To the Wild Sky

by Ivan Southall

  And now it was 6.26 a.m. and Carol was beside him, obviously scared stiff of him, looking at him in such a frightened way.

  ‘Carol . . . What’s happened?’

  He didn’t really want to know and somehow she was aware of that and didn’t tell him.

  ‘Carol . . . Is everyone all right?’

  ‘Bruce is hurt, I think.’

  ‘Badly?’

  She shrugged. ‘Could be. We don’t know.’

  ‘Colin and Mark?’

  ‘They’re all right, but what about you?’

  He didn’t answer. ‘Have we got anything to eat?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘To drink?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ve saved nothing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He sighed, and that stranger inside him was still in a panic.

  ‘Where are we, Gerald? Do you know?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You must know.’

  ‘Why must I? Why should I?’ His voice was breathless and his manner was abrupt.

  ‘Jan thinks we’ve gone south. She thinks that’s why it’s cold. Victoria, maybe, or Tasmania.’

  ‘We’re on the ground, aren’t we?’ he said, ‘and we’re alive. What more do you want?’ He was trying very hard to behave well, but it was difficult.

  ‘We’ve got to be somewhere, Gerald. Surely we can work it out?’

  ‘Did you get the maps?’

  ‘I told you we didn’t get anything.’

  ‘Can’t do much without maps.’

  ‘We were going to look for things, but – we were afraid we might find Jim.’

  ‘Well, if you’re afraid of that we’ll never find anything, will we? Jim can’t hurt you.’

  ‘Don’t be so callous, Gerald.’ It was out so quickly and so thoughtlessly, and instantly she knew it was a mistake.

  He looked at her coldly and his mood had completely changed again. She didn’t know what he was going to do, didn’t know what to expect of him, and suddenly she was very frightened. But oddly, he was the one who ran. The sand flew from his feet and he must have covered more than a hundred yards before he suddenly stopped and sat in a huddle, hopelessly confused, lost, lonely and tearful.

  Carol hadn’t even wished him a happy birthday.

  11.

  Debris

  ‘Jan!’ It was Carol calling her, almost in an undertone. The call had special quality that Carol had never used before in the sounding of Jan’s name. They weren’t friendly enough for that. They didn’t have much in common.

  Bruce said, ‘Go on; see what she wants,’ and Jan went to her, but Carol moved several paces farther away from Bruce, drawing Jan after her. ‘What is it, Carol?’ she said.

  ‘Gerald . . .’

  Jan pulled a face.

  ‘What do you think?’ Carol asked her.

  Jan didn’t really think anything; all she had was a feeling and it was a feeling that she didn’t want to share with Carol.

  ‘Does he frighten you?’ Carol said, as though it hurt her to say it.

  Jan didn’t care to explain that she’d never liked Gerald very much, anyhow. She couldn’t talk about Gerald to Carol. Gerald Hennessy was a little tin god as far as Carol was concerned.

  ‘And Bruce is hurt, too,’ said Carol, struggling against Jan’s lack of interest. ‘He is, isn’t he?’

  ‘Could be. But he won’t let anyone near enough to find out.’

  ‘That leaves Colin and Mark. You can wipe Mark off, so it leaves Colin. And Colin’s not much use.’

  If that was what Carol thought, Jan felt duty-bound to take the opposite view. ‘He did all right last night.’

  Carol was becoming annoyed. ‘I’m trying to say there are only two of us —’

  ‘Three. You can’t forget Colin.’

  ‘All right! Three. Though I’d like to know where the third is. I haven’t seen him all morning.’

  Jan shrugged. Colin’s absence troubled her, too, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Carol. Then she said, ‘What’s the point of all this?’

  Carol sighed. ‘It seems to me, though it mightn’t seem so to anybody else, that we’ve got to do something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like . . . oh, I don’t know. Like looking for salvage and food and water. Even if we do find Jim . . . We can’t sit round here doing nothing.’

  Jan continued to feel unco-operative, not that she had any cause to. What Carol had to say was not in the least unreasonable. It was more or less what she thought herself.

  ‘And we’ve got to find out where we are, as well,’ said Carol, ‘Gerald doesn’t know.’

