The Man from the 'Turkish Slave' Page 15

  Peter swayed to his feet. He ploughed upwards through, the loose rubble, found grass beneath his feet, and then was plunging across a level piece of ground studded with great boulders. He heard Assis shout behind him. He kept going, the notch against the sky-line ahead of him.

  He went through the notch, found the sun suddenly warm on his face and the long slope of the mountainside before him with Portos Marias nestling at its foot. And, as he came out on to the open slope, he heard men shout away to his left and he saw Lesset and two others working towards him along the broken rim.

  In a burst of defiance and triumph, he shouted fiercely back to them, even shaking his fist, for now he was beyond them and there was nothing between him and Portos Marias. He threw himself forward, forcing his body to the pace, sliding and lurching, but always going down … down towards Portos Marias.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Quisto felt uneasy. It had been a strange night and, as it had worn itself out, the feeling of uneasiness had increased. He could tell that Nimo and the rest of the crew felt it. It was in their silence, in the way they looked-around more often than usual at the sea and the sky as though they were expecting something.

  For two hours, when they were well out, they had fished, shooting the nets and, while they waited, working the handlines; and for two hours there had been no fish. The nets had come in empty and their lines knew only the pulse of the current and never the quick tug and tremble of a golden dory or a fighting bonito. They had shifted their ground, working back towards the island, but there was still no fish. Quisto began to think that they might return empty, and he remembered a story of his father’s, how in the old days the chosen crew had gone out and spent the night feasting and drinking, taking with them hidden below deck a supply of fish-caught the previous day. The good father before Father Gordano had put a stop to that.

  But an hour before dawn and when they were within sight of the island, their luck had changed. The sea was suddenly alive with fish. The nets came up charged and sagging with them; so many that they seemed even to leap aboard of their own will, curving, twisting and arching across the scale-flecked deck boards until the crew walked deep in them. There seemed a frenzy in the fish which communicated itself to the men. They shot the nets again and again, and piled the deck with their catch; and there was everything, tainha, small rays, bonito, catfish, a few sharks, eels and occasionally a banded water-snake which they kicked back into the sea that was a churning cauldron of fiery phosphorescence … And as they worked they sang and shouted happily, for this prodigality could be nothing but a good omen. And yet Quisto mistrusted it.

  They stowed their nets, tidied their decks and laid out on a hatch top the best of their catch to be carried in ceremony to the church; but by the time they were done and the Borrisco was heeling before a strengthening dawn wind, the happiness had gone from them, leaving them quiet and reluctant to talk to one another.

  And now as they came through the harbour mouth with the sun washing the tall fronts of the Portos Marias houses in soft gold and firing the quiet waters held in the great bowl of cliffs into a blaze of amethyst, the feeling was still alive.

  The sail came down with a gentle clatter and the Borrisco rode on her own way towards the jetty. The town was waiting for them. A lookout on the headland had spotted them an hour before and now, as the warmth of the sun strengthened, the crowd stood silently waiting for the fishing boat to berth.

  Father Gordano stood at their head, the morning wind stirring the full sleeves of his robes. Behind him, held aloft by four islanders, was the canopied figure of the Virgin, pink, sky blue and gold under the rich silver and scarlet baldachino; and behind them the young boys from the choir, and then the townsfolk, old and young, male and female, the heads of the men bare, the women cowled in scarves, some of them holding babies to their breasts or clutching the soft hands of children scarcely able to walk. They massed themselves along the jetty and spilled raggedly into the square, and around the fringes of the crowd the dogs whined and ran in puzzled excitement, the gulls wheeled and screamed in the liquid blue of the sky, and from the tawny patch of ground by the cannery the donkeys raised their heavy heads and stared, blinking at the strengthening sun.

  Quisto stood in the bows, rope in hand. It snaked throught the air and was caught. The crowd stirred, the coloured mass of bodies pulsing as though it shared one life. This was a moment that no one in Portos Marias ever missed. An hour’s sleep and the feasting of the past evening was forgotten. Now all eyes were on the Borrisco.

  The sight of the piled fish on deck drew a great murmur from the crowd as she bumped alongside. Two of Nimo’s men sprang ashore and made her fast. Then Father Gordano, his voice loud and clear, began a prayer and the heads of the crowd bowed and a forest of hands, went up as each person crossed himself.

  Quisto and Nimo came down the jetty, bearing between them the hatch cover and its burden of fish. They knelt before the priest who blessed them and their charge and then, with Nimo’s crew behind them, they moved on following Father Gordano and the figure of the Virgin.

  The crowd opened up before them, letting them through and then closing in and following after them towards the church.

