Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 18:45:11 EST
From: Brit18uk@aol.com
Subject: The Castaways 4

This story is posted for the exclusive enjoyment of readers on the
world-wide-web. While you are free to make a personal copy, no copy of this
manuscript may be published, copied, posted to another website, or
otherwise distributed without express permission from the author.

The contents of this story are fictional. Any resemblance of the characters
to any other persons is strictly coincidental. Certain characters engage in
sexual acts, which may or may not be legal in the state or country in which
you the reader may reside. Any reader with objections to graphic
descriptions of sexual encounters between males who may not have reached
the legal age of consent, or whose local, regional, state or national
jurisprudence prohibits such descriptions, should not read
further. rick19uk@ntlworld.com

The Castaways...

Copyright by rick19uk 14 February 2004

We began to take stock of our situation. It seemed from the lack of any
noise that we must be alone and quite what had happened to Jack coming with
an axe was a mystery. The memory of The North Sea was vivid in my
imagination and I had no doubt in David's too. I was very frightened what
would happen to these two boys I had grown to love and myself included. I
couldn't imagine that the trials we had come through already in our few
short months, as mariners would end in our oblivion and ultimately, us
drowning.

      Brian, the biggest and strongest of us began to examine the
partitioning that made up the wall of our cabin. His logic was that it had
been erected in some haste to be a quick solution to our accommodation
needs. As it transpired, his logic turned out to be flawless, however, it
didn't turn out to be as temporary as we first thought and took us several
hours using the lathes torn from our bunks to prise off just one
plank. Once we had got one of them loose it proved to be relatively easy to
insert a lathe into this portion of the wall partition and prise others
loose until I, as the smallest, was able to wriggle through and go looking
for better tools.

      I went up onto deck and was appalled at the scene of destruction I
faced. One of the first priorities as far as I could think was to look how
far we were from land and also if at all, land was indeed visible. It
turned out we were stuck on a coral reef not unlike the one that ringed the
island we had last visited. At the point we had "hit", I estimated we were
about a mile from the shore of what appeared to be an island of similar
size.  I looked for signs of smoke and habitation but none were visible and
I prayed that the inhabitants, if there were any, were not the cannibals
Jack told us inhabited many of these islands. Having satisfied my self that
we were near to land and would be able to relay this to my friends I set
about sizing up the situation aboard.

       Not one of the three masts remained except one, which was lying over
the side with great tangles of rigging all over the place. I made my way
with difficulty to the stern of the ship and on into the carpenters store
which was located to one side of the steering platform, which sat atop the
captains and officers accommodation. The whole scene was ghostly quiet
given the usual hive of activity that was usual in a sea going ship. I
managed to open the store and found a crowbar and long handled
sledgehammer. I tucked a small axe into my belt as an afterthought and made
my way back to our cabin. Once I had passed the tools through to David and
Brian, they made short work of smashing through the remaining planks until
the hole was big enough for them to clamber through. We made our way back
up top and as we emerged onto the deck I watched the shock and dismay
register on their faces.

      Our first priority was to begin to look all over the ship, or as much
as we could get to, for any sign of survivors. After a fruitless two hours
clearing away lots of debris in order to gain access to different parts of
the ship, we came to the conclusion that we were totally alone. By this
time we were famished and began to hunt for food. We entered the galley and
began to search the cupboards and store for something we could quickly wolf
down to assuage our terrible hunger. As in the storm during the rounding of
The Horn, the galley fires always remained unlit whilst we were in the grip
of a storm. A soon as the ship broke free the fires would be lit and hot
food prepared and served to the passengers and crew who would have
subsisted on hard bread and water. This was normal practise due to the fire
hazard it would have presented. Fire aboard a wooden built ship and the
obvious prevailing winds that would whip it into a blazing inferno in a
matter of seconds, was one of the seafarer's greatest fears. We found a
barrel containing hard bread and a keg filled with the sweet water from the
island paradise we had so recently visited and a further search revealed
the cooks carefully stored fruit horde. We all three ate ravenously.

As we were eating we debated how to get ourselves to the mile distant shore
and also how we would manage to get any provisions and supplies there
too. Of the ships longboats, there was no sign. I went to the officer's
quarters and directly into Jacks cabin and brought his log, a bottle of ink
and a handful of quills. We then began to decide what we would need to take
if, as it seemed certain, we were marooned on the island. I began the
laborious task of writing a list, and entering it into Jacks log
book. Whilst Brian and I composed the list, David began to gather the
materials together in order to build a raft. We had decided that this was
the only way possible to get our supplies and ourselves onto the beach so
tantalizingly close to hand yet so far away. There was also the fact that
even though we had taught David to swim he was still quite a weak swimmer
and we doubted he would in fact be able to swim the mile needed to get to
the beach. With the list compiled we gathered what tools we would need,
empty casks and planking and a goodly supply of manila (rope). By the time
we had got about half of what we needed assembled onto our cleared area of
deck, the light began to quickly fail so we decided to have another scratch
meal of bread and water then retire to our cabin till` morning. We were
exhausted and quickly fell asleep and slept the deep sleep of youth till we
all awoke refreshed next morning.