  ‘Well, that’s it then, isn’t it? If he doesn’t know we’ve no hope of finding out.’

  ‘Look, what have I done to upset you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Well, why can’t we pull together?’

  That was the moment that Bruce started yelling, ‘Hey, you two. Come here!’ If he hadn’t been feeling sore he would never have addressed Carol so roughly (Jan didn’t count), and afterwards, when he thought back, he felt surprise that Carol hadn’t objected. Instead, she came at once, trailing Jan after her.

  ‘Gerald’s really round the bend, is he?’ Bruce asked.

  ‘Of course he isn’t,’ snapped Carol.

  ‘Well, what’s he sitting down there for, like a booby in a corner?’

  ‘He’s miserable, that’s all, like all of us. Like you, too. You’ve been doing a bit of a moan yourself.’

  ‘Bruce is hurt!’ Jan bristled. ‘If you had an ankle like his, you’d be moaning, too.’

  ‘What’s wrong with his ankle? Is it broken or isn’t it? Is he going to let us do something for him or isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not having you mugs fiddling with it.’

  Carol turned a hostile eye on him. ‘You’re supposed to be a Boy Scout!’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Everything! You’re supposed to help others. You’re not supposed to be a nuisance. And you know Jan’s a Guide.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘She must know something about it because she brought Gerald round last night. If it hadn’t been for Jan, Gerald would be dead.’ Jan didn’t know what to make of that! Carol on her side. Then Carol said, ‘Do you know anything about breaks, Jan?’

  ‘A bit. I’ve got my First Class.’

  ‘She’s not a mug then, is she?’

  Carol sounded much too masterful for Bruce; not at all like the girl in the aeroplane yesterday. He murmured almost sheepishly, ‘O.K. then. Have a look at it.’

  But Jan didn’t really want to look at it. Not now that she had to – under Carol’s eye – now that Bruce was prepared to submit himself. It was one thing practising First Aid on people who were not hurt; quite another trying to do it on people who were in pain. But there was no pulling back, just as there had been no pulling back last night when it had been Gerald.

  She knelt and laid her fingers gently on Bruce’s ankle, and felt him flinch. Suddenly, not knowing why, she snapped at him: ‘Don’t be a sook. I couldn’t possibly have hurt you.’

  She hadn’t either, but Bruce sighed and shivered and made a great show of bracing himself. ‘Get on with it, sis. Kill me if you like. What do I care?’

  There was an awful temptation for Jan to squeeze his ankle hard, to make him yell, to make him leap, but she resisted it with a shudder, and carefully compared his injured ankle with his sound one and then with her own. ‘I’m blowed if I know, but it seems all right to me. I know it’s a nasty bruise and swollen and all that, but honest, Bruce, it’s not broken.’

  ‘I know it’s broken.’

  ‘You’ve made your mind up about it, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘And you’re not going to be talked out of it!’

  He was getting angry again, and so was Jan, and they glared at each other until they remembered, with some embarrassment
, that Carol was still there and that Mark, too, was standing not far away like some unhappy looking object carved out of wood. ‘And what do you want?’ Bruce growled.

  Mark looked at his feet. ‘About Col’s pants,’ he said.

  ‘His what?’

  ‘Col hasn’t got any pants.’

  ‘For cryin’ out loud,’ shrieked Bruce, ‘why hasn’t he got any pants?’

  Carol said, ‘Oh, dear . . .’

  And Jan said, ‘He took them off last night, didn’t he? Crumbs, Col hasn’t got any pants.’ And she giggled.

  ‘Is that where he is?’ said Bruce, glancing at the foreshore.

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Just because he hasn’t got any pants?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  Bruce hooted. It was the first time he had laughed since yesterday.

  ‘Colin said you’d laugh.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘Yeh . . . But it’s all right for you. What’s Col going to do? Where’s he going to get some more?’

  ‘He can’t have mine,’ said Bruce, ‘if that’s what you mean. Why don’t you give him yours?’

  Mark looked awkward and glanced at Carol and inspected his feet again. ‘Don’t be silly . . .’

  ‘What’s silly about it?’

