Julian Stockwin - Conquest

They would have gone to the south. The impossible dream of Cape Town would be always before them, but Kydd knew that this was an unreachable eight hundred miles away – a comfortable week’s sail for L’Aurore but an impossible march for survivors in this sun-blasted hell.

He decided to go after them. In these conditions he could not hazard the frigate inshore close enough to pick out individual figures. It would have to be done on foot along the beach, but this should not be too difficult for fit men. He would necessarily be delaying his return to the Cape, but if there was no sign in a single day’s march, he would abandon the search.

‘Stand by to launch the whaler, Poulden.’

His coxswain hesitated. ‘We’re t’ leave ’em, sir?’

‘No – we’re following them. You’re to take the whaler to L’Aurore and bring back these things – make a note, if y’ please.’

Kydd had already decided that he should be with the searching party in case decisions had to be taken, but it needed only a few others – a couple of marines used to marching, the doctor and possibly someone with sharp eyes. And each to carry three military canteens of water at the least. Everyone to wear but a covering shirt, seamen’s trousers and sennit hat. Perhaps a scrap of canvas to lie under, some ship’s biscuits, anything easily portable to eat.

He also scribbled an order to Gilbey to take the ship, his instructions to keep with their progress until signalled to send in a boat. And there would be three signal flags, he’d decide the meanings while the boat was away, and in the event of strange sail, he’d leave this to the discretion of the acting captain.

The whaler launched in a mighty rearing and exhilarating explosion of rainbow spray and fought its way over each successive line of breakers until it had won the open sea and could erect its mast and sail.

Kydd was left on the beach, feeling curiously lonely away from the company of men, just the sound of wind-driven sand and the relentless bass pounding and seethe of surf. He stripped himself down to shirt and trousers and stared over to the wreck, pondering on its gradual ruin at the hands of the ceaseless breakers.

He took out his notebook and jotted down some elementary signals: ‘boat to come in’, ‘survivors sighted’, ‘send more water’, and others. Satisfied, he snapped it shut and waited.

The boat returned in a wild rush through the surf and a wide-eyed Calloway, Sergeant Dodd and his corporal, Cullis, scrambled out. The boat’s crew threw out their gear after them and helped the surgeon over the gunwale, cursing as he came.

‘I just hope you know what you’re doing, Mr Kydd!’ spluttered Peyton, thoroughly soaked, nursing a bag of medicines.

‘I do. And you’ll not be wanting that coat, Doctor – do take it, Poulden.’

The whaler was being bullied sideways by the onrushing waves and Kydd didn’t want to detain it, but Poulden asked, in some concern, ‘An’ shall we stay wi’ ye, sir? Could be cannibals an’ all behind them dunes.’

‘We’ll be fine, thank you. Goodbye.’

The little group formed up, the two marines trying not to be awed by the daunting spectacle of the limitless wilderness. Canteens were slung, small bags swung over shoulders and they set out.

The sun was ferocious, the heat almost like a weight bearing down as they paced along, grateful for the hard sand underfoot. Sergeant Dodd carried a light pole, at its tip signal flag numeral one fluttering out to signify to watching telescopes, ‘Am proceeding normally’.

Conversation was an effort, and they swung on in silence until, after an hour, Kydd called a halt.

Peyton sat in the soft sand, his head in his hands, but Kydd was not inclined to be sympathetic. ‘I’m looking for signs – clues that tells me they’ve been this way. Anything at all – cast-off pieces of baggage, empty water canteens, things thrown aside.’ Glancing scornfully at Peyton, he added, ‘But if there’s no evidence by sundown, we return aboard.’

They each took a careful swallow of water and moved on. Ahead there was nothing but a featureless glaring haze, a glittering white mist hanging over the crashing breakers, as far as the eye could see. By midday it was clear they needed to shelter from the blazing heat.

An outcrop of rock ahead had a shadow underneath and they thankfully plodded up to it but the sun-heated slabs were like a stove-top, burning to the touch. They rounded the ridge and found a deeper ledge, which offered a haven of cool in its shade.

Seeing Peyton’s red face, Kydd suggested, ‘Cullis – take the doctor’s kerchief and soak it in the sea, will you?’ The marine collected one from all of them and returned with blessed coldness for each man. Kydd fretted at the delay but in these inhuman conditions there was little choice and they stayed in their crevice.

At about three he ventured out. They had to get going and with a light onshore breeze it was just bearable. ‘On your feet, gentlemen – remember what we’re about.’

The shape and colour of the dunes was changing, a dramatic deep yellow-brown shading into iron red but always the pallid under-colour of bleached desert sand. Twisting valleys leading into the interior appeared in the dunes, and once they crossed what surely was the broad emerging of a dried-up river. Here and there were splashes of faded green, vegetation hanging on to some kind of existence in this infernal region.

A little further on a small salt marsh opened up. Calloway froze, then slowly pointed across to the base of a rearing sand-hill.

‘Wha’ . . . ?’

Slowly and methodically, as if in a dream, five elephants plodded past in the sand, ears flapping and occasional snorts proving their reality. Winding around the sand-hill, they disappeared from sight as if they’d never been.

The little party went on, one foot in front of the other in mechanical rhythm. At one place they stumbled through a field of sea-rounded pebbles, a startling profusion of varicoloured granite, lava and agate, and every so often a gaunt, sand-scoured ghost tree leaning out of wind-sculpted pastel dunes, some of which were near a thousand feet to their sharp summits.

A point of rock protruded out in the beach, obscuring the view ahead. When they rounded it there was another surprise: the bizarre sight at the tide-line of the carcass of a beached Antarctic whale. As they passed it what they saw brought them to a standstill – an animal had been recently feeding on it, the claw and toothmarks savage and massive.

‘Lions!’ It could be nothing else.

Fearfully they looked around. It was past imagining – a lion feeding on a whale! This desolate coast was proving to be anything but that.

‘Stay together!’ Kydd could think of nothing else to say – going after shipwreck survivors armed with heavy muskets would have been nonsensical. They resumed their monotonous tramping, tired muscles burning.

More mighty whale-bones were passed; was this why the first Portuguese had called it the coast of skeletons? Then the beach ahead began to curve, a long sweep that allowed them to see ahead for miles into an empty distance. And still there was no sign whatsoever.

‘We carry on to an hour before sunset!’ Kydd snapped, at a comment from the doctor. Then they would make the signal and quit this God-forsaken place, reluctantly leaving the survivors to their fate.

They trudged on, each wrapped in a private world of heat, weariness and fiery muscles until, the sun descending to the sea, it was time. Looking out at the horizon Kydd tried to make out L’Aurore but she was far offshore, out of sight at their height of eye.

Uneasily, he saw there was now a difficulty: mesmerised by their plodding progress he had not noticed that the seas had imperceptibly increased, their regular booming roar and hiss being no more than a constant background he had filtered out. Now they were foaming in at a height that would cause the whaler to swamp over the gunwale, or be uncontrollable and end tumbling broadside. Against the odds, the boat might make it in but would certainly not get off again.