I awoke the next morning around ten o’clock . . . uneaten. When a person wakes up in the morning those first few moments can, at times, be something of an adjustment . . . depending on the activities of the previous night. And as I opened my eyes and began to focus myself mentally you may be sure that my mind was fully occupied for some minutes.
It was a beautiful morning . . . very much in contrast to the evening before . . . and I squeezed out of my “bunk” and walked down to the shore.
And there she was . . . The Sea Serpent . . . securely beached on a shoal about two hundred feet off shore. She was battered, certainly . . . with her mainmast and foremast both broken off and missing . . . but she was a beautiful sight none-the-less. The ship was leaning romantically toward the shore and sunlight was warming the wood of her hull and deck. The blue-green water of the ocean was dancing around her and the light blue sky was at her back. “Worthy of an oil painting.” I said to myself.
I waded and then swam out to the ship, but could find no way to board her, so I swam and waded back to shore. I went looking for a long vine, which I found, cut down, and then brought out to the ship. I threw the vine up the side of the ship and managed to hook it over a belaying pin. I then pulled myself up and over and onto the ship’s deck. I went below deck and fetched the ship’s rope ladder which I hooked on to the gunwale and let roll down the side of the ship.
I then headed straight for the galley where I breakfasted on water and bread. I grabbed a burlap sack and went to my cabin where I picked out a change of clothes, a pair of shoes, my tricorne hat, a spyglass, and a towel and threw them all into the sack. I then went into the captain’s cabin where I searched for, and found, two pistols, some shot, and a funnel of gunpowder.
I put these into the sack. I then grabbed a wine skin and headed back to the galley where I emptied the out the wine and filled the skin with drinking water. I then went topside and climbed over the gunwale and down the side of the ship and eased myself into the water. Then, with my cargo held safely over my head, I swam and waded back to shore.
After a quick change of clothes and a loading of the guns I was off in an earnest attempt to find my comrades. I walked along the beach . . . scanning the shoreline and inland areas . . . and hiked about a mile before turning back and proceeding, from my original spot, about a mile in the other direction. I saw nothing, no sign of any of them . . . and a gruesome sort of feeling came over me.
Back at my “base camp” I stood and gazed out at The Sea Serpent for a few minutes and then pulled myself around and headed inland. I advanced up a gradual incline that was interrupted occasionally by levels of pastures. I spotted some sort of animal herd far off to my left, and a quick look through the spyglass showed them to be goats. Whether that was a good sign or a bad sign I didn’t know.
After an uphill trek of about two miles I came to a peak of solid rock . . . and climbed it. This perch gave me an excellent panoramic view and what I saw was something of a shock. I was surrounded by water. I had been marooned on an island. And, what was worse, I could not, even when using the spyglass, see the slightest speck of land in any direction.
“Where in the world am I?” I wondered out loud.
The island was between eight and nine miles long and between four and five miles across. I had been marooned at about the center of one of its sides . . . the western side.
I stayed up on that boulder for about an hour . . . scouring the island for any sign of life. I saw no detectable movement, no smoke from a fire, and no unnatural clearing. There was nothing that would indicate that other human inhabitants were there. “And it is unlikely that wild beasts . . . of the man-eating variety . . . are on the island either.” Or so I hoped. But the goats . . . they were a mystery.
I walked back down the hill and when I reached my base camp I looked out at The Sea Serpent. This ship now underwent a change in my thinking.
It went from being a reminder of past trauma to being a container of things that were essential for my survival. And I decided to empty her.
I made my way back out to the ship and re-boarded her. I searched for and found the carpentry tools and then sawed down the mizzenmast. This mast, once shorn of its sails and ropes, I then cut into eight “logs” of equal length which I lashed together with rope. I now had a raft, which I dubbed
“The Happy Marooner,” and I began to loot the ship.
I started in the galley and took everything: salt pork, potatoes, peppers, onions, beans, bread, flour, lard, pots and pans, utensils, plates, cups, and bowls. The drinking water was kept in two very large barrels that were too heavy to move, so I went below deck and grabbed five of the small kegs of port wine, emptied them, and managed, by stages, to get all the water ashore.
