Savages

by Shirley Conran

  The boat suddenly fell away beneath her and Annie’s spine jarred as she crashed down on it.

  Annie thought, There’s only one way to save this boat and that’s to overturn it deliberately before it’s swamped. Then there will be an air pocket under the hull, so it will float. We can hang on to the boat from outside, then right it, and bail it out after the storm. Otherwise, we’re going to lose the boat anyway.

  Annie managed to get her mouth to Silvana’s ear. The wind snatched her voice as she spoke, and the effort of screaming exhausted her. A flash of lightning illuminated Silvana’s face—her mouth was a black hole of disbelief that Annie should want her to jump overboard.

  Annie turned her head and howled instructions into Suzy’s ear. In the lightning flashes Annie saw Suzy’s look of panic.

  Suzy remembered how it had felt when she nearly drowned in the lagoon. She screamed, “How do we know the boat won’t go on without us? How do we know she’ll overturn?”

  Annie screamed back, “If we all lean on the same side she’ll tip over.”

  With stiff fingers, the women checked their life jackets and the knots of the rattan ropes around their waists, then tied the ropes to the stern ring. Suzy and Silvana clutched their slippery, wet oars. Clumsily, all three women crawled to the downwind side of the boat.

  Almost immediately, before they had time to wonder whether or not it would work, the boat obligingly tipped the three women into the churning water, then capsized.

  THURSDAY, MARCH 14

  Above the black sea a thin line of primrose extended along the horizon. As Annie bobbed in the water, she could see Patty’s face in front of her, white and gaunt as an Edvard Munch painting. Patty was clinging to the ghost-white hull of the upended dinghy. The women were still attached by their ropes to the stern ring.

  Although she was less than ten feet away, it took Annie five weary minutes to dog-paddle to Patty.

  Annie lifted her whistle and blew it twice.

  “Here!” “Over here!” The two voices came from the opposite side of the upended hull.

  Patty and Annie paddled around the boat. On the other side, Silvana and Carey bobbed up and down in their bloated yellow life jackets, stamped on the back with the word Louise.

  “Where’s Suzy?” Annie called.

  The women looked at one another. Nobody spoke.

  “I’ll swim all the way around,” Patty said, although both she and Annie knew there was no one on the other side of the hull.

  Patty swam around the boat and returned, shaking her head. “Her rope must have come undone.”

  There was no other sign of life upon the surface of the sea. Under a layer of heavy gray cloud it stretched flat and black to a thin band of topaz at the horizon. Behind the clouds, the hidden sun shed weak rays upon the water.

  “The sun will soon warm us up,” Annie said drearily.

  Carey, hanging in the water, started to cry.

  About twenty minutes later Patty screamed, “Look!”

  The eyes of the women followed her pointing finger. They all saw the glimmer of light that seemed to be moving steadily across the horizon from left to right.

  As the glimmer surged onward, it enlarged into a rectangle of lights which flickered like the few stars that still hung in the sky.

  “A liner,” Patty whispered longingly. In fact it was a container ship.

  “Can you reach your flare, Patty?” Annie asked. “Do you think they’ll work after they’ve been wet?”

  “Don’t know.” Patty’s stiff fingers fumbled beneath her life jacket. “I can’t reach them without taking off my life jacket.”

  “Take her life jacket,” Annie said to Silvana. “If you let go of it, then Patty gets yours.”

  Patty looked nervous. “I don’t want to drop the flares.”

  “Hang on to Carey for support,” Annie said.

  Carey swam behind Patty and clutched her around the middle as Silvana helped Patty remove her life jacket.

  Briskly, Annie ordered, “Okay. Move fast. That ship isn’t going to wait.”

  The ship in the distance was now a third of the way across the horizon.

  Patty held up the six-inch white cylinder with stiff fingers. She unscrewed the cap, which exposed the nose of the rocket, then unscrewed the base and pulled out the length of string coiled within. She unhitched the safety catch, held the rocket in her right hand and wound the string around her left knuckle. Lifting the rocket as high as she could above the water, she tugged sharply with her left hand. Then she screamed in pain.

