The Monsoon (21 page)

“What is this about?”

“You know, Father, you were there. It is so disgusting that I cannot bring myself to discuss it, but Tom has given deep offence to Mistress Caroline.”

“Ah!” Hal sighed.

“So that’s it.”

As he studied Guy’s taut features silently, he thought, If what the little trollop was doing on her back in the powder magazine was taking offence, then she has a remarkable way of demonstrating it. At last he said, “And what is she to you?”

“I love her, Father,” said Guy, with a simple, touching dignity that took Hal unawares.

He stopped the smile that was already rising to his lips.

“And is the lady aware of your feelings?”

“I know not,” Guy admitted.

“You have not declared them to her? You are not betrothed? You have not spoken to Mr. Beatty for his daughter’s hand?” Guy faltered, “No, Father, not yet. I am but seventeen and.

“Then I fear that you might have left it a trifle late.” Hal spoke not unkindly, he remembered the agony of young love full well.

“Which, in the circumstances, is probably fortunate.”

“I do not follow your meaning, sir.” Guy drew himself up stiffly.

Now I have to qualify myself to the little prig, Hal thought, with secret amusement, “Simply put, now that you are painfully aware of the predilections, shall we say? of Mistress Beatty, you may wish to review your affection for her. Is she worthy of such noble love as that which you bear her? Has your brother not done you a service by bringing her true nature, even as forcefully as he did, to your attention?” He was going to add, “It seems clear that Mistress Caroline is a little strumpet, but he bit back the words, thinking, I do not want to be challenged to a duel by my own son.

“Tom forced her to it,” Guy answered, with grim determination.

“That is why I must challenge him.”

“Did he drag her down to the magazine against her will?”

“Perhaps not, but he enticed her. He seduced her.”

“If you call Tom out, will not the entire ship’s company become aware of what has transpired between Tom and her? Do you want her father to learn of her little indiscretion? Do you want her to suffer the full force of parental disapproval?” Guy looked flustered, and Hal pressed his advantage.

“The sole reason I have not been more severe in my condemnation of your brother’s part in this is to spare the young lady’s reputation and prospects. Do you wish to expose her now?”

“I will not have to tell anyone else why I am doing this, but I want to fight him.”

“Well, then.” Hal gave up.

“If you are determined, and there is nothing more that I can say to persuade you, then fight him you shall. I will arrange a wrestling bout between the two of you-, “No, Father,” Guy interrupted, “You do not understand.

I wish to challenge him to a duel with pistols. Hal’s expression hardened instantly.

“What nonsense is this, Guy? Tom is your brother.”

“I hate him said Guy, and his voice quivered with passion.

“Have you considered that, if you call him out, Tom will have the choice of weapons? He will certainly choose sabres. Would you wish to face Tom with a sabre in his hand? I don’t think I would. Aboli has turned him into a swordsman who can hold his own in any company. You would not last a minute against him. He would humiliate you, or he would kill you,” Hal told him bluntly and cruelly.

“I don’t care, I want to fight him

Hal lost his temper. He slammed the palm of his hand on the desk with such violence that the ink sprayed from its well onto the pages of the ship’s log.

“That’s enough! I have tried to reason with you. Now I forbid this notion of yours. There will be no duelling on this ship, and certainly none between my own sons. If there is one more word from you on the subject, I will have you chained in the forward hold and as soon as we reach Good Hope I will have You transferred to another ship and sent back to England. Do you hear me, boy?” Guy recoiled at the strength of his father’s anger. He had seldom witnessed such fury from him. However, he tried to stand his ground.

“But, Father-”

“Enough!”

Hal-snapped.

“I have had my say and the subject is closed for all time. Now get about your duties with Mr. Beatty. I will hear no more of this nonsense.” The sea changed in colour and mood as the Seraph tacked back and forth, battling her way steadily eastward. The confused and disordered wave formations of the ocean changed their character and became great serried ranks, an army of giants marching in battle array towards the land still hidden beneath the horizon “The Cape rollers,” Ned Tyler told Tom and Dorian, and pointed ahead towards the misted horizon.

