TO DIE FOR

It must have been well back in the day, perhaps as early as 1970, that I recall first hearing about the shark attack off Emu Park, where I currently live. Whatever the year I know I was in primary school and we were sitting in class one hot summer afternoon after lunch. Summer in Queensland means high humidity and 33 degree plus heat. So after running around in the playground for forty minutes, sweating and baking, we needed rest. We would have preferred a swim at the local beach, but that would have to wait until after school. Our wise teachers had decided this was the time of day when reading to the sweat-dripping, heat-drooping us would provide the best educational outcome. We certainly weren't up to much active learning. We all looked and felt like limp lettuce leaves.

Anyway this day our curiosity was aroused by a huge leather-bound volume which lay on our teacher's desk. Excitement! It turned out that the book contained bound copies of the local newspaper from 100 years earlier. 'I found something which I thought might be of interest to you all,' our teacher, Mr Craig said. 'Especially the fishermen.' There were many good fishermen in our class, the girls top amongst them. We began debating who was best. Mr Craig continued loudly above us. 'If you are quiet,' he offered. 'I'll read.' The mood turned in a moment. We became so silent you could have heard a droplet of sweat explode as it fell from a dripping face to shatter onto the wooden desktop.

The story went something like this. Two men, a boy and a dog set out in a small sailing skiff from Rockhampton on the Fitzroy River to sail across Keppel Bay to Great Keppel Island for a camping holiday. After clearing the mouth of the river they were hit by a storm which capsized the boat losing all their gear. They righted her but were unable to bail her out. With all of them on board the boat sank below the gunwhales. The men decided to swim to the nearest island which was only a mile distant. The boy could not swim so they tied him to the mast of the skiff. Taking the dog they struck out, leaving the boy with reassurances that he'd be all right if he stayed with the boat.

My heart went out to that boy – well the bit that wasn't in my mouth did. What choice did he have. Imagine being bound helpless, all by yourself at the mercy of the elements! He was not found until next morning. All night tied helplessly in the storm! It should have been too much for this imaginative school kid. But I couldn't help myself, the compelling horror of what might have happened forced me to listen. I wasn't alone. It was quiet enough to hear a feather fall from an angel's wing. The first to go was the dog. One moment it was swimming strongly out in front of the men, the next it was gone. Surely it succumbed to exhaustion? They men were dog-tired too, the heavy sea pounding them, wave after wave. The island only a hundred yards distant. Each now swam their own race against total exhaustion, oblivious to each other and all else.

One man had fallen behind, his strength failing. But they were so close now. He must go on. He felt something below his foot. At last! A sandbank. He tried to touch it again, stretching his toes downward. Nothing. Waves broke above his head. He struggled to the surface only to find himself alone. He looked towards the shore.

No one.
Imagine.
No cry.
No sign.

Nothing but an empty stretch of water before him, and beyond it the white beach where turtles laid their eggs. Imagine swimming that final stretch. But he made it ashore and, after an unimaginable night, so did the young boy, washed up, alive, freezing cold, but alive on the rocks at the main swimming beach in Emu Park where an early morning walker rescued him from the wrecked skiff and raised the alarm.

Since then I wondered what that night was like for that boy. How did it feel and, ever after when a storm blew up across the bay, what did he remember? But I wondered even more what swimming the last hundred yards alone felt like for that man. I put my answer into this book.