‘You should’ve heard him. He said we didn’t know what’d happened to you, that we’d just end up losing more people, and that we needed everyone we had if we were to survive. He had quite a few people on his side at first.’ CJ sounded like she couldn’t believe quite how many people had been willing to give up on us so quickly.
Difficult as it was, I had to admit David had a point. For all they knew, we might have already been dead and it would have been stupid to risk the lives of more people just to find out.
‘That was until CJ pointed out David wouldn’t still be alive if Jack hadn’t rescued him when he was stuck in Boat Harbour. You should have seen the look on his face. I thought he was going to bust a blood vessel or something. Anyway, that got a few more people on our side.’
CJ was smiling. ‘Well, someone had to say it.’
‘But it wasn’t enough, and by the end of the meeting, everyone was still arguing over what we should do. That was when me and CJ decided that if we couldn’t get the community to agree, we’d just have do it ourselves.’
‘Jack thought we should have another go in the morning though, to see if we couldn’t get some sort of agreement, but that meeting was worse than the first.’ CJ glanced over at Jon. ‘David just kept going on and on about how you must all be dead, and that it was clearly too dangerous to send anyone else to find out what happened. He said we should make Little Harbour off-limits and no one should be allowed to go there, no matter what. It was as if he was trying to make sure there was no way we could come and look for you without going against the community.’
Again I wondered if David had been trying to do everything he could to make sure we didn’t make it back. From what CJ was saying, it seemed possible, but then again maybe CJ had just got the wrong end of the stick. What David had said was sensible given what they knew.
‘That’s when CJ and I slipped out.’
‘And aren’t we glad you did.’ Jon put his arm round CJ. ‘For a while there I really thought I’d never get to do this again.’ With that he kissed her hard on the lips.
***
When we returned to Hope Town after our quarantine, there was little evidence of the discord our failure to return had caused. Almost everyone seemed glad we were back and the news of what we’d found in the container had spread like wildfire. Only David showed any displeasure, although I found it hard to tell whether this was real, or if I was just imagining it given what CJ and Andrew had told me.
Ever since the argument, David had been avoiding me as much as possible and even when we met at the community meetings he did his best to ignore me. If it had been anyone else, it would have bothered me but since it was David I didn’t mind, and in many ways it made for an easier life. It meant I didn’t have to deal with him or his obsessions any more.
***
Over the next few days, Jack, Andrew, Jon and I made six trips down to Little Harbour and brought the rest of the canned food back to Hope Town. Learning from our mistakes, we always took two boats to ensure no one became trapped again.
Within the community there was a growing feeling of confidence in our ability to survive, not just from day to day but in the long term. I couldn’t identify the exact moment, but for some reason it felt like we’d finally turned the corner from basic survival to actually having a life and a future. It wasn’t the life we’d had before, but it was still a life worth living.
The changes in the wider community were mirrored by changes on the catamaran. The relationship between Jon and CJ seemed to bring us together in a way we hadn’t really been brought together before. It was as if their relationship acted as a bridge between myself and the three youngsters, and we were becoming like a family. With the relationship, Jon seemed to grow still further and he was taking on a greater level of leadership and responsibility. I now felt much more confident in leaving him in charge when I was off foraging, or indeed letting him take the runabout out himself on scavenging expeditions. With Jon stepping up, I was starting to feel less weighed down by the responsibilities that had been forced on me by Bill’s death, and after many months I felt I could finally relax.
The only thing that wasn’t quite going to plan was the engine of the rigid-hulled inflatable boat, or ‘rib’ for short. Jon and I worked on it whenever we had some free time but we just couldn’t get it started.
‘It’s turning over fine, it’s just not catching.’ Jon scratched his head.
‘It’s not the fuel. I’ve checked that.’
‘Maybe it’s the spark plugs.’
‘Have we got anything we can take them out with?’
‘I think I can get them with the adjustable wrench.’ Jon strained to loosen the first one. It finally gave way, but as it did so, the ceramic insulation that surrounded it crumbled.
‘Shit. Where the hell are we going to get another one of those?’
I looked at Jon and could see him going through his mental list of boats, but he came up blank, ‘The only engines I know of that might have had suitable spark plugs have been scavenged already.’
Jon turned back to the engine; this time, taking more care, he managed to remove the others without damaging them. He inspected the spark plugs closely. ‘Looks like these are the problem.’ He held up one and I could see it was coated with soot. ‘They must have got covered in gunk when the fuel ran out.’
I watched as he cleaned them off, sanding down the connections until he could see the metal underneath. He replaced each one and we were left looking at the broken spark plug. Without a new one, the engine was useless.
***
It took a week, but Jon finally managed to scrounge a replacement spark plug from an old power boat that had been brought down from the harbour at Man-O-War. Having blown a gasket, its engine was shot and it was, instead, being used for storage, but its spark plugs were still in working order. A little bit of trading and Jon had his prize. By the end of the day, the engine of the rib was purring like new.
