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The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of the characters to any other persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in sexual acts, which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which you the reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may not have reached the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read further. rick19uk@ntlworld.com
The Castaways.
Chapter 5. Copyright by rick19uk 15th February 2004
We awoke the next morning to perfect calm and found it hard to believe the winds and torrential rain of the previous night had gone. The immediate concern for all three of us was to make sure our supplies were safe, that our raft was still with us and also that the ship hadn't suffered. We got out of our shelter and it was with great relief that everything seemed to be in order, though the ship looked to be a little lower than yesterday. We quickly ate a scratch breakfast, boarded our raft and began to paddle out to the ship. We must have been on an ebb tide, plus due to the lack of weight from our previous load we arrived in under an hour. When we got alongside it was painfully apparent that the ship did indeed sit lower in the water than yesterday.
After securely tying off the raft we boarded and began to gather the things on our list. We were in the officers quarters looking for another spyglass and Jacks sextant etc. when Brian, from the captains cabin called; Do you think we should take some of these? David and I went to him and peered into the chest he was looking at. We saw several pistols and muskets alongside a small keg of gunpowder, flints and musket balls. Thinking that they would be useful in hunting down the wild pigs that appeared to be plentiful on these islands, we decided to take six of each and all the available ammunition and powder. We stacked the surplus weapons to one side and took what we had decided to take up onto deck. We returned and took the trunk as well; we would use it to store the weapons on the island thus keeping everything dry. This done, we returned to scavenging for the rest of the list. After about four hours we had all we could fit on the raft loaded and tied down. We then took a swift inventory of what we would need to return for realising that we would have to return for another full raft. We were again fortunate as the tide had turned and we did the return journey in less than two hours, spending the rest of the afternoon unloading and moving our treasures up to the tree line with the rest.
It was we guessed, about three hours before sunset and we hadn't eaten anything since our hasty scratch breakfast so I suggested we dig a fire-pit, gather a few stones, and build a fire. This we did in very short order and had a fire under way in less then an hour. Whilst the other two were lighting the fire I got another of the suckling pigs from a cask, some vegetables, and a large pot, and carried it all near to the fire. We soon had it securely lodged over the heat before it got too hot and put all our ingredients in, topped it off with water and left it to cook. Whilst it cooked we decided to strip off and swim and generally horse around for the next hour or so. We had great fun and emerged dripping and followed our noses from the delicious aroma emanating from our cook pot. After retrieving a bowl for each of us, we proceeded to ladle out generous portions of "stew" which quite honestly didn't touch the sides going down. We ate three huge portions, devoured each with equal gusto, then collapsed onto our backs with groaning stomachs that were absolute heaven after the hunger of the past two days. As the light quickly faded we crept into our shelter, cuddled up to each other and slept relaxed and contented for the first time in days.
Morning came and to our horror when we looked to the ship, we saw she had slipped off the reef and had disappeared from view. After the realization crept in of our now total isolation from all we had known, we one by one succumbed to sobs triggered by fear, the fact that we were totally alone in our little world, and last but not least, self-pity. Slowly but surely we pulled ourselves together and Brian, taking command of the situation prompted us to begin to get breakfast together. David lit the fire whilst I had a quick recce of our immediate surroundings. We had so far, not even looked beyond the start of the tree line having been so intent on retrieving supplies from the ship. I located a coconut tree and seeing several windfall nuts, I gathered them up and returned to camp. It was hard to carry more than three at a time so I returned and eventually we had a bounteous collection of nine. On my final return Brian had cut three up and a cool drink of the delicious coconut milk awaited me. It was pure nectar. David meanwhile had lit a small fire and had a skillet going with slices of yet more suckling pig merrily frying away. As we ate like starving men I related what I had seen and the fact that I had spotted breadfruit trees too. All we needed now was to find some of the wonderfully exotic fruit we had eaten on our recently visited island and we would be made. Some of the wild pigs would be handy too.
After breakfast we debated what to do and thought that probably the most important item to find was a source of fresh water. We began by travelling west along the beach looking for an outlet to the sea of any fresh water brook there may be. After an hour or so of fruitless searching we turned back the way we had come, went on past our camp and within fifteen minutes, struck gold do to speak. The beach took a dramatic turn inland about a thousand yards beyond our camp and what we saw was the mouth of a fairly fast flowing river flowing out into the resulting little cove. It was the most wonderful feeling of relief and we ran along dropping clothes as we went. Our bodies were encrusted with salt and to be able to frolic in the wonderful fresh water and rinse it off was marvellous relief. It seemed that all our prayers were, one by one, being answered.
After an hour of playing in the water we decided to follow the flow upstream, often having to wade through the shallows due to dense growth of foliage. We spotted many fast moving quite large fishes and determined to come with a salvaged net to try to catch some. I had fished our local rivers at home in Norfolk with a fly rod and caught many handsome brown trout, here however, I would neither have the pleasure or luxury of such exhilarating sport. We discussed my fly fishing prowess as we progressed up-stream and it transpired that David had also partaken of the sport on a few of his rare visits home. He had, he revealed, hand lined from the ship on many occasions whilst underway, catching some seriously large specimens. The ships cook, he further revealed, was always grateful for this delicious supplement to an otherwise plain and Spartan diet.
Not too far up the river we found it beginning to twist and turn quite dramatically, and upon rounding a virtually one hundred and eighty degree turn, we were confronted by the most beautiful, natural, fresh water pool. It was fed from a waterfall that must have cascaded uninterrupted for over one hundred and fifty feet. The variety of trees, bushes and exotic perfumes from the most beautiful and outlandish of flowers was intoxicating to say the least. We spent in excess of three hours playing in and around the pool, plucking fruit from the bushes and trees in order to stave off our hunger.
