Chapter 163: The Mysterious Ship

The southeastern part of the island had some coconut trees, but the transmigrators had grown tired of the coconuts recently shipped back from Yulin, so they had no interest in this meager resource. The island was overgrown with grass and shrubs, and the white sandy beaches had a tropical island feel, though they were littered with various types of seaweed washed ashore. Some of it had economic value, but the island was too far from Lin’gao to be of practical use.

Bai Guoshi and a few others searched for guano as they walked, and they soon found a thick accumulation of it by the lagoon. In the spring and autumn, large numbers of migratory birds would stop here. Over the years, their droppings had formed a massive deposit of guano, estimated at six hundred thousand tons on Dongsha Island.

It was summer now, and only seagulls and other seabirds were present by the lagoon. The air smelled of fish. It began to rain, and Bai Guoshi put on the hood of his windbreaker. It was the rainy season on the Dongsha Islands.

“This is it,” Bai Guoshi said, knocking off a piece with his hammer and confirming its identity. “This is the stuff. Break it off.”

The sailors, marines, and the specially assigned laborers for this mining operation all braved the rain and landed on Dongsha Island, beginning to quarry the guano by hand.

The guano was not very hard and was easy to mine. The quarried ore was loaded into rattan baskets and transported to the Zhenhai. The birds resting by the lagoon were disturbed by the commotion and took to the sky, circling and squawking.

Bai Guoshi and Gao Xiaosong, who had come along to survey, conducted an inspection of the island. Gao Xiaosong was very interested in Dongsha Island, but for different reasons than Bai Guoshi. He was more concerned with its strategic location.

The Dongsha Islands are located at a crucial point on the international shipping routes from East Asia to the Indian Ocean and to Asia, Africa, and Australia. The shipping lanes from Guangzhou and Hong Kong to Manila or Kaohsiung in Taiwan pass through the nearby waters, making it of great maritime significance. In the 20th century, a weather station and a lighthouse had been established here. The Maritime Forces Department had long considered the island as a stepping stone to Taiwan and had a strong interest in it. Chen Haiyang had specifically assigned Gao Xiaosong to survey the area.

The two men walked through the rain and found fishermen’s huts and drying racks along the way. It was summer, and the fishermen had all returned to the mainland, leaving the island deserted.

“A well!” Gao Xiaosong exclaimed.

Not far away, there was indeed the stone railing of a well.

“It’s useless,” Bai Guoshi shook his head. “A coral island like this can’t hold fresh water. There’s fresh water in the sand layer, but it’s easily contaminated by seawater. The water in the well is probably less salty than the sea, and you could probably survive on it in a pinch.”

“What a pity,” Gao Xiaosong said with regret. “I’d heard there were wells on Dongsha Island…”

“I don’t think any of the South China Sea islands have usable freshwater resources, except for Yongxing Island,” Bai Guoshi said. “If you want to have a permanent presence, you either have to install a desalination plant or build a rainwater harvesting system. The rainy season here is not short, and a large amount of rainwater can be stored.”

“If fresh water is so scarce, it’s impossible to have a permanent presence without some construction first,” Gao Xiaosong assessed the situation on Dongsha Island. “The island is large enough, but there’s no harbor for ships to anchor. It’s inconvenient for personnel to come and go. At most, it can serve as a temporary rest stop on the way to Taiwan.”

“Look!” Bai Guoshi suddenly shouted, tugging on Gao Xiaosong’s arm.

“What is it?” Gao Xiaosong was startled. What was all the fuss about? There was nothing dangerous on Dongsha Island.

“What is that?!” Bai Guoshi’s finger pointed to the sea southeast of the island.

On the seemingly empty sea, there was a strange triangular iron frame, barely a meter above the water. It was only visible at low tide, and with the rising and falling waves, it was not easy to spot without looking carefully.

Gao Xiaosong squinted and felt a sense of familiarity.

“It looks like the mast of a small boat…” Gao Xiaosong hesitated. He was a former coast guard, and this was a familiar sight. It was a typical tripod mast from an ocean-going fishing boat.

A chill ran down their spines. Where would such a mast come from in this era? Gao Xiaosong had already drawn his pistol.

“Don’t panic,” he said in a low voice. “There’s no one on the island, and there’s nowhere to hide. Let’s go and have a look.”

“Alright, alright—”

Gao Xiaosong first called Lin Chuanqing on the walkie-talkie, telling him there might be a situation on the island and to keep an eye on the surroundings.

“What’s the situation?” Lin Chuanqing was taken aback.

“It’s not clear yet. Bai Guoshi and I are going to investigate.”

“Alright, be careful.”

“I’ll fire a shot to signal if there’s trouble,” Gao Xiaosong said, scanning the area. “We’re heading to the southeastern tip of the island.”

