Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

Tom led Dorian back on deck. The two climbed into the rigging and sat side by side on the main yard. This was the place where they went when they wanted not to be overheard.

  ‘It’s tonight. I heard Father giving his orders. He’s taking an armed raiding party ashore tonight,’ Tom told his little brother. ‘So now we know what the chest is for, don’t we?’

  ‘Do we?’ Dorian asked doubtfully. They had watched a working party under Big Daniel bring the mysterious chest up from the hold. It was the size of a small sea-chest, made of polished teak, beautifully dovetailed and joined, with a screw-down lid.

  ‘Of course we know,’ Tom said importantly. ‘Father is going to fetch Grandfather’s body from the place where Aboli hid it.’

  Immediately Dorian was intrigued. ‘Will he let us go with him?’

  Tom lifted his cap and scratched his head dubiously.

  Dorian persisted, ‘You aren’t afraid to ask him, are you, Tom?’ He knew that challenge was the best way to get Tom to do what he wanted.

  ‘Of course not,’ Tom denied indignantly. Nevertheless, he had to screw his courage to the sticking point before he could bring himself to venture again to the stern cabin.

  ‘You let me do the talking,’ he whispered to Dorian, as he knocked at the door.

  ‘Enter!’ his father called brusquely, and then, as he saw who it was, ‘Oh, it’s you two, is it? However important your business, lads, I have no time to attend to it now. You will have to come back later. We will talk tomorrow.’

  Caps in hand, but with dogged expressions, the pair stood their ground. Tom pointed at the polished teak chest that now reposed in the centre of the cabin deck. ‘Dorian and I know that you are going to fetch Grandfather Francis tonight. That’s the coffin you have brought from home for him.’

  Hal was drawing the loads from the pair of pistols that lay on the desk in front of him, inserting the corkscrew down the barrels and pulling out the old ball, wad and powder charge to replace them. He looked up from the task, and studied their serious expressions. At last, he sighed. ‘You have found me out,’ he grunted. ‘No point in denying it.’

  ‘We want to come with you,’ Tom said.

  Hal looked up at him, startled, then dropped his eyes back to the pistol and went on with the loading. Deliberately he measured a charge of powder from the flask, poured it into the muzzle and rodded it home firmly. Then he took a cloth patch from the brass patch box and wrapped the half-ounce lead ball with it. This would make a perfect fit in the barrel. The pistol was a lovely weapon, built by George Truelock of London. The grip was of curlicue-grained walnut. ‘Your wound is not yet healed, Tom,’ he said, still without looking up.

  ‘It’s healed clean,’ Tom protested, and touched his flank. ‘It was naught but a scratch, even at its worst.’

  Hal made a pretence of admiring the locks of the double-barrelled pistol. They were chased with a gold inlay, and the octagonal barrels were rifled. This would impart spin to the ball in flight and stabilize it to an accuracy that was unheard-of in smooth-bored weapons. If he trusted himself to hold true, Hal knew he could hit a target the size of his own thumbnail with every shot at twenty paces. He tapped the wrapped ball home with a small wooden mallet, then primed the pan. ‘Even so, I don’t think that yours is a very good idea,’ he said.

  ‘He was our grandfather. We are his family,’ Tom insisted. ‘It’s our duty to be there with you.’ He had chosen his words with care and rehearsed them. Family and duty were two concepts his father never took lightly. Now he reacted to them as Tom had hoped he would. He laid aside the loaded pistol, stood up and went to the stern window. For a while he remained there, hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the land. At last he spoke. ‘Perhaps you’re right, Tom. You are old enough, and you know how to take care of yourself in a fight.’ He turned back to the pair.

  Tom was exultant, his expression shining. ‘Thank you, Father.’

  Dorian was tense with expectation, watching his father’s lips for his next utterance.

  ‘But not you, Dorian. You’re still too young.’ Hal tried to soften the blow with a kindly smile. ‘We don’t want to lose you yet.’

  Dorian seemed to crumble beneath the rejection. His expression was stricken, and his eyes welled. Tom nudged him sharply, and whispered out of the side of his mouth, ‘Don’t cry. Don’t be a baby.’

  Dorian gathered himself, and with huge effort fought back the tears. ‘I’m not a baby.’ He stood brave and tragic.

