The Dark Secret of Josephine

by Dennis Wheatley

  13

  Out of the Frying-pan into the Fire

  Jake Harris and Will Kilick had both made previous voyages to the West Indies but the American, Benjamin Wilson, was the only member of the boat’s company who had lived in them for any considerable time; so he was the first to realise the new ordeals of sun-scorch and thirst which they must now face owing to having adopted his own suggestion of making for Saint-Domingue.

  While darkness lasted they could have landed unseen on the west point of the bay, hidden the boat among the mangroves and concealed themselves in the jungle, slept all day and then had a full night before them in which to make the crossing. But they were a good mile from land. To turn back now meant exposing themselves to a still greater risk of recapture, and even if they could get safely ashore they would have to abandon the boat from fear that they were under observation by a look-out on the point who would swiftly bring the pirates to the spot where they had landed.

  Silently the American cursed himself for his misjudgment; although in fact he was little to blame, as he had known nothing of the adverse current which made every yard they gained a struggle, and in the urgency of the moment anyone might have overestimated the pulling powers of his eleven companions.

  As it was Dan, Jake, the Doctor and himself were the only members of the party capable of putting in an effective spell at an oar, and even they were already nearly played out owing to their previous night’s exertions, Roger, now in great pain, lay helpless on the stern boards. The wound in Kilick’s shoulder, although only flesh deep, made rowing an agony for him. Pirouet and Tom had both proved broken reeds; the one because he had a weak heart, and the other because the blood he had lost after receiving a cut across the head had resulted in his becoming weak and feverish.

  That left only the women. Georgina was still unconscious, and Amanda had a wrenched arm. But soon after dawn Clarissa and Jenny volunteered to relieve in turn for a spell two of the four men who were rowing. Neither of the girls had ever before handled a heavy oar; so at first their erratic efforts proved far from helpful, but after a while they got into the rhythm of pulling and gamely stuck it for an hour.

  By then the boat had gained another hard-won mile to seaward, and there were still no signs of pursuit; so most of them felt an increasing optimism about their chances of escape. But the seafaring members of the party, while keeping their thoughts to themselves, were much less inclined to think they were nearly out of the wood. They rightly assumed that they had been allowed to get so far unpursued only because the early morning calm would have made it futile for the pirates to hoist the sails on either of the ships, and that as soon as a breeze sprang up they might expect to see their enemies coming after them. With this in mind, when Fergusson suggested that they should take it easy for a while, Dan would not hear of it, and insisted that they must not relax their efforts as long as they had an ounce of strength left in them.

  The next hour was a grim one. The arms of the rowers ached to breaking point and the sun was mounting with an ever-increasing glare. As some consolation the strength of the current gradually lessened until they had passed right out of it; so they were able to maintain the boat’s pace with less exertion, and the mangrove-tangled shore of Tortuga dropped below their horizon. But Dan, knowing that the boat could still easily be picked up by a look-out from a ship’s mast, continued to urge them to stick it for a while longer.

  Soon after eight o’clock both Fergusson and Wilson were so worn out that every few minutes one or other of them caught a crab, and it became obvious that they had become more of a hindrance than a help; so Jenny and Clarissa again relieved them. By nine the hands of the two girls were badly blistered from the unaccustomed work and they were hard put to it to suppress tears, while Dan and Jake had also reached the limit of their strength. There was then nothing for it but to ship oars and let the boat drift, praying that a now favourable current they had struck would continue to carry it further from Tortuga.

  The rest of the day was one long nightmare that seemed never ending. The pursuit which would certainly have meant their recapture never matured, because it proved one of those days which occasionally occur in the tropics when a calm continues almost unbroken from dawn till dusk; yet at times they would have almost welcomed the sight of their enemies’ topmasts as the price of a refreshing breeze.

  Hour after hour the glassy sea for miles around reflected the cloudless blue sky, and a brazen sun blazed down upon them unmercifully. In vain they cowered in the bottom of the boat seeking to take advantage of every vestige of shadow thrown by thwarts and the oars laid along them. Their clothes were their only protection from the scorching rays, and adjust them as they would it was next to impossible to keep heads, necks, ears, faces, hands, wrists and ankles covered at one time; yet the exposure of any area of skin for more than a few moments had to be paid for later by most painful burning. Had the Circe’s late passengers not become to some degree immunised to tropical sunshine during the last weeks of her voyage, they must all have been driven insane; even as it was they suffered acutely.

  They were in no urgent need of food but by midday thirst began to worry them. At first it took the form only of parched throats but as the seemingly interminable hours of the afternoon wore on their tongues began to swell and they no longer had enough saliva in their mouths to moisten their cracking lips. Tom added greatly to their distress, for he became delirious, and their hearts were wrung by his cries for water, which they could not satisfy.

