‘Carry on,’ he told the clerk, before hurrying up on deck.
There was no need to ask Yelverton if he had established ‘where away?’: the only place for a newly arrived vessel to appear in the lagoon before the deserted settlement was the channel five and a half cables astern. Glancing past the taffrail, he saw the Wanderer approaching. The yacht came within a hundred yards of the Tisiphone, and dropped anchor. Robertson saw Thorpe on deck, and the two of them exchanged waves. The Wanderer’s jolly boat was lowered from its davits, and Thorpe climbed down the side ladder and was rowed across to the Tisiphone.
Robertson greeted him at the entry port. The trader looked flushed. ‘Thank heavens I’ve found you here, Commander Robertson!’ he said without preamble. ‘I’m afraid I’ve received some most disturbing news from a sandalwood barque I fell in with on my way here. Apparently the Lucy Ann turned up at Paddon’s trading station at Aneiteium, and there was a fight.’
‘What happened?’ Robertson demanded curtly.
‘Lord Hartcliffe’s men were successful in overpowering the crew of the Lucy Ann and arresting some of the escaped convicts, but… well, I’m afraid some people were grievously injured in the encounter. Including his lordship, I’m sorry to say.’
‘How badly hurt is he?’
‘The man I spoke to did not know for certain; but it seems his lordship is greatly in need of medical attention.’
‘Damn it! What about Mrs Cafferty? Is there news of her?’
‘I fear not.’
Robertson turned to the master. ‘How long to get back to Aneiteium, Mr Yelverton?’
‘A couple of hours to get pressure up in the boilers, a day to get there.’
‘We’ll proceed under sail until we’ve got steam up,’ Robertson decided promptly. He turned back to Thorpe. ‘My apologies, sir – and my thanks for bringing us this intelligence – but you’ll understand if I do not stay for dinner.’
‘I quite understand,’ Thorpe assured him, and smiled broadly. ‘Please do not delay on my account.’
* * *
‘Bring them.’ Quested indicated Killigrew and Molineaux.
Forgan kept the two prisoners covered with his blunderbuss while they were unchained from the ringbolt in the bulwark. Molineaux glanced across to where Lissak stood. ‘You just going to let them feed us to the cannibals, Foxy?’
‘Why? Do you deserve better?’
Molineaux had no answer to that.
‘Remember that time you peached on me after the Castle Street East job?’ asked Lissak, strolling across towards him. ‘Think of this as payment in kind!’
Molineaux hobbled forwards suddenly and seized the old lag by his scrawny neck, his face twisted with rage. The two of them went down, rolling over on the deck, while the crew and Lissak’s fellow incorrigibles stood around laughing and cheering. It was an even match, for while Molineaux had youth and strength on his side, his hands and feet were restrained.
‘Oh-kay, that’s enough,’ said Quested, cuffing tears of laughter from his cheeks. ‘We haven’t got all day. We’ve got to get to Thorpetown before sunset tomorrow. Separate them.’
Gog and Magog pulled Molineaux and Lissak apart. ‘Be still!’ ordered Utumate, emphasising the exclamation mark with a powerhouse punch to Molineaux’s stomach which doubled him up and drove the wind from him.
Killigrew glanced to the headland two hundred yards off the Lucy Ann’s starboard beam. There was no sign of any natives amongst the trees ashore, but he had the feeling they were there, watching, wondering what the white men were up to.
The crew lowered one of the whaleboats from its davits and two of the spouters climbed down the lifelines. A tackle was secured to one yard-arm end, and the lower block lowered to about six feet above the deck.
‘Raise your arms above your head,’ Lissak told Molineaux. The seaman was uncharacteristically silent as Lissak looped the chain of his manacles over the hook at the bottom of the block and tackle. He stared at Lissak in astonishment, perhaps surprised that his old mentor could so easily turn against him and leave him to his death. Killigrew was less surprised, because he knew something Molineaux seemed to have forgotten: there was no honour amongst thieves.
Lissak backed away from Molineaux. ‘All right, boys, haul away!’
