HF - 03 - The Devil's Own (5 page)

"Will they get away?' Helene asked. 'It is an empty hillside.'

'So we must provide a suitable distraction.' Susan unbolted the door. 'Are ye ready, Helene?'

The Frenchwoman stared at her. 'Ye mean to go to them?'

'I think it would be better than having them come to us. And besides, if they are looking at us, they cannot possibly be looking at anyone else.'

She threw the door wide and went on to the verandah, Rufus panting at her side. The Spaniards had not advanced, as they were still waiting for the cannon, which at this moment made its appearance over the hilltop. But when they saw the women the line surged forward without orders, and the officer who had killed Albert DuCasse had to run to keep at their front.

They paused, panting, at the foot of the steps, staring from the teeth of the dog to the breasts of the women. 'How many men are inside?' demanded the officer.

'None,' Susan said.
'We had hoped to bluff ye, sen
or, but as it did not work ...' she shrugged. 'My name is Susan Hilton, and this is ..."

'Hil-ton,' the officer said, pronouncing each syllable with great emphasis. 'You are related to the pirate, Anthony Hilton?'

'I have the honour to be his widow.'

'And this woman is also married to a pirate, no doubt.'

'She is the widow of the man you have just murdered, senor. I should be more polite, were I you.'

'Polite,' the officer said. 'Polite.' He turned to his men. 'You may take them.'

There was a whoop of excited anticipation, and the red and steel wave flowed up the steps, weapons being dropped in their haste to be at their victims. A deep-throated growl from Rufus checked the leaders, but before Susan could silence the dog a pistol barked, and the mastiff gave a yelp and rolled down the steps. Helene shrank against the wall of the house, but Susan stood her ground, was seized by anxious fingers which fastened on her arms and tore away the bodice of her gown, while others dug into her thighs as she was swept from the floor, to be returned there a moment later, all the breath gushing from her body, in a mixture of shock and physical force and fear. But this had happened before. When she had been young. Now her breasts hurt from the unaccustomed violence, and there seemed a great void at her groin.

A voice was shouting, and the fingers were sliding away, reluctantly and with final sly pinches and digs. She gasped for breath and rose on her elbow, gazed at Helene, still pinned against the wall, her dress also torn and her hair dishevelled, but otherwise unharmed. Then she looked at the soldiery, gathered into groups, muttering amongst themselves, faces flushed and hands hastily straightening doublets and breeches, and past them, at the grey-haired senior officer, aquiline face lined and distinguished, and at the black-clad figure who strode at his side as they made their way through the throng.

'Have you no shame?' the priest shouted. 'Are you men, or beasts? Is there no crime of which you are not capable?'

'These women are surely not whores like those in the village,' the Commandant said.

'They are worse, sir,' the lieutenant declared. 'Admitted wives to pirates themselves. Why, the red-haired one is proud to acknowledge the scoundrel Hilton as her husband.'

'None the less, my son,' the priest said. 'That she is the wife of a pirate, however guilty that may make her before man's law, does not establish her as beyond God's mercy.' He stooped beside Susan. 'Do you understand Spanish, woman?'

'Indeed I do. Father. And I thank God for that, and for you.'

The priest pushed his crucifix towards her face. 'Will you take the cross?'

Susan sat up. 'Gladly, Father. I will not swear I have been a good Catholic. There has not always been time. But I have never lost faith.'

'Then kiss it, and beg God's forgiveness, and not a lustful hand shall be laid on your body.'

'May God bless ye, Father,' Susan said, and did as she was commanded.

'And now you, woman,' the priest said, turning to Helene.

Susan got to her feet. 'And they would spread tales of the blind fanaticism of the Spanish priesthood in these islands. Be sure that I shall ever sing your praises, Father. And be sure too that from this moment forth I shall be the most devout of churchgoers.'

The priest smiled at her, but his eyes were cold. 'I am sure you will be afforded every opportunity, to be devout, senora.' He turned to the Commandant. 'I have done my duty. But mark me well, Don Rodrigo, the man who practises lewdness upon either of these women will suffer eternal damnation.'

The Commandant inclined his head in a brief nod. 'Be sure of that. But as they would appear to have confessed their guilt there need be no further delay in the matter.' He pointed at the roof. 'These rafters will do. Hang them here, and then set fire to the house.'

As Susan stared at him in horror, and felt her limbs turning to water, the sun dipped behind the mountains of the larger island to plunge the evening into darkness.

'Oh, Christ,' Kit moaned. 'Oh, God have mercy on me.'

Jean said nothing. He watched the house, clearly visible from where they lay hidden, as showers of sparks shot upwards from the collapsing roof and seared across the evening air. The interior also burned, and to aid the flames the doors and windows had been unshuttered and thrown wide, so that the breeze could get to the fire. Thus the holocaust gave off a vast glow, which illuminated the verandah and the steps and the soldiers grouped a short distance away. And from the rafters on the verandah, only now beginning to scorch, the two bodies swayed. Did one still kick, or was that the wind? Both had kicked when they had been hoisted from the floor, the ropes tightening around their necks, their ears singing, even as they had been filled with the obscene jeers of the cheated men below them. But now, surely, they were dead.

'Oh, Christ,' Kit moaned.

'He may help you,' Jean said. 'But not here.'

Kit raised his head; tears rolled down his cheeks. 'Had we stayed

'And died beside them? What do you think the two of us could have accomplished, against so many?'

'But that they should be hanged, like ... Jean, you have a heart of stone.'

Jean continued to stare at the dangling bodies; now their
skirts were starting to burn. 'Aye,' he said at last. 'As of this moment, Kit, I have a heart of stone. And you had best develop one as well. We shall make them pay. Swear that, Kit.'

