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Chapter Nine Guilt and Gangrene

AFTER SEEING THE NATIVE FOOTPRINT, THE THREE survivors spent what Margaret described as ‘this aching, miserable night’ on the sloped, muddy banks of the mountain stream. Soggy and exhausted from their repeated rolls into the cold water, they woke in the dim predawn light on Wednesday, 16 May, to resume their trek towards the clearing that McCollom had spotted farther down the slope.

As Margaret tried to stand, pain racked her body, and with it came fear. Overnight, her joints had stiffened, and the burned skin on her legs had tightened around her muscles. The burns choked off blood flow, starving healthy flesh. It hurt even to think about walking and sliding farther downstream. She couldn’t straighten up. She wrote in her diary, ‘My legs were so stiff they were a sickening sight.’

A quick inspection showed that infection had set in. She downplayed the gory details in her diary – the oozing pus, the blue-black hue of dead tissue. But she had a sickening idea of the causes and the dangers of what she described as ‘big, evil-smelling, running sores’.