Read Online In The Wreckage: A Tale of Two Brothers by Simon J. Townley - Free Book Online Page A

only got each other, and now you’re not talking.” She drifted towards the door, paused as if she wanted to say something more, but no words came. The door closed softly behind her as she left.  
    Conall went back to his shovelling but the row with his brother still raged in his thoughts. All those years on Shetland, barely a cross word. Always standing by each other, working as a team, because they had no one else.  
    But that had changed. The crew of The Arkady had taken them in. Fed them, protected them, forgiven them for sneaking on board.  
    Stealing the map was wrong. He wouldn’t help Faro. But he couldn’t speak against him either. The argument was only skin deep. There was still blood, tying them together. The bond of family was unbreakable.  
     
    ≈≈≈≈

    Four days later they arrived at Tromsø, one of the old cities of Norway. The town sprawled across an island, connected to the mainland by a long, ancient bridge. The houses were mostly wood, with some of stone and brick and concrete, patched together and mended over the years.
    The crew were free to take shore leave, but the captain issued strict orders: go ashore in groups of four or more, an armed guard on the ship at all times, no straying too far from the dockside, and no drinking. The men grumbled bitterly, but put their hands to getting the ship ready for port.  
    The aloofness between him and Faro had started to thaw, but still they barely spoke. Conall didn’t dare mention the map, or their parents, or what they would do when they reached Svalbard, for risk of starting another fight.
    Once the ship was tied up, Conall found his brother loitering by the forecastle, looking not at the town but towards the sea and the fjord, the endless miles of ocean and rock.  
    He stood behind his brother, looking over his shoulder. “You going ashore? I’m with Mrs Hudson again.”  
    “Sticking with mummy? Or playing the hero?”
    Faro had a skill with cutting words, and over the years Conall had learnt to ignore them, letting them wash past. “Are you going with Jonah?”  
    “I’m staying on board. There’s nothing here but stinking fishwives and men with beards.”  
    Erica called, ready to set off. Conall left his brother staring at the sea, and joined the captain’s wife and her bodyguard of four sailors. Jonah gave handguns to two of them, and the men tucked the weapons away out of sight.  
    Erica put an arm around Conall’s shoulder. “Can’t go without my protector,” she said. He sensed the sailors around them grinning at each other, and knew he’d be teased in the canteen later. “My husband told me not to go ashore. Forbade it. A direct order,” she said. She leant down to whisper to him, conspiratorial. “A lesson in life, young man. Never give a woman a direct order. Especially your wife.”  
    They toured the town, meeting up with the cook and his party, comparing notes on food and supplies. She’d brought silver for trading, a small bag of diamonds, intricate jewellery made of gold and precious stones, along with spices from the far south. She searched out flower shops and vegetable stalls, asking about growing conditions and where they got their stock, how the plants coped with long, dark winters and the kinds of trees that flourished in the hinterland away from the sea. She asked about climate and rainfall and how the grass was doing, about wildflowers and meadows, butterflies and bees.  
    “We need inside knowledge,” she told Conall as they walked along the quayside towards the ship. “These people live above the arctic circle, they know what it’s like. They’ve seen the change. They know how the insects are coping, which plants have survived, which are new to this part of the world.”  
    He paused to let her go in front of him up the gangplank. “You love nature. Why go to Spitsbergen? People say it’s bare, nothing but rocks and ice.”  
    “Not any more,” she said. “Besides. It holds hidden