by John Harris
‘Dave!’ The name spurred me into life and we both sprinted to the door, running through the galley area and bouncing off the walls like pinballs.
Rick went outside first, pushing open the deck hatch and revealing a dull grey sky above. It was daylight outside, and the sudden brightness, even though it was dulled by the clouds and torrential rain, hurt my eyes. The water and fresh air felt beautiful as it rushed in through the hatch, and I soaked it up like a sponge. Rick jumped out onto the deck and I pulled myself out behind him.
From the moment I stepped out onto the deck nothing registered in my head except the steering wheel. I didn’t notice the rain or the sky any more, the huge waves or the rising and falling of the boat. I paid no attention to the torn rigging, or the sail that was drooped over the side of the boat, half in the water like a huge white jellyfish. Even the smashed-in handrail and gunwale didn’t attract my attention.
All I could focus on, like Rick, was the stainless steel steering wheel that was spinning around at the other end of the boat with no one there to hold it still.
SEVEN
We searched for hours. Alternating between tying a makeshift sail, steering the boat and pumping out the water, we squinted hard through the rain, trying desperately to spot his yellow life jacket bobbing up and down in the mountainous seas. We tacked backwards and forwards, going ten minutes one way then ten the other, until we had crossed and re-crossed the place where we estimated the accident to have occurred. Nothing.
The bottomless feeling in my stomach that I’d felt as soon I saw the unmanned wheel wouldn’t go away. I felt sick but couldn’t throw up. Even putting fingers down my throat didn’t help, and all I could think about was Dave floating in the sea in a life jacket, drifting further and further away from us. When that thought occasionally subsided (it never went completely from my mind for months afterwards) it was replaced by the last image I’d had of him, when he’d come down to waterproof his gear: his ridiculous afro, that beaming smile and, most of all, his easy manner even though he said he was scared shitless. When that image faded my mind wandered further back, to Thailand.
Most of the morning we zigzagged back and forth, before eventually giving up and deciding instead to concentrate on pumping out the gallons of water. Something had hit the boat and there was a huge V-shaped crease in the side of the hull that ran from the gunwale down to a porthole, which had been smashed in. If I stood on deck and leaned over the buckled rail I could see inside the galley through the split. From inside, daylight and rain came in along with any sea water that hit us side-on. The split at the valley of the V was about as wide as a fist.
Rick took down what was left of the sail to stop us moving through the water, which inevitably caused the boat to dip into the swell and let water through the hole, while I plugged the gap with a rolled-up life jacket to keep out the worst. Water was still pouring in from an unknown source but at least we weren’t adding to the chore of pumping it out.
According to Rick, we had most likely collided with a container that had fallen off a ship. The shape of the dent, and the yellow paint around the edges of the hole seemed to confirm his theory, and he said we were lucky that a wave hadn’t carried it right up on top of us, smashing the boat to pieces.
I looked up at the life jacket stuffed into the hole and sighed, wiping the tears from my face. I’d been pumping water out for most of the afternoon and I knew that if we didn’t come across help soon we were going to die. I just couldn’t see how we were going to make it through another night.
The hatch opened and Rick’s head came through. ‘John, get up here quick, I can see something.’
I dropped the pump, which wasn’t easy considering that my hands wouldn’t open, and climbed up the steps, using my knuckles to get a grip.
The waves were still high outside but the rain had eased, and in the distance, to one side of us, I could see a dark line. I squinted, then closed my eyes and opened them again just to make sure I wasn’t mistaken. ‘It’s land isn’t it?’ I said, almost breaking down with emotion. ‘Oh, thank God. Where–’
Rick had already left my side and was steering the boat around. ‘John, get over here.’ I ran across. ‘Hold the wheel. Don’t turn it, just hold it, while I get the sail up.’
I waited until he’d finished before asking my question. ‘Where are we, d’you think?’
‘Indo maybe. Who fooking cares? It’s land, so let’s just go for it.’
