Savages

by Shirley Conran

  Dripping wet and shivering, Patty crouched at the back of the beach, above the tideline. For two hours, the rain forced her to stay there, during which time she could see nothing. It was as if the beach had been hidden by a pale gray, mountain mist. The rain fell ceaselessly.

  Almost as suddenly as it had started, the rain stopped, although a strong wind still blew. Patty tied her gear to one of the sagging palm trees. She’d need both hands to climb the now slippery cliff path—and anyway, she’d need her tackle here tonight.

  She found it very hard to reach the top of the cliff. It seemed to stretch upward as she climbed. There was always farther to go, as if some giant were pulling the top away from her.

  As she lurched back into the camp, feeling giddy, Patty saw Annie running toward her, looking oddly two-dimensional.

  As she ran to the staggering Patty, Annie cried, “What happened? Were you stung by a sea snake or a stonefish?”

  “No hat,” murmured Patty, as her knees gave way. She slumped in the mud, threw up, then fainted.

  Patty’s neck and back had blistered through her shirt. Where her skin wasn’t bright pink, it was an angry red. She was semiconscious and burning with fever. She lay groaning face down on her bed of bracken. Annie sponged her back gently with cold water.

  “Boy, look at those blisters!” Suzy said, sitting up.

  Annie sat back on her heels and wearily wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “We survived for four weeks without serious illness, except for diarrhea and Jonathan’s fever. Now, suddenly, within two days I’m running a hospital. What happened?”

  “Domino effect, after Suzy insisted on swimming out too far,” Carey suggested. “Silvana should be well enough to help tomorrow.”

  WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12

  The following morning, leaving a still white-faced Silvana on lookout, Annie checked the river fishing lines, but no luck. An exhausted Jonathan, gaunt-faced and ten pounds thinner, whispered instructions to her. She must take the machete and look for food beyond the cave shaft, which lay to the southeast of the camp. It was in secondary jungle, so there must once have been a settlement nearby, and the crops they had cultivated might still be there, though now wild.

  Until now, the little group had kept as closely as possible to the area around the camp, in order to conserve their energy, to avoid getting lost and so as not to move into the undefined area—they didn’t yet know the exact boundary of the taboo territory. They had only moved down the cliff path or upstream to the bamboo grove or, slightly beyond it and to the right, to the spot where Jonathan had placed his fish trap in the stream. The only occasion on which they had ventured beyond this area was on the day that Suzy and Patty had killed the goat. Their only other regular route was to the cave shaft, which they always approached by slightly different routes, in order not to establish a give-away, beaten path.

  For over an hour, Annie hacked her way through the undergrowth, slashing upwards with the machete to clear her path. She made very little progress. Eventually, she retreated along her own track and circumnavigated the patch of secondary jungle, trying to look through it, not at it, which is how Jonathan had told her to develop jungle eyes. Annie decided that if she couldn’t find anything to eat on the outskirts of this thick vegetation she would look for a stream. Native villages were always sited on the banks of a stream or a river—perhaps she’d be able to wade or swim along such a stream looking for food.

  She found a stand of papaya trees, but unfortunately, the clusters of big yellow fruit were all at the top. The trunk of the tree was similar to that of a coconut palm—it had no low branches.

  Annie wished that she’d been able to bring Suzy with her. Suzy didn’t mind heights, and she was the only one of the group who could shin up a coconut palm; she encircled the tree with her hands, leaned out from her feet and walked up, agile as a monkey.

  Parts of the rough tree trunk seemed to crumble beneath Annie’s weight, but eventually, scratched and sweating, and not daring to look down, she could touch the fruit. With her fish knife, she hacked off as much as she could carry and loaded it into the slingbag on her back.

  Her bag was made from a shirt. Unless they were going beyond the camp the women could no longer afford to wear their shirts, because they were needed to make bags, water strainers and bandages. Except for the convent-raised Silvana, all the women were now naked from the waist up.

  Back on the ground, Annie slashed open one of the green fruits and tasted it. She rubbed her fingers in the milky sap and tasted it. It was delicious.

