Survival (3 page)

Alex dreamed he was back home in Northumberland, lying in the hammock his dad had tied between two trees in their back garden. The sun was shining and the hammock swung gently to and fro in the breeze, but something was not right. Alex frowned in his sleep as he felt the sun beating down on his hot face. The hammock started to swing more violently and Alex came awake with a start.

He opened his eyes, then closed them again quickly against the glare of the sun. He was still rocking and, for a second, he could not remember where he was. Then he smiled. Of course! He was in the tender with the rest of A-Watch, bobbing along behind the
Phoenix.

Except, the little boat was moving differently, wallowing from side to side. And the sun should not be able to reach into their sheltered spot under the counter-stern of the ship. Unless . . .

Alex sat up sharply, shading his eyes to see through the sun-glare. Amber, Li, Paulo and Hex were all sprawled around him in the little boat, fast asleep – and the
Phoenix
was gone.

'Wake up!' yelled Alex, a wave of shock and horror flooding through his body. He turned in a full circle, scanning the horizon. The
Phoenix
was nowhere in sight.

The others were waking up, stretching and yawning.

'What's all the shouting for . . . ?' grumbled Amber.

'We're adrift,' said Alex, curtly. He watched as the same wave of shock hit the other four and they all looked wildly about them for any sign of the
Phoenix.

'That's impossible,' said Li, faintly.

Alex clambered past Hex into the bows of the little boat and began to haul in the rope that should have still been attached to the aft-deck of the schooner.

'Who secured the painter?' demanded Amber, looking for someone to blame.

'I did,' said Hex.

'Oh, that's just great. What did you do? Tie it in a pretty bow?'

'It was secure,' said Hex. 'I'm sure of it. There's no way that rope could've come loose.'

'Well it did!' yelled Amber.

'No it didn't,' said Alex quietly as he hauled the last length of rope out of the water. He held it up for the others to see. The end of the rope was frayed.

'It is because we pulled it around to the side of the ship,' said Paulo, examining the rope. 'It must have been rubbing against something and, with the weight of all of us, plus the boat—' He shrugged. 'The rope frayed in two . . .'

'Thank you, Einstein,' muttered Hex. 'Question is, what do we do now?'

The boat rocked as Amber jumped to her feet and started to yell at the top of her voice. 'Help! Help!
Phoenix
ahoy! Anybody! Help—'

Paulo stood up too and slapped Amber across the face. She came to an abrupt halt and stared at him with a mixture of shock and anger.

'Ow!'

'Sorry,' said Paulo. 'You were panicking.'

'I was not panicking, you idiot!' yelled Amber, and she slapped Paulo back.

'You were doing the mad shouting,' said Paulo, rubbing his cheek.

'Sound travels well across water, you total loser!'

'But, there is no-one to hear,' said Paulo, sweeping an arm to indicate the empty sea all around them.

Amber sighed. 'We're low in the water, which means we can't see very far – and the
Phoenix
could be just over the horizon—'

'No, she couldn't,' said Alex, tapping his watch. 'We've been asleep for a good two hours. And – there's something else.'

Silently, Amber and Paulo returned to their places and everyone looked at Alex.

'The
Phoenix
was travelling east,' he explained. 'But, judging by the position of the sun, we're moving north.'

'He's right,' conceded Amber, squinting up at the sun. 'And we're doing more than just drifting. The boat's moving quite fast. I think we must be caught up in a warm-water current.' She and Alex shared a worried look.

'And that's bad because . . . ?' asked Li.

'Our boat and the
Phoenix
have been travelling in two different directions,' said Hex.

'And that means,' added Paulo, reluctantly, 'we are going to be much harder to find. Even if the
Phoenix
turned back and retraced her course exactly, we are not going to be there.'

'What do you mean, "if"?' said Li. 'Of course they'll come back for us!' She looked from face to face, waiting for a reassuring nod. 'Won't they?'

'Yeah, well. The thing is . . .' Amber swallowed, then tried again. 'The thing is, Heather told us to stay out of her sight until morning. And everyone else will know about us being banned from the mess or watching the film with them. So . . .' Amber stopped and looked down at her hands.

'So we won't be missed,' finished Hex, flatly. 'We're on our own.'

