‘But our men are relying on us,’ said Sergeant Livingston.
‘Who’s your commander, Sergeant Livingston?’ snapped Maddox.
‘You are, sir,’ said the sergeant, glumly.
‘Then stop your yapping and fetch those cans!’
There was a flurry of activity as heavy pairs of boots clomped towards the dinghy. Charlie lifted the palm frond and saw Captain Maddox staring at the shack as his company rowed back to the lugger. ‘Little traitors,’ he grumbled to himself.
The dinghy returned, laden with fuel cans, and the soldiers began lugging them over the beach.
‘Where do you want the petrol then, sir?’ asked Sergeant Livingston.
‘Spread every last drop around,’ said Captain Maddox. ‘I don’t want to leave a single green leaf behind.’
Jim carried two big jerry cans towards them as Charlie pulled his head down. ‘Bloody ridiculous,’ Jim muttered. ‘The captain must’ve gone troppo.’ The cans glugged loudly as Jim sloshed fuel all over the clearing, and before long the hideout was filled with the sharp, sweet smell of petrol fumes.
‘All right, men,’ called Captain Maddox. ‘Light it up, then run like the clappers.’
‘I should’ve stayed on the blimmin’ farm,’ Jim mumbled. Charlie heard the sound of a match, followed by a muffled whoomph. Then a sinister orange glow appeared between the gaps in their pit cover.
‘Everybody clear out!’ cried Maddox.
Jim’s army boots jogged away, and Charlie risked lifting the leaf again. It was a terrifying sight – the petrol was making short work of the damp jungle, and some of the flames were already as tall as Charlie.
Through the shimmering heat haze, the soldiers piled into their dinghy. Captain Maddox stood proudly in the bow, facing back at the burning island as the boat rowed quickly away from the beach.
‘Ah, hell,’ said Alf, as the jungle around them popped and crackled.
‘Shall we run?’ said Masa.
‘Wait till they’re out of sight,’ said Charlie.
The walls of Old Nick’s shack were ablaze now, flames licking the metal roof as the bamboo fizzled and cracked. Tongues of fire danced across the clearing towards the bomb shelter as the dinghy reached the lugger and the men clambered aboard. The heat of the flames throbbed against Charlie’s face, and sparks drifted through the air like fireflies after a rain shower.
The lugger finally raised anchor and disappeared around the corner of the island. Charlie and Alf threw off the bamboo cover. The clearing was almost completely on fire, the soggy leaf litter and burning petrol combining to produce more smoke than the front bar at the Federal on a Saturday night.
‘Head for the lagoon!’ spluttered Charlie. Coughing uncontrollably, the Fighting Stingrays scrambled out of the hole and sprinted towards a gap in the flames beside the shack. Charlie was the last one out, dodging and jumping over small spots of fire like he was playing hopscotch with Audrey.
Masa and Alf made it to the safety of the sand, but as Charlie raced past the shack, he heard a crack next to his ear. He wheeled around to see the entire left wall falling towards him. He leapt away, but tripped over a stack of coconut shells and crumpled to the ground with the screen of blazing bamboo on top of him.
‘Charlie!’ Alf shouted, as Charlie crawled out from under the wall.
Charlie’s eyes stung, and there was an intense heat around his shoulders.
‘He’s on fire!’ exclaimed Masa.
Charlie struggled upright and lurched in the direction of the ocean. Everything was blurry and painful, but soon he felt soft sand under his feet and glimpsed the outlines of Alf and Masa dashing towards him.
‘Get down!’ cried Alf. Charlie smelled burning hair as Alf pushed him over and heaped sand onto his head.
‘Hey!’ Charlie yelled, his mouth full of sand. But Alf and Masa just kept piling it on while rolling him around on the beach. When they finally let go, Charlie sat up, spitting with fury. ‘Are you trying to kill me?’
‘We’re trying to save you, idiot,’ said Alf. ‘Masa, get him into the water.’
They helped Charlie to his feet and into the lagoon. The salt water stung dozens of tiny cuts on his arms and legs, but compared to the heat of the fire, it was heavenly. Charlie sank backwards and washed the sand and soot off himself.
‘You all right?’ Alf asked.