  Brushing the flies from her eyes, Annie stood up and heaved the bag of fruit onto her back. She felt exultant; she was the camp provider.

  Then she felt unbearable pain in her eyes.

  * * *

  “Must’a got unripe pawpaw sap in her eye,” Jonathan said to Silvana, who was bathing Annie’s eyes. Listening to Annie’s nonstop groans and occasional scream, Jonathan wondered whether she should be gagged. She was certainly a security risk.

  Annie had had great difficulty in regaining camp, and by the time she did so she was in terrible pain. Now she was also blind, and they had nothing to alleviate her agony.

  Eventually, Annie had to be gagged. She understood what was happening and did not resist as a strip of shirt was tied around her mouth and her hands tied behind her so she couldn’t tear off the gag.

  Silvana’s distress at trussing up her friend was so great that Patty wondered if she was in shock again.

  Jonathan sent Silvana to collect coconuts. She was to take no risk, they had plenty of water and it didn’t matter if they went hungry for a bit. Silvana was to rest all she could, she wasn’t to knock herself out again, because she and Suzy were now the only women on their feet. For the time being, they couldn’t have a lookout, not if King Kong himself were lurking in the jungle.

  Apart from gathering coconuts and fetching water, nobody was to move out of camp until he was on his feet again, Jonathan announced as firmly as he could, before falling back, exhausted, on his bamboo bed.

  * * *

  The next day, Annie lay slumped on a pile of leaves in the hut, wondering whether she’d ever be able to see again. She was surprised not to be more distressed. She’d always had great fear of going blind, but now that it had happened in this ludicrous way, she simply felt resigned to the loss of her sight, although she wished that the pain behind her eyelids would stop. It felt as if someone were applying lighted matches to her eyeballs, and the constant pain exhausted her.

  Three days after she discovered the papaya tree, Jonathan found Annie weeping quietly. He squatted and held her hand, saying nothing.

  Annie sobbed, “It’s as if fate and nature have turned against us, they’re stamping on each one of us in turn, then grinding us underfoot.”

  “Oh, no, they ain’t,” said Jonathan. “Fate’s the same as she was last week, nature ain’t interested in you and the jungle’s neutral. Stop being a tragedy queen.”

  Only Annie and Patty were still bed-ridden, and the women were no longer hungry. Silvana had been to the bamboo grove and gathered young shoots. She peeled and sliced them like carrots, then boiled and served them with a few freshwater shrimp from the stream.

  “Chinese cuisine today,” Suzy commented. She had been collecting fern tops. When dark green they were too tough to eat as a salad, so Silvana boiled them like spinach. She also boiled or fried seaweed, which sometimes tasted like spinach and sometimes like savory aspic. Surprisingly, it wasn’t very salty. The plant food wouldn’t give them much energy, but at least it was food, and it would keep them alive.

  In the afternoon, Jonathan took Silvana to the overgrown settlement where Annie had found the pawpaw tree. He located a banana plant and a breadfruit tree with fist-sized globes of fruit.

  “We can’t eat those,” Silvana said in dismay. “The skin is covered with green spikes.”

  “They peel off after the fruit’s been baked in the embers for half an hour.” He poin
ted. “See that vine? The knobbly, dark-pink things? They’re sweet potatoes. Oh, my word, we’re going to eat well tonight.”

  That night, for the first time since they’d taken to the jungle, they ate until they could eat no more.

  * * *

  On the fourth morning of Annie’s blindness, when Silvana brought her breakfast to the hut Annie sleepily looked up and yawned, “Hi, Silvana.”

  Silvana promptly dropped the coconut shell of mashed breadfruit, and with a show of affection such as she had not demonstrated since last seeing her daughter, she hugged Annie, crying gratitude to the saints in Italian.

  For the first time in nearly three weeks, no one in the little party was incapacitated.

  * * *

  That evening, after the others had gone to sleep, Jonathan and Patty crouched in the moonlight, their slingshots at the ready.

