The Apology

Although this story is about cannibals, it is not Dolcett based. It is also highly inaccurate historically

The Apology


Rating Faith Jackson steered the launch into the cove, aiming for the gentle beach that was their destination. In the bow of the boat Lieutenants Cooper and Flowers were chatting away about who might be on the island. They were acting like a couple of teenagers on their way to a party rather than officers of Her Majesties Royal Navy on their way to carry out a solemn duty. But despite their girlish behaviour Faith knew not to say anything. They were officers and she was a rating. Besides this entire excursion had been Lieutenant Cooper's idea and they could have picked someone else to come with them.


According to Lieutenant Cooper, who's brother was an archaeologist on the site they were visiting, this island was witness to a massacre carried out by the Navy some 150 years ago. They were here to lay a wreath on the site of the village that the archaeologists had just started excavating. Lieutenant Cooper had told them that the crew of a Royal Navy frigate had wiped out the entire population of the island, allegedly in revenge for cannibals eating female missionaries. The problem was that there appeared to be no record of any missionaries going missing, so the story had been questioned. But in the spirit of apologising for past deeds they were to lay a wreath on the excavation site.


Still she could have been stuck with worse officers, and she knew she was the envy of the mess. All she had to do was ferry these two to the island and back and spend the rest of the time hopefully being chatted up by the archaeologists at the site they would be visiting. Her mess would be spending the day scrubbing the ship ready for the VIPs when they reached port in a weeks time.


As they approached the beach Faith shivered. Her mother would have said it was someone walking over her grave, then a fog descended. They were in the pacific about to land on a shining white beach one moment, then suddenly they could barely see the bow of the boat the fog was so thick. Faith's training took over and she'd slowed the boat before either of the officers had time to give the order. Faith Jackson was not going to prang their boat in the fog.


Then as quickly as it had come the fog disappeared, and they glided through the bright clear waters of the cove silently. The day was bright again, as it had been just moments before when the fog had appeared, but now Faith sensed that something was wrong. Distracted briefly by the two lieutenants arguing about where the fog had come from Faith realised that the engine had stopped. Her attempts to restart it failed when she realised that all the electrics had failed. Then there was the sound of the bow gliding up against the beach. The two officers didn't seem concerned about the boat, knowing that it would be her job to get it going again while they went gallivanting about with the archaeologists.


With the boat beached Faith jumped down into the ankle deep water. The Lieutenants passed her the wreath before climbing out of the boat more carefully. Not for them was a jump into the sea and taking care not to get any spray on their uniforms the two officers made it clear of the water line. Faith listened to the over long details of what she had to do to get the boat working again, or at least a radio so they could be retrieved by the ship. They all knew that Faith was the expert on getting the boat running but she also knew the ways of junior officers and made sure she showed them the respect of their rank.


It seemed as if their approach had been noted as from the tree line came a dozen figures. Faith nearly laughed out loud, assuming that the archaeologists had dressed up as natives to greet the Navy, but then she saw the stern look on Lieutenant Cooper's face. This wreath laying and apology was no laughing matter to her and she didn't seem to appreciate the joke, especially if it had been organised by her brother, the senior archaeologist.


Lieutenant Cooper strode up the beach, anger clearly visible in her strides, and Faith wondered how the young officer was going to berate these civilians. Then without warning the young woman staggered, dropping the wreath. Lieutenant Cooper turned towards the boat clutching her chest, and the spear that had struck her. Faith froze with shock, unable to move as the Lieutenant fell to her knees. Then Lieutenant Flowers sprinted to her side and Faith grabbed the first aid kit from the boat and joined her. Faith had forgotten about the 'natives', assuming the spear had been a joke gone horribly wrong, until she was knocked aside. She watched in horror as a 'native' pressed the bleeding lieutenant down with a foot on her chest and wrenched the spear loose. The spear must have done even more damage being extracted as Lieutenant Cooper's mouth erupted with foaming blood, then she was still.


