Reunion - Chapter Nine

Reunion

by Simon Stanford

Chapter Nine - High Spirits

With the tension relieved and the crisis averted as far as they knew, the remainder of the group returned to their fireside chat and general merry making.

Over time, as inevitably happens with larger groups, little sub-groups and conversations started to dominate rather than one single discussion. Prince was talking to the Speke brothers and Gareth Laney and Rogger Benedict were huddled close together down one end of the semi-circle round the fire.

They were clearly having a very good time and their snorts and howls of laughter were getting louder and more raucous. Stephan, was chatting to Subbu and Nalesh about possible ways for an Indian Cobra to find its way onto an isolated island somewhere in the pacific but none of the solutions seems very plausible apart from the one no-one wanted to articulate.
After a while the noise from Laney and Benedict was starting to irritate the others.

“Oi, turn it down a bit you two,” said Prince, “What’s so funny anyway?”

“Your face” said Laney and Benedict had a fit of the giggles so pronounced he slipped off the end of the log he was sitting on causing Laney to have an even worse outburst.

“Christ Laney, are you two pissed or what?” Prince walked over to them as they fought to regain composure only two collapse back into the giggles a couple of seconds later.

“You are, you’re both loaded. Where did you get the booze from, and more importantly why didn’t you share it with the rest of us?”

Prince was getting angry that something had been kept from the group. It went against the code of ethics for the first XV. All for one and all that.

“Booze? What? No we’ve just been drinking some of these,” said Laney after a moment to focus his attention to speaking with reasonable clarity. He held forth one of the miniature bottles of mixers they had recovered from the wreck site earlier.

“I needed something to get rid of the taste,” said Roger Benedict feeling that was a totally justified assertion. No one in the group would have disagreed.

Prince took the bottle and sniffed it then took a taste.

“That’s got vodka in it.” He announced “ok where have you two got the stash of vodka?”

“We haven’t, I swear,” said Laney proclaiming his innocence, “I wouldn’t keep that from the lads, Princey. Come on. We were just drinking orange juice and tonic water, made a change from just water. Even strawberry flavoured.” He said harking back to Walker’s comment about the flavoured condoms.

“Well there’s vodka in there now,”

“Hmm I wonder if Guy was fond of a little tipple whilst he was flying, “ offered Stephan by way of explanation having come over to see what was going on, “he strikes me as the type who would like a drink even whilst flying but he’d have to hide it of course.”

“Yeah, I guess. Alright share ‘em out, what’s left.”

Laney and Benedict turned round and there was the clink of bottles along with some snickering, they turned back each holding about a half dozen small empty bottles.

“Sorry boss,” said Benedict, “that’s the last one.” Then he belched loudly and sat back down on the log.

“What are you two like?”, said Prince , “well this will have to do I guess.” He was about to take a large swig and empty the remains of the bottle when a hand pressed on his arm and stopped him.

“Just a minute, Prince.” It was Subbu, “Did you have any of the clams?”

“What? No can’t stand ‘em. Why?”

“That’s ok then you can drink it with impunity then.”

“What difference does it make if I had the clams or not,” asked Prince.

“You shouldn’t drink spirits with shellfish like oysters or clams, you can get a very bad reaction.”

Subbu turned to face Laney and Benedict , “did either of you two have…..” but before he could finish his sentence Laney clutched his stomach, leant forward and vomited copiously over his feet causing Subbu to have to take a step back to avoid being caught in the splash back.

“Oh dear I think we have the answer there.”

Benedict let out a low moan, he too was holding his stomach and sweating profusely, “ and there too. Oh dear, oh dear.”

“Oh god, oh god!” said Benedict as he bent double with the pain he felt in his abdomen.

“What can we do?” asked Prince concerned for his scrum-half and second row.

“Hmm I don’t think there is anything we can do except let nature take its course. Plenty of fluids will help flush it out I would think.”

“But they’ll be alright won’t they?”

“I would hope so, but they will be in for a very uncomfortable night.”

“Lets move them to their shelters, “ said Stephan , “they can try and sleep it off.” Prince and Court slowly half carried half ushered first Benedict and then Laney to their shelters.

The two stricken revellers groaned and moaned at the slightest touch or movement but after a few minutes this subsided to a the occasional low moan and dry wretch. Along with the other events of the night this put something of a dampener on the evening and it wasn’t long before the whole group had retired for the night.

*

The first rays of the morning sun began to work their way inbetween the small gaps in the palm frond roofs of the bivouacs and seemed to be able to find the occupants eyelids with unerring accuracy. Slowly people began to stir and emerge, bleary eyed and stretching, into the day.

The Speke brothers were first up followed shortly by Prince , Stephan and the others. They gathered round the remains of the camp fire from last night.

“Better see how Laney and the others are,” said Prince walking over to their shelters.

“Laney, Laney mate you ok? Dicty? Come on Dicty face the day.” There was no reply, meanwhile Subbu had gone over to see how Rourke was. The sides of his shelter had collapsed a little in the night and one pale leg was sticking out the side, Subbu saw this and was instantly worried. It wasn’t just the usual pale skin tone of the Irish red headed rogue, it had a blue tinged pallour to it.

“Oh, no, no,” said Subbu, he lifted up the roof of the shelter and pushed it over. Inside Rourke lay, his body twisted at an awkward angle, his lips were blue and his face was contorted into a rictus of pain.

Subbu dropped to his knees and felt at Rourke’s neck for a pulse but he could tell from the coldness of the contact there was no pulse to be found.
Prince came running over.

“Rourke! Rourke!” he shouted in disbelief at the sight before him.

