because you're rich now, doesn't mean I have no more work for you,' he roared. 'The rest of the heavy cargo must go ashore before we can beach and careen her and clean her foul bottom and step the new mast and put the culver ins into her. There's enough work in that to keep you busy for a month or two.'
No man was ever allowed to remain idle for long in one of Sir Francis's ships. Boredom was the most dangerous enemy he would ever encounter. While one of the watches went ahead with the work of unloading, he kept the off-duty watches busy. They must never be, allowed to forget that this was a fighting ship and that they must be ready at any moment to face a desperate enemy.
With the hatches open and the huge casks of spice being lifted out, there was no space on the deck for weapons practice so Big Daniel took the off-duty men to the beach. Shoulder to shoulder, they formed ranks and worked through the manual of arms. Swinging the cutlass cut to the left, thrust and recover, cut to the right, thrust and recover until the sweat streamed from them and they gasped for breath.
'Enough of that!' Big Daniel told them at last, but they were not to be released yet.
'A bout or two of wrestling now, just to warm your blood, he shouted, and strode among them matching man against man, seizing a pair by the scruff of their necks and thrusting them at each other, as though they were fighting birds in the cockpit.
Soon the beach was covered with struggling, shouting pairs of men naked to the waist, heaving and spinning each other off their feet and rolling in the white sand.
Standing back among the first line of forest trees, Katinka and her maid watched with interest. Aboli stood a few paces behind them, leaning against the trunk of one of the giant forest yellow- woods.
Hal was matched against a seaman twenty years his elder. They were of the same height, but the other man was a stone heavier. Both struggled for a hold on each other's neck and shoulders as they danced in a circle, trying to force one another off balance or to hook a heel for a trip throw.
'Use your hip. Throw him over your hip!' Katinka whispered, as she watched Hal. She was so carried along by the spectacle that unconsciously she had clenched her fists and was beating them on her own thighs in excitement as she urged Hal on, her cheeks pinker than either the rouge pot or the heat had coloured them.
Katinka loved to watch men or animals pitted against each other. At every opportunity, her husband was made to accompany her to the bull-baiting and the cock-fights or the ratting contests with terriers.
'Whenever the red wine is poured, my lovely little darling is happy.' Van de Velde was proud of her unusual penchant for blood sport. She never missed a tournament of ipie, and had even enjoyed the English sport of bare fisted fighting. However, wrestling was one of her favourite diversions, and she knew all the holds and throws.
Now she was enchanted by the lad's graceful movements and impressed by his technique. She could tell that he had been well instructed, for although his opponent was heavier Hal was quicker and stronger. He used his opponent's weight against him, and the older man had to grunt and thrash around to recover himself as Hal tipped him to the edge of his balance. At his next lunge Hal offered no resistance but gave to his opponent's rush, and went over backwards, still maintaining his grip. As he struck the ground, he broke his own fall with an arch to his back, at the same time thrusting his heels into his opponent's belly to catapult him overhead. While the older man lay stunned, Hal whipped round to straddle his back and pin him face down. He grabbed the man's pigtail and forced his face into the fine white sand, until he slapped the earth with both hands to signal his surrender.
Hal released him and sprang to his feet with the agility of a cat.
The seaman came to his knees gasping and spitting sand. Then, unexpectedly, he launched himself at Hal just as he was beginning to turn away. From the corner of his eye Hal spotted the swing of the bunched fist coming at his head and rolled away from the blow, but not quite quickly enough. It swiped across his face, bringing a flash of blood from one nostril. He seized the man's wrist as he reached the limit of his swing, twisting his arm and then lifting his wrist up between his shoulder-blades. The seaman squealed as he was forced up on his toes.
St. 'Mary's milk, Master John, but you must like the taste of sand.'
Hal placed one bare foot on his backside and sent him sprawling head first on to the beach once more.
'You grow too clever and cocky, Master Hal!' Big Daniel strode up to him, frowning, and his voice was gruff as he tried to hide his delight at his pupil's performance. 'Next time I'll give you a harder match. And don't let the captain hear that milky blasphemy of yours or more than good clean beach sand you'll be tasting yourself.'
