The Monsoon (54 page)

“Very well,” Tom said.

“Let’s round up those who escaped from the fort.” Tom used the steady wind of the monsoon and sent small groups of men to put fire into the eastern fringe of the forest. It caught readily and flames roared through the undergrowth in towering clouds of thick black smoke.

Those Arabs still hiding in the forest were driven before the fire.

When they came running out from among the trees few had any fight left in them. They threw down their weapons, pleaded for mercy and were marched away to join their comrades. By nightfall on the second day almost every fugitive had been rounded up and penned in the stockades of the fort.

“The only sweet water on the island is in the rainwater cisterns of the fort,” Tom told Anderson, when they met on the beach at sunset.

“If we missed any, they will have to give themselves up before noon tomorrow or die of thirst.” Anderson studied the boy, who had so swiftly become a man. Tom’s face was blackened by the soot of the fires, and there were bloodstains on his shirt, for some of the Arabs had chosen to fight rather than accept the dubious mercy of the ferenghi. Yet despite the fatigue of battle, there was a commanding set to Tom’s shoulders and a new authority in his voice. Anderson noticed that the men responded without hesitation to the orders he gave. By God, he thought, the pup has become a fighting dog overnight.

He has the manner and look of his sire. I would not like to get on the wrong side of either of them.

Without questioning his own subservience, he reported, quite naturally, “The writers have finished the tally of the prize. I warrant it will surprise you, for it did me. The weight of the gold alone is almost three lakhs at a conservative estimate.”

“Please see that it is divided into four equal portions,” Tom said, “one portion to be sent aboard each of the ships of the squadron, including the Lamb.”

Anderson looked puzzled.

“Surely Sir Henry will want it all under his own eye?” he demurred.

“Captain Anderson, we have the long voyage back to England ahead of us, with countless hazards of sea and weather to face. If we are unfortunate enough to lose a ship, it may be the wrong one and we lose all the gold. If we spread the risk, then we stand to lose only a quarter and not the whole.” Why the hell did I not consider that?

Anderson thought, but said reluctantly, “They screwed your head on the right way-” He had almost called Tom “lad” but that no longer fitted.

“I will give the orders, Mr. Courtney.”

“We have twenty-six of our own men wounded, five of them seriously. I want a gang to build comfortable airy shelters above the beach to house them, and the carpenters to make beds for them. Now, as to our dead,” Tom glanced across at the eight canvas-wrapped corpses lying in the shade of the grove, “I want them taken aboard the Minotaur. We will give them a proper burial at sea. The Minotaur will sail out into the deep water at first light tomorrow. Will you be good enough to conduct the service, Captain Anderson?”

“I will be honoured to do so.” Now, I will have Mr. Walsh issue a keg of brandy from the Seraph’s stores to Aboli in which to pickle al-Auf’s head.” When Tom entered the stern cabin, Hal stirred ”” on the bunk and whispered, “Is that you, Tom?”

Swiftly Tom went to kneel beside him.

“Father, it is so good to have you back. You have been unconscious these last three days.”

“Three days? So long? Tell me what has happened since.”

“We prevailed, Father. Thanks to the sacrifice you made, we carried the fort. Al-Auf is dead. Aboli has his head pickled in a brandy keg, and we have taken a vast treasure from the fort.”

“Dorian?” Hal asked.

At that question, Tom felt the joy go out of him. He looked down at his father’s face. It was so pale that it seemed to have been dusted with white flour, and there were deep purple half-moons under his eyes.

“Dorian is not here.” Tom’s whisper was as soft as his father’s. Hal closed his eyes, and Tom thought he had passed out again. They were silent for a long while. When Tom started to rise to his feet, Hal opened his eyes again and rolled his head.

“Where is he? Where is Dorian?”

“Al-Auf sold him into slavery, but I do not know where they took him except that it must be somewhere on the mainland.” Hal struggled to sit up, but he did not have the strength to lift his shoulders from the mattress.

“Help me, Tom.

Help me to my feet, I must go on deck. I must ready the ship to go after him. We have to find Dorian.” Tom reached out to restrain him, thinking, He does not know. He felt a sorrow so deep it threatened to drown him. How do I tell him?

