The Hostile Shore

by Douglas Reeman

  Myers moved away. `You think you’ve saved yerself by slangin’ me, don’t you? Yer wrong, mate. You’ve lost everythin’!’ He thrust his round face towards the other man. `By Christ, I wish I’d ‘ad the guts to leave this mornin’! But I never thought you’d be scum enough to do this!’ He saw the murderous glare in Fraser’s eyes and, turning his back, he staggered down the companion-way and groped his way to the tiny cabin he had shared with Tarrou.

  He fell into the bunk and lay quite still, listening to his heart. You fool. You nearly did it then. Suppose he had taken you back, and left you? Then what? He was surprised to find that the thought did not frighten him any more, and with a groan he reached under the pillow for his bottle.

  Alone on deck Fraser stood a prisoner of the ship and the sea. His hands were welded to the spokes which felt heavy and unbalanced. Myers’ words were still echoing around his brain, and he wanted to go below and force the man to see reason. He looked around the streaming deck, but there was no one to take over the wheel.

  They had left him with his ship, and his victory. He found no comfort in either.

  The surf thundered against the foot of the green headland in timeless, unquenchable anger, throwing its spray like arrows on to the quivering palms, and hissing with frustration as it ran back over the hard sand and across the small gullies of rock and coral, to join the next rank of curling whitecaps.

  The shape of the Qyteensland Pearl grew more indistinct and hazy as, with all sails spread she curved away from the shore and ran before the wind, her white hull glittering in the harsh light.

  A lonely figure stood motionless on a ledge above the beach, his deep-set black eyes fixed on the schooner, while his thick hands rested easily on the stock of an old muzzle-loading musket.

  Koata, youngest son of Naareau chief of the Motd, could feel the thin spray in the wind even on the ledge, but his sturdy, well-muscled body trembled not from its touch but from the excitement and the compelling lust which still consumed his being, but which, as son of a great chief, he had to control.

  He was barely eighteen years of age, yet already his body had thickened, and his features had set into the rough, crudely formed mould of his tribe, the flu, dilated nostrils and closeset eyes being those of an older man, and his thick lips, now dry and cracked, added to his appearance of timeless and primitive savagery.

  The schooner -vanished into the haze, and with a soft grunt he began to climb the steep track towards the silent mission. As he walked, his short legs taking the treacherous ground without effort, his beady eyes moved restlessly and hungrily over the bush, and his fingers gripped the musket in readiness as he watched for any possible danger.

  He halted on the edge of the deserted compound and surveyed the mission house with contempt. It , had all beern so easy, just as Tauhu had told them it would he. The hot wind, moaned through the trees and ruffled the feathers which sprouted from his wig of red clay. The deep open sores beneath his armpit throbbed painfully, but he ignored them, just as he did the tight discomfort of his initiation scars, and band his big teeth to show that nothing could alter him from what he was, There had been bad talk of late in the Moth that his father was getting old and weak. That he no longer listened to the voice of Tauhu, the servant of their god, and feared instead the threats of the priest who lived in this empty place and niade strange music to the night, H~ padded across the tamped earth and stamped noisily across the &agging veranda„ For a long -moment he stared down at the’ crucified man at his feet, and for a second forgot the task entrusted to hire. Hi- painted face still expressionless, he drew the bamboo knife from his belt and began to methodically at Spencer’s thin neck. With, a grunt he laid the grizzly prize on the doorstep and walked quickly into the darkened passage beyond the room. An open fire still burned in the small kitchen and, relishing the pain, Koata picked up a flaming log and carried it to the tinder-dry partition of the room. Ignoring the mutilated bodies of the two houseboys, he held it against the wood until the eager flames licked over his wrist, so that with a grimace he stood back and watched the fire spending like a curtain over the whole wall. The smoke

  would be carried by the wind, but it would still be seen by the Mota, who waited beyond the House of Spirits, which had been built for just this occasion. He picked up the severed head and strode swiftly into the jungle, the excitement stirring in his loins like madness, and the taste of the kava in his throat reminding him of the feasting and ceremonies to come.