It had begun to get dark and I realized that, unless I wanted to spend the night in my little nest again, I had better make some sort of accommodations for myself. So I brought some rope and sail material ashore. I found a nice little clearing and strung a doubled length of rope between two trees. I then draped a doubled layer of sail material over the rope and, using tree limbs, pegged the edges of the sail cloth into the ground. I now had a tent about fifteen feet long, ten feet wide, and eight feet high. I then brought some boards ashore and fashioned them into a sort of platform on which I placed some bedding. I then brought a little table, a few books, and a lantern into the tent, and I was all set. Home.
The next morning I was up early and continued the pillaging of The Sea Serpent. I took furniture, trunks, the cargo dolly, pistols, sabers, gunpowder, lead shot, money, pocket watches (of which I found five), clothes, hammocks, bedding, soap, books . . . everything. From the cargo area I took only the bananas. The whole job took me three days, and when all the loot was put ashore, I had three large piles of possessions which I covered with sail material.
“I regret to say I’ll need a cannon . . . two cannons actually.” If a ship did sail near the island, I would need a cannon to call the crew’s attention to my . . . situation . . . and I would need a cannon for each side of the island.
The ship’s cannons were small cannons . . . as cannons go . . . but were still heavy beasts. I separated them, respectively, into two parts—barrel and base.
Using rope I lowered the barrel of the first cannon onto the raft and then escorted it to shore where I wrestled it inland a bit. I then followed the same procedure with the base. For the second cannon I lowered both barrel and base . . . one piece at a time . . . onto the raft, tied them down securely, and then set a course for the far side of the island.
The Happy Marooner seemed somewhat oppressed by the excessive weight, but, with me wading and swimming alongside her, we managed to slosh and splash our way through the waves. As we came around the northern end of the island a school of dolphins was swimming by about two hundred feet off shore. Leaping out of the water, arching through the air, and then plunging back into the sea, they seemed to be searching for something that was beneath the water’s surface. “Is it here? No? Then up ahead perhaps.”
As I came down along the eastern side of the island I scanned the inland areas for what might provide a suitable lodging for a large firearm. After spotting what looked to be, generally, a good location, I steered the raft to shore, tied it up, and went in search of a perch. I passed along a nice beach of beautiful white sand where some of the local residents were out sunning themselves. Turtles. Dozens of turtles were lounging on the beach, and they ranged in size from small ones . . . about a foot long . . . to giant turtles that looked to be about ten feet in length! “Tar-nation!” as old Abe at The Boar’s Head might have said, “Now them there are turtles what be worthy of the name.”
I eventually found a nice plateau that had a broad view of the sea and returned to the raft where I unfastened the barrel and base. Using the rope as a tow line, I dragged each piece . . . and it was like pulling a very stubborn donkey . . . up to this look-out point and re-assembled the cannon. I then headed back down to the raft and made my way home. I was a little surprised that I had grown so attached to the spot after so short a time, but, be that as it may, it was my home now, and I sort-of missed it.
Upon my return I decided to devote the remaining daylight to placing the other cannon up on an elevated ledge, and once this was accomplished, I called it a day.
The time came, of course, when the cannons had to be test-fired. I had never fired a cannon. I had never had the need to fire a cannon. But I would do well, I knew, to gain some experience at it, so that if a ship did sail past the island, I would have at least some idea of what I was doing.
I poured gunpowder into the barrel . . . and hoped it was the right amount . . . and then used the ram-rod to pack the powder in good and tight. I shoved a little piece of cloth into the fuse hole and lit it. I then stood back and hoped that I didn’t set the island on fire.
It worked . . . and I jumped a good bit when it did. The birds on the island . . . equally startled by the blast . . . fled from their trees and made a mass exodus out to sea. But I did all right at my first attempt at cannon firing, and on the walk back home I satisfied myself with thoughts of winning cannon battles with pirates and rescuing damsels in distress.