They sat in silence as the full gravity of the situation finally sank in. Suddenly, the boat felt like a very small speck in a very big sea. Alex remembered his father telling him that open water covered four-fifths of the Earth's surface, and it was the most difficult environment to survive in. He grimaced, then looked up and saw the shocked faces of the rest of A-Watch. Quickly, he pulled himself together. Unzipping his belt pouch, he brought out a small tobacco tin, sealed with waterproof tape. He began to peel away the tape, whistling quietly to himself and, as he had hoped, the others began to get curious.

'OK,' said Amber, finally. 'What's in the tin?'

'This,' said Alex, filling his voice with more confidence than he felt inside, 'is a survival kit.'

'Oh, yeah? What's in there? An inflatable island?'

Alex carefully rewrapped the waterproof tape around the base of the tin, then he pried the lid off. The inside of the lid was highly polished and, as Alex turned it back and forth in his hand, it sent out blinding flashes of reflected sunlight.

'To signal with,' said Alex. 'When a plane or a boat appears.' He slipped the lid into his shirt pocket, then held out the base of the tin so that everyone could see. Inside, there was a whole collection of different items and packages, all nestling in a layer of cotton wool.

'My dad gave me this,' said Alex. 'I always carry it with me. The tin – and my knife.' He patted the knife, which he carried in a sheath at his belt. 'It doesn't look much, but this tin could make all the difference in a survival situation.'

'So, seriously, what's in there?' asked Hex.

Alex reeled off a list of the contents, pointing to each little package as he named it. 'OK. For lighting fires, I have waterproof matches, a candle, a flint and a magnifying glass. Those are needles and thread. A liquid-filled compass—' Alex stopped to hook the little button compass out with his finger. He slipped it into his shirt pocket with the tin lid before continuing. 'Fish hooks and line, aspirin, a beta-light – that's a special crystal which gives off enough light to say, read a map in the dark. Then over here, I've got a snare wire, a flexible saw—'

'It does not look like a saw to me,' said Paulo, leaning forward to prod at the coil of metal wire.

'It is though. See those loops at each end? Well, when I want to use it, I cut two sticks to size, slip them through the loops for handles—'

'Ah, I see!' grinned Paulo. 'That is good. It would cut down a tree?'

'Eventually,' said Alex.

'Yeah, right,' muttered Amber. 'Just what we need right now. A saw.'

Alex ignored her and carried on with his tour of the survival tin. 'That's a medical kit, surgical blades, butterfly sutures, plasters – oh, and a condom.'

'That's for you, Paulo,' giggled Li. 'In case you finally get lucky and find a girl who can't do judo.'

Paulo felt a blush spread across his face as he grinned shame-facedly at Li. He had tried to make a move on her at the start of the voyage. He had come up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. A second later he had been flat on his back, gasping for air. She had simply grasped his arm, shifted her weight and thrown him over her shoulder.

Alex shook his head at Li, pretending to be irritated, but secretly he was pleased to hear her laugh. 'That condom will hold up to a litre of water, Li. It makes a good water-bag in an emergency.' He took the lid from his shirt pocket and closed up the tin. Then he sealed the join once more with the waterproof tape.

'Shouldn't you keep that handy for signalling?' asked Paulo.

'It's more important to keep the tin dry,' said Alex, carefully packing the tin away in his belt pouch. 'I'll be able to reach it quickly enough when we need it. So,' he continued, 'we already have one signalling device to attract attention if a ship or a plane comes along, but we'd better check the stern lockers too. Li and Paulo, have a look, will you? You never know, we might find some flares or an air-horn.'

'Yeah, right,' said Amber, her voice full of mockery. 'Would you like to ask the wish fairy for a VHF radio while you're at it? Or a transponder? Maybe even a satellite EPIRB? Then the wish-fairy helicopter will pinpoint our signal and—'

'Shut up, will you?' said Hex.

'This is not a lifeboat, OK? It's a small, open boat which is only ever used for ship-to-shore hops within full sight of land. We are not going to find any communications equipment aboard this boat.'

'Speaking of communications equipment,' growled Hex. 'If you hadn't thrown my palmtop overboard, I could be sending an e-mail SOS right now!'

'Yeah, right,' sneered Amber. 'From the middle of the Java Sea.'

