Survival (7 page)

Hex was a natural loner.

Normally, he liked nothing better than being on his own. Three hours earlier, when the other four had left him on the beach, he had been glad to see them go. Now, he was uneasy. For the past thirty minutes, he had been unable to shake off the growing feeling that something was watching him.

Stalking
him.

Hex shrugged and made himself turn away from the rainforest to scan the sea for any sign of rescuers. Immediately, the skin between his shoulder blades prickled and the muscles of his back tightened in protest. With a curse, he swung round again, checking the beach. There was nothing there. A branch cracked in the dark forest beyond the beach and he jumped. 'Hello?' he called. 'Alex? Li?'

The only reply was from a startled bird. Hex stared into the bushes, wondering whether he ought to go and investigate. The skin prickled on the back of his neck and he decided he did not want to go any closer.

Earlier in the morning he had been happy to work steadily along the fringe of the rainforest for over an hour, collecting more wood for the signal fire and building a second pile nearby for their campfire. Then, after a short break and a few sips of water from his lemonade can, he had picked up the broken paddle end of the oar and gone hunting for sand crabs.

He knew where to find them. He had spotted them earlier, at dawn, scurrying out of the water and up the sloping sand to their burrows at the top of the beach. Back then there had been other priorities, such as salvaging what could be dragged from the surf, but he had memorized the position of their burrows for later.

Now, Hex looked over at the locker doors in the stern section of the boat and smiled. There were four big sand crabs skittering about inside those lockers, the result of twenty minutes of hard digging with the paddle. His smile broadened as he imagined the faces of the others when he showed them his catch, then faded again as he looked at his watch.

The three hours were up.

Where were they?

Suddenly, Alex and Paulo burst from the undergrowth to his right and ran full-pelt along the beach towards him. Hex hurried to meet them.

'I think there's something in there!' he shouted, pointing to the rainforest.

'We know,' panted Alex, coming to a halt and easing the heavy rucksack from his shoulder. 'We nearly met it.'

'Where are the girls?' asked Paulo.

'They're not back yet,' said Hex.

Paulo's face tightened with worry. 'I knew I should have gone with them,' he said.

Just then, a faint yell came from the western end of the beach. The boys turned to see Li and Amber running across the soft sand towards them. Their fear was obvious, even though they were still some distance away. They kept looking over their shoulders as though they were being chased, but there was nothing behind them.

'Thank God,' said Paulo. 'They are safe.'

They met at the signal fire. Amber's face was grey with fear and exhaustion. She collapsed onto the sand, too out of breath to speak. Li bent and rested her hands on her knees. 'There's . . . something . . .' she began.

'In the rainforest,' finished Paulo. 'We know.'

Half an hour later, they were all a lot calmer. The campfire was lit, the boiled water was cooling and the sand crabs were nearly ready.

'So,' said Li, settling back with her second lemonade can full of water, 'we know there are at least three of them.'

'Yeah, but three what?' asked Amber.

'Monkeys?' guessed Paulo.

'Monkeys wouldn't kill a deer, would they?' said Alex, leaning forward to poke a stray stick back into the fire.

'The creatures we heard, they sounded big. Like – like tigers, or something,' said Amber, looking over her shoulder towards the headland.

'Yeah, right. Tigers,' mocked Hex, forgetting how spooked he had been on his own, now that everyone was back at the beach. 'Or maybe a Tyrannosaurus Rex?'

'Well, excuse me!' flared Amber. 'Brave words from a guy who was scared of a few bushes!'

Hex glowered at Amber, but she ignored him. She was too busy watching Paulo as he prepared the cooked crabs, breaking open the shells with a stone and scraping the meat out.

'Aren't you done yet?' she demanded. 'I need to eat now.'

Paulo frowned and looked up at Amber. He was about to invite her to take over, but relented when he saw her grey, sweaty face. She did not look at all good. 'Nearly there,' he said instead as he mixed the crab meat with the remains of the cooked rice to make it go further. 'Just waiting for the yams to finish cooking.'

Li was still deep in thought. 'It can't be tigers,' she said, taking Amber's suggestion seriously. 'Not on an island this small. I don't think it could sustain them. It could be wild pigs, though. They can be pretty fearsome.'

'Well, whatever they are,' said Alex, shifting the storage tin away from the fire and flipping the lid open, 'they could do us some serious damage. So we need to take some safety precautions.'

He used his knife to hook the peeled yams from the boiling water and laid them out on a large stone. 'One. Nobody goes into the forest alone. Two, we dig a proper latrine a good way from the camp. And three, we set watches through the night.'

