Savages

  That would do to get them up the tree, but to go up and down the cave chimney they would need to really climb a rope. Suzy and Silvana were the only ones who hadn’t learned long ago, at summer camp. Suzy, who was small and agile, quickly picked up the technique of crossing her ankles and gripping the rope between them, while she reached for a higher handgrip, then loosened the ankle grip temporarily, while she hauled herself up by her arms. Unathletic Silvana couldn’t get the hang of it and swayed on the rattan rope, hanging a foot above the ground, terrified.

  Perched fifteen feet high in the branches, Suzy was enjoying her new and unsuspected accomplishment. She swung from a branch by her arms. She hooked her legs over it and pulled herself up, then stood on the branch showing off her ability.

  “Watch out!” Jonathan ran forward as Suzy stepped backward onto a branch and it snapped beneath her weight.

  Suzy grabbed an overhead branch just in time to avoid a fall. She hung from it, groping with her toes, trying not to think of the sickening fall to the ground.

  “There’s a foothold to your left,” Jonathan yelled, his arms outstretched, ready to break her fall.

  Suzy’s arms felt as though they were being pulled from her sockets, as though red-hot metal were being poured over her shoulders. Slowly, she stretched up her left foot, which stubbed the tree, but she couldn’t see where she was putting it.

  “Higher,” Jonathan called.

  Slowly, painfully, Suzy bent her left knee right up to her waist.

  “You’re too high,” Jonathan yelled. “Feel your way straight down with your left foot; it’s about six inches down.”

  He held his breath as Suzy’s toes fumbled to feel the branch.

  “Two inches further to your left!” he called.

  As he looked up anxiously, Suzy found the branch and slowly transferred her weight to it.

  “Now move your arms—one at a time, starting with the right one. Move towards the trunk. Don’t think, just do it!”

  Slowly, Suzy jerked her arms toward the trunk until she was able to put her right foot on a branch below, which then supported her entire weight.

  Trembling with relief, Jonathan yelled, “Don’t step on a branch without testing it, you stupid bitch, and never step backwards without looking where you’re going.”

  “Okay, okay,” Suzy yelled back tearfully.

  To his surprise, she started to climb higher. He had to admit she was gutsy.

  The next hour wasn’t very successful. Laboriously, Annie dug her latrine hole with a coconut shell, then burst into tears as it caved in before she could use it.

  Suzy, staggering back from the waterfall with a full bucket of water, tripped over a branch just outside the camp and fell, spilling it all. She swore angrily.

  Silvana, cutting branches for the cooking fire, swung the ax, missed the branch and narrowly missed chopping her right ankle. She looked with disgust at her broken fingernails and threw the ax on the ground.

  Behind her Jonathan said, “Pick it up and don’t use it again. I’m saving that ax to build the raft.”

  Silvana threw him her most imperious look. Then she sighed and obediently picked up the ax.

  Later that morning, Carey tore open her thumb on a fish hook, which was serious, because any scratch could lead to infection in the tropics and her hands were already in a bad state. She swore, sucked at the wound and spat out the blood.

  Annie asked anxiously, “What are we going to do when we run out of antiseptic cream?”

  “Use boiled seawater as a disinfectant,” Jonathan said.

  Patty nearly had an accident when she and Jonathan were fishing. She was thigh deep in the water, prizing a shellfish off an underwater rock with her fingers, when Jonathan pulled her hand away—just before a seemingly harmless shell snapped shut.

  Jonathan said, “Watch out for clinging shellfish, the large abalone, clams and oysters. Don’t gather ’em by hand; always prize ’em off with a bar or a wooden wedge, or the shell might clamp down on your fingers and hold you prisoner until the tide comes up and you drown.”

  When the camp was more or less in order, they had a ten-minute break. Looking around at the dispirited faces, Jonathan said, “Don’t be too hard on yourselves, you’re all doing pretty well. You’ve all seen that you can do more than you thought you could. Now we’ll start the raft. We’ll build her up here, between the camp and the waterfall.”

  Patty looked astonished. “Why not on the beach?”

