Song Beneath the Tides

by Beverley Birch

  Leli led them along the cliff towards the forest. In places the coral rim had crumbled and lush foliage hid treacherous crevices. It was even harder going as they turned inland, away from the water. Ally felt her way with feet and hands, shouldering through creepers that hung in dense curtains and sifted the light to a green twilight gloom. And Leli moved fast, Ben and Huru tracking close behind. Not a single private moment to tell him about the strange things happening to her again.

  She was suddenly stranded, alone, in a stomach-fluttering foreboding. Every one of her senses was on red alert for the next weird happening, and when it came, she stopped so abruptly that Jack bumped hard into her.

  ‘What’s that?’ she hissed.

  A booming noise, deep below them. The ground almost drummed. To her relief, Jack heard it too.

  ‘Echo? Waves?’

  Sudden scrabbling above her head; foliage shivered. She met the hard stare of a gekko, throat palpitating. Waited, almost holding her breath.

  Nothing else.

  They went on cautiously, and for some minutes the noise stayed with them, a slow, steady drumbeat that to Ally’s ears was more and more threatening the more muffled it became, here, out of sight of the water, cocooned by the web of trees.

  The ground levelled off. Leli and Huru turned onto a narrow track and walked briskly along.

  Trees thinned; needles of light warmed the gloom. A glimpse of greater brightness ahead. Leli speeded up, entered a sunlit clearing, turned, welcoming them in.

  Purple flowers, long silky grass, butterflies in a yellow-white cloud above a tumble of bushes, a great pillar of rough black rock.

  ‘It’s here?’ She meant Fumo and Zawati’s place. She had a vision of them lying side by side underneath her. She felt compelled to whisper.

  Leli was staring past her. She turned to look.

  Clods of earth and grass, wrenched up, bushes flattened, branches splintered. Churned mud smeared the great rock of the warriors.

  Leli felt it like a punch in his chest.

  A long, hissing breath between clenched teeth came from Huru.

  ‘Is it this place that’s like a special graveyard or something?’ Ben asked shrilly. ‘Someone’s messed it all up!’

  Fumo, Zawati. Fumo, Zawati, drummed in Leli’s head. This place of their sleep. This place of their peace. Fumo’s warning! Fumo’s warning!

  He felt a touch on his arm: Ally – pointing at the path of devastation thrusting down through the trees towards the shore.

  Anger was like a fist in his chest, strangling words.

  Near the water, something had gouged long furrows in damp sand.

  ‘It is something heavy, dragged,’ Huru said. ‘Two things, maybe.’

  Ally trudged through the soft sand along the line of them sloping up the shore. ‘Lots of footprints here.’

  From the top of the shore, Ben yelled.

  ‘Look, more marks!’ he told them with an air of importance, pointing. Another deep drag-groove merged into churned sand.

  Ally’s stomach heaved. She’d caught a stale, sour smell. Rancid. Sick-making. She’d smelt that before: one holiday, stumbling across a dead sheep, torn apart, half-eaten, on a hill in Wales.

  The stench was there for a second, then gone, replaced by the salt-sea, seaweed, damp sands.

  But among Kisiri’s trees now, somewhere very near her, flies whined and buzzed, a fizzing, frantic, angry roar.

  Fifteen

  Leli fretted. For several minutes Mzee Shaibu had not said a word. He looked at the ground. His face told nothing. Was he listening, even?

  ‘Mzee, they destroy Bwana Fumo and Mwana Zawati’s place!’ insisted Leli. ‘The air is sick! There are dead things somewhere . . .’

  ‘Nothing destroys Bwana Fumo and Mwana Zawati’s place, Leli. It is strong in our hearts—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Be still, Leli. I am thinking.’

  It struck Leli that the lines and shadows of the old man’s face had deepened. He had stooped to pass through the low door of his house, but now in his yard he was still bent at the shoulders. Suddenly he looked worn, smaller than Leli had ever seen him before.

  A feeling rippled through Leli, like fear. If Mzee Shaibu does not know what to do, who will?

