Girardin felt in her pocket and pulled out her own knife. She showed them the gleaming blade. ‘Trade! Trade!’ she cried.
The woman who had been with Raoul in the hut seemed to understand. Sunlight glinted on the clean blade. Her own was dull and tarnished with blooms of rust. Girardin saw her considering, weighing up the trade, wondering if this could be some trick.
Girardin crouched before her, trying to smile encouragingly, careful not to scare her further. She was surprised at the steadiness of her hand as she held out her blade. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I would not deceive you.’
The woman nodded and the stag-horn knife was passed into Girardin’s hand.
Chapter 49
THE FEAST IN THE GENERAL’S HONOUR HAD BEGUN BY THE TIME Girardin and the naturalists had circled back to the festivities. Troops of dancers wearing crowns of flowers and spiked green fronds beat their drums. Men’s oiled thighs gleamed as they stomped the earth and women sang and swayed. Girardin scanned the crowd for Captain Kermadec.
Pigs were stretched and crackling over fires. Through the smoke, she could see the General sitting on a raised dais beside Queen Tineh, flanked by pyramids of pineapple and breadfruit. But she could not see Kermadec. The stag-horn knife was now safe in the leather pouch against her leg. She was certain this was a sign La Pérouse and his men had been here and desperate to show Kermadec what she had found. Worry tugged at her heart. Was he too ill to attend the feast? Or had he kept away because of his argument with the General?
A hand touched her elbow. She spun around. Kermadec smiled.
She laughed with pure joy. He seemed well. ‘Are you recovered?’ she asked. ‘Claude Riche said you were suffering…’ She could not bear to say the word ‘consumption’, not wanting to hear the condition be confirmed. ‘He said you were unwell.’
‘Come,’ he said, drawing her away from the smoky feast, his breathing hoarse. ‘I am better for seeing you. I had begun to fear you had not come ashore.’
She walked with him along the beach, the music slowly fading behind them. When they stopped beneath the shade of a spreading frangipani tree, she felt the throb of the drumbeat in the sand.
‘I have found something,’ she said in a rush. ‘Something of La Pérouse.’ She pulled the knife from her pouch.
Kermadec turned it over in his hand. She stared at him, waiting for him to speak. ‘It has a stag-horn handle. It is from Thiers, the knife town, don’t you think?’
‘It could be French,’ he agreed. ‘The silver ferrule is more intricate than the English type. Where did you get it?’
‘A woman in a village. She would not tell me who gave it to her. Do you think we should investigate?’ She was excited, expectant, but Kermadec only shrugged.
‘Take it to the General. It must be his decision.’ He returned the knife to her.
She searched his face. Had he lost faith they would find La Pérouse here after all? The beach was deserted. Everyone was at the feast. She caught his hand. ‘What is wrong?’
His smile was sad. ‘It seems I have had my fill of ocean adventure. Each day I dream of our return to France.’ He plucked a flower from the frangipani tree and twirled it between his fingers, pure white petals with a golden heart. ‘I dream that when we return, we can be together. And we will find your son.’
The lump in her throat was too large for her to swallow. This was all she had dared to hope for.
‘I wish we had more time,’ he murmured. He looked back at the Espérance, anchored a cable length from shore. ‘My boat will be here soon.’
‘Don’t go,’ she said, suddenly desperate that they should not be apart.
He bent his head and kissed her. His lips were soft but urgent, and she tasted the sweet creaminess of coconut. He reached for her, circling his arms around her waist, lifting her to her toes. Her body responded. She leaned into him, pressing her thighs, groin, stomach hard against his, wanting this closeness, this bond to hold them here forever. But she knew what a risk she ran, being seen like this with him. She broke away from his kiss.
‘It is too dangerous,’ she whispered. Already she could see groups of sailors gathering at the shore.
He touched his forehead to hers and she linked arms with him, not wanting to let him go. ‘I will ask the General if I can be with you.’
A shout rang out. They turned. Sailors were sprinting along the beach towards them, chasing a group of fleeing islanders. ‘Thieves!’
