02 South Sea Adventure (13 page)

His throat was as dry as sandpaper and his stomach felt as hollow as a drum. He dozed off and dreamed of rain. He woke up with a start and looked at the sky.

There was not a cloud as big as his hand. The stars blazed like the hot merciless suns they were. The Milky Way looked like a path of powdered glass.

That other night on the island at Bikini he had heard small animals moving through the brush. Here on Dead Man’s Reef, as Omo had called it, there was no sound but the sob and suck of the surf. There was even the smell of death, drifting across the island from the body of the rotting shark.

Hal fell into a troubled sleep.

The light of early dawn woke him. There were kinks and quirks in his back where the rocks had jabbed him with their sharp elbows. But the air was cool and fresh. Hal did not feel quite as hungry and thirsty as he had the night before. He knew that was not a good sign - his system was becoming numb.

The brisk invigorating air put new ambition into him. Somehow they were going to beat this reef, and Kaggs too.

He tried to remember how it went in the poem - the morning’s dew-pearled, all’s right with the world. He rose cheerfully and went to see what he had caught in his dew-trap.

The coconut shell was nearly half-full of water. He had hoped for more but evidently the dew had been light. He took the precious liquid to camp.

Omo was stirring but seemed to be in a sort of stupor. Hal raised his head and poured half of the water down his throat.

‘You drink the rest,’ he told Roger who was sitting up yawning, rubbing some of the creases out of his hide. Hal put the cup in Roger’s hands and went off to renew his attack upon the sharkskin. That terrific sun would be rising soon and it was essential that they should have some protection against it.

Roger sat looking at the water in the bottom of the shell. If he had been offered a choice between the water and a hundred dollars at that moment he would have said, ‘Me for the water!’ But shucks! - camels could go a week without water. And his brother had called him a spoiled brat. Omo was groaning softly. He was muttering, ‘It’s so hot -so hot - so hot!’ Perspiration ran down his face. If he was so hot before sunrise, how would he feel later? Roger parted Omo’s lips and emptied the cup into the brown boy’s mouth.

Then, feeling pretty noble, he went to join Hal. He wanted to tell Hal what he had done so that his brother wouldn’t think him a spoiled brat. But he decided to hold his tongue.

The red-hot devil of a sun rose before they finished flensing off the skin. It was a magnificent sheet nearly twenty feet long and eight wide. They scraped the fat off the inner surface. Then they stood back and admired their work.

‘That was a good idea of yours,’ Hal said.

‘Well, I remembered your telling me that somewhere they build houses of fishskin. Isn’t it in Siberia?’

‘Yes. The people called the Fishskin Tartars. Their food is fish, they make their clothes and shoes out of fishskin, and their huts are built of poles with fishskin stretched over them. And you can always tell when you come near a fishskin village by the smell!’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Roger, turning up his nose.

The sharkskin won’t smell so bad after the sun has cured it But we ought to get rid of the carcass. Let’s try to roll it down where high tide will take it.’

By dint of hard labour they inched the monster’s body down close to the water’s edge.

There’s a lot of meat here,’ Roger said. It’s a shame we can’t eat it’

‘It’s too badly decayed. Better to eat nothing than that.’ So, turning their backs upon the poisonous breakfast that the sea had offered them, they returned to camp, dragging the sharkskin behind them.

Now they launched into building operations in earnest. Having no nails, screws, or bolts, no beams, joists, or planks, nothing that a house-builder would ordinarily think necessary, they had to use considerable ingenuity.

‘We have only enough skin for the roof,’ Roger said. ‘How about piling up rocks to make the walls?’

‘Sure! But we’ll need a ridgepole. And a couple of posts to hold it up. That palm log might do for a ridgepole. It’s slender -1 think we can lift it.’

‘And if we could find a couple of stumps the right distance apart they would do for posts.’

There were plenty of palm stumps left standing. They found two that stood about eight feet high and a dozen feet apart. With their knives they cut notches in the tops of the stumps and hoisted the palm log in place so that it lay in the notches and stretched from one stump to the other.

Now they had their ridgepole.

‘Funny to start with the roof,’ Roger said.

‘Not so funny. The Polynesians often do that, and the Japanese always do. Build the roof first, hoist it up on stilts, hold a celebration, and then build the house under the roof.’

