Stand into Danger

10. A Close Thing

UNDER topsails, forecourse and jib only, the Destiny headed slowly towards the green humpbacked island. So gentle was the breeze that her progress was a snail’s pace, an impression which grew as she approached the small ridge of land.

The masthead had sighted it the previous day, just before dusk, and throughout the night-watches until the break of dawn there had been a buzz of speculation from wardroom to messdeck.

Now, in the harsh forenoon sunlight it lay across their bows and shimmered in a low haze, as if it might vanish at any second like a mirage.

It was higher towards its centre, where thick clusters of palms and other foliage were bunched together, to leave the slopes and the tiny, crescent-shaped beaches totally devoid of cover.

“Deep six!”

The hollow chant from a leadsman in the chains reminded Bolitho of the shallows nearby, the hint of a reef lying to starboard. A few sea-birds dotted the water, and others cruised watchfully around the topgallant mastheads.

Bolitho heard Dumaresq conferring with Palliser and the master. The island was marked on the chart but apparently unclaimed. The known survey was poor, and Dumaresq was probably regretting his impulse to touch land in search for water.

But the ship was down to her last barricoes of water, and the contents were so vile that Bulkley and the purser had joined forces in another plea to the captain for him to seek a new supply. Enough at least to take them to their destination.

“By th’ mark seven!”

Gulliver tried to relax his stance as the keel glided into deeper water. The ship was still standing two cables clear of the nearest beach. If the wind rose or changed direction, Destiny might be in trouble, with no depth at all to beat free of the land and out-thrust reef.

Every man but the cook and the sick ones in Bulkley’s care was on deck or clinging to the shrouds and ratlines, strangely silent as they peered towards the little island. It was one of hundreds in the Caribbean, but the hint of fresh, drinkable water made it appear special and priceless.

“By th’ mark five!”

Dumaresq grimaced at Palliser. “Hands wear ship. Stand by to anchor, if you please.”

With her sails barely flapping in the intense heat, the frigate turned wearily on the blue water until the order to let go was yelled along the deck. The anchor splashed down, pushing great circles away from the bows and churning up pale sand from the bottom.

Once anchored the heat seemed to force into the ship still more, and as Bolitho made his way to the quarterdeck he saw Egmont and his wife standing right aft by the taffrail, sheltering beneath a canvas awning which George Durham, the sailmaker, had rigged for them.

Dumaresq was studying the island slowly and methodically with the signal midshipman’s big telescope.

He remarked, “No smoke, or signs of life. Can’t see any marks on the beach either, so there aren’t any boats on this side.” He handed the glass to Palliser. “That ridge looks promising, eh?”

Gulliver said cautiously, “Could be water there, right enough, sir.”

Dumaresq ignored him and turned instead to his two passengers. “Might be able to stretch your legs ashore before we weigh.” He chuckled.

He had addressed both of them, but Bolitho somehow knew that his words had been aimed at the woman.

He thought of that one moment when she had come on deck to see him. It had been unreal but precious. Dangerous, and all the more exciting because of it.

They had spoken very little. All through the following day Bolitho had thought about it, relived it, hung on to each moment for fear of losing something.

He had held her close to his body while the ship had ploughed into the first misty light of dawn, feeling her heart beat against his, wanting to touch her and afraid he would spoil it with his boldness. She had freed herself from his arms and had kissed him lightly on the mouth before merging with the remaining shadows to leave him alone.

And now, just to hear Dumaresq’s casual familiarity towards her, his mention of stretching her legs, was like a barb, a spur of jealousy which he had never known before.

Dumaresq broke his thoughts. “You will take a landing-party, Mr Bolitho. Determine if there is a stream or any useful rock pools. I will await your signal.”

He walked aft, and Bolitho heard him speaking again with Egmont and Aurora.

Bolitho flinched. He saw Jury watching him and imagined for an instant he had again spoken her name aloud.

Palliser snapped, “Get a move on. If there is no water, we’d best know about it quickly.”

Colpoys was standing languidly by the mizzen. “I will send some of my fellows as pickets, if you wish.”

Palliser exclaimed, “Hell’s teeth, we’re not expecting a pitched battle!”

The cutter was hoisted outboard and lowered alongside. Stockdale, now promoted to gun-captain, was already detailing some hands for the shore-party, while the boat’s coxswain supervised the loading of extra tackle for the water-barricoes should they require them.

Bolitho waited until the boat was manned and then reported to Palliser. He saw the girl watching him, the way one hand was resting on her necklace, remembering perhaps, or reminding him that his had once lain there.

Palliser said, “Take a pistol. Fire it if you find anything.” His eyes narrowed against the fierce glare. “Once the casks are filled they’ll discover something else to grumble about!”

The cutter pulled away from the side, and Bolitho felt the sun burn across his neck as they left the Destiny’s protective shadow.