  A further minute passed; Leli could barely contain himself. Huru fidgeted impatiently beside him. Then the Mzee said quietly, ‘And you have just come from there? The English friends saw this damage too?’

  ‘Yes, yes, we saw and we come to you straight away now, now, just now leaving the boat!’

  A decisive thump of Mzee Shaibu’s stick on the ground and he straightened to his full height. ‘Huru, you will go to Saka. If his foot is well enough, he may take us to Kisiri now, no need to wait for others to return from the fishing. Leli, you will come too.’

  They needed no second instruction. ‘Remember, Leli,’ he called after him, ‘it is not what these people have done now that matters, but what it tells us they may do in days to come. We do not look for punishment. That is a short victory, and it does not taste good. Victory will be if we keep our Kisiri and our Shanza safe for all of us.’

  Ally sat astride the roof parapet and gazed out over the forest. In the windless afternoon it was hushed, weighted by a shimmering yellow heat haze that wrapped the house too. So did that sick-making stench she’d smelt on Kisiri. Memory of it had travelled with her since, stickily coating everything, seeming to infect the air even here, two miles from the island.

  Is someone dead on the island?

  And Leli’s distress – edged with a kind of anger. Is he angry with me too, with all outsiders? If only he’d come to the house, now, so we can talk about it!

  She felt helpless, just going with Jack and Ben to pack up the tent and come back to the house.

  There’d be all the debates in the village. He’d be deep in all of that. Not thinking of me. Why would he? Why should he?

  Fretfully, her eyes found focus on trees at the forest edge. Paler strokes against deeper gloom. A flicker of colour. Fusing, as she looked more carefully, to the shape of a person.

  Her stomach lurched.

  A person stepping out. Waving. With relief so overwhelming she felt silly, she recognized the archaeologist, Makena.

  ‘Miss Curious Ally!’ Makena called, walking quickly and arriving below the house. ‘I may ascend and view the world?’

  ‘Steps round the front.’ Ally pointed the way, grateful for the prospect of company.

  Makena leapt up them, two at a time, exuberantly flinging her arms wide, revolving to take in the scene on all sides. ‘Magnificent vistas!’ She followed the perimeter of the roof. ‘Excellent site for a fort!’

  ‘Oh! Was there one here?’ Ally leaned over the wall to see where Makena was looking.

  ‘Ah, well, some old Portuguese forts have never been found – records name them, but locations are very confused. Maps of that time left much to be desired! But no sign of anything here for us to uncover. Pity, eh? To make such an adventure would be a wonder, I think!’

  ‘Mzee Kitwana in Shanza said there’s a story about an island fort—’

  ‘Oh, Mzee Kitwana has many stories. I am glad you are listening to them! I should live in Shanza to hear them all!’ Makena settled herself on the wall with a long view towards Kisiri. ‘But it is not just a story. Five years ago a storm washed away soil from a hill. Underneath was the gate of a big stone building. It was on a land sticking out into the sea, fifty miles south of here. They learned it was an island once, even in the memory of one very old man still living! Sandbanks shifted and joined it to the mainland. We think that is all that is left of the island fort of the story. But, who knows, really? So many mysteries! For example, the rock below this house was once bombarded by Portuguese cannons. Why? What was here? Why would the invaders attack it? One day, I t
ell you, I will look carefully. In fact, Miss Curious, there is an interesting story – you will like it. Ninety years ago, the English Chief Fisheries Officer built this house, when this country was a colony of Britain. That is why people call it the Old Fisheries House, you see. He died here, very old, sixty years ago. In his last years he collected local people’s stories, faithfully writing everything in his diary, perhaps a little mad, living here alone, scribbling. Everyone with a tale to tell visited him! But here’s the thing: he wrote how one night he woke because the house was trembling. He recognized the sound of guns; he felt pounding, as if the cliff jumped—’

  Ally’s gaze, aimed at the headland and the sea as she listened, snapped to Makena’s face. The cliff jumped? Like that jolting on Kisiri?

