Wreckers Island

by L K Harcourt

  He unwound it carefully from Dan’s mouth. ‘Am I glad to see you,’ said Dan, grabbing John’s arm and giving it a squeeze.

  ‘Come on,’ said John. ‘Let’s get straight back up the shaft and push the flagstone over this hole quick. Sorry, I should have asked, are you ok? Are you all right to climb back up?’

  ‘Yes I’m fine,’ said Dan. ‘Better than that big lump anyway,’ he said, glancing towards Zak. ‘Do you think we ought to check if he’s ok?’

  ‘No,’ replied John, firmly. ‘He’s knocked out and he’ll take a while to come round. When he does, he’ll have an almighty headache and serve him right too. Jake can mop his brow when he turns up, and that could be any time. Let’s not spend a second longer down here. The girls are our concern, not him. They were distraught when Zak’s ugly mug peered over the top of the shaft instead of yours. He told us you were dead, the vile creature. Emma is absolutely beside herself with grief.’

  ‘Oh poor Emma,’ said Dan. ‘So what happened to Zak then? Did he lose his footing and fall?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said John, less than truthfully. ‘Come on Dan, we can talk later. Let’s get out of here fast. I’ll go first so I can help lift you out the other end.’

  Dan was not in as good shape as he claimed. He was weak and bruised and his fingers struggled to grip the iron rungs. He could barely manage it – but the thought of falling down the shaft into the tunnel alongside an angry, injured Zak propelled him upwards. As he reached the top, he put his hands out on either side to heave himself from the hole and simply couldn’t do it. John reached under his armpits and hauled him out.

  ‘Dan my love, oh my love,’ squealed Emma, with delight and relief, tears rolling down her cheeks. She flung her arms round him, only he was too stiff and bruised to hug her back. ‘Oh Dan, that miserable brute said he’d killed you. Oh my love, I thought I’d lost you.’

  While they embraced passionately, John forced the lid back down over the shaft before turning to them apologetically, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt but there’s work to do. We’re still in danger. Dan if you’ve got any strength left at all, can you help me with this flagstone? It weighs a ton.’

  Dan broke away and pushed his tired muscles back into action again. Louise also lent a hand and between them, they dragged it back into position.

  ‘It’s good that it’s so heavy,’ panted John. ‘It means that there will be no way those pair of thugs will be able to lift it up from the shaft below – not even their hefty arms will be strong enough.’

  ‘Just to be sure,’ said Dan, ‘let’s drag a couple of heavy boxes over the spot – and that way, if we need to get back down, we can easily see which flagstone to move.’

  The slightest physical effort of this kind was painful for Dan and he winced as they moved boxes and general clutter over the flagstone. Emma saw the physical pain he was in and yearned to hug and kiss him. But she knew that the serious business was not yet over. They had to make absolutely sure that no-one – Zak, Jake, their mates or anyone else who might have overheard their foolish conversation in the Smugglers Tavern the previous night, could make use of that tunnel beneath the sea bed and get access to the island.

  ‘Now we need to get the treasure back to the lighthouse,’ said John and store it as securely as possible. ‘Is there somewhere really safe we could put it, Louise?’ asked John.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘A very safe place – the lighthouse safe to be precise. It’s difficult to find and very robust. I would guess there would be room in it to store the most valuable things at least.’

  Louise and Emma went ahead to open up the lighthouse. As they stepped from the outbuilding into the bright daylight and smelled the fresh sea air with its tang of salt and seaweed, they looked at each other, and had a quick hug.

  ‘Oh Louise, I’m so glad that is all over,’ said Emma. ‘I feel shaky with it all. I can’t get over what that evil man said about Dan. Thank heaven it wasn’t true.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Louise, ‘putting her arm through hers, everything’s going to be just fine now. Let’s do as John says and get the lighthouse open, kettle on and once we’ve got the treasure safely stowed inside we can relax.’

