Death in the Andamans (14 page)

He led the way into the ballroom, and stopped before the open doorway. ‘Will the Sahib walk through?' Nick complied, frowning. There was no sound, and Copper said: ‘Of course it didn't creak that time. He didn't tread on it. He stepped over it.'

‘And why so, Miss-sahib?'

‘Because of the water, of course
____
' began Copper; and stopped, catching her breath sharply. For she had suddenly seen what the old man had seen before her … There had been a leak in the roof just above the drawing-room door, and a spreading pool of water saturated the floorboards. But when the three of them had searched the house the lights, as now, had been on, and because they could see they had avoided the various bowls that dotted the floor and stepped across the wet patches. But someone walking in the dark would not have seen that wet stain, and so would have walked into it instead of over it. And the board would have creaked under their feet. Yet it was not this that had driven the blood from Copper's face. She had, in the same instant, seen something else. Something they could all see now
____

‘Ah!'
said Iman Din. ‘Now the Sahib understands. When a foot is placed upon that board it speaks in the darkness. But the wood is wet — the Sahib sees how wet. Yet no mark leads beyond it, though the floor is polished!'

Copper and Valerie started back from the gleaming stain and stared at the smooth, polished floorboards. Nick did not speak, but he placed his foot squarely upon that wet space, which creaked beneath his tread, and walked back to join them.

There was no need for words.

Four clear damp footmarks patched the strip of floor that he had walked across.

‘The Sahib sees,' said Iman Din softly. He drew a sudden, hissing breath between his yellowed teeth, and flung out a skinny, pointing hand:
‘Look there, Sahib! There — where the storm returns!'

The three whirled about to stare where his gnarled forefinger pointed across the darkened drawing-room to the verandah beyond. And as they looked a vivid flash of lightning bathed the inky sky beyond the expanse of window-panes in a livid radiance that silhouetted, for a fraction of a second, the figure of a man who stood in the angle of the dark verandah. A small, wizened figure who appeared to be wearing about his neck a ragged scarf, the ends of which fluttered out upon the draught.

With a sob of pure terror, Copper flung herself frantically at Nick, burying her face against his shoulder. ‘What — who is it?' quavered Valerie, gripping his arm. Nick shook himself free and raced across the drawing-room and into the verandah.

It took him a full minute to find the verandah switch, and it was a further two or three minutes before he returned, walking slowly across the drawing-room, his hands deep in the pockets of his dressing-gown and a puzzled frown between his brows.

Valerie and Copper had vanished, but the old
chaprassi
stood where he had left him, silent and motionless.

‘You saw it, Iman Din. What
____
Who was it?'

‘Sahib,' said Iman Din, ‘it is One who returns, seeking vengeance.'

10

‘Christians awake, salute the happy morn!'
carolled Charles, entering the breakfast room. ‘Sorry I'm late, sir. Happy Christmas, darling — and here's your present. I know you chose it yourself, but let's have expressions of rapturous surprise, just for the look of it. Morning, everyone. Happy Christmas!'

Valerie had invited Charles to have breakfast with them on Christmas morning, but the storm was responsible for the unusually large assembly in the dining-room, and Charles alone appeared to be in good spirits.

John Shilto, looking if possible even more pasty as to colouring and morose as to expression than usual, was helping himself to kidneys and bacon and ignoring the timid conversational efforts of Leonard Stock. Mrs Stock, who had recovered sufficiently to put in an appearance, was seated, freshly rouged and curled, between Nick and Dan Harcourt, while Sir Lionel, a man who preferred to eat his breakfast in a ritual silence occupied by the perusal of three-weeks-old newspapers, was moodily sipping coffee and turning at frequent intervals to glance at the clock as though help might be forthcoming from the blandly unemotional dial. He had responded without animation to Valerie's kiss and her ‘Merry Christmas, Dad' and made no attempt to return the conventional greeting.

He's probably got the right idea, thought Copper, avoiding Nick's eye and helping herself to grapenuts. It certainly can't be called ‘merry' at the moment!

