would have been much more visible, for it seemed likely that the larger body of water was what the plane had circled. Had the pilot seen the wreck through the transparent water? And now gone back to report as much?
Yet he had not himself been able, that morning, to locate the submerged aircraft by repeated dives to where it had last been visited. Had the searching plane really circled the lake or was he making his own self-serving interpretation of what had been another maneuver altogether? From the ground it was difficult to say with any authority what an airplane was doing thousands of feet in the sky above. The only clear truth was that he still had not devised a means of attracting those who might rescue him.
All his successesâwith food and shelterâsupported staying here, not leaving. He was agitated again and had to do something to relieve the tension. He began to collect poles with which to add sides to the lean-to.
5
C REWS HAD NOT WORKED LONG BEFORE HE had to quit and go into the woods and vomit most of what he had eaten. He had no way of knowing for sure, but he was convinced that the trouble was not with the quality of the minnows but rather with the quantity he had eaten. He had gorged on too many, too fast, swallowing whole more than he had masticated thoroughly. So finally, after all his efforts, there would be no nourishment in his body.
The experience so dispirited him that he went to bed even before twilight came, but not before providing himself with a fresh mattress of fragrant, springy pine boughs. This looked better than it felt, but he had to raise himself above the damp ground and at the moment could not come up with an alternative. He eventually squirmed into a position in which no sharp end of branch probed any sensitive place on his person if he remained motionless in sleep. Getting warm, however, was another matter and without reference to the actual temperature. The sun had shone all day and the air was probably warmer now than it had been at noon. The heat he craved was that of an enveloping cover, a blanket, a great big thick wool blanket in which to mummify the entire body from toe to crown, and even keep all oneâs exhalations until it was so deliciously, suffocatingly hot inside that, at the instant before asphyxiation, you saved your life only by a quick thrust of the index finger up into the outer world.
The second night in his sturdy new abode was a disaster. For the first time he was conscious of the nighttime sounds of the wild, which until nowâbecause he had previously slept through the hours of darknessâhe had ignorantly believed silent. Whereas this night was all but clamorous, with murmurs, siftings, crashes in the woods; splashes from the pond and drippings and sighs; and from overhead and at a distance and nearby and at hand and almost out of earshot what could be called sobs, groans, moans, yells, shouts of rage, screams of joy. Reason told you they were not really such. There was a range of human emotions of which nature surely did not partake. But the sounds of pain could not be mistaken. Living creatures did not go unprotestingly between the jaws of others even though God had constructed them for that purpose. There were squeals and screeches and violent agitations of limbs, tails, wings. There was insane laughter (the legendary loon?), what could have been a roar, what was undoubtedly a sequence of howls, and from something that was probably dying came ever fainter bleatings.
To which din Crews was soon to add his own contribution. Until now he had taken little more note of insects (except in the case of the larvae tried as bait) than he did when at home, but suddenly they asserted their claim for his attention. He felt crawled on by tiny things with multitudinous limbs, which often, when he went to arrest their progress, turned out to be inanimate fragments of evergreen bough, manifestly incapable of independent movement, yet which began again to
Yet he had not himself been able, that morning, to locate the submerged aircraft by repeated dives to where it had last been visited. Had the searching plane really circled the lake or was he making his own self-serving interpretation of what had been another maneuver altogether? From the ground it was difficult to say with any authority what an airplane was doing thousands of feet in the sky above. The only clear truth was that he still had not devised a means of attracting those who might rescue him.
All his successesâwith food and shelterâsupported staying here, not leaving. He was agitated again and had to do something to relieve the tension. He began to collect poles with which to add sides to the lean-to.
5
C REWS HAD NOT WORKED LONG BEFORE HE had to quit and go into the woods and vomit most of what he had eaten. He had no way of knowing for sure, but he was convinced that the trouble was not with the quality of the minnows but rather with the quantity he had eaten. He had gorged on too many, too fast, swallowing whole more than he had masticated thoroughly. So finally, after all his efforts, there would be no nourishment in his body.
The experience so dispirited him that he went to bed even before twilight came, but not before providing himself with a fresh mattress of fragrant, springy pine boughs. This looked better than it felt, but he had to raise himself above the damp ground and at the moment could not come up with an alternative. He eventually squirmed into a position in which no sharp end of branch probed any sensitive place on his person if he remained motionless in sleep. Getting warm, however, was another matter and without reference to the actual temperature. The sun had shone all day and the air was probably warmer now than it had been at noon. The heat he craved was that of an enveloping cover, a blanket, a great big thick wool blanket in which to mummify the entire body from toe to crown, and even keep all oneâs exhalations until it was so deliciously, suffocatingly hot inside that, at the instant before asphyxiation, you saved your life only by a quick thrust of the index finger up into the outer world.
The second night in his sturdy new abode was a disaster. For the first time he was conscious of the nighttime sounds of the wild, which until nowâbecause he had previously slept through the hours of darknessâhe had ignorantly believed silent. Whereas this night was all but clamorous, with murmurs, siftings, crashes in the woods; splashes from the pond and drippings and sighs; and from overhead and at a distance and nearby and at hand and almost out of earshot what could be called sobs, groans, moans, yells, shouts of rage, screams of joy. Reason told you they were not really such. There was a range of human emotions of which nature surely did not partake. But the sounds of pain could not be mistaken. Living creatures did not go unprotestingly between the jaws of others even though God had constructed them for that purpose. There were squeals and screeches and violent agitations of limbs, tails, wings. There was insane laughter (the legendary loon?), what could have been a roar, what was undoubtedly a sequence of howls, and from something that was probably dying came ever fainter bleatings.
To which din Crews was soon to add his own contribution. Until now he had taken little more note of insects (except in the case of the larvae tried as bait) than he did when at home, but suddenly they asserted their claim for his attention. He felt crawled on by tiny things with multitudinous limbs, which often, when he went to arrest their progress, turned out to be inanimate fragments of evergreen bough, manifestly incapable of independent movement, yet which began again to
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