The Snow Tiger / Night of Error (53 page)

‘But we can’t let them get away,’ I raged.

Campbell shook me roughly by the arm. ‘Come on!’

I took one last look at the boat disappearing into the darkness in the direction of the schooner
Pearl
and then raced up the beach after the others, who had already dispersed to join the rest of our crew from the launch. I heard someone shouting. ‘You can’t put those fires out – save the people!’ and I ran across to Schouten’s house.

It was no use. The place was enveloped in fire, a roaring mass of flames shooting up fifty feet into the night sky. I wondered if it was Schouten’s funeral pyre, and whether he had been mercifully dead when the fires started.

I ran round the house to see what it was like at the back and stumbled across a woman sitting in the path. I recovered my balance and looked back to see that she was cradling Schouten’s head in her lap. Her wails rose above the crackle of the flames.
‘Aaaah, le pauvre docteur, le pauvre docteur!’

I bent down and saw that her dress was scorched and torn. She had probably dragged Schouten’s body from the house. When she saw me she gave a cry, scrambled to her feet and ran away screaming into the darkness beyond the hospital. She must have thought I was one of Hadley’s bunch.

I dropped to one knee beside Schouten. He wasn’t a pretty sight because he had been shot through the head more than once. His jaw was torn away and there was a small blue hole in the left temple. The right temple was gone – there was a ragged gap big enough to hold a fist and his brains were leaking out onto the path.

I rose and stumbled away, catching on to a tree for support. Then I vomited my guts out until I was weak and trembling, pouring sweat.

I had barely recovered when Nick Dugan rushed up to me, his face blackened with smoke, and took my arm to help me to my feet. ‘You all right?’

‘I’ll – do.’

‘Look, Mike – there’s the
Esmerelda.
They’ve been quick.’

I looked across the water and saw
Pearl
getting under way and, beyond her,
Esmerelda
coming up at a hell of a lick under power, her bow wave flecked red by the reflections from the burning shore.
Pearl
was still moving slowly and I could see from the changing angle of
Esmerelda’
s bow that Ian meant to try and stop her by coming hard alongside or even ramming.

But the schooner was picking up speed under her engine and slid out from
Esmerelda’
s threatening bows. Ian changed course again to converge but just at the moment of impact
Pearl
seemed to spin smartly sideways and
Esmerelda
’s bowsprit only grazed her side. As the two ships passed one another there was a fusillade of shots from
Pearl
and an answering staccato rattle from our ship. I wondered who had guns and who was using them.

Then
Pearl
was safely out of reach, heading across the lagoon for the pass in the reef, lights springing up on board as she went.
Esmerelda
gave up the chase and turned towards the shore, and I heard her engines stop. Saving the hospital had priority and it was too dangerous to follow the fleeing schooner in the dark.

They’d got clean away.

Dawn revealed chaos. Trickles of smoke still spiralled skywards from the gutted buildings and the patients – the survivors – huddled together on the beach with friends and the remaining hospital staff. Piro had done a count, and the
death roll numbered fourteen, not counting Schouten himself.

We were all weary, scorched and depressed.

Campbell looked about him at the scene of that damned atrocity and his face was grey. ‘The bastards,’ he said savagely. ‘The murdering sons-of-bitches. I’ll see them hanged for this.’

‘Not if I get them first,’ I said.

We were crouched over a couple of benches with hot coffee in our hands, brought ashore from the brigantine. We didn’t have enough on board to provide adequately for everyone but we had distributed what we could, and the villagers had brought food of their own for the shocked survivors. The few men whom Schouten had trained were performing heroic feats of first aid but much more was needed. And we had received a bad shock of our own – the morning light revealed that our ship’s radio had been smashed, presumably by Kane before he jumped ship. There was no way to send for help, save by going for it in person. Ian, who had done wonders by bringing
Esmerelda
down the coast at night, was castigating himself for not having the radio guarded, but we persuaded him that it wouldn’t have been thought necessary at the time. I hadn’t even been on board to see Geordie yet, though I was assured that he was doing all right, if still confined to his bunk.

