Castaways
by
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It struck at twilight, a cold, gusty front roaring down the coast under a leaden sky. All hands were called to shorten sail as the tall ship Defiant heeled sharply, her lee scuppers awash.
The bosun counted off six of us, part of a crew of teenagers on a training cruise off the coast of
So far we’d had ten day’s experience, but nothing near as rough as this. As I stepped toward the mainmast my friend Jennifer Owens pointed her gloved hand at me. “Mike, you forgot your safety harness.”
“Be right back,” I called out as I dashed down into the gundeck. It was gloomy below, as all the ports were closed. It wasn’t really a gundeck, even if the Defiant was a replica of a warship, an English frigate to be exact. The only things in this “gundeck” were bunks and a classroom with bolted-down tables and computers.
I grabbed my harness and ran back up, snapping it on as I went. I reached the ratlines just behind Jennifer, scrambling up behind her as the rain hit, a cold, driving rain that stung my face.
By the time we reached the topsail yard, fifty feet up, my gloves were soaked and my hands so cold it was hard to grip the ratlines. We didn’t wait for more orders, we knew what to do. Inching along the yard, our feet on a footrope, harnesses snapped on, we held onto the spar as it stretched twenty feet into space.
“Mike, can you believe it?” Jennifer yelled over the wind. “My parents paid for me to do this?”
I pulled my cap down, trying to keep the spray out of my eyes. “Looks like they’re getting their money’s worth.”
We’d become good friends on this trip, and I’d grown to admire her gutsy attitude. No mast was too high for her, even on her first climb into the rigging. Her short black hair was plastered to her forehead as she reached down and grabbed a reefing line. I did the same, trying to act like I wasn’t scared, even with our perch swinging far out over the water as the ship rolled with each gust.
“Are you scared?” I asked her.
“I’d be a liar if I said no.”
The bosun’s shout came from the deck. “Main topsail, haul!”
We heaved in the heavy, wet sail, the canvas flapping wildly while we struggled to lash it down. As we finished, Jennifer gave me a quick smile even as we clung to the rigging like a pair of cats in a tree. Her wide-set blue eyes always grabbed my attention, storm or no storm.
“Good work!” I shouted as I headed back to the mast. “We’re outta here!”
But as soon as we reached the deck the bosun had more work for us. “Furl the mizzen!” he shouted.
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About the Book
A present-day teenage couple, Mike Gardner and Jennifer Owens, are students on a training ship off the Mike is knocked unconscious. As he comes to he realizes the ship is under fire. His first thought is terrorists, but he soon learns he’s actually on a real British frigate, HMS Swift, the firing is from a French shore battery, it is 1805, and he has somehow taken over the body of one of the ship’s midshipmen, Peter Southby. Based on his confusion and panic, the ship’s doctor concludes that Mike (Peter) is suffering from amnesia. Jennifer is washed ashore on a French beach nearby. She is later rescued by Mike and the crew of Swift and eventually made the doctor’s assistant. The mission of Swift is to watch for any French ships that try to run the British blockade of Mike is soon in action as part of an expedition in ship’s boats to “cut-out” a French sloop-of-war anchored just inside Once ashore, the two travel to the home of Mike’s “parents,” whom neither have met before. There, Jennifer learns she is now Catherine Devers, who is engaged to marry the politically powerful Lord Wolvington. She also learns that he owns slaves on his plantation in the U. S. Horrified, she vows to escape, with Mike’s help, to someplace where Lord Wolvington and his men can never find them...
About the Author
Mr Jones served as a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, flying the F-101B Voodoo, one of the early supersonic fighters. Later, he worked as an engineer for NASA on the Apollo Project, where he helped train the first two groups of astronauts in the mission simulators. After Apollo, he worked on various classified space projects in the aerospace industry. Still an active pilot, he flies high-performance sailplanes in the
A life-long sailor, and a student of the British navy in the Napoleonic wars, he also volunteers at the San Diego Maritime Museum where he serves as a docent, either at the museum or at sea on the tall ship “Californian.”
He has published numerous articles and memoirs of flying and sailing, three young adult novels, and an aviation novel, “Pug 66”, set in the