  He’s a beautiful boy, Hal thought, as he studied his son’s face. Dorian’s skin was gilded by the tropical sun, and his curls caught a ray of sunlight through the stern window and shimmered like spun copper. Hal was struck again by the child’s resemblance to his mother. He felt his resolve waver.

  ‘I’m not a baby. Give me a chance to prove it, please, Father.’

  ‘Very well.’ Hal could not resist him, though he knew it was unwise. ‘You may come with us.’

  Dorian’s face was incandescent with joy, and Hal hastened to qualify his agreement. ‘But only as far as the beach. You will wait for us there with Alf Wilson and the boat crew.’ He held up one hand to forestall the protests he saw coming. ‘That’s enough. No argument. Tom, go to Big Daniel and tell him to issue you with pistol and cutlass.’

  They went down into the longboat an hour before sunset. There were only four of them in the shore party: Hal, Aboli, Daniel Fisher and Tom. They each carried a tinderbox and a bull’s-eye lantern. Under their dark boat cloaks they were armed with a cutlass and a brace of pistols apiece. Aboli had a large leather sack folded and tied around his waist.

  As soon as they were settled on the thwarts, Alf Wilson gave the order to cast off. The boat crew pulled on the long sweeps and they crept in towards the beach. In both bows and stern long-barrelled falconets were mounted, murderous small hand-cannon loaded with grapeshot. There were pikes and cutlasses laid on the deck, between the rowers’ feet, ready to hand.

  No one spoke, and the oars dipped and swung without a sound except the drip of sea-water from the blades. Alf Wilson had muffled the rowlocks. In the silence, Tom and Dorian exchanged excited grins; this was one of the adventures they had dreamed about and discussed with fevered anticipation so often during their long duties in the crow’s nest. It had begun.

  Hannah Maakenberg was lying in the grove of milk-woods above the beach. She had been there every daylight hour for the last three days, keeping watch on the distant silhouette of the Seraph as she rode at anchor. Three times she had seen boats coming from the English ship, and had watched them eagerly through the lens of the long brass telescope that Jan Oliphant had lent her. Each time she had been disappointed when Hal Courtney was not on board.

  At last she was becoming discouraged. Perhaps Anne-tjie was right, perhaps he would not come ashore again. Her own son was rapidly losing interest in the hunt also. For the first two days he had been at her side, watching with her, but in the end he had given up hope and gone off to join his men in the drinking hells along the waterfront.

  Now she watched the shape of the longboat coming from the Seraph, barely visible against the darkening waves. She could not contain her excitement. He comes in the darkness, like he did last time, so that no one will recognize him. She held the longboat in the round field of the lens. She watched its prow touch the beach and her heart leaped with excitement, then raced. There was merely a glimmering of light remaining in the western sky as the tall figure stepped from the longboat on to the white sand, and looked around the dunes and scattered bush with an alert turn of his head. For an instant he stared directly at Hannah’s hiding-place and a fluke of the light struck his face, picking out his features unmistakably. Then the light faded and died away so that even through the glass the boat and its crew were just a dark blob at the edge of the white beach.

  ‘It’s him!’ Hannah breathed. ‘I knew he would come.’ She strained her eyes as a small party of men detached itself from the dark shape of the boat. They picked the
ir way through the heaps of white driftwood that were piled at the highwater mark, then came towards where she lay. She closed the telescope and shrank back against the bole of the nearest milkwood.

  The men came on without speaking, until they were so close she thought she must be discovered. Then, without check, their boots crunching in the loose sand, they passed her by, so close she might have reached out and touched their legs. Looking up she saw Hal Courtney’s face lit by the last of the sunset. Then the men passed on to disappear into the thick scrub, heading inland.

  She gave them several minutes to get well clear then lurched to her feet and ran down the path leading to the town. Her heart was singing and she exulted aloud: ‘I’ve got him now. I’m going to be rich. All that money! I’m going to be rich.’

  In single file, Aboli leading, they skirted the settlement, giving it a wide berth. They encountered no human being even when they crossed the road that ran along the base of the mountain towards Salt River and the scattered farms of Constantia. Once a dog must have scented them, for it burst into hysterical barking as they passed, but no one challenged them.

