BY now the moon had set, and we were forced to navigate by the stars. I had never tried this before and Ted reckoned that astral navigation was not exactly one of his strong points.
The Southern Cross added to our confusion by persistently pointing in the wrong direction and Orion was below the horizon. We picked a star and headed for it.
It might well have been the wrong star to choose, but at least it would save us from going round in circles.
By some quirk of fate, we must have picked the right star, because we soon found ourselves among the huts on the edge of the clearing. We had just begun a box-search for the track, when the man who had directed us to the river came out of his hut again and directed us homewards.
The road was just as rough on the way back as it had been on the way out, but this time we were prepared for it and it seemed much easier. We picked up my Land Rover and joined the other vehicle at the causeway.
Meanwhile, back in the boat, they had seen our lights disappear and resigned themselves to sleeping out for the night, even though it was winter and they hadn’t a stitch of warm clothing between them.
Ted volunteered to drive back to our picnic site to see if they had gone back to their starting point. The rest of us were to return to Orapa and take up position near a radio set, waiting for Ted to call from Mopipi and ready to summon a search party if necessary.
Ted duly set off, but we realised, as we got to Mopipi, that the west gate to Orapa would be closed by the time we got there and we were not going to have enough time to drive round the security fence to the east gate and get to a radio before Ted’s call came through. We would have to stay at Mopipi.
We put two of the boat club’s armchairs together to make a bed for Karen. She had no supper, no milk, and no panda to cuddle, but she was much too tired to care. She just slept.
We brewed some tea, and settled down to wait. A note had to be put in the radio room, to tell Ted where we were. This posed problems. We had nothing to write with, and nothing to write on.
In the end we burned half-a-dozen matches and scratched our message in charcoal on a lens cleaning tissue. By then it was 9.30pm and we reckoned that Ted should be back by 10.45.
(Meanwhile, back in the boat, they were wet and cold. They had been wading waist-deep in the river, towing the boat through places where the engine would not take it, but had still failed to find a place where they could land and make a fire. It was only much later, when they were safely back in Orapa, that they were told that that particular stretch of the river was infested with crocodiles.)
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