Charlie stood up and patted himself all over. One side of his hair was suddenly a lot shorter than the other, and his shirt was pretty singed around the collar. There were a few deep scratches on his legs, and the back of his neck throbbed with a slight burn. But as far as he could tell, he was still in one piece. ‘I think so,’ he said. ‘Gecko Island, though . . .’
The three of them stood silently in the waist-deep water as the fire intensified and spread right across their little island. Then, incredibly, Masa burst out laughing.
‘You think this is funny?’ snapped Alf.
Masa shook his head. ‘No,’ he gasped, forcing a straight face.
‘Then why are you laughing?’
Masa snorted. ‘It’s just – if Charlie’s shirt wasn’t soaked, he might have been burnt alive.’ He erupted into giggles. ‘That soldier saved his life – by peeing on him!’ His whole body trembled as he howled with laughter, tears streaming down his face.
Charlie frowned at Masa. ‘It’s not funny,’ he said. Alf shook his head. ‘No, it’s not,’ he said. ‘And Cedric barely splashed you.’
‘That’s right,’ said Charlie.
A small smile crept across Alf’s lips. ‘In fact, you might say it was only a piddling little amount.’
Masa exploded, doubling over with a fresh bout of sniggering.
‘Will you clowns cut it out?’ said Charlie. ‘We nearly –’
‘Wee!’ roared Masa. ‘He said “wee”.’
Charlie crossed his arms and glared at Masa.
‘Watch out, Masa, he’s getting angry,’ chortled Alf. ‘I reckon urine trouble now.’
The two of them dissolved into convulsions of laughter, holding each other to stop from falling over. Behind them, another tall palm tree went up in flames, and the rest of Old Nick’s shack collapsed on itself in a shower of sparks and flame.
Charlie ran a hand through his singed hair. It was great that Alf and Masa were friends again, but with their shelter gone, the Fighting Stingrays were in a hell of a fix.
Charlie woke with a jump. The image of faceless Japanese soldiers striding through a field of fire was still fresh in his memory after another nightmare.
He sat up in the sand and saw that Alf and Masa were already awake and picking over what was left of the island. Captain Maddox hadn’t quite followed through on his promise to burn the place to the ground, but he had certainly given Gecko Island a serious scorching. The palm trees lining the beach were like huge used matches, the native fig trees had been charred within an inch of their lives, and the bamboo thickets were either burnt black or gone entirely. Smoke wafted from a carpet of cinders that had once been lush undergrowth, and all that remained of Old Nick’s shack was a pile of ash and a blackened corrugated iron roof.
But the roof was still intact, so they heaved it onto a couple of sooty driftwood logs to make a simple shelter on the beach. It was a poor excuse for a home, but it would stop them from getting horrendously sunburnt during the hottest part of the day now all their shade was gone.
‘I’m starving,’ said Masa as the three of them regarded their sad shelter. ‘What’s for lunch?’
‘Fish, of course,’ said Alf. ‘Nothing else left.’ With nearly all of the island’s vegetation gone, they were stuck with eating whatever they pulled out of the sea. The slingshot had survived in their backpack, but Alf still wasn’t having any luck shooting birds for food.
Masa looked at Charlie hopefully. ‘Is it lunchtime then?’
‘Must be getting close,’ said Charlie. ‘I’ll go and see what I can find.’
The rain had stopped for the tim
e being, but two weeks of heavy downpours had stirred up the sands of the lagoon, leaving it murkier than a can of Masa’s sea cucumber soup. So Charlie grabbed his fishing spear and trudged his way through the burnt-out jungle to the rocks on the far side of the island, where the sea was clear and calm. He didn’t even bother avoiding the sharp shells stuck all over the rocks – a month and a half of living like Robinson Crusoe had made the soles of his feet as tough as leather.
Slipping on his rubber swimming goggles, Charlie slid into the water. The smooth rock face plunged straight to a sandy bottom and a thick meadow of seagrass, which sloped gently out to the open ocean. The long strands swayed back and forth as Charlie kicked his legs to drift above the green carpet. He sunk to the seafloor, pausing to admire a white-and-red shrimp that was clinging to a bit of seagrass like King Kong to the Empire State Building. Captain Maddox, the Japanese and the whole stupid war seemed very far away and unimportant when he was down here.