  “Too risky. Us or the raft might be spotted by a passing boat.”

  They would build the raft where the wood was—at the edge of the jungle. When the raft was completed, they’d launch her at high tide, lowering her down the natural slope of the path by the side of the waterfall. Once on the beach, it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to load the raft with the supplies. Then they’d float her through the gap in the reef on the outgoing tide. As the raft would be rectangular, it would head southward, in the direction of the tidal current.

  “How big is it going to be?” practical Carey asked.

  “Nine by twelve,” Jonathan answered.

  “But that’s enormous!” Patty exclaimed. “Surely we don’t need something that size, just to go seventy miles.”

  “Just to go seventy miles!” Suzy shrilled. “Seventy miles seems endless to me!”

  “That’s the correct size for a six-person raft,” Jonathan said firmly. “If she’s too big, she’ll break her back on the big waves; if she’s too small, you’ll fall off her. A raft don’t sit snug in the sea like a dinghy. A raft tips and dips and tilts and swings in maybe four different directions with every wave and you ain’t got no idea which way she’s going to tilt next; she changes angles every second.”

  Silvana said glumly, “A diving raft is nine feet square, and I’ve felt seasick on one of those.”

  “You’ll also have to sleep on the raft,” Jonathan said. “And we’ll be carrying our food, drink and equipment. The journey shouldn’t take longer than three days, but we can’t count on it. And you make one mistake at sea, you’re a goner. The sea has no mercy.”

  “How are we going to make the thing?” Carey asked.

  “Cut down palm trees, trim ’em into logs, lash the logs together with rattan. No, we’d better use jungle vines—they’re thinner but not jointed. We’ll braid ’em; that’ll strengthen ’em. Them logs’ll need to be lashed tight as a tourniquet—that’s going to be the longest job. We’ll lash the logs to three cross members to give extra security. When we’ve done that, we’ll caulk the logs with damit.”

  “With what?” they asked.

  “A filler that stops up cracks and crevices—makes the thing waterproof. There’s a resin in the jungle, a sap from certain trees, which is called damit. It’s real easy to spot—just black stuff lying there in lumps on the ground at the base of trees. You can also use the stuff for fire lighters or as glue. If you want glue, you break the lumps into granules, then melt it on direct heat. The natives use it for cementing their canoes.”

  Suzy said, “You make this jungle sound like a hardware store.”

  “It’s cheaper than a hardware store,” Jonathan said.

  Annie looked worried. “Are you sure the vines will be strong enough?”

  Jonathan said, “When we gather ’em, we’ll have to check we don’t pick any brittle or rotten vines. We’ll cut ’em to different lengths, up to ten feet long, so the joins in the braids are never all at the same place, which would weaken it.”

  “Will the vines be watertight?” Annie persisted.

  “We rub coconut oil into them. That ought to make ’em watertight and flexible and stop ’em fraying.”

  “Which counter sells the coconut oil?” Suzy asked.

  “Heat coconut flesh and you render it down to coconut oil. We can do it around the campfire at night.”

  “And we just rely on the current to guide this thing?” Patty asked nervously.

  “Partly. But we’ll also h
ave bamboo paddles.”

  There was a dubious silence.

  Patty said anxiously, “You’re sure we couldn’t buy a boat?”

  “Might as well give ourselves up.”

  “Wouldn’t we go faster if we had a sail?” Carey asked.

  “I’d like a sail, but I don’t know how to make a mast that would stay upright.”

  Suzy said crossly, “You’re supposed to be a sailor. Why don’t you know how to make a mast?”

  “You can drive a car, right,” said Jonathan. “But could you repair one? Let alone build one? I always sailed on steel tankers, before I bought the Louise. I’ve sailed boats but I ain’t never built one before.”

  “You’re sure it’ll work?” Patty persisted.

  “Only one way to find out.”

