before sliding down again.
Allday muttered, 'That's him done for.' He said it without emotion one way or the other. 'Bloody fool.'
Tucker pushed his oar away and tried to reach the side before Jenour and Cuppage seized him and dragged him to the foot of the small mast. Cuppage pulled out some codline and tied the babbling man's wrists behind him. 'Shut your trap, you stupid bugger!'
Bolitho clambered into Tucker's place and thrust the oar out over the water. It seemed to weigh twice as much as before. He shut his ears to Tucker's cracked, rambling voice. The beginning of the end.
Catherine sat with Keen while Ozzard poured some water one cup at a time, across the barricoe's leather lip.
Keen raised it to her mouth. 'Hold it there as long as you can. A sip at a time.'
She shivered, and almost dropped the cup as Tucker screamed, 'Water! Give me water, you poxy bitch!'
In the deep shadows there was the sound of a fist on bone, and Tucker fell silent.
Catherine whispered, 'There was no need. I've heard far worse.'
Keen tried to smile. It had not been merely out of regard for her feelings that Allday had laid him low. One more outbreak from Tucker, and it might consume the boat in fighting madness.
Keen felt the pistol in his belt and tried to remember who else was armed.
She saw his hand on the pistol and said softly, 'You've done this before, Val… I guessed as much.' She turned away as something fell heavily in the sea astern. The shark or its victim, it was too dark to tell.
She said, 'He must not see me suffer.' She tried to control her voice, but her body was shaking too badly. 'He has given enough because of me.'
'Give way all!'
The oars rose and fell once more while the water was passed carefully from hand to hand.
Then they changed around yet again, and Bolitho slumped down beside her in the sternsheets.
'How is your eye?'
Bolitho forced a smile. 'Better than I thought possible.' He had sensed rather than seen her despair when she had been speaking with Keen.
'You lie.' She leaned against him and felt him stiffen. 'Stop worrying about me, Richard… I am the cause of all this. You should have left me in that prison. You might never have known…'
Great white shapes flapped out of the darkness and circled the jolly-boat before continuing on their way.
He said, 'Tonight, those birds will nest in Africa.'
She pushed her wet hair away as spray drifted over the gunwale.
'I would like to be in some secret place, Richard. Our beach perhaps… To run naked in the sea, to love on the sand.' She began to cry very quietly, the sound muffled by his shoulder. 'Just to live with you.'
She had fallen into a deep sleep when the young seaman named Tucker choked and died. The oarsmen rested on their looms like souls beyond care or caring. Only Yovell crossed himself in the darkness as the body went over the side and drifted away.
Bolitho held her shoulder, ready to shield her from the frenzy of a shark's attack. But there was nothing. The shark had patience enough for all of them.
When the first hint of dawn opened up the sea around them, Catherine saw that Tucker was missing. It was too draining even to think what it must have been like for him in his dying moments of madness. It was over now. A release.
She saw Ozzard sounding the barricoe, his quick shake of the head to Bolitho beside him.
'Half a cup, then?' Bolitho was almost pleading.
Ozzard shrugged. 'Less.'
Sophie stepped carefully across the outflung legs and the sprawled bodies of the ones off watch.
Catherine held out her arms. 'What is it, Sophie? Come here to me.'
The girl gripped her hand and hesitated. 'Is that land? Over there?' She seemed afraid that she might be going mad like Tucker.
Keen stood up from his oar and shaded his eyes.
'Oh, dear God! Land it is!'
Allday peered up at the boat's masthead and tried to grin. 'See? He keeps watch for the life of Poor Jack!'
As the light strengthened it became more and more obvious that the land Sophie had sighted was little more than an island. But just the nearness of it seemed to put new life into the jolly-boat, and when the oars were manned and the sail reset, Bolitho could see no disappointment in their sunburned faces.
Keen said between strokes on his oar, 'Do you know it, sir?'
Bolitho turned and saw Catherine watching him. 'Yes, I do.' He should have felt pleased, proud even that he had brought them this far. At least they were not merely heading into an empty horizon and going mad in the process.
Jenour panted, 'Does it have a name, Sir Richard?'
She was still watching him. Reading him like a book. Knowing the desperation, the sudden despair this place had rekindled from some old memory. Like the other midshipman, his friend, of whom he rarely spoke even to her: these recollections were equally painful.
It was a barren place, an island to be avoided, with a treacherous, rocky coastline. This was slave territory, and in earlier times the haunt of pirates. But the latter had now gone further south, to the richer pickings on the sea- routes to and around the Cape of Good Hope.
'I forget what it is called.' Even that she would know was a lie. This small, hostile island was known by local traders as the Island of the Living Dead. Nothing grew there, nothing survived. He said suddenly, 'Twenty miles beyond this place is a rich, wooded island. Fresh streams, fish too.'
Yovell asked politely, 'This place cannot help us then?'
He sounded so lost that Bolitho answered, 'There may be rock pools with rainwater. Shellfish.' He saw the strength draining out of them like sand from a glass. He insisted, 'What say, all of you? One more try? We can gather shellfish and mix them with the last of the biscuits.'
Yovell seemed satisfied. 'We've nothing else to do, have we, sir? Not for the present, in any case.'
Owen grinned and wiped his cracked lips. 'Well said, sir! Twenty miles after what we've been through? I could swim there, but for the sharks, that is!'
Catherine watched them returning to life, instead of the spectres they had almost become. But how long could he persuade them?
By noon the boat had entered a small cove, where the rocks slid beneath the keel in water so clear it could barely be seen.
Bolitho stood and shaded his eyes as they glided above their own shadow.
'Ready with the grapnel! Stephen, Owen, over the side now! Back water, the rest of you!'
With the flag lieutenant and the keen-eyed lookout floundering and slipping on the bottom while they guided the stem clear of any jagged rocks, the jolly-boat finally came to rest.
Bolitho watched them lurching and falling on the shelving beach as they left the boat and tried to run up the slope. A ship was one thing, but having been penned up in a small open boat made them stagger like drunken men.
Catherine stared with surprise as Allday handed her a pair of leather sandals he had cut and fashioned from Ozzard's satchel.
She said huskily, 'You are a dear man, John.'
Allday was embarrassed, the danger this place might hold momentarily forgotten.
'Well, m'lady, as Mr Yovell rightly said, I had nothing else to do.'
Bolitho walked with her through the shallows and waited while she tied on her sandals. It was just as well. The beach was as hot as a stove.
'See to it, Val. Take your cox'n and climb that hill. Might even be able to see the other island in this light… it would give them heart.'
Keen said gravely, 'I believe you have done that, sir, to all of us.'
Allday was about to leave the beached boat when Ozzard tugged at his sleeve. 'Look, John!'
It was a small pouch, hidden carefully behind the empty barricoe. It was tightly tied and very heavy.
Allday felt it. 'It's gold, matey.'
