BEYOND THE REEF

10. POOR JACK

TO ANYONE unused to the sea's ways its sudden change of mood, which had followed the jolly-boat's precarious passage through Hundred Mile Reef, was impossible to believe. The squall had departed and had not returned, and the vastness of this great ocean stretched away on every bearing, unbroken, and in the noon sunshine, like blinding glass.

Bolitho climbed forward into the bows where a small canvas awning had been rigged to provide the barest of privacy for the two women. Catherine was waiting for him there, her borrowed shirt dark with sweat, her forehead showing signs of sunburn as she watched him over the slumped shoulders of the resting oarsmen.

She took his hand and guided him down to the bottom boards so that he could rest his back against the curved side.

"Let me see." She held his face in her hands and gently prised open his left eyelid. Then she said, "I'm going to put a bandage over it, Richard." She kept her voice very low so that nobody else could hear. "You must rest it." She looked aft where Allday sat at the tiller, as if he had never moved. She had to give herself time, so that she would reveal no despair to Richard. Three days since the Golden Plover had slid from the reef. Hours of work on the oars, and rigging the solitary mast and sail to stand away from the reef's fierce undertow, and set some sort of course for the mainland. For all they had seen or done they might have remained stationary. She tried to picture how this small, eighteen-foot craft would appear to an onlooker, had there been one, while it rode sluggishly to a canvas sea anchor and the men rested. Probably like a crumpled leaf on an immense, motionless lake. But here, in the boat's overcrowded interior, it was something very different. Apart from the seaman named Owen, who had been the masthead lookout at the time of the mutiny, there were two other hands from the doomed Golden Plover: Elias Tucker, a frightened youth who came originally from Portsmouth, and Bill Cuppage, a hard man in every sense, with a harsh northern accent. Including the wounded Bezant, who hovered between delirium and bouts of agonised groaning, there were thirteen souls in all.

She raised a length of dressing cut from a petticoat and tied it carefully across his forehead to cover his salt-reddened eye.

Bolitho touched it and exclaimed, "Water! You've used fresh water, Kate!"

She pulled his hand away. "Rest a little. You cannot do everything."

He lay back while she slipped her arm beneath his head. Her words had reminded him of Admiral Godschale. What might he be doing now, with Golden Plover probably reported missing? He sighed as she raised some canvas to shade him from the relentless sun. Three days, with no end in sight. And if they reached land, what then? It might be hostile, for this was slave territory where any white sailors would be seen as enemies.

He opened his sound eye and stared along the boat. They were divided into two watches, pulling on the oars after dusk, and waiting to reset the sail at the touch of even the smallest breeze. He saw Allday looking at him, still brooding perhaps about being ordered to take the tiller at all times because of his old wound. Ozzard too, stooping down over a satchel checking the stores that remained: a small man who seemed to have gathered unsuspected strength in his new role of purser. Bolitho's secretary, the round-shouldered Yovell, was resting across the loom of an oar, his hands bandaged like Jenour's from the hard, back-breaking work at something he had never trained for. His coat was split down the seams to show the extent of his efforts.

Tojohns, without whose strength at the oars it was unlikely they would have made more than a few miles; and Keen, who was crouched beside Owen, his eyes moving around the boat as if to measure their chances of survival. Bolitho raised his head very slightly and felt her stiffen against him. She knew what he was looking for.

Bolitho saw it: the shadow, their constant companion since the wreck. Usually no more than that, but just occasionally it would show its sharp dorsal fin as it glided to the surface, dispelling any hope that it had tired of the hunt.

He heard her ask, "What do you think happened to the other boat?"

It was hard even to think. "The bosun might have decided against following us through the reef. His was the larger boat, and carried far more people. He may have decided to remain on the other side, and then head for land." In his heart he knew that the big cutter might have suffered the same fate as the mutineers, and had either capsized in the breakers, or foundered on the reef. The sharks would have left no one to tell the tale.

He said, "There would have been precious little to eat and drink but for your preparations. Cheese and ship's biscuits, rum and brandy-many have survived on far less." He tried to focus his eye on the two barricoes which were lashed on the bottom boards between the thwarts. Fresh water, but shared among thirteen, how long would it last?

