In an age that takes wireless for granted and its beginning to tire of television, it seems incredible that parts of the globe are still unexplored. Powerful modern steamers connect landmass with landmass, island with peninsula, and archipelago with isthmus. Screaming jets roar through the upper atmosphere, at speeds in excess of a thousand miles an hour. Yet the mysteries remain. The ancient planet is reluctant to divulge her timeless secrets to the probing, insolent minds of mortal man. On a remote island, amid weird reef-ridden seas, the Flame Goddess lives on... immortal... undisturbed... alone, save for her primitive worshipers. And then the white man came...
Release date:
December 19, 2013
Publisher:
Orion Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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THERE were five of them on the raft. ‘Flipper’, a North-countryman, who had earned his soubriquet by virtue of the left arm he had lost at St. Valery. Dave, young and frightened, bewildered by this great stretch of water which looked like being the last earthly sight that he and any of his companions were going to see. Big Dan, towering like a Viking head and shoulders above his companions—Big Dan, as rough and as tough as the sea itself. Then there was Lorenzo, the swarthy, curly haired Italian with the dark, flashing eyes, the quixotic temper and the almost perpetual sneer. …
The fifth man was just known as ‘The Rat’. Whether he had ever had another name no one ever knew, but it was as ‘The Rat’ that he was known. He had a small rodent-like face, protruding teeth, and an air of cringing cowardice, combined with a nasty viciousness, which made him one of the most unpleasant characters who had ever sailed the Seven Seas.
Young Dave was just dangling a piece of string over the side of the raft. Flipper looked at him sadly.
“Hasta had any luck yet, lad?” he asked, not unkindly.
Without looking up Dave answered:
“Not yet Flipper, but I will soon.”
Big Dan laughed, but it was not an unkind laugh.
Lorenzo looked across at the boy,
“You musta be insane, son! You musta be absolutely out of your mind! How do you expect to catcha anything without da bait?”
“Well, I’m doin’ something, aren’t I?” said Dave. “It’s better than just sitting here waiting to die! Waiting to starve to death! Waiting to die of thirst!”
“Did you ever see anybody who has died of thirst?” asked Lorenzo. “It is not a pleasant death, I can assure you. They shrivel up, they go black, the tongue sticks to the roof of the mouth. …”
“Shurrup!” ordered Big Dan, “That’s not goin’ to help any!”
Lorenzo looked at him … looked at him savagely, anger flashing in the quixotic Italian eyes.
“Why should it always be Lorenzo who has to shut up for Big Dan?” he asked. “You think-a that because you are bigger than Lorenzo you tell-a him what to do, yes? You think that because you are one of da biggest stokers in da British Navy, you boast, you t’ink dat make you da Captain of da raft?”
“Shurrup!” commanded Dan.
“We aren’t going to do any good by quarrelling, lads,” said Flipper, “Let’s just save our energy and sit quiet, shall we?”
“Oh let ’em fight,” said the Rat, “it’ll break the monotony! I’d like to see a fight!”
“I’d like to throw you to the ruddy sharks meself!” snapped Flipper.
“You couldn’t! You’re only half a man,” said the Rat, cringing away behind Lorenzo as he spoke.
“You can shut up as well,” said Big Dan, glaring at the Rat. And the Rat subsided into silence.
Big Dan looked towards the lad,
“I’ll tell you what you could do for bait, Davy boy,” said Big Dan with a grin.
“What’s that, Dan?” asked the boy.
“Use one of old Lorenzo’s socks! Catch a whale with that!”
“Oh very funny!” said Lorenzo, “Very funny English joke!”
“The trouble with you,” said Big Dan, “is that you’ve got no sense of humour. No sense of humour at all!”
“This is no place to have a sense of humour,” said Lorenzo. “Our ship is sunk, and five of us on a raft are dying of thirst somewhere in the South Seas. We got no food left. We got no water left.”
“O.K., said Dan, “so we’ve got no food, and we’ve got no water. Think of those poor devils who went down with the ship. We’ve got a lot to be thankful for, you know.”
“I don’t know,” returned Lorenzo. “I don’t know at all!”
“I reckon I’d sooner have gone down with the ship,” said the Rat.
“I thought Rats were the first to leave sinking ships,” put in Flipper.
The Rat spat into the water derisively.
Dave continued his strange baitless fishing. He looked up suddenly.
“I’ve heard of people catching things with buttons! Anybody got a shirt button I can put on this hook?”
Big Dan tore off a stout linen button.
“Here, try that, Dave, though I don’t suppose it’ll do any good.”