  John and Dan set about moving the two crates of treasure. They were surprisingly heavy, but so much of it was solid gold and silver of course. Dan was sore and weary beyond words but a good feeling was creeping over him. He too felt a cheer in his heart as he stepped from the outbuilding. The breeze felt heavenly as it ruffled his hair and sent bracing sea air flooding into his nostrils. His heart rejoiced at the glorious daylight and vast expanse of sea all around them, so wonderfully open and bright and free after the dark claustrophobia of the tunnel.

  Perhaps it was the rush of oxygen into his lungs or just his rising morale, but his desperately weary arms seemed to find new strength as he staggered along the path with John, holding a crate between them. And as they went back for the second one, he reflected on how a day which was twice poised to end in disaster seemed to be turning out well after all.

  Inside the lighthouse, Louise opened a cupboard in the kitchen and poked about at the back. The others had never noticed but there was a secure metal door to a safe, controlled by a combination lock.

  ‘Fortunately,’ smiled Louise, ‘I know the combination. Right, now those big crates won’t fit in. Let’s transfer all the really valuable ingots and coins into three or four large kitchen bowls and pans, that will have to do for now.’

  Their hearts fluttered as they sifted out the precious metal, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, into the makeshift containers. The shiny gold and silver coins and dull but rich yellow of the gold ingots were an incongruous sight now that they no longer lay in an old ship’s chest alongside the jacket, boots and cutlass of its long-lost owner on a rocky shelf down an undersea tunnel. It all looked strangely out of place.

  ‘It belongs to a different era, not to our own,’ said Louise, rather mystically.

  ‘More to the point,’ said John, ‘it belongs to us. We are the finders and we have taken ownership. And now at last we have brought it to safety.’

  There were other miscellaneous artifacts too, which they had not had much chance to look at, salvaged by Captain Felipe from the stricken ship: a couple of pewter tankards, what looked like old, heavy dinner plates, even metal coat buttons. Even these sundry items would have some value, not as precious metal but as fascinating curios from a long-lost wreck. They put what they could in the safe but not all would fit in.

  ‘Let’s leave the rest in a box in the middle of the lounge as a decoy,’ said Emma. ‘That way, if anyone breaks in to look for the treasure, they might think that was all there was and make off with it, not realising the far more valuable stuff has been locked away.’

  ‘Clever thing,’ said Louise, rubbing her shoulder.

  ‘I don’t feel very clever,’ replied Emma, wearily. ‘I just feel like a cup of tea and a biscuit and try to get back to normal.’

  ‘Well let’s do that,’ said John. ‘Our final task is to move the rest of the items into the lounge as Emma suggested. ‘Then why don’t we take a pot of tea and biscuits up into the lamp room and relax for a bit? It would also be a very good vantage point to watch out for anyone seeking to get to the island by boat.’

  ‘Not that I think that’s likely,’ continued John, noticing the girls’ alarmed faces. ‘My guess is that Zak will take a while to recover from his clobbering and Jake seems to have run a mile from the scene.’

  Dan smiled. ‘Yes, I think Jake’s pretty certain that those tunnels are haunted – I doubt he’ll be back for a while. Zak may not believe in the ghost of Captain Felipe, but I think Jake will take a lot of convincing that I was a rather bad fake.’

  ‘Oh no, you were a very good pretend phantom,’ said Emma, giving his arm a squeeze. ‘And you’re the most adorable, handsome one I’ve ever known.’

  Never had the noise of a kettle boiling and the gurgle of steaming water filling a t
eapot sounded more welcome to John, Dan, Louise and Emma as it did right then. They took their brew up the spiral staircase to the lamp room, Dan leaning heavily on the rail as he did so. Emma ached to take him in her arms, she had still not had a proper chance all day, but she would before long. Her beloved Dan had survived a dreadful ordeal and she was not going to let him out of her sight from now on.

  As they entered the lamp room, that sense of wonder at seeing the sea all around wherever they looked swept over them. Just for a moment, they forgot the trials of the day and lost themselves in the spectacle.

  And then, the four of them turned to each other and saw the same look of weariness mixed with a slow-burning exultation. They hugged each other tightly. The danger they had shared and the emotions experienced had brought them closer. Emma reserved her tightest and most loving hug for Dan. Slowly the horror of thinking that he had been killed was sinking in and upsetting her, even though it had mercifully proved to be untrue.

