The Monsoon (29 page)

Jan Oliphant was intent on his revenge for the gaping slash across his cheek, and he went after Tom, swearing and shouting his rage, using only the edge of his sabre with wild cuts and overhead slashes. Tom gave ground before him, outmatched in height, reach and strength by the burly Hottentot. For these fatal seconds Tom was on his own: he could count on no help from Aboli or Daniel, or even his father. His manhood would have its full flowering this night, or he would die on these blood-soaked sands. He was afraid, but not unmanned by his, fear.

Rather, it gave power to his wrist and sword arm. He found something within him that he had not known was there until this moment.

He fell naturally into the rhythmic fighting grace that Aboli had instilled into him through all these years of training. Now that the flames from the burning driftwood were lighting the beach, he found his confidence growing.

He felt the steel in his arm, as he realized that the brute he faced was a brawler and not a swordsman, although the power in his swinging blade was enormous, it was as irresistible as a landslide.

Tom did not make the mistake of trying to match it. Instead, he anticipated each wild, hacking stroke before it was launched. There was no subtlety in the way Jan Oliphant signalled his intention with his glaring eyes and contorted blood-smeared face, or in how he moved his feet and opened his shoulders to make the stroke.

As it came whistling down at Tom’s head, he reached out and touched it with his own blade, never attempting to stop it in the air, lightly deflecting it, so that it flew harmlessly an inch past his head. Each time Tom did this Jan Oliphant’s rage swelled until it overwhelmed him. He held his sword high above his head with both hands and rushed straight at Tom, roaring like a bull seal in the rut.

He made no attempt to cover himself from any counter, stroke, and his body was wide open.

al winged one of his antagonists, hitting him high in the right shoulder with his riposte. The man screamed and reeled back, dropping his sword, clutching at his wound. The other two Hottentots fighting on each side of him lost heart and dropped back. Hal had an instant of respite to glance around in the flickering light of the flames.

His heart froze in his chest as he saw Tom stand full in the path of the towering Hottentot captain. They were too far for Hal to intervene before Jan Oliphant charged home. A shout of warning and despair rose in his throat, but he choked it back. It would have served only to distract Tom.

Tom was as pale as the sand beneath his feet, but his face was set and hard with determination, his eyes bright and intent, no glimmer of fear in them as he sighted over the weaving point of his sabre. Hal expected him to drop back before the charge of the huge beast of a man bearing down on him. The set of his shoulders and the balance of his slim body signalled just that intention. But suddenly his left foot swung forward and he launched himself like an arrow from a bow, straight at Jan Oliphant’s throat. The big man had no time to bring down his guard or turn aside from the thrust. Tom’s point caught him precisely in the hollow at the base of his neck, an inch above where his collarbones met. It flew deep, a hand span through Jan Oliphant’s throat, found the juncture of two vertebrae in his spine and severed them cleanly. The steel drove on until, smeared pink with blood in the firelight, it sprang out a foot from the nape.

The raised sword fell from Jan Oliphant’s nerveless fingers, and his limbs flew wide, for a moment forming a dark crucifix against the flames. Then he fell backwards, hitting the sand with all his slack, lifeless weight. Tom’s blade jerked free, plucked from the dead man’s throat by his own weight and momentum, and the air from Jan Oliphant’s lungs was driven out through his punctured windpipe in an explosive sigh by the force of his fall. It burst from the wound in his throat in a tall pink feather of froth.

There was a long moment when every man on the beach froze, and stared at the grotesque corpse. Then one of the Hottentots facing Hal wailed with despair, turned and fled up the dunes. In an instant the others were racing after him in panic, leaving their dead and wounded where they had fallen.

Tom was still staring down at the man he had killed.

His face crumpled and he started to shake with shock and the release of fear and rage. Hal went to him immediately and placed an arm around his shoulders.

“Well fought, lad,” he said, and hugged him.

“I killed him!” Tom whispered, in tones of disbelief.

“Before he killed you,” Hal told him. He looked around at his men scattered along the beach.

“Which of you fired the falconer?” he shouted against the wind.

“That saved us all.”

“Not me.”

“Nor me.” All heads turned towards the longboat, and they stared at the small figure in the bows.

