"AAAAAHHHHHH!"
Their fall to flat, solid terrain seemed like forever, but once they landed on a soft, snowy slope, the impact tossed everybody around. The force of the air inflated the small lifeboat, but it had just enough room to fit all of the young men on the journey to China. Alfred had some kind of false hope, but he had no idea what he was in for.
The slope was dangerously steep, but it was not craggily and rocky, allowing the yellow, inflatable lifeboat to slide smoothly, but rapidly down the slope. Each of the men were full of worry, especially Francis, but Arthur was apprehended by the abnormal speed of the lifeboat. There was no inertia, but tons of momentum as the five young men screamed and shouted at the thrill of the ride down the slope. They were all in fear of their fates as the lifeboat continued to slide down the treacherous mountain.
Tall evergreen trees smacked their faces and limbs as the force of the ride flailed them about the lifeboat, and the breeze was chilly. Once Alfred and Arthur caught sight of soil for the first time in hours, they were relieved, but then, the Englishman addressed his displeasure with him.
"You wanker!" he shouted. "We could have been killed!"
"Hey, we're alive now!" Alfred said. "That was actually kind of fun!"
The fun for Alfred ended when the lifeboat was forced off a straight cliff, making them all scream even louder and fearing more for their lives!
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" they all screamed in unison as the lifeboat fell slowly down in midair. Ivan looked down and he immediately grew even more scared—he couldn't swim!
"There's water below us," he said in his thick accent. "I cannot swim."
"You don't need to—"
Francis' sentence was cut off upon feeling himself, along with other men, crash down into the water, letting violently flowing rapids take them along the river.
"Oh! My hair is all wet! I hate being wet!" he squealed with distress.
"Oh, cut it out, dandy!" Arthur retorted. "Our lives are at stake here!"
"I'll show you!" Francis said, raising his fist and preparing to punch the Englishman. Arthur dodged his attack and grunted, but Alfred broke them up.
"Stop! Both of you!" he said, as the rapid grew calmer. "I don't even know if we're in China, but I we are, I am so going to be the one to get to the excavation site first!"
The ferocity of the rapids calmed within a few minutes, and everybody's nerves calmed along with it. There were no more large boulders in sight, but instead a clear, calm rush that led them along this mysterious river. Alfred looked back at Arthur, Matthew, Francis and Ivan with concern. Then he kneeled in the boat, raising his arms up to get everyone's attention.
"Is anybody hurt?" he asked. "Is everyone OK?"
"Yes, but I will never, ever do that again," Arthur said, smoothing out his shirt that was now wet and filthy from being on the rapids.
"I'm alright," Matthew said nervously, rubbing the side of his arm.
"Ugh, my hair is ruined! And this shirt! I got it for 200 francs!" Francis exclaimed. "Do you realize how expensive that is in France?"
"No, and quite frankly, we are real men who do not care about such things," Arthur sneered.
"Real men? No! I am a real man!" the Frenchman retorted. "Beautiful women love me!" His snobby attitude aggravated the Englishman, who used his sharp tongue to lash at him.
"That doesn't mean anything, prissy-boy! You're all action and no talk!" Arthur exclaimed.
"Is that so?" Francis asked.
"Yes, dandy!" Arthur responded.
"I will make escargot out of you!" he said meanly. Alfred rolled his eyes as he raised his hand to get everyone's attention once more.
"Stop it! Don't you realize that we are in the middle of nowhere?" he asked.
"How will we find food? Or reach civilization?" Ivan wondered calmly. Matthew grew nervous, the pugnacious Englishman next to him on the boat.
"Oh, boy," he whimpered anxiously. "Looks like we're not going to like this, are we?"
The five young men were adrift on the lifeboat for the next forty-five minutes, and during that time, Alfred got further acquainted with Ivan and Arthur, but whenever he tried to make conversation with Arthur, Francis would always cut in with a rude, uncalled-for remark about the Englishman. However, they boat stopped moving, and they were all asleep by the time forty-five minutes turned into one full hour. A strange buzzing sound immediately woke up Francis, and he squealed in fright after seeing a few mosquitoes flying around him.
