Page 72 of Storm over the Caribbean
I gave myself just five minutes to catch my breath before I pushed myself up and forced myself to stumble out of the cave and into the jungle. The both of us were dehydrating fast, and I had to bloody do something about it.
Water…water…my kingdom for some water!
Now, if only I had a kingdom, that would be more useful.
How the heck do you find water? More importantly, how do you find water if you’ve already failed to find it for the last few days and are nearly delirious from thirst? Should I try to lick bloody droplets from tree leaves? No. Not enough. Where else could you find water?
The sky.
Not helping, inner voice.
The ground?
Not bloody helping! I couldn’t just—
I froze.
Why couldn’t I? Water in the ground? Bloody hell, that’s practically how wells worked! You dug a darn hole in the ground and hoped for water to appear! And considering howdamp this place was, I probably wouldn’t have to dig very deep! Immediately,
All right, that’s decided then.
Immediately, I grabbed one of the remaining crabs and, tearing off part of its pincer, used it to start digging into the ground.
“Aaaaagh!”
Tumbling back, I just about managed to avoid the swarm of ants exploding out of the earth. Desperately, I scrambled back and lashed out with my leg, kicking up dirt over the ants and doing sod all14 to stop them. The swarm advanced, racing towards me with a speed that should be illegal for little critters no longer than my fingertip. Pushing myself to my feet, I dashed off into the jungle, coming to a stop only after the ants were well and truly behind me.
Phew!
All right. No water from the ground, then.
But I had to find it somewhere! I had to! My symptoms of dehydration were getting worse with every passing minute. Shivers were already starting to break out all over my body, and—
Wait a minute! Those weren’t symptoms of dehydration. It was getting colder, and fast! Trembling, I wrapped my arms around myself. Scratch that! It was getting colder faster than it had any right to! I had to find water, but…it wasn’t going to do me any good if I froze to death before getting it! And it was quickly getting dark as well. Darn!
I hesitated for one more moment—then whirled around and dashed back towards the cave.
Bloody hell! Would I even still be alive tomorrow?
Well, if all else fails, you can always use the last resort of every thirsty shipwrecked person: drinking your own pee.
I was really starting to hate that inner voice of mine.
By the time I saw the cave entrance in the distance, my whole body was trembling uncontrollably. I had to do something about this, and quickly, before it got dark and I wouldn’t even be able to see my own hands anymore! Hastening my steps, I reached the cave in about five minutes. Outside, the sun was already sinking behind the trees. The shadows were getting longer and longer.
Crap! Gotta get a fire started fast!
There were some fallen leaves and branches outside the cave. Grabbing as many as I could, I dragged them inside and vaguely tried to rearrange them in a manner similar to what I’d seen Mr Ambrose do last night. Then I dashed over to the man himself and pulled his flintstones out of his pocket.
All right…let’s do this!
Taking a deep breath, I raised one of the flintstones above the other—and then brought it down hard!
“Ow! Owowowowow! Damn shit crap stinking bloody thing!”
Sticking my throbbing thumb into my mouth, I glared at the two innocent-looking grey stones on the ground.
“You couldn’t just have made this as easy for me as it looked for him, could you?”