  The great white ship had sailed away, and would never return. Again Tauhu had been right. The god had been displeased with them, but now that they had driven away the white strangers there was no more danger, and the girl with the hair of a sun-goddess would finally appease him. A small frown creased his ochred forehead. It had been so strange to see the white priest running to meet them, as it had been many years since any of the Mota, but for a few of the elders, had seen him. Tauhu had spoken with great understanding when he had said that the priest of the unbelievers had had no power. Why else did he allow the white girl to remain without sight?

  She had screamed when they had seized hold of her, but Tauhu had forbidden them to hurt her. He had said that she was a gift to Pato, and his alone. His thick lips trembled at the thought. It was almost dangerous just to think his name. Pato, the great god of fertility and strength, who lived in a sacred place by the pool. There the new House of Spirits had been erected, and there the Mota would make their peace with him.

  He began to run, his legs bounding like a goat’s, knowing that there was no danger for him in this place. The land was theirs again, and the small villages around the coast would soon know it once more.

  It was a large village, and well hidden in a deep fold between two round hills. The huts, small and palm-roofed, were built close together to resist attack from without, should anyone be foolish enough to try. But years earlier, the elders had said, other warriors had come from another island, and there had been much fighting.

  A great fire burned in the centre of the village, and, in spite of the midday sun, the warriors of the Mota surged around it, their feet sometimes stamping on the scattered embers as they danced with great concentration to the mingled beats of half a dozen carved log-drums. At that moment the beats were slow, and they were reliving the excitement of their attack on the mission. The wide-bladed spears stabbed at the air, and the wild-eyed men chanted, sobbed,and snarled with mounting frenzy as the tempo beat with remorseless insistence and the drummers bobbed and swayed over their charges, their faces completely absorbed in the rhythm of the dance.

  Tall gourds of kava were being carried round the dancers by the small womenfolk of the tribe, and occasionally one of the warriors would pause to pour the burning spirit down his throat before stamping away with renewed power.

  At one end of the clearing sat Naareau. He was small and shrivelled like an old nut. His parchment-dry skin hung loosely on his emaciated body, and his small, spade-like hands lay twitching in his lap. Only his watchful, bird’s eyes betrayed his emotion and sense of power, and as his young son Koata ran breathlessly to his side he smiled gravely, showing his broken black teeth, and distorting the savage scars which crossed his sunken cheeks.

  Naareau was immensely rich, and the land which surrounded the village was alive with his tusked pigs, his wealth, his power to bargain, or to win over enemies he could not destroy.

  Now that the killing was over he could not remember why it was that he had waited so long to act against the intruders. He had watched the lowly fishermen from the other villages growing soft as they crawled to the trade store, or bowed down to the white gods, and he had waited for a sign. His waiting had been mistaken for weakness he knew, but he had had to be sure. He licked his old lips and signalled to a small girl who was carrying the kava. This would long.be remem bered, and his whispering enemies would be as nothing. He tasted the fire of the liquid in his stomach and belched hap pily. The girl watched him in awe, but quivered as his gnarled fingers
explored her body. Naareau wondered secretly if he was now too old for such pleasures. Perhaps when he had appeased the great Pato all would be well again.

  The drums thundered louder, and the air became even thicker with the stench of sweat and kava, mingled with the scent of half-cooked meat. In the great earth ovens, tended over by the watchful women of the tribe, the succulent meat was almost ready. The fire warmed the old chief’s body from within, and he felt young like his favourite son. His father before him had taught him many things, but of late the white men from beyond the reef had forbidden those teachings, and had prevented the regular ceremonial feastings of human flesh. Now the need for secrecy was past. The Mota had almost purged itself of its weakness. Soon the girl with the hair like the sun and eyes like pearls would make final amends.

  Gillian Bligh sat quite motionless on the edge of a long bamboo bench, her fingers hooked like claws over the smooth bars which formed the seat, her head hanging so low that the forced pressure of her chin against her breast brought a dull, throbbing pain, which she felt was her only contact with sanity and self-control. Outside the darkened interior of the hut where she had been marched by the painted warriors of the Mota, the persistent pounding of drums and the spinechilling screams of the prancing men around the fire repeatedly threatened to unhinge her mind, and only by sitting quite still and holding on to one desperate thought after another could she bring herself to consider her fate, and at the same time prevent herself from screaming with complete terror.

