Sea Robber (20 page)

‘For long time, the villagers not allowed to leave island.’

‘But Ookooma was near death when we picked him up. It looked as though he was adrift by accident.’

‘Yes, Ookooma was fishing. He good fisherman. That day he go too far and the sea take him away and boat broken. The sea takes him far away.’

‘So it wasn’t his fault.’

‘No matter,’ said Panu. ‘Ookooma not come home.’

‘But why should that result in a ban on the villagers using their boats?’

Panu gave a sigh. ‘The Ta-yin say whole village must pay Ookooma’s disappearance.’

Jeema must have guessed what was being discussed, for he said something and waited for Panu to translate.

‘Jeema say we must obey the Ta-yin and make sure others same.’

Hector shook his head in disbelief. ‘Where’s Ookooma now?’ he asked.

The old man merely stared at the ground, and would not answer.

T
HE DAYS PASSED
, and Hector could see why Eaton and his men chose to ignore Jeema’s requests – repeated over and over again – that they leave the island. The anchorage was the ideal haven, where the crew of the
Nicholas
could recuperate after weeks at sea. Night and day the temperature scarcely varied, and the air was warm enough for the men to sleep on the beach in the open. Rain showers were rare and mostly fell in mid-afternoon. They lasted no more than ten minutes, and the men had no need to take shelter, knowing that the sun would soon reappear and dry out their clothes. By the end of the third day on the island the ship was entirely deserted and lay to double anchors, swinging gently to the regular variation of land and sea breezes. Her crew loafed about on land.

There was little for them to do and nowhere to go. In both directions the beach ended in tumbled masses of coral rock, so broken and jagged and overgrown as to be impassable. Behind the village Jeema showed Hector the terraces carved into the flank of a hill. They were for growing rice, while the middle slopes were planted with fruiting trees. Apart from the faint trace of a footpath leading through the orchards and then up into a thick pine forest that extended to the crest of the hill, the place seemed totally cut off from the outside world.

The visit to the rice fields revealed the whereabouts of the women and children of the village. They were working on the terraces. When Hector appeared – even though he was escorted by the village headman – they fled like startled deer, running until they reached the edge of the woods. There, at a safe distance, they paused as a group and looked back at the visitor. As far as Hector could tell in that distant glimpse, the women wore much the same humble gowns as their menfolk, and Jeema gave him to understand through sign language that at nightfall many of them crept back to occupy their huts with their families, then made sure they were gone by first light in case the strangers entered the village.

‘They must feel we are like locusts,’ said Jacques ruefully when Hector told him what he’d seen. ‘The men still deliver baskets of food to me to cook. But the quantity is smaller day by day. Yesterday there was no pork, and today no more eggs. I think the villagers go hungry.’

Hector looked across to where the village’s fishing boats still lay unused on the beach. It was mid-morning and yet there was no sign anyone was preparing to put to sea. ‘They would rather starve than disobey their “great man” and go out fishing,’ he said.

‘Without Dan and his striking iron we would also go hungry,’ remarked Jacques.

Each dawn the Miskito borrowed the handiest of the village dugout canoes and paddled out to the reef with his harpoon. There he took quantities of fish, many of them bright with vivid patterns of orange, purple and yellow. Spearing them was easy in the crystal-clear water.

‘It’s fear of their Ta-yin that makes them so obedient,’ said Jezreel. He had sauntered across to join them, his backsword in hand. He was finding the inactivity tiresome and had spent half an hour going through a complicated routine of cuts and slashes, steps and turns, whirling the weapon in all directions until he had worked up a good sweat.

‘While you were playing the dancing master, waving that blade, they kept their heads down like they were embarrassed to see it,’ observed Jacques with a nod to where a score of villagers sat cross-legged on the
Nicholas
’ sails spread on the sand. They were sewing patches where the canvas had torn, restitching weak seams and splicing in bolt ropes that had worked loose. The ship’s sailmaker and his assistant sat over to one side, occasionally getting to their feet and strolling among the labourers to give instructions or check the quality of the repairs. Neither man troubled himself to wield needle and thread.

‘Eh bien, what is that troublemaker up to?’ said Jacques. The sailor named Domine, the man found guilty of stealing water, had left a group of his friends lounging on the sand and watching the sail repairers. He walked across the spread-out canvas towards one of the villagers who sat, head down, concentrating on his work. Reaching the villager, Domine leaned down and whipped out one of the hair pins that held the man’s topknot in place. Without pausing, Domine turned and strutted back towards his cronies. He held up his trophy in triumph while his shipmates gave an encouraging cheer. His victim looked up in shocked surprise, dismay and consternation on his face. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he rose to his feet and followed Domine up the beach, holding out his hand for the return of the six-inch pin.

Domine reached his grinning friends and stood before them, holding out the pin to display its golden finial. The villager touched him on the arm. Domine swung round angrily. Putting a hand on the man’s chest, he shoved him roughly, sending the villager staggering backwards. ‘Basta,’ he shouted.

He was showing the pin again to his comrades when, stubbornly, the pin’s owner approached a second time. Politely and firmly he tried to take the pin from Domine’s grasp. Domine’s friends jeered at the sight of the villager, a small wizened man, tackling the sailor. Stung by their mocking, Domine lost his temper. He swung an arm and struck the man across the ear, knocking him to the ground.

