The Devil's Own

by Christopher Nicole

The Commandant inclined his head in a brief nod. 'Be sure of that. But as they would appear to have confessed their guilt there need be no further delay in the matter.' He pointed at the roof. 'These rafters will do. Hang them here, and then set fire to the house.'

  As Susan stared at him in horror, and felt her limbs turning to water, the sun dipped behind the mountains of the larger island to plunge the evening into darkness.

  'Oh, Christ,' Kit moaned. 'Oh, God have mercy on me.'

  Jean said nothing. He watched the house, clearly visible from where they lay hidden, as showers of sparks shot upwards from the collapsing roof and seared across the evening air. The interior also burned, and to aid the flames the doors and windows had been unshuttered and thrown wide, so that the breeze could get to the fire. Thus the holocaust gave off a vast glow, which illuminated the verandah and the steps and the soldiers grouped a short distance away. And from the rafters on the verandah, only now beginning to scorch, the two bodies swayed. Did one still kick, or was that the wind? Both had kicked when they had been hoisted from the floor, the ropes tightening around their necks, their ears singing, even as they had been filled with the obscene jeers of the cheated men below them. But now, surely, they were dead.

  'Oh, Christ,' Kit moaned.

  'He may help you,' Jean said. 'But not here.'

  Kit raised his head; tears rolled down his cheeks. 'Had we stayed

  'And died beside them? What do you think the two of us could have accomplished, against so many?'

  'But that they should be hanged, like ... Jean, you have a heart of stone.'

  Jean continued to stare at the dangling bodies; now their skirts were starting to burn. 'Aye,' he said at last. 'As of this moment, Kit, I have a heart of stone. And you had best develop one as well. We shall make them pay. Swear that, Kit.'

  'I swear it,' Kit said fiercely. 'We shall make them pay, Jean. A thousand times.'

  'A thousand times. Or may God heap such a fire on our heads. Now come, we'll not do it by staying here.'

  He rose to his hands and knees, and then stood up, began to find his way down the uneven slope.

  Kit stumbled behind him. 'Where shall we go?'

  'Hispaniola.'

  'But what shall we do there?'

  'Survive, in the first place, Kit. We shall be matelots, you and I. As we have no others left in the world, so shall we need no others. Back to back we shall face the world. And then we shall find, or if necessary we shall make ourselves a boat, and get away. Perhaps to your friends in the Leewards.'

  'God forbid that,' Kit said. 'To the Warners? They'd probably hang us quicker than the Dons. Anyway, when I see that little upstart again it shall be with gold pieces overflowing from my pockets.'

  'Which upstart did you mean?'

  'The man, of course. But it goes for her as well. There'll be naught she understands so well as money.'

  Jean felt the sand of the beach beneath his toes. 'And no doubt, by the time your pockets do overflow, she'll have learned some sense. Now come, we must shed our weapons.'

  'Then how will we survive?'

  'We'll not survive even the swim, encumbered by swords and pistols. Leave them here. We'll take a knife each, and make sure it lies in the middle of your back. Now mark me well, Kit, we'll go slow and steady, and we'll make as little splash as possible.'

  'We'll not go down,' Kit said confidently. ' 'Tis scarce a mile from shallow to shallow.'

  'A shade further, I think,' Jean said. 'And I was thinking more of sharks.'

  He waded into the water, and the next wave lapped at Kit's toes. Sharks. He had forgotten them. So they swam deep and seldom attacked men who were not already injured. But a mile was a long stretch of water. For a moment he felt that he would not be able to do it. Then he looked over his shoulder, at the house, burning like a beacon on the hilltop. He was too far away for detail, now, and yet he felt he could see the two women, hanging from the rafters. How much did he hate? He did not know. At the moment perhaps not at all. He just wanted to lie on the sand and die. And weep while he died. And think of Grandmama. But if he lay on the sand he would not die, at least not until the Dons found him, and then he would die slowly, and painfully. So why not die in the sea?

  Jean was already well out, swimming steadily, not looking back, and now that it was dark, the huge bulk of Hispaniola seemed close enough to touch.

