With nightfall people began to congregate outside Neema’s hut. Mats had been spread and there was a good fire. Neema sat at the entrance, the baby in her lap, greeting the visitors as they arrived with their gifts and good wishes. She had been busy with preparations since the closing of the Palaver that morning, sweeping out the hut and the space all around, cooking, tending the fire, pausing only to give milk to the baby. At the approach of the dark she had stopped and gone to dress herself in her best, then taken up her position here. The results of all this labour lay spread on a litter of sea-grape leaves. Calley’s eyes glistened at the sight and the lean Sullivan invoked the saints. There were pieces of boiled fish, kebabs of venison on cane spits, a sweet dough made from acorn meal and dried coco plum. Various people had made contributions. Tabakali, a friend and near neighbour, had made koonti cakes for the occasion; the day before, Danka, most accomplished of hunters, who had a friendship for Tiamoko in spite of conflicting trade interests, had brought a big turkey which he had stalked and shot on the edges of the cypress swamp; the unpredictable and taciturn Hughes surprised everyone by presenting a wild honeycomb and then leaving almost immediately. Children of various ages moved among the guests, round-eyed with excitement at so many voices, the leaping of the fire, the display of food. Tiamoko and Cavana, both a little drunk by this time, gave out the beer. It was Neema’s first boy and they had used up their entire stock of wild grain to brew enough beer for the party.
By the time Paris arrived things were in full swing. Fortified with beer, Sullivan had already given the company a couple of reels on his fiddle. He had now been joined by Sefadu with a cane flute limited in range but piercing in sound and by Danka with a finger drum made of deerskin stretched over a hollowed-out section of black gum tree. These three had performed at similar gatherings before and varied in their effects from a loud and cheerful dissonance to occasional wild harmony.
Paris went up to Neema and laid his gift on the ground before her, beside the others. He had not much skill in making things, but during the summer he had discovered a variety of sapodilla tree and had collected a number of the seeds with a view to planting them in the spring. They were like flattened beans in appearance and glossy black. He had strung some of them on plaited palm fibre to make an unusual, and distinctly handsome, neckband. ‘Dis for de boy when he fiddle old pas’ now,’ he said. ‘I wish he live long time for you.’
He looked down at the baby, which returned his gaze with singular intensity. Its eyelids were polished and shiny, as if by some gently frictive agency of the air; they were tiny – the narrowest of rims for eyes so amazingly lustrous that they seemed to take up all the face. The hands were the only other visible part. Paris had seen a good many babies in his time, but the perfection of the hands moved him always. In the light of the fire he could see the paler webs at the base of the fingers and the tiny pink cracks of the knuckles as the baby gripped the edge of its blanket with the oddly fussy, faintly spasmodic clutch that marks the very young.
‘What name you give him?’ Only now could this be asked: it was never divulged until the evening of the naming, for fear of the ill-fortune that could so easily come from premature and presumptuous mention of a name.
‘Him name Kavamoko.’ Neema smiled. She was happy. She knew she made a good appearance in her shell necklace and blue cotton wrap; the baby had been much admired and the party was going well. She nodded in the direction of her two men. ‘Dey two give him half piece one name half piece adder,’ she said indulgently.
Her eyes were as bright as the baby’s and Paris saw the reflection of the firelight move in them. Some touch of awe came to his mind. The seated woman, prepared and composed, the simple thatch behind her, the gifts before her on the swept earth, the regard of the baby that seemed full of some precocious knowledge … ‘I wish he live long an’ happy for you,’ he said.
‘Dis de fust man pikin,’ she said. ‘Dey two give de name.’
‘It a very good name,’ Paris said.
As he spoke the music ceased and Cavana stepped forward holding his battered pewter tankard, once the possession of the dead gunner, Johnson. Tiamoko meanwhile was making sure that everyone had enough beer to drink the impending toast. In his troubled preoccupation of earlier, Paris had forgotten a cardinal point of etiquette, which was to bring one’s own drinking vessel on occasions of this kind; now there was found for him one of the pumpkin calabashes held in reserve for the forgetful and for people like Calley, whose personal possessions did not extend even thus far.
‘De boy name Kavamoko,’ Cavana said, when silence among the guests had been achieved. ‘Dat de name we give him, dat de name he keep.’