“Understood.”

The two men cautiously walked to the cape closest to the iron frame. The area was covered with jagged coral reef pebbles that extended into the sea. The iron frame was about seventy or eighty meters from the cape, within the atoll. It was clearer now. Apart from being rusty and missing some components, it was a tripod mast from a ship.

Gao Xiaosong strained to see into the water. There seemed to be a faint shadow of a ship on the reef flat. Because of the rain and the strong wind, the water was not very clear, and he couldn’t see it well.

“There seems to be a ship under the water,” Gao Xiaosong concluded.

“What… what… what’s going on…” Bai Guoshi’s teeth were chattering. It was obvious that in 1629, neither the Ming dynasty nor the Europeans had ships with such masts.

“Did you lose or have any ships go missing during your operation?” Gao Xiaosong had been tricked onto the Fengcheng by his suspicious wife and still knew very little about the entire operation.

“No,” Bai Guoshi said with certainty. “We didn’t lose a single ship when we passed through the wormhole. They are all docked at Bopu Port, not one less.”

“That’s strange—” Gao Xiaosong naturally understood the gravity of the situation. If this was indeed a 20th-century modern fishing boat, then besides them, someone else not from this era had arrived.

The rain grew heavier, accompanied by a strong east wind. The waves surged, crashing against the cape. The two men stood there, at a loss.

“Should we report to the Executive Committee immediately?”

“Not yet,” Gao Xiaosong said, composing himself and wiping the rain from his face. “Let’s find a place to shelter from the rain first and talk to Captain Lin. We need to discuss what to do. We can’t just report that there’s a tripod mast.”

“Alright, I’ll listen to you,” Bai Guoshi said loudly. The two men returned from the cape. There was no shelter on the island, so they had to run to a fisherman’s shed to take cover. The shed was full of holes, but it was better than nothing. The heavy rain interfered with the walkie-talkie, so they had to wrap themselves in their windbreakers and wait for the rain to stop.

Bai Guoshi looked at the torrential rain outside the shed and the surging waves on the sea, and a sense of fear crept into his heart.

“Instructor Gao,”—Gao Xiaosong had been a coast guard instructor, and everyone respectfully called him that—”do you think the people from the ship are still on the island?”

“Dongsha Island is not that small, but there’s nowhere to hide,” Gao Xiaosong said. “We didn’t see any fresh signs of human activity on our way here. They should be gone.” He then tried to comfort Bai Guoshi. “Maybe it’s not a ship at all.”

“I hope so,” Bai Guoshi muttered, his heart pounding with anxiety. He would rather face a group of pirates from this era than an unregistered transmigrator. If such a person were to appear before him now, he would not hesitate to shoot him in the head, and then empty the rest of the clip into him—regardless of whether the person was a man, woman, or child, Chinese or foreign.

“Don’t worry too much. Even if it is a ship, it might just be an empty one that was accidentally sucked into the wormhole,” Gao Xiaosong said, seeing his excessive nervousness and near-hysteria.

“Our transit point was in the Qionzhhou Strait, but this is Dongsha Island.”

“Well,” Gao Xiaosong said, wringing the rainwater from his clothes, “perhaps it was some kind of spatiotemporal disturbance…”

After the rain stopped, Lin Chuanqing was called to the island. After hearing Gao Xiaosong’s report, he was taken to the cape to see the strange iron frame.

Lin Chuanqing’s face turned pale. “I’m familiar with this kind of mast… It’s commonly used on ocean-going fishing vessels on the west coast of the United States.”

“So it might be an American ship?”

“Very likely,” Lin Chuanqing said. He had been an American fisherman, so his words were credible. “If only we could get a closer look. The water isn’t deep, is it?”

“About 8 meters,” Gao Xiaosong said.

“We could just dive down and have a look,” Lin Chuanqing said, though he looked hesitant. A depth of 8 meters was nothing for him or Gao Xiaosong; they could do it in one breath without any diving equipment. The problem was the sharks leisurely swimming everywhere. He didn’t have the courage to swim with them.

“The Planning Committee warehouse seems to have diving equipment, as well as shark-proof suits, shark repellent, and so on, but we don’t have any on the Zhenhai.”

The three men discussed the matter and decided to first conduct a thorough search of the entire Dongsha Island. If the people from the ship were still on the island, they would find them.

“There should be no one on the island,” Gao Xiaosong said. “But just in case.”

Whether they found anyone or not, the situation had to be kept under wraps. No one else on the Zhenhai was to be informed. After they finished mining the guano, they would report directly to the Executive Committee.

He ordered the guano mining to be suspended and the entire ship to go on high alert. Sentries were posted at every corner of the Zhenhai, and then a thorough search of the island began.

“If you find anyone, try to capture them alive,” Gao Xiaosong ordered.