  The rocket soared upward, a bright light upon which their lives depended. The eyes of all the women followed the swift, forty-second, white arc as it soared through the sky.

  Patty gasped with pain. “Fucking glorified firework!” She held her burned and blackened hand beneath the water.

  The ship was now in the center of the horizon.

  “Don’t they have radar?” Carey asked. “I thought all ships had to have someone monitoring it twenty-four hours a day. I heard you can pick up a seagull on radar.”

  Annie said bitterly, “It’s probably on automatic pilot and they’re still asleep in their bunks.”

  None of the women had much hope that the ship would suddenly turn 90 degrees and head straight for them, but they felt inexpressibly forlorn and abandoned as she moved steadily across the horizon. They stared after it, seeing a cruise ship, representing all the comforts of civilization. They imagined stewards preparing breakfast trays with white linen cloths and sparkling cutlery, chilled orange juice, the heavenly aroma of coffee, croissants and marmalade…

  The ship dwindled to a small glimmer of light to their right. Nobody spoke as they watched the speck disappear. Eventually Patty said, “It moved so fast. I had no idea a ship could move so fast.”

  The clouds upon the horizon were tinged with pink, and the pale sky soared above the dusky purple sea.

  Annie said, “Put your life jacket back on, Patty, then let’s get back in the boat.”

  Deliberately, nobody had mentioned Suzy.

  “How do we turn it right side up?” Carey asked wearily.

  They all gazed at the inverted white hull, smoothly riding the water beside them. From the center of the hull the keel stuck up sharply, ten inches high.

  Annie said, “We’ll crawl up one side, hang on to that thing sticking up and pull it toward us. Our weight should drag it over, and that will right the boat.”

  Patty gasped, “I don’t think …”

  “She burned her hand,” Carey reminded them, and helped Patty back into her life jacket.

  Silvana looked at the dinghy. “How are we going to crawl up it?”

  Various suggestions were made, and tried, without success.

  Eventually, Carey ducked her head between Annie’s legs so that Annie sat above the water on her shoulders. But when Annie leaned against the hull, her weight pushed the boat away. She tried to stand on Carey’s shoulders, but this merely pushed Carey’s head underwater.

  After several attempts, each more exhausting and exasperating than the last, Carey eventually managed to hang on to the gunwale and Annie managed to stand, more or less upright, on her shoulders. If she stood on tiptoe Annie could just grasp the keel.

  Annie slipped and fell into the water.

  She surfaced spluttering. “Okay, let’s try again.”

  Carey gasped, “Can’t we rest a few minutes?”

  “Sharks,” Annie reminded her.

  This galvanized them into finding the energy for further effort. Again, Annie hauled herself into a sitting position on Carey’s shoulders, but this time it was far more difficult for the exhausted Annie to alter her position so that she was crouching on Carey’s shoulders. Four times, she fell backward into the water.

  Weeping with vexation, Annie tried again.

  They never knew what they did right, but suddenly, after about thirty minutes of trying, Annie’s numb, wet hands managed to grip the keel. She pulled herse
lf up and threw one leg over it.

  Annie sat astride the hull.

  As Patty was only able to use one hand, she couldn’t hang on to the gunwhale and act as a foothold, so she was the next person to be pushed by Silvana and tugged by Annie up onto the hull.

  Then Annie hung over the hull with her feet on one side of it, her arms on the other, and the keel biting into her stomach as she pulled Silvana upward. Heavier and less agile than Patty, Silvana couldn’t manage to climb up.

  Carey gasped, “Take off your pants and loop the legs together. We could climb up it like a ladder.” This worked.

  After pulling on their clinging, heavy wet pants, the women tried to right the boat by using the weight of their bodies. They experimented shifting their weight around, but nothing seemed to work.

