Castaway Forever

When Roy woke up, he had no idea where he was. The last thing he remembered was sailing on a calm sea on his way from Aukland to Guam. He was ready to set the autopilot and turn in for the night when he saw the looming crest of a giant wave blocking out the stars off to his starboard. He spun the wheel to head "The Lucky Sarah" into the giant wave. The sailboat climbed slowly up the wave, reached the top, and then plunged down the other side. As she crashed back down on the water, her bow dipped into the wave and she pitchpoled onto her deck. Roy remembered being thrown clear and hitting the water. Then everything went black.

Roy sat up and found he was sitting on a coral sand beach about ten feet from the waves that lapped at the shore. He still had his life jacket on, so he figured he'd somehow managed to not drown and had been washed up on one of the little islands east and south of Bougainville Island. Judging from the direction from which the wave came, he was probably still in the Solomons. That was pretty unbelievable, but here he was, alive and sitting on the white sand and looking at the coconut palms that lined the shore. Out to sea, he could see the waves breaking over the coral reef about a hundred feet out.

His first thought was to see if The Lucky Sarah had washed up somewhere on the beach. If she had, she'd probably have been beat up pretty badly coming over the reef, but some of his supplies were in waterproof, floating containers, so they'd probably have been washed ashore.

He couldn't see anything on the beach in either direction, so he started walking what he thought was north by the position of the early morning sun. Half an hour later, he rounded a point and saw one of his supply containers floating a few feet off shore. He waded out and pulled the container up on the sand.

The container was marked "COOKING STUFF" in black marker, so Roy knew what it contained. It held his backups for the things he used to cook and eat his food. When sailing the open ocean, it was a good idea to have some spares of things you couldn't do without. In that container were one skillet, a one gallon pot, the two sets of plates, bowls, and tableware he'd never used, and four boxes of kitchen matches he used to light the alcohol stove on The Lucky Sarah.

Roy pulled the container far enough onto the beach that the waves wouldn't take it back out to sea, and started walking again. A few hundred yards up the beach, he saw two other containers.

One container was marked "TOOLS" and the other was marked "SPARE PARTS". Roy knew the first one contained the wrenches and other tools needed to work on the little diesel auxiliary and the boat proper. In the second was a supply of electrical wire in various sizes, a hundred feet of the stainless steel cable and fittings to replace a broken shroud, and three hundred feet of nylon rope to replace a broken or worn halyard.

Roy pulled that container higher on the beach and started walking again. After half an hour, he hadn't found anything else, so he turned around and started back.

He was thinking this was like he'd read in the book "Robinson Crusoe" except Crusoe had found a lot more stuff from his shipwreck. Roy had hoped to find some of his canned goods, but those were probably heavy enough they just sank. Roy only had some cooking equipment, some tools, some rope and wire, and some matches. He could cook food, but he had to find the food first.

As he started back dragging the two containers in tow, Roy was concerned, but not overly so. He'd spent the past ten years sailing around the South Pacific, and he'd learned a lot from the natives on the islands. He also knew there were fishing boats and cruise liners that sailed around these islands. He knew enough to survive until he could signal a passing boat or ship. He'd have to build a shelter because of the rains that came almost every day, and he'd have to catch fish and crabs, but he'd be all right.

After dragging all three containers to the place where he came ashore, Roy started walking down the beach to the south looking for anything that might have washed ashore from The Lucky Sarah. He didn't find any more containers, but he found something better. There, on a higher part of the island and about a hundred feet from the beach was an old US Army Quonset hut.

The red cross in a white square on the arched roof told him it was probably a US field hospital during WWII. He'd seen them on other islands before. The US built field hospitals on some of the smaller islands and they served as the first step in treating wounded soldiers who were well enough to make the trip from an island where the US was fighting the Japanese. From these small hospitals, the wounded who needed more care would be transferred to a hospital ship. The soldiers who had only minor wounds were kept there until they were again fit for battle. Usually these field hospitals were large tents, but he'd seen Quonset hospitals before when the installation was more permanent.

The Quonset hut looked to be in pretty good shape considering it was at least seventy years old. The wooden ends were mostly rotted away, but he walked all around it and didn't see any holes in the corrugated steel roof. When he went inside, he smiled.

