The Betrayal

by J G Alva

  It took him two hours and fourteen minutes – the Storm watch had dried out and started working again – to get enough friction to produce heat enough for a flame. Despite the multitude of blisters, he felt absurdly proud of himself as the flame took hold and grew from a flicker amongst the sticks into a towering blaze. He stripped down some of the long palm-like leaves from the squat trees that ran along the length of the beach and threw them on top of it, watching as a thick column of smoke rose up in to the sky.

  The horizon had been empty of ships all day, but that didn’t matter now, with his signal fire working its magic. They would come.

  They would come.

  He went back in to the trees to get more wood.

  ◆◆◆

  Nick had been at the front of the ship with the others when the girl had been dragged up on deck. A line of men with dark, glistening skin separated them, like a barricade, the sheen of polished machine guns and the glint of long machetes tied to belts glowing in the deck lights and silently forbidding any challenge. The girl had been terrified. She had looked so young and helpless in her white shorts and turquoise top; just a kid really. No sooner had the girl appeared than Mike had come up as well, dragged along the deck by his collar. He looked hot and bothered, his face red and shiny with sweat. The man who held the girl pulled her hair and she yelped, struggling to be free of him, but the man was a tall tangle of coiled muscle; she didn’t have a chance.

  Nick had been calculating, but he didn’t like the odds. There were only six men in total, and almost thirty of them; if they all surged at once they would overrun them, but looking at everyone’s scared faces Nick thought the chances of a rebellion were slim. There were no heroes here, and that included Nick; he felt as scared and powerless as everyone else. He looked over at Jessica and she looked back, her face fiercely calm, an amazon awaiting her call to arms. He hoped to God she wouldn’t try to do anything.

  There was talk between the men, in a language different from the one the crew of the St. Anne had been using. A spattering of laughter. Some pointing.

  One of the men detached himself from the group and gestured to Nick. Nick hesitated, and the man gestured again, angrier. Nick stepped forward, feeling sweat pop out on his forehead, like moisture wrung out of a sponge. He could feel the fear crawling up the back of his neck. Is this how it was going to end for him? If he could just find a way out of this. What did they want, money?

  In clipped English, the dark man said, “this you party?”

  Nick swallowed. There was a click in his throat as he replied, “yes.”

  The man was not physically very impressive. He was no taller than Nick, and was wearing a sort of sleeveless green combat jacket covered with pockets, and if his arms weren’t big they were still decorated with wiry, tough looking muscle. The man did not smell good, a thick cloying stench of body odour hung around him. His face was comprised primarily of mouth, a large gaping hole in his head crammed with more teeth than your average shark, not all of them in good repair. There was a lump on his forehead, like somebody had stuffed a conker under the skin. A cyst? Nick didn’t know.

  A struggle broke out to Nick’s right; he heard a shout, and the slap of running feet on the deck. He turned to see that the girl had managed to break away from the man who had been holding her, and was making a run for it. Nick saw the pistol come up and aim at her back and he thought with horror Jesus Christ she’s not going to make it, and then the man fired. The girl’s head pitched forward, and her legs buckled, but not before her momentum carried her to the railing, and over.

  There was a moment of complete silence on deck, and then the sound of a splash reached Nick’s ears. The man directly in front of Nick was shouting angrily at the other one, a knife in his hand flashing in Nick’s eyes like a disco light. Nick waited, still calculating, could he? could he? before the man turned back to him. He studied Nick, a cold calculation in his own eyes, and a second before it happened Nick saw something in those eyes, some dark mist come down over them, and then it was too late for calculations, it was too late for anything.

  The dull thud through his body lacked sensation, and he only knew something had happened to him because of the vibration rippling up his chest. He felt his strength draining from him suddenly, like somebody had pulled a plug on his legs, and against his will he fell forward over the man, a hand coming up over his shoulder like they were old drunken friends. The cloying smell of the man clogged his nostrils.

  He’d been stabbed. The knife came out of Nick and he flinched, the pain lancing up to his heart, where it seemed to stop it. The man held Nick up under the armpits and then dragged him to the edge of the boat and without hesitation pitched him off.

  No rhyme or reason for it. He was as insignificant as a poker chip…and just as easily discarded.

  ◆◆◆

  By evening, nobody had come.

  He had seen no foreign objects on the horizon, no pleasure cruisers, no fishing boats, no oil tankers, nothing. The sea and the island were so devoid of human life Nick could quite easily have convinced himself that the world had gone to war since he had been dropped in to the ocean, and that he and the girl were all that was left of humanity. A poor representation of a modern day Adam and Eve.

  He had been able to rally his spirits until the evening, but with the absence of light he couldn’t maintain his ebullient mood any longer, and he began to be afraid. He continued to feed the fire, but it was job that didn’t involve enough of his mind to keep the questions at bay. What if everybody on the ship was killed? My God, Jessica dead, no, she would get away, she couldn't be dead, she couldn't be. But what about the others?. Mike dead, Neil and George and Jim dead...how long would it be before it was reported, and the police came to investigate? Two days, three? And if everyone was dead, would they even bother to search the nearby islands? He wasn’t sure that they would. As the night came on he became convinced that they wouldn’t.

