Night Of Error

by Desmond Bagley

  'Christ, we must stop these natives making a search,' I said. 'We don't want any deaths.'

  I turned to race on deck but he held my arm, pushing something heavy into my hand. 'Here's a gun,' he said. 'Can you shoot?'

  I hung onto it tightly. 'I'll soon find out, won't I?' I stuffed it into the pocket of the light anorak I was wearing. 'You'd better stay here.'

  'Son,' said Campbell, 'I'm not as old as that – not yet.'

  I looked into his frosty eyes and said, 'We'd better make it snappy, then.' We ran up on deck and I dropped into the launch and looked ashore. Little spots of light were moving in the darkness, coming and going, sometimes vanishing and reappearing as the torches were occulted by the palm trees. 'Damn, they've started to search.' I turned to Ian. 'Kane's armed.'

  'Let's go – I've got six – the rest are ashore already. They know the score.' The engine started first time off, which was a tribute to someone, and as we sped shorewards I said to the. men around me, 'Listen, chaps, we're looking for Geordie. If you come up against Kane steer clear of him. Don't push him too hard – he's got a gun. And as you find the natives send them back to their village.'

  Taffy Morgan said, 'What's Kane done now?'

  'He's killed a man,' said Campbell coldly.

  There was no more talk until the boat grounded on the beach. Piro was waiting, his face alive with excitement in the light of a torch. 'Found 'im,' he said laconically.

  'Which one?' I asked quickly.

  He gestured. 'The big one – up in hut now.'

  I sighed with some thankfulness. This must be Geordie. 'Piro, can you call your men off – stop them? They must not find the other man. He has a gun.'

  Piro made a quick sign to one of his friends, who lifted a large conch shell to his lips. The mournful sound boomed out, sending its note across the plantations. I saw the lights begin to drift back to the village.

  'Let's see him.'

  We found Geordie in one of the huts. His face was a dreadful mess, with deep cuts and gashes across his forehead and cheeks. Piro said, 'We found 'im in trees – asleep on groun'.'

  I think he had concussion because he rambled a little, but he was able to speak to us. He had seen Kane slipping ashore in one of the many canoes and had followed in another. He hadn't had time to call anyone because he was afraid of losing Kane. He had followed as Kane skirted the village and entered the trees and then he had been ambushed.

  'For God's sake, who ambushed you?'

  'It – must have been Hadley. A man as big as an elephant,' said Geordie painfully. 'He stepped from behind a tree and pushed a gun into my ribs. I didn't expect that – I thought Kane was on his own – and he took me by surprise. Then he I., made me turn round to face him and he started to hit me.' He was trailing off but recovered. 'With the gun. A big revolver.

  It was the sight that did – this. And the bastard was laughing.

  Then he hit me a couple of times on the head and I – passed out.'

  He grinned weakly. 'Maybe he thought he'd killed me but I have a pretty hard head. I'm sorry I fell down on the job, Mike.'

  'It's all right, Geordie. None of us expected anything like this. I'm only sorry you had to get it in the neck.'

  His bloody face cracked in a grim smile. 'Add it to the account with my finger,' he said weakly. 'Give him one from me.'

  'You'll have to wait your turn. There's a queue lining up for licks at Hadley – and Kane.' I stood up. 'I think we'd better get you back to the ship.'

  Two of his shocked team moved in, gentling him up and setting off for the launch. The others began to gather as Piro called them to the hut. I spoke urgently to him. 'Is there another boat here – the Pearl?' I asked. If Hadley had returned several times Piro was sure to know his boat. Piro's answer shocked us all, even though we were already primed for it.

  'Yes, it came 'ere. It gone by hopital-one, two hour,' he said.

  'Well I'm damned,' said Campbell. 'He came through the pass behind us – in the dark and without lights. He's a bloody good seaman.'

  'That doesn't make me love him any more,' I said.

  A man ran into the hut and spoke to Piro rapidly in his own language, clearly distressed. Piro looked startled and gestured to me to come outside, where he pointed into the darkness. There was a fitful redness in the sky on the horizon. 'Hopital, he burn,' he said.