This had been said very seriously: it was the official naming. Now Cavana paused, as if in search of some flourish of rhetoric. His face for the moment was sombre, dark red in the firelight. Suddenly he broke into a broad smile and raised his tankard. ‘We drink him health an’ happy an’ good long life,’ he said.
All the people present echoed this and drank. The orchestra struck up again with renewed vigour. Paris glanced round. As always, he looked first for Tabakali in order to know that she was there, and well. She was standing with Sallian and Dinka, tall and very beautiful to Paris with her smile and the proud movements of her head. He saw some of the parties to that morning’s dispute mingling together without apparent animosity. Hambo and Iboti and Billy were standing together in the same group. Kireku had at least deigned to make an appearance, though he kept apart, Barton as usual at his elbow.
Paris drank and felt the sourish beer spread a warmth within him. His mood lightened. He found hope in this enclave of firelight and mingling voices and din of music – a hope that was inveterate, perhaps ultimately beyond defeat, tenacious enough in any case to acknowledge that only the surrounding darkness conferred unity upon them. An accident then, perhaps; but they had met here together to celebrate the appearance of a new life; and that, surely, was also to affirm a future in which new life could grow without stunting …
Heated with his efforts, Sullivan laid down his fiddle and went to replenish his can. This brought him up close to Billy Blair, who was about the same business. Billy was in the best of moods, but he had drunk enough to make him slightly abrasive and Sullivan, to whom he was very attached, always roused his spirit of satire.
‘What fettle?’ he said. ‘ ’Tis a funny thing, but you havna’ changed one iota, Michael. Still scrapin’ away, just as you was doin’ in that whorehouse in Liverpool, the neet you an’ me come alongside all them years ago.’
Sullivan detected at once the note of disrespect for his music, but he was not much put out by it; he was in a particularly exuberant frame of mind this evening, due in part to the beer, but mainly to the encouraging glances he had been getting from Koudi, whom he had always thought a fine woman, despite the aura of misfortune that hung about her. She was young too, not so many years older than Dinka. He had been playing with particular feeling tonight for her sake and he felt that she had understood this and would not be averse to a man like himself appearing on the doorstep.
‘Aye, bejabbers,’ he said, ‘you are right, Billy, an’ to think of it, I would niver have come here at all, if it hadn’t been for you walkin’ in that night, full of boastin’ an’ vainglory. You haven’t changed neether, Billy, all these years in the wilderness, an’ still full of yourself.’
‘Lucky for you, bonny lad, that I come in that neet,’ Billy said. ‘You was on a downhill path. I saved you from yourself.’
‘Oh aye, very lucky,’ Sullivan said with deep sarcasm. ‘I might have been livin’ in a grand house by now, with silver buckles to me shoes an’ lace to me cuffs an’ drinkin’ brandy from a crystal glass stead of beer from a ship’s cannikin.’
‘You would ha’ been dead o’ drink or clap or both by this time,’ Billy said. ‘You didna’ look set on a prosperous career when I sighted you hove short in that poxy tavern.’
‘The trouble with you, Billy,’ Sullivan said, ‘an’ it is the same trouble as affected you in them days, I remember makin’ a mental note of it at the time, you are not a truly travelled man, in the best sense of that word, you are not acquainted with the usages of society. If you was, you would know without needin’ to be told that all doors are open to the artist.’ He caught Koudi’s eye and smiled at her and raised his cannikin. ‘Never mind, shipmate, you cannot help it,’ he said, ‘I drink your health in spite of shortcomin’s.’
Billy returned the health and drank, but the blood had come with a rush to his head at this condescension. Like practically everyone else he had heard by now of Sullivan’s failed attempt on Dinka. He had thought to say nothing of it, as taking advantage of a man who was down; but the other’s unabashed and unrepentant air destroyed his resolution in a moment. ‘All doors open to the artist, are they?’ he said. ‘They wasn’t open to you last night, was they, doors nor legs?’
‘You have lost me, Billy. What legs is that?’ They had turned back now towards the fire and Sullivan was making to where he had left his fiddle.
‘Dinka’s door wasn’t open to you, by what I hear. While you was exercisin’ yor elber outside, Sefadu was exercisin’ sommat else indoors.’
