They sat together, side by side on the rug, eating a supper of fish they’d cooked on the fire. The fire, was well burned in, its glowing core flicking off the occasional lazy flame and sending twinkling sprites of sparks floating down the beach on the wind. Their dinghy was pulled up on the beach behind them and tied on a long moor to the bough of a palm tree. Their sailing boat was anchored in the bay a couple of hundred yards offshore. It was truly a beautiful evening. “This is absolutely marvellous,” said Anna, “what a great idea to spend the night, we’ve enough food and water to last until tomorrow evening, so plenty of time to sail back to the resort tomorrow.” The night eventually cooled and Anna and Freddie curled up together under a blanket and fell asleep in each others arms. All was quiet apart from the gentle breaking of the waves on the shore and the odd skittering of a creature across the white coral sand. At about three in the morning, Anna woke up with a start. She sat up and looked around. The quarter moon was just dipping down onto the horizon. It was huge and gleaming in the night sky. The immense wheel of the milky way spread its magnificent arc from horizon to horizon in a bright band of a billion stars overhead. She looked at the tree line at the edge of the beach and saw four pairs of eyes reflecting the moonlight back at her. Very gently and quietly she nudged Freddie. “Freddie, Freddie,” she whispered, “there’s someone there, look. Up by the trees.” Freddie sat up and looked where Anna was pointing. There was nothing to see. “What was it?” asked Freddie. “Eyes, people’s eyes” said Anna. “But this island is uninhabited and there are no creatures here apart from birds and insects,” said Freddie. “But I saw them,” said Anna. “Well, they don’t seem to be there now,” said Freddie, “shall we try and go back to sleep?” “Do you think we’re safe?” “I’m sure we’re safe. We checked at the resort. There’s nothing here that can hurt us. Let's sleep.” They slept, pressed together under their blanket like soup-spoons in a drawer. They awoke next morning, as the pink fingers of dawn heralded the start of another beautiful day. Freddie kicked the fire and they both started to gather up their stuff to get back to their boat for a good breakfast before setting sail back to the resort. That’s when they noticed that their dinghy was gone. In its place were some fruits and a gourd full of water. There was no sign of the dinghy ever having been there. No grooves in the sand, no cut rope, no footprints, no trampled undergrowth. Nothing. At all. They sat, stunned, trying to work out what had happened and what to do. In the end, with no clear answers, they decided on a number of things that must be true. There must be people on the island apart from themselves and that those people had stolen their dinghy. They also hoped that they probably didn’t mean them any harm because there was food left for them. Having no idea who they were up against or how many, or even where these unknown people might be, they came up with a plan. Freddie, being the strongest swimmer, would swim out to the sailing boat, try and bring it in close enough for Anna to manage the swim and if all else failed, Freddie would radio for help. They ate the fruit and drank some of the water, leaving some for later should they need it. It was as they jumped up to execute on the plan that they realised, to their horror, that the sailing boat had also gone. Completely disappeared. Both Freddie and Anna switched on their mobile phones. No signal. They switched them off again. “Maybe it we get to the top of the hill we might get a signal,” said Freddie. They set off but had only gone a few yards into the jungle beyond the beach edge when they realised the difficulty of what they were attempting. The jungle was, quite literally, trackless. There was no way in. It was utterly and completely impenetrable without machetes, chainsaws and ten sturdy helpers. They came back onto the beach, walked up for twenty yards or so and tried again. In fact they walked for miles, eventually circumnavigating the island and arriving back where they started, the ashes from last night’s fire covered with a very thin layer of coral sand. They found no way off the beach for anything larger than a squirrel. Laid by the remnant’s of the previous night’s fire were two fish, some fruit and some water. They were utterly spooked by this and both frantically tried their mobile phones for the umpteenth time but there was still no signal. It was now evening and they were both becoming really, really worried. Anna was scared. “Maybe the resort will send someone to find us,” said Anna. “Not for at least another couple of days,” said Freddie, and even then, there are dozens of islands on this archipelago. It could take days, we need a plan.” But no plan presented itself and as night fell, they lit a fire and cooked the fish. Eventually they dropped off into a fitful sleep. Anna awoke at about three in the morning and sat up quickly. The quarter moon was a bit fuller, and just dipping down below the horizon. She looked at the tree line at the edge of the beach and saw about a dozen pairs of eyes reflecting moonlight back at her. “Freddie, Freddie,” she whispered, “there’s someone here, they’re back, more of them.” But Freddie would never move again.. A dozen small wiry men, armed with short spears and clubs emerged from the tree line and surrounded her. © Steve Dalzell 2021