  'Christ!'

  The others crowded out to exclaim at the sight.

  'How can we get there – fast – all of us?' I damned the jeep, stalled on the beach without fuel.

  'Big canoe,' said Piro. 'Go fast. Faster than walk.' He ran off.

  I said, 'Hadley's fired the hospital!'

  Campbell looked at the glow in the sky. 'Is he plain crazy -why did he do that?' he demanded.

  'He threatened to do it. No time to tell you now. We're going in canoes. Piro's gone to organize it. Now where's Ian?'

  His soft Highland voice sounded at my shoulder. 'I'm here.'

  Take one canoe and go back to the Esmerelda. I want her down at the hospital as fast as you can make it. There's light enough – the lagoon must be safe; you just follow the beach. Just get her there.'

  He said nothing but ran off towards the beach. Piro touched me on the arm. 'Come to canoes.'

  Most of us could crowd into the launch and the big canoe took the rest as well as a lot of their own men – it held twenty of us. It was also leaky but by God it was fast! The rowers put their backs into it and it skimmed across the water at a great speed leaving a wake glinting with phosphorescence, and easily keeping up with the launch.

  The three miles or so to the hospital took only twenty minutes, but by that time we could see that the whole place was on fire. We could see black figures running about, outlined against the flames, and I wondered how many survivors there were. I was so intent on the scene on shore that I didn't see the ship. Campbell shook me by the shoulder and pointed.

  A schooner was anchored in the lagoon just off the hospital. We wouldn't have seen her in the darkness of that terrible night but for the raging fire which gleamed redly on her white hull. I shouted to Campbell, 'What should we do -go to the schooner or the hospital?'

  'The hospital – we must save the patients.'

  The canoe drove onto the beach, a little way below the hospital and we all splashed ashore and ran towards the fire. I saw that Campbell had produced an automatic pistol, a strange weapon with an extraordinary long, thin barrel. I took out the revolver he had given me and pounded onward, barely able to keep up with the racing Commandoes. The whole hospital was burning fiercely, the dry thatch going up like tinder and the flames streaming to the sky in the windless night.

  I ran for the open space between two burning huts and came in sight of the hospital's own landing place. A boat was just moving out and I heard the sudden sharp revving of an outboard motor over the crackle of flames.

  They're getting away,' I yelled, and took a shot at them. Nothing happened – I had forgotten to release the safety catch. Campbell squatted in a half-crouch and took aim with his curious pistol, then straightened up and shook his head. Too far. I wish I had a rifle.'

  'But we can't let them get away,' I raged.

  Campbell shook me roughly by the arm. 'Come on!'

  I took one last look at the boat disappearing into the darkness in the direction of the schooner Pearl and then raced up the beach after the others, who had already dispersed to join the rest of our crew from the launch. I heard someone shouting. 'You can't put those fires out – save the people!' and I ran across to Schouten's house.

  It was no use. The place was enveloped in fire, a roaring mass of flames shooting up fifty feet into the night sky. I wondered if it was Schouten's funeral pyre, and whether he had been mercifully dead when the fires started.

  I ran round the house to see what it was like at the back and stumbled across a woman sitting in the path. I recovered my balance and looked back to see that she was cradling Schouten's head in her lap. Her wai
ls rose above the crackle of the flames. 'Aaaah, le pauvre docteur, le pauvre docteur!' I bent down and saw that her dress was scorched and torn. She had probably dragged Schouten's body from the house. When she saw me she gave a cry, scrambled to her feet and ran away screaming into the darkness beyond the hospital. She must have thought I was one of Hadley's bunch.

  I dropped to one knee beside Schouten. He wasn't a pretty sight because he had been shot through the head more than once. His jaw was torn away and there was a small blue hole in the left temple. The right temple was gone – there was a ragged gap big enough to hold a fist and his brains were leaking out onto the path.

  I rose and stumbled away, catching on to a tree for support. Then I vomited my guts out until I was weak and trembling, pouring sweat.

  I had barely recovered when Nick Dugan rushed up to me, his face blackened with smoke, and took my arm to help me to my feet. 'You all right?'