‘What’s happening?’ She recognised the smith of the Recherche, Fitz, charging ahead with his pistol raised. He caught up to the islanders at the water’s edge. She watched him standing alone, ringed by powerful young men shouting and waving their clubs. Fitz swore loudly and fired his pistol, but the priming had fallen out. As he fumbled with the gun, an islander stepped forwards and split open the smith’s skull with his club.
Girardin screamed.
Kermadec ran for the smith, calling towards the Espérance. She followed him out of the shadow of the frangipani tree and onto the baking sand. Within moments, all the islanders had set upon the smith, beating him till they imagined him dead. They stripped his clothing from his body. Girardin stared in mute horror, mouth open, unable to move her throat, her chest, not even to breathe. How quickly her bliss had turned to terror. She knew she should do something, anything, but to her shame she thought of nothing but her own safety. Booming cannon fire scattered the assassins. Thank God! The Espérance had seen their distress. They launched a boat.
The islanders sprinted towards her. The sailors took off in chase. She stood rooted in the sand, watching them run at her. What had happened to the kind faces and bountiful smiles? Was this to be her end, after all she had endured? To be massacred on these islands that had once seemed so welcoming?
Blood splattered across her face as one of the sailors had his teeth bludgeoned out by a club. A musket fired. The islander with the club lay dead on the sand. A double canoe surged through the waves to the shore. The islanders on board shouted, and she wondered if they would see the dead man beside her and retaliate. She saw Kermadec, alone, unarmed, moving towards the smith. She found her courage and ran to him.
Kermadec bent over Fitz, hauling the near-naked man to his feet. Blood streaked from a gaping hole in his forehead, but he could walk. He was still alive. She took one of Fitz’s arms across her shoulder.
‘Let’s get him to the boat,’ Kermadec said as the Espérance’s pinnace neared the shore.
Lieutenant Trobriand stood in the bow. ‘Seize them!’ he cried, pointing to the double canoe that had arrived moments before.
The Espérance’s men gathered pikes and sabres and leaped from the boat. Kermadec screamed at Trobriand to call back his men. The islanders on the canoe shouted to one another, confused. Most jumped into the water, but one man, dressed like a chief, stood defiant. Trobriand aimed his musket at the man and fired. The islander tumbled backwards with a shot through his breast.
‘No!’ Girardin cried.
A woman and her daughter ran out onto the beach, wailing. They began to beat at their own chests with their fists, crying out in grief. The girl wept over her father, rocking backwards and forwards, slapping herself about the head. These people were innocent; they’d had nothing to do with the attack on the smith. Girardin hung her head in shame before the dead man’s wife, who screamed at the French with no fear for herself. Girardin shared a stricken look with Kermadec. An innocent life taken by French hands. An innocent life taken out of vengeance. What retribution would the islanders seek in return?
Chapter 50
GIRARDIN STOOD BESIDE THE GENERAL ON THE BALCONY OF HIS cabin, watching as the glowing fires multiplied along the shore, creating a ring of fire spreading out along the coast.
‘There are more by the hour,’ said the General.
Girardin nodded. The orange lights flickered through the trees. Dark figures passed in front of a large bonfire on the beach. People were gathering along the shoreline. Drums thumped out
a coded message, booming out in sorrow or in anger. Was their intent to mourn the loss of the chief, or to rid the islands of her visitors?
‘A disaster! What was Kermadec thinking to let his men act like that?’
‘It all happened so fast,’ she said, defending him.
‘The man was a chief!’ When he raised his glass to his lips to take a mouthful of brandy, she saw his hand was shaking.
It was late, well after midnight, and Girardin shivered despite the warm tropical air. The scent of frangipani mingled with wood smoke was becoming sickening.
The General took a deep breath. ‘It was a matter of great importance to me that our expedition cause no bloodshed, and I have failed.’
He took another gulp of brandy, tilting his head back.
‘How is the smith?’ she asked.
‘Renard does not hold out much hope. The injury to the man’s skull is severe.’