  Meanwhile, the current had carried the boat out into mid channel and some miles to westward of the course they had set early that morning. From time to time two of the men got out oars and again impelled the boat towards the shore that meant safety and succour, but short spells were all that they could manage. To southward, for as far as they could see on either hand, stretched the shores of Saint-Domingue. From them the western end of the island rose in fold after fold of forest-covered slopes to a great range of peaks eastward in its distant centre, which had caused its aborigines to call it Haiti, meaning ‘Mountainous’. Its lack of all signs of human habitation gave it a mysterious, slightly sinister, look, yet with aching eyes they gazed towards it as to a Promised Land.

  At about three o’clock Georgina at last came round but, mercifully, almost at once fell again into a torpor. By then the pain of Roger’s wound had dulled to an ache which was supportable as long as he remained quite still; and since he had been lying almost motionless all day with his coat rigged like a tent over his face he was not plagued by thirst to the same degree as the others.

  Some of them, crouching between the thwarts with their heads similarly buried, managed to doze fitfully for short periods but their physical distress was too acute for them to free their minds from it for more than a few minutes at a time. They were, too, constantly a prey to the terrifying thought that as they lacked the strength to propel the boat it might be carried by adverse currents out into the open ocean, where they must die in circumstances too horrible to contemplate.

  At last the fiery sun began to lose a little of its terrible potency and when it had sunk to within some twenty degrees of the western horizon Dan roused those of his companions who were capable of rowing, urging them to man the oars in a new effort.

  In voices made hoarse by thirst they argued against undertaking any fresh exertion before the sun had set, but he pointed out that the injured were in urgent need of proper attention. Within the past hour they had picked out a tiny white patch high up on a headland which jutted out from the coast some distance to the west. There could now be little doubt that it was a large house, and if they could beach the boat below it they could hope to find ready aid there; but if they waited until darkness to make the attempt they might miss the point by miles. As a final incentive he added that if with sundown the sky became overcast, veiling the stars, they might lose their direction altogether, and so fail to get ashore at all.

  They needed no telling that if dawn found them still se
veral miles from the coast another day like that which was all too slowly ending would be the finish of them; so they agreed to the sound sense of Dan’s reasoning and set to rowing with renewed determination.

  When the sun at last went down they were still a long way from the promontory, yet near enough to see that the house upon it was a big building in the French-Colonial style and so, presumably, the residence of a wealthy planter. With straining muscles, aching backs and rasping throats the rowers doggedly continued their pulling, but half an hour later they had to give up from sheer exhaustion. Lights had now appeared in the house; so with a single oar thrust out from the stern of the boat Dan was just able to keep her nosing at tortoise pace towards the beacon it now formed, although a slow current from the east threatened to carry them beam on past the cape while they were still a mile or more from it.

  Dan could do no more, and it was Clarissa who stepped into the breach. Impelled by the desperate need for getting Roger ashore she insisted that even the weakest of them must now play their part by double banking the men who had so far done the rowing. Then she appealed to Kilick and Monsieur Pirouet, urging that even if the one lost a lot of blood from the wound in his shoulder and the other collapsed, they should risk that for the common good in a final bid to save the whole party.

  Both men willingly agreed, and while they double banked Jake and Fergusson, Jenny and Clarissa shared oars with Wilson and Dan. It proved a grim struggle but the leeway the boat was making was promptly checked and soon it was moving slowly forward through the darkness. About nine o’clock, to their unutterable relief, it grounded on a beach no more than half a mile west of the cape for which they had been making.

  For a time they simply sat slumped over their oars, gasping, aching, and incapable even of savouring the fruits of their hard-won victory by landing on Saint-Domingue. But as soon as they had had a chance to recover a little Amanda took charge of the situation. Her wrenched arm had made it impossible for her to help at an oar, but during the final phase she had captained the boat by taking the tiller. Now, as the others were still so done up that they hardly knew what they were doing, she called on each by name and directed them how best to lend a hand in getting the wounded ashore.

  Within a quarter of an hour the operation was safely completed; then they all sank down utterly wearied-out on the sandy shore some dozen yards above the tide level. But there could be no real rest for them yet. From the jolting Roger had received he was again in great pain, Kilick had not spared himself once he had taken an oar so his shoulder was now causing him to utter half sobbing curses, Georgina had again become semi-conscious and was moaning pitifully, while Tom, whom they feared had developed brain fever, was rolling from side to side in the throes of delirium.

  Although the lights of the house were no longer Visible, they knew that it could not be any great distance away along the crest of the tree-covered slope that ran steeply up from the fore-shore; but such was the state of weakness to which they had been reduced that they could not possibly have carried the injured up there. So, after a brief respite, it was decided that Fergusson and Dan should act as an advance party with the object of getting help.

  Fortunately the trees, which they had seen only as a distant screen of green by daylight, turned out to be palms growing in a sandy soil; so their fears that they might have to fight their way through dense undergrowth proved unfounded. But some forty minutes after they had set out the main party were much concerned to hear the faint barking of several dogs; followed by the sound of shots.

  Twenty minutes later Dan and the Doctor reappeared a little way along the beach, staggered towards them and flung themselves down in the last stages of fatigue. When they could get enough breath back they gasped out that about fifty yards from the house they had been set upon by three fierce mastiffs, then someone had come out and fired both barrels of a shotgun blind in their direction. The pellets, evidently aimed high to avoid harming the dogs, had rattled harmlessly through the foliage overhead, but the warning had been too dangerous to ignore, and they had been much too fully occupied in saving themselves from being savaged to attempt a parley; so there had been nothing for it but to beat an ignominious retreat.

