Wild Jack (6 page)

It was so small, and the sky was so big, as was, I realized, the sea in which this little dinghy rocked. Although we could see the airship, that did not mean it was coming anywhere near us. I watched in an agony of anxiety. The speck did not seem to be moving, and I said so.

“That's a good sign,” Kelly said. “If it were moving, it would be crossing our field of vision. It must be coming toward us. It looks bigger.”

Was it? With a leap of joy I realized he was right; it was getting bigger. And I could hear the hum of the motor more clearly.

I stood up, frantically waving. Kelly shouted, “Careful, you fool, you'll capsize us,” but I was too happy to mind it.

Sunyo said, more reasonably, “It is too far off
still. No one could see us. But I think it is on course for us, in a direct line almost.”

We watched the airship approaching, and I had time to think about what would happen after we were picked up. Back to the island, of course, and perhaps back to the stockade for Sunyo. No, that was certain, and very likely Kelly with him. But first there would be food and drink, baths, sleep in soft beds. And maybe what we had been through had taught Sunyo to be less pigheaded.

As for me, I was sure that by now the order for my release must have come through. I even had a crazy notion that my father might be in the airship, directing a search for us. That was absurd, I knew, but at least we were going to be rescued. Nothing else mattered.

The airship, a white civil aircraft, came steadily on, flying at no more than two hundred feet above the sea. Its flight path was taking it just a little to the left of us, and we could see the windows of the dining cabin, with small figures at the tables. We were all standing up and waving now, with the ­dinghy rocking perilously beneath us.

We shouted as well as waved, even though we
knew sound could not carry to the sealed cabins. But they must see us! We could see them so clearly. A waiter was bending over one table, pouring out wine. It was impossible that we could be missed. Even when the airship had passed overhead, I was sure of that. Someone must see us, and the airship would turn back again.

Then Sunyo said in a cold, dry voice, “They've not seen us. And they won't now.”

He sat down heavily, and Kelly did the same. I stood and gazed at the airship, diminishing in size with the passing moments. The sound of the motor faded and was lost in the monotonous slap of waves. I sat down myself and huddled in the stern.

• • •

The rest of the day was very bad. Before we saw the airship, we had begun to be resigned to the prospect of dying. Hope had sharpened our will to live, and its loss tormented us. Our ears were continually pricked for the sound of an engine; our eyes futilely searched the gray above for a sight of movement. But it was pointless, and we knew it. If an airship passing so closely overhead had not seen us, what chance was there of any other doing so? Yet we went
on watching compulsively, torturing ourselves with impossible hopes.

In a way it was a relief when dusk put an end to it. I looked out as the horizon drew in and wondered what our chances were of surviving the night. The wind seemed to be increasing again. We had summoned up reserves of strength in shouting and waving to the airship, but I doubted if any remained. I could not see us bailing out with our hands in another squall. Drowning, anyway, would be better than lingering on.

Kelly and Sunyo had changed places, and Sunyo was now lying in the water at the bottom of the boat. He was sleeping, and I thought that Kelly, slumped in the bow, was asleep also. But he said something in a low voice which I did not catch.

After a moment he spoke again, more clearly. “Over there. . . .”

I felt I ought to say something but was almost too tired to utter. I mumbled, “What?”

“Could it be land?”

He was talking in his sleep, I thought, or maybe delirious. There was nothing but sea.

He said, “Dead ahead. Behind you, that is. Could it be?”

I turned, awkwardly. More sea stretched interminably away until it merged into the deepening murk of sky. I felt a small flash of anger at him, but was too weak to feel anything strongly.

I was turning back in silence when Kelly said in a louder voice, “I think it is land!”

Was
that a darker line between the two grays? I thought I saw it, lost it, saw it again. It was tantalizingly uncertain. Sunyo had better vision than either Kelly or I, and I leaned forward and put out a hand to wake him, but Kelly stopped me.

“Don't. No point in raising false hopes. Even if it is land, what can we do about it? It must be a ­couple of miles away, and I doubt if any of us has the strength to swim a couple of yards.”

I saw the point, and we sat and watched in silence. It was certainly land, a coast that stretched away into darkness, and after a time there could be no doubt that the tide was taking us in. But slowly, slowly, and I was all too conscious that tides could change. In that case we would drift back into the night that was
rapidly closing down, a night that must be final.

