Naked and Marooned

by Ed Stafford

  I spat on the flat stone, held the metal disc in my right hand and started tracing a figure-of-eight pattern, ensuring that the angle between the disc and the stone surface was about thirty degrees. I could see the lighter metallic shine coming through on the metal and it indeed started to sharpen. This meant I could add a handle and make a knife that I could carry around with me and use for all sorts of tasks. A knife! A knife, I quickly established (after a mere thirty days), was essential – so this morning I made my knife.

  I had to grind away enough metal on each side of the disc so that the two sloping surfaces joined and formed a sharp edge. I tested the edge by running my finger across the blade. It felt sharp. I shut one eye and looked down the blade, point on, to see if there was any surface that was still reflecting light at me. I ground out an edge that covered about two inches of the circumference, about a third of the pie.

  I made the handle from hardwood, using my now sharpened disc to strip the bark away and make it smooth and clean. I then used the disc itself to tap down into the end of the handle to create a split in the wood just long enough to hold the blade in place. A knot in the wood threw it off line a touch but not enough to matter. I left the hand grip end solid. I removed the disc again, twisted it so that the blade was facing outwards and reinserted it.

  Fine strands of wetted beach hibiscus bark tightly bound the wood shut. My teeth made a good vice, clamping the split shut as I wound the strands of hibiscus in front of my face to hold the blade firmly in place. As the strands passed my chin they trapped parts of my beard in the lashing and yanked out several hairs. I couldn’t help but be happy with how incredibly effective it was, though. I lashed the handle end first, so that it didn’t split, then I lashed the top end as tight as my teeth could bite.

  The quantity of taro root that I had rationed for two meals was the size of a matchbox. I used my new knife to chop it up for lunch and peeled off the skin. ‘Jamie Oliver, eat your heart out,’ I chuckled, using a square bit of plywood that I’d found on the beach as a chopping board. The knife felt good in my hand and opened up so many possibilities; as well as snapping, ripping and abrading I could now cut and slice. The tool was as clear an indicator of evolution as my fire or my shelter.

  After lunch I needed to make arrows. I had already collected several straight sticks of hibiscus from when I’d been making natural cordage for the shelter. The spoon was too valuable to me to sacrifice on an arrow and slightly too cumbersome, too. I had one nail and so I selected the straightest of the sticks and, again using fine saliva-wet hibiscus bark, I bound on the nail to the front of the arrow. It looked good.

  While I was working away with my hands, I mulled over the fact that because a goat is considered a domesticated animal you’d naturally think you could just run after it, as if it were a farmyard animal, and catch it. Once caught you could, of course, just tether it, milk it and make cheese. What could be simpler? I considered then how ‘feral’ was the operative word here. These weren’t domesticated goats, they were feral goats, and getting close to these wild animals was far harder than you might think. These goats were naturally wary – they didn’t want to be caught and had a natural tendency not to want to provide cheese for anyone.

  Arrows taking shape in my hands, I declared, ‘There’s going to be a goat dead within the week.’

  I then used my new knife to cut a notch at the end of the arrow shaft just big enough for the bowstring to sit in. I determined that this little groove was essential to stop the slipping that had been occurring last night. The notch would keep the bowstring aligned with the arrow throughout its release and would ensure that the power released would be transmitted to the arrow’s flight. In theory. I stood outside my shelter in the woods and, with vegetation all around me, the only space for testing was above my head. I pointed the arrow up into the canopy and drew back the string that was cupped in the new groove on the end of the arrow. Gently, I released the string and the arrow flew straight as a die up through the canopy and beyond. Only as it slowed in flight did the arrow drift slightly sideways in the air. ‘It works!’ I grinned, quite surprised at the success. It was actually really encouraging. Maybe this was why I was down last night as I doubted whether the bow would really work. But now I had a rear notch system to use the full force of the bowstring. Now the arrow just needed a flight to stop the back end drifting out at longer ranges.

