because after another ear-splitting series of cries, the sound of hooves died away and we were left, shaken, by the edge of the river. In the quiet that followed, I suddenly heard a loud crunching noise. It was the sound of crocodile jaws snapping in the darkness nearby.
I thought it was probably OK to feel a little bit frightened.
It turned out that we had been going in the right direction, and it was only another three hours before we could see a landing strip and some buildings. When we slumped gratefully into the transition area we discovered that four teams had gone on, but the organisers had decided there wasn’t going to be enough time to complete the course. With two days of race left there was still the pack-rafting leg to go, a 27-kilometre trek, 85 kilometres of kayaking and 251 kilometres of mountain biking. Even for highly trained endurance athletes that was going to be a tall order.
So the race was cut back and the waiting teams were airlifted out in three-seater planes to the final bike stage. Flying over the plains and jungles of the Pantanal, scrunched up in the tiny, noisy biplane, I wasn’t in the mood to admire the view; instead I was busy working out the implications of all this for our position in the race. Although it was impossible to work out the rankings with any accuracy, I was pretty sure that if four teams were able to finish the race then our top six ranking overall for the year was in serious jeopardy. As we landed with teeth-shattering bumps on the rough landing strip, I felt pretty downbeat. Not a good mindset with which to go into the 250-kilometre biking leg – which had been billed as one of the toughest in an extremely tough race.
Almost as soon as we started, our bikes were slowed down to a crawl by the sand, which seemed to clog up everything from the bikes’ wheels to our eyes and feet. The temperatures were soaring up again into the forties and we soon ran out of water. It was so searingly hot that it seemed somehow unsurprising that in the distance, bang in the middle of our route, we saw what looked like a huge grass fire.
As we got nearer its heat grew more intense, and we tried to turn off the track in search of water, any water, before it got dark. Our route took us right near the fire, but as we cut through the nearby jungle, the fire lit up a glimmering, shimmering mass. I began to understand how people hallucinate in the desert when they’re dying of thirst. But then, dimly, we could make out the sound of snapping jaws. It could only be the sound of crocodiles, which could only mean that there really was water there. Talk about good news and bad news.
We crouched down at what was really only a stagnant pond. As we knelt down to fill our water bottles, I tried not to think about the now-familiar snapping sounds. But looking up I could see, shining through the gloom, three large pairs of eyes. The crocs were just the other side of this small expanse of water. Quickly we filled our bottles. Wondering quite what we’d just collected, I held the contents of my bottle up to my headlamp. It looked like muddy Coca-Cola. And it tasted far worse. Praying that we hadn’t given ourselves an obscure waterborne disease, we lay down for an hour of much-needed sleep.
By the time the sun came up, seemingly moments later, the sky seemed to look much darker than it had done the previous day. Could it be that, incredibly, the darkness meant cloud – and therefore water? It could and it did. As the rains started we looked up to the heavens and felt our bodies were absorbing the welcome wet like sponges.
Soon after that we had to navigate a river. Still feeling the pain from the preceding days, I decided we’d use our bikes to support us as we swam upriver – the air in the tyres kept them on the surface of the water and progress was quite swift. So much so that I was able to look around.
For a moment my brain didn’t compute what I was looking at. Was it a particularly thick tyre, a tractor tyre perhaps? Or the root of a tree, somehow growing into the middle of the river? Then I realised it was an anaconda. And I could see there were lumps in it; it was eating something. Something almost as big as itself. My mind flew back to a video I’d once seen of an anaconda eating a cow. I tried not to think about it, and just concentrated on swimming as smoothly and calmly as I could, even though at one point it was no more than three metres away.
As we got to the mouth of the river I was dimly aware of people fishing on the banks, and I was also dimly aware that they were gaping open-mouthed at us. Yup, I thought to myself, we are probably as mad as we look. But I also felt a great respect for the people who lived here – a country that was doing its best to chew us up and spit us out like the anaconda I’d just left behind.
Maybe that burst of adrenaline had got to me, though, because almost as soon as we got back on the bikes, I felt the exhaustion and fever come back. The sun had come up now; the heat was unbearable and the sand was making the going harder than ever. Unable to ride my bike uphill through the sand, I started to push it. I was starting to feel all the classic symptoms of severe heatstroke – the fever, faintness and exhaustion that I felt couldn’t be explained by anything less. Trying to get back on the bike, I collapsed instead by the side of the road. Once this had happened three times, Jonas pulled me up and tied a towline to his bike. This helped for a little while, but I was feeling weaker than I could ever remember feeling, almost as if my body was about to shut down. Trying hard to concentrate on staying upright, every muscle straining, I began to hallucinate. This, I found myself thinking, must be how it feels before your body gives up and you die.
And as soon as I allowed myself to think of dying I felt a far greater despair. For this I’d be leaving behind the light of my life, Helena, my lovely Philippa and brand new Thor. And for this I would leave Arthur, whose life had been saved – and transformed – by our friendship.
In the heat of the jungle, and the hallucination of my fever, I could now see Arthur just ahead of me. Just as clearly as if he were really there. He was walking slowly and steadily, looking neither to the left nor to the right, just walking with a quiet determination in the way that he had when we first met, seeming to know that where he went I would follow. Tensing every muscle, I somehow found the strength to put one foot in front of the other, walking along the path that Arthur seemed to tread in the vegetation.
‘OK, boy,’ I said under my breath. ‘If you can do it, so can I. I’m not going to give up any more than you did. You and I are not done yet.’
From somewhere I found the strength to finish that last stretch. As I crossed the finishing line, I looked up at the sky and gave Arthur and my family a silent thank you. I couldn’t wait to get home and give them a thank-you hug in real life.
DOG’S NAME: Billy
AGE: 12
OWNER: Ann
FROM: Nowzad, Afghanistan
LIVES: Hertfordshire, UK
‘Billy has come a long, long way to be our dog. I have always been a dog lover, and grew up with them, and even though my husband didn’t, we always wanted to get one. We knew we could never buy a dog from a shop as we’d learned all about puppy farming, but for a long time we were living in a small flat that the rescue charities we went to said weren’t suitable for their dogs, so when we finally moved into a house we couldn’t wait to adopt a rescue! Our first dogs were two Westies: Daisy and Tommy, who made it to the ripe old ages of fifteen and sixteen.
I’m
