Dolphin Song

by Lauren St. John

  On their last trip up the dunes, they carried four gourds of water, although they were only half full when they reached their destination. Martine was disappointed that the monkey oranges and cashew nuts Alberto had spoken of were not yet ripe because it was winter. She was absolutely ravenous, and had no idea how they were going to pluck up the courage to cook the innocent scuttling crabs.

  While Ben built the beds, Martine tied a bundle of twigs together like the African women did at Sawubona, and swept the floor, choking on the thick dust. Then she gathered kindling and made a fire the way Tendai had taught her, making sure that there was plenty of space between the logs so the fire could “breathe.” By that time the sun was setting and they climbed up into the old lighthouse tower and had a 360-degree panorama as the ocean turned seven shades of red. There was no sign of the others. Half an hour after the sun slid into the sea, it was dark. Martine, who’d been used to endless summer evenings in England, could never get over the speed of nightfall in Africa, or the impenetrable blackness of it.

  With the “switching off” of the sun, the temperature plummeted sharply. Night birds and bush babies began to call and cry out softly in the darkness. Martine and Ben picked their way carefully down the lighthouse’s steep spiral staircase. In their absence, the fire they’d built had burned down to coals and the warm glow of them lent a homey feel to their living area. They put more wood on it and sat close to toast their arms and legs, which were aching after the assault of the past two days.

  At length, Ben gave an unhappy sigh and went off to deal with the crabs. His father had taught him how to end their lives humanely, but he was still very reluctant to do it. However, without food their own days would be numbered.

  “I thought you were a Buddhist,” said Martine when he returned. “Don’t Buddhists believe that all living things are sacred, and that nothing should be harmed or injured in any way, not even mosquitoes?”

  “Haven’t you heard the Buddhist story about the crab?” Ben asked, placing the crabs on the edge of the coals. “They’re pretty crafty. Once upon a time there was this crane living beside a pond packed with fish. Every day he ate more and more but he found that no matter how many he gobbled, he was never satisfied. He became convinced that if he could somehow eat every single fish in the pond, he’d be truly content. First, though, he had to get them all out of the water. So he told the fish that he knew of another, much more beautiful pond, where he’d be more than willing to carry them. One by one, they believed him, and one by one, they climbed into his beak and were eaten moments after they laid eyes on the lovely new pond. Eventually, he was so stuffed he could hardly fly, but then he noticed he’d left behind a crab. He couldn’t bear the thought of such a delicious treat going to waste, so he offered the crab a ride to the pond.

  “But the crab was smart and told the crane that he knew all about his tricks with the fish and that he had no intention of being devoured. However, he did like the idea of being transported to a special pond. He agreed to go on condition that he could ride on the crane’s back, with his pincers around its throat. They were almost at the pond when the crane’s greediness got the better of him and he tried to trick the crab into getting down off his back so he could eat him. The crab was so angry that he cut off the crane’s head with his pincers, just slicing it off like a knife through butter!”

  “Charming,” said Martine. “Maybe I won’t have crab for dinner after all.”

  Ben grinned. “That’s all right. More for me. Actually Buddhism does allow the eating of meat; we’re just not supposed to cause pain. I’m a bit of a mix, though, because I’m also half Zulu and some Zulus believe that fish are from the snake family and that the eating of them is forbidden. But Dad is a sailor and sailors love fish and the sea, so we go fishing together and we eat what we catch. Mostly, though, we do try to eat food that doesn’t hurt animals. Buddhists believe that animals are equal to people, although the crabs probably wouldn’t take my word for that.”

  The night had a winter nip to it, and Ben and Martine bent as near as they could to the fire. When the crabs were cooked they used a rock to pound the shells and ate the fleshy white meat with crystals of sea salt they’d found in a dried-up rock pool, followed by more coconut for dessert. When the last morsel was gone, they sat in companionable silence and listened to the sounds of the island—the squabbling bush babies, the whine of the occasional mosquito, and the faraway hiss of the sea. Behind the windowless frames of the lighthouse, the sky was a curtain of stars.

