Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Jonathan said, “A cyclone’s more than heavy rain. It flattens you.” On Christmas morning, 1975, he had been in the rescue party after a cyclone destroyed Darwin. The North Australian town looked as if an atomic bomb had hit it. There were no fires, but for miles around, the trees had no leaves; those that looked as if they were covered with autumn leaves were actually bearing shreds of corrugated iron from the roofs of buildings. Of twelve thousand homes, nine thousand had been flattened. Fifty-six people had been killed, and dead animals lay all over the place.

  “Then surely it can’t be safe to leave, if the rain is so dangerous,” Suzy said.

  “It ain’t safe to go, and it ain’t safe to stay,” Jonathan said.

  Patty said, “Suzy, why don’t you just shut up and listen?”

  “Because I want to know what I’m getting into,” Suzy snapped. “And so should you. How the hell can we build a raft?”

  “It might not be as hard as you think,” Jonathan said. “All you need is trees, an ax and a knife. You don’t even need rope in the jungle; we can use vines.”

  “Have you ever built a raft?” Suzy asked.

  “No.”

  Suzy burst into tears of rage and misery. “We can’t build a raft. I’ve never even been to camp. I can’t use an ax or a knife!”

  Wearily, Jonathan thought, And I bet you can’t start a fire, catch a fish or pluck a bird. These women, with their long red nails, were obviously pampered bitches. He said shortly, “You can do far more than you think you can. I’ll show you how to build a shelter, find food and make the raft.”

  There was a dubious silence.

  “How come you know all this survival stuff?” Suzy asked.

  “The Australian army had a battalion in Vietnam; I was with ’em for a year. Didn’t like it, so I left. Didn’t bother to tell anyone at the time,” Jonathan said. He began to chew the last lump of coconut. That bit of food had made him realize how very hungry he was and that he’d better get them all a proper meal as soon as possible. Not for the first time, he resented thralldom to the body, to food and water at regular intervals, inexorably through life; to spending such a lot of effort just to stay alive, every single, blessed day.

  He said, “We’ve all done well to get here. Now we’ve got to keep going in the same way, until we’re off this island. If you want me to be in charge, you’ve all got to do as I say. I warn you, I’m going to be a real slave driver. It’s going to be work, sleep, work, sleep, boiled fish and coconuts, until we get to sea.”

  Silvana burst into tears of despair. “How can we possibly do these things? We don’t know how to survive in the jungle! We are all going to die! How can we survive, if our husbands couldn’t?”

  This is like dealing with a bunch of kids, Jonathan thought, except that kids would love a jungle adventure. He said, “I don’t want no talk of dying—that’s forbidden, do you hear?”

  In the dark, they started to snuffle again.

  He said, “What’s going to decide whether you survive or not is you. I want no tears, no apathy, no sitting down and weeping. People can easily talk themselves out of things they’re capable of doing.”

  Patty said, “We have to be single-minded, to keep at our goal, if we’re to get off this place.”

  Jonathan nodded. “You’ve got to be determined to survive, determined to see your families again.”

  Patty said quietly, “Determined to get those bastards who murdered our husbands.”

  Carey said, “That’s right.” She wondered whether she’d be able to stay on at the farm. Without Ed it would be lonely and perhaps dangerous. Perhaps she wouldn’t be able to afford to stay there.

  Annie said firmly, “I have to get back to my boys.” She knew they were almost grown men, but she could never think of her sons as other than boys, in need of her love and care.

  Jonathan said, “Common sense and the will to survive is all I’m asking from you. Otherwise, you ain’t got a chance.”

  He swallowed the last shred of coconut and spat out a lump of fiber. “I can’t help anyone who’s going to fall out or sulk because she’s got blisters on her hands or she’s tired. If anyone ain’t prepared to work hard without complaint, if anyone prefers to go off on her own, now’s the time to say so.”

  Nobody moved.

  “Then remember, we’ve agreed there’ll be no moaning,” Jonathan said. “That can wait until later.”

  Nobody spoke.

  “Once you get used to the jungle, I promise you, you’ll love it. It’s got everything you need—food, water and vegetables. If you have fire, you could live happily here for the next ten years.”

