Runners Up

THE MYSTERY OF THE JACOBITES LAST STAND

 

It was impossible to cook right now. The sea was swelling into a storm. The waves were breaking angrily onto the ship and the strong wind was making it heel. He was supposed to be making the captains dinner. The ship swayed back and forth; he was certain that the ship was going down. He could hear the shouting voices of men from the deck above. The soup pot tipped. That was it - he ran to the hold, broke the seal of a wooden casket with an axe. He filled his pouch with all the gold coins he could carry.

Suddenly - CRASH!

He was thrown to the floor.

He scrambled through the darkness, he could feel water starting to fill his boots.

As he emerged onto the deck he grabbed onto a mast.

Then it was just the wetness and turmoil of the sea.

He was being tossed and turned wildly through the ferocious waves of Loch Nan Uamh. It felt an age of clutching onto a spar of the sinking ship. By some miracle the gale force winds battered him to the golden sand on the shore of Samalaman Beach. He was exhausted and barely able to drag himself away from the unmerciful Loch. He slumped amidst a rocky nook only to find that he fell into slumber straight away.

Nicolas was a sailor on board the now sunken Le Juno that had been part of the shipment of the Spanish gold livres along with the ships Le Mars and La BelIona in April 1746 to support Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite’s.

He woke with a start. Nicolas could hear children nearby. He hid deeper in the rocks. The children were coming closer. Suddenly they stopped. There were two of them.

"Aonghas," said Sìne.

"Ssh, Tha e beò," (He's alive) whispered Aonghas.

Nicolas thought 'was this the language of the Jacobites?' He was cold, his body ached, and he could not speak. The girl took off her shawl and wrapped it around him and ran away. The boy stayed close by and watched over him. The children were talking Gaelic, a language that he did not know.

The girl, Sìne and what appeared to be her mother returned a while later. They wiped his bleeding face and gave him some water, though he struggled to drink. He smiled weakly and closed his eyes.

Nicolas had died.

Aonghas, Sìne and their mother were Jacobites in hiding. Sìne bent down to retrieve her shawl and underneath Nicolas she saw the pouch and a glimmer of gold. "Oh! SeaII seo, buinn òir!" (Oh! Look here, gold coins!).

They all dragged Nicolas to a nearby field. They buried him, leaving a handful of the gold coins in his pouch and made a small cairn in his memory. Would the gold coins that they took bring them happiness?

Carys Rodgers, 11

TREASURE ON DOLLAR COVE

 

Diego knew he was going to die. The year was 1669, and a storm raged like a bull around his ship, the San Salvador, as the white-crested waves foamed and frothed on the inky black sea. The rocks ahead rose out of the depths like knives glinting ominously in the gloom. It was just a matter of time before the ship was thrown onto those granite daggers and torn to shreds. The ship's cargo of hundreds of silver dollars had already been thrown overboard by the sailors in an attempt to save the ship, but as Diego stood paralysed by fear, his eye caught a glimmer of silver. Reaching out, Diego picked up the coin and clutched it in his fist as he whispered "I hoped you would bring good luck to my family in Spain but if you can't be lucky for me please bring fortune to another family like mine". Seconds later the ship crashed onto the rocks and exploded in a burst of splintering wood. Diego was never seen again.

James scuffed his broken trainers angrily along the sand of Dollar Cove as he thought about his mum and dad arguing yet again about how they were going to pay the rent for their cottage opposite the beach. James didn't want to move, he had lived in the wild and rugged Cornish bay his whole life, and it just wasn't fair that his father's fishing boat wasn't bringing in enough money anymore. All his family needed was a bit of good luck.

