by V. E. Ulett
“Thrax!” Miriam called in English. “Thrax, to me!”
The black woman, Anna, and the old ayah, the alertest among them, turned and stared at Miriam as though she’d been barking like a dog. Miriam was alone in looking back as they left the ring of huts, to see the Hell-Cat dash from the Golden Dragon’s lair and disappear into the jungle. As she entered the dense forest behind the black woman hacking her way into it, Miriam breathed a sigh of relief. Their flank was covered.
The old ayah, Nguyen Lan from Penang, turned out to be the bravest traveler among them barring the black woman. She went stolidly along on her wide peasant feet, moving ahead in the column to help a woman who’d gone face first up a mud embankment, or slipped in a stream, then return without comment to take her place in line. On the easier parts of the trek she told Miriam her account of being taken captive by pirates, traded from ship captain to ship captain, until ending up years later in the Golden Dragon’s clutches. Having reached a certain age by that time, Lan was set to tending the young marketable slaves of the Dragon. “Hauling in water, and hauling out shit,” was how Lan put it. Miriam better understood Lan’s earlier remark to Anna Lovell.
The place between islands where they were to swim across was weighing on Miriam’s mind by the time the party of women emerged from the jungle onto a beach. She didn’t know how many were swimmers, and if they could keep together during a crossing. The line of women straggling across the beach to the waters edge was moving with a livelier step, most of the women conscious now of their surroundings. They looked around as though wondering how they’d got there, but each and every one of them maintained a death grip on the cord like a lifeline.
“I’ll go find out where we are to cross,” Miriam said to Lan, untying the line from her waist. “What is her name?”
“The feral one?” Lan said. “Who knows.”
“Sit down, rest a minute,” Miriam said in three different languages as she made her way up the line.
“I hope we may get them up again.” Miriam confided to the black woman, who was covered in sweat and massaging her machete arm.
“No worries there, Khun. Tell them guards on our tail, see how fast they move. Merciful God knows we left a clear track to follow.”
Miriam glanced back at the place where they’d come out of the jungle, hoping Thrax was there. But wasn’t it just as likely the Hell-Cat would run off on its own wild capers, or return to partake of more of its kill?
“How likely is pursuit?” Miriam shuddered, asking this. “Do the guards from the men’s prison come to the women’s side?”
“Oh, they come, guards vie to work with women. Brutality and violations, same in both camps. Pursuit? Depends when men’s side guards come, maybe few days.”
The exit strategy must function splendidly in every particular.
Miriam’s anxiety was palpable and the black woman said, in a tone of reassurance, “Even if guards come early, Khun, they pagan, superstitious. Once they see what happened to Golden Dragon, her favored men, I misdoubt they have courage to follow. Though the path led to gates of paradise.”
“Very well,” Miriam said, trying to sound cheered. “Where do we cross? I misdoubt all these women can swim.”
“Those can, Boat People children.” The woman gestured toward a cluster of eight girls and young woman. “You?” Miriam nodded yes. “And me. That leaves ayah Lan, Bengali lady, and the fat farang. The golden haired ungrateful one.”
Miriam felt that was a little harsh. “She cannot help the way she was born.”
“I tire of that excuse.” The black woman rose from where she was crouched down, resting. “This way, I show you where.”
In the end the black woman swam across with the eight capable young women and left them in a knot on the far bank clutching the twisted cord between them, while she went back to help Miriam with the rest. One by one, they ferried the other women across. It was not difficult for there was but a short swim and the rest was accomplished walking in chest deep water, with Miriam on one side and the black warrior on the other.
At last they were all together on the opposite bank. Miriam was near spent from the day’s sufferings and exertions, and hoped they’d not much farther to go. The black woman arranged them in line again, patting a cheek here and there, not viciously but to enliven them, and tied the end about Miriam’s waist.
“You said headland, Khun, that means uphill. No stopping, we reach a prime spot by nightfall.”
