I dedicate this story to my Australian friends.
1
Fast air-blasts hastened a hang glider, soaring in the cloudless blue sky. In front of the pilot’s eyes below sometimes parts of an untouched forest of eucalyptuses and an overgrowth of grey yellow scrubs spreaded, sometimes a thicket of blackthorns and wild cherry-tree, alternating with rubber trees and mimosas, were visible. For a short time one of the slopes of a low hill with undersized bushes attracted the sportsman’s attention. It was not surprising, because four travellers were on the low hill. They also noticed the hang glider and waved him in farewell friendly as if wished him a happy journey. While gathering speed, the hang glider flew swift over the low hill and having turned to the east, it disappeared soon.
“Oh, it will be fine to take the pilot’s place”, sighed Andrei, having followed with his eyes the hang glider. “My Christina is luckier than me, surely their plane must be on the way to Aby Dhabi”.
“To my mind, you said that your bride is a stewardess, isn’t she?” asked curious Martin, the fellow like a hippie with an ear-ring and tattoos on his hands.
“Yes, she works at Virgin Australia. But Christina will be my bride not long. Two weeks later we’ll going to marry. That day two years will be from our meeting in the Cook Islands”.
“How romantic!” Janet, Martin’s girlfriend, admired. “And you, Holger? Have you a girl?”
“Now, I’m very busy, I work hard”, answered the thin young man, putting straight his glasses and looking aside from his iPhone.
“Finish your vegetarianism, Hol, and everything will be all right with girls”, Martin advised resolutely and taped on the programmer’s shoulder without formality. “Put away your iPhone, chum, or you’ll wring your neck. You’ll not see even Berlin streets here; this is a national park in Australia”.
Having continued their easy talk, the tourists shortly after descended from a slope and found themselves in a dense tropical forest. Their way laid across a thicket of eucalyptuses with thin trunks, decorated with light rosy spots, an overgrowth of green palmaceous xanthorrhoea and grey dove-coloured bushes. While making its way through the trees’ branches, the spring sun brightly shone in the sky, and the ground was adorned with a sea of various flowers. Scarlet calendula and snow-white everlasting flowers like an endless carpet covered many kilometres. Yellow, purple and blue flowers either proudly raised their heads above low bushes or their brushes weakly trailed on a thorny overgrowth.
The nature reigned over the national park far and wide. With a melodious singing, wrens jumped along the grass and branches, snow-white and rosy cockatoos hid in tops of trees. From time to time loud roars of laughter of a gigantic kookaburra and clear musical shouts of singing crows were heard and not far yellow honeyeaters surveyed flowers. At a distance of five metres Janet accidentally saw a clumsy pair of red yellow rosellas, which dragged their long tails along the ground and tried to find food. Having noticed the girl’s attention, the parrots retuned to a eucalyptus and continued to browse its buds and flowers.
Both the animals of the eucalyptus forest were different, and four tourists, who found themselves together in a park of New South Wales, had not much in common. Perhaps, they were united only their appearance, they had caps or sombreros on, rucksacks behind their backs, wore sports shirt and shorts. The first of travellers, Andrei Galitsky, aged twenty eight, belonged to the people, who could not live without extreme tourism and took journeys to exotic places. This slim, not tall, brown-haired young man moved to Australia from the Crimea five years ago, and last two years his future father-in-law and he were occupied with sea cruises.
Martin Roberts, an overfamiliar fellow, putting on weight, celebrated recently his twenty fifth birthday. The red-haired young man, who posed as a stern, fearless biker, worked as a disk jockey at a little known Sydney night-club and dreamt to reap the laurels of Eminem, an American rapper. He was accompanied by his fervent admirer, nineteen-year-old Janet Wilson, with hairs, dyed in the all colours of rainbow, and with piercings in her nose and ears.
The programmer Holger Braunmiller, a tall, blond German of thirty, followed in the rear of the other tourists. Holger, a citizen of Berlin, was not a sociable and a talkative man. During ten years, from 2001, he did not eat meat, never parted with his tablet and laptop and voted always for the Pirate Party of Germany, which fought for expansion of Internet influence and creation of so-called transparent state with its help.
