Marooned Ch. 01

The Cessna 180 came down hard on the water, the waves causing it to buck and pitch. The landing might have been successful had not a pontoon brushed against an unseen outcrop of coral just below the water's surface. The airplane lurched onto its side, perching on the coral and rocking unsteadily.

"We have to get out of here now," shouted the pilot, whose name was Gaston, as he attempted to open the door. One of the passengers helped him. The pilot climbed out of the leaning aircraft and reached down into the cockpit and helped Daisy first and then each of the four male passengers climb out. "Jump into the water," he said. "The plane is going to tip." Daisy and the men jumped clear of the aircraft into the deep water surrounding the coral head. The pilot was the last to jump and when he did the airplane tumbled over, ending upside down in the water and slowly sinking until only one wingtip was exposed.

"Can everyone swim?" asked Gaston of his five passengers floating in the water. After a chorus of affirmatives, he turned around to survey the nearby island. "The beach is 200 meters away. Can you make it? Kick off your shoes. And maybe your clothes."

The six people began to swim, shedding water-logged clothing and shoes as the difficulty of making progress in the heavy swells became apparent. Daisy was a strong swimmer. She suppressed a feeling of panic but remained close to the group to ensure that nobody needed help. When she made it to the beach all the men were there, lying exhausted on the sand. She made a point of walking out of the water onto the sand, but she was breathing hard.

One of the men sat up, looked at Gaston and said sarcastically, "Nice job, We get a bonus today. A visit to an island not on our itinerary." He extended his hand to Daisy who was standing beside him. "Hi. I'm Ben."

She took his hand. "I'm Daisy." She was suddenly conscious that she was wearing only a bra and panties and they were wet and transparent, leaving little to the imagination.

"I'm thirsty," said another man, getting to his feet. He looked at Daisy and they shook hands. "I'm Sam. Do you suppose there's any water on this island?"

"That could be a problem," she answered. She turned to Gaston who was sitting on the sand. "How long are we going to be here?"

"I don't know. We're not on the usual flight paths." He spoke English with a French accent.

"They'll look for us when we don't arrive. Won't they?"

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" Sam interjected incredulously. "Surely they will. You filed a flight plan? Didn't you?"

"No."

"You didn't? You fucking idiot. Nobody knows about this flight?"

"Nobody."

"Why? Are you a drug smuggler earning a little extra money taking on passengers?"

"I didn't file a flight plan. Leave it at that."

A balding man got up from the sand, and stood nose to nose with the pilot. "Do you mean that nobody knows where we are? We could be here for months!" He extended a hand to Daisy. "I'm Douglas. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Even in these circumstances." He smiled. Daisy took his hand. He sounded like he was English.

The fourth of the passengers stood up and shook hands with Daisy. He was youthful, handsome, long-haired and about nineteen years old, her age, and his name was Kevin. He spoke with an American accent. "Ben, Sam, Douglas, Kevin, and the pilot, Gaston." She reviewed the names in her head.

All four male passengers and Daisy were now standing in a circle, the men shouting at the pilot, Gaston, who responded with a Gallic shrug.

Ben sat down on the sand. "We need to find some water." He was handsome and in his mid-thirties.

"Let's move into the shade and see if we can figure this out," said Douglas, the eldest of the group. He had the air, even clothed only in underpants, of prosperity and leadership. A grove of coconut palms was only a few yards away and the group moved into their shade. Gnats swarmed around their heads.

"Water is the first problem."

"There's lots of coconuts. How much water is in a coconut?" asked Sam.

"A cup or two," said Daisy. "If the coconut is green."

"How do you know that?" Douglas asked Daisy.

"I was born in Tahiti. I'm half-Polynesian. But I've lived in the United States since I was 10 years old." The men all appraised her. She was of average stature with long, thick black hair that spilled down over her shoulders reaching almost to her bra. The dark of her nipples and pubic hair showed through her bra and panties. Her breasts were small. Her skin was a light brown color and uniform from head to toe. She had a few freckles on her nose, her teeth were sparkling white, and her face had a permanent smile framed by thick lips. She was a pretty girl with a touch of the exotic.

"It's going to take a lot of fucking coconuts to keep us alive," said Sam. "I don't suppose there's any chance there are people on this island."

