Shipwrecked!

By Ernie Koepf

This is a true tale of survival from 1899. Shipwrecked in a typhoon, Hjalmar Johnson survived on a raft for 45 days, walked across
South Africa during the Boer War and battled the elements of the Southern Ocean around the Horn. Written with scenes and dialogue, Koepf presents a captivating tale you will not want to put down. Hardship and adversity are overcome in this story, a testament to the hardiness of men in this age of sail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350915228

Book preview

THE WALK

Scene 12

(the men walk off the pier and discover railroad tracks, which they believe is good fortune. Trudging along the tracks in the moonlight.)

Hjalmar; There! The tracks! Follow these to Cape Town!

Einar: Mebbe so, they lead to the south all right, out of this town for sure.

Torgny: These will suit our purpose for now, all right.

Einar: Go before they awake. Follow the tracks.

Torgny: And may God be with us.

Einar: Aye, in a Godless land.

Narrator: Certainly, in this land of few railroads, this must be the one that goes to Cape Town, we thought. Guided by the bright moon, we were promptly on our way. A train had obviously passed recently, for in either side of the tracks and strewn for miles were scrap pieces of tin plate stampings that had fallen from the heaped railroad cars. In their glittering reflection in the moonlight, it added a weird perspective to the landscape. Ahead of us appeared a scintillating, brightly lit avenue fading off in isometric dimension into distant pinpoints of light. We trudged on.

Einar: The tin still has its sheen, not a bit of rust.

Torgny: Aye, so?

Einar: Recently fallen of the train, I suppose.

Torgny: Aye.

Hjalmar: We need water if this is our lot.

Einar: Will we find water along the tracks- Trains need water too.

Torgny: We need a train to answer for our sorry lot, that is what we need in this desert.

Hjalmar: If we find the blackamoors before we find the water, it’s hard use by them we will get.

Torgny: Aye.

Narrator: Dawn broke over the eastern ocean and as the sun burned through the coolness of morning, we continued without pausing to eat or drink, for drink we had not. There was no letup in our pace through the heat of the day and by the afternoon, we could have walked ten miles. Ahead of us, becoming more clearly visible as we neared, rose a large sandbank completely covering the tracks. As we climbed over it and stood on the rise, as far as could be seen were endless drifts of sand…only here and there showing the two parallel threads of the track. There was only one possible conclusion: The bits of scrap had lain there without rain for years without rusting; and this was an abandoned railroad.

Scene 13A

(standing atop a sand dune, discovery, and walking back)

Einar: Where are the tracks, Lord help us! Nothing but sand, no railcars and now no tracks! These tracks are abandoned! They are like skeletons in the desert!

Torgny: We will be the next skeletons in this desert. We must go back, there is nothing for us here.

Einar: There is no choice left for us, we must turn around.

Hjalmar: Can we make it with no water between us?

Einar: Lad, there is just no other way to go about it, water or no, we must go back.

Torgny: The lord wandered in the desert, Moses wandered in the desert, we will wander in the desert. Lord have mercy.

Narrator: Wearily we turned back and at dusk were again at the outskirts of Port Elizabeth; thirsty, hungry, and footsore. We cut a tangent away from the track and the town across the barren, sterile ground and in time reached a well-traveled, dusty road. As we plodded along, off in the distance a black object appeared moving toward us. To avoid detection, we leaped into a ditch by the roadside and in a few moments, the beating of hoofs on the earth announced the approach of a carriage. It was indeed a fancy livery drawn by two horses with the black coachman in gold braid sitting up forward and the coach itself filled with ladies in fancy dress. Both the coachman and the occupants gave us a fleeting look…the coach flew by with scarcely a pause in speed.

Scene 13B

(hiding in a ditch as a coach goes by, thirsty)

Narrator: By this time, we were so thirsty we could hardly swallow. We debated our ability to survive under such an environment. We considered turning toward town and accepting the consequences of our desertion.

Hjalmar: I feared it would come to this, no water, no food, in this desert; Luck has abandoned us.

Einar: Aye, God has abandoned us …abandoned us to the Devil below.

Torgny: Then the Devil be merciful.

Einar: There will be no mercy from the Devil, I grant ye that.

Torgny: And there will be scant mercy from a shore gang if they get hold of us. It’s the King’s Bench for sure and three years of hard labor.

Hjalmar: It might be better treatment than what the desert has in store.

Einar: I will not be serving the articles in prison with untold abuse; I’ll not be in those cruel hands.

Torgny: Then we must walk.

Hjalmar: Someone will pity our wretched state. Someone must.

Torgny; Grant we find pity before we find death and perish here.

Einar: Walk then: we must walk.

Narrator: The carriage traffic became heavier and from convenient ditches by the roadside, we saw the white masters with their colored coachmen pass as we crouched in the brambles that filled the gullies. It could have been five miles from town before we met our first Samaritan…a kindly old Englishman who took us now to his store, his bungalow; he gave us all the water we could drink and opened several tins of sardines…the contents of which we devoured with crackers-and more water! He cautioned us to be on the lookout for blue uniformed men riding along slowly on horseback. These were the mounted police.

Scene 14

(bedraggled travelers’ approach, Englishman. He motions the three men inside the house)

Hjalmar: Please sir, take pity-water for the love of God! (Hjalmar pleads on knees)

Englishman: Come on now, look at you poor wretched boy. Get inside before they pick you up for sure.

(all go inside little house; 3 men ravenously eat and drink) Are you deserters now? How didja’ come to be in such a wretched