Monsoon

by Wilbur Smith

  The thought that his father, who had been the vigorous centre of his existence for as long as he could remember, might never be able to walk again was suddenly thrust upon Tom’s dazed mind. It was almost as unbearable as the horrors he was forced to witness now as Reynolds picked up the bloody scalpel and laid the first incision on the remaining leg. Hal bucked and screamed in his sweat-slippery hands, and chewed the wooden wedge to splinters.

  Tom was panting and grunting with the effort of holding the squirming body, and fighting back the waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him as the second leg fell away and dropped to the blood-slick deck under their feet. This time Hal had not been granted the release of coma. He had endured every exquisite agony of the knife and the hacksaw. Tom was filled with awe and a strange sense of pride as he watched the way his father fought back against the agony and only succumbed when it soared to another pinnacle. Even then he tried to choke back his cries.

  At last Tom could bend over him and place his lips an inch from Hal’s ear and whisper, ‘It’s over, Father. It’s all over.’

  Unbelievably his father heard him and understood. He tried to smile, and that smile was a terrible thing to see. ‘Thank you.’ Hal’s lips formed the words, but no sound issued from his tortured throat. Tom’s vision swam as tears threatened to overwhelm him, but he forced them back, and then he kissed his father on the lips, something he could not remember doing in all his life. Hal made no effort to roll his head aside to avoid the embrace.

  Ned Tyler hurried to meet Tom as he stepped out onto the deck. ‘How is he?’ he asked. ‘He is alive,’ Tom replied, and then, when he saw how real was Ned’s concern, he took pity on him. ‘As well as we can expect. We will not know for some days yet. Dr Reynolds says that he must rest.’

  ‘Thank God for that at least.’ Ned said, then looked at Tom expectantly.

  For a moment Tom did not know what he was waiting for. Suddenly he realized: Ned needed orders. He shied away from it. He felt too tired and uncertain of himself to take on the responsibility that was being thrust upon him. Then, with an effort, he rallied his resources. ‘Our first concern now is to get all our wounded back on board where Dr Reynolds can attend them properly.’

  ‘Aye, Mr Courtney.’ Ned looked relieved and turned away to pass on the orders. Tom was astonished at how easily it had happened. He was no longer Master Tom, but Mr Courtney. As Hal’s son, the mantle of command had passed naturally to him. He was only seventeen and he bore no official rank, but this was not a naval vessel, and Tom had proved time and again that he had a level head on his shoulders, that he could hold his own in any fight. The officers and men liked him. It did not have to be debated. If Ned Tyler accepted his right to command, then so would every man aboard the Seraph.

  He tried to think what his father would want him to do even though his instinct was to hurry back to Hal’s bedside, and stay there until he was strong enough to care for himself. But he knew that Dr Reynolds and his mates were better equipped for the business of nursing him back to health.

  Thinking quickly, he told Ned to secure the ship and see to the routine details of management, then he went on, ‘I leave the ship in your hands, Mr Tyler.’ The words he had heard his father utter so often came easily to his lips. ‘I’m going ashore to take command there.’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ Ned replied.

  With Aboli close behind him, Tom strode back to the fort. Some sort of order had been restored, but he found Anderson and every one of the men still engrossed in ransacking the storerooms of the fortress. A mountain of plunder was piled in the centre of the courtyard, and a wild confusion of men milled about it, adding more bales and boxes to the pile.

  ‘Captain Anderson,’ Tom hailed him, ‘there are three or four hundred of the enemy escaped into the forest. Many of them are still armed. I want the ramparts manned against a counter-attack.’

  Anderson stared at him incredulously, but Tom went on resolutely, ‘Please put your best officer in command, and have the enemy cannon reloaded with grape and trained round to cover the edge of the forest.’

  Anderson’s face started to swell and turn a brighter crimson. Every sailor within earshot had stopped whatever he was doing and now stood idle and gaping, following the exchange avidly.

  ‘Then please have the open gateway barricaded to repel an attack,’ Tom went on. He was as tall as Anderson, and he held his eye without blinking.

