The Ridge

The Englishman whose name was Robert Carlton, as he introduced himself later, saw the girl who had been sitting next to him, struggling to get up from the sand, went to help her.

'Thanks,' she said, as he pulled her up. 'Sorry about that back in the plane.' He gave a laugh.

'Don't worry about that. I was nearly sobbing myself with relief,' and they walked up the sand together with the others straggling along.

'My name is Judy. Judy Latimer,' she said and he told her his. They, with the others joined the three Americans under the trees where all they got were a few drips but otherwise, the leaves kept most of the rain off them. The big man was still standing, the other two having sat down beside him like two sycophants at the feet of their master. We're going to have trouble with this one, Carlton thought as they grouped together before him.

'Well it looks like we're the only ones to get out of the crash alive,' he said, 'so let's get ourselves acquainted for we're going to be here for a few days at least.'

'Where are we?' the man he'd called Drew asked.

'How the fuck do I know! I wasn't the bloody pilot.'

As they didn't know, it had better be said that due to the force of the storm, they had been driven nearly five hundred miles north of their flight path and were now on a small island in the New Hebrides.

'My name is King. George King and this here,' indicating the man to his left, 'is Drew Krowanski, a Pollack. The other one is Liam Doughtey, third generation Irish and we all hail from the grandest state in the Union, Texas.'

'Hurrah for you,' said the fourth American somewhat sarcastically.

'I'm James Smith from Chicago.'

'John Rembok. Sydney.'

'Robert Carlton, London. England.'

'Ha! A limey. I thought so,' King said with an almost sneer. Carlton ignored this, knowing that the time wasn't right for a confrontation but knew, that they would have a coming together later in their stay on the island. As if knowing that he might react, Judy had taken his arm to restrain him from doing anything rash.

'Judy Latimer, from Sydney,' she said, still holding his arm.

'Carol Winters, Colorado.'

'Pearl White, Atlanta, Georgia.'

'Not the right name for you is it?' King said. 'It should be Black.'

This was definitely an insult for Pearl was a negress and Carlton couldn't let that go.

'Another insult like that,' he said, shaking off Judy's arm, 'and I'll deck you.'

'Oh, the Limey's got balls. Just try it,' King sneered as his two cohorts got up to stand beside him. Judy took his arm again and gave it a pull.

'Leave it for now,' she hissed at him, feeling him tremble with rage.

'Stacey Chalmers of Adelaide.'

'Toni Dent. Born in Alice but live in Brisbane.'

They all looked at the forlorn figure of the stewardess who had the most grief for having lost her travelling companions.

'Oh,' she started coming out of her reverie, 'Er, my name is Tiki. Tiki Newcombe. I was born in Rotorua but live in Auckland,' and dropped her head back down onto her arms as she sat with her knees up.

'Well there's not much we can do till daylight,' King said, 'so we might as well make ourselves as comfortable as we can in the circumstances till then.'

'I think we should all say a prayer for our deliverance,' Carol Winters said.

'We're not in Colorado now,' snorted King, 'and he didn't do the others any favours,' he said, waving his hand towards the broken aircraft. 'I'm going to get some sleep,' and he turned away and went a bit further into the trees followed by the other two.

'Well I'm going to say one,' she said and bowed her head and silently whispered to herself. Those still standing looked sheepishly at one another and slowly sat down and bowed their heads and closed their eyes.

*

It had been a restless night for most of them, one of the girls' waking up with a scream during the night before realising that she had been dreaming of the flight prior to the crash and the terror she had been in at the last few moments before it happened.

They were all awake before that short interlude between night and day when the sun started to show itself rising up to their left. They all slowly started to gather at the edge of the beach and looked at the wreckage of the plane that they had nearly died in and gave some thought to those that we still inside.

The sky was still full of clouds and the sun only shone through intermittently but it was warm enough for the men to take of their damp shirts to get what warmth they could from the sun.

Judy, with a shy smile at Robert Carlton, was the first female to take off her blouse to try and dry it. She was wearing a bra and when Carol Winters began to remonstrate with her for exposing herself, replied that a bra was just the top half of a bikini and asked if she went swimming fully clothed?