  She remembered Spencer’s wildly elated face as he had burst into the mission that morning. She groaned; it seemed like part of some nightmare which was refusing to be vanquished by the noise and torment about her. He had stood looking at her with something like pity in his crazed eyes.

  `They are coming, my child,’ he had said. `It will soon be over. If they require a human life as payment for their sins, then they must have it. In their eyes it is just.’ He had nodded with sudden gravity. `It is my task to show them that mine is the way.’

  184

  It was then that she had broken. Dressed once more in her torn and salt-stained coral slacks and flimsy blouse, she had thrown herself at his knees, her mind blank to everything but the terrible danger which sounded in the slowly approaching drum, and in the man’s hooded eyes. He had stood over her like a rock, unmoved by her cries and the clinging pressure of her arms about his legs. He had waited until her fear had exhausted her, and then he signalled to two of the mission boys to pull her to her feet.

  After that things had happened too quickly to have any sequence in her aching brain.’ Spencer had left the room, only it seemed, to return immediately, his shoulder streaming with blood. He had fallen on his knees in the middle of the floor, his long fingers clasped together, his staring eyes fixed on her as she swayed between the two natives.

  `The girl was blind!’ He spoke in short, desperate gasps. `You must not let them think that you are otherwise!’ Then in a loud cry: `I have betrayed you! No. No! It is they who have betrayed my trust!’

  Then the room had been filled with twisting, naked shapes, their distorted faces, painted and savage, had floated before her terrified eyes, and later she had seen over their stooped, intent shoulders the merciless torture of the man who had given her to these people. After that she could remember little else. They had dragged her excitedly through the bush for what seemed like an endless period of time. Occasionally, more men would join the triumphant procession, and they, too, would peer at her eyes, and then run their hands quickly over her body, or pluck at her hair with obvious delight.

  Only the tall native, with a glistening helmet of sharks’ teeth, had prevented worse treatment she knew. It was he who had brought her to the hut, and with something like gentleness had arranged for two elderly women to look after her. She shuddered, the bile clogging in her throat. He had also been the one who had supervised Spencer’s crucifixion.

  She stared down, at her bare, scarred feet. How could she bring herself to stand up to what was to come? She rocked back and forth on the seat, the sensation of shock making the hut ice cold, and the nausea rise up again within her.

  In Africa she had often been invited to watch the primitive tribal ceremonies and dances, but never without the certain knowledge that but for close watch and supervision the old customs would be brought back to mean more than just the gentle revival of some old tradition. A British District Officer in Kenya had once told her that the only progress made there was forced. `Controls not standards improve these people!’ He had laughed at her refusal to accept such a simple idea. `Take away the controls, miss, and you’ll see!’

  The noise outside the hut was louder, and through the glowing rectangle of the door she could see the stamping figures pouring with sweat, the faces devoid of any expression which she could remember. The tiny man on the dais was chief of the Mota. That she knew. She had seen him ordering some of his men to search the mission for survivors. Yet even he had been influenced by the tall man who had put her in the hut. He was some kind of priest. No doubt the one man whom Spencer had unwittingly been fighting through all his years of misguided effort.

  She could feel her nails biting into the bamboo. If only I could kill myself. She stared round the bare hut like a trapped animal, but there was nothing. The two old women had left her earlier, but it was unlikely that they would be away long.

  Slowly she stood up, and felt the weakness of her whole body rise against her. With a small spark of determination she walked shakily round the hut. The walls were matted with dried mud, but nevertheless extremely strong. She looked across at the bamboo bench, as if she expected to see herself watching her pathetic efforts. It was no use. The only way out was through the door. And even if she succeeded in getting clear, what then? No wonder they left her so carelessly alone. The ship had gone. They had all gone. Even Hogan had probably left in his cutter at the first sign of danger, as he had said he would. In any case, she could never find the trade store in her state.

  She pressed her shoulders against the rough wall. The wizened chief of the Mota was the only authority here now, and probably always had been. She was just something which had got in the way, a convenience to be used with the same determined savagery as they had employed at the mission, only this time it was to be something even more terrible.

