Long Way Down Read online

  ‘I hit someone, crashed into him on Holland Road.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve done something to my leg, Eve. I think I need it X-rayed.’

  I was still optimistic: in the car I felt my ankle and there didn’t seem to be any real swelling. I thought I’d be OK, it was a sprain at worst and I’d still be able to ski. But then I noticed a little lump pressing the skin on the back of my right calf. I pushed it and a wave of panic washed over me. I could feel it move, a hideous sensation. I’d never broken anything before, but I knew what I could feel was the movement of bone over bone.

  I could’ve cried.

  My leg was broken and one by one the implications began to hit. There was the skiing trip and a month from now I was due on the set of a film. Fucking hell: Long Way Down, we were leaving on motorbikes for Africa. All the hard work, the massive amount of organisation: D-Day was 12 May and here I was en route to hospital. The sudden silence that swept through me seemed all-consuming; a numbing realisation that I didn’t want to acknowledge. It could all be over.

  Not long after I was lying in a cubicle in casualty with the heavy blue curtain pulled across and a nurse examining my leg. Still I was telling myself, telling her, that it was all right and my leg wasn’t really broken. It was a twist, a sprain, nothing more, and I desperately wanted her to confirm it.

  But she didn’t.

  Instead she flashed the X-rays onto the machine and there was the two-part image of my lower leg. Except that above the ankle it was now in three parts not two: the fibula, the smaller bone at the back, was snapped. I could see it clearly. I didn’t want to believe it but there it was in black and white. It wasn’t sprained, or cracked even. For a moment I just stared. I was dumbfounded. ‘That’s broken,’ I said.

  The nurse took a deep breath. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s a break.’

  CHARLEY: Ewan phoned before he left for casualty and told me what had happened. I was gobsmacked. Of course accidents happen and you’re vulnerable on a bike, but we’d ridden away from the workshop together and you just don’t expect it.

  ‘I can feel a sort of clicking when I move my foot,’ he’d said.

  ‘But you rode home.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, if you stood on it and you rode home, I’m sure it’s just a sprain.’

  But of course it wasn’t. He phoned again as soon as he got back from the hospital.

  ‘Fuck it,’ he said bitterly.

  ‘Definitely broken?’

  ‘I saw the X-ray. Clear as day, snapped above the ankle.’

  All sorts of thoughts began racing through my head; first and foremost concern for my friend, then the ski trip, and of course Long Way Down. Jesus Christ, this could be a show stopper. A wave of concern washed over me.

  ‘Do they think it’s a clean break?’ I asked him.

  ‘I don’t know. I think so.’

  ‘Did the nurse tell you how long it would take to heal?’

  ‘Four to six weeks.’

  ‘Then we’re OK. Don’t worry about it. It’s just one of those things.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ I could hear the relief in Ewan’s voice and I knew he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. ‘We’re not leaving for Africa until May,’ he said. ‘It’s plenty of time. It just means I can’t go skiing which is a real pain for Eve and the kids. But we need to talk about it. I want you to phone Russ: phone David. I want you all to come round.’

  I could imagine him sitting there with his leg in a cast and Eve packing to go skiing, having to deal with the fact that she was now going without him. She’d just love the prospect of the three of us descending on them as well.

  ‘You know what, Ewan,’ I said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. Not tonight.’ All at once I was laughing, trying to lighten him up. ‘You fucking idiot, you ride round the world with barely a scratch then bin it ten minutes from home.’

  I put the phone down, my smile fading. Missing a ski trip was one thing, a family holiday: Ewan would be gutted but I knew he’d make it up to Eve and the kids later. If this wasn’t a clean break, however, it could jeopardise the whole trip.

  I told myself to chill out and that it would be a simple leg break. There was no point worrying unnecessarily. Then it started sinking in how lucky he’d been, how lucky the other guy had been, stepping out of the traffic and getting in the way of a motorcycle. Hitting a pedestrian – it was scary: like a marker, some kind of warning. It was only a few weeks before we set off and our biggest concern about riding bikes in Africa was hitting someone. When we rode round the world we went through some serious country but often it was remote and the terrain was the challenge. Africa was a whole different ball game altogether. In Africa roads are the lifeblood, the arteries that feed the continent and they’re very busy. Hitting someone was our worst nightmare.

