HF - 04 - Black Dawn

by Christopher Nicole

  'For seven years.' Tony got up. 'I am a patient man, Mr Reynolds. I have formed a philosophy, which I believe has been expressed before. Everything comes to he who waits. I'll bid you good day, sir. My guests, and my fiancee, are waiting.'

  9

  The Castaway

  Judith's body moved against his, her arms tight round his neck. She squirmed, and seemed able to bounce, even under his weight. And she moved from side to side as well. Lying on her was like being on a ship at sea.

  Dick Hilton rolled on to his back, stared at the deck beams immediately above his head, sweat breaking out on his face and shoulders as he realized that he was on a ship at sea.

  He attempted to sit up, and banged his head. As if it had been a signal, waves of thudding pain were loosed, to go reverberating through his mind, to crash against his ears, to seep down his neck into his stomach and bring green sickness back into his throat. His chin seemed one enormous bruise.

  He discovered himself on his hands and knees, clutching the bunk on which he had lain, bracing himself against the roll of the vessel. And being suddenly bathed in a draught of cool air, seeping around his head.

  'Praying, are you?'

  He attempted to turn, lost his balance, and fell over. He looked at shoes, and somewhat dirty cotton stockings. The clothes above were hardly cleaner but the face, if unshaven and pockmarked, was not unpleasant.

  'John Gibson, at your service.'

  Dick licked his lips, slowly, closed his eyes to attempt to shut out the pain. 'What ship?' His voice seemed to come from very far away.

  'The Cormorant, bound for Bristol, Mr Hilton.'

  'Bristol?' Dick seized the bunk once again, pulled himself

  to his feet. ‘I can't go to Bristol.'

  'What you need is something to eat, Mr Hilton,' Gibson decided. 'You'll feel better after something to eat. Boy,' he shouted, sending fresh reverberations crashing into Dick's mind.

  He sat on the bunk. 'How came I here?'

  'Why, sir, you came out with my boatswain, last night. Insisted, you did. Said you had to get away. Food, boy. Food for the passenger.'

  'Had to . . .' Dick scratched his head. Another painful operation. 'I was drunk. Christ, I was drunk.'

  'You were that, Mr Hilton,' Gibson agreed. 'Mind you, sir, for a man that drunk, you were wonderfully possessed, you were. Wrote a steady hand and all.' He jerked his head. 'You'd best eat.'

  'Eat?' Dick seized the captain's sleeve. 'Listen. You must put back. I was drunk.'

  'You booked passage to England,' Gibson pointed out. 'Signed a note, you did.'

  'You can keep it,' Dick said. 'I'll sign another. But put me back.'

  The captain gazed at him for some seconds, then went into the main cabin and sat down. 'You'll want to think about that.' 'When you've worn ship.'

  'Now, sir, that's not going to be easy. You won't believe this sir, but we've a stern wind. Due west, in the Caribbean, in November. There'a chance. Why, sir, do you know, I reckon we've done a hundred miles in the past twelve hours. There's speed for you. But she's a clean hull, Cormorant.''

  Dick staggered across the cabin, up the companionway, and into the waist of the ship. And was immediately thankful for the cooling breeze which swept over him, cleared some of the cobwebs from his mind. He stood at the starboard gunwale, looked at the mountains on the southern horizon.

  'Hispaniola,' Capt ain Gibson said. 'What the niggers who infest it call Haiti. Like I said, damn near a hundred miles in twelve hours.'

  Dick climbed the ladder, crossed the poop, grasped the taffrail to steady himself. But astern the sea was empty, save for the occasional whitecap. It was in fact a peculiar afternoon; the sky was almost yellow, rather than blue, and the wind was hot. And his brain continued to tumble. Memory. But he did not want memory. There were too many unthinkable thoughts banging on the edges of his consciousness. He only knew he must get home. And quickly.

  'As a matter of fact,' Captain Gibson remarked, having followed him, 'the sooner we're through the Windward Passage the happier I'll be. There's wind about.'

  'Then seek shelter,' Dick said. 'Set me ashore in Haiti.'