  So perhaps he would not die, but would live, to fulfil his oath. He ran into the water with great splashing bounds, allowed it to grip him at the waist, fell forward and began to swim, too quickly at first, exactly as Jean had warned him not to, so that he lost his breath. Then he almost turned back, but after a few moments he regained control of himself, and struck out after his friend. Then the night became endless. Only a little over a mile. How long does it take to swim a mile? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? No longer, surely. He could pretend he was walking it. But that was too exhausting. It was necessary to blot out the sea, and the growing agony of his arms, and the lurking fear in his belly. Because the sea was so dark, and contained so many things of which a man might be afraid.

  He thought of Marguerite Warner. Would she be married by now? He did not know. He knew so little about her, except that she was proud, and angry, and contemptuous of him. But he knew something of her feel. In that perhaps he was ahead even of her husband. Her feel and her smell. He dreamed of the softness of her flesh, the hardness of her thighs and the firmness of her belly, the tickle of her hair and the texture of her skin. Marguerite Warner. When he again saw her, with his pockets overflowing with gold, she would look on him differently. And together they would recreate a race of giants, like Edward Warner and Tony Hilton, because that was what their children would be, part Warner and part Hilton, destined to rule these islands.

  But when next he saw her she would be an old married woman, and probably a mother several times over. He felt so disconsolate his legs drooped and his breath went, and he trod water, and looked up at the immense bulk of the island in front of him. It had not moved, had grown no larger and no smaller. So then, he lacked the strength to go on. He would drown here, disappear forever in the narrow strait between Tortuga and Hispaniola, and be totally forgotten. In all the world, there was no one who would wish to remember Kit Hilton. Jean? For a while, perhaps. Because Jean would survive. He had the gift of survival within him.

  And Marguerite Warner? Would she ever remember the boy who had dumped her in the water butt? They had been happy that evening after the Warners had left. Grandmama had laughed and Madame DuCasse had sung to them and Monsieur D'Ogeron and Monsieur DuCasse had told stories as they had drunk Grandmama's wine. Now all were gone, and all were forgotten.

  'Kit. Kit?' Jean, splashing about close to him.

  He opened his mouth, swallowed water, and went down, and touched sand. He bobbed back up to the surface, and Jean seized his arms and pulled him into the shallows.

  He knelt, up to his waist in water, and panted, and listened to his heart throb. 'You should not have come back.'

  'We are matelots. We do not exist, without each other. Listen. To the silence.'

  Kit could hear nothing save the beating of his own heart. 'My throat is parched.'

  'And mine also. But we had best not leave the beach in the darkness,' Jean said. 'We shall sleep here, and explore tomorrow. But we are alive, Kit, there is the important thing. We arc alive, and we will stay alive.'

  Alive. He crawled out of the water, and crawled and crawled and crawled, dragging each leaden limb after its mate until he was on dry sand, and flopped on his face. God, how exhausted he was. Only a mile, and he seemed to have swum for ever.

  Jean fell beside him, was instantly asleep. Jean had saved his life just now, by reminding him that he could do nothing but live or die. His head dropped, and he dozed, and was immediately awake again. His tongue seemed cloven to the roof of his mouth. To sleep, without slaking that thirst, would be impossible. So once again he crawled, hand over hand, knee in front of knee, acr
oss the sand, until the sand changed to grass, and he heard the trickle of running water.

  Now he got to his feet, staggered through the grass, ignored the branches which brushed his face and pulled at his hair, and fell, half into a flow of the most beautiful fresh water he had ever tasted. He drank, and buried his face in the sweetness, and drank again, and scooped it over his head and shoulders, and drank again. And at last pulled himself away. He must tell Jean about it. But Jean seemed soundly asleep. Time for him in the morning.

  Kit Hilton slept.

  And woke to a peculiar sound, such as he had never heard before. Snarling dogs. But these were not dogs. He had heard dogs often enough before. His own dog.

  He sat up. It was daylight. His arms and legs still felt tired, but his brain was clear and his thirst was gone. And two human dogs were snarling and growling close to him.

