Shipwrecked and Stranded VI

The shipwrecked crew of the Merrywhether lounged about their small cove.  The slight hunger moans and strong stench of its tenants drifted over the clear blue sky.  Somewhere a cicada sang its summer song.  The heat was unbearable.  Romulus began to search through the remaining supplies for something to eat.  His hand was quickly slapped by the bowl end of a stout ladle.  Wisabu held the offending weapon under her captain’s nose.

“Yeh maybe Captain now sir, but I still rule with the vittles.”  She told him chidingly.  He sucked on his bruised knuckles and slinked off.  It wasn’t long before the moaning turned to talk.

“Cursed worthless mud pack ye landed us on Cap’n!”  Kissenger shot from his place under the sparse shade of a horsetail bush.  There was a mumbled assent from the crew.

“Well, what’d ye have me do with it?”  Romulus asked, the clink of his loosened dagger audible across the suddenly silent cove.

Remus tried to intervene.  “Now Cap’n, don’t go doin’ sometin you’ll regret.”  He stood and put his arms out calmly.  

‘I won’t regret it Remus.  And I’d hold your tongue if I wanted to keep that first mate position I so grat’iously ‘stowed upon ye.”  He waggled the dagger under his first mate’s nose.  Everyone knew it was an empty threat, at least to Remus.  But they were saved further confrontation as they heard the pealing laughter of a young woman.

“Come on its just a bit further!”  Professor Josh Turner pulled his only slightly reluctant fiancé through the undergrowth toward his secret getaway.  He smiled to her and pulled her onward.  She laughed at his exuberance.

“Josh, where are you taking me?”  Her laughter was music to his ears.   And a few others he didn’t know about.

Being stranded on a ship for months with only a cantankerous old bag and a wily wench on board can leave a man, unsatisfied.  The crew instantly fell to silence, the Captain motioning for silence.  Even Wisabu understood that people meant food, and civilization.  Remus followed the Captain into hiding.  The crew waited in the shadows behind rocks, or in the undergrowth.

Rebecca and Josh came out onto the small beach to find it empty; except for the two longboats.

“Oh Josh, its lovely.”  Rebecca grabbed his arm and looked at the sight before her.  Josh Turner looked at the longboats and frowned.  There wasn’t supposed to be a soul for miles.  The Innkeeper he’d talked to where they were staying had said that the coast stretched on for miles before meeting any towns or cities.  The closest was Prosperine, and that was across the point.

“Something’s wrong.” He said.  But that was all that could slip from his tongue, before a dagger pressed against his throat and a strong arm pinned his arms to his sides.  His first instinct was to fight back, but a whisper in his ear stayed him.

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you.  You wouldn’t want your girlfriend here to get hurt would ya?”  The voice was slow and heavily accented.  His first instinct was pirates, and looking at the motley group of men around him, he assumed his guess correct.  Rebecca was dragged into his line of sight and he instinctively reached out for her.

“Rebecca,” he croaked, the blade at his throat cutting off air flow.

“Oh ho, is that this pretties name?”  The man holding her looked at Rebecca with longing.  It made Josh sick and angry.

“You’ll find this pretty more than you can handle boyo if you try anything.”  The woman’s English was rusty, but being an ambassador she was fluent in most languages.

“Not another fighter.  Cap’n maybe we should just kill em both and be done with em.  I can’t handle another tough girl like the last one.”  Kissenger slid his own dagger up along her chin line.  She returned his heavy stare with her own.  He didn’t know that her hands were unbound and when his gaze lingered to where it shouldn’t he received a strong slap across the face.

Josh silently appraised his fiancé, but only for a moment.  The man Kissenger pulled his arm back for a punch, but it was stayed by a thick looking ladle.  A large black woman stood holding the ladle.

“There will be no hitting women as long as I’m around Kissenger.  You know your limits.  She had every right to slap you, lookin’ at ‘er like tat!”  She rapped him across the knuckles with her ladle.  “Besides, kindness gets you further than brutality.”  She whispered in his ear before she walked over to the now restrained girl.

“Let ‘er go.  I won’t let ‘er ‘arm any o you strong men.”  The crewmen restraining Rebecca reluctantly released her.  Wisabu took the girls hands in her own large ones.  “What is a chile like yeself doin’ this far out?  We’re you stranded?”  The old woman’s face held a kind note to it.

Rebecca looked to her fiancée.  His head gave the slightest of shakes.  “Yes we were stranded.  It was terrible; the ship ran aground of the reef.  We’re all that’s left.”  Fake tears sprang to her eyes.

“She’s lyin!”  Romulus shouted and raised his scimitar in anger.  He quickly took control of the bound Joshua, his long blade on his Adam’s apple.  “Now talk girlie, or this’ll be the last of your little boyfriend here!”  He pressed the blade harder against the neck, so a single line of blood began to trickle down it.  Josh couldn’t move his head for risk of harming himself further, but he mouthed silently to his love, “No”.

Rebecca sighed; she couldn’t see Joshua get hurt.  “We’re staying at an inn up the road.  It’s only an hour’s walk from Prosperine, across the point.”  The tears that ran down her cheek were real this time.  The Captain sniggered as he lowered his blade and called for rope.  The couple was bound and shackled with what was left of the thick ships rope.  They were tossed to the side as the crew devoured what was in the basket Josh had brought for a happy picnic by the sea.  It had turned into anything but.