Alex looked over at Amber to see whether she would argue with that, but she was too busy rummaging through her belt pouch. He looked at the other three and they all nodded in agreement. Satisfied, Alex mashed the yams with a smaller stone, then began serving them out onto the five banana-leaf plates, next to Paulo's crab and rice mixture.

'It looks good!' said Li.

'Don't sound so surprised,' grinned Alex. 'Let's eat.'

'It looks like Amber's already started,' grated Hex, with a voice as hard as stone.

'What?' mumbled Amber, giving Hex a startled glance.

'She just took something out of her belt pouch and stuffed it in her mouth.'

'I did not!' protested Amber.

Hex did not bother to reply. Instead, he grabbed Amber's wrist and squeezed until she whimpered with pain and let her hand fall open. Half a tube of glucose energy sweets fell from her fingers onto the sand. There was a silence as they all stared at the sweets then looked up at Amber.

'How could you?' asked Li, quietly. 'How could you keep those to yourself?'

'You don't get it,' whispered Amber, her eyes big with tears.

'What else is in there?' said Hex, pointing to Amber's belt pouch.

'Nothing. No more food. Just girl stuff,' said Amber, putting a protective hand over the pouch.

Hex lunged for the pouch and yanked hard, trying to pull it away from the belt.

'Wait! Wait!' shrieked Amber. 'You might break them!'

'Show us, then,' said Hex. He stood over Amber, his fists clenched and his face full of anger. She hesitated, looking to the others for help.

'We're waiting,' said Alex, icily.

Slowly, Amber pulled out the remaining contents of the pouch. There was a little metal box with a digital display on the front, a handful of foil-wrapped antiseptic wipes, a clear plastic tube containing a bunch of thin plastic strips and three brightly coloured, chunky plastic pens. Li, Paulo and Hex stared down at the little collection of items with puzzled looks on their faces.

'See?' said Amber. 'No more food.'

She began to shovel everything back into her pouch but Alex gently laid his hand over hers and she stopped. 'Why didn't you tell us?' he asked.

'Tell us what?' demanded Li. 'That she has a thing about chunky pens?'

Alex waited for Amber to say something but she stayed silent with her head down. 'They aren't pens,' he sighed, after a few seconds. 'At least, not the sort you mean. Those two are insulin pens, and the third one is part of a blood sugar testing kit, along with that little box and the plastic strips.'

'Insulin pens?' said Li.

'For injecting insulin,' explained Alex. 'Amber is a diabetic'

There was a shocked silence as they took in this new information. Amber finished repacking her belt pouch, then looked at the others defiantly, blinking the tears from her eyes.

'But that is nothing to be ashamed of,' said Paulo.

'I'm not ashamed!' said Amber. 'I was hiding it because I didn't want anyone treating me differently, like I was an invalid or something. I'm not. I was doing fine on the
Phoenix,
but since we've been on the island I've been struggling a bit.'

'Are you running short of insulin?' asked Li.

'Oh no, it's not the insulin. These two pens hold enough insulin to last me another month. The problem is, if I miss meals, or use more energy than usual, I can end up having a hypo. Because of low blood sugar, see? I get all sweaty and tired and irritable to start with. Then, if my blood sugar keeps going down, I pass out and – well – worst case scenario? I don't live to tell the tale.'

The other four looked at one another, feeling vaguely ashamed of themselves.

'Sorry,' said Paulo.

'What for?' asked Amber.

'All that snappy behaviour – and demanding to be fed,' said Li. 'We thought you were just—'

'Spoilt? Selfish?' Amber grinned. 'I am! I'm a spoilt, selfish diabetic! Now gimme some food!'

Alex, Li and Paulo burst out laughing. Hex did not join in. Instead, he got to his feet and handed one of the banana-leaf plates to Amber. Then he picked up his own food and scraped half of it onto Amber's plate. Startled, she looked up into his face. Hex met her eyes, nodded once, then sat back down, scowling fiercely. Amber swallowed, but the lump in her throat would not go away.

'Don't worry, Amber,' said Li. 'We'll be rescued within a month, you'll see.'

'Yeah, course we will,' said Amber, through a mouthful of crab.

And there's plenty of food here,' said Alex. 'You'll be fine. We'll make sure of it.'

'I know,' nodded Amber, but her gaze was turned towards the empty sea.

'Good,' said Alex, into the awkward silence. 'As long as you know. Eat up, everyone – and don't hang about. This afternoon we're going to build ourselves a camp.'

