Day 268 - Shipwrecked

 SHIPWRECKED

Prompt - Shipwrecked : Write about being stranded somewhere - an island, a bus stop, etc.

He knew it was his own fault.  Brining along the hip flask had seemed appropriate, for his first bit of Munro bagging.  Something to celebrate with when he reached his first summit.  But he wasn't used to drinking during the daytime, even such a small quantity, and it had made him feel a bit dopy.  So he sat down in the shelter of some bushes for a minute or two to rest.  Except that the minute or two had turned into thirty once he'd dosed off.  He woke feeling stiff and groggy, and yet immediately aware that the light had changed dramatically.

The blue-skied sunny day he'd dropped off under was now a dark grey, low clouds having swept in while he slept.  With it had come a big drop in temperature, and a dampness in the air that suggested the rain wouldn't be long in coming.  He'd shivered, slowly got up and stretched, and donned his final available layer of clothing, a decent enough fleece which still didn't feel like it would do the job.  

His watch told him to get a move on.  Her knew the bus times, had known which one he was aiming for, and now saw he only had twenty five minutes to cover a distance that had taken over forty on the way up.  Still, at least it was mostly downhill.  But too rough to run at anything more than a slow jog, without risk to ankles or worse.  He was still over four hundred metres from the road, and his target, when the bus emerged from the corner to his right, drove on by the bus stop he was aiming for, and vanished down the sloping bend to the left.  With nobody waiting at the stop the driver hadn't even slowed down, and his frantic arm waving was for nothing.  

Now he sat in the shelter, torn between feeling sorry for himself, berating his own stupidity, and trying to work out a practical course of action.  The problem being that there wasn't one, not really.  There was no bus until the morning.  Walking to the nearest village would mean at least eight kilometres across country, and he wasn't exactly sure of the direction, or twice that if he stuck to the relative safety of the road.  But it was obviously going to get dark in less than an hour, much less if the impending rains broke.  He could sit here and hope that a car or truck or van went past, and that they would be decent enough to offer him a lift.  He could try walking up the road the wrong way, and see if that got him any phone signal - but that seemed unlikely.  The rain began.  Heavily.

He felt fear clouding his judgement.  How cold would it get?  The bus shelter was misnamed, for it did little to keep the wind off him, and didn't do that much better a job of fending off the downpour.  He had no food, no blanket, no spare clothing, no hope.

Then he saw lights jumping around in the dark, the beams picking out the steady streams of water descending, and seeming to come closer far slower than they should.  The bearer of the light turned the corner up the road and came down towards the shelter.  As it came closer he could see it was a farm tractor, complete with a greenhouse canopy that kept the driver dry.  This might be his only hope - and at least it wouldn't be going too fast to notice him.

He stepped out into the road and waved his arms above his head, one hand holding his phone in the hope it would make him more visible.  The tractor grunted to a halt, diesel idling noisily.  He went towards the cab.  A window slid open, a face looked down, hard to see in the darkness.  

"Lost?"  A woman's voice, which surprised him.  

"Missed the bus, not sure how best to get back.  Can you help me please?"  He had to shout over the chugging motor.  

There was a long pause, as the farmer considered his request, deliberating with intent.

"Aye, why not?  But you'll have to climb on the back, no room in here."

He looked at the space indicated.  It was hard to see through the wetness, but there looked to be some kind of platform behind the cab.  He found rungs for his feet, hauled himself up.  Looked around for somewhere to sit.  A gear engaged, and the tractor lurched forward.  He managed to grab something to hold himself up there, and pulled closer to the cab as they set off along the road.  He was getting soaked, he was getting colder, without the shelter of the shelter, but he was going somewhere, with someone (who?) so that had to be an improvement.  Didn't it?

The tractor pulled off the road about ten minutes later, and up a track, into a big yard, and drove straight into an outbuilding.  The relief made his knees fold, for he knew his hands wouldn't have been able to grip much longer.  Falling off the back, on to the dark wet tarmac two metres below, had not been a pleasant prospect.  

The farmer got out.  It was still hard to see what she looked like.

"Sorry about that, you must be soaked.  Come away into the house and we'll get you sorted."  She offered him a hand down, which he was glad to accept.  Her hand felt calloused, but warm and steady.  He followed her into the long low slung farmhouse, and they got their first good look at each other.  She was medium height, short haired and rosy cheeked.  As she shed her outer clothing he could see she was big breasted, wide hipped, but held herself in a way that suggested there was plenty of power in the body.    "Time to get those wet clothes off and find some ways to warm you up."  Her leer was surprising.  He thought he knew what way or warming up she had in mind, and he didn't feel averse.  Getting stranded in the hills might turn out to have been one of the more fortunate events of his life...