"There used to be. Pearl fishermen may come here occasionally," said Gaston.

"Bugger," said Sam. He sounded like an Australian and had the solid thick build of a rugby player. He had a big smile and an ugly face.

"Let's focus on the priorities," said Douglas. He was standing. The others were sitting on the sand or on the trunk of a fallen coconut tree. "Does anybody have any idea about how to find fresh water?"

Gaston spoke up. "There's fresh water a few feet below the surface as you move away from the beach. The islanders dig shallow wells. Maybe we can find an old one." Gaston had the seedy, debauched look of a long-time islander, probably one who had fled France to avoid some unpleasantness, probably one who drank more than he should have. Unlike the others he had kept his flowered shirt on while swimming to the beach.

"Why don't you and I go look for one? How big is this island? Do you know?"

"Maybe five kilometers long and half a kilometer wide. I fly this way occasionally."

"Can we salvage anything from the plane?" asked Ben.

"Maybe, but the water's too rough to swim out there now. Any divers here?" Douglas asked.

"I've done a little," said Sam. "Tough job getting to the plane."

"Maybe when it quiets down you can find a coconut log and float out there and see if you can savage something." He turned to Daisy. "I saw that you're a strong swimmer. Maybe you can help?"

Sam responded. "Fuck yeah, Daisy. Maybe we can find Gaston's dope. Get high. And then die. No water. No food."

Daisy looked apprehensively at Sam. His penis was sticking out of the fly of his boxer shorts. She turned away from the sight. "I'll be glad to help," she said. He looked down and shoved his penis back under cover.

Two hours later, Daisy was gathering coconuts and Ben, who was British, and Kevin, the American, were cracking them open and drinking coconut milk when Douglas and Gaston returned. "Gaston found an old well," Douglas announced. "The water is brackish, but drinkable. We also found plantains and taro and a plantation of breadfruit trees, so we won't starve either." They all clapped enthusiastically. "But," he added, "We need to find a way to cook. Who knows how to make fire?"

After a long pause, Kevin raised his hand. "I was a boy scout. I know the theory, although I've never made a fire. But I'll try."

"We need to catch fish also. How are we going to do that?"

That was Ben asking. Daisy looked at him. "Ben, your leg is bleeding. What happened?"

Ben looked down at his calf. "I scraped it on the coral when we getting out of the plane. It's a minor wound."

"There's no such thing as a minor coral wound. They get infected and take forever to heal. We need to treat it."

"You know this?"

"Yes, I'm a nurse. Well, almost a nurse. I learned about coral cuts from my mother. Her name was Taina. Gardenia flower."

"We have no medicine."

"Let's wash it out with sea water. And then we'll bandage it to protect the wound from gnats and flies and sand."

"What do we use for a bandage?" Ben asked.

She looked around. "We could tear up Gaston's shirt."

Douglas interjected, "No, let's save the shirt. It's our best piece of cloth. Use somebody's underwear." He looked around. "All right, mine." He stripped off his boxer shorts and tossed them to Daisy. "I think we're going to get used to seeing each other naked. Might as well start now."

"Well, mate," said Sam. "I'll join you and preserve my underwear for better uses than covering up my tallywhacker." With that he pulled off his boxer shorts and hung them on a nearby bush.

"Let's all go commando. Except for you, Daisy," said Kevin.

Daisy shrugged. "I'm not special. There's latex in my bra. It might be useful for something." She unhooked the catch, pulled the straps over her shoulders, and put it on the bush along with the men's underwear. Then, she pulled off her panties and added them to the bush. The men all watched her. "Now, Ben, let's tend to that leg," As she and Ben walked to the edge of the lagoon, she added, "Fucking gnats," swishing them away from her naked body with her hand.

***

The next morning the sea was calm. Sam and Daisy, the best swimmers, planned to go to the submerged airplane and salvage what they could. The found a coconut log on the shore, put it in the water, and pushing it in front of them swam to where the airplane was stuck on the coral rock. Looking back Daisy thought to herself, "We're a long way from land."

Sam kept up a steady stream of good-natured profanities as they hung onto the log. "Fucking log, fucking ocean!"

