A Far Country

by John Fletcher

  Jason rocketed out from behind his shelter and ran full tilt across the sand in the direction of the two men.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re still alive,’ Tom said for the hundredth time, a foolish grin plastered all over his face. ‘I were sure we’d never see hair nor hide of you again.’

  Lew said nothing: not with his mouth, anyway. His look said he would not have cared had Tom been right.

  Little by little the two brothers unravelled what had happened to them. Tom had been one of the men up on the yards.

  ‘Couldn’t see nothing,’ he confessed. ‘Even thirty feet above the deck the spray were too thick for that. Saw that there wave, though, jest afore we struck. How you ever lived through ’er I’ll never know.’

  The Kitty had grounded on rocky shoals and in the heavy seas had broken up almost at once. There had been no time to launch a boat. Tom had found himself in the water, much as Jason had done, then a fallen spar had come past with Lew Bone clinging to it. Together, talking to each other to keep themselves awake, they had lasted through the night and the following morning had been washed ashore where they now were. Unlike Jason, they had found no water. They had lit the fire in the hope that its smoke would draw other survivors to them but so far they had seen no-one.

  ‘Reckon we’re all that got off,’ Tom said.

  ‘Where are we?’ Jason asked but they couldn’t tell him.

  ‘Somewhere along the west coast of the gulf?’ Lew Bone hazarded.

  They were certainly on the western side of something but even if he were right they were no wiser. None of them had ever been ashore on this coast or knew anyone who had.

  ‘Mebbe there ain’t no white men in these parts,’ Tom said disconsolately. ‘Only them natives, mebbe.’

  They looked at each other. How would the natives react to the presence of three shipwrecked white men? None of them had had much to do with the natives but the wild ones who lived beyond the limits of European settlement were supposed to be dangerous.

  ‘Mebbe the fire weren’t such a good idea,’ Lew Bone said.

  Their first priority was water. The two men had looked everywhere along this section of the coast but found nothing. Jason told them about the cave he had found.

  ‘What we waitin’ for?’ Lew demanded. ‘Let’s get there afore the tide comes in.’

  With Jason leading, they swam around the headland. When they reached the cave Lew Bone shouldered his way inside ahead of the others and stood under the fall, mouth lifted to catch the water.

  ‘Tastes bloody awful,’ he complained but drank his fill, all the same.

  By the time they came out of the cave the tide was nearly full and they were faced with a long swim but they were all good swimmers and managed it without difficulty.

  ‘What we need now is summat to eat,’ Lew said when they were back at the beach.

  They walked along the edge of the sea, looking not only for food but for a container to store the precious water. They found nothing.

  ‘There’s got to be fish,’ Tom said.

  ‘What we supposed to do?’ Lew demanded. ‘Catch ’em with our ’ands?’

  It was easy to get up the cliffs above this beach and Jason clambered up to see what he could see. There was very little: an undulating plain of tawny grass and scrubby trees, empty as a desert, extending without interruption to the horizon. Neither to north or south was there any sign of human inhabitants—which might be a blessing—or of animals. Worst of all, there was no water.

  He climbed back down to the beach and told the others.

  ‘Jest have to stay put, then,’ Lew said.

  ‘Stay here we’ll die,’ Tom pointed out. ‘Won’t we?’

  Lew scowled: he did not like his views questioned. ‘Not while we got water.’

  ‘We got to ’ave food, too.’

  ‘Somen’s bound to be washed up from the wreck.’

  ‘Don’t see why,’ Jason said. ‘Nothing’s come ashore so far.’

  Tom said, ‘Even if it does we’ll still ’ave to move eventually, won’t we? I mean, it won’t last forever, will it?’

  Even Lew Bone could not argue with that, although from the expression on his face he would have liked to. ‘Which way you want to go, then?’

  ‘North,’ Jason said. ‘I heard Captain Hughes tellin’ the mate there was settlers planning to move into the peninsula. Our best bet would be to try and reach them.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’

  ‘Don’t see how we can be worse off than we are here.’

