Quare hurried towards Bolitho, his musket over his shoulder. “Where, sir?”
As if to a signal, several figures began to emerge from amongst the thick foliage, fierce-looking natives, totally unlike those Bolitho had seen around the settlement. From North Island or elsewhere hardly mattered now. They had probably hidden themselves much earlier, even before the boats had been hauled ashore. He counted them. More than twenty, and all armed with spears and short, wide-bladed knives. One, obviously a leader of some kind, was adorned with several strings of glass beads. In the reflected sunlight they had betrayed his hiding place.
Bolitho measured the distance. From the top of the beach to the boats. From the silent, watching natives to his own men.
He said quietly, “Stand still, lads. They are trying to discover what we are about. If they think we are from a ship nearby they may go. If not, we could have a fight on our hands.”
Pyper said desperately, “There are some more yonder, sir. By the red flowers.”
No wonder Quare’s lookouts had not seen them. They must have crept along the water’s edge and through the surf itself to bypass the tired sentries.
The one with the beads raised his hand and called something in a thin voice. Then he pointed at Bolitho, recognizing him too as a leader, and then very slowly turned his arm towards Viola Raymond. He bobbed his head and grimaced, then poked his bushy black hair, while those around him did likewise and grinned. He was fascinated by the colour of her hair, and yet his simple mime was more menacing than any open attack.
Bolitho held up his hand. “Friend!”
A few of the natives wandered vaguely by the hissing surf, and Bolitho saw the pattern changing even as he said, “Fall back to the boats, but do it slowly!” He had seen that the apparently aimless movement was an attempt to get between the sailors and the boats, or separate them from the little group beneath the trees.
He thought suddenly of Herrick. This time there was no lastminute help or swivel guns to strike fear into the silent figures on the beach.
He said, “Mr Keen, we will use my boat only. Take charge of it now and get it launched. Sergeant Quare, have some men aid the injured.” He saw Allday and Miller watching him. “We will stand here. Make no further move.”
Bolitho heard the cutter’s keel grating, on sand, the heavy gasps from those who were manhandling it into deeper water. To try and escape with both boats would be madness. It was probable the natives had canoes nearby and would soon overhaul the slow pulling boats and attack them individually. You could not pull an oar and fight at the same time when you were so shorthanded.
The natives were starting to move nearer, and he heard them murmuring between themselves, the sound strangely inhuman, like the twittering of birds.
Allday said, “Something to the left, Captain. More of the buggers. This lot must have been waiting for reinforcements. Just to be on the safe side.”
Bolitho called sharply, “Lively, lads!”
Then he turned as several figures separated from the main group and streaked across the sand towards Viola and the helpless Evans. The wounded marine swung up his musket like a crutch and fired, the ball hitting the first native in the stomach and hurling him down to spatter the pale sand with blood.
The sudden move and the crack of the musket acted like a clarion call, and with a great whoop of frenzy and hatred the natives hurled themselves towards the boats, the air instantly alive with spears and jagged pieces of stone.
Sergeant Quare dropped to one knee and fired, followed immediately by the other muskets. The effect was immediate, and still yelling and whooping the attackers fell back into the green foliage, leaving three of their number dead or dying.
Bolitho drew his pistol and shouted to Pyper, “Get those men down here!”
A spear flitted across his vision and stuck quivering in the wet sand.
The second wave would come at any moment. He saw Blissett and another marine reloading beside Quare, and their wounded comrade hopping down the slope towards the boats, his face twisted with pain and exertion. Orlando was carrying Evans, who was moaning and struggling weakly in his arms, while the other injured seaman was being bustled into the cutter by Frazer and Lenoir.
“Here they come again!”
This time it was more determined, the rocks and stones raining down on the reeling, dazed seamen and marines, and then spears from two angles at once.
But the muskets replied briskly, and Bolitho fired his pistol at a screaming native who had weaved around the crouching marines and was charging straight at the boat. He was knocked sideways, his limbs flailing as he fell into the surf, turning it bright pink.
Bolitho thrust the pistol away and drew his sword.
“Hurry!”
He turned, sickened, as the marine with Blissett gave a terrible shriek and fell on his side, a spear driven hard into his chest.
“This way, sir!”
Keen was standing in the cutter’s bows, firing his own pistol and waving for the others to clamber aboard. Bolitho saw Viola’s hair blowing above the gunwale and realized that he and the marines were the only ones still on the beach.
Blissett was trying to drag his companion towards the surf, but Quare punched his shoulder and yelled, “Leave him! He’s done for! Get his musket and move yourself, my lad!” He fired as he spoke and sent another dark figure sprawling.
The next few minutes were a confusion of desperate purpose mixed with revulsion as their attackers turned on the dead marine and started to slash and hack him into an unrecognizable bundle.
Then the oars were out and the cutter was moving swiftly into deep water, the speed of the stroke laying bare their horror and their fear.
“No canoes in sight, sir.”
Bolitho nodded, unable to answer as he sucked in air. By his feet he saw a net full of coconuts, but by having to abandon the other boat they had lost half their supply of food and water.
Sergeant Quare said roughly, “Marine Corneck was a good hand, sir. Came from the next village to me.”
Blissett lay across an oar, his eyes smarting. He had never liked the dead marine much. But to see him cut apart like a carcass made him burn with anger and disgust.
Bolitho watched their varying reactions and matched them against his own. Some small warning had prevented all of them ending up like Corneck. A few more minutes and he might have ordered the boats to be unloaded, fires to be lit. He met her gaze along the boat as she tied a bandage around Jenner’s head. He had been badly cut by a piece of rock. She looked very calm, but her eyes were misty with suppressed emotion. But for the wounded marine’s swift action they might have seized her and dragged her away before anyone could intervene. Even the thought of it made him feel sick.
The only compensation was that there were more men to work the oars and so allow small snatches of respite for the others. Against that… he looked at Evans, who was now barely conscious, and at Penneck, the ship’s caulker, who had received a bad gash on the neck from a spear. He took out the flask of rum, feeling their eyes on it, seeing Big Tom Frazer look away to hide his own want.
“A tot each to Evans and Penneck.” He looked at her across their heads. “And, I think, for the lady.”
Keen said hoarsely, “Aye, sir. She most of all.”
But she shook her head. “No. Rum is something I have not been able to admire.”
Several of the men laughed, haltingly at first, and then in a tide of uncontrolled noise which none seemed able to stop.
Bolitho touched Keen’s shoulder. “Let them get it out of their souls. They have enough to face.” He saw Pyper joining with the rest, his laughter changing to helpless tears which ran unheeded down his face like rain.
After a while they pulled themselves together, some surprised, others ashamed, but not one making any comment on their behaviour. The oars began to move up and down again, and within another hour the small cove was lost in a blur of haze which covered the islands astern like fine netting.
Then they rested, issued rations, drank their water, looked around at the sea and each other with dulled acceptance.
