“Well, I though you were coming back with help.”

“So anyway," Glen went on, "after they pulled us out we all jumped in the river. To cool down for a bit. And these guys had a case of bourbon and coke, and about four-hundred dollars of fresh seafood. So we threw some prawns on the fire and just chilled.”

“Did you get the beer I sent to you?”

“What do you mean?” Glen asked.

“Two nights ago, I sent some beer up with a car that was passing by; a white Toyota. You didn’t get it?”

“One car stopped that night,” Glen said, “but then they kept going.

“Are you serious,” I said. “They had beer for you. I asked them to drop it off, and even bought them beer for doing it!”

“No, they just kind of stood there in the middle of the creek. We were looking at the headlights, trying to work out who they were, but we couldn’t see anything.” He laughed. “I’m sure they were probably trying to work out who the hell these people were camping in the middle of the river.”

“So anyway,” he said, “we were just hanging out in the river, thinking “Dom is missing all the fun”, when the police chief pulled up from Weipa and jumped in with us. He heard on the radio we were stuck and wanted to make sure he heard right. I mean, you don’t even need four wheel drive to get through the Pascoe river. Then a couple of guys on motorcycles pulled up and jumped in, too. So we all just sat in the river, eating prawns and getting pissed. Should have been there Dom, it was actually pretty good!”

“Rescued in style,” Sue added.

“So what’s the story with your leg?” I asked, looking down at Glen’s bandaged lower extremity.

“I tried to stab my foot and succeeded,” he said. “Actually, I was just cutting some rope, with my foot on the line to steady it,” he moved his leg into position to reproduce the event, “sawing away, and then “thunk”, I missed the line and the tip of the knife went strait in there. It was a good one, too. You know those cuts you can open up and say, “Shit, I can see all the layers of muscle.” It should have had a stitch, but it’ll be right.”

I can’t honestly say I remember much of the day past that. We all drank, shared stories and, by the end of the evening, left me financially responsible of a bar tab in excess of two-hundred dollars.

I studied the bill carefully, rubbing my eyes and wondering if it was just the alcohol that was maybe making me unable to perform mathematically – no doubt that it was – and, with a frail and wobbly voice, inquired about the sum.

“Yeah, you boys drank a lot,” the waitress confirmed.

Shit.