Undeterred, the villager got up and came forward again. Exasperated, Domine transferred the pin to his left hand. Reaching inside his shirt with his right hand, he pulled out the knife that hung in its sheath from a leather thong around his neck. The weapon was not a sailor’s working blade, but a slender, lethal stiletto. With a warning scowl Domine held up the weapon and waved it menacingly in front of his tormentor. His shipmates crowed in delight. Sensing the approval of his friends, Domine held up the pin tauntingly with his left hand. Then, as the villager approached, the sailor thrust the stiletto forward, obliging the villager to jump back. More chuckles from his audience, and Domine began to show off. He skipped from side to side, grinning and alternately holding the pin out to the villager, then pulling it back out of reach as he darted the dagger towards his victim.

Still the villager wouldn’t give up. He came forward and retreated again and again. Little by little the spectators began to lose interest in the horseplay. ‘Prick him where it hurts,’ shouted one of them. ‘Don’t damage his stitching hand,’ added another, to a guffaw of laughter. The look on Domine’s face changed from mockery to deadly intent. He stopped skipping and settled into an assassin’s stance. He held up the pin one last time and dropped the hand with the stiletto lower, level with his thigh.

Watching from a distance, Hector knew what was coming, but was too far away to intervene. The next time the villager advanced, Domine’s dagger would come thrusting upwards, puncture the victim’s belly low down and leave a wound that was almost impossible to staunch. Desperately Hector looked round for Eaton, hoping the captain would intervene and put a stop to the fatal game. But Eaton stood off to one side, his eyes fixed on the action and, judging by his rapt attention, he had no intention of ending the charade.

The villager came at Domine once again, more cautiously this time, for the sailor’s vile mood was evident. Domine’s lips tightened as he judged his distance. He held up the pin, and in the same moment stepped forward with his left foot and struck with his stiletto.

What followed was difficult to understand. As the blade travelled upwards, the villager twisted to one side, reached out with both hands and seized Domine’s arm in a painfully firm grip. As Domine continued his lunge, his arm was pulled forward and down, throwing him off-balance, and a moment later he was cartwheeling through the air.

The sailor landed sprawling on the sand, flat on his back, with an impact that knocked the breath out of him. There was an interval of astonished silence from the onlookers. Humiliated, Domine scrambled to his feet. He still had his dagger in his hand. Now he ran at his opponent, the stiletto weaving back and forth to confuse his victim. The villager stepped nimbly to one side and avoided the charge. Domine ran past him, and the old man delivered a smashing left-footed kick into the lower part of Domine’s back. The sailor felt an agonizing flash of pain in his kidneys, tripped and went face downward.

‘How in God’s name did he do that?’ blurted Hector. Panu had appeared beside him some moments earlier, and the young man turned to him enquiringly. But Panu was no longer there. Looking down, Hector saw that he was doubled up and on his knees. For a moment Hector feared Panu had suddenly been taken ill, and then he became aware that all the villagers who’d been working on the sails were now in the same posture, crouching down, their faces pressed to the ground. Their bodies all pointed up the beach.

Turning to look, Hector saw a figure standing in front of the green wall of bamboos – a man dressed in a type of scaly armour. Layers of metals discs were laced together to make an apron-like surcoat to protect his body. Flaps of the same material covered his shoulders, arms and thighs, and he wore shin guards. His legs were encased in long white socks and thrust into thick-soled straw sandals. Around his waist a broad sash held a three-foot-long sword and a shorter dagger. But it wasn’t the weapons and the military style of dress, or the glitter of the lacquered iron platelets, which held Hector’s attention. In his right hand the man grasped a nine-foot staff with a banner. The shape of this guidon was rectangular, much taller than it was broad. It hung from a short wooden spreader so that the emblem on the flag was visible even when there was no breeze.

For a strange, unnerving moment Hector was transported back to his childhood. He had seen that same emblem many, many times during his schooldays. It had been scratched on rocks and stones, leaded into windows, embroidered on clothing, drawn and painted on parchment. The friars who taught him had revered it as the symbol of their faith. It was a cross within a circle.

But the villagers, crouched on their knees, were not venerating the flag’s mark. Their rigid backs and utter stillness were signs of abject terror.

The curiously armoured man came forward. He walked with a formal, stiff-legged gait, a curious strut, the staff and banner held up before him. He halted and bawled out an order in a strange language.

Instantly all the villagers jumped to their feet and ran like chicks to their mother hen, forming a tightly packed group behind their headman. Then they scuttled forward in formation and, some twenty paces in front of the mysterious man-at-arms, they dropped down and knelt submissively. Not a word was said.

More men emerged from the thicket of bamboos. Many wore the same layered coats of scaled armour. At least a dozen of them carried heavy matchlocks of an antique design. Others had long pikes, their metal tips decorated with red and white bunting. All had long swords thrust through their sashes.

Close behind came a straggle of porters dressed in the same drab garments as the villagers and stooped under heavy packs and bundles. Two of them trotted between the shafts of a sedan chair with dark-green side curtains.

Hector felt a sharp tap on his ankle. ‘The Ta-yin. Get down,’ murmured Panu. ‘And your friends too, or they will die.’

The bearers had placed the sedan chair beside the man with the banner. The curtains were drawn aside and out stepped the Ta-yin.

A short, bulky man, he was comfortably dressed in flowing black trousers and a loose white shirt tied at the wrists. It was difficult to guess his age. His bland, flat face with its dark, almost black eyes was unwrinkled and smooth. He had a small rat-trap mouth, a short neat nose that was slightly hooked, and his jet-black hair had been tightly tied in a queue. He had shaved his hairline back by several inches. It was impossible to know the natural colour of his complexion for his exposed scalp and all his face were covered in a thick coating of white powder.