Amber sat in state under a temporary shelter of banana leaves, eating wild figs while the camp slowly grew around her. It was good to rest with a belly full of food. The grey tinge was leaving her skin and she was feeling better by the minute. Even though she was sitting still, she had plenty to do. She was keeping the fire going, gradually feeding two long logs into the centre of the flames a section at a time, and she was boiling the remains of the fresh water to make sure it was sterile. The storage tin was suspended over the flames, hanging from a stick which rested in the clefts of two upright sticks, one on each side of the fire. Her hands were busy weaving strips of palm fronds into five flower-pot style sun-hats and her eyes were busy scanning sea and sky for a glimpse of a ship or a plane.

Under Alex's instruction, the others had nearly finished constructing A-frame beds, which were raised above the ground to keep them clear of sandflies, centipedes and scorpions. First they had made the head and foot of the beds by driving two pairs of bamboo posts into the sand at an angle and lashing the tops together with split vines. The beds themselves were two long bamboo poles with a mattress of cross-woven vines holding the poles together. Once the beds were finished it was a simple matter to slide the ends of the long poles down the outside of the two A-frames until the vine mattress was pulled taut, leaving the bed suspended well above the ground.

'How are those coconut drinks coming along, Hex?' called Alex, as he and Paulo slotted the last bed into place on its A-frame. 'We're about ready for a break.'

Hex had been using a sharpened bamboo stake to break open the husks of five coconuts. Then he had wedged each coconut into the sand and hammered a sharp stone into one of the black eyes until it pierced through to the sweet milk inside.

'All done,' said Hex, handing round the coconuts.

They sat down, tipped up the coconuts and let the milk pour into their mouths.

'Good,' said Li, briefly, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before tipping up the nut again for another swig.

'Take your time,' warned Alex. 'Too much too fast and you might be sick.' He laid his coconut aside and checked the wooden handles on the flexible saw. They were holding up well so he put that back into his belt pouch and took out his knife. It was a good, strong, single-bladed knife with a wooden handle and it had been invaluable throughout the afternoon's work. Alex inspected the blade, then took out his piece of sandstone and began to sharpen the knife.

'Didn't you just do that, like, an hour ago?' asked Amber.

'You have to look after your knife,' said Alex, calmly, steadily honing the blade. 'It's the most important tool you have in a situation like this.'

Paulo finished his drink, then took one of the bunk blankets, spread it across the vine mattress of his bed and lay down with a satisfied groan.

'Don't get too comfortable,' said Alex, glancing at his watch and the position of the sun. 'There's a lot more to do before sunset.'

They cooled off with a quick dip in the lagoon then went back to work, wearing the sun-hats Amber had made. Before he left the fire, Alex smashed open the coconut shells for Amber and showed her how to heat the chopped meat by laying it on a flat stone next to the fire. He picked up one of the empty coconut half-shells and handed it to Amber.

'Once the oil starts coming out of the coconut meat and running off the edge of the stone here,' explained Alex, 'you collect it in this half-shell.'

'What's the point of that?' asked Amber, suspiciously. 'Are you sure you're not just finding stuff for me to do, to make me feel better?'

'Definitely not,' said Alex. 'We really do need as much oil as you can collect. It has lots of uses. We can smear it on and it'll protect our skin from the sun and keep the mosquitoes away. And if we mix it with wood ash, it turns into soap.'

'Cool,' said Amber, happily settling to her task.

By the end of the afternoon, the camp was finished. They had rigged up five shelters over the beds, each made from a frame of bamboo poles lashed together, with a thatch of banana leaves and palm fronds. There was even a little shelter over the woodpile for the campfire. Next to the fire, there were two simple, bamboo benches, again set under their own, thatched shelters.

They sat on the two benches, looking around the camp in quiet satisfaction. Two more crabs were cooking in the storage tin over the fire and Paulo had packed the top sections of three green bamboo canes with young bamboo shoots and leaned them over the fire. The lower sections were full of seawater, which was just coming to the boil.

'They will cook in the steam,' said Paulo. 'Beautiful. Like asparagus.'

'If Heather could see us now,' giggled Li, gazing around the camp, 'she wouldn't believe it!'

'We're nearly ready for the night,' said Alex. 'Just a couple more things to do.'

Carefully, he filled a coconut half-shell with boiled water and added potassium permanganate from his medical kit until the water turned deep pink. 'Antiseptic,' he explained. 'In the tropics, a wound'll get infected very easily. So, anyone with cuts, grazes, burns or mosquito bites, step forward.'

'Yeah, well that's all of us!' laughed Amber.

'OK, we'll start with you, Amber,' said Alex. 'It's even more important for diabetics to make sure a wound heals properly. And we need to check for chiggers, too, so everybody take your boots off.'

