Julian Stockwin - Conquest

They were trapped ashore.

Dully, he tried to focus. He cursed his stupidity in overlooking the elementary check. They’d simply have to spend the night ashore and try again in the morning.

‘Take down that flag and hoist numeral two and three,’ he told Calloway. The message would tell L’Aurore that the seas were too high for boat operations, and Gilbey would realise that this meant they would necessarily be staying ashore overnight.

‘Let’s find somewhere to get our heads down,’ he said apologetically, after explaining their predicament.

With loud groans from Peyton they went up the beach to a stony bluff and, in the fading daylight, found they had a choice between lying on hard rock still warm from the sun or the open beach, which was noticeably cooler now. To a man they lay on the soft sand; with painful limbs, and trying not to think of roaming wild beasts, they sought the solace of sleep.

Did lions sleep at night? Where were the elephants now? What other beasts were out there beyond the dunes? Aching and weary, tossing and turning in the gritty sand, Kydd finally drifted off.

After a few hours he woke to pitch darkness, damp and cold. A heavy dew had descended and they were all sodden to the skin; in the night breeze they began to shiver uncontrollably. Peyton cursed endlessly in a monotone, hugging his knees, while the marines stoically endured.

There was no question of sleep now, but as a full moon rose none could find words to appreciate the haunting beauty of the stark and mysterious scene that unfolded.

The moon rose higher, the light almost enough to read a book by. One of the marines got to his feet and paced up and down, flapping his arms for warmth. He was joined by the other and then Calloway stood and asked, teeth chattering, ‘Sir, the survivors – it sits bad with me, we’re leaving ’em now. While we’re stranded, just to get warm can’t we . . . go on a-ways?’

‘Sit down, you fool boy!’ Peyton snarled, but Kydd was touched.

‘I’m putting it to the vote, Doctor. All those agreeable to pushing on for a bit longer . . . ?’

The two marines instantly nodded, and with Kydd and the midshipman also in favour, there was nothing Peyton could do. ‘So we go on for a while. Of course, Doctor, you’re free to remain here, if you so wish.’

Grumbling under his breath, Peyton got up, brushing the sand away while their gear was collected and distributed.

The trudging pain resumed, but this time in a surreal landscape of silvered contrasts. Then, within minutes, the whole situation changed.

Dodd spotted it first. Above the tide-line and close up to the shifting base of the dunes a little mound stretched lengthways. When they went over they saw a crudely fashioned cross at its head.

And there were footprints, not yet entirely filled by the restless sand, proof that this had occurred recently. The survivors, therefore, were somewhere ahead.

Kydd guessed they were moving by the cool of the night so he and his party must also. Forgetting the pain, they pressed on, and in another hour Calloway’s sharp eyes picked up a cast-away leather bottle and, further on, some pieces of clothing.

Into the night they continued, hoping against hope for a sight of faraway moonlit figures and the end of the quest. At one point there was an ominous sound to their left – a reverberation so low-pitched it was more sensed than heard. They tried to make it out: a long, muffled, dull roaring somewhere out in the sand-hills. Numbly they waited for the nameless beast to emerge – then the noise slowed and stopped: some inscrutable force of nature at work in the towering dunes.

It was another hour before they came upon the corpses, dark shapes on the edge of the dunes. Closer, the moonlight pitilessly revealed an elderly man, burned to disfiguring by the sun, laid out in dignified repose, his hands crossed over his breast, eyes closed. And a woman by his side, one arm over his body, her sightless eyes staring up, horror and suffering still on her face.

The doctor examined them, then stood up slowly. ‘No more than hours ago,’ he said, his voice falsely brisk. ‘I conceive that the man could not go on and . . . and his wife stayed by him.’

Sergeant Dodd dropped to his knees and began scooping out the sand. Cullis joined him and a little later the two bodies were laid to rest for ever.

In the cold hours before dawn they found faint footprints, but this time meandering, scuffed, meaningless. Then the moon faded and darkness returned for a time. The swell had quietened during the night, now only a lazy boom and hiss.

Daybreak finally came, and with it, the cruellest stroke. It brought a dank mist that developed into a full-scale rolling sea-fog – there was now no way of signalling to L’Aurore .

A dense fog to rival any on the Thames here on this scorching desert coast! They were trapped ashore.

Their hard tack had long since gone and their precious water was unlikely to last for much longer – should they go on?

Visibility dropped to yards and it became difficult to make out even themselves, but nobody seemed to want to slacken the pace. Hunger biting, limbs afire, they slogged on – but then Kydd held up his hand for silence. He’d heard a commotion ahead: faint cries, a general hubbub.

Pushing through the swirling fog-bank, they hurried forward, tripping painfully on dark, jagged rock shards protruding from the sands at what must be a point of land – and beyond they found themselves in the middle of a colony of seals, which, in their quarrelling, completely ignored them.

They stumbled through the bedlam. It was bitterly disappointing. At the end of his stamina, Kydd knew it would be asking too much of his men to carry on blindly in the hope of reaching the survivors, who might be a mile – five miles – ahead and still moving. They had to give up – it was not humanly possible to—

And then the fog lifted.

Chapter 10

‘And then?’ Renzi prompted, caught up in the drama of the story Kydd was telling. He made much of topping up his friend’s lemon punch and waited impatiently for him to continue.

Kydd eased his legs on the foot-cushion. ‘Nicholas, well, the fog lifted and there they were – when we got to them they fell on their knees and blessed God, because they’d taken us for savages about to finish ’em.’

‘Why ever did they think to walk to Cape Town?’

‘A falling-out. After the wrecking, with the captain dead, it was the first mate who took charge and set out in a boat with three men, leaving the second mate to command. He lost authority and was murdered by those who thought they were done for anyway and had taken to drinking.

‘It was a brave passenger who led the party out, not even knowing how far but thinking it better to do something than nothing. They were twenty-nine to begin and lost several on the way, but we ended taking off twenty-six, including a plucky mother and child.’

‘As are all singing paeans of your action in coming after them,’ Renzi said warmly. ‘It’s the talk of the town, brother!’

‘Er, Nicholas – they being Danes, shall they be . . .’

‘The governor has graciously deemed that as shipwrecked mariners they be given the liberty of Cape Town and may freely return to their homes when convenient.’

Kydd heaved himself up in the chair and changed the subject. ‘So, since I was away, the Dutch have given in.’

‘They have indeed, so quickly that General Beresford complains he’s robbed of a famous battle. In fine, the Articles of Capitulation were signed, which makes over the whole of Cape Colony to His Majesty, after General Janssens was satisfied that the honours of war would be accorded, which Baird did right nobly by him.’