Madagascar Island - 1703

Chapter 1

1703

Madagascar Island

Tom lay against the sailor’s tunic, too tired to speak as the tar plucked him from the pallet and carried him out of the dank cabin to where the boat lay bobbing in the water. He could see it, far below the ship’s sides. His mam was beside him, her face all twisted with worry. She clasped the pendant his da’ had given her and turned it first this way then that.

The sailor held him tightly as he launched himself over the edge, clutching onto him with one hand and onto the slippery wet rope with the other. Nimble as a temple monkey, he swung down the rungs to the boat waiting below. Tom could see first water then sky, water then sky, water then sky and his head reeled.

He tried to cry out, but it came as a dry croak, muffled against the coarse cloth. When he looked up, there was his mam, her tiny figure cloaked in a big dress, coming hand over hand down the rope ladder after them as she clung on to the rough rope for dear life.

Beyond her, leaning over the ship’s rail, Tom could see Nanny’s face, all puckered, and below, hands gripping the rail, was little Sarah, her long black hair whipping in the wind, small face pinched closed with the worry. Conway, who was still only five, leant his head against Nanny and buried his cheek into her garments. He looked upon Tom solemnly as he was borne further from their view.

The sailor laid Tom down on the bare planks and picked up the oars. Another man held his hands out for his mam and helped her into the boat, which rocked alarmingly and bumped against the huge wooden side of the vessel. The oarsman cursed under his breath, but they had been subjected to far worse in the weeks since leaving India. The men’s faces were grim as they pushed the boat clear of the bigger vessel and started the long pull for shore.

His mam sat beside Tom and laid her hand upon his brow.

‘Why aren’t Conway and Sarah coming too?’ he managed to croak out. ‘Doesn’t Grandfather want to see them?’ Talking made him hot and he thrashed about, wanting to be free of the cloying heat, the suffocation that threatened to choke him.

‘Be still, Tom,’ his mam said. ‘We’ll be there soon.’

The only other sound was the slap of the waves on the hull and the grunts of the tars pulling on the oars.

‘Nearly there.’

His mam’s urgent words penetrated the fog that clouded Tom’s mind. He raised his head. There, in the distance but growing bigger with each stroke, lay some crude huts grouped along the shoreline. Smoke rose in tendrils from their thatched roofs. It didn’t look anything like he could remember from when they’d left England with his da’, and Grandfather had been so angry with him – with all of them. He could still remember his grandfather’s fierce red-veined eyes, the way he glowered at them and shouted. But that was four years ago now, when Tom was just a little lad, Conway’s age, and his da’ was still with them then.

As they drew nearer, Tom could hear the gentle pluff of the waves breaking on the shore, the shouts of men gathered there. The boat’s hull scraped against sand. The sailor lifted him from the boards and held him at arm’s length as he stepped into the shallow water. He waded onto the beach, and some men came forward.

‘Stay back.’ He broke into a pidgin language and they obeyed, their eyes round and fearful.

They were savages, barely dressed, except for a cloth tied about their loins. Their skin was dark and their black hair straight as Tom’s.

‘Is this England? Is Grandfather here?’ Tom managed to gasp out, but his mam shook her head, and Tom looked around at the strange people and their strange houses, wondering why they were here.

The tar carrying Tom stopped before an impressive hut, larger than the rest. He laid him upon the ground under the shade of a swaying palm and walked off, brushing the boy’s fever from his sleeves and chest. Sabrina sat beside her son, her hand resting lightly upon his shoulder, then upon his brow.

They waited there a while. Smoke was all about, and Tom could smell the salt air, the fish the men had recently caught, the tang of crushed plants. And above him the palm leaves rustled and swayed in the breeze coming off the sea.

At last came a messenger, and at his instruction the sailor lifted Tom and carried him further along the beach, the boy’s body jiggling in his arms as he walked. Tom groaned as he fought nausea, and closed his eyes.

Then they were inside a hut and Sabrina’s worried face was peering down at him. She wiped his brow with her hand and it felt cool, blessedly cool. He fell into a troubled sleep, where he dreamt that he was abandoned there on that island with these strange people and he could not tell them who he was or what he wanted.

When he regained consciousness, his mam was still at his side. He reached out his hand to touch her. She would care for him, until he was well and strong again and they could continue their journey to meet up with his grandfather, Mr Barrington.

But Sabrina was not smiling. The tears were still there, her cheeks glinting in the half-light. She took the pendant from her chain and held it out to a wrinkled crone kneeling in the gloom beside her near Tom’s feet.

‘Use this.’ She handed the pendant to the woman. ‘Make it the same.’