2
One and a half hour later four travellers went to a spacious meadow, which grew over rich green grass. Near it a deep river and a wooden bridge, uniting two banks, were visible. Several grey kangaroos, nibbling at grass calmly, had a rest in the meadow. The kangaroo’s height was almost human; they went on their four paws, stopped often and lifted their right front paws. Holger took a particular interest in a female of kangaroo with its pouch, where two its amusing babies sat carefreely. Having forgotten everything, the programmer, who wanted to take a successful photo by his iPhone, began to approach nearer and nearer to the animal. However the kangaroo was not going to pose and stood hurriedly on its hind paws. Having cast a glance at the luckless photographer, the female turned on its heels and jumped rapidly in the direction of high rose eucalyptuses with grey and blue foliage.“Hol’s der Teufel! Dummes Tier! (Damn it! Foolish animal! )” the vexed programmer exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, Holger”, Andrei tried to console him. “You’ll make a picture another time. I think the kangaroo isn’t a rarity for German zoos”.
“Yes, for the first time I saw kangaroos in my native Frankfurt am Main”, answered Holger, having become more tranquil. “But what a photo could be!”
“Oh, are you really from Frankfurt?” Andrei rejoiced. “I was there. My Christina’s cousin lives in this city”.
“Guys, what did you forget there?” Martin hailed them in his immediate manner. “Didn’t you ever see kangaroos? Here they are by thousands. Let’s better cross that side and go to the waterfall”.
Having left the green meadow, the young people crossed the bridge to the accompaniment of a ringing croak of bullfrogs, sitting on the river’s bank. The tourists already went to the middle of the bridge, when Holger dropped his iPhone accidentally. The programmer, trying to raise it, stumbled and fell into the water suddenly.
“Hilfe! (Help me!)” shouted Holger in fright. “I can’t swim!”
At that very minute Andrei dived into the river without hesitation and swam quickly to the drowning man, who was absolutely helpless, could choke with water and go to the bottom at any moment. The young man acted with confidence and determination. Having turned Holger over his back, Andrei took his chin and swam against the stream, carrying away them farther and farther, in the direction of the wooden bridge.
“Andy, hurry up!” Martin cried loudly. “A crocodile is pursuing you!”
Actually at a distance of about six metres of the swimming young men the Australian saw the clear outlines of a light green alligator of three metres long in the river. The large reptilian, decreasing the distance between them, approached swift. Martin, standing in middle of the bridge, became confused and looked round. Suddenly behind him the rapper noticed a cobble-stone not far off. Having seized it right away, he even did not take a careful sight and threw it to the alligator. Martin’s throw was very timely and successful, because the stone hit between eyes of the crocodile. Having met with a rebuff, the reptilian stopped and opened its terrible jaws with sharp, killing fangs. Andrei and the programmer, taking advantage of a propitious change, had time to swim to the bridge and to rise by the rope, which Martin and Janet let down for them.
“Schönen Dank, Andrei. Spasibo”, agitated Holder said with an accent, having remembered a Russian word, and shook his rescuer by the hand.
Both young men got wet to the skin, but scorching day sunbeams dried well their wet clothes within half an hour. Having crossed the bridge and found themselves in another bank at long last, four tourists decided to halt and to recover their powers from a strong shock. They settled down comfortably in a shady grove of eternal green sandal trees, mimosas and acacias with lacy foliage, which had a narcotic, spicy scent. Uncommon butterflies, as resuscitated precious stones, flitted about the glade, fast grasshoppers jumped; beautiful dragon-flies pursued each other noisily. From this place the travellers had a wonderful view of far mountainous peaks and a heavy waterfall, which were hidden in dense green vegetation. Holder, still shocked by last events, forgot entirely about his vegetarianism and ate heartily meat and fish pies.
“Today you were in luck, chum, as a drowned corpse”, said Martin, who want to cheer the programmer up. “You must keep your ears open, Hol, with crocodiles. If you gape at something, they will bite off your hand or leg. It’s a trifling matter for them, old chap. For example, last year in the Royal Park a man decided to fish from his boat. But instead of catch, an alligator of five metres long came up to the surface and gripped the fisherman. Nobody hasn’t seen him since”, after these words Holder stared from fright and almost choked with a pie. “It’s all right, don’t worry, Hol,” the rapper continued as if nothing had happened. “It was really a terrible accident two months ago”.
“Well, let’s talk about pleasant things, Martin”, Andrei interrupted him, going to make a joke on the others. “By the way, did you hear about a new American block-buster?”
“And what’s the film title?” Janet was interested.