Twilight, and the women arrived at the headland stumbling with fatigue. They gained the summit of a horseshoe shaped outcropping of limestone rock, leaning over the sea. The jungle had a lesser hold here, and on three sides sheer cliffs fell away to the beach below. Pursuit could only come from the direction of the jungle.
“Prime, indeed,” Miriam said to their guide.
The women were settling down among strewn boulders.
“It gets better.”
The black woman led Miriam to the edge of the cliff. In the fading light the woman pointed out the head of a trail winding down to a secluded cove. A path inaccessible except from the spot they occupied. Miriam and the warrior woman shared a satisfied smile.
“I should like to lie down and have a caulk, as the mariners say.” Miriam was light-headed from the long march. “But there is still the signal fire to attend to, and the best place to set it going.”
What would Miriam have done without the other woman’s particular skills? She’d settled the guards’ hash single-handed, and guided them to that headland. Miriam confirmed Thrax’s whereabouts by walking back a short ways into the jungle, where she heard its cries and caught flashes of tawny motion against the dense green foliage.
“Lead the way, then,” Miriam said, on returning, “down to the beach.”
“What is out there, Khun, that you feel we need no guard at our back?”
“Thrax, that killed the Golden Dragon.”
The woman peered earnestly into Miriam’s face, and then she made that bow with her palms pressed together. “If Thrax is how you would be named, Khun. These women put no trust in me, not stand for us both going.”
Miriam leaned against a still sun-warmed boulder considering, but the younger women were already pushing to their feet. She’d been sent there for Anna Lovell, and must keep the privileged woman’s safety foremost in her mind.
“Can a fire be made here,” Miriam asked, “among these rocks?”
“Sure a summit is best,” the warrior woman said. “If you want be seen from afar. Draw attention from those close in too.”
More than ever in life Miriam would have welcomed a wise head to give her counsel, someone with whom she could argue the feasibility and consequences of various plans. But she was alone and in self-imposed command of these women. One warrior, one Malay woman whose youth was stolen, nine young ladies unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place during an evil time, and one rich woman—at least by comparison with the rest.
“Make the fire here then, at the highest point you can possibly do.” Miriam tried to sound as though she knew exactly what she was about, rather than trembling inside. “Should we all help gather fuel?”
Anna Lovell and the Bengali lady were the most timid and brought in the least amount of dry leaves and dead undergrowth, but even they wouldn’t be left behind when the party plunged back into the jungle to forage. The warrior built a fire pit in a depression between boulders. By the time full darkness was upon them, the women had piled up a great store of tinder and faggots.
“Light it before the moon rises,” Miriam told the woman. She was conscious of giving orders she couldn’t carry out on her own, having no more idea of fire starting than of putting guards to the sword.
Soon the black woman kindled a respectable blaze, the fire crackled and hissed. Miriam watched Anna Lovell, Lan, and the others shrink away so they wouldn’t be illuminated, like mice conveniently mouse-holing.
When the flames were reaching high into the dark tropical nigh
t, Miriam unwound the scarves from about her waist that she’d worn since leaving Hong Kong. Slowly and at intervals she cast them one by one into the fire. Impregnated with a decoction of strontium, orpiment, and saltpeter formulated by Saramago, the cloths combusted in tall showers of colored sparks. The women’s eyes were fixed on the spectacle, and on her, Miriam realized. She leaned over the fire like a witch and, had they but known it, there was even her own familiar lurking in the forest.
By the time the moon rose and the stars shone numerous and brilliant in the heavens, Miriam had used up her pyrotechnic arsenal. She’d been sitting for some time clasping her knees to her chest, with the dying fire before her, and her back to a boulder.
“We’ll let it burn as long as the fuel holds out,” Miriam told the black warrior. They’d already given themselves away, but of course she’d never say so out loud.
In any case it was understood between them, and the other woman appointed herself sentry and took up a position atop one of the tallest boulders to watch over them. Most of the women were stretched out sleeping on the bare ground. She was eyeing a patch of dirt, ready to do the same, when Anna Lovell rose and came and sat next to her.
