Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2019 18:13:00 +0000 From: Andrew Passey Subject: The Island Part 3 (Young Friends) Sam woke to bright sunlight, at first he didn't know where he was, then he remembered the events of the night before. As he slowly came to he realised the boat wasn't moving, well it was maybe rocking ever so slightly but not like last night. He opened his eyes and looked at. They appeared to have been washed up on a beach, the boat had a hole in it but it was the beach side, maybe it hit rocks as they approached Sam thought. He stuck his head up, the beach wasn't that big, it had a sort of sloped hill or cliff at one end and curved round the corner at the other, palm trees and foliage fell onto it from the interior. The only sound was the waves. They were quite clearly a long way from civilisation. "Will ,wake up" Sam said shaking him. Will opened his eyes, sheltering them from the glare. "Where are we?" he asked. "Dunno, we've landed on a beach" said Sam. Will did some thinking, they'd been on the boat for 4 days, then the lifeboat for a while. Thinking back to his maps, he tried to work out where they might have ended up, but it was hard without knowing how fast the boat was going, where they'd been hit and where the storm had taken them. "I guess we might be in north Sumatra? or maybe past that although not sure how much stuff is past that until we hit Ceylon. Need some height really, we could be on a giant land mass or a tiny island" he said. Sam was doing some thinking of his own, all the food was on the big ship, they'd need to eat to survive, but more pressing would be the fresh water situation. If it was a small island with no fresh water they'd be dead within a couple of days. Will looked at Sam, seing the way he was biting his lip nervously, even though he was worried himself he smiled and wrapped his arm around Sam "Don't worry Sam! Someone will come and rescue us, but it'll be an adventure. Like The Coral Island! Have you read it?" he asked, Sam shook his head but smiled slightly "Well at least I'm here with you. Right we need to act. We need to find fresh water as a matter of urgency, food source would be good as well and some sort of shelter." Will agreed and with some difficulty they pushed the lifeboat further onto the sand to prevent it washing away, picked up their bags and looked at each other. "Er which way?!" said Sam. Will grinned, "I think fresh water is more likely to be inland, however if we walk to that end of the beach and climb those rocks we'll get enough height to get our bearings". So off they walked, in their t shirts and pants, dry but crusty from the sea water. Will was just ahead of Sam and Sam felt his mind wandering when he saw his bum as he walked. "has he really had a dick up there? how does THAT fit in? and doesn't it get covered in shit" he said to himself. They reached the rocks and climbed up carefully, there were plenty of scrambling points and hand holds although carrying the bags made it tricky. Will reached the top and gasped, "What?!" asked Sam as he climbed up the last little bit. "It's beautiful!" Will said pointing down to the large curved beach below, bigger than the one they landed on. The clear blue water shimmered in the sun and was a glint of sunlight on water cutting through the beach from what was likely to be a stream. The interior was covered in palm trees with the odd hill poking out, it was hard to tell but Will was becoming convinced it was an island, there was quite a large hill, more of a mountain in the middle which made him even more convinced. "I think we're on an island, likely an old volcanic one and that's the old crater in the middle there. Looks like fresh water below and if it is volcanic it should be fairly fertile, if nothing else we'll have coconuts!" he said with a smile. "Look Will, down there! More boats on the beach!" Sam said pointing into the distance, Will squinted and saw where he was pointing, there looked to be 3 or 4 boats and figures around them which he guessed were boys from their ship. A couple of other boats were bobbing towards the beach. A more gentle path winded down from the top of the rocks to the beach and after half an hour they'd made it to the main group. There was a boy barking orders, and boys scurrying around. He turned round and saw Sam and Will, "Sam?!? What the bloody hell are you doing here" he said as he came and hugged him. Sam was in shock, "Mike!? But you weren't onboard our ship?" he said. Mike explained he was but had been seasick at first and by the time he was better everyone was confined to quarters. Sam grinned and said he was pleased he was there, and then told Will about Mike. He was a friend of the family and in Sam's scout group. Sam was relieved to see him, not only was he a familiar face he was a good leader and very resourceful. Mike was pleased to see Sam as well, he'd be a good ally, he was good at medical things, and (although Mike kept this next bit to himself) he was very cute. As was his friend Will. He was standing there just in pants and a t shirt and Mike wished those pants would fall off. "FOCUS MIKE!" he shouted internally and went back to barking orders. The remaining two boats had landed and the boys came