The Secret of the Lonely Isles

by Joanne Van Os

  ‘It’s good luck to have the dolphins with us,’ said Ella, looking pleased.

  Jem didn’t feel very lucky. He felt sick. His stomach was queasy and he was sure he could feel the eggs and bacon sliding around inside it. Just the thought of it was enough, and he lurched for the rail and was sick over the side.

  ‘Oh, poor Jem. Never mind, you’ll get your sea legs soon enough,’ said Ella. ‘Just have a sip of water, and stand up and look out at the horizon, that’s the thing to do.’

  As the afternoon wore on, and the sun lowered in the west, a worrying thought occurred to Jem. ‘Ella, where are we stopping tonight?’

  ‘Stopping, Jem?’

  ‘Where are we going to sleep?’

  ‘Here, on Freya. We’ll be taking shifts through the night.’

  Jem thought he must have misheard her. ‘You mean someone has to stay awake while we’re anchored somewhere? To make sure the boat’s okay?’

  ‘No, someone has to stay awake while we’re sailing. We won’t be stopping tonight, Jem.’

  Jem panicked. ‘But … but we can’t sail the boat! We don’t know how!’

  ‘It’s okay Jem. I have to sleep some time. I’ll set everything up on autopilot. All you have to do is watch, and wake me up if there are any problems. I’ll tell you what to do, don’t worry.’

  But Jem did worry. As he watched the sun sink below the horizon, and the light fade rapidly, he didn’t have to imagine the rocks and reefs lying in wait for them. He could practically see them in every dark wave and swell ahead of the boat. He couldn’t eat dinner. He didn’t know which was worse, feeling sick, or feeling terrified. To make matters worse, he had drawn the first watch.

  When the others had gone to bed, Ella carried a blanket and pillow into the cockpit, and said quietly, ‘I’m going to sleep right here on the seat. The autopilot is set. All you have to do is check the compass bearing, and keep to the course like I showed you. Just correct it with these buttons here …’ she explained. ‘Wake me up in one hour. And if you have any worries at all, just wake me, okay?’ She stretched out on the cushioned bench, and fell asleep immediately.

  Jem sat in the cockpit feeling very alone, but immensely grateful that Ella was close by. There was no sound but the rushing wind, the slap of waves against the hull, and the creak of the rigging. Underneath it all was the faint whirring and squeaking of the autopilot. The sails glowed ghostly pale in the moonlight. The waves caught the same light. They didn’t glow like the sails, but glittered, like stars had fallen into the water. Jem had to admit that the sea almost looked beautiful. Ella shifted in her sleep, and Jem noticed how the soft light smoothed out her lined face and turned her white hair a brilliant silver. She looked like a wise woman from a legend, a Cornish legend. He thought about the place his great-aunt and grandmother had come from. It occurred to him that this meant he was part Cornish too, and the idea gave him a flicker of satisfaction.

  Nothing happened during his watch. He huddled in the cockpit trying to keep the panic at bay, trying to stop imagining all kinds of looming disasters. Whales, submerged shipping containers, uncharted reefs … there could be anything out there, lurking beneath the surface, just waiting to punch a hole in the side of the yacht, and drag it down, down into the black depths. Stop thinking like this, he told himself angrily, and tried to focus on something else. He recited all the multiplication tables he could remember, and then started trying to list all the songs he knew, alphabetically. After one hour had passed he woke Ella, and she checked their course, made some adjustments, and went back to sleep. At the end of the second hour, it was Maddy’s turn. Jem gratefully handed over to his sister, picked up a bucket to be sick in, and went below to try and get some sleep.

  Jem woke suddenly, his heart thumping in his chest. There was a terrible grating, pounding noise coming from just near his head, outside the hull, which sounded exactly like the sort of noise a boat would make crashing into a reef. He sat bolt upright and bashed his head on the bunk above him, almost knocking himself out. Rolling out of bed, he scrabbled around on the floor for a moment, tangled up in the sheets, almost crying with frustration and terror. It was dark inside the cabin, but a faint grey light glowed through the porthole. He disentangled himself, knocking over the bucket which, luckily, was still empty, raced down the passageway and flung himself up the ladder into the cockpit.

