Chapter 1

He woke up.

He woke up, but felt very odd, sort of muzzy in the head. He was lying on his back on short grass, looking up at a whitish cloudy sky, and he wasn’t even wearing pyjamas. The grass tickled his skin, encouraging him to get up. He at last realised that he was naked! And not in his bed, it suddenly occurred to him. He did not feel cold though, despite having no pyjamas.

Pyjamas? Why did he expect to be wearing pyjamas? That is a peculiar word for some type of clothing, he decided. His mind told him nothing more, which annoyed him.

Come to that, why was he here, and not ... wherever he was expecting to be. He could not think of that place; he just knew it was not here.

He sat up and looked around, noticing that this grassy sward was blessed with a slight slope down to the stream that burbled on its rocky way to some larger confluence. The green slope would keep the ground from becoming damp. There were sparse trees near the stream and thicker woodland beyond the watercourse. Now that was curious: he could think of several words for ‘stream’; tarn, brook, burn, beck, rivulet, and more. Why would you have so many words for the one thing?

Why could he think about a host of words for a water thing, but nothing about himself? Not even his name came to mind!

His nakedness was not complete, he suddenly realised. He was wearing a wide belt, though nothing else. Peculiar. The belt round his middle felt uncomfortably full. He wondered, why was he wearing a bulky belt, and not pyjamas? How could he even have slept with such a thing encumbering his waist?

He directed his gaze to the belt, and was further surprised to see it was an ammunition belt, with loops all round it. These loops held bolts; bolts for a crossbow, his mind told him. Did he possess a crossbow previously? He felt that he did, but in that case, where was it? Looking around some more, he discovered his crossbow on the grass behind where his head had lain.

That puzzled him too. He felt it was HIS crossbow, not A crossbow. It had the feel of familiarity about it. Did that mean he knew how to use it? He sensed that he did, and had used it effectively, but could not be sure if that assumption was accurate until he tried it out. He was not going to fire bolts at random to find out; not until he had some idea of where he was.

The grass he had been lying on was cropped fairly short. That suggested animals grazing here, but he saw no signs of such animals. Certainly within his sight range there were no dung piles on the grass. Perhaps the animals did not like to leave evidence of their presence in the open. If that was true, it implied predators somewhere in the locality; he would need to keep his eyes open for such dangers.

Was he anywhere near his house, or further afield? The word ‘house’ had come into his mind, but meant nothing to him, so he ignored it. A sniff of the air told him he was in an area where all the smells were natural. There was no hint of the stink from any kind of motor vehicle exhaust, a barbecue, or a kerosene-fuelled home heating system, whatever these things were; they were just words that popped into his mind for comparisons. Not even smoke from a wood stove – a wood stove? - was evident on the air.

All these terms seemed to make a modicum of sense to him in the way of being familiar words, but none of them conjured up pictures or ideas to go with the words. They remained known words to his mind, without the accompanying meaning which he was sure they ought to have. It was peculiar: no word association. He began to wonder if his crossbow was the same. Would he know all the terms for the parts, but have no idea how to load a bolt and fire it? This forced him finally to consider trying it out.

He got up on to his feet, and was surprised to find that his soles were calloused enough to be comfortable walking on the sharp-edged grass leaves. The grass showed no signs of being mown – whatever that meant – but was still very short, so probably grazed on by animals as he had first thought. He could envisage that sort of activity without any problem, he noted. Anything about nature and activity there, all of it had meaning attached.

It was these other words, words from his past, a past he could not remember, that conveyed no meaning.

What actually WAS this place? It was nothing that gave him the feeling of ‘home’, but looked relatively normal; a view which seemed ‘right’ as a countryside scene. As his body was comfortable without clothes, the temperature must be fairly warm, so probably summertime. Another two words that meant nothing, though as he considered, the word ‘temperature’ gave him the idea of ‘measurement of hot or cold’, and ‘summertime’ gave him the flavour of ‘warm period’.

