Panic on the island.

Write a story in which someone gets lost in the woods

Panic on the Island

“What’s that”? I asked my mummy, and I pointed

outwards, and across the bay,

“That’s a castle called ‘St Michaels Mount”, she said,

and we’ll be living nearer to it ‘one day’.

The castle was medieval, and it was in the sea,

and my imagination started to ‘run away with me’!

I thought of great battles, with men in armour, and men

with swords and shields,

who defended our freedoms, along with our land and

our fields!

Then we moved into this little town, and the castle was

so big and clear,

and we had the beach, the countryside, and our primary

school was quite near.

Being closer to the castle meant that I had a better view,

and there were houses over there, with a surrounding

woodland too!

The houses were for the fishermen, that would fish the

bay each day,

but the tidal times would have a very important ‘role to

play’!

When the tide was out, there was a causeway to the

land,

and the lack of surrounding water, would mean that the

harbour was mostly sand!

When the tide was in, there was a ferry boat to take you

there and back,

and then your route up to the castle, was by following

the steep and winding track!

The era that I was in, was in the mid 1970’s, and I was a cub scout in a reasonably sized ‘pack’ of other enthusiastic kids! Our Cub Scout group was quite popular, and children from the nearby towns and villages would opt to travel for miles, and then pay, to join our little village ‘club of cubs’, and scouts.

Whilst I regularly attended, I learnt to tackle many domestic jobs, like sewing, administering First Aid, cooking and making fire- ‘camp fires’ to be more precise! “Thank God we have matches now”! Trying to get a spark from two stones was so frustrating, and it was a test of both your patience and ‘will power’- “Not to mention the strength in your arms”! I don’t think that I achieved it, and I think that our Cub Scout leader lit my fire for me-“with a match”!

Our presence, camping overnight, was extremely very very rare, and it was very kindly granted by the ‘late’ Lord, who owned most of the land that he could see from his ‘Castle in the Sea’.

The day was quite exciting, and I felt very lucky and important, especially because I was so high up, and I was looking outwards and toward the land from the very top turret of this great castle, and I looked outward across the rippling salty water, and towards the area of the land where our home was situated, and I could just about see our house, which looked so small and insignificant!

I really liked cub scouts, which offered excitement, friendship and it involved teamwork, with many other challenges that I never had, either at school, or in my home, and on this particular occasion I felt so brave and important, because with this very rare opportunity to camp on St. Michaels Mount, I felt that I was a friend of the Lord now and I suppose that that made feel important, and I was around grandeur, instead of our Council owned property, in a location/estate that would be associated with poverty!

I remained in my daydream, as I still stared outwards, and down upon those small houses on the land, and I was thinking that the man in the Castle, probably owns the land that my house was built on?

I liked being where I was, it somehow gave me an importance and envious experience, but obviously that feeling of grandeur was temporary- “very temporary”!

My evening meal, which I was responsible for, doesn’t sound too much of a challenge, but it was quite challenging for a seven year old, especially with few utensils, and a little camp fire to cook it on, and my meal of choice(“that was restricted by my family’s very small budget”!) was baked beans on toast!

I would receive some help from our scout leader, especially with opening the tin of beans, and being very careful with the very sharp tin lid, and then I emptied them into a saucepan, which was an item that was not excluded from our, attempted independent lifestyle! The cooking/“well warming up the beans”, and then holding the bread over the fire to make toast, was quite satisfying, and would probably earn me another badge?

The end of the daylight would soon be a threat, and the darkening skies, would now be accompanied with the cold wind that would creep its way into the bay, and it would soon become an annoyance, and apart from it freezing my face, it was really affecting my bladder, and the very urgent, ‘need to wee’, would not allow me to descend from the Castle grounds, and to the public toilets that were seen below, which were, all the way down by the harbour!

The urgency was almost beyond my control, and our Cub Scout leader said “Go into the woods quickly, and have your wee”, and, in my modesty, I wanted to be a fair distance away from the group, so that I couldn’t be heard, and I ran through the darkened woods, and the black tree trunks became fewer, and gradually started to reveal the clear scenery of the bay, and the mesmerising horizon of the English Channel, and I knew that other lands could be seen, in a ship, from the position of the horizon in the sea, and the immediate feeling of the sudden openness, from feeling suffocated by the woods, would release a condition that had never been discovered before, and that was claustrophobia, which increased as time would go on!

My initial thoughts were of freedom, because there was nothing around me to restrict my movements, my vision, or the quality in the air that I breathed! The open scenery of this Bay deserved a longer viewing, and after I had relieved myself, I sat down and I was totally relaxed, and the ‘last of today’s sunshine’, revealed itself from behind a cloud, and prompted me to lie back on the embankment.