      Brian with his strength was a Godsend during the next eight or so
hours whilst we laboured building our raft. It was after a particularly bad
start trying to get the planking to stay together that David had the
incredibly bright idea of using the hatch cover from the great forward
hatch. It took us two hours to remove the debris from it before we were
able, with much labour, to remove it and roll it on logs to our previously
cleared work area. We had scrounged up six water casks and after setting up
the carpenter's gantry, were able to lift it and attach them to the
underside of the "great hatch" cover. We used the entire amount of the
coils of manila we had gathered so far. Brian made sure the bungs were
hammered home tight and would be watertight once we had the structure into
the sea. I had managed meanwhile, to light a fire in the galley and had got
one of the salted pigs cut into pieces. I added vegetables to a great pot
of water and dumping the pig pieces in, left it to boil away whilst I
rejoined my shipmates in our raft-building endeavour.

      After breakfasting on hard bread and water and not having stopped for
lunch, by the time late afternoon came we were ravenous once more. The
delicious odour of my pot of slowly bubbling stew was tantalising in the
extreme through most of the afternoon and was in fact absolute
torture. When we eventually decided to stop, we fell to with a vengeance
and devoured the lot, sopping up all the juices with hunks of the hard
bread. We also raided the officer's drinks store and drank tankards of
heated watered ale. After our several days of depravation, hunger and
absolute terror, we began to feel human again and basked in a feeling of
absolute euphoria. We were not awake for too long afterwards.

      During the previous two days we had made a point of using a glass to
spy on the island looking for any signs of smoke. We deduced that if any of
our shipmates had got off and managed to make landfall we would see the
smoke from their cooking fires. We saw none, either from them or indeed any
possible natives that it may have been home to. It was very saddening yet
encouraging that we would at least not be facing Jack's cannibals. The
thought of ending up in a bubbling pot like the pickled pig I had just cut
up made our skin crawl.

      We awoke the following morning with this great feeling of
anticipation and growing excitement and went hurriedly onto deck. After my
great success with yesterday's stew I had been appointed by a unanimous
vote, to be the chief cook. I counted my self fortunate that I had saved
the back legs from the suckling pig and so was able to take slices from
them and after heating a skillet and fat, proceeded to fry them. The cooks
stove, which the night before, I had stoked up and had the foresight to
close the flues to, was still warm, meant I was able to light-up and get it
heated quickly. Whilst it was heating up I went and got coffee from the
store, some pieces of sugar cane and made a great pot of coffee too. We had
a delicious breakfast of which again, there was nothing left. We spent the
rest of the morning using the carpenter's gantry to lift and heave the raft
over the side and into the sea.  Brian made sure we had stout ropes
attached to stop it drifting away once we had it afloat. It floated
beautifully and we stood surveying it with admiring glances and chests
puffed up with pride.

      Within two hours we had it loaded and after a quick snack of more
hard bread and quickly brewed coffee we climbed aboard our wondrous
vessel. David had used an axe and had fashioned oars, which though somewhat
crude and unwieldy, worked fine enabling us to slowly set our course for
the beach. It was the longest mile I had ever travelled in my life and took
I estimated, over three hours to achieve. It was with great satisfaction
that we jumped onto dry land once more and after securing the raft and our
treasures, ran whooping and hollering up and down the beach. After we had
run our selves ragged for half an hour we were brought down to earth by an
ominous rumble and on looking out to sea, we saw great thunderheads massing
once more on the horizon. The wind began to pick up as we set about
unloading our raft; we quickly began moving the supplies and equipment we
had thought to bring, well up the beach to just in front of the tree
line. As we were finishing, the raft was beginning to be tossed about in a
very frightening manner. We attached more lines and tied it off from
several points to the nearby palm trees.

      Our fear was the ship and the obvious treasure trove it represented,
given our present dire straits. If we lost it to this oncoming storm our
lives would be very hard indeed, not least for the great store of tools
that remained aboard. We had thought it prudent to bring essentials first
and so had loaded up with casks of salted meat. flour, fat, sugar-cane,
coffee, yeast, salt, ale, and a case or two of wine and brandy. We had also
had the foresight to load an axe, a bolt of canvas to make a shelter with
and some dry bedding and spare blankets as well. After we had everything
secured and a makeshift canvas shelter tied to two palm trees we knelt and
prayed for our safe deliverance. We all three admitted to each other our
abiding fear of the unknown, yet extreme pride in our achievements so
far. For three boys aged thirteen, fifteen and sixteen we felt we had
behaved in a very mature and responsible manner. We had secured our canvas
shelter very well and weighted it down with rocks then driven spikes of
wood deep into the ground as well in order to hold it. We put more canvas
over our pile of treasure and drove deep spikes through that too in order
to attempt to protect it from the impending downpour. By the time we had
done this we were exhausted once more and wolfed down yet more of the hard
bread washed down with unwatered ale. A very unsettled night followed under
our wind and rain battered makeshift shelter, with none of us managing to
sleep soundly at all. We had however survived, and though not yet too safe,
were at least not hungry and were able to stay dry and warm.