“Come, lad. Help me up. I am weak as a newborn foal.”

“Father, you cannot stand. They have taken your legs.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Tom. You test my patience.” His father was becoming so agitated that Tom feared that he might injure himself. Dr. Reynolds had warned that any violent movement might rupture the sutures and start the bleeding again. I have to convince him, for his own good.

Tom stooped over Hal and drew back the light cotton coverlet from his lower body.

“Forgive me, Father. I have to show you.” Very gently he placed an arm under Hal’s shoulders and lifted him until he could look down at his own body.

The grotesquely foreshortened limbs lay on the mat, tress, each swathed in a turban of bandages on which the blood had dried in dirty brown stains. Hal stared at them for a long while, then fell back on his pillows. For a minute Tom thought he had fainted again. But then he saw tears squeezing from between the tightly closed eyelids. That was too much for him to bear. He could not watch his father weep. He had to leave him now to make his own terms with his destiny. He drew the sheet over him to hide those terrible injuries and tiptoed from the cabin, closing the door silently behind him.

When he came on deck, the longboat was ready to take him across to the waiting Minotaur. Captain Anderson was on the quarterdeck, speaking quietly to All Wilson.

Tom glanced at the eight canvas-wrapped bodies. Each one was lying on its own grating, and a large round shot had been sewn into the foot of each shroud. He could recognize Daniel Fisher by his bulk: he dwarfed the others who lay beside him.

“Mr. Wilson, kindly get us under way and p the ship ut on a course to clear the passage.” The Minotaur’s black sails were appropriate to this sombre voyage. She left the island and bore out towards the west while the colour of the water beneath her keel changed from the turquoise green of the shallows to the royal purple of the ocean depths.

“Heave the ship to, please, Mr. Wilson.” The Minotaur rounded head to the wind, and Anderson began to intone the sonorous words of the burial service.

“Out of the deep have I called unto thee…” The wind mourned in the rigging, while Tom stood bareheaded by the main mast and thought of how much he had lost in these last days: a father, a brother and a dear friend.

“We therefore commit their bodies to the deep .”A sailor was standing by the head of each grating, and at the lk wards they lifted them in unison so that the shrouded bodies slid out over the ship’s side and plunged feet first into the sea, drawn swiftly under by the iron shot.

All Wilson nodded to the gunners standing by their cannon and the first shot of the salute crashed out in a long spurt of silver gunsmoke.

“Goodbye, Big Danny. Goodbye, old friend,” Tom whispered.

Later that evening Tom sat beside his father’s bunk and, in a low voice, reported the day’s events to him. He was not certain that Hal could yet understand everything he told him, for he made no comments and seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. However, talking to him made Tom feel closer to him in spirit, and helped to assuage the loneliness of command, the onerous burden of which he was coming to know for the first time.

When Tom at last fell silent and was about to go to his pallet on the deck, Hal fumbled for his hand and squeezed it weakly.

“You’re a good lad, Tom” he whispered, “probably the best of all of them. I only wish-” He broke off and let Tom’s hand slide from his grip. His head rolled to the side and he snored softly. Tom would never know what it was he had wished.

ver the next few days Tom noticed a slight improvement in his father’s strength. He was able to concentrate for more than just a few minutes on what Tom had to report to him before he slumped into unconsciousness.

Within a week Tom was able to ask him for advice, and receive a reasoned reply. However, when he consulted Dr. Reynolds as to when his father would be strong enough to begin the return voyage to England, the doctor shook his head.

“I will be able to remove the sutures from his legs in three days” time, that is fourteen days from the amputation. If you sail in a month from now, you will still be subjecting him to severe risk, especially if we run into heavy weather.

To be safe, we should wait at least two months. He needs time to build up his strength.” Tom went to find Anderson, and found him supervising the final loading of the heavy cargo they had captured.

This was mostly spices and cloth, including magnificent silks from China.

“Captain Anderson I have discussed with my father the question of the Arab prisoners.”

“I hope he does not think of releasing them.

They are pirates, plain and simple. They have murdered hundreds of honest seamen.”