Tiki had already taken off her uniform jacket but now she too, took off her blue blouse and hung both of them over a bush on the edge of the beach to catch what sun there was. Carol was the only one who kept hers on.

'I like what I see,' Robert said to Judy, pointedly look at her covered breasts, 'but I would advise you to have a few words with the other girls to keep together or at least be in pairs and keep away from those Americans.' The last being spoken in a low voice.

'And you?' she smiled, frankly admiring his tanned and muscled upper naked torso.

'Oh I'm relatively harmless unless I'm aroused,' he smiled back at her.

'You were getting aroused last night with King?'

'That was anger, for he annoyed me the way he spoke to Pearl.' He wanted to continue but they were interrupted by Toni.

'Has anyone got a cigarette? I'm dying for a smoke,' she asked.

'Anyone got anything to drink?' Stacey chipped in, joining them.

'There's some on the plane,' Tiki said as she too joined the group and they all turned and looked at what was left of it.

'I think we'd better start thinking of salvaging what we can before the

salt water gets to it,' Robert said. 'Who can swim?' he asked. Both Stacey and Judy said they could and volunteered to help him at the wreck.

'Any of you men want to come for a swim?' he asked of the others as he walked out onto the sand. If they'd been standing on a wooden floor instead of sand, you would have been able to hear the shuffling of feet, which they nearly all looked down at.

'Okay,' he said accepting the silence as a definite answer of no. He turned his back on them and went down to the water's edge with Judy and Stacey behind him. He undid his belt and dropped his trousers before sitting down and taking off his shoes and socks before pulling his trousers off completely.

He stood up and turned round and even though he was wearing a pair of white underpants, both girls eyes automatically looked down at the bulge inside them. Judy also noticed the flat stomach and strong thighs and thought that he looked a fine figure of man as he stood in front of them with his hands on his hips. The girls still had on their bras which were nicely filled and were both wearing shorts but were bare footed.

'It's up to you but your shorts will take some time to dry out apart from being a drag in the water,' he said as he turned and began to wade out into the sea. He glanced back over his shoulder as he reached waist high water and saw that they had left their shorts on the beach. He grinned to himself as he took the few strokes to reach the main fuselage of the plane and held onto the jutting framework. He waited until they had swum out and trod water next to him.

'Well the damn thing is upside down so what we can see now is the cargo hold. We'll check this out first for I don't want you to go into the other part underneath.'

'Why?' asked Stacey, pushing her hair from her eyes as she too hung onto the side of the plane.

'Some of the passengers are still going to be in their seats, and I don't think it will be a pretty sight.' He turned then and getting a hold on what would have been the top part of the hold and heaved himself up onto his knees to find that the water level was only half way up his calves.

'Here,' he said to Judy, holding out his hand which she grasped and with one quick heave, pulled her up out of the water to find her footing. She noted the strength of him to be able to lift her up like that and noticed that he eyed her body at the same time. She suddenly remembered that her bra and panties were of nylon and that the material became almost opaque when wet. She was a liberated female and quite proud of her body so made no attempt to cover what could now be seen so clearly.

His eye had only lingered on her for a second or two but he had observed what he would liked to have seen in private. He turned and gave his hand to Stacey and pulled her up with the same ease and like Judy, all she had was clearly visible beneath the wet wisps she was wearing.

He turned abruptly for his thoughts were ranging far ahead of what they had to do for his body had started to respond to what he had just seen. He led the way forward into the dim interior to where there was just a mass of jammed wooden cases making any further passage forward impossible. There were many of them split open and the floor, or what had been the ceiling, was littered with cans, their labels slowly peeling off. He picked one up and read what were the contents.

'I hope everyone likes tuna,' he laughed as he tossed the can in the air to catch it as it fell. 'Though if we get through this lot, we'll never eat the stuff again.' He picked up one undamaged case and walked back to the opening and threw it into the sea to see if it floated. It did, but only just. There was just about an inch or two of the top of the wooden box above the surface.

