PULAU MATI (20 page)

The dock
was not usable for the bamboo raft because of the outriggers so Gray, Keegan and Shinobu pulled the raft up past the tide line.  While the men had been working on the raft, Melanie had been throwing cots, bed clothing, chests and boxes out of the hut.  When Gray asked her why, she said if they had to stay on the island it would be more comfortable living at the hut than the shelter.  They could wash six of the cots in the pool, let them dry and use their own blankets for bed clothes.  Gray said that was a very good idea although they would stay at least one more night at the shelter since it would soon be getting dark.  They had done enough for one day.  He stepped out into the middle of the clearing and pushed the talk button on the two way radio as he waved in the direction of the peak.

“Anna, we are coming over to the shelter in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” she answered.

Gray thought her reply rather curt
but did not pursue it.  He called everyone to the hut and asked them if anyone had strong ideas about what to do with the pirate shackled to the post.

Keegan
said, “Kill’im,”

Melanie sighed deeply.  “Right now I don’t care.  If I spoke for Lex I would say we have to turn him over to some law agency.  He did not believe in
capital punishment.”

Shinobu said
, “I witnessed the cold blooded murder of the young man and it is still a difficult decision.  I have much respect for your opinion Gray.  How do you feel about it?”

“I vote to
execute the man as soon as he is of no more use to us.  We cannot rely upon some other nation’s system of law to mete out justice.  I’m afraid he will go free if we turn him over to whomever and we cannot let him loose to harm others.  I think we would be shirking our responsibility.”  Keegan of course agreed and Shinobu nodded.  Melanie shrugged.

Gray went on.
“I am not putting this on your shoulders, Melanie, but I will take care of him before we leave the island unless you can convince me otherwise.  I will ask the same of Anna and Dayah.”

While the others were gathering up items to take back to the shelter, Gray took some water
and leftover rice and bok choy in a pan to Bossman.  As a test Gray spoke in a conversational tone.  “I’m going to turn you over to the cannibal in a few minutes.  Is that okay?”

The man
looked puzzled but his eating noises showed he appreciated the food.  Gray was pretty sure the man did not comprehend English and Dayah was not here so any translation would have to wait.  Shinobu had said he knew some Malaysian and Indonesian but could understand very little of what the man said, likely due to some difference in dialect.  When Gray pointed at the raft and nodded, a hopeful smile came to the man’s face.

They crossed the island and as Shinobu had predicted, the bodies of the two pirates they had thrown into the ocean were nowhere to be seen.  The sun set and in the waning light they prepared a good meal of rice and some of the vegetables the pirates had brought with them.  Well after darkness had come, Gray asked Anna to go for a walk.  The moon was above the horizon but behind the island and cast an eerie light into the trees at the crest.  They went on past the notch and sat in the sand just up from the surf.

Anna asked, “How many days have we been here?”

“Six, I believe.”

“Do you think we will leave by the ship?”

“Bossman says the radio on the ship does not work and he does not even know what a satellite phone is.  So…”

“So?”

“I don’t think we should wait.  I think I was wrong about us being near a major shipping lane.  I think we need to find a chart aboard the ship and get Bossman to show us where we are.”

“Your phone knew where we were.”

“It is dead.  I think I remember the coordinates but I’m unsure.  We’re eight degrees and some minutes below the equator; that I do remember.”

“So we do not know how far we are from anywhere?”

“No.  When I was using the GPS to locate our stashed gear I should have asked everyone to help me remember the coordinates but I did not think about it.”

“Well, you are human.”

“Did you think otherwise?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m glad you discovered I am human.”

“I am not.”

Gray lay back in the sand and put an arm out as an invitation to embrace.  She turned and rested her head on his chest.  She had sounded sad to Gray but he could not guess the reason.  “Explain why not, Anna, meine Liebe.”

“You could hurt me.”

“Because I am human?”

“Yes.  Women like you…
so easily.”

“So you have said.”

“They do.  Very beautiful women.”

“You are feeding my ego you know?”

”It is true.”

“Are those women Alyson, Dayah, Melanie and you?”

“Yes.  Even Sophie was asking about you.”

“Norquist, the Swede?”

“Yes.”

Gray started to make an appreciative sound for the Swede like, “Umm yummy,” but decided Anna did not need that kind o
f humor right now.  “I am the same person you met at the Evian, and at the Emirates gate, and three days ago when we went for a walk.”

“I know.  Dayah and I talked today.  And I saw Melanie kiss you.”

