“We’ll soon be leaving,” Suzy crowed.
“It doesn’t seem as if we’ve been here eleven days,” Carey said.
“That’s because we haven’t had one spare minute,” Patty said tartly. There had always been something that needed doing, something to fill each minute, so that they hardly had time to think. It was only at night that each woman had time to count the days, and the hours and the minutes—to long for the moment when they might be able to leave this loathsome island.
Suddenly, their hopes soared. As the sweat streamed down their dirty faces, they felt new energy surge through them; because of their unaided efforts, they were about to sail off, to leave this sinister island far behind them, and head for home.
Jonathan looked at the excited little group and suggested, “There’s two hours before sunset, and high tide is at midnight. So if you ain’t feeling too whacked, we could leave tonight instead of tomorrow. What do you think?”
“Yes!” they all said.
The sweating, exhausted women found new strength. It had been born of hope. They all wanted to get off Paui as fast as possible. Although it was hard work, two hours should give them plenty of time to lower the heavy raft down the cliff and load it with their equipment, food and water.
After that, all they had to do was sit on the raft and wait for the tide to rise and float them out to sea.
There was a feeling of elation in the camp as, squatting around the campfire, the women ate their last “rabbit” stew.
As they finished their meal, Jonathan said, “Drink as much water as you can, and have another long drink just before we start to lower the raft. After that, both food and water will be rationed.”
They all nodded. They knew that to keep fit, they needed a pint of water a day, and to keep alive they needed two to eight ounces of water a day.
Jonathan said, “Drink all you can. After that, you’ll get only a mugful of water a day.” He stood up. “Okay, let’s go!”
Annie was responsible for hauling the six bamboo oars and the raft supplies. Silvana’s job was to check that everything was cleared from the camp and the fires doused. Suzy was posted as tree lookout. She had the lightest body, so she was least useful for launching the heavy raft. This was the responsibility of Carey and Patty.
Each ragged creature ran to her task. From now on, they would try not to talk. Suzy would whistle once if they were to freeze. If she whistled twice, they were to drop everything and dash for the cave. Although she’d often been posted as lookout, this responsibility now caused her unexpected anxiety. She was also aware of the politely unverbalized general opinion that she had the easiest job—sitting up a tree—while they would all be working their butts off for the next two hours. However, they all knew the strain of sentry duty, especially at night.
Jonathan had warned them that it would not be easy to launch the heavy raft. The cliff slope was too steep to push the raft down; it would crash and break up on the beach. The easiest route was beyond the cliff path, on the southern side of the waterfall, which dropped about eighty feet in a series of rocky terraces to the beach.
They were going to lower the raft to the beach on four vine ropes, one bound to each cross member of the raft. The raft would run forward on the two roller logs. Two women were needed at the top of the cliff to signal to the rope handlers, so that the raft stayed on course until it arrived on the beach. It would be like a huge, heavy tray sliding down the cliff. Unless the descent were carefully controlled, the raft might gather momentum and careen onto the lower rocks of the waterfall—which would smash it to pieces.
Controlled by Carey, the two left-hand ropes were wound twice around the lookout tree—which was the nearest tree to the clifftop. Controlled by Patty, the two right-hand ropes were wound around a second tree. The trees would take the strain of the heavy raft.
Annie and Silvana were both stationed at the clifftop, to ensure that the raft moved smoothly in the correct direction. Standing at the bottom of the cliff, Jonathan was to signal with his left hand to Annie (who was partnering Carey), and with his right hand to Silvana (who was working with Patty). The two women standing on the clifftop were able to see Jonathan on the beach, as well as the raft and the women lowering it, at the trees. If Jonathan raised his left hand, then Annie signaled to Carey to let out a foot of rope. If he raised his right hand, Silvana gave a similar signal to Patty. If he raised both his arms, both ropes were to be let out one foot. If he stood with his hands at his sides, then nobody moved.