"Eh! These mosquitoes! Get away from me!" he shouted, waking up the other men. Arthur looked around, seeing Francis swat at the tiny, flying insects gingerly.
"Oh, hush up!" he said sharply. "It's only a bug!"
"Shut up!" Francis shouted. Alfred and Matthew looked at each other, and then back at the two fighting Europeans. Why was there so much tension between Francis and Arthur when they barely knew each other for more than a few hours? Alfred felt a mosquito buzz near his ear, but he swatted it away quietly. Eh, the French always make such a big fuss about everything, he thought.
The sound of distant voices, probably of women and children, was picked up by Arthur and Francis, who had stopped their arguing upon first hearing the sound. They seemed to have spoken a different language once the sound came clearer, but once they drew closer, they could be seen.
"Do you hear that?" Arthur asked.
"Do you see that?" Alfred added, pointing at the people. "They are not Chinese at all!"
The sight before them in the distance came clearer as they saw three small boys, a little girl, and five women with buckets approaching the river; they all had dark skin, but the women dressed very differently from the ones in the countries of the young men. They didn't wear designer clothing straight from the Parisian runway, or dark-colored headscarves on their heads, or even pleated skirts and blouses—they wore simplistic sashes over simple dresses tied at the waist as they carried empty buckets to collect water. The men stared at them strangely—they were not in China.
The children ran toward the riverbank, curious about the yellow thing in the water. They spoke the strange language, and it put the young men under the impression that they were on tribal territory. But where were they if not in China like they should have been? The women and children seemed impoverished, but they also looked like something Alfred would have seen in a high school world history book.
"Look! Down by the river!" a little boy said in his mother tongue. The women looked, and as they came closer, Alfred immediately noticed the red dots in the middle of their brown foreheads. They had their black hair in buns, and one even picked up the little girl who was with them, walking over to see that there were young white men in the boat.
"There are men!" the woman with the little girl in her arms exclaimed in the same language. Arthur waved his hand at them, trying to be friendly.
"Please help us!" the Englishman begged. The children, frightened by the strange man, ran back to the women.
"Mommy, they are white! Like the rajkumari!" the little girl said in the strange tongue.
Arthur shook his head, getting out of the boat. The women and children winced in fear, but didn't run away—they were so curious; where had they come from? Were they heaven-sent to the village for some good reason? The women and children watched as the Englishman helped his group members get out of the boat—first came Alfred, then Ivan, Francis, and Matthew. Arthur walked forward slowly, looking at the curious faces on the strangers.
"Hello! Um, good day!" he said politely. "Where is your village?" The foreigners looked at him, and began muttering in their native language again.
"I said," Arthur repeated. "Where is your village?" Even though he said it slower with corresponding gestures, the women looked at him curiously as the children held their skirts.
"Are you heaven-sent from Shiva? Who are you?" one of the little boys asked in his language, pointing up at the men.
"I am Arthur," the Englishman said, introducing himself slowly as he pointed to himself. The little boys let go of the ladies' skirts and walked toward him, looking at his wet clothes and his feet, which were covered with shoes. The women and the children were barefooted, and stared up at him with their almond-shaped black eyes.
"Dude, they don't understand you," Alfred said, tapping his shoulder. One of the women took their bucket and walked away, making the men wonder—was she getting some type of authority figure to meet them? Were they getting arrested? The group stayed quiet until a tall, dark man with a turban, bushy mustache, and kilt made of simple white cloth that was somewhat grimy.
"Bandhu!" the woman said in her native tongue, looking up at the man with the turban. "We found these men here in a yellow boat!"
The man looked at the young men skeptically, walking toward them to get a better view of them—their fair hair, light eyes, and striking features made them stick out like sore thumbs among the native people to the area. What shocked Alfred and Arthur was the fact that he could speak English, even though it was broken and incomprehensible.
"Where did you come from?" Bandhu asked. Arthur smiled at him.
"Allow us to ask one simple question," the Englishman said, raising a finger to him. "Where are we? Is this China?" Bandhu laughed heartily at his question, looking at him with his skeptical black eyes.
"No," he said in his deep voice. "This is India."