by Wilbur Smith
From the direction of the castle she saw a file of soldiers come down the beach at a dog-trot. A mounted officer in a fine uniform was leading them she could see his insignia glinting on his green and yellow jacket even in this dull light. She knew that, even if she succeeded in reaching the shore, the soldiers would be waiting for her.
There was a fresh chorus of screams and heart-stopping cries from the women around her as they felt the vessel touch the bottom. The ship tore herself free and drifted on, only to touch again, the impact shivering the timbers of the hull. This time she stuck fast, pinned down on the sands, and the waves charged at her like rank after rank of a monstrous cavalry. The ship could not yield to their assault, and each wave struck with a malicious boom and a high white fountain of foam. Slowly the
hull rolled over, and her starboard side came uppermost. Louisa scrambled out through the jagged opening. She stood upright on the high side of the heavily canted hull. The wind flung out her long yellow hair in a tangle, and flattened the threadbare canvas shift against her thin body. The wet cloth emphasized the thrust of her breasts, which were full and round.
She gazed towards the beach, saw the heads of the sailors who had abandoned the ship bobbing in the wild waters. One reached the shallows and stood up only to be knocked flat by the next wave. Through the hole in the hull three other convicts followed her out, but as they clung to the planking their leg irons slowed their movements. Another wave swept the hull and Louisa grabbed one of the shrouds from the mainmast, which dangled close by. The waters swirled round her waist but she clung on. When the wave receded all three of the other women were gone, drawn instantly under the green water by their chains.
Using the shroud Louisa pulled herself to her feet again. The spectators were galvanized by the sight of her, seemingly rising like Aphrodite from the waves. She was so young and lovely, and in such mortal danger. This was better than any flogging or execution on the parade-ground of the castle. They danced and waved and shouted. Their voices were faint but in the lull in the wind she could make out their cries.
"Jump, Meisje."
"Swim, let's see you swim!"
"Better than a gaol cell, Poesje?"
She could see the sadistic excitement on their faces, and hear the cruelty in their voices. She knew that there was no promise of help to be had from them. She raised her face to the sky and, at that moment, a movement caught her eye.
A horse and rider had appeared on the crest of the dune overlooking the stricken ship. The horse was a magnificent bay stallion. The rider sat astride the bare back. He had stripped off all his clothing except a breech clout knotted round his waist. His torso was pale as porcelain, but his strong young arms were tanned by the sun to the colour of fine leather and his dense dark curls danced in the wind. He gazed back at her across the beach and the booming surf, and suddenly he raised his arm above his head and waved at her. Then she recognized him.
Wildly she waved back, and screamed his name. "Jim! Jim Courtney!"
With mounting horror Jim had watched the final moment of Het Gelukkige Meeuw's agony. A few of the crew still huddled on the capsized hull, then some of the female convicts were creeping out of the open gun ports and shattered hatches. The crowds on the beach taunted them as they clustered on the wave-swept hull. When a woman was washed overboard, and her chains pulled her under, there was an ironic chorus of laughter and cheers from the spectators. Then the ship's keel struck the sand and the impact hurled most of the convicts over the side.
As the ship was rolled and pummelled on to the beach by the waves, the crew leaped from the heavily listing deck into the sea. The water overpowered most of them. One or two drowned bodies were washed up on the beach and the spectators dragged them up above the high-water mark. As soon as it was evident there was no life in them they threw them into an untidy pile, and ran back to join the sport. The first of the survivors waded out through the surf and fell to his knees in prayerful gratitude for his escape. Three convict women were thrown ashore, clinging to a spar from the shattered rigging; it had supported them despite the weight of their chains. The soldiers from the castle rushed waist deep into the creaming surf to drag them out on to the beach and arrest them. Jim saw that one was an obese creature with flaxen hair. White breasts the size of a pair of Zeelander cheeses bulged out of her torn shift. Struggling with her captors she screamed an obscenity at Colonel Keyset as he rode up. Keyser leaned out of the saddle, lifted his sheathed sword and struck her a blow with the scabbard that knocked her to her knees. But she was still shrieking as she looked up at him. There was a livid purple scar down her fat cheek.
The next blow with the steel scabbard dropped her face down into the sand, and the soldiers dragged her away.
Desperately Jim searched the open deck for a glimpse of Louisa, but he could not find her. The hull dragged itself free of the sand and began once more to drift closer. Then she struck again solidly, and began to roll over. The surviving women slid down the listing deck, and one after another dropped over the side and splashed into the green water. The ship now lay on her side. There were no living souls clinging to the wreck. For the first time Jim saw the gaping hole through which the loose cannon had burst out. This opening was pointed to the sky, and suddenly a slim feminine form crawled out of it, and came to her feet
shakily on the rounded hull. Her long yellow hair was streaming with seawater, and flapped heavily in the gale. Her tattered shift barely covered her coltish limbs. She might have been a boy, were it not for the full bosom under the rags. She gazed imploringly towards the crowds on the beach, who jeered and mocked her.