Feeling relaxed, content, and with carefree thoughts, I was looking outwards from the back of this castle mound, and outward into the empty blue sea, and there was nothing in front of me, no land, no boats, no people, and I then started to daydream, about what could be seen beyond the horizon, that was so clear and prominent!

I woke up, probably two hours later, in exactly the same position, but now there were two large container ships, that were close to the land now, and in the shelter of the bay, which usually meant that a storm was coming, and in a frantic panic I immediately stood up, but I wobbled slowly, before I regained my composure, and then I rushed back towards where the other Cub Scouts were, or where I thought they were!

I remembered going through the dark woods, when I had previously ascended towards the castle, and I would now have to descend, and going back through the dark woods now, on my own, was a very daunting prospect! I would try to remember my previous movements, but in reverse! I knew that I had to go through the woods, but I would definitely stay on the cobbled pathway, and the steep decline would encourage an increase in my walking pace, and I would soon enter the cold and dark woods again, which, in the fading light, seemed eerily strange, strange because the tree trunks were black now, and the leaves looked grey!

The other cub scouts could not be seen, and I started to panic, and I was now on my own, and that sudden realisation was felt in my little chest, and my heart could now be felt, with an increase in its rate, and the beating had become faster and stronger, and a little tear ran slowly down my cold cheek, and I just wanted to be back in my home, and to be relaxing in front of the fire, with the extra warmth from the safety, love and comfort that I would feel, from not only the fire, but from my family to, but now would come the daunting prospect of entering my major fear and obstacle, which would be going back through the darkening woods!

This darkening glade would unintentionally encourage my little mind to think of evil that was lurking amongst the trees, and the imminent darkness would encourage the previously hiding monsters to reveal themselves, and would look for something, ‘or someone’, to eat!

‘How could my fellow Cub Scout camp mates forget about me’, I thought, forgetting that we were camping over here for tonight, but my foolishness would increase, both my heart rate, and my panicked state, and also added to my pessimism by thinking ‘will I ever see my friends and family again’?

The woods were darkening now, and the descending pathway was getting harder to see, and a clearing in the woods became visible, and I could see the sea again, and with this visual excitement, and with the prospect of freedom, I foolishly went towards the light!

I looked down towards my feet, and I had wandered off the pathway, and my shoes were now surrounded by a dry and thick grass, with the fragments of the pine cones also adorning this thick and green foliage; The trees were suffocating, but they started to become less, and I could see the sea again, but it wasn’t as friendly as it looked earlier, and the waves were crashing against the rocks, which increased further my panic and frightened state, and I reversed, and returned in the direction that I came, but now, as the darkness fell, the trees had come alive, with distorted faces, and long and numerous spindly arms and long and buckled fingers, that were all trying to reach me, and these visions were now accompanied with the sounds from the awakened wildlife, that thought it safe now to appear, and strange, but cute, little noises were made by rabbits, mice and even the lizards, but the swooping birds above had no warning sound!

The evening light was useful, in that it enabled the pathway to be revealed, by its shimmering light, which I was gratefully about to rejoin, and to continue with my descent, and some of the fear and panic that I felt, would now be eased away!

Rejoining the pathway would not exclude me from hearing the sounds from nature, and it could sound quite threatening and increased my unease, and I just longed to see the openness from the harbour, but looking into the woods, as I continued my descent, were seen more ghastly faces from the trees, that creaked to echo their age and state, and I would soon see again the harbour below, which was now with an increase in detail, and I accelerated my pace in my excitement;

I would soon gain more light, after finally leaving the woods, and as I entered the harbour my relief from escaping the threat from the woodland, with its darkness, distorted faces and sounds was so relieving, and I looked outwards towards the land, but the incoming sea had devoured the pathway, and my way home would be delayed further, by 5 or 6 hours maybe?

As I stood, looking very disappointingly at the increasingly high sea, that devoured the causeway and my way back to the land, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder, and then I heard these despairing words “Andrew”, she asked, “where have you been”? “I’ve been looking everywhere for you”! I looked up to confirm my thoughts of whose hand this was, and it did, ‘indeed’, belong to our cub scout leader, and my sheer relief would instantly drain all of my fear, and the concern with the disappearance of the causeway, along with the increasing high tide would be her concern now, but instead of panicking, she calmly looked down at my worried face, and frustratingly said “it’s a good job that we’re camping in the woods tonight”!