James kicked a limpet off the rocks in fury, as he climbed up the boulders at the side of the beach. The vivid colours of the anemones caught his attention and he began to explore the rockpools as he had done a thousand times before. Green and red seaweeds floated gently in the calm little pools which were so unlike the churning waves of the sea that matched the turbulence of his heart. He crouched down to look closely at a crab sheltering in a tiny rockpool cave, and as James reached into the water to try and pick it up, he sent the crab scuttling sideways to reveal the sparkle of a shiny silver coin. With a trembling hand he scooped up the coin, and stared down at it in disbelief. Everyone had heard the legend of the San Salvador and it's lost cargo of silver dollars, but could this really be one of the last remaining precious coins to be uncovered? Wiping it against his torn sleeve, James knew instantly that it was one of the ancient Spanish dollars - it was identical to the photos he had seen at school and he grinned with happiness at the realisation that this would save his family. As he looked out at the jagged granite rocks and breathed "thank you" to the sea, he was certain he heard a faint answer "buena suerte" from across the centuries on the whispering wind.

Joseph Knights, 10

THE MYSTERY OF THE LADY LOUISE

 

The Lady Louise was the finest cargo ship of its time. Captain Jenkins was very proud to be the captain of such a prestigious vessel. He travelled across oceans, delivering precious cargo to faraway lands. But on the night of 4th July 1773, the ship and her crew found themselves in a storm of such magnitude, they had never experienced anything like it. Lightning flashed, waves the size of mountains crashed down on the deck. As Captain Jenkins endeavoured to steer the ship out of danger, a colossal wave crashed onto the boat, causing the mast of the main sail to collapse. This was the last moment that Captain Jenkins recalled before the world went black.

Two hundred and fifty years later, the Johns family were enjoying their summer holiday by the sea. They had bought nets for the children, Chloe and Jack, from a small shop on the high street and strolled down the steep hill to the pebble beach. The tide was out, exposing lots of interesting rockpools. They went to explore, finding crabs and mussel shells, together with bits of plastic that had drifted back with the tide. Amongst the seaweed, at the bottom of the rockpool, they caught a glimmer of gold.

They used their nets and spades to move the seaweed, and that's when they saw it. A golden sovereign. Excitedly, they worked their way from one rockpool to the next, finding six gold sovereigns in total! Exploring the last rockpool, Chloe gave an excited yelp! A huge cave lay before them. It was deep and dark, but she was too excited to be scared, too curious to think about turning back. Jack had noticed it too; he was already sprinting towards it. As they got to the cave's mouth, they saw the impossible. In the shallow waters of the huge cavern, they had found the final resting place of the Lady Louise. Eager to explore, they climbed up onto the barnacled deck.

There was no sign of the ship's captain and crew, Chloe speculated that they had been washed overboard. The only inhabitants now consisted of sea life and cave bats. The deck was rotten and battered so they trod carefully towards the helm of the ship. A broken doorway led them to the captain's cabin, there they found the source of the gold. An old wooden chest, toppled on its side, spilling gold sovereigns across the deck. As Jack started filling his pockets with coins, Chloe stopped him. The gold belonged to the Lady Louise and its long-lost crew. She took the six coins they had found in the rockpools and dropped them into the pile by the chest. Carefully, they climbed down and made their way out of the cave, back into the sunshine.

On the beach, their parents were waiting. "Find anything exciting?" asked their dad.

"Just some old things the sea has washed in," said Chloe and winked at Jack. The Lady Louise was safe to rest in peace.

Harriet Kinch, 10

EXPLORING DESTINY

 

Many years ago, a famous pirate ship sailed the vicious seas until the day it sank. Since then, no one had ever found it, not even the greatest and most determined explorers.

This is how Alice came to be searching the seas in her trusty dinghy. Alice came from a family of celebrated and brave explorers. She always wore a gold chain with a round pendant embossed with a ship. The necklace was a treasured family heirloom, passed from generation to generation.

Old maps had revealed their secrets to Alice – she had a rough idea of the location of the shipwreck. The blazing white light from the towering lighthouse had blinded Alice’s eyes and caused her to crash against the rocky shore. Strangely Alice felt that somehow this was meant to have happened. Arriving at the heavy, wooden lighthouse door Alice stopped. It was open she called out warily “Hello. Is anyone there?” There was no response.