The wind filled the sail, and within half an hour our field of vision was filled with a dark green hillside that sloped gently down to the sea before ending abruptly in a ragged cliff-face. The land ran out either side of us as far as we could see but there didn’t appear to be a beach, just a mass of white water as the waves exploded against the rocks.
Rick swung the boat around. We started to run parallel with the shore when we must have hit the bottom. The boat dipped its nose so far down into the water that the next wave came right over the front, mast high, and over the two of us. I was instantly swept off the back and thrown into the sea, carried by a hill of water that spun me around and around. I fought against the surge, scrambling frantically one way and then the other, unsure which direction the surface was. Just as the air in my lungs was running out my head broke the surface and I gasped, sucking in lungfuls of air, before the next wave came from behind and I swallowed a mouthful and puked up.
‘Ri-Rick!’ I coughed and spun around one-eighty degrees. The up-ended hull of the boat appeared above the next wave and was already fifty feet away from me, its keel sticking up in the air like the dorsal fin of a white whale. The boat went into another trough of the swell, disappeared for half a minute, and then appeared again, this time at double the distance.
‘John!’
Treading water frantically, I turned to my left just in time to see Rick’s head bob up and then vanish behind a peak of swirling water. ‘Rick, over here!’ I started to swim in that direction, pulling hard against the water and the drag created by the life jacket. He appeared again, this time closer. ‘Forget th-the boat,’ I shouted between retches. ‘Swim!’
I considered taking the life jacket off to get extra speed but decided against it. We were both going in the right direction now so it didn’t seem to matter how long it would take to get there. The current created by the under-tow from the waves was horrendous but we were so close to the shore, and floating so high in the water due to the buoyancy aids, that the tops of breaking waves pushed us a little further in every minute.
There must have been a very shallow area in the sea bed because when I was twenty feet from Rick, a wave almost broke, lifting me up and throwing me forwards, almost landing on top of him. A second later we both got dragged backwards with the trough of the next wave and tumbled over and over as it propelled us forward again. Rick came up feet-first next to me, before righting himself and throwing up a gallon of water.
‘We’re gonna get smashed on the rocks,’ I shouted between gasps, pointing at the boulders in front of us. ‘Swim that way, there’s a ledge.’
Just to our right the cliff-face had fallen in, leaving a huge U-shaped rent in the landscape about fifty-foot wide and fifty-foot high, where tonnes of boulders had cascaded down into the sea. It still looked sketchy as a landing place but it was all we had, and definitely a safer bet than a sheer wall of rock. I noticed that some of the boulders in that area looked as though they had been flattened by centuries of weathering, and although the waves still broke over them, they seemed to run up and down horizontally, not vertically.
It all happened at once. I swam perpendicular to the ledge and found myself suddenly, miraculously, standing waist-deep in water. Brilliant! I tried to walk forwards but was sucked off the rock, caught on the next wave and hurtled through the air. Flailing with both arms to keep upright, I did an involuntary somersault and landed back on my feet further up the ledge than where I’d started. When I say I landed on my feet, I mean my feet touched the ground first followed b
y the rest of me. The impact rammed a knee against my chin and I bit painfully into my tongue.
Choking on blood and sea water, I quickly crawled up the rock, not stopping until I was clear of where I thought the waves broke. When I looked back I could see Rick in the face of the next wave. There was an explosion of white-water, the ground shook, and his torn life jacket, minus Rick, was deposited right at my feet, the busted polystyrene buoyancy blocks floating around me. It was instantly sucked out in the next surge and disappeared.
Without even time to worry, there was a gasp and choking sound to one side of the rocks and Rick crawled up from a fissure in a huge slab of stone, bleeding heavily from the mouth. He spat out a shard of bloody tooth and lay beside me on the rock, nearly passing out from the effort.
We lay silent for ages after catching our breath, scarcely believing that we were both in one piece. I didn’t even have the energy to check my legs and arms for breakages, and lay with my eyes closed for at least half an hour, only opening them briefly now and again to look at the cloudy sky. The clouds rolled quickly by, blown by the gale-force winds, and occasionally a brave bird would fly overhead, crabbing through the air in an attempt to cope with the gusts. A squawk in the rocks beside us gave me the horrible sensation that we were still on the islands where I’d seen the nesting bird, and I had to sit up to take a reality check.
