Evening Glow

by Nick Niels Sanders

  Evening Glow

  Volume 5 of the Book Series

  Born in the Sea

  By Nick Niels Sanders

  Published by Exotica Indica

  Publication as of April 2021

  25

  September 25

  Sick Call

  James, having some intimation of what he would find there, decided to bypass coffee and go directly to the infirmary as soon as he awoke. His foreboding, and the farewell received the previous evening, had been prescient – Lord Richard had died during the night. James spent a few moments sitting with him, saying a special goodbye, then arranged him on his back and pulled up the blanket to cover his face.

  Jim, he found somewhat improved in attitude, even though his nose was stuffier than it had been the previous day, but he was otherwise doing well physically. The walk the previous day had, he declared, done him some good. He looked forward to taking a walk with Ron again later today.

  George was, if anything, more morose than the previous day. Somehow, he already knew of Lord Richard’s death, and he was keeping track, having increased his load of guilt by one more death. James was again unsuccessful at dissuading him from that guilt, though he was somewhat heartened to have George ask him about where the ship had hit the reef, if they could see it from here. They could, and James pointed to the approximate location, receiving only a muttered “thanks” in reply.

  He went on to see how Roger was doing.

  “I am back.”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to try telling me more about Jayne?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I started a secretarial service many years ago….It was doing well, but I needed to continue investing money in it to keep it growing… It was growing rapidly…. And the prospects were really very good…. But I had very limited funds. I was deep in risk and almost out of money…. And I didn’t know what to do or where to turn…. I hate banks….”

  “I’m not so fond of them myself.”

  “Jayne came one day to arrange for a temporary secretary for something she was doing…. She looked at my business with a businesswoman’s eye…. She must have liked what she saw….”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. She came back after she was done with the secretary…. And she complimented me on the business….”

  “How nice of her.”

  “She offered to lend me money…. We began seeing one another…. And it wasn’t long before we were married….”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure how it happened…. I mean, I don’t know if she proposed to me or me to her…. Probably she did…. She lent me money for the business…. and I gradually paid her back…. My business was very successful…. And I became quite wealthy…. And she continued to help me with suggestions from time to time.”

  “Was it a partnership?”

  “In a way…. I was the sole owner of the business…. Our finances were completely separate…. But she helped me with some owner decisions….She had a talent for business…. She was wonderful about it.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what I would have done without her…. And I don’t know how I will get on without her now….”

  The tears were flowing down his cheeks again. Sobs interrupted his breathing. There was a long time during which he was silent. Finally, the choked voice was there again.

  “Thanks. Please let me grieve alone.”

  “OK, I will. But I will come back again.”

  James moved to the Kitchen Tent for coffee and an omelet, and to make arrangements for the burial of Lord Richard next to his Lady.

  Maria and Marcella came to him. “Darling, Marcella and I think it would be a good idea for the two of us to plan how we can use the food we have. With a plan, we can develop some idea what additions to it we may need along the way.”

  “Thank you, my dear.”

  “If we can be free of other duties today, we would like to do it today. We won’t need any help from anyone else.”

  “That seems fine to me. It would be nice to have some idea of our limitations.”

  “Oh, Dr. James,” replied Marcella. “This is important work to make a plan. We will show you how well we will do.”

  “Thank you.”

  James finished his breakfast and went to join the other men in digging the grave, finding that Jim had also joined in; the work went quickly. Again, Paul led them all, including the women who came to join at this juncture, in a short service in the Anglican tradition. Wrapped in a blanket, Lord Richard’s body was lowered into the shallow grave and covered with sand.

  Feeling tears in his eyes, James turned away, to find Julia wanting to talk with him. Over his shoulder, he indicated to the men that they should meet back at the Kitchen Tent to decide what to do with the morning, then walked off with Julia. She described to him her anxiety. She was trying to control as much of her world as she could. James had anticipated that she would find difficulty in this – the food was not being served in a way that leant itself to the orderly plating and place setting arranging that she had been doing earlier on the cruise. But she was getting a lot of satisfaction from cleaning up after meals; Marcella was grateful to have someone help. She had also reached some kind of agreement with Mark, and was keeping their lean-to in very tidy order. She had washed herself and her clothes; her hair had been bobbed by Marcella in a way that allowed her to keep it free of tangles. She thought she was doing better. She was not breaking down crying two or three times a day and was no longer hiding from the others. She admitted to feeling very anxious about the whole situation.

  James: “It seems to me that you are doing very well. I am surprised and congratulate you on your courage. We can talk as frequently as you think you need to.”

