‘What’s o’clock?’ asked Pullings.
‘It wants five minutes of half-?tide,’ said Babbington. Together they stared at the cable. ‘But it is slackening faster already,’ he said, and Pullings felt his heart warm to him. After a moment Babbington went on, ‘We are to buoy the cable and slip, as soon as we can tow again. They are making a kind of litter to pass him over the side in.’
The ebb ran its course at last; the barge pulled out with the tow-?line, buoying the cable in its way; and Pullings went aft, feeling young once more.
‘Are you ready there below, Mr Stourton?’ called Jack.
‘All ready, sir,’ came the muffled reply.
‘Then slip the cable. Mr Pullings, take the jolly-?boat and lead in. Boats away, and stretch out there, d’ye hear me?’
They stretched out; they pulled with a will, and the frigate towed sweetly. But even so it was late evening before she glided past the island, down the sheltered inlet with its tall, jungle-?covered sides, green cliffs or bare rock rising sheer from the water, down to the far end, where there was a little white crescent of beach and an astonishing waterfall plunging down the black rocks to one side of it, almost the only sound in that strangely oppressive air. The land, which had seemed so green and welcoming from a distance, took on altogether another appearance as they drew in; and two hundred yards from the shore a swarm of black flies settled heavily on the ships and the boats, crawling about the rigging, the sails, the deck, and the people.
Thirty hours, not twenty-?four, had gone by before they lifted Mr Stanhope’s litter out of the barge and set it gently down on the sand.
The little beach seemed even smaller to Jack as he walked about it. The jungle pressed in on all sides: huge improbable fronds overhung the sea-?wrack, and the still air
- no land-?breeze here in this lost inlet - was filled with the smell of decay and the hum of mosquitoes. He had heard the sound of a drum in the forest as they came in, and now that his ears were accustomed to the roar of the waterfall he heard it again, some way inland, and to the north; but there was no telling how far off.
A troop of fruit-?bats, each five feet across, flew low over the open space and into a vast, creeper-?covered tree; following their sinister flight he thought he saw a dark, man-?sized form moving through the mass of green below and he stepped eagerly towards it. But the jungle-?wall was impenetrable, the only paths being tunnels two or three feet high. He turned and looked out over the strand and to sea. They had rigged two tents, and a fire was burning, bright already in the twilight; a top-?lantern had been set up, and Etherege was posting his Marines. Beyond the tents lay the ship, no more than a cable’s length away but still in twenty fathom water; she was moored fore and aft to trees on the outward-?curving shores, and they had laid out the best bower to seaward: she looked huge and tall
in this confined space, and lights were moving about on the main-?deck, behind her open ports. Beyond her rose the island, blocking out the sea. She would lie safe there, even if it came on to blow; and her guns commanded every approach. But he had an uneasy feeling of being watched, and presently he moved down towards the tents.
‘Mr Smyth,’ he said, meeting the oriental secretary, ‘have you been here before?’
‘No, sir,’ said Smyth. ‘This is not a part of the country the Malays frequent. Oh no. It belongs to the Orang Bakut, a little black naked people. There - you can hear their drums. They communicate with drums.’
‘Aye. I dare say. . . is the Doctor with his patient?’
‘No, sir. He is in the other tent, preparing his instruments.’
‘Stephen, may I come in?’ he said, ducking under the doorway. ‘What is your news?’
Stephen tested the edge of his catlin, shaving the hair from his forearm, and said, ‘We shall operate as soon as there is light enough, if his strength recovers a little in the night. I have represented to him the alternatives - the delicacy of such an intervention in a body worn by disease: the inevitably fatal outcome of delay. He has made his mind up to the operation as a matter of duty: Mr White is with him now. I wish his resolution may not falter. I shall require two more chests and some leather-?bound rope.’
It was not Mr Stanhope’s resolution that faltered, but his vital spirit. All night the noises of the jungle kept him from sleep; the drums on either side of the bay disturbed his mind; the motionless heat was more than he could bear; and towards three in the morning he died, talking quietly about the ceremonies at the Sultan’s court and the importance of yielding to no improper claim; the drums and his official reception having as it were run into one another. He had little real notion of dying. Through the remaining hours of darkness Stephen and the chaplain sat with him, listening to the noises outside the tent: the croaking and chuckling of innumerable reptiles; unidentified and countless shrieks, hoots, grunts, against a deep background of steady sound; the roar of a tiger, frequently repeated from different places; the continually shifting drums, now close, now far.
They buried him in the morning at the head of the bay, with the Marines firing volleys over his grave and the ship thundering out an envoy’s salute, raising clouds of birds and flying-?foxes all round the reverberating cove: all the officers attended in full dress, their swords reversed, and most of the ship’s company.
Jack took advantage of their sheltered anchorage to correct the frigate’s trim; and while this was going forward the carpenter made a wooden cross: they painted it white, and before the paint was dry the Surprise stood out to sea, her cables recovered and stowed in the tier, smelling of the mephitic ooze.
Jack looked out of the stern window at the distant, receding land, dull purple now, with a rainstorm beating down on it. He said, ‘We came on a fool’s errand.’
Stephen said, as though in reply,
‘All all of a piece throughout
Thy chase had a beast in view
Thy wars brought nothing about
Thy lovers were all untrue.’
‘But still,’ said Jack, after a long pause, ‘but still, we are homeward bound. Homeward bound at last! I am afraid I am required to touch at Calcutta; but it will be touch and go - Calcutta fare thee well, and home as fast as
