Song Beneath the Tides

by Beverley Birch

  In such a way we will set a great diversion, and, with the treasure, so tempting a distraction, that they will not think to look at what we do on the distant side of the fort!

  Winda and I have strewn clothes in the gatehouse. In the heat of forcing entry to the fort, and the explosions, they may think we have in error blown ourselves up with the treasure. Only later will they find no bodies there, only the poor souls buried beneath the court, long dead from pestilence and hunger.

  Badru, Rahidi, Saaduma and Jabari have moved the remaining chests of treasure from their hiding place beneath the captain’s house and lowered them through the well, to stow them deep in the cavern above the cave.

  ‘If the town survives these new Arab rulers,’ Jabari said, ‘if we live and it be within our power, we will find ways to tell the townspeople of it hidden there, and how it came there. It may be some recompense for years spent suffering the thievery of your Captain Alvaro and this cursed fort.’

  Already Goma and Neema have taken the children and the food we have left down into the cavern. Badru and Rahidi fashion a way to close the head of the well above us by dropping a stone and setting a fire and small explosions to burn by slow fuse, so to blacken and appear to age the stone and mask our route.

  So may the dusk approach, and as the last light fades, the guns will fire, the gatehouse blow, and we, in the cave, will hold ready for that moment. Thence, in the night’s chaos, to freedom.

  Thunder rumbles, and flocks of birds flee before the coming storm. We must leave this place before it breaks, crossing to refuge among the mangroves. Jabari says we trace the journey of Bwana Fumo and Mwana Zawati, they who first came with their people to this island. Now we travel the self-same course to freedom.

  ‘Our next birthday we will celebrate together in my father’s house,’ he says. ‘For the rest . . .’ He lifts the talisman of the warrior leaders where it hangs still around my neck. ‘For the rest, we trust to the spirits of Fumo and Zawati, and to God, and to your Spirit of Hope, my dear brother.’

  All is now ready. A spiral of black cloud stands like an anvil above the mainland, fired at the base where the sun does battle with it. Waves thunder against the cliff. As the wind rises they boil and pound and suck, and I think of them sucking our poor weak craft into their depths.

  But I must hold fast to Hope. I lift the talisman, and send my prayer for the gift of Life from Her, and know now that She hears it.

  Twenty-four

  Ally tried not to watch Leli. He’d rushed to greet her off the boat.

  ‘Fumo warns us – now he knows we have heard!’ His face eager, excited: ‘You see!’

  He’d taken something from his pocket and held it towards her. She saw it was the little silver medallion Mzee Kitwana gave him. And she was about to ask what he meant, what she should see, but Mosi called, Leli put the medallion into her hand, folded her fingers over it, and then rushed off again.

  Now he was locked in discussion with Mosi over something, she hadn’t the faintest idea what.

  She stood uncertainly. Does he want me to look after the medallion? Is it a secret I’ve got it – will Mzee Kitwana be angry if he sees? It didn’t seem right it was in her hand, it was a gift to Leli. Would she offend Leli if she gave it back? It seemed important to know, and she was stricken by not knowing, by Carole’s words about not understanding.

  And she still hadn’t explained anything to Leli, about how frightened she was for them all, or how angry Carole had made her, about what Carole had said.

  Or about the other fear – from the words on the paper Makena’d given her.

  For perhaps the hundredth time, she took it from her pocket.

  I walk the paths of the forest.

  I seek Hope, a flame of life in the dark.

  In my dream I find Her. In my dream I speak to Her.

  Waiting in the village for the police boat to the island, she’d looked in vain for the archaeologist. How could she just give her this and not explain! Who wrote it? And the real fear, lurking below all that – is it about me in the forest?

  Is any of this weird stuff really happening, in the forest, on the cliff? She couldn’t get out of her head another thought. Maybe I’m a bit mad. Maybe I’m just rolling everything into a scary tangle because of the trouble on Kisiri, and because of Leli – what Carole’s planted in my head, meant to cut me off from him.

  ‘Be sensible, Ally,’ her aunt had said just now, quietly, so no one else could hear. ‘Remember what I said. Please.’ Then just left her on the village shore, and gone to find the Elders.

