WRONG WAY - GO BACK 

By Tessa Harvey

ALICE

    We tried to play games with Eddie - string games, clapping games, I spy games, though there wasn't much to see, just our boat sputtering across a huge amount of water. I looked and still couldn't see ancestors, so I stopped praying.

    Then the engine spluttered and made some strange noises and then stopped. You could hear the boat creaking, people whispering. The ones in charge looked very angry, but also afraid, which made them snappy and cross.

    Someone pleaded for water for her child. No!" a man said loudly. The sky turned very dark and a bit orange.

    "Quick," the people said, " try and catch water. Bowls, hats, empty tins for bailing all held out hopefully.

    Then the rain came, slashing at us. We huddled close to our parents, afraid.

There was jagged bright lightning and deep crashes of thunder. Soon there was so much water in the boat. We drank as much as we could and tried to store some.

    Then monstrous waves came and our boat slid up deep furling crests, poised at the top, then slid down again. And again.

Everyone clung on very hard. Suddenly a great, heaving wave swamped the boat. When it had gone, so were many people. I had been holding little Eddie, clinging so tightly to some rope. We looked around, terrified. Our parents were gone!

    We cried out, but the boat couldn't stop. Everything around us was like a savage, screaming monster, trying to engulf us.

    I saw a little blue scarf on the water and tried to grab it. It was my mother's - but I couldn't get it. Then it sank down and was gone.

    My brother cried, but I just stared and stared. Surely they would pop up and clear the water, and people would grab them and save them.

    People were wailing, as nearly half of us had been lost.

    We drifted on, listless. Most tried to sleep away the days. The few children had no reserves or desire to play even word games. Suddenly a yacht swooped near them. A voice boomed: "Where are you going?" "Australia," yelled one of the leaders, after a brief silence. "Wrong way, go back!" was the stern rejoinder.

    "Wait," cried one of the men. "Help us, please!" But his beseeching call had gone unheard or unanswered, and the yacht swooped away, indifferent, over the endless sea.

    All the men took turns to restart the motor. A yacht so small could not travel too far from land. They wanted to follow its course.

    Then a woman tried the motor. It popped and spluttered, then steadied into a rhythmic throbbing. There were cheers, and with uplifted spirits, they moved purposefully over the water.

    The woman who had started the engine shuffled over to the children and reached out for them both. Eddie stiffened, then leaned against her. He sighed, plonked his thumb in his mouth, and fell instantly asleep.

    After a while, Alice relaxed and slept also, cradled in the arms of a stranger. "I prayed to God, you know," the lady whispered to Alice, as she was drifting asleep. "There is a God, you know, and He is real, and He cares."