There is something about a river that strips away pretence.
By the second day nobody cares what clothes you arrived in, how popular you were at school or whether you thought yourself tougher than everyone else. Wet clothes, tired arms and the simple routines of camp have a way of reducing us all to something more honest.
One season we decided to try something new. Instead of taking only boys from the youth detention centre, we invited a similar number of girls from another youth programme to join the expedition. I wasn’t entirely sure how it would work. Twenty teenagers, six river guides and five days beyond roads and mobile phones can reveal the best in people. It can also reveal the opposite.
Among the group was a young fellow I’ll call Luke.
He was one of those lads whose size entered camp before he did. Tall enough to duck beneath low branches and broad enough to make a paddle seem almost too small for his hands, he looked every bit the young footballer people instinctively gave a wide berth.
It took less than a day for that first impression to wash away.
Whenever a raft needed dragging above the high-water mark, Luke quietly found one end. If a food barrel proved awkward or a dry bag was too heavy for one of the smaller paddlers, he was somehow beside them before anyone thought to ask. What struck me wasn’t that he helped, but the way he disappeared again afterwards, as though kindness required no acknowledgement.
As the days slipped by I noticed something else. The girls trusted him. Not because he tried to impress them, but because he never seemed to need to.
One evening we sat around the campfire while dinner simmered in the blackened camp oven. A couple of the boys began making light of one of the girls. Nothing especially cruel; just the sort of teasing that has become so common many people no longer hear it for what it is. She laughed at first; then grew quiet. Luke looked across the fire. “She’s sitting right here, mate.”
The words were spoken gently, almost matter-of-factly, yet they settled over the camp more effectively than any rebuke I could have offered. There was an awkward pause, someone changed the subject, and before long the river reclaimed the conversation.
Gentle Giant
He towered over every mate,
Six-foot-something, built like fate.
A beast on field, he’d crash and score
But after games, he’d sweep the floor.
When someone mocked, or crossed the line,
He’d simply say, “Mate, that’s not mine.”
No speeches long. No angry shout.
Just quiet courage, sorting it out.
The biggest bloke the camp had seen,
Yet strength was shown by staying clean.
He carried kittens home from rain,
And held his grandma’s hand through pain.
His mates would joke, “You’re soft as fluff!”
He’d grin and say, “That’s giant stuff.”
He proved each day, without a roar:
You don’t need loud to show you’re more.