  Gibson frowned at him. 'Now, I'll not be doing that, Mr Hilton. Why, you'd go to your death. We'd all go to our deaths. Those niggers don't take to strangers. They'd rather slaughter us than slaughter each other, and by all accounts they spend most of their time doing that.'

  'Then put about,' Dick begged. 'So it's take a week to beat back to Jamaica. But it won't. The wind won't stay west.'

  'A westerly is just what we need, for the Windward Passage,' Gibson explained. 'We'll be through this time tomorrow. Otherwise it's beating up the Florida Channel, and adding weeks to the voyage. As for putting back . . . it'll cost me all my profit.'

  'I'll be your profit,' Dick said. 'I'll buy your ship.' 'Eh?'

  'I'm Richard Hilton of Plantation Hilltop. Name your price. I'll sign a note, now. I didn't know what I was doing, last night. I must get back to Jamaica. Name your price, Gibson. Name your price.'

  The captain stroked his chin. 'You don't know what you're doing now, either, Mr Hilton. You want to think about that for a while.'

  'While you get us into the Atlantic? Now, Captain. Now. Put about now, and you have my note.'

  Gibson stroked his chin some more. 'Well,' he said at last. 'If you're serious, Mr Hilton. There'll be witnesses, mind.'

  'Assemble the whole crew,' Dick said. 'But do it now.'

  'Aye. Well. . .' Gibson turned, to look forward, and checked, and looked up instead. With warning the wind had dropped right away, and the sails did no more than flap against then-stays.

  'You'd best batten those hatches,' Captain Gibson stood at the rail and looked down on his ship. 'And strike those topsails. Quick, now.'

  'It'll shift, Captain,' Dick said. 'You've no reason to hold on. And my offer stands.'

  'Oh, aye, Mr Hilton,' Gibson sighed. 'You'll go back to Kingston. When we've weathered whatever's coming.' He pointed at the blackness which was spreading out of the south, overshadowing the distant mountains of Haiti, threatening the drooping sun. 'That's a late hurricane. And we're in narrow waters.'

  Dick gazed at the sky. In the four years he had lived on Jamaica they had had sufficient warnings of a tropical storm, but never a full blow. 'What will you do?'

  'What can I do, man?' Gibson asked. 'If it comes east, we'll run back. If it stays west, we'll run for the Passage and the open sea. I've no choice, Mr Hilton.'

  'And if it is north or south?'

  Again the captain sighed. 'North is Cuba, south is Haiti. We'll have to heave to and try not to drift.' He gave a short laugh. 'There's a problem, eh?'

  Dick left him, went to the tafffrail. Hurricane winds always shifted, and through a hundred and eighty degrees, as the eye of the storm passed. He looked down at the slow bubble of wake. The ship still moved, drifting with the current, propelled by the almost unplaceable breeze, and eastward. He was sailing away from Jamaica. Christ, how memory came back to him. It seemed as if every mistake he had made, every crime he had committed, had suddenly rolled themselves up into a thundercloud as big as the approaching storm, and delivered themselves against his head. Harriet had been a gigantic dream.

  He had known from the start that she could never be anything more than that. Had known too, that she was in many ways a nightmare. And yet had remained sucked into the warm sensuality of that embrace, long after he had ceased to love, or even to like, the woman herself.

  And yet, was Ellen anything less of a mistake? Had she been anything less of a mistake from the very beginning? Was he doomed to know only women who would seek to dominate, to rule? Or was the fault entirely his, in being too submissive, too uncertain of his own temper, his own purpose, to oppose successfully?

  And in any event, could marriage to Ellen, now, be anything less than a total disaster? The events of the last four years, and more particularly of the last two days, were there to be hurled in his face whenever they h
ad the slightest difference of opinion.

  So, then, why did he hurry back, spend a fortune on commandeering this ship to return? He had never enjoyed planting. His entire being rebelled against the necessities of the business; the brutalities and the injustices; the certainty that someone like Josh Merriman, and God knew how many others, were better men than he, in every sense of the word, but yet were forced to crawl, should he so desire, merely because his skin was white, and his uncle had been wealthy.

