Not Child's Play - Dave Muller

Скачать книгу

the tide past high and receding rapidly, it’s obvious Arwen will not move until the next high tide. Our priority now is to find out where we are. Sandy and I decide to walk in opposite directions along the beach to see if we can identify anything that will give a clue. I head north until a break in the bush covering the dunes allows me to clamber to the crest. Before me, about a kilometre inland, a large lagoon stretches north behind the primary dunes. We must be near Cabo Sao Sebastiao on the spit of land that terminates just to the south of Magaruque. I wander back to Arwen. The sea has receded and she looks pathetic, stranded out of her element like a beached whale.

      The children are playing on the beach, running and gathering sea beans washed up along the high-water line. These large, brown, bean-shaped seeds that fit neatly into the palm of one’s hand, grow on trees along rivers in the tropics. They drop into streams and heavy rains wash them to the sea. If the flow is strong enough, they reach the Mozambique Current, which transports them south until they wash up on beaches as far away as East London. Back home, sea beans are regarded as great treasures by beach-combing children. In sea-bean currency, Tammy and Seth have suddenly become rich, and they rejoice in it, piling up their booty on Arwen’s side deck.

      Sandy has not returned, so I join the kids in their search for beans, trying to appear nonchalant. Suddenly, Sandy’s urgent shouts alert me. She’s running back from her excursion south, frantically gesturing out to sea. A small fishing boat, not much bigger than Arwen, is passing by just a few kilometres offshore. I clamber onto Arwen and swing down into the main cabin, snatching up the mic of our VHF radio. For a second I debate whether to call ‘mayday’, but we are not in a life-threatening situation, so I call, ‘Pan, pan, pan,’ the international radio call indicating an urgent message. There is no reply. It’s time to fire off a flare. Already the fishing boat is abeam and a quick tow off the beach is exactly what we need.

      I hold the flare above my head, look away and squeeze the trigger. With a whoosh and trail of white smoke, the rocket climbs into the blue sky. At the peak of its trajectory a brilliant pink flare pops out, suspended from a small white parachute, and begins to spiral slowly back to earth with a serenity that seems absurdly detached from the urgency of its message.

      Firing a flare is something you only do in desperate situations. As it soars, the gravity of our situation presses down on me in an emotional manifestation of Newton’s third law, and once again my legs fold beneath me and tears well up. I turn away as Tammy and Seth run around shouting joyfully while the flare drifts inland until it extinguishes just above the dunes. There’s no response from the boat.

      Somehow, Sandy and I are going to have to drag Arwen back into the sea on our own. Apart from being aground and the railings bent inward where the waves have broken over the deck, she is otherwise undamaged. We’ve already turned her through 180 degrees, so there is still buoyancy when the tide is high. The problem is the keel, which will drag and dig into the sand.

      Despite my anguish, I’ve worked out a plan to heel Arwen onto her side to try to skid her hull over the sand once the tide is in, and have explained to the family how we need to bury an anchor in the sand and fix a halyard to it. The wire basket dredge Sandy uses in her research to find molluscs is ideal for this and we are energetically digging a hole when Seth suddenly remembers it’s his birthday, and his priority is not digging a hole in the sand, but opening presents. It’s just as well – Sandy and I can only work for short periods before becoming breathless and enervated, and recognise the symptoms of shock. We need to get some energy into our bodies. It seems the perfect time – and excuse – for a birthday party.

      While I gather cooldrinks and chocolates from the galley, Sandy ferrets out Seth’s presents from their hiding place. The galley is a mess. Dough has risen and flowed over the sloping worktop onto the cabin floor, some of it hanging like stalactites. Cupboards and drawers have burst open, spilling their contents.

      We place a blanket in the shade beneath Arwen’s stern. The tidal range around the islands between high and low water is four metres, and it’s nearing mid-morning, so the tide is nearly at its lowest. Arwen has been left stranded 30 metres from the waves lapping the shore.

      Seth happily tears open his presents: a set of small cars from Herman and Hilda, a book called The Chatty Parrot from Jen and Brad and a Lego crane from Mike and Renée. It’s going to be a memorable party and I realise I need to record it so I pick up my camera and take a couple of photos. As I walk back towards Arwen’s canting deck, I glance up the coast to where the islands lie. A wobbly mirage is emerging from the heat haze rippling across the beach. It slowly detaches itself and hovers above the sand, separating and merging and separating again until seven shapes on stilts can be seen.

      ‘It looks like we have visitors,’ I cheerfully announce. Sandy and I walk towards the shapes, which morph into two adults and five children. We’re relieved at the prospect of some help.

      I’ve confirmed from our chart that we are indeed aground on a spit of land that trails into the sea about 10 kilometres north. The Island of Magaruque, our destination, lies a mere 20 kilometres beyond. I assume the visitors are fishermen from the island.

      When they’re about 200 metres away, the islanders stop and stand facing us, leaning on walking sticks. This seems oddly reticent behaviour given the warmth we’d experienced in Maputo. We slow our pace, uncertain over their hesitancy. The five children, who we can now see are teenage boys, detach themselves from the adults and sidle inland as if to bypass us. The older couples remain on the beach.

      We continue towards them until understanding comes like a punch in the stomach. The boys aren’t carrying sticks; those are AK-47s and they are now crouching down, one knee on the sand, aiming their rifles at us. We glance across to the adults and see that they are weighed down by large bundles over their shoulders. From their defeated stature, they are clearly captives.

      The enormity – the horrific implication – of the sight before us is overwhelming. We are barefoot, dressed in shorts and T-shirts, exhausted, our children a hundred metres away, utterly defenceless. Reality slowly turns itself inside out; rather like the way I’d seen men in Maputo killing octopuses. My first thoughts are that this cannot be happening. The scene before us is generally viewed from the safety of a TV screen.

      I realise we must get back to the children, but first I have to stop Sandy, the impulsive one in our family, from saying or doing anything.

      ‘Let’s walk slowly back to the children,’ I murmur. ‘And don’t say anything.’ We backtrack to where Tammy and Seth are sitting on the rug, Seth happily playing with his toys and Tammy paging though The Chatty Parrot. The teenagers follow us, slowly closing in without taking their eyes or rifles off us. Fitted jeans and shirts define their lean, muscular bodies. Their eyes show caution, but also the cold indifference of adolescents. In comparison, the two adults are thin and dressed in rags, their faces sad and resigned, eyes downcast. We reach the blanket and sit beside our children.

      The oldest boy’s face is scarred, the skin puckered around the hollow socket of a missing left eye. Despite the scars, his face has yet to harden into the chiselled look of an adult and I guess he’s maybe 16 or 17 years old. The other four are younger, ranging from early to mid-teens. Pointing to the yacht, the leader asks something in a language I assume is Portuguese. Not understanding, I stare back blankly. He steps nearer, gesturing towards Arwen with his AK-47. A girdle of hand grenades hangs at his waist. Speaking at him, but directing my words to Sandy, I say, ‘Don’t do or say anything.’ He squints back at me with his single eye, clearly not understanding what I’ve just said. He’s tense, weighing up options. His eye flicks towards Arwen and he orders one of the boy soldiers to climb aboard. The boy hands his rifle to a comrade, jumps up onto the deck and vaults like a cat into the cockpit before disappearing into our home.

      Suddenly, clothes, equipment and anything else he can lay his hands upon come spewing out of the hatch onto the beach. Tammy and Seth huddle into our laps, realising these are not nice people. Tammy starts to cry as her clothes and dolls land on the sand.

      The two adults are ordered to pack the booty into bundles using the sheets from our bunks. There’s no

Скачать книгу