Stormchild

by Bernard Cornwell

  The catamaran replied after a few seconds. The reception was very faint, indeed almost inaudible, but I was fairly certain that it was von Rellsteb himself who acknowledged the settlement’s transmission.

  “We have more visitors,” Lisl said laconically, and still speaking in German, “two women.”

  “Then see them off!” I thought I detected a hint of panic or anger in the guttural voice. Von Rellsteb had gone to sea to intercept what he supposed was Stormchild’s dash for help, but now he was discovering that more unwelcome outsiders had descended on his community.

  “The San Rafael brought them,” Lisl went doggedly on, and my German was not good enough to fully understand all her next words, but I thought she said that the coaster’s captain had informed the settlement that the two women had insisted on staying until the ship returned to collect them.

  “They mustn’t stay!” Von Rellsteb’s voice betrayed a terrible anxiety.

  “Have you found the English boat?” Lisl asked.

  “No.”

  “Good luck,” Lisl said tonelessly. There was no response and, in the silence, I wondered if I should risk talking to the San Rafael. I decided against trying, for almost certainly the settlement was monitoring channel 16 and any transmission would betray my presence. So, regretfully, I switched my radio off.

  Beneath me the man with the yellow headband had found a firing position on a big, flat-topped boulder close to the concrete dam. He was some twenty yards to my right and well positioned to fire down on any unwelcome visitors.

  I looked back to the beach to see that the San Rafael’s launch had reached the shingle. Two green-dressed men were trying to push the boat away, but Jackie’s companion literally jumped at them, forcing the two men backward. Jackie’s companion appeared to be a very heavy woman and a good deal older than Jackie; indeed, I realized with a pang, the larger woman was probably someone of my own age.

  Jackie jumped ashore. The launch’s coxswain hurled two kitbags onto the shingle, then, with a farewell wave, he reversed his boat off the beach. For a few seconds the bluff hid the confrontation between the visitors and the bearded men from my sight, then the older woman appeared at the top of the wooden stairs that led from the beach. The two men were either trying to drag her back to the sea or, at least, steer her away from the house, but the woman would have none of their interference. She pushed one man aside with a forearm tackle that would not have disgraced a second-row forward playing rugby at Cardiff Arms Park, and shoved the second one back with a thump from her weighted kitbag. Jackie, coming behind, snapped a photograph of the two discomfited men, then ran to catch up with her companion who was now striding purposefully past the gazebo and the concrete tanks toward the front door of the house. I caught a clear glimpse of Jackie’s face in my half binocular. Her expression, which blended anxiety and eagerness, was achingly familiar, then she, her companion, and the two men, were all hidden from me by the house itself.

  I rested my head on my arms. God damn it! I had thought myself recovered, but one clear glimpse of Jackie’s face had sent a shudder of longing through me, and I was suddenly overwhelmed by images from our all too short time together. I remembered her apprehensive excitement as she climbed into the camel’s seat on Lanzarote, her shyness when she had shown me her bikini, and her horror on Antigua at the mention of guns. I recalled the guilty glance I had stolen of her as she had exercised naked on Stormchild’s foredeck. Oh God damn it, I thought, I was still in love, even though, under the blowtorch of David’s scorn, I had tried to forget her.

  David. That thought made me switch the radio to channel 37. “This is Tim calling Stormchild,” I hissed the words scarce above a whisper, “Tim calling Stormchild, over.” I was watching the man with the yellow headband who was lying behind a makeshift breastwork of loose stones that he had piled as a firing rest on the edge of his flat-topped boulder. The wind must have swallowed my voice, for the man did not look round. “This is Tim calling Stormchild.” I hissed into the microphone, but there was still no answer. “Come on, you old fart,” I said cheerfully, “talk to me!” But insulting the airwaves made no difference, for there was no reply and, alarmingly, the small red battery light had begun to blink, so to conserve what little power was left I switched the set off.

