In Distant Waters (7 page)

The view was stupendous. Below them the vegetation spread, giving way to the water of the anchorage, blue-green from the
sand and coral reflecting light upwards through it. Upon the limpid water, the frigate sat like a toy, her dark brown sides with the cream strake pierced by the open gun-ports through which fresh air dried out the milldew, damp and rot of the Horn. Her spread sails hung drying in loose festoons. At the stern the white ensign lifted languidly, reflecting the luxurious lethargy of the ship. Beyond the anchorage the ocean spread to the horizon, utterly empty, the pale blue of the sky dotted with an occasional cloud, except to the north-west where a greater massing of cumulus marked the distant peak of El Yunque, dominating Más-a-Tierra (the Nearer Island), mainland of the group.

‘D'you intend an attack on the Spanish settlement, sir?' asked Quilhampton, nodding at the distant indication of the island and munching on a slab of purser's cheese that was almost inedible.

‘No . . . Ah, Derrick, come sit here with us, man, unless you wish to eschew the company of the ungodly . . .'

They watched the quiet Quaker, awkward in the presence of the officers, squat stiffly with them.

‘I knew one of your persuasion, Derrick, when I was in the Arctic. D'you recall Captain Sawyers, Mr Q?'

‘The master of the
Faithful
, sir?'

‘Yes. A fine seaman and one of nature's gentlemen.'

‘I am glad to hear you say so, Captain,' the Quaker replied solemnly.

‘Is it to be Panama then, sir?' persisted Quilhampton.

‘Ah. The wardroom have sent you to find out my intentions, eh Mr Q? And I was giving you the credit for wishing to discover the source of this river.'

‘Well sir, I have to admit that curiosity is getting a trifle out of hand . . .' Quilhampton's voice rose at the end of the sentence, so that he left it hanging, like a question. Drinkwater looked round the circle of faces. They were all looking at him expectantly. The mood of the day was too good to spoil.

‘Very well, you shall take tablets down from the mountain, gentlemen, beggin' your pardon, Derrick, but you see what curious fellows I am set about with.'

‘ 'Tis a sermon on the Mount that we're getting,' muttered
Lallo in a stage-whispered aside that gauged Drinkwater's mood to a nicety.

‘Your lese-majestie will be overlooked, Mr Lallo,' he grinned. ‘Very well, gentlemen, I will confide in you and parade the hands at sunset, so that your period of privilege is brief.'

‘It's a galleon, sir . . . the Acapulco galleon . . . like Lord Anson!' Lallo's lese-majestie was infectious. Midshipman Belchambers was bolt-upright with excitement. The party laughed indulgently.

‘As a matter of fact it ain't, Mr Belchambers. Matter of fact it ain't Panama either . . . at least not directly. Initially we shall strike . . .'

‘What the devil's that?' Lieutenant Quilhampton was the first on his feet. They stared down at the ship where the wind carried the disintegrating puff of white smoke gently to leeward. They stood stock-still for an instant and then the second gun came, reverberating up the ravine like the first and prompting them to sudden action. Instinctively, Drinkwater cast a glance round the horizon. The sea was as empty as before; the signal of recall was concerned with some internal matter. They gathered up their odds and ends and began to make their way down the mountain.

‘Fine bloody banyan day this turned out to be!' Lieutenant Mylchrist muttered between clenched teeth as Lallo bent over his shoulder. The light from the lamp, held aloft by the elderly loblolly ‘boy' Skeete, caught the edge of the catling and Skeete grinned, revealing carious teeth and malodorous breath.

‘Now, Mr Mylchrist, d'you care for my rum, or the wardroom's brandy?'

‘Get on with it, you damned windbag,' panted Mylchrist, waves of pain spreading from his shoulder where the bruised and rough-edged wound showed the entry point of the musket ball.

‘You know, it doesn't do to insult one's physician in such a dependent state, Mr Mylchrist, does it Skeete?'

‘ 'Deed not . . .'

‘Damn the pair of you . . .'

‘Hold your tongue, Johnnie, and let the surgeon get on with his work.' Mount patted the young officer's shoulder and he lay face down, for the ball had entered his shoulder from the rear.

‘You're not the first gentleman to be the victim of a hunting accident,' remarked Lallo, ‘now hold still.'