  Even more did he rebel against the concept that he could never be one of them, and equally, never be one of the plantocracy, sitting in the House of Assembly in Spanish Town and waving their fists at the British Government even as they waved their whips at their employees. Theirs was a transitory world. It had to be, no more than that. That it had lasted over a hundred years, that it had provided the Hiltons with wealth and power and omnipotence for so long, was the fault of humanity, not the design of God.

  And yet, return he must. To make amends to Judith? How could he make amends to Judith, save by marrying her? There would be the final chapter in the catalogue of disasters. Or would it? Judith was a lovely child. She would no doubt soon become a lovely woman. So she was totally lacking in either education or breeding. That could be provided, and would be a pleasure to provide. But did he love her? He did not know. He had never considered the matter. It was beginning to dawn on him that he had never actually considered loving anyone. Even Ellen had been an achievement, a prize to be won, in the face of opposition, rather than a woman to be loved.

  And even more important, did Judith love him? Could she love him, after Harriet, and after an upbringing such as hers, and after he had raped her?

  A drop of rain landed on his hand, large and stinging. The afternoon had grown quite dark, and the sun was lost behind the cloud. And the drop had been only the advance guard. He could see the rain approaching him in a solid sheet, like a quick travelling mist. Haiti had already disappeared.

  And with the rain, the first of the wind, soughing over the water. Gibson was at the break of the poop, bawling his orders, and the yards were being trimmed; they had already been stripped of most of their sails. Now the helm was put up to take the coming squall on the bow. The Cormorant rose and dipped again, a violent movement. Yet the sea remained surprisingly calm, flattened by the deadening rain, which swept across the ship, smothered the deck and poured into the scuppers as if it had been a wave, flowed through the fairleads and cascaded down the sides.

  Dick discovered he was wet through, and the water continued to pound on his hair, flood down his neck. He staggered across the deck, grasped a stay close by the wheel, where two men were on duty, waiting for the real wind, with the captain close at hand.

  'You'd best below, Mr Hilton,' Gibson bawled. 'No sense in staying up here. Helm. Helm. Up.'

  The two sailors leaned on the wheel, and the Cormorant's bows came up again. Now the wind was fresh, and now the ship was moving, slicing into the suddenly large, and growing waves, tossing spray aft, taking green combers over the bow to flood the forecastle and come pouring down the ladders into the waist. And now too, she heeled, port scuppers well down, making the already slippery deck the harder to stand on.

  'Due west,' Gibson shouted in Dick's ear. 'It'll veer, but slowly. We'll make the passage, if it lasts. Then we'll be safe enough.'

  The open Atlantic. Would he ever turn back then? But no man could be asked to risk his ship for the sake of an unwanted passenger.

  Dick found the top of the ladder, made his way down, slowly, being thrown against the rail by each lurch of the ship, staring in fascination as the bows went up, up, as she climbed the ever increasing swell, to hang there for a moment, seeming to be pointing at the sky and attempting to launch herself into space, and then plunging down, down, with a stomach-tumbling force, bowsprit now pointing only at surging green water, and apparently intent on hitting the very bottom of the ocean. Then the seas broke, or the bowsprit plunged in, he could not be sure which, and tons of water landed on the foredeck, with a crash which seemed about to stave the timbers, before roaring aft, bursting into the waist, whipping at the canvas covers for the longboat, flooding the deck, crashing against the foot of the ladder like a wave on a shore, filling his boots and splashing up his breeches to join the rain damp already there.

  But the Cormorant was lifting her bows again, the bowsprit, undamaged, slicing through the heaving sea to aim once more at the sky, the sea itself tumbling over the sides to leave the deck momentarily clear, while all the while the wind increased, from a sough to a whine, from a whine to a scream, and then suddenly to a gigantic roar, a noise which even drowned out memories of the factory, which took away the powers of the mind even as its very force seemed to take away the powers of the body, ripping at the buttons of his coat to send the tails flying, making him gasp for breath, his muscles discovering the ache of a long wrestling match.