“Cold waters meeting the warm African airs, some call it the Cape of Good Hope, but others call it the Sea of Fogs and others still the Cape of Storms.” Each day a sense of excitement grew stronger in the ship, which had been so long out of sight of land. The birds came out to meet them from the distant continent, gannets winging in long formations with slashes of black down their yellow throats, gulls with snowy breasts and sable mantles following with raucous cries and tiny petrels splattering the surface of the water with webbed feet.

Then they saw the first dark clumps of drifting kelp, torn from the rocks by the stormy seas and washed out by the current, waving their long sterns and bunched fronds like the tentacles of deformed octo pods Vast shoals of small sardine-like fish seethed upon the surface of the cold green waters, and legions of slippery, glistening seals frolicked and fed upon this abundence. As the ship ploughed on they lifted their heads towards the men on the deck with huge swimming eyes and stiff, catlike whiskers.

Now each evening Hal shortened sail, so that the ship was barely holding her own against the swirling green current. At first light he sent Tom and Dorian to the masthead to make sure that no reef or rock lay ahead to claw out the ship’s guts. As soon as he was certain that the way ahead was clear, he shook out, the reefs and clapped on all canvas.

In the middle of the seventy-third morning since leaving Plymouth Dorian pointed out to his elder brother the cloud that stood stationary dead ahead above the horizon, while the other heavenly cohorts tumbled and streamed away upon the wind. Both boys studied it for a while, until suddenly it swirled, opened, and they saw a hard blue line beneath it, straight as a sabre cut.

“Land!” whispered Tom.

“Can it be?” Dorian asked, wonderingly.

“Yes! Yes!” Tom’s voice rose sharply.

“It’s the land!” He leaped to his feet in the swaying perch and pointed ahead with a finger that shook.

“Land!” he shrieked.

“Land ho!” Below him the deck erupted into life, the watch below came streaming up and joined the scramble into the rigging. Soon every shroud and yard was clustered with men, hanging like bunches of ripe fruit, shouting and roaring with laughter and excitement.

Hal Courtney came rushing up from the stern cabin in his shirtsleeves, clutching the brass barrel of his telescope under his arm, and climbed up to where his sons perched at the masthead. He climbed fast and strongly, never stopping until he reached the crow’s nest. Tom noticed with pride that, despite the long climb, his breathing was light and even.

He lifted the telescope to his eye and studied the blue silhouette through the glass, picking out the shadowy seams and folds of rugged rock.

“Well, Master Thomas, you’ve made your first landfall.” He handed the glass to Tom.

“What do you make of it?” Crouched between the two boys he placed an arm around each of them.

“It’s a mountain!” Tom cried.

“A great mountain, with a flat top.”

“Table Mountain!” Hal agreed. Tom did not yet realize what a feat of navigation this was. More than seventy days without sight of land, and his father had brought them in precisely on the thirty-fourth degree of south latitude.

“Look well upon this land ahead of you,” Hal told them.

He felt a strange sense of prescience as though the curtains that veiled the future had opened for an instant before his eyes.

“For this is where your destiny lies.”

“Mine also, Father?” Dorian piped.

“Both of you. This is where Fate has led you.” Both boys were silent, rendered speechless for once by their father’s vehemence.

The three sat together at the masthead while the sun reached its zenith.

“No need of sun@ shot today.” Hal chuckled.

“We can leave that to Ned Tyler and All Wilson.

We know where we are, don’t we?” The sun started down the sky, and the Seraph plugged on gamely, beating her way slowly into the rushing southeast wind, gaining slowly so that the table-topped mountain rose with solemn majesty out of the sea, until it seemed to fill the sky ahead of them, and they could even make out the white specks of human habitation at the foot of the sheer rock cliff.

“We helped build that fort.” Hal pointed it out to them.

“Aboli and Daniel and Ned Tyler and me.”

“Tell us the story!” Dorian pleaded.

“You’ve heard it a hundred times,” Hal protested.

Tom added his entreaties.

“It doesn’t matter, Father.