  Makena saw her surprise. ‘Strange eh? But here is the most strange thing. He went with his house-servant next morning, and in the coral they found a cannon ball embedded, deep. Then a second nearby. People said the old man had seen them before and forgotten! But who knows! His diary is in Ulima Museum, and the cannon balls, four hundred years old.’

  Rapidly Ally sifted thoughts. ‘Could old Shanza be somewhere near? I mean the one that Fumo and Zawati built?’

  ‘Ah, the great new city in the forest. Perhaps it is there! Or perhaps there never was an old Shanza! Perhaps it is the city of all peoples who fought the invaders, rolled into one legend. Shanza claims the story, but it has different forms in different places.’ Then, more to herself than to Ally, ‘Sad that the towns were so busy quarrelling with each other, they did not link arms to fight the common danger. Often so, yes?’

  This last was unmistakably directed at Ally.

  ‘I . . . never thought about it,’ Ally said.

  ‘So, think about it now! We say: sticks in a bundle do not break. What do you think Fumo and Zawati’s story is about?’

  ‘Oh! . . . Not giving in? Fighting bad things?’

  ‘Yes, yes. And also more. The power of unity and foresight and intelligence among ordinary people – women, men, children – against enemies that seem so strong you think they are unbeatable. But they can be beaten if people join together with common purpose. The people survived. The spirit of the people survived. Rebirth, in a new city.’ Makena sighed, elaborately. ‘In truth, all the cities fell to the Portuguese greed. Their stories are only partly told – not much trace found in the land. Here and there little somethings come to light to make us look harder . . . I think, sometimes you feel the spirit of places, though my friend, the policeman Rutere, tells me I am a little mad!’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if there was something in the forest here,’ Ally said, ‘it’s strange. Kisiri too.’

  ‘Well, Kisiri – in times past, a burial ground! A place of final peace and sanctuary. You have instinct for these things? You have gift of foresight? Like our Zawati?’

  She didn’t seem to be teasing.

  ‘Just . . .’ Ally hesitated, then plunged, ‘You’ll think I’m being silly . . . But, well, bits feel really strange . . . it’s frightening—’

  ‘And this is different from the strangers on Kisiri who are worrying our friends in Shanza?’

  ‘When we were walking round it, one time it felt like someone was right beside me, talking to me, but there was no one there. And it happened again on the cliff! I know it’s stupid . . .’

  Makena was listening. Intently. Ally became bolder. ‘And last night we saw canoes, you know, the kind they call hori, there, out on the water – not just me, my friend Leli saw them first, then – gone! Like, there – not there!’

  Makena sat tilting her head a little as if assessing the idea from all angles. Then she gave a start and looked at her watch. ‘Oh, oh, I am to take tea with Mzee Kitwana!’ She held out her hand and shook Ally’s energetically. ‘But I am thinking now that there is an interesting something I would like you to read. Very, very interesting! A friend in Portugal sent it to me. I will bring it when I come to Shanza again. I will look for you tomorrow and show you. I am eager to know what you think! But now I go. For now, please greet your auntie for me.’

  At the bottom of the roof steps, she stopped and looked up at Ally. ‘I forgot to ask – you were here when the visitors came looking for your aunt a few days ago?’

  ‘Yes, and we don’t know what they wanted.’

  ‘I make a guess. They want this land, and I am thinking they will try to be very unpleasantly persuasive.’ Makena clicked her tongue, frowning, muttering now to herself. ‘New footsteps, haunting the old.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ally said. The phrase chilled her.

  Makena focused on her. ‘Invaders, Ally! Have we not been talking about them? Invaders, old, and now new!’ She swung on her heel at the growl of Carole’s car nearing. ‘I think I will talk quickly to your auntie – she must be on guard, I think. Everyone must be On Guard!’

  sixth day

  vultures

  Sixteen

  Diogo and four others take this Watch. A canopy of cloud overhangs and Chane says the monsoon they call Kusi comes upon us early from the south. But it will bring no ships from Portugal to rescue us, for they have abandoned us.

  We station one on each bastion, for the last four hours myself one of these. Pain in my bones fades. No fever. In two hours I will patrol again, and Jabari with me. Through all the hours of last night, every man and woman watched, for the food brought by Jabari and his friends gives such strength! The heartbeat of freedom comes with them. We had forgotten!

