He’d got a couple of spears neatly propped up beside the mouth of a cave, one of them a real blackglass hunting spear that Redlantern had given him, plus wraps and skins and bags piled up neatly inside, and four stonebuck legs hanging on strings. He’d got a little fire going and had marked out a chessboard on the ground and – Gela’s tits! – when we got up to him he was calmly sitting there, playing chess against himself. Tom’s dick, I thought, what a poser. He’d been alone all those wakings and as far as he’d known, he was going to stay that way. Surely anyone would feel relieved to have friendly visitors in that situation? And anyone else would have come to meet us. Anyone else, for that matter, would have thought that maybe we’d need a hand with Jeff. But no, not John. He’d thought it all out carefully and he’d chosen to wait and be found there like that, playing chess by himself as if he was resting after a good waking’s work. Jeff stopped where he was, taking this all in, but Gerry disentangled himself from his little brother and went running straight up to John, giving him a big hug and kisses with tears running down his face.
