All the women were irritable, unreasonable and tense—the more so because of the presence of a corpse. The dead soldier had been dragged away from the bottom of the shaft and stripped by the light of one of their sixteen yard-long dried coconut-fiber torches, lit with one of their new army-issue lighters. Each woman would now have a uniform to provide protective clothing.
In that damp and humid atmosphere, the corpse was decomposing quickly. The smell was like rotten meat, only stronger, with an added sickly-sweet odor. At first the smell had not been unpleasant, but as the body putrefied the stink gradually grew nauseating, partly because the sphincters had relaxed and urine and feces had escaped from the body. Carey had always wondered why corpses needed washing. Now she knew.
The putrefactive gases of decomposition accumulated in the intestines, grossly distending the black abdomen, and the black glistening mess that had been a head crawled with insects and buzzed with flies. Death had an awful, weird smell, thought Carey as she shifted the body to climb the chimney. How strange it was to be so frightened by a dead body when it was exactly at that point that it could no longer be a threat to you.
She started to climb up the cave shaft.
When Carey’s head finally poked up above the ground she could see nothing alarming. With an effort, she threw herself sideways out of the hole. Now that the tension of the climb was over, she relaxed her iron concentration and started to shake all over. It was at least ten minutes before she could unfurl the rattan rope that was slung around her waist.
Carefully getting up from her crouch and taking cover at every move, she melted from tree to tree, conscious that she had no weapon but her knife.
When she spotted the charred area that had been their camp, she stopped and waited. At first she saw nobody, but then a sentry appeared. He sauntered from the area at the top of the waterfall, strolling back toward the camp. His relaxed walk told her that he didn’t really expect to see anyone. She watched him walk through the blackened grass and turn toward William Penn. Shortly afterward he returned along the same path, turned at the waterfall and again slowly walked east, back toward William Penn.
Carey watched him for ten minutes, then returned to the cave shaft.
The fire had stopped just short of this part of the forest. She needn’t have bothered to cut the goddamn rope, Carey thought crossly as she tied the rope around the usual tree and flung it down the shaft. She waited until she felt three tugs, then gave two answering tugs, which meant, “Okay, now I know you have the rope.” This was immediately answered by another four tugs, which meant that Annie was coming up.
The little group was delayed by Silvana, who had difficulty climbing up the rope because of her amputated finger. As soon as all four women had climbed out of the shaft, Suzy handed Carey her rifle. Carey camouflaged the cave chimney, then led the way as the women slipped through the jungle, always keeping the shoreline in view, always following the compass.
Nobody said a word, but only followed Carey’s gesture until, on the southern headland, they reached the trail that Carey had hacked with the machete. This led over the final area of bumpy terrain to the cliff above the inlet in which the dinghy was hidden.
Exhausted, they paused for breath before the final descent. To their right, the setting sun tinted the entire sky in chrome yellow and scarlet. Already they could see the fat crescent of the moon. Behind them, the darkening forest was shrill with comforting evening noises, the rhythm of the jungle. Briefly, Carey remembered how frightened they’d been on their first night in the forest, when every night creature had seemed ominous.
As if echoing her thoughts, Suzy whispered, “Why aren’t I scared anymore?”
Annie said, “Not enough time to be scared.”
Silvana said, “Too many other things to think about.”
“We’ll be scared afterward.” Carey wriggled her stiff shoulders. “Okay, you guys, on your feet. We’re going aboard. Thanks for lending me your compass, Suzy.” She handed it back, and Suzy shoved it into her pocket.
Followed by the other women, with Suzy in the rear, Carey started to slither down the mountainside. Stones rattled as they descended.
“Hey, it’s steep!” squeaked Suzy. Five seconds later she fell.
Annie turned round and frowned. “Shhhh!”
“Sorry!” Suzy scrambled to her feet and hurried on.
She did not notice that the thong with Jonathan’s key ring and the compass had fallen from her pocket.
