Then they were up to them, and the frantic anger of their attack almost carried them straight into the surf. Pistols banged and bayonets lunged through the powder smoke in a confusion of killing and fury. Three of the natives ran along the beach, but one fell to a marine’s musket. The rest lay either dead or wounded around the boat.
Herrick yelled, “Here they come, lads!”
He waved his sword towards the lurching group of wounded and the two marines who had fallen back to give them some cover. He watched as Prideaux’s men began to fire over their heads towards the rushing tide of figures at the top of the slope. Again, the torrent of stones and spears, the air rent with voices.
Then he and Pyper and the remaining seaman clambered around the boat’s stern and thrust at it with all their strength, feeling it fighting back, thrusting at them with each lift of breakers around the rocks.
“It’s no use.” Pyper was almost sobbing. “Can’t do it. Too heavy.”
Herrick snarled, “Push! Harder, damn your eyes!” He shouted at Prideaux, “Two more men!”
As he twisted round, the water swirling and clinging to his clothing, he saw the little procession staggering past the body of the speared seaman. They were too slow, and the nearest natives were less than fifty yards behind them.
Prideaux called, “Man the boat! It’s our only chance! We’ll all die if we wait here!”
Herrick waded ashore, his sword above his head. He felt half mad with anger and disappointment, but he would not leave those men behind.
“Go to the devil!”
He ran towards the corporal who was carrying Watt bodily over his shoulders like a sack. The others, including the one with the wounded leg, hobbled and hopped after them. Herrick saw that two men had fallen together further away, and before they could get up again were pounced upon and brutally hacked to pieces, despite the sporadic musket-fire from the beach.
Herrick ran through the reeling men, not knowing what he hoped to do.
The two marines at the rear saw him and yelled, “No good! Done for!”
One of them threw away his empty pouches and raised his bayoneted musket.
“Come on then, yew bastards! Let’s be ’avin yew!”
The other fell choking on blood as a spear hissed out of the sun.
Herrick saw it and heard it, even watched their faces as they came towards him.
He could not see the boat now, not that it mattered. Nobody would escape.
He moved his sword slowly, seeing the crouching figures fanning out on either side. He could sense the power of them, smell them.
The sun was almost in his eyes, so that there was no shadow for him or the solitary marine. It was as if they were already dead.
To one side of the slowly advancing crowd he saw a spear raise itself carefully and deliberately. Now.
The bang, when it came, was almost deafening in the terrible silence.
Herrick heard startled shouts from behind, and then as if torn from a man’s heart, a strangled cheer.
Herrick said harshly, “Stand still, man! Don’t look round!”
The marine, blinded by sweat, his musket and bayonet as rigid as before, said from one corner of his mouth, “I’m with yew, sir!”
Slowly, uncertainly at first, the front rank of natives began to move back. When another bang shook the air they retreated, bounding up the slope, seemingly without effort.
Then, and only then, did Herrick turn.
Just inside the rocks was Tempest’s launch, a smoking swivel mounted in the bows. Where the canister had struck, Herrick neither knew or cared. It must have gone into the sky, for had it been aimed at the slope it would have killed more of his men than their attackers. Perhaps the sound, and the sight of the long launch, with the frigate’s quarter boat coming up astern, had been enough.
Herrick crossed to the marine and clapped him on the shoulder.
“That was bravely done.”
Together they walked towards the surf, where men were leaping from the boats to help and support the others through the shallows.
Bolitho stood quite still on the sand, his hands at his sides, as he waited for his friend to reach him. But in his mind he could still see Herrick as moments earlier the launch had thrust through the rocks after being towed at full speed by the schooner. Herrick, sword in hand, his back to the sea, as he stood with one marine to face a mob, and certain death.
It was something he would never forget. Nor would he wish to.
He clasped Herrick’s arms and said simply, “You have too much courage, Thomas.”
Herrick tried to grin, but the strain prevented it. “You came, sir. Said you would.” His head dropped. “Told them.”