Copper was suffering a reaction from the night's alarms; though curiously enough it was not the remembrance of the mysterious prowler that was disturbing her. The terrors of the dark hours seemed less alarming and even a little foolish by the cold light of morning, compared with her own frantic clinging to Nick, and Copper flushed angrily at the memory of her fear-stricken abandonment. And more than angrily at the recollection of Nick's treatment of it. He pulled me off him as if I'd been a nasty type of leech, she thought resentfully, and he probably thinks I did it on purpose; like Ruby, clinging round his neck like a ton of chewing-gum last night — and then I do exactly the same thing a few hours later! I expect, decided Copper forlornly, that he's used to it.

Breakfast was an even less pleasant meal than dinner had been the night before, and with the exception of Charles, no one made the slightest effort to improve it. They ate for the most part in silence, and at the conclusion of the meal dispersed without hilarity: to assemble an hour later in the hall, coated, hatted, gloved, in possession of prayer books and (it is to be hoped) armed with collection money.

Packing themselves under the waterproof protection of the waiting buggies they covered the few hundred yards that separated Government House from the little English church on Ross where, owing to the violence of the storm and the fact that the ferry was unable to run, the Reverend Dobbie's Christmas Day congregation had been reduced to a minimum. Mrs Dobbie had done her best to ornament the altar and chancel in a manner she considered suitable to the season, but the sprays of oleander and wilting branches of casuarina had formed a sorry substitute for holly and evergreen, and the church was very dark, for the doors and windows had been tightly shuttered against the stormy day. But no shutters could keep out the draughts, and the candle flames swayed and flickered, streaming out at right angles to their wicks like small, shining flags, while the timeworn carols sounded thin and strange as they rose in unequal competition with the beating of the rain and the howl of the wind.

‘O come, all ye faithful, Joyful and triumphant…'
Copper's voice supported Valerie's against the tuneless but determined baritone of Hamish Rattigan, who occupied the pew immediately behind them, and it occurred to her, with no sense of regret, that a year ago she had sung that same carol in one of London's loveliest churches. There had been hundreds of candles like drifts of golden stars, holly and Christmas roses, a glittering Christmas tree and a world-famous choir: high, pure, boys' voices, with the deeper tones of the men like tolling bells. And in her heart an echoing waste of loneliness and vague, unformulated longings.

And now once more it was Christmas Day, and the four walls of the little dim church with its wheezy harmonium and meagre congregation contained the whole of Copper's heart's desire, while outside the walls, in spite of rain and wind, hurricane and recent death, lay all Romance — a hundred coral-reefed islands scattered over a jade and sapphire sea. Life, Beauty and Adventure: and Nicholas Tarrent, that as yet unknown quantity … who had probably got at least a dozen wives in every port, did one but know! thought Copper, taking herself firmly in hand. At which point in her meditations she discovered that the carol having been concluded, the congregation, with the exception of herself, were again seated, and from his place on the opposite side of the aisle the subject of her reverie was endeavouring to draw her attention to the fact.

Copper sat down hurriedly and for the next fifteen minutes endeavoured to fix her attention on the Reverend Dobbie's almost inaudible address.

The afternoon continued as wet and wild as the morning, but towards four o'clock the storm showed signs of having blown itself out at last. The wind had dropped again and the rain died away into a light drizzle, and by the time that the house party, whose numbers had been augmented by the addition of several extra guests, collected in the verandah for tea and Christmas cake, the clouds had lifted and Mount Harriet stood out blackly against a sullen grey sky.

‘Let's go for a walk around the island,' suggested Valerie. ‘It really does look as though the worst is over, and I'd like to see how much damage has been done.'

‘A considerable amount, I fear,' said the Chief Commissioner, joining the group in the verandah and helping himself to an egg sandwich: ‘In fact, I'm afraid that you will all have to make up your minds to being marooned on Ross for several days. The hurricane has smashed the jetties and the pier into matchwood, and until something can be done about that no boat can reach us. What is still more annoying is the fact that the telephone wires have gone, and I am told that until this sea goes down there is no chance of repairing them. So for the time being we are completely cut off.'