‘Shall we take it out for a test run?’ Jon was eager to try it out.
I looked at my watch. ‘We’ve got a meeting in an hour, and then I’ve really got to put some time in on the garden boats. It’ll have to wait till tomorrow.’
‘I could just take it out on my own.’ Jon looked at me hopefully.
‘No, I want to be there in case anything goes wrong. I don’t want you getting stranded out there if it suddenly quits on you.’
‘What if I took CJ?’
‘CJ’s not exactly mechanically minded, is she? I don’t think she’d be much help if you broke down.’
‘What about Andrew?’
‘Jon, I’d just rather I was there. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’ I could see Jon was annoyed, but after what had happened at Little Harbour, I didn’t want anything else to go wrong.
The main item on the agenda for the community meeting that evening was the rota for work on the garden boats. As usual, David was refusing to have anything to do with them and this was starting to cause friction with the rest of the community. I was sure he’d happily eat the crops when it came to harvesting them, but David loathed everything about the garden boats. It was as if he blamed them for our consistent failure to accept his proposition to clear the peninsula around the lighthouse.
It took a while, but eventually a rota was agreed upon and the meeting came to an end. As everyone started to leave, I finally had a chance to speak to Jack.
He looked up as I walked over. ‘Hey, was that the rib’s engine I heard earlier?’
‘Yep, we finally got it going.’
‘You going to take it out for a spin?’
‘Not till the morning. There’s too many other things I’ve still got to do today, but first thing tomorrow, Jon and I will give it a good workout; make sure everything’s okay. I don’t want it breaking down when Jon’s using it.’
My eye was drawn to something just over Jack’s shoulder. David was hovering there, seemingly staring out at the harbour, but I got the imp
ression he’d been eavesdropping. He turned, giving me a strange look and a small, self-conscious wave as he left the cabin. It was the first time he’d acknowledged my existence in a while, and I took it as a sign that the tension between us might finally be easing.
***
I woke early the next morning and went out on deck to check on the anchor lines. When I got there I was surprised to find David swimming just a few feet away. At first, he looked flustered by my sudden appearance, but he quickly regained his composure and swam over to the back of the boat before treading water.
‘Hey, Rob.’
It was the first time David had spoken to me since we’d argued and he seemed a little nervous.
‘Hey. You’re up early.’
‘Yeah, just thought I needed a bit of exercise. I’ve been cooped up on my boat for too long.’
David ducked under the water, reappearing a second or two later. I don’t know why, but I had the impression this wasn’t true, or at least that it wasn’t the whole truth. He wiped a hand across his face before continuing.
‘Look, I was hoping to run into you on your own at some point. I just wanted to say sorry … you know about the other day, about the argument we had.’
If he’d come to apologise, that would explain his nervousness.
David carried on. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you like that, and when you didn’t come back from Little Harbour, I felt really bad that those were the last things I’d ever say to you. I wished I’d been man enough to say I was sorry while I still had the chance, so I thought I’d do it now. You know, just in case. After all, these days you never know when you might go out and not make it back.’
It was an odd sort of apology, but I figured it was probably the best I was going to get.
‘Thanks, and for my part, I’m sorry too. I guess I didn’t handle it too well either.’
David smiled. ‘So, everything okay between us then?’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ I thought for a moment. ‘You know, David, you’d be a lot happier if you just accepted that setting up a base on land is something none of the rest of us are interested in. It would be extremely dangerous and we just can’t see the benefit of it.’
‘I suppose that’s the problem. I know why we need it, I can see why it’s so important, why we can’t win without it. I just need a way of convincing the rest of them that it’s important.’
‘So you’ve given up trying to convince me then?’ I smiled, but David didn’t seem to take it as a joke. Instead, he just looked uncomfortable. He ducked under the water again and when he came back to the surface he fixed me with an intense gaze that I found unnerving.
‘There’s more than one way to win an argument you know.’
Before I could ask him what he meant, I heard Jack’s voice on the VHF radio. ‘Hey, Rob. Are you there? There’re some drifters just outside the harbour entrance. Can you help deal with them?’
Drifters near the harbour entrance were something that was best dealt with as soon as possible. I turned to tell David what was going on, but he was already swimming back across the harbour. I went inside and found Jon just coming up from his bunk. ‘Are you ready to roll?’
‘Sorry Jon, there’s some drifters that need sorting. We’re going to have to leave the test run until later.’
‘Oh, come on.’ Jon’s voice sounded annoyed for a moment and then more resigned. ‘I guess a few more hours won’t make any difference. But we’ll definitely go out today?’
‘Yes, definitely.’
