HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (6 page)

Now he got to his feet, staggered through the grass, ignored the branches which brushed his face and pulled at his hair, and fell, half into a flow of the most beautiful fresh water he had ever tasted. He drank, and buried his face in the sweetness, and drank again, and scooped it over his head and shoulders, and drank again. And at last pulled himself away. He must tell Jean about it. But Jean seemed soundly asleep. Time for him in the morning.

Kit Hilton slept.

And woke to a peculiar sound, such as he had never heard before. Snarling dogs. But these were not dogs. He had heard dogs often enough before. His own dog.

He sat up. It was daylight. His arms and legs still felt tired, but his brain was clear and his thirst was gone. And two human dogs were snarling and growling close to him.

On the beach. And now there was another sound, a shout of alarm, from Jean.

Kit jumped to his feet, pushed his way through the branches, arrived at the edge of the beach, gazed at Jean in horror. His friend lay on his back, arms pinned by a creature which sat on them and held his head. But the creature was a human being. Almost entirely shrouded in long hair, a beard which drooped to his navel, his skin burned to a mahogany colour, for he wore only a kind of kilt, from his waist to his knees.

And he was only one of a pair. His companion knelt above Jean, tearing at the boy's breeches, mouth slobbering with delight at having found something new, and unspoiled.
Boucaniers.
Members of the derelict outlaw population of Hispaniola who lived by smoking the meat, the
boacan,
of the wild cattle which roamed the plains.

But Jean was shouting for help.

Kit reached into the small of his back, pulled out his knife. It was a seaman's knife, nearly a
foot long, of which seven in
ches were blade, two-edged and sharp-pointed. It was not mended to kill humans. But it could. And right this minute e wanted to kill more than anything else in the world.

Jean screamed as the claws of the
boucanier
reached for his
g
enitals; his body twisted to and fro. Kit uttered a bellow of age and vicious hatred, of all things living, and bounded from he trees. He covered the beach in a succession of tremendous
l
eaps. The first man sat up, rocking back on his heels; the
s
econd released Jean's arms and turned, blinking at the ap
parit
ion hurtling towards him. He stood up as Kit reached him,
k
nife thrust forward; perhaps b
efore Kit even intended it the b
lade was buried up to its hilt in the
boucanier
's chest. He lied without a sound, falling b
ackwards, and as Kit's fingers w
ere still wrapped around th
e haft the knife came out with a
jerk, leaving a gush of blood in its place.

The second
boucanier
stared at his companion in horror,
f
ingers still scrabbling at the cutlass which hung from his belt.

But Kit could not have stopped himself now. He had killed, md he wanted to kill again. Th
e knife whipped back, and then f
orward; this time the man shrieked as he collapsed on to the and. And Kit collapsed beside him, panting.

Jean sat up.
'Mon Dieu,'
h
e said. 'I had supposed myself h
andicapped by a boy, but now
I think it is you who will be h
andicapped by me. And you have saved me from rape, no
l
ess. There is a fate I had never expected to experience.' He put his arm around Kit's shoulder, felt it tremble. "What did Colonel Warner call you? The devil's own spaw
n? Aye, they s
ent our families to hell; from
hell will we re-emerge to torm
ent them, you and I.'

2

The Jungle

The sun sailed above the mountains of Hispaniola. It had risen some hours earlier, but then its true majesty, and its true heat, had been obscured by the mist which shrouded the hills. Now it would no longer be restrained, and suddenly the morning was hot, where before it had been no more than close. In seconds the moisture which had earlier clung to leaf and branch and made clothes and hands clammy to the touch, was whisked away in an upward gush of sweat and steam. And now, too, images became clear, and sound seemed to travel farther. From the trees which fringed the plain the herd of cattle appeared to have come closer, although it had not moved. But it could be heard, a hundred hooves pawing at the sparse grass, more than a score of double-jointed jaws rhythmically chewing, while the birds hopped behind in search of displaced worms, and a small cloud of dust eddied around the brown bodies. Imported by the Spaniards over a century before to ensure their food supply, the
cattle had multiplied so vigor
ously on the rich grasslands of the huge island that they had been allowed to run wild, to the benefit of the
boucaniers.

The dust was useful, for the drift indicated the direction of the slight breeze. Kit Hilton wormed along on his belly, his musket pushed in front of him, his powder-horn banging against his back beside his cutlass, moving parallel to the herd to get downwind of them. Behind him, Jean DuCasse paused for breath, and to count again.

'Seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three head, Kit. I have never seen so many in one place before. Do you think we will get two shots?'

"We'll try,' Kit said.

The responsibility was his. Jean was no hand with a musket, md powder was too scarce to
be wasted. The little they poss
essed they had taken from two other
boucaniers
a week ago,
i
n the same manner as they had got their cutlasses and their
pistols.
This was a violent world, in which only a man's
m
atelot,
the companion wit
h whom he shared his food, his s
leep, his every breath, and in time, no doubt, his death, was to be trusted, even for an instant. It seemed a long cry back aver two years to the day he had knifed his first man, and vomited in the sand, and then wept. Since then he had killed again, twice.