  Eventually Annie panted, “We’ll just have to sit on the top like this. Ride her like a steer.”

  “Annie, the keel is sharp,” Carey protested.

  “Okay, let’s try once more. This time, give it everything you’ve got, guys.”

  They spaced out, with the two lighter women on either end and the two heavier in the middle. It was the only combination they hadn’t already tried.

  Slowly the boat turned over, throwing them into the sea. Bobbing about in the water, the women felt a new vigor.

  “We did it! We did it!” Carey yelled.

  “Hi, guys.” They heard a shrill voice from the other side of the boat. The women all yelled, “Suzy!”

  Suzy’s head shone in the water like a sleek sea animal. “When the boat overturned and we all went under, I came up underneath it,” she explained, paddling over to the other women. “My life-jacket light was on, so I could see where I was. I just grabbed upward and hung on to that center seat. My ears were popping and the waves slapping against the hull were very noisy and ominous. After a while I let go of the seat, but for some reason, I still stayed underneath the boat. I was frightened of running out of air and absolutely terrified alone under there. I had no idea if it was day or night, or whether the storm was over, or whether anyone else was alive.”

  Then she stopped babbling and burst into tears at the joy of no longer being alone.

  * * *

  “Could they have survived?” Although it was six in the morning, the President was already dressed in an immaculate white uniform trimmed with gold braid. He looked at the calendar on his desk; it was March 14. He repeated his question. “Could they have survived two storms in two days, Colonel?”

  Colonel Borda said, “I doubt it, Excellency.”

  Absentmindedly, the President picked at his desktop with his dagger, gouging out bits of the brass marquetry pattern. He stood up, walked to the window and opened the shutters. Rain driven by a fierce wind slammed into the room.

  “Unseasonable weather, but very welcome,” the President said. He turned and banged the bell on his desk. A servant entered, and fought to close the shutters that the wind had flattened against the outer wall.

  Violent squalls had blown until one A.M. Thick, gray rain still hissed on the palace roof. There was devastation in the courtyard beneath the window—not a leaf remained on a branch, and many branches were downed.

  Colonel Borda said, “I doubt a small dinghy could even have survived the first storm. The area has been searched twice. After last night’s storm it seems pointless to repeat the search or extend it. There is no point in looking for something that is not there.”

  The President dismissed the colonel and pressed the buzzer for his secretary. The man appeared in an instant. “Find that Nexus soppo, Harry Scott. Tell him that I wish to negotiate immediately.” He chuckled. “A business breakfast—as they say in the West.”

  The secretary bowed and left, and once again the President turned his attention to the file before him. It contained complaints concerning Defense Force brutality, theft and terrorism. How did people expect an army to behave? Say “Have a nice day” before pulling the trigger?

  The President’s secretary re-entered. As always, he felt a sinking sensation in his bowels as he waited to give news that the President would not wish to hear.

  The President looked up. “Well?”

  “Mr. Scott is not in Queenstown, Excellency. He has not been seen for three days, not since Monday. The Nexus group has requested permission to search the Malong area, but the Minister of the Interior has not yet agreed to this.”

  “Why not?”

  “The President will recall that last December he issued instructions that everyone should be courteous but that nothing should be done to help search for any Nexus survivors.”

  The President banged his desk. “Tell the Minister that I want Harry Scott. Find him fast!”

  30

  THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1985

  If Harry put his eye to a crack he could see his four guards squatting below him, teasing the mongrel in the shade of the hut. Harry thought of clean starched shirts, fresh sheets and cold beer. He dreamed of rainbows and the swimming-pool terrace on top of his apartment building. He imagined ice and snow. He remembered things that were clean and cool, as he lay in the gloom on the rotting sago boards of the native hut in the oppressive afternoon heat.

  It was three days since the men had been imprisoned. After the first few hours their neck cords had been lengthened so that they were able to lie down, but their hands were still tied behind their backs and their feet were also bound. Harry’s trousers were soiled, and he stank.