As I motored over to join the other two runabouts that were setting out to find the drifters, I thought about the encounter I’d just had with David. It was a little odd, but then again all my encounters with David had been a little odd recently. He seemed to be getting more and more obsessed with trying to take back the land from the infected. From the way he spoke, I sometimes wondered whether he wasn’t just thinking about the peninsula with the lighthouse on it, but rather the whole of the Abacos, or even the whole world. He seemed too intent on waging a full-scale war against the infected, to drive them from the land completely. I had no idea how he thought he could do it, but that was the impression I sometimes got. Even though I didn’t see eye to eye with him on this, I had to at least give him credit for apologising.
Even with three boats and eight people, it took us several hours to locate the first of the drifters. It had been carried by the tide and was about a mile from where it had first been seen. Using the binoculars, I examined it from a distance. Unlike most drifters, this one wasn’t clinging to some flotsam or jetsam. Instead it was being kept afloat by a bright orange life jacket. The buoyancy aid was worn and tattered, and the polystyrene floats were coming through in several places. The infected was small, no more than a child; a boy, maybe about five or six years old. His chin rested on the top of the life jacket, matted hair clinging to the side of his face. His head rolled slightly from side to side as each wave passed, lifting him up and dropping him down again, but other than that, he was still.
As we edged closer, I kept watching, but he remained motionless. Just as I was beginning to think he was dead, his head snapped upright and turned towards us. I saw his crazed eyes staring straight at me. As with most of the infected, when no prey was near, he’d been in a hibernation-like state. Yet unlike a hibernating animal, he’d sprung back to life as soon as he sensed we were there. I could see he was now trying to work out exactly where we were and how he could get at us. I watched as he thrashed at the water, whipping it into a frenzy as he tried to move in our direction. While the infected could run, it was clear they couldn’t swim, even when wearing something that would keep them afloat.
I picked up the rifle and dispatched the boy, then I thought about what I’d just done. I had quite calmly taken aim and shot a small child. While he might not have been human any more, he was still alive and he’d once been someone’s son. Yet I’d killed him without a second thought. This was how far I’d come, how far we’d all come, since the world had collapsed around us. It troubled me how much I’d been forced to change.
It was a further hour and a half before we got the other two. They had been adults rather than children but they too had been wearing life jackets. This was a new one on me and I pondered this unexpected turn of events. There was no way an infected could have worked out how to put one on, nor would it have seen any need to do so, so they must have been wearing them when they turned. I couldn’t believe they’d been in the water from the start as there was no sign they’d been nibbled and bitten by the many sea creatures that would have fed on flesh floating in water. It seemed more likely they’d been on a boat in Boat Harbour and, having been swept over the side in the recent hurricane, they’d been drifting around since then.
I wondered how many others like them were out there and considered the implications. Drifters were one of the biggest problems we faced, and in many ways they were the most difficult to deal with. They were an unpredictable but ever-present risk. If it were not for them, we’d be completely safe on our boats and we could relax most of the time. Instead, we had to be constantly on guard in case one suddenly appeared nearby. As this morning had shown, they could be difficult to spot, even when we already knew they were there, meaning they could easily be overlooked until it was too late. We also were limited in the ways we could deal with them and I dreaded the day when the bullets finally ran out and we couldn’t just shoot them from a distance.
The existence of drifters also had implications for our long-term survival. While I objected to most of David’s plans, I had to admit that deep down I, too, hoped that one day we’d be able to return to some kind of life on the shore. I think we all did.
Clearing islands would, undoubtedly, be difficult, but maybe it wasn’t impossible. Maybe David was right and it could be done, especially if we chose an island that only had a few infected on it to start with and we took our time. But the real problem wasn’t clearing them off in the first place, it was keeping the isla
nd clear afterwards. It would only take one drifter to come ashore undetected in the night and we would all be finished.
No matter what we did, there would always be the risk of drifters. With hurricanes and tropical storms, and even the intense afternoon thunderstorms, new ones would be created all the time so that even if we could get rid of all that were out there at any given moment, there would always be more in the future. With all the islands in such close proximity within the Sea of Abaco and its relatively sheltered nature, infected could survive for weeks in their hibernation-like state, until they drifted ashore and realised we were there.
We wouldn’t be safe on the shore until all the islands that lay around us were free of infected. It was only then that the risk of drifters would lessen. While the infected would probably die off eventually, they seemed quite capable of surviving for the foreseeable future. This meant the only way we could be rid of them with any certainty, any time soon, would be to do it ourselves. Even if David was right and we could clear a small island — one with maybe a few tens of infected on it at the most — there was no way we could ever think of tackling something that might have a few hundred, let alone something the size of Great Abaco where there were thousands.
If we stayed in the Abacos, we’d need to give up any thoughts of going back to the land any time soon. Until this point, I’d only really thought about having to live on our boats for a year, maybe two or three at the most. I think, subconsciously, I’d figured something would have changed by then and somehow the threat from the infected would have receded, so we could use the land once more, or at least some of it. Now, I had to accept it might not be safe to do so for many years, possibly even decades.
For Those In Peril (Book 1): For Those In Peril On The Sea Page 24