  The slope of the mountain reared beneath their feet and they leaned forward against it. The bush became thicker, but Aboli seemed by instinct to find the narrow game paths, and led them upwards. The dense forest closed out the stars above them, and both Hal and Big Daniel stumbled occasionally. As Tom’s eyes were young, his night vision was still sharp: he picked his way sure-footedly through the shadows. Aboli was a creature of the forests and moved silently as a panther ahead of them. Suddenly they came out on a bluff of bare rock high above the settlement.

  ‘We will rest here,’ Hal ordered. As he found a seat on one of the lichen-covered stones, Tom was amazed at how high they had climbed. The stars seemed very close, vast whorls of silvery light, bewildering in their infinite multitudes. Below them, the pinpricks of yellow candlelight in the windows of the buildings were insignificant against that splendid display.

  Tom drank from the leather bottle Aboli handed him, but no one spoke. Yet the night was no longer silent. Small creatures scurried in the forest around them, and the night birds hooted and screeched. From down the slope came the hideous giggling chorus of a pack of hyenas scavenging the rubbish heaps and dung-hills of the Dutch settlement. It was a sound that made the hackles rise on the back of Tom’s neck, and he had to resist the impulse to draw closer to Aboli’s dark, protective bulk.

  Suddenly a warm puff of wind struck him in the face, and he looked up at the night sky to see the stars blotted out swiftly as a heavy bank of cloud swept in from the sea.

  ‘Storm coming,’ Aboli grunted, and as he said it another gust swept over them on the exposed bluff. In contrast to the first it was icy cold, and Tom shivered and pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders.

  ‘We must hurry on,’ Hal said, ‘before the storm hits us.’ Without another word they rose and went on into the night, which was dark with stormclouds and clamorous with wind. The trees thrashed and clattered their branches overhead.

  As he stumbled along behind Aboli’s tall figure, Tom began to doubt that anyone, even Aboli, could find his way through this dark night and darker forest to a secret place he had last visited twenty years ago.

  At last, when it seemed that half the night had wasted away, Aboli stopped below a sheer cliff of splintered rock, whose summit was lost against the dark sky above them. Both Hal and Big Daniel were panting audibly from the long climb. Aboli was the oldest of them all, but he and Tom were the only ones still breathing easily.

  Aboli knelt and placed his lantern on a flat rock in front of him. He opened the shutter and worked with the tinderbox. A shower of bright sparks flew from the flint and steel and he held the flaming tinder to the lamp wick. Holding the lantern high he moved along the foot of the cliff, shining the pale beam onto the lichen-painted rock.

  A narrow cleft opened abruptly in the cliff face, and Aboli grunted with satisfaction. He moved into it – it was only just wide enough to accommodate his broad shoulders. A short distance in, the crack was choked with trailing lianas and dangling shrubs. Aboli hacked them away with his cutlass, then dropped to his knees when he reached the end of the cleft.

  ‘Hold the lantern, Klebe.’ He handed it to Tom. In its beam Tom saw that the end of the cleft was sealed with rocks and boulders. With his bare hands Aboli prised one free from the wall, and handed it back to Daniel. They worked in silence, gradually clearing the opening to a low, natural tunnel in the cliff. When it was open Aboli turned back to Hal. ‘It is fitting that only you and Klebe should enter your father’s resting place,’ he said softly. ‘Daniel and I will wait here.’

  He unwound the leather sack from around his waist, and handed it to Hal, then stooped to light the wicks of the other lanterns. When he had finished he nodded to Daniel and both men moved away along the foot of the cliff, leaving Hal and Tom alone to complete their sacred duty. They stood in silence for a while, with the storm wind buffeting them and flapping their cloaks like vultures’ wings. The light of the lanterns cast weird shadows on the rocky walls of the cliff.

  ‘Come, lad.’ Hal led Tom into the rock cleft, then went down on hands and knees to enter the dark mouth of the tunnel. Tom passed him the lantern and followed. The sounds of the storm faded behind them, and suddenly the tunnel opened into a cavern. Hal rose to his feet, the rock roof hanging only inches above his head.