Like many US, British, and Australian remote bases in the Solomons after WWII, the personnel were taken off the islands, but a lot of the equipment was left behind. It wasn't worth the cost of transporting it back to civilization. Inside the building were twenty steel cots, ten steel tables, and six steel chairs. In a cabinet on one side of the hut he found some of the deep trays he'd seen doctors using in the movies along with some boxes of bandages. The paper boxes disintegrated when he touched them, but the bandages were sealed in foil, so they would still be in good shape should he need them.

The mattresses on the cots had rotted away long ago, but he'd have a bed at night now too. Roy went back for his containers and dragged them to the Quonset hut, then walked around outside the hut to see if there was anything else left.

He found some squares made of rotted wood. Those would be the wood floors of the tents for the doctors and nurses. Like the mattresses for the cots, the tents were gone now. One of the tent floors was larger than most, and when Roy pulled aside some vines that had grown up through the rotting floor, he discovered the tent had been a mess hall. There was a stove that probably had used diesel fuel so that was of no use to him. What would be useful were the large steel pots he found stacked in a corner. A couple had holes rusted through the bottom where they'd sat on the rotting floor, but the ones above were rusty but still intact.

As he moved deeper into the jungle around the camp, he found a small stream. After tasting the water, Roy grinned. It was fresh, probably from a spring somewhere in the interior. It was likely that's why the field hospital had been located here. He'd have water to drink and cook with now.

Roy's stomach reminded him he hadn't eaten in a while, so he went back and walked the beach in search of food.

Roy settled for two coconuts he found under the palms and took them back to the Quonset hut. Using a screwdriver and a hammer from his tool kit, he husked the coconuts and then broke them open. The white flesh inside the shell was still fresh, though he lost most of the coconut milk from the first. Before opening the second, he used his screwdriver to punch holes in the three eyes of the coconut, drained the liquid into a cup from his container, and then broke it in half with his hammer. The coconut meat wasn't especially tasty, but it was filling, and Roy knew coconuts were a staple food on most of the islands in the South Pacific.

After eating, Roy arranged his cooking stuff on a table he found at one end of the hut, picked up his gallon pot, and then went back to the beach. He wanted more to eat than coconuts, and as he walked, he watched the tidal pools for fish and crabs. Fish would be trapped in these tidal pools when the tide ebbed and would be easier to catch since he had no fishing equipment. Crabs seemed to be everywhere, skittering sideways in their search for food among the flotsam of seaweed and other materials left by the outgoing tide. Roy recognized some of them as the same blue crabs he'd had at restaurants in Aukland.

Roy had seen several fish swimming in the tidal pools. Most looked like some sort of grouper, or at least they looked like the groupers he'd caught when fishing from the deck of The Lucky Sarah. They were good eating, so he put making a way to catch them one of his priorities.

After catching his dinner, Roy's next task was to gather enough wood to make a fire so he could cook that dinner. He found a lot of driftwood on the shore. It would burn, but it was thick and would be hard to light. Then Roy remembered the coconut husks. He'd seen natives burning coconut husks in New Guinea. Half an hour and a dozen coconuts later, he had a fire and was slowly adding driftwood to it.

Roy dumped the crabs from his cooking pot into one of the pots from the mess hall, filled his cooking pot with water from the stream, and then sat the pot on the coals of his fire. When it was boiling, he dropped in the crabs and waited until the crabs changed color to red.

Roy ate the crabs like he'd eaten them in Aukland. He used his hammer to break open their shells and used pliers to crack the legs. When he finished eating all of them, he reflected that they'd have been better with a little butter, but were still pretty good.

Roy then sat in front of the Quonset hut until the light faded and the stars began showing themselves in the darkening sky. The familiar constellations appeared, the constellations he'd used to double-check the GPS on The Lucky Sarah. When the last light faded, he went inside the hut, stretched out on a cot, and was soon asleep.

The next morning, Roy woke to the sun streaming through the open end of the hut. He swung his legs off the cot, sat up, and stretched. His plan for today was to walk the beach again. It might be that more of The Lucky Sarah had washed ashore, and the more he could get, the better off he'd be. After a breakfast of coconut meat washed down with coconut milk, he started south again.