I pulled a string of seaweed from my life jacket and looked down at Rick, lying next to me with his eyes closed, his hands behind his head. ‘Rick.’
‘Mmm?’
‘It’s going to be dark soon.’
‘Mmm.’ He opened one eye, still lying with his hands behind his head.
‘Let’s climb up and see what’s over the top. We can’t stay here.’
‘Mmm.’
We clambered over the boulders, helping each other along until we reached the top of the cliff and found ourselves at the edge of a large expanse of grassland. I would call it a field but it wasn’t cultivated; the word ‘prairie’ springs to mind, but that gives the impression of a field full of daisies swaying in the sunshine, like a scene from an American soap opera. Anyway, a windswept grassland greeted us, rugged and inhospitable, that reminded me of scenes from news footage of the Falkland Islands.
After debating which direction we should walk in, our minds were made up when we spotted a car on the horizon. It was obviously driving along a road, but from where we were at the bottom of the rising land it just appeared to be hovering on the grass.
‘Run!’ Rick shouted, and sprang forward towards the vehicle. ‘Quick, John, before it goes.’ Waving my life jacket above my head to attract attention, I ran after him, shouting at the top of my voice.
The car slowed, then turned and stopped, facing us and flashing its headlights.
‘Fucking brilliant,’ I shouted as we ran. ‘Do you know any Indo, Rick?’
‘Sudah kawin belum?’ he panted.
‘What does it mean?’
‘"Are you married?" Titty taught me.’
There wasn’t time to reply; I was too surprised at our good fortune at seeing the car. I’m surprised the guy didn’t drive off; we must have looked like a pair of lunatics running across that field, waving a life jacket. Neither of us were wearing anything except shorts, and we were burnt to a crisp.
The driver wound down his window as we approached and leaned his elbow out, his large bearded face almost filling the space. He had so much facial hair that it was difficult to make out his features.
Rick held up a hand as we both doubled over, gasping to catch our breath. ‘We are lost. Can you help us?’
The man turned around and smacked a dog that was slobbering all over the back seat before turning back to us. ‘Where’re you heading?’
‘Great, you speak English,’ I panted. ‘Don’t even know where we are.’
‘Like that is it?’ he chuckled. ‘Well, come along with me if you want.’ He reached over and opened the back door, shooing the hound to one side. ‘Don’t worry about him, he won’t bitecha.’
‘Whereabouts are you going?’ Rick asked, stepping into the car.
‘Just over there,’ he replied. ‘Darwin.’
CHAPTER 10
***K!
ONE
It took two days for the shock to wear off, and even then Rick and I walked around in a daze, continually shaking our heads in our shared disbelief. Whenever we caught each other’s gaze during a quiet moment, we’d hold each other’s eyes for a second before exhaling and saying, ‘Unbelievable.’
Bob, the guy who’d given us a lift that first day, lived with his family in Darwin, in Australia’s Northern Territories, and upon hearing our predicament, offered to put us up until we could sort ourselves out. He gave us some old clothes and we took full advantage of his offer to treat his home as our own, eating our way through the contents of his fridge.
During the daytime, while Bob was at work, Rick and I spent most of the first few days running over and analysing the events of the past weeks, trying to pin-point exactly how we had managed to get to Darwin. I don’t think that either of us realised just how close Australia was to some of Indonesia’s easternmost islands. Even though we’d been in possession of some excellent navigational charts, we had somehow blanked out the large land mass that looked like a blot of pink ink in the bottom corner of every sheet.
It was obvious to us now that the last bearing Dave had taken was correct, and that we had probably caught the storm somewhere around the cluster of islands near Damar. We had most likely sailed tantalisingly close to dozens of other islands without realising it; the rain being so heavy that we’d just passed them by. Within a few hours of leaving the reef that morning, our course had already taken us out of sight of land and into the Timor Sea, towards the north coast of Australia.