The men surrounding them were all laughing and talking, but Faith had never heard their language before, and before she could react she was seized by the men. Totally ignoring the women's struggles they were thrown over their captors shoulders and carried away from the beach. Faith couldn't believe that a simple excursion could turn bad so quickly, but having seen how they had killed the lieutenant so casually she feared what else these men might do. Her fears were confirmed when they reached a clearing with huts under the shelter of the surrounding trees. Without warning she found herself flung to the ground and the men were upon her. Her basic training did her little good outnumbered as she was and soon her uniform was ripped off and her real ordeal began.


She must have passed out at some point, or maybe been knocked out by the rough handling of the natives as they passed her around. It was hard to tell given that she was covered in cuts and scrapes with semen drying on every orifice. But as she regained conciousness she could smell cooking, and knew that she had to faced a worse fate. Where before the natives had passed her around to satisfy their sexual appetites, now they were passing chunks of cooked meat. Although she had never seen Lieutenant Cooper's breasts, she was sure that the native standing by the fire was currently eating one of them. That was unless Lieutenant Flowers had shared her fate. Looking around at the feasting cannibals Faith could see no more than two of any limb so hoped that Lieutenant Flowers was still alive. This wasn't just out of concern for the Lieutenant's safety. If both the Lieutenants had already been eaten then she knew exactly what would happen to her when the cannibals were hungry again.


With that crumb of comfort Rating Faith Jackson curled up at the feet of her gorging captors. The sun was setting and she could dream of escaping from this nightmare. But even the faint hope of rest was lost when a gaggle of scrawny children found her and started poking her. To them an adult sleeping might be a thing of fun, much as she and her sisters had poked their father when they found him sleeping. But her sisters had not been using a woman's thigh bone to do the poking. She couldn't react, just in case the eating adults noticed her again, so she had to lay there and hope the children got bored and went to eat their scraps elsewhere.


Despite the horror of her situation Faith knew she must have dozed off as she awoke with a start to the sound of drumming and shouting. Looking around she could see that the natives where excited about something, with many of them pointing to something. Taking a chance she got to her feet, and trying to ignore the pain looked towards where they were pointing. Despite the pain she was in from the cuts and bruises, she almost cried out in joy. Just visible in the twilight was a ship. Not her ship, that would have been too much to ask. No this was a sail boat, probably a sail training ship on it's way to the regatta that they had been heading for. There was at last a hope for rescue.


Faith glanced around her, hoping that the natives might be distracted by the sight enough to let her creep out into the night, but then she noticed the eyes of a number of the women in the village were on her. It was clear that they were not going to let her slip into the night.


She was about to slink back to her resting place when there was a sudden commotion. A man with a horrific looking mask strode through the jostling villagers to stand by the fire. Clearly barking orders at the men of the tribe he pointed at her. Faith didn't know what was going to happen, but whereas a few moments ago she had been resigned to her fate, the sight of the ship had raised her hopes. She was crying with frustration and anger when the men dragged her to the fire then forced her to kneel in front of the shouting man.


He was acting like some witch doctor she'd seen in bad films, the kind of films that her family had scorned for their racist stereotypes. But now this was her reality. Then she heard screams as Lieutenant Flowers was dragged from the darkness and forced to kneel just a few feet away. Faith was surprised and irrationally angry that the young Lieutenant was still fully dressed. In fact apart from her tear stained face she looked as if she'd just stepped off the ship. Not for her had been the gang rape that Faith had gone through.


The knowledge that the white officer had gone unmolested whilst the black rating was raped was just like something out of one of those old movies and was so unfair. The masked man grabbed Faith by the hair and nearly pulled her to her feet. Shouting into her face he seemed to be looking for a reaction, but whether he got what he wanted she didn't know as he flung her down again. Then he grabbed Lieutenant Flowers. He seemed to be reluctant to touch her skin, taking care to hold her by her hair. This pulled it loose from the tight bun that she kept it in so that long blonde hair partially obscured her face. That seemed to make the witch doctor's decision as he pulled the young woman fully upright and turned her to face the massed tribesmen. With much shouting and drumming going on the men worked themselves into a frenzy that peaked as the witch doctor cut the young Lieutenant's throat, spraying the baying crowd with her blood. Faith wanted to look away from Lieutenant Flower's terrified face, but the need not to turn her back on a crew mate was stronger and she held the dying woman's gaze until the woman's face went slack in death.


