A Mother's Courage

by Maggie Hope

  Prue suddenly realised she was swearing; would God help her when she was swearing? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, God, forgive me, she prayed, closing her eyes tightly and lifting her face to the sky. Where was God, any road? Was he there guarding them, his little children, or had he gone off for the night, his shift over?

  The headman was strutting before Matthew now, asking incomprehensible questions in a broad, guttural dialect, and Matthew was standing, still swaying slightly, but his head was up and he was looking straight in front of him. Prue felt a twinge of admiration for his courage.

  A warrior stepped forward and hit the Tongan across the face and Matthew’s head rocked back and forth with the force of the blow but he kept his feet. The headman had changed from his own language to English, a type of English, that is, broken but understandable. Did this mean these natives were not so bad as she had thought they were? If they spoke some English, surely they were civilised to some extent? She strained forward to catch the words and then wished she had not.

  ‘Long pig good to eat,’ the headman said and the circle of warriors round him laughed and chortled. One or two even executed a little dance, vastly amused they were, Prue saw with a spark of anger.

  ‘Prue? Are we going to have some pork for supper? I am hungry.’

  With a gasp of horror she realised that John had heard the headman too, but thank God he hadn’t understood properly.

  ‘No, no supper, not yet, pet,’ she answered. ‘Whisht now, be a good lad, sit perfectly still and don’t talk, please don’t talk. Daddy will come soon, you’ll see he will.’ She took hold of his hand and squeezed it gently. ‘Close your eyes, John, there’s a good lad, don’t watch the nasty men, it’s long past your bedtime any road. If you go to sleep now, I bet when you wake up Daddy will be here and he’ll take us all home in the big ship.’

  ‘I haven’t said my prayers,’ John whispered.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, not tonight, just go to sleep, John.’

  Go to sleep! She felt like screaming at him, she didn’t know if she could keep up her serenity another minute. But he lay down obediently and closed his eyes, his anxieties forgotten for now, or perhaps Nature had taken a hand and drawn a shutter down on the day.

  Prue turned her attention back to Matthew and the warriors in the centre of the clearing; the exchange with John must have only taken a second or two but in that time the women and children and old men of the tribe had settled themselves in a semi-circle round the edge of the clearing, almost as if they were expecting a show, and Prue’s heart began to beat painfully. Something was going to happen and it was going to happen to Matthew, that was why they had carried him all this way, it was for this.

  Two warriors, their naked bodies glistening with oil and sweat, were supporting Matthew by the upper arms, holding one hand outstretched, and his swaying stopped. Suddenly he was very still. An excited murmuring was going round the women sitting at the edge of the clearing. Prue glanced at them; they were smiling, one or two held out their own fingers and made comments she couldn’t follow for they were in their own dialect.

  ‘Ughh!’

  It was the only sound Matthew made as some sort of tool grated on bone, whether a knife or an axe Prue couldn’t see, but of one thing she was sure: it was two of Matthew’s fingers that the headman was holding aloft, shouting out his triumph in his heathen tongue. Prue shrank back to the edge of the clearing, the children gathered up in her arms, desperate to get away. Oh God, were they going to chop him to little bits while he was still alive?

  She closed her eyes, her senses swimming; she was helpless, what was she going to do? Forcing herself to look again, she saw that, in spite of the pain he must be feeling from his severed fingers, Matthew was still standing upright, making no sound at all and a wave of admiration for him swept through her. But no, it looked as though they weren’t going to cut him any more, at least not yet; they were building up the fire before the long eating house and they were cooking something.

  As the full horror hit her, Prue wriggled back, a child in each arm. No one was looking at her, the women were only interested in what was on the cooking fire, she could get away, she could, anything was better than what was happening in this devil village, anything.

  The children were waking up, Francis William was whimpering, but the cries were lost in the general excitement, and if they were to get away now was the time. Back they wriggled until she felt a bush behind her and then, rising to her feet, she put Francis William over her shoulder and grabbed John’s arm.

