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~o0o~
How there should have been so many pairs of identical twins on board the S.S. Gemini, nobody knows. Then, neither did anybody ask, because nobody knew that most of the passengers were twins until they had actually boarded. Then, the fact was known only to the passengers, and as the ship was lost at sea, no one ever had the chance to tell anyone at home.
Twin brothers, Tim and Tom Rankle had married respectively twin sisters Julie and Jill, all without one another knowing. Both sets of twins had been separated for some years, and were only reunited on board the S.S. Gemini as it departed from Southampton for New Zealand. The first born of both Rankle families were also twins, and not knowing of the other’s situation, each had named their own twins, Bob and Todd. Moreover, both sets of Bob and Todd were born the same day, and looked like the other set, so that both Bobs and both Todds would have also passed for twins. Their second born were likewise twins — only, girls — all named Milly and Tilly. As were the Bobs and Todds; so were the Millies and Tillies. So you can imagine how utterly amazed the Rankles were at their reunion.
Apart from the Rankle family, there were seven other sets of very identical twins, including two families who boarded the ship during a stop in the Falklands. There was also quite a wide range in their ages. Grissel and Greschen had just finished school, and were hoping to volunteer as teachers in the newly opened settlements of New Zealand. Of the children, the two sets of Bobs and Todds were the eldest, being almost fourteen. The youngest, Bertram and Thurston, were only five. All of this, if it were publicly known, which it wasn’t, would still be thought common if juxtaposed with an even stranger set of incidents: In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, are two islands, called by the local Polynesians, the ‘Twin Islands’, because the landscape and vegetation of both islands were, at the time of our story, identical. When one approached one island, one invariably thought one was approaching the other one, because they looked alike in every way. The islands are just beyond the horizon and out of sight of one another, and both are a great distance away from any other island. The names of the two were Doma and Dtoma. It just so happened that as the S.S. Gemini had sailed into the vicinity of the two islands, a violent storm struck. So violent was the storm that the S.S. Gemini, being only a medium sized frigate, even for that time, began breaking up. The passengers were ordered to flee to the two lifeboats, one on the starboard side, and the other on the port side. However, the call to man the lifeboats was so sudden and urgent that no one had time to lay any plans. All that the parents of each family were able to do was to run to the lifeboats themselves, while calling to their children to do likewise. Tim and Julie rushed to one lifeboat, and Tom and Jill went to the other. However, when they found themselves adrift in their respective lifeboats, each Rankle family had their own Bob, but the other’s Todd; likewise their own Milly but the other’s Tilly. All the parents of the other families went to each lifeboat with only one twin each, the other having scrambled to the other life boat with the other parent. These parents, then, went off searching for the other parent and twin, thinking that they were yet below. Tragically, none of the parents who were not themselves twins survived the wreak; and only those passengers who were themselves twins managed to scramble to one or the other lifeboat and make it to the safety of the islands — but without their sibling, who was on the other boat. If you are getting confused at this point, simply picture this: There are now two lifeboats adrift — each carrying identical looking loads; because each passenger in the one lifeboat has a twin who is in the other lifeboat. However, the parties on either boat were sure they had seen the other boat either engulfed by the waves or capsized, and thus each twin gave up hope of ever seeing the other alive again. By now, it would no longer seem a coincidence, but rather a cruel joke, that each of these lifeboats, each bearing half of each set of twins, each landed on one of the twin islands, one on Dtoma and the other on Doma. You remember, I’m sure, that I told you: these two islands were already identical. Now, if you will grasp in your mind: a life boat had landed on each island, each bearing identical loads. So now the identical looking islands had identical looking inhabitants. You can now appreciate that this was indeed a strange chain of events — so strange, in fact, that any responsible news editor would have double-checked his sources before publishing it, no less than he would the line, ‘a pig flew past city hall’. Yet, that’s the way it happened. (At this point, allow me to make a parenthetical note for the reader’s future reference: Thomas and Jill, and all the twins in their boat landed on Dtoma; while Timothy and Julie and their company landed on Doma. An easy way to remember this is that ‘Dtoma’ sounds almost like ‘Thoma’, which is an ancient form of the name ‘Thomas’.) Twins being the way they are in one anothers absence, they thought alike, and their survival instincts worked alike. Each twin, though on the opposite islands from the other, interacted with his or her fellow refugees, also twins of those on the island opposite, all in exactly the same way as the other. Huts were built from native material in the same manner, and arranged in the same spots as their twin’s cottages were on the other island. Thus, the two islands continued to look alike, not only in terms of land formation, but also because of the buildings and piers that were now built on each island. The Polynesian natives who occasionally passed by, were already wary of the two islands because of certain legends they had in their oral tradition as to how the twin islands came to be. Just a few Polynesians in those parts knew some French, and from various groups of natives, the castaways were able to ascertain that their island was named Dtoma or Doma. However, both groups called their own island ‘Doma’ as ‘Dtoma’ was too difficult for Englishmen to pronounce correctly. To the castaways, all the natives looked alike — not because they actually were alike, but, to the Englishmen, not being familiar with Polynesian facial features, one Polynesian simply looked like any other Polynesian. When one group of natives, who had been to one island, went a week later to the other, the castaways at this one thought this group of natives was the same as the group that had visited them last week, but was now visiting the other island. When told the name of their island, they answered, ‘Oh, yes, "Doma", you told us that last week.’ Of course, the European castaways from the one island did look exactly like those from the island they visited the week before, so that the Polynesians assumed that they were the same. Soon, all the natives in the area were quite convinced that the two islands were indeed inhabited by ghosts, and stayed far away from the area after that — including (thankfully) pirates and cannibalistic savages. Time went on, and all the twins began to grow up under the loving parentage of either of the two sets of Rankle parents, as well as the able tutelage of either Grissel or Greschen. After they got over the loss of their parents and twin siblings, they all adapted to their respective island, and soon began to consider it their home. They almost forgot about their old life in England, from whence they came — or the prospects for a new life in New Zealand, where they had hoped to settle. When they grew to the age where boys and girls begin to take a special interest in one another, each one, naturally became interested in the one whose twin was likewise the object of their twin’s affection on the other island. Thus, and again unknowingly, whole twin families married whole twin families. The Bobs and Tillies, being only cousins, it was decided that it was okay to marry. They did, and this would have been followed shortly by the marriage of the Todds and Millies, except for the arrival of a lone seaman named Ernesto Ortiz.  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