  'I'll – do.'

  'Look, Mike – there's the Esmerelda. They've been quick.'

  I looked across the water and saw Pearl getting under way and, beyond her, Esmerelda coming up at a hell of a lick under power, her bow wave flecked red by the reflections from the burning shore. Pearl was still moving slowly and I could see from the changing angle of Esmerelda's bow that Ian meant to try and stop her by coming hard alongside or even ramming.

  But the schooner was picking up speed under her engine and slid out from Esmerelda's threatening bows. Ian changed course again to converge but just at the moment of impact Pearl seemed to spin smartly sideways and Esmerelda's bow sprit only grazed her side. As the two ships passed one another there was a fusillade of shots from Pearl and an answering staccato rattle from our ship. I wondered who had guns and who was using them.

  Then Pearl was safely out of reach, heading across the lagoon for the pass in the reef, lights springing up on board as she went. Esmerelda gave up the chase and turned towards the shore, and I heard her engines stop. Saving the hospital had priority and it was too dangerous to follow the fleeing schooner in the dark.

  They'd got clean away.* 3*

  Dawn revealed chaos. Trickles of smoke still spiralled skywards from the gutted buildings and the patients – the survivors – huddled together on the beach with friends and the remaining hospital staff. Piro had done a count, and the death roll numbered fourteen, not counting Schouten himself.

  We were all weary, scorched and depressed.

  Campbell looked about him at the scene of that damned atrocity and his face was grey. 'The bastards,' he said savagely. The murdering sons-of-bitches. I'll see them hanged for this.'

  'Not if I get them first,' I said.

  We were crouched over a couple of benches with hot coffee in our hands, brought ashore from the brigantine. We didn't have enough on board to provide adequately for everyone but we had distributed what we could, and the villagers had brought food of their own for the shocked survivors. The few men whom Schouten had trained were performing heroic feats of first aid but much more was needed. And we had received a bad shock of our own – the morning light revealed that our ship's radio had been smashed, presumably by Kane before he jumped ship. There was no way to send for help, save by going for it in person. Ian, who had done wonders by bringing Esmerelda down the coast at night, was castigating himself for not having the radio guarded, but we persuaded him that it wouldn't have been thought necessary at the time. I hadn't even been on board to see Geordie yet, though I was assured that he was doing all right, if still confined to his bunk.

  Campbell said, 'I can't see Suarez-Navarro going in for this. They're a rotten crowd, as I've told you, but this is unbelievable.' X I wasn't impressed. 'Know any English history?'

  His head jerked up. 'What's that got to do with it?'

  'There was an English king – Henry II, I think it was – who had a bishop as his conscience, Thomas a Becket. The legend is that the king was at dinner one day and said, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" So four of his knights went off and murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.'

  I scraped with my foot in the sand. 'When the king found out he was horrified. He abased himself before the Church and did his penances – but he came out on top, after all – he didn't have Becket on his back any more.'

  I pointed to the burnt-out hospital. 'Suarez-Navarro have a board meeting and some plump, stuffy director says, "I wish we could do something about Campbell and this interfering chap Trevelyan." So someone like Ramirez goes out and does something, and if everything gets done – and Campbell and Trevelyan get stopped – he gets a bonus paid with no questions asked. And the dividends of Suarez-Navarro pile up, and that director would faint if he saw a cut finger so he doesn't enquire too closely into how the job was done in case he gets sick to the stomach.'

  'But they didn't attack us.'

  'Not directly. This has more Hadley's trademark, sadistic revenge in the meanwhile. But don't think we're not in danger now.'

  Campbell looked up the beach to the patients sitting in their forlorn group. He said slowly, 'Then this wouldn't have happened if we hadn't come here.'

  There was a coppery taste in my mouth. 'No. Schouten was afraid of what would happen, and I told him he'd be all right. I said he'd be protected. What a bloody mess I've made of everything.'

  We both fell silent. There was too much that could be said.

  Clare came along the beach towards us, carrying a first aid kit. She looked drawn and pensive, but I was more attracted to her than ever. I would have liked to take her in my arms but something prevented me – and she guessed my intention and saw why I couldn't carry it out.