'What the hell are chiggers?' asked Hex.

'They're a type of flea,' explained Alex. 'Chigoes is the proper name for them. They attach themselves to the shafts of hairs on your skin, then they feed off you by injecting saliva under the skin then sucking—'

'OK,' said Amber, hastily, 'I get the idea.'

'If you don't winkle them out, the bite'll become infected.' Alex had removed his boots and socks and was checking his feet and ankles. He pointed to three red dots just above his ankle bone. 'There. Chiggers. If we had some vaseline, I could smear some on and suffocate them. As it is, I'll have to use a sterilized needle to dig them out.'

'OK. Now I'm really grossed out,' said Amber.

'Is everything on this island out to get us?' groaned Hex.

Alex grinned. 'Just keep your boots on during the day, wash your socks every night, and you should avoid getting too many of them.'

They took it in turn to bathe their scrapes and bites and remove any chiggers while the food cooked. Li gave Alex's raw wrist and head wound extra attention, but both wounds seemed to be healing well.

Next Alex produced a small pack of anti-malaria tablets. 'These are special,' he said. 'They're not like the ones they were doling out every day on the
Phoenix.
You only need to take one and you have protection against malaria for a month. I have just enough for one each.

'And finally,' said Alex, once they had taken the tablets, 'we have the coconut oil.' Carefully, he picked up the two half-shells that Amber had managed to collect and handed one to each bench. 'Smear it on any exposed flesh. The smoke from the fire'll keep some of the mosquitoes away, but this'll deter the rest.'

'Can't we do it after we eat?' asked Paulo, gazing longingly at the steaming bamboo tubes.

'Nope. This is important. It's something we need to do every night. If we don't keep clean in humid heat like this, we've had it.'

The food was wonderful. To drink, they had half coconuts full of fresh boiled water. Alex crumbled a salt tablet into it before he served it out, to make sure everyone replaced the salt they had lost through the hot, sweaty day. They finished off the meal with the pawpaw fruit which Amber and Li had brought back with them that morning. It tasted rather like a melon and the soft flesh was full of juice. Once the pawpaw had all disappeared, they sat back in a tired, companionable silence, staring into the fire as the sun began to set behind the mountain. After a few minutes, Amber got up quietly and headed down to the tide line, where she sat with her back to them.

'Is she all right?' Alex asked, looking at Li.

'I think she's gone to do her injection,' said Li. 'Best leave her to it.'

'Poor kid,' muttered Hex to himself. The others looked at him in surprise. 'What?' he demanded, scowling fiercely.

'How did her parents die?' asked Li, looking at Hex with frank curiosity.

'Plane crash,' he answered. 'Just over a year ago. It was a small, private plane, with just the two of them in it. Her dad was piloting. Amber was due to fly with them, but changed her mind at the last minute and stayed on with friends instead. One of the engines caught fire over the Alps, and the plane crashed into the side of a mountain.'

'Did they find the bodies?' asked Paulo.

'Yeah,' said Hex. 'Apparently, they were badly burned. From what I read, the authorities wouldn't let Amber see them.' He frowned. 'Maybe that's why she's having a hard time moving on. You know that twist of gold she wears around her neck? Shaped like a broken circle?'

'Yes,' said Alex. 'Does it have some special meaning?'

Hex hesitated. 'I think so,' he said. 'That's an Omega sign.'

'Omega?' asked Li.

'It's the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Omega. The End.'

'The end of what?' asked Paulo.

Hex rubbed his nose while he tried to think of the right words to explain. 'Remember, back on the
Phoenix,
she said she didn't want a new beginning? She said her parents were dead. The End. Remember?'

Hex looked around at the others and they all nodded. 'And have you noticed how the gold is all rough and unpolished, as though it was beaten into shape? I think that golden Omega sign was probably made by hammering her parents' wedding rings together. The End. Do you see what I'm getting at? Amber can't move on. She doesn't want to.'

'Ten out of ten, code boy,' said Amber, softly, making Hex jump. 'I forgot, you're pretty good at puzzles, aren't you?' She moved into the circle of firelight and sat down on the bench, giving Hex a cool stare.

'So, I guessed right?' asked Hex.

'Yeah,' said Amber. 'You guessed right, code boy. But there is one thing you're wrong about.'

'What's that?' asked Hex.

'Back on the
Phoenix
you accused me of thinking money fixes everything.' Amber held out the golden Omega sign so that it glittered dully in the firelight. She looked at Hex with eyes full of a deep sadness. 'So, you tell me, Hex. How does money fix this?'