OOOO
Part 5
Sunday, July 6th
0600 Local
Malekula, Vanuatu
The dawn's light of the next morning revealed just how extensive the devastation was.
Harm and Mac woke from their place beneath the large tree that a small group of people had chosen to camp out beneath. Few of them had slept, but Harm and Mac were absolutely exhausted by the long week they had had.
"Morning," Harm greeted Mac, "You okay?"
Mac nodded, stretching.
"I'm a bit cold, but okay, really," she replied.
"It should warm up a bit, now the sun's up," Harm told her.
He had wanted to pull her closer and share body heat like they had the night before last, but knew that if he had done so, he would have only wanted more. Mac's detached attitude indicated that she was not interested in him that way, or at least he thought so. She was in actuality fighting just as hard a battle as Harm was.
They all got up and started to make their way out of the rainforest at a little past seven.
The devastation they were faced with took their breath away. Harm and Mac kept their emotions bottled, but could not help but be touched by the emotions that the others just could not keep back. Most of the houses had been completely swept away and all but the most sturdy of buildings had sustained substantial damage. Half the guesthouse did more or less keep its basic structure, but almost all inside walls and most of the roof had partially caved in. The second half, a less solid extension of the original building was completely gone. Harm and Mac knew instantly that if anyone had still been inside, then they would probably have been killed. Goodness only knew the toll that the storm had wreaked across the rest of the island.
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That afternoon, one group of villagers went out to the research station to check on any damage. Harm and Mac wanted to go with them, but they had already been recruited to help clear the debris that was strewn over every available yard. Although they both knew that such a thing was a part of life in the military, Harm and Mac both later admitted that they were glad they had not been there, for the research station, although still mostly standing, had been buried under a massive landslide of mud and fallen trees. Despite the villager's valiant efforts, it was found that all of those inside the building had perished, long before.
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Over the next week, Ham and Mac accompanied many expeditions to other villages on other parts of the island. They were all heart-rending trips, but none broke their hearts so much as the one to the other side of the island, to the village where Janna's daughter Mara was living. They didn't at first know that it was the village where the child lived, but they had not yet come across her. When they considered it, it was possible that they had just missed her, because many of the villagers had either fled into rainforest or were now missing, presumed carried away by colossal sea waves. When they first got into the village, they all clambered out of the pick-up truck, one of the few that were still in working order. They were immediately greeted by the sight of a line of dead bodies covered with any sort of material available. Because of the time since the storm, they had now begun to decompose and were emitting a strong, pungent scent. Harm lifted the corner of one and found that the body underneath had obviously been pulled from the water, because it was hideously bloated. Many of the other bodies were like that, too. They came in all sizes, the victims of all ages. Over the tiny shrouded figure of a child, a mother was crying her heart out, emitting a whimpering, heart-piercing cry. Harm and Mac averted their gaze and moved back, giving the woman the privacy she more than deserved. Through an interpreter, they learned that the storm had hit this village even harder, half an hour before it hit the main town, across the island. The waves had stormed up the beaches and washed houses away, along with many people who were still sleeping inside them. Many villagers hadn't known what awaited them, as most had been sleeping and this had all been so unexpected, the storm was meant to be miles away from here. Nobody knew why this had happened to the island of Malekula. Harm and Mac accompanied local islanders, surveying the damage. They talked to a couple more villagers, checked out some of the injured, but there was not much they could do, there were few first-aid supplies and the number of injured was great.
"This is awful," Mac commented to Harm, quietly, as they made their way back towards the pick-up.
They had brought canisters with them, because the water supply to their village was unaffected, but this was not the case in many areas. They were about to start to set up to begin to distribute it, when Harm felt Mac grab his arm.
"What is it, Mac?" Harm asked looking to Mac, then reflexively looking to where she was staring, open-mouthed.
As Harm's head whipped around, he caught sight of the skinny child, dressed only in a pair of small, tatty shorts, wandering barefoot through the muddy mess that was the disaster area. Her blond hair was muddy and tangled, but there was no mistaking who this poor skinny little creature was.
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