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When Idriess arranged to be dropped at a small remote island with another man to prospect for tin, he was unaware of secondary arrangements that Charlie had made with the skipper.
Charlie was an unusual man, a war vet with an unusual injury - the doctors of Europe couldn't understand how he remained alive, and once asked him to write to them every six months to let them know he lives still. It required him to insert a tube into an opening in his side, with a funnel on it, and pour in a chemical mix. He neglected to bring these things with him to the island, and the substituted sea water, and the pain effected his mental condition, making him unpredictable and often violent.
Charlie was also a solitary man, and it is hard to understand why he concocted the situation with Idriess, trapping them both on the island.
But I am a bit ahead of myself.
A Malay seaman had been on the island previously been wrecked on the island, and when rescued had told of tin deposits found on the beach there. Charlie and Idriess bought stores and equipment and arranged a cutter to drop them off, and collect them 4 weeks later. Idriess didn't know that Charlie had arranged with the cutter skipper a signal that meant to land, and that if no signal was given that they had already left the island.
As it turned out, weather had delayed the arrival of the cutter by some weeks, making her already long overdue. This was trial enough, as the stores were low and the tin and wolfram they had discovered was already bagged up. Charlie had also become unstable, forcing Idriess to shift his living to the far side of the island, where the tide cut off access, leaving each man half an island. This left the problem of fresh water - obtainable only from a small natural well on Charlies side of the island, and which he took to ambushing.
And so six months on the island before Idriess is rescued, and many adventures, he tells his story, and explains Charlie's plans - or at least the parts he understands from Charlies more companionable moments.
5 stars. Quick, readable and highly paced.
