The Ritual

Phil, who seized him, his head down, and he squeezed Luke’s biceps so hard Luke thought Phil’s long dirty nails had drawn blood
inside his waterproof. He had to prise Phil’s fingers off his arms. Then hold Dom’s shoulders as he too shook from terror or grief or a panic attack; Luke didn’t know. And for a
long time they were all disorientated and incapable in the darkness and the cold. They blundered. They cried. Until they all sat and stared in silence, shivering in the cold that drew their warmth
from out of their fragile bodies and into the dense black earth.

THIRTY-ONE
    ‘You can’t stay here.’ Luke spoke quietly to Dom, who sat on his pack beside the demolished tent. ‘You’ve a few hours in that knee this morning to
make another concerted effort to get out of here. We’ll keep going south. We have to. Now. In as straight a line as possible.’
    Dom hung his head between his knees. He’d grieved himself to silent exhaustion before they had even taken a step.
    Luke took a deep drag on his cigarette and then spoke through the veil of bluish smoke hanging before his face. ‘Your knee is shot. It’ll seize up before midday. Me and Hutch . .
.’ he paused and swallowed, ‘we talked last night. We were hoping you two would be able to rest up for a day or two here, while I carried on to find a way out and get us help. He wanted
you off your knee for a bit. And to give Phil time to get his wind back. There is enough water for a couple of days, and we know where to get more if help is more than two days away. But everything
has changed now. We cannot . . . we cannot spend another night in this place. End of story.’
    ‘Don’t,’ was all Dom said, elbows on his knees, lifting his bruised and puffy face and looking at Luke in such a way as to prevent any reminder of what happened at night out
here.
    Luke waved a hand as if to knock something away. ‘I’ve just been looking for . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘He was taken through there.’ Luke pointed at the faint
aperture in the wall of scrub on his right side. ‘The way it’s all been broken down stops about twenty feet in. And the blood.’
    ‘You’re not leaving us here. We stick together from now on,’ Phil suddenly blurted out from where he was standing at the side of the clearing, looking into the wet
darkness.
    Luke nodded. ‘Of course. Goes without saying.’
    Dom looked at him. ‘You don’t know where the fuck we are, do you?’
    ‘Vaguely.’
    Dom laughed mirthlessly. ‘Vaguely. Vaguely. Haven’t we had enough of vaguely? I mean vaguely is the reason we are sitting here now around a tent full of blood. Any more vague ideas
of which way we should be heading are going to get the rest of us killed.’
    Phil sucked in his breath.
    Luke studied the outline of Dom’s face, again suppressing the urge, which came up his throat like panic, to just take off on his own. He took a moment to place his thoughts in a careful
row. ‘The chance to retrace our steps back out of here is long gone. So we have no choice but to keep going south. We’ve got to hope we can break out through the closest edge of the
forest. What Hutch was aiming for.’
    Phil looked at Dom. ‘We have to. I’m not staying here, waiting for help.’
    Luke looked at his watch. ‘Today we should have reached Porjus. Tomorrow night we’re supposed to head back to Stockholm. Day after that we’re supposed to be back home
early.’ He looked at the other two and heard a note of hope lighten his tone of voice. ‘How long before someone realizes something’s gone wrong for us and raises the alarm? Your
folks expecting you guys to call home tonight? Tomorrow?’
    Neither Phil nor Dom would meet his eye. Both looked down in a new kind of discomfort that had nothing to do with exhaustion, cold, or a lack of sleep. It was as if they had suddenly realized
the consequences of some unfortunate news.
    Hutch said they were both separated, but Luke wondered what that really meant. Would they still be in daily contact with their wives because of the kids? Would they be expected to physically
reappear and perform fatherly duties at a prescribed time? Because no one was expecting him to call. He’d only been seeing Charlotte, casually, for a month. His supervisor at work would call
his mobile if he didn’t show up on Monday. But that was still four days away. And being absent from work and out of reach for a few days would not result in his colleagues