Sat Sep 04, 2004 9:45 am by H.Q. Victor
The sw Chronicles, the story of sw's journal of days gone by.
Journal entry one : Where to begin? Well, it seems at the beginning of this story is the best. I took a flight from South Africa, my home, to Australia. I went to Australia to meet a gentleman named Quienten. He had written me a couple years ago about a discovery he had made and wanted to share it with me, as I was friends with some importing people. He would not tell me what it was in the letters, but, asked if I could come and visit and he would share it. I don’t know if it appeared as a disappointment right off or not, but something he called, Ginger Beer, did not live up to what he had promised.
Well, after sleeping on the matter, I concluded that I would not invest in this new invention of his and began to get things together for the return trip home. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, if you know what I mean. Quienten was kind enough even though I had turned him down, and gave me a lift to the airfield to catch my flight. He also promised he would still write.
A DC-3 was sitting on the dirt run way and my bags had been loaded. There were several other passengers waiting to board as well. A young couple, two men who seemed to be in a heated discussion, and four other men who were just milling around. As I walked toward the aircraft a two of the four made some comments that I could over hear quite well. “What does she think she is, an explorer?” The taller of the two said to the other as he eyed me. The second just shook his head. I stopped and turned to the men. Putting my hands on my hips in a condescending posture, my face began to take on an angered expression and I slowly walked over to the pair. “Do I take it, you gentlemen do not approve of women explorers.,” My tone just below seething level. A mixture of laughter and mockery came from both until a cry of pain changed the first gentlemen’s tone. He fell to the ground holding his shin, his face grimacing from the pain the swift kick I had just delivered.
The whine of the twin engines began as they sent dust flying around the windows. With an increase of throttles and a rumble, the lumbering craft began rolling, picking up speed as it edged toward the end of the runway. I had only a view over the wing, so I could only look forward in the cabin seeing out the cockpit windows to know where we were. The plane turned and began the roll for take off. I looked forward to getting home and back to matters at hand. But I had to admit, I had liked what I had seen of this country. The beauty in the sparseness was different. I had to admit it appealed to me. I would like to come back and explore here a bit more on day.
The other passengers seemed occupied with reading and small talk. The young couple were asleep, her head resting his shoulders. The men who had been engaged in a heated discussion back at the air field, were still in disagreement, though they kept the volume down to a whisper now. I could not quite make out what they were discussing, but it did seem a bit intense. I decided to nap a little bit. We were scheduled for several stops in this county before crossing the ocean back to South Africa.
I’m still not sure how long I had slept, but the rough air the plane hit, woke me quickly. There was a violent storm outside and the plane dipped and rose. It shook so that I thought it would fall apart. The copilot looked back into the cabin and yelled, “Everyone, hold on to something, we’re going down.” That set everyone on an edge. The couple clung to each other while others gathered their things together and held them like they would not see them again. Judging by the storm that might very well be true. We began to descend, where, I do not know. The clouds surrounding us were so dark with rain.
After a few minuets of this, there seem to be a break ahead of us, the sun light shining a bit more in these clouds. I looked out my window and saw the ocean, the surf breaking on rocks and the few trees whipping back and forth. We were on the coast, but where? It looked like we were just five hundred feet up. Too low to regain any altitude and speed to escape disaster. We were indeed, going to crash. I put my things together in a bag and put it by my feet. If we crash, I wanted my things near me. The others showed a mixture of disbelief and fear. They had no clue as to what would happen to them but did think that they were about to die.
The landing, if you could call it that, was rough. I will credit the pilots for that though. Unfortunately, they did not survive. The cockpit had crushed them when we struck a boulder. Everyone else though, did survive. I began to salvage what I could from the plane. Another man helped me. His name was Michael. He had not said much on the flight nor at the airfield. The couple, I had found out were named Mau and Chet. The two men who stayed in a heated discussion were, Peter and Arch. Turns out they knew each other before the flight and just loved to discuss things. The others were, Ed, Paul, and Mitch who went by the nickname, Mustang. Mustang, I had over heard, had lived in this country all his life. I thought that might be a help in our survival. He was also a maverick, hence the name Mustang, he was a little on the wild side.