  Jackie and her companion, both dressed in their distinctive yellow slickers, now appeared at the corner of the settlement’s southern wing. They were clearly behaving as I had behaved when I had first come to the settlement; they had found the front door locked, so now they were working their way round the edges of the buildings. The two men followed forlornly, just as they had followed me.

  The older woman marched resolutely across the courtyard toward the back door. I watched through my monocular, expecting to see her try the door and find it locked, but instead, and as much to my surprise as to hers, the back door of the house was suddenly snatched open and an apparent flood of Genesis people ran into view. The red-haired Lisl led their charge.

  The Genesis people, who were all wearing green, spread into a line. The older woman hesitated, while Jackie, a pace or two behind her companion, seemed to have a greater appreciation of the sudden danger. She twisted round just as the two men who had followed her from the beach attempted to snatch her. None of the Genesis people was using a gun, presumably for fear that the sailors on the San Rafael would hear any shots. The San Rafael was still in the bay. She had recovered her launch and the water at her stern had just begun to foam white as she got under way.

  The long low house hid the small drama from anyone aboard the San Rafael, but I could follow every move. Jackie, trapped by the two men, freed herself by hurling her heavy kitbag at her closest attacker. It hit the man in the chest, jarred him backward, and Jackie began running. Her companion was also trying to run, but the older woman was so heavy that her flight was more of a lumbering waddle, while Jackie, lithe and fit, easily dodged her pursuers. After a few sprinted yards Jackie slowed and turned to shout encouragement at her companion, but she was too late, for the older woman had already been swamped by a welter of green-dressed bodies. Jackie hesitated, and I silently screamed at her to keep on running, then she must have realized that she could achieve nothing by continued hesitation, so she turned and ran like a frightened hare toward the hills. Three of the men chased after her.

  I thought it would prove a desperately close chase, but Jackie was far fitter and faster than her pursuers. She twisted among the vegetable patches, leaped an irrigation ditch, sprinted beside a stand of pea plants, then was on the lower slopes of the escarpment and climbing fast. Her three pursuers had begun their chase just ten paces behind her, but by the time she reached the slope beneath the dam they were already thirty yards back and still losing ground. One of the men stopped altogether and bent over to catch his breath.

  Jackie’s companion was being dragged to the southern wing of the house, evidently to be locked into one of its stablelike rooms, while Lisl, whom I supposed von Rellsteb had left in charge of the settlement, was watching the pursuit of Jackie. The San Rafael, oblivious to the furor its arrival had initiated, was gaining speed as she steamed out of the bay.

  Jackie glanced behind to see her pursuit was fading, and so slowed down herself. She veered to her right, jumped the small conduit that spilled from the dam to carry water to the house, and then began climbing the steepest part of the escarpment toward the radio mast. She did not know it, but she was heading almost directly toward the man in the yellow headband, who, to prevent her spotting him, had shrunk back behind his breastwork.

  The two men who had kept up the pursuit of Jackie now stopped. They, like their companion, were winded, but they also must have realized that the man in the yellow headband was perfectly situated to ambush the fugitive.

  I slid my rifle forward. I was reluctant to fire, for the shot would betray my presence, but I nevertheless slid the safety catch off and was ready to pull the trigger if the man aimed his rifle at Jackie. She, thinking herself saf
e, had reached the crest of the ridge where she turned to look back for some news of her companion, but the older woman had long been thrust inside the stablelike buildings. Jackie, who must have been wondering into just what hell she had precipitated herself, turned away and began walking along the rough, stony track which led beside the reservoir and directly beneath the big, flat rock on which the gunman was perched.

  And from where the gunman sprang his ambush.

  He did not use his assault rifle. The San Rafael had only just disappeared beyond the wooded promontory and any gunshot might still have brought the Chilean vessel back to investigate, so the bearded man abandoned his rifle on the high rock and, instead, leaped down in an attempt to flatten Jackie with his body weight.

  She must have sensed something, or else she heard his movement above her, because she broke into a sudden run, leaving the man to sprawl on the path behind her. The man fell heavily, but immediately scrambled to his feet and lunged after her with a demonic burst of energy. Jackie responded by cutting to her right and scrabbling at a steep, stony slope that would surely have defeated her heavier pursuer, except that the man just managed to leap up, catch her right ankle, and pull her back down the slope. I heard her scream as she was dragged down.

