He did his best to comfort them in the night. “Jacinda’s not here, but she’s thinking of you all,” he said, and told them that everything was going to be all right.
Everything was not looking like it was going to be all right. The horizon was just as empty as the day before and the day before that.
But it was important to hope alive. Shipwreck Chippy assembled his gang of castaways and said, “All is not lost.”
No one said anything.
“I have an idea.”
No one said anything.
“I have worked out a way of making our food supplies last longer, and go further,” he said.
There was a murmur of interest.
He held up a banana. “As of this moment,” he said, “I remove GST from this banana.”
There was an audible gasp.
He held up an orange. “As of this moment,” he said, “I remove GST from this orange.”
There was a clamour of excitement. The castaways felt a sudden burst of hope that they would get through their ordeal at sea, and find land before they perished.
One of them cried out, “What about this basil in a pot?”
Shipwreck Chippy said, “I am not 100 per cent certain it is defined as a vegetable or a fruit.”
The clamour of excitement grew less.
Another castaway asked, “What about these vacuum-packed peeled cloves of garlic?”
Shipwreck Chippy said, “We would have to consider how that was processed on the packaging.”
There was an audible groan.
A castaway thrust a punnet of lettuce seedlings at Shipwreck Chippy, who said, “Well, you would have to pay GST on those, almost certainly.”
No one said anything.
TUESDAY
The raft drifted south.
WEDNESDAY
The raft drifted south.
THURSDAY
First Mate McNulty scraped barnacles off the side of the raft, scooped out the meat, and used it as bait.
He fished all day and brought up a sizeable catch. Then he gutted their entrails, washed them out in sea water, tied a string around the four corner poles of the raft, and hung up the sliced fishes to dry.
It was Purser Robertson’s job to divide the fish evenly among the crew. “There are 25 dried fish for each castaway,” he announced.
Shipwreck Chippy said, “Are you sure?’
Purser Robertson made another count of the fish, and checked his figures. “The fiscals were a bit out,” he said. “Sorry about that. There are in fact 2.5 dried fish for each castaway.”
No one said anything.
FRIDAY
Shipwreck Chippy scanned the horizon on Day 135 lost at sea.
And then suddenly he saw something. A shape, a mound. Something starboard, something rising above the horizon.
He reached for his binoculars. It was land, all right, but he felt afraid, and cold, terribly cold.
“What is it?” the crew asked. “What have you seen?”
Shipwreck Chippy faced the castaways. “Petersland,” he said.
All was lost.
