Found: Fiction: Survivor of a ship wreck is hunted by people who intentionally sank his ship using beacons and a ghost story.
Original topic subject: Fiction: Survivor of a ship wreck is hunted by people who intentionally sank his ship using beacons and a ghost story.
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1swnhalo
I read this book about 12 years ago, but I’m not sure how much older than that the book actually is. It was filed in my school library as a grade 8 (age 12-13) reading level. The book is set in an era before widespread electricity, and traditional wooden boats with tall masts and large sails still rule the seas.
The protagonist is a boy who is on a boat when the book begins. The boat mysteriously ship wrecks on an island one night when a beacon of some kind led it off course, he’s the only survivor. Shortly after regaining consciousness he comes upon a shoreline town, in which he is pursued by a character I remember being referred to as Stumps, a man with no legs who moved around on his hands. Stumps wants to kill the boy because secretly, he and mysterious group are responsible for the ship wreck, having used the beacons seen that night to guide the boat into a cliff. They’ve claimed the cargo of many boats using this method, and their actions are covered up by a local ghost story. However, with the protagonist being a member of the ships crew and still alive, he has legal claim to the ships cargo, and is thus hunted by this mysterious group. Eventually the protagonist is aided by a local girl who lives with her father outside of town. On one of the roads from the girls home to town, there is a body of a man chained up on posts as punishment for some crime. His body is described as being particularly gnarled and decayed, and at one point while passing along on the road, the protagonist imagines that the body comes down off its posts to pursue him. I never finished this book so I can not provide details of its conclusion.
The protagonist is a boy who is on a boat when the book begins. The boat mysteriously ship wrecks on an island one night when a beacon of some kind led it off course, he’s the only survivor. Shortly after regaining consciousness he comes upon a shoreline town, in which he is pursued by a character I remember being referred to as Stumps, a man with no legs who moved around on his hands. Stumps wants to kill the boy because secretly, he and mysterious group are responsible for the ship wreck, having used the beacons seen that night to guide the boat into a cliff. They’ve claimed the cargo of many boats using this method, and their actions are covered up by a local ghost story. However, with the protagonist being a member of the ships crew and still alive, he has legal claim to the ships cargo, and is thus hunted by this mysterious group. Eventually the protagonist is aided by a local girl who lives with her father outside of town. On one of the roads from the girls home to town, there is a body of a man chained up on posts as punishment for some crime. His body is described as being particularly gnarled and decayed, and at one point while passing along on the road, the protagonist imagines that the body comes down off its posts to pursue him. I never finished this book so I can not provide details of its conclusion.
2InfoQuest
This sounds like The Wreckers by Iain Lawrence, set in the 1790s and about a 14-year-old boy who survives the wreck of his father's ship off the coast of a Cornish village that practices wrecking (scavenging shipwrecks, but in this case also causing them). I haven't read it and so can't speak to the details, but some of the chapter titles include "The Legless Man" and "Wrapped in Chains."