  It wasn’t long before Martine’s eyelids began to droop with exhaustion. She lay down on the low bamboo frame, rested her head on a pillow made of palm leaves, and fell asleep thinking it the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept on.

  15

  Over the next two days, Ben and Martine explored every inch of the island—except, of course, the beach where the others were camped out. They’d named it Runway Beach because that was where they’d landed. Martine found it hard to get used to the mix of tropical and African scenery, although there was no denying it was beautiful. There were great, gnarled baobab trees alongside coconut palms and hibiscus flowers, and crinkled brick-colored cliffs towering over rocky beaches or snowy sands over which translucent crabs scampered. And surrounding it all was the sea with its fizzing shades of washed-out blue, like ink dropped on watercolor paper.

  At the top of the wind-rippled dunes, they found hundreds of heavy white shells, fossilized and catacombed with minuscule holes. There were also black clay and glass beads they supposed had been left by the Arab and Portuguese traders. On the beach itself there were Pansy shells, which were white, eggshell-delicate creations etched with the petals of a flower. Just around the peninsula, near the end of the cliff, were a stack of rocky shelves, overlooking a picturesque bay. They were not deep enough to be proper caves, but they were secluded and provided welcome shelter in the heat of the day.

  The shelves proved a fine lookout point, but the two whole days passed without a single sign of humanity. They did see a couple of planes, but those were commercial aircraft flying so high, they were mere specks across the sun, and Martine’s tin lid signal would not have been visible to them. From the lighthouse it was possible to see that their classmates had written a huge SOS on Runway Beach, using dark rocks that showed up against the sand, in anticipation of the arrival of Claudius’s father. They had also constructed a crude shelter from sticks and palm fronds, although every time the breeze wafted it collapsed. Once they saw someone—it might have been Jake—kicking it in fury.

  At nighttime the temperature hovered around freezing, but in the afternoons it was scorching hot.

  “If this is winter, I don’t think I’d like to try Mozambique in summer,” remarked Martine on the third afternoon, fanning her face with a palm frond. She had found a clump of aloes near the lighthouse and was using the gel from the leaves to calm her sunburn.

  Ben was fishing on the rocks near the sea’s edge, using the line and hook from the survival kit and crab entrails for bait. He had caught two bream, which he’d put in a shaded rock pool where they could be easily retrieved later, and he was trying for another. But he was distracted. The water level had dropped with the departing tide and the tip of a wreck had appeared on the edge of the reef. Ben was sure it was a Portuguese galleon.

  “I’ve always wanted to look inside a real wreck,” he said wistfully. “Imagine the stories it could tell. Imagine the history it’s seen. It might even have been a treasure ship. There could be caskets of pearls and gold. Better still, old journals or maps. It’s very unlikely because lots of other people would have investigated it before us, but you never know. We might find something that they missed. Oh, I can’t wait to get home and tell my dad about it.”

  Martine was fascinated by the wreck herself, but she shivered at the thought of tackling the currents again. Bathing on the edge of the lake, or paddling in the clear island shallows, which were as non-threatening as Caracal’s swimming pool, wa
s one thing, but never again would she put herself in a situation where there was even a remote chance she might be circled by sharks or fighting to breathe in deep, dark water. The ordeal of the storm was still too fresh in her mind. Her fear of the sea had become a virtual phobia. The wreck was on the edge of the open ocean. Who knew what lurked in the churning depths around it.

  “Will you come with me?” Ben asked eagerly. “I know it’s a long way out, but we’ll be fine if we’re together.”

  Martine flushed. She wanted so badly to say yes to her friend because she knew how much it would mean to him, but it was impossible. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”

  Ben didn’t know about her fear of sharks and drowning, and he did his best to hide his disappointment. “That’s okay,” he said. “I understand.”

  He went to cast his line again and a movement in the water caught his eye. “Hey, look! The dolphins are back.”