Catherine smoothed the hair from his face and said, "We will reach help. I know it." She lifted the locket from his open shirt and looked down at it. "I was younger then…"

Bolitho twisted round. "There is none more beautiful than you now, Kate!"

There was such anguish in his voice that for a few moments she saw the youth he had once been. Unsure, vulnerable, but caring even then.

Bezant gave a great groan and cried out, "In the name o' God, help me! " And then in almost the next breath he shouted, "Another turn on the weather forebrace, Mister Lincoln-lively, I say!"

The seaman named Cuppage swore savagely and retorted, "Why don't you die, you bastard!"

Bolitho stared at the sea. Endless. Pitiless. Cuppage was only voicing what most of the others thought.

Catherine said, "Why, hello, Val-have you come a-visiting?"

Bolitho bit his lip. He had not even seen Keen groping his way over the thwarts and between slumped, exhausted bodies. I am no better than Cuppage.

Keen tried to smile. "Allday says he can smell a breeze." He shielded his eyes against the blinding glare of reflected sunshine. "But I can see no evidence of it." He glanced at the others. "I fear Bezant's wound has gone against him, sir. Ozzard told me he noticed it when he took him some water."

"The wound has become mortified, Val?" There was little need to ask. Both he and Keen had known it happen often enough. Crude surgery, indifferent medical skills-it was said that more men died of their treatment than from the enemy's iron.

Catherine watched them, astonished that she could still feel such pride at being here with him. Her clothing was soiled and clung to her skin from spray and perspiration, and left little to imagination. Even the wrap of canvas they had rigged to hide her bodily functions provided only the illusion of privacy.

But she could escape even that when she watched and listened to the two she knew best in this world. The man she loved more and beyond life itself, and his friend, who had seemingly gained extra strength from what he believed he had lost and left forever in England.

She knew what they were discussing but nobody else would even guess. And she was seeing it for herself, even if she never lived to describe it. The other man, the hero of whom they sang and gossiped in the taverns and ale-houses, the man who inspired courage as well as love by his own qualities of leadership, which he would be the first to doubt. He believed that many men envied him because of her. It would never occur to him that it might be the other way round.

She heard him say, "It must be soon then?"

Keen nodded slowly, as if the motion was painful. "We shall need the light. And if Allday is right about the wind…" He looked aft towards Bezant, now lost in merciful oblivion. "I think he knows, sir."

Catherine said, "I will help."

Bolitho gripped her and shook his head. "No, Kate, I will speak with Allday." He glanced with sudden emotion at his flag captain. "He once cut a splinter out of Val the size of a baby's leg when the ship's surgeon was too much in the arms of Bacchus to care."

She looked from one to the other. It was no longer just their private world. She was part of it now.

Bolitho released his hold and whispered, "Think of the house, Kate. Of that small beach where we loved each other until the tide drove us away." He saw her eyes clearing. "It is all there, just as we left it. Can we allow it to desert us?" Then he was gone, touching a shoulder here, or murmuring a quiet word there, as he lurched his way aft.

Catherine wiped her face with a shirtsleeve and watched him. Filthy and dishevelled; but even a total stranger would know him for what he was.

Bolitho reached the sternsheets and said, "Are you certain about the wind, old friend?"

Allday squinted up at him, his mouth too parched to respond immediately.

"Aye, Sir Richard. It's shifted a piece too. More westerly, I'd say."

Bolitho crouched beside him staring at the sea, containing his feelings for this big, invincible man. If only they had a compass, or a sextant… But they had nothing, only the sun by day, the stars by night. Even their progress through the water was no more than a guess.

He murmured, "So be it." He looked across and saw Jenour studying them.

"Take the tiller, Stephen. Hold her steady." Then he waited for the others to rouse themselves. It was painful to watch. Those who had been asleep crept from the refuge of their dreams only to see all hope fade as they accepted the reality. Others stared around as if they still expected to hear the squeal of the boatswain's call, the stamp of feet on Golden Plover's deck.

Bolitho thought suddenly of England, but not the one he had just described to Catherine. He wondered what they would be thinking and saying. The spiteful would hide their cruel glee as they had over brave Nelson, and there would be others already competing to replace him.

