They had sailed together for twenty-seven years. They may not have been the most skilled of mariners, but they thought so much alike that they were able to accomplish what other sailors couldn't.
And together they were fearless. They were lucky too, of course. Even their famous shipwreck hadn't been too awful. The story was their standard recitation at dinner parties...
They were sailing round the world. There had been a few days when there was absolutely no food, and for a couple of days the only water they had was some slimy stuff that had accumulated in the bottom of an empty ice chest.
One learns to cope.
They were birds of a feather. They could laugh at anything. Daphne even laughed at Alan's tale of his infatuation with his X-ray technician which ended quite suddenly when he took the girl sailing. She got herself knocked overboard by the swinging boom.
``I realized then what a fool she was,'' he would say, and Daphne laughed as loud as any.
They were threading an un-named archipelago beyond the New Hebrides when they wrecked on barely submerged coral. They got safely into the dinghy with their papers and they watched in dismay as their beloved boat broke up in the surf.
The island was obviously inhabited, but no one was in sight. They followed a path under the palm trees.
There were people lying around outside a small hut.
``Good morning,'' said Daphne.
The islanders said nothing. They were all drunk. Even the children. They were drinking something horrible out of rusty tin cans.
Further down the path they found more people, also drinking.
``We need help,'' they said.
In response a child brought them a can of cloudy liquid.
``Not bad at all,'' said Alan, and handed the can to Daphne.
``Jolly good, I'd say,'' she said.
It was three weeks later that the missionary found them lying pleasantly inebriated under a palm tree surrounded by empty Spam cans and their own excrement.
``Its really so pleasant here,'' Alan said, ``we're not sure we want to leave, are we darling?''
Daphne smiled agreement.
The missionary had fallen prey to alcoholic lassitude on more than one occasion. He captured Alan and Daphne and from his boat he radioed the British Consul.
A silent man of incomprehensible ancestry took them to Noumea in a bucket of a boat that Somerset Maugham might have recognized. From there they flew to Brisbane and life became normal again.
But sometimes at dinner parties, after the name droppings and discussion of the price of real estate and the state of the market, Alan would remember a place where people didn't give a dam about all that stuff.
And he'd wonder why they had to stay so drunk to be that way.