Declining visibility and the narrowing distance contended with one another. The coast ahead was only a blur, but the blur grew nearer. We wakened Sunyo at last, and for a moment he, too, stared unbelievingly. He started trying to paddle with an arm over the side of the boat, and Kelly and I did the same. We were so feeble that our hands could do little more than brush the surface, but we had the illusion of doing something.

Under an almost black sky we drifted in toward a black shore. I heard a grating sound, and felt the weird sensation of something solid underneath us. We had reached land.

6

I
SCRAMBLED OVER THE SIDE
into the water. Stones rolled under my feet. I was submerged to the waist and a wave surged up into my face, making me gasp and almost making me lose my hold on the boat. I saw Sunyo try to rise and fall back.

I asked Kelly, “Do you think he can get out? Or can you heave him over to me?”

Sunyo said weakly, “I'm all right.”

He needed help all the same. Between us we got him into the water, and I supported him as we staggered up toward the beach. The sea grew shallower, and suddenly I was on dry land. That was when,
without the buoyancy of the water, weakness really hit me. I staggered another step or two and collapsed. Sunyo managed to stay upright a moment longer; then he went down as well.

Behind us, Kelly was trying to drag the boat up out of the water. He called for help, and somehow I summoned the strength to go back to him. We hauled on either side of the bow, pulling the boat up onto the shingle. It came a little way and stuck. Kelly urged me to pull again, and I made another effort with my aching arms.

With a wrench and a screech of stones the boat moved perhaps a foot and stopped.

I said, “That's it.”

“We've got to get it higher.”

“It's high enough.” I didn't feel I had the strength to pull a kitten across a polished floor. “I'm going to see to Sunyo.”

In the darkness I almost fell over him. I started lifting him, but he got up by himself. We tottered together over the scrunching pebbles, and I wasn't sure who was helping whom. Somehow we made it to a point where our progress was barred by a low escarpment, no more than knee high. I felt sand, and
tufted grass growing along the top. I heaved myself up, and Sunyo flopped beside me. Kelly, reeling along behind, came up with us a few seconds later.

We lay in utter exhaustion. I felt wide awake in mind but physically deadbeat to the point of helplessness. I considered the possibility of lifting a hand from the sand on which it lay, but the effort would have been altogether too much. I was fully aware of my surroundings, though, and in particular of the wonderful absence of movement, the solidness of the earth beneath me. I could hear the murmur and growl of the sea as it rolled pebbles up and down the beach. Let it roll them—incredibly, we were free of its clutches.

Kelly said, “The boat. . . .”

“What about the boat?”

“We ought to have another shot at getting it out.”

I heard him struggle to his feet, looked up at his dim figure, and marveled at the feat. I thought again of lifting my hand but did not try. Kelly bent down and tugged at me.

“Come on, Clive.”

I would have been angry if I had had strength for
it. And suddenly I was tired in mind as well as body, with sleep rolling in on me like a wave—but dry and comforting, not wet and violent.

I said, yawning, “Boat's all right. Stop worrying.”

He said something else, but I wasn't interested. I had a vague impression of Kelly himself lying down before the wave blanked me out.

• • •

When I woke there was the light of dawn in the sky, my limbs were aching, and my mouth and throat were dry. I tried to swallow and couldn't. Thirst seemed to have spread through every inch of my body; quenching it was all I could think about. Sunyo and Kelly were sprawled asleep beside me and the sea rumbled behind us. I did not wake them but managed to stand and take a few steps forward. It was dark still, but I saw the shapes of trees in the distance and hobbled in that direction.

Between the top of the beach and the line of forest lay about fifty yards of small sandy dunes, thinly sprinkled with grass. The dragging sand made my feet leaden, but the thought of water kept me going. I could see the trees more clearly, their tops moving in a light dawn wind; in this light they
were gray rather than green. A single bird gave a hoarse, shrieking cry. Apart from that, there was no sound but the sigh of the wind, the more distant roar of the sea, and the scuffing of my feet in the sand.