‘But what provoked the attack? Hasn’t the trading been beneficial?’
The General shrugged. ‘I fear these gifts we bring are a curse. They excite jealousies in men. And when all must be relinquished to the chiefs, it invites dishonesty.’
The General returned his brandy glass to the rail and it balanced there, delicate cut-glass catching the candlelight. She longed to pull it to safety.
‘These people cannot be trusted.’ The General pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘They steal everything that’s not pinned down and sometimes things that are. They would prise the bolts from our ship if we did not watch them. We must be away from here. It is no longer safe.’
‘So soon?’ she asked, shocked. ‘But what of La Pérouse?’
‘I do not think he has been here. They can count the number of yam harvests between Cook’s visits. They know the contours of their coasts better than our best mapmaker. If there had been a shipwreck on these shores, I am sure they would know of it.’
‘But what if his visit here does not paint them in a good light?’ She looked back to the fires along the shore, remembering the crack of the club hitting the smith’s skull.
‘Then we must be even more cautious in our questioning.’
She reached for the knife in its leather pouch. Surely the General would not give up so easily. He had barely investigated these waters.
‘I have this,’ she said, drawing out the stag-horn knife to show him. ‘I traded for it with an island woman. I think one of La Pérouse’s men might have given it to her.’
The General did not answer at first. He took the knife, holding it up in the lamplight spilling from his cabin.
‘There is no mark,’ he said doubtfully. ‘It could be English.’
‘But worth investigating?’ She had hoped he would be more enthusiastic seeing it as proof that La Pérouse had been here.
‘The bayonets and hatchets I have seen are all of English manufacture. Even the coins are all English. We would expect to see much more of French design if La Pérouse had been here. One knife proves nothing.’ He handed it back to her.
But Girardin could not give up so easily. They couldn’t let this opportunity go to waste. ‘It is French,’ she said, and stowed it in her leather pouch. ‘Captain Kermadec thinks so.’
‘Ha!’ He slammed his fist against the rail, making the brandy glass jump closer to the edge. ‘What makes you think it was not from one of our men?’ he growled.
She pictured Raoul then, his hips grinding into the girl beneath him on the dirt floor of the hut. The self-satisfied grin. Each thrust a threat to her.
‘The blade,’ she said. ‘The blade is tarnished from this tropical air. One of our men would have kept it cleaned and dry.’
‘Prostitution here is rife! Perhaps a sailor swapped an old blunt knife for the pleasures of some eager woman. The girls here will spread their legs for nothing more than glass beads and red cloth.’
She drew back, surprised at the harshness of his tone.
‘This place is tainted with sex,’ he said, his voice strained. ‘This place is a lure. A lure with shapely curves and sickly scents. She is the pitcher plant. Deceitful. She draws us into her pendulous trap with the promise of delight. We have been fools. We are the fly on the edge of her lip. A tiny fly about to dive into her hungry mouth.’
The way he spoke startled her. The General seized the brandy bottle and refilled his glass almost to the brim. She had never seen him drink like this.
‘Îles des Amis,’ he scoffed. ‘We must leave.’
The beating of the island drums thumped in her chest. ‘Where will we go?’
‘New Caledonia,’ he said firmly. ‘La Pérouse must have chosen to resupply in New Caledonia rather than here. Tomorrow we will dismantle the trading tent. I have made my decision.’
She turned her gaze towards the Espérance; the lamplights burned bright in her rigging like a beacon. She chewed her lip. Now was her chance to ask for a transfer to be with Kermadec. To be free of Raoul. If the General meant what he said, tomorrow might be too late. She had to speak now.
‘I beg a favour from you,’ she blurted, breathing quickly. ‘I am not safe on this ship. The men suspect my true sex.’
The General turned his head, the look in his eye something she did not recognise; direct, intense, like the fires along the dark shore were reflected in them.
She swallowed. ‘May I transfer to the Espérance?’
He swung about, knocking his glass with his elbow. She watched it topple from the rail and listened, breath stalled, for the inevitable splash at the end of its fall.