But on the waterfronts, and in the fields of the West Country there would be many more who would remember. Poor Adam, he would soon learn to extend his hand to those, as well as recognising the unworthy.

He began, "Mister Bezant is suffering badly." He saw Yovell swallow hard and guessed he had realised that the intruding, vile smell was gangrene. "I need one volunteer. Captain Keen and my cox'n know what to do." He looked round as Ozzard appeared as if by magic at his elbow. "Are you certain?"

Ozzard met his gaze calmly. "I cannot pull an oar, nor can I reef or steer." He gave a small shrug. "This I understand."

Bolitho glanced at Allday's grim features above the little man's back, and guessed that he more than any knew something about Ozzard which he would share with no one.

Keen said quietly to Owen and Tojohns, "Run out your oars-pull or back water to hold her as steady as you can." He glanced at the small medical kit Catherine had found in the cabin and tried not to shudder; he had never forgotten Allday's strength and gentleness that day aboard the frigate Undine. Keen had been a seventeen-year-old midshipman then, and the great splinter had lanced up into his groin. Ignoring the drunken surgeon, Allday had stripped him naked and had cut the splinter out with his own knife. Mercifully he had fainted after that. The terrible scar was still there. And so was he, because of Allday's courage and care.

He felt a sudden stab of despair. Zenoria had never seen or caressed the ugly, bunched scar. Now, she never would.

Bolitho understood his expression. "Together, Val. Always remember that." He saw Sophie huddled in the bows, her face hidden in Catherine's breast.

Ozzard asked, "Ready, Sir Richard?"

They forced open the master's jaws, and Ozzard poured a large measure of brandy into his mouth before putting a leather strap between his teeth.

Allday took the knife and looked along the bright blade as he might check the edge of a boarding cutlass before an engagement. It had to be swiftly done: knife, then saw. He would likely die anyway, at least before the rest of them. What would happen when only the last one was still alive? A boat full of scarecrows… He dashed the sweat from his eyes and thought of the master's mate named Jonas Polin, and his trim little widow with the inn at Fallowfield. When the news reached her, what would she think? Might she not even remember him?

He said harshly, "Hold him!" He pointed the knife, his stomach rebelling against the foul stench.

As the knife came down Bezant opened his eyes and stared at the blade. His choking scream seemed to hang over the boat, rendering them all helpless, under a curse.

Once again it was the man called Owen who broke the spell.

"Here comes the wind, lads!" His voice almost broke. "Oh, thank God, the wind!"

Allday was right after all, just as he had known about Bezant. The master died with an obscenity on his lips even as dusk closed in, when the oars were cutting across the lively whitecaps and the wet sail drummed to the wind.

In between baling and comforting the distraught Sophie, Catherine saw and heard it all. Her man's voice raised above the din of wind and canvas as he spoke a few words from a prayer he must have used many times. She covered the girl's ears as the body went over the side, for even in the depths there could be no peace for the Golden Plover's master. The shark denied him even that.

Captain Valentine Keen looked up at the flapping sail and swung the tiller sharply. To see the canvas momentarily out of control came as a shock, for he knew he must have slipped into a doze. And worse, nobody in this overcrowded boat had noticed it.

The ocean was moving in a deep swell, but the wind was not strong enough to break it into crests. The sun was almost on the horizon; soon it would be cooler, and the nightly business of using oars and sail combined to carry them to the east would begin.

He glanced at the others, some curled up on the bottom boards, others resting on the oars, which were propped in their rowlocks across the boat.

Lady Catherine was sitting in the sternsheets, her shoulders covered with some canvas while Bolitho leaned against her as if asleep.

Ozzard was on his knees, examining his rations and checking the water in the remaining barricoe. It could not last much longer. One more day, then the despair would sap any remaining resistance like some creeping fever.

Over a week now since the barquentine had thundered across the reef. It felt ten times that long. The meagre rations had finally gone except for a bag of biscuits. Brandy for the sick, rum for when the water ran out. Tomorrow; the next day?

Catherine stirred and gave a quiet sob. Bolitho was instantly roused, his arm cradling her body away from the lurch and pitch of the sun-blistered hull.

