White and Other Tales of Ruin

After five days at sea, with little more than the soporific waves and their own voices to listen to, the cacophony of the breaking waters was almost unbearable. Half a mile out from the island the sea smashed into a barely visible reef, turning white and violent. Their boat nudged its way through a toothless gap, as though guided in by a helping hand, and Ernie sat with his eyes closed and his mouth working, prayers tumbling forth like bodies from a sinking ship. Spray from the disturbed sea swept across the boat and soaked them. Roddy could not help opening his mouth and tasting the water; salt stung his dried and split lips, and the bitter tang of the sea drained once more into his throat.

“Thank God,” Norris said, and Ernie agreed.

“Can’t wait to meet the native women,” Butch called dryly.

“Thought you had a missus at home,” Max said.

“At home, yes.” Butch nodded, and Roddy could not help but laugh at his semi-serious expression. His laughter was short-lived. It was not the place for it, and they all felt that; silence reigned once more. Merriment did not sit right with the roar of the surf behind them.

When the boat nudged onto the beach, Roddy felt a sick lurch in his guts. Everything was suddenly real, solid, and he noticed the pattern of grain in the wood of the boat for the first time. He saw how some of the oar mountings had begun to rust and dribble a red stain onto the timber. He could feel the tightness of his shoes, the abrasiveness of their insides as though they were already full of sand. He was even aware of his own body, in more detail than at any time during the past five days. His bruised left elbow, where he had struck it jumping from the burning and sinking ship. The splinters in his hands and forearms, from his struggle to turn the capsized lifeboat upright. His memories held weight, too. He thought of Joan, his girlfriend back home, and realised that she had barely entered his mind since the sinking. Now, with the possibility of survival clear again, images of Joan were flashing back. Her willing smile, bottle-green eyes, generous nature. A hard, bitter kiss on the day he had left her to go to war. For a while he had thought that she was blaming him, but he knew now that her anger was directed elsewhere, at an unfairness impossible to personify. Her bitterness had stayed with him, transferred in the kiss.

The island was reminding him of who he was.

Butch climbed from the boat and fell drunkenly to his knees on the wet sand. Max followed, then Norris, who staggered further along the beach. He was staring beneath the palm trees skirting the sands.

“Come on,” Roddy said to Ernie. The officer remained at the stern of the boat, unresponsive, rocking with the gentle movements of the lagoon. “Ernie!”

Ernie’s eyes blinked to life. Moisture replaced their dark sheen. “God brought us here,” he said, but it sounded more like a challenge than a statement.

“Yes, sir, He did,” Roddy said, though he doubted any truth in his words. He would like to think it was the case, but his faith said no. His faith, drummed into him by his parents and peers, hanging in a void in his heart where truth ached to penetrate. “God brought us here.”

“But why?” Ernie stood and walked unsteadily along the boat, pausing at the grounded bow. He looked down at the sand, staring at the smudged footprints of the others already on the beach. Then he glanced back at Roddy, and his voice was distorted. “Why?”

“Why what?” Roddy asked, but the officer was climbing from the boat, stepping gingerly as if afraid that he would sink at any moment.

Roddy followed. He felt a moment of disorientation, so used was he to the constant movement of the boat. His stomach lurched as it tried to maintain the motion, then settled again. The sand was warm, even through his shoes.

Norris had wandered along the beach, the others waited in the shadow of palm trees. Leaves hung from the high branches, pointing down at the men like the wings of great sleeping bats.

Roddy fell to his knees with the others, wondering why he did not feel at all liberated. “At least it seems pretty verdant,” he said. “Where there are palms, there’s water, and birds, and animals. Fruit too. Food and water. Safety.”

Butch frowned past his normally busy eyes. He was staring out to sea, apparently coveting the terrible five days just gone by. His face was bleeding again but he seemed not to notice. Flies began to buzz him, thinking him already dead.

“Butch?” Roddy said. He did not like seeing the little man so quiet. It was unnatural, disconcerting in the extreme. “Butch? What say we go and find the native women?”

“Doubt there are any,” Butch said. His gaze never faltered; he wanted to avoid looking back at the island for as long as possible. “This place feels dead.”