Page 37 of Hooked By a Hero
“Not if they waited until after the storm stopped and the ship ran aground to make a break for land,” Brunning said quietly, rubbing the bottom half of his face.
He looked to Caspian, who nodded in return. Caspian could practically see what he meant by his look. Even though the likes of Tumbrill and Dick were not part of the group of survivors that was making a camp on the island as they spoke, that did not mean those two and their followers hadn’t survived the storm. The island was relatively large. Caspian did not know of it specifically, but he was aware of several islands in the vicinity that were a mile or two across.
“Let’s see how much of the cargo survived intact,” he said, giving the others something more positive to contemplate instead of whether they might all still be in danger from the mutineers.
Exploring the wrecked ship was not as easy as navigating across its decks had been when it was still seaworthy. Aside from being pitched at an angle, the main deck was littered with hanging ropes and bits of sail that had ripped and dislodged from their fastenings. It was like climbing through some sort of vast spider’s web merely to reach the hatches that would take them to the middeck.
Brunning took a few of the men to investigate the captain and officer’s quarters while Caspian, Woburn, and the remaining men made their way to the fore hatch and climbed below. It was nearly impossible to see the situation on the middeck, since all the lanterns that usually swung from hooks in the ceiling had been smashed and doused during the storm. Caspian could smell the remains of fires that had likely ignited when the lamps smashed, but water from the storm must have put them out before major damage could be done.
As he’d suspected, the lower deck was submerged. They did not need light from above to see that. As soon as Caspian and Woburn wrenched open the hatch leading to that lowest deck, they saw the glimmer of light reflecting off of water that reached nearly all the way to the middeck.
“Any cargo stored down there will be ruined,” Woburn said with a sigh.
“Not necessarily,” one of the sailors with them said, scratching his head as he stared down into the watery depths. “Some things are sealed in casks and barrels with pitch and wax. We might be able to salvage them.”
“It will take a coordinated effort,” Caspian said with a shrug. Having something for the survivors to think about and occupy themselves with would likely be a good thing.
They could only explore so much of the middeck without lanterns, but they were able to determine that many people’s possessions were still intact and relatively dry. Since there was little point in poking around in the dark, they returned to the main deck and began searching through the nicer cabins in the center of the ship.
“Lady Adelaide will be pleased to know that her trunks are perfectly intact and that her gowns have been preserved,” Woburn said with a grin as they checked through her cabin.
Most of the contents of the fancier cabins were undisturbed, except for being pushed to the side that dipped down with the ship’s angle. Caspian found it particularly interesting that the heavy treasure chest containing the late Mr. Ferrars’s wealth was intact as well, thought its weight had caused it to smash the side of one of the beds in the small cabin Ruby had shared with her grandfather.
“Ruby will be pleased to know she’s still a wealthy heiress,” Caspian commented to Brunning once their groups met up again and prepared to return to the island with several casks of fresh water.
Brunning’s eyebrows shot up. “Mr. Ferrars’s treasure is still aboard?”
Caspian nodded. “Should we bring it to Ruby?”
“God, no!” Brunning shouted, then jerked his head this way and that to see who else might have heard him. “That treasure needs to stay where it is and be forgotten for as long as possible.” When Caspian frowned at him in confusion, Brunning went on with, “If there’s even a lick of a chance that Tumbrill and Dick and their cronies survived the storm and made it to the island, they’ll come back looking for it. That man’s fortune will spell trouble for whoever possesses it.”
Caspian hummed, uncertain whether he agreed or not. He would concede that the treasure would be a lure to Dick and Tumbrill, but it belonged to Ruby, and she had a right to choose what to do with it.
He held on to that thought, intending to share it with Elias, and perhaps Hunt and Ruby herself, once they returned to the island. Their group loaded as much of the most essential supplies they could find onto the boat and arranged the rest to be easily fetched by another trip out once they’d taken their first salvage to the island.
Caspian’s thoughts were so filled with how they might bring everything useful from theFortuneto the island, not to mention with the possibility that a group of very bad men was somewhere else on the island, that he almost didn’t notice the way Elias left what he was doing to run out into the shallows to greet their return.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” Elias said breathlessly, helping Caspian climb over the side of the boat and step down, then using that as an excuse to embrace him quickly. “Every time you disappear, I worry about you,” he whispered, resting his hand on the side of Caspian’s face for a moment.
Caspian smiled and quickly stole a kiss in return while the others were distracted with bringing the boat farther up onto the beach. “I will always return to you,” he said, gazing fondly into Elias’s eyes. “Never you worry about that.”
“Oh, but I do worry,” Elias said. In his expression, Caspian could see traces of their earlier conversation and the things that remained unsaid between them.
Once again, Caspian brushed off the truths that needed to be spoken and the revelations that needed to be made. There were too many people around them, and now was not the time.
“We brought back casks of fresh water and a few crates of foodstuffs that weren’t spoiled with salt water,” he said, stepping back and joining the others in lifting things out of the boat. “The lower decks of the ship are flooded, but any of the cargo that is currently underwater could still be good as long as its containers are properly sealed, or so I’ve been told.”
“It’s true,” the sailor who had informed Caspian of as much earlier repeated for the cluster of survivors that gathered around to help unload the boat. “We should be able to recover a lot of the cargo, as long as we do it quickly.”
That came as welcome news to the survivors. Even though they were only halfway into their first day on the island, many of them already looked dirty, disheveled, and disheartened. The women had been able to light their fire at some point while Caspian and the others had been exploring theFortune, but they only had a few small fish set on spits over the embers as of yet. The hungry survivors were grateful to have a meal of hardtack, boiled peas, and salted pork, as unsavory as Caspian found all those things, once the boat was unloaded and the supplies handed out.
“We will have to be judicious with the supplies we have,” Hunt said once a meager meal was prepared and all of the survivors sat in the shade of the palm trees at the edge of their patch of beach to eat together. “Mr. Archer proved himself surprisingly adept at catching those fish earlier, and I’m certain we’ll be able to catch many more with supplies salvaged from thewreck, but we must all remember that food will not be as easy to come by as we are used to.”
“Surely, we will not starve now,” Miss Winters said as she poked some of the embers of the fire she seemed intent on tending.
“I do not believe we will,” Hunt went on. “But in order to keep ourselves alive, we will all need to do our part, particularly when it comes to fetching water from the spring.”
“A team set out into the jungle to find the spring Brunning located again while you were on theFortune,” Elias murmured to Caspian as Hunt continued to speak about the tasks that they would all need to do daily. “It isn’t very far from here, and already, there has been talk about building a settlement there instead of here, on the beach.”