Sullivan opened his eyes wide. ‘What?’ he said. ‘You’ll niver believe I was tryin’ to intrude meself? Is that what they are sayin’? Holy Mary! I was givin’ the young couple a love-song.’ Suddenly he noticed the majestic bulk of Sallian close by and realized she could hear them. ‘You got de story all foul up,’ he said, raising his voice a little. ‘I give de couple love-song, give dem music make de fust night sweet for dem. I music man dis place. You no tink man ken give something, ask nottin’ back? I real sorry for you, Billy. Look what Sallian do for you, she ask nottin’ back. Dat one good woman. All dese year she cook for you an’ Inchebe, she niver shut you out.’
Billy too had now realized the proximity of Sallian. ‘Dat trut’,’ he said hastily. ‘She good woman pas’ anyone. Inchebe an’ me, we sabee dat good.’
‘You sabee dat good?’ Sallian broke in, her broad, good-humoured face as severe as it could ever possibly be. ‘You sabee dat so good, mebbe you sabee dat dere no nyam in de house for eat tomorrow cept dry corn an’ koonti, no meat, no fish. You drink plenty beer, talk plenty fine. Inchebe altagedder same-same. You tink I feed two man six pikin koonti mush an’ squirrel-tail?’
This public complaint stung Billy’s pride. ‘Why you say dis now, middle de bleddy neet? Dat jus’ like a woman, she wait de time man happy drink some beer den she say hum-hum, go find nyam in de dark.’
‘Fish in de creek, dey no die when dark come,’ Tabakali said, joining in on Sallian’s behalf. The slighting reference to women had not pleased her.
Faced with this formidable combination, Billy glanced round for Inchebe, but he was too far away to be of any help. He drew himself up. ‘Right den,’ he said. ‘Me an’ Inchebe, we go out catch fish soon de party finish.’
‘Head full of beer, you no catch nottin’,’ Sallian said scornfully. ‘Catch fall on you face.’ She smiled in spite of herself and her body shook a little. Billy often made her laugh, though he rarely knew precisely why; it was one of the things that had kept her tenderly disposed towards him over the years. ‘Catch paka bite you ball,’ she said, still laughing. She did not believe that he would go.
But Billy was on his dignity now. ‘You go see,’ he said. ‘Billy Blair, him word him bond. Say do one ting, he do dat ting. Inchebe altagedder same-same.’ He moved away in good order, turning short on Sullivan when he was out of range. ‘See what you done? Now I got to go out fishin’ in the middle o’ the bleddy neet.’
Sullivan appeared unmoved. ‘Ah, what we do for the ladies,’ he said. ‘But then, where would we be without ’em, Billy, tell me that. There is one here tonight that sees me worth.’
‘She needs glasses then,’ said the exasperated Billy. ‘Michael, I make you out to be round forty-four years old. You’ve got precious little to offer, a rabbit now and then, a few rows o’ pompions and pumpkins, a basket o’ clams. You’ll never get a young ’un now, not with all these lads comin’ up.’
Sullivan smiled and shook his head. ‘You are forgettin’ one thing, Billy.’
‘An’ what may that be?’
‘You are forgettin’ the power of music.’
The sound of the music carried far through the night. Occasional strains came to the ears of Erasmus Kemp as he advanced cautiously in the faint moonlight, with Nipke and the Creek scouts leading the way and the labouring troops strung out behind. Guessing that some sort of celebration was in progress – and thankful for it as reducing the vigilance of those he was seeking – he asked Cochrane to order a halt. It was his idea to encircle the settlement while everyone was sleeping and attack in the early morning before they had time to make any resistance. Surprise was the essence of this plan; they must be taken before they could scatter and run – once in the bush they would be impossible to capture; he had no resources for pursuit, and the troops would be vulnerable in the extreme to ambush and harassment. Everything, then, depended on this dawn attack. If successful, there need be little bloodshed, the whole population could be disarmed and bound and brought to where the boats had been left. With luck they could all be at sea again by the evening of next day, on the way to St Augustine.
