‘It’s too late for drugs! There’s only one way to stop the infection, and we need to do it right now before he has a heart attack!’
Oli stood fast.
‘Look, man!’ James roared. ‘Take a look. The infection’s eating him alive, and we have no way of stopping it. This is what it’s all about, right here! This is where you prove to the jocks you’re every bit the man they say you’re not!’
The sobbing student straddled the pilot’s legs and held them steady.
Exhaling heavily, James placed the saw on the sand and tore a strip from the blanket, wrapping it above Gibson’s wound as a tourniquet. Retrieving the saw, he replaced the teeth an inch above the wound, an inch below the tourniquet. Sweat was trickling into his eyes.
He looked to Sebastian, then to Anthony, and finally back to Sebastian, their subtle nods of approval jarring him. Then, hesitating no longer…
He thrust forwards, the jagged edge of the saw sinking deep into the pilot’s thigh with the first incision. Gibson’s screams amplified as the cut opened up, blood erupting from the new wound. Dragging the saw back, he thrust again, this time cutting into the tough sinuous flesh of the thick quad muscle. A third thrust finally found bone, grinding into the femur and rupturing the muscle further. Blood spurted from the next drive, shooting across James’s shoulder and splattering his face. The pilot had fallen eerily quiet, eyes rolled back into his head.
More laborious thrusts and the huge bone split in two, Anthony taking the brunt of the spray to the face. Another moment of grinding commenced, before finally the brutal display came to an end. He instructed Oli to release the pilot’s legs and threw the dripping saw aside. No longer any need to hold Gibson down, Anthony and Sebastian stood back as James tugged the appendage loose, free-flowing blood squirting from the wound. The pilot was fast losing consciousness.
‘Anthony!’ he screamed, ‘Keep him awake. Don’t let him pass out.’
Leaning over the dying man Anthony lightly slapped Gibson's cheek, the man’s eyes popping open groggily. Gripping each end of the tourniquet James pulled it taut once more, the blood continuing to flow onto the sand.
‘How’s he doing, Anthony?’
Anthony peeled up the man’s eyelids. ‘He’s sliding! I can’t keep him awake.’
‘Keep trying. Oli, get something to put under his thigh. Let’s keep the leg up, maybe gravity can help.’
‘Wait a minute,’ Anthony intervened. ‘His pulse has gone.’
‘Shit!’
Springing back to Gibson’s side, he held his ear to the pilot’s chest.
Nothing.
There was nothing.
Interlocking his fingers facedown, he began the artificial beats of CPR, convinced the real ones could be reignited.
‘It’s not looking good, chief,’ said Sebastian.
‘One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand, yeah thanks, Sebastian.’
Ear to chest.
Still nothing.
‘One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand, come on, man!’
‘James…’ Oli muttered.
‘One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand…’
‘It’s over, James,’ Oli said again.
‘No! No…One, one-thousand, two, one-thousand, three, one-thousand…’
This time Sebastian placed a steadying hand on James's shoulder. ‘Come on, chief…he’s gone. Let him be.’
Springing to his feet James turned his back on the scene and ran bloodied fingers through his hair. ‘Fuck!’
He paced back and forth, the enormity of his decision dropping like a lead weight in his stomach. In the spur of the moment he’d made a choice. Drugs may well have turned up in a suitcase tomorrow, a rescue team could’ve well hit the beach the day after, but right then, right at that moment, there’d been him, several terrified and clueless individuals, and a serrated saw. In the heat of it, he believed he’d taken the correct path. But now...
Turning to the trees, he vomited.
‘James?’ said Elaine.
Standing behind him was Eric’s mother. He hadn’t seen her return. Without another word she put her arms around him, hugged him fiercely.
‘It’s okay, James,’ she murmured. ‘You’re not responsible for everybody here.’
‘It’s not okay,’ he replied quietly. ‘It’s not okay.’
She continued to hold him tight.
‘He trusted me, Elaine.’ Releasing her, he took a step back and inspected Gibson’s mutilated body, the others splattered in the man’s blood. Oli was still crying quietly.
‘Are you going to be okay?’ Elaine asked.
James eyed his blood-smeared palms. ‘What do you think?’ he said quietly.
*
In the aftermath of the amateur amputation, Gibson Sommerfield’s body had been re-covered with the blanket, the leg roughly pushed back into position.
Anthony had disappeared, probably to get cleaned up. Everybody else stood around looking remorseful and dejected. They had just slipped from eleven to ten, and the notion wasn’t lost on anybody.
‘You okay, chief?’ said Sebastian, sitting down next to James.
‘Never better,’ James muttered.
‘Pretty amazing thing you did back there.’
James snorted. ‘Killing a man? Not one of my best achievements.’
‘Depends how you look at it,’ said the South African. ‘I thought it was pretty heroic.’
James didn't react.
‘You want to break it to Abbey?’ asked Sebastian. ‘Or you want me to do it?’
‘Abbey? I haven’t seen her all morning.’ In fact, if he thought hard enough about it, he hadn’t seen her since last night when she decided to go for a walk. When Sebastian had no answer he looked to Oli, Elaine. In unison they shrugged, and all he could picture was the light in the trees, the faintest glimmer of their mysterious voyeur.
‘Don’t look at me,’ said Oli. ‘I haven’t seen her.’
‘I haven’t either,’ said Elaine. ‘And I was one of the first up.’
‘Shit.’ Sebastian’s input. ‘What you thinking, chief?’
‘Look, she can’t have gone far,’ said Oli. ‘We’re on a desert island for Christ’s sake.’
‘It’s a big island, darl,’ Elaine challenged.
James held up his hand, hushing everyone. ‘The island is about five miles around. That’s about the size of a small town.’