  They stayed where they were overnight. The next morning they scoured the water’s edge, hoping that something might have been washed ashore from the wreck, but again found nothing. They revisited the cave, drank as much as their stomachs would hold, climbed the cliff and set off northwards.

  To begin with they made good time but it did not last. The sun grew hotter as the day advanced. Unlike Jason, the two men had kicked off their boots in the sea and the harsh ground was cruel to their feet. The few wind-blown trees offered little shade. They saw no signs either of animals or water. Before long Lew Bone was grumbling: a constant, furious complaint that grew worse as the day drew on.

  ‘Save your breath,’ Jason advised him wearily, ‘you’ll need it for walking.’

  It made no difference.

  By midday they were exhausted. They rested for an hour in such shade as they could find beneath trees that seemed to continue without variation forever. If it had not been for the coastline to their right they would have become lost hours before.

  ‘Git down the cliff,’ Lew instructed Jason, ‘see if you can find any more caves.’

  Jason needed no urging but when he had scrambled down he found nothing, neither water nor moisture nor even any damp grass to chew. Sunlight blazed painfully from white sand littered with fragments of quartz. The breeze whistled through tussocks of the wiry grass that was the only vegetation. Jason plucked a stem and chewed it but it was as dry as a dead twig. There was nothing.

  ‘There got to be somen,’ Lew complained furiously.

  ‘Seaweed,’ Jason said.

  Lew stared, brow lowering. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘There’s banks of seaweed all along the beach.’

  ‘We can’t eat seaweed.’

  ‘That’s all there is.’

  The idea frightened them all.

  ‘We got to have water,’ Lew said.

  ‘Keep goin’, maybe we’ll find some.’

  They plodded on through the hot afternoon. Overhead the sun seemed barely to move in a sky white with heat. Earlier, sweat had poured off them; now their bodies were too dehydrated to sweat.

  The sun sank at last. The worst of the heat disappeared from a sky that darkened swiftly from white to pellucid blue. A gentle breeze from the sea cooled them, the steady rumble of surf at the base of the cliff drew them on. With water and food—even water alone—it would have been a pleasant place to be. Without either, it was a hell that could only get worse as the hours passed.

  At this point the cliffs crumbled away to a line of low sand dunes. They stumbled across the dunes and tried to soothe tired and bleeding feet in the waters of the gulf. Each knew that the next day would be a trial far worse than anything they had experienced so far. If they did not find water, it would also be their last.

  They looked longingly at the sky. If only it would rain … But there was no sign of that.

  They decided to stay on the beach overnight. It was cooler and for Tom and Lew in particular the sea was a more natural element than the endless dry plains. They felt safer surrounded by the soothing noises of the surf.

  Jason wandered along the high water mark, seeking whatever he could find, came back with a trophy: an empty bottle.

  ‘Wouldn’t you bloody believe it!’ As always with Lew Bone, life was a conspiracy directed personally at him. ‘What’s the use of having it now?’

  ‘Best hang on to it,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll need it wh
en we find water.’

  When … None of them dared think of anything else.

  ‘As long as you don’ mind carryin’ it …’

  Slowly it grew dark. The stars came out. Beads of phosphorescence gleamed like jewels in the surf. Ahead of them the coast unwound: for how many miles none of them knew. It was not something they dared think about. The moon rose. They lay sprawled on the sand in exhausted sleep.

  Jason could not have said what woke him; nevertheless, suddenly, he was awake. Warily he opened his eyes. The stretch of sand gleamed white in the moonlight. The sea was shot with silver ripples. The cliffs loomed, dark with shadow. Below the cliffs, dark shapes moved.

  Jason held his breath.

  The creatures moved, paused, moved again. He heard a soft crunching sound. They were animals, grazing on the harsh grass that bordered the beach. Every so often they sat up and looked about them before crouching down again.