Almost like a young initiate performing a sacred religious ritual, Dave pulled in the line and fastened the linen button on to the hook.
“There. We’ve got a chance, now. Perhaps they’ll think it’s bread or something.”
“If any fish is stupid enough to think a linen shirt button is bread,” said Dan, “it deserves to get caught, that’s all I can say.”
They relapsed into a long, doleful silence. For hour after hour the raft drifted on. …
Mile after mile under a blazing sun.
“I’m thirsty,” said Dave.
“So are we all,” said Flipper. “Just keep your pecker up, son. There’s bound to be a ship some time today.”
“Oh yes,” said Lorenzo, “Hundreds of ships! Look, here they come! All flying through the air on little pink wings!”
“Shurrup,” said Big Dan again.
The heat, the thirst, the sun, the strain … all these things had combined and were playing on Lorenzo’s nerves. The Italian drew a wicked looking knife. He and Big Dan began circling one another round the raft.
“Careful,” said Flipper. “You’ll have the whole ruddy thing over! Lorenzo! Sit down!”
“Once-a too often you tell-a me to shut up!” said Lorenzo. “This-a time I fix-a you for good! I will cut-a you up and use-a you for bait, Big Dan! We will eat you!”
“I’ve heard of blokes doing that before,” said the Rat, his wicked little eyes glinting, “and I reckon if it came to the push I’d rather eat a man, than die of ’unger and thirst.”
“You would!” said Flipper, “Rat’s ’ull eat anything!”
“You be careful who you’re calling a rat,” snarled the Rat.
Dave looked up from his fishing,
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“He tell-a me to shut up once too often,” said Lorenzo.
Dave shrugged his shoulders. Nothing seemed to matter any more. If Big Dan killed Lorenzo there’d be one less on the raft.
If Lorenzo killed Big Dan there’d be one less on the raft.
If they both fell overboard there’d be two less on the raft … Apart from a problem in simple arithmetic there was no interest in the situation at all. The five men had lived so long in the face of death that nothing seemed to matter any more. Life had just gone cold and stale and somehow, horribly pointless.
Big Dan suddenly caught Lorenzo’s knife wrist. Held it in a grip of steel, took the knife, thrust it into his own belt.
“Now sit down!” he said. “And think yourself lucky I didn’t stick it in ya! I’d a good mind to!”
“My arm,” moaned Lorenzo. “She is broken, I think. You grind it! You great bully!”
“You started it,” said Dan. “Wouldn’t have been much good saying you were a great bully if you’d stuck that knife in me, would it? You’d have just flung me over the side!”
Lorenzo said nothing. He just sat nursing his bruised wrist and moaning.
“Are you hurt bad, Lorenzo?” asked the Rat, hopefully.
“Not bad enough,” said Flipper. “You should have broken ’is neck, Dan!”
They drifted on. Hours passed. No water. No food. Rising heat. Slowly, very slowly, the sun began declining gently in the West.
“Any idea where we are?” asked Big Dan, pointing towards the setting sun.
“Apart from the fact that that’s the West,” said Flipper, “no, Dan. We could have drifted almost anywhere. We’re somewhere in the Southern Pacific. …” he laughed, “Could be Micronesia, Polynesia … could be anywhere. This place is supposed to be dotted with islands, but—” he suddenly drew in a deep breath. “Dave! Leave that blasted fishing a minute, and look over there … away to the north east. You’ve got the best eyes of any of us. Look son, see anything?”
Dave squinted hard across the sun-flecked surface of the great ocean.
“It’s an island!” he said at last.
“Oh, God,” said Flipper. “I hope we can reach it! ’Cos if we can’t we’ll be dead by this time tomorrow!”
It was a slow painful business, paddling by hand towards the island. The raft was not drifting towards it. Five men, with nine hands. Paddling, paddling, paddling.
“We ain’t getting there,” said Big Dan, “we’re just about holding our own. We’ll lose sight of it if we can’t get there before the daylight goes.”
“We’ve got to get there,” said the Rat. “We’ve got to make it! P’raps the raft’s too heavy! Perhaps you ought to have chucked Lorenzo in after all, Dan!”
“Oh shurrup!” said Big Dan. It was his favourite item of conversation. “There’s only one thing to do,” he panted between paddling.
“What’s that?”
“Tear off one or two of the planks of the raft itself.”
“It’s a risk—but if we don’t tear a couple of planks off to use as paddles, we ain’t goin’ to make that island,” said Flipper.
“Flipper’s right, if we don’t make that island we’ll be dead tomorrow.”
Tearing off one or two of the planks carefully, so th. . .
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