Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  He waited eagerly for some or all of these things to happen. His chagrin deepened as each day passed as though nothing earth-shattering had occurred, as if his emotional turmoil and suffering were of no consequence.

  It was true that for several days thereafter Caroline was quiet and withdrawn, starting whenever she heard footsteps outside the cabin where they laboured together over their books, looking terrified when she heard her father’s voice booming out from the deck above, never glancing in Tom’s direction but keeping her eyes on her books. Guy noticed, with some small satisfaction, that if Tom came on deck when she was there with her mother and sisters, she immediately made some excuse and went down to her own little cabin, staying there alone for hours.

  This lasted less than a week, then she rapidly recovered her old poise and appealing manners. The roses bloomed once more in her cheeks, she laughed and joked with Master Walsh, and sang as prettily in the duets with Dorian during the musical recitals. For some time Guy refused to take part in these evenings, pleading ill-health, and he lay miserably on his pallet on the gundeck listening to the faint sounds of music and laughter from the deck below. In the end he allowed Master Walsh to persuade him to return with his cittern, although his expression and mien while he played were heroically tragic.

  As for Tom, he showed precious little remorse for his treachery and deceit. True, for a while he made no effort to talk to Caroline or even catch her attention, but this was nothing new. It was one of his perfidious ways. Then, during one of their lessons, Guy intercepted an exchange between the pair.

  Caroline dropped her chalk to the deck and before Guy could retrieve it for her she had stooped and groped for it under the table. The ship rolled and the chalk skittered across the deck towards Tom, who scooped it up and, with a mock-gallant bow, handed it to her, at the same time taking the opportunity to peer down her décolle-tage. Caroline, with dancing eyes, turned so that Master Walsh could not see her face and stuck out her tongue at Tom. It was not a childlike gesture, but suggestive and inviting, fraught with sexual undertones. Tom acknowledged it with a leer and a wink that made Caroline blush prettily, and struck Guy like a blow in the face from a clenched fist.

  He brooded on it for the rest on that day, but could think of only one way in which to try to show Caroline how much she had hurt him, how she had destroyed his trust in her and shattered his life. He moved his seat in the classroom. The following day, without permission or explanation, he left the bench beside Caroline and went to the low, uncomfortable stool in the corner furthest from her.

  This tactic had unforeseen and undesirable results. Master Walsh took in the rearrangement of his classroom at a glance, then looked across at Guy. ‘Why have you moved?’

  ‘I am more comfortable here,’ Guy replied sullenly, without looking at him or Caroline.

  ‘In that case,’ Walsh looked across at Tom, ‘I think it would be better if Tom moved over beside Mistress Caroline. There I can better keep him under my eye.’

  Tom needed no second invitation, and for the rest of the morning Guy was forced to witness the play between the two. While frowning at his slate, Tom surreptitiously moved one of his great clodhoppers under the table to touch her elegant satin slipper. Caroline smiled secretly to herself, as though at something she had just read, but made no move to withdraw her foot.

  Then, a little later, Tom wrote something on his slate and, when Walsh was busy marking Dorian’s arithmetic, held it so that she could read it. Caroline glanced at what he had written then flushed and tossed her curls as if in annoyance, but her eyes danced. Then she scribbled on her own slate and let Tom read it. He grinned like the lout Guy knew he was.

  Guy was consumed with jealous rage, but he was helpless. He was forced to watch them flirting, teasing each other, and his hatred boiled up until he felt he could no longer contain it. He was haunted by the images of the terrible things he had witnessed in the magazine. His father’s bulk had screened from him most of the horror of that night, and the light had been poor, but the gleam of her white skin and the tantalizing roundness and soft shapes of her body flashed before him again, until he hated her but at the same time ached with longing for her. Then he saw again his brother, and the unspeakable act he was committing, degrading that perfect pure and lovely form. He was like a pig, like a filthy boar guzzling and snorting at the trough. He tried to find the most extreme words in his lexicon to portray the depth of his revulsion, but they fell short of his true feelings. I hate him, he thought fiercely, and then, I will kill him. He felt a stab of guilt at the thought, but almost immediately that evaporated to be replaced by a savage joy.