So Erasmus reviewed his plans, while the troops crouched waiting, straggled over a low outcrop of limestone which was the driest land they could find. They were newly arrived from England, mainly country boys from Wiltshire, weary and dispirited now after long hours of struggling through this unfamiliar and difficult terrain, alternately scrambling and wading, burdened with musket and pack, dragging the high-wheeled cannon behind them. It had not occurred to their superiors that the hot, close-fitting, conspicuous tunics might be in any way unsuitable for an expedition of this kind. They had had to be disembarked the night before under cover of darkness and had spent the whole of the following day lying concealed, waiting for nightfall. Two men were already disabled, one bitten by a cotton-mouth snake, the other with a broken collar-bone from falling down a pothole in the limestone ridge.
None of this affected the issue and so it was not of much concern to Erasmus. He was close to his quarry now. It was not weariness he found himself having to contend with, but a tearing impatience. For a good hour after the music had ceased he governed himself to remain there, on this rocky strand, with the misty exhalations of the marsh rising all round, weirdly shot with moonlight, vicious with mosquitoes, echoing occasionally with loud percussive sounds, like metal striking stone, produced, so Nipke had told him, by the jaws of infant alligators snapping at frogs and crayfish in the shallow water. When he was sure that all was silent ahead of him, he informed Lieutenant Cochrane that he was ready to proceed.
By the time this order was given Billy and Inchebe had set off in an opposite direction on their fishing expedition. They were not on very good terms to begin with. Inchebe felt, not without reason, that his consent had been taken too much for granted and Billy’s appeals to their joint honour were received coldly. But Inchebe was not a man to bear a grudge and he had grown fond of Billy, despite the fact that they argued frequently together – indeed, with Billy’s constantly baffled sense of logic, argument was impossible to avoid. Quite apart from this, when two men are engaged in a task requiring such a degree of cooperation as does spearing fish at night, they had better put aside any difference between them.
Once afloat in their shallow canoe between the low banks of the creek, the two forgot everything but the business of catching fish. They had made a hearth in the middle of the craft, raised nearly to the level of the gunwales, and on this they built a fire of lighter-wood, the dried-out, resinous heartwood of the pine. This, split into small slivers, would blaze up and burn from end to end, like a candle. It fell to Billy, as the less accomplished harpoonist, to tend to the fire and keep it flaming, also to help control the motions of the canoe as required. For this a very fine, almost instinctive judgement was needed and Billy was expert at it, even when slightly clouded by drink.
Inchebe stood at the stern with his cane spear. He had fashioned this himself, pointing it with fish-bone, carving the barbs and hardening them with fire. He used the butt end to guide the canoe, very gently, so as to steal upon the fish without any noise or disturbance of the water. For a man as dexterous as Inchebe, who had been given his first throwing spear at the age of ten by his father as a circumcision present, fishing at night had distinct advantages. The dazzled fish would lie still for long periods gazing at the flame; and the river bottom was revealed more closely to the fisherman than was possible in daylight.
None the less, it was generally a slow business and slower tonight than usual perhaps, since Inchebe too felt the effects of the beer. A shadow, a wrong movement, the faintest marring of the surface, and the fish would vanish in flickers of silver. Often enough the thrust would fail and then they were obliged to wait, drifting on the slow current, till all was calm and the fish drew near again.
It was a long time before the first successful strike, but then two more came quickly, snapper fish, like the first – they had found a shoal. Lanced through, the red fish twitched briefly on the skewer, yielding in this death-display the marvellous iridescence of its colours, pink and deep gold, burnished in the light of the flames.
Billy, while not ceasing to concentrate on the fire and the stealthy management of his short paddle, fell slowly into a state of contemplation, induced by the silence around them and the gentle progress of the canoe. The flames before his face shut out the tree-lined verges of the river. Beyond their fire the night was limitless, without boundaries. Within its range all was a play of light and shadow. The surface of the water on either side was clearly illuminated and he could see the fish lying tranced with light – a condition not much different from his own. Except that I am safe, I am the hunter, Billy thought. He was a man impulsive to the point of rashness and ignorant in many ways; but he had felt the need lately to understand the meaning of his life. He was convinced there was a meaning if only he could find the key; and because of this he was always open to wonder, which is where, if anywhere, any such understanding must begin. It was wonder he felt now as he leaned forward to feed the fire with splinters and looked up at Inchebe standing poised beyond the flames, the reddish light cast upward on the wet shaft of his spear and the upper part of his chest with its livid scar. Somewhere amidst all this the meaning lay, if only he could find words to state it …
He had a sense that the sky was beginning to lighten. They would be returning soon. They would have fish to take back, perhaps half a dozen good-sized snappers. In the self-congratulation of this thought the sense of being on the brink of some momentous discovery faded. But Billy knew at that moment that he was happy and that he would not change places with an earl or a duke.