“I’m afraid he’s dead. The snake….” Subbu trailed off.

“But Benedict got the poison out, didn’t he?”

“I guess it wasn’t enough. The way Rourke ran over to us, the state he was in, that was probably enough for his heart to have pumped the venom round the rest of his body. I’m so sorry.”

Prince went back to the shelters of Laney and Benedict, calling frantically he lifted the roofs off their bivouacs. They were still alive but very ill. Laney squinted at the bright light bursting in upon him. He was covered in a sheen of sweat and looked pale and weak. Benedict was in a similar condition but totally still, the rise and fall of his chest the only real indicator he was alive at all.

“You’re alive,” said Prince with obvious relief in his voice, “here help me get them sitting up. They need fluids.”

The Speke brothers helped raise each of the two invalids up into sitting positions propped up against the logs they used for seats round the camp fire. Prince tried to get them to drink a little water but they were both sick almost immediately if it was anything more than a few drops on their tongue.

It did not look good but no-one wanted to say anything to Prince.
“About, Rourke, “ said Stephan Court after a few minutes, “we should, well, bury him, say a few words or something.”

“No!”, snapped Prince, “he’s not being buried here, we can put him with Guy. Rourkey’s coming home with the rest of us.”

No one wanted to argue with Prince and in some ways burying the body of Rourke on the island was a partial admission that they were going to on this island for far longer than any had hoped.

Led by Prince the Speke brothers carried Rourke over to the edge of the cove where the body of Guy was already lain under a small cairn of stones. They laid the body down and set about collecting enough rocks and stones to cover his body, partly out of general respect and partly to stop any wild animals of taking advantage of the carrion opportunities provided by a six foot, seventeen stone Irishman. It was grim work and took a long time scavenging for enough rocks to cover his large frame.

Prince went back to looking after Laney and Benedict, mopping their brows with dampened cloths and dribbling water into their mouths. He was gentle and tender with each of them, like a mother caring for a sick child. It was a side of the rough and ready rugby captain that the others had not seen before. These were his boys as far as he was concerned.

It was a lost cause. Laney died first, in the early hours of the afternoon. He had dropped into a fitful, feverish sleep but then became still and quiet. After a few more minutes Prince noticed he couldn’t hear Laney, breathing. There was no rise and fall to the chest. Prince got up and started to perform CPR on him but he knew it was no good, he ended up pounding on Laney’s chest in desperation and frustrations, tears streaming down his face. Stephan and Subbu came over and gently but firmly pulled the sobbing Prince away.

“I’ll look after Benedict, Prince…er..Ian,” said Stephan using Prince’s christian name for the first time, “ you need to rest and take some fluids yourself. We’ll take care of Laney too.” Prince was too tired and distraught to argue, he was led away by Subbu and Nalesh Mougal to the other side of the camp.

Benedict died less than an hour later in much the same way as Laney had. At least the end had been relatively peaceful, Stephan reached over checked for a pulse when he saw the gentle rise and fall of the chest had stopped.

He was saddened by the deaths even though he didn’t know any of them very well but he was also surprised at how well he was able to cope, how practical he could be in the circumstances. He drew upon some other unknown inner strength that allowed him to deal with these harsh circumstances.

He walked over to Prince who was sitting, hands on his knees, head down. He looked up as Stephan approached and could see form the look in his eyes that Benedict was dead too even before Court could give a gentle shake of the head and gently whisper the words,
“I’m sorry.”

Laney had been moved over to what was becoming the island mausoleum and without a word the Speke twins carefully picked up body of Benedict and carried it over. A few minutes later they came back and stood shuffling awkwardly in front of Prince who was staring out to sea a single tear trickling down his cheek.

One of the twins coughed weakly to get Princes attention, he looked over at them,

“What is it?”

“Thing is…” began Paul Speke before faltering,

“Thing is we don’t think we can find many more stones and rocks, “ picked up Peter Speke,

“Least not enough for both Laney and Benedict,” said Paul gaining the strength to speak from his brother.

“Look, were not leaving them behind. You understand? The boys are coming home together,” Prince started to get agitated and an edge of anger entered his voice.

“But….”

“I think there might be a way to make it happen, “ said Nalesh Mougal who had walked over to the group, “what about cremation? We can have a funeral pyre and then collect the ashes. You can take the ashes home with you. Your boys won’t be left behind.” It was a very practical solution to delicate situation. Nalesh waited a few moment whilst Prince mulled over the idea.

“Yeah, “ he said at last, “the ashes, we can scatter the ashes under the posts down at the old boys ground.”

Prince accepted this was the best idea and so further round the headland back towards the crash site the whole group set about building three large mounds of sticks, branches and smaller kindling. It was heavy work and took a couple of hours so that the sun was lowering over the horizon by the time they reckoned they had enough.

They emptied the fuel from a couple of the Speke brothers’ lighters over the pyres to help get it started and the bodies were fetched and laid on top. The remaining survivors gathered round, heads bowed in respect while Prince knelt down and set light to each pyre in turn. They caught well and helped by the lighter fuel flames soon began to lick up round the bodies.

None of them had the stomach to watch the flames start to consume the three comrades and so they walked in silence back to the main camp and Esacam and Mougal began preparation for the evening meal. There was still plenty of boar meat left and they attempted to cook a sort of stew flavoured with some of the more palatable roots and herbs they’d collected on that first day.

The group gathered for the evening meal, the mood still sombre, the smoke and flames from the pyres rose and crackled behind them where previously it had been flames and smoke from the plane wreck that had filled the sky in the same general direction.