Tom watched, puzzled, as the old lady took the pendant from his mam, then uncovered his foot and laid her other hand upon it. Her grip was firm, and she held his ankle like a vice. At a gesture from her, Sabrina grasped Tom’s shin in her tiny hand, not looking at his face. Then from the open box beside her, the old crone selected a needle and inks and began to carve the image on the pendant onto the tender sole of his foot, mumbling, her withered gums working as she laboured.

He writhed and cried out, begging his mam to make it stop, but she only gripped him tighter, not speaking, tears running down her cheek into the corner of her mouth.

When the old woman had finished, she leant back on her haunches and examined her handiwork by the light of a smoky torch. His foot stung where she had cut into him. The orange flame guttered in the breeze coming through the door. Sabrina unclasped a brooch from her blouse and held it out to the woman. The old hag’s hand closed over the pendant and Sabrina’s eyes went wide.

‘No,’ she cried. ‘Not that. Take this. I beg you.’

But the old hag held fast and Sabrina stood in the low hut, her back bumping against the roof before she managed to wrest the pendant from the old crone’s hand. She reattached it to the chain around her neck and let it slide down into the valley between her breasts. The woman left, ducking out through the doorway and they could hear her muttering in her mad low cackle as she limped away across the clearing.

‘We have to go.’ The sailor who had carried Tom was at the hut door, standing well back so he would not breathe in the boy’s fever-laden air. His voice was urgent and gruff above the sound of the waves. There was a deathly hush, as if the world was holding its breath, and Tom heard his mam weeping softly.

‘Are we going now?’ He was suddenly filled with dread. The thought of the journey back to the ship in that tiny boat was more than he could bear.

Sabrina’s mouth puckered and tears tracked through the sweat-sheen on her cheeks. She shook her head and moved towards the doorway, her silhouette blocking the light.

‘Mam,’ Tom cried out. ‘Where are you going?’

But she was already outside and he could hear her words, spoken with haste and some urgency to the crewman who now waited out of the boy’s sight.

‘Please, he’s my son; he’s only nine. Give me time.’

‘We have no time,’ said the crewman. ‘The tide be right now. The captain told you afor’un we left the ship. We sail, with or without you. It’s your choice, but the boy stays.’

The words slammed into Tom. He struggled to sit up, but the sickness overwhelmed him. When he opened his eyes, his mam was beside him. He stretched out a hand to touch her, and she knelt down beside him and gazed deep into his eyes. She forced words through parched lips. Tears streamed down her face.

‘I’ll be back. Somehow, I will find you again.’

Then she ducked out through the entrance to the hut and was joined by the sailors. Together they walked off towards a banana grove and the path that led to the beach. Tom stretched out a feeble hand for her, but no cry would come and he was too dry for tears. His body burned with the fever and his eyes could only take in the shimmering shapes as they disappeared from his view.

Chapter 2

1703

Cape of Good Hope

The wind howled through the rigging, tearing at the tattered remnants of the sails. Icy water broke over the deck in a foaming rage. The Swan was being wrenched apart by massive seas, her timbers creaking and groaning as each successive wave pounded her cracked timbers.

‘Oh, dear Lord, please help us.’ Sabrina was on deck, her entreaty torn from her lips as she struggled to maintain her balance and her grip on Nanny and the children as the water tore past over the ship’s bow, threatening to drag them into the sea.

Water streamed down Sabrina’s face, plastering her long black hair to her cheeks, her clothes soaked through, moulded to her body. All around, men in sodden tunics manoeuvred back and forth, going hand over hand along ropes, shouting to each other, their words whipped away by the gale-force wind as they strove to lower the boats.

A mast smashed through the starboard rail. The boiling sea raged up through the rent timbers, pushing Sabrina towards the rails then sucking her back towards the gaping holes. She clung onto the children and Nanny, afraid they would be plucked from her grasp, and looked into their terrified eyes, wondering if this would be the last time she would see them. No. That couldn’t be. She had to save them. But how? And what of Tom? If they perished now, he would think she had abandoned him forever. The ache and betrayal she knew he had felt at her leaving him would be cast in his mind for eternity. There would be no time for amends.

Struggling to keep her balance on the pitching timbers, Sabrina took a deep breath and released her hold on Nanny and the children. With cold-numbed hands, she began to tear strips from her dress. Bracing herself on unsteady legs, she passed the first strip through the children’s belts and then fastened it to her waist, resisting as she again threatened to slither towards the shattered rail.

She tore another strip from her gown and reached out for Nanny.

Their wet hands touched.

But then a wall of green water reared above their heads, dwarfing them. Sabrina cried out. Sarah and Conway shrieked as the wave broke, rushing down like an avalanche to sweep their legs from under them and sluice their harnessed bodies over the side in a tumbling heap of arms and legs. Nanny was torn from Sabrina’s grasp, and the last Sabrina saw of her was her screaming mouth and wide-open eyes before she was swallowed by the sea.

