The Monsoon (43 page)

Wazari laughed.

“His price was a lakh of rupees.” He repeated, in wonder, “A lakh of rupees for one slave-boy!”

“That is a ransom for a prince, not a slave, Hal agreed.

“Did you see the boy?”

“At one lakh?” Wazari looked incredulous.

“He said I

Must show him the gold before I may see the boy. I am a poor man, and I told jangiri that. VAlere would I find a lakh?”

“How could he dare to ask such a price?” Hal insisted.

“He said that it was the child of the prophecy of Taimtaim,” Wazari said.

“I do not know of this prophecy.”

“The saint prophesied that a child with strange coloured hair would come from the sea.”

“What colour?”

“Red!” said Wazari.

“The Red Crown of the Prophet.

jangiri says that this child of his has hair the colour of the sunset.” Hal felt his heart leap as though to be free of his chest, and his spirit soared. He turned away so that Wazari should not see it on his face and went to the weather rail. He stood there for a long while and let the wind tangle his dark hair around his face. Then he smoothed it back with both hands and returned to face Wazari.

“You have been kind indeed,” he said, and when he turned to Ned Tyler he was smiling.

“Take this man and all his crew back to the dhow. Let them go on their way.” Ned was startled, “Let them go? Begging your pardon, Captain, but what about the stolen silk?”

“Let him keep it! “Hal laughed aloud, and every man within earshot gaped at him. They had not heard his laughter in many days.

“It is small reward for what he has given me.”

“What has he given you, Captain?” Ned asked.

“Though it’s none of my business.”

“Hope!” said Hal.

“He has given me hope.”

he pinnace crept in around the south point of Flor de la Mar during the night.

The moon would not rise for another hour, and it was very dark.

Hal could judge his approach only by the phosphorescence of the breaking surf on the beach. He had lowered the sail, for even though the canvas was stained black he had to minimize the chances of being spotted from the shore.

Hal had kept the Seraph below the horizon during the hours of daylight so as not to alert al-Auf. She had come in to drop the pinnace only after the sun had set and was waiting for them now two miles offshore. Hal had arranged a series of rocket signals with Ned Tyler. If they should run into trouble, the Seraph would stand in to take them off.

So far they had encountered no difficulty, and the south end of the island seemed deserted, although they had seen the wavering lights from lanterns and cooking-fires at the north end as they sailed past.

If his father’s drawings were accurate, Hal expected to find a sheltered cove tucked away behind the southern tail of the island, and he steered for it now. There were twenty men in the pinnace, but he intended to take only the smallest party ashore with him. He did not plan an attack on the fort or the shipping anchored in the bay: this was a scouting foray, to assess the strength of the Mussulman corsairs and to try to find where Dorian was being held. He hoped to slip ashore and get away again without alarming the garrison, or giving them an inkling of his presence.

He heard the splash of the lead, then moments later the whisper from the bows, “By the mark four.” Big Daniel was taking the soundings himself, trusting no other with this vital task. The bottom was shelving sharply. A big swell passed under the boat, lifting them high, and Hal wished he had more light to guide them in. The breaking surf was close ahead.

“Ready for it now, lads,” Hal told the rowers softly, and then, as he felt the stern start to lift on the next swell, “Heave away!” The pinnace caught the wave and sped forward. Delicately Hal coaxed her to stay on the wave with small adjustments of the tiller. The crest burst all around them, but on she raced in the creaming waters until suddenly she ran onto the sand.

The three leaped out waist-deep and, holding their pistols, waded ashore. Behind them, Big Daniel took the pirinke out into the deeper water beyond the surf-line to await their return.

They halted above the high-water mark.

“Aboli, leave the rockets here,” Hal said, and Aboli set down the heavy canvas-wrapped packet.

“We must hope we never need them,” he grunted.

“Now look to your priming.” There were metallic clicks and snaps as Tom and Aboli re primed their pistols. The long row into the beach and wading through the surf would have given the seawater ample opportunity to degrade the priming. They had not armed themselves with the long-barrelled muskets, which were heavy and awkward to carry, and of little advantage in the night.