  Somebody started to sob hard.

  “What do we have to do?” Suzy asked.

  “There’s a few basic things to remember,” he said. “We need a camp lookout. Each person takes it in turn to do a two-hour watch until we leave. Whoever has the watch also has the M-16, if only to warn the others. I’ve only got seventeen rounds, so I won’t use it for hunting. If we hear a shot, then everyone drops what they’re doing and heads for this cave. Everyone stays as close as possible to camp. No one goes into the jungle alone, or without a compass and matches. You’d be lost within fifty paces.”

  Suzy asked, “Why matches?”

  “If you were lost or injured, you’d need a fire to protect yourself against animals. There’s nothing really dangerous on this island except the odd wild pig, and you’re unlikely to see any, because the natives eat anything that moves. But you never know.”

  “Won’t a fire show anyone where we are? Surely they’ll see the smoke?” Silvana asked.

  “No, the smoke would be dissipated before it reaches the top of these high trees. The terrorists don’t know we’re here, so there’s no reason for them to penetrate the jungle.”

  “But …”

  “No more buts,” he said. “We’re going to swim out of here, climb the cliff and set up camp on top. After we have a meal, we’ll build a shelter. Then we’ll look for the cave chimney and let a rope down it. That’s our loose plan, and we’re sticking to it.”

  “No matter what happens?” Carey questioned.

  “Sure. I’ve found that nothing in life ever goes exactly to plan.”

  Silvana said hesitantly, “What about … sanitary matters?”

  “Everyone goes ten paces beyond the camp, digs their little hole and then afterwards fills it in with earth. Don’t use the fishing knives for hole digging. I’ll get some big shells off the beach.” Grateful for a few feeble giggles, he added earnestly, “Remember that the biggest hazard in the jungle is you. The wild animals will keep out of your way if you keep out of theirs and don’t startle them. That goes for the sea snakes as well as the land ones.” He heard a rustle of relief; snakes were what they’d all been scared of on that overnight march.

  Jonathan said, “Basically, I want you to keep covered up, clean and cheerful, no matter how you feel. Depression is contagious, it generates anxiety. Anxiety can grow into fear; fear can grow into panic, and that’s when people lose their heads and act without thinking. If you lose your head, you’ll probably lose the rest of you.”

  Carey thought about the bat in her hair, and she saw what he meant.

  Patty said, “Who does what when we get outside?”

  “I hunt and fish,” Jonathan said. “Patty’s responsible for our shelter and the cave. Carey is in charge of the raft, as we build it. Silvana does the cooking. Annie can be camp nurse and responsible for hygiene, which includes the latrine check. Suzy’s in charge of the water supplies, because she’s got to get used to water. Patty can teach her to survival-float—it only takes half an hour. After that, as fast as possible, Suzy must learn to swim.”

  There was an immediate chorus of protest to all these demands.

  Jonathan said, “I know you’ve never done it before. Now’s the time to learn.”

  Anxiously, Patty persisted. “But if we are found, if we are attacked, what do we do then?”


  Jonathan said softly, “I’ll teach you how to kill.”

  * * *

  Once outside the cave, the women blinked in the hot sun. Their wet clothes quickly started to steam as they scrambled up the path to the clifftop. It had been difficult to get Suzy to swim out, and she only did so because the alternative—being left alone with the bats in the dark—was worse than being dragged underwater once again by Jonathan and Patty.

  Patty gasped. “What’s that?”

  At the clifftop, just inside the shelter of the trees, they saw nailed to the slim trunk of a eucalyptus tree a bit of rusting metal—probably the side of a kerosene tin—which bore the impression of a big black hand. Below the handprint the letters ITAMBU were crudely painted in red.

  They were all rigid with fear.

  “That,” said Jonathan, “is our protection. Itambu means taboo, forbidden. No native dares to pass that sign, to tread on forbidden land.”