  ‘What’s happening! What –’ Ella was standing at the helm, calmly operating some controls, and waving instructions at Tyler who was at the bow.

  ‘Good morning Jem,’ she said. ‘We’re just dropping the anchor. Yes, that’ll do, thank you Tyler,’ she called out. The rattling noise happened again for a few brief moments, and then stopped. Ella shut down the engine, and all Jem could hear was the waves slapping along the side of the hull, and his heart thudding in his chest.

  ‘Oh, man, I thought we’d hit something!’ he breathed.

  ‘The anchor’s noisy when it’s working. I thought we might stop here for a while, and have a look around.’

  ‘Ella’s teaching me how to anchor the boat!’ Tyler told Jem happily. ‘It’s cool!’

  They were in a small lagoon, bounded on three sides by a tiny coral cay that arched around them protectively. It wasn’t very big at all, maybe the length of a large house from one end to the other, and it rose higher in the centre, sloping steeply down to the water on each side. It didn’t look to be more than a metre or so above the high tide mark. There was a mob of seabirds in a huddle at one end, and occasionally one of them would lift off into the wind, glide a few metres, and drop back down again.

  Maddy came up on deck, followed by Zac. ‘What’s goin’ on?’ she said, bleary-eyed and cross.

  ‘Everyone’s awake,’ said Tyler. ‘Great! Now we can have breakfast.’

  After bowls of cereal and mugs of tea, they lowered the dinghy into the water, and motored slowly over to the sand. The birds scolded and chattered among themselves, and then rose in an untidy cloud and moved to the opposite end of the cay. It felt weird being ashore, and the ground felt as if it was tilting like the deck of the Freya. They all felt it.

  ‘Whoa, this ground’s movin’ ’round under my feet!’ said Zac with a giggle, and he and Tyler stood still with their arms out, swaying gently. Ella laughed at them.

  ‘Your brains are still trying to compensate for the boat’s movement. It’ll wear off after a while.’

  The little cay wasn’t so much made of sand, Jem noticed, as tiny broken chips of bleached coral, sculpted into long drifts by the wind and the tides. Tyler tried to creep up on the birds at the opposite end, but as there was nowhere to hide, he only succeeded in scaring them away. Jem and Zac trailed behind him, coral crunching loudly underfoot.

  ‘Hey!’ said Tyler, ‘a tractor’s been here!’

  Marks that looked exactly like tyre tracks curved from the water up into the centre of the islet.

  ‘They’re not tyre tracks,’ said Zac, ‘they’re turtle tracks. How wouldja get a tractor over here?’ They followed them along and found the disturbed sand where a female had recently laid eggs.

  ‘Don’t step there!’ Jem warned, as Maddy came up behind them. ‘You’ll squash the eggs underneath.’

  ‘Since when are you the expert,’ muttered Maddy and she walked away, kicking sand as she went. He stared after her, feeling annoyed. She was so hard to get along with lately.

  Jem sat down at the water’s edge, and looked across to the coast, about three kilometres away. It was low and flat, a dull olive green band with a narrow strip of white beach in front. Not a sign of life anywhere. He could see the edges of the reef through the clear shallow water. It occurred to him that people could end up marooned on a tiny island like this one, out of reach of fresh water and food, with not much chance of swimming to the shore. He gazed back at the Freya floating serenely at anchor, and was shocked at how small and fragile she looked. He had a sudden desire to get back to her as quickly as possible, and to get away from the re
efs.

  ‘How are you feeling, Jem?’ Ella’s voice startled him.

  ‘Oh – um, okay. Freya looks really small from here.’

  ‘Yes, she’s small. But she has a strong heart. She’s looked after me for ten years, all around the world. You can trust her, Jem.’

  Jem thought it was a bit strange to talk about a boat like it was a person. How do you trust a boat?

  They returned to the Freya, and spent the rest of the day relaxing. Jem talked a gloomy Maddy into coming out in the dinghy with him, and they trawled over the reef for a couple of hours, catching enough fish to stock Freya’s freezer for several days.