Gray considered saying she should have been looking for ships rather than scanning the clearing but resisted.  “Things are getting a bit clearer.  What did Dayah say?”

“That she tried to seduce you.”

“It was closer to an ambush.  How did she say it worked out?”

“
She said you keeper and I need take care you or she do it.”

Gray chuckled at how well Anna had captured the young Malay’s speech pattern. 
“What did you think the deal was with Melanie?”

“I don’t know.  You were hugging her and holding her hand and then she kissed you.  We have
only kissed once.”

“
I was hugging her.  I like her and I pity her.  She is carrying a terrible burden from doing something stupid.”

“I understand that.  I feel the same way about her.  And she is responding to you.  I do not begrudge your kindness to her.”

“Thanks, Anna.  I was looking at her hands, blistered from chopping bamboo like she was driven by demons, and I was showing her my blisters.  Then I asked her to fix the men lunch and she called me a sexist asshole and kissed me.”

Anna giggled.  “Really?”

“Yes.  And the reason you and I have not kissed is because I am afraid to.  But we’ll come back to that.  You said I could hurt you.  That is the thing that is eating at you right now.”

“
Eating at me.  Good expression, that.  Yes.”

“You were hurt by someone that proved unfaithful.”

“Yes.”

“I am human, Anna.  But I have never cheated on any woman that I have committed to.  Alyson and I love each other but we have never committed to each other and that does not work for me nor does it work for her.  Even with us trying to see others it is very difficult
, frustrating for us.  I am a one woman man and I think you are a one man woman like Alyson.  If I commit to you I cannot conceive of ever seeing another woman.  But when we get back to civilization I will call Alyson and I am pretty sure we will see each other again.  Maybe for the last time but I cannot make that promise… until I can make that promise and keep it.”

Chapter X
I   Day Seven

When morning came, everyone was both hungry and eager to explore the ship.  Hunger won
so they dug clams and harvested papaya while rice cooked.  The ashes of the fire were still smoldering when they took off for the trail.  Everyone including Melanie was in a good mood hiking up the trail.  At the saddle, Gray called a halt while he scanned the clearing with the binoculars.  Keegan, Dayah and Melanie kept going.  Gray first checked on Bossman.  A cold chill ran up his back.  “Guys, come back!” he yelled.  “Ready your weapons!”

The next thing he looked for was the raft.  It was gone.

Keegan ran up and was panting at Gray’s side.  “What is it man?”

Before Gray could answer, Dayah pointed behind him toward the west side of the island.  “
Look ship!”

He
spun around and quickly located the ship Dayah was pointing to.  It was abeam them and maybe ten miles out heading south.  He put the glasses on it very briefly and determined it was a sleek, modern yacht in the 140 to 160 foot range.  Due to its location they could not signal it with the mirror because it was on the opposite side of them from the sun.  Frustrated, he turned back to the east and said, “Bossman is gone and so is the raft.”

Amidst groans and cries, Gray scanned the
pirates’ ship but it was not moving nor was there any activity on deck.  Two objects floated in the water this side of the surf at the mouth of the bay.  One of the objects was their bamboo raft but upside down.  The other was the motorless Zodiac.  As what he saw assimilated, his dread lessened as a sliver of hope grew.  He told the others of the floating raft but did not tell them of his slim hope.

They hurried down the slope, rifles at ready.  Before going into the clearing, Gray called a halt and he put the binoculars on the post.  The shackle and the chain were gone and
then he saw how Bossman had freed himself.  The chain had been held by a heavy ring bolt that went through the bottom of the post, but the post had been chipped away and the bolt freed.  If Bossman had not found a good hack saw, he was still wearing the shackle.

They crossed to the pole and discover
ed how the man had chipped it away.  Gray knelt and examined the pan containing the rice he had given the pirate.  It was worn away on two sides and the handle had broken off.  Bossman had sharpened the edge of the pan on a rock and pecked at the post, likely for the entire night, pecking and sharpening and pecking.  Blood on the pan, and the handle when they found it, revealed what it had taken to accomplish the task.  It was likely sunrise before it was done and Bossman would have been in a big hurry, afraid of his captors arriving at any moment.

Gray stood.  “Melanie, your idea of cleaning out the hut may have turned out to be a good one.  Shinobu, Anna, can you help with that?  You guys keep together and your weapons close.  Keegan and Dayah, come with me.”