However, in returning Inchebe suffered an accident which, though slight enough, set the two men arguing. While drawing the canoe up the bankside in the first light of day, he slipped and fell against the hull, grazing his knuckles rather badly. He swore at this in a language unknown to Billy. Then he declared, with bad-tempered glances at the bush all around, that his accident, without a shadow of doubt, had been due to kudala, witchcraft.
Billy stopped short on the path. ‘You on dat tack agin? I real sorry for you, Cheeby. Everything kudala, eh? We no fin’ fish, you say kudala, we fin’ fish, you cut you han’, you say kudala. You no sabee such a ting acciden’ dis world? Man cut him han’, dat acciden’. Jus’ happen, nobody wan’ it.’ He saw the usual dignified, slightly somnolent expression of dissent come to Inchebe’s face. ‘You allus puttin’ on airs,’ he said, with the beginnings of exasperation. ‘Dat you big fault. Puff youself up, make youself big man, fust rainstone, now somebody put badyai on you. You soso ’portant, you tink somebody care you fall on you arse?’
Inchebe made no reply to this, keeping his eyes turned away. ‘Who wish it on you?’ Billy demanded. ‘Nobody care dat much.’ He swung his basket of fish to indicate the world around them indifferently waking to daylight, taking form from moment to moment in the misty air, the thick-leaved mangroves that seemed to guard the last of the darkness, the marshes beyond lying shrouded in mist, the blanched moon above them. ‘Nobody wish it, nobody care dat much,’ he said.
Inchebe resumed his way along the path. ‘Tell you before,’ he said, ‘tell you agin now, no such ting acciden’ dis world. Plant yam bad get bad crop. Nobody say kudala, say fool man. Plant yam good, get bad crop – dat is kudala. Inchebe allus riggin’ trim sharp, look where he steppin’. So dis is kudala. Any dabo ken see dat.’
‘Jesus save us! Dat not kudala, dat de law of bleddy evridge,’ Billy said. ‘Man pull a boat up hunnerd time, one time he fall down de bank. Jus’ happen like dat.’
‘Jus’ happen like dat,’ Inchebe repeated scornfully. Annoyance at his fall and badly grazed knuckles, and conviction of malpractice against him, had combined to sour his temper. ‘Dat all you ken say?’ He glanced at Billy with his small bright eyes. ‘Tell me one ting, you soso clever. Why it happen dis partikkler mornin’?’
At this, Billy’s previously clear view of the matter began to mist over from the edges. It was a strange fact that although they had argued about kudala intermittently over the years, this question of particularity always caught him unprepared. ‘Why dis partikkler mornin’?’ he repeated now, with an instinct of prevarication. ‘What kin’ question dat? Dere no answer dat question.’
‘Dat anadder ting bout you, Billy, same-same all buckra white man, you say dere no answer mean you no have answer. I pull up de boat hunnerd time, do same ting every time, dis one time fall down. Why dis time? Why not anadder time? Boat same, bank same, Inchebe same. Why dis time?’
‘Bank wet,’ Billy said. ‘You put you foot wrong.’
Inchebe smiled sadly. He had Billy on the run and knew it. ‘My fren’,’ he said, ‘you sabee good dat not de right answer. Bank wet many time before. Inchebe foot same-same adder time. I ask you why dis time, you say foot wrong. I ask you why dis time foot wrong you say jus’ happen dis time. You go roun’ in circle, Billy. I tell you bout one uncle now.’
‘Curse me,’ Billy said, stopping short again to glare at his companion. ‘What de fuck you uncle got to do with it?’ This unexpected intrusion of a relative had fogged his mind further.
‘Middle of de day uncle sit under roof of de grain store – sit in de shade, you sabee, people do same ting every day. Dat day roof fall down, uncle kill. Why dat happen?’
‘What kind question dat? Mebbe pole rot in de groun’, mebbe tarmeet ’stroy dem. Mebbe timber worm ’stroy de beam.’