Keen tried not to think back over the years, twenty to be exact, to when they had served together in the Great South Sea. Bolitho had been his young captain in the frigate Tempest, and he a junior lieutenant. There had been another escape in an open boat. Bolitho would be remembering it now, how the woman he had loved had died in his arms.

A larger longboat, but the same hopelessness and danger. Allday had been there too, had called on the others to restrain Bolitho when he had wrapped her body in a length of chain and lowered her gently over the side.

How could Bolitho ever forget, especially now that he had found the love which had always been denied him?

Allday was down on the boards, lolling against the side, his shaggy, greying hair rippling in the breeze.

Keen felt his eyes prick with emotion at the memory of two nights ago. They had all been close to collapse when a freak rain squall had come out of the dusk and advanced on the boat like a curtain, tearing the sea into a mass of spray and bubbles. They had come to life, clutching at buckets and pieces of canvas, even mugs in readiness to catch a little of the fresh rainwater.

Then, as if a giant's hand were deflecting the rain, it had seemed to veer away within half a cable of the boat.

The young sailor named Tucker from Portsmouth had broken completely, sobbing out his heart until fatigue wore him down into silence.

It had been then that Catherine had said, "Now, John Allday! I've heard you singing about the gardens at Falmouth-you have a fair voice indeed!" She had looked at Yovell, suddenly pleading, desperate for support. "You will vouch for that, Mr Yovell?"

And so it had been. As the first stars had appeared and they had tried to gauge the course to steer, Allday had sat by the tiller and had sung a song much beloved by sailors, and written by the mariner's friend, Charles Dibdin, who, it was said, had composed the song How Hyperion Cleared the Way to commemorate her last valiant fight.

It was claimed by even the hardest man who served at sea and braved all its dangers and cruelties, that no matter what might happen there was always an angel at the masthead to care for his safety.

"Clear the wreck, stow the yards, and bounce everything tight,

And under reefed foresail we'll scud:

Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft

To be taken for trifles aback,

For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft,

To keep watch for the life of Poor Jack."

Exhausted, blistered and tortured by thirst, they had listened, and it seemed that for just a few minutes their perils had been held at bay.

There had been tears, too, and Keen had seen Jenour with his head in his hands, the girl Sophie staring at Allday as if he were some kind of wizard.

Bolitho cleared his throat. "How is it, Val?"

Keen glanced at the stars. "Due east as far as I can tell, although I've no idea how far we've drifted."

"No matter." Bolitho cupped her shoulder in his hand and felt its smoothness through the stained shirt. The skin was hot, burning. He brushed some of her hair from her eyes and saw that she was watching him; caring and fearing for him, her spirits beginning to desert even her.

"How long, dearest of men?"

He pressed his cheek against her hair. "A day. Maybe two." He kept his voice low, but the others probably knew as well as anyone.

The seaman Tucker gave a wild laugh, cut short by the sore dryness of his throat.

Bolitho gestured to the oars. "Time to begin, watch by watch!"

Keen exclaimed, "What is the matter with Tucker?"

Owen said heavily, "He took some water, sir." He gestured towards the sea as it lifted almost to the gunwale before sliding down again.

Allday muttered, "That's him done for." He said it without emotion one way or the other. "Bloody fool."

Tucker pushed his oar away and tried to reach the side before Jenour and Cuppage seized him and dragged him to the foot of the small mast. Cuppage pulled out some codline and tied the babbling man's wrists behind him. "Shut your trap, you stupid bugger!"

Bolitho clambered into Tucker's place and thrust the oar out over the water. It seemed to weigh twice as much as before. He shut his ears to Tucker's cracked, rambling voice. The beginning of the end.

Catherine sat with Keen while Ozzard poured some water one cup at a time, across the barricoe's leather lip.

Keen raised it to her mouth. "Hold it there as long as you can. A sip at a time."

She shivered, and almost dropped the cup as Tucker screamed, "Water! Give me water, you poxy bitch!"

In the deep shadows there was the sound of a fist on bone, and Tucker fell silent.

Catherine whispered, "There was no need. I've heard far worse."

Keen tried to smile. It had not been merely out of regard for her feelings that Allday had laid him low. One more outbreak from Tucker, and it might consume the boat in fighting madness.

