lack the strength.

  If those lines were spreading, Jian could still die. Or Beck would have to amputate even higher. And that might just weaken Jian so much that he would die anyway.

  Where was their rescue? When would anyone miss them?

  Chapter 36

  The rain let up eventually. Beck and Ju-Long had both drunk their fill of clean water, and refilled the bottles several times. They sat in tense silence and continued to moisten Jian’s lips as often as they could, getting water slowly into him, drop by drop. They said nothing – there was nothing to say.

  For breakfast they nibbled on some cold pork. They had left it on its skewer over the fire during the night so that the smoke would keep away any insects that might have felt like sharing their meal. Then they had brought it under the shelter with them when the sky opened.

  Feeding Jian was out of the question without him waking up, which he didn’t do. Beck felt his pulse frequently. It stayed steady. Beck was unsure if that meant he wasn’t getting any worse, or that he was improving. Sometimes Beck lifted an eyelid with his thumb, and saw how Jian’s pupil immediately contracted in the daylight. So, that meant his brain was functioning. But if Jian had had any kind of consciousness, there would have been resistance in the eyelid when it was lifted up. And there was none, which meant Jian was well and truly unconscious. Beck could only hope and pray that deep down, Jian’s body was gathering strength that would eventually burst out into the rest of him.

  Even after the rain had stopped, they stayed under the shelter with their injured friend. Maybe Jian didn’t know they were there, with his conscious mind. But his unconscious mind could still register their presence, Beck thought. The pair of them were sending a signal: You are not alone. We are here for you. We want you back.

  The woods around them were alive with the sound of dripping water. Drip, drip, drip. It was a cold, dull sound. The sky was still clouded over and the island seemed grey and lifeless.

  Beck felt the same. He knew they were running out of options and he felt sick inside and it wasn’t just from hunger.

  Come on, Beck. Be positive. Contribute. Make a change. That’s how you stay ahead of any dark cloud that might be chasing your thoughts.

  “I’ll get the fire going again,” Beck said out of the blue. Ju-Long nodded. Activity, warmth – those would lift the spirits. And Beck had found it was a universal rule that a good fire could banish the gloom, inside and outside your head.