The Monsoon (37 page)

Led by Aboli and Big Daniel, ten axe men clambered out on to the foremast and hacked away the twisted mass of ropes and canvas. It was dangerous work: as every rope parted under the axe-blades, the strain was transferred unevenly and the mast rolled and kicked, threatening to throw the men into the water.

Closer they drifted to the coral reefs while the Seraph fought the immense drag of her shattered tackle, and Hal hurried from one side of her to the other, watching the closing land and directing the axe men in their efforts, pointing out to them the vital strands of rope that still held the fallen mast.

Always the green, humped back of Ras Ibn Khum loomed closer and higher above the ship as she battled for her life. The swells reared up under the hull as the bottom shelved towards the reef and the fangs of black coral grinned at the Seraph, waiting to tear the bowels out of her.

But at last the broken mast was held only by the single ten-inch manila rope of the forestay. It was stretched as tight and hard as a bar of iron, so that under the immense strain the seawater jetted from the twisted strands. Big Daniel sent all the other axe men back on deck while he balanced easily on top of the heaving mast. He braced himself and judged his stroke, then swung the axe-head high and brought it down again on the stretched cable. He had judged it so finely that the thick cable-laid rope was not severed through all at once and only five of the strands parted.

As the remaining strands unravelled and gave under the strain, with a series of loud snaps and whip cracks and the mast rolled ponderously under his feet, Big Daniel had just time enough to race back up its slanting length and leap onto the deck. Then the butt-end of the broken mast rasped and grated over the side and at last dropped away and floated clear of the ship’s side.

Immediately the Seraph responded gratefully to the release from her bonds. The heavily canted deck levelled itself, and she answered her helm almost joyously. Her bows came round, aiming at last to clear the headland of Ras Ibn Khum. that had threatened to entrap her.

Hal crossed quickly to the lee rail and watched the jettisoned foremast drift away towards the reef, carefully marking the spot where it must be thrown ashore. Then he turned all his attention to bringing his ship into a safe anchorage.

By altering and adjusting the sail setting on the two standing masts, and making small changes in the helm, he managed to slip the grievously wounded Seraph past the point of the headland and into the bay beyond. Then he saw at once why al-Auf had chosen it as the place in which to lay his ambush.

It was an enclosed bay, of water so deep that it glowed blue as lapis-lazuli in the sunlight. It was protected from the monsoon wind by the tall headland, and when he looked down over the side he could see the smooth, sandy bottom ten fathoms down.

“Stand by to drop anchor, Mr. Tyler,” he said, and as it splashed over the bows and the cable roared out through the hawsehole, the flood of grief that had threatened for these last dreadful hours to overwhelm him came down upon him with a black weight that threatened to crush the very life out of him. He could think of nothing but Dorian.

The picture of the small body in the hands of the Arab corsairs, the knife held at his throat, was engraved in his mind and he knew it would never be expunged. He was unmanned by sorrow. It seemed to have sucked the strength from his limbs, the very breath from his lungs. He wanted to seek oblivion. Then he longed to go to his cabin and throw himself on his bunk and give himself over to his grief.

He stood alone on the quarterdeck, for his officers and all the crew kept clear of him, and none even looked in his direction. With the innate tact of hard, rough-hewn men, they were leaving him to his agony. Hal stared at the empty horizon to the north. The blue waters of the channel sparkled prettily in the sunlight, but they were void of any sail or promise of succour. Dorian was gone. He could not even rouse himself to consider his next action, to form his next order to the men who waited without looking at him.

Then Aboli went to him and touched his arm.

“Gundwane, there will be a time for this later. If you wish to save your son, you must have the ship ready to follow him.” He glanced down the deck at the stump of the foremast, the raw timber shattered by the heavy iron ball.

“While you weep, the day steals away from u. Give the order.” Hal looked at him with the blank eyes of a bhang smoker.

“He is so young, Aboli, so small.”

“Give the order, Gundwane.”

“I am so tired,” said Hal, “so very tired.”

“No matter how it aches within you, you cannot rest,” Aboli said softly.

“Now, give the order.” Hal shuddered with the effort, then lifted his chin.