  Turning my attention to a second arrow, I had a couple more nails from driftwood but they had large flat heads that I couldn’t remove. Next I tried the rusty tin lid that I used to cut the taro chips but it wasn’t heavy enough or strong enough to make into an arrow tip. Leaving the camera running there were long pauses as I struggled to find a solution to making arrow tips that would be suitable for the job.

  In examining what I had at my disposal, however, I became somewhat distracted by the decision to make a spear. This was probably because I had come to a dead end with the second arrow tip. I tested several long poles simply by holding them aloft and launching them at a spot on the ground. In the end I opted for a nice seven-foot spear and mused over fire-hardening the tip.

  It was the end of day thirty – my second night in the shelter. I’d completed half of my time on the island and I celebrated by boiling some water in the tin can and making myself some lemon leaf tea. I congratulated myself on my progress so far. I felt I’d come a very long way. I was eating well, had enough water and had built myself a home. I was sitting by a warm fire and making myself a brew. I had hunting tools: a knife, a bow and arrow and a spear in the making. Aside from the tangible signs of progress I knew I was in a far better mental state, too. Far more of my time was spent composed and at peace. I’d settled into the whole experience and felt constructive and positive about the next thirty days.

  More immediately I then thought about the night to come and remembered the rats running over me last night. They had kept me awake but I wasn’t too bothered by them. The other minor irritant was the termites that crawled over me after they evacuated the burning wood. They were completely harmless, of course, but enough of a distraction to stop me from resting soundly.

  But I was learning more and more that pretending on this island never worked. After all it was just me here and I would soon see through the pretence. Being positive was only beneficial when I wasn’t avoiding or hiding from the things that actually were disappointing. Honesty with myself was key. In this instance the slight regret I had about the shelter was that now I could no longer see the sunset each evening. Darkness fell faster now, and without the evening light show my end-of-day connection to a wider world seemed to have been cut out and replaced by rats and termites. ‘I’m not moving back, it took eleven days to build!’ I joked without seeing anything funny in the situation at all.

  ‘I’ve got to make a bed!’ More rats had been nibbling at me all night. I would hear a rustle, then a scurry, then one would pluck up the courage either to run over a part of my body or nibble at me as if to see whether I was edible.

  I carved the end of my spear with the new knife. It meant continuously sharpening the blade but that wasn’t a problem as I positioned the whetstone on the floor between my legs. Once it was sharp enough I wrapped the spear tip with the tin to reinforce the wood and add a slightly sharper point and lashed that in place with hibiscus.

  While I was working, the goats trotted past the camp on the beach side, blissfully unaware that I was crafting weapons designed to kill them. They scampered up Snail Rock and along the spur on to the top of the island before disappearing into the tree line. I didn’t want to stop this sort of close encounter by making the goats more skittish than they already were and so, as my weapons weren’t yet finished or tested, I just observed and noted their movement pattern.

  A journey around the coast produced a bumper crop of food. One eel, the biggest so far, was now killed by cutting into the back of its head with my knife. The biggest sea cucumber that I’
d yet seen, too. A giant clam. I had no idea whether you could eat the clam but it seemed likely and it was definitely alive as I had witnessed it snap shut when I poked it. Add to that four crabs, several mussels and two full pots of snails and I had a seafood banquet fit for a king.

  ‘Crikey, I’m going to eat well this lunchtime, tonight and tomorrow for breakfast. You’re still alive – so you’re supper,’ I notified a crab that was trying to escape.

  I wore my green T-shirt on my head as the direct sun was fiercely hot and chatted away to the camera as I organised my bumper crop of food. I ran out of container space and had to use giant clamshells to carry the plentiful food in. I washed and shelled everything. Good fortune seemed to be magnetic – it attracted more good fortune. Things were going well.

  As I only had a small pot I cooked the clam and the crabs in the embers. Not wanting to eat it now, I left the eel hanging from the rafters in the smoke for supper to stop it getting attacked by flies. The seafood squeaked as the moisture escaped. Once the clam was dead the shell was easy to pry open. It looked like a giant muscle inside. It had muscular flaps that I ate cautiously. It was chewy – but at least it was meat. The novelty factor soon wore off and my taste buds became more honest with themselves. ‘That was rubber. Do you know what? I would not serve that to a dog.’