“Gophers attack”, the young man answered with a sly smile. “Don’t omit it, the plot is a very original. Malicious gangs of gophers, for some reason or other, attacked Washington. The insolent rodents, which were lost to all sense of shame, destroyed an annual stock of Coke, popcorn, Pepsi and gnawed the costumes of the president, first lady, congressmen and senators. There was no even a pair of jeans in the capital, because of the gophers. The American democracy was in danger again. All the civilized world was horrified, nobody knew, how to live. But this fine film, of course, has the happy end. Stern Joe, a retired ranger, lived at his broken farm, the state of Nevada. Recently Joe was ninety five. He kept hardly his legs and suffered from sclerosis, but the old hero resolved to restore justice. In his box-room Joe found a rusty gun, forgotten by his great-great-grandfather, a veteran of the civil war between the North and South. Having taken his lame horse, Stern Joe galloped for help”, Andrei finished his story, which raised a good laugh of his friends.
3
After a good rest of one hour the tourists continued their journey. They went along a winding forest path, across a thicket of rosy and spotted eucalyptuses, which were changed then by tree ferns, casuarinas and an overgrowth of euonymus. As last time, the travellers met a few loud cockatoos, hatchings of rosellas and a flock of blue wrens. Wedge-tailed eagles, tracing their sacrifices, whirled high in the sky and in the top of a honey box Andrei was lucky to see a sleepy koala with a trick grey white fur.Having passed several kilometres, the travellers soon could go to the foot of picturesque mountainous slopes and transparent, clear waterfall. However, suddenly the hang glider’s wing, broken in two places, partitioned off the road for the young people. At a distance of a few metres they noticed broken and strongly deformed duraluminium pipes from the flying machine’s construction.
“Dog on it!” exclaimed Martin, having knitted his brows. “Is it really that hang glider, which we saw several hours ago?”
As if in answer to his question, human calls for help were heard from afar. Having turned to the right for the sound of a low voice, Andrei and Holger saw a huge baobab of twenty five metres high with a wide forked trunk, which was situated at a distance of four hundred metres from them. The parachute with the hang glider’s pilot hung on its powerful branches.
“How are you feeling? What’s happened with your hang glider?” Andrei cried to the pilot, when four tourists came near the tree.
“I’m better now”, the Asiatic man of middle age responded from above. “About forty minutes ago I flew past mountainous slopes and knocked against an eagle aerie. The birds attacked my hang glider; it lost controls and tore into a rock. At that very instant I had time for parachute jump. As you can see, I’m suspended on the tree. Please, help me to come down”.
“This is a difficult task”, the programmer said with doubt. “Only professional rescuers can help him”.
“I don’t think so”, Andrei disagreed with him and offered an interesting idea: “I have a folding tent of nylon in my rucksack. If we stretch the tent as a sheet, it will be about five metres long. We’ll stand with it under the pilot. Each of us will hold strongly the material’s ends, and sportsman will be able to jump from the tree. Where can we find rescuers? Time presses, let’s help the man now”.
“With your brains, chap, you must be a candidate for the mayor of Sydney”, Martin said with respect. “OK, let’s try. As to us, we’ll lose nothing”.
Preparations of the improvised insurance took only twenty minutes. At the command of Andrei the pilot unfastened his parachute and flew down at great speed. Having landed on the nylon material, he slid to the left and knocked down Martin.
“I already saw your physiognomy somewhere”, remembered the rapper, looking narrowly at the sportsman. “Did you score third place at our hang gliding championship in Forbes?”
“Quite so, sir”, the pilot answered politely, helping Martin to stand up. “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Zhou Heng. I’m from Hong Kong. Thank you very much for your help”, he said cordially, having turned to the other tourists. “Sorry to trouble you again, but my walkie-talkie and mobile phone also are broken. I’d like to calm my friends; may I use one of your phones?”
“It isn’t a problem, sportsman”, responded Martin, giving his telephone to Zhou Heng.
Having talked in a Chinese dialect for a few minutes, the pilot returned the mobile phone to the rapper.
“Mister Zhou, we’re going to have a rest near the waterfall. Would you like to keep our company?” Andrei offered.
“With great pleasure”, the Chinaman smiled. “It’s impossible to restore my hang glider, and I acquainted myself with the baobab in detail”.
While enjoying freshness and admiring a magnificent mountain waterfall, travellers bombarded Zhou Heng with numerous questions about China, his native Hong Kong and, of course, about hang gliding, which he was carried away from sixteen years old. Time flew, but the tourists noticed not at once, that a hot spring day was replaced by evening twilight and the sunset decorated the sky and a neighbouring valley with a beautiful radiance of golden and rosy colours.