If Rick and I were not moping around looking at Bob’s kid’s atlas, we were moping around town wondering what to do next. We phoned the immigration at the airport with the intention of reporting everything and getting our passports stamped (Rick’s waterproofing idea had worked) to make us bona fide entrants, but ended up arguing with the officials.
So, when it came to the interview with immigration, expecting no end of trouble convincing them what had happened, we didn’t bother attending. It was quite likely that we would have had to explain about the boat, and one look at our passports would have shown that Singapore had been our last port of entry. All of this, despite the Dave factor, gave us little option but to forget the whole idea of getting an entry stamp, and with a last minute quip at the stern Aussie on the other end of the phone, Rick hung up. When I asked him what he’d said to the immigration officer, he replied: ‘He asked me if I had a criminal record. So I said, "Why? Do you still need one to get into this country?"’
Talk about burning your boats!
We got to know Darwin pretty well over the time we spent at Bob’s place. It was a bit like Milton Keynes, with flies. I’d always pictured it as some quaint outback town, with people riding around on horses, lassoing kangaroos, that sort of thing. A place where Aboriginal people sat around in dusty circles, either dancing or playing didgeridoos, waiting for dreamtime to begin. Instead what we found was a nondescript, medium-sized town with row upon row of newly-built semi-detached houses with front and back gardens and a car in every drive. The roads and streets were squeaky clean, and if you did’t drink there was nothing else to do to pass the time but hang around the pedestrianised town centre watching drunkards abusing passers-by.
Bob showed us a few places that he considered to be of world-shattering significance, such as a nearby national park, but after travelling through Asia it paled by comparison: the ‘wildlife’ was just the odd lizard, while the ‘great scenery’ turned out to be not the huge canyons and stunning lakes that he had predicted, but rain-washed ravines and large ponds.
So, a few days later, when Bob told us that a friend of his was making the journey down into New South Wales and asked us if we wanted to g
o, we gladly accepted the offer. According to Bob it would soon be fruit-picking season in that part of the country, so we should easily be able to pick up work and earn ourselves enough to get sorted out. His friend was going to a place called Wagga Wagga, and said that he’d be passing by numerous orchards along the way, all of which were ready to start harvesting. The journey would take about three days if we shared the driving, and he promised to go through Alice Springs on the way so that we could all get to see Ayers Rock.
To my astonishment neither Bob nor his friend had ever been to Ayers Rock, and they said that neither had any other Australian. ‘Who wants to stare at a fuckin’ rock, mate?’ ‘Tourists?’ I replied vacantly. I could see his point, though I felt like telling him that it could hardly be worse than his ponds and lizards.
The next morning we asked Bob’s friend to drive us to Darwin’s coast for one last look out to sea. It was a mistake. I should have known better than to gaze into the ocean, directly into Dave’s watery eyes, filled with salt water and sad sea creatures, his lungs as much a part of the water as any gaping fish.
The expanse of wind-churned water in front of me slowly began to change into a bright blue Hat Rin day as my mind’s eye opened and Dave came back to life. There he was, his ebony body jack-knifing off the rocks, resurfacing a moment later all white teeth and sagging afro. There he was, floating face-up, blowing fountains of water into the air and trying to catch them in his mouth, choking. Outside Bangkok airport, running around in the rain. Silent movies. I blinked, but he was still there, this time not alone but lying with me and Rick and the girls on the beach, all of us washed onto the shore like logs, giggling at one of his stupid comments, comments that were his way of telling a joke. Like all genuinely funny people he never actually told jokes.
I jumped as the car door slammed behind me, and I almost looked back, almost came back to the present but instead I only changed images. The realization hit me of just how reckless we had been, doing all these mad things with hardly a word to family or friends. How, absurdly, after so much time together, we didn’t even know one another’s personal details; no family address or contact numbers, nothing. I still didn’t even know Rick’s home address or phone number. Dave’s poor mum and dad would grieve for years, expecting him to walk through their front door at any moment, going on believing he was having too good a time to call or write. Rick and I had anonymously informed all the appropriate authorities and had done everything possible, but with just a name we could only go so far.