Michael and Mustang went off in search of some dry wood to try and build a fire. The couple, Mau and Chet sat on a rock and went through some of the supplies that were salvaged from the plane. There were signal flares, tools, matches, and a first aid kit. The only things we did not have, was drinking water and food. Peter and Arch just sat by themselves, sulking. Neither wanted to help out with our survival. They just wanted to wait for rescue and said as much. Ed, Paul went though the aircraft trying to salvage parts of it to build things with. Ed wanted to get anything shinny to make a signal mirror. That presuming the storm clouds leave and if someone comes looking for us, as we weren’t sure the pilots had gotten a message off or not.
Michael and Mustang came back with what looked like timbers from boats and a bag over Mustangs shoulders. The bag it turns out, contained mussels for food. I had wandered around and found some animal tracks, but none I could identify. I moved back to where I could see Michael and Mustang using a hatchet on the timbers to cut off the wet sections to get at the dry to light. The gear also contained some lighter wood to use to start a fire. After half an hour, a fire was going, and we could warm up a little bit. I then thought about water. It’s not like we can drink sea water, so I got Indy and we set off looking for a spring, stream or anything else to get fresh water.
Mau worked up the courage to dig around the cockpit for anything useful. She did find a map the pilots had used to plot their flight. Now we could find out where we were and how to get out of here. She also asked Chet if they could bury the pilots. He looked over their situation and shook his head. They were pinned in tightly. He took her by the hand and pulled her away, a tear forming in the corner of her eye; sad at the loss and that nothing could be done for them. . They set about cutting cloth from the seats and taking whatever else they could find useful.
I saw some dense green undergrowth about one hundred yards ahead. I knew there must be water near to support the growth. We headed off in that direction. The walk was pleasant enough, and Ed proved good company. We made small talk about a lot of areas. He seemed knowledgeable in a lot of things. He also said he had lived in a city in the states, somewhere in North America. Ten minuets later, we came across a small spring in the nook of rocks. The water ran clear and pure, and tasted so good. Ed and I drank our fill and then filled the containers we brought with us. We returned before nightfall to refill them again.
Mustang sat down at one of the bags that had belonged to a pilot. There was a long case attached to it. Opening it, it turned out to contain a fishing rod. Now they could catch some fish for food. Mustang knew the type of fish and what to bait for them. He dug up a length of twine and some bait and headed for the surf. Needless to say, they meal that night was even better. Grilled fish steaks always was a favorite of mine.
Journal entry two : The second day seemed more promising than the other. The sky had begun to clear and we had all had some food and water. Indy, Mustang and myself poured over the map. Apparently the co-pilot had marked most of the course they would take and indicated the area they had already covered. They would only be off by about twenty miles to account for the storm. The nearest town on the map was about one hundred miles away. Mustang said it had no airfield, but it did have a port and could catch a ship to wherever we wanted to go. He also said the travel would be hard and would take about a week to get there. This set Peter off to grumbling that they should just sit here and wait for rescue. I looked him in the eye and said calmly, “There won’t be anyone coming” and turned to Mustang and he gave a nod of confirmation. Peter and Arch both turned at this and fumed. “You have the choice, stay here or get off your backsides and get with the program, Got it?” I said. Both men seemed surprised by my attitude.
It was about three hours later, when we had all the items together in nine packs. The fish that had been caught were cooked and wrapped for the trip. The map showed some rough areas ahead and we would have to detour away from the sea for about twenty five miles distance before angling back to the sea. We would have to be on the look out for water all along the way. The containers that we had would not hold a lot. We all stopped by the spring and drank as much as we could hold and moved on. Michael took the lead for the first hour.
Edited by - Finalday on 1/8/2006 6:31:47 AM
