15C cloudy
Lawn bowl tournament at Central Saanich yesterday and today.

, ‘survive, you have to survive’.

  Suddenly he raised his head, then as fast as his wreck-tossed body would allow he got up and hurried the few feet to the wreckage, he reached back inside and tore the seat cushions from the two seats, he had remembered that all of these bush planes had floatable cushions.  He looked around once more to see if he had missed anything, far back under his seat he found a quart of airplane aviation oil, he flung it to the small pile.  There was nothing else.

  He left the plane and walked around the perimeter of the gravel bar.  At the granite cliff he found a depression that had been eroded by the river that created an almost cave like chamber along the breadth of the beach.  He hurriedly moved all his treasures into the deepest part.  There was enough overhang that some shelter was provided from the rain.  He hunkered down and stared out, the rain was falling harder; he knew enough about mountain storms that it could be even heavier up stream.  The body caught his eye and after staring for a few moments, he stripped all his clothes off except his boots and walked over to the corpse.  “Sorry Fred.” He muttered.  “But I need these more than you do.”  He stripped Fred’s body down to the underwear; he removed the boots, noted that they were a full size smaller than he wore; he stripped off the socks and discarded the boots on the gravel.  He gathered everything up and returned to the shallow cave.

  Once more he sat down and stared out through the rain at the river slipping by.  Once again he groaned out. “Why God? Help m….”. Then he stopped and thinking for a moment turned to the solid rock behind him.  “What the hell is wrong with you Proctor?  You have never in your whole life called on any so called God for help, to do it now is being weak.”  He paused then added, “The only person or being that will get you out of this is yourself”.  He paused again then went on but now in the first person, “I guess I have a few choices, I can stay here and die, I can die trying to save myself or I can save myself and live. The first is not an option.”  

  He stood up again, still stark naked, he strode across the gravel and picked up the door he had ripped off, then started scooping out a hole in the gravel, bigger rocks he piled to one side. He worked hard for almost an hour and then said aloud, “Well Fred that will have to do, I thought of just pushing you in the river with the idea someone might spot you, but probably some critter would get you first.  Hopefully someday we’ll be able to take you back.  He bent over and rolled Fred’s body into the shallow grave, then as he started to push the gravel back he stopped and taking out the ‘leatherman’ once more clenched his teeth and cut an incision in Fred’s stomach.  “Sorry Fred, but we can’t have you floating up and away if the river rises.”  He then dropped in a layer of the biggest rocks, then gravel then more rocks.  He stomped it down with his feet and said, “So long Fred, I hope I’ll be able to lead someone back here sometime”.

  He looked at his watch but it was broken, he got dressed thinking, ‘it was about eleven when we left, it was almost three when we started getting into trouble, that has to be two to four hours ago.  I’ll get everything ready and give it a whirl in the morning’.

  He dumped everything out of his knapsack, then took an inventory of everything he had to survive on.  It didn’t take long.

  He looked out and noted that the water was rising and that the damaged pontoon was sinking as the water rose.  “God damn, I hope it doesn’t come too high over night”. He mumbled aloud.  Knowing full well that that might be the case he folded up the topo map and wrapped it in with the flares, then stored the oil, the axe the screwdriver, map and flares and first aid kit in his knapsack, the wrenches he discarded.  He put the lighter in his pants pocket and the silva compass from his pack around his neck on its lanyard.  He then stuffed Fred’s clothes in as well.  Although not heavy the knapsack was bulging.

Finally he took the nylon rope that had been in his pack tied the two cushions together with the knapsack sandwiched between.  He left one piece of rope dangling with a loop on the end.  He checked and rechecked everything, then opened Fred’s lunch bag.  He ate one of the sandwiches and left the other one for morning.  He looked at the apple then loosened the rope around the cushions and squeezed it into the knapsack.  He tightened everything again then settled back hoping to get some sleep.

  Sometime later he was just dozing off when he heard a grinding noise, his eyes popped open in time to see the Super Cub slide off the bar, dragged down on one side by the water logged pontoon but still supported by the other. As he watched the current pulled on the submerged float dragging the remnants of the fuselage under and drifted off with just the underside of the good pontoon showing. As this was happening Nat suddenly jumped up, “oh shit, shit, shit! The pontoon, I could have smashed it off and ridden it, I could have ….” He lapsed into silence, he hadn’t thought of it and now it was too late.  Then a thought struck him, ‘maybe it will be buoyant enough to help the rest of the junk float down and if it all hangs together will be easier to spot’. He settled down again, it was a long time before he dozed off again.