Azure blue turned into yellow green beneath me, and I knew what that meant. I should, I had spent the last few days hunting out such patches. A nascent coral island, not yet broken surface, perfect for diving.
Today, however, was different.
I was using a crosswind and gaining speed rapidly, with just the sound of prow cutting through water and wind on the canvas keeping me company.
My skin prickled from the heat, while runs of sweat left cooler paths across my back and side. My normally dark hair sun bleaching blond, my tan deepening, I was in heaven.
Today, the deep could wait, my fresh water tanks were running low and I needed to find land, substantial land with high grounds catching rain and rivers taking it back to the sea. I had done this before, and was used to the taste of water purifiers.
It was my third day at sea this time, and I had checked my charts that morning; my compass said I was heading in the right direction for such an island.
As I felt the smooth wood of the rudder beneath my hands, I reveled in the fact that I had broken all the rules; never dive alone, always notify others of your course, be responsible, be safe.
No, by the time I reached fifty, my life had been governed by rules, by safety, it had been long and it had had love, and I had wanted it to go on forever.
We hadn’t felt the need for children, so when she died I was left alone.
I grieved, then I followed the advice and tried to find something else of value in life, searched for a new purpose.
I had found none.
On the third anniversary of her death, I pulled out an old photograph album, testing to see if the fond memories could finally outweigh the pain.
I found that some did and some didn’t.
And I saw the pictures of our sailing holiday in the Maldives. Perhaps I could look at the them because she had taken most of them and hence none was of her. The yacht at anchor on a pure blue sea under gathering dark storm clouds, one I took of a heron by the edge of a lagoon, me heading off with a diving class, tanks on my back, wading into the water and turning back to give the newly learned ‘OK’ hand sign to her.
A memory, never caught on film, of her waking up one morning in her bunk, her face bruised and swollen. The suspicion from the others that I had beaten her, the rush to the main island and a hospital.
And the Japanese doctor asking if she had been snorkeling. “Yes, why?”
His smile, “You had your mask on too tight”. That and water pressure secretly as brutal as any punch.
I had closed the album, I had looked around me, at the furniture, the neatness, cleaned by obsessive housekeeping substituting for value of life.
I remembered that first sun tan, passing from red to deep mahogany, the wind, the ozone.
She didn’t like diving, so much of that holiday we had been separated. The first half, two weeks, we had spent aboard a yacht, the second holed up on an idyllic resort island. She, at first lazing on deck anchored at sea, latterly sitting on a deck chair placed in the shallow water, reading a book, sipping drinks, feet cooled by the lagoon.
Me, sailing a catamaran with a new friend, an ex Olympic yachtsman, or honing my new windsurfing skills, or heading out on yet another dive, to the ship’s graveyard or an isolated coral reef.
The fact she was alive meant that I could be without her, yet she was with me in thought, I could return to her.
Now, she was gone, we would never return to each other.
Then, I thought of alternatives.
Carry on like I had, missing her, robotically feeding my body, doing my work, sleeping and waking, not even half alive.
Or, as I had once projected as a young man, forget immortality, go for the short, exciting life, live hard and die young.
The latter too late now, but die soon was still an option.
Not a pathetic suicide, pointless, not some insane car crash or similar, no, just go out in style, having fun, living life until the end.
It all happened fast, like riding a tornado, trying to control what I did but really just going along for the ride. I sold the house, cashed in my policies, and in between sale and completion, searched the internet and the papers, looking for what and where.
Maybe God smiled on me once more, or maybe fate just indifferently pushed something under my nose. I don’t care, I found what I was looking for.
An ex-pat in Vanuatu had become homesick, he was selling both home and Yacht. I checked the geography, an Island in the South Seas, specifically between the Pacific and the Coral seas. An island surrounded by two oceans full of islands and coral reefs.
It took three months; to complete the purchases, to sort out my residency, to sell my remaining possessions, to arrange for a bank account on the Island and to transfer my money across.
Saying goodbye to my one remaining relative, a partially estranged brother, caused far less sadness than burning that photograph album. Sitting in a window seat, still feeling the thrills of actually flying, I looked down as the English ground fell away, and felt no regrets that I would never be returning. I wasn’t planning to live long enough to grow homesick.
When passing that submerged coral, that was my fourth such sailing in the six months since arriving on Vanuatu. Each time, I had ventured further, taken more risks, shedding the shackles of old habits and rules. Maybe this time I would go too far, take than one too many risks, but I was damned if I was going to die of thirst.