  Jonathan hit the first rat, and the second, too hard.

  “Rabbit stew tomorrow,” Patty said, looking at the corpses.

  Ten minutes later Patty spotted another rat. Elated, she extended the arm that held the slingshot, placed the pebble in the elastic sling and pulled it back.

  The sleek dark rat gave a yelp, jumped into the air, then lay still.

  “Good girl,” Jonathan approved. Wearing fishing gloves to protect his hands, he shoved the limp creature into the bamboo cage he had made that afternoon.

  “Keep away from it,” Jonathan warned. “Rats scratch and they bite. I don’t want any infected rat bites. Nobody is to take pity on this bastard and befriend it. Push food through the cage bars with a long rod. Pour drinking water from a distance, through a hollow bamboo rod.”

  “Are you sure it can’t gnaw through the bamboo cage?” Patty asked.

  “I dunno. If it does, we’ll have to catch another one.”

  “Let’s call it Sinatra.”

  SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16

  All the women now looked fitter, and each had lost a lot of weight. Sinatra was also thriving, although they kept him short of rations so he’d be hungry on cue. Any food that he refused to eat was immediately crossed off the camp menu.

  In the lagoon, Jonathan continued to teach the women to fish. “The secret of fishing is to know the area you’re fishing in, and know the habits of the fish you’re after, so you know what he’s likely to do next.”

  As he spoke, Patty again felt shivers run up her spine. Suppose someone who knew this area was observing their habits and guessing what they might do next? She fought against the feeling that the little party was being observed and tried to concentrate on what Jonathan was saying.

  “… Fish feed just before dawn, just after dark, just before a storm, and at night when the moon is full or waning. They bite bait they’re used to seeing around.”

  Patty swallowed her fear and said nothing.

  * * *

  After three weeks of cyclones, the women had overcome their initial depression and frustration. During the rain, they all played backgammon on a board that Carey had painted with charcoal on canvas. Annie practiced her flute, and Silvana accompanied her on a set of pan pipes that she’d made with short lengths of bamboo and damit. Carey whittled at a Madonna that she was carving for Annie’s praying grove. Suzy made jewelry from shells, and Patty taught yoga to all of them. They also prepared vegetables and fish bait.

  When it was not raining, they searched for food—hunting or fishing always according to Jonathan’s directions. They came to rely on him in all ways, to trust his toughness and his carefully hidden benevolence. All the women felt that he was a good man. Their feelings toward him were of gratitude and love, and they obeyed him in all things.

  The rejected Suzy also felt something else for Jonathan.

  One night at two o’clock in the morning, Suzy slid down the lookout tree. Cramped, she stretched and yawned. Then she noticed that Jonathan hadn’t gone to bed but was sitting alone, crouched over the embers of the fire. This was unusual, because they all generally went to bed shortly after sunset.

  She looked at Jonathan’s sharp-edged profile as he stared into the firelight. The flickering glow played over his hard, thin torso, and his blond chest hair glinted gold against the blackness of the tropical night.

  On impulse Suzy slipped off the ungainly trousers that Annie had made her from an upended shirt. She moved into the firelight; instead of squatting, she spread her trousers on the ground and sat on them, with her big tattered shirt pulled up above her knees. In a forlorn voice she said, “Sometimes I feel so lonely.”

  Jonathan looked into the fire and said, “It ain’t a good idea, Suzy.”

  “No one would know.”

  “You don’t stop loving a person just because she’s dead.”

  “I’ll go crazy if I don’t soon feel someone’s arms around me.” Suzy edged a little nearer to the fire, and to the man, “Don’t you miss it? I miss it, all the time.” She sighed. “It’s the way my body is. I can’t help it.” She put one finger out and touched the blond hairs on his wrist. “I just… can’t help it.” Her index finger moved up his forearm, feeling the strength of the muscles beneath the skin.

