The canoe took them the short distance from the anchored boat to the gleaming white shore. Close up, the island lived up to the promise of paradise glimpsed at first light. Tina wanted to race up the beach, but as Ben helped her out of the canoe she stumbled and fell to her knees, feeling sick. She plunged her hands into the hot sand; weeks and weeks at sea and they were no longer land lubbers.

Their new guardian laughed. ‘Your first steps back on British soil and you kiss the ground.’

Ben tried to stand up straight with some dignity.

‘Is this really a British island?’

‘Technically I suppose it is no longer, since your good queen gifted it to us at midnight, but this is your home now.’

‘Home,’ said Tina ‘isn’t someone coming to fetch us soon, you said…’

‘I said we would deliver you safely from your kidnappers, what your government has arranged I do not know, but why would you want to leave this beautiful island, weren’t you seeking a dream holiday when you left home?’

‘Where are we?’

‘You don’t need to know that, a real desert island, but it is our new home as well so you will not be lonely.’

He pointed out to sea where a strange fleet of boats old and new was heading for the shore. Tina stood up shakily and turned a full circle, taking in blue skies and palm trees; a dream island but her only thought was water, she knew only too well now how precious fresh water was.

‘Have you charted the island, are there streams, springs?’

Ben was looking out to sea. The boats were laden with bundles, supplies hopefully and once they had eaten breakfast they needed to plan, take in everything that had happened, slip away and search for an airstrip and the nearest village. He believed little of what the guardian had told them, this was hardly likely to be a real desert island.

‘What do you mean, more money, we gave them a whole island, what more do they want?’

‘Money to build an infrastructure Madam, the island was abandoned fifty years ago, there’s nothing there.’

‘That’s what they wanted, a peaceful island far from civilisation.’

‘They wanted a holiday industry to replace all they lost when their own island was burnt to the sand.’

‘Must be something there, who lived there before?’

‘A few thousand people, we forcibly evacuated them.’

‘Please don’t tell me it was one of those nuclear tests.’

‘No, no actually might have been chemical warfare development or some kind of scientific experiments, records destroyed, but we managed to track down one old navy chap through his nephew on the internet, nephew’s doing his own research on the island.’

‘So what are you going to tell the families, when are you meeting them?’

‘We’re meeting them in ten minutes.’

‘And in tonight’s headlines family and friends of the couple caught in a holiday nightmare kidnapping staged a protest at Downing Street, pleading

Fly Ben and Tina Home.

A friend of the couple gave a statement saying We have been told they are safe on land, on an island and arrangements are being made, but they won’t even tell us where they are. If we can evacuate thousands from Afghanistan why can’t we send one little plane to fetch two British citizens? Even Richard Branston has offered to fly them back in a private jet as soon as we know where they are.’

A government spokesman said ‘The British government never pays ransoms, but after careful negotiations a British couple, who can’t be named for security reasons, are safely off the boat and out of the hands of the pirates. We cannot reveal their whereabouts while negotiations continue.’

How did Ben and Tina end up in the hands of pirates? Find out here in a previous tale.

Friday Flash Fiction Five Hundred – On Board | Times and Tides of a Beachwriter (tidalscribe.com)