Gray tried to work around the bay through the jungle but the growth was too heavy.  Much of the bay had no beach so they had to wade through the shallow water to the north edge of the bay where it met the open ocean.  From the clearing the distance south from the point to the raft had looked like a hundred and fifty feet but once there, the distance was more like one hundred fifty yards from where they stood.

The wind was
trying to blow the Zodiac into the bay but a slow current coming out of the bay was pulling the attached raft into the surf.

“I swim and get raft,”
Dayah said and started to undress.

Gray grabbed her arm.  “Dayah, that raft has a huge drag.  As good a swimmer as you are you cannot budge that raft against the current.  And if you tire
, the current could carry you away.”

“No, current go that way around island.”  She pointed to the north.  “I swim ashore but I rest on raft if tired.
”  She had dropped her shorts and pulled off her T-shirt.  Keegan and Gray both grabbed for her but she dived into the water and was thirty feet away in a second.

Gray hollered, “Dayah, if you cannot pull the raft, get up on it and try to use the Zodiac as a sail!”

She was out of their reach now so she stood up in the water.  “What you say?”

Gray repeated his instructions.  She nodded, grinning.  “I not need it.  I strong.”  She raised her slender arm and mocked a weightlifter flexing
a bicep.  She twirled and dove into the water.

Keegan blew out a long breath through pursed lips.  “
That bird would give a hard on ter a dead man.”

“Aye, she would,” Gray said
and tried to put the image of her out of his mind.  “She is a great swimmer too but I hope she’s not bitten off more than she can chew.”

“Aye, y
er’ll have ter rescue her.  I can not swim.”

“Keegan, can you go get one of those big bamboo pole
s I can use as a float if I have to go get her?”

“
I’m on me way,” he said and started off as fast as the shallow water allowed.

The current was
pulling Dayah out of the line that ran between Gray and the raft.  He began motioning with his arm for her to swim to the south west to counter it.  She turned onto her back and waved indicating she was okay but she must have understood what Gray was trying to tell her.  Her head swiveled between Gray and the raft and she waved again and turned southwest.  She was no longer drifting further east but neither was she closing the gap.  Before she reached the surf she turned straight west and Gray could see she was struggling.

The gap closed and she had a hold of the raft.  She grasped the raft with both hands and rested her head against it, not moving for several minutes, just riding the waves up and down.

Gray could have sworn he heard her shriek.  She suddenly scrambled atop the raft and then peered into the water below it.  In a moment she was pulling up the rope attached to the Zodiac and then she leaned down and was reaching for something under the surface.  She sat up and pulled in the Zodiac and dragged it onto the raft.  It was unwieldy for her but she pulled up the end of the Zodiac and the wind caught it, nearly pulling her off the raft before she could release it.  She reeled it back in and tied one end to the front of the bamboo raft and then using the bowline, again raised the Zodiac into the wind.

In seconds the
bamboo raft pulled away from the surf, heading into the bay.  Gray hollered with joy and waved but Dayah could not wave back, it was taking both hands to hold the Zodiac against the wind.

Keegan was coming through the shallows with
the bamboo pole and hollered, making a dancing twirl in the water with the long pole spinning about his head. He waded out into the bay about waist deep and waited.  Gray grabbed Dayah’s clothes and waded around to Keegan.  The raft came in slow and Dayah had to let go of the bowline and rest her hands.  When she pulled the Zodiac up again, she tied the line to the raft.  The others at the hut had heard the yelling and were at the shore watching.

When they had the raft turned right side up and pulled onto land, Dayah explained what she had found.  Bossman, with the shackle and chain weighing him down like an anchor, had become tangled in the rope pulling the Zodiac. 
As Gray had hoped, Bossman had been in a hurry and despite his years of seamanship had gone into the surf without weight on the front of the raft.  He also could have switched the outboard from the bamboo raft to the Zodiac but that would have required removing the fuel tank from the transom which he must have felt was simply too time consuming.  For recovering the raft Dayah received many congratulations and hugs from everyone, perhaps the longest from Keegan.

Gray helped Keegan pull the engine from the transom and lay it out for drying.  The problem, different than when the
Zodiac sank by the dock, was that the engine had been running when the raft capsized, drawing water into the cylinders making it likely the engine was water locked.  Without a sparkplug wrench it was going to be very difficult to get the water out of the cylinders.  Making a wrench, even if they had a good hack saw, was impossible because the plugs were recessed into the head.