  Dinner that evening was pan-fried golden snapper, straight out of the water, with fried potatoes and a fresh green salad. Maddy actually looked slightly less gloomy, seeing she had caught some of the fish herself. After dinner, they went downstairs into the cabin, where Ella had left the papers spread out on the table. The Professor’s carved box stood to one side. Jem stared at it, feeling a strange compulsion to pick it up, and then suddenly remembered the phone call Ella had taken the night before. ‘How was Professor Penhall?’ he asked.

  ‘He was fine, just irritated at being broken into again.’

  ‘Was anything taken?’ asked Tyler.

  ‘He thought so. But then he can’t remember what he has in his house any more, he’s got so many old things, and they’ve been there for so long.’ She frowned, remembering something. ‘He did say that the old globe had been opened too. It’s strange that someone breaking in would think of looking there – not many people would even know it could be opened.’

  ‘Maddy opened it by mistake – probably the thief did too, just bumped it or something,’ said Jem.

  ‘Perhaps. Anyway, we needn’t bother ourselves with that.’ She opened up a battered satchel and pulled out a manila folder.

  ‘Things often look different when you’re at sea,’ she said, handing a few sheets of paper to each of them. ‘These are copies of letters I found in London. Let’s go through all of them, and see if we understand anything differently. I’ll read you the most useful information I’ve found so far.’

  The first letter was from a Mr Robert Perceval to Mr Montgomery Fox, and Ella read:

  Captain Nancarrow has today advised that we shall arrive at the island in less than two weeks from this date. He feels that the monsoons may bear down upon us sooner than expected, and we could be delayed, but all things being in our favour, we shall set foot upon the chosen soil by November 15th. The island is far enough offshore so as not to excite interest, it being out of the common sailing route. All the provisions for the colonists have survived the voyage, and we shall be loading the livestock and fruit trees in Timor which we expect to reach very soon. We continue in good health, and there have been no more deaths since the Jellicoe lad out of Cochin. I shall write again from Timor.

  Yours etc,

  Robert Perceval

  ‘So, from this letter,’ said Ella, ‘we know that they planned to reach an island “out of the common sailing route” and a fair distance off the mainland. We also know they were planning to buy goods in Timor. Tyler, will you read one please?’

  Tyler cleared his throat.

  Dear Mother,

  We have today sailed into Colombo …

  ‘Where’s Colombo?’ he asked.

  ‘Sri Lanka, off the coast of India,’ answered Ella.

  He went on.

  … and we will remain here three days. Brother Perceval has said we shall go ashore tomorrow, and we may trade for goods with the natives …

  ‘I can’t read the next bit … something something … “when we reach our destination we shall praise the Lord in his, in his …” nah, it’s too blurry. Musta got wet some time.’

  Jem picked up a sheet of paper, and read it out.

  My dear Wife,

  It is with utmost sorrow that I must tell you of a tragic event. Our son Tobias is now with the Lord. He took very ill with the fever after we departed Cochin, and the Lord saw fit to take him to His Bosom on September 7th. Silas, Josiah and myself carry on, and we shall send for you and the young ones when the village is built. Brother Perceval says we will reap great reward for our suffering on this Earth, and we must not be downhearted. I shall write again when we arrive at our next port, in Timor. Remain strong.

  Your loving Husband,

  Augustus Jellicoe

  Ella was writing a list in her notebook. ‘We know they got as far as Timor – because we have the bills of sale for things they bought,’ she said. ‘But we need to know where they went after that.’

  Zac read out a letter from a Mary Cavendish to her sister Ann. Again it described the voyage so far, and their hopes for the future. None of the letters contained anything about the destination, or whether they ever reached it. ‘What’s yours, Maddy?’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘Just a letter from a kid, it looks like.’ She read it out haltingly, trying to decipher the faded writing.

  My dear brother Jeremiah,

  We have been at sea now for 17 days. Most people were taken seasick at first, but not me. The captain says I am a good sailor. The first mate lets me climb up the mast to the topsail and I have learned how to tie a lot of knots. When I come home, Jem, I will teach you all of them. I was sad not to be with you on our birthday, but we will share all the rest together. Give our mother and the young ones a kiss for me.