  It hadn’t been Ewan’s fault, the guy stepped out, it was an accident; it was just a miracle no one was badly hurt. But it was weird, spooky almost, so close to the beginning of the trip. Vividly I recalled snapping my collarbone not long before we were due at the Dakar. Just like Ewan I’d tried to sell the doctor the idea that it wasn’t broken. Of course he’d sat there with his arms folded, peering at the splintered bone trying to force its way through the skin at my shoulder.

  I could feel an ache in my hands, the memories of my own injuries returning to haunt me. It wasn’t that long ago I’d been in plaster myself with the scaphoid, the most important bone in my wrist, dislocated, not to mention shattered knuckles in my other hand. Just as Ewan had ridden home with a busted foot, I picked the bike up and carried on. I’d had no choice and at that moment no idea how bad my injuries were. In the end I rode another four hundred and fifty kilometres.

  EWAN: It was hard seeing them all leave and I was glad Charley and Ollie would be there. The trip had been booked a long time ago and there was no way it could be postponed, but as Charley had predicted I was gutted to have to stay behind. I’d been looking forward to it for ages.

  Alone now, I started going over the accident again. Russ and David came round and I showed them the X-rays. Russ was delighted to see me smiling and David suggested that maybe this was a warning that we all just needed to slow down and take stock for a moment: so much had been happening and so fast that none of us had had time to pause for breath. They were concerned that I was on my own so soon after an accident; depression can hit after a shock like that and they wanted to make sure I’d be all right. They told me to take advantage of the time, to rest up and read a couple of books. Which I did for a day or two, but the house seemed very empty and all I could think about was my family skiing without me.

  The following Monday I was back at the Princess Grace Hospital to have the full cast put on my leg. I was out of the house and anxious to get the healing process under way. The doctor examined me carefully, then started telling me things I really didn’t want to hear – specifically that there were two ways for my leg to have broken. The first (and most likely) was that I’d taken a direct blow which snapped the bone. I thought of the bike crashing down on top of me…That was straightforward and the healing time was the four to six weeks I was banking on. The second scenario however, was more worrying. As soon as the new cast was on I phoned Eve and Charley in France.

  CHARLEY: When Ewan mentioned the MRI, I wasn’t surprised; I’d been through a couple myself.

  ‘The doctor told me there was a chance I might’ve broken it by twisting it,’ Ewan was saying.

  ‘It’s a precaution, mate. That’s all. When are they doing it?’

  ‘I’m going for it now.’

  ‘OK, well good luck. Let us know when they give you the results.’

  Wandering out to the balcony I grabbed a breath of air. The chalet was in a beautiful spot, overlooking a mountain thick with snow. This was a rough road, the first time Ewan had broken a bone. If he did need an operation it could spell disaster.

  Ollie knew
what was going through my mind and she came out and leant on the rail next to me. ‘It puts things in perspective, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I feel apprehensive, Charley. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the trip is wonderful, it’s very exciting. But it’s different from you racing the Dakar; different again from Long Way Round.’ She gazed across the mountain. ‘It’s much more dangerous, and not just the politics. The roads are busier and there are people everywhere.’ She shook her head. ‘It just shows you. I mean London on a Friday, doing no speed at all. It shows how lucky the two of you were when you did Long Way Round. Twenty thousand miles with no major incident.’

  EWAN: All I wanted was to have the scan and be told the break was clean and I’d be on the bike come May. But you cannot undergo an MRI if you have any metal in your body, for instance a plate or a clip pinned into a bone. I remembered years back I’d had some iron filings caught in my eye. They’d been removed, of course, but it had to be checked because if there was any residue at all the MRI would force it out of my body, and I mean right through my eye.