  The mussels that I’d collected were great. A taste of sophistication that felt like real food. Importantly, the meal was different and hit my senses and brought me to life. All very welcome. A meal I wouldn’t think about twice if I ate it in a restaurant was now taking on the aspect of life-changing importance.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time I’d both eaten and filmed everything and, as ever, I stressed about how the daily administration of looking after myself and just eating dominated my time. I went out on to the beach and practised with my spear and my new bow and arrows. I set up a plastic bottle, half filled with sand, as a target and fired all my ammunition at it. The arrows needed flights, of that there was little doubt, but the spear flew well, although it needed a stronger and sharper tip. It was all good constructive feedback and I was satisfied that my hunting tools were improving. Tomorrow I would add coconut palm leaf flights to the arrows and improve the spear’s tip.

  It was the end of day thirty-one. ‘Just add flights tomorrow, Ed, and you can start hunting,’ I told myself, wondering why I was referring to myself in the second person. Talking to myself had almost become a self-reflecting parody of my own dual voices. I knew it sounded odd but it seemed to convey the conversations that I was genuinely having to have with myself. Perhaps if you don’t have company, you just invent it, but I certainly had two voices and the conversations and debates seemed real enough.

  ‘It’s going to be fun. I’ve eaten really well today.’ I self-consciously reverted to the first person. ‘I’ve eaten well just foraging. I’m full. I haven’t been able to say that very often recently.’ But I wasn’t content to settle for foraging. ‘Tomorrow I’m on the hunt – and goat is on the menu.’

  I walked up and over the other side of the island to do a drop off of dead batteries and used CF cards. It was the first time walking with my new spear and I felt alive and bold, like a caveman ready to strike if the opportunity arose.

  On my way past the splinted taro plants I noted they had recovered. They had both shot new leaves out the centre, which I decided was very cool. I was now a plant doctor, too.

  On my return the goats were standing idly in my camp. For some reason they reminded me of tracksuited youths smoking at a bus shelter. Maybe it was distain – or jealously of their simple existence. As I approached, the group, now rumbled, scattered, and for the first time I followed at pace, trying to run them down. I was surprised that they could outrun me easily and my hopes faded as they disappeared into the thicker undergrowth where I couldn’t follow them. Left standing holding my unused spear, I saw that it would be necessary to lull them into a false sense of security. I didn’t want them to be nervous of me – I had to get closer to them to make a fatal strike.

  As I sat down in the shelter I heard a lone goat bleating in the distance. It must have become separated from the others after my hunt and I could hear the fear in its cry. As I didn’t think I could get close enough to the animals to launch my basic spear, I refocused on improving the arrows.

  While I had been thatching, I’d had to remove single leaves from the palm fronds so that the number of leaves was even. A requirement for plaiting. This meant that I would repeatedly throw away the odd wasted leaf, and it had struck me, while watching the leaf after it had been launched through the air, that it flew rather like a paper aeroplane.

  The leaves therefore became the obvious natural material to use as flights for my arrows. I used the strength of the spine of the leaf to lash on the flight and the flat leaves were easily cut into shape using my new knife and chopping board. As I worked intently with my hands I realised I was smiling again. In less than half an hour I had a respectable three-flight arrow.

  Arrow placed carefully in the rafters of the shelter so that I didn’t accidentally stand on it, I deconstructed the spear as it was now clear it would just bounce off a goat. I took off the tin, created a recess for the nail with the massive head, and lashed both the nail, and then the tin, back on. It was another two hours’ work but I would not have wanted to get hit by this spear coming through the air towards me. It looked bloody lethal.

  On the beach I was firing the arrows at a plastic bottle when the entire herd of seven goats distracted me further up the beach. I immediately saw the opportunity, bow and arrow in hand, to hunt them. Having sprinted up the beach I was close to the herd by the time they noticed me. I got to perhaps five metres from them but when Black Stripe, the big old male, spotted me he bleated a warning to the others and they turned and fled. I loosed my arrow at the centre of the group but it disappeared into the undergrowth and they all vanished up the hill.

