Wrecked Chapter 1
By Pueros

copyright 2006 by Pueros, all rights reserved
pueros@hotmail.com

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)