Bolitho watched, unable to help, shocked to see Herrick’s shoulders shaking. I did this to him. He looked round at the beach, now empty but for the dead. For nothing.
Pyper came up the beach and hesitated. “All inboard, sir.”
Bolitho said to Herrick, “Come, Thomas. There is nothing we can do now.”
They passed the abandoned longboat, and it was then that Herrick seemed to come out of his shock. The boat had begun to sink again, the primitive repairs already leaking to the surf ’s rough motion.
He said, “Damn thing would have sunk anyway.” He looked at Bolitho steadily. “It would have served bloody Prideaux right.”
Bolitho was the last to climb into the launch. He paused, the sea surging around his waist, slapping the old sword against his thigh. One day he would meet with Tuke. No ruse, no trick would save him then.
He allowed Allday to haul him over the gunwale.
But this time it had been a defeat.
11 “MAKE THE BEST OF IT”
JAMES RAYMOND ignored the seamen who were spreading awnings above the quarterdeck, while others swayed out boats for lowering alongside. He had come out to Tempest within minutes of her dropping anchor in the mushroom-shaped bay, and was almost beside himself with anger.
Bolitho watched him grimly, seeing his efforts to build a picture for himself of what had happened. Not that it was difficult, especially for one who travelled so far and so often as Raymond.
“I just will not accept it! I cannot believe that a King’s ship, a thirty-six-gun frigate to boot, could be thwarted and almost sunk by a damned pirate!”
There was no point in arguing, Bolitho thought wearily. There was enough to do without trying to change Raymond’s opinion. One he had been holding and preparing for some while. Probably since his lookout had first sighted the returning vessels. The little schooner had hurried on ahead to prepare him. Then Tempest’s silhouette, her missing topgallant mast and yard which had left such an obvious gap to mar her beauty, would have added more fuel to the fire.
He saw Isaac Toby, the carpenter, his owl-like face almost as red as his familiar waistcoat, rolling amongst his depleted crew, pointing at damage, marking a splintered timber with his knife, or indicating something which needed immediate restoration. He would be missing his mate, Sloper, Bolitho thought.
Some of the more badly wounded had already been ferried ashore. The rest had to work all the harder. Especially now. He looked across the shining water, knowing Raymond had stopped his ranting to study his reactions. Poised above her reflection like one of a matched pair, the French frigate Narval swung easily at her cable. Her awnings were spread, and there were boats in the water, while a solitary cutter pulled around her on guard duty.
Raymond snapped, “You may well look yonder, Captain. You turn up your nose at a Frenchman because his ideas are different from your own. How d’you think I feel, eh? A representative of King George and a country which supposedly supports the world’s finest navy is made to ask for the service of a foreign man-of-war! God damn it, Bolitho, if the Emperor of China offered me a ship I’d take her, and double-quick, believe me!” He moved about the deck, his shoes catching on splinters. “Always the same. I am expected to perform miracles. Opposed by hidebound fools and pig-headed soldiers!” He gl
ared at him, oblivious to the heat. “Sailors too, it seems!”
Herrick came aft and touched his hat. “All the wounded listed by the surgeon have gone ashore, sir. I’ve ordered the boatswain to begin work on the topgallant—”
Raymond interrupted sharply, “Quite right, too. Make her nice and pretty again, so that Mathias Tuke can have another game with her!”
Bolitho jerked his head and Herrick withdrew. He said, “Mr Herrick does not warrant that, sir. He is a brave man and an excellent officer. Some good men died, one just this morning.” It had been the wretched marine, Watt. Gwyther had said he was surprised he had survived that far with such a wound. “I command this ship, and I am responsible.” He looked at Raymond squarely. “Tuke is cleverer than I thought. Perhaps I only saw what I wanted to see. But either way, it was my decision.” He dropped his voice as Keen hurried past. “It will only make things worse if we allow personal feelings to become involved.”