“Mr. Tyler! I want both pinnaces and the boats launched.” The words came tentatively to his lips, as though he spoke a foreign language.

“Aye, Captain.” Ned hurried to him, relief apparent on his face.

Hal felt the strength flow back into his body, and his resolve hardened. His voice firmed as he went on, “The boat crews will recover the jettisoned mast. In the meantime the carpenters are to trim the stump of the foremast ready to fish her back in place. Sail@makers to break out the spare sails and the ropes and cables to rig the new mast.” As he reeled off the string of orders to begin the repairs to the ship, he glanced at the sun. It was already past its zenith.

“Let the crew eat by watches. There’ll be precious little time to rest or eat again until we have the ship under way once more.” Hal was at the tiller of the leading pinnace as the little flotilla of small boats rounded the point of Ras Ibn Khum.

The two pinnaces had been reassembled. They were open boats, twenty-five feet in length, but Weatherly, capable of long voyages in the open sea or of the type of heavy work Hal had in mind.

No sooner had they rounded the point of the headland than Hal spotted the foremast. Even from two miles away, it was easy to pick out, wrapped in its own gleaming white canvas against the black coral reef that held it. As they approached Hal saw that it would take hard work to free the long shaft of pine, for the canvas and the trailing ropes were tangled in the jagged coral and the humped swells coming in from the channel were bursting upon the reef and swirling over the mast in whirlpools of foam and white water.

All Wilson took one of the longboats through a pass in the coral reef into the quieter waters of the lagoon: from there it was safer -and easier to land a crew on the reef armed with knives and axes. As the water burst and foamed around them they clung to the stranded mast.

In the meantime five of the strongest swimmers, led by Aboli and Big Daniel, had swum from the pirmaces; and the longboats to the reef, trailing light lines secured around their waists. They passed the ends to the men already clinging to the foremast, then swam back unhindered to the boats.

The light lines were used to pass heavier, stronger lines to the men on the mast. Once they had secured the ends to its butt, the small boats fanned out and began the attempt to haul the sixty-foot length of heavy pine off the reef.

All the boats held double crews, so that as one team tired the next could take over. They took up the slack in the lines, and when they came taut heaved together. The axe men on the mast hacked at the trailing lines and bundled canvas that were now woven into the jagged spines and needles of coral, trying to free it from this tenacious embrace. The oar blades thrashed the water, churning it white as the boats hauled at the stubborn load.

The mast shifted, slid a few yards, and the crews shouted with triumph, but immediately it came up short again, stuck just as firmly as before. The backbreaking work had to begin all over again. A reluctant foot at a time the coral grudgingly yielded its grip, but Hal had to change the teams on the rowing benches three times before the mast rolled off the reef and they could tow it out into deeper water.

All Wilson rescued his men, who were still clinging to the mast.

When they were dragged from the water, their arms and legs were lacerated and torn from contact with the merciless coral. Hal knew that many of those wounds would fester, for the coral was as poisonous as a serpent’s venom.

By this time the sun was setting. Hal changed the teams again, and the little boats set out on the long row around the point into the lagoon beyond. With the heavy load they were dragging it seemed that they were standing still in the water, straining to no avail on the long sweeps, their arms and backs burned red as raw beef by the tropical sun, their sweat puddling on the decks under the thwarts.

Dwarfed by their load the boats inched painfully along the seaward side of the reef, but when they tried to tow the mast around the point of Ras Ibn Khum, the current that swirled along the headland took them in its jaws, and held them fast.

While they battled against it the sun sank into the sea. Though they were near exhaustion, every muscle in their bodies racked and aching, their eyes glazed with the agony of their efforts, they could not pause to rest: if they had, the current would have thrown them back immediately onto the reef As an example to his men, Hal stripped off his jacket and shirt and took his turn at the oars.

Neither his back muscles nor his hands were hardened to this heavy work as were those of his men, and after the first hour he was in a trance of pain, the loom of the oar stained and sticky with blood from his raw palms. But the agony that gripped his body and the hypnotic swing and heave of rowing served to distract him from the deeper pain of the loss of his son.