  He was alone, his wife might be dead, all his friends might be dead too, and the boat ransacked and sunk. Even the girl with a bullet in her head would not recover, and eventually waste away.

  He was totally and completely alone.

  It was as he climbed the beach to the store of firewood at the edge of the trees that a voice in the dark said croakily, “where am I?”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 3

  “Thirsty,” the girl whispered, cupping her throat. “Really…thirsty.”

  “You probably swallowed some sea water when you went over the side of the boat.”

  Water, Nick thought, and he could have kicked himself. At her words he realised how thirsty he was himself. Why hadn’t he located a source of fresh water already? There must be some on the island somewhere; why hadn’t that been his first port of call? Great, you’ve done well, you got a signal fire going, but how long are you going to last without water, three days isn’t it, what if the boat comes on the fourth day? You can’t afford to be this stupid.

  “I’ll get some fresh water tomorrow,” Nick said. “Are you alright for tonight?”

  The girl didn’t answer. The firelight wasn’t very kind to her: her eyes had sunk in to her head, her lips looked bloodless and her hair was straw-like from the sea.

  She shifted, leaning her back against one of the trees.

  “Your head still hurt?” Nick asked her.

  She nodded slowly, not looking at him.

  “What about your vision? Is it still doubled?”

  Her hand came up to the side of her head and she winced when she touched the wound.

  “Every now and then it settles down,” she said, her voice weak and broken. “I think it’s getting…better.” Her eyes came round to him slowly. “I feel really…out of it. I mean, really out of it. I can’t remember anything about what happened…” She closed her eyes, and she was so still that Nick might have thought she had fallen asleep if it wasn’t for the frown that puckered her brow.

  “You were on the St Anne,” N
ick said.

  She opened her eyes.

  “The St Anne?”

  “A charter boat out of Praslin.”

  “How did I – "

  “I don’t know. Maybe you know somebody on the crew. But I know you weren’t with my party.”

  The girl shook her head; she had no idea what he was talking about. She leant her head back carefully against the tree trunk again and looked at him.

  Nick recognised the look and said, “I told you, I don’t know where we are. In the Seychelles, south of Mahé somewhere, but other than that, I don’t know. There’s so many islands around here, so many atolls…but still. We got lucky.”

  The fire crackled and popped. Nick prodded it with a stick; it was something to do.

  “I’m Nick, by the way.”

  The girl nodded, eyes closed.

  “And you are...?”

  She opened her eyes with some difficulty.

  “Rebekah. That’s are ee bee ee kaye aye hatche. Got it?”

  Nick nodded.

  “Got it. What was the – "

  But he was interrupted by the low, lazy purr of a snore and realised that the girl had fallen asleep.

  So.

  Rebekah.

  The relief of knowing that he was not going to have to endure this island alone was like a plaster over a cut. I'm not alone, he thought…and even though she wasn’t awake, he coughed to cover a less than manly sob.

  ◆◆◆

  The next day she was awake before he was.

  She was still too weak to move much, but her eyes were clearer, and her face didn’t have that pinched look from last night. The wound running along the side of her head looked ugly but dry. Healing.

  “How long have you been awake?” Nick asked, getting up. He was bare-chested and couldn’t remember where he had put his shirt after he had taken it off. He looked around, brushing sand from his chest and shoulders. He felt embarrassed. The girl shouldn't have to look at this white blubber.

  “About an hour,” she said, her voice stronger.

  “Feel any better?”

  “A bit.” She coughed, and her tongue popped out over her dry, cracked lips. “Very thirsty now, though.”

  Some of the muscles in his back were miserable from a night on such a hard surface. He stood up and stretched, hearing his spine pop in a couple of places, but he was too aware of his sprawling white belly to enjoy the early morning ritual. He lowered his arms and scratched his stomach self-consciously, and then his hands found the wound and he winced and looked down at it. It looked better today, still a little angry, but not as if it was about to split open at any moment. How was he not dead? The knife had gone in deep, of that he was sure…luck then. Blind, incomprehensible luck.

  When he looked up he saw Rebekah staring at it.

  “What happened?” She asked, indicating the wound.

  “Oh.” He looked down at it. “I’ll tell you about it later.”

  He turned to sweep the horizon for ships but stopped when he realised the signal fire had gone out. Shit.

  “I’ll get the fire going,” Nick said, “then I’ll go get some water. Okay?”

  The girl nodded.

  She raised an arm weakly.

  “Those trousers you’re wearing...”

  He looked down at them.

  “What?”

  “Are they Paul Smith?”

  He frowned at her.

  “Yes.”

  “They’re expensive.”

  “I don’t know. My wife bought them for me.”

  “She’s got good taste.”

  Nick found his shirt in a bundle on the far side of the fire, put it on, the fabric stiff with salt and scratching his skin, and settled down to work on rubbing two sticks together again, silently cursing himself for not keeping the fire going.