Miriam thought it was time Anna was told the news. “Your uncle, Baron Van der Capellen sent me.”
“Dear old Uncle Cappy!” Anna cried, and broke down sobbing.
Miriam put her arm around Anna’s shoulders and patted her, and then leaned back and studied the glory of stars overhead. She remembered the comfort in faith and the natural world.
Anna mastered herself, sniffling. “Did he tell you I was betrothed? On my way to be married.”
Miriam nodded. “To the captain of Dageraad.”
Anna went into fresh wails. The women nearest woke and turned anxious faces toward her.
“What will become of me?” Anna cried.
“Be calm, be silent, be strong,” Miriam said. “The ship I signaled will come, with the blessing, and carry us all to Hong Kong.”
“With the blessing! I am ruined, damaged, no decent man will want me now.”
Ask her why she not drunk on opium like the rest.
Sexual favors in exchange for better treatment, such a thing was not unknown. Miriam thought hard about what to say next. “You must want you. Take the time you need to recover, then decide if you will honor this captain of Dageraad. There is no ruined or damaged in it, you did what you had to, to survive. And that is between you and your God.”
“Oh!” Anna threw her arms round Miriam. “I knew you were a Christian woman the moment I laid eyes on you.”
Miriam sighed, at the same time she circled both arms round Anna and returned her embrace. People would see what they wanted to see, and believe what pleased them best.
Chapter Fifteen
Dawn was near when Miriam woke, gazing up at the southern stars in a sky beginning to pale at the horizon. She rose, patted dirt from her clothes, and made her way carefully to the sentry keeping vigil on the summit. The woman was facing eastward toward the sea and the beach below the cliff they perched on, away from the jungle she’d watched through an anxious night.
She turned a weary face to Miriam. “What I wouldn’t give for a proper wash, Khun, and to perform morning prayers.”
Tears rose to Miriam’s eyes, for the faith and resiliency of the woman. “I am no captain, my sister, my name is Miriam. There is the ocean, go down and wash. I will keep watch.”
The black woman rose, stretching her muscled arms and legs, weapons thumping against her chest.
“Come with me, Maryam, and repeat the shahadah.”
So strong was Miriam’s desire to be cleansed and make a profession of faith and gratitude, that she abandoned the advantage of their high perch and followed the black woman down the twisting path. The other woman had to assist Miriam in several difficult downward scrambles. Barely visible at first, the path to the beach became easier to follow as light crept into the world.
Reaching the beach at last, a mania of freedom overtook them. Miriam and the black woman raced to the water, throwing off their clothes like children as they ran. They plunged into the warm sea naked, except the black woman brought the sheathed parang in her teeth. Miriam dove and ran her hands through her hair, and rubbed them over her body, reveling in the clear water. She surfaced and turned toward shore, and beheld a sight that made her smile.
The women were coming down to the beach from the cliff top in a straggling line, the younger more nimble ones helping the laggards. Miriam recognized the short squat figure of Lan in the rear. Far behind and up the path, gliding along from boulder to boulder, was the Hell-Cat.
“What is it, makes your face glad?” the black woman asked, appearing at Miriam’s side in the crystalline surf. “Merciful God! A jungle cat!”
Miriam put a restraining hand on the other woman’s shoulder as she unsheathed the parang and took an overhand grip.
“That is Thrax, the reason I believed us guarded in the night. It was in the jungle.”
The woman relaxed a fraction beside her, amazement on her face as she followed the progress of the women and their strange protector.
“I felt its eyes on me all night, but no menace. No threat did I feel.” The woman turned a grave gaze on Miriam. “Why did you say it, Khun?”
“Because a Hell-Cat is neither male or female.”
After a pause, the woman said, “That is how I want to be. Neither man nor woman.”
“Just yourself.” Miriam shook her head. What the other woman had endured Miriam wouldn’t pretend to understand. “Tell me what I am to call you.”
“Krunk,” was the woman’s simple answer.
Bright and hopeful rays of sunshine lit Miriam and Krunk from behind as they stood gently swaying with the motion of the warm surf.
