A point of rock protruded out in the beach, obscuring the view ahead. When they rounded it there was another surprise: the bizarre sight at the tide-line of the carcass of a beached Antarctic whale. As they passed it what they saw brought them to a standstill – an animal had been recently feeding on it, the claw and toothmarks savage and massive.
‘Lions!’ It could be nothing else.
Fearfully they looked around. It was past imagining – a lion feeding on a whale! This desolate coast was proving to be anything but that.
‘Stay together!’ Kydd could think of nothing else to say – going after shipwreck survivors armed with heavy muskets would have been nonsensical. They resumed their monotonous tramping, tired muscles burning.
More mighty whale-bones were passed; was this why the first Portuguese had called it the coast of skeletons? Then the beach ahead began to curve, a long sweep that allowed them to see ahead for miles into an empty distance. And still there was no sign whatsoever.
‘We carry on to an hour before sunset!’ Kydd snapped, at a comment from the doctor. Then they would make the signal and quit this God-forsaken place, reluctantly leaving the survivors to their fate.
They trudged on, each wrapped in a private world of heat, weariness and fiery muscles until, the sun descending to the sea, it was time. Looking out at the horizon Kydd tried to make out
Uneasily, he saw there was now a difficulty: mesmerised by their plodding progress he had not noticed that the seas had imperceptibly increased, their regular booming roar and hiss being no more than a constant background he had filtered out. Now they were foaming in at a height that would cause the whaler to swamp over the gunwale, or be uncontrollable and end tumbling broadside. Against the odds, the boat might make it in but would certainly not get off again.
They were trapped ashore.
Dully, he tried to focus. He cursed his stupidity in overlooking the elementary check. They’d simply have to spend the night ashore and try again in the morning.
‘Take down that flag and hoist numeral two and three,’ he told Calloway. The message would tell
‘Let’s find somewhere to get our heads down,’ he said apologetically, after explaining their predicament.
With loud groans from Peyton they went up the beach to a stony bluff and, in the fading daylight, found they had a choice between lying on hard rock still warm from the sun or the open beach, which was noticeably cooler now. To a man they lay on the soft sand; with painful limbs, and trying not to think of roaming wild beasts, they sought the solace of sleep.
Did lions sleep at night? Where were the elephants now? What other beasts were out there beyond the dunes? Aching and weary, tossing and turning in the gritty sand, Kydd finally drifted off.
After a few hours he woke to pitch darkness, damp and cold. A heavy dew had descended and they were all sodden to the skin; in the night breeze they began to shiver uncontrollably. Peyton cursed endlessly in a monotone, hugging his knees, while the marines stoically endured.
There was no question of sleep now, but as a full moon rose none could find words to appreciate the haunting beauty of the stark and mysterious scene that unfolded.
The moon rose higher, the light almost enough to read a book by. One of the marines got to his feet and paced up and down, flapping his arms for warmth. He was joined by the other and then Calloway stood and asked, teeth chattering, ‘Sir, the survivors – it sits bad with me, we’re leaving ’em now. While we’re stranded, just to get warm can’t we . . . go on a-ways?’
‘Sit down, you fool boy!’ Peyton snarled, but Kydd was touched.
‘I’m putting it to the vote, Doctor. All those agreeable to pushing on for a bit longer . . . ?’
The two marines instantly nodded, and with Kydd and the midshipman also in favour, there was nothing Peyton could do. ‘So we go on for a while. Of course, Doctor, you’re free to remain here, if you so wish.’
Grumbling under his breath, Peyton got up, brushing the sand away while their gear was collected and distributed.
The trudging pain resumed, but this time in a surreal landscape of silvered contrasts. Then, within minutes, the whole situation changed.
Dodd spotted it first. Above the tide-line and close up to the shifting base of the dunes a little mound stretched lengthways. When they went over they saw a crudely fashioned cross at its head.
And there were footprints, not yet entirely filled by the restless sand, proof that this had occurred recently. The survivors, therefore, were somewhere ahead.
Kydd guessed they were moving by the cool of the night so he and his party must also. Forgetting the pain, they pressed on, and in another hour Calloway’s sharp eyes picked up a cast-away leather bottle and, further on, some pieces of clothing.
Into the night they continued, hoping against hope for a sight of faraway moonlit figures and the end of the quest. At one point there was an ominous sound to their left – a reverberation so low-pitched it was more sensed than heard. They tried to make it out: a long, muffled, dull roaring somewhere out in the sand-hills. Numbly they waited for the nameless beast to emerge – then the noise slowed and stopped: some inscrutable force of nature at work in the towering dunes.
It was another hour before they came upon the corpses, dark shapes on the edge of the dunes. Closer, the moonlight pitilessly revealed an elderly man, burned to disfiguring by the sun, laid out in dignified repose, his hands crossed over his breast, eyes closed. And a woman by his side, one arm over his body, her sightless eyes staring up, horror and suffering still on her face.
The doctor examined them, then stood up slowly. ‘No more than hours ago,’ he said, his voice falsely brisk. ‘I conceive that the man could not go on and . . . and his wife stayed by him.’
Sergeant Dodd dropped to his knees and began scooping out the sand. Cullis joined him and a little later the