over, "put your things down and help out. We need older boys helping build shelter over there with Dennis, younger boys can help fill water bottles and we need help to find food. Help those boys over by the coconut trees. Out of the crowd of boys Stan stepped forward. "Who put you in charge?" he asked. Mike sized him up, yep, he was going to be trouble. "No one did but someone needs to take charge and that's what I'm doing, are you going to help? Who are you?" "I'm Stan. And I think I should be in charge, Who are you?" . Mike sighed exasperatedly, "I'm Mike. Look Stan, it doesn't work like that, for now we need to work together. We need clean water which we have access to through that stream although ideally we'll find a better source inland, I'm concerned it'll get salinated in bad weather. We're going to roast out here and freeze out here in a storm like last night if we don't get some shelter built, even a very basic one, and we need food we need shelter and we need food." He then raised his voice to the new group and the others, "Anyone who is injured come over here and Sam will tend to your wounds". Will was impressed with Mike and he could tell a lot of the other boys were. Stan wasn't stupid and could read the group, He smiled at Mike and stuck out his hand, "Sorry, we got off on the wrong foot, it's been stressful, we lost some boys over the side along with our chaperone. It's obvious you know what you're doing and should be the leader, I'll help however I can. Why don't I go and help with the building, I've some experience of that". Mike smiled and shook his hand back, "Great idea and sorry i snapped, there's a lot to do and not much time, I could do with a good deputy" he said. Stan grinned and agreed. He walked off to help the building, smiling to everyone but mentally plotting. He wanted to be leader and he wanted to be balls deep in all those boys. He could be the king and have a harem of them! But it would take time, for now needed to keep Mike onside. Mike watched Stan walk away, "I need to keep an eye on him" he thought to himself, then barked more orders. Sam tended to wounds and Will helped him, the boys smiling at each other as they worked. The day flew by and as dusk came there was the beginnings of a shelter. Mike's friend John spent his day making sure all the boys were registered on his list. He was a kind sensible boy and was able to make sure the boys were all ok. Another older boy James took charge of food and by dusk there was coconut flesh and water for everyone. Mike called over Stan, John and James. "We've done well today, Stan, the shelter is coming on well. James, good work on the food. John, well done on the list and organisation. We need someone to be in charge of water" he said. Stan suggested Derek and Mike agreed. Derek came over to join the group at Stan's beckoning and Stan smiled to himself. He put his next plan into action. "You've led us great today Mike and I'm proud to be your deputy. In order to help with decision making we should form a council. Chaired by you, and then us four heads of each department as well. So me on Building, John Organisation and admin, Derek water supply and James food. We can then help make decisions together". Mike was suspicious but it also did make sense. "Agreed. I'll also suggest we add Sam to the council, he's basically going to be the doctor and medical expert so handy to have that point of view as well as being one of the younger boys so he can ensure we don't forget them" Stan thought to himself, that's 2 of mike's boys, and only one of his. He smiled, "Excellent idea! I'd suggest he's advisory only, he's still young and so probably shouldn't get a vote. Also if he had a vote that would be 6 of us, we really need an odd number so we always have a majority for any decision" There were nods around and everyone agreed, even though Mike secretly had major reservations. He didn't trust Stan one bit, but he had to play the long game. "Ok agreed. Now James, what's the total number of boys and age ranges" he asked. James got his paper out, "Total boys 48. Five 15 year olds who are all in this group, twenty 14 year olds, eighteen 13 year olds, five 12 year olds although they'll all be 13 within a couple of months." he said. Mike thought to himself that it was a lot of boys to feed, it was going to be busy and tough perhaps. "great, well let's think of the 12 year olds as 13 year olds so there are 23 in that group, 20 in the 14s, and us 5. I think we should draw up working groups and rotas, as well as sleeping cabins. Boys need their privacy if you know what I mean and I think priority should be getting smaller shelters built". Stan nodded, "our temporary shelter will do for tonight and while we work on smaller ones. I suggest we try and build 20 smaller shelters big enough for 4. So 5 for the 14s, 6 for the 13s and 1 each for each of us, that leaves 4 spare for illness etc as well as maybe one as an office. We can improve things as we go." Everyone agreed and Mike said we should hope to be rescued soon but plan not to be. Sam and Will lay next to each other surrounded by all the other boys, they were keen to mess around but knew it was too tricky. They held each other's hands as they fell asleep under the starry sky..