An Epic Life - Richardson Kev

An Epic Life is a true tale of an adventurous couple reaching across the world to fulfil a life's dream-a major achievement in the mid nineteenth century.The evolution of the steam engine revolutionized both time and travel. It was the whisk that developed the industrial revolution, propelled Great Britain along the track to become the most powerful nation in the nineteenth century world. The railway industry became, for many families, a lifetime career through generations.An Epic Life introduces a second couple from a different lifestyles, yet the lives of each become whisked together in a froth and bubble adventure to create, on the far side of the world, a Dynasty

He'd lost all sense of time. For the last two nights he'd slept in clefts of rocks never knowing if he were sharing his shelter with a snake. The first night he'd stumbled across a creek bed that at least had a rock shelf for quite way along it and he'd been following it, but soon lost track of how many times it had swerved to the right and how many to the left.

And his entire neck and face was puffed and itchy from mosquito and other insect bites. And his body was tired. Worst drawback was that his compass was acting up. Sometimes it gave a clear reading yet even when only a few yards further it would begin dancing in wild gyrations. His scientific knowledge of minerals wasn't great, but could recall something from early RE training that if iron were present, even well below the earth surface, it could disorientate a compass...

...So maybe it's that, but how's a man to know? All I can be sure of is that for most of each day I've no certainty about which direction I'm heading. And neither can I get a view of anything from anywhere-unless the top of this waterfall I'm heading for can provide one.

He took a little solace, however, in the fact that so far he had not been confronted with finding himself on a pathway he'd already slashed. Or anybody had slashed.

And if I were to follow the stream below the fall, it either left or right, would only take me to places where I'd be as lost as I am now!

And his belly hungered. The small piece of bread he'd had, he'd found on his first night alone to have become saturated despite rolled up in a canvas bag. He'd eaten it nevertheless, along with a third of his sausage. Yesterday he'd denied himself breakfast. Two-thirds of a single sausage was all he had to last him until found. So he denied himself lunch. Fortunately there was water aplenty. Every leaf around was saturated with it. His handkerchief he used as a sponge on the leaves and every time he felt a pang of hunger, he apologised to his stomach for offering it only the water he could suck from the kerchief.

He allowed himself a smile when remembering last night's 'supper'.

Supper? Hah! Another third of a sausage is all I gave my poor stomach during an entire twenty-four hours!

He almost smiled again as his mind flew to his waking thought this morning, that today was Friday, the day Catholics forsake meat.

Thank the Lord I'm not Catholic. It least I'll be able to eat the last of my sausage come supper-time. Will God then take pity on me? That I'll hear a whistle blast during the night? Or come morning?