  Yes. I will kill him. It was the only way now open to him.

  Guy watched for his opportunity. At noon the next day he was strolling with Mr Beatty up and down the forecastle while the officers of the watch, including his father and Tom, made the sun-shot with their backstaffs.

  Mr Beatty was explaining to him in detail how the affairs of the Company were administered in the Orient. ‘We have two factories on the Carnatic coast, do you know where that is, Courtney?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Guy had studied the huge pile of books and documents that Mr Beatty had given him to read. ‘The Carnatic is that stretch of country in south-east India, between Eastern Ghats and the Coromandel Coast. It is one of the richest trading areas in the Orient,’ he recited dutifully.

  Mr Beatty nodded. ‘I see you are taking your duties seriously,’ he said.

  Guy tried to keep his mind on the conversation, but his attention kept wandering to the group on the quarterdeck. He saw them confer over the traverse board at the helm, then Tom scribbled on his slate and showed the result to his father. ‘Well done, lad. I’ll mark it so on the chart.’ His father’s voice carried even against the wind. The commendation irked Guy and increased his determination to carry through his plan.

  His father took a last turn up and down the deck, darting sharp glances at the set of the sails, and the course in the binnacle. He was an imposing figure, tall and broad-shouldered, with handsome well-formed features and thick dark hair knotted at the back of his head. Guy felt daunted at the prospect of having to confront him. At last Hal handed over the deck to the officer of the watch and disappeared down the companionway to his own quarters.

  ‘Sir.’ Guy turned to Mr Beatty. ‘Will you please excuse me? There is something of the utmost importance I must discuss with my father.’

  ‘Of course.’ Mr Beatty waved him away. ‘I shall be here when you return. We shall continue our conversation then. I find it most diverting.’

  Guy knocked at the door of the stern cabin, and opened it when his father’s voice called from within, ‘Enter!’ He looked up from the ship’s log, in which he was recording the noon position, with the plume of his pen poised over the page. ‘Yes, lad, what is it?’

  Guy took a deep breath. ‘I want to challenge Tom to a duel.’

  Carefully Hal replaced the goose quill in the inkwell, and rubbed his chin reflectively, before he looked up again. ‘What is this about?’

  ‘You know, Father, you were there. It is so disgusting that I cannot bring myself to discuss it, but Tom has given deep offence to Mistress Caroline.’

  ‘Ah!’ Hal sighed. ‘So that’s it.’ As he studied Guy’s taut features silently, he thought, If what the little trollop was doing on her back in the powder magazine was taking offence, then she has a remarkable way of demonstrating it. At last he said, ‘And what is she to you?’

  ‘I love her, Father,’ said Guy, with a simple, touching dignity that took Hal unawares.

  He stopped the smile that was already rising to his lips. ‘And is the lady aware of your feelings?’

  ‘I know not,’ Guy admitted.

  ‘You have not declared them to her? You are not betrothed? You have not spoken to Mr Beatty for his daughter’s hand?’

  Guy faltered, ‘No, Father, not yet. I am but seventeen and . . .’

  ‘Then I fear that you might ha
ve left it a trifle late.’ Hal spoke not unkindly – he remembered the agony of young love full well. ‘Which, in the circumstances, is probably fortunate.’

  ‘I do not follow your meaning, sir.’ Guy drew himself up stiffly.

  Now I have to qualify myself to the little prig, Hal thought, with secret amusement, ‘Simply put, now that you are painfully aware of the . . . predilections, shall we say? of Mistress Beatty, you may wish to review your affection for her. Is she worthy of such noble love as that which you bear her? Has your brother not done you a service by bringing her true nature, even as forcefully as he did, to your attention?’ He was going to add, ‘It seems clear that Mistress Caroline is a little strumpet,’ but he bit back the words, thinking, I do not want to be challenged to a duel by my own son.

  ‘Tom forced her to it,’ Guy answered, with grim determination. ‘That is why I must challenge him.’

  ‘Did he drag her down to the magazine against her will?’

