Survival

'Do I have to?' muttered Amber, gazing with barely disguised disgust at the pink meat bulging from the split tail skin. 'Give me a hand, will you, Li?'

'One minute,' said Li. She was watching Alex. 'We need to talk,' she said, softly. Alex looked up, saw Li's serious expression, and nodded. Li walked a little way away from the campsite and Alex followed.

'How's the leg wound looking?' she asked, glancing back at Hex.

'Not good,' said Alex.

Li sighed. 'Do you have any antibiotics in your survival tin?' she asked.

'Why?'

'Do you?' repeated Li, biting her lip and looking at him hopefully.

'No,' said Alex.

Li groaned and sank down onto the sand. Her eyes were brimming with tears. Alex felt a cold chill run down his back.

'Tell me,' he said, sitting down beside her.

'If a komodo doesn't manage to disembowel its prey right away, it has another, slower way of killing,' said Li. 'All it needs is one bite. It doesn't even need to be a serious bite. They have special grooves in their teeth. Shreds of meat collect in the grooves and rot – it's a bacteria breeding ground. Even their saliva has over fifty different strains of bacteria – and at least seven of those strains are highly septic. Once an animal is bitten, it may run off, but all the komodo has to do is follow along behind.'

Li looked at Alex and saw in his face that he understood exactly what she was saying.

'Septicaemia,' he said, flatly. 'Blood poisoning.'

Li nodded.

'How long has he got?' asked Alex.

'Without antibiotics?' Li looked over at Hex and felt her throat close up. 'Three days at the most. Probably less.'

NINETEEN

Alex rested his head in his hands. Suddenly he felt very tired. He had worked so hard to keep everyone alive and healthy. All the basic survival problems had been solved. They had established a good camp, with a separate latrine. They had food, water and fire. But this? Alex sighed. This problem was beyond him.

'Alex?' whispered Li. 'Maybe our SOS got through. And maybe they have the technology to locate us just from that message. What do you think?'

Alex lifted his head and stared out to sea. His expression was bleak and a muscle jumped in the angle of his jaw. 'We'll know soon enough,' he said. 'If someone pinpointed our position, they'll be here before nightfall.'

'And if they're not?' asked Li.

Alex shrugged and looked down at his hands.

'Don't,' said Li in a quavering voice. 'Please don't.'

Alex turned to look at Li. Her chin was trembling and her eyes were brimming with tears. 'Don't what?' he asked.

'Don't give up,' said Li. She shook her head and the tears spilled over onto her cheeks. Alex put an arm around her shoulders and she turned her face into his shoulder. 'You can't give up, Alex,' she wept. 'Not you. You're the strong one. You keep us all going. If you give up, then we're all going to end up like – like that Japanese soldier in the cave. We'll all be skeletons, picked clean by the insects-'

Li stopped as Alex grabbed her shoulders, turning her to face him. 'What did you say?' he said.

'I – I said, we'll all end up as skeletons, like-'

'- like that Japanese soldier,' finished Alex. He let go of Li's shoulders. 'I wonder…?'

Alex turned to stare up at the mountain, lost in thought. His back was straight and his eyes were sharp and focused again. Li held her breath and waited. Finally, he gave a decisive nod. 'Right,' he said, turning to face Li once more. 'Here's what we're going to do.'

'The lizard's ready!' called Amber, shaking the white chunks of meat out of the bamboo steamer onto a banana-leaf plate. 'Yum, yum,' she added in an undertone as she stared down at the steaming mound of komodo flesh.

'We shall mix it with this,' said Paulo, mashing boiled yams with a stone. 'And pretend it is chicken. It will be fine.'

'Yeah, right,' muttered Amber. She put her hands on her hips and turned to glare at Hex. 'I said, come and get it!'

Hex sat up slowly, then sank back onto his bed. 'Not hungry,' he said, turning his face away.

'Well that's just great,' said Amber. 'I slave over a hot fire cooking a lovely meal of giant reptile and you turn your nose up at it.'

Hex did not answer. Amber tutted and looked across at Alex and Li. They were still huddled further down the beach with their heads close together, deep in conversation. They had been like that for the past twenty minutes. Li had drawn some sort of diagram in the sand and they were both studying it intently. Li was doing most of the talking, pointing to the sand, then pointing up at the mountainside.

'Hey!' yelled Amber. 'I said, come and get it!'

Alex and Li looked at one another and shared one last nod. Then they both clambered to their feet and walked up the beach towards Amber.

While Paulo and Amber finished preparing the food, Alex poured some boiled drinking water into a coconut half-shell and took it over to Hex. 'Don't you fancy any lizard then?' he asked, sitting on the edge of the camp bed.

'It's not that,' said Hex. 'I don't feel too great.'

Alex laid a hand on Hex's forehead. 'Yeah, I know,' he said, casually. 'You have a fever. Sit up and take these. They'll help.'

Hex dragged himself into a sitting position and Alex handed over two of the precious aspirin from his survival tin. He noted the time as Hex swallowed the tablets, working out when he could safely give him the next dose. While Hex drank the rest of the water, Alex bent to examine the leg wound. It did not look good. The komodo's tooth had opened up a gash starting just below the knee and ending at the top of Hex's walking boot. The wound had partly closed but pus was oozing out from under the forming scab and the surrounding skin was red and puffy.

'So, what do you think?'

Alex jumped and looked up. Hex had finished the water and was watching him with sharp eyes. Alex quickly replaced his worried expression with a bland smile. 'You're doing fine,' he said.

Hex regarded him with a keen intelligence. 'That bad?' he drawled.

'OK. There's some infection,' admitted Alex. 'We'll eat first. That'll give the aspirin time to work. Then I'll clean it up for you.'

Hex again refused his portion of the food, so Amber put it on a flat stone by the fire and covered it with another banana leaf. Alex did not feel much like eating either, but Amber, Li and Paulo were all watching him, so he pushed a chunk of lizard meat into his mouth and forced himself to chew. 'Good,' he said. 'A bit like…'

'Chicken?' suggested Paulo.

'Chicken,' agreed Alex.

Paulo and Li both took a bite.

Amber watched them, then looked down at her own portion. 'It's chicken,' she said, closing her eyes. 'It's chicken. It is chicken. It. Is. Chicken…' She bit into a chunk of lizard meat, chewed, and swallowed. A surprised smile spread across her face and she opened her eyes. 'You know, that's not at all bad,' she said. 'For – um – chicken.'

They finished off with mangoes and as much fresh water as they could drink.

'You know, things could be a lot worse,' said Amber, settling back on the bench. 'And now we have our very own water supply just up the beach there. It's almost like home.'

'Like home,' agreed Paulo, beaming proudly as he watched a steady stream of water pouring from the last section of his bamboo aqueduct onto the beach. 'We will be fine here until we are rescued.'

Alex and Li shared a look, then glanced over at Hex. He had fallen into a restless sleep. His face was flushed and his hair was damp with sweat.

'What?' said Paulo. 'What is going on?'

'Come over here,' whispered Li, leading them out of Hex's hearing. 'We need to talk.'

Five minutes later, a grim-faced Paulo leaned over Hex and inspected the swollen leg.

'What do you think?' asked Alex.

'We need to get as much poison out as we can,' said Paulo, sniffing at the wound. 'Already it is beginning to smell bad. I think I know what to do.'