‘You think a sickly, bedridden captain would serve you better?’
She winced. He had never spoken like this before. Never spoken such harsh words against his friend. She had insulted him.
‘Foolish girl. Why do you think you have survived this journey unmolested?’
She flinched from him. He snatched her hand and pressed it to his lips. She stared, disbelieving. He pushed her backwards into his cabin, his breath doused with brandy.
‘You are safe because the men believe you to be my whore.’
‘Please, no,’ she said, squeezing her eyes closed. She felt his hand lift her shirt.
‘This place, this cursed place,’ he mumbled into her hair.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, tears flowing. ‘You are a father to me. Do not do this.’
She felt his arms tighten around her. He was shaking. Nothing could be the same between them now.
‘Let me go to the Espérance,’ she pleaded.
‘No!’ he roared, pushing her away. ‘You will not go to him.’
She ran for the door.
‘Your duty is to the Recherche!’ she heard him cry out behind her. ‘Your duty is to me.’
Girardin sat on the floor of her cabin, cradling Passepartout on her lap. She stroked the mottled brown skin. To the eye the lizard skin appeared coarse and hard, but beneath her fingers she felt how easily it might tear.
She had been blind. The General was right. Of course they believed her to belong to him. The sailors all suspected, but no man had challenged her since that first landing in Recherche Bay. Did she think the men left her alone out of grudging respect for her duties? That if she kept them fed she would be safe? Even if that were so, there would be no such security if she joined the Espérance. There she would be the outsider—unknown, unproven, a curiosity. She shuddered. Was the chance to be with Kermadec worth the risk?
Her friendship with the General was broken.
Once, she would have blamed herself. No more. Her mistake was to think the General was different from other men. She had respected him. He had reminded her of the kindly Marquis de Condorcet, who believed women could be more than they were allowed to be. He was the father she had longed for. But now the General had fallen in her esteem. She saw that he was no different from these tribal chiefs taking everything for their own.
Outside the sun would be rising. Soon they would face the anger of the islanders over their slain chief. She remembered the warnin
g beat of the drums from the night before. But what filled her most with dread was the thought of seeing the General again.
Girardin moved through the ship in a daze, carrying the General’s breakfast tray pressed against her ribs. Across the water, several canoes approached. She watched them come closer, her fear a dull thud in her chest. She expected reprisals, but when they drew up to the ship, there were women, not warriors, in the boats.
The daily rituals had resumed. Sailors whistled and cheered, helping the island women aboard on one side while d’Auribeau chased them from the other. She saw the captain slap a young boy’s hands from the rail, and the boy merely backflipped with a gleeful shout into the water. If these people bore them malice, she saw no sign.
She climbed the quarterdeck and hovered outside the General’s cabin, afraid to enter. The naturalists were nearby, having constructed a coffin-shaped box on part of the quarterdeck.
‘Asexual reproduction is the only way,’ Labillardière announced to Félix. He had filled the box with mulch to grow breadfruit plants. ‘The natives take cuttings from the best fruit-bearing trees.’
Félix sniffed. ‘I will put my faith in seeds.’
‘They will return to wild type.’
‘You are jealous. Mine have sprouted and yours have not.’
She stood listening to their bickering and staring at the General’s door. What could she say to him? There was no going back to the way they had been before. And now she had lost her chance to go to Kermadec. The memory of his kiss was an ache.
D’Auribeau climbed the stairs and pushed her aside as he raged at Labillardière for commandeering space on the quarterdeck to grow plants.
‘Do you not care about the starvation of our people?’ Labillardière shouted at the captain’s retreating back. ‘He is a fool. These breadfruit could feed so many!’
On the deck below, Piron was sketching a beautiful island woman. The girl was naked to her waist and a crowd of sailors gathered to give her rings and beads. Piron did not notice his charcoals being stolen. Ventenat lost another pair of tweezers from his pocket. The soldiers sat on their rapiers, afraid they would be snatched from their scabbards. The islanders sensed this ship of treasures was about to leave.
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