  He reached the door to the cabin in the midst of a wave, hung there for a moment with water surging at his thighs, wrenched it open and half fell down the ladder to the floor of the cabin.

  'Aaagh,' screamed the boy. 'Aaagh. We're sinking.'

  'Only a wave,' Dick gasped, grasping the table to pull himself up, and being struck on the side of the head by the lantern swinging from the low deck beams.

  'Oh, God,' said the boy, falling to Ins knees beside Dick. 'Oh, God. Lost, we are, sir. Lost.'

  'You've not been in a storm before?'

  'A gale, sir. Aye. Nothing like this. We're too close to land. Too close, sir. Too close.'

  'Lie down,' Dick recommended, and did so himself, not entirely by design; the Cormorant entered a trough sideways and skidded down before bringing up short. There was a crack which seemed to tear the entire ship from top to bottom, and this was followed by a boom which cut across even the wind, and brought another terrified screech from the boy.

  Dick found himself lying on one of the berths which walled the cabin, pushed himself up again. But his head continued to swing, and now his stomach was threatening to rebel as well. With fear? Certainly he was sweating.

  'What was that noise?' he bawled.

  The boy grovelled on the deck, moaning.

  And now the Cormorant was behaving very oddly, no longer surging to the waves, but rather being slapped, from side to side, each blow shaking the timbers and sending the table creaking, and being followed by water seeping through the deck above his head.

  The door was thrown open, and Captain Gibson fell in, accompanied by half the ocean; water cascaded down the steps and swirled over the cabin floor, hurled back the door to the galley and put out the fire with a gigantic hiss of steam.

  'God,' screamed the boy. 'Help me, oh God.'

  'Shut your trap,' shouted the captain. 'The foremast has gone, Mr Hilton.'

  Dick sat up. 'Will she sink?'

  'I've men cutting it away. We can run. But there'll be no beating. 'Tis a question of how far the wind will go; she's veering all the time.'

  'And how much of this pounding your ship will stand’ Dick said.

  'Aye, well, she's stout enough. I've sent Chips down to sound the well. But you'd best come up again. Lash yourself to the mizzen, sir. There's your best chance.'

  Dick seized the boy under the armpits, pulled him up. 'Come on deck’ he shouted in his ear.

  'Oh, God/ howled the boy. 'Oh, God. Help me, oh, God.'

  'On deck/ Dick screamed, and climbed the companion ladder. The captain had already gone, but the door swung open as he reached the top and another wave burst in, pounding on his chest, clouding on his face, splashing on the floor behind him, and chaining into the bilges. Sound or not, he thought, she'll not take much of that.

  'Please God, help me,' whimpered the boy as he was pushed through the doorway.

  Dick closed the door behind him, stood against it to gasp for breath and to look at the sea. Where it had been big before, now it was huge. The swell seemed taller than the masts, and each swell was topped b
y a rolling, ten-foot-high wall of flying foam. Presumably it was night. The ship carried no lights, but the sky was quite vanished, the clouds seeming to rest almost on the top of the waves themselves, and the rain fell ceaselessly. And then the thunder roared right above him, and the entire universe seemed to split open in searing light which left him blinded, even as the crack of the lightning striking the sea drove the senses from Ins head. He discovered himself in the starboard scupper, looking up and up and up and up at a towering green monster, and realized that the Cormorant would not, indeed, survive. And that he was about to die.

  But not immediately. Water poured over the deck, and the Cormorant seemed to sag, to be struck by another huge wave before she had recovered from the first. For some seconds Dick was submerged, and he lost his breath and inhaled water which left him spluttering and gasping, and eventually vomiting, in the intervals between waves. Hands seized his shoulders and dragged him back into the comparative safety of the hatchway, where several more of the crew were huddled. By now the lightning was continuous, the thunder merging with the howl of the wind and the roar of the seas to make a blanket of sound across the night, across their senses. But he could look up, at the two remaining masts, now quite bare of canvas. They were driving on, carried in the direction of the wind and the current. And the wind had veered. Gibson had said so, how long ago? But no doubt it had veered even more. With luck they might yet make the Windward Passage. With luck.