CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Flight of the Hunters

THE PLANE FELT trim and sleek as it cut through the morning sky. Ralph found time to savour the clinical smell of the seats and the humming of the engines. The only reminder of the island was the salty stench of the kids around him. Suddenly Ralph felt very alone, cut off from Rachel and Jack like this. He glanced at the napes of Martin and the pilot, and wished that Rachel was in the former's place.

'How long 'til we get there?' he asked.

'About two hours,' replied Martin. 'We'll drop you off in French Polynesia. Rachel told me she came from there, funnily enough.'

Again Ralph felt superstitious impulses, but shunned them. After all, Rachel wouldn't have drifted from Crete! He settled back down into his leather seat and closed his eyes. With a littlun sitting on his feet, this stuffy flight would normally have been unbearable, but the mechanical sensations around him comforted Ralph. He yearned again for order, geometry, the unnatural.

He was just acclimatising himself to the luxuries of civilisation when a burst of bullets shattered the plane. With a violent puckering sound, like the top of a tin can being punctured, four holes appeared in either side of the fuselage, and the head of the littlun sitting on Ralph's right exploded like a water melon, sending sluices of blood and brain all over him.

A unified wail of terror rose like a siren as Ralph stared, dumbfounded, at the frayed edges of the gaping neck beside him. Then, closing his eyes again, he leaned forward and vomited onto his feet, as the other children pushed themselves away from the corpse like rats fleeing from torchlight.

'Martin… Martin…'

Ralph looked back towards the cockpit and saw the American, white and frozen, staring back at the bloody scene. He made a sudden gesture, and his lips moved, but Ralph heard nothing, just the rush of his blood combining with the faltering engines. We can't crash again, we can't crash again…

In the cockpit Martin was frantic. 'What the hell's going on? Are they attacking us in broad daylight now?'

Peterkin was gripped by fear. 'We… We'll have to land in the ocean,' he stammered.

'The ocean? We'll be a sitting target out there!'

'What else can we do?' blubbered Peterkin. 'We're losing fuel and going down fast. That's if we don't get shot to death first.'

Martin stared dead ahead, his eyes bulging, as if hoping an answer would hit the windscreen. After a few fraught seconds he made a decision.

'We have to go to the island.'

'The island? We'll never make it back,' cried Peterkin.

'Not that island,' said Martin, his face spectral. 'The other one. The one belonging to the savages.'

The two men looked at each other, both blinking away beads of sweat.

Martin insisted. 'Turn south-west. Now!'

Peterkin blinked again, then made the necessary manoeuvres. 'It'll be five minutes before we're in sight,' he gasped.

'We'll make it,' said Martin grimly. 'Just keep flying. Anything's better than the savages in the sky.'

The plane protested with rumbles and chugs as its course became increasingly hectic. The clouds of flight disappeared and the gigantic ocean loomed underneath them. Ralph kept his eyes shut tight. The blood and the future were too terrible to contemplate. His hearing had returned, however, and he heard Martin proclaim:

'He's coming around again! Hold on!'

Ralph stayed in a foetal position, and tried to steady his breathing.

In the cockpit Peterkin kept his eyes in front of him, while Martin strained to keep sight of the attacker.

'Single fighter,' the American muttered. 'Must have followed you.'

'I didn't bargain for this,' said Peterkin. 'Never even fired a gun in combat.'

'Hold steady,' ordered Martin. 'How much further?'

'We're coming into sight,' the pilot replied, then, 'There it is. Look!'

Martin saw a dark green dot in the distance. 'Head straight for it. Think you can land?'

'If there's a beach I can ease onto it. If not I'll land on the water and we'll swim for it.'

The island was in comforting view when another flurry of firepower hit them — one of the propellors was struck, and a tail of dark smoke made their direction clear. The enemy plane passed overhead and vanished from sight and sound. Soon the island was large and substantial within the cinema of the windscreen.

'Small beach,' said Peterkin shortly. 'I'll do my best.'

Martin nodded, then called back to the cargo. 'We're making a crash landing,' he said as calmly as he could. 'Everyone hold on tight.' He turned back to Peterkin. 'Good luck.'

RALPH OPENED HIS eyes. Green and blue, just like the island: suffocating trees and vast sky. Was he back there? No, they had left that place. This was the other island. With a start he tried to sit up, but pains in his back and sides prevented him. Martin came into view.

'Relax,' he said. 'We made it.'

'Is everyone okay?' whimpered Ralph, his voice simultaneously close and distant.

'Pretty much. Peterkin lost consciousness. The kids are alright.'

Ralph nodded as best he could. 'Radio,' he murmured. 'Call the base.'

'Radio's out,' the man informed him. 'I only hope they'll call off the bomb. If they assume I got the kids over here by boat…'

Somebody groaned nearby. It was Peterkin. Ralph turned his head and discovered he was lying in the outskirts of a forest, rather like the one on his own island. A few feet away, white sand ran down to the waterline. Peterkin was propped up against a palm tree, testing a wound on his forehead.

'I'll get some bandages,' said Martin with a reassuring pat. 'You did bring some, right?'

'Of course,' said the pilot with a grimace.

Martin went off into the forest and Ralph turned his head to follow him. Then he saw the blue body of the plane. The wings and the floats were gone. Martin disappeared into the cockpit and rummaged about for the box of stuff in the hold. Ralph remembered one of the littluns using it as a footrest. The American returned to the supine passengers and opened the container. Out came drinks, a flare gun, a box of bullets, bandages, and other sundry items. Ralph thought of Rachel's flotsam. What a happy wreck that had been.

Martin administered to Peterkin, and Ralph ventured to sit up on his elbows. He saw the other children sitting in the shade of the forest. They looked like they were holding up. Used to it by now, thought Ralph with an ironic smile.

He croaked the pressing question at Martin. 'Do they know we're here?'

'Who?'

'The savages.'

Martin played with a bandage. 'Don't know. But we made a pretty big noise when we crashed. Lucky the thing didn't explode.'

'We're going to need those bullets, aren't we,' said Ralph, his eyes as dead and dry as the sand beside him.

Martin put the bandages back in the box. 'Probably,' he admitted. 'Looks like Scarface will have his revenge.' He pursed up his lips, breathed in, breathed out, then looked Ralph dead in the eye. 'There's something I didn't tell you. About your friends. The other three boys.'

'What do you mean?'

'Scarface didn't say they were with you. He told me the other savages had taken them away.'

'Why would they do that?'

Martin paused, and ran a hand over his gun. 'Because they're cannibals.'

Ralph closed his eyes again.

THE END