  * * *

  It took the women the rest of the day to find a bamboo grove, to collect the damit and the jungle vines and to bring them back to the camp. Jonathan selected and started to cut down the fifteen palm trees they would need for the raft. It was hard and exhausting work. Once the tree had fallen, Patty and Carey hacked off the branches and dragged the trunk to the growing pile in the clearing; hauling the individual logs was also exhausting. Neither woman offered to chop down trees. Carey had tried once, when Jonathan was off for a pee. She lifted her arms just as he had and brought the ax down just as smoothly, but then she’d felt the most awful numbing pain shoot up her arm, as if she’d hit a tennis ball on the top of the racket; she dropped the ax.

  Behind her, Jonathan had said, “That’s our only ax, and I can’t risk chipping a bit off the blade by teaching you to use it.”

  Carey was deeply relieved.

  About seventy yards up the riverbank, in the bamboo grove, Annie was using the razor-sharp two-foot-long machete with growing confidence. Silvana refused to touch the evil-looking thing, so after Annie chopped the green bamboo Silvana dragged it back to camp.

  Jonathan had explained that they needed bamboo to make watertight containers, which could hold dried fish or water for the voyage. “Bamboo is hollow,” he said, pointing to the length in his hand, “but at every joint there’s a solid center, so if you cut below a joint, you got a cylindrical container with a solid base. Make a second container and shave down the base, and it’ll plug into the top of your first container. You can stack any number of ’em, some the size of mugs, some as big as kitchen pans.”

  It sounded simple, but it was amazing to each of them how hard it was to do, how much time it took and how many times you ended up with bleeding fingers and a broken piece of bamboo.

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 20

  By the end of their first week together, the women felt less helpless and less frightened.

  The days were comfortable only in the first hour after dawn; then, a light breeze blew off the sea, the humidity seemed less intense and the sun had not yet grown fierce. So they made the most of this time.

  They had quickly established a working routine—breakfast, followed by a wash, then foot inspection, after which Annie rebandaged Carey’s hands. Then they had survival lessons for an hour. They worked until midday. After their meal, they lay panting on the ground until the fierce heat had subsided and it was possible to work again without fainting.

  Every day, when the tide was high, Carey and Patty would interrupt whatever they were doing and scramble down to the beach to fish. If they missed the outgoing tide, they had to wait until the tide came in again or collect shellfish from the rocks and pools. Fishing was even more important than making the raft, because without food their strength and energy immediately flagged.

  Every day, Jonathan gave all the women a short fishing lesson. It was important that each person be able to find her own food, independently.

  Once, Patty caught an odd-looking small fish, with a slick, slimy skin.

  “Watch out, that’s a poisonous fish,” Jonathan said. “Any fish that ain’t got scales, like that feller you just caught, or any fish that’s covered with bristles or spines—them buggers can make you feel real crook. Chuck ’em away fast—on land, so the buggers die.” He added, “And do the same for any bright-colored fish, or anything that puffs up like a balloon when you take it from the water.”

  Jonathan also pointed out the fish that might scratch or sting them. These were the blue, plate-shaped stingrays that lurked in the shallows, the repulsively ugly stonefish and the sinister, jutting-jawed toadfish.

  The women were still nervous about sharks, although Jonathan repeated that sharks weren’t normally ferocious in the tropics, where there was plenty of food for them. And anyway, they couldn’t get over the coral reef and into the lagoon, because it was too shallow.

  “But I’ve seen sharks in the lagoon,” Suzy insisted.

  “Only baby ones. Nothing more than four feet long. And I’ve already told you, sharks ain’t looking for trouble—they’re cowards. You can usually frighten ’em off by splashing water at ’em or hitting ’em on the nose with a stick. But if you ain’t bleeding and don’t kick up a noise, you won’t attract ’em.”

  “What about Winston?”

  Jonathan was silent, then he said, “If you run into trouble, more likely it’ll come from a barracuda; they’re aggressive bastards.”

