The Island by Hankster

The Island
by: Hankster

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 1

The year 1869 AD was waning rapidly, and the world was abuzz with expectation. A miraculous engineering feat was soon to be unveiled. Some people were calling it one of the wonders of the modern world. Others simply said it could be counted as the eighth wonder of the world. The Suez Canal was nearing completion and would soon be open for shipping and trade.

The British vice-governor to Capetown, South Africa had received an invitation to attend the opening ceremonies. Jonathan Endicott was not a wealthy man, not in finances perhaps, but his wealth lay elsewhere. He had a beautiful wife, Emily, and three beautiful children. His eldest, Amy, was a nineteen year old daughter. She had been much sought after by the young men of the British population of South Africa. Just two months earlier the family had celebrated her marriage to Victor Dorchester, the twenty-two year old, elder son, of a local planter. All society agreed that they made a mighty handsome couple. Victor was six feet tall, bronzed and very muscular, as a result of working long hours in the fields. His blonde hair and blue eyes made him a striking Adonis, and Amy was much envied by her female friends.

Amy was followed by a seventeen year old daughter of equal beauty. Her birth had been so difficult that Emily had not been expected to survive. She fooled all the doctors, and she did recover. The child also miraculously lived, and they named her Mary to honor the Blessed Virgin.

After the birth of Mary the doctors warned Emily that she was not to have another child because it might kill her. She and Jonathan so wanted a son, that against all sensible advice, she tried to become pregnant again as soon as possible. A mere five months after Mary’s birth, Emily conceived a child. She gave birth prematurely to a very frail little boy, whom they named Jonathan Jr.

After the child’s birth, Emily was quite ill for a very long time, but eventually she recovered her health. As weak as the boy was at birth, young Jon also began to gain strength, and by the time he was two, he was a hale and hearty little imp who ruled the household. Now nearing his sixteenth birthday he stood five feet seven inches tall, and he already reached his father’s eyes. His childhood platinum blonde hair had settled into a light brown, but his cat green eyes never changed. His voice had deepened, and he had recently grown abundant hair under his arms, and thick pubic hair above and around his burgeoning cock.

Jonathan, Sr. did not wish to experience the eighth wonder of the world all by himself. He was determined to share this rare and wonderful event with his entire family. To that end he booked three staterooms on a steamer leaving on November 1 from Capetown, going to Egypt. It was only scheduled to make two stops along the way. The first was in Lagos, Nigeria and the second was in Algiers. The trip would take twelve days and the canal was due to open on the 17th day of November.

Jonathan and Emily occupied one stateroom, Amy and Vic occupied another, and much to the dislike of Jon and Mary, they shared the third stateroom. In addition to the Endicott/Dorchester family, there were twenty other passengers aboard, which put the ship at capacity. Some of the passengers were bound for Lagos and others were disembarking in Algiers , but their staterooms would be re-occupied at those ports.

As far as the trip was concerned, the family found it to be quite uneventful, and down right boring, until three days after their debarkation from Lagos. The weather began to get considerably warmer. The skies darkened and the sea became rough. The ship was not too steady and it was weaving back and forth. Most of the passengers became ill and could be found hovering over wash basins, anticipating that they would probably vomit in a short time. The stench below decks became progressively oppressive.

Two of the passengers proved to be excellent seamen. Jon and Vic remained perfectly well. It was the stench of the vomit that was beginning to make them ill.

“I absolutely cannot stand this foul odor,” Jon announced. “I’m going topside.”

“We’ve been ordered not to,” Vic objected.

“I don’t care. I’ll be especially vigilant, but I have simply got to get out of here.” Jon said adamantly.

“Well, I’m not letting you go up there alone,” Vic countered. “Wait for me. I’ll go with you.”

When the pair of them went out on the deck, they were more than shocked. The waves were so high they were washing over the deck. The wind was buffeting the ship back and forth. It seemed that the vessel would not have time to right itself until another wave came along and propelled it in the opposite direction.

Jon began to laugh. “This is going to be so much fun,” he yelled over the wind. He ran to the nearest stanchion and wrapped his arms around it, making sure that he was firmly anchored. A wave washed over him.

“This is so great,” he yelled. “Vic, come and join me.” Vic pushed his way over to the stanchion and wrapped himself around the opposite side so that he faced Jon. Wave after wave washed over them and left them both laughing hard and soaking wet.

They played this new water sport for about a half hour. Then a particularly strong wave washed over them, and when it was gone, Vic realized that Jon was no longer wrapped around the stanchion. He began to yell and scream, but Jon did not answer. Vic was convinced that his brother in law had been washed overboard. The noise above deck was so ear shattering, that nobody could possibly hear him, no matter how loud he yelled. He pulled a life saver off the deck railing and foolishly jumped into the water in an effort to save Jon. He never once considered that he himself could come to harm.