When they reached the coral rock they pulled the log onto it. They walked gingerly on the rock which was sharp and hurt their bare feet. At high tide the rock was under water. Sam was staring down through the water at the airplane, clearly visible in the clear water, his bare, white bottom shining in the sunshine. "Well, the door is only five feet under water. I'll go down first and see what I can find."

Daisy looked at the submerged airplane. It was caught on the coral rock. Below and beyond were the deep blue depths of the Pacific Ocean. She shivered and felt a tingle of fear run up her spine.

Sam jumped into the water, pointed his head downward, and paddled to the closed door of the Cessna. He tugged on the door and managed to open it. He let loose of the door and it closed. His breath exhausted, he came back to the surface. "I'm going to open the door and go inside the cockpit. I need you to come down in one minute to open the door because I'm not sure I can open it from inside. Understand?"

"I understand."

Sam took a deep breath and dove into the water. He pulled the door of the plane open and glided inside the cockpit. The door slammed shut behind him. Daisy counted to sixty and then slipped into the deep water, breast-stroking downward to the handle of the door and pulling it open. Sam came out of the cabin in a rush and rose to the surface, his two hands full.

She followed him to the surface. He climbed up on the coral rock and gave her a hand to climb on after him. "Look what I found," he said excitedly, trying to catch his breath. "Tools." He unrolled a cloth pouch and within was a collection of wrenches and screwdrivers. And a knife!

"And look at this." He held up a small backpack. "A parachute under the pilot's seat. That fucking Gaston had a parachute for himself. And none for his passengers. It will be useful as rope and cloth. We can make you some knickers."

Daisy laughed. "There are better uses for the cloth than knickers." Despite herself she glanced downward at Sam's public area. He had a large, long penis and pendulous testicles. He wasn't circumcised.

"You couldn't resist a look, could you?"

She was embarrassed and giggled. "My turn," she said. "Same routine. Come down and open the door for me in a minute." She jumped into the water and paddled downward, pulled the door open with some effort, and glided inside the cabin. It was claustrophobic. She fought back fear as she poked her hands around the seats in the cabin.

The airplane shuddered and tilted more onto its side. "Oh, no," she thought. "I have to get out of here."

Through the window in the clear water she could see the depths below. Before she could get to the door, there was another shudder, and she felt the airplane break loose from the rock and float downward, falling, deeper. She tried to open the door to the cabin but the weight of the water held it tightly shut. She was running out of breath. The airplane was falling through the darkening water, the pressure on her ears and her nose was intense, and suddenly, the cabin door was open and there was Sam holding the door open for her, and she stroked out of the airplane, her lungs bursting, and propelled herself upward, side by side with Sam, and they hit the surface together, he holding her tight as she convulsed and tried to gulp air into her tortured lungs.

Sam took her hand and pulled her toward the coral rock and when she reached it she sat down on the sharp rock and leaned over to cough up water as Sam held her suspended over the abyss where the airplane had been. Slowly, her rasping breath returned to normal.

"Thanks," she said. "I thought I was dead."

"I thought you were going to be dead. We were lucky." He turned to face her and looked her over. "Hey, you're bleeding." He was looking down between her legs where blood droplets were mixed in with the water.

She laughed. "It's my period, silly boy."

"Yuck," he said. He held out his hand. "Mates?" They bumped fists. "Well, our expedition wasn't a total failure. We have a parachute, a knife, a pair of pliers, and a few wrenches and screwdrivers. We're not going back empty handed."

They eased into the deeper water, each at one end of their log, and pushed and pulled their way back to the beach where the other four men were sitting, watching, in the shade of the coconut palms.

***

Three weeks later and the five men and Daisy were still on the island. Not an airplane, nor a ship nor a sail, not a single sign did they see that they were not the last six people on the earth. They had enough food to eat and water to drink but desperation was just below the surface and its companion, rage, was breaking out.

None of them wore any clothes. The underclothing each of them possessed was tied up in a bundle, sheltered from the rain and protected from insects, saved for their day of rescue, should it come, when they could put on their garments and greet their rescuers in less than complete nudity.

Each had settled into a role. Douglas was the self-appointed leader. He spoke a cultured English; he was 53 years old, with a ring of gray hair around a bald head and the gaunt, knotty body of a dedicated runner. He chaired occasional group meetings, standing while the others sat in the shade of coconut palms. He turned round and round to address each of them during those meetings and Sam had christened him the "swinging dick." Douglas was the shelter boss, as he called himself. He built a small hut under which all six crowded into at night to sleep.

