The Rescue

When the time came, it seemed as though we’d been waiting for far too long. Some had given up hope; others – of course – had died long before the day they’d lived and hoped for ever arrived.

We, the survivors, well… at first we thought we were the lucky ones. We could not believe the sails on the horizon were real; just another optical illusion where the sea and the sky met, just more clouds that resembled the white billowing sails of a ship at sea.

We had, for years before, kept someone on watch on the high cliffs along the beach and ready at the signal fire we patiently rebuilt after every storm washed it into the bay far below.

Eventually, though, the watch had become spasmodic with no-one noticing it had stopped, until that day when Jake came tumbling out of the water, his fishing nets forgotten behind him, yelling, screaming and pointing. At first, most of us thought it was another attack by a shark and we rushed for spears, bows and the few muskets that still had shot and powder.

Then we realised what he was yelling, saw what he was pointing at, then – as one – we turned to look back up at the cliff, the deserted look-out spot and the signal fire that had not been replenished, or remade, for such a long time.

The ship, though, had seen our island. They needed fresh water and food, so they sent a boat out. We stood, all of us, there on the beach watching that boat rowing towards us, thinking that – at last – here was our rescue.

It didn’t take long, though, after that for us to discover our apparent rescue was nothing of the sort.