'Okay, it floats. Now throw out as many as you can while I go down below to see what's down there,' he said, and jumped into the water to come to the surface and take in a lungful of air before pushing himself down and under and into the submerged section of the plane.

It was eerie to swim among the debris and see the drowned people still in their seats, hanging upside down, held there by their seat belts, eyes open in death and with shock on their faces. Small fish were already swimming about in little schools, darting away from their feeding as he approached them. There were only three rows still attached to what had been the floor, the rest, like the cargo hold, jammed pack tight against the forward part of the plane. An arm sticking out from between the mashed seats, moving slightly in the eddy he was causing as though beckoning him to join them.

There was no way he was going to get any further forward to where the galley was and so he swam back out for some fresh air. He could see floating boxes as he came out and nearly got brained as one landed next him as he broke the surface.

'Sorry,' came the voice of Stacey as he shook his head to clear the water from his eyes. He grinned up at her, liking to see the nipples standing out quite clearly through her still wet bra. 'Find any cigarettes?'

'No but if I do, you can have them, though I doubt if you'll be able to smoke them,' he said as he laughed.

'Look out below,' Judy called as she heaved another box into the water, it landing with a big splash. She started to turn but stopped and looked to the shore. 'I think Tiki wants a word,' she called down to him. He glanced towards the shore and saw the arm waving with a come on motion.

'Okay. Keep throwing them out. I'll push a couple ashore and see what she wants.' He turned and began jostling the barely floating boxes towards the shore and when he was able to stand, pushed two up to the water's edge. 'Get someone to start pulling these out of the water can you. Well, what did you want?'

He stood there, ankle deep in water, hands on hips and got the same kind of body appraisal that he'd previously got from Judy.

'Er,' she stammered, lifting her eyes up from where she had been looking. 'I...I'm not a good swimmer, but if you can help me up into that after part. I might be able to find some things we might need in there. It's like a spare cupboard if you know what I mean.' He looked at her slender light brown upper body, guessing that she had Maori blood in her somewhere, seeing her still wearing the tight pale blue skirt.

'Are you wearing panties?' he asked, keeping the smile off his face as he asked the question.

'Er, er, yes, why?'

'Well you won't be able to swim in that skirt. Get it off and we'll manage,' he said, now letting loose his smile.

At least it was not a lascivious grin that she quite often got in her job and quite liked the way his eyes crinkled up when he smiled. She half turned towards the others up on the beach, 'Come and get these boxes someone,' she called out as she undid the clips at the side of her waist and let the skirt fall to the sand. Even her panties must have been issued by the airline he thought, for they were of the same light blue colour as the rest of her uniform.

She smiled at him as she saw his eyes quickly rove over her body and took his proffered hand and walked out into the water with him. She waded out as far as she could before letting go and began to swim using the dog paddle method.

'Don't swim with your mouth open,' he said looking at her as he gently propelled himself backwards towards the rear end of the plane. Almost laughing at the way she tried to swim with her mouth closed, her cheeks bulging with the air she was holding in, but they made it, and she hung to the edge, gasping with the exertion. He inspected both sides of the fuselage and decided on the side she was hanging onto.

The deck was about a foot higher than his head and so he found himself a flat piece to put his foot on without cutting himself before talking to her.

'Now I want you to climb up me and onto the floor of the cabin. I'll hang on here to support you. Now, don't be alarmed when my hand comes up under your bum, for it's the only way to get you up there.' He smiled as he said this. 'Though under different circumstances, well....' Leaving the rest unsaid, she smiled at him, thinking of those unspoken words. She pulled herself round his body and reaching up one hand, with his help, got a hold of the floor and lifting her leg, found his bent knee. She felt her toes touch what she'd seen hidden inside his pants and smiled as she lifted herself up and felt his hand come up under her bum, his fingers almost touching what she wanted him to touch. He then strained his arm from that awkward angle and heaved her up so that her top half went over the edge and was then able to pull herself up clear. She turned round on her knees to reach out her arm but he told that he was okay and quickly pulled himself up and onto the floor of the rear cabin floor.

Though he didn't need it, she put her hand under his arm and helped him to stand which was an awkward position because the aisles of an aircraft are not that wide.

