... a bit more gloomy, right from the start. We woke up to find that vultures had eaten our little piglet, leaving us with nothing. Carl tried to put a shine on it by saying the pig had gone off already and that we wouldn’t have been able to eat it anyway. He was right, of course, but now we had no food and another day’s march ahead of us. At least the sky was overcast and looked as if rain was on the cards; the thought of getting a mouthful of water like yesterday buoyed me up but still, we had nothing but worry ahead of us.

Deciding what to do next, we took a look around. We saw a hill, some distance away, to the left of us. It didn’t seem big but we could tell it was quite steep, and while mostly barren stony ground, there were patches of grass poking through here and there. On the hilltop we spied a rather large tree and some bushes, clumps of them, and quite green too. The area looked promising so we agreed to investigate it further, in case there was water to be found near there.

It took us quite a while to reach the summit and we were exhausted when we got there. We quickly established there was no water or food. I felt frustrated and worried ‘cause Carl looked worse than he did yesterday. I could tell he was much weaker, though he didn’t complain. I suggested we have a rest before going on. He seemed relieved. We lay down under the tree, made ourselves as comfortable as we could. We were really thirsty and I wished to God we could pee, but neither of us could manage it. It was plain to see that the sky was our best bet at this point, and so we resolved to have faith and wait for rain. Then something quite unpleasant happened; I felt the urge to empty my bowels. The desire came upon me quickly and there was no stopping it so I was obliged to tell Carl and we had get up again. We went where there was leaves, behind the biggest bush we could find, as far from our resting place as we could manage at such a short notice.

I got down to business and Carl busied himself whistling a tune; Cats in the Cradle I think it was, and he was very good at it, did some runs and trills, and kept to the melody while he did it; it sounded real good so I praised him, and he explained to me that one time he was a regular churchgoer and he even sang in the choir and sometimes they let him play the harmonica. I had no such uplifting story to tell so I only replied that I had never been good at music though I liked it all my life, and I also told him that at school I played the glockenspiel, to which Carl replied that playing the glockenspiel was better than playing the triangle to which I added that I had played the triangle a few times, just as a stand-in, and even banged a pair of big flat lids at a school concert once. Carl corrected me there and said I probably meant to say cymbals, which is exactly the word I’d been searching for. And so I thanked him, saying I’d appreciated his correcting me as I all my life thirsted for knowledge, to which Carl graciously replied that if I wanted to learn all he knew I only needed to ask. During this informative exchange I managed to finish doing everything I had to do to successfully conclude my task and so was now adjusting my trousers when all of a sudden a loud swishing noise coming from the big bush on our left caused us to look over there and what happened next was truly unexpected and horrendous, all the more for it.

A huge feral hog emerged from behind the bush and was charging straight at us. There wasn’t even a second to spare; we moved as one man, leaping to the side, out of the way of this monster. However, fortune was not on our side that day; we jumped in opposite directions and fell to the ground as the chain stretched its full length between us. The force of this almost pulled my arm off and I howled with the pain of it, startling the pig which now was upon us. The creature halted and made a sound, and in the split second this took Carl hurled himself on top of me, taking the brunt of the pig’s assault which came as swiftly and unexpectedly as the moments before. I knew Carl had been bitten because he screamed with an intensity I have no words to describe other than to say that it literally shook me.

The hog charged again. Emitting a deep grunt, it kicked its short legs upwards narrowly missing us; simultaneously Carl rolled off me and jumped to his feet, jerking me up to my knees. The pig came at us again, charging with its massive head right up and its long mouth wide open. This time Carl lunged at the pig sideways and landed on its back, straddling the thing as if it were a horse. I was pulled closer to it, of course; being chained to Carl, I found myself dangerously close to the pig’s snout. The pig looked at me, froze and stared at me. Its eyes were small, narrow, mean and bloodshot. The pig grunted again, then its snout opened and I felt its breath on my face; I smelled it and almost passed out from the stench. The fear that came over me in that instant literally left me breathless.

Then Carl pulled on the chain. It tugged at my hand and I realized the chain was caught under the pig’s chin, and I grasped what I was meant to do and I did it. I jumped to my feet raising my shackled hand as high as I could to tighten the chain around the creature’s neck just as the pig snapped back to life. It squealed a loud, high pitched squeal and charged forward, dragging Carl on his back and me along the ground for a bit until I managed to grab hold of Carl and pull myself up on top of the pig behind him. We hung on for dear life, literally, because the pig wasn’t giving up. It squealed and twisted and we pulled hard on the chain, choking it. The pig was determined to live but Carl wouldn’t let go; I hung onto the animal from behind and together we managed to bring it to the ground. There the pig ran out of steam; it collapsed and lay still with its eyes bulging half way out of their sockets, and its tongue hanging out of its foaming mouth, and blood was dribbling down its front where the chain had cut into the skin. Occasionally, its legs twitched. I don’t know how long we hung on but it must have been a while before the pig ceased to struggle altogether. Still, we didn’t let go for a long time, and I felt I was going to pass out with the effort of it. Eventually Carl loosened the grip and we collapsed on the ground on either side of the pig, which now appeared completely dead.

I felt surreal, like I was dreaming, caught in a never-ending nightmare. I was aching all over and there was a foul stench in the air as the pig evacuated its bowels just as it died and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to move again but then I heard Carl moaning and I opened my eyes and saw Carl in pain. He was calling for me so I pulled the chain from under the pig’s head and crawled around it to get to him. Straight away I could see that he was in a pretty bad shape. He lay on his stomach, and the seat of his pants was soaked in blood where he got bit. He asked me to take a closer look at the damage so I peeked at the wound without touching it as I could see quite clearly through the big hole the hog tore out of his pants and his underwear. The wound was nasty; some flesh had been torn out and there was quite a bit of blood.

I took off my shoes and my socks and folded the socks over, then placed this makeshift pad onto the wound to stop the bleeding. Then I tore the sleeves off my shirt and tied them together to make a bandage which I wound around the pad to secure it in place. Carl had to lift his hips a bit to enable me to slip one sleeve under them, which he did though it caused him considerable pain. But we managed to bandage his wound and stop the bleeding somewhat. With the wound thus temporarily secured, there was nothing else I could immediately do to help Carl so I lay down next to him and we rested. We needed to gather our thoughts and strength as now we were completely depleted of energy.