  Jonathan took his time choosing a campsite. Eventually he picked a slope that fell toward the sea, about twenty yards inland from the cliff and a hundred yards to the south of the waterfall. The small clearing was in an area of primary jungle between the dense undergrowth at the side of the river and the equally impenetrable secondary jungle that lay farther to the south. It was far enough away to avoid moisture from the waterfall seeping into the ground, and the slope was steep enough to make it unlikely that they would find themselves lying on wet earth in the middle of the night. The site was near enough to the river to fetch water.

  Between the campsite and the cliff was a clump of trees with low branches that the women could reach to climb. One of these could be used as a lookout tree. It had a dense, rounded crown of feathery leaves, but no fruit or flowers; it was over sixty feet high, and its gnarled trunk and many branches provided relatively easy footholds. Jonathan thought that it might be a tamarind tree. Once you were up the tree you not only had a better view but you damn well kept awake, which was one of the reasons why Jonathan wanted them up there.

  Suzy was posted first lookout. She stood under the tamarind tree with the rifle while the rest of the group went wearily down the footpath, with aching arms dug up the equipment, then lugged it up the cliff path.

  The women cleared the dead and decaying vegetation off the campsite, because this could harbor ticks, ants, scorpions and spiders. Jonathan then handed out palm branches, which they used as brooms to sweep all remaining insects from the site.

  It was midday by the time they had finished. In the energy-sapping heat nobody, not even Jonathan, had the strength to talk. Wordlessly he nodded to Patty, who helped him spread the canvas awning on the cleared site. They all crumpled onto it and immediately fell asleep.

  Two hours later Suzy woke Jonathan. He blinked, sat up and shook his head. Then he woke Patty.

  “Get down the cliff,” he whispered. “Bring back some coconuts. Pick green ones, only stupid Europeans eat stale brown coconuts. I’ll start the fire.”

  Carey and Jonathan collected fallen branches. Over a few handfuls of dried grass, he propped twigs together to form a pyramid. It took three of their precious matches to light the heap of dried grass, because Jonathan’s hands were shaking with fatigue, and he dropped the first two, but eventually the little smoking pile spat into flame.

  Jonathan grunted with satisfaction. “We’ll take ash from the fire and draw a circle round the campsite. Ash will stop the insects crawling in.”

  He shook the other women awake. They drank the coconut milk and ate the meat in exhausted silence.

  “I know you’re all tired,” Jonathan said apologetically, “but we must make a temporary shelter before nightfall or you’ll get no sleep, because leaves’ll fall on you and insects’ll divebomb you.”

  “We should dig a drainage ditch,” Carey said.

  “Right. You do it.” At last one of these Sheilas was waking up.

  While Jonathan chopped down four saplings with the small boat ax, Carey, using an empty coconut shell, dug a small ditch on one side of the shelter site. This led downhill, so it would keep the shelter floor dry.

  Annie measured out a square of earth a little smaller than their canvas awning. The others painfully dug a twelve-inch-deep hole at each corner, using coconut shells as scoopers. They protected their hands with the soft leather fishing gloves that Jonathan handed out.

  Jonathan trimmed the cut saplings just above the trunk where the first branches divided to form a Y; one pair were two feet long, the other pair measured four feet. He then set the poles in the four corner holes, with the taller pair on the upper part of the slope and the smaller poles on the lower.

  They heaved the canvas awning over the smaller posts and secured it with the rope that had held the awning above the bridge of the Louise. They rolled the tarpaulin up to the higher poles and lashed it to them. The angled awning would protect them from any wind blowing off the sea.

  Jonathan said, “Tomorrow when we’ve got our strength back we’ll make a proper house, with walls and a roof of interlaced leaves.”

  Carey and Suzy spread an assortment of leaves and brush over the floor of the lean-to so that they wouldn’t catch a chill from sleeping on bare earth. Jonathan piled the equipment inside the shelter, then the women crawled beneath the canvas and collapsed into sleep.

  Carey, who was posted as sentry, fell asleep ten minutes after the others. One moment she was standing up and trying to keep her eyes open, the next moment her knees buckled as if she were drunk and she skinned them as she hit the ground. She decided to stay there just for a minute or two….

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16

  Jonathan shook Carey awake.

