his remaining seamen. He heard someone shrieking and pleading, the sickening sound of a skull splintered open like a coconut.
He found he had his back to a tree and was striking out wildly, wasting his strength, leaving himself open for one of those fire-hardened spears.
Bolitho saw three of his men, one of whom had been wounded in the leg, standing together, hemmed in by screaming, slashing figures.
He pushed himself away from the tree, hacked open a black shoulder with his hanger and bounded across the trampled sand to join the embattled seamen.
One cried, “’S’no use! Can’t ’old th’ buggers!”
Bolitho felt the hanger knocked from his hand and realized he had not fastened the lanyard around his wrist.
He searched desperately for another weapon, seeing that his men were breaking and running towards the beach, the injured one hopping only a few paces before he too was cut down.
Bolitho got a terrifying impression of two staring eyes and bared white teeth, and saw the savage charging towards him, scooping up a discarded cutlass as he came.
Bolitho ducked and tried to leap to one side. Then came the impact, too great for pain, too powerful to measure.
He knew he was falling, his forehead on fire, while in another world he could hear his own voice calling out, brittle with agony.
And then, mercifully, there was nothing.
When consciousness finally returned, the agony which accompanied it was almost unendurable.
Bolitho tried to force open his eyes, as if by doing so he could drive away the torment, but it was so great he could feel his whole body contracting to withstand it.
Voices murmured above his head, but through his partially closed eyes he could see very little. A few hazy shapes, the darker shadows of beams directly overhead.
It was as if his head was being crushed slowly and deliberately between two heated irons, torturing his cringing mind with probing pains and brilliant flashes like lightning.
Cool cloths were being dabbed over his face and neck and then across his body. He was naked, not pinioned by force but with hands touching his wrists and ankles in case he struggled.
Another thought made him cry out with terror. He was badly injured elsewhere than in his head and they were getting ready for him. He had seen it done. The knife glittering in the feeble lanterns, the quick cut and turn of the blade, and then the saw.
“Easy, son.”
That was Bulkley, and the fact he was here helped to steady him in some way. Bolitho imagined he could smell the surgeon, brandy and tobacco.
He tried to speak but his voice was a hoarse whisper. “What happened?”
Bulkley peered over his shoulder, his owl-like face with the little spectacles poised in the air like a comic bladder.
“Save your breath. Breathe slowly.” Bulkley nodded. “That’s it.”
Bolitho gritted his teeth as the pain tightened its hold. It was worst above his right eye where there was a bandage. His hair felt tight, matted with blood. Vaguely the picture re-formed, the bulging eyes, the cutlass swinging towards him. Oblivion.
He asked, “My men, are they safe?”
Bolitho felt a coat sleeve brush against his bare arm and saw Dumaresq looking down at him, his shape made more grotesque by the angle. The eyes were no longer compelling, but grave.
“The boat’s crew are safe. Two of your original party reached it in time.”
Bolitho tried to move his head, but someone held it firmly.
“Stockdale? Is he?…”
Dumaresq smiled. “He carried you to the beach. But for him all of the people would have been lost. I shall tell you later. Now you must endeavour to rest. You have lost a lot of blood.”
Bolitho could feel the darkness closing over him again. He had seen the quick exchange of glances between Dumaresq and the surgeon. It was not over. He might die. The realization was almost too much and he felt the tears smarting in his eyes as he gasped, “Don’t… want… to… leave… Destiny. Mustn’t… go… like… this.”
Dumaresq said, “You will recover.”
He rested his hand on Bolitho’s shoulder so that he could feel the strength of the man, as if he were transferring some of his power into him.
Then he moved away, and Bolitho realized for the first time that he was in the stern cabin and that beyond the tall windows it was pitch-dark.
Bulkley watched him and said, “You have been unconscious all day, Richard.” He wagged his finger at him. “You had me somewhat troubled, I can tell you.”
“Then you are not worried for me now?” Again he tried to move, but the hands gripped him firmly like watchful animals.
Bulkley made a few adjustments to the bandages. “A severe blow to the head with a heavy blade is never a thing to be scoffed at. I have done some work on you, the rest will depend on time and care. It was a close-run fight. But for Stockdale’s courage, and his determination to rescue you, you would be dead.” He glanced round as if to ensure that the captain had gone. “He rallied the remaining seamen when they were about to flee from the beach. He was like a wild bull, yet when he carried you aboard he did it with the gentleness of a woman.” He sighed. “It must be the costliest cargo of fresh water in naval history!”
Bolitho could feel a new drowsiness closing in to withstand the pounding anguish in his skull. Bulkley had given him something.
He whispered, “You would tell me if…”
Bulkley was wiping his fingers. “Probably.” He looked up and added, “You are being well cared for. We are about to weigh anchor, so endeavour to rest yourself.”
Bolitho tried to keep a grip on his senses. About to weigh anchor. Here all day. So the water must have been obtained. Men had died. Many more afterwards, he thought, when Colpoys’ marines took their revenge.
He spoke very slowly, knowing his words were getting slurred, but knowing too that he must make himself understood.
“Tell Aur-tell Mrs Egmont that…”
Bulkley leaned over him and pulled at his eyelids. “Tell her yourself. She has been with you since you were brought aboard. I told you. You are well cared for.”
Then Bolitho saw her standing beside him, her black hair hanging down over either shoulder, glossy in the lantern light.
She touched his face, her fingers brushing his lips as she said softly, “You can sleep now, my lieutenant. I am here.”
Bolitho felt the hands relax their hold from his wrists and ankles, and sensed the surgeon’s assistants withdrawing into the shadows.
He murmured faintly, “I-I did not want you to see me like this, Aurora.”
She smiled, but it made her look incredibly sad.
“You are beautiful,” she said.
Bolitho closed his eyes, the strength gone from him at last.
By the screen door Bulkley turned to look at them. He should be used to pain and the gratitude of recovery, but he was not, and he was moved by what he saw. It was more like a painting from mythology, he thought. The lovely woman weeping by the fallen body of her hero.
He had not lied to Bolitho. It had been very close, and the cutlass had not only made a deep scar above the eye and into the hairline but had scored the bone beneath. Had Bolitho been an older man, or the cutlass expertly used, it would have ended there.
She said, “He is asleep.” But she was not speaking to Bulkley. She removed her white shawl and very gently spread it across Bolitho’s body, as if his nakedness, like her words, was something private.
In Destiny’s other, ordered world a voice bellowed, “Anchor’s aweigh, sir!”