  “That is just what I was hoping. Talking to you is helping me so much. You can’t imagine. Thanks.”

  She walked away, leaving James with his thoughts about how this experience was being stressful for different individuals in vastly different ways.

  Menu planning

  Marcella and Maria returned to the Kitchen Tent with several pages from Ron’s sketchbook and a pencil. It was their intent to create a time-sensitive inventory of the food, devising menus as they went. This turned out to be a laborious process, but the further they got into it, the better they felt about it.

  The fresh vegetables were largely used up, and those not already used were clearly either to be used for lunch today or discarded. The fruits were primarily tropical and seemed to be lasting pretty well, but were in danger to go overripe if not used within the next few days. Marcella had already been using them, but not as frequently as the vegetables. Marcella had used all of the refrigerated meats; those that were frozen were doing remarkably well at staying frozen and would be used as they thawed. The frozen vegetables and frozen fruits (there were many of the former and few of the latter) seemed to be lasting well, but it would be best to start using the frozen vegetables judiciously because they would not all stay frozen forever. When they got done, they figured they had about five days of meals that could still be made from the fresh, refrigerated and frozen foods, supplemented with pasta and rice.

  Following that, planning became more of a challenge. The canned food would not spoil, but the job of planning appropriate meals that were cohesive and complementary was not easy. Carefully, they sorted through the cans, arranging them into groups to represent amounts they thought would make a meal for the 14 of them (though George and Roger were not eating much now, they must be counted on to start eating again at some point). They figured another eight to ten days. This was not going to stretch to the eighteen more days th
ey had figured they might have to feed themselves for. Six more days needed to be planned. Since the first five days were all dependent upon how fast the food would thaw and spoil, supplementing early would be less important than supplementing later. But someone needed to learn to catch fish, and they would need some fresh vegetables from the ocean or from the land. And they would need to harvest coconuts.

  They made their lists and started to talk about how much supplementation would be needed by when in order to stretch the food all the way to three weeks. They prepared to lead a conversation at lunch on this subject.

  Now it was time to start preparing lunch.

  The Bog

  The men met at the Kitchen Tent, being careful not to disturb Maria and Marcella, who were busy doing inventory and planning meals. They agreed that further search for vegetable resources would be appropriate, and that they would spend the rest of the morning in that search. James and Paul would see what the bog offered; Mark, Ron and Ralph would concentrate on a more complete exploration of the plateau.

  James and Paul started at the little dried creek at the top of the bog, making their way slowly down the narrow watercourse toward the ocean. The footing was difficult, but the mass of roots underfoot kept them from sinking into the sandy bottom. The watercourse widened, making walking easier. They found mostly a very woody shrub which they both thought of as mangrove. It was clearly thriving in the brackish water at the interface between fresh water flowing down from the spring and salt water coming up the streambed from the ocean. There did not seem to be any other plants.

  They turned back when the water got to be ankle-deep, thinking they had probably learned all they needed to know of this part of the bog. They followed the dry watercourse uphill to where the spring seemed to be – though there was no water flowing from it, there were two small puddles. James tasted one and said it was fresh water. At its edge, there were several broad leafed plants growing. They both looked at these plants and Paul thought he recognized the species as having edible leaves. He tore off a small amount of one leaf and nibbled at it. “Sort of like spinach,” he concluded. “If it doesn’t make me sick, it may be a good supplement, though there is hardly enough of it to make much difference.”

  James agreed, but noted that it was reassuring to have found something.

  From this point, they walked down the northern edge of the bog, looking carefully for any plants, but especially for more of the spinach-like plant they had already found. They found none, but did find some dried plants that had bloomed before they dried up, and they wondered if these would sprout again if it rained.

  Feet sinking into the unstable sand several inches very rapidly, footprints behind rapidly filling with water, they were very uncomfortable walking any distance into the bog. James again tried tasting the water; it was salty. Reaching the gently lapping edge of the water, the sand at the edge of the water supporting them, the bog seemed to have ended. They were able to walk along it without hazard all the way to the mouth of the creek, wade through the watercourse and follow the shore onward to the other edge of the bog.

  As they turned to start back toward the camp, they heard the clanging call that lunch was ready.

  The Plateau

  Mark resented another trek that would tax his painful knees, but he knew he would resent starving to death even more. Ron and Ralph were much more interested in staying active in a meaningful way and thought that more exploration would be fun. Ron was feeling particularly good after being joined by Jim in the digging of the grave – a sure sign that Jim was doing as well as Dr. James thought he was, and that he would soon be back to normal again. Ron had his sketch pad and pencils along, intending to make sketches of any apparently edible flora they found in their search today.