“Not you, Dorian?” Hal asked, in wonder.

“Yes, Father.” Dorian held up the smoking slow-match in his hand.

“Two cubs of the old lion,” said Aboli softly.

“But now we should go, before the garrison from the castle comes to that cannon and the fire.” He gestured at the piles of It burning driftwood.

“Did we lose anyone?” Hal shouted.

“I saw Dick Foster go down,” All Wilson shouted back, and went to kneel beside the body. There was a fearsome wound in the chest. All felt for the carotid artery in the man’s throat beside his windpipe.

“He’s gone.”

“Any others?” Hal asked.

“No, only the one,” All replied.

Hal felt a lift of relief. It could have been much worse he could have lost a son, or a dear friend.

“Right, then.

Get Dick into the boat. We’ll give him a Christian burial when we get to sea.” He picked up the leather sack that held his father’s remains.

“What shall we do with this trash?” Big Daniel kicked one of the wounded Hottentots, and the man groaned.

“We should slit their throats.”

“Leave them. Don’t waste time.” Hal looked around and saw that half of his crew had shallow cuts and sword nicks, but none had bothered to remark on it. This was the first time he had seen them fight. They’re a good hard crew indeed, he thought, with satisfaction.

They will give good account against Jangiri, or any other foe.

“Back to the boad” he ordered, and four men picked up Dick Foster’s body, handling it with respect, and laid it on the floorboards. Hal placed the leather bag beside it, then jumped over the stern to take his place at the tiller.

The men seized hold of the boat and ran it down over the sands as easily as if it were a coracle. The bows were thrown high by the first wave and they leaped aboard and seized the oars.

“Heave away!” Hal shouted, and the next storm-driven wave crashed over the bows, tumbling aboard so that they were flooded knee-deep.

“Heave!” Hal exhorted them, and they shot forward, climbing at an impossible angle up the steep slope of the next wave. They reached the crest and hovered a moment on the very brink of capsizing end over end, then dropped forward and hit the trough with a crash.

“Heave!” Hal roared, and they shot out into the clear where the waves were tall but not steep enough to up-end them. Half the men set aside their oars and began to bail her out, while the others rowed hard for the distant Seraph.

“Dorian!” Hal called the boy to him.

“Sit by me.” He spread the wing of his cloak over his son and under its cover hugged him close.

“How did you learn to fire the falconer?”

“Tom showed me,” Dorian said uncertainly.

“Did I do

wrong?

“You did well.” Hal hugged him harder.

“God knows, you could not have done better.” al carried the leather sack into the stern cabin.

The two boys followed him, seawater pouring from their clothing onto the deck. The Seraph plunged and rolled at her anchor cables as the storm lashed her mercilessly.

Hal laid the sack and its precious burden on the deck beside the coffin. The screws that held down the lid were already loosened and it took only a few turns to free them.

Hal lifted the lid and laid it aside. Carefully he placed the leather sack in the chest. He had to turn and angle it to get it to fit, then he packed raw oakum around his father’s corpse, to prevent the fragile bones being shaken and broken during the long voyage ahead.

Tom helped him replace the lid. He took the turn-screw from his father’s hands.

“Let me have the honour, Father.”

“You have earned it,” Hal agreed.

“Both of you. Let Dorian help you.” He handed the younger boy another turn-screw from the tool chest, and watched them secure the coffin lid.

“We will give your grandfather a Christian service when we lay him in the stone sarcophagus in the crypt at High Weald that I prepared for him twenty years ago,” he told them, and wondered if all his sons would be together on that day. He put the gloomy doubt from his mind, as he watched them finish the task.

“Thank you,” he said simply, when they had finished.

“Go and change into dry clothes. Then see if, in this foul weather, the cook still has a fire burning in his galley and can give you something hot to eat and drink.” At the door he stopped Dorian.

“We can never call you a baby again,” he said.

“You proved tonight that you are a man in everything but size. You saved all our lives.” Dorian’s smile was so radiant, and even with his sea-wet locks dangling in his face he looked so beautiful, that it twisted Hal’s heart.

