Chapter Eight

The two girls, decked once again with baby and heavy rucksacks, trekked through the forest with renewed resolution. Although their stomachs complained and the baby was growing more restless, it seemed that Katrin’s near-death experience had spurred them on to survive.

They followed a narrow track which Meredith strongly suspected would take them to the base of the mountain. Most likely carved by the hooves and paws of many animals over time, it rambled through dense thickets and small clearings, skirted its way around pools of water and enormous trees, delved into small valleys and scoured gentle slopes. Sometimes it was a wide track, other times it was narrow and overgrown and seemed almost to lose itself completely amongst the trees and shrubbery or under long grass; but the girls would follow their instinct, and always, at some point or another, it would become visible again, much to their relief. The track was like their guiding star.

It seemed like they had been travelling in this way for hours. The girls seldom spoke to each other; they were absorbed in their own thoughts, trying to forget about the gnawing hunger, the fatigue of their bodies and the baby’s incessant crying. On one occasion Meredith suddenly stopped in her tracks, passed the baby to Katrin without any explanation, sat down on a nearby boulder and proceeded to try and take off her rucksack. Katrin quietly went to her sister’s aid and then watched with a sinking heart as Meredith took out what was left of the food preserves- the yoghurt, several blueberries, a couple of crackers. She knew fine well for what purpose they were about to serve.

“I can’t stand her crying anymore,” said Meredith, rummaging about for some kind of feeding utensil. “I’ll give her the yoghurt, the blueberries and some milk. We can have what’s left of the milk and a cracker each. It’ll help to take the edge off our hunger.”

Katrin nodded her agreement, although she wished that they could have saved the food for just that little bit longer. Anything to stop the baby from crying, though, she reasoned with herself. Besides, they might be fortunate enough to stumble across another source of food in the near future; fruit trees, for example. She had never seen a wild fruit tree in this part of the country- at least not the kind of fruit fit to be eaten- but she could always hope. Hadn’t a miracle already happened for them today?

The girls sat down together under the shade of a tree and Meredith began to feed the baby with the yoghurt. She stopped crying and received it gladly, hardly stopping to take a breath as she gulped down each mouthful. Katrin wondered if the child would ever come to know how much had been sacrificed for her. Or was it a sacrifice? Could it be called a sacrifice when the motive was so far from being selfless? It was, in fact, a course of action taken in desperation, for the preservation of the girls’ sanity.

Once the yoghurt had been consumed, Meredith fed the child the milk, leaving about a third of the flask for herself and Katrin. The baby accepted the milk with as much enthusiasm as she had accepted the yoghurt. Finally, the blueberries and crackers were distributed evenly among the girls... and baby. As Meredith had forewarned, the food merely took the edge off their hunger, providing them with enough energy to get their belongings together again and their rucksacks back on their shoulders, and little more. Only the baby seemed fairly contented with the meagre meal, and, about ten minutes back into the journey, fell asleep on Meredith’s shoulder.