  ‘Oh Dan, it keeps going round and round my head what that monster said he’d done to you. When he said that, so calmly and matter of factly, my world just ended,’ she said to him, sobbing on his shoulder. ‘And what a hero you were, what a genius, to put on Captain Felipe’s clothes and scare the living daylights out of them and rescue us. How did you manage to think of that?’

  ‘You were amazing Dan,’ chimed in Louise, ‘they really ought to make a film about you.’

  John grinned and nodded his agreement to the accolades.

  Dan said nothing, a lump was forming in his throat and he was feeling emotional too. He stroked his girlfriend’s back gently, and nuzzled her neck with his nose. Eventually he found his voice and he said, modestly, ‘I was also the world’s biggest clot for going back down there on a sentimental errand which I should never have risked,’ he said. ‘I undid all my good work.’

  ‘No you didn’t. Don’t think like that. You acted out of principle and decency and we all admire you for that,’ said John. ‘Come on, let’s drink that tea before it gets cold and maybe we will have something stronger later on, I’m feeling like we have earned it.’

  After a day like that, being up there in the lighthouse lamp room, gazing out at the ocean with the knowledge that the treasure had finally been recovered – it was simply the finest, most perfect cuppa you could wish to drink.

  John strolled over to the huge windows and looked towards the mainland. It was already nearly 6pm and the sun was heading westwards. The water was reasonably calm with just a light swell on its surface. There was no sign of any enemy craft heading in their direction and he doubted there would be – not that night at least. After all, Jake had fled in terror and as for Zak . . .

  CHAPTER 18

  As the girls fell into deep conversation, Dan joined him at the window.

  ‘It looks all clear, doesn’t it,’ said John. ‘Not that I’m surprised, I wasn’t really expecting us to come under attack this evening.’

  ‘I don’t know how you can be so sure,’ replied Dan. ‘We can’t relax until the treasure is properly reported to the authorities and handed over.’

  ‘I agree, that’s our next move,’ said John, twiddling the handle of his now empty mug. ‘But I really don’t see Zak and Jake as much of a threat anymore.’

  ‘Perhaps not tonight,’ said Dan, quietly. ‘But once he’s recovered from that bump, Zak will be on our trail again. He’ll find out that we’ve blocked up the shaft, so his only other option will be to seek to land on the island directly, and that’s got to be a big worry. We need to get the treasure ashore very soon.

  ‘We need the hoard placed into the safe keeping of a museum, under lock and key. I would suggest we try and take it over today but everywhere will be shut by now. But it’s not safe here and nor are we. Surely there’s a danger that Zak or Jake will get their mates on to us tonight? Perhaps we ought to take steps to take everything over right now.’

  ‘No,’ said John. ‘To do so could be walking into a trap. We might encounter Jake or any number of their accomplices.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Dan. ‘Well if we are going to stay in the lighthouse tonight, why don’t we at least go down to the jetty and see if there is any way we can prevent boats from landing there. It might be worth a try.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s possible somehow,’ said John, ‘and more to the point I don’t think it’s necessary.’

  ‘Well why don’t we go down and take a look at least?’ said Dan. ‘Hey, why don’t you think it’s necessary? We can’t afford to be that complacent, John.’

  ‘Look, we’re both agreed that Jake’s not a threat,’ said John, in a low voice. ‘My point is, Zak may not be either. Certainly not tonight and probably not tomorrow, nor the day after that.’

  ‘What do you mean,’ said Dan.

  ‘Hey you pair, what are you whispering about?’ called Louise as John was about to answer.

  ‘Erm, Dan and I were just saying we wanted to go down to the jetty to check the boat is ok and the outbuilding is locked up properly and everything is in order,’ said John.

  ‘Oh leave Dan with me,’ purred Emma, coming over and running her hands down Dan’s bruised arms. ‘It doesn’t take two of you.’

  ‘It does take two,’ insisted John. ‘You womenfolk choose to go to the loos in pairs, we men do this sort of thing together. Come on Dan.’