‘You tink I fool man? Tarmeet an’ timber worm, dat not de question. Question is, why it happen when my uncle sittin’ under de roof?’
‘Well, I go tell you dis,’ Billy said, after a long pause. ‘I sorry to hear bout you uncle, but dis story prove nottin’.’
Nevertheless, he was agitated at his failure to find a convincing reply, at finding himself once more in these thickets of doubt and contradiction. He glanced up at the sky, which shone now with a faint light. Mist lay over the low ground in shifting swathes. The fan-shaped fronds of the palmettos rose here and there clear of it, hanging heavy and gleaming with wet, quite motionless – there was no breath of wind. The swamp willow alongside the path was coming into flower: he noticed the tight green pimples of the buds on their dangling stalks. It was a particularity of vision unusual with Billy, due perhaps to the indistinctness of everything farther off, in this ubiquituous shrouding of mist.
The kudala notion had its points, he suddenly saw: it saved a man from chance, for one thing. And it took the blame from the Almighty, thus solving a problem that had often bothered Billy. ‘Dey fin’ de one make kudala agin you uncle?’ he said, but the other did not hear him. The track had narrowed, obliging them to walk in file, and Inchebe had paused to crush some cress leaves over his injured knuckles and so fallen behind.
They were nearing the settlement now. The track skirted the lagoon, went some way along the edge of the hardwood hummock, then turned away from the water to pass through a tangle of sea-grape and cabbage palm and wild coffee before emerging on to the open ground where the first huts of the settlement began.
Among the trees it was dark still; emerging from them was at first confusing to the eyes. As they came out into the scrub, Billy saw a form move suddenly in the mist, no more than a dark shape at first, but then as he advanced he saw that it was surmounted with a face and a tall hat. While he still gaped at this, he saw the figure raise its elbows as if to work a pair of bellows. He caught a gleam of metal, then the dark red of the tunic. He turned and took some running steps back towards Inchebe, who was still in the cover of the trees. ‘Redcoats!’ he shouted loudly. ‘Get round through the –’ The crack of the shot came from behind him, drowning out whatever more he said, or tried to say. With this sharp report all arguments were finally resolved for Billy, the frenzy of logic left him for ever. The ball took him in the back, on the left side, and pierced his heart. He ran some further steps but he was dead before he fell.
Inchebe saw Billy turn and run towards him, heard the shot, saw the issue of blood from Billy’s mouth and the heavy pitch of his fall. He hesitated no more than a moment. Billy was beyond help. The people had to be warned. He threw down the string of fish he had been carrying and plunged aside from the track in the nearest direction to the settlement, finding what way he could through the close-growing vegetation. He sobbed lightly as he ran, with fear and shock. The broad-leaved trees of the hummock discharged their moisture on him, the saw palmetto slashed at his legs and arms. He stumbled through stretches of swampland, knee-deep in the sloughs, his feet catching in the stilted roots of the mangroves. Behind him, not very far way, he could hear sounds of pursuit. From moment to moment he expected a shot, but none came and he could not understand this, having forgotten that alive he was worth money. The cane harpoon impeded him, catching in thickets, but he did not abandon it.
Nipke it was who gave pursuit. He had been standing near the panicky fool who disobeyed orders by firing and had seen the sergeant strike the man down with his fist. He knew that the people of the settlement, whether black or white, had to be taken alive if at all possible, this being the English lord’s express command. He knew too that time was needed for the troops to complete their encirclement of the huts. Above all he was eager to earn praise, because with praise came a bonus of dollars and Nipke looked forward to returning a rich man – rich enough to be drunk for a week and buy another cow and possibly a blanket. So he began running almost before the echoes of the shot had died away, cleared Billy’s body as it lay across the path and was in time to crouch and listen and hear the faint crashing sounds of the black man’s flight.