Ben, 40 years old was tall, slender, and soft-spoken. He had recovered from his coral wound and he and Douglas were the gatherers of food and cooks for the group. They walked several hundred yards to the center of the island every day and gathered plantains, dug taro roots, and knocked breadfruit out of trees. Ben was the cook. Lacking any utensils, roasting on the fire was the only cooking method. Charred breadfruit, plantains and taro roasted in pandanas leaves, and coconut meat and milk were on the daily menu.

Kevin, the handsome 22-year old American, was called "coco" because one of his jobs was to shinny up a coconut palm every day and throw down a dozen coconuts for coconut water and food. Kevin was also the fire boss. It had taken him three days, but he had finally created fire by rubbing two sticks together. Kevin was responsible for ensuring that the cooking fire never went out and he had built a large pyre on the beach, ready to light to attract the attention of a passing airplane or ship.

Sam, 35 years old and divorced, and Daisy, 19 years old, were the fishermen and the foragers -- but Gaston said that many large carnivorous fish living in the coral reefs were poisonous and only small fish and crustaceans were safe to eat. Sam devised fishing gear but his daily take was only a few small fish. Sometimes, diving among the coral reefs, they caught a rock lobster. They scoured the island for land crabs, often with claws six inches long and delicious when roasted over the fire. In their travels they also gathered palm hearts from young, sprouting coconuts.

Gaston, the pilot, was the water boss. In addition to collecting brackish water in the old well he had found, he devised ways of collecting water from dew and passing rain showers. With the water he collected, plus coconut milk, they had enough to drink.

Gaston had far more knowledge of life on a coral atoll than did any of the others, but he continued to draw wrath, blamed for the crash that had left them marooned on the island. He stayed to himself most of the time although Daisy tried to make him feel welcome in the group. Gaston was about 45 years old, a world-worn man with a paunch and the broken blood vessels on his cheeks of an alcoholic.

With each passing day the tensions within the group built up. Douglas attempted to soothe nerves, but managed only to inflame the others -- and some of that emotion was transferred to Daisy as she and Sam were perceived as allies. Ben was quietly depressed; Kevin was almost a child, going from wild elation to dark despair in a moment. Gaston, the pilot, was silent and sullen. He rarely spoke except to Daisy, and then in the French she barely remembered from her childhood.

The sexual tensions didn't help matters. All the men looked longingly at Daisy's naked body. Her close proximity to the men often resulted in an erection. Kevin, the youngest of them, turned red; Douglas turned away. She had washed Ben's coral wound in the sea and re-bound it with cloth every day for two weeks and while she was kneeling over his calf he always got hard. She pretended not to notice. Gaston ignored his erections and Daisy observed with interest that his penis had a peculiar bend in it.

Daisy spent more time with Sam than any of the others and the two were often touching each other as they fished and hunted crabs and dove for shellfish and lobsters. Sam became erect when they were close -- and sometimes pointed to it with humor. She once saw him masturbating on the beach after one of their close encounters. She wondered whether he knew she was watching.

The men all discussed sex as they set around their cooking fire or huddled together in their shelter at night. "Oh, God, please send me a woman. Fat, ugly, old -- I don't care. I just want a woman," was Sam's prayer. "I've never been without a woman this long." The others guffawed at that.

Ben was married and talked about his wife with love and affection. "The best woman I've ever had. Perfect ass and tits and she knows how to use them." Kevin reminisced about his college girl friends and told stories about wild parties and drunken dates. Douglas said little about his love life. Daisy only listened and smiled when the men looked at her longingly. None of them were aggressive with her, but all of them yearned for sex. Daisy was frightened at what might happen if she paired off with one of the men. Every day, relations among the men became tenser and more antagonistic as the expectations of rescue faded and hopelessness set in.

The blowup came with a trivial event. They were all sitting around the cooking fire eating dinner. Mild-mannered Ben was roasting small fish on a stick. Gaston plucked one of the fish off the stick. "God damn it, Gaston, you always take the biggest fish and leave us with the shit."

Gaston defended himself. "There are enough fish for everyone."