  Jonathan turned his blue eyes to hers. She looked so small and defenseless, with her delicate little ears sticking out from her shorn head. In some ways, she was more beautiful and tempting than before. Then he thought of Louise, and shook his head. “No,” he said, “it ain’t a good idea.” He turned away as she burst into tears.

  MONDAY, DECEMBER 17

  They still had a few matches left, but nobody had yet tried to make a fire without them. They had all read about rubbing two sticks together to cause friction, but nobody actually knew how to do it, and Jonathan had heard that it was a damn sight harder than it sounded.

  As they crouched that evening around the now increasingly precious campfire, the flames lit up Jonathan’s face from below, throwing black shadows over his gaunt cheeks.

  “When I was a boy in Brisbane, going on eight years old,” he remembered, “we used to go to the Botanical Gardens on Sunday afternoon. Bored me senseless, it did. Me parents just sat on a park bench. Me ma always wore her Sunday-best dress; it was bright blue silky stuff, and she was very proud of it. One Christmas, I was given a magnifying glass with a handle—the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes had. I was fiddling with this thing one Sunday, when I found I could concentrate the sun’s rays on an area of my mum’s dress and make this fierce spot of brilliant light on the dress, so that the blue turned to a little brown circle. I sat there, happy and quiet, burning brown spots on her best dress, all afternoon. Got tanned later by my dad.” He looked around the circle of women. “I suppose none of you got a magnifying glass in your purses?”

  They shook their heads.

  He said wistfully, “I had a good pair of binoculars aboard the Louise, but we couldn’t bring everything…. Nobody here wears eyeglasses for reading?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “We have sunglasses,” said Silvana.

  “It’s gotta be a thick, convex bit of clear glass.”

  Everyone shook their heads except Carey. She said, “Remember the skeleton at the bottom of the cave shaft? Remember her camera?”

  Jonathan said, “We’ll get it tomorrow morning.”

  At dawn the following morning Patty came tearing back from the waterfall pool, naked except for the previous night’s mosquito-repellent mudpack, which was still on her face.

  “Jonathan! There are things moving on the beach. Three of them! I think they’re turtles!”

  Jonathan grabbed the gaff and the ax and ran toward the cliff path. He had been about to wash, and wore only a loincloth made from a white shirtsleeve and a rattan cord tied around his lean waist. Scrambling down the path behind him, Patty saw how thin his fever had left him. His shoulder blades were protruding triangles, and his ribs were clearly visible. He had told her that, whatever his fever had been, it would probably recur. Patty didn’t think he could afford to lose any more weight; in fact, there wasn�
�t any to lose, she thought, as her eyes flicked over his taut buttocks and long, lean legs.

  Down below, on the sand, Jonathan moved slowly and quietly up the beach to within sight of the three curved, brown lumps. He turned around and soundlessly waved Patty away, clearly telling her to go back to the camp, but she followed him, anxious to miss nothing.

  Since the shell cannot be penetrated, Jonathan killed the turtle by flipping it over on its back, taking care to avoid its vicious claws, and shattering the breastplate with an ax. Underneath was the mauvish-pink, wriggling body. Then he hacked the head off with the ax, slit the body, peeled it open and pulled out the intestines, taking care not to split them. Once the guts were out, he pulled out the heart and liver from beneath the breastbone. The drawback to turtle as an entrée was that it looked like a fat, dead baby.

  Jonathan looked up at Patty and scowled. “Didn’t I tell you to get away. I’m going to cut it into chunks down here, then wash it in the sea, before the others see it. Tastes like fleshy chicken, a bit like a battery hen fed on fishmeal. We need the protein. And Silvana can use the shell to cook in.”

  Patty gasped, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

  “Don’t look at it. Do something else. Where there’s turtles, there may well be turtle eggs. Take the gaff and look for them.”

  Feeling queasy, Patty moved along the beach, stabbing the sand around the turtle tracks with the gaff, a long pole with a vicious hook at one end, used for landing large fish.

  Eventually, the gaff came out of the sand covered with slime.

  Patty knelt down. Carefully she scraped away the sand.

  She uncovered seventeen eggs.