  ‘Run!’ she hissed and they fled, round behind a coconut palm, down the path by which they had entered the village. No, no, that was no good, the first thing the devils would do when they found them gone would be to follow that path. Swerving to one side and pulling John almost off his feet after her so that her arm felt as though it was being wrenched from its socket, she left the path and struggled through the thickening undergrowth, into the denser cover of the forest.

  She had to pause after a while, for her lungs felt as though they were being torn apart by every breath she took, great riving breaths. She had to sink to the ground, bent double with the agony of it.

  ‘Prue? Prue, are you sure Daddy’s coming?’

  John’s voice was very low, very subdued. Poor bairn, she thought, poor little bairn. No little one should have to see what he had seen that day, no one at all.

  She took a look around her though in truth there was nothing to see, only trees and more trees and beyond them, blackness. It would be totally dark soon, she realised. She had to get down to the shore line, it was their only hope. If someone was really coming to rescue them, how would they know whereabouts in the jungle she and the children were? No, they had to get to the shore, any boats would be searching the shore for signs of them.

  ‘Prue?’ repeated John and she looked down at him and took hold of his hand.

  ‘Aye, pet, of course he’s coming. Look now, we only have to go down the hill, we’ll get to the shore and Daddy will be looking for us, come on now, you be a brave lad for me, I tell you, it’ll be fine. Isn’t this a grand adventure though? Better than a story book, this is.’

  John looked doubtful but Prue set off again, thankfully finding a path or an animal track but it led down through the trees and then in the distance there was the shimmer of the moonlight on water. She closed her eyes for a moment; please God, let there be a boat, a canoe, anything in which she could get the children away from this nightmare of a place.

  ‘Somebody is talking, Prue,’ said John. ‘Listen, I can hear someone talking.’

  And it was true; away to the left of them they could hear stealthy rustlings and the subdued murmur of voices.

  ‘Whisht!’ she whispered urgently. ‘Stand still, listen.’

  Even the children seemed to hold their breath for a moment but it was no good; she couldn’t make out what sort of voices they were, they were speaking too quietly. For all she knew it could have been the hill tribesmen, searching for them, and the thought made her shake with fear.

  ‘Keep down,’ she whispered, falling to her knees on the forest floor, pulling Francis William from her shoulder and holding him down on her lap.

  ‘Daddy! Daddy!’

  With mounting panic she felt John pull his arm away from her grip and he was running away, threading his way through the trees, falling down once and bumping his head but getting straight to his feet and running on. Within a second or two he was gone, disappearing into the darkness beyond the trees.

  ‘John! John!’ She jumped up, holding Francis William under one arm, and raced to follow John but suddenly someone had hold of her, a man, he was trying to take the baby from her; she kicked him in the shins but he wouldn’t let go. His arms went round her, strong muscular arms, all those devils were big powerful men, what was she going to do?

  ‘Prue, Prue, it’s all right, it’s over now, we’ve found you, come on now, give the baby to me.’

  The words finally penetrated
her panic and she looked up into the man’s face but could only see the outline of him against a gap in the skyline. And then she realised that the arms holding her were clothed, his head was framed in a hat not a head-dress; it was an Englishman. She sagged against him. Thank God, oh thank you, God, she breathed, thank God, thank God, thank God.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘I can lead you straight there,’ said Prue. She gazed up at Morgan anxiously. Why was he delaying, why didn’t they go straight up to the hill tribe’s village, didn’t he realise how desperate Matthew’s situation was?

  Oh, why had it to be Morgan West who came, why not Francis Tait? Morgan didn’t care what happened to Matthew or any other native. He didn’t care what happened to her when she thought of it, probably not even her sister though she was his wife.