Soon I was near enough to pick out individual trees, but I was aware of the dark unknown behind them. I heard a noise ahead—a sharp, cracking sound like someone breaking a stick. Or something. I stopped and, as I did so, heard, in a stillness as the wind dropped, something else—a low continuous gurgling, the ripple of running water. I plunged recklessly forward into the forest.

It had sounded misleadingly near. I hunted among the trees, with bushes tearing my clothes. I thought I had lost it; then it was quite loud. The floor of the forest rose and dipped and the stream was in front of me, running between high banks, narrow but swift.

I half scrambled, half fell toward it and put my face into the water, gulping like an animal and afterward cupping my hands to drink deeply from them. Gradually the fierce ache of thirst grew less. I drank again, but more slowly, and rubbed water into my
face with my fingers. Then I got up, climbed the bank, and set off to find the others.

Although I thought I had come out of the wood not far from where I had entered it, I could see no sign of Kelly and Sunyo. The sky was lighter and I could see the ridge plainly, but there was nothing there but sand and grass. Could I possibly have confused my direction so completely, or had they perhaps seen and followed me? I was turning back toward the wood when I heard faint voices from the opposite direction. They must be on the beach.

I called and waved from the escarpment and they came toward me across the shingle. Sunyo looked bad in the harsh morning light, his skin very yellow and drawn tight over the bones of his face. Kelly looked strange, too, but I soon realized it was from anger rather than illness.

He said in a hard whisper, “Do you have to shout like that? Don't you understand these are the Outlands? Do you want a horde of savages whooping round us?”

“The beach is deserted,” I said. “You can see for miles. There's nothing the other way either, except
empty forest. What were you doing on the beach, anyway?”

“Looking for the boat. We didn't find it. If you'd been willing to make an extra bit of effort last night, we could have got it up. As it is, the tide's taken it. It's probably halfway to France by now.”

“What difference does it make?”

“The difference between being stuck in this godforsaken hole and perhaps finding our way along the coast to somewhere more promising. That's all.”

“A boat,” I said, “—without oars, with a broken mast and no sail.”

“We could have made oars.”

I laughed. “Using what?”

“Or rigged a jury mast and some kind of sail—with our shirts, maybe.”

“You have to be crazy.”

I was angry enough to hit him but had a horrible suspicion that if I tried to swing I might fall over.

Sunyo said, “Forget it. The boat's gone and there's no point in arguing about it. We have other things to think of—food and water in the first place.”

His calmness cooled our tempers. Kelly shrugged.
I said, “The water problem's solved, at least. I found a stream, just inside the wood.”

Kelly's face cleared completely. He said, “OK, Macduff. Lead on.”

• • •

I led the way up over the escarpment and across the dunes to the forest. I could see it more clearly now and get some idea of its density and vastness. There was high ground far off, as thickly wooded as that which confronted us.

Viewing it without the urgency of thirst, I had a quick and terrifying understanding of where we were and what all this was. The Outlands. There was no telling what might lie among the dark tangle behind the gently waving screen of leaves. I thought of the wild beasts of the servants' stories. A sound in the distance rose and fell: the wind in the trees or the howl of a wolf? I stopped abruptly.

Kelly said, “What's up? You forgotten the way?”

Or savages calling to one another—perhaps already aware of us and moving forward in a closing circle for the attack? Sunyo was looking at me, too.

I took a grip on myself and said, “I wasn't sure for a moment. It's over there.”

We pushed through the undergrowth into the wood and found the stream, and they drank their fill. I drank again myself, even though I wasn't thirsty.

When we stood up at last, Kelly said, “That's a lot better. All we need now is food. Any sign of coconuts or breadfruit trees?”

The trees surrounding us seemed to bear nothing but leaves, though those in abundance. I did not recognize any of them; they were certainly not the planes and ornamental cherries and evergreens that grew decorously in rows in London parks. There was nothing in the least decorous about these trees. They grew in a wild confusion and competition, some strong and broad-trunked, others thin and sickly and overshadowed. It all looked mixed up and pointless and depressing.

Sunyo said, “There's nothing here. We'd better go on.”

Kelly nodded. “Follow the stream.”

“I don't agree,” I said. “I think we ought to get back in the open and go along the coast.”

“What's the point?” Kelly asked. “We know what there is there—nothing but sand and shingle and seawater.”