He'd walked about a hundred yards when he spotted something just at the water's edge. As he got closer, he realized it was a smashed native canoe and beside it was a man dressed in blue jeans and a light blue shirt. He ran the rest of the way and knelt down to roll the man from his front to his back. When he looked down then, he saw this was no man. This was a woman and she didn't look like most of the islanders he'd seen. Her long hair was coal black and her skin was a pale tan in color, but her features were finer and she was slender.

The woman gasped then, and opened her eyes.

"Where am I?"

Roy smiled.

"I don't have a clue except I think it's an island somewhere in the Solomons."

The woman frowned.

"The Solomons? I can't be in the Solomons. I live on Fauro Island. I can't have come this far."

Roy smiled.

"Well, you're here, and if we don't get you out of the water, you'll get washed back out to sea. Can you walk?"

When they were back at his hut, Roy asked if the woman was hungry. She said yes, so he husked and cracked a coconut for her.

"Sorry this is all I have. I haven't been crabbing or fishing yet."

The woman smiled.

"It's fine. I've been eating coconut all my life."

Roy sat quietly while the woman finished the coconut and then asked her what she remembered.

The woman wrinkled her brow.

"I live in Kariki and I was in my canoe going to visit my aunt. She lives just across the bay. I've done it hundreds of times since I was old enough to paddle a canoe by myself. I remember being about half way there when I saw this big wave. I paddled into it, but when my canoe was going down the other side, I slipped and fell down into the bottom. That's all I remember."

"That sounds like what happened to me except my sailboat wouldn't stay on the waves like your canoe must have. It looked like you tore out the bottom coming over the reef though. You're lucky it made it to shore."

The woman looked at Roy and frowned.

"Who are you?"

Roy smiled.

"Roy Atkins" and you are?"

"I'm Kailani. It means 'the sea'"

Roy chuckled.

"Well, that fits you since you came from the sea. You uh...you don't look like a typical island woman though."

Kailani frowned.

"I am not. My grandfather was an American. He met my grandmother during the war, and came back after the war was over. They say I look a little like him."

Roy stood up.

"Well, Kailani, I need to go find us something for lunch. You rest here while I'm gone."

As Roy walked down to the beach for more crabs, he was more than a little confused. He was certain the big wave that sank The Lucky Sarah had come from the east. If Kailani had been hit by a big wave, it had to have come from the north. Never in his ten years of sailing had he known waves to come from two directions at once. It was possible Fauro island had diverted the wave, but it was still odd.

When Roy brought one of his mess hall pots with two dozen blue crabs back to the hut, he saw Kailani crouched over the fire holding something on a stick. Roy thought the fire had gone out during the night, but Kailani must have found a few embers and rekindled it.

She smiled when he walked up and asked what she was doing.

"I started a fire and then went into the trees to see what I could find. I found a breadfruit tree and I'm roasting some over the fire."

"How did you start a fire? You didn't have any matches."

Kailani smiled and held up a piece of charred wood and a length of something that looked like a vine.

"I started a fire the way my mother taught me -- with a stick and a piece of rattan. There is rattan all over."

"You found all that in the jungle?

Kailani nodded.

"Yes, and there is a lot more there. I saw bananas, sweet potatoes, taro, and a lot of other plants we can use. I also saw where pigs had been rooting and I saw some goats.

Roy didn't believe her.

"I didn't see anything like that. All I saw was trees."

Kailani chuckled.

"You didn't know where to look. I do."

Kailani looked at the breadfruit on her stick, then pulled it off the stick and put it in a shallow dish sitting near the fire. She was slicing another slice from a large, green fruit when Roy asked her where she found the knife. Kailani pointed in the direction of the former mess tent.

"Back there. There was a metal box all covered with vines under a table. When I looked inside it, there were knives and ladles and all sorts of things used for cooking. This knife was rusty, but I cleaned it with sand and sharpened it on a rock I found on the beach. It works pretty good."

Kailani wouldn't let Roy cook the crabs. She told him cooking was woman's work. Roy sat in a chair and watched her.