  On the beach. And now there was another sound, a shout of alarm, from Jean.

  Kit jumped to his feet, pushed his way through the branches, arrived at the edge of the beach, gazed at Jean in horror. His friend lay on his back, arms pinned by a creature which sat on them and held his head. But the creature was a human being. Almost entirely shrouded in long hair, a beard which drooped to his navel, his skin burned to a mahogany colour, for he wore only a kind of kilt, from his waist to his knees.

  And he was only one of a pair. His companion knelt above Jean, tearing at the boy's breeches, mouth slobbering with delight at having found something new, and unspoiled. Boucaniers. Members of the derelict outlaw population of Hispaniola who lived by smoking the meat, the boacan, of the wild cattle which roamed the plains.

  But Jean was shouting for help.

  Kit reached into the small of his back, pulled out his knife. It was a seaman's knife, nearly a foot long, of which seven inches were blade, two-edged and sharp-pointed. It was not mended to kill humans. But it could. And right this minute e wanted to kill more than anything else in the world.

  Jean screamed as the claws of the boucanier reached for his genitals; his body twisted to and fro. Kit uttered a bellow of age and vicious hatred, of all things living, and bounded from he trees. He covered the beach in a succession of tremendous leaps. The first man sat up, rocking back on his heels; the second released Jean's arms and turned, blinking at the apparition hurtling towards him. He stood up as Kit reached him, knife thrust forward; perhaps before Kit even intended it the blade was buried up to its hilt in the boucanier's chest. He lied without a sound, falling backwards, and as Kit's fingers were still wrapped around the haft the knife came out with a jerk, leaving a gush of blood in its place.

  The second boucanier stared at his companion in horror, fingers still scrabbling at the cutlass which hung from his belt.

  But Kit could not have stopped himself now. He had killed, md he wanted to kill again. The knife whipped back, and then forward; this time the man shrieked as he collapsed on to the and. And Kit collapsed beside him, panting.

  Jean sat up. 'Mon Dieu,' he said. 'I had supposed myself handicapped by a boy, but now I think it is you who will be handicapped by me. And you have saved me from rape, no less. There is a fate I had never expected to experience.' He put his arm around Kit's shoulder, felt it tremble. "What did Colonel Warner call you? The devil's own spawn? Aye, they sent our families to hell; from hell will we re-emerge to torment them, you and I.'

  2

  The Jungle

  The sun sailed above the mountains of Hispaniola. It had risen some hours earlier, but then its true majesty, and its true heat, had been obscured by the mist which shrouded the hills. Now it would no longer be restrained, and suddenly the morning was hot, where before it had been no more than close. In seconds the moisture which had earlier clung to leaf and branch and made clothes and hands clammy to the touch, was whisked away in an upward gush of sweat and steam. And now, too, images became clear, and sound seemed to travel farther. From the trees which fringed the plain the herd of cattle appeared to have come closer, although it had not moved. But it could be heard, a hundred hooves pawing at the sparse grass, more than a score of double-jointed jaws rhythmically chewing, while the birds hopped behind in search of displaced worms, and a small cloud of dust eddied around the brown bodies. Imported by the Spaniards over a century before to ensure their food supply, the cattle had multiplied so vigorously on the rich grasslands of the huge island that they had been allowed to run wild, to the benefit of the boucaniers.

  The dust was useful, for the drift indicated the direction of the slight breeze. Kit Hilton wormed along on his belly, his musket pushed in front of him, his powder-horn banging against his back beside his cutlass, moving parallel to the herd to get downwind of them. Behind him, Jean DuCasse paused for breath, and to count again.

  'Seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three head, Kit. I have never seen so many in one place before. Do you think we will get two shots?'

  "We'll try,' Kit said.

  The responsibility was his. Jean was no hand with a musket, md powder was too scarce to be wasted. The little they possessed they had taken from two other boucaniers a week ago, in the same manner as they had got their cutlasses and their pistols. This was a violent world, in which only a man's matelot, the companion with whom he shared his food, his sleep, his every breath, and in time, no doubt, his death, was to be trusted, even for an instant. It seemed a long cry back aver two years to the day he had knifed his first man, and vomited in the sand, and then wept. Since then he had killed again, twice.