  They took the most direct approach to the high point of the island. Because of his grumbling, Ron and Ralph left Mark here, with instructions to search as carefully as he could to find any sign of puddles of water among the rocks. Ron and Ralph went in slightly different directions to cover more territory, moving slowly and carefully across the lava bed.

  Ron found several varieties of dried-up plants, which he sketched as best he could. They were generally in areas where dust or sand had blown in and not blown back out in the wind, and where the ground was now pretty dry. His path across the plateau took him toward the cliff, with a decreasing density of the dried-up plants. Turning, returning, he found much the same dry leavings as he had found on the way out.

  Ralph called to him in excitement. Looking up to see where he was, Ron crossed the lava flow to reach him. Ralph had found a specimen of the same plant, nestled in a protected lava cup, out of the wind, soil still moist, thin, rounded leaves alternating positions around a vertical stem that ended in a tassel of flowers. Ron started to sketch. Ralph wanted to pick the plant, but Ron reminded him that they didn’t need food now, and that the seeds might produce a lot more plants later on. In the meantime, they needed to share what they had found.

  His sketch complete, Ron resumed his path up and down the lava flow, and Ralph resumed his.

  Mark, in the meantime, searching among the rocks at the top of the plateau, finding nothing that looked even remotely wet, moved on to the boulder pile just over the lava ridge. Here, he found pockets of moisture, some with moss growing in them. At one point, he thought there might be a large puddle or pool farther down in the rocks, but it was beyond his reach and he wasn’t going to start moving the rocks to get to it. Instead, he sat and watched his two colleagues walking up and down the plateau, waving to them when they were both facing toward him.

  They clambered over the rocky surface of the plateau to reach him, sharing in his joy at the discovery of water, no matter how small the amount. Ron stopped to sketch the area to record the location so that they could find it again later. This done, they all started back to camp, coming over the rise onto Camp Beach just as the lunch call was sounded.

  Valerie & Michelle

  Valerie put Julia in charge of the infirmary. Jeanne was resting after having been on duty in the infirmary for the last part of the night. Maria and Marcella were busy in the kitchen working on meal planning. This seemed like just the time for Valerie and Michelle to take a stroll around the island.

  Michelle seemed eager to go for a walk with Valerie – not quite what Valerie would have expected from her friend, who normally resisted calls to physical activity. But Val had not stretched her legs enough, and was delighted Shelly wanted to come along; somehow she always felt better with Shelly nearby. She led her friend toward the Bathing Beach and past it to Third Beach, where Shelly stopped her.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “OK.”

  “I’m getting sore places that I can feel, but I can’t see.”

  Valerie turned to her friend in concern. She had once had a bad experience with a spider bite, and was horrified to think what kinds of things might live on a place like this. “Let me have a look at these sore places.”

  Michelle was inordinately resistant, especially considering she had raised the subject herself, but yielded (as she was bound to) after several minutes of conversation. Her dress, filthy after three consecutive days of wearing it, was easily removed, Valerie suggesting that it be washed. Under it, Michelle wore a bustier of substantial construction, covering her torso from where panties peeked from below it to where her bosom, carefully and extensively supported, displayed her ample cleavage. Hesitantly undoing buttons, more hesitantly pulling down a zipper, Michelle removed the bustier, her waist expanding and her bosom descending significantly. Her nursing experience providing immediate reference, Valerie quickly settled on both diagnosis and treatment.

  “These are pressure sores. You have clearly been wearing this thing non-stop for three days and your skin can’t take it anymore. You cannot continue to wear it.”

  Michelle began to cry. So important was it to her that she present that cleavage publicly that she thought perhaps she
would not return to the camp until her sores healed and she could put the bustier back on. Sobbing out her misery, Michelle allowed Valerie to lead her to the water’s edge, where Val began washing clothes, laying them out on the sand to dry, including her now-shortened and sleeveless nightgown. Shelly was standing ankle deep in the water, still sniffling, not being sure which part of her body she wanted to cover up, or if she would rather wipe her eyes and nose, when Val walked back into the water, naked except for her sandals, and started to splash her.

  The result was a quick repeat of the laughing, splashing contest they had had on the desert island, which seemed like weeks before. Val led the way into deeper water, where she finally managed to talk her friend out of her panties, which got rinsed and scrubbed and landed on the sand near the other clothes.

  Val looked at her friend in the special way she had that always made Shelly feel as though she was a much more important person than she knew she was. Val reached out her hands and Shelly took them. “What was so hard about that?”