Raymond replied, “I had not forgotten who commands the Tempest. And I shall make sure you get a full report when I send my despatches to London. And you do not have to tell me how to behave. I have made my feelings towards you quite clear, I think. So it is quite useless to start asking favours now that your stars are less agreeable, eh?”
“Is that all, sir?”
Bolitho clenched his fists behind him, realizing how neatly he had been goaded into the trap. Maybe he was just too tired, or, like Le Chaumareys, was losing his grip on reality.
“For the present.” Raymond mopped his face. “I will be calling a conference shortly to plan a campaign against Tuke and any of his associates. If in the process we can recapture the French prisoner for de Barras, then all well and good. Under the circumstances it is the very least we can do.” He sounded less sure as he added, “De Barras has the authority of his country, and the means to execute his orders. We are not at war, and he at least seems to know what he is about.”
Bolitho thought of the cabin, the rich carpets and the frightened boy with the wine. Above all, de Barras’s indifference to brutal and sadistic treatment of his own men.
He made himself ask, “How did Hardacre take the news?”
Raymond shrugged. “I am not certain which he grieves over the most. His precious natives who killed his men as well as some of yours, or the fact that he no longer has his own army to crow over! I’ll be satisfied only when I get some proper soldiers here. I cannot abide amateurs in any walk of life!”
Raymond moved to the gangway and paused, looking down into his boat.
“There will be a brig from England shortly. She will call here on passage to New South Wales. She can take the guards back to Sydney where they came from. Then there will be no excuse for not sending me some troops.”
Despite his hatred for the man, his hurt over what had happened, Bolitho sensed an inner warning.
The burning village and what Herrick had told him about the natives of North Island made a mockery of Hardacre’s hopes. Revenge for what Tuke had done to them had killed Finney’s militiamen and had nearly done for Herrick. The old hatreds could soon come alive again and turn island against island, tribe against tribe.
One of the most noticeable things he had seen when Tempest had re-entered the bay had been the absence of canoes and swimming villagers. The same girls and young men had been there well enough. On the beaches and below the thick green fronds. But they had kept their distance, as if fearful that by coming too close they would gain some infection and lose their simplicity and safety which they must have come to take for granted.
“And until they arrive, sir?” He already knew the answer.
“The responsibility will be yours, Captain. Hardacre has enough men still to take care of the settlement. The protection of its progress I am giving to you, and will be saying as much in my report. It is a heavy responsibility.” He looked round, his eyes almost hidden in shadow. “I will be interested to watch your, er, success.” Then with a curt nod to the side party he lowered himself into his boat.
Herrick walked across the deck and said bluntly, “I could live very well without that one!”
Bolitho shaded his eyes to peer at the settlement with its palisades and rough blockhouses. She might be watching the ship, knowing of her husband’s eagerness to get out to Tempest, if only to add weight to the captain’s burden.
Apart from the lack of laughing islanders, things seemed much as before. The little schooner was already being loaded with bales and baskets, and he guessed she would soon be sailing to other islands nearby. To keep trade moving. To regain confidence. Hardacre was taking a great chance, but then he had done that for a long time now.
He said, “I want this ship ready for sea as quickly as possible. Work the hands while there’s daylight, and make sure you put a picket ashore if you’re sending anyone for fruit or water.”
Herrick nodded. “I couldn’t help but hear the last thing he said, sir. I think it’s damned unfair to hand you the extra role of guarding over the convicts.”
Bolitho smiled gravely. “The convicts will be no trouble. I doubt if they’ll want to stray far from the settlement.” He turned away to watch new cordage being hauled aloft. “However, we do what we are paid to do.” He walked towards the companionway. “Tell Noddall . . .” He stopped short.
Herrick looked at him. “Sir?”
“Nothing. I’d forgotten.” He vanished below.
Herrick walked slowly to the nettings and looked at the inviting beaches. Inviting? He thought of the great bloody stain on the sand, the human fragments rotting in the sun, and shivered. Just to see St Anthony’s light in the English Channel once more. To walk beside the Medway, to smell the fruit trees, and the farms. He would not want to stay ashore too long. But to know he would be able to see it again.