  Dan realised that John needed a chat without the girls hearing. The pair of them clambered down over the rocks to the small wooden jetty. The boat was there, no different from how they had left it. And it didn’t have company.

  ‘That’s good,’ said John, turning to Dan. ‘Look, pick yourself a flat rock and let’s have a boys’ chat about what has happened and what we’re going to do. The girls are chilling out now, thinking that everything’s all right, let’s keep it that way. We don’t want to worry them but you and me need to decide how we tie up a few loose ends, so to speak.’

  ‘Is there any way we can secure this jetty to prevent another boat landing? My guess is that Zak is now nursing a very sore head and plotting his next move,’ said Dan, choosing himself a comfortable rock.

  ‘I disagree,’ said John, his vivid blue eyes filled with worry rather than their usual sparkle. ‘What I was about to say in the lamp room was that I fear Zak may not be getting up off that tunnel floor – not ever.’

  ‘Don’t be crazy John,’ said Dan, finally understanding what John was hinting at. ‘Whatever makes you say that? If I can fall down that shaft with just a few bruises then so can he. Mind you, I did land on top of his fat belly, which helped.’

  ‘Look, I think we need to face facts,’ replied John. ‘Zak may well be dead. I’ve never seen a dead person before, but I’d guess they look like Zak. His eyes had gone. They were wide open but his pupils had rolled up just leaving the whites showing. His tongue was hanging out and there was a trickle of blood coming from his head. It was a horrible sight. I shone the torch on him and took a good look.’

  Dan admitted he had done no more than glance at Zak. He fell silent for some while, watching the hypnotic rise and fall of the sea swishing against the rocks.

  ‘Oh come on, I can’t believe he’s dead. But even in the unlikely event that he is, it’s not our fault,’ he eventually replied, staring, as if in a daydream, at a cormorant preening its long black feathers. ‘If he lost his footing on those rungs and crashed to the ground and fell badly, then that’s a genuine accident. We are blameless.’

  ‘I agree we could be considered blameless for what happened,’ said John, trying to find a tactful way of telling Dan something he would not want to hear. ‘That man threatened not only what was legitimately our property but our lives as well by attacking you and then climbing up the shaft, waving that cutlass above his head and wearing your hat – well, Felipe’s hat.’

  ‘And then,’ pointed out Dan, ‘frightening the hell out of you all by claiming he’d killed me. Serve him right if he slipped and fell and hurt himself. He’s such a big, ungain
ly bloke, I’m not surprised to be honest.

  ‘Look John, we’ve done nothing wrong,’ continued Dan. ‘We found that treasure thanks to an old diary which was sold as part of the chattels pertaining to this lighthouse belonging to Louise’s family in a tunnel leading directly to this island which they also own. We have the right, as finders of that treasure, to be considered its legitimate owners, or at least, co-owners. Two totally disreputable local crooks get wind of it, assault us, kidnap us, threaten rape, and do their best to steal the treasure from us. In the process, one of them hurts himself entirely through his own clumsiness. We have nothing to hide.’

  ‘Apart from a body,’ retorted John. ‘That’s rather embarrassing Dan, don’t you think? A corpse is very possibly lying in the tunnel leading to the spot where we have just found treasure and when we contact Cornwall Council and the Coroner to report the find, it’s not going to be a pretty sight when they send their history people down there is it?’

  ‘Firstly,’ said Dan, ‘I don’t believe that Zak’s dead, just badly concussed, and secondly, whatever happened to him he entirely brought upon himself.’

  ‘Unfortunately that is not quite the case,’ said John, as gently as he could. ‘When Zak taunted us that he’d killed you it had very much the ring of truth, since he had clearly taken the cutlass and the sailor’s hat off you. We were all very upset indeed at this point.’

  ‘You were bound to be,’ said Dan, ‘I’m a very likeable, popular guy.’

  ‘Yes,’ said John, smiling at Dan’s little quip, ‘and Emma was particularly distraught, as you’d expect, because she is so madly in love with you.’

  Dan grinned at this point. ‘And I’m madly in love with her, she’s my wonderful girl.’

  ‘Yes,’ said John, ‘and we don’t want her to get into trouble over this, Dan.’