Jonathan would have preferred to have two women hanging on to each rope, but there were simply not enough of them. Instead of having two of them on the cliff, he had considered signaling with one of the whistles from a life jacket; but to lower the raft eighty feet would require a great deal of whistling and might attract attention while they were all exposed and vulnerable.
He calculated that it would take an hour and a half to launch the raft, which would only give them fifteen minutes of daylight to load it. On the other hand, that would also cut down their chances of being seen.
For the last time, he checked the vine ropes that would control the descent of the raft, after which he carefully picked his way down the cliff path. This was no time to sprain an ankle.
At the bottom, Jonathan stood at the side of the waterfall, so that he could tilt the raft away from the water channel and onto the sand, where it would be easier to load. The timing wasn’t ideal, but there would be nearly a full moon, which was lucky. And at this point, so near the cyclone season, it was a reasonable risk to take, in order to save a day.
Standing knee deep in water, he looked up.
Above him, on the clifftop, Annie and Silvana waved. They were ready.
Jonathan waved both arms.
The work went faster than Jonathan had calculated. A foot at a time, the heavy raft moved with its own momentum over the undergrowth toward the edge of the cliff. Jonathan had warned Silvana and Annie not to stand in the path of the raft in case, for some reason, Patty and Carey were unable to control its descent.
The most anxious moment was when the raft slowly tipped over the top of the cliff.
Far below, Jonathan stood well back and out of the way. Patty and Carey felt the extra weight on the thick vine ropes. After that, nobody had time to be anxious.
Foot by foot, the women lowered the heavy, palm-log raft.
At one point Carey gasped to Patty, “I’m not going to be able to carry a thing down that damn cliff, after this. I swear my arms are coming off.”
The wounds on her hands had opened yet again, in spite of the heavy fishing gloves.
Slowly, the raft bumped down the cliff.
The dark shape jerked downward to the beach, until it finally bumped to a stop, with its front end resting on the sand and its rear caught on an overhang which jutted out six feet above the beach.
The four women scrambled down the cliff. Together, they finally heaved the raft onto the sand. Their sweating faces were rapturously happy.
“Last dip in the waterfall pool,” gasped Jonathan, “then we load her up.”
The cool water refreshed them, and in their dripping rags they climbed the path back to the camp.
Annie directed the stream of supplies to the top of the cliff, where they were bundled in mosquito netting and carried down to the beach. Silvana doused both the fires and checked that the camp had been cleared.
With all food, water and supplies at the clifftop, Patty and Jonathan carried the ship’s ladder and the black rubber tire down the cliff to the beach, then Jonathan lashed both to the center of the raft. The partitions formed by the ladder rungs and the center of the tire held the food and containers in place. The bamboo paddles were tied to the ladder, and so was all other equipment; each of the passengers who were to sit on either side of the ladder would be similarly lashed to it. The lighter women were to paddle at the front of the raft, while Jonathan and Carey would kneel to paddle at the rear. In order to avoid tripping over the
ropes or falling over the side, movement on the raft was to be restricted to the minimum. If anyone complained of discomfort, she could get out and walk.
Jonathan directed the loading of the raft. “Just keep going for a bit longer, lads,” he said encouragingly, as the women staggered down to him with the supplies and equipment.
They had just finished loading when the sudden tropical darkness fell. The women flopped onto the sand, too tired to feel hungry. Nobody spoke.
As they lay exhausted, waiting for the tide to rise, Jonathan—yet again—checked the raft design in his mind. How high would she ride in the water? That was what worried him. And how steady would she ride?
Just after sunset, the tide reached its full ebb and the sea started to creep up the beach. Around midnight, the tide would again turn and, with luck, sweep them out to sea. They all knew that the most dangerous part of their journey would be during the first twenty minutes, when, in the moonlight, they would either surge through the narrow channel in the coral reef or be dashed against the jagged banks and ripped apart.