  That out of the way I lay on my back with my legs in the machine and they gave me a set of headphones to block the weird clicks and noises it makes.

  It took about half an hour in all and I waited for the results: nervously. At last the good news came through. I could have jumped for joy if I wasn’t in plaster. The MRI was clear; it was a simple break. I rang Charley. By May my leg would be healed, and we’d be riding through Africa.

  4

  Saddle Bags & Steroids

  EWAN: Charley was concerned about Ollie: his wife of fifteen years. He’s been in love with her since the moment they met. For the last few weeks she’d had a viral infection she just couldn’t shake: Charley hadn’t said much but finally he told me he was really worried.

  Ollie didn’t seem to be getting any better and the date of departure was just days away now. The cast was off my leg and the bikes were prepped. Russ and David were up to their necks trying to finalise everything and emotionally we were all a bit frayed. Ollie’s situation was serious and I suppose it accentuated the worries we were all carrying.

  David isn’t married and doesn’t have any children and I guess because of that he doesn’t go through quite the same emotions as the rest of us. Russ, on the other hand, has a daughter, Emily, and I knew he was very concerned about leaving her.

  On the practical side of things we were ahead of where we were the last time. When we prepared for Long Way Round the support trucks didn’t show up until the day before we left. Here we still had a day or so and both Nissan Patrols were ready. We had a team of people coming to the workshop to fit a safe and some bullet cameras. The small, fixed ‘bullet’ cameras made by Sonic would be fitted in the Nissans and on our helmets and would allow the action to be filmed at all times. The suspension had been upgraded and both trucks fitted with dual batteries; they had long-range fuel tanks, heavy duty bumpers and two spare wheels apiece. The front bumpers had been replaced with ones that carried a winch in case Russ or David had to haul themselves out of a hole somewhere.

  Eve had been down to our workshop on Avonmore Road on the 650 she would be riding in Malawi, and we’d talked about the kind of gear she needed to bring with her. It was a difficult period for us – so close to the start now and this time our daughters were much older. Daddy was going away, and although that wasn’t unusual because of my work, it was still going to be a wrench. I really felt for Charley. Worrying about leaving the family was bad enough, but with Ollie’s condition still so bad, I knew he must be beside himself.

  CHARLEY: None of the antibiotics Ollie had been given were working. Deep down I knew something wasn’t right and I’d go from worrying about her to excitement about the trip to the heebie-jeebies about ridiculous things. I’d wake in the night and start thinking about the kind of clothes I was taking: shoes, T-shirts, underpants, what kind of razor.

  In the meantime, there was nothing to do but keep up the preparation. The bikes had been painted blue and red respectively; one with zebra stripes and the other leopard spots to differentiate them. We’d fitted sump guards and light guards; metal protection plates over the engine casing. We’d also switched the original BMW suspension for what was considered the more robust Ohlins. We changed the weightier exhausts for Akrapovic cans, which were not only much lighter but added around four or five horsepower. They also had the kind of snarling note I wanted when you cracked the throttle. MacTools had provided all the tools necessary to get the Patrols and bikes ready for the road, and Touratech had supplied all the gear we’d need to make an expedition like this work: from tents to camping stoves to mounts for our phones (we were using Nokia’s Navigator 6110) that we would use all the way through Africa.

  We had also just about nailed our proposed route. We would ride down through Britain and France to the toe of Italy and across Sicily before a boat ride to Tunisia. Once in Africa we would follow the coast to Libya, Egypt and Sudan. We’d always known Libya might be an issue and in particular we were encountering problems getting visas for the two Americans on our team: David Alexanian and cameraman Jimmy Simak. I had my mate Jacob on it: he works for the Libyan government, advising them on their Africa policy, and we hoped he’d be able to exert some influence. Jo, our production manager, was speaking to one of our sponsors, Explore, to see if they could help us out, as they run tours in Libya. The reality, though, was we were just a few days from departure and we’d only just got the requisite paperwork for the Brits and Claudio, the Swiss cameraman who had also ridden with us on Long Way Round.