  The merchant brothers from Mwitu, Badru and Rahidi, consider our defences, talk rapidly in their language with Saaduma, Omar, Chane, Winda, Goma. Prince Jabari roams the walls, restless as a caged lion. He observes our enemies’ encampment across the water, below the mainland town.

  I question him. ‘Why do they hold back? Why do they not attack to take the fort? Do they wait for us to die, or is some other plan afoot?’

  He studies the enemies’ small craft moving across the bay and does not answer. Last night we watched them ever circling, beyond range of our guns, low-slung shadows, unlit, sliding silent on black water.

  At last, he says, ‘I cannot imagine the terrors of these months, my brother. Nor of the time before. Even in Mwitu, before we knew of the siege, people talked of the savagery and greed of your captain and his soldiers. Tell me the course of things. All. From first your besiegers’ ships were seen.’

  I drag the memories up, and am sick with horrors.

  I write it here, as I told it to Jabari.

  Seven months ago, it began. Those Arab ships from distant Oman swept down on the north-east monsoon and turned their guns on us.

  We fired to stop their ships entering the channel between this island and the mainland town. Our shots fell short. Daily they taunted, holding their vessels beyond reach of our cannon; with cannon fire they raked the waters if we tried to reach our ships. Twenty men died of that alone. Four ships’ boats sank beneath their volleys.

  No need for them to turn their guns first on the mainland town to gain shelter along its shores, for the town opened arms to them as saviours from our evil. Weeks before, our captain, Dom Alvaro, had the town’s king and council flogged near to death for slowness in paying taxes to him. He seized the town’s ships and stole the cargos.

  Five months ago, during darkness, the enemy cut the anchor cables of our ships. Helplessly we saw our vessels drift towards the mainland, triumphantly seized to swell the enemy fleet.

  By night they crept onto the island and fired the houses outside the fort. They poisoned the wells, captured the last cannons outside the walls, put our own guns on ships and shores, and turned them against us.

  We drew the families of the island natives, slaves and free, inside the fort. Outside, rats overran the blackened ruins, taking food stores not consumed by fire. Inside, our food stores dwindled.

  They might have lasted months,
but for Dom Alvaro’s squandering. If he had listened to my father, half the dead might live and starvation never open the door to fever. Our own hands brought this death into our midst! Pestilence entered with supplies smuggled from Zanzibar. Five or six died every day; my father’s skills could do nothing.

  How the dead cluster round me, moving my pen!

  Unrest brewed among the soldiers when Alvaro had the fever’s first victims thrown into the ditch below our walls. It was, he said, to scare the enemy from coming closer. But the corpse-stench hung on the air and my father warned the disease would corrupt the wind.

  Last night, it was the Muslims Saaduma and Winda who risked their lives to save us by bringing fish. But not two months since, three Muslim slaves tried to escape this siege, and with his own hand, Dom Alvaro slit their throats.

  He ordered the statue of St Antonio, dressed in soldiers’ clothes, to be placed on the parapet to defy the enemy. In the night it leapt into the ditch to join the corpses: some said it was a sign that God himself forsook us, and there was mutiny.

  Alvaro hanged the leaders and left their bodies rotting before the chapel. Only Fernando and my father dared to cut them down and bury them with prayers. Alvaro dare not punish my father, the only physician in the fort. Or Fernando, for there was love for him among the garrison – Portuguese, Muslim and Native alike – for his small kindnesses to so many on this blighted island.

  *

  I relive that morning – the frigate Santa Theresa arriving from Portugal and anchoring in the outer roadsteads. With such eager hearts we awaited help from our countrymen aboard!

  None came. No food. No medicines. No challenge to the enemy flaunting their ships and daring anyone to come near the island.

  In darkness, we launched a rowing boat to the frigate, but our messenger was turned away for terror of the fever, fired on by the enemy and fell into the water sore wounded. He reached the fort and died hours later. We saw the frigate’s sails fill and the Santa Theresa move on the winds, taking the last of our hope with her.