Magog hauled hand-over-hand on one rope, raising Molineaux about six feet off the deck. The seaman winced as his shoulders took the weight of his body. Utumate pulled on a brace, swinging Molineaux out over the bulwark, and then Magog lowered him to where the two spouters waited in the boat below.
Killigrew was hoisted out next by the same method. As he was swung over the bulwark, he saw Quested toss a set of keys at Gardner. ‘Leave them with these once you’ve got them ashore. We don’t want to make it too easy for the savages.’ He crossed to the entry port and grinned down at where Killigrew was being lowered into the boat. Gardner unlooped Killigrew’s manacles from the rope and sat him down next to Molineaux in the stern, keeping them both covered with a musket.
‘Adios, amigos!’ called Forgan.
‘Remember what I told you, Killigrew,’ jeered Wyatt. ‘Just keep running!’
‘I’m finished with running, Wyatt!' Killigrew shouted back. ‘From now on, the only running I’ll be doing will be to come after you!’
‘Glad to see you haven’t lost your sense of humour. You’ll need it, when the cannibals put you in one of their cooking pots tonight.’
‘It won’t be the first time I’ve found myself in hot water.’
Wyatt just smirked. ‘Tell the cannibals I said “Bon appetit!”’
The two spouters cast off the boat and rowed them through the surf to a white sand beach fringed with coconut palms. When the boat’s keel touched sand, Gardner gestured with the musket at Killigrew and Molineaux. ‘Out.’
Hampered by their irons, the lieutenant and the able seaman climbed awkwardly out of the boat. They hobbled up on to the sand, and Gardner followed them with the musket. ‘Keep walking,’ he told them.
Killigrew wondered if he was going to shoot them in the back. It seemed unlikely: with only one bullet in his musket, he would not have time to reload before the other tackled him; and neither of the two spouters seemed to be armed.
‘That’s far enough,’ said Gardner. They turned back to face him, and saw him cradling his musket under one arm while he fished in a pocket with his free hand. He produced the keys, held them up for them to see, and then threw them into the foliage beneath the palm trees. ‘Fetch!’
Killigrew hesitated; Molineaux just smiled. ‘I don’t need the keys,’ he told Gardner.
‘No?’
Molineaux raised his hands, and his manacles fell away. ‘Because my irons are already unlocked.’ He lunged forwards and grabbed the musket, pushing the barrel aside and trying to wrestle it from Gardner’s grip. As the two of them struggled chest-to-chest, the two spouters leaped out of the boat and ran up the sand to help the third mate.
Molineaux swung Gardner around so that his back was to Killigrew: the lieutenant looped the chain linking his shackles over the mate’s head and pulled it tight against his throat. As Gardner choked, Molineaux pulled the musket free, raised it to his shoulder, and drilled one of the spouters between the eyes at almost point-blank range. Then the other spouter caught him around the waist and the two of them went down, rolling over and over on the sand.
Killigrew forced Gardner face-down on the sand, getting one knee in the small of his back to increase his purchase as he hauled on the chain around the mate’s neck. Gardner struggled futilely for a moment, and then went limp, but Killigrew was not fooled: he just kept on pulling the chain tighter and tighter until he heard the unmistakable death rattle in the mate’s throat.
He looked across to where Molineaux fought the remaining spouter. The two of them had separated and faced one another across the sand. The spouter had the musket, but now Molineaux had his Bowie knife in his hand. The musket was unloaded, so the spouter swung it like
a club. Molineaux was too fast to let any of the blows connect with his head, but the spouter was successfully keeping him at bay.
Killigrew picked himself up and hobbled across to help him, the fetters on his ankles impeding his every step. The spouter lunged forwards and swung the musket at Molineaux’s head. The seaman ducked beneath the blow, and the spouter lost his balance on the follow-through. It was a fatal mistake: before the spouter could recover his poise, Molineaux had moved in close and buried the knife to the hilt in his adversary’s side. The spouter gasped as his blood spilled on the white sand, and dropped the musket. Molineaux withdrew the blade and stabbed him again, in the heart this time.
