The Ridge

'I'm going to get them into the water and then jump in and move them out of sight. When I've done so I'll give you a shout. Drop me the bag and then jump in yourself, okay?'

'Yes Bob,' she said meekly, not moving from where she was standing. He then turned to the gruesome task of getting the seat buckles unclipped, trying not to look at the truncated corpses sitting there. With all three undone, it was just a matter of giving the upper parts a push for them to fall into the sea. He didn't want to jump in amongst these three floating bodies but he had no choice and so he did.

He quickly dragged them one by one round to the seaward side, out of sight for them to be collected later for burial.

'It's okay now Tiki,' he called out and she slowly came into view, casting a wary glance at the seats that the bodies had once occupied. She was carrying the flight bag which she carefully dropped into his waiting hands, his head briefly going below the surface as he did so, but kept the bag up and clear.

'Now you jump,' he said, which she did, landing with a big splash and a flurry of arms and quickly surfaced and clung to him, her arms round his neck. Even with her weight, he was able to keep the bag up as he kicked himself towards the shore and was glad when he was able to stand up and tell her to let go.

At a glance he saw that there were at least fifty cases of tuna up on the beach.

'Okay Judy, Stacey!' he called out. 'That's enough. Come ashore yourselves now,' he shouted out. Even though he'd just had Tiki, he still felt a stirring in his loins as he watched the two young women, whose ages he put at about twenty two or three, jump into the water and swim that little bit before wading ashore. He thought as they waded ashore that they looked even better than the woman in that James Bond film.

They were quick to pick up their shorts and put them on though he'd forgotten about his trousers and things as he carried the flight bag up the beach.

'Carol and I went and looked at that ridge that runs down the beach,' James Smith said. 'It's bloody solid rock and the wheels of the plane are still on the other side. That's what caused us to crash like we did. Come and see.' So leaving the flight bag with Tiki, telling her not to open it, went with James and Carol, followed by Judy, to see this ridge that had possibly saved their lives.

It was solid alright, but it was actually solidified lava that had come out of some long extinct volcano as a river of molten rock, flowing to the sea. It was nearly five foot high by about two wide and came from out of the trees cutting the beach into two halves, though the side they were on, the east side, was about two thirds of the beaches total length. It had run almost due south and had come out from the trees that had since grown up round it. The beach itself, he surmised had once been a carpet of volcanic ash that had slowly been eroded and washed away leaving this ridge dividing the beach. He decided that in a few days time he would back track the ridge to see where it went.

The ridge itself wasn't smooth but very rough and it was easy to climb up onto and see the other side, and as James had said, there was the mangled twisted metal that once had been the undercarriage of their plane. He walked along the top to where it was and found that it had embedded itself into this ridge and there was no way that they were going to be able to salvage any of it.

He jumped down and went back to the others to find that King and Co, had already opened some cans and were gorging themselves on the contents. So someone had a penknife set that had a tin opener amongst the many blades.

Pearl, the negress, handed Robert an open tin of tuna.

'No forks, jus' fingers man,' she laughed showing teeth that lived up to her name by being pearly white in her dark skinned face. He accepted the tin with a smile and did as the others and ate the contents with his fingers.

'We found these too,' Toni said, passing across a can of Coke. 'We collected about forty of them floating near the water's edge.'

'Thank you Toni,' he said, popping the can and taking one long drink that half emptied the can. He gave out a burp and laughed and then went over to the flight bag.

'I've got something for you too,' he said, pulling out a carton of cigarettes and tossing them over to her. She caught them and squealed with delight and jumped up and ran over and threw her arms round his neck and kissed him.

'You darling man!' she cried. 'I'll even carry your babies for this.'

'That you might do,' he murmured, 'if we stay here too long.'

'Anybody got a light?' she cried as she ripped the carton apart and opened up a packet and pulling one cigarette out. There was a lot of shaking heads. 'No matches, no lighter!' and she burst into tears as she crushed the cigarette in her hand.

Robert was glad that he'd only given her the one carton for he thought that she might have gone ape shit if she knew they had ten cartons and not one match.

