I miss her already and I am going to change my mind, I believe I will chance almost anything for her picture. And I am going back now before I lose the tide.
I’m not too worried about it, but retrieving the raft from the equipment compartment should be on my list of priority things to do. It could end up being my only transportation out of here. If it happens there’s no water on this island, and I haven’t taken the time to look, but if there isn’t, I’m going to have to move. Without the life raft, though, I might be belly up.
I can see the two vertical stabilizers poking above the water on the other side of the reef, so I guess she did float over with the rising tide. But I can also see from here that the nose section is now under with the twin booms and the vertical stabilizers in plain sight. This means the cockpit has taken on water. Whether my leaving the canopy open had anything to do with it, I don’t know but it was my first mistake.
Survival depends on not making mistakes. The fewer you make the more effective use you can make of what you have salvaged. But in this case it might be for the better. I mean I can’t afford to have the airplane sticking up like the proverbial sore thumb. Maybe later on, one of our airplanes or some kind of surface craft will spot her. But right now, chances are the Japanese will do most of the spotting. I hate to say this, but the faster she sinks the better off I’m going to be.
I was able to get most of my stuff but not the compass and not the clock. I can get along without them both but they would be nice to have. The parachute was still in my seat. It was under water but can be dried. My wallet was waiting in my shorts back of the seat but the picture was ruined. It had been soaking overnight in salt water and had almost faded away. Big loss. I was really looking forward to having that picture.
I saw this survival movie, the one I was telling you about, a year or so ago while in pre-flight school. It keeps coming back in bits and pieces. When I saw the parachute, I remembered the movie. At any other time it would be just a parachute waiting to be strapped on or stored away. Now it’s a whole new ball game. Tonight it will be my new home, and the heavy canvas pack will become a pair of shoes or something else. But my sneakers are just fine for now, and I expect they will last for as long as I’m going to be here.
Still thoughts of Robinson Crusoe and Ben Gunn keep running through my head. Both of them were stranded on islands for a lot of years. Recall, Ben? He was a fictional character of Robert Louis Stevenson’s. It seems Ben’s crew in the book Treasure Island, marooned him–why I don’t remember. He was an old man, though, when they found him years later, running around in a goatskin, not trusting anybody and wanting some cheese. He had long white hair and a white beard. I guess he hadn’t shaved in all that time. My hand immediately went to my chin, and it has only been a couple of days. What will I look like in twenty-years? I recognized the thought as being something originating in my sub-conscious, deep down. I might be kidding myself about how quickly I am going to be rescued. It’s as though one part of my brain I can’t control is playing “what if” with another part.
Speaking of Ben, if you had been used to eating something like cheese everyday for most of your life you might have the craves after a few days going without. But I don’t intend waiting around here to find out.
Another thing that comes to mind: Stevenson used to spend time in the Cook Islands, so I would think any survival knowledge imparted to his readers through the fictional Ben Gunn might be worth remembering. Yeah, old Ben might well be the master survival teacher.
I think I’m less prepared for this than was either Crusoe or Ben. They were both sailors, and I can’t think of anything that would better prepare you for something like this than experience with the sea. At least you might know how to catch a salt-water fish. I don’t even know that. I do know the life raft is supposed to have a coil of rope and some fishing tackle stored in one of the compartments. I wonder if ocean fishing is the same as fishing a lake?
Something else, I recall from one of the three survival movies made by that same Hollywood crew. One of them was how to survive in the arctic. This pilot went down, and then all through the movie he recalls survival things he didn’t know he knew. The same thing happened in the other two. And the same thing happened with Ben Gunn, I guess, because when Wallace Berry and Jackie Cooper found him, he was doing pretty well for himself. I mention these two movie stars because of the roles they played in a movie of the same name as the book by Stevenson.
There are several ways to fish a lake; one of them might work in the ocean. Now that’s something I know a little bit about, coming from mountain country where there are a lot of lakes. You can fish from a boat or you can troll with a motor. If the fishing tackle in the raft has a lure of some kind, I might be able to troll by paddling around the lagoon between the island and the reef. You don’t have to go very fast, just fast enough to make the spinner or the bright metal attached to the hook glisten in the sunlight. I think fish are fish and whether they come from the ocean or the lake, a bright lure might be all the same to them. Then, too, maybe nothing about it is the same.
But right now it is just another interesting idea because I can’t get to the raft. It’s in the equipment compartment, now high and dry in the air. And I can't reach it unless she shifts again.
Chapter 3
This first week has been the busiest of my life with nothing of importance accomplished. I had a lot of things I considered important to do when I first got here. But slowly the list dwindled until now only food and water matters very much. And that’s what I’ve been doing, looking for both of them.
I rationed myself from the beginning; still I drank two thirds of the jerry can filled twice, once with rainwater. I have to find some soon or things are going to get real dry.
If I can find a small stream, I think I might be all right. It might also contain some “sea crabs,” small crustaceans, a delicacy in most parts of the world. They call them “crawdads” in the South, a kind of small lobster that can be eaten raw. In Louisiana, the Cajun people also make a kind of stew from them they call “Crayfish Bisque”. It is good, I have eaten it and it is real good.