  Martine returned the fishing equipment to her pouch and then she and Ben waded into the bay. At first, the dolphins seemed too busy to notice them. They darted about like quicksilver in pursuit of invisible shoals, so lithe and graceful that it was almost as if upon entering the water they too became liquid. On surfacing, they exhaled in soft puffs.

  Gradually, their inquisitive nature got the better of them and they swam nearer and nearer. One was bolder than the rest. He separated himself from the pod and sidled up to Martine. There were three V-shaped grooves on his dorsal fin and she recognized him as the dolphin who’d saved her on the night of the storm. He showed off a little, approaching her shyly and then gliding away to turn a few artistic backflips and somersaults. When at last he settled for lying on his side close to Martine, she tickled his chin and the area around his blowhole and pectoral fins. He enjoyed that so much that he rolled belly-up and allowed her to stroke his speckled tummy. His eyes were half shut in ecstasy. He lolled in the water as if it were as supportive as an armchair.

  Ben had seen plenty of dolphins on boat trips with his father, but until the night of the storm he’d never touched one. He too had been surprised by the satin-smooth texture of their skin. He also wanted to know how Martine had recognized her dolphin so easily, so she told him what she knew about dolphins’ dorsal fins being as unique as giraffes’ patches and human fingerprints. That jolted Ben’s memory and he recalled that the dolphin who’d carried him had had cookie-cutter-shaped holes in her fins. Shortly afterward, he spotted her.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” Martine told the dolphins. “You saved us and brought us to this place. We only want to get to know you.”

  The dolphins picked up on the gentleness in her voice and her savior-dolphin’s willingness to accept her touch, and their last shred of reserve melted away. They came crowding around with rough trills and whistles.

  Their dorsal fins were relatively easy to tell apart, so Ben and Martine decided to name them. Martine called her boisterous dolphin Sun Dancer, because of the way the light glinted on his back as he leaped. Ben christened his dolphin Cookie and another Honey because she had a golden tint in her silver-gray skin. Patch had white splotches on his back—the result of sunburn or battle scars from a shark attack; Mini was small and elderly—a grandmother dolphin; Rain Queen appeared to be Sun Dancer’s wife and Little Storm their baby; and then there were Ash, Steel, and Thunder, three bright-eyed teenagers. At least, they behaved like teenagers! They were also named after their colors, but it was their dorsal fins and cheeky faces that provided the real clues to their identity.

  Ben had collected a few strands of sea grass and was playing a game of tag with Cookie, so Martine floated in the translucent water, eyes half shut, and let the sunshine and the presence of the dolphins fill her with good feelings. There were so many exquisite, ingenious, and loveable animals on the planet—giraffes for starters—but dolphins, she felt, were different. They were like the chocolate of the animal world. You couldn’t get enough of them.

  Soon she sensed one of the dolphins approaching. She opened her eyes and saw that it was Little Storm. She stretched out her arms and opened her palms to show him there was nothing harmful in her hands. But the baby dolphin was wary. After each timid advance, he would swim away. He whistled at her a couple of times and Martine tried whistling softly back, experimenting with a song her father had taught her: “Amazing Grace.” Little Storm mimicked her, and she could have sworn that he’d learned a couple of notes of it. Either way, it seemed to soothe him. He swam up to her and laid his face in her palms, and they floated in the buoyant water looking at each other. For Little Storm, it was a gesture of supreme trust. For Martine, it was unforgettable.

  Later, as she and Ben paddled to the shore, Martine said, “We should name this bay so it can be our special place even after we leave here.”

  “How about Dolphin Bay?” Ben suggested.

  So Dolphin Bay it was.

  That evening, Ben cleaned and cut up the fish from the lake, and Martine picked a few banana leaves in which to wrap them while they cooked, as she’d often seen Tendai do. Unfortunately, the bananas themselves were not yet ripe. They built a new fire and warmed up while they waited for it to burn itself out and turn the wood into coals. Only then did they put the fish on.