  The choir boys began to sing and the sound rolled up between the tiled house-fronts, up into the morning-scented air while behind them a great cloud of gulls descended shrieking and fighting on to the deck of the Borrisco to seize the fish which lay there.

  Slowly the whole of Portos Marias went up the steps of the church, between the tall cream pillars that supported the portico. The cradle-lit gloom of the great church enveloped them. It was cold in here. It always was, for the body of the church had been hollowed out of the soft cliff-rock. The faint candle-light struck points of fire from the silver and gold of the votive offerings around the walls; the islanders spread out across the chancel and from the sanctuary came the chant of the young boys as Quisto and the other men placed the fish offering reverently before the altar. The still face of the Virgin, pale and lovely and touched with a gentle sadness, looked down over them.

  Peter was some way down the slope of Pae before the church came into view. He veered around an isolated pile of boulders, running hard. Over the huddled rooftops far below, the street came into sight. He could see right down it to the square and the jetty with the fishing craft alongside and a great cloud of gulls over one of them. The street and the square were deserted. He kept on, following the line of a dry watercourse down the hill, and saw that eventually he would strike Portos Marias where the road from the church ran up on to the first shoulder of cliff.

  Uppermost in his mind as he ran was the thought of Tereza … a growing anxiety which spurred him on.

  Glancing round he saw that he was keeping his lead over Lesset and his men. They were two hundred yards behind, lumbering along. But nothing could halt him now. As long as he kept going he was safe. It was a good feeling and repaid him for all he had been through. He could even, as he ran, feel pleased with himself and proud of the way he had come out. Now that safety was ahead, and there seemed every chance of stopping Lesset from getting away, it was hard not to give himself a pat on the back. When he thought of that climb … He could imagine himself telling Tereza and Quisto about it. Both of them would expect him to exaggerate it a little.

  He plunged through a patch of maize, climbed a low stone wall and then was heading across short turf to the top of the cliff. A slow curl of smoke came up from the chimneys and the huddle of houses with their blue, pink, yellow and white plaster walls were no longer toy-like and distant. The sun was up, clear of the sea now and the far clouds had thinned into long mares’ tails and wispy streamers before a freshening breeze that set in from the sea. He ran along the cliff edge and then slithered down a loose bank on to the track that led to the port. As he went over the bank he heard a shot behind him and he laughed. It was no good shooting at him. He was out of range, and he guessed that behind the shot lay despair. Lesset and his men knew that thi
s was the end of them. Against the rest of the island they would be helpless and, to get to their boat, they had to come down into the square.

  He hurried past the first houses with their Moorish-cut doorways, their iron grilles curving about the lower half of the windows, and ahead of him to the right he could see the great portico of the church, where he knew the whole of the island was congregated. He was a distressing figure to see, but he was exultant and forgetful of his fatigue. His brown hair was matted with sweat and rock dust, his face caked and streaked with dried blood and dirt and his shirt was cut to ribbons. The sole of one of his shoes flapped and beat against the cobbles as he ran and his right knee showed palely through a great slit in the leg of his trousers.

  As the street levelled out near the church, Peter slowed down. Everyone would be inside now. But he knew what he had to do. He had to go right in—and get hold of Quisto.

  It was at this moment that Jaeger slipped out in front of him. He had seen Peter coming down the hill and had been waiting for him, hidden in the doorway of Father Gordano’s house.

  Peter pulled up. Twenty yards away was the church, the sound of chanting voices rolling out from its depths. Sitting on the church steps was a dog, scratching itself, and an odd corner of his mind registered that it was the dog. He moved forward, three slow, purposeful steps. Jaeger stood his ground.

  The thin, white-knuckled hand lifted, holding an automatic.

  ‘You will turn and go back.’ Jaeger’s voice was a dry, venomous sound in the bright air.

  Peter stood there, a great surge of anger and frustration sweeping through him. The night had been so mad and exhausting: he had forgotten this man altogether, forgotten everything except his over-riding determination to get back to Portos Marias.

  ‘Get out of my way!’ He came forward another step, throwing the words savagely at the man.

  The automatic moved slightly.

  ‘Turn back. I shall not hesitate to shoot.’

  Jaeger’s eyes were dark-shadowed with fatigue and anxiety, the white face, skin taut over the long bones, was marked with a bitter resolution. He had none of Lesset’s confidence. He was worried, and from his fear, made savage, desperate. Peter could read it in his eyes, the alarm, and the longing to strike and avenge his fear. The man was frenzied and he held a gun.

  ‘Back!’ Little flakes of spittle sprayed from his lips.

