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Coconut Trees
by Anton M.
Chapter 15: Dawn
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Elizabeth wiped her eyes, took one of the blankets on her shoulders, and sat on it.
"Explain," she repeated to Sam. "I'll listen."
"I'll draw you a—"
"No drawing," she interrupted. "No writing. I'm dyslexic, and there's no time. I will memorize what you're telling me and repeat it all back to you to make sure I remembered it correctly."
It felt surreal to admit to her dyslexia, surreal but also… liberating. It set her free. She did not wish to explain, to linger or to wait for a discussion about how capable she would be of helping him. She did not care. She had failed endlessly at school, at testing and exams and all the academic benchmarks that were supposed to reflect her intelligence, but she had always been good with her hands. She could follow (oral) instructions.
And she didn't have time.
She had a deadline, and her deadline was Darcy's life.
Roger, Kitty and Lei were eager to help Elizabeth, but Roger knew which non-penicillin antibiotics would help Darcy, and so Kitty and Roger began systematically searching through each and every nook and cranny in every single bag they could find. Elizabeth didn't have words for how thankful she was for their diligence.
Juan, Dame Catherine and William Collins had fallen asleep while Orri and Charlotte were adding layers to be able to sit beside the fire. Fatemeh, Anna and Mary had settled on a shift to be help Li. Elizabeth was grateful for all the small decisions that gave her the space to focus.
Sam took an entire hour, with water breaks, to explain every little detail of building a transmitter, the components, the wires, how to recognize parts. Elizabeth asked endless questions. After the hour was over and Lei was trying his hardest not to fall asleep beside her, Elizabeth described a transmitter and the antenna back to him, showing the parts he already had, their names and functions, how they should be connected, and Sam corrected her wherever she made mistakes. Once she had repeated everything, she did it once more, and again, and again, until it was so late that little Darcy woke up crying. Fatemeh and Anna washed her and changed the cloth wrapped around her before Li fed her daughter.
Sam exhausted himself explaining everything to Elizabeth and Lei, and Elizabeth promised to wake Sam up every few hours to ask questions and show her progress. She did not ask if it was okay. Frankly, she did not care, and a part of her was worried that Sam, too, would not wake up in the morning (which is why she insisted on understanding what needed to be done). Sam looked pale and weak enough to give cause for concern.
It did not matter, anyway, as little Darcy's crying could wake them all up at any point in the night.
Sam could no longer keep his eyes open at midnight, and Elizabeth worked relentlessly with Lei helping and keeping her company. Roger, when taking a break from searching for antibiotics, helped Lei wrench and unscrew multiple parts of the plane wall open (including the area around the plane phone). But Juan's crying took an annoyed Lei away from them, and Lei, trying to get his brother to sleep, fell asleep beside him.
Roger and Elizabeth hit holes on the plane wall. They used an unscrewed seat and chose a time when little Darcy was already awake. Mary held little Darcy's ears before they woke everyone up with several enormous bangs. Lei grumbled. Dame Catherine said a few passive aggressive words, but Elizabeth gave her an insincere smile in the dim light. She was past caring.
If waking up a famous actress was her price for going home with Darcy outside a coffin, Elizabeth could keep her up all night.
Elizabeth left Roger to cut and tear off some of the wiring in the wall as she returned to the white cloth on the floor. It held all the components of the antique Emerson radio, the tinfoil Kitty had found, components taken from other electronics, and endless wiring. Elizabeth, desperately following Sam's instructions, touched the big metal bottoms of the seats prior to touching and connecting the components to avoid destroying or short-circuiting any capacitors.
Lei helped Elizabeth whenever he woke up, but he kept falling asleep against the seat and Elizabeth helped him up to make sure he kept his brother warm as they slept. Anna, too, kept Elizabeth company for an hour, reading a small book in Russian, and Kitty curled up next to a nearby seat when she needed sleep after four rigorous hours of endless searching. She squeezed Elizabeth's shoulder, apologizing for not finding anything yet, but Elizabeth gave her a tight smile. She appreciated the attempt.