BOOK SEVEN
SHADOW OF DEATH
29
“Take us straight out to sea, Patty,” Annie said as soon as it was dusk. “Let’s get as far as we can from here, as fast as possible.”
The little dinghy nosed out of the narrow creek into sea, the two bamboo bed-rafts tossing in its wake. The women had forgotten what speed felt like! They’d forgotten the luxury of being carried instead of having to carry. They felt exultantly proud of themselves. They had done it! They were free! They felt the gloating satisfaction and camaraderie of a job completed, a mission accomplished.
After the hot, thunderous oppression of the day it was a relief to be skimming over the cool sea, Annie thought as she trailed her hand through the water and watched the silvered phosphorescence spurt behind her fingers.
“How fast are we going?” Silvana asked.
Patty said, “Maybe five knots. That means we’re traveling just over five miles an hour, so that’s fourteen hours, minimum, to Irian Jaya.” She didn’t like to inject a sour note, but felt she had to add, “Although we don’t know how much gas is in the engine. Pity the spare can was empty.”
Annie said, “So long as the engine holds out until we hit the current we should be all right. We’ll have another look at the charts in daylight.” They had been puzzling over the charts since Jonathan’s death.
Patty said cheerfully, “Jonathan said it’s a one-knot current, so without power the fastest we can get to Irian Jaya is seventy hours—three days.”
“But maybe we’ll be picked up earlier,” Suzy said hopefully.
Patty’s voice was confident. “Sure. We aren’t stuck in the middle of the Pacific. We’re in a relatively narrow channel between Papua New Guinea and Australia.”
Carey cried happily, “In a nice safe fiberglass boat, with an anchor and two oars!”
“Not a waterlogged raft with no steering!” Suzy sounded euphoric.
The women in the dinghy were exhausted but lighthearted. As Annie listened to their banter, she found it difficult to remember that these were the grim women who yesterday on the beach had fought for their freedom against the men who had wanted to take it from them. Annie felt a fierce satisfaction as she recalled their determination. Freedom is not given, she realized. You have to take it.
Careful not to upset the equilibrium of the overloaded dinghy, Annie swiveled in her seat to face Patty. She said, “I’d like to check what Jonathan taught us about navigation—because now it’s for real.”
Patty said complacently, “We have two compasses.” She held out the black plastic case. “This one, and Suzy’s pocket compass.”
Annie twisted around. “Your compass okay, Suzy?”
Silvana said, “She’s asleep.”
Patty said, “We want to hit the offshore current that runs to the southeast and sweeps around southern Paui. Then there will be seventy miles of ocean to cover before we reach Irian Jaya.”
Carey said, “We want to reach that island, the one with the name I can never remember.”
“Pulau yos Sudarsa,” Annie said. “If we miss it somehow, we’ll just go on until we hit northern Australia.”
Carey nodded. “During the day we steer by the sun, which passes over us at midday—slightly to the north because we’re eight degrees south of the equator.”
Patty said, “As a rough guide, I point the hour hand of my watch at the sun. Halfway between the hour hand and twelve o’clock is north.”
“On cloudy days?”
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sp; “Annie, you’re getting to sound like a scoutmaster!” Patty sounded cheerfully confident. “On cloudy days I hold Carey’s pencil at the center of the watch so that the faint shadow of the stick falls along the minute hand. Halfway between the shadow and four o’clock is south.”
“And at night?”
Patty nodded up at the star-spangled heavens. “If we have compass trouble at night, we’ll steer by the stars. I keep the Southern Cross over my right shoulder to steer a southeasterly course.”
Carey added, “If the moon rises before the sun sets, the curve of the moon will be to the west. If it rises after the sun sets, the curve will be to the east.”
“And if the moon rises at the same time?”
“Then it’s a full moon, but I forget how to use it.”
“Damnit, so do I,” Annie said, cross with herself. “We’re all tired, we’d better go through this again in the morning. We all ought to be able to gabble it off by heart…. Hey!” Annie lurched sideways as Silvana suddenly slumped against her.