  For a long minute Anderson looked at him, and it seemed that he was on the point of challenging the order, but then he wavered, and looked away at the open gateway, at the unprepared rabble of his men. The sense of what Tom had ordered was irrefutable. ‘Mr McNaughton,’ he roared, unnecessarily loudly, for his mate was only five paces from where he stood, ‘fifty men to barricade the gates, and a hundred to man the captured guns. Load with grape and cover the approaches to the fort.’ He turned back to Tom.

  ‘There is only an hour or two of daylight left to us,’ Tom went on. ‘We will clear the fugitives out of the forest at first light tomorrow.’ He looked across at the ranks of naked prisoners, who still knelt in the dust. ‘As a matter of common humanity I want those people clothed and given water, then they can be confined in the cells of the fort. How many of our men are wounded?’

  ‘I’m not certain.’ Anderson looked guilty, and the red faded slowly from his complexion.

  ‘Have your writer draw up the butcher’s bill,’ Tom ordered. ‘The casualties must be sent on board the ships where they can be attended by the surgeons.’

  Tom looked around quickly and saw that Ben Abram, the Arab surgeon, was still at work attending to the enemy wounded. Someone had had the sense to give him four of the prisoners to assist him. ‘We will bury the dead tomorrow before they start to poison the air. The Mussul-men have certain strict rituals for the disposal of their dead. Pirates that they are, we must honour their traditions.’

  Tom worked with Anderson until long after the sun had set. By the light of burning torches they restored order, had the fort secured and the booty placed under strict guard. By then Tom was weaving on his feet with fatigue. The shallow sword wound across his thigh, which al-Auf had inflicted, burned and every muscle in his body ached brutally.

  ‘It is safe now, Klebe. All is taken care of until tomorrow. You must rest.’ Aboli was suddenly at his shoulder.

  ‘There is still one thing that cannot wait until tomorrow.’ Tom led the way out through the gates to where Big Daniel still lay. Between them they wrapped the great body in a sheet of canvas and one of the stretcher parties carried it down to the beach.

  It was after midnight when Tom staggered down the passage to the Seraph’s stern cabin. A surgeon’s mate sat beside the bunk on which Hal lay. Tom told him, ‘I will take over,’ sent him away and threw himself down on the hard deck. Twice during the night his father’s groans woke him. Once he gave him the water he pleaded for, and later he held the pewter bowl for him to urinate. It troubled him deeply to see Hal brought so low, to the level of an infant, but the pleasure of being able to serve him outweighed his exhaustion and his pity.

  Tom woke again before dawn, and thought for a dreadful moment that his father had died during the night, but when he touched Hal’s cheek the flesh was warm. He held the steel shaving mirror to his mouth and, with relief, watched the shining surface cloud. Hal’s breath was still tainted with the odour of stale rum, but he was alive.

  Tom wanted to stay with him, but he knew that that would not be what his father expected of him. He left him in the care of the surgeon’s mate, and before the sun rose went ashore with Aboli.

  There was still so much to be done. He placed Master Walsh and the writer from the Yeoman of York in charge of tallying the booty they had captured. Anderson took command of packing the treasure and sealing the chests, which were carried down to the beach and placed in the charge of a trusted officer and an armed guard.

  Then Tom sent for Ben Abram. The old man looked exhausted, and Tom wondered if he had
slept. ‘I know it is your custom to bury your dead before sunset on the second day.’

  Ben Abram nodded. ‘You know our customs as well as our language.’

  ‘How many are there?’

  Ben Abram looked grave. ‘Three hundred and forty-three, that I have been able to count.’

  ‘If you give me your parole for their good behaviour, I will release fifty of your men from the stockade to dig the graves.’

  Ben Abram selected a burial site at the far end of the ancient Islamic cemetery and put his men to work. It went quickly in the soft sandy soil. Before noon they had carried the bodies, each wrapped in a sheet of clean white trade cotton, down from the fort. Al-Auf’s headless corpse was in the centre of the long row laid along the bottom of the shallow pit and covered with earth. Ben Abram recited the Islamic prayers for the dead, and afterwards came to find Tom on the beach. ‘I call down the blessings of Allah upon you for your compassion. Without your mercy none of the dead could have entered the garden of Paradise. One day, may the man who kills you extend to you the same consideration.’

  ‘Thank you, old father,’ said Tom grimly. ‘But my mercy will end with the dead. The living must face the consequences of their crimes.’