But before I get too excited about bisque, I have to find this imaginary stream of mine and then catch some crawdads if they are there and then figure out a way to build a fire.
Like the man said: “we would have some ham and eggs if we had the ham and if we had the eggs.” Lots of “ifs” in my life lately–there has also been a lot of day dreaming on my part and little progress made toward future survival.
I tried fishing with a pole I made from a shoot of bamboo, using one of my aluminum dog tags as a lure and a bamboo hook.
I even tried swimming under water and tried to grab one with the same result. I think one of my problems might be, I’m not staying at anything very long. I’m starting to get anxious and grasping at straws.
I did try “glomming” for some again today and succeeded in catching one. They call it glomming where I come from. In some other parts of the country they call it “noodling.”
A kid showed me how it was done once. We waded up this trout stream coming from the mountains. Under the grass-covered bank, he could feel the trout. He said you could touch their underbelly and they would think it was the sandy bottom. Then he clutched them by the gills and threw them out on the bank.
This was definitely against the law. He said the game wardens patrolled these trout streams all the time. He said that most of the fish were taken this way by boys, rather than by legitimate fishermen with poles and a license.
I think survival without a grocery store nearby depends on your experiences and what you remember learning when you’re young. If this kid was here, I know I wouldn’t be hungry right now.
I have fallen into a routine that doesn’t bode well for my survival. As soon as I glom a couple of fish in a tide pool, I take a drink of water and then I want to sleep. I should be looking for fresh water but I’m getting real lazy. When the water is gone, I’ll w
ish I had tried harder.
This morning I took an extra long swig, promising myself I would stay out searching for a stream–at least until noon.
I’m on the windward side, so I can’t get lost. All I have to do when it’s time to come back is walk west into the sun. I’ll soon hit the ocean and then I’ll walk along the beach to where I have my primitive camp.
Knowing what I have just written, allows me to walk farther and farther into the interior of the island.
If there is any wild game on this island it will be found farther inland, in the high-ground but not up in the mountains. And that’s because wild pigs and goats do not eat coconuts and they don’t drink seawater, either. I’m catching on. It won’t be long at this rate, before I’m a virtual Tarzan of The Apes–more at home in the jungle than I ever was in downtown New York, either that or I’m going to be just another statistic of the War.
The ground is sloping up now and I wouldn’t be surprised if I eventually come to some hills or maybe even the mountain that’s ahead of me. But of course, I can’t see it because of the thick jungle. Sometimes, I have to move the vines out of the way, at other times I have to stop and look for a route less overgrown. This takes a lot of energy that I don’t have.
I keep looking down at the sandy ground, looking for a small game path. Not likely I will see any tracks, though. If there were some once, they will be gone now–washed away by the rain.
Speaking of rain, I ought to run into a catch basin of some kind that still has a little water in it. If I could just get a couple of cups full, I could go on for another couple of hours. But go on to where?
Yesterday, I was feeling about as low and helpless as at any time since I landed, when I broke out into a clearing. The jungle parted enough that I could see around me for at least two miles. I had been climbing, high enough to see the ocean behind me. But not the mountain in front of me, so it appears the island is at least five miles across and maybe more.
This is all very interesting, but does it mean anything? Yes, it does. It means it might be big enough that the Japs might have a radio station here. It also means they might have coast watchers lurking about, similar to our Australian Coast Watchers. You know, those famous civilians who live on these islands, and who move around watching for enemy ships or airplanes moving in numbers towards the Solomon’s.
What a lonely job that must be, one man, by himself, with his dog and his radio. Not for me. But isn’t that just what I am doing, without the dog for company? And not even a picture of my wife, Gene, to look at once in a while– something that would give me an excuse for talking to her.
I wonder if Ben Gunn forgot how to talk during those many years he was marooned? I wonder if he talked to himself? They say if you talk to yourself you will go crazy or maybe if you talk to yourself you’re already crazy. Ben sure acted like he was crazy in the movie. I wonder how long I will be here before I start acting a little goofy? But how will I know I’m goofy? I wonder if Gene will be able to tell if I have changed?
It was about the time I was thinking I ought to be heading back that I saw the goat tracks. Why goats? They could be pigs. Do they have cloven hoofs? What’s a cloven hoof, anyway? Which one has the cloven hoof or do they both?
But they are not old, the tracks I mean; they would have been washed out by the rain if they were.
I suppose it’s the memory of old Ben that makes me think of goats, him running around in his goat-skin get-up and all, pinching people on the cheek and saying, “says I, says you” and a lot of other dumb things.
He had found Captain Flint’s treasure they were all looking for and he was trying to make as though he had lost his senses.
Ben dug it up early on and had hidden it in a cave. He didn’t want anybody suspecting him. That’s why he was acting so screwy. But there’s a lesson here someplace. If the Japanese catch me–perish the thought–then maybe they will let me go if I act crazy. Then maybe not, I think it might be only American Indians who treat crazy people different. It has something to do with their religion. I am not sure the Japanese have much of a religion. If they do it has been on hiatus for the past few years.