Quiet words were shared each time people joined Elizabeth, soothing and distracting her in equal measure, but she was grateful for the company. Outside of little Darcy's crying, the quiet of the night was only interrupted by snoring, Li's humming, and the three women waking each other up as they changed shifts.
One of the lights flickered and went out at around three AM (according to Darcy's Beijing time), (presumably it was the batteries that ran out of power), and Elizabeth woke Sam up to make sure that all the components she'd connected so far were done correctly. A lot of the stuff he'd described looked different to what Sam had thought she'd find, and his frequent input was vital to keep her on track.
Elizabeth was exhausted, hungry and fighting back tears as she blatantly stole a candy when her vision blurred. She gave one to everyone who was up (and three to Li). She was ready to put up a fight if anyone mentioned that these candies hadn't been calculated into their ratios, but nobody dared question her.
She checked on Darcy every half an hour. He now, sometimes, gasped for breath as he wheezed, and she whispered words of love against his ear each time she left him. She couldn't put into words how desperately she needed him to get well. In her weakest moments, tears shimmered in her eyes as she followed Sam's instructions, but she was careful to dab her face with the end of her sleeve to make sure her salty tears wouldn't ruin the electronics. She was grateful for Roger's help, but as a visual learner, Roger needed a drawing, and so he ended up following Elizabeth's instructions until he fell asleep at around four.
Elizabeth covered him with the blanket that fell by his side. She stretched. She woke Sam up with questions and concerns, and Sam, ever-patient and sympathetic to her plight with Darcy, helped her as best he could. He was visibly shaking from blood loss and exhaustion, and Elizabeth stole two pretzels and white rabbit candy for him. Fortunately, Sam fell asleep easily (or so Elizabeth justified waking him up all the time). She would have loved to have his eyes on her work every second of the way, but Sam was visibly drained and she needed him alive and healthy, even if she was the reason for his interrupted sleep.
By the time little Darcy woke everyone up (again) with her crying at seven AM, Elizabeth was measuring the rough length of the antenna that would attach to the transmitter. Sam watched her in silence as he drank water.
"Get any sleep at all?"
Elizabeth shook her head, silently counting the number of times she'd curled the coil around the book.
"Five point five metres," she said. "Is that okay? Should we cut it to be exactly five?"
"For optimal signal, yes."
He measured and cut off the excess before giving the coil and the book back to Elizabeth.
Silent talking surrounded them now that little Darcy would not stop crying, but it was still pitch-black outside and the only movement in the plane was Fatemeh and Mary getting little Darcy washed and changed into new towels. Elizabeth absent-mindedly wondered what they would use after they ran out of clean cloth, but her mind was occupied elsewhere.
Sam observed her blood-shot eyes, but thankfully, he did not comment.
"I'm sorry that I keep waking you," Elizabeth said.
"I cannot fault you."
Elizabeth blew her nose into a worthless piece of summer clothing.
"Please check if everything's correct."
Sam wiped his face, blinking, trying to force himself awake as he went through the transmitter Elizabeth had made with his input and according to his instructions. It was not a single box—or anything similar to what people would think of when they thought of a radio—but a series of components on a cotton cloth attached by wires and, finally, an antenna. He corrected two connections and adjusted a few wirings before he squeezed Elizabeth's shoulder.
"Looks good," he whispered.
Elizabeth, exhausted, terrified, and overwhelmed by emotion, burst into tears.
"I cannot believe you did this," Sam said. "You're one of the best students I've had."
Elizabeth did not even know anymore why she was crying—for Darcy, for being so hungry and exhausted, and now, for hearing for the first time in her life that she could be not just a good student but his best student. It was a ridiculous, surreal thing to cry about, but she could not help it.
"Can you find us a cardboard box or a plank of wood, or anything that's not metal or wool?" Sam asked.
"I saw some," Lei said, yawning before he returned with a flat but sturdy-looking piece of cardboard.