“Give way all!”

Bolitho trailed his arm over the side, feeling the sensual touch of cool water, and imagined her with him, swimming and then running hand in hand up the pale beach to discover each other for the first time.

When he looked over the gunwale he saw the bottom quite clearly, dotted with white stones or shells, and isolated humps of coral, deceptively harmless in the shimmering reflections.

Stockdale said to the coxswain, “Looks like nobody’s ever been ’ere, Jim.”

The man eased the tiller-bar and nodded, the movement bringing a trickle of sweat from under his tarred hat.

“Easy all! Bowman, boat yer oar!”

Bolitho watched the cutter’s shadow rising to meet them as the bowman vaulted over the side to guide the stem into the sand while the others hauled their blades inboard and hung panting over the looms like old men.

And then there was total stillness. Just a far-off murmur of surf on a reef, the occasional gurgle of water around the grounded cutter. No bird lifted from the crowded hump of palms, not even an insect.

Bolitho climbed over the gunwale and waded to the beach. He was wearing an open shirt and breeches, but his body felt as if he was dressed in thick furs. The thought of tearing off his crumpled clothing and running naked into the sea mingled with his earlier fantasy, and he wondered if she was watching from the ship, using a telescope to see him.

Bolitho realized with a start that the others were waiting.

He said to the coxswain, “Remain with the boat. The crew, too.

They may have to do several journeys yet.” To Stockdale he said, “We’ll take the others up the slope. It’s the shortest way and probably the coolest.”

He ran his eye over the small landing-party. Two of them were from the Heloise’s original company, now sworn-in members of His Majesty’s Navy. They still appeared dazed at their swift change of circumstances, but they were good enough seamen to avoid the harsher side of the boatswain’s tongue.

Apart from Stockdale, there was none of his own division in the group, and he guessed there had been little enthusiasm for volunteering to tramp round an uninhabited island. Later, if they discovered water, it would be very different.

Stockdale said, “Follow me!”

Bolitho walked up the slope, his feet sinking in the loose sand, the pistol in his belt burning his skin like a piece of hot iron. It felt strange to walk here, he thought. A tiny, unknown place. There might be human bones nearby. Shipwrecked mariners, or men cast adrift and marooned by pirates to die horribly without hope of rescue.

How inviting the palms looked. They were moving gently, and he could hear them rustling as he drew nearer. Once he stopped to look back at the ship. She seemed far away, balanced perfectly on her own reflection. But in distance she had lost her rakish lines, and her masts and loosely furled sails seemed to be swaying and bending in the haze, as if the whole ship was melting.

The small party of seamen tramped gratefully into a patch of shade, their ragged trousers catching in some large fronds which displayed teethlike barbs around the edges. There were different smells here, too, of rotting undergrowth, and from vividly coloured blossoms.

Bolitho looked up at the sky and saw a frigate-bird circling high overhead, its scimitar-shaped wings motionless as it ghosted on the hot current. So they were not completely alone.

A man called excitedly, “Look yonder, sir! Water!”

They pressed forward, all tiredness momentarily forgotten.

Bolitho looked at the pool with disbelief. It was shivering slightly, so he guessed there was some sort of underground source close by. He could see the surrounding palms reflected on its surface and the images of his men as they peered down at the water.

Bolitho said, “I’ll have a taste.”

He clambered along the sandy bank and dipped his hand into the water. It was a false impression, but it felt as cold as a mountain stream. Hardly daring to hope, he raised his cupped hand to his lips and after a slight hesitation swallowed deeply.

He said quietly, “It’s pure.”

Bolitho watched the seamen throwing themselves down on their chests and scooping the water over their faces and shoulders, swallowing great gulps of it in their eager excitement.

Stockdale wiped his mouth with satisfaction. “Good stuff.”

Bolitho smiled. Josh Little would have called it a ‘wet’.

“We’ll stand easy a while, then signal the ship.”

The seamen drew their cutlasses and drove them into the sand before squatting down against the palms or leaning over the shimmering water as if to make sure it was still there.

Bolitho walked away from them, and as he examined his pistol to ensure that it was free of sand and damp he thought of that moment when she had joined him on Destiny’s quarterdeck.

It must not end, it could not be allowed to die.

“Something wrong, sir?” Stockdale lumbered up the slope.

Bolitho realized he must have been frowning in concentration. “Not wrong.”

It was uncanny how Stockdale always seemed to know, to be ready in case he was needed. Yet it was something very real between them. Bolitho found it easy to talk to the big, hoarse prize-fighter, and the reverse was true also, without any hint of subservience or as a means to gain favour.

Bolitho said, “You go and make the signal.” He watched the pistol half disappear in Stockdale’s great fist. “I need to think about something.”

Stockdale watched him impassively. “You’re young, an’ beggin’ yer pardon, sir, I think you should stay young for as long as you can.”