A little before midnight the tide changed and the ebb around the point began to work in their favour. They MOved slowly around it and into the sheltered lagoon. At last, in the moonlight, they saw the Seraph lying peacefully at her anchor on the tranquil waters speckled by the reflection of the stars. When they secured the floating mast alongside the ship, few had strength left to climb the ladder to the deck and most slumped in the bottom of the small boats, dead asleep before their heads hit the deck.

Hal forced himself wearily up the ladder to Ned Tyler, who was waiting for him at the rail. In the lantern light there was respect in his eyes as he evaluated Hal’s state of exhaustion and saw his bloody hands.

“I will have the surgeon see to you right away.” He stepped forward to help Hal off the ladder, but Hal shook him off.

“Where is Tom?” he asked huskily.

“Where is my son?” Ned looked upwards and, following his gaze, Hal saw a small, lonely figure high in the rigging of the main mast.

“He’s been up there ever since we dropped anchor,” Ned said.

“Give the men a tot of rum with their breakfast, Mr. Tyler,” Hal ordered, “but get them up again at first light.

God knows, they’ve earned a rest, but I cannot give it to them, not until the Seraph is ready for sea again.” Although every muscle in his own body screamed for rest and he reeled on his feet with fatigue, he crossed to the mainmast shrouds and began the long climb to the yard.

When Hal reached the main yard, Tom made room for him and they sat together wordlessly.

Hal’s grief, which he had kept at bay all day and night, came rushing back upon him, sweeping away his exhaustion so that it was sharp and painful, burning coal in his chest. He put his arm around Tom’s shoulders, partly to comfort him and partly to seek comfort for himself.

Tom leaned against him, but still they were silent.

The stars moved in their majestic orbit above, and the Pleiades sank below the headland before Tom began to sob silently, his hard young body racked with unbearable pain.

Hal held him tightly, but Tom’s voice was broken and desolate as he whispered, “It is my fault, Father.”

“It is nobody’s fault, Tom.”

“I should have saved him. I gave him my promise. I made him a dreadful oath that I would never leave him.”

“No, Tom, it is not your fault.

There was nothing any of us could do.” But he thought grimly, If there is any fault, it is mine. I should have left Dorian safe at High Weald.

He was too young for this. All the remaining days of my life I will regret that I did not do SO.

“We have to find him, Father. We have to rescue Dorian.” Tom’s voice was firmer.

“He is out there somewhere. Aboli says they will never kill him. They will sell him as a slave. We have to find him “Yes, Tom. We will find him.”

“We must swear another oath together,” Tom said, and looked up into his father’s face. It was gaunt in the starlight, the eyes dark pits and mouth hard as if carved in marble.

Tom groped for his father’s hand. It was sticky with half-dried blood.

“You make the oath for both of us,” Hal told him, and Tom lifted their intertwined hands to the starry sky, “Hear our oath, O God,” he said.

“We swear that we shall neither rest nor cease until we find Dorian again, wherever he may be in all the world.”

“Amen!” whispered Hal.

“And amen!” The stars were blurred by the tears that flooded his eyes.

The carpenters chamfered the stub of the broken foremast, sawing and chiselling away at the torn, splintered butt to form a step on-to which the end of the mast could be rabbeted. Meanwhile the mast itself was floated ashore and another team shaped the end to make the joint.

The work went on through the day and continued after dark by lantern light. Hal was demon, driven and spared none, especially not himself.

Hal and Ned Tyler observed the set of the tides in the bay and surveyed the beach.

“The sandy bottom was ideal for their purpose and the tide rise was above two and a half fathoms. When the mast had been prepared for fitting to its butt, they warped the Seraph onto the beach at high tide, and secured her there with heavy cables attached to palm trees at the water’s edge.

When the tide ebbed out from under her, the Seraph was left high and dry on the white sands. Using the cables they hove her over at an angle of thirty degrees. They had to work swiftly then, for in six hours the tide would float her once more. Using a system of blocks and tackles, the old mast was re stepped into its rabbeted butt, and pinned with long iron spikes dipped in boiling tar.