  Visas aside, I couldn’t think beyond Ollie. My beautiful wife – she’s the rock that holds everything about my life together. She puts up with all the bullshit; she puts up with me; she looks after the kids on her own while I take off and at the same time she runs a business called Share and Care with her sister-in-law Caroline, locating companions for elderly people. She deals with everything, takes it all in her stride and never complains about anything. But it was two days until we left so I took her back to the doctors and they managed to get her in for a scan. It showed up a patch of pneumonia.

  Apparently it wasn’t uncommon for a virus to cause pneumonia and now they knew Ollie had it they could treat her with steroids. Pneumonia, steroids, Christ I wasn’t going to leave for Africa with my wife in this condition. Ollie, of course, told me she would be fine; that once they’d figured out what steroids to give her she’d be better and there was no way she’d let me alter the plans. I wasn’t convinced, and I told her I wasn’t going to leave until I knew she was all right.

  The only way to find out which steroids to prescribe was for the doctors to do a biopsy of the patch of pneumonia and they told us that during the procedure there was a small chance the lung might partially collapse. This was Wednesday afternoon and I was supposed to be leaving on Friday morning. Ollie’s parents were in Spain for a few weeks and this coming weekend was our niece’s First Holy Communion. Ollie’s sister Anastasia had been brilliant, running around and picking up our daughters Doone and Kinvara. But she had forty people coming for lunch on Sunday and if anything went wrong with this biopsy there was no way I was leaving on Friday. Ollie asked the doctor how many times he’d pierced a lung while performing this type of biopsy.

  None, he told her.

  Of course this was the time he did and the lung collapsed.

  To reinflate it they used a local anaesthetic before inserting a massive needle, like a knitting needle, between Ollie’s ribs. The pain was excruciating: Ollie all but screaming. She gripped my hand so hard her fingernails drew blood. It wasn’t a quick procedure and watching her go through it was heartbreaking. She was determined that the lung would reinflate quickly, though, so she could be home from hospital for my last night. I told her it didn’t matter because there was no way I was leaving her like this. She insisted she would be fine, and wanted to be home for Thursday night. So despite the pain she kept the suction on her lung going all Wednesday night.

>   I was unsure but she was adamant she’d be all right. She argued that she’d find it much easier to recuperate if she knew I was gone – that everything had gone to plan. I still didn’t like the idea so I spoke to Ewan about it and he thought we ought to wait as well. But Ollie would have none of it. I know her, and regardless of what she was going through she’d blame herself and that would inhibit her recovery. She was right, reluctant though I was to admit it, so after a lot of soul-searching I agreed. By the time Friday came around Ollie was home and much better and we left for Scotland as planned.

  5

  Five… Four… Three…

  EWAN: ‘As planned’? That’s not strictly true. We’d been due to fly to Inverness all together, only that’s not how it turned out. But as he was the main protagonist, I’ll let ‘Osama Bin Boorman’ enlighten you.

  For now let’s just say that ‘finally’ we all made it to the Castle of Mey, the historic seat of the Earls of Caithness, bought by the Queen Mother in 1952. Built in the sixteenth century, the castle is said to be haunted by the Green Lady. A daughter of the fifth earl, she fell in love with a ploughman and was locked away in the attic by her father. She’s supposed to have thrown herself to her death from the attic window. Fortunately our hosts waited until the following morning to tell us which rooms she haunted and I had a really good night’s sleep. Nothing – living or dead – disturbed me.

  My dad and brother Colin were riding part of the way through Scotland with us and I was really pleased about that. I woke early and went for a run. My leg was much better, no twinges whatsoever. But over breakfast I began to feel apprehensive. After all the preparations we were finally leaving and the nerves were beginning to bite.

  Like a couple of sentinels our bikes occupied either side of the main door of the castle, and as I made sure everything was in its proper place I was acutely conscious of departure. It wasn’t cold, but this is as north as it gets and rain clouds had dominated the sky ever since we arrived. It would be wet on the road today.