'Toni!' King called out. 'Come over here a minute,' and patted the ground next to where he sat. She stifled her tears and got up and went and sat down beside him. He put his arm round her shoulder and pulled her towards him as he bent his head and whispered in her ear. Her eyes came alight and she nodded her head and got up. So did he and led her off into the trees.

'I've got what you want,' he had whispered, showing her his lighter, 'and you've got what I want. So how about us getting together to both get what we want?'

He didn't go far into the trees and stopped at a convenient spot and pulled her round and took her into his arms and kissed her. She could feel his erection inside his trousers and moved her front across his to let him know that she knew he was up and ready.

'Okay King,' she said, breaking off the kiss. 'Light me up first.'

'Oh no sweet pea. Suck and fuck first before you can light up,' he said as he put his hands onto her shoulders and forced her down onto her knees in front of him. 'A little suck first,' and he pulled his erect penis out of his trousers and pushed the head up against her lips. She didn't really want to suck on him but her craving for a cigarette was too much, and so she opened her mouth and took the head of his cock inside.

It wasn't the first cock she'd sucked on so it wasn't too bad she thought, using her tongue and giving the head a gently scrape with her teeth as she sucked.

'That's enough,' he said, pulling himself out and pushing her onto the ground. 'Get those panties down and let's fuck.'

She wiggled her backside as she pulled them down and off from her feet and he got down between her open legs and was quickly pushing himself up inside her.

'Just what I need to relieve the tension from the crash,' he said as he moved himself in and out of her vagina. 'Don't you get any pleasure from having a man fuck you?'

'Yes,' she replied through gritted teeth, wishing it had been any other of the men but this cretin on top and fucking her, but it wasn't long of having his body on top hers, thrusting away for he soon came inside her.

'Now you can say you've had a real man fuck you,' he panted as he let his full weight down onto her. She suffered this for a minute or two before trying to push him off.

'What about that light then?' she gasped, her craving now really bad for the taste of nicotine.

'Okay,' he said, lifting himself up off of her, much to her relief and felt his cock slide out and watched him put it away as she got her panties back on and pulled a cigarette out of the packet she was still holding. She put it to her lips as he brought out his lighter and flicked the wheel to make the wick ignite. The flame gave off a red colour and he gave out a chuckle.

'Now put your brown end to my red end and suck in slowly,' and laughed at his joke as she bent her head and got the end of her cigarette alight and took in one enormous amount of the smoke that she had been dying for. She held the smoke in her lungs for a few minutes before letting the smoke slowly curl out from her mouth and nose, giving out a great sigh as she did so.

*

They came back about ten minutes later, him with a big smile on his face and her puffing on a cigarette. The others were not that stupid to understand what it had cost her for that light. She tossed her hair back with a defiant look on her face as she sat back down and smoked her cigarette.

*

It was not yet midday but the sky very quickly began to get dark as clouds suddenly seemed to have raced up to cover the sun and the wind started to pick up.

'I think it's going to rain again,' said Pearl.

'Well done for that weather forecast!' King cried, 'Give Miss Black or White, though I never could tell the difference, they all look the same to me, a coconut!'

Liam coughed as he laughed for he too was smoking a cigarette. Robin made to get up but was held back once again by Judy and also by Tiki who was sitting the other side of him. She knew about racial slurs only too well herself and of the trouble it could cause.

'Leave it be,' she said in a fierce low voice, 'he's not worth it. Now Pearl is right, it's going to rain so let's think about making some kind of shelter.'

There wasn't anything tangible that anybody could put their finger on but it was at this point that the twelve survivors split into two groups.

Everybody having eaten at least one tin of tuna and drunk a can of coke, set about finding the broadest leaves they could for cover. It wasn't really an unconscious grouping for some had a motive. Robert, it appeared, was the focal point for one group while King of the other. Robert had Tiki bring her leaves to where he had been sitting. She'd had him once and was hungry for him again. Judy and Stacey, after their swim and seeing him in his pants, wanted him too. Pearl came because she didn't like King full stop for obvious reasons. The surprise to Robert was that James Smith elected to share their shelter and not with his fellow countrymen. The rest went to King.

