Marooned

From letter dated October 6, 1961

This is the story of the Swiss Family Scott.

On Sunday, Bucher and I decided to have a family picnic at a little mangrove island just inside the reef. Preferring privacy, Bucher makes exploration a part of every outing, looking for bits of beach, no matter how small, where we could swim and picnic in our little family group.

Sissy Tattersfield, the lovely blond eleven-year-old daughter of our next-door neighbors and close friends, Tom and Lia Tattersfield, was with us for the weekend. She had a long Saturday rehearsal for a school program, so when her parents decided to take the other children and spend the weekend at their house on St. George’s Caye, we suggested to Lia and Tom that Sissy stay in town with us.

Twelve-year-old Alex was absorbed designing a skiff he planned to build, and was not charmed by the idea of “wasting” his free time on an ordinary outing. He had agitated for months to be allowed to stay home alone. With some disappointment and a noticeable lack of graciousness, Bucher and I gave him permission to stay—in the house, and without company. With Tuto and Juanita Alamilla in the flat downstairs, we did not feel that he was completely adrift in the metropolis.

 

Sissy, nine-year-old Carli, Bucher, and I took off in our skiff around eleven in the morning, heading for a little cove we had discovered a few weeks earlier. It was a crescent of sand on a mangrove-covered caye near one of the cuts that wound through the maze of small islands to the reef.

Frigate birds made graceful circles overhead, watching for schools of small fish. Pelicans floated slowly in the air just above the sea, folding their wings and diving, making lightening-swift 180-degree turns as they hit the water, and emerged moments later, heads adrip, to arch their great throats upward as they gulped their catches of fish.

The ground on our private little caye was high. There was shade in open patches among the trees. The sea bottom was sandy and grass-free for a long stretch near where we anchored. We had been cleaning up the underbrush and carefully burning trash each visit, gradually clearing a larger and larger beach for ourselves. Since the entire island was mangrove, uninhabited, and most of it below tide level, there was no danger of our starting an uncontrollable fire.

We pulled our half-burned logs from the previous visit out from the sand with which we had covered them, moved them to another clear spot, picked up a good supply of dried limbs and twigs, started our mosquito-repellent fire, and then all headed for the crystalline water.

The little girls took off through the tangle of mangrove roots to a place a few yards away where they found a natural swing of mangrove limbs from which they could swoop out over the water and jump. We were satisfied that they were within view; they felt safe from adult supervision and had a glorious time.

Bucher and I used snorkels and masks, though there was not much to see in an area with little coral. We swam, had lunch, and gathered more firewood, as much to keep the girls occupied after lunch, when we did not want them to swim, as to acquire more fuel for our smudge. Around what must have been 3:00 or 3:30 that afternoon we packed up to leave for home.

 

The outboard engine would not start. Bucher was a pro with outboards. He had sold them, repaired them, raced them, and owned a series of them that stretched from one end to the other of our marriage.

Bucher was infuriated (mainly with himself) to find that his toolbox was not on board. Taking care of the tools was Alex’s self-assumed responsibility. When Alex decided not to join us, neither he nor his father thought about the tool kit.

Bucher found some implements to use as makeshift tools and tried every trick he ever had known trying to get our reluctant engine purring. By the time he gave up, I had completed my mental lists of What To Do, so I could go into action on Operation Castaways without delay.

During the aggravating hours, as Bucher fought with his recalcitrant engine, I warned the little girls that we might have to spend the night on the island. Their only worry was that Bucher might get the outboard started and cheat them of their adventure.

Our first project was to gather an enormous pile of firewood. The girls did most of that, proudly returning from their forays into the underbrush with heavy old logs, along with the usual dried limbs.

 

We had the girls take off the wet shorts and shirts that they had been wearing over their bathing suits as protection against the sun, and Bucher dried them by the fire.

Fortunately I had a few bits of lunch left over. Near sunset I gave Carli and Sissy each a plump piece of chicken, half a bread-and-butter sandwich, plenty of carrot, celery, and green pepper sticks, and a full glass of fruit juice. Bucher and I did not eat. We had ample water left plus the reassuring thought of two still-icy beers, to be preserved until the more dismal hours of the night.

After supper the girls brushed their teeth with twigs and salt water—Carli’s contribution to our survival techniques. They put on their dried clothes and we gathered around the fire, sitting on our boat cushions. The firelight made a cozy circle against the blackening sky; its smoke kept mosquitoes and sand flies under control. Far in the distance we could see the glow of the lights of Belize City and, flashing regularly, the red beacon of the Fort George lighthouse at the harbor mouth.

I offered to tell the girls stories then realized that they had outgrown the standard fairy tales and were too sophisticated for most of the stories I could think of. In desperation I hit on the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Quite naturally I found that under the pressure of circumstance I could not remember details that once were so familiar. Still, I spun a fairly good yarn out of each of them. The girls were entranced. The close interplay of gods and men fascinated them. Even Bucher enjoyed the story hour whose colloquial, expurgated versions of his classics would have horrified poor Homer.

When finally I had felled Troy and brought Odysseus home, the girls decided they were ready for bed. Fortunately we had thought to have them share one towel after their last swim in order to keep a towel apiece dry for them to use as blankets. Carli and Sissy stretched out on the seats of the boat with cushions for pillows and the towels as coverlets, and that was the last we heard from them. They both later insisted that they were awake the entire time, far too excited to sleep.