That was a lot better than no meaning at all.

Peering beyond his immediate vicinity, the trees looked to be not very old; perhaps a decade or two in age, but with a randomness that indicated natural growth and not planted by a forester. Why would anyone plant trees? he wondered; they were everywhere.

That word, ‘forester’, implied to him a person with a job in the forest, so there must be other people like him, somewhere, but close by or far away? His senses gave him no inkling. Should he look for them, on the assumption that there might be people like him, that he could meet and learn a little from, about his situation? He didn’t feel hungry, but he could do with a drink of water. He set out down to the stream, and when he reached the edge, the water looked and smelled clean, so he scooped some up with a hand and sipped it.

He remembered he didn’t have any water purification tablets with him, then snorted: he didn’t have ANYTHING with him, so if he was going to drink, he had little option but to accept free-flowing stream water as potable.

It tasted fine, so he helped himself to more until his thirst was slaked.

That concluded, he switched his vision to under the surface, to see if there were signs of fish. The ripples caused by stones in the rushing water made this impossible to achieve, so he walked along the side until he found a pool that was relatively still on top. His gaze swiftly spotted several lean shapes that his mind told him, trout, so he assumed they were called trout. There was a mental link to ‘food’ so he assumed they were good eating, once cooked.

Now there was another idea: cooking. The word told him that the fish had to be gutted, cleaned, and then roasted over a fire. He didn’t have a fire.

Why not?

His mind told him that he would have to make his own fire, and that this required the production of sparks and flames, but how?

As he thought, his mind came up with suggestions ranging from a friction bow, to split bamboo, neither of which was available to him at the moment, but his memory unexpectedly told him that a fire starter steel and striker were built into his crossbow handle.

Curious at this exact memory from nowhere, he looked carefully at the stout handle of the crossbow, and, sure enough, there were two small plugs at the base. Pulling out the rubber plugs, all he had to do was tilt the crossbow backwards, and the two items slid out into his hand. As soon as he saw them, he knew what to do to start a fire, so he happily returned them to their sockets for safe-keeping.

The whole thing was weird, he told himself. He didn’t know who he was, but he appeared to be competent – the designation SAS came to mind, again without meaning, just a feeling of satisfaction. He somehow knew he could survive, despite having major gaps in his memory, and almost nothing of his past. Yet at the same time, certain useful chunks of memory, some practical applications, came easily to his mind because he needed them.

He thought to look further behind him, and found that the grassy sward ran up to a rocky cliff, and nearby was what appeared to be a cave entrance. That made him wonder; was there a wild animal using that cave as a lair? His mind conjured up a series of possibilities from a wolf to a bear, and he shivered at the thoughts that his imagination had brought him.

Thinking that it would be a useful refuge for him, if he could make sure it was empty, he picked up his crossbow and automatically slotted a bolt into the guide groove before walking towards the cave. He didn’t set the bow for firing just yet, for safety. He would do that as he got closer to the cave.

He set off, and as he got higher he found, with the extra height, that when he turned automatically to check his surroundings, he could see further into the distance. He would scan that view once he had checked on the cave’s interior.

As he got closer, his eyes wandered over the grass outside the cave, looking for tracks. There were a few, but small and indistinct, suggesting it was a long time since an animal of any size had been in the cave. Nevertheless, he moved cautiously, setting his crossbow ready to fire, and held it in front of him as he moved to the entrance. He recalled that members of the cat family left few paw prints unless the ground was muddy.

He saw nothing but rough rocky walls and a blackness beyond. Not having any prepared firebrand, he resorted to sound. He voiced a sort of loud yodel, that hopefully would echo round the cave, scaring any resident beast and giving him some idea of the cavern’s size. The space might turn out to be just a few metres in length.

The sound reverberated inside the cave for a few seconds, indicating a decent size of cavern, easily big enough to live in with room to spare. Nothing appeared as a result, not even a warning growl or yelp, so that reassured his cautious mind.

