one hand was resting on her necklace, remembering perhaps, or reminding him that his had once lain there.
Palliser said, “Take a pistol. Fire it if you find anything.” His eyes narrowed against the fierce glare. “Once the casks are filled they’ll discover something else to grumble about!”
The cutter pulled away from the side, and Bolitho felt the sun burn across his neck as they left the Destiny’s protective shadow.
“Give way all!”
Bolitho trailed his arm over the side, feeling the sensual touch of cool water, and imagined her with him, swimming and then running hand in hand up the pale beach to discover each other for the first time.
When he looked over the gunwale he saw the bottom quite clearly, dotted with white stones or shells, and isolated humps of coral, deceptively harmless in the shimmering reflections.
Stockdale said to the coxswain, “Looks like nobody’s ever been ’ere, Jim.”
The man eased the tiller-bar and nodded, the movement bringing a trickle of sweat from under his tarred hat.
“Easy all! Bowman, boat yer oar!”
Bolitho watched the cutter’s shadow rising to meet them as the bowman vaulted over the side to guide the stem into the sand while the others hauled their blades inboard and hung panting over the looms like old men.
And then there was total stillness. Just a far-off murmur of surf on a reef, the occasional gurgle of water around the grounded cutter. No bird lifted from the crowded hump of palms, not even an insect.
Bolitho climbed over the gunwale and waded to the beach. He was wearing an open shirt and breeches, but his body felt as if he was dressed in thick furs. The thought of tearing off his crumpled clothing and running naked into the sea mingled with his earlier fantasy, and he wondered if she was watching from the ship, using a telescope to see him.
Bolitho realized with a start that the others were waiting.
He said to the coxswain, “Remain with the boat. The crew, too.
They may have to do several journeys yet.” To Stockdale he said, “We’ll take the others up the slope. It’s the shortest way and probably the coolest.”
He ran his eye over the small landing-party. Two of them were from the Heloise’s original company, now sworn-in members of His Majesty’s Navy. They still appeared dazed at their swift change of circumstances, but they were good enough seamen to avoid the harsher side of the boatswain’s tongue.
Apart from Stockdale, there was none of his own division in the group, and he guessed there had been little enthusiasm for volunteering to tramp round an uninhabited island. Later, if they discovered water, it would be very different.
Stockdale said, “Follow me!”
Bolitho walked up the slope, his feet sinking in the loose sand, the pistol in his belt burning his skin like a piece of hot iron. It felt strange to walk here, he thought. A tiny, unknown place. There might be human bones nearby. Shipwrecked mariners, or men cast adrift and marooned by pirates to die horribly without hope of rescue.
How inviting the palms looked. They were moving gently, and he could hear them rustling as he drew nearer. Once he stopped to look back at the ship. She seemed far away, balanced perfectly on her own reflection. But in distance she had lost her rakish lines, and her masts and loosely furled sails seemed to be swaying and bending in the haze, as if the whole ship was melting.
The small party of seamen tramped gratefully into a patch of shade, their ragged trousers catching in some large fronds which displayed teethlike barbs around the edges. There were different smells here, too, of rotting undergrowth, and from vividly coloured blossoms.
Bolitho looked up at the sky and saw a frigate-bird circling high overhead, its scimitar-shaped wings motionless as it ghosted on the hot current. So they were not completely alone.
A man called excitedly, “Look yonder, sir! Water!”
They pressed forward, all tiredness momentarily forgotten.
Bolitho looked at the pool with disbelief. It was shivering slightly, so he guessed there was some sort of underground source close by. He could see the surrounding palms reflected on its surface and the images of his men as they peered down at the water.
Bolitho said, “I’ll have a taste.”
He clambered along the sandy bank and dipped his hand into the water. It was a false impression, but it felt as cold as a mountain stream. Hardly daring to hope, he raised his cupped hand to his lips and after a slight hesitation swallowed deeply.
He said quietly, “It’s pure.”
Bolitho watched the seamen throwing themselves down on their chests and scooping the water over their faces and shoulders, swallowing great gulps of it in their eager excitement.
Stockdale wiped his mouth with satisfaction. “Good stuff.”
Bolitho smiled. Josh Little would have called it a ‘wet’.
“We’ll stand easy a while, then signal the ship.”
The seamen drew their cutlasses and drove them into the sand before squatting down against the palms or leaning over the shimmering water as if to make sure it was still there.
Bolitho walked away from them, and as he examined his pistol to ensure that it was free of sand and damp he thought of that moment when she had joined him on Destiny’s quarterdeck.
It must not end, it could not be allowed to die.
“Something wrong, sir?” Stockdale lumbered up the slope.
Bolitho realized he must have been frowning in concentration. “Not wrong.”
It was uncanny how Stockdale always seemed to know, to be ready in case he was needed. Yet it was something very real between them. Bolitho found it easy to talk to the big, hoarse prize-fighter, and the reverse was true also, without any hint of subservience or as a means to gain favour.
Bolitho said, “You go and make the signal.” He watched the pistol half disappear in Stockdale’s great fist. “I need to think about something.”
Stockdale watched him impassively. “You’re young, an’ beggin’ yer pardon, sir, I think you should stay young for as long as you can.”
Bolitho faced him. You never really knew what Stockdale meant with his brief, halting sentences. Had he implied that he should keep away from a woman who was ten years older than he was? Bolitho refused to think about it. Their life was now, when they could find it. They could worry about differences later.
He said, “Be off with you. I wish it was that simple.”
Stockdale shrugged and strode down the slope towards the beach, his broad shoulders set in such a way that Bolitho knew he was not going to let it rest there.
With a great sigh Bolitho walked back towards the pool to warn his men that Stockdale was about to fire the pistol. Sailors cooped up in a ship-of-war often became nervous of such things when they were put ashore.
One of the seamen had been lying with his face half under the water, and as Bolitho approached he stood up dripping and grinning with pleasure.
Bolitho said, “Be ready, men…” He broke off as someone gave a piercing scream and the seaman who had been grinning at him pitched forward into the water.
All at once there was frantic pandemonium amounting to panic as the sailors scrabbled in the sand for their weapons and others stared with horror at the drifting corpse, the water reddening around it from a spear thrust between the shoulders.
Bolitho swung round, seeing the sunlight partially broken by running, leaping figures, the glitter of weapons and a terrifying scream of combined voices which made the hair rise on his neck.
“Stand to!”
He groped for his hanger and gasped with shock as another seaman rolled down the slope, kicking and spitting blood as he tried to tug a crude shaft from his belly.
“Oh, God!” Bolitho shaded his eyes against the bars of sunlight. Their attackers had it behind them and were closing in on the stampeding seamen, that terrible din of screaming voices making it impossible to think or act.
Bolitho realized they were black men, their eyes and mouths wide with triumph as they hacked down another sailor and pounded his face to a bloody pulp with a piece of coral.
Bolitho ran to meet the attack, dimly aware that more figures were rushing past him as if to separate him from
