Survival

'Thanks,' said Li gratefully, sitting down with a sigh and working the knots from her shoulders.

'You can have the first drink, Li,' said Alex, nodding to the dented lemonade can.

Li picked up the can and the others all turned to watch, suddenly aware of how thirsty they were. She tapped the top a few times to make the bubbles subside, then eased back the ring-pull until the seal cracked with a hiss. Once she was sure the drink was not going to foam out uncontrollably, Li pulled the ring all the way back.

'How much?' she asked, glancing at Alex. 'A couple of mouthfuls?'

Alex nodded. Li licked her lips as she watched a tiny fountain of bubbles fizz out of the top of the can, then she closed her eyes and took two deep swallows. She would never have believed that warm lemonade could taste so wonderful. Quickly, she handed the can on to Paulo before she was tempted to take more than her share. The can was passed from hand to hand as carefully as though it were a golden chalice. Amber was last. She drained the can then held it upside down over her open mouth, shaking out the last drops.

'That was nowhere near enough,' she announced, dropping the can in the bottom of the boat. 'We should crack another one.'

Alex shook his head as he picked up the empty can and stowed it away in the rucksack. 'We need to ration our drinking, until we're sure we can get more,' he said.

'OK,' sighed Amber. 'Food then, I need some food.'

'It's best not to,' said Alex. 'If you eat, then you have to digest the food – and that uses up more fluid.'

Amber scowled. 'I said, I need some food! C'mon! We can eat the fruit. There's plenty of fluid in fruit. And anyway, it won't last, all battered and bruised like that.'

Alex hesitated, looking around at the others. They were all gazing at him uncertainly and sending hungry glances at the food rucksack. Too late, he realized he should have explained all this earlier, instead of assuming they would all go along with a rationing system. Besides, Amber had a point about the bruised fruit. He felt his own stomach clench with hunger at the thought of biting into an apple.

Amber saw the indecision on his face and moved in for the kill. 'C'mon, Alex! Hand it over! We only made you captain, not the boss of, like, the whole world.'

'I'm not the boss-' began Alex.

'Well, then. Give.' Amber held out her hand, palm upwards, and waggled her fingers at him.

'- but I do know about survival situations,' continued Alex, ignoring the interruption. 'And my advice in this situation is that we don't eat and we ration water.'

Amber lunged for the rucksack and Alex shoved it further behind him. She glared at him furiously. 'OK. Great. You think you're such a Boy Scout? You think you know what you're doing? Did you ever even look at the nautical charts on the Phoenix? I don't think so.'

'What are you getting at, Amber?' asked Li.

'If he had looked at the charts, he would know we're in big trouble here.'

Alex yanked open the rucksack and pulled out the bag of fruit. 'You win,' he said tightly, dumping the bag at Amber's feet. 'Just shut up and eat, will you?'

'So,' said Amber, softly. 'You do know.'

'I said, shut up!' snapped Alex.

'Hang on a minute,' said Hex. 'We're not babies here. If there's bad news, we need to be told.'

Alex folded his arms and glared at Amber. She lifted her chin defiantly. 'I sail a lot. I'm a good navigator,' she said. 'Charts are my thing. I studied those charts on the Phoenix pretty closely and, well, the thing is, the further north we drift, the less likely we are to see a ship or a plane. We're drifting into a dead zone, see? No regular plane traffic, no shipping lanes, no trade routes. Nothing.'

'There are islands, though,' said Alex, looking around at the scared faces of the other three.

'All uninhabited,' retorted Amber.

'That's enough,' said Alex, watching Li's eyes grow big with fear, but Amber could not seem to stop.

'And in case you hadn't noticed,' she said, her voice high with barely controlled panic, 'the sun is getting lower in the sky. It'll be dark in another two hours. Even if we do come close to an island, the chances are we'll drift right by it without even realizing!'

'Well done, Amber,' sighed Alex. 'I'm sure everyone feels much happier for knowing all that.'

Amber did not bother to answer. Instead she reached forward and pulled a banana from the bag. Alex shook his head.

'Like I said,' insisted Amber, looking at her watch, 'I really need to eat now.'

Paulo watched hungrily as she peeled away the skin and took a bite of the sweet, white flesh of the banana. With a shame-faced look at Alex, he took a banana from the bag for himself and passed an apple to Li.

Any point in standing watch?' asked Hex, quietly, from the bows.

'Yes, there is!' snapped Alex. 'One little private plane, one yacht off the beaten track – that's all we need. We keep the watch going.'

They drifted on in virtual silence. The positive team spirit they had shared after defeating the shark was gone and Alex could not figure out how to bring it back. Nobody looked at anyone else. They each sat still and quiet, wrapped in their own thoughts and only moving to ease salt-stiffened clothes away from sore and sweaty skin. To start with, they all swapped seats every thirty minutes when the watch changed, so that everyone had some time sitting in the shade of the awning. After a while, as the sun dipped towards the sea and the air cooled, they stopped bothering.

Alex fell into a troubled doze and dreamed that he was in the water with the shark, watching its dead, black eye come closer and closer. Then something came up behind him and grabbed his shoulder. Instantly, Alex was awake and twisting to fight whatever had caught him.

'Sorry,' whispered Paulo from the bows. 'But there is something.' He took his hand from Alex's shoulder to point ahead of the boat. Alex stood up and searched the sea for the shark. 'Where? Where is it?' he demanded.

'No. Further away,' said Paulo, pointing to the northern horizon. 'I think I can see-'

'What?'

'Land,' said Paulo, simply.

SEVEN

They sat in the boat and gazed at the island ahead of them. It was typical of the smaller Indonesian islands they had already visited on the voyage. There was a volcanic peak rising steeply and narrowing to a blunted point at the top, giving the island a shape like a battered witch's hat against the reddening sky. Lush rainforest, fed by the monsoon rains of the area, darkened the lower slopes of the mountain. The forest spread downwards and outwards to form a wide green brim, fringed with mangrove swamps and lagoons. It was nothing like the gently sloping paradise of white sand and palm trees that most people imagine a tropical island to be, but at least it was land, and that was just what they needed right now.

'Active or extinct?' asked Hex, gazing at the flattened tip of the volcanic peak.

'Hard to tell from here,' said Li. 'But my guess is it's extinct, or at least dormant. I can't see any smoke or steam near the top and the sides are well covered with undergrowth – no fresh lava channels.'

'There are reefs,' said Paulo, briefly, noting the white frill of sea around the island. 'And that must be big surf if we can see it this far off. It will be difficult to land.'

'Slow down, cowboy,' muttered Amber, staring down at Alex's compass. 'Don't get ahead of yourself.' She paused, squinting up at the island again. 'Let's just see if we can reach it first. OK?'

They waited in silence while Amber frowned and muttered her way through her calculations, judging distances, speed of drift and the direction of the current.