Using the same blade that he had killed her with the witch doctor cut off the Lieutenant's head which was impaled on a pole and carried around by the dancers. The woman's body was seized upon by the tribeswomen who scurried away with their prize. The witch doctor seized Faith again and the young Rating thought it was finally over, but it seemed the witch doctor had different intentions and she was thrown onto her back, and her sexual ordeal started once more. It seemed that the tribesmen thought white women were all right to eat, but for sex they wanted something a bit less exotic. So the night passed as each man, and some of the older boys, had their way.


With dawn Rating Faith Jackson awoke once more into the nightmare. For a heartbeat between sleep and conciousness she had hoped that it had all been a terrible nightmare, but the aches and dry semen told her otherwise. Looking around from where the last tribesman had grown bored of her body she could see the grisly remnants of the night before, and of her two ship mates. Their heads where on poles outside the witch doctor's hut, their dishevelled hair hanging about their faces. Lieutenant Jenny Cooper's bones, some cracked where the marrow had been sucked out, lay all around the clearing. Lieutenant Annie Flower's headless corpse was still being worked on by the tribeswomen. They were cutting her into thin strips and hanging the meat out to dry in the sun. The young Lieutenant was being reduced to jerky.


It was a depressing site to the young Rating, knowing that she might still share their fate. But her only hope was the crew of the sailing ship she had seen last night and from the sounds coming up from the beach she thought her rescuer would soon be here. She could hear voices, shouting in what might have been English. She wasn't sure as the accents were very strong, and when the tribesmen cleared out of the way she got her first glimpse of the newcomers. Whatever they were they were not the professional sailors she was used to. With their strange clothes and unwashed appearance they looked like something out of some third rate pirate film. But at least they were not cannibals.


Faith tried to call out for their attention, difficult given how much abuse her throat had taken from the tribesmen the night before, but her cries were drowned out by the jabber of the natives. The sailors seemed to have little interest in the villagers once they say the Lieutenants' heads on the poles. Rating Jackson was relieved at the horror the men showed, which was reflected in the fear the tribesmen now showed. They must have known that the men from the ship would be harder to capture than the three women they had subdued the day before. But before the natives had time to react shots were fired and cutlasses were swinging. The witch doctor went down in the first volley and Faith cheered at the fate of her captors. The sailors were hacking down everyone in reach. The sight of the white women's' heads on the cannibal's poles had sent the sailors into a berserk fury that Faith had never believed possible.


Wherever she looked she saw steel cutting flesh with no regard to whether the dying were men, women or even children. One of the tribesmen that had been particularly brutal to her the night before rushed at her with a spear, seemingly intent of making sure she was not rescued. She raised her hand it a probably futile gesture surrender, then say her assailant cut down from behind. Her relief was short lived as the same bloody cutlass that had saved her from the tribesman was plunged between her breasts. Falling back onto the bodies of the slain tribes she tried to cry out, but her blood filled throat could make no sound as she died. One more body in the pile.



Epilogue

Dr Steven Cooper was getting worried about the missing sailors, especially since one of them was his sister Jenny. But he could hear the ship's helicopter over head and was sure they would be found soon. It was probable that they had landed in the wrong cove and were busy enjoying themselves on a beach somewhere.


To keep his mind off it he was concentrating on the dig. Looking for clues about the massacre 150 years earlier. Some of his colleagues were hoping to find some sign that missionaries really had been killed by the natives, as if that would justify the subsequent massacre. But Steven just wanted to find out more about the tribe that had been exterminated by the seamen so long ago.


He had been working through the mass of bones that was all that was left of the massacred natives when he noticed a metallic glimmer. Given that the natives had relied on stone age technology he must have found something left by the killers. Using a fine brush he cleared the dirt more and found it was a chain.


He had been expecting to find a knife or a shot round, but if it was a chain it might be jewellery from the alleged murdered missionaries. The chain was under some bones but with care he eased it loose, revealing not a crucifix but some flat pieces of metal. Holding them up to the light he saw figures were stamped onto them. He had never seen anything like this in his research, although his sister had shown him something similar when she'd last been on leave. Carefully reading the figures he could make out . . .” Cooper, J “ followed by numbers and what appeared to be a date of birth. He recognised the date of birth.