Though past his first youth he was a fine runner, as the Creek people commonly were, and he knew the ground, having ranged here for Tequesta scalps to sell to the English during the wars with Spain. Thoughts of reward sharpened senses already acute; he was alert to every change of direction ahead of him. Following was not difficult – his quarry had no time to rest or hide or lie in wait. He knew by the sounds that he was gaining. There were sounds behind him too: other of the Creeks, similarly inspired, had joined in the chase. But he would be first …
He ran through a stand of sea-grape trees, ducking and weaving to avoid the low branches. This was the edge of the hummock. Beyond was an area of marsh grass and willow scrub. He could catch glimpses now of the man before him, hear at times the splash of his steps in the watery ground. He was gaining ground with every stride, the negro was flagging. No more than twenty paces separated them. As he came closer he drew the hand-axe from his belt, intending to stun the man with the flat side. But he was gaining too fast, it came to him now, with a sudden, belated sense of danger. He saw that the man was carrying a pointed cane and checked momentarily, then came on with a rush: the negro had left it too late, there was no time now for him to turn and set himself for a throw. This was a serious misjudgement on Nipke’s part and it cost him his life. He had seen many deeds of blood in his time and he had fought with various weapons at long range and close; but he did not know what a man from the headwaters of the Niger could do with a spear.
As they came into the open Inchebe had slackened speed. He knew that with such a light missile, designed for fish not men, the throat was the only target. And he knew that he only had one chance. When the panting and the steps were close enough behind, he whirled, and without pausing to set himself or even shift his grip on the shaft flung the spear upward from waist height, aiming instinctively, the turn and the throw one single movement. The distance was no more than a dozen feet. The barbed head of the spear with its needle-sharp fish-bone point caught the advancing Indian in the base of the throat and penetrated deeply, half severing an artery. Nipke dropped the axe and sank to his knees, raising his hands as if in some attempt to arrest the copious flow of blood. Inchebe waited only long enough to be sure that this enemy was disabled. When the others came up they found Nipke bleeding out his life in the marsh, no sign of the negro. They resumed the pursuit, but more cautiously.
This killing of Nipke, and the greater circumspection it imposed on the other Creek scouts, gave Inchebe a period of respite long enough for a circuitous approach to the settlement from the shoreward side. He made his way under cover of the stockade to the low gate in the rear and crawled under, into the compound. The shot had been heard, people were moving here and there, the main gate was barred. Inchebe began to shout the news of Billy’s death and his last mysterious words and the presence of flat-head Indians not painted or tattooed. His eyes started wildly and he gulped for breath. Distress and exhaustion combined to render his pidgin barely intelligible.
‘What Billy shout?’ Nadri asked, taking a firm grip of Inchebe by the shoulders. He had been with Tabakali and they had come out together at the sound of the shot, she naked to the waist with a piece of cotton cloth wrapped round her middle.
‘Say bout red cot,’ Inchebe panted. He had no idea what these words meant. ‘Say bout red cot den dey shoot.’
‘Holy Mary!’ Sullivan said. ‘Dat sojers he talkin’ bout. Redcoats. They have sent sojers after us.’ His eyes were wet still with the quick tears that had come with the news of Billy’s death. ‘It is redcoats have killed Billy,’ he said.
To Paris, standing among the others in his breechclout and a shirt strangely patched and shortened, these words of Sullivan’s carried immediate conviction. He was shocked, but not surprised. Ever since learning that the fighting was over and the British established in the north, he had been expecting some sort of expedition against them sooner or later. News followed trade; there would have been rumours of merchandise down here more valuable than salt or flint or anything the traders carried … ‘We can still get out,’ he said. ‘We can’t fight men armed with guns, not from inside here. We can break out before they have time to form round us.’
‘Dat right.’ Kireku’s eyes flashed fiercely. He had his bow slung over one shoulder and heavy arrows in a bark quiver at his belt. ‘Nobody see Inchebe come,’ he said. ‘Nobody try stop him. Dey not in place yet. We ken git out same way he come in. In de bush nobody fin’ us. Redcot try fin’ me, stick him like pig, make him cot red pas’ now.’
It was to be long remembered of Kireku that even at this desperate moment he had made a joke. He was already moving away when a booming voice reached them from somewhere beyond the stockade: ‘You are surrounded on every side. You cannot escape. Lay down your arms and open the gates. We are armed with cannon and can destroy you all at will …’
The voice was frightening, unearthly, distorted by an amplifying instrument of some kind which made it impossible to determine the direction. But the flat accents of northern England were clearly recognizable in it.
‘There may be time yet,’ Paris said. ‘They may not know of the gate in the rear.’ He hesitated, looking at Tabakali and the children standing close beside her, Kenka between the two smaller ones. ‘We wait here, catch in a trap,’ he said. ‘Dey go make you slave again.’ He had spoken rapidly and was not sure if she had understood, but she looked at him steadily and after a moment nodded.
