EPISODE  3

Island Adrift

 

 

 

Africa was a lot further from Guernsey than I first thought. The ship was shrinking, smaller and smaller, until one day I resorted to climbing the mast to look out beyond the salty haze. It was a bit like trying to spot a marshmallow amid the clouds on a foggy day. I wasn’t quite sure what I was actually looking for to begin with, but anything unusual would’ve sufficed. The monotonous, mind-numbing fog had been seeping through the portholes. I hoped at least to spot a pirate ship, so I could hop across for a bit of sword fighting. It would’ve been far more entertaining, but nope, not a glimmer of a skull ‘n cross bones upon the rolling waves.

              So there I was, wrapped around the tallest mast with my eyes peeled, keeping a look out for land, when for one mesmerising moment I thought I spotted snow. ‘Snow?’ I mused in befuddlement. ‘And since when does one find snow in the middle of the Mediterranean? You may well ask yourself, but it took me quite some time to de-befuddle myself, having realised we were travelling north-west instead of south-east, and my eyes had not been deceiving me at all.

              Now, according to my calculations, we should’ve been approaching Egypt by then, a much warmer place to be perched, pedantically on top of a pole. Mind you, I had stuffed a couple of woolly socks down my trousers to protect my crown jewels—a little trick I learnt playing cricket on Sundays—but there I was, witness to the most wondrous sight mid horizon. As plain as the nose of my face, after the fog dissipated into the blue, sparkling and a glowing in the morning sunrise, was an absolutely brilliant iceberg.

              However it suddenly occurred to me, we might be on a collision course with this frozen island afloat, so I hollered, ‘Iceberg ahead!’ several times, but my voice quickly went hoarse, and Sash, my brother, thought I was shouting him a hamburger ‘n chips!

              The fog-horn boomed across the sea, but the iceberg had developed a mind of its own and was closing in on us. That was when I spotted the polar bear, swaying with hunger and excitement on his icy ledge, just about to jump in—of course, he was coming over to eat us, I thought.

              Now, Mrs Bell always told me not to brag, but I cross my heart and hope to die if it weren’t as big as Godzilla! It scared the living daylights out of me! So I yelled to Sash, ‘Go man the harpoon!’ and ‘Prepare for attack! Starboard, a ferocious bear on the war path!’

              Funnily enough, the weather was getting cooler by the minute, and I wanted to slide down to warm up, and to help out with the defence, of course. However, I soon discovered my hands were frozen stiff and stuck to the mast. For the life of me, I couldn’t let go. Well, you’ve never seen me shiver so violently, you ain’t. I’m telling you my legs were blue and my hair was frosted, and I had icicles growing from my nostrils. A mighty embarrassing predicament to find yourself in, to say the least, and before long there were a dozen shipmates standing around laughing their bloody heads off!

              What was worse, they had brought a cauldron up on deck and had started to boil up some hot water right under my feet. Before long I was steaming up like a kipper! Now, I happened to know that polar bears love kippers for breakfast, so you can imagine the infliction I thought I was about to suffer, can’t you?

              Good ‘ol Sash quibbled in my defence, but the shipmates pushed the boy clean overboard! Well, I had visions of Sash being mauled by the hungry polar bear, so I grabbed my rope and pushed myself off the mast with my feet. I swung out over the side, diving into the sea to save my brother.

              Now, you might well ask yourself, how does one survive, what turned out to be, freezing Atlantic waters without a life-jacket to speak of? It didn’t take long for the polar bear to catch up with us. A giant jaw of gangly teeth was honing in on us! Instinctively, we both ducked our heads under water. The next thing I know is, we were hitching a ride on the polar bear's back, like half drowned pups scrambling to hold on to their mother’s fur—and still, the scum bags laughed at us as they sailed away.

              As luck would have it, we landed face first onto the ledge of the iceberg, confronted by a huge mackerel, rudely plonked under our noses. ‘Breakfast at last!’ I rejoiced, but you should’ve seen Sash’s face. He always was a bit squeamish.

              The polar bear went in for another dip and left Sash and myself stranded to fend for our dignity. I was so glad I had an extra pair of socks stuffed down my trousers, I can tell you!

              ‘First thing’s first’, it came to mind as I inspected the raw fish, ‘Now, Barney, don’t count your eggs until your chicken’s have hatched,’ Grandpa’s advice, and Sash aptly responded, ‘I ask myself, what have chickens got to do with a mackerel then?’

              Well, blow me down if it weren’t within a matter of minutes, we were inundated by a flock of seagulls, all cawing and cackling and fighting over our breakfast, and they soon took off with it too!

       What next? I thought, shivering from head to toe.

       The polar bear returned with another fish, and another one, until we had a whole ton of oily mackerel to deal with. Well, Mrs Bell always told me that when you’ve got plenty to give, don’t begrudge a thief. Now, I never fully understood what she meant until that very day, ‘cos before I bat an eye lid there were a dozen sea lions lining up for a special treat, and they weren’t gonna wait for me to hand it to them either!

       While all this commotion was happening, the iceberg was moving faster than the Q.E.2, only you couldn’t tell how fast is was going without the benefit of a knotted rope and all.

       Mrs Bell would have you believe that patience was a virtue, so we hung in there watching the sea lions until they’d had their fill, but nobody told us that polar bears had got a definite jealous streak—a murderous one, in fact, and before nightfall we had a couple of seal skins wrapped around our shoulders.

       Come daybreak, we awoke to the sound of seagulls cawing again. They weren’t squabbling over our leftovers though. The mist had a tangy taste about it. It obscured our view beyond the first few ripples from off shore.

       As the fog faded and withdrew its shield to reality, the water calmly quivered to what I thought was a flurry of fish in a feeding frenzy. ‘What on earth are they eating?’ I thought, when, blow me down if a humongous trawler, hauling in its catch, hadn’t emerged on the scene!

        We had no idea whether the fishermen had seen us on the drifting iceberg or not. The polar bear had slipped into the sea and out of sight, and we were left to our own devices once again.

       So, I nudged Sash into a surrender, seeing he had no choice but to follow me—he had nothing to lose and neither did I for that matter. We took a running, flying leap off the ledge and into the arms of fate.

       This time we landed… slap! right on top of a net full of flapping cod fish, and had to cling on for dear life to the fishermen’s haul.

        ‘To stay on top, Barney,’ Grandpa would always tell me, ‘you’ve gotta let go of the past, keep striving—hold on to your dreams, and no matter what slaps you in the face, boy, always fight back and be grateful for being alive!’ He would’ve laughed, for sure, if he’d seen us riding that kettle of fish!

 

Written by Georgina Zuvela

11/12/2016