But, I can’t help thinking when this is all over they will deny having started it and will deny having committed all those atrocities. I am sure they will.
Anyway, it could be pigs just as well as goats. But I’m not planning on leaving my fishing grounds to move up here looking for either one. I don’t want to make the daily trek, not even when I get in shape.
Maybe I’ll come here hunting for my winter supply of meat. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to dry it or something, so I only have to come here once or twice a year.
Lord, I am going screwy; I have got to quit thinking I’m going to be here forever or I really will go nuts. I have to start thinking more positive–but then that’s a switch for me–I never did like positive thinkers.
I read a book once called, How to Cure Your Self of Positive Thinking.
This author had been an unsuccessful salesman, and he only made a go of things once he realized he had to make a certain number of calls per sale. Nothing else he did was going to make a difference. It all depended on the number of people he contacted. Once he determined that, things in his life changed for the better.
And he was right. I can sit back there on the beach and think positive thoughts about how it’s bound to rain again soon and all will be well. Soon I’m going to be found, and then I’ll be back with Gene.
But according to this author: all that’s going to happen to me is a big fat nothing. Nothing is going to happen until I make it happen–and that isn’t going to have much to do with my attitude, one way or the other.
One other thing: I think the guy who “laid-on” this mission might have had a little of the positive thinker about him. True, weather forecasting between Australia and the Solomon’s is never very exact, so why would it be any different between there and Fiji? But if you look close enough, you’ll probably find somebody who figured things were going to be all right, and without waiting for the storm to come and go, said, in a very positive manner, let’s go.
I think pilots who take chances get themselves involved in a lot of accidents–car drivers also. And certainly, chance takers are gamblers and gamblers think positively. Thinking things through before they make a decision is not usually their way–that’s why they call it gambling.
I read somewhere that Mussolini and Hitler are two big-time positive thinkers. And so are the Japanese. And I can tell you this: it isn’t doing any of them a lot of good.
I guess that’s why I’m out here looking for water and not lying on the beach. I don’t believe my attitude toward life is going to help me survive one hour longer.
I often have these little “thought exercises,” though, which lead to conversations with myself and often end in mind trips. I wonder if everyone does? But I find they keep me focused. They keep me oriented and headed in the right direction. But I don’t think that’s the same thing as positive thinking.
I walked another mile or so up what now appears to be a steeper rise, as opposed to being a foothill of the mountain. I can look back and see my airplane sitting in the ocean.
Then it caught my eye. It was a flash in the morning sun–that’s what it was–a flash. I was daydreaming, walking along, staring at the ground, and thinking pseudo-intellectual thoughts about philosophy and life when it jerked me back to reality. Like a mirror–it was off to the southwest, and really quite bright.
It was like spotting a hunters red shirt in the forest. It alerts you to something that’s out of whack–something that doesn’t belong there–something incongruent. This last is more of a mathematical expression, really, meaning something unrelated to something else, only more so, and it immediately puts you on your guard–I mean the red shirt does.
Well a flash of light in the dense jungle is incongruent. But this odd word never led me off on a mind trip back to a high-school geometry class. Still it might be
just the sun reflecting off an old coffee can or a bottle, but it means somebody is here or somebody was here. It means the place was once inhabited. For better or for worse it means civilization.
I looked around for someway to mark the spot. I am, all of a sudden, determined to seek it out if only to satisfy my curiosity. But I never dreamed of what it would turn out to be. It’s as if I had stumbled onto something more earth shaking than if it came from outer space. It’s that extraordinary, and furthermore, this thing will change my life for the better, slowly at first but definitely for the better.
Three days later I was back with water and some fishes. I also had a bamboo device to help me keep oriented on my way through the jungle. It helped me mark the flash and then, hopefully, it will help keep me in a straight line from the point where I am now standing.
I thought it would, but after walking toward the light for a few hours, I became lost. But yet, when I walked back to the beach and then came back a few days later, the light appeared at the same place at what must have been the same time. But when I moved towards it, it disappeared again.
I couldn’t help but think it was something supernatural. I’m not given to these kinds of things but then there it is.
Still, there are some mighty odd things that go on in this world. Maybe it’s something as simple as a lone Japanese with his radio. Maybe I’m looking at his antennae flashing in the sun. Maybe he folds it up and slithers away when he hears me coming. How does he keep his dog quiet if he has one? Not likely he has one.
I’m getting kind of edgy and being alone doesn’t help much. I wish I had a dog like the one I keep talking about.
Did you ever hear of the Marfa Lights? There is an army flying field in Arizona that has some odd lights jumping around on the horizon most nights. It has stopped night flying more than once, while they checked them out. More than a few civilians became involved, once the word got around, that is until the army stopped them from looking around out by the end of the runway. I’m sure the searchers will start again after the War. But for now, all anybody does is talk, endlessly speculating about what they are.
Somewhere West of Fiji Page 3