Wreckers Island

by L K Harcourt

  WRECKERS ISLAND

  by

  L K Harcourt

  Wreckers Island

  First published in July 2012

  This edition: July 28, 2012

  © L K Harcourt 2012

  Photographs used as part of the cover design reproduced under licence.

  The moral right of L K Harcourt as the author and copyright holder has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this electronic book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author.

  Ref: NV5

  To my family for all their support and patience

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Louise, as she looped the rope through a rusty iron ring fixed to the island’s jetty. She cut the engine to their little motor boat and stepped ashore. ‘Welcome to Wreckers Island!’

  Her friends John Comstock, Daniel Delaurier and Emma Hardy passed up their rucksacks and other belongings before leaping out themselves. Emma in particular was glad to get her feet back on dry land – not that there was much of it. It was early June and the four, all language students at Oxford University, had just finished their second year exams and were embarking on a holiday together on a tiny island off the Cornish coast.

  It belonged, along with its lighthouse, to Louise Locksley’s wealthy parents. The others thought she was joking when she offered them a holiday there – ‘we’ll have the whole place to ourselves,’ Louise told them, ‘it’s only small but it will be perfect for sunbathing and some peace and quiet.’

  It had taken a while for them to believe her, in fact they more or less agreed to go to call her bluff – that and the fact that they were so hard up, the prospect of free accommodation was too tempting to turn down.

  Louise had been serious of course. Her eyes, vivid green beneath a fringe of dark brown hair, lit up in delight when they said yes. She had often stayed at the lighthouse by herself but even for someone headstrong and confident like her, that could be rather lonely.

  At 19, Emma was a few months younger than the others, who were all 20. She was very much the ‘baby’ of the group. She was a slim, pretty girl with blonde hair and pale, rather nervous looking blue eyes which darted about anxiously as she took in her new surroundings. She was already rather beginning to regret coming to stay on this island – and in a lighthouse too, of all things!

  Emma’s idea of a holiday was a luxury five-star hotel with big rooms, four-poster beds and a jacuzzi in the en suite. But she was the most broke of the four – by quite a margin. The others had found part-time jobs to help pay their way through college but Emma couldn’t bring herself to take the employment on offer to students – mainly low-paid, anti-social bar work and waitressing shifts. As a result, her debts were building up and she was worried whether she would be able to afford to go back for her final year. Certainly, she had no money to waste on expensive holidays.

  She liked Louise although found her a little too wild and headstrong to be entirely comfortable with. In truth she was somewhat in awe of her. She was fond of John, with his straw-coloured mop of hair, striking, cornflower blue eyes, wide shoulders and easy grin. But she was fonder still of Dan, slighter and quieter and more studious looking, rather Harry Potterish with his black, round-rimmed glasses under straight brown hair.

  Emma had got to know them all quite well in lectures and felt safe to come away with them. And after all, now she was nearly out of her teens, she ought to spread her wings a bit more and not just spend the summer with mum and dad. She needed to become more independent and worldly-wise.

  Emma flinched in fright as a huge wave crashed over the rocks, spattering her with spray. The sea was choppy and Wreckers Island was a good mile from the shore.

  Louise saw the fear in her eyes and gave her a hug. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘it’s fine. We’re going to have a great time!

  ‘Right,’ she said, pulling a big iron key from her pocket. ‘Let’s get inside!’

  They walked up the stone path to the great oak door of the lighthouse. It gleamed a brilliant white in the June sun. The key turned stiffly in the lock, it had been a long while since anyone had come. When everyone was inside, Louise pulled the huge door firmly shut. It was chilly in the lighthouse, and she quickly got a coal fire going in the circular living room which was quaint with its quarry tiles and rugs and smallish oblong windows looking out on the most amazing sea view any of them had ever witnessed.

  ‘This is a simply incredible place,’ enthused John, looking all around him.

  ‘You want to see the rest of it,’ said Louise, grinning. ‘Come on, I’ll show you around.’ They followed her in wonder up the great spiral staircase in the middle of the lighthouse. On the first storey were two bedrooms – John and Dan were to share one and Louise and Emma the other.

  Emma’s slightly worried face lit up as she walked into her sleeping quarters. ‘Oh what a fantastic view,’ she said as she looked through the oblong window at a heaving, dark blue sea, capped with white crests.

  ‘Wait until we get to the top!’ said Louise, smiling at Emma’s amazement. ‘Come on – prepare to be blown away – well, not literally, of course, unless you step out on the balcony!’

  Louise, Emma, John and Dan tore up the iron staircase which wound all the way up to the lamp room. The huge lamp was still there. Up to a few years ago, it had flashed on and off every few seconds to warn ships away from the rocks of Wreckers Island. But a bigger, modern lighthouse with a more powerful beam had since been built on the tip of the headland on the far end of the bay and there was no longer any need of this one.

