Page 36 of Hooked By a Hero
They both turned to find that Brunning’s efforts to dislodge the lifeboat from the sandy shallows had been successful far faster than any of them would have imagined.
“Coming!” Caspian called out. He stepped away from Elias, but turned back and said, “We will discuss this when I return.”
Elias smiled uncertainly and watched his sweetheart dash out through the surf to join the others climbing into the lifeboat. He certainly hoped they would discuss it and bring the truth to light soon. He wasn’t certain how much longer he could goon just guessing at the strangeness that seemed to surround Caspian.
Twelve
It took all of Caspian’s powers of concentration not to display how happy he was to have found a comfortable island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Despite his years of travel and multifaceted experiences on foreign shores, he felt most at home in exactly the sort of spot where he and Elias found themselves now. On the island, where they could have space of their own and find privacy from the others who would take them to task for the love that had been growing between them, the two of them could truly explore what it meant for them to be together.
That would inevitably involve a full confession of all the things that had Elias tied in such tight knots, but as daunting as the prospect of the first revelation was, Caspian was confident that he could explain himself thoroughly enough that Elias would accept him for who he truly was.
In the meantime, it was necessary for him to feign far more concern over the situation the survivors of theFortunefound themselves in so as not to offend men like Brunning, who truly believed their lives might still be in danger.
“She’s listed hard to starboard,” Brunning said with a far more serious countenance than he had worn on the island as they approached the wreck. “There’s no telling whether thelower decks have been flooded or the hull has been breached at any point.”
“Would the iron cladding not prevent the hull from springing leaks?” Woburn, who had insisted on coming with them, though he had no great experience with the sea, asked.
Brunning grunted as he gave the oars one last pull, then let the boat drift towardFortune’sside. “It’s hard to say. There could be a crack above the cladding. The way the mainmast broke could have damaged the integrity of the hull where it is anchored. Or the ship could simply have taken in more water than it could hold during the storm.”
“Let’s climb aboard and find out,” Woburn said, standing as the boat bumped against the ship’s hull and reaching for a rope that dangled over the edge from the main deck.
“Wait!” Caspian said, reaching out and grabbing the man’s trousers to keep him from climbing the rope. “We need to ascertain whether the ship is stable before we climb all over it.”
“Agreed,” Brunning said seriously. “And we need to determine whether Tumbrill or Dick or any of those bastards are still aboard.”
Woburn sat down again hard. His expression reflected Caspian’s thoughts. Caspian had never stopped to consider that men like Dick or Tumbrill might have weathered the storm on the ship. Since theFortunedid not go under during the storm, but rather ran aground on the shoal, there was as good a chance as not that some of those villains were still clinging to life and the ship.
“I’ll swim once around the ship to see if I can hear voices or anything else that might tell us whether the others are still aboard,” Caspian said, standing and shifting to the side of the boat.
“How do you plan to hear voices through the hull?” Brunning asked with a confused frown. “The wood and cladding are inches thick.”
“Wishful thinking?” Caspian said with a winning smile, then dove overboard before he could be asked any other questions he did not have ready answers to.
As always, the feeling of the water racing past his skin felt wonderful. With the others so close, he had to kick and paddle to swim rather than removing his trousers so he could speed through the depths, but that hardly slowed him down, and it did not affect his ability to stay below for long enough to seem unnatural. He deliberately surfaced after a minute, though he did not need the breath, waved to the others still in the boat, then dove down again and circled around to the far side of the ship.
TheFortunewas silent. No matter how hard Caspian listened as he rounded the vessel, he did not hear a single thing that could be considered human. There might have been a rat or two still skittering around the middeck, but the lower deck was completely silent, telling Caspian the ship had been flooded. He could also see clearly that it had, indeed, rammed hard into a sandy shoal that now held it fast.
That was something to be grateful for. TheFortunewas not going anywhere, one way or another, for a very long time. Despite the sharp angle it now rested at, the survivors would likely have weeks or months to salvage from the wreck before it sank further or capsized entirely. Unless there was another violent storm, they would be able to take whatever supplies or belongings they needed from the ship, and they would not have to rush to do so.
Caspian told the others in the boat as much once he had swum all the way around, then resurfaced in the opposite direction from where they were looking for him.
“She’s as stable as could be for now,” he said, swimming up to the boat but not pulling himself back up into it. He was perfectly happy where he was, most of his body surrounded by the salty water. “We should be able to climb aboard and see what has been preserved that we might use while waiting for whatever happens next.”
Brunning, Woburn, and the others stared at him for a long time without saying anything.
“You swam all that way without surfacing?” Woburn asked.
He had, but Caspian could see the suspicion in the others’ eyes. “Oh, no, I surfaced quite a bit on the other side. One of the rope ladders has been cast out over that side. Come and see. We’ll be able to climb aboard the ship easily on that side.”
He was right. One of the rope ladders that was used when the ship was anchored in a port slapped lazily against theFortune’sside as the breezy waves kissed the hull of the ship. That made it easy for their group to climb aboard the main deck, even though the ship was askew.
“Who lowered the ladder?” Brunning asked with a frown once they’d all climbed aboard and braced themselves along the slanted deck.
“Likely the same men who took the other lifeboats,” one of the sailors who had come with them said, nodding to the stern.
Sure enough,Fortunehad originally had six lifeboats. The survivors had taken four in the storm, but the other two were nowhere to be seen.
“They had to have gone adrift during the storm,” Woburn said, shifting his footing anxiously and glancing around. “We would have seen the other two if anyone had taken them to shore.”