When it was judged that they had enough leaves, they set about finding saplings or any type of small trees or branches that could be used. Also tree creepers to be used to tie the bits together to make some form of rude shelter. One long slender branch had been found and Carlton and Smith stayed to begin erecting their shelter. They carried it to where there were two trees close enough together for the branch to reach both and as Smith held it up, Carlton lashed an end round the trunk of one and went over and lashed the other end having it about four feet from the ground.

It was only rudely tied but when Smith was able to let go for it to stay in place, they made the lashings more secure. They went and found two more such branches to used as side supports and lashed them to each end of the cross pole close to the tree trunk and let them slope down to the earth. As saplings and other branches were brought in by the girls, these were crisscrossed over the basic frame using up all the creepers and having to find more.

As it began to rain, the girls stopped foraging to collect their blouses and things that had dried and Tiki took them and put them in the flight bag, before they carried on. It would be better to have something dry to put on afterwards it was reasoned.

To the sloping lattice work, leaves were now placed over it, some weaved in and out to keep them in place. They had started from the bottom and worked their way to the top, the flight bag being put under the first bit of shelter. Carlton stopped the girls from collecting any more leaves when he saw that they had enough and set them to helping get them on to the almost finished shelter.

The light rain was now getting heavier as they finished and with a look of satisfaction on all their faces, moved in underneath. Though it was only four foot high at the front and twelve across the front, it sloped down for another twelve feet giving them enough room to be comfortable. Even though the sides were open, bushes on the windward side stopped the rain from coming in that way.

With them out of the rain, they could see that the other group and copied Carlton's idea but were still trying to get the leaves up onto the roof as the rain became heavier.

'I'll go and give them a hand,' Smith said and went over to help.

'Damn!' Carlton exclaimed. 'I left my things out on the beach.'

'No you didn't,' Tiki said. 'I picked them up. They're in the flight bag.' He crawled to the back and dragged the bag forward and delving in, pulled out his shirt.

'Here,' he said it to Tiki. 'Dry yourself and pass it round.'

'What about yourself?' she asked.

'Well someone's got to go out and get some tins of food and Coke, it might as well be me,' he said. He went out and brought back a case of tuna and a dozen cans of drink. 'We'd better save a can each for the morning. Then we'll see if we can find any more and more importantly, find water.' Smith came back into the shelter, hair sopping wet and Stacey passed across Carlton's shirt for him to get the worst off.

'Thanks,' he said and as he rubbed his head, 'I see you've brought some food, good. Here you'll need this to open the tins,' and he produced a knife very similar to the Swiss army type.

'Where did you get this from?' Judy asked, taking it off him to open the tin opener blade.

'Stole it,' he grinned. 'I noticed earlier that they had two knives over there so I have relieved them of one for us to use.' Judy was opening cans of tuna and Pearl passed them round with a can of Coke each.

'I could get to like tuna,' Judy said as they were all eating from their cans with their fingers, 'but,' eyeing the cases piled up in the middle of the clearing, 'I think I will come to hate the stuff.' The others laughed.

'At least we're better off than those poor people still out there,' Stacey said.

'Oh shit!' Carlton exclaimed. 'I've got three bodies floating out there that have to be buried.'

'Well I'll give you a hand,' Smith said, 'but I think it would be best to leave it till the morning now. This rain is turning into a storm.'

Which indeed it was for it had now turned very dark and the rain was getting heavier and through it they could only just see one portion of the wrecked plane.

'The search planes are definitely not going to find us in this,' Tiki declared. 'We should have arrived in Brisbane, what, fourteen hours ago? We're well overdue, so they would have been sent out first thing this morning.'

'Did the pilot send off a distress signal?' Pearl asked, her teeth shining very clear in the dim light.

'I hope so,' Tiki replied.

'The storm might have driven us off course,' Smith put in.

'True, in which case it might take them days to find us,' Tiki said gloomily.

'Or not at all,' said Carlton in a low voice. 'Which is a possibility that we must take into consideration. So I think our first priority is to look for water. Then food, fruit, nuts, that kind of thing. I don't know if there are any animals here, but if there are, we'll have to start setting traps.'