We want to hear it again.” So, as they sat together in the rigging, Hal related to them the events of the war twenty-five years ago, how the entire crew of Their grandfather’s ship had been captured by the Dutch, and brought in chains to Good Hope. Sir Francis Courtney had been tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the treasure he had taken from the Dutch galleons he had captured. When he had stood fast against his tormentors, steadfastly enduring the most vile and inhuman suffering on him, the Dutch had taken him out onto the parade ground and publicly executed him.

Hal and the rest of the crew had been condemned to hard labour on the walls of the Dutch fort, and they had toiled and suffered there for three long years before they had made good their escape.

“So is that the mountain where Grandfather Francis is buried?”

Tom asked.

“Do you know where his grave is, Father?”

“Aboli knows, for it was he who took the body down from the scaffold in the night.

Under a staring moon he carried it up the mountain to a secret place.”

Tom was silent for a while, thinking about the empty sarcophagus in the chapel on the hill behind High Weald with his grandfather’s name graven upon it. He guessed what his father was planning, but this was not the time to thrust himself forward. He would bide his time.

The Seraph came level with the small rocky island that guarded the entrance to the bay below the mountain.

Forests of waving black kelp clogged the waters around it and hordes of glistening seals thronged the rocky shore of Robben Island, so called because rob ben was the Dutch name for seal.

“Now I must go down to see the ship safely into the anchorage,” Hal told them.

“Race you to the deck!” Dorian cried, as he sprang into the rigging. Tom gave him a lead, then flew after him.

Their feet danced over the rat-lines, and they dropped as though falling free, but Tom was soon narrowing the gap between them until, when he was almost level, he slowed to let Dorian reach the deck a foot ahead of him.

“I won! I won!” Dorian exulted.

Tom ruffled his shining coppery curls.

“Don’t gloat,” he said, and pushed him away. Then he looked at the small group in the Seraph’s bows. Mr. and Mrs. Beatty stood there with all their daughters, Guy with them. They were animated and excited, pointing out to each other the landmarks of this famous headland, next to Cape Agulhas, the most southerly point of the African landmass.

“They call the white cloud sitting on top of the mountain the tablecloth.” Guy was lecturing the group.

“And that little hill there to the south of the settlement is called Lion’s Head. You can see the shape of it. “As always he had studied the navigation books and knew all the details.

“Guy, why don’t you go to the masthead?” Tom called to him, not unkindly.

“You’ll get a much better view from there.” Guy glanced coldly at him, “Thank you, but I’m quite happy where I am.” He stepped a little closer to Caroline, and began to turn away.

“No need to be afraid,” Tom assured him.

“It’s quite safe.” Guy rounded on him.

“Are you calling me a coward?” His face was suffused with blood and his voice cracked with indignation.

“That’s not what I said.” Tom laughed, and turned on his heel to go to the helm.

“But take it any way you wish,” he flung over his shoulder.

Guy glared at him, and mortification flooded over him.

Tom had disparaged his courage, then dismissed him casually in front of the Beatty family and Caroline. Something snapped in his mind, and before he truly realized what he was about, he launched himself down the deck at a full run.

“Tom, look out!” Dorian yelled, but he was too late.

Tom was turning to protect himself but Guy crashed into him with all his weight and momentum while he was balanced on only one foot. It sent him reeling against the gunwale, with such force that the wind was driven from his lungs, Guy leaped onto his back and threw a full arm-lo around his neck. All the boys had taken regular wrestling instruction from Big Daniel, and though Guy was slow at maladroit at the sport, he knew all the holds and throw and now that he had this killer grip he was making the most of it. He braced himself with one knee in Tom’s back, and used the counter-thrust of one arm against the crook of the other, to block off Tom’s windpipe and put strain on his spine so that at any moment the vertebrate must snap. Tom reeled about the deck tearing at Guy’s arms with desperate fingers, gradually weakening, his mouth wide open as he gasped for air.

The crew came running to watch the show, hooting with excitement, sTorming and shouting encouragement to their favourites. Then, above the clamour, a bull voice roared, “Back throw, Klebe,” and Tom reacted instantly.

Instead of resisting the hold that was dragging him backwards, he changed direction, throwing all his weight and strength into a back somersault. Guy found himself hurled backwards with such force that he had no choice but to release his grip and fling back both arms to break his fall, otherwise his ribs would have been stove in.