  Tom stood up beside him and blinked in the yellow light of the lantern. He found himself in a tomb that smelt of the dusts of antiquity, and he was struck with a religious awe that stifled his breathing and made his hand tremble.

  At the far end of the cavern there was a natural stone platform. A gaunt human figure squatted upon it, staring directly at him with huge empty eye-sockets. Tom recoiled from it instinctively, and choked back the sob that rose in his throat.

  ‘Steady, lad.’ Hal reached out and took his hand. He led him step by step towards the seated figure. The wavering lantern light disclosed the details as they drew nearer. The head was a skull.

  Tom knew that the Dutch had beheaded his grandfather, but Aboli must have replaced his head upon his shoulders. Fragments of dried skin still hung on the bone like the dead bark of a fever-tree trunk. Long dark hair hung down the back of the bony head, lovingly dressed and combed.

  Tom quailed, for his grandfather’s empty eyes seemed to be looking deep into his soul. He drew back once more, but his father held his hand firmly, and chided him gently. ‘He was a good man. A brave man with a great heart. There is no reason for you to fear him.’

  The body was bound in the skin of a beast, a pelt of black hair, which the bacon beetles had gnawed off in patches, giving it a leprous look. Hal knew that the executioner had quartered his grandfather’s body, crudely hacking it into pieces on the scaffold with a cleaver. Aboli had tenderly assembled those parts and bound them up in the hide of a freshly killed buffalo. On the floor below the stone platform were the remains of a small ritual fire, a circle of ash and black charcoal sticks.

  ‘We will pray together,’ Hal said softly, and drew Tom down beside him on the stone floor of the cavern.

  ‘Our Father, which art in heaven . . .’ Hal began, and Tom clasped his hands before his eyes and joined in the recital, his voice growing more confident as the familiar words rolled off his tongue. ‘. . . Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.’

  While Tom prayed he scrutinized, from between his fingers, the array of strange objects that had been laid out on the rock platform, grave offerings that he realized Aboli must have placed there all those years ago when he had laid Grandfather’s body to rest.

  There was a wooden crucifix, set with abalone shell, and bone and water-worn pebbles that shone softly in the lantern light. There was a crudely fashioned model of a three-masted ship, with the name Lady Edwina carved into her transom, then a wooden bow and a knife. Tom realized that these were symbols of the forces that had dominated his grandfather’s l
ife. The one true God, a tall ship, and the weapons of a warrior. Aboli had chosen his last gifts with love and perception.

  When they had finished the prayer they were silent for a while, then Hal opened his eyes and lifted his head. He spoke quietly to the skeletal skin-bound figure on the platform above them. ‘Father, I have come to take you home to High Weald.’

  He laid out the sack on the platform. ‘Hold its mouth open,’ he ordered Tom, then knelt over the body of his father and lifted it in his arms. It was surprisingly light. The dry skin crackled and small tufts of hair and flakes of skin fell away. After all this time, there was no odour of putrefaction, just the scent of fungus and dust.

  He slid the hunched body into the sack, feet first, until only the ancient, ravaged head remained exposed. He paused to stroke the long black tresses of hair, shot through with strands of silver. Watching that gesture Tom was struck with the love and respect it demonstrated.

  ‘You loved him,’ he said.

  Hal looked up. ‘If you had known him, you would have loved him also.’

  ‘I know how much I love you,’ Tom replied, ‘so I can guess.’

  Hal slipped one arm around his son’s shoulders and hugged him briefly but hard. ‘Pray God you never have to perform such an onerous duty for me,’ he said, then pulled the sack over Francis Courtney’s head and secured the leather laces tightly. He stood up. ‘We must go now, Tom, before the storm reaches its height.’ He lifted the sack carefully and swung it over his shoulder, then stooped to the entrance tunnel of the cave.

  Aboli was waiting for them outside the cavern, and he made as if to relieve Hal of his burden, but Hal shook his head. ‘I will carry him, Aboli. Do you lead us down this mountain.’

  The descent was more hazardous than the climb had been. In the darkness and the roaring wind, it would have been easy to miss the path, and step out over a precipice, or stumble on one of the treacherous scree slopes and break a leg, but Aboli led them unerringly through the night, until Tom felt the gradient ease, and the rock and rolling pebbles under his feet give way to firm soil then to crunching beach sand.