“Another ship!” Anna hollered.  Everyone nearby looked to where Anna was pointing out to the south east
through a break in the jungle.  Shinobu jogged up with the binoculars and handed them to Gray.  As near as Gray could tell, it was the same ship they had seen a few hours ago from the saddle but it had changed course, circled the island and was now more than halfway below the horizon.  When Gray asked Shinobu if he could estimate the distance to the ship the old man said he could and started flashing it with the mirror in series of three.  They all moved closer to the bay as the ship’s movement very slowly took it out of view through the opening in the jungle.  Shinobu ran out onto the dock and again flashed the mirror but the ship continued to grow more distant although it was gradually turning as if it were making a great circle.  When the very top of its bridge passed from view of the naked eye it had been heading north east.

Shinobu came back down the dock and Gray was grinning despite their lack of success at signaling the ship.  The old man said, “Twelve to fifteen kilometers, five to six of your miles.”

“Thanks Shinobu.”

It took a while for the energy to return to the group after the disappointment of failing to get the attention of the yacht.
  Eventually the women went back to cleaning the hut, Shinobu to making small repairs to the bamboo raft, and Gray and Keegan to the outboard engine.

Both men puzzled over what to do about the engine.  They removed the cowling and with Gray holding
the engine steady, Keegan was able to twist the propeller about a quarter turn.  Thinking either an intake or exhaust value was open, Gray tipped the engine first one way and then the other until a quarter cup of water ran out of the intake.  Keegan then rotated the propeller backwards and Gray tilted the engine until water trickled out of the exhaust. They repeated this process until no water came out regardless of the angle at which the engine was held and Keegan could turn the propeller through several revolutions.  When they were able to get the engine to turn over by pulling the starter rope, they mounted it back onto the transom and both pulled the rope, first with the choke on, then off and so on for half an hour.  Defeated for the time being they checked on how progress was going with cleaning the hut.

The cots were in the sun drying and the hut was nearly empty but for the table, stove and cabinet.  Shinobu had made a broom from stiff grass and the floor was swept clean.  After a late lunch of sardines, canned tomatoes
and rice, Keegan went out to the raft and the engine started on the first pull.

The fuel tank was
only a quarter full which worried Gray some.  He expected the outboard to use a lot of fuel pushing the rafts against the wind.  They debated moving the outboard to the Zodiac but the bamboo raft allowed two more passengers and everyone wanted to go aboard.

The Zodiac had two paddles fastened to its side.  They found a couple of boards that with work from a machete made paddles for the raft.  With four
passengers in the Zodiac and two on the raft, they headed for the ship.  By hunkering down they reduced the force of the wind but it still took what Gray guessed as twenty five minutes.  There was little fuel left when they reached the ship.  Shinobu led everyone but Keegan to the bridge, or pilot house as Shinobu called it.  The young Irishman went in search of fuel for the outboard.

Gray and Shinobu
found charts, most printed in English, and a simple but working GPS.  The radio, as Bossman had said, did not work.  Shinobu said the ship was newer than those he had worked on but still old. The helm was a traditional wheel and the instruments were all analog.  He looked over the controls and seemed to recognize their function.

Bringing some flashlights found
on the bridge, Shinobu gave the others a tour of the quarters, galley, hold and the engine room.  The bilge pumps were running steady and he said they needed to get the engines running soon before the pumps depleted the batteries.  He moved about the ship shaking his head at its deplorable condition.  Keegan joined the group, having been unsuccessful finding fuel.  Shinobu asked him to help start the engines.  Gray went back to the bridge to figure out where the island was located geographically.

The GPS confirmed the coordinates he had
vaguely recalled from his phone.  He was unfamiliar with nautical charts but located the coordinates.  They were in the Timor Sea, farther east and north than he had guessed.  Dili, East Timor and Darwin, Australia were both less than 300 miles away. Dili was with the wind and current but involved navigating some straits, and Darwin was cross wind and cross current but if given a choice he would choose Darwin hands down.  Figuring the ship could do at least ten knots, either city was less than two days away.  He would wait for Shinobu’s wisdom.

Shinobu returned to the bridge and set some switches.  Some of the gauges on the panel ahead of the wheel bounced to a reading.  The hull vibrated and he reached up and pressed a big button that sounded a horn.  Everybody came up to the bridge inc
luding Keegan who was now carrying a five gallon can of gasoline.

Gray showed Shinobu the charts
, the unnamed island they were on and the two closest city ports of a size with at least airline service.  Shinobu said both ports were thirty hours away and there was ample fuel to reach either.  He asked Gray if he or the others had a preference.  Dayah said it did not matter to her and the others were unanimous for Darwin.