"Jump, gallows-bait," they hooted.
"Swim. Swim for us, little fish."
Jim focused the telescope on her face, and it did not need the sapphire flash of blue from the eyes in her gaunt and pale face for him to recognize her. He sprang to his feet and ran down the back slope of the dune to where Drumfire stood patiently. He lifted his head and whinnied when he saw Jim coming. As he ran Jim stripped off his clothing and left it strewn behind him. Hopping first on one leg and then the other he pulled off his boots, until he wore only his cotton breech clout. He reached the stallion's side, undid the girth and let the saddle drop into the sand. Then he swung himself on to Drumfire's bare back, urged him up the slope and halted him on the crest.
He looked out with dread that he might find that the girl had been washed off the wallowing hull. His spirits surged when he saw that Louisa was still perched there, as he had last seen her, but the ship was breaking up under the brutal hammer blows of the surf. He lifted his right arm high and waved at her. Her head jerked as she looked towards him, and he saw the moment that she recognized him. She waved back at him wildly, and although the wind smothered the sound she mouthed his name: "Jim! Jim Courtney!"
"Ha! Ha!" he called to Drumfire, and the stallion leaped forward down the slope of loose white sand, going back on his haunches to balance as they slid down the dune. They hit the beach at a gallop, and the crowd of onlookers scattered in front of Drumfire's flying hoofs. Keyser spurred his horse forward as if to intercept them. His plump, clean-shaven face was stern and the ostrich feathers in his hat were blowing like the white surf. Jim touched Drumfire's flank with his toe and the stallion swerved past the other horse and they raced down towards the sea.
A broken wave came tumbling to meet them, but its main force was spent. Without hesitation Drumfire gathered his forefeet under his chest and leapt over the leading edge of white water as though he were jumping a fence. When he splashed in on the other side, it was already too deep for his hoofs to find the bottom. He began to swim, and Jim slid off his back and wove his fingers into the horse's mane. With his free hand on the stallion's neck he guided him towards the wallowing wreck.
Drumfire swam like an otter, his legs pumping in a mighty rhythm beneath the surface. He had gone twenty yards before the next tall wave struck, and burst over them, submerging them.
The girl on the wreck
stared in horrified fascination, and even the watchers on the beach were silenced as they searched for a sign of them in the swirling aftermath of the wave's passage. Then a shout went up as their heads appeared through the foam. They had been washed back half the distance gained, but the stallion was swimming strongly and the girl could hear him snorting the seawater from his nostrils with each breath. Jim's long black hair was sleeked down his face and shoulders. She could hear his cries faint in the thunder of waters: "Come, Drumfire. Ha! Ha!"
They swam on through the icy green seas, swiftly making up the distance lost. Another wave came in but they swam up and over the crest, and now they were almost half-way across the gap between shore and ship. The girl stood up and balanced precariously on the heaving hull, gathering herself for the leap over the side.
"No!" Jim yelled up at her. "Not yet! Wait!" He had seen the next wave humping up against the horizon. This one dwarfed all those that had come before it. Its cliff-like face seemed to be carved from solid green malachite, laced with white spume. As it came on in ponderous majesty it blocked out half of the sky.
"Hold hard, Louisa!" Jim shouted, as the mighty wave crashed into the ship, and smothered her. It left her submerged in its wake. Then it gathered itself again like a predator pouncing on its prey. For long seconds horse and rider swam up its curling front. They were a pair of insects trapped on a wall of green glass. Then the face of the wave toppled forward, curling over them and falling in a solid avalanche as it crashed down on itself with such weight and power that the men on the beach felt the earth jump beneath their feet. Horse and rider were gone, driven so deeply under that surely they could never surface again.
The watchers who, only seconds before, had clamoured to see the storm prevail and its victims perish, now stood smitten with dread, waiting for the impossible to happen, for the heads of that gallant horse and his rider to reappear through the wild surf. Then the water subsided around the ship and as it poured away they saw the girl still lying on the hull, the loose ropes of the rigging holding her from being sucked over the side. She lifted her head and, with the water streaming from her long hair, searched desperately for any sign of horse and man. The seconds drew on and became minutes. Another wave crashed in, then another, but they were not as high and powerful as the one that had buried horse and rider.
Liisa felt despair settle on her. It was not for herself that she feared. She knew she was about to die, but her own life did not seem to matter any more. Instead she grieved for the young stranger who had given his own trying to save her. "Jim!" she pleaded. "Please don't die."
As if in response to her call, the two heads burst out through the surface. The undertow of the great wave that had pinned them under had also sucked them back almost to where they had disappeared.