  The view from the top was simply magnificent. The students could see for miles in all directions. The Cornish coastline stretched out like a thin, shimmering line of gold in the distance. Sandwiched in between was the heaving, restless expanse of dark blue sea, speckled with white foam. The cries of seabirds soaring into the skies above could be heard all round.

  ‘Just think what it would have been like to live here all alone for months on end as lighthouse keepers used to in the old days,’ said Emma, shivering slightly.

  Louise gave her arm a rub. ‘Sometimes it’s nice though to come here and enjoy the solitude and get away from the hustle and bustle of the world. I find it a spiritual experience to be here alone,’ Louise said softly.

  Emma glanced at her. Those words seemed strangely mature and philosophical coming from Louise, as if there was a side to her she had not seen before. Louise, a strikingly attractive young woman, looked beautiful and yet melancholy as she stared wistfully out to sea.

  The four of them fell silent and several minutes passed without a word spoken as they watched the waves r
ise and fall all around and the little sailing boats bob up and down on their moorings in the bay.

  Eventually, Louise broke the spell. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s go back downstairs and get the kettle on – how about a nice mug of hot chocolate or something? It just seems like the right kind of drink for a place like this.’

  That sounded a great idea and the four trod their way carefully down the steep, winding staircase to the ground floor and into the little kitchen. Pure fresh water poured out of the tap when Louise turned it – a clever network of guttering collected the rain which ran into a storage tank.

  ‘I’m afraid there is no hot running water,’ said Louise. ‘We will have to boil saucepans and kettles on the little gas stove when we need to for washing.’

  ‘Oh but what about having a bath or a shower?,’ asked Emma, in dismay, ‘and, erm, going to the toilet?’

  ‘There is an old-fashioned tin bath which we can use,’ replied Louise, ‘but when the tide goes out it leaves big rock pools which we can bathe in – when the sun is shining they get lovely and warm. As for the loo, there’s just a teensy one near the front door with a tiny sink. We’re lucky, there was only an outside loo in the old days.’

  ‘Sounds fine to me,’ said John, chuckling. ‘Look, we haven’t come here for luxury have we?’

  Emma looked horrified but at least, to her relief, the gas stove worked efficiently and they could eat hot food. They had brought quite a lot of tinned supplies with them.

  With steaming mugs of hot chocolate all round, Louise and her friends went into the living room and flopped down on the comfy sofa and armchairs.

  ‘My first ever holiday marooned in a lighthouse on a desert island!’ said Dan, as he sipped his chocolate. Like Emma, he had been feeling a little uneasy – but the hot drink was raising his morale a bit. ‘Just think what the rest of them will say when we go back and tell them next term. They’ll never believe us!’

  ‘Well you didn’t believe me either at first,’ Louise reminded him. ‘You said it was the sort of thing that happens in books – only this is real. Maybe we’ll have an adventure like they do in novels. They do say that fact can be stranger than fiction!’

  CHAPTER 2

  The four students got themselves a fun lunch based on heated-up tins accompanied by crusty bread and mugs of pure rainwater. The June sun was climbing higher in the sky. It was a perfect afternoon for a sunbathe. They disappeared to their bedrooms to get changed.

  ‘I can’t wait to see the girls in their swimwear, it’s the only reason I’ve come,’ joked John, pulling on his swimming trunks. ‘Especially Louise – I’ve been ogling her all term.’

  Dan smiled back and made a ‘shush’ sign. ‘Careful they don’t hear you!,’ he said as he pulled his on too. Although slighter than John, he had a light golden complexion which would bronze nicely in the summer heat. John’s torso was broad and muscular but he was fair-skinned and had to slather on high factor sun tan lotion to stop himself from burning.

  They grabbed their towels and a can each of lager from the fridge. Electrical appliances could, just about, be used thanks to solar panels and a small, gas-powered generator – but Louise had warned them not to be surprised by power cuts. There were plenty of oil lamps at the ready.

  They went outside and were pleased to find a pleasant grassy patch in front of the lighthouse largely sheltered from sea breezes by a rectangular perimeter wall. From here they could look directly at the Cornish coast to which they had so often travelled in the past on holiday.

  ‘What a simply wonderful view,’ mused Dan.

  ‘Looks like the view’s about to get better,’ whispered John with a wink. The girls, who had taken longer to get ready, emerged also armed with towels and cans of lager. Louise wore a pale blue bikini and Emma, a white, one-piece swimming costume. John’s gaze flickered over their bodies and Emma, catching his eye, flushed and held her towel a little defensively in front of her.

  They lay down on the grass, kept short by the regular attentions of rabbits. There had at one point been sheep on Wreckers Island, said Louise but they had long gone now.

  ‘Why is it called Wreckers Island?’ asked Emma. ‘Did wreckers actually use this island?’