They stretched the twenty-foot skin over the ridgepole so that it was ten feet long on each side. Then they proceeded to build the walls. They piled coral blocks up to a height of about four feet. They fitted them together as well as possible so that the inside surface would be nearly vertical. On the outside the wall was solidly buttressed with more rocks. They left four gaps to serve as doors for getting in and out, and for ventilation.

Then they stretched the sharkskin out until it went smooth and straight from the ridgepole in both directions down to the tops of the walls. There they pinned it fast with lumps of coral.

The house was finished - and surely no stranger one had ever been seen, even in the land of the Fishskin Tartars!

They brought Omo in and laid him down on the least rough portion of the coral floor. He breathed a sigh of contentment for the place was dark and cool. The three-foot-thick rock walls defied the sun. The sharkskin, although not as heatproof as palm thatch, was thicker than shingles. The roof was a bit low, but it was better to have it low and snug in case of a windstorm.

The room measured only eight feet in the direction of the ridgepole, but nearly twenty feet the other way - quite big enough for three persons.

There’s even room enough to do our cooking inside on rainy days,’ Hal said.

if there is any rain. And if we have anything to cook. And if we can make a fire without matches.’

Hal gritted his teeth. ‘We’ve got to lick those ifs. We can’t make it rain, but there must be some way to find fresh water. Let me think. You can get water from the guiji vine but none of it grows here. There’s water in the barrel cactus but there’s no barrel cactus. How about pandanus? It often grows even in as bad a spot as this. Those little air roots that look like leaves contain water. Let’s go.’

They went out with pretended enthusiasm but no real expectation of finding pandanus.

Hal picked up a pebble and gave it to Roger. ‘Chew on that,’ he suggested. ‘It makes the saliva flow and you’ll almost think you’re getting a drink.’

They searched diligently the rest of the day. They found no pandanus nor anything else that yielded moisture. This reef seemed as dead and dry as the moon.

At night Hal again built a cairn of stones to collect dew. But a wind came up and dew did not form. In the morning the cup was empty. Even the patient had to go without water.

Omo was conscious now. His leg gave him great pain and he suffered from thirst that had been made more intense by his fever. But the heat had gone from his forehead and cheeks. Hal consulted him on the problem of water. He told him what they had done to find it. ‘You probably would have better ideas.’

‘No. I would have done just what you have done. You were pretty smart - that pigweed and then catching the dew.’ ‘I never felt so stupid in my life,’ Hal grumbled. Omo looked at his friend’s haggard and troubled face. ‘You’re letting worry get you down. Will you do me a favour?’ ‘Sure. Anything.’

‘You and Roger go in for a swim. Our people believe that when things get very bad it helps to turn your back on them and go and play for a while. It will relax you. You’ll be able to think better.’

‘Very well, Dr Omo, if you insist,’ Hal said. ‘But it seems an awful waste of time.’

‘Boy. it sounds good to me.’ Roger said. ‘Let’s go in on the ocean side - it will be cooler.’

They plunged into the surf. The bottom did not slope gradually away but dropped abruptly to great depths. They performed like two playful seals, diving, swimming, splashing, and their cares flowed away like raindrops from a duck’s back.

‘You can’t catch me,’ shouted Roger.

‘What’ll you bet?’

‘I’ll betcha this island.’

‘I don’t want your blasted island, but I’ll catch you,’ and Hal burrowed deep down after the disappearing form of Roger.

At a depth of twenty feet or more. Roger began following the shore. Hal was close behind. Where the bridge of reef widened into the second island Roger suddenly felt the water go very cold.

It seemed to be a submarine current coming from the land. In a moment he was out of it. Now Hal felt it. Astonished, both boys popped to the surface.

Roger shook the water from his face. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘It comes from a cave in the land. Do you know what that means?’

‘Can’t say that I do.’

‘It means it’s fresh water, or I’m a donkey’s breakfast.’

‘You’re probably a donkey’s breakfast,’ agreed Roger.

‘Wish we had a bottle. Well, let’s go down and fill our mouths.’

Hal dived. When his head came into the cold stream he opened his mouth and let the water crowd in. It was fresh and sweet! He swallowed it, gulped another mouthful, and came up. Roger emerged beside him.

‘It’s the real thing,’ he marvelled.