  Ally didn’t answer, angry.

  In three weeks nothing’ll matter. I’ll be gone again. Home. If I’m inventing things, I can stop.

  But the words on the paper circled in her head, and Makena’s words about ammunition. Ammunition against invaders. What ammunition? What can anyone do?

  She sidestepped a collision with Ben. He was rushing along with Huru and Pili, lugging a heavy basket between them. Others streamed past, answering a warning shout from the cliff. Every minute brought new alarms like this: boats sighted, alerts in case someone was coming to seize the island.

  She shivered, despite the heat. Crossing from the village in the boat, voices, an undersong surged in the tide, fluting echoes, drumbeats on the wind. It all lurked at the edge of her racing mind.

  She tried to steady herself, saying to Koffi, who’d stopped nearby, ‘The inspector said we’ll know something soon! The police are taking Dedan and Collins and Jack to that ravine—’

  Koffi tossed her head, not listening. ‘Yesterday, the ones who want to take Kisiri are trespassers. Tomorrow, they make us trespassers! In our own place! Eh, there is Eshe arriving!’ She launched into a run – Eshe was just reaching the island in a hori, exchanging shouts across the shallows with Leli, being told everything she’d missed.

  Ally turned away. From the hullabaloo in the camp, that she couldn’t understand because she didn’t speak his language; from the helplessness; from Leli. From the horrible distance opening between them.

  She went down, away, through the lines of beached boats, and out on to open sands marked only by the long, looping tracks of the birds.

  Tiny waves curl inwards and cream softly up the beach. The tide is falling; a starfish – fiery orange – lies stranded. She scoops it up gently on a mat of seaweed and lowers it into the next wave. It moves with an exuberant twist into the twirl of water. She waits in case it surges back, needs rescue.

  How still everything is! Hot, still, and ominous. The sea olive green. The litter of shells, coconut husks, mangrove pods, the flaccid hanks of some sea plant heaved up by the tide. Everything stands out so boldly – as if demanding attention.

  A white shell like a miniature skull: a fleeting image: arched trees, a baobab where water booms.

  Near where the cheetah died? She looks for the place, into the high rocks far off, seeing a flock of birds take flight in a vast, undulating crescent, dipping and rising till they dwindle to nothing.

  Looking up like this burns. Tight bands grip her forehead, as if she’s not slept for weeks, her eyeballs like hot coals. Sunstroke, maybe. Dehydration. I should drink something.

  She lifts her hand to shield her eyes and presses the medallion against her forehead, its sudden coolness soothing against the heat of her skin.

  She closes her eyes.

  Without sight, sounds are stark. The rustle of breaking surf; strident cries of the birds; no silence—

  Then in the centre, like a door opening, silence. She feels it like a presence.

  It is. Someone. Speaking. Though no words she understands.

  A boy’s voice. Leli. In relief she opens her eyes. He’s dark in the white blast of the sun.

  ‘Leli!’

  Then sees it isn’t. Gaunt. White-skinned. Dark hair straggles long across his shoulders. Clot
hes hang about him in shreds. Blackened, as if he’s burst through a fire. His eyes hold hers. They lock hers. An extraordinary intensity: she recognizes it as yearning – it fizzes through her like her own need for Leli.

  His lips move. A whisper . . . speranza? He lifts his hand towards her face, towards her eyes.

  But a lance of light blinds her, she blinks against the needle of pain, and he’s gone.

  *

  You. The talisman on your brow, your gaze warm as the sun, Life’s light flowing.

  You see me.

  Hope quickens my blood, bone, heart.

  I am strong,

  Awake.

  Life beckons in the white heat of this coming day.

  *

  She was racing away from him, climbing too fast, clutching with hands when her feet slid back in the mudslides from the storm. He clambered behind and was terrified she would fall and he would not catch her.

  Leli’d turned from greeting Eshe. He’d looked for Ally and seen her standing alone on the beach. Even the angle of her body spoke to him. Something is wrong. She no longer let him see into her eyes. She was looking away from him always, except when the terrible thing of the cheetah happened yesterday.