‘It wort’ tryin’,’ Nadri said. ‘We git clear, adder come behin’.’
They went at a run through the lines of the huts. Beyond the narrow gate the space of open ground was deserted. The mist had lifted now and a pallid radiance showed in the sky above the listless fronds of the palms. Looking upward, Paris saw gulls in lazy flight, the hidden sun eliciting flashes of brilliance from them as they turned. The first trees were less than half a minute away to a running man but the distance seemed vast to Paris. He saw Kenka regarding him with an intent and painful seriousness and he reached out and briefly touched the boy’s cheek. ‘We go two-three fust time, see what happen,’ he said. ‘Nottin’ happen, rest all go tagedder. You wait we in de bush, den you start runnin’.’
Nadri opened the gate and crouched a moment longer in the shelter of the stockade. His eyes met those of Paris and he smiled. Then he was up and running, with Paris and Kireku close behind.
Younger than the others by a good ten years and a natural runner, Kireku at once drew ahead. He moved with long strides, head up, the quiver swinging against his thigh. A shout came from somewhere slightly ahead of them, to the right. Kireku was almost in the shadow of the trees now. Then shots rang out in ragged unison and Paris saw Kireku pitch forward on his face. A moment later he felt a violent blow to his left leg. He staggered aside and fell heavily and lay on his back looking up to the sky, feeling nothing at first but the shock of the blow and the fall. Then pain gathered in his leg and with it a sense of the damage done to him: he knew now that the bone was broken. Raising his head a little he saw that Kireku was still lying where he had fallen, quite motionless. The trees were no more than twenty yards away. He heard shouts and scattered shots from somewhere on the other side of the compound. Edging round on to his right shoulder he made an effort to drag himself forward, but it was too soon, neither his body nor his will was braced enough for the pain and almost immediately he lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself gazing up at the face of Erasmus Kemp, close above him. He was not conscious of any interval of doubt or any struggle for recognition. He regarded the face silently, noting with a strange sort of dispassion that it was clean-shaven and very pale and that the dark eyes held a singular brightness and intensity. He felt a certain wonder at the sight, but not really surprise: in a way it seemed natural, and even inevitable, that his cousin should be here to preside over the last hours of the settlement. The older Kemp had given, though inadvertently; now the younger had come to take away. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you have come to claim your father’s cargo.’
To Erasmus this reference to his father seemed the height of unrepentant insolence. Looking down, he saw the lop-sided smile he detested appear on his cousin’s face. ‘I have come to hang you,’ he said, striving to keep all passion out of his voice. He took in the details of Paris’s appearance, the beard, the sunburn, the long hair tied behind. ‘I would not have known you but for that rascally Barton pointing you out,’ he said with disgust. His cousin’s shirt – and this seemed to Erasmus almost more heinous than anything – reached scarcely to his navel, having been cut off all round, apparently to make patches. The garment he wore below it was little more than a loincloth. His naked, long-shanked legs were outstretched on the ground, the left one a mess of blood below the knee. Erasmus had felt a leap of alarm at first sight of this damage; but the wound after all was not serious – the leg could be dressed in St Augustine. ‘Have no fear, you will walk to the gallows,’ he said.
Paris looked beyond his cousin to the sky, which in this short while seemed to have become much brighter. The gulls still wheeled there, breasts flashing with light as they turned.
‘All in one swoop, pretty nearly,’ Erasmus said, in a tone of satisfaction. He felt the need to drive his triumph home. ‘None of the troops got a scratch.’
Paris wanted to ask about Kireku and whether any others of the settlement had been hurt. But he saw Erasmus turn at this moment and speak to someone approaching. ‘Ah, so you have it ready,’ Erasmus said. ‘It has taken you time enough.’
Two men came into Paris’s field of vision, carrying a blanket slung on poles to make a stretcher. Erasmus looked down again and his eyes had a light of fever. ‘Your turn now to be lifted, cousin Matthew,’ he said, words not immediately comprehensible to Paris, though for a moment he felt that he was trembling on the verge of understanding. Then the soldiers began to lift him on to the stretcher, his senses swam and the bright gulls dissolved in the sky above him.