The Beach

Jed stuck his head through the door at eight fifteen, gazed around curiously, then disappeared.

So that's how the.time passed, a succession of tense episodes, all serving to distract us from the fact that the Swedes still hadn't returned from fishing.

At a quarter to nine the longhouse door banged open.

'Oh there you are,' Keaty started to say, but the words dried up in his throat.

Karl was half bent over, barely illuminated by the candles. It was the expression on his face that instantly informed us there was something badly wrong, but I think it was his arms that had choked Keaty. They seemed to be absurdly dislocated, jutting out from the top of his shoulders. And there was what looked like a tear in his right hand. Between his thumb and forefinger the split continued down to his wrist, so that the two halves hung like a limp lobster claw.

'Jesus Christ,' said Jesse loudly, and all over the longhouse I heard movement as people rose to get a better look.

Karl took a single heavy step towards us, moving into the brighter candlelight. That was when we realized that the mutilated arms belonged to the person he was carrying on his back—Sten. Abruptly Karl collapsed, toppling forwards without making any effort to break his fall. Sten slipped off him, balancing for a moment on his side, then rolling over. There was a ragged semicircle of flesh missing from his side as large as a basketball, and the remainder of his stomach area had been flattened to no more than four inches thick.

Etie

The Third Man

The stu

Hold His Nose was directed at Etie

The whole scene left me feeling flustered. I was telling myself, 'Alert but calm,' and waiting for my head to come up with the kind of suggestion that was needed. Something that would cut through the chaos, creating a stern efficiency that was appropriate to the gravity of the situation. Specifically, something like the way Etie

As soon as I was out of the circle I began thinking a great deal more objectively. Two realizations hit me at once. Number one was that I now had a chance to get my cigarettes. Number two was Christo. Nobody had even mentioned the third Swede, who might have been on the beach, wounded and waiting for help to arrive. Possibly even dead like Sten.

I dithered for a couple of moments like a cartoon character, first looking one way, next the other. Then I made my decision and ran down the longhouse, passing the few squid-sufferers who were still too sick to see what was going on. I lit up on the run back, taking two matches to catch the flare of the phosphorus. Just before I ducked out of the longhouse door, I shouted, 'Christo!' but I didn't wait to see if anyone had heard me.

Through the jungle, I cursed myself for not having also grabbed a torch. I couldn't see much apart from the red glow of my cigarette, occasionally brightening as it burned through a spider's web. But having recently walked the path in darkness, en route to seeing the phosphorescence a couple of nights before, I didn't have too much trouble. The only mishap was walking straight into a bamboo thicket which had been recently cut for spears. My tough feet were OK. It was my shins and calves that got cut, which bothered me because I knew they'd sting if I had to go into the salt-water.

On the beach, however, there was enough moonlight to see clearly. Across the sand were deep tracks where Karl had dragged Sten. He seemed to have reached the beach about twenty metres from the path to the clearing, come down, missed the entrance to the path, and doubled back. Christo, I noted as I dropped the butt, couldn't have made it as far as the shore. In the light from the moon, the sand was silver. The odd coconut husks and fallen palm branches were black. If he'd been there, I'd have seen him.

I took a deep breath and sat down a few feet from the water, juggling options and ideas. Christo wasn't on the beach and I hadn't passed him on the path – unless I'd walked over him unawares – so he was in either the lagoon, the open sea, or the cave that led to the sea. If he was in the open sea he was probably dead. If he was in the lagoon, he was either on a boulder or floating face down. If he was at the cave, he had to be at one of its two entrances, maybe too tired to swim the lagoon or too injured to get through the underwater passage.

That was the Christo angle. The shark angle was more straightforward. It, or they, could be anywhere. I had no way of knowing any more than that, short of spotting a silhouette fin weaving across the lagoon, so I figured I'd be better off if I ignored the shark angle altogether.

'I bet he's in the caves,' I said, and lit another cigarette to help me think. Then I heard a noise behind me, a padding footstep on the sand.

'Christo?' I called, and heard myself in stereo. The other person had called 'Christo,' at the exact same moment.

'No,' we both answered together.

A pause.

I waited a few seconds, looking in all directions, unable to spot the figure. 'Who then?'

No answer.

'Who then?' I repeated, standing. 'Mister Duck, is that you?'

Still no answer.

A swell swept up the sand and tugged at my feet. I had to take a quick step forwards to keep my balance. The following swell was just as strong and I had to take another step. The next thing I knew the water was up to my knees and my cuts were smarting at the salt. The second cigarette, which I'd forgotten about, fizzled out as my hand hit the water.