  'Mike, your hands are burnt raw. I'll bandage them.'

  I looked at my hands. I hadn't really noticed before but now they were beginning to hurt.

  She got busy with my hands and spoke with her head down as she worked. 'Pop, I guess this is where you get busy with your cheque book.'

  I said harshly, 'A cheque book isn't going to bring fifteen people back to life.'

  'You men are damned fools,' she said and her voice was angry. 'What's done is done, and you didn't do it, though I guess you're both blaming yourselves. But the hospital is gone, and what's going to happen to the poor people here? Somebody has to do something – we can't just go away and say, Well, we didn't start the fire, even if it's true.'

  'I'm sorry, Clare,' I said. 'But what can we do?'

  Campbell dug his hands deep into his pockets. 'There'll be another hospital – a good one. And doctors, and good equipment. I'll endow the whole damned thing.' His voice became harder. 'But Suarez-Navarro will pay for it one way or another.'

  He walked away down the beach as Clare smeared a cool emulsion on my hands. 'What's that stuff?' I asked. I had to discuss something less painful, though my throbbing hands weren't the best choice of subject in that case.

  Tannic acid jelly. It's good for burns.'

  I said, 'No one else has had time to tell us what happened on board. Can you? I didn't know we had guns.'

  'Several of the men have them, besides Pop's little armoury. You can be awfully innocent.'

  'Who was doing the shooting from Esmerelda?' 'A couple of the crew – and me,' she said shortly.

  I raised my eyebrows. 'You?'

  'I'm a good shot. Pop taught me.' She began to cover my hands. 'I think I shot one – and I think it was Kane.' Suddenly her voice broke. 'Oh, Mike, it was awful. I've never shot at a man, only at targets. It was…"

  I was entangled in bandages but I somehow managed to get an arm around her shoulders and she buried her head on mine. 'He deserved what was coming to him, Clare. You've only got to look around you to see that. Did you kill him?'

  She raised her head and her face was white and tear-streaked. 'I don't think so – the light was bad and everything happened so fast. I think I may have hit him in the shoulder. But – I was trying to kill him, Mike.'

  'So was I,' I said. 'But my gun didn't go off. I'm not very good with guns, but I tried and
I don't regret it.'

  She pulled herself together. Thanks, Mike. I've been a fool.'

  I shook my head. 'No, you're not, Clare. Killing doesn't come easy to people like us. We're not mad dogs like Kane or Hadley, but when we do come up against mad dogs I think it's our duty to try and stop them in any way we can – even if the only way is by killing them.'

  I looked down at the top of her head and wished that this whole stinking business was over. It had suddenly come to me that a burnt-out hospital littered with corpses wasn't the best place in the world to tell a girl that you were falling in love with her. I would have to wait for a calm sea and romantic moonlight, with perhaps the strains of a love song echoing from the saloon.

  And for the moment I was sickened of the whole chase. How Mark came to die, where his stupid treasure of cobalt lay, none of it mattered. I wanted to be done with the whole affair – bar Clare. And I couldn't get out of any of it that easily. I recognized the symptoms of exhaustion and sat up, bracing myself.

  She saw the expression in my eyes and looked away quickly, but I think she read it all there. She said, 'We've got to go through with this now, Mike. We can't let Suarez-Navarro get away with it – if it is them. All this would go for nothing if we did that.'

  'I know; but it won't last forever, Clare. There'll be better days coming. I'm all right now. Were any of our chaps hurt besides me?'

  'Scorches, a few scrapes. None worse than you,' she told me.

  'Good. We have to start getting clear of this lot, then. The local people must carry on until we can get word back.' I left her and went to where Piro was standing and was aware that she was watching me. I would have given anything to be elsewhere with her than on that beach.

  I said to Piro, 'What will you do now?'

  He turned a sad face to me. 'We build again. All Tanakabu people built more here – many huts. But no doctor…'

  I said, 'Piro, Mr Campbell there has money, more than he needs. He will send doctors and you will get a proper hospital, like the one in Papeete. But first we must go back there and tell the police what happened here. Can you write a message forme?'