Recovering her balance, Annie said, “She’s asleep. Lucky she didn’t fall the other way or she’d have gone overboard. We’d better rope ourselves to those rings at the front and back of the boat. Carey, you take first watch.”
By the time the dinghy had been at sea for two hours, the shore was no longer visible. The swell had increased, and although the boat was still moving, it didn’t seem to be making much progress.
The engine coughed. Patty’s heart sank. In spite of her crossed fingers, the engine stopped. There’s no point in waking everyone up to tell them we’re out of gas, she thought glumly.
Patty found the boat increasingly difficult to steer without power. The swell had become more pronounced and slapped the hull with increasing strength. She couldn’t stand the pause which followed the heave upward before the boat dipped down the next oily, black wave. She knew that to avoid seasickness she should not look at the sea, just at the horizon. But since it was dark, she couldn’t see the horizon.
Carey suddenly moaned, then grabbed the side and heaved over it. The boat pitched violently, then shot forward. She groaned and felt for the bailer. She dipped it in the sea and started to splash water on her face. Then, dropping the bailer, she held her head over the gunwale again. The stars tilted.
By nine o’clock at night all the women were violently seasick. Annie could now understand something she had read: when you’re seasick you lose the will to live. She retched and retched again, although there was nothing left in her stomach to void. It was as if her center of equilibrium had spun loose and was gyrating, like a top, in her stomach.
The moon appeared and the women were able to see one another’s faces glistening wet against the black, heaving sea.
As she hung feebly over the side, Suzy’s peaked cap was suddenly tugged from her head. In the misty moonlight she grabbed at it, but the cap flew just beyond her reach and settled on the water, where it dipped and bobbed on the foam-crested waves.
The wind strengthened, and raindrops drummed against the fiberglass. Suddenly, a torrent of water lashed the dinghy. The women were immediately soaked to the skin.
The waves grew higher and broke over the dinghy. The seawater seemed cold at first, but as sheets of freezing rain fell from above, the water in the boat felt almost lukewarm.
A dazed Carey handled the bailer with slow, exhausted movements. Silvana was already throwing water out of the boat with her cupped hands, as fast as she could. She managed to bail a surprising amount in this way.
Annie yelled to Suzy, “Get some water jars from the locker, then we can all bail.”
As the rain slammed inboard the exhausted, bewildered women hurled it out again. At first they bailed carefully, filling their bamboo containers before flinging the water overboard. But their bailing increased in frenzy with the storm, until they were hurling half as much over the side with twice as much strength as was necessary. Once Suzy unthinkingly threw the water into the howling wind, which simply slammed it back in her face. It took her breath away and left her gasping.
Bruised and out of breath, they had to yell to be heard. Unless one woman bellowed straight into the cold, wet ear of another, their voices were torn away by the gale.
“Carey, which way do you steer an overloaded boat in bad weather?” Patty yelled above the wind. “Into the waves? Side-on to the waves? Or do we run before the damn things?”
Carey shouted back, “I’ve no idea. Try them all! Quickly! I thought you knew how to handle boats. You knew how to start the outboard motor!”
“Only for water skiing, on calm water.”
Steering side-on didn’t seem to be right, and when the dinghy ran before the waves the water immediately curled over the stern, threatening to swamp the boat. Steering into the waves and meeting the sea head-on seemed best, but it was tough on the stomach, Patty thought.
The brutal wind lashed their faces, tore their breath away and sucked the warmth from their bones. Howling with rage, it tore at their battered bodies and froze their flesh. It blew away their willpower. The women were so wet and stiff and cold that it was too much of an effort to move.
Suzy felt the gripping dread in her heart that she had known as a child. Once again she was helpless and hopeless as random violence lashed about her. Fleetingly she felt again that bewildered guilt—not knowing what she’d done to deserve this, but knowing that she must be guilty of some dreadful sin, because otherwise God wouldn’t punish her like this. Only when Suzy was terrified did she believe in God, and He was always a wrathful, capricious figure.