Down and down they went, twisting and turning over and over, debris tearing at their flesh. Sabrina’s chest burned for air, but she held on, pressing her mouth tight closed, flailing desperately for Conway and Sarah, afraid they would be swept from her. She could feel the tug of their weight on her waist, but all she could see was the churning white foam and sea-green water. The children and her long dress were weighing her down.

With all her will, she forced herself to keep in the air that tortured her lungs. With consciousness slowly ebbing, she kicked out with all her might, using her arms to pull at the water as she strove to find air for herself and her children.

At last she surfaced and gasped in salt-laden vapour, before being sucked under again. But that breath had been enough. She now had clear vision and could see her children’s dark heads through the swirls of grey-green. Thankful she could still feel the dead weight of their tiny bodies strapped to her waist, she fought to drag them up with her again, praying as she did so that they would still be alive, that she could save them from this terrible fate.

As her head broke the surface, she sucked in air hungrily and caught hold of Conway, pulling his head above the waves. As Sarah emerged, Sabrina grasped her with her other hand, afraid the umbilical cord holding her children to her would break under the strain and they would be lost to the waves forever.

Conway coughed and gasped in air. Sarah’s lips were blue, but she was shivering, breathing shallowly. Relieved, Sabrina clutched them to her, fighting to keep their heads clear of the water. Drained and exhausted, she searched the waves for Nanny. As they crested each massive swell, the only sound was the screech and howl of the wind. There was no sign of Nanny. No life. Just one male body drifting amongst the flotsam.

Still battling to keep the children afloat, she took stock of their situation. They had been swept a long way from the foundering ship and were flailing in mountainous seas. Spitting and gasping to keep her airways clear, Sabrina held onto her children as the remaining timbers of the distant ship finally tore apart, tossing the last of the stick-figure men overboard to thrash in the roiling maelstrom.  Conway was still coughing and spluttering, but Sarah had fallen silent, her eyes closed, only the faint movement of her purple-blue lips bearing testament to her continued life.

And then a miracle.

A chest, half-submerged in the turbulent water, floated towards them, tossed their way on a wave’s whim. Chancing it, Sabrina released her grip on Conway, who thrashed out for her, wide-eyed at her betrayal, and grasped the handle. Her arm was almost wrenched from its socket by the next big roller, but she clung on. As they descended into the green-walled trough, she lifted Sarah’s limp body and laid it, as if on a funeral pyre, upon the domed lid of the chest. Sarah lay, arms dangling, black hair spread like vile seaweed across her still white face. Sabrina pulled the now whimpering Conway closer and held on to him, to Sarah and to the chest, her arm wedged into its handle.

❧❧

The wash of the sea against sand woke Sabrina. After hours battling the swell, she had fallen into an exhausted sleep, her arm still looped through the handle of the chest, still clinging on to her children, shivering in the icy temperatures. They tumbled into the shallows of a long flat beach. The coarse sand cut into them, rasping skin from hands and knees. Frantically, Sabrina checked on her children. They were right there, still tied to her waist, but lying now in the ice-cold shallows. Her aching fingers pulled their heads clear of the water once more as she groped for traces of life: their skin, their breath. Thank God. To her relief, she heard Sarah whimper and the chatter of Conway’s teeth.

Too tired to speak, Sabrina stood. Her arm ached and her legs shook. Battling to keep her footing in the tug of the breakers, she struggled ashore, dragging the stumbling, freezing cold children with her.

When they were on firm sand out of reach of the icy water, she collapsed onto the beach. Using her body to shelter them from the wind, she hugged Conway and Sarah to her, head resting on her children’s slick hair. Touching their slippery wet skin; listening to their breathing; feeling the shudder of their teeth chattering uncontrollably.

After a time, she raised her head. White sand stretched as far as the eye could see, bounded at its land edge by tough grey-green grass. There was no shelter, nothing to prevent the driving wind that blew stinging grains onto exposed arms and legs. Sabrina shivered. The children’s lips and fingers were blue. Conway’s freckled face was pinched white, his eyes wide and staring.

Sabrina crossed herself and stood up. Each bone ached. They were alive, but the children were cold and hungry. They needed shelter and food. But where, on this godforsaken coast that seemed to stretch for miles, would Sabrina find help? A black hollowness clutched at her heart. If only Will – or Lucien – were here. And what of Tom? How now would she ever get back to Tom?

And then out of the sea mist came an apparition, but a speck at first, half-seen in the whipping grains. Then the form solidified, grew bigger and more real. A solitary figure, a man, riding a tall grey horse, his mount melding into the white sand and foam, into the sea mist created by the brisk wind blowing, until Sabrina could clearly see the shape of his hat and the arc of his arm set upon his hip as his horse bore him ever closer.