Stepping cautiously inside the pitch-black room, Alice grappled for the light switch. Click! The room lit up like a match bursting into flame. There in front of her stood a small wooden table. Scattered all over the table top, glittering gold caught Alice’s eyes and winked at her. As Alice approached the table, the golden treasure showed itself to be coins bearing the same ship as her pendant. Beneath the coins lay a map- Old, torn and bronzed. Instantly, Alice knew where this map would lead her. Was it her imagination? Or was her golden heirloom glow ever so slightly around her neck.

Back in her dinghy, poised ready to dive into the crystal clear, turquoise waters, Alice felt a strange sensation of excitement and dread. She had a lot to live up to. Her necklace seemed to pulsate in time with her heart.

Seconds later, Alice was swimming down and down, her arms and legs cutting through the water like a sword. The necklace throbbed against her chest. And then, out of nowhere, there it was. The shipwreck.

The once-proud and courageous ship was now reduced to a mere fragile skeleton, draped with seaweed and creeping coral. Vibrant coloured fish darted in and out of the crumbling bones. Alice stopped suddenly. The necklace’s throbbing increased. Like a bullet from a gun, a shining streak of light shot forth from the pendant. Simultaneously a small, sealed metal chest slowly rose from the wreckage, caught in the blazing beam.

Like two opposite poles Alice and the mysterious chest were drawn towards each other. As Alice grasped the cold, hard metal with trembling hands, the lid sprang open like a spring out of a box, uncovering golden coins, photos and a ships log. Golden coins embossed with the pendant’s ship. Photos of unknown faces resembling Alice herself. The log captured the ships adventures.

An explosion of thoughts and realisation flooded through Alice’s brain: her family, her exploration, and finally, her destiny.

Isla Antao-Davis, 11

THE SMITHS OF SHIPWRECK ISLAND

 

Far away in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, lies a tiny spec of an island. So tiny in fact, that this rugged rock appears almost invisible. If it weren't for its glinting peculiar inhabitants, the astronauts on board the International Space Station would never have stumbled upon them let alone brought them to the attention of overhead satellites. But as fate would have it, these unique creatures, sealed off from the rest of the world for centuries, were now mesmerising the scientific world with their craftsmanship. How did a cluster of hermit crabs become the only creatures ever known other than humans to smelt metals and fashion shells made of gold and silver? Since the discovery, scientists have been puzzled by the creative nature of such simple crustaceans.

The strong currents and treacherous hidden rocks surrounding the little island had its disadvantages that's for sure. Sea snail shells rarely washed up and the hermit crab inhabitants had to make use of whatever they could find. The crabs would beachcomb their way around the coastline, searching through the usual sea debris of seaweeds, cuttlefish bones, dead pieces of coral, sometimes dead seabirds but often plastic trash in recent years. But from time to time something fantastic would happen. A big cyclone would stir up the ocean depths, sending a fury of treasures from submerged shipwrecks from long ago. Amongst the old pieces of timber that were strewn across the sand, would lay hundreds of shiny metal coins. Silver reales and gold doubloons, pearls and pretty gems, broken pottery and strips of fabric would pepper the beaches.

The scientists guess that the crabs discovered smelting by accident when molten lava from beneath the tiny island, rose up through cracks in the rocks and melted handfuls of coins that had been resting on top. Somehow after that, the crabs taught themselves how to melt the coins into shell-like dwellings. Now when the sun shines brightly overhead, the hermit crabs of Shipwreck Island dazzle for miles around. Bright flashes of light bounce off their gleaming shells as they go about their day.

Who would have imagined that the precious cargo of those magnificent merchant ships of the 17th and 18th centuries, lost beneath the waves so long ago, would see the light of day once again. Their stormy stricken voyages from South America or India would prove to be very happy accidents for the homeless hermit crabs of Shipwreck Island.

Theo Whittingham, 11