The pressure in his lungs was building, so he headed for the surface, treading water and looking back at their burnt-out island. Then, rolling over, he floated face down to scan the seagrass for any sign of fish.
A blue-green flash at the base of a rock caught his eye and he dived towards it. Kicking slowly, he glided up to a monstrous rock lobster and jabbed his spear into it. It was well over a foot long and would make a good meal for the three of them.
As the crustacean went limp on the spear, the ocean around him filled with an eerie sound. It was unlike anything Charlie had ever heard before – somewhere between a high-pitched shriek and a dog’s bark. But whatever it was, it sent a chill through his bones.
He remembered a story Mr U had told the Fighting Stingrays about meeting another diver on the seafloor. Mr U had gone to shake his hand, but his arm had passed right through the other bloke – it was the ghost of a long-drowned pearl diver, cursed to spend eternity wandering the depths.
Charlie spun in the water as the shriek-like chirps became louder and longer until they were all around him. Suddenly, a deathly figure in a diving suit and pale grey helmet appeared, crawling along the bottom of the ocean towards him. Charlie’s heart stopped beating, his arms and legs paralysed with fear as the phantom diver crept closer.
But then the ghost looked up at Charlie. And to his surprise, it was smiling. The grey diving helmet was actually a smooth dome-like head, and what seemed like a puffy diving suit was really a plump body with two large fins and a flat, forked tail.
Charlie grinned, sending half his air up to the surface – this was no ghost diver, it was a dugong!
He had only ever seen drawings of these so-called ‘sea cows’ before, but he knew there were loads of them in the Torres Strait, and that Islanders hunted them for food. He’d also heard that sailors used to mistake them for mermaids in the old days. But those sailors must have been away from port for an awfully long time, because this dugong did not look anything like a beautiful lady. It had the body of an overweight dolphin, small black eyes like a pig, a snout like a hippopotamus and a stubbly beard.
The clumsy-looking creature snuffled along, munching on seagrass. It stopped about ten feet away from Charlie and eyed him cautiously. Charlie laughed to himself – the folds of the dugong’s mouth and its chubby cheeks really did make it seem like it was permanently smiling.
Charlie sank down and plucked an armful of seagrass from the sand. He edged towards the enormous sea cow, holding the bundle of grass in front of him like a bouquet. The dugong hesitated for a minute, then swam forwards, snatched the seagrass out of Charlie’s hand and darted back to a safe distance, chewing happily.
Still grinning, Charlie floated upwards for a few much-needed breaths. By the time he ducked under water again, the dugong was gone. He spun around and caught a glimpse of the animal’s flat grey tail vanishing into the gloom about fifty yards offshore.
Charlie set off after it, kicking madly until the seagrass meadow ended with a drop-off that plunged into deep water below. But the dugong suddenly bolted straight back past him, squeaking and barking like a scared puppy.
Charlie’s eyes strained into the depths, looking for whatever had spooked the big dugong. He knew that sharks rarely attacked people, but he also knew that rarely didn’t mean never. Plenty of divers had come face-to-face with the hungry predators, or pulled a panicked crewmate up to find them missing a leg or an arm. Charlie gripped the fishing spear tightly.
He couldn’t see any sharks, but he could hear something – a low rumbling and bubbling from the pit of the ocean itself. Charlie thrashed around, searching for the source of the noise, but there was only seagrass and sand behind him and a vast blue emptiness ahead.
The roar grew louder and a sinister shadow emerged from the gloom below him. It was gigantic – far bigger than a shark and too large even to be a whale. At first it was just a black, shapeless blob, but as it rose out of the darkness Charlie could make out a sloped steel nose, a long, narrow body, a couple of radio aerials and a wedge-shaped turret with the emblem of a blood-red rising sun.
He was staring at a Japanese submarine.
Dropping his spear and lobster in the shallows, Charlie clambered onto the rocks and dashed across them, tripping on a cluster of sharp oysters and smashing his knee. He pulled himself up and stumbled over the burnt-out island, stealing quick glances behind him to check if the faceless soldiers of his nightmares were in pursuit.
‘Into the bomb shelter!’ he yelled to Alf and Masa. ‘The enemy’s here!’