'Oh Christ!' she screamed and clung to him like a limpet at having just noticed the three bodies still strapped in their seats, their faces dead white from the blood that had drained out from the severed stumps of their legs. She was shaking violently and began to cry as he pushed her backwards towards the rear.

He tried to get her to sit down on what had been her seat but she still clung on, pressing her wet body up tight to him, almost sick with the horror that she had just seen, but needing his strong arms about her still shaking body. He kept making soothing noises into her ear until she stopped crying, her head still laying into the join between his neck and shoulder. He tried hard but couldn't stop his body from reacting to the one that was still pressing itself hard up against him. Her face then left his neck and she began to kiss his lips, rubbing her crotch against his tumescence. They clung to each other for several minutes as they kissed before she moved slightly and got her hand down between their bodies and put it inside his underpants and pulled his hardness out and began to give it a rub.

Suddenly letting go of it, she lifted her left leg high and pulling aside the gusset of her panties, lifted herself even higher and pulled his erection down to the entrance of her sex and then, hanging onto his neck, lifted the other leg up and put both legs round his waist as she sank down on him.

He gave out a gasp as he slid up inside her, now having her weight held up by the bulkhead she had her back to and her arms round his neck as he found that he was fully up inside her as she locked the ankles of her long legs at the back of his waist.

'Oh Christ! I've wanted this ever since I saw you get on the plane,' she gasped, wriggling slightly, feeling and loving his hardness where it was. Nature took over above reason and he placed his hands flat on the wall and bounced her up and down on him as they fucked. He felt her thighs tighten as she reached an orgasm and instead of screaming out as she writhed on him, bit into his neck instead. He came too, shuddering as he did so, his legs trembling at his own release but also from supporting the now dead weight of her body as she began to slump.

'Oh God I loved that,' she cried as her limp legs came down from around his waist and stood on her toes for he was nearly splitting her because he was still up inside. She held his face and covered it in kisses as he began to bend his knees to let her stand on the floor properly. He was still throbbing when he pulled out and she quickly went down onto her knees and sucked on his hard and hot organ.

He was still panting hard from the exertion and could only place his hands on her head as it moved as she sucked him. She eventually stood up and put him back into his pants and kissed him again.

'If there's a next time,' he said when he had the breath back, 'let's do it lying down, it's less exhausting.'

'Oh yes please!' she said breathlessly, still kissing his face.

'Have you forgotten why we came up here?' he asked when he got the chance.

'No. I got what I came for. What else is there?' she asked, her eyes really shining, flecks of light being reflected from the sunlight outside.

'The extra cupboard at the back here?' he asked mildly.

'Oh Robert! Or can I call you Bob? Trust you to think of mundane things at a time like this,' she pouted.

'Well we've got to come up with something,' he smiled.

'It did come up and I got it!' and laughed at her own joke but reluctantly let go of him and turned and opened the door to the small space that was sometimes used for excess items that some passengers brought on as hand luggage.

The room, if it could be called that, wasn't big enough for the two of them to get inside so he stood outside and waited for her to pass out what she could find.

'A medical chest! I forgot that was kept here, we might need that,' she exclaimed, passing it out. 'Cigarettes. Ten cartons.' These came out, Carlton knowing who would be grateful for these. 'A case of vodka.'

'Only two bottles,' he said. 'We can only carry so much the first trip. Leave the rest till later. Any food in there, that's more important?'

'No, it doesn't look like it. Souvenirs and such like, otherwise zilch.'

'Sunglasses, flight bag?'

'Oh yes. How many pairs?'

'Well how many people are there do you think on the island?'

'Okay, okay, twelve pair of glasses,' she said, passing them out, 'and one flight bag. That's about it,' she said as she backed out. He couldn't help but admire the backside view he was being given as she came out.

So with these items stowed in the bag, they went to go out when she suddenly stopped.

'Can't you do something about, about, them up front,' she said in a whisper as if they could hear her.

He went on to the open end and saw that some of the others had started to help by carrying cases of tuna up beyond the waterline. He noted that King and his henchmen were staying in the shade of the trees.