Jim

It could be worse.

I gazed below me at the crests of waves crashing against the cliffside. The birdcage-like structure in which I was trapped dangled in the air, projected from a mechanism that resembled a massive winch, like a pulley system. It was far beyond my reach, anyhow, and I was much too high up to attempt to break it open.

Well, I suppose it could be worse.

I could be alone.

I threw a glance at my companion, a rather normal-looking chap named Jim.

At least, that’s what he’d told me, when he pulled me from the water into a battered skiff, the only remnant of our mighty vessel. The Glory West, on her journey from the West Indies to deliver a full crew and one medical doctor to England, had met with an accident. The storm raged, throwing the ship off course and down to the depths of the sea. Only the two of us survived.

Jim was a young, slight fellow of average height sporting an unruly mop of blonde hair. He wore the traditional garb of a seaman, which was to be expected, as he claimed to have been a deckhand aboard the Glory West. I would have believed his story were it not for one factor.

I had never seen him before.

I wasn’t a member of her crew, but I’d become familiar with the Glory West and the persons who managed her. And, as a doctor, I’m a quick observer by necessity. Jim wasn’t aboard that ship.

Then again, I suppose I could have missed him. He was rather ordinary and not much of a conversationalist, not that he had the opportunity – I didn’t realize I had passed out aboard the skiff until Jim shook me awake.

“Dr. Trask,” he said, pointing ahead. His expression betrayed his suppressed intensity. “Land.”

I sat up and swiveled round to get a glimpse of where we were headed. A white, sandy beach awaited us. The island was small, ringed with beaches and cliffs, providing an inviting and sinister picture simultaneously. Patches of forest sprinkled the surface, and various structures, resembling military bunkers, filled in the gaps.

However, I noticed all of this in retrospect, as a far more pressing matter presented itself.

“Land… and visitors.”

A horde of men in military garb watched us from the shore. They brandished their weapons as our boat drifted towards them, and the soldiers dragged us onto the sand. In the tumult, I noticed that other debris from the shipwreck had already washed ashore, and I wondered if anyone else could have survived.

However, I soon found myself quite alone, hanging in a cage above the raging sea as it beat upon the rocks below, accompanied only by Jim and my thoughts.

I craned my neck toward the guard next to the winch. One of our shotguns was slung over his shoulder, and he held a long makeshift spear. The gleam in his eye proved he knew how to use both.

The night drew in around us. The waves continued to crash beneath us, and lightning crackled in the distance, even in the absence of rain. My companion’s face, illuminated in the moonlight, bore an expression of intensity and deep thought, his brows drawn and his lower jaw protruding.

“I have an idea.”

Jim spoke suddenly, startling me from my observation. He moved closer, inducing our cage to sway precariously in the wind.

“Doctor, I need your cooperation.” His eyes scanned my face in search of a response; they must have adjusted to the darkness much more quickly than mine.

I nodded and spoke as loudly as I dared, trying to be heard over the tumult of the sea below. “Anything. I’m at a loss.”

“Good. I need you to rock the cage.”

“What? You’ll send us to the bottom of the sea!”

“Not if this works. Start slowly, just enough to get his attention.” He settled into position across from me, nearest where the guard stood, and watched him carefully out of the corner of his eye.

Resigning myself to my water-bound fate, I gripped the wooden bars tightly and began to rock the enclosure, the wind assisting me and threatening to send me on my way prematurely. The cage creaked and groaned.

However, the noise caught the guard’s attention, and he admonished us in a language I didn’t understand. Jim ignored him, and I followed suit. The guard stepped forward and jabbed his spear at Jim through the movement of the cage.

To my astonishment, Jim swiftly reached down, snatched the spear from his hands, and thrust the blunt end into the guard’s forehead. He fell to the ground in a daze.

Before I could congratulate him, he began to climb up the inside of the enclosure, clutching the spear tightly through the bars. “Don’t stop!” he instructed me through the din.

I continued rocking the cage, using the wind’s momentum and pushing through it. Jim clambered to the top and wedged his upper body through the bars, poising himself with the spear to strike the cord binding us to the outstretched arm of the mechanism.

Finally, I understood his plan, as outlandish as it seemed, and braced for impact. As we hovered between land and sea, Jim waited. When the cage swayed back toward land, he struck. The rope snapped and the cage flew, landing with a crash on the grassy cliffside.

Shaking broken wood from my shirt and trousers, I accepted Jim’s outstretched arm. “Are you all right, son?” I asked him hurriedly, fearing for his back and shoulders from how he landed.

“Fine, thank you,” he responded, handing me his spear and retrieving the gun from the unconscious guard. He moved swiftly, evidently without injury, and we retreated into the nearest patch of trees.

As we crept along, I couldn’t help but marvel at our miraculous escape. “I must congratulate you, my dear fellow,” I began. “I don’t know how that plan possibly could have worked. The probability alone…”

“Get down!” he hissed. I stooped beside him, clutching the spear to my chest, and my gaze followed his extended finger.