As a child, I think I was about eight, my family had emigrated to Australia, and we had travelled by cruise ship, only to return to the UK six years later. Ever since those cruises, I had always found flying so artificial, though I loved the experience. You would go to an international hotel, hop on a sterile characterless plane, land in another international hotel. Only when finally leaving the destination airport did some sense of having travelled, or having arrived strike you.
When you sailed, you saw the black dot on the horizon, watched as it grew closer and larger. Arriving took time, and the sense of journey was more real.
As I stared across the water, such a black speck appeared, land ho. It was in the right direction, this was my water supply.
I remembered story books I read as a child, how first seagulls, then seaweed and logs in the water confirmed land was near. I saw the gulls, but neither logs nor weed, but I trusted my eyesight and the maps.
If I had logged my journey, checked off the nautical miles, perhaps I would have found out earlier that I had found land too soon, that this was not the charted island.
When you sail, your sense of speed is fooled. With a tail wind, all is relative quiet, and you do not sense just how fast you are traveling. With a crosswind, however, the sound of rushing wind and flapping sails fools your senses, and you think you are moving faster than you really are. So, despite feeling that I was flying through the water, it took quite some time to reach that island.
My yacht was just outside the ‘small boat’ size, at thirty feet. I had a moderate cabin, galley, and even a small seating area. It was just within my solo sailing capability. It was also too large to beach. I dropped anchor by a small sandy bay and considered options. I had a small rubber dinghy, with an even smaller outboard motor, and could reach the shore while staying relative dry. I could also take a few larger containers for the water.
Or.
I could grab a small container and swim ashore, silently and without announcing my arrival. If I found water, I could always come back for the dinghy later. I decided on the latter.
Something always impresses me, when considering the size of an ocean. To run a hot bath takes, according to my old electricity bills, a fair amount of energy. To dive into an ocean and discover that the water is at body temperature staggers the imagination, the sun sure kicks out a lot of heat.
Carrying a billycan, I had to swim sidestroke, so I was lucky that the waves were calm and I made shore without too much trouble.
Unlike Robinson Crusoe, I found no footprints on the sand. I could pretend that this was my very own island. I looked around, hoping that a river mouth would be nearby and save trying to hack into jungle with my bare hands – I should have thought to strap a machete to my waist.
There were no obvious streams cutting across the sand, but it was a long beach and I didn’t need a major river, just a trickle that maybe was too small to see at a distance.
Walking barefoot on the sand, my stroll was relatively silent, possibly that is why the four wild pigs didn’t hear me and came running out of the jungle to play on the shore. The nature lover in me lasted just a few moments, as I smiled to see them play. Then, the idea of a freshly roasted pig on an open fire took over. After I had found my water supply, I would have to try my hand as a native hunter, with just cunning and a machete as tools.
I was in luck, at the far east side of the bay I found my stream. The water looked clear as I filled my can, but I’d still use the purifying tablets on the yacht. Now I had several reasons to come back with the dinghy; more cans, my weapon, and a means to take most of the cooked pork back later after feasting on the beach. I played with the idea of using my trident, a sharpened Neptune like fork on the end of a pole, used to spear crabs or lobster while diving. Somehow, the idea of being able to spear a running pig didn’t seem practical, I decided I’d have to corner the animal and use the machete.
I really should not have been successful, it was an insane idea born out of foolish hope. Yet, several hours later, a dead pig lay on the ground by my feet. I should not have been surprised at how loudly the boar had squealed, but it still shocked me. I stood with bloodied hands and looked at the first creature I had actually ever killed.
I was busy fighting back feeling squeamish while gathering wood for my fire, and so did not see the man come from out of the jungle.
I almost leaped out of my skin when a voice, coming from very close to me, stated “That is my pig”.
Such was my shock, I think every exposed part of my body was covered in goose bumps as I spun to face him. Forget the silly hat worn by actors, and the carefully tailored animal pelt suit, standing in front of me was a genuine Robinson Crusoe; medium length red hair, hacked rather than trimmed, a similar beard, clothes that, once upon a time, had been seen in some form of civilization, but now had taken on an identity of their own, never again to be called shirt and trousers, and bare feet. He was taller than my six feet, far broader than I and, despite my recent work sailing, looking a great deal stronger than me. He could have been anywhere from forty to sixty, guessing not just made difficult by his face being weathered, but also by the fact that he was absolutely filthy, grimed in ancient dirt. Hardly a semi-starved castaway, he still looked well fed and healthy.