  He left the old man and went to where Alf Wilson and Aboli were waiting at the head of three hundred fully armed men, who included the prisoners of al-Auf whom he had released.

  ‘Very well,’ Tom said. ‘Let’s round up those who escaped from the fort.’

  Tom used the steady wind of the monsoon and sent small groups of men to put fire into the eastern fringe of the forest. It caught readily and flames roared through the undergrowth in towering clouds of thick black smoke. Those Arabs still hiding in the forest were driven before the fire.

  When they came running out from among the trees few had any fight left in them. They threw down their weapons, pleaded for mercy and were marched away to join their comrades. By nightfall on the second day almost every fugitive had been rounded up and penned in the stockades of the fort.

  ‘The only sweet water on the island is in the rainwater cisterns of the fort,’ Tom told Anderson, when they met on the beach at sunset. ‘If we missed any, they will have to give themselves up before noon tomorrow or die of thirst.’

  Anderson studied the boy, who had so swiftly become a man. Tom’s face was blackened by the soot of the fires, and there were bloodstains on his shirt, for some of the Arabs had chosen to fight rather than accept the dubious mercy of the ferenghi. Yet despite the fatigue of battle, there was a commanding set to Tom’s shoulders and a new authority in his voice. Anderson noticed that the men responded without hesitation to the orders he gave. By God, he thought, the pup has become a fighting dog overnight. He has the manner and look of his sire. I would not like to get on the wrong side of either of them. Without questioning his own subservience, he reported, quite naturally, ‘The writers have finished the tally of the prize. I warrant it will surprise you, for it did me. The weight of the gold alone is almost three lakhs at a conservative estimate.’

  ‘Please see that it is divided into four equal portions,’ Tom said, ‘one portion to be sent aboard each of the ships of the squadron, including the Lamb.’

  Anderson looked puzzled. ‘Surely Sir Henry will want it all under his own eye?’ he demurred.

  ‘Captain Anderson, we have the long voyage back to England ahead of us, with countless hazards of sea and weather to face. If we are unfortunate enough to lose a ship, it may be the wrong one and we lose all the gold. If we spread the risk, then we stand to lose only a quarter and not the whole.’

  Why the hell did I not consider that? Anderson thought, but said reluctantly, ‘They screwed your head on the right way—’ He had almost called Tom ‘lad’ but that no longer fitted. ‘I will give the orders, Mr Courtney.’

  ‘We have twenty-six of our own men wounded, five of them seriously. I want a gang to build comfortable airy shelters above the beach to house them, and the carpenters to make beds for them. Now, as to our dead,’ Tom glanced across at the eight canvas-wrapped corpses lying in the shade of the grove, ‘I want them taken aboard the Minotaur. We will give them a proper burial at sea. The Minotaur will sail out into the deep water at first light tomorrow. Will you be good enough to conduct the service, Captain Anderson?’

  ‘I will be honoured to do so.’

  ‘Now, I will have Mr Walsh issue a keg of brandy from the Seraph’s stores to Aboli in which to pickle al-Auf’s head.’

  When Tom entered the stern cabin, Hal stirred on the bunk and whispered, ‘Is that you, Tom?’ Swiftly Tom went to kneel beside him. ‘Father, it is so good to have you back. You have been unconscious these last three days.’

  ‘Three days? So long? Tell me what has happened since.’

  ‘We prevailed, Father. Thanks to the sacrifice you made, we carried the fort. Al-Auf is dead. Aboli has his head pickled in a brandy keg, and we have taken a vast treasure from the fort.’

  ‘Dorian?’ Hal asked.

  At that question, Tom felt the joy go out of him. He looked down at his father’s face. It was so pale that it seemed to have been dusted with white flour, and there were deep purple half-moons under his eyes. ‘Dorian is not here.’ Tom’s whisper was as soft as his father’s. Hal closed his eyes, and Tom thought he had passed out again. They were silent for a long while. When Tom started to rise to his feet, Hal opened his eyes again and rolled his head. ‘Where is he? Where is Dorian?’

  ‘Al-Auf sold him into slavery, but I do not know where they took him except that it must be somewhere on the mainland.’