Mount bent, to assist in holding Mylchrist down. Anxiety and responsibility played on his face. ‘Trouble is, Bones, I don't think it
was
an accident.'

Mylchrist grunted and Skeete drew the leather pad into his mouth as the catling began to probe the wound. ‘You don't?' asked Lallo without pausing in his task.

‘No . . . one of my marines reported his musket missing when we halted and not half an hour later Mylchrist here was shot. As far as I know there was no one near him that belonged to the hunting party.'

‘Does the captain know all this?'

‘No, not yet.'

‘Then I suggest you tell him.'

‘Your men to spread out, Mr Mount. They know the two men missing, Hogan and Witherspoon.'

‘Sir.'

‘Very well. Let's get on with it.'

Drinkwater checked the priming in the pans of his two pistols, loosened his sword and nodded to Quilhampton. The second lieutenant waved the cordon of picked seamen forward. At intervals along their front petty officers and midshipmen were posted to avoid the searchers colluding with the deserters. Thanks to Hogan and Witherspoon this was likely to be the only walk ashore the remainder of the crew were going to have. Captain Drinkwater was in a dark and vengeful mood.

They moved forward, trampling the undergrowth and flushing out birds and small scampering things as they moved inland. Drinkwater looked back to where a party of the gunner's mates carried some sulphur bombs, enlargements of the alchemical concoctions Old Blue Lights made up for stumming the casks; Drinkwater was fairly certain of where his quarry had gone to earth, for he had seen movement on the open scree,
spied from his cabin through his glass. He was confident it had been one of the deserters watching the ship for signs of retributive landing parties leaving her. To the right of the spot, overhanging crags opened fissures in the vertical faces of sections of the mountainside and some of these looked large enough to be caves.

It was Drinkwater's party that reached this area and he called up the gunners.

‘Let's have a portfire to those sulphur-bombs, lively now.'

There was a sputtering of fuse and then an ochreous discharge of acrid smoke.

‘Hoy it then, laddie,' coughed one of the gunner's mates, and a pungent missile was hurled into the first cave that seemed to offer sanctuary. Drinkwater moved to the next and bawled his ultimatum into the impenetrable darkness.

‘Give yourselves up at once . . . come now Hogan and Witherspoon, you'll be left otherwise.'

No sound came out of the cave, beyond a disturbed flapping and the emergence of a pair of fluttering bats. Drinkwater nodded to the gunners and a second sulphur bomb was pitched.

‘Sir . . .'

They turned and saw Lieutenant Quilhampton pointing. ‘There's yellow smoke coming from the hillside above . . . must be a rock fall inside.'

The party began scrambling up beside the cave. On the bleak hillside a hole in its roof had formed a natural chimney, funnelling the sulphur fumes clear. It was an unwitting distraction, for no fugitives ran from the smoke-filled cave.

‘Hey! Look!'

Again they turned, this time to the right, looking back downwards to where, some twenty yards away, two men were scrambling down into the cover of the scrub and trees. Drinkwater had guessed correctly. The fugitives had holed up in a cave, but one further along the ledge.

‘After them!'

There was a general chase of excited men slithering, scrambling and cursing as they went in pursuit. Drinkwater fired his pistol as a signal to Mount and then forsook his dignity and
joined the manhunt. After ten minutes he recognised the steep valley of the stream they had followed that morning; he could hear the roar of the waterfall somewhere not far below but, apart from broken branches, the fugitives had vanished.

The roar of the waterfall seemed to act as a magnet to the men. They were already thirsty after their climb and there were now sprained ankles and torn skin to add to their moaning. Drinkwater was well aware their hearts were not in the chase, but he could not afford to let Hogan and Witherspoon escape.

‘Halt there! Stand easy . . . you may drink. Mr Frey?'

‘Yes sir?'

‘Take Belchambers . . . get word to Mr Mount to leave Sergeant Blixoe and his marines at the watering place. He himself is to come up here.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater watched the two midshipmen scramble down the steep ravine, slashing at the ferns with their dirks. He entertained a moment's apprehension for their safety; they could be hit like Mylchrist . . . then he dismissed the thought. He was almost certain the missing men were now behind him. He looked across the pool. The men were bent over, scooping the water up into their faces. There was about them an air of levity, borne out by suppressed laughter and sly glances cast in his direction. He watched two in particular . . .