He also looked extremely angry.
At least he spoke English. I smiled, “I’m sorry, I thought that they were wild.”
He stared at me for a moment, as though struggling with some idea, then spoke again. “This is my Island, everything on it, tame or wild, is mine.”
I tried to recall the name of the island from my charts, but I hadn’t really taken much notice of it. I had expected something so large to be inhabited, but not private as such. “I’m sorry, my charts didn’t have much information, I’ll gladly pay for the pig.”
He laughed, an ugly laugh, then waved his hand around. “And what would I spend your money on? Besides, that wouldn’t bring back my pig.”
I nodded, “Yes, I see what you mean. It was stupid of me, I just didn’t think. What can I do to compensate?”
His smile remained, “You can be my pig.”
He didn’t look like he was joking. “I don’t think so. Now, come on, be serious. There must be something I can give you, and of course you keep the pig.”
His smile faded, and something close to hatred, though just a bit too cold and unemotional, shaped his face. “I have everything I need here, except that pig now. I don’t want a dead pig, I want a live one.”
Shit, how was I to solve this little problem.
“Look, either you think of something I can give you, or I’ll just head back to my boat and leave you be. You choose, something or nothing”.
He very slowly moved his hand behind him, then brought it back holding a gun. It was not some ancient pistol, it looked very clean, shiny and modern. “I told you what I want. Now, I don’t want to destroy your property, sink your boat or anything. So, you just come with me and I’ll chain you up, stop you from leaving.”
This was madness. “I don’t think so. You want to shoot me, go ahead, but I’m leaving now.”
The percussion echoed around the island, such a loud noise for such a small puff of sand being moved near my feet. “I ain’t going to kill you. I’ll just put a shot in each leg, that’ll be pretty painful, and you’ll still be stuck here. If you don’t bleed to death first, I ain’t got a first class hospital here.”
I stared into his eyes, then looked away, convinced that he would do just that.
I tried to make light of it, “How long do you want me to be your pig?”
He smiled again, “Haven’t thought that through yet, this being a new idea to me. I’ll work it out, pig years to man years. Guess I’ll have to work out how old that pig was, but that can wait.”
He signaled for me to walk ahead of him, towards the jungle.
This was unreal, pure madness. I was pretty sure he wasn’t thinking in terms of a day, or even a week. Months or years. I had to find a way out of this.
I stopped and turned back to him “I left my machete on the beach.”
He nodded, while indicating I should keep walking, “Yeah, I’ll go and get it later.”
“And my dinghy, it’ll float away when the tide comes in.”
He started to wave impatiently, “Yeah, I’ll save that for you as well. Now quite stalling and get a move on, I’ve things to do”.
At first it looked like I was walking straight into a blockade of trees and shrubbery, but as I drew nearer I found that some of the bushes were loose, moved aside, just enough to allow a man to pass through. It was his path and he had covered it well. Once on the path, it was clear walking all the way, at first a gentle slope, then increasingly steep as we moved up towards the foot of the mountains. My visions of climbing up those steep inclines disappeared when we turned a corner and I saw his home laid out in front of me.
The remains of an old settlement, it must have taken a lot of men a fair amount of time to build. Yet, no one else was there.
I heard his voice from behind, “It was an old pirate hide out, nearly a century ago. The place took a bit of cleaning up, but she’s looking pretty good now.”
He pushed me in the back, “Move over there, towards that first hut.”
There were between eight to ten of the smallish huts, plus a larger central building, probably a meeting hall. “Do you live here all alone?”
I heard him snigger, “If I wanted to be with people, why would I have come here. Now, open the door, walk inside, slowly.”
The hut was pretty bare, but it held enough to make my heart sink. One wall was lined with chains and manacles. This must have been the old prison.
He pushed me towards that wall, “I knew this place would come in handy, worth my time cleaning it up.”
I turned to face him again, “You’re not going to chain me up? I though you wanted me to be your pig.”
He smiled that cold hard smile again, “I think this little piggy would run if I let him. Now, get on your knees and turn away from me.”
I heard him moving around the room, there was a single cupboard in one corner and he must have been opening it. Then I heard the sound of metal clanging against metal, keys. “I’ve not tried these out, but I oiled those old locks so I think they’ll still work.”