'I swear it,' Kit said fiercely. 'We shall make them pay, Jean. A thousand times.'

'A thousand times. Or may God heap such a fire on our heads. Now come, we'll not do it by staying here.'

He rose to his hands and knees, and then stood up, began to find his way down the uneven slope.

Kit stumbled behind him. 'Where shall we go?'

'Hispaniola.'

'But what shall we do there?'

'Survive, in the first place, Kit. We shall be
matelots,
you and I. As we have no others left in the world, so shall we need no others. Back to back we shall face the world. And then we shall find, or if necessary we shall make ourselves a boat, and get away. Perhaps to your friends in the Leewards.'

'God forbid that,' Kit said. 'To the Warners? They'd probably hang us quicker than the Dons. Anyway, when I see that little upstart again it shall be with gold pieces overflowing from my pockets.'

'Which upstart did you mean?'

'The man, of course. But it goes for her as well. There'll be naught she understands so well as money.'

Jean felt the sand of the beach beneath his toes. 'And no doubt, by the time your pockets do overflow, she'll have learned some sense. Now come, we must shed our weapons.'

'Then how will we survive?'

'We'll not survive even the swim, encumbered by swords and pistols. Leave them here. We'll take a knife each, and make sure it lies in the middle of your back. Now mark me well, Kit, we'll go slow and steady, and we'll make as little splash as possible.'

'We'll not go down,' Kit said confidently. ' 'Tis scarce a mile from shallow to shallow.'

'A shade further, I think,' Jean said. 'And I was thinking more of sharks.'

He waded into the water, and the next wave lapped at Kit's toes. Sharks. He had forgotten them. So they swam deep and seldom attacked men who were not already injured. But a
mile was a long stretch of water. For a moment he felt that he would not be able to do it. Then he looked over his shoulder, at the house, burning like a beacon on the hilltop. He was too far away for detail, now, and yet he felt he could see the two women, hanging from the rafters. How much did he hate? He did not know. At the moment perhaps not at all. He just wanted to lie on the sand and die. And weep while he died. And think of Grandmama. But if he lay on the sand he would not die, at least not until the Dons found him, and then he would die slowly, and painfully. So why not die in the sea?

Jean was already well out, swimming steadily, not looking back, and now that it was dark, the huge bulk of Hispaniola seemed close enough to touch.

So perhaps he would not die, but would live, to fulfil his oath. He ran into the water with great splashing bounds, allowed it to grip him at the waist, fell forward and began to swim, too quickly at first, exactly as Jean had warned him not to, so that he lost his breath. Then he almost turned back, but after a few moments he regained control of himself, and struck out after his friend. Then the night became endless. Only a little over a mile. How long does it take to swim a mile? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? No longer, surely. He could pretend he was walking it. But that was too exhausting. It was necessary to blot out the sea, and the growing agony of his arms, and the lurking fear in his belly. Because the sea was so dark, and contained so many things of which a man might be afraid.

He thought of Marguerite Warner. Would she be married by now? He did not know. He knew so little about her, except that she was proud, and angry, and contemptuous of him. But he knew something of her feel. In that perhaps he was ahead even of her husband. Her feel and her smell. He dreamed of the softness of her flesh, the hardness of her thighs and the firmness of her belly, the tickle of her hair and the texture of her skin. Marguerite Warner. When he again saw her, with his pockets overflowing with gold, she would look on him differently. And together they would recreate a race of giants, like Edward Warner and Tony Hilton, because
that was what their children
would be, part Warner and part Hilton, destined to rule these islands.

But when next he saw her she would be an old married woman, and probably a mother several times over. He felt so disconsolate his legs drooped and his breath went, and he trod water, and looked up at the immense bulk of the island in front of him. It had not moved, had grown no larger and no smaller. So then, he lacked the strength to go on. He would drown here, disappear forever in the narrow strait between Tortuga and Hispaniola, and be totally forgotten. In all the world, there was no one who would wish to remember Kit Hilton. Jean? For a while, perhaps. Because Jean would survive. He had the gift of survival within him.

And Marguerite Warner? Would she ever remember the boy who had dumped her in the water butt? They had been happy that evening after the Warners had left. Grandmama had laughed and Madame DuCasse had sung to them and Monsieur D'Ogeron and Monsieur DuCasse had told stories as they had drunk Grandmama's wine. Now all were gone, and all were forgotten.

'Kit. Kit?' Jean, splashing about close to him.

He opened his mouth, swallowed water, and went down, and touched sand. He bobbed back up to the surface, and Jean seized his arms and pulled him into the shallows.

He knelt, up to his waist in water, and panted, and listened to his heart throb. 'You should not have come back.'

'We are
matelots.
We do not exist, without each other. Listen. To the silence.'

Kit could hear nothing save the beating of his own heart. 'My throat is parched.'

'And mine also. But we had best not leave the beach in the darkness,' Jean said. 'We shall sleep here, and explore tomorrow. But we are alive, Kit, there is the important thing. We arc alive, and we will stay alive.'

Alive. He crawled out of the water, and crawled and crawled and crawled, dragging each leaden limb after its mate until he was on dry sand, and flopped on his face. God, how exhausted he was. Only a mile, and he seemed to have swum for ever.

Jean fell beside him, was instantly asleep. Jean had saved
his life just now, by reminding him that he could do nothing but live or die. His head dropped, and he dozed, and was immediately awake again. His tongue seemed cloven to the roof of his mouth. To sleep, without slaking that thirst, would be impossible. So once again he crawled, hand over hand, knee in front of knee, across the sand, until the sand changed to grass, and he heard the trickle of running water.