Shipwrecked with Mr. Wrong Read Online Free PDF Page B

four years. ‘Sure. It’s not far from the turtle nests.’
    He craned upwards, towards the direction she’d indicated and his eyes glittered. ‘Show me?’
    They were such simple words, but so eagerly uttered. His excitement was infectious. How long had it been since she got excited about anything? Four years? Longer? Shenodded and started to crawl backwards, away from the birds. He copied, reverse commando crawling into the cover of trees. He definitely looked better doing it than she did.
    Five minutes had them emerging on the beach on the far side of the tiny island. Honor turned left and wandered along a shoreline more pristine than the northern one—impossibly so—but the lagoon on this side was shallower, electric-blue and mesmerising.
    Rob stared out to sea where the
Emden
must have once listed on the outer reef. Weathered timbers grew out of the sand up ahead and Honor touched him on the arm and nodded in their direction. He followed her gaze then, almost reverently, moved towards the memorial. She approached, more respectfully, catching some of his awe.
    This is special to him.
    There it stood in all its simplicity, two uprights and a cross timber engraved with the words
SMS EMDEN.
At its base, the green-tinged remains of some metal part of the vessel. To Honor it looked like sea rubbish, but she could see it meant something very different to Rob. He squatted and ran a feather-light hand over the corroded green surface, his fingers dancing over every contour as though it were Braille. She tore her eyes away, overwhelmed by a sudden image of those longgraceful fingers learning the shapes of her own flesh.
    Her pulse surged.
    ‘What happened here?’ She knew the basics but wanted to hear him tell it—desperately wanted to put things back on a surer footing— and nothing slowed her pulse quite as much as military history.
    ‘During the First World War, Australia’s
HMAS Sydney
responded to a distress call from Direction Island. The Cocos cluster was a strategic communications base because of its proximity between Indonesia and Australia. When the
Sydney
arrived, she encountered the German
SMS Emden
sitting offshore readying an attack.’
    He moved around the memorial, checking out every angle. As though it were more than just a couple of whacked together timbers. A whole lot more. His blue eyes glowed vibrantly and Honor found herself focusing more on that than on the artefacts around them. His large hands got in on the act, waving in space, painting an imaginary scene, independent of the man telling the story. They became the punctuation for his hypnotic voice.
    ‘The
Emden
was a beast of a machine, even though she was a light cruiser. She’d scuttled hundreds of enemy vessels in her time. Then she just disappeared from known watersuntil she turned up here, right on Australia’s doorstep.’
    The first flash of interest in the wreck she’d ignored for four years sparked through her. She had no ear for maritime history but found herself completely captivated by his low, engaging voice. Did he know what a magical storyteller he was?
    ‘It was a short, brutal battle and
Emden’s
captain ran his own ship hard onto the reef to avoid it being captured by the enemy.’
    Honor got the distinct feeling he’d forgotten she was even there, was telling the story for himself. He stared out to the reef, where the massive battleship must have run aground a century before. As he did, she imagined a shimmer on the horizon where the giant grey behemoth would have rocked dangerously on the edge of the precious atoll.
    Oh, the coral,
a tiny voice despaired. ‘What happened to the crew?’
    ‘Most died in the fire-fight with the
Sydney.
Some in the grounding, some were captured by the Australians, but some.’ he turned and looked at the tropical paradise behind him ‘… some escaped capture and hid on the island, only to die of thirst because of the absence of fresh water. Their skeletons were found a year later,