  He had killed to survive. He often wondered why. Those first two men had been repulsive to him. He had destroyed them as he would have destroyed two wild dogs. But was he any better, now? His beard reached the centre of his chest, and his hair the centre of his back. He wore an uncured skin, roughly cut into the shape of a pair of breeches, with an odour stronger than that of any dead animal. His feet were bare, and hardened to a quality of leather. He existed to hunt, like a wild animal, and to smoke the meat he managed to kill against the days, or sometimes weeks, when the cattle were absent. He slept in the open, and cared nothing for wind and rain.

  Jean was no different. Only when together in the cool of the dusk did they revert to human beings, did they ever remember the good times in Tortuga, the laughter of Albert DuCasse or Susan Hilton; did they ever still vow revenge on every Spaniard they could catch, as if they had ever caught any; and did they ever still dream of escaping this living hell, and becoming once again men, with a change of clothes and an upright walk.

  And only then did they dream of other things, too. Of the girls on Tortuga? Of Marguerite Warner? He did not know of whom he dreamed. She was woman, with face and hair and legs. And she did not wear silk. When he dreamed it was of two naked bodies twined in a sweating, angry embrace, and when the woman spoke it was to scream. Jean also had dreams like that, and on those occasions they even reached for one another.

  No, indeed, he reflected as he crawled through the grass; they were no different from the creatures he had slaughtered for being just such animals.

  Jean wriggled level with him. 'Company.'

  Kit watched the grass and the trees. There was something moving to his left, also downwind of the herd of cattle, also stealthily. 'Twenty cows will attract everyone within ten miles We'll not give them time.' He was within range, just, he calculated. He aimed his musket, drew back the hammer, and released the lever.

  Almost before the explosion had sounded, the herd was away, lolloping towards the distant fringe of trees. But now there were only twenty-two; one of them lay in the grass, half hidden.

  'Bastards,' Jean growled, starting to his feet. For at least ten men had now appeared, in pairs, from different hideaways in the scrub.

  Kit knelt, hastily reprimed the musket, ramming home another ball.

  'Halloa there,' Jean bellowed, running forward. ' 'Tis our kill.'

  The men checked, a dangerous semicircle, close to the bleeding, writhing animal.

  'I fired also,' said one of the b
earded malelots.

  Jean turned to look. There was but a single puff of black smoke, rising above the grass which concealed Kit.

  'Bah,' said another. 'It matters not. There is enough for all.'

  'No.' Jean drew his cutlass.

  'One against ten?' demanded the first spokesman.

  'The boy is right,' said another man, small, dark and heavy-set. 'If he killed the beast, then it is his.'

  'He is your matelot?'

  'He made the kill,' said the small man.

  'Bah,' said the challenger again. But his companion was already sidling away.

  'I thank you, friend,' Jean said.

  'You are alone?' asked the small man.

  Jean smiled. 'Not so, monsieur.'

  Kit stood up, the primed musket set against his shoulder. The small man also smiled; he had very bright teeth. 'You are the two young ones. We have heard of you. We have travelled north to speak with you. I am Bartholomew Le Grand.'

  'Portuguese Bart,' Jean said. 'We have heard of you also, monsieur. Jean DuCasse, at your service.'

  'Armand Duchesne,' said the man beside Bart.

  'And Kit Hilton,' Kit said, approaching. 'I understand your intention, monsieur.'

  Bart continued to smile. 'So why fight about it, Monsieur Hilton? This cow will divide into four, where it will never divide into ten. And we have much to speak of.'

  Kit glanced at Jean, who shrugged. 'That is true, monsieur.' He knelt, passed his knife across the throat of the dying animal; blood gushed, and the kicking ceased. 'Let us make haste.'

  They laid down their weapons and got to work. The other boucaniers had retreated some distance, and watched them, muttering. But they would risk nothing.