  “I’ve got her!” the man shouted triumphantly.

  “Bring her down!” One of the two men who had abandoned the chase, but who were still on the escarpment’s face, called back, and, when he heard no reply, he shouted again. “Stephen? Stephen! Are you OK?”

  “I’ll bring her down in a minute! I’ve got her! Don’t worry!”

  The two men waited a few seconds, then, assured that Stephen did have the fugitive in his control, they turned and scrambled back down the escarpment. One of the men raised a thumb toward Lisl, who, understanding the gesture, waved in reply.

  Stephen, the man in the yellow headband, had meanwhile forced Jackie to kneel down on the path beside the reservoir. He was standing close in front of her, with his back toward me, and so he saw nothing as I slid from my crevice. I carried the rifle, but very carefully so that its metal bound butt did not clash against the rock. Jackie and her captor were scarcely more than thirty yards from me, but neither of them saw me and neither of them heard me.

  Jackie, who was facing me, was too terrified to take notice of anything except her captor, who, with one hand in her hair, seemed to be holding her down on the path. I saw her twist violently to free herself of his grip, but the man cuffed the side of her head with his free hand. He hit her hard and she called out in pain. The man said something, but I could not distinguish his words.

  The wind gusted about the rocks, bringing snatches of rain in its cold grip. I slithered down a rock slope, loosening a fall of pebbles with my right foot, but neither the man nor Jackie heard the small avalanche. For a few seconds a dip of land took me out of their sight, and, ignoring the pain in my feet, I ran swiftly across some flat boulders before stopping to peer over a rock barrier to see that Jackie was still kneeling in front of the man who now tentatively took his hand away from her hair. “Stay!” He snapped at her as though she were a dog.

  I was now twenty feet away. The man’s back was still toward me as I gathered myself to attack.

  The man was fidgeting and I thought he must be trying to disentangle a length of rope with which he planned to tie Jackie’s hands, but then, because he moved slightly to one side, I saw that he was fumbling to lower his trousers, and I understood why he had wanted Jackie to kneel in front of him.

  Jackie understood too, better than me probably, and once again she hurled herself to one side in a frenetic attempt at escape, and this time she very nearly succeeded, except that the bearded man hurled himself full-length after her and managed to wrap his arms round her legs. “Come here, you bitch!” I heard him shout, then he twisted round and his eyes widened in desperate fright.

  He had heard my boots as I scrambled over the rock barrier. He turned, and he saw a revenant come from the grave. He had seen me fall to my death just the day before, but now, like an apparition ripped from his deepest nightmare, I was reborn. I was charging over the rocks, stumbling on loose stone, but the man did not see my clumsiness, only my face, and he must also have seen my gun and remembered that his own was fifty paces away and lost.

  He tried to get up and run, but Jackie tripped him. He scrabbled to free himself of her, half stood, staggered two desperate paces, but then I had pounded past an astonished Jackie and my boot lashed out to catch him in the base of his spine. He yelped in pain and toppled forward. His skull cracked audibly against rock and I saw a spurt of blood splash on stone, but he was still conscious and still ready to fight as he twisted round and balled his fist to lash up at me, but then he froze in terror because the muzzle of a .303 Lee-Enfield No. 4 Mark I rifle was about one half inch from his left eyeball. “Try it, Stephen,” I said, “please?”

  He gave an infinitesimal shake of his head, but whether to indicate that he was not going to attempt an escape, or whether the response was just pure fear, I could not tell.

  “Remember me?” I asked him pleasantly. “I’m the sucker who couldn’t fly and couldn’t swim either. But I can come back from the dead. And I can kill.”