  As he began rubbing, he swept the horizon once more, hoping for something and finding nothing. It was a clear day, the sky a deep warm blue, a picture postcard of paradise…with a disappointingly lacklustre display of ships.

  They’ll find us, he thought, putting his back in to rubbing the sticks together, the muscles he had abused yesterday to get the same result protesting as the repetitive motion was taken up again, but they had little say in the matter, they had to have a fire.

  He turned to the island instead, his eyes moving over the hill in the centre of it, and he tried to determine where a fresh water supply might be found. Unless there was a spring – which seemed highly doubtful – he would have to spend his time cracking open coconut shells for drinkable moisture.

  He would see what the island had to offer, he decided, and focused on the task at hand.

  “Nick,” Rebekah said, frowning. “Is that your name?”

  Nick nodded, rubbing furiously.

  “I’m Rebekah,” she said.

  “You told me last night. Are ee bee ee kaye aye hatche, right?”

  “That’s right,” she said, looking confused. “I don’t remember.” She focused on Nick. “I must have been hitting the rum fairly hard.”

  He stared at her.

  She gave him the ghost of a smile.

  “Joke.”

  “Right.”

  “This may be the daftest question you’ve ever heard, but...how did we get here? On this island, I mean? And who the hell are you?”

  “You asked me that last night, too.”

  “Did I?”

  “Mm.”

  “I don’t remember that either.”

  Nick put his sticks down, because this was a question that demanded all his attention.

  “My name is Nick Mitchell. I own a design and manufacturing company called Mitchell Cole. We design and make parts for a number of different industries: from gear box bits that end up in Landrovers to laboratory apparatus. About a month ago my second in command – a nice chap by the name of Michael Ross – came up with the idea of a – well, an office party with a difference, I suppose. A thank you to everybody who had worked hard to give Mitchell Cole the best year we’ve had yet. A stellar year. He suggested we go abroad. I was surprised, seeing as Mike – and the accountant he brought with him when he started, a sober guy by the name of Arthur Keats – are perhaps a little too good at keeping track of every penny. I think frugal is the polite way to describe it. I went along with it because, despite our success, it had been a tough year, and my workers needed a pat on the back. It was to be a weekend in the Seychelles, at Praslin. Yesterday we chartered a boat to take us around some of the smaller islands while we all got merrily slaughtered. A little after nine we were boarded. By...pirates, I suppose you’d call them. They stabbed me” – he indicated the wound she had seen earlier – “and shot you in the head. You went overboard, and I swiftly followed.” He paused. “Saying it out loud, it seems so unbelievable…but that’s what happened.”

  He felt the fear and uncertainty pawing at him; he shied away from such speculation.

  He looked at the girl and shrugged. There wasn’t much else to say.

  “Oh,” the girl said.

  Nick nodded, angry at her for some reason he couldn’t comprehend, and went back to his stick rubbing, which, quite frankly, he was getting tired of. His stomach rumbled noisily and he thought getting hungry now. Have to go and find some food soon.

  “When you said Praslin, I remembered something,” Rebekah said. She was staring at the leaves of the tree above her head. A wind stirred them, and light danced over her face. “That’s where I was staying. Praslin. With my...aunt, I think. But I can’t remember anything else.”

  “When you do, give me a shout.”

  “How old are you?”

  “What?”

  He came around with a scowl. She was staring at him.

  “How old are you?” He demanded.

  “I asked first.”

  He stared at her. He thought that she might be needling him just a little bit.

  “Thirty six,” he said, putting more effort in to his sticks. No smoke yet. “Th
irty fucking six.”

  “Wow. You’re ancient.”

  “Am I,” Nick said. “And you are...?”

  “Seventeen,” Rebekah said proudly. “Almost eighteen, in fact.”

  “Well, from over here you look thirty six too.”

  Her mouth hung open for a moment, and Nick struggled not to smile. Her eyes slitted in anger.

  “I’ve been shot in the head.”

  “Hm.”

  “And the only thing I’ve had to drink in the last twenty four hours is sea water. And contrary to what you might have heard, that’s not good for you.”

  “It hasn’t stopped your mouth,” Nick muttered.

  “What?”

  Nick stopped and turned to her.

  “As soon as I get this fire going, I’ll go get you some water. Okay?”

  “Is there water on this island? How big is it?”

  Nick rubbed a hand over his face.

  “Look, these are all very valid questions, but at the moment the most important thing is that we get rescued, and if we want to get rescued we have to get a fire going, so that they can find us, and if they find us we don’t have to worry about water or anything else, we don’t have to worry about a fucking thing, because we’ll be saved so, with your permission, I’d like to continue. Unless there’s anything else you’d like to ask?”

  The girl stared at him, her mouth a tight unhappy line, and then looked away from him and Nick, satisfied that the question and answer period was done with for now, continued with his task.

  ◆◆◆

  There were strange rock formations further inland.