  Wallabies. He counted. Six of them. Meat. Blood. A dead wallaby would keep them alive through another day. If he could only get close enough …

  With agonising caution Jason turned on his side and began to crawl through the sand. One inch. Another inch. Another inch. His hand encountered the smooth shapes of pebbles. Without taking his eyes from the grazing animals, careful to make no sound, he selected a pebble and carried it with him as he edged forward again.

  Now the wallabies were twenty yards away. Fifteen. Ten. How much closer could he get? Inch by inch the distance between them lessened. Nine yards. Eight. Five. He stopped. His limbs shook with tension. He fought to control them, to still his breathing. He saw the heads come up again. He dared approach no closer. He was kneeling, body absolutely still. He drew back his arm. The wallabies sat up, suddenly alert. The nearest was smaller than the others. Jason saw the liquid gleam of its eye in the moonlight. He flung the stone, heard the dull thud as it struck home. There was an explosion of movement and the wallabies were gone.

  Except that the one he had struck was moving more slowly and erratically than the others, one hind leg splayed out at an angle. Jason was on his feet, chasing. In the moonlight he could not see what lay underfoot: could not take his eyes from the wounded wallaby for fear of losing it. His foot came down awkwardly on a rock and he felt his ankle turn sharply beneath him.

  He could not permit it to stop him. Limping, he closed on the stricken animal. It disappeared into the shadow below the cliff and for a heart-stopping moment he thought he had lost it, then saw it again as it tried to scramble away from him across the coarse sand.

  Two steps and he was on top of it. It kicked out at him. Tried to bite as he seized it. He drew his knife, cut its throat.

  The rush of activity had set his thirst blazing once again. As the blood fountained from the slashed arteries he put his mouth to the wound and drank. After a minute he lifted his head and shouted to the others to join him.

  *

  They were replete.

  ‘Blood!’ Lew Bone snarled. ‘Raw meat! Bloody cannibals, that’s what we are.’

  ‘Didn’t notice you say no,’ Tom pointed out.

  Now that Lew was stronger his meanness had returned in full measure. ‘Tell you somen else,’ he said. ‘You don’ keep yore trap shut I’ll shut it for you. I’m gettin’ good and tired of people round ’ere telling me what to do.’

  The next morning they dragged their painful way northwards.

  ‘How far is it, anyway?’ Lew wanted to know.

  It was the first time anyone had talked about how far away safety was.

  ‘Depends if there are any settlers on the peninsula,’ Jason said and rubbed his swollen ankle painfully.

  ‘What if there ain’t?’

  ‘Jest have to keep walking, won’t we?’

  From time to time Lew stopped and stared with angry eyes at the haze on the far side of the gulf where a blue line of land barely cleared the horizon. There would be people there, safety.

  ‘If we had a boat …’ he repeated over and over again with thwarted fury: but they hadn’t.

  They found no water that day, either. By midday the heat was intense. The sand was so soft that it made walking almost impossible. They gave up trying to make their way along the beach and returned to the high ground. At least there the tangled trees shielded them from the worst of the sun but underfoot the ground was littered with fallen branches that snagged their feet and at times made the going almost as hard as it had been on the beach. Their path was crossed by innumerable gullies. Nevertheless they still managed to stagger along somehow, Jason and Tom in front, Lew bringing up the rear. They had no energy to speak or think or do anything but place one foot precariously before the other. From time to time, with increasing frequency, they fell.

  If Jason felt anything through the tide of exhaustion that threatened to engulf him it was anger. His ankle was getting worse with every step. The gashes he had sustained in the open sea troubled him. Soon he would not be able to walk at all and he was angry that he had endured so much fear and pain and effort to come to this.

  He might as well not have bothered to fight at all, he thought. If he had drowned he wouldn’t be worrying now about how far it was to safety or where his next drink was coming from. Indeed, the prospect of death was looking more attractive with every step he took.

  As for the others … He could not imagine how they were still walking at all. Both men’s feet were in ribbons, their blood staining the dust as they lurched agonisingly along. There was nothing to be done about it, about anything. They would walk until they could walk no more. As each man reached the end of his strength he would fall and that would be an end of him.