"Jim!" she screamed, and leaped to her feet. He was so close that she could see the agony that contorted his face in the effort to draw breath, but he looked up at her, and tried to say something. Perhaps it was a farewell, but then she knew in her heart that this was not a man who would ever surrender, not even to death. He was trying to shout a command, but his breath only whistled and gurgled in his throat. The horse was swimming again, but when it tried to turn its head back towards the beach she saw Jim's hand in its mane guide it back towards her. Jim was still choking and could not use his voice, but he made a gesture with his free hand, and now he was close enough for her to see the determination in his eyes.
"Jump?" she shouted, against the wind. "Shall I jump?"
He nodded his sodden curls emphatically, and she could just make out the hoarse croak of his voice: "Come!"
She glanced over her shoulder and saw that, even in his distress, he had picked the slack between the waves to call her on. She threw aside the piece of rope that had saved her, took three running strides across the shattered deck and leaped over the side with her shift ballooning round her waist and her arms windmilling. She hit the water and went under, to reappear almost immediately. She struck out the way her father had taught her and swam to meet them.
Jim reached out and seized her wrist. His grip was so powerful that she thought it might crush her bones. And after what she had suffered at Huis Brabant she had thought that she would never allow a man to touch her again. But there was no time to think of that now. The next wave broke over her head, but his grip never slackened. They came up again and she was spluttering and gasping for breath, yet she seemed to feel strength flowing into her through his fingers. He guided her hand to the horse's mane, and now he had recovered some of his voice.
"Don't hamper him." She understood what he meant for she knew horses, and she tried not to put her weight on the stallion's back but to
swim beside him. Now they were heading towards the beach and each wave that came up behind them carried them forward. Louisa heard voices, faint at first but growing louder every second. The spectators on the beach were caught up in the excitement of the rescue and, fickle as any mob, they were cheering them on. They all knew this horse most of them had seen him win on Christmas Day. Jim Courtney was a well known figure in the town: some envied him as the son of a rich man, some thought him too brash, but they all were forced to pay him respect. This was a famous battle he was waging against the sea, and most of them were sailors. Their hearts went out to him.
"Courage, Jim!"
"Power to you, lad."
"Good on you! Swim, Jim boy, swim."
Drumfire had felt the shore shelving under his hoofs, and lunged forward powerfully. By now Jim had recovered his breath and coughed most of the water out of his lungs. He threw one leg over the stallion's back. As soon as he was astride he reached down and pulled Louisa up behind him. She wrapped both arms round his waist and hung on with all her strength. Drumfire burst out of the shallows, water exploding before his charge, and then they were out on the beach.
Jim saw Colonel Keyser galloping to intercept them, and urged Drumfire into full stride, swinging his head away until Keyser was trailing twenty strides behind.
"Wag, jou donderl Wait! She's an escaped prisoner. Hand the cow over to the law."
"I will deliver her to the castle myself," Jim yelled, without looking back.
"No, you don't! She's mine. Bring the bitch back!" Keyser's voice was thick with fury. As Jim urged Drumfire on down the beach he was determined on one thing only. He had already chanced too much ever to turn this girl over to anyone in the garrison, and in particular to Keyser. He had watched too many of the floggings and executions on the parade-ground outside the castle walls over which Keyser had presided. Jim's own great-grandfather had been tortured and executed on that very ground after being falsely convicted of piracy on the high seas.
"They aren't going to get this one," he swore grimly. Her thin arms were clasped round his waist and he could feel the length of her body pressed against his naked back. Although she was half starved, wet and
shivering with the cold of the green waters and the wind of Drumfire's speed, he could sense the courage and determination in her, which matched his own.
She's a fighter, this one. I can never let her down, he thought, and called back to her, "Hold tight, Louisa. We're going to run the fat colonel into the dirt." Though she did not answer and he could hear her teeth chattering, she tightened her grip round him and crouched low. He could feel by her balance and the way she adjusted to Drumfire's motion that she was a horsewoman.
He glanced back under his arm, and saw that they had opened the gap on Keyser. Jim had raced against Trouwhart before and he knew the mare's best points and her weaknesses. She was quick and game as her name, Trueheart, suggested, but Keyser overburdened her light frame. On firm, smooth going she was in her element and she probably had the legs of Drumfire out in the open, but on this soft beach sand or over rock and other heavy going, Drumfire's great strength gave him the advantage. Although the stallion was carrying a double load, Louisa was light as a sparrow and Jim was not as heavily built as the colonel. Yet Jim knew better than
to underestimate the mare. He knew she had the heart of a lioness and had almost run Drumfire down over the last half mile of the Christmas racing.
I must pick the course to our advantage, he decided. He had ridden every inch of the ground between here and the foothills, and knew every hill and marsh, salt pan and patch of forest where Trueheart would be at a disadvantage.