Chapter 60 – On the Island

Jason woke and heard – nothing. No rain. No wind. No flapping of sails. The deck was steady, without the normal roll of the sea. Captain Keenstone had taken four hours of sleep after they landed in the trees, and the storm had slowly abated during that time. When he came back on deck he sent Jason below to sleep, and in the next six hours the storm had ended, although looking out at the sea, the waves were still high.

When Jason got on deck, he saw about a half dozen sailors tidying up the ship, gathering the coconuts and stacking them as though they were cannon balls, and picking up the great fan-like leaves of the tree and piling them in one spot on the deck. Jason headed for the afterdeck, but as he passed the galley his nose lured him aside. Inside the cook was making a meal for lunch. It was a hearty stew. The cook said one of the goats had died of fear during the storm and was providing the meat. Jason wolfed down a quick meal. The vegetables were a bit undercooked, but edible, and he filled his belly in minutes. He wiped his mouth roughly as he headed up to report to the captain.

“Storm is over,” Keenstone said. “Your father says the coconuts are valuable as food, and the leaves can be used as a building material. I’ve replaced the sails you fellows cut free, but they are now furled so they don’t blow us off these trees. One sail was tattered to shreds by the storm. The other is ruined, but still contains some good cloth.”

“Perhaps you can turn it over to Sissy, the older girl with Rayla,” Jason suggested. “She is pretty handy with a needle and thread and might be able to make something of it. So has anyone gone over the side yet?”

“I sent the carpenter and three of his men down about an hour ago,” Keenstone said. “I’m hoping they will figure out a way to get this thing down and back into the water. If we were beached it would be no problem. But stuck up in the air like this. I don’t know.”

“With your permission I’ll go down and join them,” Jason asked. The captain merely nodded, and Jason went to the railing where several lines hung down. More than a half dozen off sailors were staring out from the unusual elevated position in the air. Jason went over the edge and used a sailor’s hand-over-hand climb down the 50 or so feet. Once on the sandy beach he went over to the carpenter.

“What do you think?” the youth asked.

“’tis got me baffled,” the carpenter said. “Damn ship is wedged in between them four trees like God hisself dropped it there. Dunno how we’s gonna free it. Cut one tree and the damn thin’ will fall, and from that height it’s sure ter smash worsen I kin fix it.”

Jason stared at the tree and also was bereft of ideas. “Well, one thing we need to do is get the crew and cargo down. That’ll lessen the weight on the trees and prevent it from smashing down on its own. Can I borrow a couple of your men to explore around for a bit?”

“Take ‘em all. They aint doin’ me no good.”

Jason and the four sailors left the ship, going inland into the copse of palm trees. They steadily climbed on what seemed to be a path, and soon came to some caves in the side of the hill. Jason made a bundle of dried palm leaves and lit it with his flint, making a small torch. The four went into the first cave and saw it was large and fairly spacious. There was an old fire pit there, but it didn’t seem to have been used for years.

Another bigger cave was nearby. It looked big enough to hold all the cargo in the hold of the ship. A third cave, much smaller than the first, was further along. It also had a long-unused fire pit. There was a small, sweet spring on the other side of a clearing across from the caves.

“We’ve seen enough,” Jason said as the torch was sputtering out in his hand. He threw it to the ground and stamped it out. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause a forest fire on the island.

He headed back to the carpenter, who still had no ideas. “There are a lot of good tall trees on this part of the island,” he pointed out.

“You plannin’ on makin’ a raft?” the carpenter said.

“No. We are too far to raft back to land,” Jason said. “Even without a hurricane those waves would swamp anything within a day, and we are two months out under sail. Drifting on a raft back might take a year. What I was thinking was that we could build up some kind of scaffolding and bring the ship down that way.”

“Better idea than anyt’ing I got,” the carpenter said. “I’ll see if I kin work anyt’ing out.”

Jason climbed up the rope. He was still short, but his arms were now strong and wiry, and he was able to climb the rope in minutes and was soon back with the captain. Stone was with him.

“The ship is not going to be easy to get down,” the youth explained. “But there are some caves nearby. We should be able to store most of the cargo in one and put the men in the other. There’s a smaller one. That could be for the family or for Doug.”

“We have the cranes your father came up with for unloading the ship,” the captain pointed out. “Should we start moving things now?”

“After the men eat, I think,” Jason said. “I’ve eaten. Has anything been taken to the women?”

“They had an oatmeal breakfast,” Stone said. “And I think Kookla has been getting their lunch.”

Stone and the captain went down and lined up with the men to get a plate of stew. The sailors were somewhat amazed when Stone refused to cut the line and get served first. As they waited the captain explained the work for the afternoon and the next few days. It normally took men at the docks two days to unload and reload the ship, but the sailors were not used to that work and also had to cart the goods up to the cave. It would take several days at best.