“Are you all right, Tom?” Hal dropped his voice even lower. He had agonized over the decision to bring the lad ashore with him.

“All right,” Tom whispered back. Hal wished he had not taken that oath in Tom’s company. His son used it against him whenever he tried to shield him from danger.

He had not been able to deny Tom a place in this shore party, but Hal consoled himself now with the fact that Tom’s night vision far surpassed his or even Aboli’s. They might be thankful for those sharp young eyes before this night was done.

“Take the lead,” he ordered Tom now, and they moved forward in Indian file, with himself in second place and Aboli bringing up the rear. The ground was open, devoid of any shrub or sea grass, but they had to follow carefully in Tom’s footsteps. The nests of the sea birds were set so close together on the coral sand that there was scarcely space to step between them, and the birds” backs were sooty black, which made them almost invisible. They cackled and squawked irritably as the men stepped over them, but this noise was absorbed by the low susurration of the vast colony. Occasionally one pecked painfully at a bare ankle, drawing blood, but there was no general outcry and at last they reached the palm grove at the far end of the colony.

Tom led them on at a faster pace, keeping in the cover of the grove but just above the white coral sands of the beach. Within half an hour he had stopped them again and when Hal went to his side he pointed ahead.

“There is the horn of the bay,” he whispered.

“I can just make out the ships lying in the anchorage, though I cannot be certain which is the Minotaur.” TO Hal’s eyes, the darkness ahead was unrelieved. However, Wazari had assured him that the Minotaur had been in the bay four days ago and, with the damage that the Seraph had inflicted upon her, it seemed unlikely that she would have sailed since then.

“The moon will be up very soon,” Hal murmurmed, “We will be able to make certain of her then. But, in the meantime, take us closer.”

They crept forward through the dense jungle beneath the trees.

The ground was littered with fallen palm fronds, dry and noisy underfoot.

They had to rely on Tom to steer them through this hazard. Hal wrinkled his nose as he smelt the smoke from the cooking-fires and the other less pleasing odours of the corsair’s encampment, of rotting fish-heads and offal, of refuse and uncovered dung-heaps.

Then he stopped again as he smelt the unmistakable stench of decomposing human corpses. He had been on too many battlefields not to recognize it. Immediately he thought of Dorian, and made an effort to put the thought of his son’s vulnerability out of his mind, and instead to concentrate on the task in hand. They went on slowly.

There was the sparkle of lights through the trees, and when they paused again they could hear the faint murmur of voices. Someone began to chant an Islamic prayer, and someone else was chopping firewood.

Mingled with these sounds was the tapping and soft clatter of shrouds and spars, the clank of an anchor chain from the ships lying in the bay. They reached the edge of the grove and could make out the dark curve of the bay before them.

“That’s the Minotaur,” Tom said softly.

“No mistaking her.” To Hal she was merely a darker blob in the darkness.

“The moon rises very soon,” he said, and they settled down to wait.

Eventually it came softly in its silver radiance, and the shapes of the craft in the bay materialized before them until they could make out the Minotaur’s bare yards against the stars. Hal saw that there were three other square-rigged vessels in the anchorage, which was as Wazari had described it to him. All these vessels had been captured by al-Auf.

“Tom, you stay here,” Hal whispered.

“Father-” he protested.

“No arguments!” Hal said firmly.

“You have done your job well, but you will stay here out of harm’s way until we return.) “But, Father-” Tom was outraged.

Hal ignored him.

“If anything happens, if we become separated, you must head back to the beach where we landed and call in the pinnace.”

“What are you going to do?” Tom demanded.

“Aboli and I are going to get a closer look at the shipping in the bay. There is nothing more You can do to help.”

“I want-“Tom began again, but Hal cut him off.

“Enough! We will meet you back here! Come, Aboli.” The two rose quietly and, within seconds, had disappeared, leaving Tom alone at the edge of the forest. Tom was not afraid, he was too angry for that.

He had been cheated, treated like a child when he had proved many @ times over that he was not.

“I am oath-bound,” he fumed.

“I cannot sit here while there is the least chance that I can help Dorry.” Still, it needed all his courage to defy his father, deliberately to flout his direct orders.