By mid-afternoon we arrived back at our camp whereupon I got the fire going in order to start our by now daily ration of stew. We had noticed that just before the tree line there was debris of one sort or another that had been washed up by were probably spring tides. Whilst I busied myself with the food, David and Brian began the laborious task of moving our stockpile of stores further into the trees. As they were (four and six inches respectively) taller than me, it was a task they were infinitely more suited to than I. Once I had got things going however, I joined them and within about two hours we had the lot moved to a safer resting place in amongst the trees. We fell to with hearty appetites and again cleared the lot. Nightfall began to take hold and we went to our makeshift beds and again slept the sleep of the dead. My dreams that night were of hunting wild pigs and other outlandish creatures. In my dream I was a crack shot, the truth of which, we would have to see.
The next day after breakfast we decided we should explore inland and try to gauge the size of our "paradise home" and indeed to try to see if there was any game to be had. Meat would soon be an issue with us as at the count we had only 6 more suckling pigs left. Between the three of us, we could clear one of those a day so it was equally important to locate fruit trees and breadfruit trees to compliment our diet. We knew that fish would be bountiful and wondered if we would ever see turtles that we would be able to catch too. The water was so clear that we had been able to see the sea-bottom on our voyage ashore aboard our raft. We had spotted several large crab-like creatures and others that looked remarkably like lobsters as well. The general consensus was that we would be hard pressed to be starving as what we had seen so far suggested the island was bountiful. Brian was the one who seemed to worry over provisions more than David or I. We were at pains to try to reassure him of our good fortune so far.
We set off excitedly on our journey of discovery, each with a canvas bag on our shoulder with flasks of water and the hard bread plus some cold pork. The vegetation was quite dense in places and what we wanted to find more than anything was a place that was fairly well sheltered but where we could have a fire without setting the trees alight. The idea was to build a shelter where we could live and store our equipment and provisions safely; it also needed to be near fresh water. Brian as usual was the one who thought to bring a panga (long wide bladed machete type thing). It proved to be invaluable in the thicker vegetated parts of our journey.
We journeyed on approaching a quite high gently sloping hill, which was very densely overgrown. David suggested we skirt it, which we did, and had travelled for about thirty minutes when Brian turned and began to climb the hillside. We thought too that we could hear water. Brian began to shout excitedly down to us and to join him up the hillside. As we reached him, it was to our utter amazement we saw he had found a cave that was wonderfully large and very flat-bottomed. It didn't escape our notice that it was indeed, very dry too. We excitedly discussed the possibilities of using it to live in and it wasn't too long before the ever-practical Brian, suggested that we could use fallen bamboo trees to erect a palisade across the mouth of it. This would not only serve to keep the weather from us, but would also keep any wild animals outside too. We sat at the mouth of the cave and decided to have lunch and as we quieted and concentrated on eating we began to again hear water.
After we had eaten it was an easy task to follow the sounds of the water and in total amazement within a few minutes we stumbled onto the waterfall and lagoon of yesterday. It was too big a temptation to resist and had soon descended the hillside quickly stripping ourselves stark naked and then diving into the pool. A very lengthy game of dick tag ensued. We must have played around three hours or more and in truth it had been the first real time we had had to relax and play properly. I soon joined Brian and David who lay out on the one bit of sand and in very short order we were all joined together with interesting bits of anatomy from each other in our mouths. It was wonderful. David whilst fondling my balls, drew attention to the fact that I had caught up to him in the length department and it was with some pride that I digested this tit-bit of information. I couldn't help but wonder when he and I would catch up to the by now 7" of Brian.
As hunger began to take hold of us we decided to follow the river to the shore and so back to our camp. None of us bothered to dress so we had a running game of tag all the way back. We further decided to explore deeper into our little kingdom tomorrow. Our aim, if we could, was to get to the other side of our island to try to determine its size and see if we could find any other sign of habitation. It was decided we would take enough food to last a day, the rolled canvas, powder, shot, and a rifle. It further occurred to us we would be heavily laden and that if it got too late to return to our camp we would camp out. Hopefully we would see some wild animal we could shoot and then roast over our eventual campfire. It was Brian again who, to our relief, told us he had had some experience of shooting at home. David and I couldn't help but be excited at the prospect of him teaching us to shoot too.
Morning came and off we went. I have to say that by about midday I was exhausted. We had managed to get across the hill and descend the other side. The sea was visible from the top and the estimate we arrived at was possibly three or four miles through dense growth to get to it. Once we'd got to the bottom of the hill we rested for an hour and ate our lunch of yet more hard bread and slices of cooked pork. We were able to find windfall coconuts and drank the delicious milk. We arrived late afternoon into a big clearing just before the beach. What we found there, rather quickly turned our bowels to water
There was a large fire-pit with many strange bones strewn around. David began to examine them and was slowly making his way to the edge of the clearing picking up and discarding bones as he went. His cry drew our rapid attention, and on turning to him we saw all his colour had drained and that his face was deathly white. With a tremble in his voice he called us over. He was staring into the bushes and pointing. We made our quickly across to him and what we saw terrified us. It was a pile of about thirty skulls that looked to be human. We now knew that Jack had not been spinning us a yarn but that cannibals did exist and in fact used our island. As the horror of the place began to take proper hold of us we were all soon bent over retching our guts up. As we recovered a little we walked out onto the beach and began to look around. We soon saw the evidence of where the savages pulled their canoes up onto the beach, which suggested that they could come from another island to conduct their barbaric deeds. David was the one to observe that our God must have been looking down us with favour when it was this island he chose to shipwreck us on and not the one inhabited by the cannibal's. The fear of the situation lay heavy on our hearts.