 

Bucher built up the fire as a signal to anyone who might come looking for us. We took turns tending it. I napped awhile, amazed at how warm and soft hard coral sand could be with firelight flickering nearby and a boat cushion under one’s head. I arose after about an hour, insisted that Bucher try to sleep, and went out clumsily foraging through the dark underbrush for fuel for our blaze.

Bucher and I felt sure we would be rescued. Alex was home to give the alarm, and he knew where we probably were. Furthermore, the Tattersfields were certain to do something about their beloved daughter when they got in from the caye.

On the other hand, any number of things might prevent rescue. Our sleepyhead son might have fallen asleep and not realized that we were missing. The T’s might have decided to spend Sunday night at St. George’s.

As the evening went on, Bucher and I had our last beer, deciding that if a boat did not arrive within a reasonable time, one wasn’t coming. It did not matter. We were safe, warm, and the worst that could happen to us would be our being drenched by one of our frequent nocturnal squalls. It wouldn’t be comfortable, but it was not dangerous.

Most important of all, Carli and Sissy, now apparently asleep, had enjoyed our predicament, or at least were hiding any private qualms under sunny smiles.

 

Back in Belize, Alex had a perfect day, enjoying his freedom and solitude. He read, fixed lunch (I had left part of it ready for him), and worked on his designs. It was only as light faded in an early twilight that he realized he had become a family of one.

Alex went down to the lower flat to talk to Tuto about our being overdue. He never admitted it, but Juanita later said that Alex looked pretty sad and lonely when he appeared.

Tuto was reassuring. The delay, he propounded and Alex agreed, had to be due to engine trouble and we would come bumbling back before long. It was an exceptionally calm day, so there was no need to worry about the weather. Alex returned to our flat and his restless watch from the veranda.

As soon as he saw the Tattersfields’ launch chugging up to their mooring next door, Alex ran down to consult with them. Again, they all decided to wait and see. Juanita had invited Alex to stay for dinner, but when Lia also asked him, Alex decided to remain with the Tattersfields since they all were concerned with the rescue. As I had anticipated, Alex and the T’s joined forces to worry and respond.

After an uneasy supper, Lia and Tom decided that they had to take action. Tom called their close friend, Russell Grant, whose boat was larger and faster than his own, and within a short while Tom, son Tony, and Alex were aboard Russell’s boat and headed out toward the reef, with Alex acting as navigator for the expedition.

 

Back on our mangrove strand, Bucher and I continued to take turns tending the fire. We had ample logs to keep a glow through the night, but the brush that blazed more brightly was disappearing fast. Bucher established a schedule of our building up a high blaze every fifteen minutes in case anyone was looking for us. Each time I built the fire up, I stumbled off into the underbrush searching blindly for fuel.

The rescue party saw our signal fire fairly quickly but had to wend a careful way among coral and islands to get to us.

Suddenly I thought I saw a light off in a funny direction through the mangrove. I stared, but could not find it again. On my next trip away from the noisy crackle of the fire, I thought I heard a distant engine. Although I was afraid it was wishful thinking, my suspicions grew and I hurled everything except Bucher and the children onto the fire, Just In Case. The light and noise of my roaring blaze awoke them all shortly before the sound and spotlight from the approaching boat reached us.

Carli and Sissy decided that the excitement of being rescued made up for missing waking up next morning on a desert isle. We piled aboard Russell’s boat, tied the skiff behind, and took off for Belize. Thoughtful Lia had sent warm clothes for the little girls, sandwiches, and two thermoses of blissfully hot coffee. The girls talked steadily all the way home.

Lia met us at the seawall, clutched her missing daughter, and chattered in her ever-charming Latvian accent as she collected family and gear and herded them into the house.

 

We Scotts headed next door to an unexpected reception.

I had noticed The Señora (Juanita’s mother) pacing her veranda, lights ablaze in the windows behind her. Still, I was not prepared for her torrent of queries, gasps of horror, moans of relief, and wild gesticulating. It was near midnight, I was exhausted, and my command of Spanish lapsed under stress to that of an inept first-year student. I mumbled a fragmented explanation, but need not have bothered. The Señora took my few words and embroidered them into a minor novel before I was halfway up the steps. As I reached her veranda, she did something that can only be described as Clasping Me To Her Bosom, not once, but eight or ten times. When she felt I had been embraced sufficiently, The Señora apparently decided we all were safe at home again and, tearfully, she said “Buenas noches” and retired. I was as touched by the sincerity of her concern as I was amused at its extravagance.

 

Next morning Juanita filled me in on the shore-side part of our adventure. In view of the calm weather, Bucher’s marine expertise, and the built-in break-down feature of outboard engines, Tuto was convinced that while we were late, we were not in danger.

Not so The Señora. Juanita told me that her mother decided that we had hit a coral head, opened up the skiff, and were sinking; that the engine had caught fire and our charred corpses were floating in the sea; that the sharks and barracuda had bitten off a leg here or there as we were swimming…and so on into the evening until Tuto, probably in desperation, took Juanita to the first movie he had consented to see since they were married. The Señora apparently had been pacing her veranda for hours by the time we returned to relieve her fears.

 

Carli and Sissy went to school eagerly Monday morning to spin increasingly elaborate tales of being shipwrecked. Alex and Tony had only slightly less dramatic tales of the rescue operation. And Bucher and I laughed about the episode, proud of the way all the children had displayed grace under pressure.