  The nights had been worse than the days. They were alternately hot and then cold as chill, damp night air seeped through the cracks in the hut.

  Every morning and evening, the prisoners were fed by two young warriors, who never met their eyes or spoke to them as they put on the floor two banana leaves containing fried catfish and sago pancakes. Nobody spoke to the prisoners. They were literally treated like tethered animals—except that animals could at least shake the mosquitoes and flies away from their faces.

  Harry alternated between feeling like a fool for having allowed himself to be captured so easily and feeling hope because his captivity might mean that the missing Nexus party was being similarly held.

  But sometimes frustration overwhelmed Harry and he felt despair when he faced the fact that Annie might be dead. In his heart Harry had always felt that there must have been some mistake, that Annie had been intended by fate for him; that she was Harry’s woman—his destiny—and that Duke had only accidental, temporary possession of her. During the last four months he had expected his feelings for Annie to weaken, to go fuzzy at the edges. He had expected that, grieving her, he could put her memory to rest. But he hadn’t. His longing for Annie was just as raw and sharp as it had ever been.

  No one had asked the prisoners any questions, but the interpreter told Harry that this was a good sign. He explained that the longer Harry was absent, the quicker his people would pay up. He had hesitated, then added, “Master like go quicktime, master no eat. These feller think you die, these feller sing out money for you quicktime.”

  Harry felt it would be no hardship not to eat if that would convince their captors that he was dying, so they would quickly negotiate a ransom.

  The interpreter reckoned that the price asked would be three hundred pigs for Harry (the maximum dowry for a bride), but he had no idea what would be asked for himself, or whether Nexus would pay it.

  Harry said, “Don’t worry. Without a note from me to the mine manager, they won’t get a penny from him. Whatever is paid for me will also cover the cost of releasing you.”

  Harry knew that the ransom messenger hadn’t yet set off. He would travel by dugout canoe, and it would take two days nonstop to travel downriver, then cover the sixty-five miles to Mount Ida. After that, it would take him the same amount of time to return. So a minimum of four more days’ imprisonment lay ahead of the captives.

  Seven wasted days! That would take him to March 18 and would leave only thirteen days before Raki’s deadline for calling off the search. Harry b
anged the dirty floorboards in frustration.

  A peaked khaki cap appeared above the gap in the floor; beneath it was a thin, intelligent, dark brown face. A Filipino.

  “Mr. Harry Scott?”

  Harry nodded.

  The man climbed a little higher up the ladder. From his shoulder tabs, Harry saw that he was an army captain. He said, “The President of Paui wishes to see you, Mr. Scott. I am your escort.”

  “Delighted to hear it.”

  “Now that I have seen you, I will arrange for your release.”

  Harry had been located within two hours after a call had been put out through the soldier-informer network Raki had established throughout the island.

  The captain disappeared. The interpreter rolled over on his stomach, peered through a crack in the floorboards and reported to Harry what seemed to be happening below.

  The men of the village were gathered in a group around the Filipino captain, who held a two-way radio. With him were four armed soldiers, clearly islanders. Sometimes several people talked at once, sometimes there was a long silence, sometimes a few grunts. The interpreter could not hear what was being said.

  After half an hour of negotiation, it was agreed that Harry and the interpreter would be released upon the handing over of two transistor radios and the understanding that the subject of one missing Filipino soldier would not be pursued.

  Harry, who had been tied up for four days, could hardly move his arms or legs. Both prisoners had to be helped to the two inflatable dinghies that waited at the edge of the water.

  Harry asked, “What about our boat?”

  “That was included in their price,” the Filipino captain said. “It now belongs to them. Show them how to start the outboard. They don’t realize it will run out of gas. Don’t mention it.”

  Nobody said goodbye, nobody waved, as the two dinghies drew away from the shore to background music of Tina Turner blaring “Subway Fix” full blast through three transistors tuned to Radio Paui.

  After traveling twenty minutes upstream they arrived at a small lake, where an army helicopter waited.