Campbell said, ‘I can’t see Suarez-Navarro going in for this. They’re a rotten crowd, as I’ve told you, but this is unbelievable.’

I wasn’t impressed. ‘Know any English history?’

His head jerked up. ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘There was an English king – Henry II, I think it was – who had a bishop as his conscience, Thomas à Becket. The legend is that the king was at dinner one day and said, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” So four of his knights went off and murdered Becket in Canterbury Cathedral.’

I scraped with my foot in the sand. ‘When the king found out he was horrified. He abased himself before the Church and did his penances – but he came out on top, after all – he didn’t have Becket on his back any more.’

I pointed to the burnt-out hospital. ‘Suarez-Navarro have a board meeting and some plump, stuffy director says, “I wish we could do something about Campbell and this interfering chap Trevelyan.” So someone like Ramirez goes out and does something, and if everything gets done – and Campbell and Trevelyan get stopped – he gets a bonus paid with no questions asked. And the dividends of Suarez-Navarro pile up, and that director would faint if he saw a cut finger so he doesn’t enquire too closely into how the job was done in case he gets sick to the stomach.’

‘But they didn’t attack us.’

‘Not directly. This has more Hadley’s trademark, sadistic revenge in the meanwhile. But don’t think we’re not in danger now.’

Campbell looked up the beach to the patients sitting in their forlorn group. He said slowly, ‘Then this wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t come here.’

There was a coppery taste in my mouth. ‘No. Schouten was afraid of what would happen, and I told him he’d be all right. I said he’d be protected. What a bloody mess I’ve made of everything.’

We both fell silent. There was too much that could be said.

Clare came along the beach towards us, carrying a first aid kit. She looked drawn and pensive, but I was more attracted to her than ever. I would have liked to take her in my arms but something prevented me – and she guessed my intention and saw why I couldn’t carry it out.

‘Mike, your hands are burnt raw. I’ll bandage them.’

I looked at my hands. I hadn’t really noticed before but now they were beginning to hurt.

She got busy with my hands and spoke with her head down as she worked. ‘Pop, I guess this is where you get busy with your cheque book.’

I said harshly, ‘A cheque book isn’t going to bring fifteen people back to life.’

‘You men are damned fools,’ she said and her voice was angry. ‘What’s done is done, and
you
didn’t do it, though I guess you’re both blaming yourselves. But the hospital is gone, and what’s going to happen to the poor people here? Somebody has to do something – we can’t just go away and say, Well, we didn’t start the fire, even if it’s true.’

‘I’m sorry, Clare,’ I said. ‘But what can we do?’

Campbell dug his hands deep into his pockets. ‘There’ll be another hospital – a good one. And doctors, and good equipment. I’ll endow the whole damned thing.’ His voice became harder. ‘But Suarez-Navarro will pay for it one way or another.’

He walked away down the beach as Clare smeared a cool emulsion on my hands. ‘What’s that stuff?’ I asked. I had to discuss something less painful, though my throbbing hands weren’t the best choice of subject in that case.

‘Tannic acid jelly. It’s good for burns.’

I said, ‘No one else has had time to tell us what happened on board. Can you? I didn’t know we had guns.’

‘Several of the men have them, besides Pop’s little armoury. You can be awfully innocent.’

‘Who was doing the shooting from
Esmerelda
?’

‘A couple of the crew – and me,’ she said shortly.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘You?’

‘I’m a good shot. Pop taught me.’ She began to cover my hands. ‘I think I shot one – and I think it was Kane.’ Suddenly her voice broke. ‘Oh, Mike, it was awful. I’ve never shot at a man, only at targets. It was …’

I was entangled in bandages but I somehow managed to get an arm around her shoulders and she buried her head on
mine. ‘He deserved what was coming to him, Clare. You’ve only got to look around you to see that. Did you kill him?’