Bolitho faced him. You never really knew what Stockdale meant with his brief, halting sentences. Had he implied that he should keep away from a woman who was ten years older than he was? Bolitho refused to think about it. Their life was now, when they could find it. They could worry about differences later.

He said, “Be off with you. I wish it was that simple.”

Stockdale shrugged and strode down the slope towards the beach, his broad shoulders set in such a way that Bolitho knew he was not going to let it rest there.

With a great sigh Bolitho walked back towards the pool to warn his men that Stockdale was about to fire the pistol. Sailors cooped up in a ship-of-war often became nervous of such things when they were put ashore.

One of the seamen had been lying with his face half under the water, and as Bolitho approached he stood up dripping and grinning with pleasure.

Bolitho said, “Be ready, men…” He broke off as someone gave a piercing scream and the seaman who had been grinning at him pitched forward into the water.

All at once there was frantic pandemonium amounting to panic as the sailors scrabbled in the sand for their weapons and others stared with horror at the drifting corpse, the water reddening around it from a spear thrust between the shoulders.

Bolitho swung round, seeing the sunlight partially broken by running, leaping figures, the glitter of weapons and a terrifying scream of combined voices which made the hair rise on his neck.

“Stand to!”

He groped for his hanger and gasped with shock as another seaman rolled down the slope, kicking and spitting blood as he tried to tug a crude shaft from his belly.

“Oh, God!” Bolitho shaded his eyes against the bars of sunlight. Their attackers had it behind them and were closing in on the stampeding seamen, that terrible din of screaming voices making it impossible to think or act.

Bolitho realized they were black men, their eyes and mouths wide with triumph as they hacked down another sailor and pounded his face to a bloody pulp with a piece of coral.

Bolitho ran to meet the attack, dimly aware that more figures were rushing past him as if to separate him from his remaining seamen. He heard someone shrieking and pleading, the sickening sound of a skull splintered open like a coconut.

He found he had his back to a tree and was striking out wildly, wasting his strength, leaving himself open for one of those fire-hardened spears.

Bolitho saw three of his men, one of whom had been wounded in the leg, standing together, hemmed in by screaming, slashing figures.

He pushed himself away from the tree, hacked open a black shoulder with his hanger and bounded across the trampled sand to join the embattled seamen.

One cried, “’S’no use! Can’t ’old th’ buggers!”

Bolitho felt the hanger knocked from his hand and realized he had not fastened the lanyard around his wrist.

He searched desperately for another weapon, seeing that his men were breaking and running towards the beach, the injured one hopping only a few paces before he too was cut down.

Bolitho got a terrifying impression of two staring eyes and bared white teeth, and saw the savage charging towards him, scooping up a discarded cutlass as he came.

Bolitho ducked and tried to leap to one side. Then came the impact, too great for pain, too powerful to measure.

He knew he was falling, his forehead on fire, while in another world he could hear his own voice calling out, brittle with agony.

And then, mercifully, there was nothing.

When consciousness finally returned, the agony which accompanied it was almost unendurable.

Bolitho tried to force open his eyes, as if by doing so he could drive away the torment, but it was so great he could feel his whole body contracting to withstand it.

Voices murmured above his head, but through his partially closed eyes he could see very little. A few hazy shapes, the darker shadows of beams directly overhead.

It was as if his head was being crushed slowly and deliberately between two heated irons, torturing his cringing mind with probing pains and brilliant flashes like lightning.

Cool cloths were being dabbed over his face and neck and then across his body. He was naked, not pinioned by force but with hands touching his wrists and ankles in case he struggled.

Another thought made him cry out with terror. He was badly injured elsewhere than in his head and they were getting ready for him. He had seen it done. The knife glittering in the feeble lanterns, the quick cut and turn of the blade, and then the saw.

“Easy, son.”

That was Bulkley, and the fact he was here helped to steady him in some way. Bolitho imagined he could smell the surgeon, brandy and tobacco.

He tried to speak but his voice was a hoarse whisper. “What happened?”

Bulkley peered over his shoulder, his owl-like face with the little spectacles poised in the air like a comic bladder.

“Save your breath. Breathe slowly.” Bulkley nodded. “That’s it.”

Bolitho gritted his teeth as the pain tightened its hold. It was worst above his right eye where there was a bandage. His hair felt tight, matted with blood. Vaguely the picture re-formed, the bulging eyes, the cutlass swinging towards him. Oblivion.

He asked, “My men, are they safe?”

Bolitho felt a coat sleeve brush against his bare arm and saw Dumaresq looking down at him, his shape made more grotesque by the angle. The eyes were no longer compelling, but grave.

“The boat’s crew are safe. Two of your original party reached it in time.”

Bolitho tried to move his head, but someone held it firmly.