“We could never countenance releasing them,” Tom agreed.

“Apart from any other consideration, it would set a dangerous precedent. We cannot let loose such a pack of tiger sharks to prey upon the sea lanes.”

“I am pleased to hear that,” Anderson grunted.

“The rope’s end should be their final destination.”

“By the last count we have five hundred and thirty-five of them. That’s a great deal of rope, Captain Anderson, and I doubt we have enough yard-arms on which to hang all of them out to dry.” Anderson sucked his pipe as he thought about the logistical problems of executing so many men.

the other hand, they would be worth at least thirty pounds a head on the slave block, perhaps more,” Tom pointed out.

Anderson stared at him, his blue eyes popping. He had not thought of that.

“God’s blood, they deserve it. But you cannot sell them in Zanzibar,” he said at last.

“The Sultan would never let you put Mussulmen up for sale in his markets. We would have another war on our hands.”

“The Dutch have no such qualms,” Tom said.

“They are always on the lookout for slaves to work their cinnamon plantations in Ceylon.”

“You are right.” Anderson chuckled with delight.

“It’s a round voyage of five thousand miles to Ceylon and back again, but the winds are fair and at thirty pounds a head it will be well worth the detour.”

He did a quick mental calculation.

“Sweet heavens, that’s within spitting distance of sixteen thousand pounds.” He was silent again as he worked out his own share of that amount, then grinned.

“Al-Auf had sufficient slave chains stored in the fort to accommodate all his own men quite handsomely. That has a fine touch of justice to it.”

“According to Dr. Reynolds, my father will not be well enough to sail for at least two months. I propose that you should load the captives on board the Yeoman and convey them to Colombo. When you have sold them to the
VOC
governor there, you will rejoin us here. In the meantime I will send the captured dhow south to summon the Lamb from where she is lying in the Gloriettas. We will make the return voyage to England in convoy. With fair winds and God’s grace, we can drop anchor in Plymouth Ho before Christmas.” The following day they loaded the Arabs on board the Yeoman. The blacksmiths from all the ships were needed for the work of riveting the leg irons on to the ankles of the long ranks of men. They were chained in batches of ten, then led down to the beach.

Tom was with Reynolds in the thatched hospital they had set up under the palm trees. He was visiting the wounded sailors lying there, hoping to give them a little cheer and encouragement. Two had already died when their wounds mortified and turned into the dreaded gas gangrene, but four had recovered sufficiently to return to their duties on board ship, and Reynolds was optimistic that the others would soon follow them.

Tom left the hospital and paused to watch the batches of prisoners shuffling past on their way to the waiting longboats. He felt a certain squeamishness at the thought that he was sending these men into a life of captivity. The Dutch were not famous as the gentlest of gaolers: he remembered the tales his father, Big Daniel and Aboli had told of their own experiences in the fort at Good Hope under their Dutch captors. Then he consoled himself that the decision had not been his alone: his father had concurred and signed the warrant for their transportation, under the powers granted him by the royal commission, while Captain Anderson had been positively delighted with the prospect of turning a fat profit on their sale. They were blood-smeared pirates, after all. When he thought of little Dorian, condemned to the same fate, any pity he had felt for the prisoners withered.

Anyway, he had argued with his elders and convinced both his father and Anderson to exempt the women and children of the garrison from the sentence of transportation into slavery. There were fifty-seven of these unfortunates, some of them infants only months old. Many of the women were heavily and obviously pregnant.

Touchingly, five had elected to follow their husbands into captivity rather than suffer separation. The others would be kept here on Flor de la Mar until suitable transport to Zanzibar could be arranged for them.

He was about to turn away when the familiar face and silver beard of Ben Abram among the prisoners caught his eye.

“Bring that man to me,” he called to the guards, who pulled him out of the ranks and dragged him to where Tom stood.

A pox on you,” Tom reprimanded them.

“He is an old man. Treat him gently.” Then he spoke to Ben Abram.

“How is it that a man like you was with al-Auf?” Ben Abram shrugged.

“There are sick to be tended everywhere, even among the outlaws. I never ask of a man’s good deeds or of his crimes when he comes to me to be healed.”