  ‘Perhaps not, but he enticed her. He seduced her.’

  ‘If you call Tom out, will not the entire ship’s company become aware of what has transpired between Tom and her? Do you want her father to learn of her little indiscretion? Do you want her to suffer the full force of parental disapproval?’

  Guy looked flustered, and Hal pressed his advantage. ‘The sole reason I have not been more severe in my condemnation of your brother’s part in this is to spare the young lady’s reputation and prospects. Do you wish to expose her now?’

  ‘I will not have to tell anyone else why I am doing this, but I want to fight him.’

  ‘Well, then.’ Hal gave up. ‘If you are determined, and there is nothing more that I can say to persuade you, then fight him you shall. I will arrange a wrestling bout between the two of you—’

  ‘No, Father,’ Guy interrupted, ‘you do not understand. I wish to challenge him to a duel with pistols.’

  Hal’s expression hardened instantly. ‘What nonsense is this, Guy? Tom is your brother.’

  ‘I hate him,’ said Guy, and his voice quivered with passion.

  ‘Have you considered that, if you call him out, Tom will have the choice of weapons? He will certainly choose sabres. Would you wish to face Tom with a sabre in his hand? I don’t think I would. Aboli has turned him into a swordsman who can hold his own in any company. You would not last a minute against him. He would humiliate you, or he would kill you,’ Hal told him bluntly and cruelly.

  ‘I don’t care, I want to fight him.’

  Hal lost his temper. He slammed the palm of his hand on the desk with such violence that the ink sprayed from its well onto the pages of the ship’s log. ‘That’s enough! I have tried to reason with you. Now I forbid this notion of yours. There will be no duelling on this ship, and certainly none between my own sons. If there is one more word from you on the subject, I will have you chained in the forward hold and as soon as we reach Good Hope I will have you transferred to another ship and sent back to England. Do you hear me, boy?’

  Guy recoiled at the strength of his father’s anger. He had seldom witnessed such fury from him. However, he tried to stand his ground. ‘But, Father—’

  ‘Enough!’ Hal snapped. ‘I have had my say and the subject is closed for all time. Now get about your duties with Mr Beatty. I will hear no more of this nonsense.’

  The sea changed in colour and mood as the Seraph tacked back and forth, battling her way steadily eastward. The confused and disordered wave formations of the ocean changed their character and became great serried ranks, an army of giants marching in battle array towards the land still hidden beneath the horizon.

  ‘The Cape rollers,’ Ned Tyler told Tom and Dorian, and pointed ahead towards the misted horizon. ‘Cold waters meeting the warm African airs, some call it the Cape of Good Hope, but others call it the Sea of Fogs and others still the Cape of Storms.’

  Each day a sense of excitement grew stronger in the ship, which had been so long out of sight of land. The birds came out to meet them from the distant continent, gannets winging in long formations with slashes of black down their yellow throats, gulls with snowy breasts and sable mantles following with raucous cries and tiny petrels splattering the surface of the water with webbed feet.

  Then they saw the first dark clumps of drifting kelp, torn from the rocks by the stormy seas and washed out by the current, waving their long stems and bunched fronds like the tentacles of deformed octopods. Vast shoals of small sardine-like fish seethed upon the surface of the cold green waters, and legions of slippery, glistening seals frolicked and fed upon this abundance. As the ship ploughed on they lifted their heads to regard the men on the deck with huge swimming eyes and stiff, cat-like whiskers.

  Now each evening Hal shortened sail, so that the ship was barely holding her own against the swirling green current. At first light he sent Tom and Dorian to the masthead to make sure that no reef or rock lay ahead to claw out the ship’s guts. As soon as he was certain that the way ahead was clear, he shook out the reefs and clapped on all canvas.

  In the middle of the seventy-third morning since leaving Plymouth Ho, Dorian pointed out to his elder brother the cloud that stood stationary dead ahead above the horizon, while the other heavenly cohorts tumbled and streamed away upon the wind. Both boys studied it for a while, until suddenly it swirled, opened, and they saw a hard blue line beneath it, straight as a sabre cut.

  ‘Land!’ whispered Tom.