With that clarified, he decided that later he would light a fire and set it in the cave mouth for confirmation of its vacancy. Even the smell of fire should ward off interlopers. He hadn’t smelled anything dead, so there should be no carcase inside, unless it had long ago been reduced to dry bones.

Thinking of disposal, he remembered an essential from his training (training?), and made a mental note to excavate a latrine trench as soon as possible. He would get that done before the end of the day. He had no trenching tool (what is that?), so would have to use tree branches, but if he tied several together with strips of flexible bark, parallel to each other, that would act as a basic spade. He could make something better at a later time.

Meanwhile, it was time to explore, for he had no idea of the time of day, merely that it was bright with a cloudy sky above all the land he could see. The sun could be anywhere in the sky, so he should watch for any signs of the light dimming. That would indicate the imminent arrival of dusk.

Stepping to the side of the cave entrance, he turned to face outwards, to examine the view. If it was as expansive as he had expected – and it was – this spot would have a lot going for it while he waited for rescue.

That sudden thought – waiting for rescue – made him think. Rescue? That assumed someone was aware of his location, and a need to be recovered from there, to be returned to safety, wherever safety happened to be located: he had no idea where that might be. How would anyone have any inkling of where he now was, he thought, and snorted at the idea. Forget about rescue, he concluded. Looking at the countryside, he suspected he was a long way from civilisation. What anyway did the word civilisation mean?

Another of these meaningless words in his vocabulary, he discovered.

His view showed him a wide expanse of forest; trees upon trees upon trees, with very little signs of any clearings such as capercaillie birds used as a lek for their posturing to establish mating rights. One or two smudges in the sky made him think of flocks of birds. There had been only the odd small bird anywhere in his vicinity so far. Over to one side, he thought his eyes caught a wisp of smoke from a possible campfire. If he allowed his imagination some reign, there might be a clearing there too.

On the basis of going to investigate, he guestimated the distance, and came up with about five miles. Apparently he thought in terms of miles for distance. Why, he could not guess; he just did.

How long would it take him to walk five miles? It would depend on the terrain and the thickness of the forest. If there were no trails, and the trees were close together, it could take him days, but if he could find game trails that led in that general direction, he could do it in four or five hours, he thought. That assumed he could manage to maintain a direction; forests had no direction markers. He could mark a tree somehow: break a branch? Then find another in the right direction, and do the same again. A line of marked trees would enable him to maintain a steady direction, if perhaps somewhat arbitrary.

Would that get him there before dark? Again, he didn’t know, but if he was to make a move, it might as well be now, for he had nothing better to do. He slung his crossbow over his back, hoping it would not chafe too much on his bare skin.

He set off, now with a rough idea of the direction he should take, and a technique to keep to that general direction. He wondered how this would work, but shrugged, for he had no compass. Compass? What was that when it was at home? It was just a word: it told him nothing.

He thought about what he should do if the column of campfire smoke disappeared, swept away by a breeze? He decided to line up his route as an angle to the tall hill in the far distance. As long as that hill stayed in roughly the same position in relation to his line of march, he should be fairly accurate in direction.

He marched on. He swerved round trees in the more open areas where he could see the hill, but when the trees closed in and he could not see the hill, he was reduced to depending on his broken branch markers. When he began to doubt his route, he found a tree he could climb to a height where he could once again see the hill or the smoke, or both. He then mentally mapped the hill in relation to a thin tree in the vicinity and a thicker one beyond. These two would be his line to mark once he reached the ground again.

He had to repeat this operation several times in the next few hours, but the under-brush was not heavy for most of the way. Animals must keep it browsed, he assumed. Certainly from time to time he heard larger animals move away from his approach, so these must be ruminants; it was unlikely for predators to be skittish.