  ‘They wouldn’t fit . . . He wants to know what he’s going to do.’

  ‘Go without, I suppose. There’s nothing else that he can do.’

  ‘He said perhaps Jan or Carol would make a lap-lap for him.’

  ‘A what?’ said Jan.

  ‘You know, a sort of skirt, with slits up the sides. He said maybe you could make it out of a –’ Mark swallowed ‘– a petticoat or something.’

  ‘He said what?’ bellowed Bruce.

  ‘He’s got to wear somethin’, hasn’t he? He can’t go walking round in his underpants, not with girls an’ all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He can’t, Bruce,’ said Jan. ‘You know he can’t.’

  ‘I’ve never heard such rubbish in all my life. You tell him he can’t have my sister’s petticoat or my pants either. You tell him to go jump in the creek.’

  ‘Look, Bruce,’ said Jan, ‘that’s not helping Col, is it?’

  ‘It’s nothin’ to do with us. It’s Col’s funeral. He shouldn’t have taken his pants off in the first place.’

  ‘But he did take them off and you know why.’

  Bruce’s mouth opened, then shut firmly. Then he scratched at his neck. ‘Aw, crikey,’ he said.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be best,’ said Carol, alarmed by her own audacity, if we took a run along the beach to see if his pants have been washed up?’

  Jan felt her heart flutter. Oh, what did Carol say that for? Why bring up that again so soon? Fears that girls shared were not meant for the ears of boys.

  Carol said: ‘Let’s face it, Jan. Let’s get it over. It’ll have to be us.’

  Jan felt sick, but Carol was so right. It was far better to face up to the issue of Jim and get it over and done with. And he mightn’t be there, anyway, and then they’d be able to comb the beach properly for articles of value, quite apart from the matter of pants for Colin.

  ‘Face what?’ said Bruce. ‘Get what over?’

  ‘All right,’ said Jan, ‘I suppose so. You take that end and I’ll take this.’

  Carol had been going to suggest that they should go together, but that was the end of that idea. She wouldn’t argue the point and make her fears so obvious.

  ‘What the heck are you girls talking about?’ Bruce said.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’ Jan took a couple of steps, then looked back to Mark. ‘Coming?’

  ‘Yeh.’

  ‘Come with me, if you like,’ said Carol.

  Mark blinked with more than faint surprise and Bruce said quietly. ‘Oh . . . Jim!’ But not quietly enough. Jan glared at him and Mark’s eyes slowly widened.

  ‘Jim?’ he said. He swallowed, and felt guilty, and looked to Jan. That was where his loyalties lay. ‘I’ll come with you.’ And moved quickly, just in case that other one, that Carol, started being awkward. The only trouble was, Jan was heading in the right direction!

  Carol watched them go, miserably, and glanced at Bruce. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘you know I’d come if I could.’

  Carol plodded off on her own along the curve of the beach that swept into the south. That was where Gerald was, still sitting on the sand. She went close to him but he didn’t turn his head. He allowed her to pass and then watched her from the corner of his eye, his lovely Carol all bedraggled in a shrunken dress, moving from one piece of debris to another with an obvious and strange reluctance, then growing more distant, until suddenly he saw her run and drop to her knees.

  Gerald sat up straight, intrigued, for the moment forgetful of himself, then almost at once slumped back into disinterest and despondency. He had no idea what was wrong with himself except that feeling miserable was easy and feeling any other way about anything at all was too much effort.

  Jan, a couple of hundred yards in the opposite direction, picked up a soggy wad of paper. ‘Colin’s book!’ she said.

  ‘What book?’

  ‘You know, Oliver Twist.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Take your hands off it! You’ll ruin it.’

  ‘Funny girl, eh?’ said Mark.

  ‘No, I’m not being funny. If we’re careful we’ll be able to dry it out.’

  ‘What for?’ squealed Mark.

  ‘Probably fall to bits, but it’s worth the try. It’ll be a job for Bruce.’

  ‘Whaffor, for Pete’s sake?’

  ‘Don’t be dull. To read, of course. We might be here for ages.’

  Mark laughed nervously. ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Ages and ages, maybe. There’s no saying. It’ll be good having something to read.’