  ‘Yes, from what I know,’ said Louise. ‘That’s where it gets its name from. Ships used to get wrecked on the treacherous rocks around here, especially at low tide and that’s why they built the lighthouse. Before that, a great oil lamp was lit off the headland – over there I think,’ she said, pointing to a rocky outcrop on the shore. ‘But the wreckers used to move it to another part of the coast, to trick ships into coming in too close and then guiding them onto the rocks.

  ‘And then they would hold their lanterns aloft and follow narrow paths down to the shore, rub their hands and wait for the wreckage to wash up on an incoming tide and loot whatever they could find – gold, silver, cases of whisky – all sorts of things, some of it was bootleg goods destined to be smuggled through the little-known coves of the Cornish coast. Many of the people on these ships were themselves crooks, but they perished at the hands of men far worse.’

  The others shivered. They looked in awe at the jagged coastline with its hidden rocks and reflected on the terror those crewmen must have felt when their vessels ploughed into them, their wooden hulls ripped apart. The lonely mewing of a gull overhead sounded almost like a scream from centuries past. And, just for a moment, the sun disappeared behind a cloud and the sea looked grey and cold.

  ‘It’s all in the distant past now though,’ continued Louise. ‘Once this lighthouse was built it spelled the end of the wreckers’ evil trade. And now the big one over there,’ she said, pointing to the modern lighthouse, can be seen for miles and miles around. And all boats these days have satellite navigation and charts showing the danger spots, of course.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Does anyone fancy a bath, because the tide is out and the rock pools the other side of the lighthouse should be nice and warm.’

  ‘I would,’ said Emma, who was beginning to feel rather hot and sticky.

  ‘Right,’ said Louise. ‘Girls get to go first – and no peeking, ok boys?’

  John and Dan nodded in agreement and Louise and Emma picked up their towels and disappeared into the lighthouse to fetch some soap and shampoo. Louise was right, the trapped sea water had warmed nicely in the sun and the deep, hollowed-out fissures in the rocks made for surprisingly luxurious, roomy bath tubs.

  ‘You see Emma,’ said Louise, triumphantly, as she unhooked the catch on her bikini top, ‘this is even better than you’d get in a five-star hotel.’

  Emma nodded and smiled a little shyly at Louise, stealing just a quick glance as her friend’s breasts swung free and almost but not quite averting her eyes as Louise tugged at the knot holding up her bikini bottoms. Naked, Louise slid into the rock pool and Emma stood there, desperate to get into the water but painfully shy at taking off her swimming costume.

  ‘I won’t look!’ grinned Louise, screwing up her eyes.

  Emma glanced nervously out to sea, making sure there were no boats sailing close. She tugged the straps off her shoulders and slid her bathing costume down and off her feet and slipped into the rock pool with Louise.

  ‘Isn’t it deliciously warm in here,’ said Louise, kicking her legs up into the air. Emma nodded and watched a little nervously as Louise promptly stood up to reach her body wash and proceeded to soap herself down with it. Her lack of shame about her body shocked her a little, although in a sense she admired her for it. She tried to stop herself glancing upwards as Louise lathered first her arms, then her breasts, stomach, tapering long legs and finally, her dark thick triangle of pubic hair, before sinking back into the water like a mermaid.

  Louise made no attempt to turn away and was it Emma’s imagination, or did she do a suspiciously thorough job attending to her private parts? It was a surreally beautiful, if utterly brazen sight and Emma found herself uncomortably stirred by it.

  Loui
se passed the body wash to Emma who did her best to soap herself while remaining submerged. Emma was annoyed with Louise for putting on that display and more annoyed still with herself for watching. Why had she flaunted herself like that in front of her – was it simply her way of being liberated?

  Emma got out and wrapped her towel around herself quickly. ‘I’m going inside,’ she said.

  Louise remained in the water looking perturbed. She felt bad for embarrassing Emma. It’s just that she was a natural exhibitionist and also had begun to fancy her – long ago at university in fact. The opportunity to see and be seen was too tempting to miss. How she would like to get her hands on Emma’s slim, fragile body! She got out of the rock pool, draped her towel round her hips and caught her up.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to embarrass you,’ she said as Emma walked into the lighthouse. ‘I’m just a bit of an uninhibited girl like that. Don’t be mad with me.’

  Emma’s watery blue eyes looked into hers. ‘It’s not just you I’m mad with,’ she said, shrugging, before adding quickly, ‘forget it, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to get the kettle on, I could do with a cuppa.’

  ‘Great,’ replied Louise, ‘I’ll go out and ask the boys if they want to join us.’

  John and Dan came in to share the brew. All four had caught the sun and it was good to get into the shade.

  ‘Did you have a nice bath in the rock pool?’ asked John. ‘Yes thanks,’ replied Louise quickly. ‘Why don’t you pair go and have a dip while the sun’s still warm? You can borrow my body wash and shampoo if you’ve forgotten your own.’