Drinkwater turned to Quilhampton.

‘Mr Q, I want you to spread the men out and continue down to the beach. Comb this valley and remuster by the boats. We've wasted enough time as it is and it will be sunset in an hour.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Quilhampton turned and began to shepherd the men down the mountain. ‘Come on then, lads . . .'

Drinkwater bent himself to drink from the stream. The two men were watching him, a covert look in their eyes. He stared at them pointedly and, with an obvious and eloquent reluctance, they moved away after the others. With a beating heart Drinkwater remained behind.

Mount found him sitting on a rock, checking the locks of his pistols.

‘Sir?' The marine lieutenant was gasping with the effort of his climb.

‘Sit down, Mr Mount, take a drink slowly and listen to what I have to say . . .'

Mount sat and drank and listened, looking sharply at Drinkwater as the Captain explained his suspicions, his voice lost in the roar of the waterfall. ‘You understand, Mr Mount?'

‘Perfectly, sir . . . if you'll give me a moment . . .'

Mount checked his own flintlock, a heavy horse-pistol.

‘Why Mylchrist, Mr Mount? D'you know?'

‘He's the youngest and most vulnerable officer, sir.' Mount's voice lacked its usual conviction.

‘Does he ride the men . . . when I am not there, I mean?'

‘I have not noticed so, sir.'

‘No . . . and why Hogan and Witherspoon?'

Drinkwater recalled Hogan, a handsome Irish giant whom he remembered now, hearing utter mutinous remarks the night they sprang the foretopmast off Cape Horn; and Witherspoon, by contrast a dark young man, agile as a monkey and one of the
Patrician
's prime topmen, noted for his daring aloft. Another suspicion came to Drinkwater as he waited for Mount's signal of readiness. It was darker than the first and he cursed himself for not thinking of it sooner, aware that it had been hovering just beyond his consciousness for some time.

‘Ready.'

Stooping and moving from rock to rock Mount crossed the stream. On the further bank he looked back at Drinkwater and nodded. Lifting their pistols both men advanced cautiously on opposite sides of the pool. Between them the silver cascade of water fell from above, sluicing over the polished rock lip of the escarpment to fall into the hollow with a roar, the smoking spray of its motion cut by the advancing shadow of the high western bank which terminated the glittering rainbow like a knife.

Ten yards from the foot of the fall, where the rocks were broken, cemented by moss and tiny fern-fronds, and the cliff rose sheer above, both men stopped.

‘I command you to come out!' Drinkwater roared above the noise of the fall. The spray was already soaking the two officers
whose hands covered the pans of their cocked pistols. Drinkwater's demand produced no response.

‘In the King's name . . .'

‘Bollocks to your focking King!'

Mount and Drinkwater exchanged glances.

‘Come out Hogan, damn you, otherwise you're a dead man!' Drinkwater's eyes studied the overhang. He could just see the opening in the rock which gave access to the hollow space behind the fall.

‘And have ye hang me, Cap'n Drinkwater? I'll not die for your mad raddled King, nor for your damned causes. God damn you, Cap'n Drinkwater, God damn you to hell!'

‘Hold your tongue, you Fenian bastard!' Mount roared from the far side of the fall, moving precipitously forward so that Drinkwater was forced to wave him back.

‘What about you, Witherspoon? D'you wish to hang? Come, lad, show some sense!'

‘ 'E stays with me, so help me!'

‘D'you wish Hogan to answer for you, Witherspoon?'

‘Aye, sir . . . I do . . .' Witherspoon's voice cracked into a squeak. There was nothing more to be done. Drinkwater nodded and began to edge forward, wondering how much Hogan could see and knowing that, at least, looking from the darkness into the light, the Irishman had the undisputed advantage. He also had a loaded musket.

The base of the waterfall streamed over a rock lip, a great slab of cooled lava that had slipped sideways to form an architrave in the heap of rocks which formed the lower slope of the escarpment. At either end it seemed supported, and softer deposits had been washed out by the water so that, beneath and behind it, a great void opened up, floored by more rock underfoot. Alongside lay the deep pool into which the fall tumbled ceaselessly, its roaring noise buffeting the senses to make thinking difficult. Light entered the cave through the wide silver curtain of the waterfall. Cautiously, Drinkwater moved forward.