Soon he heard the two brothers chattering away in the tiny cabin beside his, which had been vacated by the Beatty daughters, then their running footsteps in the passageway as they went off to importune the cook.

Hal lit two candles and placed them on the lid of his father’s coffin. Then he knelt on the deck in front of it and began the long vigil. Sometimes he prayed aloud, for the peace of his father’s soul and the forgiveness of his sins.

Once or twice he spoke quietly to him, remembering incidents from their life together, reliving the frightful agony of Sir Francis’s death. Though the night was long, and he was exhausted and cold, his vigil ended only when the dawn light, grey with the storm, crept through the stern windows. Then he roused himself and went on deck.

“Good morrow, Mr. Tyler. Call both watches to get the ship under way,” he bellowed above the wind. The watch came tumbling up on the heaving deck. The forecastle men manned the capstan and the pawls clanked as they recovered her anchor cable. In the meantime the top men poured into the rigging and manned the yards.

Hal ordered the foresail spread for a moment to give the ship way to break out the anchor flukes from the sandy bottom, then furled the sail again as she came up hard. He listened to the capstan pawls:

clank, then clank again, silence for a long moment, then clank and clank, coming faster until it became a rattling chorus as the anchor broke out and the cable slithered in through the hawsehole.

“Head sails!” Hal roared, and as they broke out the storm snatched them drum-tight. The Seraph quivered eagerly, and as Hal ordered the helm put over she spun on her heel and frolicked away. The men in the rigging let out a spontaneous cheer. A moment later Tom’s voice hailed from the masthead, “On deck there! A boat!”

“Where away?” Hal shouted back.

“Putting out from the beach. Now there are two of them, no, three!” Hal crossed to the lee rail, and raised his telescope.

The sea was dreary grey, flecked with whitecaps. Low cloud scudded across the sky and obscured the mountain-top. He picked out the three longboats battling the wind and the tide, throwing bursts of spray over their bows, heading towards the Seraph.

“Visitors, Captain,” said Ned at his elbow.

Hal grunted and focused his telescope. He could pick out the Dutch uniforms and the glint of bayonets.

“I do not think they have anything to tell us that we want to hear, Mr. Tyler.” He shut it with a snap. Clearly, they were troops from the castle. Last night’s fracas on the beach had stirred them up. He turned his back on the distant flotilla and smiled as he gave the next order.

“Lay the ship on a course to pass the Yeoman of York close to leeward, if you please, Mr. Tyler.” Half a cable’s length from the Yeoman, the Seraph hove to, and launched the longboat. The teak chest was lowered into her as she danced alongside, then Hal dropped down the ladder and took the tiller before he gave the order to pull across to the anchored Yeoman.

Anderson was at the rail, and Hal stood in the stern sheets and hailed him.

“I

have the cargo for you.”

“I’m ready to receive it,” Anderson shouted back, and his crew lowered a tackle from the main yard. The longboat crept in under it and, working swiftly and deftly, they secured the teak chest to it.

“Hoist away!” Hal called, and his father’s coffin was raised and swung in onto the Yeoman’s deck.

“I am greatly obliged to you, sir,” Hal cried to the deck high above.

“My great pleasure, sir,” Anderson answered.

“I wish you a fair wind.” He touched the brim of his cocked hat in salute.

“Until we meet again,” Hal said.

Then Guy’s head appeared at the rail. He looked pale, as if the first throes of seasickness had already overtaken him. Nevertheless, he smiled bravely and waved his cap over his head.

“Farewell, Father, until we meet in Bombay.

“Farewell and farewell,” Hal replied, and felt a sharp pang of sorrow at this parting. Would that our fates had treated us all more kindly, he thought, but he smiled encouragingly at Guy, trying to convey a message of love and hope to him, until he was forced to give his whole attention to bringing the longboat back alongside the Seraph.

Although the whipping pendulum action of the Seraph’s foremast in this wind and sea had made the climb both hazardous and Tightening, Tom and Dorian were at last secure in the crow’s nest. They could look down from there onto the Yeoman’s deck as they passed the anchored ship so closely that they could clearly make out the expressions of the passengers and crew looking up at them.

“There’s Guy!” Dorian whipped off his cap to wave at his brother.