He had killed to survive. He often wondered why. Those first two men had been repulsive to him. He had destroyed them as he would have destroyed two wild dogs. But was he any better, now? His beard reached the centre of his chest, and his hair the centre of his back. He wore an uncured skin, roughly cut into the shape of a pair of breeches, with an odour stronger than that of any dead animal. His feet were bare, and hardened to a quality of leather. He existed to hunt, like a wild animal, and to smoke the meat he managed to kill against the days, or sometimes weeks, when the cattle were absent. He slept in the open, and cared nothing for wind and rain.

Jean was no different. Only when together in the cool of the dusk did they revert to human beings, did they ever remember the good times in Tortuga, the laughter of Albert DuCasse or Susan Hilton; did they ever still vow revenge on every Spaniard they could catch, as if they had ever caught any; and did they ever still dream of escaping this living hell, and becoming once again men, with a change of clothes and an upright walk.

And only then did they dream of other things, too. Of the girls on Tortuga? Of Marguerite Warner? He did not know of whom he dreamed. She was woman, with face and hair and legs. And she did not wear silk. When he dreamed it was of two naked bodies twined in a sweating, angry embrace, and when the woman spoke it was to scream. Jean also had dreams like that, and on those occasions they even reached for one another.

No, indeed, he reflected as he crawled through the grass;
they were no different from
the creatures he had slaughtered
for being just such animals.

Jean wriggled level with him. 'Company.'

Kit watched the grass and the trees. There was something moving to his left, also down
wind of the herd of cattle, also
stealthily. 'Twenty cows will attract everyone within ten miles We'll not give them time.' He
was within range, just, he cal
culated. He aimed his musket, drew back the hammer, and released the lever.

Almost before the explosion had sounded, the herd was away, lolloping towards the distant fringe of trees. But now there were only twenty-two; one of them lay in the grass, half hidden.

'Bastards,' Jean growled, starting to his feet. For at least ten men had now appeared, in pairs, from different hideaways in the scrub.

Kit knelt, hastily reprimed the musket, ramming home another ball.

'Halloa there,' Jean bellowed, running forward. ' 'Tis our kill.'

The men checked, a dangerous semicircle, close to the bleeding, writhing animal.

'I fired also,' said one of the bearded
malelots.

Jean turned to look. There was but a single puff of black smoke, rising above the grass which concealed Kit.

'Bah,' said another. 'It matters not. There is enough for all.'

'No.' Jean drew his cutlass.

'One against ten?' demanded the first spokesman.

'The boy is right,' said another man, small, dark and heavy-set. 'If he killed the beast, then it is his.'

'He is your
matelot?
'

'He made the kill,' said the small man.

'Bah,' said the challenger again. But his companion was already sidling away.

'I thank you, friend,' Jean said.

'You are alone?' asked the small man.

Jean smiled. 'Not so, monsieur.'

Kit stood up, the primed musket set against his shoulder. The small man also smiled; he had very bright teeth. 'You are the two young ones. We have heard of you. We have travelled north to speak with you. I am Bartholomew Le Grand.'

'Portuguese Bart,' Jean said. 'We have heard of you also, monsieur. Jean DuCasse, at your service.'

'Armand Duchesne,' said the man beside Bart.

'And Kit Hilton,' Kit said, approaching. 'I understand your intention, monsieur.'

Bart continued to smile. 'So why fight about it, Monsieur Hilton? This cow will divide into four, where it will never divide into ten. And we have much to speak of.'

Kit glanced at Jean, who shrugged. 'That is true, monsieur.' He knelt, passed his knife across the throat of the dying animal; blood gushed, and the kicking ceased. 'Let us make haste.'

They laid down their weapons and got to work. The other
boucaniers
had retreated some distance, and watched them, muttering. But they would risk nothing.

'Because we are feared.' Bart's hands were red with blood as he sliced through sinew and muscle to remove the cow's legs. 'There is not a
boucanier
does not know of Portuguese Bart. And there is not a
boucanier
does not know of the two young men. We four, monsieurs, could rule this plain.'

'With you as leader,' Jean murmured.

'I am the oldest. I am most experienced. Now let us build a fire. Armand?'

His
matelot
nodded, went to the trees to begin collecting wood.

'Here?' Kit asked.

'I have a glass.' Bart took the eyepiece of a telescope from his pocket. 'This is good, eh? And the sun, pouff. We will soon have a huge blaze.'

'What else do you have, monsieur?' Jean asked.

Bart grinned at them. 'I have a cache, monsieur. Pistols, and powder. We took them from a Spanish hunting party. Oh, they are there, too. We buried them alive, after we had played with them a little. I do not like the Spaniards, monsieur.'

'Neither do we,' Jean said.

Kit stood up. watched the other
boucaniers
running towards the wood. He turned, looked at the cloud of dust on the far side of the plain. 'And they do not like us.'

Bart scrambled to his feet, frow
ned into the haze. 'A squad
ron of lancers. Bastards. We must hurry. Bring what you can.'

He seized an armful of still quivering red flesh, and ran for the trees. Jean and Kit did likewise. Armand watched them come, his arms full of firewood.