Those were the last sounds I heard for a while, he had struck me on the back of the head with the butt of his pistol.
I have no idea how long I lay there but, when I came to, there was a sharp pain at the back of my head and a no less searing for being less sharp, pain seated above and behind my eyes.
Despite that, I opened them and saw him sitting on the floor facing me. I slowly stood up, but he yelled at me, “Get down, on all fours. Piggies don’t stand up on two legs”.
I shook my head, “Yes, but they also don’t walk around on their back knees.”
He suddenly leaped up and struck me full force in the face, knocking me back against the wall. My head spinning, I slid down onto my backside. He turned to leave the hut, but then looked back over his shoulder at me. “You’re right, so stand if you like. Next time, however, make a polite suggestion if you like but don’t argue with me”.
I sat there, stunned, both from the previous knock on the head and the more recent punch in the face. The chains were not only long enough to allow me to lay on the floor, I could have walked out to the middle of the room if I wanted. There was no point to that, there was nothing there.
Time slowly dragged past, dusk turned into night, then he returned. He had a bowl in his hand. “When I was a kid, I lived on a farm. This is what we fed the pigs.”
He placed it in front of me, just not close enough for me to leap at him. I looked into the bowl, there were various fruit and vegetable peelings. “What, no meat?”
He shook his head, “Pigs ain’t carnivores.”
I looked up, staring him in the eye, “What happened to the pig I killed?”
For a moment, he looked sad. “I gave it a decent burial. Said a few words over it.”
“You just eat vegetables and fruit?”
“No, but I don’t eat the pigs.”
I shook my head, “You’re insane”.
He calmly walked back over to me, then once more struck me full force in the face. “That weren’t no polite suggestion”.
I felt blood trickle down my cheek, he had split the skin this time.
Over the next few days, a pattern was established. He would come in with food, I’d find something to say to bait him, and he would strike me. It hurt like hell, but it pleased me when I saw his knuckles split, I was in control. Then, he started coming in with bands of cloth wrapped around his hand. He also started to alternate the punches with kicks, and they kept on hurting long after he left, so I gave that ploy up.
I decided to starve myself to death, and left the food alone, just drinking the water. I kept to my promise, I wouldn’t die of thirst, that would defeat the whole point of coming to this island.
I tried talking to him, “You said you once lived on a farm?”
He merely nodded. I kept at it, “How long ago?”
He just punched me again, “Piggies don’t ask questions.”
After four days, I started eating the peelings.
Time passed, maybe two weeks, maybe three, I hadn’t been counting the days.
I asked him, “How long are you planning to keep me here?”
He nodded, “Oh yeah, I was supposed to calculate weren’t I. Just been too damned busy.”
I smiled at him, “It would be nice to know.”
He sneered, “What’s the matter, getting bored? Never mind, I have a change for you tomorrow.”
He kept his promise the next day, unlocking the manacles from the ring on the wall, but still leaving the chain attached to my wrists. I had been trying to pull that ring away, but it was well embedded. The outside of the huts were wood clad, but the walls of this prison were still made of stone and mortar, and the ring firmly set.
He half walked me, half dragged me outside. “A nice little walk for you, to you new home.”
We crossed the compound and then moved behind one of the other huts. I nearly cried, he had built a pig sty, stone walls surrounding a patch of muddy bare earth, and a much smaller hut in one corner. Several of the wild pigs were already in occupation. He dragged me though that mud and into the small hut, and there, embedded in the wall, another metal ring.
He attached the end of my chain to the ring, then smiled again. “You can just about move outside right now, but I’ll lengthen your chain when I get time, let you play in the yard with the other piggies.”
He backed away from me, happy with his handy work, “You all have a nice day now.”
The wall around the sty had been newly built, and for a moment I found hope in the idea that he had also just built the stone hut. No such luck, it must have been a storehouse of some kind, the walls were solid and firm, as was the restraining ring.
Now his routine changed, instead of bringing me my own personal bowl, he merely slopped a bucket of peelings over the wall, to be shared by all his piggies. And every two days, he fetched pales of water and turned the yard into a pool of mud. The peelings must have come from his own meals, and there were not enough for all of us pigs, so we began to fight over them. The others had teeth, but I had the length of chain. They soon acknowledged my right to eat my fill, then take whatever I left.
He saw this and laughed, “Chief piggy now eh. Well, I can’t let the others starve”.
