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Marooned Chapter one
By Jonah
A girl screamed.
Nobody likes turbulence. Mr. Virgil scowled.
"Stupid cow" he muttered.
"She probably couldn't help it", I observed.
"Sorry Rankine" he replied. "Nervous myself if the truth be known, but I was more worried about Carrie".
I nodded. I could understand what he was getting at. Neil Virgil had flown many times before, as had I, though we had never met before, but his family were new to it. His wife, Betty, had settled to sleep the sleep of the just, which does not by any stretch of imagination mean the just asleep. Their two children, Ben and Carrie, had not flown before and seemed nervous. Virgil had calmed them for the moment. We had hit turbulence several times, and he had to calm the children each time, and the last thing he needed was some silly wench who kept screaming. Carrie sat next to her sleeping mother in the seat immediately in front of me while Ben sat across the aisle. He had spent the entire flight staring out of the window, as if he did not trust the flight crew to fly the Fokker 100 without his watching its every move. The 100, being a high-wing aircraft, afforded a good downward view. Earlier, while Virgil talked to Carrie, I had slid across into the empty seat next to Ben to try to reassure him. The boy didn't seem to want to talk and, if anything, my proximity was making him more nervous, so I slipped back to my own seat, next to his father. We had been over sea for some time now and the Western Coastline of Australia could no longer be seen. It should be less than half an hour before we touched down at Denpassar airport, on Bali.
"Doctor Rankine?".
It was the stewardess. who comprised the entire cabin crew of the FoxAir flight from Perth to Denpassar.
"Yes", I confirmed, though I was clearly only telling her what she already knew.
"The captain would like a word with you on the flight-deck".
I followed her forward and through the curtained partition. Of the two men seated in the flight deck only the younger man appeared to be conscious.
"Better get back with the punters Marge", he told the stewardess.
He looked up at me.
"Doctor, can you have a look at the captain. He lost consciousness about quarter of an hour back. For a while he was still muttering incoherently, but he hasn't even done that for a few minutes now".
"He's sweating profusely", I observed.
"Yeah, he complained of that before he flaked out", was the reply.
"Took you long enough to get a doctor for him, " I grumbled. "I was only sat back there."
"Yeah, I didn't know that". he replied. "I was too busy squawking 'mayday' and Marge had the passenger list"
"Are you still squawking?" I inquired.
"Yeah. The auto signal is going out all the time, but I keep cutting in to try to raise Denpassar Tower. Trouble is, I have to keep taking her off autopilot to try and miss these storms and that's taken us a long way off course. That last strike shot the gyrocompass so I can't tell how far off Denpassar we are."
"I'd recomend you don't take too many passengers into your confidence on that one," I remarked. "What's the odds on raising another airport if we're too far off Denpassar?"
"Zilch, if we're a long way to the West", was the reply " China's a thousand miles North, and Africa's thousands of miles West, there isn't fuel to reach either."
"Hmmm! Keep squawking", I replied, "and I'll see if I can get the captain round. It looks like a bad malaria attack, but if he doesn't respond to quinnine, then your guess is as good as mine".
"Fuck!" he exclaimed.
"Do you normally talk to your flight deck voice recorder that way?"
"And fuck the FDVR too", he replied. "That big bank of cumulo-nimbus that we've been keeping to starboard? Well there's a bloody clump of it dead ahead. I daren't fly through it while we're like this. It means altering even further to port."
"Are you sure we can't go through it?"
"We might have to," he replied,"looking at the fuel level, but I've never taken an aircraft through anything like that and it'll be hairy. You'd best get back and strap yourself in. I've put the seat-belt lights on."
I headed back. That stupid girl screamed again as the aircraft bucked. I never made it back to my seat. I was thrown to the floor and had to cling to a seat base to avoid falling back to the flight-deck. We were steeply nose down. Two passengers who had not managed to get belts on made the journey forward. Then it all went black.
There was water everywhere. My head hurt like hell, but self-preservation kicked in. To survive I needed something to cling to. I kicked against the water that was starting to close over me. There were shapes in the water. Shapes were going down. I kicked again. Down was not where I wanted to go. I struck my head on something solid. Frantically I reached up and tried to gain a grip on whatever it was. It turned out to be a section of the aircraft's wing. I remembered that the empty fuel tanks were in the wing. it stood a chance of staying afloat. I pulled myself to the edge then scrambled onto it. Then I blacked out again.
Next time I opened my eyes it was dark. I was lying on my back and my head still ached. I remembered where I was. There was nothing I could usefully do. I don't know whether it was sleep or another blackout that claimed me.
"Ow!"
I was still lying on my back.
"Ow!"
And the sun was shining. I tried to open my eyes.
"Ow! Stop hitting me!"
The boy got up and walked away.
I tried turning my head. I was still on the aircraft wing. It lay on a stretch of sand.The sea tumbled onto it about fifty yards away. The tide was out. I looked the other way. A fringe of vegetation reached down to about twenty yards away. The boy was just disappearing into it. I tried to rise, and instantly blacked out again.
The boy was back. He was dribbling clear water onto my face from a large leaf. I raised my head and he helped me to drink from the leaf. The water was cool and fresh.
Slowly I rolled onto my side and began to try to stand. I deliberately kept it slow. The headache had receded a bit, so I figured I wouldn't black out if I moved slowly.
Once I was standing I walked very slowly and carefully back to the tree line. My shoes squelched from the sea-water. I kicked them off. Then I pulled off my socks and lay them on top of a stand of ferns. Carefully I began to undress and lay out the rest of my clothes.
"You'd better do the same", I told the boy. "It's hot now, but it'll get cold tonight and these things won't keep us warm if they're wet."
Silently he began to undress. Virgil had said he was eleven, but I would have guessed at a couple of years younger than that. He stood barely five foot and his skin was clear and hairless. His feet were small with high arches and short toes. His broad nosed face was crowned with a shock of straight black hair. Dark brown eyes and black, half-moon eyebrows completed the picture. Once naked he turned to face me, as if for approval.
"Very nice Ben", I commented, but answer came there none.