Greg was the fastest to response, he shouted to his dad as he ran to sail the boat, Uncle Tom then regained his mind and went to the sail, they were getting away from the storm as fast as they could. The storm was approaching them now, Lachlan felt the boat being tossed by the waves, he ran quickly to get the life-jackets for each of them, just in case they got caught by the storm. He could feel the tension as he entered the sailing room, Greg was panicking with fright while Uncle Tom was sailing steadily, but he was nervous as well, Lachlan could see sweat coming out of his forehead. The storm was nearer and nearer and the boat was being tilted higher and higher. For the first time in his life, Lachlan thought of the horror of the waves, it was going to throw him off board and drown him. ‘Try to stay together!’ Uncle Tom shouted ‘even if we fall off the boat’.
’Uncle Tom knows that we are not going escape from the storm.’ Lachlan thought to himself as Uncle Tom continued to shout for him and Greg to grab onto anything that floated, he was saying something else as well, but his voice was drowned out by the struck of thunder and the next moment a wave splashed onto the deck of the boat, the storm had reached them.
Uncle Tom then realised the boat may be overturned by the waves and start untying the raft and said to them ‘Put any food and water that you can find into the raft and a flashlight.’ They started to fill up the raft, but they were half way through it when Greg and the raft was thrown out into the sea as the boat was tilted up high in the air. ‘Dad, help!’ Greg managed to cry out as he held on to the raft, Uncle Tom told Lachlan to try to pull Greg back up, but as Lachlan was doing this, he was thrown off board as well. ‘Splash!’ Lachlan heard himself fall into the sea, he inflated his life-jacket and rose back to the surface, but he could not help swallowing some sea water as the waves were crashing violently. ‘Here,’ Lachlan heard Greg shout and saw that he had managed to climb on the raft, franticly he swam to the raft as if he had been saved from the disaster and got a grip of Greg’s hand. He pulled himself up and saw Uncle Tom standing on the deck of the boat, looking at it for the last time, now most of it had been wrecked by the storm and bits and pieces of junk and wood were all over the boat, it was going to wreck any moment, so Uncle Tom jumped and landed right next to the raft and Lachlan and Greg pulled him onto the raft. As soon as he had got up, he asked them, ‘Ok, what have we got on the raft?’ ‘Some food and water that could last for a few days and a flashlight.’ was the reply from Greg after counting. Uncle Tom frowned as he heard this, he knew that their chance of survival did not look good, here all they had was only food and water that could only last a few days for them and they still had to protect themselves and raft from the storm, it was almost impossible.
Lachlan felt terrified on the raft, the sound of the waves was loud and the raft was tossed up by the waves every minute, somehow the sea did not felt too good if you were in trouble. ‘Try to keep water out of the raft or it will sink,’ Uncle Tom screamed and they did as they were told. After a few hours of frantic splashing, the storm finally seemed to have stopped, the sea was calm again but the three of them were tired and exhausted and fell asleep. ‘Eech!’ Uncle Tom was woken by the screeches of the seagull, carefully he counted the food and distributed it evenly, it was enough to last for three days for everyone and that was bad because he knew not many ships travelled in this part of the sea and it was lucky enough if a ship passed by in a month. The chances of being rescued were not high, but anyway he put on a cheery face and woke Greg and Lachlan up. ‘Ok, lads, we have got food enough for three days, lets hope someone will spot us and get us out, otherwise this raft will just float to no where,’ he said. And so they sat down on the raft silently trying to save up as much energy as possible. Lachlan looked at the sea, it was calm now, he could even see the light reflecting back to his eyes, he found it funny that only just a few days ago he thought the sea was the best place and now he just hated the sea.
For three days, it went on like this, the food and water supply were getting fewer and fewer and they were getting sleepier, Uncle Tom knew this was a bad sign, but he did not say so. Then on the forth day, the food and water supply ran out, and the three of them lost hope, they stared at each other blankly, their mouths were too dry to talk, they all knew there was no chance of getting back. Lachlan closed his eyes and thought about the past, how he had enjoyed everything, the people at school and mum and dad …… he thought he heard a distant erring, but he was not sure, then things completely blacked out for him. After some time, he thought he heard some voices, ‘ am I imagining things?’ he wondered, but he did not know, he thought he heard someone say, ‘don’t worry, son, we have got you, you will be okay.’ And he felt himself being lifted up, it was as if he were in a dream, and yet the familiar sounds of the sea sounded so close to him.
The next thing he heard was ‘ he’s waking up!’ Lachlan opened his eyes and stared into a room of white with his mum and dad. ‘ Where am I?’ he managed to choke out a small raspy cry. Mum came over, hugged him and said, ‘ Its okay now, you are safe in hospital with doctors looking after you.’ ‘What about the others?’ Lachlan asked his mum, she replied that they were all safe and told Lachlan to get some more rest, so he went off to sleep again.
After a month or so, Lachlan finally recovered and could get out of bed, but the first thing he heard when he saw Greg was that Uncle Tom had died, Lachlan cried hard, he had been so close to his uncle. Later, Lachlan read on the newspaper that the wrecked boat had somehow floated to a cargo ship, which rang up the sea rescue team to check the registration. Luckily, his aunt knew where his uncle usually went fishing and the rescue team were able to locate the raft after a few days of searching. But sadly, his uncle had died of dehydration, the doctors said that the amount of food and water found in his uncle’s body was much smaller than that found in his and Greg’s. The news journalist suspected that his uncle had given more food and water to his son and nephew than to himself.
Sadly, here ends the tragic story of Uncle Tom, who had sacrificed his life on his beloved sea to save his son and his nephew and may his act of bravery be always remembered.
