Wreckers Island (romantic suspense) (7 page)

Dan’s torch beam swept in all directions. ‘Don’t come in,’
he warned. ‘In case another tunnel leads off it, we must not lose our sense of
direction.’

The others stayed put in the entrance.
Somewhat to his disappointment, Dan saw no sign of smuggled goods, let alone
any abandoned treasure lying about.

‘Let’s keep going,’ suggested Dan, rejoining
them. ‘Remember that the diary entries I translated talked about two caves, one
after the other – a nearer one and one further on. Let’s see if we can find the
other. Of course, most probably, this wasn’t the tunnel the Spanish captain
used, we have to remember that.’

To their relief, the path remained dry and
easy to traverse.

‘Hang on,’ said Dan, aware that he had
nearly walked past another aperture without noticing, on the opposite side. ‘Is
this another cave?’

Again the others stood in the entrance while
he walked in to check. It
was
a cave, slightly bigger than the first. There
seemed to be nothing in there either, until he noticed a big crate of some kind.
It looked old. Dan gasped as the torchlight illuminated it. There was Spanish
writing on the side. It appeared to be marked with the name Santander – that
was a port not far from San Sebastian, where the Providencia had sailed from. Surely,
this was the tunnel that the Spanish captain had used and here was part of his
cargo?

‘What have you found, Dan?’ asked John. ‘Can
we come in if I leave my jumper in the entrance, so we know which way to get
out?’

‘Yes. Come and see what you make of this.’

They stared, fascinated, at the crate. All
that remained was to lift the top and peer inside. It didn’t appear to be
locked.

‘Who would like to be the one to lift the
lid?’ asked Dan.

‘You would. It’s thanks to your detective
work we’ve got this far,’ said John promptly. The others agreed. Dan took a
deep breath and slowly prised open the lid, as gently as he could since he did
not want to damage it.

He groaned. Nothing of value lay inside,
save for what looked like two old wine bottles, both empty and covered in dust.
Dan ran his finger through it in frustration. He got to his feet and shrugged.

‘Oh well, worth a try,’ he said.

Emma rubbed his shoulder, sharing his
disappointment. They felt crushed that their high hopes had come to nothing.

‘Come on,’ said Louise. ‘Let’s get back to the
lighthouse and get that beer we didn’t have earlier. It’s a shame but this treasure
hunt has still been a fun way to spend the afternoon.’

‘Hang on,’ said Dan. ‘Let’s not give up
straightaway. If you recall, the diary said that the ingots and coins were
placed on a natural shelf in a hidden recess in the furthest cave. The first
cave we came to was furthest away to Captain Felipe walking from the shore. On
our way back, we ought to check it thoroughly and see if we have overlooked any
part of it.’

‘Whatever was here will have been plundered,’
said Louise, ‘and you shone your torch round that cave and didn’t find
anything.’

‘I flicked my torch around and it looked
empty. We need to go along the entire perimeter, checking the walls carefully.
It’s a good sign if that shelf Felipe wrote about in his diary is easy to miss
– that means there’s still a chance that whatever he put there has never been
discovered.’

It was with low expectations that they
returned to the first cave. They walked round it, running their hands over the
smooth, cold walls. Suddenly, John seemed to disappear into thin air.

‘Hey John, where are you?’ shouted Dan,
alarmed, flashing his torch around the cave.

‘I’m here,’ called John. Dan walked over in
the direction of his voice, still unable to see him. He found himself stepping
into a gap behind what was effectively a false wall – a natural rocky barrier
beyond which the cave extended several feet further.

‘Where are you both?’ shouted Emma, alarmed
that Dan had also disappeared.

‘Don’t worry girls,’ came John’s muffled
voice. ‘The cave is actually much bigger than we thought, there’s a hidden
recess and we’re having a quick look inside it.’

‘Let us come in there too,’ replied Emma,
anxiously.

John shone the torch through the gap so the
girls could follow the beam.

‘Look Dan,’ said John, turning to him. ‘See
how the wall appears to recede up there, with about a two-foot gap to the
roof?’

Dan nodded. He stretched out his arm but the
gap was beyond reach.

‘Let me give you a leg up,’ said John, ‘and
you might be able to clamber up.’