Another guard, barely visible from our point of view, stood off in the distance. I would never have seen him had Jim not pointed him out.

“Surely we can make it a little farther,” I proposed. “He’s too far away to spot us…”

“And give him time to sneak up on us? No, I’ve tangled with fellows like this before. They’re inexplicably stealthy.”

I grabbed his arm. “You know them? Is that why they captured us?”

“No, Doctor, I’ve never seen them in my life.”

A solitary bullet whistled over our heads. As I scrambled for cover, Jim shook his head and cocked his own shotgun. “What an awful shot.”

“’Awful’?” I repeated. “He’s nearly a hundred paces away! That was an incredible shot!”

“I suppose I had high hopes for him,” Jim confessed. “However, he has now seen us.” He calmly stood to his feet, raising his shotgun to his left shoulder.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Aiming, Doctor. It’s rather important.”

Another gunshot rang out, and Jim took a step backward as the bullet jetted through his right shoulder. I clambered to my knees, but Jim merely regained his balance. “That’s more like it.”

He returned the gun to his shoulder, aimed carefully, and fired. I peered over the bushes in time to watch the man in the distance disappear.

“Right shoulder. Now we’re even.” Jim resumed his position beside me, discharging the empty cartridge and checking his remaining bullets.

“How did you make that shot?” I mumbled through uncooperating lips.

He threw me a puzzled look. “Just aim and shoot.”

“No, I… never mind. Are you all right? I could have sworn he’d hit you!”

“He did.” Jim crouched and moved forward. I quickly followed him, painfully aware of the bullet-hole in the back of his shirt and the red stain surrounding it.

“Jim, let me examine your wound.”

“We haven’t time, Doctor,” he threw back to me, sidling behind a tree and peeking round it at the encampment ahead. He didn’t appear to be in pain, which made very little sense to me. In fact, nothing about this man added up…

I grabbed his uninjured arm. “Who are you?” I watched his eyes search my face in surprise.

“Jim.” He turned back to the encampment. I loosened my grip on his arm.

“Jim who?”

“Just Jim.” He settled the gun against his left shoulder, found it incompatible with his position, and switched to his right shoulder effortlessly.

I leaned against the tree, pressing my back into the prickly bark. “Listen, Jim,” I began gently, “I can’t pretend to understand you, but you’ve saved my life at least three times now. I want you to know I appreciate it.”

Jim paused, the gun against his shoulder and his eyes on his target. A small smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “You’ve done a great many good deeds, doctor, and you’ll do more, if I have anything to say about it.”

He lowered the gun, and I peered round his shoulder to follow his gaze. “It seems our absence has been felt,” he whispered.

The encampment had begun to stir. Weapons were dispatched and torches were lit, illuminating the small army and dimming the stars above. “They must’ve heard the gunshots,” Jim hazarded. Shouldering the shotgun, he ducked down and beckoned me to join him.

“Go around,” he directed, pointing toward the assortment of huts. “When you reach the beach, you’ll find one of their boats. Take it to the alcove at the end of the beach. There’s an eddy there that flows out to sea.”

“What will you do?”

“I’ll try to draw them off. But,” he grabbed my wrist, “if I am not there, do not wait for me.”

“Wait, how…”

Ignoring me, Jim pulled out his shotgun and disappeared into the forest.

Gripping my spear tightly, I stepped out of my hiding place and ducked behind the nearest hut. Gunshots rang in the distance.

I edged around the hut and quickly crossed to the next. The encampment was far too silent, even considering the absence of the mob chasing Jim across the island.

As I started to break into a run, a young soldier emerged from between the huts. He yelped and snatched the knife from his belt. However, he was too late, for without much forethought I spun my spear around in my hand and propelled the blunt end into his forehead, much in the same way Jim had before. The soldier fell senseless to the ground.

I took possession of his knife. “Apologies,” I muttered, the Hippocratic oath springing to mind. I stepped over his motionless body and made for the beach.

Ignoring the distant cries, I slid across the sand toward the boat. Grasping the rope tied to its bow, I pulled it along toward the other end of the beach. The cliff face rose up before me, guarding the secret its alcove held.

I dragged the vessel onto the shore and through the opening in the rock. Sand ended where water began, and a rogue current twisted towards the far entrance of the cave, just as Jim said. I didn’t take much time to observe this phenomenon – time was running out.

The sky grew gray – the sunrise would soon shine through the open ceiling. I thrust the boat into the water and, in the waking light, I caught a glimpse of its size. My stomach sank. I wound the rope around my hand and prayed for Jim’s arrival.

Within a minute shots rang out quite near to me, and as I ducked for cover Jim tore around the bend. His face, arms, and clothes were filthy and grass-stained, the shotgun was gone, and the fire in his eyes abated when he saw me.

