Derek Hansen - Sole Survivor

The stench of her vomit as he cleaned out his boat didn’t upset him. He’d grown accustomed to the smell of vomit and human feces while helping out in the camp hospital, helping the men dying of cholera and dysentery, washing fouled sheets and Jap-happies, the loincloths the men wore after their trousers had rotted away. He’d looked after men dying from injuries inflicted by swinging boots and rifle butts. He’d scraped tropical ulcers and putrefying sores. He’d lanced boils. Vomit didn’t upset him, but it was unhygienic, and hygiene was important to survival. He couldn’t help wondering if Angus’s embargo on help extended to the woman’s toilet. Perhaps he should help Rosie sink a new hole. Whenever newcomers arrived at the camps, those already there always helped dig new latrines.

“You! You out there!”

Red looked up from his work. Angus was waving to him from the beach, lean and angular in khaki shirt and baggy, knee-length khaki shorts.

“What do you want?”

“Come ashore. We need to have words.”

“I’m nearly finished.” Red continued cleaning the boat in his usual methodical way. He thought about topping up his fuel tank but hadn’t used enough on the run back from Fitzroy to justify it. He rinsed his brush over the side and put it away. He picked up a bucket filled with fresh water and a clean cloth and began to wipe all the interior surfaces so salt wouldn’t build up.

“C’mon, man, I haven’t got all day!”

Red wiped down the console and his seat. He wiped down all the metal around his controls. Things rotted in saltwater and salt air as quickly as they rotted in the jungle, unless they were properly cared for. He tossed the dregs over the side, stowed the bucket and went forward to the bow locker where he kept his storm cover.

“For heaven’s sake, man! Can you not do that later?”

Red could see that Angus was getting agitated. He couldn’t understand his impatience. Neither of them was going anywhere. There was work to be done and an order for doing it in. He fastened the cover off at the stern cleats, checked to make sure that all of the clips were secure and dived into the water.

Angus watched the madman swim toward him, Archie dog-paddling by his side, and looked around to see where Red had left his clothes. Unless the madman had buried them, he hadn’t brought any.

“Have you got nothing to make yourself decent?”

Red shook the water out of his hair and cocked his head to each side to release the drops trapped in his ears. “You said we needed to talk.”

“Aye. How did it go, then? Picking up the woman.”

“She was seasick all the way from Fitzroy.”

“Good, good. Was she frightened at all?”

“Angus, you would have been frightened.”

“Good, good!” There was genuine glee in the Scot’s voice, and he’d come as close to a smile as Red had ever seen.

“So? What next? I trust you just left her standing on the beach.” There was something indecent in the delight Angus was taking in Rosie’s suffering, and it disgusted Red.

“I took her up to Bernie’s.”

“You didn’t carry her bags?”

“Some of the way, yes.”

“Then you’re a bloody fool, man!”

“She’d collapsed on the track, Angus. She could hardly put one foot in front of the other. She’d spent the best part of the previous two hours puking.”

“Collapsed, had she? Very good. You probably did the best thing. You didn’t stay there?”

“Not for long. Started her generator, showed her how to switch it off and where the lavatory was.”

“I assume Bernie had left the place in a mess?”

“No. When I looked after Bernie, I looked after his place as well.”

“Pity. How did she seem? Disappointed?”

“No, just tired and sick. She seems to have lots of spirit.”

“Lots of spirit, eh? Well, we’ll see about that. If anywhere can knock that out of her it’s here. Provided you don’t go soft on me. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Yeah.”

“Now tell me, you didn’t make any arrangements to see her today?”

“I said I’d show her how to work the stove.”

“Heaven’s sake, man! We have an agreement! Are you already hell-bent on becoming her slave? Has she sunk her claws into your soft, daft hide already?”

“No!” The anger that had been building all morning began to seethe and foment.

“Now don’t you take that tone with me. I’ll not put up with it. I thought we had an agreement. You’ve gone soft already, haven’t you, you gormless fool?”

“No, I told you!”

“You have, man. Already she’s got you running after her. ‘Start my generator. Light my stove.’ Next she’ll have you digging her garden and sinking a new toilet. Help her now and you’ll help her forever. I’m telling you, man. Do this! Do that! Fetch this! Mend that! There’ll be no letup. There’ll be no peace for either of us.”

“All I said was I’d show her how to work the stove!”

“You’ll not do any such thing!”

“I gave my word!”

“Then un-give it. Don’t you see?” Angus sensed he’d pushed Red far enough and softened his voice. He didn’t want to be the cause of one of Red’s turns. “Any minute it’s going to rain cats and dogs. Let her sit up there all alone, no television, no telephone, no heat and nowhere to go. She won’t last long. Every time she wants a pee she’ll have to go outside and get a soaking. She’ll have no hot shower and no hot bath. No city woman is going to put up with that for long.”

Red could see that Angus was right. He forced himself to breathe deeply, felt the ebb of his anger and frustrations.

“Okay. I’ll do it your way.”

“There’ll be no taking her fish, either. Not fresh, not smoked. You’ll give her nothing.”

“Okay.”

“Good. Then it’s agreed.” The Scot turned abruptly and strode back up the beach toward the track.

Red turned around to look for Archie. He could hear the first rain squall battering the leaves on the trees high up on the ridges. It wouldn’t be long before it reached them. At least it would wash the salt out of his hair and off his body. He spotted Archie farther down the beach, about thirty yards out from shore. His tail was wagging furiously as he dog-paddled after small mullet. Red smiled. If there were no seagulls to chase, Archie chased fish. If he ever caught one it would be because the fish had collapsed laughing. Red shaped his lips to whistle him in but thought better of it. Archie was enjoying himself and not hurting anyone. Red wished he could say the same for himself.

The curtains Bernie had hung over his bedroom window so that he could sleep late worked just as well for Rosie. She slept until the rain squall began its frenetic tattoo on her iron roof. She opened her eyes and looked around her. The room was not unlike many of the bachs she’d weekended in, practical, even comfortable, but in no way cosy. There was a tired-looking tallboy and an empty wardrobe with its door half open. The linoleum on the floor was worn, and there was a tattered wool rug that might once have been cream-colored, covering what she suspected was a hole. But there was no doubting the place was clean. Hospital clean.

It didn’t bother her that she was lying in the bed Bernie had died in, because she’d been brought up around hospitals. When somebody died you changed the sheets, not the bed. What did worry her was that she desperately needed a pee. She got up, unzipped her bags and rifled through them to find something warm to put on. She shivered in the cold and pulled her jeans and sweater on as fast as she could in preparation for the mad dash to the outhouse. The pounding on her roof swelled to a continuous roar. Thunder crackled and threatened to split her roof apart. She thought of the wet run up to the smelly toilet and considered squatting over the washbasin in the bathroom instead. According to a salesman she knew who stayed in country pubs, the old trick of peeing in the washbasin was an institution. You could do whatever you liked in them, he’d maintained, so long as you never actually washed in them. She dismissed the idea. This was her new home, not a country pub. And if she was going to make a go of things, the sooner she started doing things properly, the better.