After a couple of attempts, John managed to
propel Dan onto what turned out to be a natural shelf in the rock. He just
about had room to crouch. John had put both their torches on the ground during
these acrobatics, and Dan was in virtual darkness, feeling more than a little
uneasy.

John reached and passed up his torch. Dan took
it, grateful for the welcome light, and swung its beam into the shelf which
went back a surprisingly long way.

‘Hey, there’s a wooden chest,’ shouted Dan.
‘I’m about to try and open it. But don’t get your hopes up!’

A couple of agonisingly long minutes passed
as the others waited impatiently below. They fell silent, save for the thump,
thump, thump of their hearts, aching to know what was inside.

There before 20-year-old Daniel Delaurier was
a carved oak chest reinforced with a studded metal trim. With the torch in one
hand he gingerly flicked back its iron catches and attempted to lift the domed
lid.

It wouldn’t budge. It was locked, of course.
Dan felt for the Swiss Army knife he kept in his back pocket. He inserted a
small blade behind the ornate escutcheon plate. Weakened by the passage of
time, it prised away quite easily. He jabbed the knife tip into the locking
mechanism and, with a combination of wiggling, brute force and good luck, managed
to push back the bolt. The lid lifted easily. At first, Dan could hardly bear to
look inside. Quite possibly, there would be nothing to see. He braced himself
for further disappointment.

The sight before him, lit by his torch, made
him dizzy.

Gold coins! Silver coins! Gold ingots! Countless
hundreds of them. The dormant beauty of mankind’s most precious and prized
metals awoke after more than two centuries in darkness. The ingots smouldered a
subtle yellow but the coins yelled cheerfully at the light, as sweetly bright
as the day they were minted.

‘My God,’ exclaimed Dan. ‘This is simply
amazing!’

‘What is it Dan, what have you found,’
shouted the others.

Dan put his hands in the chest and scooped
out as much as he could hold.

A few seconds later, the silhouette of his
head and shoulders could be seen in the dim light.

‘John,’ cried Dan, ‘shine your torch in my direction.’

John aimed the beam at Dan who crouched on
the edge of the shelf, his palms overflowing with the priceless metal.

John flashed the torch at Louise and Emma to
gauge their reaction. They both stood dumbstruck, eyes wide, mouths agape,
clutching each other in astonishment.

‘There is a fortune here,’ Dan called down.
‘An absolute fortune. Heaps and heaps of gold and silver coins and ingots. To
think this has lain undiscovered for 230 years!’

Dan reverently returned what he had taken to
the chest. He gazed in wonder at it all. He noticed that some of the silver
coinage had been cut into triangular segments, like slices of pizza. It puzzled
him – why chop up a coin, wouldn’t that destroy its value? Perhaps not, being
silver.

On the heads of several was the bust of an
impressive, Roman emperor-like figure, similar in style to the English George
I. He picked out a silver coin. The Latin inscription read ‘Carolus III Dei G
1777’. That must mean King Carlos III and – like on British coins – dei gratia,
by the grace of God. It must have been minted in 1777 during Carlos III’s reign.

Dan flipped it over and on its tail was what
looked like an old version of the Spanish coat of arms beneath a crown, with an
R to its left and the number eight to the right. R8? Was that the value of the
coin? If it was Spanish, didn’t they use the word Royals or Reales in those
days as a currency?

He stared again at the cut-up pieces of
silver. Pieces of a coin worth eight Royals – of course, a coin that could be
cut into eight – Pieces of Eight! He trembled as the realisation struck him.
The coins so beloved of pirates and smugglers long ago; the coins immortalised
by Long John Silver’s parrot in Robert Louise Stevenson’s Treasure Island – the
coins right there in front of him!

For a moment, Dan almost expected to hear a
parrot squawk, then to wake from a remarkable dream. But there was no parrot,
and this was no dream. He picked out a gold coin, its near perfect lustre dazzling
under torchlight. It too was from the reign of Carlos III – minted in 1775. Would
this be what they used to call a doubloon?

Dan resisted the temptation to examine the
hoard any further. Now was not the right time. He passed the torch back to John
who helped him get down. The others mobbed him like a footballer who had just
scored a goal, only there was enough gold and silver there to make them richer
than many footballers.