“We might catch fish.”

“With what? And how do we cook them?”

“At least we'd be able to see where we were going. You can't see more than a couple of feet ahead of you in this jungle.”

That was what I found unnerving: not being able to see, coupled with the feeling that something might at any moment emerge from the next bush.

Kelly said, “Well, I'm for following the stream. It must lead us somewhere—maybe to a river.”

I said stubbornly, “It's more likely to lead back to the sea; in which case we've wasted time and effort and are no better off. I vote for the beach.”

Kelly looked from me to Sunyo, who said, “I think Kelly's right. And it means staying close to fresh water. That might be important later on.”

Kelly said, “OK, Clive?”

I thought of arguing but was too tired and hungry and fed up. I remembered again that but for him I would probably now be at home, perhaps watching early-morning TV, with Bobby bringing me my breakfast tray. I shrugged.

“Just as you like.”

• • •

So we followed the course of the stream, though from time to time we had to leave it and detour around patches of dense undergrowth. At the beginning I expected that we would fairly soon come out to the sea—the stream could not have been more than a hundred yards from the beach at the point where I had found it—and that I would have the satisfaction of seeing my point proved. But we remained in the forest, progressing, as the growing light in the sky in front of us showed, steadily toward the east.

No one said much. As we went on, I began to think more clearly and logically about our position. The coast onto which we had drifted ran more or less east-west. Unless it was some freak of geography, that made it overwhelmingly probable that we were on the south coast of England. There were three cities situated on that coast: Plymouth, Southampton, and Dover. The likelihood was that Southampton was the nearest and also that we were heading roughly in that direction.

My spirits improved when I had worked this out. In a few hours—at any moment, even—the trees might thin to give a view of cleared land and the
city's wall in the distance. Then all I had to do was go to the gate and call the guard. Mr. Sherrin would pick me up, and I could visiphone my father; he must surely be back in London by now. I wondered if there would be a chance of seeing Miranda before I caught the airship back.

As for Kelly and Sunyo, presumably they would have to return to the island. But I was sure my father would be able to do something to help them, even if he could not get them released right away. And being sent back to the island was better than wandering, lost and starving, through the Outlands.

We had seen nothing so far but trees and plants, but I was not much reassured by that. And the plants themselves were so alien. I thought of those in the city parks, bearing big colorful blooms, each with its name-tag. Flowers grew here, beside the brook, but the blossoms were small and unobtrusive. They were dull. The Outlands were dull altogether—dull and unfriendly and unsettling.

Kelly stopped by a bush hung with blue berries. He said, “They look like huckleberries.”

“Huckleberries?”

“I saw them in a park in Boston, when I stayed
with my aunt. They're OK to eat. Do you know if huckleberries grow in England?”

I shook my head. “Not in London, anyway. I wouldn't try them if I were you.”

Kelly did not answer but plucked a berry and put it in his mouth. He made a wry face and spat it out again.

“No, thanks. I'm not that hungry.” He stared at the stream, here rushing fiercely over tumbled stones. “You think there could be fish in there?”

“I've not seen any. I should think it's too shallow. Even if there were and we could catch them, as you said, we've no way of cooking them.”

“I could eat mine raw.” He grinned at Sunyo. “Don't you eat raw fish in Japan?”

“Specially prepared and with sauces. But I agree with you. I could do without the sauces.”

The patch of light marking the presence of the sun was still ahead and fairly high now. The cloud cover seemed to be thinning; occasionally we had a glimpse of a bright disk. It was gradually growing warmer, too; our wet shirts dried on our backs. We were very tired, and hunger nagged more sharply with the passing hours. Had I not read some story
of the Dark Ages, in which people had nibbled bark from the trees? It was no longer incredible.

There had been occasional clearings, mostly where rocky outcrops kept down the vegetation, and I assumed the new one we reached was of the same kind. But there were differences. For one thing it was bigger in extent, perhaps fifty yards across, and it also had a regular, almost squared-off look. But I was more immediately concerned with the sight of the animals which rushed from it through the bushes only a yard or two from where we stood. They were as big as dogs but fatter, with gray hairy skins and stubby legs, on which they moved with a surprising turn of speed. They made grunting noises as they went, and I recognized them from pictures. They were pigs.