Andrew could only agree. “Certainly bare,” he said, his eyes squinting against the glare while he scanned the few metres of white sand.
“No shade,” Carmen added, “Or water.”
And it was the water that most worried Andrew. Already he had a real thirst. If nobody comes along within a day or two we will die from thirst or heat stroke, he thought gloomily.
Two years before, during the Cadet Annual Camp which had been held in Townsville, he and Carmen had done a two day Sea Survival training course on a rocky island in Halifax Bay and it was thirst and heat which had predominated, followed by exposure.
The heat stroke concept was reinforced now by his own bodily discomfort. Lying on the hot dry sand in his wetsuit was now making him sweat. With a groan Andrew rolled over and struggled to his knees.
“I need to get out of my wetsuit for a while,” he said. “It is too hot.”
Carmen agreed, and both stood and unzipped and peeled off their wetsuits. While he did that Andrew scanned the sea to the north and was surprised that he could still see the mast of the game fishing boat as a thin black line against the sky. The inconsequential thought crossed his mind that he had read somewhere that during the age of steam when British warships painted their upper masts black to hide the soot from the coal dust the French had painted their upper masts white to make them almost invisible against the sky.
Having pulled off his wetsuit Andrew laid it carefully beside his other diving gear. Then he twisted to look at his speargun wound. To his surprise it was just a small hole that was almost completely closed up. There was certainly no seepage of blood. Nor was the exit wound bleeding either. But it certainly hurt when he moved.
Carmen came and studied the wound, her fingers gentle as she dabbed around the puffy flesh. “I think being in the sea water so long has caused the flesh to swell and close up,” she said.
“That should be good shouldn’t it?” Andrew asked. They certainly had no bandages or First Aid stores.
“I think so. The salt will have certainly helped as an antiseptic,” Carmen agreed.
“Well I am getting back in the water again for a minute. It is getting bloody hot,” Andrew said. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was five to one. The sun was high overhead and blazing down with tropical intensity.
“I will join you, but only for a few minutes,” Carmen agreed.
Both walked down into the shallow water and crouched to splash water over themselves. It was wonderfully cool for a few minutes but then Andrew began to shiver. Carmen lay face down and said, “Well, what exactly did you see?”
Andrew related all the detail he could remember, adding, “They are obviously smugglers.”
“Smuggling what I wonder?” Carmen mused.
“Something very valuable. Something worth committing murder for,” Andrew replied bitterly. Once again, he shuddered at the images of violent death that swirled in his mind.
“Drugs maybe?” Carmen suggested.
“Or guns or something like that,” Andrew added.
“Why guns? Who would want guns in Australia,” Carmen queried.
Andrew shrugged. “Illegal weapons, like handguns for bank robbers, or automatic rifles for gun nuts,” he suggested. As he talked he felt his skin dry off and then begin to burn. He ducked into the water again and then stood up and limped back up to look around the horizon. Carmen joined him. There was no sign of the game fishing boat.
“Gone,” Andrew said.
“What do you think they will do with the dive boat?” Carmen asked.
“Sink it in deep water to get rid of the evidence,” Andrew replied grimly. Horrible images of the bodies of his friends being locked in the sinking vessel rose to cause him to shudder. Once again, he ran his tongue over lips that were starting to dry and crack, wishing he could have a drink. Then he gestured with his hands.
“I feel like we have been cheated. In all the cartoons the castaways on desert islands always have a single palm tree to sit under. We haven’t even got a bush.”
“No, you are right,” Carmen agreed. “But we had better make some sort of shelter or we are going to get horribly sunburnt.”
Andrew glanced at his already red skin and nodded. “Drinking water is more of a problem,” he replied.
“I know, but talking about it won’t help so let’s try to get under our wetsuits,” Carmen suggested.
So they sat on the damp sand rather than on the hotter dry sand and then covered their backs and heads with their wetsuits while trying to hold them up off their skin to provide shade but still allow a cooling breeze. It wasn’t very successful but it was better than nothing. Every ten minutes or so they both stood up and looked in all directions then went and lay in the sea for a minute.
“Tide is going out,” Andrew commented, indicating the numerous coral heads that were now exposed.
He then slowly scanned the whole horizon starting with the west. That showed nothing but a flat horizon line as they were so far from the coast not even the mountains were visible. And it was hard to look towards the west because the afternoon sun was now reflecting off the waves. Looking south across the Boat Passage showed no prospect of help. Beyond the water of the passage there were just the overlapping lines of coral that marked the Feathers Reefs. These extended off as far as he could see, surrounded by rock studded shallows.
No-one in their right mind would sail a ship through that unless he had to, he thought.
Andrew then looked to the east. First, he studied the deep water of the Boat Passage looking for any small spray of water that might indicate a submarine periscope, then for any large shadow under the water.
I’m being silly. They will be long gone, he thought. They would want to be back out in the open ocean beyond the Barrier Reef before the tidal flow got too strong.
His gaze then roved over the huge area of tidal shallows and exposed reefs inside the Longbow Reef. The dark bumps of the two wrecks on the northern end of it showed clearly and he even detected a few spurts of white as large waves broke on the outer reef. What he was really looking for was a ship on the horizon but there was none.
Andrew shook his head with anxiety and then looked at the tiny square of the stone building on distant Prescott Island.
Our base camp is there but I didn’t see any water, he thought.
The camp had been set up to make a change from being on the dive boat. Looking further to the left his gaze followed around the long sweep of reefs that bordered the northern side of the Challenger Channel. Still nothing.
Carmen stood up and joined him as he stared out northwards. “See anything?” she asked.
Andrew shook his head and tried to keep the worry out of his voice and off his face.
“No. I was hoping some ship might pass through the Challenger Channel,” he replied.
“Not much hope of that,” Carmen answered. “All the commercial trade goes through further north.”
Andrew knew that. The only big ships he was aware of that regularly passed eastwards through the Great Barrier Reef out into the Coral Sea were the bulk carriers that brought nickel ore from French New Caledonia to Townsville. They used the Flinders Passage as did most of the other ships like the coal carriers from Abbot Point.
“There might be a tourist launch,” he said.
Carmen shook her head. “Not likely. Not only is this a restricted conservation zone but it is too far from any port where tourists might come from like Townsville or Bowen and any boats from the Whitsunday resorts will go to the reefs just near them,” she said.
Andrew