‘But what about our milk and butter, and things like that?' demanded Valerie, dismayed.

‘We must make the best of it, my dear. There should be plenty of tinned milk in the house, and we can do without butter and fresh meat for a few days. At least we are in our own homes, instead of being stranded on the wrong side of the bay like Dr Vicarjee and Frank Burton, who, I am afraid, will have to resign themselves to staying in Aberdeen for some days to come.'

‘But what about the dance at the Club and
____
Oh, damn! damn,
damn!
'

‘Cheer up, Val,' comforted Charles. ‘That's life, that was. Don't let's spend the rest of the day in gloom. Action is indicated. Remember that this is Christmas Day, and as the padre has already pointed out, the motto for the moment is
“Peace on Earth, and Goodwill towards Men”
— which means me. You girls go and shove a mac on and come for a walk. It will do your tempers good.'

The wind might have dropped, but it had by no means disappeared. It was still blowing in steadily from the south-east — driving the grey seas on to the rocks and the sea-wall of Ross as though with each crashing onslaught it must engulf the tiny island — as Nick, Copper, Valerie and Charles walked arm-in-arm down the steep roadway from the Residency to the jetty and the Club.

Behind them, with her escort, came Mrs Stock, who appeared to have recovered both her looks and her spirits. She showed little sign of the collapse that had followed her ordeal of the previous day, and had temporarily transferred her attention from Nick to Dan Harcourt, to whose arm she now clung, uttering little feminine shrieks and cries as the wind dragged at her skirts and fluttered the ends of the gay silk scarf that she had tied becomingly about her carefully waved head. Leonard Stock had not accompanied the party, but Hamish, her faithful adorer, had possession of her left arm, while George and Ronnie, the latter unusually taciturn, completed her entourage. The rear of the procession was brought up by Amabel and John Shilto, neither of whom appeared to be enjoying the other's society.

Amabel's nose was suspiciously pink and her eyes noticeably swollen, and her thoughts ran in continuous and gloomy circles: Why did I have to slap George like that? Not that he didn't deserve it. He did. But it was all Mrs Purvis's fault, behaving like a stupid — a stupid
____
Amabel's vocabulary failed to produce a sufficiently withering adjective with which to qualify the extreme stupidity of Rosamund Purvis whose regrettable display of lung power had blasted Amabel's young life. I wish I were dead, thought Amabel bleakly, then perhaps George would be sorry!

The storm had left a trail of ruin across the little island. Trunks of fallen palm trees, rent from their inadequate moorings or snapped off like broken broomsticks, lay across the paths and tilted drunkenly down the slopes. Leaves, twigs and flowers, stripped from trees and creepers, carpeted the ground and festooned the broken telephone and electric light wires. Coconuts lay smashed upon the roadways, and even now an occasional nut would fall with a thud, bespattering the earth with milky fluid or bouncing unbroken on to the rocks, to be snatched away by the mountainous seas that still crashed upon the broken fragments of Ross jetty, deluging the causeway in clouds of spray and tossing an untidy litter of wreckage over the Club lawn.

The small summer-house that overhung one end of the turtle tank was now roofless, and the water in the tank was higher than Valerie had ever seen it before as she leant over the edge, peering into its murky depths. A huge dim shape flickered for a moment in the heaving darkness of the shadowed water below her and a horny head emerged for a brief second, regarded her with an austere eye, and withdrew abruptly. Valerie laughed and said: ‘If this sea keeps up it may break down the wall, and then you'll all escape. Good luck, chums! Charles, what about walking round Barrack Point to watch the waves? They're gorgeous after a storm.'

The wind met them as they rounded the point, and they paused, entranced, to watch the terrible masses of the steel-grey seas driving down upon the island to crash on to the jagged rocks below the sea-wall in a maelstrom of foam. ‘Do let's go down to the beach,' begged Copper. ‘It'll look much more exciting from there.'

‘There isn't any beach we can go down to,' pointed out Nick. ‘And if you think I'm going to let you climb down on to those rocks, you can think again. You'd be dragged off them and swept out to sea inside five minutes. Use some sense!'