  Every evening before sunset at six o’clock, Jonathan checked his freshwater fish trap just above the bamboo grove, where a stream flowed into the river that fed the waterfall. Jonathan had tied permanent fishing lines to trees on either side of the bank and rebaited them daily. He had also built two underwater walls of stones; the barriers slanted toward each other but didn’t quite meet. Fitted around the opening was a long bag made of mosquito netting and anchored by stones. Any fish that swam downstream automatically found itself in this net trap, but unable to fight its way out against the current. Because water circulated through it, the fish could stay there for hours. All freshwater fish were edible, and Jonathan’s trap often provided huge shrimp and crayfish, with no effort on his part.

  To dissuade mosquitoes, which, as soon as darkness fell, swarmed from the undergrowth, the soggy swamp patches, the riverbanks and the stagnant forest-pools, Annie always built a smoking fire of green wood and leaves.

  Every evening, Silvana briskly gutted and boiled the fish. Then she stood two bamboo pots filled with cold, cooked fish in a pailful of water, so that the ants couldn’t get at it, and covered the pot tops with scraps of shirt. They ate cold fish for breakfast, cold fish at midday and hot boiled fish every night.

  Silvana smoked any extra fish on a little wigwam-like structure that Jonathan had built by binding together three green saplings; halfway down this, he tied a triangular grill also made of green sapling. A fire was lit beneath the grill, on which slivers of fish were laid to smoke overnight. For their sea journey the little party would need smoked fish, because that would last at least ten days in hot weather, instead of turning putrid overnight.

  Silvana tried to keep the camp as clean as possible. After cooking, she scoured her bamboo pots with sand before rinsing them in the tin bucket.

  As the women became less squeamish, frogs, snakes and lizards were beheaded and roasted on a stick held over the fire. Silvana preferred to boil shrimp and crabs. Her most popular dish was a chowder made with clams, mussels, snails and sea urchins, thoroughly boiled to kill the parasites. It was surprising how quickly Silvana had taken over the domestic jobs, thought Suzy, when she’d never before in her entire life so much as made a bed.

  At breakfast on Tuesday, the seventh day after the beach massacre, Suzy suddenly shrieked that smelling goddamn fish all the time, and smelling of goddamn fish all the time, was even worse than eating the stuff all the time. She burst into tears, flung down her coconut shell and rushed into the jungle.

  Jonathan yelled, “Come back, you stupid bitch!”

  “No way!” Suzy called over one shoulder.

  “Childish,” Jonathan said, through a mouthful of fish. “Dangerous. Don’t go after her. Silly cow.”


  “No, she isn’t,” Patty snapped. “We all feel like that.”

  There was silent agreement from the other women; they were all nauseated by the smell of raw fish, the taste of boiled fish and the mere thought of coconut. Although there was plenty of other food in the jungle, Jonathan didn’t want to waste time looking for it, and didn’t want to risk illness. So long as they lived on boiled fish and boiled water, and he didn’t allow them too much green coconut juice because of its laxative effect, then they wouldn’t get dysentery. He reckoned that the women could put up with the monotonous diet because, for these few days, every minute counted.

  After running a short distance, Suzy stopped. She couldn’t see more than a few yards in any direction; she looked at the jungle floor, littered with leaves, then looked up at the fragile silver threads that spiders had woven from tree to tree. She was frightened of being alone in the quiet, green menace. Although, come to think of it, she had always felt as alone as she did now. Those athletic bitches, Carey and Patty, had teamed up together to hunt, while Annie and Silvana were never apart, as they squatted around the fishpot or hacked at bamboo—give each of them a wooden spoon and an apron, and they’d hardly notice that they’d left Pittsburgh.

  However, nobody seemed to want Suzy along. Fetching the water was a boring, solitary job. Suzy never thought she’d feel sorry for herself because a bunch of women were neglecting her.

  The hell with them, she told herself.

  * * *

  Almost an hour later, a grinning Suzy appeared out of the jungle, clutching at her middle. Jonathan had already gone off to fell trees, and the other women were about to start their chores.

  “Hey, look what I’ve brought!” Suzy popped her hand down her shirtfront and pulled out a plum-size fruit with a dusky purple skin.

  “They taste great,” she said. “Like a persimmon, but without a kernel.”

  “Fruit! That’s wonderful,” Patty cried. “I’ve been really worried about vitamin deficiency.”