“There are no snakes in the waters round the Dragon Islands this time of year,” Miriam said. She watched Anna Lovell, Lan, and the rest reach the beach and run to the waters edge. “Well, Krunk, off to dress and then to our prayers.”
From his seat in the stern of the gig, Maximus Thorpe strained for a glimpse of Miriam on the strand. As the boat rose on the swell, Maximus and his gig’s crew caught sight of a cluster of women in the water, holding hands. Among them Maximus didn’t find Miriam. The ache at his heart he’d been experiencing of late became more intense.
When the group of women spotted two boats coming at them at top speed, they turned as one and rushed out of the surf. Maximus, acting as his own coxswain, followed the direction of the women’s flight with his eye. Up the beach near a cliff and a fall of boulders, Miriam and a black person were praying.
Maximus watched them, his heart pounding, guiding the gig by instinct with his hand on the tiller. He’d been studying the Islamic faith and reading the Q’uran, at least those passages that Francis Blackwell translated.
“Lay on your oars,” Maximus called when the gig was poised to run through the surf on to the beach.
Miriam and her companion were facing Mecca and the Ka‘ba, and Maximus watched the woman he loved kneel and touch her forehead to the coral sand. He looked away; her prayers and her faith were private. Maximus wished he could command his men not to stare either.
A great deal of ogling and goggling was taking place in his gig as the men gazed after the fleeing ladies. In command of the cutter, Mr. Dashwood shot past the gig and ground ashore, scattering the women like skittles.
The women, all dark haired saving one, shrieked and ran away up the beach. Miriam rose to her feet, covered her face with her hands one last time, bowed toward Mecca, and walked forward to meet them.
Maximus gave a vigorous shout of, “Pull away!” barely containing the bubbling happiness rising within him.
The two groups met midway up the beach between the breaking surf and the cliff face. The party of men was led by Maximus and Mr. Dashwood, and that of the women by an odd trio consisting of Miriam, flanked by a fair-haired woman with an upturned nose, and a black person with a
kris firmly in hand.
“Captain Thorpe, Mr. Dashwood,” Miriam cried, “well met! Allow me to present Miss Anna Lovell.”
Bows and curtseys were exchanged, somewhat ludicrous in the setting. Miriam presented the ladies gathered round in summary fashion. And it was discovered that Anna Lovell could speak English. When Admiral Baron Van der Capellen was mentioned, Anna burst into tears. Communications broke down and a confusion of languages ensued. Maximus heard Miriam trying to reassure the ladies in Malay, that the man with the red hair was no demon. They had not escaped the claws of the Golden Dragon to be flung into the teeth of a foreign devil. Meanwhile all Maximus wanted in life were a few minutes alone with Miriam.
“What is the name of Mai’s daughter?” Miriam asked of a stout older woman. “The one who was exchanged for me?”
“That one? Her name Huong.”
“Listen to me.” Miriam raised her hands, palms outward, to the women crowded round. “You must go in these two boats to a larger ship, and then you shall be returned to your own people. Like Huong was to Mai.”
Amazement and dawning hope spread over the faces of the young women belonging to the Boat People. No one spoke the Bengali lady’s language, and she hugged herself and peered earnestly into their faces.
Miriam’s tone became somewhat less confident. “I daresay the British consul in Hong Kong will do his best for those who do not have people near at hand.”
“Vell, I don’t care to vait round dis place longer.” Anna Lovell took Mr. Dashwood’s arm with a proprietary air.
Anna Lovell, of the buttercup yellow hair, led the way in settling on a seat in the cutter. The eight young ladies of the Boat People jumped in after her like cats, and turned expectant faces to Miriam.
“Miss Mir...that is to say, Miss Albuyeh.” Maximus bowed to her with a blush. “May I be having a private word, if you please?”
When Miriam took the first steps to accompany him up the beach to the screen of a convenient boulder, the eight young women leaped out of the cutter and began to follow, screeching at Anna Lovell to remove from the boat as well.