“Stockdale? Is he?…”

Dumaresq smiled. “He carried you to the beach. But for him all of the people would have been lost. I shall tell you later. Now you must endeavour to rest. You have lost a lot of blood.”

Bolitho could feel the darkness closing over him again. He had seen the quick exchange of glances between Dumaresq and the surgeon. It was not over. He might die. The realization was almost too much and he felt the tears smarting in his eyes as he gasped, “Don’t… want… to… leave… Destiny. Mustn’t… go… like… this.”

Dumaresq said, “You will recover.”

He rested his hand on Bolitho’s shoulder so that he could feel the strength of the man, as if he were transferring some of his power into him.

Then he moved away, and Bolitho realized for the first time that he was in the stern cabin and that beyond the tall windows it was pitch-dark.

Bulkley watched him and said, “You have been unconscious all day, Richard.” He wagged his finger at him. “You had me somewhat troubled, I can tell you.”

“Then you are not worried for me now?” Again he tried to move, but the hands gripped him firmly like watchful animals.

Bulkley made a few adjustments to the bandages. “A severe blow to the head with a heavy blade is never a thing to be scoffed at. I have done some work on you, the rest will depend on time and care. It was a close-run fight. But for Stockdale’s courage, and his determination to rescue you, you would be dead.” He glanced round as if to ensure that the captain had gone. “He rallied the remaining seamen when they were about to flee from the beach. He was like a wild bull, yet when he carried you aboard he did it with the gentleness of a woman.” He sighed. “It must be the costliest cargo of fresh water in naval history!”

Bolitho could feel a new drowsiness closing in to withstand the pounding anguish in his skull. Bulkley had given him something.

He whispered, “You would tell me if…”

Bulkley was wiping his fingers. “Probably.” He looked up and added, “You are being well cared for. We are about to weigh anchor, so endeavour to rest yourself.”

Bolitho tried to keep a grip on his senses. About to weigh anchor. Here all day. So the water must have been obtained. Men had died. Many more afterwards, he thought, when Colpoys’ marines took their revenge.

He spoke very slowly, knowing his words were getting slurred, but knowing too that he must make himself understood.

“Tell Aur-tell Mrs Egmont that…”

Bulkley leaned over him and pulled at his eyelids. “Tell her yourself. She has been with you since you were brought aboard. I told you. You are well cared for.”

Then Bolitho saw her standing beside him, her black hair hanging down over either shoulder, glossy in the lantern light.

She touched his face, her fingers brushing his lips as she said softly, “You can sleep now, my lieutenant. I am here.”

Bolitho felt the hands relax their hold from his wrists and ankles, and sensed the surgeon’s assistants withdrawing into the shadows.

He murmured faintly, “I-I did not want you to see me like this, Aurora.”

She smiled, but it made her look incredibly sad.

“You are beautiful,” she said.

Bolitho closed his eyes, the strength gone from him at last.

By the screen door Bulkley turned to look at them. He should be used to pain and the gratitude of recovery, but he was not, and he was moved by what he saw. It was more like a painting from mythology, he thought. The lovely woman weeping by the fallen body of her hero.

He had not lied to Bolitho. It had been very close, and the cutlass had not only made a deep scar above the eye and into the hairline but had scored the bone beneath. Had Bolitho been an older man, or the cutlass expertly used, it would have ended there.

She said, “He is asleep.” But she was not speaking to Bulkley. She removed her white shawl and very gently spread it across Bolitho’s body, as if his nakedness, like her words, was something private.

In Destiny’s other, ordered world a voice bellowed, “Anchor’s aweigh, sir!”

Bulkley put out a hand to steady himself as the deck tilted to the sudden pressure of wind and rudder. He would go to his sick-bay and have several long drinks. He had no wish to see the island as it fell astern in the dusk. It had given them fresh water, but had taken lives in exchange. Bolitho’s party at the pool had been massacred but for Stockdale and two others. Colpoys had reported that the savages who had attacked them were once slaves who had possibly escaped when on passage to an island plantation.

Seeing Bolitho and his men approaching, they had doubtless imagined they were there to hunt them down and award some brutal reprisal. When Destiny’s boats, roused by the pistol-shot from the beach and the sudden panic amongst the cutter’s crew, had reached the shore, those same slaves had run towards them. Nobody knew if they had realized Destiny was not a ‘blackbirder’ after all and were trying to make recompense. Colpoys had directed the swivel guns and musketoons which were mounted in each boat to rake the beach. When the smoke had drifted away there had been nobody alive to explain.

Bulkley paused at the top of the ladder and heard the clatter of blocks, the pad of bare feet as the seamen hauled at halliards and braces to set their ship on her true course.

To a man-of-war it was only an interlude. Something to be written up in her log. Until the next challenge, the next fight. He glanced aft at the swaying deckhead lantern and the red-coated sentry beneath it.

And yet, he decided, there had been a lot of worthwhile things, too.