  Laying her damp survival pouch near the fire to dry, Martine was reminded of her classmates, who didn’t have matches and faced a third long, cold night, probably without dinner. That made her feel guilty, even though there was no real reason she should since it was she who had attempted to keep everyone together. Earlier that day, while she and Ben were laughing and fooling around with the dolphins, Martine had spotted a couple of figures watching them from the palm trees. When next she’d turned her head, they’d gone. She’d told herself that they could be having fun as well if they’d chosen to, but it was hard not to feel bad.

  “I feel guilty too,” said Ben, guessing her thoughts. “But I’m trying not to.”

  Their supply of firewood was running low, so they left the fish to cook while they went out to find more. They gathered anything combustible they could find and put it into a single pile. The temperature had dropped and Martine teased Ben about the goose bumps all over his shirtless body.

  “You look like a plucked chicken!”

  “It’s just as well it’s dark and you can’t see your reflection, because your hair looks like you borrowed it from a hedgehog,” he retorted.

  For the first time since leaving Sawubona, Martine felt something close to happiness—or at least as happy as it’s possible to be when she didn’t know when, or if, she’d see Jemmy again. Her mum and dad would have been proud of how she was adapting, managing, surviving. She hadn’t given a thought to being rescued for hours. Being on the island and around dolphins had certainly made her feel differently about things. She was forced to exist in the moment. To take each day as it came. Hopefully some of it would rub off, so that when she did eventually get back to Sawubona, she and her grandmother would work everything out. They would hug and make up. It would all be okay.

  When she and Ben had collected enough kindling, they climbed back up to the lighthouse under the blazing white light of a full moon. Far below them, the ocean spilled out like a wizard’s cloak, dark blue and speckled with sparkles. The smell of barbecuing fish wafted through the air.

  “I wonder what the others are doing?” Martine said, her words muffled by the armful of timber she was carrying. “I bet you anything they haven’t managed to catch any fish. I wonder what they’re planning to eat tonight?”

  Ahead of her, Ben stopped so suddenly that she ran into him. He put down his wood. “I think we’re about to find out,” he said.

  Jake and Nathan were sitting in front of the fire in the lighthouse, white flecks of fish dotted around their mouths. Sherilyn’s cheeks were so stuffed that she resembled an especially greedy hamster. Lucy and Claudius were recliningon the low bamboo beds. They looked as though they were waiting to be fed grapes.

  Jake was the first
to spot the aghast faces at the door. “Hi guys!” he said. “Thanks for the great dinner. We really appreciate it. Who knew you could cook like that?”

  Sherilyn spluttered something unintelligible.

  “Even I have to admit that it was pretty good,” Claudius added more coherently. “A plus. And this is even better . . .” He reached under the bed and pulled out the survival kit.

  “Leave that alone!” cried Martine. She went to fly at him, but Ben’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist and he held her there, struggling.

  “Oooh, temper, temper,” mocked Claudius, and the others laughed. He unzipped the pouch and began pulling out its contents. “I’ve been having a rummage through this and it’s unbelievably useful. Were you a Girl Scout in a past life, Martine? Look at this—a knife, matches, fishing line . . . Everything anyone could need on a desert island. It’s almost as if you knew you’d be ending up on one.”

  “Give it back to me,” demanded Martine. “Please.” Claudius gave a dramatic sigh, as if the decision were out of his hands. “Sorry, Martine, no can do. This stuff is very handy.”

  Nathan seemed embarrassed, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Ja,” said Jake, “you didn’t share with us, so why should we share with you?”

  Martine was outraged at the injustice of this accusation.She and Ben had worked so hard to create a warm shelter and catch fish for their dinner, and now the others were going to reap the benefits of their labors. It was so unfair. She looked to Ben for support, but none was forthcoming. If anything, he seemed ever so slightly amused.

  “You were the ones who didn’t want anything to do with us,” she reminded Jake. “We did want to share stuff with you, but you told us to stay away.”

  “Yes,” agreed Claudius, “but you didn’t mention that you happened to be carrying a Girl Scout pouch. If you had, we might not have been so hasty.”