He then began brings fresh fruit and vegetables, enough for all. I wondered where he got them all from, he must have planted an orchard and a pretty decent sized vegetable garden. I never saw any monkeys, nor anything else living besides him and the pigs, so obviously he didn’t have trouble protecting his crops.
More time passed. The pigs and I became friends. It started with my scratching their backs, when I found that they would roll over so I could scratch their stomachs. They would come up to me, demanding a scratching session, at first during the day then, eventually, at night. This led on to us all sleeping together, close for comfort rather than warmth. It’s funny, I had never known that Pigs had sharp bristles. Sometimes when one huddled too close they would prick my skin, waking me and leaving a red sore patch.
As we became more friendly, I started telling them stories at night. Either made up silly little fantasies, though how human fairy tales went down with them I’ll never really know, or talking to them about life back home, how they’d like it. I even gave them individual names, with Freddy being my favorite.
We were all feeding together one day, maybe a year, maybe eighteen months after I had first arrived on the island, when he turned up at an unusual time. I suddenly felt his eyes upon me and looked up.
He smiled, that same cold hard smile. “Well, ain’t we all nice and friendly now. ”
Almost instinctively, the other pigs gathered around me – though whether to try to protect me or have me protect them, I’m not sure.
He turned his head slightly sideways, as though perplexed.
Then he just straightened up again. “Well, I promised a while back to do those calculations for you. Guess what? I’ve finished them and, give or take a few months, it’s fifty years. Looking at you, I think that’ll make you very happy.”
The words hit me like a stone, I felt myself actually jerk backwards.
I’d stopped thinking about duration, time passed, one day it would end. I couldn’t face whether that would be one day soon or one day a long time away. Now, he had told me.
I waited until he had gone, then I burst out crying.
It had gone beyond freedom, freedom to do what, sail until I killed myself? It had gone beyond the calluses on my wrists, pain was the normal condition now. No, it was now the long matted hair and beard and mud coated body. It was now about the loss of humanity, I was an animal. I didn’t want to grow old as an animal.
He waited until he came back that evening, with the usual mix of slops, fruit and vegetables, once more just throwing them in the mud. I wasn’t hungry, I let the others eat their fill. He noticed this. “Now, you start starving yourself, I might just change my mind. I had decided that you all were costing me too much food. I was going to let you all free tomorrow. They can root around and get their own food. You, I guess you’ll go back to your boat.”
This time, the words had no effect on me, just flew over my head, drifted away with the wind. Perhaps they no longer had any meaning. Just one seemed to float around, hit some strange air current, come whispering back in my ear. ‘Boat’.
That seemed to attract all the others, at first jumbled, ‘root around’, ‘tomorrow’, ‘Free’.
I just assembled two of them into the correct order, ‘tomorrow, free’.
I dare not show any emotion, give him any reaction. I just nodded, ‘Sure”.
He stared at me, almost distracted for a moment. “You might be worried about that, about your boat. I’ve been taking care of her, keeping her dry, in good order. She sails well.”
This man, this thing, this creature, he had used her, used my boat? I felt anger, as though hearing that a woman I loved had been raped.
He saw my anger. “I told you, I took good care of her. You killed my pig, but I won’t damage your stuff. I’ve filled your outboard with fuel and set the dinghy by the shore, ready for you. You’ll need it, my one condition is that you take a pig with you. I’ve fed you all this time, now you take care of one of them, feed it, keep it healthy.”
I chose Fred, he was my favorite.
As I pushed through the surf, it was windy that day, steering back towards the yacht, I promised him that he was only being tied up until we got aboard, it was only to keep him safe, stop him falling or leaping over board.
Once aboard, he could choose. Stay with me or make a break for it, jump into the sea, see if he could swim. I wouldn’t keep him prisoner. And I apologized to Fred, when I got back on deck, I was going to open some cans, heat them up. I was going to have hot food, and some of it would be meat.
Later, as I made sure everything was stowed away safe before setting sail, I saw the trident. And that started me thinking. I might go back to that island. No, not with the trident, I’d go home, get something better. I thought I might then go back on my terms, this time with me having the upper hand. Yeah, I’d like that.
It was a great idea.
Trouble is, it’s now been three years and I still haven’t found the island again.
But I’ll keep looking.
Meanwhile, Fred took to sailing like an old hand, I’d never dream of heading out without him now.
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