Uncharted Seas (38 page)

‘Ho, yess! Jus’ yo tellum dissa fella,’ said Li Foo promptly.

‘Good. I want you to go back the way we came for about two miles, until you reach the rising ground that overlooks the village on the opposite side of the valley from here. The high part from which we first caught sight of the village is three-quarters of a mile or a mile from the woods. You are to remain there until you see Sir Deveril and his people coming out of the woods up the slope. You can hardly miss them as there will be the best part of fifty men, and they must cross the bare ground of the crest on their way to the village. The chances are that by the time Sir Deveril arrives we shall either be fighting here—in which case
you’ll be able to see the flash of our arms—or dead; but you’ll know if we have been in action because you’ll hear the sound of our firing quite clearly across the valley. If we have not attacked or been attacked, you are to lead Sir Deveril and his men to us here by the way we came; then we can all act together and surprise the village. If we have already been in action and our firing has ceased you’ll know that we have been killed or captured and Sir Deveril must use his own discretion as to what plan he adopts, but, if we are still fighting when Sir Deveril comes up, this is what I want him to do.

‘He is to send a small party of his men south-east, down into that main maze of hutments you can see there, which is now deserted. The few men that he sends are to set those huts on fire, which should draw off the natives who are attacking us. In the meantime he is to march his main body to the south-west until he reaches the point where we saw the sentry guarding the Marriage House. It is practically undefended so he should be able to take it by a surprise attack and save the women from being butchered out of spite; then he can use it as a rallying-point if the blacks prove too numerous for his men. Once he gets inside it should not be difficult to hold owing to the strong stockade all round it. If he succeeds in capturing the Marriage House without difficulty he is to press on east, straight through the circle where the natives are dancing now towards the place where his small party have set the main group of huts on fire. In that way he should be able to take the natives in the rear while they are trying to save their goods from being burnt. Is that all clear?’

‘Ho yess, Misteh. I tellum. His friens mek plentee fire in devil town but you wantum him come from west-way.’

De Brissac nodded. ‘
Bien
! Off you go. Be as quick as you can but don’t take the least chance of getting caught.’

With a smile Li Foo picked up his rifle, slipped out from the cover of the rocks and disappeared into the shadows thrown by the cliff.

‘They’re are getting pretty het up now,’ said Juhani thoughtfully. ‘God, how I am hating this! Can’t we do something?’

‘I don’t want to fire on them before we’ve got to,’ De Brissac replied. ‘Once we open up, we’ll have to face the whole lot and be prepared to die, literally, with our backs to the wall. There are easily five or six hundred of them and every moment they
remain dancing there means that Deveril is a few yards nearer to us.’

‘But he won’t be here for hours,’ Basil expostulated, ‘and think what the girls must be suffering in anticipation. Once the dance is over you can bet your life those devils will make straight for the compound and the women. We’ll be able to give them something to think about with this machine-gun but, even if we scatter them, we daren’t leave our position here to come out in the open. Some of them’ll murder the girls for certain before Deveril can reach us.’

‘That’s so,’ Luvia declared. ‘Once they stop their dancing we won’t have a hope in hell of getting the women out alive. We’ve got to do something—and that mighty quick.’

‘The only thing for it is to raid the Marriage House while the men are still occupied.’ Basil went on hurriedly. ‘We only saw one sentry on it and they can’t possibly have any idea that a rescue-party has set out. The sentry’s probably there only to see to it that Unity and Synolda don’t escape with the connivance of the other women. Even if there’re a couple of men on guard we ought to be able to tackle them and get inside.’

‘Sure,’ Luvia backed him up. ‘That’s the way it is and that’s what we’re going to do; but you’d best stay here, De Brissac, with the gun, and blow merry hell out of them if there’s trouble.’

‘All right,’ De Brissac agreed. ‘I would come with you willingly were it not that I shall be more use to you here. From this position I can sweep the whole village with my fire; whereas if we all went and took the gun with us it would lose three-quarters of its value. I shall not shoot until I see that your attempt has been discovered or hear it from their cries. You’re almost certain to be killed, but you’re right about it being the one hope now of saving the girls. You must hurry too—if you mean to do it—as the dance will soon be over.’

