Claws of the Crocodile by Bear Grylls

Author:Bear Grylls
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RHCP

Chapter 17

‘Don’t move,’ Beck called. ‘I’m coming up.’

He began to scramble up the crumbling wall of rock, as quickly as he dared.

Beck had already been through the options in his head. The snake hadn’t attacked Brihony – yet. There was no particular reason to think it would, if it didn’t feel threatened. But she couldn’t even withdraw her hand, in case it mistook the movement for some kind of threat. She couldn’t climb back down – not with a venomous snake literally hanging over her head. And she certainly couldn’t keep climbing. Even if she was only passing through, the king brown could give her a bite that could kill her very fast. The dose of neurotoxin injected straight into her bloodstream would start its work almost immediately, attacking the nerves that controlled all her movements – including her breathing and the beating of her heart. She would die fighting for breath, heart pounding out of control, paralysed and in pain.

It took him only a minute to reach the ledge, a short distance from where Brihony was. He looked along it at her pale face, and at the snake in between.

It was at least two metres long, with a body as thick as a man’s arm. Its tail was still concealed in a dark crack in the rock. It must have been sleeping in there when it heard Brihony coming. Maybe it had mistaken the vibrations for something more its own size – a lizard, or a small mammal. Maybe even a dingo with unusual rock-climbing skills. And so it had come out to investigate.

The dark-rimmed scales were like brown leather. It looked like someone had just dumped a mass of scaly coils onto the ledge. The blunt head was raised, the eyes, like small black pebbles, aimed squarely at Brihony’s face. The snake flicked its tongue, sampling the air.

It adjusted its position slightly. Glistening, smooth scales slid over one another as it tightened its coils. Beck had held many snakes before and he knew what they felt like. They weren’t at all slimy, but dry, like polished leather coated in smooth wax.

The snake hadn’t yet noticed Beck come up further along the ledge. Beck swallowed. What he was about to do was risky and could get at least one of them killed. But he had no other option. He had to kill the snake before either it struck out at Brihony, or Brihony’s arms and legs gave way and she fell eight metres to the rocky ground. Both could end up being fatal.

If he’d had the luxury of doing this on flat ground, he would have done it differently. He would have found a long stick with a bend at the end, and used it to pin down the snake’s head from a safe distance. Then Brihony could have moved past it safely.

Halfway up a rock face and with no stick, that wasn’t possible. And so he pulled out the machete, made sure his grip was secure, and breathed deeply.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.