  Bitterly disappointing as was the abortive outcome of their mission, they could not be blamed for having failed to stand their ground until they could satisfy the man who had fired the gun that he had nothing to fear from them; for in their sadly weakened state it had required great fortitude to climb the hill at all. But the fact remained that the party had now no alternative other than to spend the night where it was.

  At least they were lucky in the type of beach on which they had landed, as they were able to scoop out troughs in the soft sand and so lie down without discomfort; but in other ways they were very far from being at ease. With the going down of the sun they had ceased to suffer from raging thirsts, but they were still subject to intermittent cravings, during which they would have given a great deal for a cup of water, and in one or more places nearly all of them were now being tortured by that ceaseless agonising scorching of the skin which results from severe sunburn.

  Yet there was nothing the uninjured could do to alleviate the sufferings of the injured or themselves; so they settled down as well as they were able to wrestle with their miseries while the hours of darkness lasted.

  At first light Dan and the Doctor, this time accompanied by Wilson and Jake, and all armed with thick staves to drive off the dogs, again started for the house. Again the others heard the distant baying of hounds but no shots followed, and somewhat over an hour after the réconnaissance party had set out it returned with a richly-dressed white man and a score of cotton-clad negroes and Negresses.

  The leader of the newcomers was introduced by Fergusson as the Seigneur de Bouçicault. He was a big fair-haired florid man aged about fifty, and the owner of the house. Bowing to the ladies he apologised profusely for the misunderstanding which had prevented him from coming to their aid the previous night, and explained that on the dogs giving the alarm he had thought an attack was about to be made upon the house by a band of marauders.

  His slaves had brought down fruit, wine, a medicine chest, and hammocks in which to carry up the injured; so within a short time the worst distress of the castaways had been alleviated. Yet it was a sorry crew that made its way up to the house about an hour later. In addition to Roger and Tom all four women had to be carried, and the others had to be helped at the steeper places. Dirty, bedraggled, their hair matted, their faces peeling and puffy from insect bites, their hands blistered, their eyes feverish and sunken, they at last came to shelter and safety in the cool lofty rooms of the gracious colonial mansion.

  De Bouçicault made them all drink a strong infusion of Cinchona bark to ward of Yellow Jack, and Fergusson, although in a worse state than some of the other men, insisted on seeing all the injured put to bed; then he too allowed himself to be helped to undress and, like the rest, fell into a sleep of utter exhaustion.

  Roger slept the clock nearly twice round then lay dozing for a long while; so it was not until the following afternoon that he was urged by returning appetite to ring the handbell that had been placed beside his bed. The summons was answered by a negro houseman who in due course brought him a tray on which was a cup of bouillon, boiled chicken and fruit.

  He was just finishing the meal when Fergusson came in, and Roger asked him anxiously for news of the others. The young doctor replied that Georgina was suffering from shock and concussion, but in a better state than might have been expected and, owing to her youth and vitality, in no serious danger. Tom was now giving him more concern as he had undoubtedly developed brain fever and it yet remained to be seen if he would survive the crisis. Amanda too was in poor shape. Her strained arm was nothing to worry about; but although she had bravely refrained from complaining during their ordeal of the previous day she must have been in great pain, as her stomach was black and blue from a vicious kick one of the pirates had given her, and it wa
s possible that she had sustained internal injuries. Kilick’s shoulder was badly inflamed from his having manned an oar during their last bid to reach the beach, but should yield to treatment. The rest of them had met for a midday meal and were the worse for their adventures only by cuts, bruises and inflammation. Then he said that, having heard that Roger was awake, he had come up to re-examine his wound.

  Roger submitted to some painful prodding, after which Fergusson declared himself satisfied that his first diagnosis had been correct. The bone of the thigh had not been smashed; and, as within a very short time of the wound being received it had been thoroughly cleansed with salt water, it showed no signs of festering. Providing Roger remained in bed the healthy flesh should soon heal and he might hope to be about on crutches in a week or so.

  Having anointed his mosquito bites with a soothing ointment and promised to convey his loving messages to Amanda the doctor left him; but returned in the evening bringing a sedative to ensure him a good night.

  With his breakfast tray next morning the negro servant brought an enquiry from M. de Bouçicault, who wished to know if Roger felt well enough to receive a visit from him; and he sent back a reply that he would be happy to do so.

  An hour or so later the burly French nobleman arrived. Having congratulated Roger on his wound being less serious than had been feared he sat down beside his bed, and said:

  ‘I had heard something from the doctor of the terrible trials to which you and your party have been subjected during the past week, but he was kept busy with his patients most of yesterday; none of the ladies have so far left their rooms, and the others lack the education to speak of their adventures with much coherence; so I pray you, Monsieur le Gouverneur, if you feel well enough, to give me an account of these most distressing happenings.’