She was something else, he thought. He'd resigned himself to eating crabs until he was rescued, but Kailani had the knowledge to find food in the jungle too. He wasn't sure if he believed her story about goats and pigs though. He thought he'd have seen or at least heard them. They'd still have to depend on the tidal pools for meat.

That reminded him that he needed a way to catch fish. He'd start that task after they ate.

When they finished eating, Kailani took the pots and everything she'd used down to the water and washed them. Roy opened the container labeled "SPARE PARTS" and took out the stainless steel cable. He untwisted a strand about six inches long and cut it off with his pliers, then formed one end into the shape of a fishhook. He cut it off about an inch above the bend, and then bent the end into a crude circle. In an hour, he'd made six hooks. Now he needed a fishing line.

The coil of nylon rope furnished several strands of nylon thread that Roy tied together until he had a line about twenty feet long. He found a stout branch, tied one end of his line to the tip, and then tied one of his hooks to the other end of the line.

Kailani had walked into the jungle behind the hut when he started, and now she came back out with an armful of rattan. She sat the bundle on the ground and asked what he was doing. Roy said he was going fishing and started walking toward the beach. Kailani followed him.

She watched as Roy searched through a pile of seaweed until he found a small, dead fish, pushed his hook though the fish's back and then tossed the baited hook into the tidal pool. Roy sat down then, but kept his finger on the line.

After a few minutes, Roy pulled his line back in and found half the fish was gone. Kailani chuckled.

"The shrimp have stolen your fish. That's what they always do. Besides, your little fish was dead. Big fish like live fish."

Roy was becoming frustrated.

"Well, how am I supposed to catch a little fish so I can catch a big fish?"

Kailani smiled.

"I'll build a fish trap to catch little fish and big fish too."

"Won't that take a while", Roy asked. "What are we going to eat while you're making your trap?"

Kailani was still smiling.

"We'll eat a fish. Let me go make a spear."

About fifteen minutes later, Kailani came back with a slender, bamboo pole about five feet long. One end was split into two sections, and each section was sharpened into a point with a wicked looking barb.

Roy was amazed at how quickly Kailani had made the fish spear. He was also amazed when Kailani picked up her spear and waded into the tidal pool and began searching. Roy saw her slowly raise her spear, take another step, and then plunge the spear into the water.

The spear jerked as Kailani quickly moved to where she'd thrown it. She followed the shaft down into the water, and after moving her hand around a little, pulled a mottled brown fish out of the water. The fish was as long as her arm and looked like the fish Roy had seen swimming in the water. She was smiling when she brought the fish to Roy.

"This will be our dinner tonight. I'll dig some sweet potatoes to go with it. They can cook while I build a fish trap".

While he waited to eat, Roy went back to searching the old hospital camp. If he'd missed the box in the mess tent, maybe he'd missed something else that had been left behind.

This time, Roy checked each spot where a tent had been pitched. Most had at least one metal cot, but since they'd been exposed to the rain and heat, the cots were all in pretty bad shape.

In the fourth tent space, he saw something between the rotting boards he thought was just a rock, but when he pulled it out, it proved to be a small, US Army issue hatchet. The handle had rotted away, but he figured he could make a new handle.

Beside a tent quite a distance from the others, Roy found two things, one of which sent chills down his spine.

He had pulled the vines away from the floor and found nothing when a metal stake set into the ground several feet from the rotted floor caught his eye. He walked to the stake, pulled the vines to the side, and then stopped when he saw the dog tag hanging from the stake -- Harold Simms, PVT. US Army 18606135.

Roy backed away, and then scanned the area. He found about twenty more stakes and when he checked a couple, found each had a dog tag. These must be the graves of US soldiers who'd died at the hospital.

Roy carefully stepped away from the stakes and back toward the rest of the camp. He'd gone only a few steps when he saw a shovel nestled in a few vines that grew up a tree. The long, wood handle fell apart when he touched it, but like the hatchet, the metal part was rusted but still usable. Roy picked up the metal part and started back to the fire.

He'd gone about half way when he saw Kailani walking toward him. He had to stop and stare at her. She was naked from the waist down except for a pair of pink panties.