Hal was beaming. ‘Things are looking up,’ he exulted. ‘Stay here and mark the place while I get the cup.’

In ten minutes he was back with the coconut shell.

‘But it ought to have a lid or a cork,’ Roger said. ‘How can you keep it empty until you get down there?’

‘I don’t think it needs to be empty,’ And Hal dived with the shell which promptly filled with sea-water. When he reached the cold stream he held the cup in it and turned it upside down. He pushed his hand into it a few times to change the water. The salt water, being heavier, should fall out of the cup and be replaced by fresh.

He turned the shell right side up and rose to the surface. He joined Roger on the rocks.

Try it.’ He offered the cup to Roger who warily tasted the liquid. Then he began to gulp it down greedily.

‘Go easy!’ warned Hal. ‘You’re as dry as a bone inside. You’ll have trouble if you take on too much all at once.’

Refilling the cup at the submarine spring, they carried the precious liquid to Omo. When the fever-worn patient saw the cup full of water, tears came to his eyes. He took one sip, then put the cup aside. ‘I’ve never tasted anything so good in all my life.’ ‘Won’t you have more?’ Hal asked. ‘Later. My stomach isn’t used to such luxury.’ ‘Now we have two of the necessities of life,’ Hal said, ‘shelter and water. But my insides tell me that we can’t keep going much longer without food.’

Omo groaned. ‘I ought to be helping you. And here I am lying flat on my back as useless as a log.’

Hal looked affectionately at his brown companion. ‘You were mighty useful to me when you stopped that bullet.’ ‘Forget it.’

‘I’ll never forget it. Perhaps I can pay you back some day. Just at the moment the best thing I can do for you is to get you something to eat. Come on, Roger.’

Roger hated to leave the cool shade of the sharkskin cave.

‘I don’t believe there’s a mouthful of food on this infernal reef,’ he grumbled.

‘There’s one good sign,’ Omo said, ‘that gull that you say is on the island. He wouldn’t stay if there weren’t anything to eat.’

‘I’m sorry to report,’ Hal said, ‘that he’s gone. He flew away last night.’ For a moment no one spoke. In spite of the water, despair lay heavy upon their spirits. Hunger made them feel weak and hopeless. Hal roused himself. He sprang up, not very briskly for his legs felt uncertain, and started out of the hut.

‘Come on, old man,’ he called back to Roger. ‘We’re going to show that gull he made a mistake! ‘

Hunger sharpened their eyes. They went over the reef with a fine-tooth comb. Nothing was too small to escape their attention.

They turned over rocks and looked beneath. They moved togs. They burrowed in the sand of the beach. It was most disappointing.

After three hours of it, Roger dropped wearily to the ground with his head against a log. He felt as if he never wanted to move again.

Gradually he became aware of a scratching sound. It seemed to be inside the log. He called Hal. ‘Put your ear against this log. Do you hear anything?’ Hal listened. ‘There’s something alive in there. Perhaps we can get at it with our knives.’

They cut into the log which proved to be decayed. Presently Roger gave a grunt of disgust. He had uncovered something that looked like a fat caterpillar.

‘It’s a grub!’ exclaimed Hal. ‘Later on it changes into the white beetle. Put it in your pocket and let’s see if there’re any more of them.’ ‘You don’t mean to say we’re going to eat them!’ ‘Of course we are! Beggars can’t be choosers.’ They found fourteen of the grubs and took them to show to Omo. ‘Aren’t they poison?’ Roger asked doubtfully. ‘No indeed,’ Omo said. ‘Full of vitamins!’ ‘Won’t we have to cook them?’

‘Yes, but the sun will do that for you. They aren’t used to the sun. Lay them out on a hot rock and they’ll soon be roasted.’

The roasted grubs were not half bad. In fact, with appetites made keen by two days of hunger, everyone voted them to be delicious.

‘Where you found them there ought to be termites,’ Omo said. ‘They like rotten wood too.’

Omo’s guess proved to be correct. In another part of the log the boys came upon a nest of termites, the so-called ‘white ants’. They were big and plump. Hating the sun, they tried to escape into their tunnels in the wood. Hal and Roger scooped them out and placed them on a hot rock, in the blazing sun. They curled up, died, and fried.

Again the boys dined. They became almost merry.