Still laughing, delighting in Daniel's ill-concealed approbation and in the hoots of encouragement from the other wrestlers, Hal swaggered to the lagoon's edge and scooped up a double handful of water to wash the blood from his upper lip.
'Joseph and Mary, but he loves to win.' Daniel grinned behind his back. 'Try as he will, Captain Franky will not break that one down. The old dog has sired a puppy of his own blood.'
'How old do you think he is?' Katinka asked her maid, in a reflective tone.
'I'm sure I don't know,' said Zelda primly. 'He's just a child.'
Katinka shook her head, smiling, remembering him standing naked in the stern of the pinnace. 'Ask our blackamoor watch-dog.'
Obediently Zelda looked back at Aboli, and asked in English, 'How old is the boy?'
'Old enough for what she wants from him,' Aboli grunted in his own language, a puzzled frown on his face as he pretended not to understand. These last few days, while he guarded her, he had studied this woman with sun coloured hair. He had recognized the bright, predatory glimmer in the depths of those demure violet eyes. She watched a man the way a mongoose watches a plump chicken, and she carried her head in an affectation of innocence that was belied by the wanton swing of her hips beneath the layers of bright silks and gossamer lace. 'A whore is still a whore, whatever the colour of her hair and no matter if she lives in a beehive hut or a governor's palace.' The deep cadence of his voice was punctuated by the staccato clicks of his tribal speech.
Zelda turned away from him with a flounce. 'Stupid animal. He understands nothing.'
Hal left the water's edge and came up into the trees. He reached up to the branch on which hung his discarded shirt. His hair was still wet and his naked chest and shoulders were blotched red with the rough contact of the wrestling. A smear of blood was still streaked across his cheek.
His hand raised towards his shirt, he looked up. His eyes met Katinka's level violet regard. Until that moment he had been unaware of her presence. Instantly his arrogant swagger evaporated, and he stepped back as though she had slapped him unexpectedly. Now a dark blush spread over his face, obliterating the lighter blotches left by his opponent's blows.
Coolly Katinka looked down at his bare chest. He folded his arms across it, as if ashamed.
'You were right, Zelda,' she said, with a dismissive flick of her hand. 'Just a grubby child,' she added in Latin, to make certain that he understood. Hal stared after her miserably as she gathered her skirts and, followed by Aboli and her maid, sailed regally down the beach to the waiting pinnace.
That night, as he lay on the lumpy straw pallet on his narrow bunk, he heard movement, soft voices and laughter from the cabin next door. He propped himself up on one elbow. Then he recalled the insult she had thrown at him so disdainfully. 'I will not think of her ever again,' he promised himself, as he sank back onto the pallet and placed his hands over his ears to block out the lilting cadence of her voice. In an attempt to drive her from his mind, he repeated softly, 'In Arcadia habito.' But it was long before weariness allowed him at last to fall into a deep black dreamless sleep. The head of the lagoon, almost two miles from where the Resolution lay at anchor, a stream of clear sweet water tumbled down through a narrow gorge to mingle with the brackish waters below. As the two longboats moved slowly against the current into the mouth of the gorge, they startled the flocks of water birds from the shallows into the air.
They rose in a cacophony of honks, quacks and cackles, twenty different varieties of ducks and geese unlike any they knew from the north. There were other species, too, with strangely shaped bills or disproportionately long legs trailing, and herons, curlews and egrets that were not quite the same as their English counterparts, bigger or brighter in plumage. The sky was darkened with their numbers, and the men rested for a minute upon their oars to gaze in astonishment at these multitudes.
'It's a land of marvels, Sir Francis murmured, staring up at this wild display. 'Yet we have explored only a trivial part of it. What other wonders lie beyond this threshold, deep in the hinterland, that no man has ever laid eyes upon?'
His father's words excited Hal's imagination, and conjured up once more the images of dragons and monsters that decorated the charts he had studied.
'Heave away!' his father ordered, and they bent to the long sweeps again. The two were alone in the leading boat. Sir Francis pulled the starboard oar with a long powerful stroke that matched Hal's tirelessly. Between them stood the empty water casks, the refilling of which was the ostensible purpose of this expedition to the head of the lagoon. The real reason, however, lay on the