  ‘Captain West?’ she asked again, trying to keep calm, knowing she would only put him off if she gave way to the shouting and screaming she felt rising in her. She looked over at the boys; they were in Mala’s arms, their faces gleaming white against his black skin, as white as the animal bones round his upper arm. They looked so strange there, Francis William’s foot resting on the bulbous end of Mala’s throwing club, which was tucked into his waistband, his arm around the headman’s neck.

  ‘If we don’t go now they might cut off the rest of Matthew’s fingers. Captain West, they might eat him,’ she said, desperation rising in her voice in spite of herself. ‘There’s no time to take us to the shore.’

  Morgan considered what she had said, his head bent to one side. ‘Yeah, I guess you’re right,’ he said at last. ‘I guess we can’t leave the Tongan to the mercy of a bunch of cannibals.’ The Fijians muttered restlessly among themselves but did not object.

  Prue tore off the remains of her skirt, kilted up her petticoat around her waist and she was ready. There was a short argument about what to do with the children but in the end they were given into the hands of the youngest seaman, the cabin boy from the sloop, with instructions that he was to take them back to the ship.

  Eleanor stood on the deck of the sloop, peering at the dark shoreline. She was full of despair. Before her, across the dark expanse of the small bay, all she could see were the trees that came down almost to the water’s edge then rose steeply behind, one hill seeming to lead to another. There was nothing else, no sign of life, not a light, not a sound. Morgan and the Fijians from Viwa appeared to have been swallowed up altogether by the forest. Perhaps it was the wrong place? Maybe they were wasting their time here while the children were being tortured or killed in another part of the island. How had the Fijians known where to come? Were they right?

  She had to admit that the men from the village had seemed positive of their destination. When Morgan and his men caught up with them, they had beached their canoes and clambered on to the sloop with little or no argument, for they had soon realised it would be quicker on Morgan’s fast-sailing vessel. They had pointed the way and when they reached this shore on the north coast they had been jubilant, sure they were right.

  ‘Dear Lord,’ she prayed, ‘make it true, let it be here.’

  ‘Hey, missus, I’ve made some tea,’ said the helmsman, whose name was Pete, the only man left on the boat with her.

  ‘I’ll be all right on my own,’ she had protested to Morgan. ‘You need all the men.’ Morgan hadn’t wasted time in answering.

  Eleanor took the pot of tea from the seaman. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t worry, missus,’ he said. ‘The boss will soon see those black bastards off.’

  She ached to go after them, just to climb into a rowing boat and follow them ashore. But reason told her she would only hold them back, they would do better without a woman and a European woman at that.

  Then there was the new baby; she could hardly allow herself to think about it now but there was that ache in the small of her back, nagging, persistent. Well, she couldn’t worry about that now, there was too much else.

  ‘There, missus, did you see?’

  ‘What? What?’

  Pete was pointing towards the shore, to the black mass of the trees. What was it? She couldn’t see a thing.

  ‘There was a light, I’m sure there was a light,’ he said. But she couldn’t see a thing. She began pacing up and down the deck, compulsively striding out despite the ache in her back. She would go mad if she kept still any longer. And Francis, where was he? If he had been home and discovered what had happened there, surely he would come after them? Her thoughts flitted frantically on, so that she felt she was losing her mind. Turning back to the rail she began staring at the shoreline again. Soon, soon, Morgan or the men from the village would find the abductors, of course they would, and the children would be there and Prue and Matthew and all of them unharmed. God was not so cruel as to let it be otherwise. And, as if in answer, there was the flicker of a lantern from among the dark mass of trees, once, and there it was again, yes, it was definitely a light.

  ‘You see it, missus?’ asked Pete and she turned to him, she even smiled at him.

  ‘I see it,’ she replied. The light was bobbing down the hillside, becoming brighter all the time, and the brighter it became the more hope rose in her.

  ‘They’re coming back,’ she said to Pete but he shook his head.

  ‘You don’t know, missus, it could be anybody, even those heathen devils. Don’t make a noise, they might be coming after the ship.’