By the time Killigrew reached him, Molineaux was wiping the blade of his knife on the spouter’s guernsey. ‘Where’d you get that?’ he panted.
‘Foxy,’ Molineaux replied, returning the Bowie knife to the sheath in the small of his back. Before he could explain further, they heard a crack from the Lucy Ann, and a bullet soughed over their heads to rip through the foliage behind them.
‘Into the trees, quick!’ Killigrew hobbled the remaining few yards up the beach and plunged into the bushes, collapsing behind the trunk of a tree. Realising that Molineaux was no longer with him, he glanced under a bush and saw that the seaman had gone back for the musket and Gardner’s cartouche box. As Molineaux ran back up the sand, musket-shots from the Lucy Ann whistled all around him. The ship was about two hundred yards out and at that range the musket was an erratic weapon at the best of times but, even so, the law of averages said that one of the bullets had to hit him sooner or later.
But Molineaux made it to the trees a few yards to Killigrew’s right. ‘Over here!’
With Molineaux out of sight from the ship, the shooting ceased. Molineaux made his way to where Killigrew lay and sank to his knees beside him, holding the musket in one hand and the cartouche box in the other. ‘Thought we might need these,’ he explained breathlessly.
Killigrew looked down at his irons and glanced about. ‘I don’t suppose you saw where those keys fell by any chance?’
‘Don’t need ’em.’ Molineaux produced his picklocks and went to work on Killigrew’s padlocks.
‘Where did you get those? Lissak?’
Molineaux nodded. ‘He slipped me the knife when we were fighting, then put the picks in my pocket when he was hooking me up to that hoist.’
‘Then I hope for his sake Wyatt doesn’t work out how you managed to get free so quickly.’
More shots sounded from the Lucy Ann. Both Killigrew and Molineaux hunkered down instinctively, but none of the bullets came close. Killigrew soon realised why: the shots were aimed at the boat in the surf. A whaleboat was a far larger target than a man, and a stationary one. While some shots still went wide, it was not long before it looked like a giant wooden colander.
While the boat was being shot to pieces, Molineaux checked in the cartouche box. ‘How many rounds?’ Killigrew asked him.
‘Three.’
‘Capital,’ Killigrew said wryly.
Molineaux took out a cartridge and ball and reloaded the musket quickly and expertly. He jerked his head towards the Lucy Ann. ‘Want me to take a pot-shot at them?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘The smoke will give away where we’re hiding. Better save the ammunition for the savages.’
The men on the deck of the Lucy Ann stopped shooting; then she hoisted her anchor and braced her sails to the wind, heading away from the island.
After the shooting, the jungle was eerily quiet. ‘Now what?’ whispered Molineaux, as if fearing that the slightest sound would bring the natives running from every direction; as if the gunfire had not made enough noise already.
‘Buck up, man,’ said Killigrew. ‘At least we’re not unarmed. Things could be a good deal worse.’
Molineaux cocked his head as if listening. ‘Things just got worse. Hear it?’
Killigrew listened. Somewhere far off in the jungle, he could hear the distant throb of the tam-tams. The refrain was taken up by another set, closer to, and then yet another set, closer still.
‘The bush telegraph,’ Killigrew said grimly. ‘I wonder what they’re saying.’
‘Probably sending out the invitations for dinner.’
Chapter 21
Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner
‘The first thing to do is get as far from here as possible,’ decided Killigrew. The natives must have heard the shooting – that’s what will bring them.’ He gestured out of the trees to where the bodies of Gardner and the two spouters were sprawled on the sand. ‘With any luck they’ll think those three were the only ones left ashore.’
Molineaux followed Killigrew deeper into the jungle. ‘I agree with you about getting as far away from here as possible, but isn’t that going to be kind of awkward? I mean, bearing in mind we’re on an island?’