He rose hesitantly to his feet.

“It’s my duty.” He steeled himself.

He did not follow directly behind his father and Aboli. Instead, he circled away from the beach. His father had shown him the chart of the island and the drawings of the old fort that his grandfather had made fifty years before, so he had a good idea of the ground ahead and where he was going.

The moon was above the trees by now so he moved swiftly. He saw its light reflected from the pale battlements of the fort ahead, and when he started towards it he struck a path leading in the same direction. As he went forward the odour of decaying human flesh became stronger, until at last he stepped out into an opening in the forest and stopped in alarm.

A field of dead bodies lay before him. Naked human corpses hung suspended from a series of crude gallowst weird and chilling in the moonlight. He felt a chill of superstitious dread and could not bring himself to walk out among the dead men. Instead he skirted the opening, keeping among the trees. It was as well he did, for before he was halfway round a file of robed figures came along the path through the forest from the direction of the fort. If he remained on the path he would have run straight into them.

After they had passed, he kept to the cover of the palm grove, and within minutes he was crouching below the thick moon-silver walls of the fort. By now his anger had subsided and he felt very much alone and unprotected.

He knew that what he should do now was admit his stupidity and sneak back to the rendezvous, before his father found out that he was missing. It won’t take long.

He rationalized his disobedience. Cautiously he started to circle the fort, until he came almost opposite the main gates, which stood open, but guards were huddling under the arch. It looked as though they were asleep but he could not take the chance of approaching any closer. He crouched in the shadows a few minutes longer. A torch was burning in a bracket to one side of the opening of the gateway. By its light he could make out the massive, sturdy timbers of the door.

He turned back and started to retrace his steps around the perimeter of the walls. On the eastern side the moonlight played full upon the pale coral blocks, and Tom could see that in places the walls were in ruins: some of their outer cladding had collapsed and the jungle growth was taking over. The ficus trees had probed their roots deep into the joints between the blocks, and the sterns of wild lianas crawled up the walls, looking like monstrous black pythons in the moonlight.

A preposterous idea struck him: he would climb up into the fort, using a liana as a ladder, to search for Dorry.

He was considering this when suddenly he heard a soft cough. He shrank back into the trees, looking for where the sound had come from.

Then he saw the shape of a man’s turbaned head in a corner of the battlement. He realized that guards were posted at intervals along the top of the walls and his heart tripped when he realized how close he had come to climbing up into disaster. He moved on stealthily around the outside of the fort and turned the corner at the northwestern extremity.

He noticed that along this section there were loopholes in the outside of the walls, set high up, too narro for any but a child to squeeze through. Most of these shoots were dark, but behind one or two the soft yellow light of an oil lamp or lantern showed. There were cells or rooms behind those windows.

Crouching close under the walls, he stared up at them wistfully.

Behind any of those windows Dorian might be lying in his slave cell.

He imagined his little brother’s terror and loneliness, and shared those emotions to the full extent of his love.

Suddenly, almost without conscious volition Tom pursed his lips and whistled the opening bars of “Spanish Ladies’: Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies, Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain.

For we’ve received orders to sail for old England … Then he lay quietly and waited for some response.

There was none. After a short while he stood up and moved quietly a little further along the wall. Again he whistled the tune, and waited.

Then movement caught his eye. Behind one of the high narrow windows someone had moved the lamp.

He saw the angle of the shadows change. Tom’s heart thumped against his ribs and he crept closer. He was about to whistle the tune again when the dark shape of a head appeared between the lamp and the window. Someone was peering out through the loophole, but he could not see the face. Then a sweet unbroken voice whispered in the night, We’ll rant and we’ll roar, all o’er the wild ocean, We’ll rant and we’ll roar, all o’er the wild seas … “Dorry!” Tom wanted to scream it out loud, but he Stopped himself before it reached his lips. He crept closer to the foot of the wall, leaving the dense cover of the forest. He saw that a twisted liana rope climbed up the coral blocks to pass an arm’s length from the lighted loophole where the shadow of Dorian’s head still showed.