'I'd like to find a sewing kit,' Judy said. 'I snapped my bra strap and tore my shorts out there. They all looked at her but she had already put her blouse on as had the other girls. Though Pearl was wearing a T shirt that she must have bought at a garage sale for it had an old sixties logo on the front. Make Love Not War.

'You'll probably end up dressed like me,' Carlton said with a laugh, for he was still only wearing underpants.

'Topless?' Stacey cried out.

'It might come to that,' he laughed, 'if we don't find a clothing store.'

'You could always try the overhead lockers in the cabin,' Tiki suggested. 'Passengers carry some weird things on board some-times.'

'Good idea,' Carlton said. 'We'll do that tomorrow too.'

Then came a blinding flash of lightning that lit the whole place up followed instantaneously by a massive clap of thunder that made their ears sing. Pearl had screamed and clapped her hands to the side of her head.

'Christ! That was fucking close,' Smith said in awe of the intensity of the light and the power that had just been unleashed from the sky.

'I think it hit the plane,' Carlton said. 'It's the only metal round here and it's certainly wet enough to attract the bolt.'

Now the deluge really began and they found that they had to start using what leaves they had left which was to have been their beds, to patch up the roof from the inside.

It was also black as night though it was only late afternoon and they could hardly make themselves heard from the constant drumming of the rain.

'I think we should all try and get some sleep while were relatively dry,' Carlton suggested.

'Sleep? With all this noise?' Stacey asked.

'Well if you're as tired as I am,' Carlton answered her, 'you'll be surprised what you can sleep through.' He gave out a yawn and laid himself back where he was sitting.

'Good idea,' Judy said who was sitting next to him and lay back herself. Tiki quickly got herself on the other side of him, hustling Stacey to move. Smith then found himself with Stacey on one side and Pearl on the other. What with Carlton stretching his legs out and then Tiki doing the same, didn't give the others room, so they all settled down in that order, heads to the open end and feet touching the lower part of the roof.

They couldn't see what the other group were doing and assumed they too had settled down for it was getting quite impossible to speak and be heard with the drumming rain. Smith had Pearl clutch him every time there came a clap of thunder and he found it easier to hold her in his arms and smell her distinctive body odour which wasn't bad, musky and slightly sensuous. Stacey had curled her body up to him too for them both to share their body warmth.

Judy had rolled on her side to Carlton and she must have undone the front of her blouse for he felt her bare breast against his arm.

'You had Tiki in the plane this morning, didn't you?' she whispered into his ear.

'What makes you say that?' he asked, turning his head to face her, though he could only really see the vague outlines in the dark.

'You were in there a long time and only came out with one bag, well two if you count her. Besides, she bit you on the neck. You didn't have teeth marks when you went into the sea but had them when you came out. I'm a nurse as well as a woman and I know that she bit you to stop herself from screaming out whilst having an orgasm.' Her right arm had come up and was stroking his almost hairless chest.

'You don't deny it then?' she continued as he hadn't said anything.

'What can I say? You are a nurse and a woman so you should know what you are talking about,' he replied in a low voice. He could have spoken in a normal tone for the noise of the rain would have drowned it out to anyone not as close as his face was to Judy's.

'You beast,' she said, thumping him lightly on the chest. 'Why couldn't you have waited? I saw your eyes looking at me on the beach and I knew that you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Can you feel this?' she asked as she moved her upper body so that her breast moved on his arm and he could feel the hard nipple moving against it.

'Yes, and it feels nice,' he said.

'You do want me, don't you?'

'Yes,' he said hoarsely, 'but we can't here. Not now.'

'I want you too, but at least I can do something to help you,' she said.

Her hand moved slowly down over his underpants and felt the erection he had gotten since he first felt her bare breast touch his arm. She moved her hand slowly over it, making him give out a low groan at this teasing and began breathing heavily as her fingers slid under the top and found what they had been seeking.

She then grasped him in her hand and pulled him out of his pants, easing his balls out too. After gently feeling the weight of them, put her hand back round his throbbing shaft and began to slowly move her hand up and down on it. He felt as strong as he looked she thought, as she moved the soft silky skin over the solid muscle beneath. She could feel the foreskin tighten at the head at every downward movement of her hand, wishing that she could see it.