The famous book story of child survival is described in a novel by William Golding. His philosophical book Lord of the Flies is based on true events. The boys in the book organized two clans on an island and competed to the point of bloodshed. And their real-life prototypes behaved in a friendlier and wiser way.
Eggs and Bird’s Blood
There were six of them, ages 13-16, and they were from Polynesia, from the island kingdom of Tonga. The teenagers wanted to explore unknown territory and ran away from a Catholic boarding school. The plan was for them to steal a boat off the pier and sail to Australia. They also considered New Zealand or the Fiji Islands as options.
Since one of the boys had grown up in a fishing family, he knew how to sail. But the boys got caught in a storm and lost their course. They had been drifting in the Pacific for nearly eight days, and then the boat came to rest on the very mountainous and deserted island of Ata. This island is in a part of the ocean where there are almost no ship routes. Here the boys had to spend 15 months.
The boys used to live pretty close to nature and knew a lot of useful survival techniques. Unlike their peers from Europe, they were more prepared for the trials.
But even so, it was very hard for them. They had to learn not only how to get their own food and drinking water, but also how to communicate with each other without conflict.
At first they ate only what they could find – raw eggs, fish, drank bird’s blood if they did not have enough water.
Their civilization
Over time the guys adapted and began to explore the island. At the top of the cliffs they saw an abandoned village. There they found a banana-coconut orchard, where sweet papayas still grew, and feral chickens lived. The birds had multiplied in large numbers since people had left the island about a hundred years ago.
The boys settled into an empty hut, began to fix it up, caulked it from the wind and rain. To collect rainwater for drinking, they made troughs from trees. But they were very dehydrated, since the summer was very dry and there was not enough fresh water.
The guys divided the duties: while two of them controlled the fire pit, two more went hunting and cooking, and the other two did the farming. A vegetable garden was planted, chickens were also kept for the kitchen. But to get a spark for the fire, they had to make attempts for 3 months. The existing fire, which they lit with the last matches, was guarded like the apple of their eyes.
It took a lot of effort to find food, but the boys did not forget about entertainment. They made swings, dumbbells and barbells out of rocks in the yard, and played sports.
Back from the dead
Since the boat had been stolen, the fisherman went to the police. Meanwhile, the boarding house noticed that six boys were missing and sounded the alarm. The island was small, they immediately compared the facts and realized: the boys had swum out into the ocean and something had happened to them.
They searched for a long time, but after a big storm they gave up trying, they decided the boys had drowned and there was no way to save them. A symbolic funeral rite was held to say goodbye to the drowned.
In September 1966, a private ship led by a wealthy Australian, Peter Warner, sailed to Ata Island. He had his own fleet of fishing boats, and out of curiosity he decided to see the unexplored areas of the ocean next door, for which he left his usual route.
He had no plans to moor, but he looked through his binoculars and was amazed. Six teenagers were floating toward his ship at full speed. They were screaming and asking to be picked up. Peter helped them onto the ship, informed the port dispatcher of his find. And the operator clarified the information that these were the same missing boys who had been declared dead.
Warner became an Australian national hero. The incident on Ato was considered a true miracle. Then Peter talked to Channel 7 about an adaptation of the story. Good money was received for the film, some of which was paid back to the fisherman for the damage done.