Just as I was thinking that our situation could not get any worse, there was a faint scraping sound. Our vessel had touched bottom. We were in mid-river and had been travelling so slowly that it took me a little while to appreciate that now we had come to a complete stop. The boat was caught fast on a shoal.
Our crew were waving at the boats behind us, signalling that they were to head for the bank, and not follow us onto the underwater obstacle.
The head boatman seemed unconcerned. A stocky, square man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, he rolled back his sleeves, revealing thick forearms covered with thick black hair. He probed the river bottom with a long pole. I thought he was searching for a deeper channel to get us over the shoal, but he was only trying to locate a firm spot where he could rest the tip of the pole, then push. He and his three comrades heaved and shoved until reluctantly our boat slid backwards into deeper water. Then, without a word to me or Abram, they began to punt our boat to join the others already nestled against the bank. There they rammed the bow of our boat deep into the reeds. One of them leaped ashore and fastened a heavy mooring line around the trunk of a sapling.
I was dismayed.
‘Aren’t you going to try to get past that shoal?’ I demanded of the head boatman. He looked blank and Abram relayed my question in a language that I only partially understood.
‘He only speaks Burgundian,’ the dragoman explained after listening to the boatman’s reply. ‘He says that it is better we spend the night here. It is safer for us.’
I looked around. The river took its course through an immense untouched forest. On both banks rose a solid wall of huge trees, heavy with summer foliage. There was no movement, no sign of life, no sound. Even the leaves were motionless in the muggy, still air. I wondered why the boatman sought safety when our surroundings were so peaceful.
‘Please let him know that progress today was very disappointing. Ask him how far he thinks we will travel tomorrow. I’m worried we’ll run out of food for the animals,’ I said.
Another exchange of conversation, and Abram informed me that the boatman expected to make good progress the following day and to reach a town where we could purchase rations for the animals.
I accepted his response grudgingly and waited for our boatmen to go ashore and set up camp. However, they made no move to do so. Instead, they fastened extra ropes between our four vessels, drawing them even closer together until they were buried deep within the reed bed, their blunt bows almost touching the bank. It seemed that we were to spend the night on board.
Walo fed the animals from our stores, and Abram’s camp cook dangled lines off the stern of our boat and caught several plump fish with silvery-gold scales. He alone was allowed by the boatmen to go ashore to light a fire and broil the fish. After the meal the head boatman insisted that he return aboard. As the evening shadows lengthened, I wondered yet again why we were not being allowed to spend the night on dry land, and what was so dangerous in the brooding forest.
Dusk came early beneath a lowering sky, the clouds massing together until their undersides took on the texture of curdled milk. From far away sheet lightning flickered over the leafy canopy. Rumbles of thunder reached us, but so faint that they only emphasized the deep silence of the great trees.
As the darkness settled over our little flotilla, a noise began, croaking and scratching. It rose gradually from the reeds as myriads of the frogs and insects began their chorus. The noise was muted at first. Then it grew louder and louder, reaching such a level that it seemed to vibrate the air with a constant humming, buzzing whine. Sleep was near impossible. The noise penetrated right inside one’s skull. At intervals the din would die away. Then a few moments later it returned at full strength, interspersed with chirps and high-pitched whistles. I had never heard anything like it and it was a long time before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.
I woke suddenly. There were neither stars nor moon and the night was so black that it was impossible to gauge the time. I could have been asleep for an hour or much longer. I lay still, wondering what had awakened me. The night chorus had eased to a low, background hum, as if the creatures in the reeds were exhausted. I felt the boat rock beneath me, a gentle swaying movement, as if it were encouraging me to return to sleep. I turned over and dozed. Moments later the boat rocked again, more violently this time. Close to my ear the water was rippling past the thin wooden hull, a sound that had not been there earlier. There came another shaking movement, and the boat bumped against its neighbour. I sat up and peered into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen. There was a rubbing and creaking from the ropes tethering the vessel to the bank, then a distinct crunch as the bow bumped on gravel. I could just make out the figure of one of our boatmen. He was crouching in the bow, attending to the mooring line.