  ‘Can it be?’ Dorian asked, wonderingly.

  ‘Yes! Yes!’ Tom’s voice rose sharply. ‘It’s the land!’ He leaped to his feet in the swaying perch and pointed ahead with a finger that shook. ‘Land!’ he shrieked. ‘Land ho!’

  Below him the deck erupted into life, the watch below came streaming up and joined the scramble into the rigging. Soon every shroud and yard was clustered with men, hanging like bunches of ripe fruit, shouting and roaring with laughter and excitement.

  Hal Courtney came rushing up from the stern cabin in his shirtsleeves, clutching the brass barrel of his telescope under his arm, and climbed up to where his sons perched at the masthead. He climbed fast and strongly, never stopping until he reached the crow’s nest. Tom noticed with pride that, despite the long climb, his breathing was light and even.

  He lifted the telescope to his eye and studied the blue silhouette through the glass, picking out the shadowy seams and folds of rugged rock. ‘Well, Master Thomas, you’ve made your first landfall.’ He handed the glass to Tom. ‘What do you make of it?’ Crouched between the two boys he placed an arm around each of them.

  ‘It’s a mountain!’ Tom cried. ‘A great mountain, with a flat top.’

  ‘Table Mountain!’ Hal agreed. Tom did not yet realize what a feat of navigation this was. More than seventy days without sight of land, and his father had brought them in precisely on the thirty-fourth degree of south latitude. ‘Look well upon this land ahead of you,’ Hal told them. He felt a strange sense of prescience as though the curtains that veiled the future had opened for an instant before his eyes. ‘For this is where your destiny lies.’

  ‘Mine also, Father?’ Dorian piped.

  ‘Both of you. This is where Fate has led you.’ Both boys were silent, rendered speechless for once by their father’s vehemence.

  The three sat together at the masthead while the sun reached its zenith. ‘No need of sun-shot today.’ Hal chuckled. ‘We can leave that to Ned Tyler and Alf Wilson. We know where we are, don’t we?’ The sun started down the sky, and the Seraph plugged on gamely, beating her way slowly into the rushing south-east wind, gaining slowly so that the table-topped mountain rose with solemn majesty out of the sea, until it seemed to fill the sky ahead of them, and they could even make out the white specks of human habitation at the foot of the sheer rock cliffs.

  ‘We helped build that fort.’ Hal pointed it out to them. ‘Aboli and Daniel and Ned Tyler and me.’

  ‘Tell us the story!’ Dorian pleaded.

  ‘You’ve heard it a hundred
times,’ Hal protested.

  Tom added his entreaties. ‘It doesn’t matter, Father. We want to hear it again.’

  So, as they sat together in the rigging, Hal related to them the events of the war twenty-five years ago, how the entire crew of their grandfather’s ship had been captured by the Dutch, and brought in chains to Good Hope. Sir Francis Courtney had been tortured to reveal the whereabouts of the treasure he had taken from the Dutch galleons he had captured. When he had stood fast against his tormentors, steadfastly enduring the most vile and inhuman suffering inflicted on him, the Dutch had taken him out onto the parade ground and publicly executed him.

  Hal and the rest of the crew had been condemned to hard labour on the walls of the Dutch fort, and they had toiled and suffered there for three long years before they had made good their escape.

  ‘So is that the mountain where Grandfather Francis is buried?’ Tom asked. ‘Do you know where his grave is, Father?’

  ‘Aboli knows, for it was he who took the body down from the scaffold in the night. Under a staring moon he carried it up the mountain to a secret place.’

  Tom was silent for a while, thinking about the empty sarcophagus in the chapel on the hill behind High Weald with his grandfather’s name graven upon it. He guessed what his father was planning, but this was not the time to thrust himself forward. He would bide his time.

  The Seraph came level with the small rocky island that guarded the entrance to the bay below the mountain. Forests of waving black kelp clogged the waters around it and hordes of glistening seals thronged the rocky shore of Robben Island, so called because robben was the Dutch name for seal.

  ‘Now I must go down to see the ship safely into the anchorage,’ Hal told them.