Jonathan handed around slices of dried fish and some water, then said, “I want you all to take your places on the raft. We’ve got a few hours to sit here, before the tide lifts us off. I want you to get on the raft now and behave as if we was already at sea. Get used to having no space, get used to being careful, so you don’t knock anything overboard. Get used to taking a pee without moving, get used to the idea that the raft ain’t rigid.”
“But what about those crossbeams?” Carey asked.
“Once we’re in the water, all the logs will move a bit.” It was impossible to bind the logs rigid to each other, and you wouldn’t want to do it because then the raft would break up faster. Jonathan didn’t know how long the thing would last; he hadn’t mentioned this, because he hadn’t wanted to alarm the women. He was taking the risk that they’d get to Irian Jaya before the thing disintegrated.
The women sat on the raft, feeling cramped and tired, but tense with excitement and expectation.
The moon rose.
Slowly the sea crept up the beach.
The water reached the base of the raft, sighed and withdrew.
Jonathan said, “Patty, go and bring Suzy down out of that tree. She won’t want to miss the trip.”
By the time Suzy and Patty had clambered aboard, the front of the raft was two inches underwater.
The women were too excited to talk. Annie and Silvana were silently praying for a safe voyage. Jonathan was worrying about the possible necessity of fast weight redistribution once she had lifted off the sand.
Quietly, the black water surrounded the raft.
Excitement mounted as they waited to lift off. Although they were clearly visible, somehow they all felt that, at this moment, they were protected by destiny. And Jonathan had the M-16 in his hands. Once they were headed for the gap in the reef, it would be Annie’s job to look after the rifle, because Jonathan would have to give his whole attention to the raft.
Three birds, swift black shadows, flew across the pale moon. The sea was an endless lake of silver. The moon threw elongated shadows of the raft and its occupants across the gleaming, scimitar curve of the beach. Behind them, the cliff was a silver wall, down which the silver waterfall plunged. At the clifftop, the palm trees formed a pattern of silver and black stripes, their tips waving like feather dusters.
Over the splashing roar of the waterfall and the surf now surging gently behind them, Suzy called in a clear, excited whisper, “Jonathan, my ass is underwater, and so are my feet.”
“Don’t worry,” he whispered back. “We may get swamped at the front, until she lifts off at the rear.”
Nobody said anything. Slowly, they all found themselves sitting in water.
Jonathan said, “Maybe we should get off, give her a chance to float.” He sounded worried.
They all scrambled off the raft and stood, calf-deep in the water, their sneakers sinking into the submerged sand.
Jonathan said, “Maybe she’s stuck on something. Give her a shove, careful like.”
They all tried to push the raft forward into the sea, but without success. It might as well have been anchored in cement.
Stunned, the little group watched as, in the silver moonlight, the raft slowly disappeared underwater.
The sea started to lap at their equipment.
“This goddamned raft won’t float!” Suzy cried.
Carey turned to Jonathan. “I suppose you did check that palm trees float, Jonathan?”
* * *
The small group wearily unlashed, or cut free, their equipment and dragged it from the now waterlogged raft to the dusty, dry vegetation at the back of the beach, where the tide never normally reached.
In the moonlight, they sat down and wept.
Through her tears, Annie thought, This is the worst part so far. We shouldn’t have allowed ourselves to hope—that was our mistake. On the other hand, it had been hope that had kept them going for the past few days, as they toiled beneath the burning sun with more strength and endurance than they had thought possible.
Eventually Jonathan said, “Can’t sit here all night. Let’s get back to camp.”
In a fury, Suzy cried, “I can sit here all night. There’s not much difference between being eaten alive down here by ants and mosquitoes or up there. And why should we do what you say, any longer? You pretended to know everything. You got us into this mess, Mr. Big-Mouth Philosopher.”
The other women joined in a weeping, disappointed chorus.
Several times Jonathan said he was sorry, but their pain, exhaustion and disappointment flared up in recrimination.