She raised her head and her face was white and tear-streaked. ‘I don’t think so – the light was bad and everything happened so fast. I think I may have hit him in the shoulder. But – I was
trying
to kill him, Mike.’

‘So was I,’ I said. ‘But my gun didn’t go off. I’m not very good with guns, but I tried and I don’t regret it.’

She pulled herself together. ‘Thanks, Mike. I’ve been a fool.’

I shook my head. ‘No, you’re not, Clare. Killing doesn’t come easy to people like us. We’re not mad dogs like Kane or Hadley, but when we do come up against mad dogs I think it’s our duty to try and stop them in any way we can – even if the only way is by killing them.’

I looked down at the top of her head and wished that this whole stinking business was over. It had suddenly come to me that a burnt-out hospital littered with corpses wasn’t the best place in the world to tell a girl that you were falling in love with her. I would have to wait for a calm sea and romantic moonlight, with perhaps the strains of a love song echoing from the saloon.

And for the moment I was sickened of the whole chase. How Mark came to die, where his stupid treasure of cobalt lay, none of it mattered. I wanted to be done with the whole affair – bar Clare. And I couldn’t get out of any of it that easily. I recognized the symptoms of exhaustion and sat up, bracing myself.

She saw the expression in my eyes and looked away quickly, but I think she read it all there. She said, ‘We’ve got to go through with this now, Mike. We can’t let Suarez-Navarro get away with it – if it is them. All this would go for nothing if we did that.’

‘I know; but it won’t last forever, Clare. There’ll be better days coming. I’m all right now. Were any of our chaps hurt besides me?’

‘Scorches, a few scrapes. None worse than you,’ she told me.

‘Good. We have to start getting clear of this lot, then. The local people must carry on until we can get word back.’ I left her and went to where Piro was standing and was aware that she was watching me. I would have given anything to be elsewhere with her than on that beach.

I said to Piro, ‘What will you do now?’

He turned a sad face to me. ‘We build again. All Tanakabu people built more here – many huts. But no doctor …’

I said, ‘Piro, Mr Campbell there has money, more than he needs. He will send doctors and you will get a proper hospital, like the one in Papeete. But first we must go back there and tell the police what happened here. Can you write a message for me?’

But it turned out that Piro could not write, nor even sign his name, which was a pity – I wanted a witnessed account of the event to take back, but with Schouten dead there was nobody else to turn to for it.

We buried the dead in the hospital cemetery. I asked about a priest but apparently Schouten had stood in himself for such occasions. They produced a Bible and Campbell pronounced a few words, though few of the locals could understand him. He said, ‘We commit to the earth the bodies of those who are the innocent victims of a dreadful crime. “Vengeance is mine”, saith the Lord, but it may be He will use men like us as His instrument. I hope so.’

Then he turned and walked away down the beach, a sad and lonely figure.

Schouten was given a grave in a place apart from the others. I thought this might be because of differing religions, but it appeared that they wished to make his resting-place special, and it was clear that they mourned him deeply. I thought that he would have a better memorial
than he might ever have realized would be his lot, and was glad of it.

The islanders were already clearing away rubble, and most of the patients had vanished into other homes, when we left that afternoon. There was nothing we could find to take with us as proof of the disaster – the hospital records and all Schouten’s personal belongings had been destroyed. We took photographs, though, and I included a couple of the natives gathering round Campbell and Ian to shake their hands, as proof of our friendship, and also of the crew at the mass funeral.

As Ian conned
Esmerelda
out through the pass of Tanakabu he asked sadly, ‘What kind of men are they to do a thing like that? You told us they were dangerous – they seem demented, Mike.’

‘They must be psychopaths,’ I said. ‘From what I learned from the Dutch doctor Hadley certainly is.’

Shorty Powell came on deck, white-faced, at the same time that Campbell emerged looking thunderous. ‘I’ve got something to show you,’ he said, and took me down to Kane’s cabin together with Ian. On the bunk lay a brown-painted gadget which Shorty had clearly recognized and shown to Campbell.