A wave crashed over the boat, knocking Suzy off balance to starboard. She screamed. Annie watched in horror as a surge of water heaved up and floated Suzy off the boat.
As Suzy was swept overboard, Silvana managed to grab one of her legs. Silvana hung on and ducked her head to avoid Suzy’s other kicking foot. Suzy’s head and shoulders were underwater. The sudden weight of the two other women tipped the boat to within three inches of the churning sea.
To compensate, Annie threw herself in the opposite direction. She found herself in the bottom of the boat, sprawled in slopping water. She turned her head and heard Silvana’s scream snatched by the wind. Without conscious thought Annie scrambled to her knees, grabbed Silvana by the waist and hauled her backward.
Hanging on to the tiller, Patty was helpless, and Carey, crouched in the stern, dared not move in case she further tipped the boat.
Gradually, the weight of the two other women pulled Suzy back aboard. She collapsed, wet and gasping, into the bottom of the boat as the storm’s fury crashed around them.
Annie groped her way forward to the bow. Her numb, wet fingers slowly pried open the catch on the locker. Clumsy with cold, she grabbed the flares and rockets and shoved them into her pockets, then crawled back to the stern over the tangle of wet gear and sodden bodies.
Annie shoved the flares and rockets into Carey’s hand. The wind tore the words from her mouth as she screamed, “Share … them … out!”
Silvana crawled back to the bow of the tossing boat and felt for the water containers. She managed to give one to each woman to shove down their tunic fronts.
With frozen hands, Patty pushed the compass into her button-down breast pocket, but her fingers were too stiff to do up the button.
Annie took off her wet boots—her precious boots—and tied them together by the laces. Then, with a length of rattan, she tied everybody’s boots to the center thwart. This took longer than it should have, because her fingers were chilled and clumsy. All the women were shivering uncontrollably. Annie tied the empty jerry can to the center thwart, then she tied one wooden oar to Silvana’s waist and one to Suzy’s. They all now realized that they might have to swim.
A bolt of lightning snaked, violent white, against the blackness. More lightning flashes followed. Every time they lit the scene like stroboscopic flash, the women saw a frozen, monochromatic snapshot of themselves clinging to the little white boat.
>
Carey screamed in Patty’s ear, “You and I are the best swimmers. Maybe if we jump overboard and swim it’d give the boat more of a chance. She won’t be so overloaded and get swamped and sink.”
Jagged lightning lit Patty’s horrified face.
Carey yelled to Patty, “We’ve got a better chance … if we don’t lose the boat … if we’re roped to it. And we’ve got life jackets.”
“What about sharks?” Patty screamed.
Carey’s voice was now almost too hoarse to shout. “I think sharks stay sensibly on the bottom in this sort of weather.” She spat out water. “We can survival-float. It looks as if we’ll have to do that anyway. This way, we may save the boat.”
Patty gasped, “Are you crazy? First, let’s ditch the outboard. It’s heavy—it might make a lot of difference.”
With difficulty, the two women unscrewed the motor from its mount on the thwart, lifted it, then let it go. It fell into the water and disappeared.
Carey crawled forward to Annie and yelled in her ear, “We’re going over. It sounds crazy, but if we save the boat, we save ourselves.”
Nodding, Annie screamed, “Double your ropes before you jump, and do it fast.”
The two terrified women lowered themselves feet first over the stern, and were immediately swept from the dinghy.
Occasionally Annie caught glimpses of the seawater-activated lights of their life jackets jerking up and down in the blackness. She could only see when lightning illuminated the oil-black water for a frozen, bruise-purple moment. The world was a black, wet, starless void and they were being sucked into its violence.
For the first time Annie wondered whether a fiberglass boat could break up. But even if it didn’t, one of the three women in the boat might be injured or flung overboard by the motion.