Leaving their rifles so that they should not be encumbered and taking only their cutlasses and pistols, Basil and Juhani gave De Brissac’s hand a quick clasp and slithered down among the tumbled rocks to follow the path that Li Foo had taken a few moments before. Now that they were freed from their heavy burdens and moving downhill they were able to make rapid going. The beating of the drums and stamping of the earth by the warriors drowned the noise of their footsteps so they had no need to exercise caution during the first part of their journey and were able to trot along side by side.

In five minutes they were back again in the hollow to the south-west of the compound. The solitary sentry had moved to the north-west corner of the stockade, but he was again standing motionless, leaning on his spear.

The two white men sank to their knees directly they saw him and began to crawl cautiously forward. Basil stretched out a hand and halted Juhani. ‘We’d better separate,’ he whispered, ‘and advance on him from opposite sides in the shadow of the palisade. He’s almost certain to hear one of us creeping up on him. Directly he turns to face that one, the other can rush him from behind.

‘O.K.’ muttered Juhani, and he set off to crawl in a semicircle round the solitary Negro, while Basil flattened himself out on his stomach and wriggled straight forward up to the stockade.

It was made of thick tree trunks, so closely set that it was impossible to see between them, and he judged its height to be about ten feet. Each trunk had been sharpened to an ugly point as he could see from the serrated edge against the skyline, and it looked as though it would be a stiff job of work getting over it.

But Napoleon’s phrase, ‘It is time to think of the Vistula when we are over the Rhine’, flashed into his mind. The Negro sentry must be got out of the way first.

Fortunately the moon was in the east so the high paling threw a heavy belt of shadow about two yards wide, and Basil was able to worm his way along with little fear of being seen by anyone who was not keeping a very active watch.

The Negro stood there motionless and silent, about twenty yards from the angle of the compound, staring out dreamily on to the moonlit vale; doubtless cursing his luck that he had been picked upon for this duty, while the others were feasting on the far side of the Marriage House. The wild, excited cries of the native dancers, the rhythmic stamping of their feet, and the rapid tattoo of the drums came clearly, drowning all other sounds, and enabling Basil to get to within ten yards of the sentry unobserved.

Basil saw a deeper patch of blackness that he knew must be Juhani take form at the corner beyond the man. Another yard and his knee caught a stone which clicked sharply against another. The Negro swung round and caught sight of him. He rose swiftly to his feet and drew his cutlass.

The black’s mouth opened and his white teeth gleamed; he was about to yell a warning. His spear lifted and came level with
Basil’s face. Next second there was a sudden scuffling of feet and Juhani leapt upon the man’s back, locking one arm tight round his neck. They went down in a heap together.

There was a short, wild flurry of whirling arms and legs, while Basil stood there, his cutlass raised, but fearing to strike in case his blow caught Juhani.

The two figures on the ground straightened out with a jerk. The Negro gave a queer gurgle. Juhani shook himself free and stood up. ‘I’ve broken his blasted neck,’ he said in a hoarse whisper.

‘Good,’ Basil muttered. ‘Now for the fence.’

Juhani spread out his legs and put his hands against the palisade. ‘Up on my back,’ he panted. ‘Quick!’

Thrusting the cutlass into its sheath, Basil sprang on to Juhani’s broad shoulders, gripped two of the points in the stout palisade and hoisted himself up to them. Luckily the tree trunks were so large that he was able to find a perch between them with one leg on each side of the stockade.

Juhani did not wait to be pulled up. As a sailor he was an expert climber and his height helped him. In one spring he had gripped two of the points of the great stakes and next moment he was perched beside Basil. Without a word they lowered themselves to the ground on the far side.

The Marriage House was a long, low building, forming three sides of a square, and large enough to accommodate at least a couple of hundred people. Lights were burning inside it and the murmur of voices drifted out to them quite distinctly. Evidently the women were waiting there for the visit they knew that the warriors would pay them on this gala night after the dance had been completed. The compound was deserted; its emptiness broken only by a few coarse wood tables and things that appeared to be washing troughs. Very cautiously, crouching a little, Basil and Juhani crept towards the nearest building.