After the men were fed, the cranes (there were two) were set up. The first unloading was Doug, who was a little tentative about having a wide belt around his middle and then being held in the air and swung out. Stone wanted to ride him out, to keep him calm but the combined weight of the man and horse was considered to be too great, so the big man just stood on deck and verbally encouraged the horse until he was standing on the ground where Jason unbelted him.

Stone was not so quick going down the rope, so by the time he had his feet in the sand he looked up to see the horse almost a mile away, racing down the beach, “Sorry, Dad, I tried to hold him, but without reins it is almost impossible.”

“You know Doug will never wear reins,” Stone said. “But I think he is just running for the pure joy of it all. He has been cooped up for months in that hold and I think he just wanted to let loose. He’ll be back soon. I just hope he will let me ride him when he does. He really didn’t like that hoist,”

After Doug, the cargo started coming out. Barrels were not difficult, as they could be rolled in the sand to the hard path. Boxes and crates had to be carried, since the two wheelbarrows would not work in the sand. One wheelbarrow was kept on the ship to help move things to the crane, and then it was moved down to the ground. Rayla and the girls were lowered down in a rope harness over the side of the ship when she objected to the idea of going down in the crane.

Goats were let down the same way as Doug, except that they went down four at a time. The chickens were put into crates, which were carried up to the caves, where they were set free. But Jason had Sissy toss chicken feed around the clearing in front of the smallest cave so the birds would remain in the area for the ready food. That became the girl’s regular job and she started looking at the birds as her personal mission. She also gathered their eggs daily.

Rayla and Emily gathered dried palm leaves and made beds in the smallest cave for the family, which now seemed to include Kookla. Jason slept with the men, who were so exhausted at the end of the day that they just dropped in the medium cave and slept on the hard floor, or the large cave where they flopped onto some of the cargo and spare sails.

The cook stayed on board with four helpers, and the next morning they made a breakfast that could be let down on the crane. That worked but was cumbersome, so the cook came down and set up a kitchen in the medium cave over the firepit. His men packed up his supplies and cookware and brought it to him.

After breakfast the men were back at the cranes bringing more cargo down. Jason was largely in charge, with Keenstone telling him that the captain was in charge on ship, and the youth was in charge on the ground.

The carpenter came up to Jason with bad news. “Dunno if yer idear is gonna work, lad,” he said. “Iffen we make scaffolds ter hold up the ship and cuts away th’ trees we still got to get the ship offen the scaffold, and I dunno how that’s gonna work.”

Jason was also stymied but decided that could wait. He sent the carpenter to the cook, who wanted shelves and bins built for his kitchen. It took five days, but finally the ship was cleared. Only the sick bay was kept on board, as Kalosun didn’t want to move all his medicines into a damp cave. There had been minor injuries in the unloading: things like jammed fingers or hands and bruised shins, but they were mostly treated on the ground, with Kalosun or a helper zipping up a line to get needed salves or bandages.

The men were given two days off after all their work, but Jason announced that he and a few men would spend the two days exploring the island, which everyone was assuming was Hurricane Island.

“You are not going off exploring,” Rayla announced angrily.

Jason stared at his mother. “The passengers will not be involved in the crew’s business,” he said tartly, and then turned to the crew and started selecting the men who would come with him.

Rayla stared at her son in shock. She had never been spoken to by him in such a way, and soon her face had turned almost as red as her hair.

Stone reached out to the irate woman and tried to placate her. “He’s not your little boy anymore, dear. He’s practically a man. He is the leader of this crew. You cannot interfere in this.”

With that Rayla spun on her heels and stormed into the family cave, with Emily following, hoping to calm her mother.

“Jason,” Stone called, “Do you want to take Doug? A horse might be useful, even though the men will be on foot.”

“I do,” the youth said. “But I would like you to come as well. Your strength might be useful in places.”

“I’d be glad to join in,” Stone said.

The exploration party left before breakfast the next morning. The cook had prepared food for them to eat on the way, and each man had a pack and a canteen. Their goal was to circumnavigate the island on the beaches, going inland where something caught their attention.

The plan largely worked until they were nearly all the way around. Then the beach disappeared when they came to the cliff that Jason and the captain had seen during the hurricane. They went inland and uphill until they came to a path that led to the camp, but from the other way.

“It is an island,” Jason reported to the captain. “I’m certain it is the Hurricane Island. It is the right size and it would be unlikely for there to be two islands like that out here. And that explains the fire pits in the cave. No doubt they were created by shipwrecked sailors in the past. Hopefully they were rescued. I wouldn’t want to think they spent the rest of their lives here.”