  “No,” he said, “no. Please!” His fly was undone and showing a length of filthy underpants. I jerked the rifle’s muzzle a fraction of an inch and suddenly a stream of yellow piss overflowed from the underpants to soak his trousers. “Oh, Stephen!” I said in offended remonstrance, then I put on the gun’s safety catch and reversed it so that I was threatening him with the gun’s brass butt instead of its muzzle. “Zip your nasty self up,” I said as nicely as I could.

  He needed two hands to do up his fly, and, while he concentrated on the damp zipper, I thumped him over the head with the rifle butt.

  I hit him too hard. He saw the blow coming and tried to twist away, which evasion only added desperation to my blow and so the brass cracked on his already bleeding temple with a horrid thud.

  He did not immediately flop back unconscious. Instead he groaned and twitched, but I could see the whites of his eyes and knew he would live. More to my purpose I knew he was conveniently out of commission for a few minutes. “Hello, Jackie!” I called over my shoulder.

  There was no answer, nor did I dare look round in search of one, for I had to concentrate on Stephen. That was my excuse, though in truth I was almost frightened to look at Jackie for fear of being disappointed, or overwhelmed, or embarrassed. Whatever, I bent over the stricken Stephen whose face had gone horribly white. A fresh trickle of blood, instantly diluted by rain water, spilled from a rapidly swelling bruise on his left temple, and I felt a horrid fear that I might have hit him too hard, and that he was dying after all, but then he gave an awful groan that convinced me he still had a deal of life left in him. I shrugged the nylon rope off my shoulder and swiftly lashed his ankles together, then heaved him onto his belly, dragged his ankles up toward the small of his back, and tied his wrists. He was now trussed as neatly as a dead stag, but I still had to gag him. I tried to rip a length of cloth off his green clothes, but the stitches would not rip and I had left my rigging knife in my hiding place, so I just wrapped the free end of the rope round and round his bearded face, forcing the line between his teeth so that the only sound he could make was a choked gargle. “Fuck you, Stephen,” I said cheerfully and patted his head as I stood up. He gargled helplessly, and I decided he was not going to die yet.

  “Hello, Jackie,” I said again, and this time I did turn round to smile at her. She was still kneeling on the path from where she stared huge-eyed at me. “You’ll notice I didn’t shoot the scumbag,” I said, “but please don’t think that’s because I’ve developed moral objections to shooting scumbags, because I haven’t, but because the bastards are pretty sure I’m dead and a gunshot would rather give the game away. It might also bring the San Rafael back here, and frankly I don’t want that. I want to be left alone to make these bastards regret they were eve
r born. Hello.”

  She burst into tears. She had no makeup, she was soaking wet, she was crying, and she was spattered with mud, and I thought she was beautiful.

  “We can’t stand here and chat all day,” I went on. “We’ve got to hide, then fetch Scumbag’s gun, and I’m afraid we’ve got to take Scumbag with us because soon his friends are going to come looking for him and I can’t have him telling tales about me. I know you’ve got the most intense reservations about guns, but would you very kindly carry this one for me? It won’t go off.” I held the rifle toward her. She hesitated. “Take it!” I snapped, and she guiltily reached out and took it.

  “Tim?” she said, as though she did not really believe her eyes.

  “It’s me,” I said, then I bent down and pulled Stephen into a sitting position, before, not without difficulty, hoisting him onto my shoulders. I could have released his ankles and forced him to walk, but I could not afford the time to let him struggle and it was simpler just to carry him. “By the way,” I said to Jackie when I had settled Stephen comfortably on my shoulders, “it really is wonderful to see you again.”

  She immediately started crying again.

  It took me ten minutes to get Stephen up to my crevice in the rocks. Once in my deep hiding place I pushed him deep down under the threatening overhang of wet rock. “Shoot the bugger if he gives you any trouble,” I told Jackie, then went and retrieved Stephen’s assault rifle that turned out to be an American M-16 with two spare magazines. I wriggled back into the crevice where a shivering Jackie had already taken shelter, and where Stephen, still inextricably knotted in my extravagant lengths of nylon rope, lay terrified in the deepest part of the narrow cave. Far beneath us, in the big courtyard of the farm settlement, the worried Genesis people gazed up at the ridge line.