'It was state of the art. It had infra-red connections—'

'You have to be near the coast for that to work—'

'It was working on the
Phoenix,
until you—'

'That's enough!' snapped Alex. 'You two have to stop this. Understand? We are in a survival situation now. Everything depends on our sticking together. Hex, don't mention your palmtop again. No point. It's gone. Amber, you need to stop being so negative.'

'I'm only saying, they won't find anything,' muttered Amber.

'Found something,' called Li. She pulled a plastic sack from the locker. It was full of lumpy shapes and thudded heavily onto the boards in the bottom of the boat. Alex leaned forward as Li struggled with the knot which tied the neck of the sack. Maybe, just maybe, they were in luck.

'This must be one of your knots, Paulo,' said Li, still struggling to untie the sack.

'Ah, yes,' said Paulo, rubbing his nose in embarrassment. 'That is one of my knots.'

'You untie it then,' said Li, shoving the sack towards him.

'No need,' said Paulo. 'I know what is in there.'

'What?' asked Alex, feeling his heart sink.

'Boots,' said Paulo.

'Boots?' repeated Li. 'No air-horn? No flares?'

'Our boots and socks,' explained Paulo. 'The ones we wore in the swamp, on the last island.'

'The dirty ones Heather told you to clean,' said Alex.

Paulo looked stricken. 'I did not want to clean them. So I hid them.'

Everyone groaned and slumped back in the boat.

'Sorry,' whispered Paulo. 'Sorry it was not a radio.'

No-one answered. The creaking of the boat seemed loud in the growing silence. Alex looked around at the other four. He could see that this small set-back had cancelled out the boost in morale he had managed to achieve. They were back to being very frightened but they were all showing it in different ways. Li was about to cry, Amber looked ready to kill someone, Hex had withdrawn into himself and Paulo was a picture of guilt and misery. Alex had to admit he was feeling pretty scared, too. His heart was beating fast and he could feel the adrenalin surging through his bloodstream. He knew that it would be fatal to let this sort of bad atmosphere develop, but he was at a loss for words.

It was Paulo who recovered first. He took a deep breath and sat up straight. 'It is good we have our boots,' he said. 'We will need them when we make land.'

'There is no land,' said Li, her voice wobbly with tears. 'Anywhere.'

'Yes there is,' said Paulo, reassuringly. 'This whole area is dotted with thousands of islands. We just cannot see any at the moment, that is all.'

Amber leaned over, hooked the little compass out of Alex's shirt pocket and waited for the needle to settle. After a few seconds, she nodded to Alex. 'We were right, this is a northerly current.'

'We're moving at a good pace,' said Alex. 'I reckon if we just let it carry us for a while, we're sure to come across an island group. And when we do, we can row ashore.'

Alex pointed to the oars, which were tucked under the thwarts on one side of the boat and smiled at Li. She tried a wobbly smile in return.

'In the meantime,' said Paulo, calmly, 'we have Amber as our navigator, but we need a leader. Alex, you have a good survival knowledge, yes?'

'My dad taught me a lot,' said Alex. 'He's in the SAS.'

'Then I nominate you as our leader for now,' said Paulo. He looked questioningly at the other three and, one by one, they nodded their agreement.

Alex looked around the little boat. 'First,' he said, 'we need to get organized. Li, store that sack of boots back in the locker. Hex, get that painter coiled and stowed away too. Amber, you fold the bunk blankets and store them with the boots for now. Paulo, you and I are going to unload these rucksacks to see what we have left in the way of supplies.'

'Maybe we could rig up some shade from the sun with one of these blankets,' suggested Li.

Alex looked around, assessing the situation. Everyone was dressed in shirts, shorts and deck shoes and only he and Hex were wearing caps. It was true that they were all well used to the tropical sun after a week on the
Phoenix,
but an open boat offered no shade at all. Everyone was sweating hard in the humid heat and losing precious moisture. He nodded. 'Good idea. You could wedge the end of one of the oars under the stern thwart and then drape the blanket over it.'

They set about their tasks willingly, glad to be busy. The rucksacks yielded three cans of lemonade, a large plastic bottle of water, a bagful of apples and bananas and a box of cereal bars. Alex put the food into one rucksack and the drink into the other, while Paulo checked the contents of the two storage tins.

'We still have some rice in there,' he said, handing the tin to Alex. 'All the chicken has gone, though.'