Finally he burst out, “I did the best I could! If I hadn’t blown up my boat, you lot probably wouldn’t be alive. None of you had any ideas. Just because I’m the only man around, you expect me to know everything, take all responsibility for you and be blamed by you for every damned thing that goes wrong!”
He scrambled to his feet. “I tell you, I’m fed up with playing the father. One of you lot can have a go at it, see how you like it!”
Angrily he looked at the weeping women. “I’m resigning—as of now! Consider yourselves divorced. I’m off!” He looked briefly at the spot where the sea had slid smoothly over the raft, then he turned his back on it and stomped down the beach.
Carey sat up. “He might really mean it. Go after him, Patty. He’s got a soft spot for you. God knows what’ll happen to us without him.”
“I’m damned if I’m going after him,” wept Patty. “He got us into this mess!”
Annie scrambled to her feet and ran after Jonathan. The gritty sand filled her sneakers as she scurried along the beach. By the time she caught up with him, he had nearly reached the end of the sand, but was unable to go any farther because it was high tide and there were sheer black cliffs ahead of him.
As Annie caught up with him, she could sense his depression and humiliation, sense that his spirit and energy had drained away. She laid a placatory hand on the hard muscles of his arm. “Please, Jonathan, don’t be angry. We do appreciate you. And we need you.”
“That’s for sure. But I don’t need you,” he growled. “If I hadn’t been stuck with a bunch of Sheilas, I could’ve worked my way round the coast to Queenstown, maybe jumped a boat by now. I know I’d’a got off this place somehow—if I’d had only meself to think about.”
Annie said, “We all know that.”
“I didn’t ask you lot to set me up as Superman. You did that! I didn’t ever pretend to be anything I ain’t. I’m just an ordinary seaman. I thought all wood floated—didn’t you? Course you did—and so did all of ’em, otherwise someone would’a said something before now.”
“They’re disappointed, you see.”
“Do you think I ain’t disappointed? I’m the one that had the worry, as well as the work. But I’m not sitting on the sand and howling like a baby.”
“What do you want us to do, Jonathan?”
“I
ain’t going to fall for that again. Superman has just resigned. It’s someone else’s turn. You’d better decide which one of you lot wants to be Superwoman. Then she can do the thinking and the figuring and the planning, and you can kick her when things go wrong.”
“Oh, dear. Do you think Patty …?”
“Patty’s impatience could get you in a lot of trouble.”
“How about Carey?”
“My advice is don’t pin your hopes on one person, then blame that person if she’s wrong, because it ain’t fair.” Jonathan grunted, “But sure, Carey will do. She’s practical—she can see what it’s like. She can take over, do the fishing, wipe your asses and blow your noses, she can do the lot! I’m off!”
“You did better than any of us could ever have done, Jonathan, and we all know that.”
They had reached the end of the beach. In silence, they turned and headed back toward the distant, mournful little group in the shadows at the back of the beach.
Jonathan muttered, “I was raised in Brisbane … only been here eighteen months. Picked up a bit about this island, but I ain’t no Robinson Crusoe. I ain’t a walking, talking Boys’ Own Encyclopedia. I try to keep things simple, and a lot of the time I just have to … guess.”
Annie said, “And you guessed right, most of the time.”
As Annie and Jonathan drew level with the huddled group at the back of the beach, the other women jumped up and ran toward them. Silvana threw her arms around Jonathan’s neck, Carey hugged both Silvana and Jonathan, Suzy hopped up and down on the sand and whispered, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
Patty said softly, “We couldn’t manage without you, Jonathan. We all know that.”
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 25
By eleven o’clock that morning they had hauled all their possessions up the cliff, set up camp again and buried the heavy raft. After that, too exhausted to speak, they ate some dried fish and drank water from the bamboo containers.
Annie said, “We’d better sleep for a few hours, then we’ll have self-defense practice. Remember, you said you’d show us how to use a garotte, Jonathan?”