  Mark’s mobile face twisted into an extraordinary expression. ‘Ages and ages? What are you talkin’ about?’

  ‘Just what I’m saying, that’s what!’

  Jan hurried on and Mark trailed after her reluctantly, whining: ‘Ages and ages? They’ll come for us, won’t they? They’ll come lookin’ for us. They’ll find us.’

  He wanted to delay her, desperately wanted to hold her back. She was getting so awfully close to Mr Jim.

  ‘No,’ said Jan, not unkindly, ‘you must know very well that they wouldn’t know where to start. We’re right out in the middle of nowhere, on an island or something. Way down south or way up north; Gerald doesn’t know where we are. No one knows. And the sooner you get used to the idea, Mark, the better it’ll be. We’ve got to start pulling together. We’ve got to work out some way of staying alive . . .’ Her voice faded.

  She fell back and ran a few steps away, and Mark was left standing, pivoting on his heel.

  Jan stammered, ‘Not that way, Mark . . . Oh, Mark . . . It’s poor Mr Jim.’

  Mark felt a right proper rattlesnake, but didn’t guess for a moment the real significance of what he had done. There probably wouldn’t have been any squabbles at all if he had told them in the first place.

  *

  Carol came back and stood behind Gerald and Bruce yelled from the distance. ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’ But Carol wasn’t interested in explaining the obvious to Bruce. If explanations were needed for Gerald it would be different. In fact, she longed for him to ask her or to turn his head, to take some notice of her, and that he failed to do so hurt her rather than annoyed her. Surely this sullen, brooding boy, could not be the same Gerald who had called for her yesterday at her home and had fought so bravely to control the Egret? Or was he? For there was that other Gerald who had turned from Colin in disgust and who had been so slow to move when Jim had died. Looking back, even farther, perhaps there had been other times – when he had been dropped from the football team, when he had flunked British History through absolute carelessness, and after he had fallen, exhausted, during a cross-country run. Not quite the same, but not completely unlike it. />
  ‘My suitcase has been washed up,’ she said.

  ‘Has it?’ But he didn’t look at her.

  ‘There’s something in it for you.’ She dropped a packet on the sand beside him then bent and lightly kissed his hair. She had never done anything like that before, had never dared, but she meant it to say something that she couldn’t put into words. It meant, ‘Gerald I’m your friend; even when the weather isn’t fair.’ Then she drew back from him hurriedly because she knew Bruce would be watching and might laugh, and even Gerald might be outraged, might flare and shout at her. There was something else she had wanted to show him, but kissing him had sort of upset it, so she trudged up the sand to where she thought Colin was hiding. ‘Col,’ she called.

  She couldn’t see him but the voice was there and surprisingly close.

  ‘Would you wear a pair of my hipsters?’

  ‘Jeans, you mean?’

  ‘Not exactly. They’re pink. But they are pants, you know.’

  ‘Gee,’ came a wail from the bush. ‘Bloomers.’

  ‘No, no! Satiny things, but they’ve got long legs and a zip up the back.’

  There was a heavy pause and Carol glanced back at Gerald. She was sure he had the packet in his hands, simply from the attitude of his head. It had cost her three weeks’ allowance. She hadn’t even had a coke for three weeks. It was difficult getting something good enough for Gerald because he had so much already. Then Colin’s head came round the side of a tree-trunk. ‘Show me,’ he said.

  Carol held up the hipsters and Colin’s lean face lengthened. It looked like a face out of a funny film. ‘Gee,’ he said.

  ‘Do you want them or don’t you?’

  ‘They’re wet.’

  ‘Sorry; but you’re lucky to get them at all.’

  ‘Will they fit, do you think?’

  ‘We’re about the same size, aren’t we?’

  ‘S’pose so.’

  ‘They’ll be big for you rather than small. They’ll be all right.’ (Funny. She seemed able to speak to him without feeling awkward. He’d always seemed so stiff and starched. He wasn’t really.)

  ‘Pink . . . Gee whiz.’

  ‘You were prepared to wear a petticoat, weren’t you?’

  Colin’s face became redder and longer and he sighed, ‘I’ll wear ’em . . .’