‘Don’t worry; it’s a big island.’ Killigrew had taken the precaution of studying a chart of the New Hebrides on the voyage from Norfolk Island. As a midshipman his attempts at navigation had been the butt of many a joke – geometry and trigonometry never had been, and never would be, his strong points – and he always bowed to Mr Yelverton in matters of navigation. But his photographic memory for charts, allied with an unerring sense of direction, enabled him to match any landscape he stood in to the marks on a map in his head. ‘We’ll head inland to start with. Most of the villages on these islands are situated on the coast. Then we’ll make for Kowiowi’s village at Dillon’s Bay.’
‘Kowiowi? That’s the fat bastard Quested sold Moltata and the others to, right? Any reason to expect he’ll be any less fond of white meat than he is of dark, sir? Not that it makes any difference in my case. He seemed quite taken with the idea of matelot noir dressed à l’anglais.’
‘There were canoes at Dillon’s Bay, remember? It can’t be more than forty miles from there to Tanna. We’ll wait until dark and then borrow one from the natives.’
‘Paddling across forty miles of open sea ain’t going to be easy.’
‘Would you prefer to wait here until the natives catch us? In any case, I think we can count on Moltata and the others to help us.’
‘And there was me thinking we were going to prig a canoe without marching into the village itself beforehand and riling the natives by nabbing their supper.’
‘It’s my fault as much as anyone’s they’re in their current predicament. I’m not leaving without them.’
Instead of replying, Molineaux suddenly grabbed Killigrew by the arm and jerked him down amongst the ferns to their right. ‘Quiet, sir!’ he hissed. ‘Stay down!’
They lay motionless for a few seconds. A party of a dozen natives, naked but for penis-wrappers and armed to the teeth with spears and war clubs, trotted past almost silently on bare feet, heading in the direction from which Killigrew and Molineaux had just come.
The two Britons lay still for a minute more, until they were sure the natives had passed. Then Killigrew picked himself up and dusted himself down. ‘Well spotted, Molineaux. Much obliged.’
‘You’re welcome, sir.’ Molineaux handed Killigrew the musket and the cartouche box. ‘You’d better take this.’
‘What about you?’
‘I got my chiv, sir.’ Molineaux patted his Bowie knife through the fabric of his jacket. ‘We must be on some kind of native trail. Better if we give any trails a wide berth.’
Killigrew nodded and shouldered the musket. The two of them plunged into the thickest part of the jungle, moving stealthily through the undergrowth. They paused every minute to listen: the only sound they could hear was the relentless drumming of the tam-tams.
They spent the next two hours moving through the jungle, following the slope beneath the trees ever upwards, while the sun reached its zenith somewhere above the trees. Without the sea breezes to cool him, Killigrew was soon dripping with sweat; Molineaux, infuriatingly, remained as dry as a bone. At length they broke out of the trees and saw a swathe of open
ground before them, rising up to a pass between two hills. They hurried up to the crest, and on the other side of the pass they could see a good part of the west coast of the island laid out beneath them. Far below them, a small, gleaming white sailing cutter was anchored in a bay. ‘Saved!’ exclaimed Molineaux.
‘Assuming the master proves to be friendly,’ said Killigrew. ‘We’re not going without Moltata and the others, Molineaux.’
‘I know, sir. But it’s going to be easier sailing to Tanna in a cutter than paddling in an open canoe. And it’s a foolhardy sailor that travels these islands unarmed. I’ll bet he’s got at least one gun on board; we’re not going to have much luck trying to rescue the Tannese with only one musket and three bullets…’
Killigrew heard a shout behind him. He turned and saw a native emerge from the trees on the slope below them, perhaps two hundred yards away. Several more appeared on either side of him, and within seconds there were about three dozen natives charging up the hill towards them.
Killigrew raised the musket to his shoulder, took aim, and fired. It was too much to hope he might hit one at that range, but the shot had the desired effect: the natives either dropped to the ground, or turned and fled back into the trees. He reloaded the musket, but by the time he was ready to take another shot the natives had rallied and were coming on. They were not as afraid of firearms as he had hoped.
‘Come on, sir,’ said Molineaux. They’re just trying to draw your fire, get you to waste your shots at an impossible range; and I don’t much fancy the notion of us waiting around until they get closer.’
Killigrew and the Incorrigibles Page 37