  She tried not to think of Blair. No doubt he alone might be really sorry. She cried aloud, her voice muffled by the drums. `I wish to God I had been drowned!’ She imagined the caressing violence of the waves and shuddered. Then she would have been safe. Who else would miss her? Her public? She laughed hysterically at the thought. No doubt the magazine would make a really fine job of her final notice.

  A cold prickle of sweat ran down her spine. When it happens, whatever it is, I must have the nerve to throw myself on to a spear, or make them kill me quickly in some way. The crude unreality of her racing thoughts took away the last of her strength, so that she found herself sitting again on the bench.

  The sunlight vanished momentarily, and she forced herself to stare straight in front of her quivering body as the two women returned. They were accompanied by what appeared to be three children. They were dressed in tall stiff capes of palm leaves decorated with painted cord and small shells. Their faces and bodies were completely hidden, but their arms were loaded with gourds of crude clay and a small parcel of fruit.

  One of the women, a wrinkled, grey-haired creature whose emaciated breasts hung practically to her navel, paused in her directions to stroke Gillian’s blonde hair with obvious wonder. Then she muttered to the waiting children, who immediately laid their burdens on the earth floor and stood back mutely against the wall. The other woman, equally old, whose thin body was deeply marked by sores, nodded like a toothless monkey, and after a muttered conversation began to jerk the tattered clothes from Gillian’s body.

  She protested at once, but with surprising strength they pinned her to the bench, while first one and then the other ripped away her
final link with her own way of life.

  Her limbs felt devoid of either will or life, and without further protest she allowed herself to be completely stripped, and without so much as a shudder watched the two engrossed women as they sponged down her limbs with what felt like thin oil from one of the gourds,

  The children did not move, and she guessed that they were completely blinded by their capes, probably in order that such a sacred ceremony should remain a mystery to them.

  She swayed forward and would have fallen but for the talon-like fingers on her arms. The slow oiling process went on until within the gloom of the hut her tanned body shone like a statue against the two stooped shapes of the old women.

  She closed her eyes tightly. She shut out the thunder of the drums, the glare of the sun through the smoke-hazed doorway and the blank, drooling faces of the women. Even the stench of their bodies and the complete inevitability of her fate were on the outside of her. For a few seconds she hung on to her strength before the realization that Gillian Bligh no longer existed, and the persistent probing fingers across her body awakened her to terror, and only then did she fall senseless to the floor.

  The sun moved across the island, and the sky grew darker, not with the night, but with the purposeful majesty of the cloud ‘arriers which piled one upon the other, so that even the sea seemed awed. Beyond the bays, and the small cove where the House of Spirits awaited the sacrifice of its servants, and even along the reef which was never still, the sea rolled in. great troughs, as if some tremendous power was lurking just beneath the surface. Waiting for some signal before unleashing itself upon the world, and anything which lay in its path.

  11

  EASING his cramped body slightly between two sun-warmed rocks, Blair raised himself on his sore elbows to peer once more along the small deserted cove. The contrasting shores and beaches of such a small island were surprising, and added to the popular belief that the archipelago had once been a single, fertile mass of land, until volcanic eruptions and the constant power of the sea had taken their toll over the centuries. He rubbed one hand dazedly across his eyes and felt the rasp of sand against, his sun-dried skin, Unlike the other parts of the shore he had already seen, this small cove looked as if it had once been scorched by a great searing heat, so that all vegetation and moisture had been sucked from it, leaving only the hard-packed sand on the deserted beach, and the towering wall of loose rocks and great, slab-like boulders which formed the natural breakwater and hid the green ungle and hills, through which he and Tarrou had just come. He groaned inwardly and squinted against the glare which shone remorselessly from the sea and reflected redly against the rocks. This was the cove, Tarrou had said. To Blair it looked for all the world like a mere weakening of the island’s coastline, a piece of the sea’s casual exploration. Perhaps Tarrou had merely led him to the first convenient place and had then run off somewhere to hide. Blair had told him to work his way round the edge of the rocks and try to find some sign that would tell him where the Moti had gone, and what was going to happen. Involuntarily he peered down at the pale ring on his wrist where his watch had once been. It seemed hours since he had lost sight of Tarrou’s quick, nervous progress, his bent body readily camouflaged by the sombre background, and now that the idea of treachery had crossed his mind he began to grow more apprehensive, and was conscious of the sickening pain in his foot.