‘You know this for a fact?’ James asked.
‘No, sir, I do not. But I do know I’m the only one speaking any sense around here. Ya’ll have your heads mashed up, convinced Little Miss Wet Dream is in all kinds of trouble, when actually, she’s off picking fruit somewhere inland, whistling with the birds.’
James noticed that when Anthony spoke, nobody intervened, like he commanded an unnatural authority nobody knew how to cope with.
‘Seems to be a lot of guesswork there,’ James questioned.
‘Just telling you how it is.’
‘How what is?’
Anthony smirked slyly. ‘Mark my words, sir, Abbey is going to be just fine.’
‘Somebody mention my name?’
Idling from the jungle Abbey appeared, her white bikini at wonderful odds with her tanning skin. Five sets of eyes homed in on their co-survivor, oblivious to their concern, oblivious to the mutilation in her vicinity.
No gloating, no smirking, Anthony turned and walked back into the jungle to do whatever it was he did in there.
‘Abbey,’ Elaine said, ‘thank goodness you’re okay. We’ve been worried sick.’
‘I’ve been exploring,’ she revealed. ‘I was up early so I just took off. Found that hut you were talking about, James. It’s amazing to think…what’s that?’
Eyes focused on the outline of Gibson’s corpse, Abbey shuddered.
‘We tried to save him,’ said Elaine softy. ‘He was in so much pain, we had to do something.’
Edging forwards Abbey knelt by the pilot and lifted the blanket, a single tear snaking down her cheek. ‘Oh my god…’
‘We did all we could,’ Elaine echoed. ‘We had no drugs, no proper means to treat his injuries. It was inevitable. Even Gibson knew it.’
A second tear followed the first. ‘He didn’t deserve this. My god, what did you people do?’
James stepped forward, his head pounding. ‘What would you have suggested, huh? A nice hot bath? Let me make this clear, Abbey, the man was in so much pain he didn’t know where he was. He was delirious and he was scared. Who the hell are you to judge what we did?’
‘James, I –’
‘We had to make a split-second decision. We had no equipment, no anaesthetics, and you stroll in here now and tell us we should’ve done things differently?’
‘James, please –’
‘Next one’s on you.’ Turning his back on the group, he headed to the shore. Nobody tried to stop him. It had been a long day and he’d been awake less than two hours.
Wading out into the spume, James stared out over the horizon. There had to be something out there that could bring this chaotic morning into clarity. Perhaps another climb to the tor’s peak could shatter the anarchy. He could take Gibson’s transmitter, the man's legacy, try and activate it and build the thing a shelter. Unable to recall seeing it, he wondered where the contraption might be. He began turning over the events of the last twelve hours and continuously, he arrived back at the same answer.
Eric.
43
No more than half an hour after the death of Gibson Sommerfield, two more bombshells rolled through the camp in quick succession. After suspecting Eric of taking the pilot’s transmitter – perhaps for safekeeping, perhaps for some other purpose – James had to approach the situation with kid gloves. Eric could be temperamental and so calm would be his middle name, composure his last.
Back on the sand he could make out Sebastian and the girl at the end of the bay, sitting together on the sand. God only knew how that conversation was going. Abbey was sitting alone by Gibson’s body, her quiet voice masked by the distance.
Passing Elaine, James asked of her son’s whereabouts and she pointed to their tent, the blankets drawn down to obscure the sun. Inside was stifling. Eric was sitting alone at the rear of the tent. Tears lingered in the man’s eyes, the remains of the transmitter in his lap.
‘Eric,’ James muttered, ‘what on earth have you done?’
The big man’s eyes remained focused on the smashed transmitter. ‘Don’t shout at me,’ he said miserably. ‘My dad used to shout at me.’
‘I’m not shouting, Eric,’ he said quietly, edging further into the tent. ‘I’m asking you a question. Why is the radio in pieces?’
‘Why does she like that man?’
James shook his head. ‘You mean Sebastian?’
‘I like her. I want her to be my friend, not his. He’s a bad man.’
James sat back, suddenly interested. ‘What do you mean he’s a bad man?’
Eric failed to explain further.
‘Eric, do you think Sebastian is a bad man because he’s befriended the girl, or for some other reason?’
‘I want her to be my friend,’ Eric repeated, eyes still glued to the useless radio.
‘This is important, Eric,’ James urged. ‘Has something strange happened with Sebastian you need to tell me about?’
‘I don’t like him, that’s all. Nothing wrong with that. I don’t have to like him if I don’t want to.’
‘No you don’t,’ James agreed. ‘But I need to know why last night the transmitter was almost finished, and now it’s in pieces.’
‘Gibson pilot’s dead!’ said Eric.
‘That’s not what I asked you.’
‘He was my friend and he’s dead.’
Taking a pausing breath, James said, ‘What’s going on, Eric?’
‘Soon everybody will be dead. No one will find us and we’ll all die here.’
‘Okay, that’s enough. You wouldn’t want your mom to hear you talking like that.’
The big man paused consciously and went back to the sabotaged transmitter. He almost looked ashamed having betrayed his mother’s faith. Prodding the radio’s components, he seemed confused. They needed that