  Annoyed, I then spent half an hour looking for the arrow. After I had scoured the ground several times I gave up looking. It was soul-destroying − it had taken half a day to make and I had used the only straight nail on the entire island that did not have a massive head and it was gone after the first release in anger! I was dependent on that arrow. If only I’d waited a little while longer. The goats had been too far away. ‘That’s gutting – really gutting.’ I stared at the camera forlornly.

  ‘Ijust found my arrow.’ I had woken up, walked around the back of the shelter and through the forest with the steep slope of the island rising to my left and the shaded beach to my right. I walked straight to it. It wasn’t hidden or buried in leaf litter. It must have deflected off something. Who cared? I had found it and it was a very good omen for the rest of the day.

  The early morning find had boosted my morale massively. I reflected on how I had lost the arrow and came to the conclusion that it was best to wait for opportune moments rather than stalk the goats. On reflection, this seems madness − crazy that I would so easily give up a proactive hunt of the one animal that I really wanted to catch, that I would wait until the goats came to me. I stated to the camera that I thought stalking would not pay off; I reckoned the goats would just learn to be nervous of me so I decided that when they came close I would have my hunting tools to hand and take my opportunities. I can see how I came to the decision − it is logical and requires zero energy to wait for the goats. It gave me a valid excuse not to go hunting. I shouldn’t − it would be counterproductive, I told myself.

  But the real fears were deeper and it is only on reflection that I can point them out. I was scared of wasting my time. I was scared of wasting my energy. I was scared of failing. I was scared of being made to look stupid. Construction, both of the shelter and the making of the tools, had been a sure thing. I knew that there would be a tangible outcome, something I could touch and feel, something concrete to prove that I’d achieved success. But hunting wasn’t such a safe bet.
I was unskilled and ungainly. I was tired and slow. My mind panicked at the thought of days and days lost to hunting the animals and still getting nowhere. So as to keep myself positive I needed to do something whose outcome was more predictable.

  I started work on my second arrow but I had used my only suitable nail on the first. The other nails, such as the one I used on the spear, had such large immovable heads that they could not be attached to the slim arrow shafts. Scanning the numerous items that I’d hoarded, I took a section of U-shaped metal that had been riveted to the circular metal disc knife blade. I hammered the strip flat with a stone, leaving a rectangle of metal six inches long and half an inch wide. Half an inch was still too wide and the metal wasn’t rigid enough so, with a flathead nail for a chisel and a stone for a hammer, I created a V cross-section by gently tapping it into the right-angled edge on the camera case. This worked and allowed me to fold the metal lengthways on itself to make it just a quarter of an inch wide and, more importantly, twice as strong.

  I sharpened it on my whetstone into a long fine point. On the shaft I duplicated the notch and the flights. By the time I’d finished, arrow number two looked great − a masterpiece replica of the original. Perhaps better, as it had a longer, heavier arrowhead. I had doubled my ammunition.

  Under the cover of my shelter in the spitting rain I spun the new arrow back and forth between my stained, cracked fingers. I decided I would make a trap for the goats. I felt that I needed to tackle this mission from all angles. I would increase the likelihood of catching the goats. Unlike hunting, a trap would be an extra soldier on the ground, ever-present, doing the work for me while I slept. It would be energy efficient and ever-patient.

  After lunch, having collected firewood and water, the first part of the trap I would make was the gate, the door that would be triggered to entrap the goat. So I spent the afternoon selecting a good site and began to make a wooden pen large enough to contain the biggest goat. The design was no different from one of the small mammal traps that are designed to catch mice and voles without killing them. A simple enclosed area, with a door at one end that was hinged at the top that would slam shut if the goat entered. I buried myself in thinking through the mechanics and in the physical labour. ‘This would be simple. Time well spent,’ I told myself.