  The world had contracted to each painful footstep. Each one was a victory; they must not let themselves think how many still remained before they had a hope of reaching safety.

  The sun had begun its westerly descent when they came to a gully crossing their path. Its sides were steep, its bottom choked with vegetation. Earlier they had examined all gullies eagerly, hoping to find water running at the bottom. They had long given up hope of such a thing; this land seemed to have no surface water at all. On the other hand the gullies made an ideal hiding place for snakes; if they could catch one, they might at least fill their bellies.

  This gully was less than a hundred feet deep. The undergrowth was dense but not impenetrable, yet in their exhausted state it was too much for them. They sat on the edge of the steep incline and stared at the vegetation below them. Suddenly the realisation of what they were trying to do overwhelmed them. They had at least a hundred miles to go, possibly double that, with neither food nor water nor, from what they had seen so far, any prospect of finding any. They had no idea what lay ahead of them. There could be rivers or deserts. For all they knew there could be mountains. Jason had heard there might be settlers but did not know for sure. They knew nothing.

  They stared hopelessly at the vegetation crowding the gully beneath them, at the plain on the far side flowing endlessly northwards. So far …

  ‘We’re a bunch of goddamn fools,’ Lew said, voice congested with anger.

  ‘Why?’ Jason asked.

  The big man turned to Tom. ‘How far we got to go?’

  Tom had always been alarmed by direct questions; now he looked scared and opened his mouth once or twice before speaking. ‘Dunno,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Hundred miles,’ Jason said, ‘maybe more.’

  ‘And how far have we come?’

  ‘Ten miles, maybe. Could be twenty, I suppose.’

  ‘And he asks why we’re fools. I’ll tell you why,’ Lew said angrily, ‘because that’s the way we was born, see?’ Abruptly he stood up. ‘I’m going to have a drink,’ he said.

  Tom looked at him, startled. ‘Where you going to get it, Lew?’

  Lew gestured through the branches of the trees at the beach below them. ‘Plenty of water down there.’

  ‘Salt water,’ Tom said. ‘You can’t drink that.’

  Lew’s eyes were a
lmost sealed in a face burned brick red by the sun. ‘Who says so, eh?’

  Tom said, ‘You know what happens to blokes that drink seawater.’

  They went mad and died, that was what happened; every seaman knew that.

  Lew showed him his fist. ‘I warned you before about telling me what to do.’

  He limped over to the cliff edge and stared down through the tangled branches at the ocean. Jason watched him indifferently. If Lew Bone wanted to kill himself he could get on with it as far as Jason was concerned.

  He told Tom, ‘Let him drink if he wants to.’

  Tom stared at him, frowning. ‘It’ll kill him.’

  ‘Why not? If that’s what he wants.’

  Tom tried to puzzle it out. ‘We got to stick together, Jason, don’t we?’

  ‘Stick with him, we’re dead.’

  Tom gave up. ‘What’s the difference? At this rate we’ll all be dead, anyway.’

  Jason turned to see what Lew was doing, half-hoping to see him forcing his way down the cliff, but Tom’s warnings must have struck a chord, after all, because, as Jason watched, Lew turned from the cliff edge and came limping back towards them.

  Rage twisted his features as he saw Jason staring at him. ‘You know so bloody much, tell us ‘ow we’re goin’ to get out of this.’

  There was only one thing they could do. With agonising slowness they got to their feet and began to clamber down the steep side of the gully. They had gone perhaps ten yards when something made Jason look up. His sharp exclamation brought the others to a stop. They looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Look!’ Jason pointed.

  They stared where he was looking. Above them the rim of the gully was lined with black figures, long, thin spears in their hands.

  ‘My God!’ Lew Bone’s mouth hung open. He turned and began to thrust his way frantically through the bush, fighting to escape. ‘We’re dead,’ he cried, voice shrill with panic. ‘We’re all dead.’