  Your dear brother

  Jack Tremayne

  PS Give old Toby a pat for me.

  She threw her pieces of paper on the table and made a face. ‘Do we have to go through all this stuff? I mean, what does it matter what some people did a hundred years ago. We don’t even know who they are. It’s ancient history. They’re all dead anyway. Who cares? It’s BORING.’

  Jem kicked her under the table, but Maddy wasn’t going to be shut up. ‘Don’t kick me Jem. It IS boring!’

  Ella looked at her for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Well, if you don’t want to do this Maddy, that’s fine. I can’t expect you to be interested in something just because I am. However,’ and she cocked her head to one side, and tapped the manila folder with one finger, ‘however, there is a bit more information which I haven’t yet given you. I was hoping to tell you all in a more dramatic setting than this, such as when we found the island. But now’s obviously a better time.’

  She had their complete attention now, even Maddy’s.

  ‘Young Jeremiah, or Jem as he was known, the person Jack is writing to, was my father, your great-grandfather. You were named after him, Jem. He was born in 1899, and he was forty-eight years old when I was born in 1947. Jack was his twin brother. Which makes Jack Tremayne your great-great uncle.’

  They were all silent for a moment, and then they all started speaking at once.

  Ella held up a hand, and said, ‘Settle down, and I’ll tell you what I know.’

  The Tremaynes lived in Cornwall, Ella told them, on the coast in a little village called Penryn. Old Thomas Tremayne, Jack and Jem’s father, was a difficult man, and he and Jack didn’t get along. Where Jem was gentle and shy, Jack was headstrong and outspoken. Finally Thomas and Jack had a huge fight. Jack ran away and found himself a berth on a ship bound for Australia, working as a deckhand. He was only fourteen, but he was big for his age, and no one asked too many questions. He sent his mother a letter telling her he was sorry, and that his wages would be sent to her, but he could not live under the same roof as his father any longer. He promised he would come home to see her when the ship returned, but the family never saw him again.

  ‘My father always wondered what had happened to his brother,’ said Ella. ‘He never ever forgot him.’

  Jem looked shocked. ‘One twin was back in England, and the other was somewhere here? For the rest of their lives? That’s terrible!’

  ‘And is this all the letters there are?’ said Tyler. ‘That’s it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Ella. ‘It’s taken me over twen
ty years just to find them. My father had kept his letters from Jack, but it was only after he died and we were sorting through his things that they came to light. The letters from the other people are the ones I found in the National Archives in London.’

  Maddy whistled. ‘Okay, sorry, sorry. This makes it different. I’m in.’ She frowned for a moment. ‘How come Mum never told us this?’

  ‘Yeah!’ said Tyler. ‘We’ve never heard any of this stuff before!’

  ‘Well, when Jack left, his father was so angry that he wouldn’t have his name mentioned in his hearing again. So the family just stopped talking about him. Of course, Jem never forgot him, or his mother of course, but gradually his name just got left out of conversations, seeing there was no news of him any more. It was a big family, and I guess everyone was busy with their own families eventually. They would have grown up barely knowing him, except for Jeremiah really.’

  ‘All because of a fight,’ said Jem, shaking his head. ‘That’s pretty dumb.’ But he frowned and looked a little worried.

  ‘Let’s keep looking,’ said Ella. After a few more letters were read out, it was Jem’s turn.

  ‘This is another letter from Jack to his brother,’ and he read it out.

  Dear Jem,

  We will soon be arriving in Timor. The captain has opened his final orders, so now we know our destination, but I am not permitted to write it. The captain is the only seaman who knows how to find our destination. He says no one would ever look for the Quakers there, because it is so far from the towns, and they shall be left alone to build their village in peace. They will be like little mice in a Lonely Hole. We will be loading chickens, goats, rice, seeds and other supplies, and I am going to buy our mother a big bag of nutmegs and spices. The first mate said they are very cheap in Timor. We won’t be stopping for long, as the captain says we must hurry to beat the monsoons which begin soon. When we stopped at Colombo I bought a bright silver knife for you. It has an elephant on the handle. There is a ship going north that will take our letters to England, so I have to finish this quickly. I will write again when next I can.