  Except for once, today, she had seemed to search his face, and it was like a touch that stopped his breath.

  But then she’d closed a door – quietly – as if she didn’t want anyone to hear it closing. And she was going away, the space between them stretching, stretching.

  It is Makena’s paper, he thought.

  It is not Makena’s paper – the new thought entered him like the twist of a little knife. I have caused offence. I have made Ally unhappy.

  How? What have I done?

  He’d halted at the top of the beach, overcome by a cold feeling, and Mzee Kitwana was sitting by a tree, saying something strange. It seemed to be, ‘Your friend asks, Leli – you must find your answer,’ – and something about the eagle. But the old man muttered always to himself, perhaps it was not what he said at all – it is my worries making up stories.

  Then Ally was running to him. She was holding out the disc of Fumo and Zawati that he had given her to keep her safe, and she’d looked back at the sands, then up at the cliff, then back at him, it was a wild, wild look on her face, and it frightened him. She’d said, ‘It’s not just Fumo, Leli! Warnings, like you said, like in the forest, and down there! I can’t explain, Leli! It’s like he’s calling, really, just listen, please, just come, he’s up there, we have to look, we have to, it’s what it all means!’

  ‘Who? Who is calling? What means?’ Studying her face, trying to understand. Mzee Kitwana’s voice again, in his head, ‘Your friend asks, you must find your answer,’ and Fumo, and the dreams.

  He had studied the rockface where she looked, his skin prickling as he saw the fish eagle swoop down, and vanish.

  The storm has brought down a tree. Roots have wrenched off a chunk of the cliff. The torrent of rain has done the rest, a slew of mud and stones barring Ally’s path.

  There’s a distant call. Lumbwi above, on lookout, waving.

  Below, climbing fast behind her, Leli’s answer echoes.

  She turns along a ridge. It steepens to her right, sharp and rocky.

  Swirls, flickers on the cliff above.

  Flames.

  Burning.

  Heatstroke, tricks of light, blinding.

  No. The boy’s voice stays with her. His word: speranza? Speransa? She can barely remember, except its urgency.

  There’s a turret of rock, she has a prickle of memory, of looking up and seeing a bird looking down, a twist of tree above.

  She struggles up a gully towards it. Pebbles dislodge with a dull rattle.

  Out of sight of the camp here, among scattered trees.

  Is it here – the thunder of water in the cave we heard before? She listens.

  A hush descends, a cocoon around her. Her own breathing, deafening.

  A tremor in the ground. Twigs snap. She whirls, sees a shimmer of movement, steps towards it, the earth seems to shunt aside and she slips, slithers, skids, scrabbles for a hold, hits a nobble of rock. Jerks to a stop, painfully.

  Swings there, one-handed.

  Soil scrapes her cheek. Threaded with roots.

  In a hole. Not dark, not far down.

  She tries not to panic. Think. Think. Feels for a toehold. Nothing. She can just brace herself, one foot, then the other, pressed on each side, teetering.

  A downward glance. The hole doesn’t seem to go any deeper, and the soil trickling has stopped. She’s covered in the fine reddish stickiness of it, in her nose and mouth, she can taste it on her tongue – she’s had her mouth open in a yell. She clamps it shut.

  Gingerly, holding tight to the nobble of rock, she ventures her foot on the mush at the bottom of the hole. Tests it.

  With a soft, tearing sound it drops away and the world fills with a low rumbling, then a louder creaking, then a crashing avalanche of noise and she’s toppling, one hand clutching the rock, the other flailing for a hold – the medallion spinning wildly from her grasp.

  She hangs, swinging, above a gaping hole that goes down and down and down. Rocks and bits of tree tumble and bump past, following the medallion down, how far she can’t see, doesn’t look, because if she does she’ll go faint and lose her precarious, slipping grasp on the rock.

  Leli hurled himself forward as the ground dropped away and took Ally.

  He lay, gathering his wits. He tingled with shock. When the world steadied, he was on a ledge bound to the cliff by the roots of a baobab still stubbornly upright.