“Thank heavens,” he breathed, “you’re unharmed. That youth raised the alarm. I’ve barely beaten them here.” He grabbed the rope from my hand. “I told you not to wait for me. Get in.”

Bracing myself on the walls, I climbed into the vessel. “You’d have waited for me,” I stated emphatically. Swallowing the rising uneasiness in my throat, I seated myself in the single-man vessel. The current raced beneath me, tugging at the boat and threatening to pull me away. “Now get in.”

“I can’t. The boat is far too small for both of us.”

I tried to hold back the tears brimming in my eyes. “We’ll make do; we can fit if we try.”

Jim shook his head gently. “Too much weight; we’ll sink, Doctor.”

“In that case,” I declared, as I began to clamber out of the boat, “I’m getting out and you’re getting in.”

“No, Doctor!” Jim braced his arms against the walls of the tunnel, barricading me in. “Stay put; I’m warning you.”

I watched his hand release the rope. But he snatched it back in an instant, for my hand shot out and grabbed the front of his shirt. “You’re warning me?” I hissed. “Either we both go, or neither of us go!”

A shot rang out. The bullet whistled past my ear. My eyes widened as Jim’s did. The stain on his shirtfront grew.

“Doctor,” Jim said sternly, “go.”

I clenched my jaw. “No.”

As the sunrise broke above us, the outlines of soldiers materialized from the darkness.

Jim’s arms held firm against the walls of the cavern. Another shot reverberated through the chasm, and a bullet passed through his upper thigh.

“Go, Doctor,” he repeated softly, and, for the first time, I read pain in his eyes.

Tears streamed down my face and my sleeves soaked in his blood. “Jim,” my voice cracked, “you have so much to give the world.”

Another shot resounded, and Jim fell to his knees.

“And I’m giving it you.”

With a final burst of energy, he broke my grip on his shirt. I fell backward into the boat, water rushing round my ears and stone walls racing by above me.

“Jim!”

I bolted upright, arm outstretched, grasping for Jim and seizing only sunlight.

The chasm had fallen away; the echoes of bullets had ceased. Surrounded by seawater and sheltered by sunshine, my one-man vessel slowed to meet the rhythmic rocking of the waves as the island melted into the distance.

The rope trailed in the boat’s wake. Its bearer was no longer in sight.

~~~~~

I remained alone in my craft for only a day or two. The Morality, an English navy vessel on patrol, spotted me and pulled me from the waves not a moment too soon. Before the men could hoist it aboard, my little boat sprang a leak and sank to the bottom of the sea.

The crew provided me with clothes, food, and a berth. The captain reported my retrieval and the men begged to hear my stories. However, as I sat on my bunk, idly fingering my old blood-stained shirt, I’d suddenly run out of things to say.

We docked in London three months later. My beautiful wife awaited me at the other end of the gangway. The first thing I did was drag her to the Naval Office, where I reported the bravery of the crew of the Glory West and one sailor in particular.

Then the secretary showed me the registry.

There was no Jim on that ship, and no one matching his description.

He didn’t exist.

~~~~~

Five years later, I sit at my desk and pen the final words of my manuscript. The news had it years ago and I’ve told the story countless times, but every time I took up my pen, I found myself at a loss for words.

Of course, I’ve been busy these last five years. As a result of the publicity I received upon my return, I’ve appeared at several speaking engagements and social gatherings, though I’ve paid special attention to charity events. I reopened my practice in London and decided to freeze my rates for all patients, outside of when I omit them altogether. Much of my income has flowed into travel plans to return to the island someday, in the entirely irrational hope of reuniting with an old friend.

As I skim the document before me, I’m aware of its absurdity. The surplus of plot holes and unexplained phenomena have caused some to consider it either a bad lie or bad fiction. I assure my reader, however, that it’s all true. Even the parts I can’t explain.

And, of course, many have submitted their opinions on Jim as well.

Some say he was a figment of my imagination. I’m inclined to agree with them, were it not for the stubbornly-bloodstained shirt tucked away in a box in my closet.

Some say that I’m merely fabricating a sensational story. They don’t bother me, for I know the truth, and that alone is sufficient cause for their words to have little effect upon me. Let them think what they will.

Some say that Jim was a fraud or a stowaway. Although both I and the ship’s registry must agree with them to some degree, I confess that hearing the word liar associated with the man who saved my life causes my fist to clench involuntarily.

However, my favorite theory came in a letter from a little girl from Brighton. She informed me that the man who pulled me from the waves was most assuredly an angel.

Whoever he may have been, one detail remains forever present in my mind.

Jim found my life worth dying for.

Every good deed I perform has Jim’s name inscribed on the back, for each is a direct result of the good deed he did for me.

So, no matter which opinion my next conversationalist subscribes to, I’ll remind them of that fact.

And, until we meet again, I’ll find Jim’s death worth living for.