  “Damnit, you must all learn to stay awake when you’re the lookout. Now take a line, wade into the sea and try to catch some fish. Don’t take your shoes off, then you won’t scratch your feet or get bitten by anything underfoot.” He moved on to Suzy, shook her awake and said, “You’re the lookout. If you go to sleep, you won’t get any supper.”

  As he shook Patty awake he said softly, “We’ve got work to do, you and I. We won’t be safe until we find the exit to that cave chimney. If somebody was after us, we’d never get Suzy through the water fast enough to hide.”

  Patty staggered to her feet and rubbed her eyes. “Okay, okay.”

  After a breakfast of coconuts, Jonathan took them all into the dark, damp rain forest. Birds of paradise with pink or turquoise plumage flashed high overhead under the soaring green canopy.

  He held up a red berry. “The rule of the jungle is ‘Never eat red,’ except for ginger, persimmon or mango.” He passed around the little red berry of the strychnine plant, with its deadly poisonous seeds. “Never touch brightly colored fruits or berries. Avoid anything that looks even vaguely like a tomato.”

  He plucked a hairy green fruit from a branch. “Rub off all hairs on berries or leaves. Never eat roots, fruit or vegetables with a bitter or stinging taste. Always test with yer tongue anything yer try for the first time, so yer can spit it out if necessary. Don’t touch any plant, shrub or tree with a milky sap.”

  “What about these mushrooms?” Carey pointed at one.

  “Don’t risk eating anything that looks like a toadstool or a mushroom.”

  “Which plants are poisonous to touch?” Patty asked.

  “Anything that makes yer flesh go red or swell or itch or blister, same as anywhere else in the world. Yer won’t know till yer touch it. But nothing can kill yer.”

  Silvana asked, “What about snakes? I’m far more frightened of snakes than plants.”

  “Very few of the world’s snakes are poisonous. The aggressive snakes are the cobras, kraits and pit vipers, but there’s less danger from snakes in the tropics than from rattlesnakes or moccasins in some parts of America.”

  “I just hope the snakes have been reading the same book as you,” Suzy said tartly.

  “Snakes’ll get out of the way if they hear yer coming,” Jonathan said, “but yer mustn’t disturb a snake
, or frighten it, or corner it.”

  “I’ll try not to,” Suzy said.

  “You won’t have no problems if you walk slow and deliberate, if you watch where you’re going, watch where you put your hand, and run like hell if yer see a snake.”

  “What about sea snakes?” Silvana asked, still nervous.

  “You get venomous sea snakes in the tidal rivers and along the shore, but if you ain’t stupid enough to swim into one, they won’t disturb yer.”

  “And lizards?” Silvana persisted.

  “Lizards ain’t poisonous here.”

  The other women returned to camp, and Jonathan and Patty set off to search the jungle. They had calculated that the cave chimney lay southeast of their camp, but they found that this area was secondary jungle. Jonathan looked at the thick tangle of undergrowth and said, “Must have been a village here once. Maybe if you swim into the cave, Patty, and holler up, I’ll hear yer voice.” Then he shook his head. “No, even if I heard yer, I reckon it’d be almost impossible to tell where your voice was coming from.”

  Patty said hesitantly, “I once saw someone climb a natural rock chimney on TV. I could try going up the chimney from below, with a rope. If I got to the top, we could tie the rope to a tree and let it dangle down.”

  Jonathan nodded. “It makes more sense if you climb the shaft. I can swim out, climb the cliff and hack a path in the undergrowth towards your voice. If I climb up the chimney, I won’t know where to start hacking my way out. You probably won’t be able to see a thing from the dense undergrowth on top.” He thought, I can’t tell her this, but if I climb that chimney and fall, then they’ll all die with no one to look after ’em. He added, “We must locate the cave exit before we pick a permanent campsite, because camp must be near our hidey-hole.”

  Taking the underwater flashlight and the coil of rope, Jonathan and Patty once more climbed down the cliff and dived into the cave. To protect it from bats, Patty wrapped her silver-blond hair in Jonathan’s white shirt. Slowly they made their way deep into the cave until they reached the faint shaft of light that marked the chimney.