De Brissac watched the open space about the bonfires anxiously. It was nearly a quarter of an hour since his friends had left him. The dance had changed again; the warriors were now formed up thirty deep, in irregular lines, facing the fat old Negro under the canopy. In unison they were chanting some wild song of victory, stamping the earth so furiously that the dust rose in a little cloud half obscuring their lower limbs; the upper portion of their naked bodies glistened with sweat in the light of the flames.

Every few minutes the dancers surged forward, raising their weapons on high and emitting hideous howls as they charged across the open to within a few feet of their chief. They receded again some twenty paces each time, recommenced their chant, and stamped more furiously than ever. De Brissac knew that in a few moments now, at most, the climax would come; a last mock charge when they would halt with their weapons poised, apparently to kill, only a few inches from the watchers’ faces. Instinctively he found himself praying each time a charge was made that it would not be the last, and that the dance would continue yet a little longer, giving time, precious time, to his friends.

Inside the stockade Basil and Juhani crept forward on tiptoe. As they came nearer to the long, low building that formed one side of the open square, they saw that it was raised a few feet from the ground on piles. Every ten yards or so a rickety flight of steps led up to a doorway. Of the four that they could see clearly two were open and two shut, but both of the open ones had curtains of some coarse material hanging across them.

The two men reached the hut and crept along it to the nearest doorway. An irregular, two-inch gap showed between the bottom of the curtain and the floorboards, which were just on a level with Juhani’s chest. Reaching the steps he leant forward and, stooping,
peered under the curtain. A horrible stench of greasy, unwashed human bodies was wafted out into his nostrils, but he scarcely noticed it in his eagerness to find Synolda.

From the loud murmur of sound he judged that the long building consisted of one large room although he could see only a portion of it. Its interior showed a squalor which beggared all description. There were no beds or furniture. The women lay or squatted on filthy, ragged mattresses, from which ends of straw protruded at the seams. Their colour varied from darkish brown to near-white, and they were of every age from children suckling at the breast, to women who looked forty, but might be younger.

He seemed to remember Sir Deveril saying that the Negroes strangled their concubines when they were too old for further service in order to save food. Father Jerome had reported a continual shortage after his brief visit to Satan’s Island and, from the ragged patches of ill-cultivated land Juhani had seen that night, he had already gathered that the Negroes were a lazy, thriftless tribe. Owing to the climate, which was far harsher than that of their native Africa, crops needed more attention and labour to grow, so in the bad seasons such a people would certainly suffer famine.

Some of the women were talking listlessly in low voices; others were sleeping with tattered coverlets drawn round them. As he watched, heavy footfalls sounded on the floor and an enormous, full-blooded Negress with powerful, gorilla-like arms plodded slowly down the centre of the room. In her right hand she grasped a cat-o’-nine-tails; the coffee-coloured women fell silent and shrank away as she walked by; evidently she was some sort of wardress or mistress of the house who kept the concubines in order. Juhani drew back and shook his head conveying dumbly to Basil that the girls were not there.

Easing their way along the side of the building they passed the next door, which was shut, and paused at a farther one which only had a ragged curtain across it. This time the curtain fell to the floor, but it had a large rent in it, about three feet up, and by standing on tiptoe Juhani was easily able to get another glimpse of the big room’s occupants.

Here a little group of the women showed more animation. They formed a small kneeling circle and were chattering shrilly as they played some primitive game of dice. One girl among them was of unusual beauty; a ‘high-yaller’ with blue eyes, light bronze skin, and near-gold hair. She was about nineteen and her lithe figure
had just reached perfection. The greater part of it was exposed to view as, like the rest, she had little on except a soiled and ill-patched shift. The other women looked blowsy and unwholesome beside her. The hair of them all was tousled and their bodies ill-cared-for. In the ten seconds Juhani was staring at the fair girl he saw her pull down the shift from her shoulder and kill a louse.