"Estupendo," Sam said.
"Please tell me we can start contacting others right away," Elizabeth whispered, trying to swallow the tightness in her throat. "Please."
"We just need batteries."
Sam had already formed the correct wiring for the phone and laptop batteries. They'd probably end up using them all up, but it did not matter.
"How can we tell if it works?"
"We can't," Sam replied. "Other than my knowledge of the components, we can't. You were in such a rush that I did not teach you to make a receiver, only the transmitter."
"I understand," Elizabeth replied. "But what do we do now?"
The pitch black of the airplane was replaced by a blueish hue as dawn approached.
Elizabeth, Sam and Roger built a make do casing and warmth-protection for the batteries before they carefully lifted the cotton cloth holding their transmitter and antenna on top of a flat cardboard. Elizabeth woke Lei up for extra help, and made sure that when Sam was describing exactly what to do and how to do it, they had multiple sets of ears for attention. She did not trust her sleepless brain.
Kitty ran up to the group in such a rush that one of the resistors detached from its wiring, and Elizabeth was about to scold her when she noticed the happy glint in her eye as she held out a small white-and-blue box of ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic sometimes included in emergency kits.
Elizabeth fell into Kitty's arms, swallowing back happy tears.
Darcy did not reply when Elizabeth spoke to him, but he had a pulse and he opened his bleary eyes once as Elizabeth and Roger decided to give him a double dose, two tablets, whether or not that was a good idea. Darcy's state was too bleak to care about rationing the medicine. He swallowed it, drinking water, but whether or not he understood what was happening was questionable.
It might've been too late and it might've been the wrong medicine, but there was nothing else they could do. Their transmitter couldn't work soon enough.
"Where did you find it?" Elizabeth asked Kitty, remembering to drink water now that they'd done everything in their power to keep Darcy alive.
Kitty shifted and gave a quick glance at Lei before she pressed her lips tightly together.
"I don't want to say."
Before Lei could figure out what Kitty had done, Sam invited the group over to him.
"The signal should be most powerful at dawn and dusk, and it looks like it's getting lighter."
Roger, Elizabeth and Kitty added more layers before carefully and methodically carrying the transmitter and the antenna outside. Kitty held the box with the batteries. As they passed anyone who was awake, the way they looked at the contraption was almost reverential. It struck Elizabeth's sleep-deprived brain that had they understood less of the engineering or science, or lived in another time, their contraption might've made it in the list of deities. Either way, Elizabeth was not far from worshipping Sam if his transmitter worked.
It was a gorgeous morning, windless and frosty, with an amazing view of the vast evergreen forests around them. Orri and Charlotte, looking exhausted but otherwise happy, had kept the fire on. Both watched as the group of three slowly approached. Hopeful, teasing comments were made, disagreeing over who'd had the longest night. It had truly been a surreal night—so many of them had kept themselves awake or awoken others.
Orri and Charlotte cleared snow (a few metres from the fire) before Elizabeth, Roger and Kitty set the transmitter on the ground, far enough from the embers that no harm would come to it but close enough that the batteries could be warmed.
Elizabeth motioned for Roger to begin while he did the same.
"You start," Roger said. "This is your lovechild with Sam. Just say what we agreed on."
Elizabeth attached the wiring to the batteries, expecting a sound, a spark, or a light, but when nothing happened, she decided to trust Sam's knowledge in creating the transmitter.
"SOS," Elizabeth started into the small microphone, feeling ridiculous. She'd never thought she'd unironically use the signal. "We are survivors from flight 9122 from Beijing to Montreal. SOS. Flight 9122. We have fifteen known survivors, with a few in critical condition. SOS. Please send help. SOS."
Everyone let out a breath when she detached the wiring from the batteries.
"Do you think it worked?" Kitty asked, looking excited and tense, elated and nauseated, all at once.
"We must hope it will."