The others didn’t waste any time, sprinting towards the bomb shelter and piling into the shallow hole. The bamboo cover had been burnt along with all of the surrounding trees, but at least the pit would keep them invisible from sea level.
‘I saw a sub,’ panted Charlie. ‘Just offshore.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Alf.
Charlie nodded, still trembling. ‘A huge thing, like an underwater steamship.’
‘Did they see you?’ said Masa.
‘I dunno,’ said Charlie. ‘But it looked like it was heading for the surface. They could be watching through the periscope right now.’
The three of them wriggled further down. There was barely enough room to move, let alone stretch out, and they became increasingly edgy as the afternoon dragged on. Something rustled nearby and Charlie gulped back a scream as he waited for enemy troops to appear at the edge of the hole. But then he heard a flapping and a twittering, and a small bird flew over them, its beak filled with coconut fibre.
As the light faded and a thin moon rose into view, Alf stood up. ‘I’m not staying in here,’ he said. ‘They can kill me if they want, but I’m buggered if I’m going to die crammed in a smelly hole.’
Charlie gnawed his lip. ‘I suppose they won’t spot us at night,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘But we’d better not light a campfire.’
‘Nothing to cook anyway,’ said Masa, sadly.
They settled for the dry flesh of a charred coconut for dinner, and Alf almost chopped his thumb off splitting it with the machete in the dark.
‘Do you reckon they’re going to invade?’ asked Masa, chewing a piece of cooked coconut.
Charlie shrugged. ‘They could be getting ready to torpedo TI. Or they might just be spying and want to stay hidden.’
‘We should set a trap for ’em,’ said Alf. ‘Fill the pit with spikes and cover it with leaves. Then if they come ashore – Whoosh! Plunk! Arrrrgh!’
Charlie dug a coconut fibre out of his front teeth. Their dream of living on a tropical island had quickly become a nightmare. They were stranded with hardly any food, shade or shelter, and now Japanese subs were circling nearby. The Fighting Stingrays had to get off Gecko Island, and fast.
The boys woke up at first light and cobbled together a barrier of rocks and burnt branches around their beach shelter. It wasn’t the best camouflage, but it was enough to keep them out of sight of any periscopes, provided they stayed low.
They tried to pass the time by play
ing ‘I spy’, but after Alf won by guessing ‘sand’ for the fourth time, they gave it up and lay side-by-side in miserable silence. Then Masa sat up, nearly banging his head on the tin roof.
‘It’s cold,’ he said, shivering.
‘Cold?’ said Alf. ‘It must be a hundred degrees under here.’
Alf was right – even though their sad little shelter was keeping the sun off, the heat radiating through the iron made it feel like they were trapped in a giant barbecue.
‘I’m freezing,’ muttered Masa, bringing his knees to his chin and rubbing his shoulders. ‘My head hurts too.’
‘You might be getting sick,’ said Charlie.
‘Only you could catch a cold in the tropics, Masa,’ said Alf. ‘Try and get some sleep, I reckon.’
But as the morning went on, Masa got steadily worse. The shivering turned into an awful fever and he slept fitfully, twitching, moaning and muttering things that didn’t make any sense. Alf sniggered when Masa started rabbiting on about a ‘magic sky pony’, but Charlie was worried – this wasn’t like any cold he’d ever seen before.
Judy sensed that something was wrong with her human and was in quite a state, scurrying up and down the length of Masa’s body and pawing at his mouth. Masa opened his eyes long enough to give her a weak smile, then gasped with pain and clutched at his side.
Charlie soaked his shirt with some water from their drinking bottle and pressed it against Masa’s forehead. But nothing seemed to ease the fever, and Masa soon slipped back into unconsciousness.
‘This is bad, Alf,’ Charlie said. ‘He’s really sick.’
‘Nah, he’ll be okay,’ Alf said.
But the way he was clenching his jaw made it clear he didn’t quite believe it.
And then the boat appeared.
Alf spotted it first, peering through the branches of their makeshift fort. ‘They’re coming, Charlie,’ he said.
Charlie scrambled up and knelt beside Alf. ‘Japanese?’
The Fighting Stingrays Page 12