Keen felt the pistol in his belt and tried to remember who else was armed.

She saw his hand on the pistol and said softly, "You've done this before, Val… I guessed as much." She turned away as something fell heavily in the sea astern. The shark or its victim, it was too dark to tell.

She said, "He must not see me suffer." She tried to control her voice, but her body was shaking too badly. "He has given enough because of me."

"Give way all!"

The oars rose and fell once more while the water was passed carefully from hand to hand.

Then they changed around yet again, and Bolitho slumped down beside her in the sternsheets.

"How is your eye?"

Bolitho forced a smile. "Better than I thought possible." He had sensed rather than seen her despair when she had been speaking with Keen.

"You lie." She leaned against him and felt him stiffen. "Stop worrying about me, Richard… I am the cause of all this. You should have left me in that prison. You might never have known…"

Great white shapes flapped out of the darkness and circled the jolly-boat before continuing on their way.

He said, "Tonight, those birds will nest in Africa."

She pushed her wet hair away as spray drifted over the gunwale.

"I would like to be in some secret place, Richard. Our beach perhaps… To run naked in the sea, to love on the sand." She began to cry very quietly, the sound muffled by his shoulder. "Just to live with you."

She had fallen into a deep sleep when the young seaman named Tucker choked and died. The oarsmen rested on their looms like souls beyond care or caring. Only Yovell crossed himself in the darkness as the body went over the side and drifted away.

Bolitho held her shoulder, ready to shield her from the frenzy of a shark's attack. But there was nothing. The shark had patience enough for all of them.

When the first hint of dawn opened up the sea around them, Catherine saw that Tucker was missing. It was too draining even to think what it must have been like for him in his dying moments of madness. It was over now. A release.

She saw Ozzard sounding the barricoe, his quick shake of the head to Bolitho beside him.

"Half a cup, then?" Bolitho was almost pleading.

Ozzard shrugged. "Less."

Sophie stepped carefully across the outflung legs and the sprawled bodies of the ones off watch.

Catherine held out her arms. "What is it, Sophie? Come here to me."

The girl gripped her hand and hesitated. "Is that land? Over there?" She seemed afraid that she might be going mad like Tucker.

Keen stood up from his oar and shaded his eyes.

"Oh, dear God! Land it is!"

Allday peered up at the boat's masthead and tried to grin. "See? He keeps watch for the life of Poor Jack!"

As the light strengthened it became more and more obvious that the land Sophie had sighted was little more than an island. But just the nearness of it seemed to put new life into the jolly-boat, and when the oars were manned and the sail reset, Bolitho could see no disappointment in their sunburned faces.

Keen said between strokes on his oar, "Do you know it, sir?"

Bolitho turned and saw Catherine watching him. "Yes, I do." He should have felt pleased, proud even that he had brought them this far. At least they were not merely heading into an empty horizon and going mad in the process.

Jenour panted, "Does it have a name, Sir Richard?"

She was still watching him. Reading him like a book. Knowing the desperation, the sudden despair this place had rekindled from some old memory. Like the other midshipman, his friend, of whom he rarely spoke even to her: these recollections were equally painful.

It was a barren place, an island to be avoided, with a treacherous, rocky coastline. This was slave territory, and in earlier times the haunt of pirates. But the latter had now gone further south, to the richer pickings on the sea-routes to and around the Cape of Good Hope.

"I forget what it is called." Even that she would know was a lie. This small, hostile island was known by local traders as the Island of the Living Dead. Nothing grew there, nothing survived. He said suddenly, "Twenty miles beyond this place is a rich, wooded island. Fresh streams, fish too."

Yovell asked politely, "This place cannot help us then?"

He sounded so lost that Bolitho answered, "There may be rock pools with rainwater. Shellfish." He saw the strength draining out of them like sand from a glass. He insisted, "What say, all of you? One more try? We can gather shellfish and mix them with the last of the biscuits."

Yovell seemed satisfied. "We've nothing else to do, have we, sir? Not for the present, in any case."

Owen grinned and wiped his cracked lips. "Well said, sir! Twenty miles after what we've been through? I could swim there, but for the sharks, that is!"

Catherine watched them returning to life, instead of the spectres they had almost become. But how long could he persuade them?