When he hit the water, Vic clutched the life saver tightly to his body and looked around. There was enough light coming from the ship that he was able to spot Jon just a few feet away. He laboriously made his way to the boy and grabbed him by the hair on his head. Jon was gasping for breath but was otherwise all right. Vic threw the life saver over Jon’s head and Jon pulled it down to engulf his chest. Vic held on to the life saver literally to keep from sinking. Both of them started to yell at the ship, but it was useless. Vic watched as the ship continued its journey, lengthening the space between them. He also noted that the current was carrying them at right angles away from the ship’s course.

It was past midnight when the ailing passengers below realized that Vic and Jon were missing. The captain was informed, and he stopped the ship at once. They retraced their position of the last few hours and searched for two days until the captain determined that they could not have survived in the turbulent waters. He ordered the search discontinued, and the ship to proceed on its journey.

Not five knots east of where the two young men entered the water, there lay an uncharted island. The island was about a mile wide and about five miles long, and was thick with unspoiled vegetation of all kinds. The only animal life that existed on the island was a variety of birds that nested in the thick foliage that grew there. Vic and Jon did not know it at the time but they were drifting toward the island. For the first half hour or so they yelled futilely toward their ship. After awhile they realized that they were expending precious energy and gave it up.

Literally holding each other for dear life, they allowed themselves to drift helplessly. Each felt deep in their hearts that the rough waters would consume them, and that soon they would enter the kingdom of heaven. Strangely neither was frightened, but both felt grief for the loved ones they would leave behind. The only thing that kept them alive was the fact that they were in tropical waters and hypothermia was not a consideration.

Vic began to doze off when he felt something tugging at his now shoeless feet. He was roused from what could easily be his eternal sleep. He suddenly became aware that he was touching a rather sandy bottom. He looked around him. The rains were still falling heavily and there were no moon or stars to shed any light, but he strained to see where he was. He thought maybe he was entering heaven when he realized that they were drifting toward a sandy beach.

Vic dug his feet into the unsteady bottom, and dragging Jon with him, he willed his way ashore. Once ashore he removed the life saver from Jon’s body and laid him on the soggy beach. It was too dark to seek shelter, but the beach was covered with huge leaves which the storm had blown from trees of unknown flora. Vic had very little strength left, but he gathered up as many of the leaves as he could. He covered Jon’s sleeping body with the leaves and then crept under the leaves himself. He wrapped his arms around Jon’s body and crept up as close to his weakened brother-in-law as he could.

In his sleep, Jon hunkered up to Vic, subconsciously seeking comfort. Vic began to drift off, joining Jon in sleep. Suddenly he was startled to feel Jon’s obviously erect cock rubbing against his thigh. In his sleep Jon called out, “Martin.” Martin was Vic’s younger brother’s name, and he knew that Martin and Jon were best friends even though Martin was a year older than Jon. Vic was more than curious. He could only wonder what the boy was dreaming.

Even though Jon’s cock rubbing against him might prove to be arousing at another time, sex was the last thing on Vic’s mind at the moment. His thoughts went to the island, as he wondered if their lives could be sustained with any gifts of nature that the island might yield up to them.

As they slept, morning came. The wind and the rain waned and the clouds seemed to dissipate almost instantly. They were actually awakened by a hot, searing sun.

Jon woke first. He threw the leaves off and jumped up. “We’re alive,” he yelled.

“Yes, we’re alive,” Vic echoed.

Back on the ship, crew and passengers were in deep mourning for Vic and Jon, who were presumed lost at sea. Jonathan and Emily Endicott and their two daughters disembarked in Algiers and took a return steamer home. The ceremonies for the opening of the Suez Canal proceeded without them.

They returned home devastated by sorrow, and nothing was ever the same. Emily’s health began to fail, and she died two years after the ill fated voyage. When Emily died, Jonathan had no will to live, and he succumbed less than a year after Emily’s death. Before he died, he sold his plantation to Martin, the son of his late friend, and next door neighbor, Christopher Dorchester. Christopher had died of a stroke not a fortnight after learning of his son’s death. Amy and Mary returned to England to live with their mother’s sister and her husband.

Four years after the death of her first husband, Amy remarried. She bore two sets of twins within the first four years of marriage. The first set were boys whom she named Jonathan and Victor. The second set were girls whom she named Emily and Victoria.

Three short months after Amy remarried, Mary married Amy’s husband’s cousin. The two families lived in adjoining town homes in London. Amy’s busy role as a wife and mother helped her tolerate her terrible loss to a great extent. In time she thought of Victor less and less.

To be continued...

Posted: 12/31/10