Wrecked Chapter 1

Wrecked Chapter 1
By Pueros

This story is intended for ADULTS ONLY

For Heredia

This is the short introductory chapter of a long saga about the adventures in 19th century Africa of twin English boys.

Chapter One - Storm

(Northern Mozambique Channel, summer 1850)

11 year-old James and his twin brother, John, were not finding the long voyage to India very enjoyable. The initial excitement of journeying at sea on a sailing ship for the first time had quickly been transformed into boredom, frequently accompanied by acute seasickness whenever the weather became rough.

Apart from the occasional arrival at a port to replenish supplies of fresh food and water, the scenery always comprised only waves as far as the eye could see. The extremely beautiful twin boys had also already explored every cranny of the ship itself, at least as far as those places they were permitted to go, as well as a few more.

Their competent governess, Elisa, charged with safely delivering James and John from their English public boarding school to their parents and new lives in India, had tried her best to keep them occupied through lessons and entertainment, such as reading and games. However, as days became weeks and the monotony continued, even she began to pray regularly for an end to the seemingly interminable voyage. Her prayers were to be met but in a most unfortunate manner.

Conditions on board ship were not helped by the claustrophobia of their accommodation, comprising two tiny cabins, one for Elisa and the other for the twin boys, with a small porthole apiece to spy on the outside world. Spending time on deck was generally much more pleasant than in these minuscule rooms, unless the weather was bad or, as it had now frequently become, too hot.

Elisa was concerned about the wellbeing of her young charges if they spent too long under the hot sun, as the ship shadowed the western Atlantic coast of Africa, heading ultimately for the Cape Colony before beginning to traverse the Indian Ocean. Both James and John possessed neatly trimmed straight blonde hair and very fair complexions to go with their sparkling blue eyes, and their skin reacted unpleasantly to strong sunlight, preferring to burn bright red and then peel rather than tan nicely. Accordingly, even on very hot days, the children had to keep covered up on deck, to the extent of wearing wide-brimmed hats that shielded their immensely pretty faces.

The twins' father was a senior official with the British East India Company and was resident in Bombay, to where the sailing ship was heading. Unfortunately for the boys, the vessel never arrived.

As the ship sailed up the east coast of Africa through what is now called the Mozambique Channel, which separates the continent from Madagascar, a mighty storm arose. The sky turned inauspiciously black, tremendously heavy rain fell and loud thunder and vibrant lightening roared around and illuminated the surrounds. Even more ominously, the waves in which the vessel had begun to founder became mountainous.

Everyone rightly started to fear for their lives, not least the twins and their devoted governess. Dutiful to the end, Elisa bound the boys' wrists together with rope so that, whatever fate now awaited them, they would face it together. Sadly, her wish was not ultimately to be met.

No sailing ship could have survived for long in this current storm but the wave that ended the life of this particular vessel and most of the passengers and crew would surely have finished off any boat. What made the end worse was that the people on board, who had all gathered on deck and most of whom were now praying for salvation to God, could see the massively tall curtain of water, which surely represented their doom, approach slowly from afar until it represented all of the easterly horizon.

The sailing ship finally began to ride the wave, becoming more and more vertical in the process until capsizing. For the young twins, all then became blackness.

For the twins, all at first appeared to remain blackness when they finally opened their lovely sensuous blue eyes virtually simultaneously hours afterwards. However, the boys, wrists still bound together, quickly discovered that this phenomenon was an optical illusion.

The blackness filling the twins' line of vision and preventing them from seeing the now calm and cloudless blue sky above, whilst the boys rested on a beach of golden sand with verdant jungle behind, was that of huge fierce African warriors, dressed only in loincloths and armed with spears, peering down at them.

(To be continued)

[Comments to the author can be sent to pueros@hotmail.com]