‘Let us spare a thought for the poor sailors
who drowned on board that ship and for their captain Felipe who salvaged this
treasure and stowed it away here so carefully, and who never got to see it
again,’ said Dan, determined not to get carried away.

They paused for a moment or two to reflect
on that, before Emma said, quietly, ‘what happens now?’

‘My suggestion would be that we go back to
the lighthouse and get ourselves properly equipped with powerful torches and
spare batteries and crates for getting the treasure out of here,’ said Dan.

The others agreed. That old chest was
fragile and would crumble under its own weight if they attempted to move it.
And they needed proper lighting. Almost numb with delight at their discovery, they
retraced their steps along the tunnel and climbed the iron rungs into the outbuilding.
John and Dan pushed the shaft cover down but left the removed flagstone where
it was, since they would return soon enough.

As they stepped out of the door of the
outbuilding and walked over the rocky path to the lighthouse, they looked about
them, their eyes blinking in the bright natural light. Astonishingly, the storm
had blown itself out. The wind had vanished. Barely a ripple disturbed the
surface of the sea, nor more than a hint of foam. The water washed over the
rocks around the island with a gentle caress. Fluffy clouds hung in a pale blue
sky and the sun, now heading west, shone benevolently.

‘How unbelievable that the weather could
have cleared up so suddenly,’ said Emma.

‘I told you, that’s what it does round
here,’ said Louise. ‘It’s often different from the weather forecast as well.
Storms spring up from nowhere then suddenly vanish.’

‘Do you know what I fancy?’ added Louise. ‘Now
that the weather has cleared up, why don’t we get the boat out and motor over
to the shore and buy some powerful torches and loads more batteries, and
anything else we need, then how about we go out for a celebration at the pub in
Porthlevnack? There’s a wonderful old inn where smugglers and wreckers used to
gather – and as we’ve just discovered treasure from a shipwreck, I think it
would be the perfect place to celebrate.

‘There’s no need to go back down the tunnel
this evening, is there?’

‘No,’ said John, looking at the sun in the
western sky. ‘In fact, if we are going ashore to get some better torches, which
is a good idea, I would sooner we did leave it until tomorrow. I don’t fancy
heading below ground with the light fading – even though it will be dark down
there anyway.’

The others agreed. It was somehow important
to feel that it was bright daylight outside before revisiting an old, musty
undersea tunnel.

‘The only thing is, I’m not sure if I can
afford to go out for a restaurant meal or anything,’ said Emma, nervously.

‘Emma, don’t be daft – we can all afford it
now, can’t we Dan? Surely that treasure belongs to us as the finders?’ said
Louise.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘at least half of it should.
We can certainly afford the finest food and drink the village has to offer – as
a deserved celebration, I would say. We’ll have to put it on the Visa card for
now of course!’

‘What about lights on the boat if it’s dark
when we come back?’ enquired Emma.

‘We’ll use the torches we’re about to buy,’
pointed out Louise. ‘They don’t have to be red and green for port and
starboard, not on a little boat like this and we’re not going far.’

‘So to put it another way, Emma, stop
worrying!’ said Dan. ‘You’ll not only be able to afford a very good meal
tonight, but you’ll be able to finish the rest of your course without ever
having to worry about money again. This will transform your life.’

Dan looked at Emma with the tenderness which
comes from genuine affection, and to his delight it was reciprocated. Emma
flung her arms round him and hugged him tight.

‘It’s thanks to you, you’re wonderful Dan.
Thank you so much.’

‘Hey give Louise some credit too,’ said
John, grinning, ‘it’s thanks to her that we’re here in the first place.’

‘That’s quite true,’ conceded Emma. ‘But none
of us would have had a clue about that treasure without Dan’s hard work.’

‘Quite so,’ said Louise, ‘I totally agree
with you. Dan’s an absolute hero. Thanks to him we’re rich, rich, yippee!’ she
shouted in delight, jumping from rock to rock.

‘Louise, calm down, sounds carry easily over
water,’ cautioned John.

Dan looked across the now tranquil sea. ‘It’s
wonderful, incredible news, but please let us not forget that this bay is the
graveyard of those sailors who drowned – to whom we owe our good fortune.’