Lei translated and transmitted the message in Mandarin, Anna in Russian, Fatemeh in Kurdish and Arabic, Kitty in French, and Sam in Spanish (spoken by Charlotte). Orri, witnessing everyone else's message in more impactful languages, felt whimsical and threw in some Icelandic as well. They repeated the message in English the most.
They waited with bated breath, eating their rationed breakfast while watching the sun rise, joking, laughing, barely able to keep themselves together. Elizabeth kept checking on Darcy, but his condition hadn't changed, and his wheezing breaths felt downright scary now. She watched everyone's joy as if she were in a dream, she was so sleep-deprived. She received their sympathetic words and pats on the back with as much hopefulness as she could muster, and took photos of the dreamlike morning they were having.
Darcy had to make it. She refused to accept any other outcome.
The knowledge that their messages were transmitted at the speed of light did not help but harmed their patience. If the message travelled at the speed of light, wouldn't someone, somewhere, have picked it up by now? But Sam explained to them about radio direction finding—even if Elizabeth's first message was picked up by an amateur radio enthusiast in Tonga, they had to relay that message to people with actual influence to figure out their location and save them.
However, the knowledge that they had only just survived their third night in the plane gave them hope like nothing else did.
It was a sobering thought. Not even 72 hours had passed since their crash. Less than 72 hours almost certainly meant that a search party must've still been out there, even if they were in the wrong location, and anyone picking up their SOS signal could also pick up the following words on the same frequency. They described their location in some of the messages in ridiculous detail, hoping and wishing that it would help, but the initial concise SOS message got repeated and translated the most.
Most of the survivors helped add branches to the fire and gathered around it. They took turns transmitting the message in the blinding light of the sun and the glistening snow, hopeful, exhausted, happy. The sounds of the fire crackling surrounded them, and the warmth of fire had never felt so reassuring.
Kitty, holding her fingers to the fire, asked everyone, if they could pick from any dish in the world, what they would like to eat first if they got rescued.
"A big giant fat whopper from Burger King," the prim and proper Mancunian Mary said, dead serious, and the entire group burst out laughing.
"You surprise me, Mary," Roger said, grinning. "Tell you what, if we get rescued, I'll buy you one because I'll be the next in line."
"Triple that," Charlotte said before she motioned for Elizabeth to continue. Elizabeth did not have quite the same sparkle in her eye as her worries were tied to Darcy's fate, but she gave the group her best exhausted smile.
"I could have a bath in anything from Mildred's Soho," she said. "It's a small, cramped, slightly-too-expensive vegan place but their chilaquiles are to die for."
"If your contraption here saves us, we will all pitch in so that you could have dinner there for a month!" Orri laughed.
"Hell, I'll liquidate my 401K and give you dinner for a year," Roger added.
Elizabeth grinned, shaking her head, happy for their happiness. It was Sam, of course, who had done most of it, but she did not have the energy to argue.
"I want my mom's lasagne," Kitty said simply, and kind, hungry smiles were shared when Charlotte asked her to describe it, but the voices faded around Elizabeth. She felt her heartbeat in her ears as she took a few steps away from the group, shielding her eyes from the sun.
There, on the horizon, was a little black dot, barely visible.
"Guys," she whispered, and even with her low voice, Fatemeh caught her eye and came to stand next to Elizabeth. Orri followed.
"Oh my God."
The entire group formed a line on the flat mountaintop, holding their breath, full of disbelief. The faint but unmistakeable sound of a chopper reached them as the little dot became bigger, and Elizabeth burst into tears as she fell into the arms of the nearest person. They pulled back, cheering, laughing, crying. Lei and Juan ran downhill, announcing the news to the people stuck in the plane.
Elizabeth ignored the tears that cooled her cheeks and grinned at the group. Together, by some force or another, they wordlessly took each others hands and stood on the edge of the flat mountaintop, cheeks covered in tears, grinning in joy and disbelief.
"Smile," Elizabeth said with tears of joy in her throat. "Smile for the photo that will cover all newspapers tomorrow."
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