  He grasped a looping root to anchor himself firmly.

  ‘Ally?’ His call sounded pale, frail. He took a deep breath to send his voice further: ‘Ally! Ally!’ and with a flooding relief so complete it almost paralysed him, heard her answer.

  He edged forward. He dared to peep into the hole. She was beyond reach, dangling precariously by one hand. Below, a sheer drop into gloom.

  Her face turned up to him, white with terror through its coating of smeared mud.

  He heard the ululating cries from the fishermen on lookout, knew they were coming. But the rock she’d grasped was tipping, any moment would come loose from the soil and she’d plunge.

  ‘Hold, hold!’ he urged frantically, and swung his feet round to hook them into the baobab root. He tested his weight. He released his hands and unfolded his body again.

  He slithered over the rim of the hole, head down, arms reaching.

  Her eyes shot wide in alarm. ‘Don’t, don’t, Leli! You’ll fall!’

  He locked his eyes on hers. He willed her to keep firm. Reached for her outstretched free hand, missed. Edged a little further, reached again, and again. Felt her fingertips. He stretched till he was coming apart. She gave a little twist and a lurch towards him and he grabbed and caught and held, feeling their hands slipping, sweat made them slippery, mud made them slippery, blood pounded in his head, arms throbbed, eyes glued to hers, if he let go with his eyes she’d fall, only the eyes mattered, his eyes and hers, his life and hers, fused. Cramp in his legs dulled, the wrenching pains – arms, feet chained in the roots, numbed.

  He heard cries; twigs snapping, rustling. He was dimly aware when arms reached past and her weight was suddenly not his to carry. When a rope passed round his body and tightened, and someone unpeeled him from his tangle with her hands, with the tree, turned him the right way up, cleared the soil from his upside-down face.

  He was promptly, violently, sick.

  Twenty-five

  They sat on the bank, shivering despite the heat. She gave him a quivery smile. ‘I heard . . . saw . . . someone – really – I did – near me on the cliff!’

  ‘Ghosts!’ he said with a little laugh. ‘You, me, ghosts, ghosts of Kisiri!’ He was light-head
ed, immensely happy, everything else had gone away. He was anchored firmly in somewhere very calm and very warm. He could stay here for ever, just sitting and being safe with Ally. Just Ally. He wanted to wrap his arms round her, fold all of himself round her, to make sure. But he just smiled and smiled into her face, and she gave him that look, deep-eyed and dark in the blue of her eyes, the look that left him without breath.

  He said, after a minute, because all other words vanished, ‘Mzee Kitwana will not mind.’ He meant the loss of Fumo and Zawati’s disc. ‘He will care that it has kept you safe. He will be happy. Now we stay still.’ The lookouts, Lumbwi, his father, Jela, would not let them move till the route to descend to the camp was judged safe. More rock might fall: chunks were dropping away from the collapsed cliff now as the sun dried exposed slabs. Lumbwi and his father had gone back to fetch ropes . . .

  I am the stupid one! Leli thought. To let her climb when the storm makes everything loose. Lumbwi told how lucky she was. A miracle Leli reached her, just in time, Lumbwi said. A miracle Leli held her till they could reach him!

  He leaned a little to look into the hole, at where she might have plunged. Ally leaned too: the warmth of her against him was a glow on his skin, and he was drifting into thinking about that when he heard her make a small, startled sound. Her gaze was fixed on something – the rock she’d gripped with her hand. It was picked out by the strong shaft of the sun. More soil had seeped away. The rock was bared. It was balanced on another. A flat thing. A platform. And another thing was above, smooth – like a cut shape.

  Cut! Fat, smooth, round. And poking out of the mud behind like the mast of a ship half-sunk, a cross shape. In the hard shadows, marks showed . . .

  Carved marks. Other shapes were emerging from the dribbling soil. Marks on them too.

  Words. Words cut in stone.

  He said, in sharp, stark recognition, ‘Like Ulima Fort – Teacher showed us in a book!’

  ‘Fort?’ Ally stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘Like a Portuguese fort?’