May 12th:
Just after dawn, Nikki had just finished feeding Gale, and she laid a content and sleeping baby in her basket. Josh was sleeping soundly too as she left the tent for a walk on the beach. After walking for about fifteen minutes, she turned around headed back to camp. Approaching their camp, all was still quiet. Nikki sat in the sand at the water's edge and watched the surf.
"What is that?OH MY GOD!" she says out loud as she jumps up. "It's a Mast! I can see a Mast!"
"JOSH! JOSH! JOSH COME QUICK!"
Startled by the sound of Nikki's cries, Josh jumps out of bed and rushes from the tent.
"NIKKI! WHAT'S WRONG?"
" COME QUICK!"
Jogging over to her, he looks to where she is pointing and then sees what she's looking at.
Stopping short, mouth dropping open… " A MAST! A WARSHIP MAST!" he exclaims, then he runs back to the tent for the flare gun. Heart pounding, he shoots off a flare.
Australian Patrol Boat:
The lookout of the watch spots the flare.
"Captain! I have a flare...Green 45."
Grabbing the glasses, the captain looks out to the direction called out just as Josh's second flare lights in the sky.
"Set a course to intercept that flare location, best speed. It could be people in the water. Coms, did we miss a mayday?"
"No, Ma'am."
The Island:
Nikki grabs onto him, "Josh! They're turning! They saw the flares! Oh my God!" and she starts crying. Josh pulls her in close with tears in his own eyes.
"We're outta here, Nik! We're outta here!"
Ten minutes later, they can see a RHIB approaching, and they are both shaking with joy.
As the RHIB slides onto the beach, the boarding party jumps out and sees the couple approaching them. The Sailors jog over to them and then just stop, staring incredulously at what or rather who they are seeing.
"Josh? Nikki?" Dutchy says. "How?" he's speechless. Swain, Spider, and Buffer run-up to them. All of them with tears of joy as they take turns hugging them.
Dutchy steps away for a moment to call the ship:
"Delta 8-2...Charley 8-2."
"Go ahead, Delta, Sitrep…"
"We have two persons stranded. Captain …Kate… it's Josh and Nikki."
Kate was shocked, speechless, then, "Josh and Nikki? What? My God, how can that be? I'll be right there. Are they ok?"
"They look fine, Ma'am, a little thin. Swain is looking them over now."
"I'm coming… Out. Beech, you have the ship, drop anchor. Call for the second RHIB to be launched. RO, call Commander Flynn, update him and tell him I'll call when I get back. Charge, with me."
Kate and Charge rushed to the RHIB and set off to Holiday Beach. The RHIB had barely come to a stop when Kate jumped out and ran over to them. They hug, they cry.
Josh breaks away from the guys and joins Nikki and Kate getting a big hug from Kate. Then he spots Charge, "Charge! Mate! I can't believe you are all here! I can't believe that it's Hammersley that found us!"
At that moment, baby Gale decided to make her presence known with a loud wail. Josh looked at Nikki, "I've got her, Babe," as he jogs off to the tent and then quickly changing Gale before returning to the crew.
Kate is stunned, " Is that...Is that a baby?"
Nikki is beaming as Josh returns with a much calmer Gale.
Going over to Kate and the rest of their friends, "This is Gale Marie Holiday, just two months old today."
"My God, you two!" Then Josh passes Gale to Kate for her to hold.
Walking up to the campsite, they are amazed at how they were living and had a million and one questions.
"I'll tell you what, get us the hell out of here, and we'll answer all of your questions," Josh tells them. "The story is a bit too long to tell here."
Kate, Dutchy and the rest of the crew laughed.
"Are you up to showing us around a bit before we leave?" Kate asks.
"Sure. Nikki, is that ok?"
"Of course."
Josh went and got the carrier that they had made from a daypack and settled Gale in it. Then Nikki leads them up the trail.
"The plane…" Kate remarks.
"Yeah…" Josh answers.
Holy Shit! You survived that?" Swain exclaims.
"What happened to the pilot," Kate asked.
"His name was Dave Mathews. He died in the crash. We buried him on the beach."
At the plane, Nikki turned left, leading them to the bunker.
"Is that…?"
" A WWII bunker," Nikki replied.
"Yup, our severe storm shelter cum birthing suite," Josh added.
Going inside, they looked around, "looks fairly comfy as things go, Mate, especially with the seats," Charge remarks.
"It served us well," Nikki said.
After coming out of the bunker, Nikki pointed further up the trail, "if we were to continue that way, we would come to our fruit groves, banana and papaya. There are some wild onions near the river and some berry bushes here and there."
Then they returned to the plane.
"We continue on this way, and we come to our freshwater source," Nikki said as they continued along the trail that they had cleared to the river.
Getting close to the river, the noise of the flowing water and the falls reached them. Stepping from the trees, the group was awestruck at the beauty.
Josh began, "We got our freshwater here, bathed, and washed our clothes."
"How domestic," Charge teased.
Nikki continued with a twinkle, "and that large flat rock there is where we would picnic and where we got married."
"Wait...Wait...got married??" Kate exclaimed.
"Yup," Josh says, beaming. Right over there."
Nikki then showed them the ring that Josh had made for her.
"Josh, that is fabulous!" Kate said, admiring the ring.
"But why bother to get married?" Spider asked.
"We didn't know when or if we would ever make it out of here. We wanted to be married. We were engaged, and we didn't want to wait any longer. So we committed ourselves to each other just as we would have in front of a chaplain or judge and a crowd." Josh answers.
"That's beautiful," Kate adds.
"So," Josh says," That completes our tour, Now... Can we get out of here?"
Laughing, "You bet!" Kate says.
As they walked back to the beach, Kate asked, " Would you show us where the pilot is buried?"
"Sure," Josh replied.
Back on the beach, Josh and Nikke brought them over to Dave's gravesite.
"Nikki, Josh, you really did right for him."
Kate took a picture so his family could see where he was and how well he was cared for, hoping to bring them some comfort.
"Josh, Nikki, is there anything you want to bring with you?"
"NO!" they both shouted. Making everyone laugh.
"Actually, that's not exactly true; we'll need our clothes and Gales things," Nikki said.
Josh continued, "We need our electronics, and I would like to bring a couple of Nikki's baskets that she worked so hard on."
"Electronics?" Dutchy asked him.
"Yeah, when I packed for our backpack holiday, I added our tablets, loaded with some movies and games and our Kindles and a couple of solar chargers. We had our phones too, of course. We were very glad that we had them, helped to keep us sane, and we were able to take pictures."
Buffer had been walking about the campsite and was noticing the small tables that they had made, "Josh, you made these tables?...clever."
"I made the frames, and Nikki did the tops."
"And Gales basket?" Swain asked.
"All Nikki, of course. I made the rocking base."
" Who knew that you were so talented," Buffer teased.
"Necessity, the mother of invention," Josh replies. "Also, it kept us busy."
Nikki started gathering Gales things into a basket. At the same time, Josh collected their electronics and Dave's personal items to be returned to his family.
"Alright! All set?" Kate asked them.
"More than," Nikki said.
Josh pulled Nikki into his arms as they looked around at what had been their home for over a year. Then kissing her…
"All Set."