  Hal struggled to sit up, but he did not have the strength to lift his shoulders from the mattress. ‘Help me, Tom. Help me to my feet, I must go on deck. I must ready the ship to go after him. We have to find Dorian.’

  Tom reached out to restrain him, thinking, He does not know. He felt a sorrow so deep it threatened to drown him. How do I tell him?

  ‘Come, lad. Help me up. I am weak as a new-born foal.’

  ‘Father, you cannot stand. They have taken your legs.’

  ‘Don’t talk nonsense, Tom. You test my patience.’ His father was becoming so agitated that Tom feared that he might injure himself. Dr Reynolds had warned that any violent movement might rupture the sutures and start the bleeding again. I have to convince him, for his own good.

  Tom stooped over Hal and drew back the light cotton coverlet from his lower body. ‘Forgive me, Father. I have to show you.’ Very gently he placed an arm under Hal’s shoulders and lifted him until he could look down at his own body.

  The grotesquely foreshortened limbs lay on the mattress, each swathed in a turban of bandages on which the blood had dried in dirty brown stains. Hal stared at them for a long while, then fell back on his pillows. For a minute Tom thought he had fainted again. But then he saw tears squeezing from between the tightly closed eyelids. That was too much for him to bear. He could not watch his father weep. He had to leave him now to make his own terms with his destiny. He drew the sheet over him to hide those terrible injuries and tiptoed from the cabin, closing the door silently behind him.

  When he came on deck, the longboat was ready to take him across to the waiting Minotaur. Captain Anderson was on the quarterdeck, speaking quietly to Alf Wilson.

  Tom glanced at the eight canvas-wrapped bodies. Each one was lying on its own grating, and a large round shot had been sewn into the foot of each shroud. He could recognize Daniel Fisher by his bulk: he dwarfed the others who lay beside him.

  ‘Mr Wilson, kindly get us under way and put the ship on a course to clear the passage.’

  The Minotaur’s black sails were appropriate to this sombre voyage. She left the island and bore out towards the west while the colour of the water beneath her keel changed from the turquoise green of the shallows to the royal purple of the ocean depths.

  ‘Heave the ship to, please, Mr Wilson.’

  The Minotaur rounded head to the wind, and Anderson began to intone the
sonorous words of the burial service. ‘Out of the deep have I called unto thee . . .’ The wind mourned in the rigging, while Tom stood bareheaded by the main mast and thought of how much he had lost in these last days: a father, a brother and a dear friend.

  ‘We therefore commit their bodies to the deep . . .’ A sailor was standing by the head of each grating, and at the words they lifted them in unison so that the shrouded bodies slid out over the ship’s side and plunged feet first into the sea, drawn swiftly under by the iron shot.

  Alf Wilson nodded to the gunners standing by their cannon and the first shot of the salute crashed out in a long spurt of silver gunsmoke.

  ‘Goodbye, Big Danny. Goodbye, old friend,’ Tom whispered.

  Later that evening Tom sat beside his father’s bunk and, in a low voice, reported the day’s events to him. He was not certain that Hal could yet understand everything he told him, for he made no comments and seemed to drift in and out of consciousness. However, talking to him made Tom feel closer to him in spirit, and helped to assuage the loneliness of command, the onerous burden of which he was coming to know for the first time.

  When Tom at last fell silent and was about to go to his pallet on the deck, Hal fumbled for his hand and squeezed it weakly. ‘You’re a good lad, Tom,’ he whispered, ‘probably the best of all of them. I only wish—’ He broke off and let Tom’s hand slide from his grip. His head rolled to the side and he snored softly. Tom would never know what it was he had wished.

  Over the next few days Tom noticed a slight improvement in his father’s strength. He was able to concentrate for more than just a few minutes on what Tom had to report to him before he slumped into unconsciousness.

  Within a week Tom was able to ask him for advice, and receive a reasoned reply. However, when he consulted Dr Reynolds as to when his father would be strong enough to begin the return voyage to England, the doctor shook his head. ‘I will be able to remove the sutures from his legs in three days’ time – that is fourteen days from the amputation. If you sail in a month from now, you will still be subjecting him to severe risk, especially if we run into heavy weather. To be safe, we should wait at least two months. He needs time to build up his strength.’