He reached a point where he could smell the whiff of wood smoke from the camp fire. It was faint enough that it could only be a campfire and not a forest fire. He became more and more conscious of his obvious expertise in the woodlands, as if he had done this before. The only thing that puzzled him was how hard the soles of his feet must be, for his march took him through all sorts of live and dead plants; some soft, some hard, but his feet coped well. He also moved fairly quietly, so that animals only heard him when he came close to them. Was he used to moving silently?

As he came closer to the smoke trail, it became much clearer and he was able to follow that as his sole guide.

Now he began to think more cautiously. Would the people with the camp fire welcome him or be afraid of him? It suddenly occurred to him that as he had seen no other signs of the presence of people; not even a dirt road. He might not even be in his own country; perhaps not even his own planet, for everything about this place was extremely odd, particularly the emptiness, as he saw it.

He trod even more delicately now, determined to see before being seen. It seemed a wise precaution.

As he slowly moved forward, he became aware of another person in the trees near him, also looking towards the camp site. That person was also being quiet, or trying to be. He, for it was a man, was less adept at stealth. John watched the man, and only after a minute or so did he realise that he had given himself a name: John.

Perhaps he had had no need of a name before now, but in this encounter, he needed to self-identify. He was John. He stopped and watched the watcher, who was looking towards the campfire.

John soon noted that the man was smaller in stature than himself, but was armed with what might be a club or a short spear: it was not clear from the limited view John had. John wondered what the man was doing, watching the camp so intently.

Suddenly there was a shout from the camp, as some kerfuffle started. This spurred the man into action. He grabbed his weapon, clearly a spear, and ran forward to join the attack.

John was not happy at anyone attacking a camp without warning, thus crept up behind the attacking man, so he could see what exactly was happening. As he approached the small clearing, the picture resolved itself.

A second man was attacking what was clearly a defender, short spear against short spear, with both men evenly matched, but the defender being much older. John’s man joined the affray in the most evil way, coming up and stabbing the defender in the back with his spear. The older man gasped in pain and stood up in his reaction to the back stabbing, and was immediately stabbed in the front by the other attacker.

John was horrified.

Now they both finished off the defender, the older man, and turned towards the round-topped tented structure in the clearing, clearly intent on taking whatever was within.

This was already too much for John’s idea of fairness, so he silently unfastened his wound crossbow, loaded it, aimed, and shot the bushwhacker he had followed. As soon as the bolt was on its way towards the man’s back, John rewound his weapon, whipped a new bolt into place, and while the other attacker was trying to see what had happened to his accomplice, he too received a bolt, this one to the chest.

John found himself wondering why he was not shocked at killing two men so accurately and efficiently. It was almost as if he was trained for such a task.

With both assailants now collapsed on the ground, fatally wounded, John held back in case any other men might appear from anywhere and join the action, but no-one appeared. By now, these two had joined the defender in the arms of death, and the clearing became quiet again.

With the end of the martial activity, the silence was broken only by sobs from the rounded tent structure, and eventually a female head peered out at the scene. The young woman, quite good looking if somewhat bedraggled, with long straggly hair and wearing nondescript clothing, said something to another person within, and carefully took a step outside, to look around. She saw the defender lying dead, and wailed, then noticed the two attackers lying similarly dead, and her head whipped around as she looked for the person or persons responsible. Her gaze caught the naked John standing at the forest edge, and John gave her a friendly wave, to let her know he had no enmity towards her.

He guessed what was going through her brain at this moment.

She did not know what to do about this. Was he a rescuer, or had he simply got rid of his accomplices to take everything for himself, or was he another attacker acting on his own, and just as bad as the first pair? She did note his penis sticking out threateningly; that did not bode well. She was in a quandary, and solved it by rushing back to the tent, and pushing into the dark interior. The camp went quiet again.

John waited a little longer, but she did not reappear. With nothing else happening, he decided he should introduce himself.

He walked into the campsite area and halted near the tent entrance, but to one side – out of the line of fire, and a few good few inches from the skin of the tent – in case the woman had collected a weapon and intended to use it, perhaps stabbing through the tent skin.