Borlase joined him. “Now, sir, about the promotion to quartermaster. I’ve a good man in my division.”
Herrick moved his shoulders inside his coat. Like getting back into things. Men had to be moved, a shortage of hands in one watch must be remedied from the other. The whole watch-bill would have to be rearranged, with the unfit men put to work where they would find it less of a burden but still do a good job.
Someone would have to be found to replace poor Noddall.
He turned as the gangway sentry called, “Jolly boat returnin’!”
Borlase said harshly, “The pickets are bringing off the two who deserted! They should be flogged senseless after what we’ve been through!”
“I think not.” Herrick watched the approaching boat, the two figures sitting dejectedly between some marines. “We need every fit man, and by God are those two going to work!”
He saw Jury coming towards him with one of his petty officers and the carpenter’s red waistcoat looming from the opposite direction. Questions, things wanted, things destroyed. He smiled. All in a day’s work for any first lieutenant.
It was a mixed gathering. Raymond, very composed and unsmiling, sitting at a large, locally carved table. John Hardacre, his bushy hair and beard, his strange, loosely folded robe very much at odds with Raymond’s neat elegance.
Seated at the far end of the room, one leg negligently crossed over the other, Narval’s captain, the Comte de Barras, with his senior lieutenant whose name was Vicariot, made bright figures of blue and white, while de Barras’s curled wig added another touch of unreality. Both the Frenchmen were so smartly attired that Bolitho felt crumpled by comparison, and when he glanced at Herrick he guessed he was thinking much the same.
A scar-faced overseer from the settlement, a half-caste called Kimura, who looked more like an executioner than anything else, completed the gathering.
Bolitho tried to sit easily in the cane chair, wondering how this place would have changed in a year or so. A big, well-built house and a thriving community of traders and administrators. Clerks and managers, experts on this and that from England. Or would it be like others he had seen in the Great South Sea, overgrown again by the jungle, deserte
d even by the natives who had once come to depend upon such outposts?
Through a long window, well-screened with plaited mats, he could see the end of the bay, a dark green point of land, with the sea rising beyond it like water penned in a dyke.
Tempest had been at anchor for five days. Days of ceaseless work and short tempers. Three men had been flogged over incidents which at any other time would have been trivial enough to be overcome. Bolitho detested unnecessary punishment, just as he despised those who preferred it to righting the wrongs.
It had been made worse by the nearness of the French ship, the faces lining her gangways to watch the bitter ritual of punishment under the lash.
Bolitho had been ashore several times to report progress to Raymond, to consult with the Corps guards, who had come with the convicts from Sydney, on the matter of security. Also, he had had plenty of opportunity to meet the deported prisoners for himself. Even after all the long months awaiting trial and making the voyage to the opposite end of the earth, they seemed dazed. But they looked well enough, and were not so cowed as when Bolitho had seen some of them aboard the Eurotas.
He wondered about the Eurotas. Why she could be spared merely to lie idle in the bay. Accommodation ship she was not, and apart from her depleted company, she appeared to provide nothing but a possible way of escape if things went wrong. Bolitho knew that Herrick had been across to her on two occasions to try and obtain men for Tempest. He had, by means which Bolitho could only guess at, procured six new hands, all seamen. No matter what it had cost him in patience and humour, they were worth their weight in gold.
No doubt like all the other hints and promises in Sydney somebody would eventually arrive with a new warrant to work the Eurotas in the government’s service, and she would sail away.
He tried to concentrate on the men around him, to fit them into the puzzle. But it was too easy to think instead of Viola Raymond. He had seen her once only since his return while her husband had been aboard the French frigate enjoying de Barras’s hospitality. Just for an hour he had stayed with her. But not alone. To save her as best he could from further gossip, Bolitho had accompanied her to the new clearing where some of the convicts were building a line of huts for their own occupation.
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