By noon the boat had entered a small cove, where the rocks slid beneath the keel in water so clear it could barely be seen.

Bolitho stood and shaded his eyes as they glided above their own shadow.

"Ready with the grapnel! Stephen, Owen, over the side now! Back water, the rest of you!"

With the flag lieutenant and the keen-eyed lookout floundering and slipping on the bottom while they guided the stem clear of any jagged rocks, the jolly-boat finally came to rest.

Bolitho watched them lurching and falling on the shelving beach as they left the boat and tried to run up the slope. A ship was one thing, but having been penned up in a small open boat made them stagger like drunken men.

Catherine stared with surprise as Allday handed her a pair of leather sandals he had cut and fashioned from Ozzard's satchel.

She said huskily, "You are a dear man, John."

Allday was embarrassed, the danger this place might hold momentarily forgotten.

"Well, m'lady, as Mr Yovell rightly said, I had nothing else to do."

Bolitho walked with her through the shallows and waited while she tied on her sandals. It was just as well. The beach was as hot as a stove.

"See to it, Val. Take your cox'n and climb that hill. Might even be able to see the other island in this light… it would give them heart."

Keen said gravely, "I believe you have done that, sir, to all of us."

Allday was about to leave the beached boat when Ozzard tugged at his sleeve. "Look, John!"

It was a small pouch, hidden carefully behind the empty barricoe. It was tightly tied and very heavy.

Allday felt it. "It's gold, matey."

"But whose?"

"Whoever put it there is one of the mutineers, an' that's no error."

They stuffed the pouch back into its hiding place. Allday said, "Leave it to me."

Ozzard said, "I'll keep watch over the last of our supplies." He added meaningly, "Especially the rum."

Keen started up the hillside, the highest point on this barren place, but in truth little more than a sun-scorched hump.

As they passed some scattered rocks Tojohns grunted, "Jesus, look at that!"

It was a skeleton, lying where the man had fallen, shipwrecked, marooned or murdered. They would never know.

They were almost at the top, and Keen tried not to think of water, even the sound of it in a glass.

They reached the summit, and Keen dropped to his knees and said sharply, "Down, man!"

The other island was visible as Bolitho had prophesied, like a pale green mist below the horizon.

But all Keen could see was the anchored vessel directly below him, the brig he had observed from Golden Plover's masthead. The slaver which had come to collect the gold now scattered across the Hundred Mile Reef.

"I'll go and warn our people. You stay here, Tojohns. If you see a boat heading ashore, come at once."

He scrabbled down the dry hill, his mind stunned by this new discovery. Even this lifeless place had been a symbol of their success. Now it was only a trap.

Bolitho listened to him without comment, his eyes on Sophie and Ozzard as they collected some of the shellfish Jenour's party had discovered in a rock pool.

They all stood round, waiting for Ozzard's judgement as he dipped his cup into the bucket Owen had filled with water from a small hillside gully. Then he said solemnly, "Rainwater. I'll put it in the cask."

Yovell flung his arms around the young maid and beamed. "Like wine, eh, my dear!"

Bolitho called, "Listen to me, all of you. The slaver that was after us is anchored yonder." He saw them coming to terms with it. "And we cannot survive here." He thought of the skeleton Keen had described. There were probably others. "So at dusk we will leave." He let each word sink in. "We must reach that island. There's a fair breeze… we might not even need the oars."

Allday watched their reactions, especially those of the two remaining hands from the Golden Plover. Not Owen, surely. He had proved his loyalty more than once. What about the tough Tynesider, Cuppage? But his expression had not changed at the mention of the slaver. It might have been the salt-water-crazed Tucker, who had taken his secret with him. Or even the old master, Bezant: some pitiful compensation for losing his ship to men he had once trusted.

Allday fingered the old dirk in his belt. Whoever it is, I'll see him to hell!

Where trees had once stood and now lay like whitened bones in the sand, Catherine took Bolitho in her arms and held him, free only for a moment from curious eyes.

They stood looking at one another in complete silence. Then she said quietly, "Once I doubted. Now I know we shall reach safety."

On the hillside the sandblown skeleton could have been listening, sharing the hope to which he had, once, also clung.