  The light reached the shore and whoever was holding it began to wave it back and forth, back and forth. And then a small boat pulled out into the bay, closer and closer to the sloop but it was impossible to see who was in it and she held her breath until a voice came softly out of the darkness directly below where she stood.

  ‘Pete? For Gawd’s sake, Pete, come down and take these nippers up, will ye? Do ye want me to drop them into the sea?’

  And then it was an age before the boys were on the deck and in her arms and the surge of gladness that ran through her was so intense it cut like a knife. It was a minute or so before she could see enough to be able to check their faces, she was so blinded by tears, but when she did she saw they were filthy and tear-stained but otherwise they seemed unharmed.

  They stood and let her run her hands over them as she checked for any other injury but when she was satisfied that they were all right their extraordinary stoicism broke down. They were little boys again, crying to their mother, complaining, demanding.

  ‘Mam, Mam, where were you? Why didn’t Daddy come? I was frightened, Mam.’ And Francis William began to wail, loudly and crossly. One minute he hugged her and kissed her cheek and the next he was hitting her and stamping his foot, full of rage. And why not? she thought as she caught him up again and hugged him, she had let them down and so had Francis.

  ‘Hush, now, be a good boy,’ she soothed, ‘there’s some nice milk down in the cabin, you would like some milk, wouldn’t you? It’s all over now, pet, all over, the nasty men have gone.’

  In the clearing, Matthew had sunk to his knees. His face was illuminated by the flames from the cooking fire before the long house, and Prue could see his fine profile etched against the darkness of the trees, gleaming red. Anxiously she watched from her hiding place in the bushes – what were the men waiting for? The warriors of the hill tribe were laughing and joking, even the women were joining in with shrill excited voices.

  They hadn’t even missed her and the children, she realised, or if they had, they must have thought a woman and two children couldn’t get anywhere on their own. They were completely oblivious of the fact that they were encircled; they had been so sure of themselves that they had not posted a single lookout.

  Prue looked to her left, where Morgan and his men were hidden, and she could just see the outline of one, kneeling on one leg, his rifle levelled at the warrior chief, but they were holding their fire. To the right, the men from Viwa were holding their spears at the ready, standing immobile, staring fixedly at the group in the clearing.

&nbs
p; Her attention went back to the hill-tribe. The chief was lifting something from the pot on the fire and there was a smell like pork hanging over everything. She gagged, holding her hand over her mouth so as not to make a sound, and Morgan dug her in the ribs, casting her a warning glance. But the chief was lifting the small pieces of meat to his mouth, tasting them, smacking his lips, mockingly offering a taste to Matthew.

  Oh God, strike him dead, the filthy devil, she prayed. She looked at Matthew and so far as she could tell his expression didn’t change, he continued to stare ahead and her heart burned with pity for him. Then two men stepped forward again and there was a great deal of laughing and shoving and the women’s voices rose again, cackling over the deeper chuckles of the men as the chief picked up his knife. It gleamed in the firelight as he stepped forward.

  He was going to chop more bits from Matthew, she knew that was what he was going to do, oh, why were the men waiting? If she only had a gun she would put a bullet through that devil herself, she would! She glanced frantically at Morgan, so close to her now. Why didn’t he give the signal for the men to fire? What was he waiting for? Well, if he wouldn’t, she would.

  ‘Now!’ she yelled at the the top of her voice, the sound cutting across the clearing. The knife stayed in the chief’s hand. She jumped up, still yelling. ‘Go on, go on!’ she screamed and Morgan shot her a venomous look.

  But then the air was filled with the deafening roar of the rifles as the seamen fired and the women of the village screamed and the birds rose from the trees in a squawking cloud. Then the men from Viwa were there, their spears flying through the air and each one finding its mark. The hill people were turning to flee into the trees but the men from Viwa had their throwing clubs out and as many fleeing fugitives were caught by their skulls being crushed with the hard, bulbous ends of these as were caught by the guns of the seamen.