  Peter stood where he was. It was folly to provoke Jaeger … but he knew he had to do it. Nothing was going to stop him now. He had to go on.

  It was then that Peter heard the noise. It was a high, whistling, surging note, and then, suddenly, a steady, menacing roar and hiss which grew louder every second. There was that in it which possessed the power of immobilising all thought and action. It filled the whole of time and space with its overwhelming presence; an inhuman, howling presence, all noise and fury. It was a sound which had a strange, almost human note as though a vast horde of ravening warriors was sweeping towards them, their throats full of the incoherent frenzy of battle. There was power and viciousness in the sound and the air vibrated with it so strongly that the ground shook with onsweep.

  Jaeger looked over his shoulder and Peter made no attempt to jump for his gun. He was looking as well, past Jaeger beyond the church to the harbour.

  ‘Himmel!’ The word cracked, a dry whisper in Jaeger’s throat.

  Racing in through the harbour mouth, piling up higher and higher as it funnelled past the horn of the headland, was a great wave. It came in with the speed of a galloping horse, rolling up in great jets and spurts of breakers around the shores of the small harbour; a vast, foaming wall of water. Its crest was an angry mass of white spume which curled forward in an enormous frond growing heavier and higher as it smashed its way towards the square.

  Peter saw the few dories and rowboats that lay anchored off the end of the jetty lifted and swallowed in its roaring, green and white maw. It piled over the jetty and he saw the heavy fishing boats heave and swing madly and then disappear under the fury of the thundering sea. The wave hit the edge of the square with a great slap that sounded like the crack of a hundred cannons. A fine, sheer curtain of spray soared a hundred feet above the square, caught the sun, filled the air with a galaxy of fast-dying rainbows, and then the water was pouring on across the square and into the town in a swift cataract carrying all before it.

  ‘Run!’ Peter turned from it. Jaeger was with him. The enmity between them was dwarfed by the danger racing towards them. A hundred yards ahead of them the ground rose. If they could make it and get high enough they might be saved.

  The roar rose behind them and with it now came the crash of collapsing walls, the angry splintering of wood and the pounding snarl of the racing water. A frightened dog went by them, yelping with fear. Over the port the gulls and sea-birds wheeled in a noisy, disturbed cloud and the air whistled past Peter in a warm wind, pushed up the narrow street as the great volume of water charged forward.

  Jaeger stumbled and fell. Peter heard him shout.

  He half-turned, dragging the man up, and the water was upon them. It swirled about their legs in a gentle flood for a second and then the great mass, foam-flecked, mottled at its base like smooth marble and at its crest overhung with a spinning curl of spume, slammed down at them.

  The water hit them, and the blow was brutal. It smashed into Peter, driving the breath from his body, snatching him away from Jaeger, taking him under and rolling and sporting with him. He kicked out and fought, came up for a moment and gasped for air, and then he was under again, sucked down into a green and grey hell where unknown forces belaboured him, spun him round and round, drove the wits and breath from his body and spewed him back and forth like a cork. It became a dream, a mad, hazy dream which swiftly robbed him of all power … He might have been under an anaesthetic … He came and went, lived and died, choked and breathed. One second his eyes would be fixed on a patch of sky, the next he was in darkness, his ears full of the savage roar of water. He saw Jaeger’s face loom large, distorted, and then it was gone … He sunk back into an oblivion, knowing only as he went that he no longer cared for himself; that against this no man could fight.

  Lesset and the others had seen it all happen. They had stood on the crest of the cliff looking down into the town and watched Peter nearing the church. Lesset’s hand had gone for his pipe and pouch. He was filthy and cut and exhausted with the night’s adventure, and he had been wondering whether this was the moment when, for the first time, he would have to acknowledge failure and accept a future very different from the one he had planned. There was no way out. Peter and the whole of Portos Marias lay between them and the boat by which they could escape. It would only be a matter of time before they were hunted down and caught. Then Jaeger had stepped out and, almost at once, he had heard the wave and seen it coming. His own problem vanished.

  He had been caught in a hurricane on the Florida coast and he had seen something of the Mississippi floods, but he had never seen anything like this; a solid wall of water twelve feet high rushing on Portos Marias. And he knew why and could take almost a proprietary interest in it.

  The sea. The powerful, mysterious, beautiful sea. He thought of the quake that morning and knew what had happened. Out there the sea-bed had settled or shifted. It did not even occur to him to be glad they had not got away on the boat to meet the wave far out … He watched, fascinated; a man whose greatest love was for the sea and its power, a man whose passion fed on its dark, violent mystery.

  The water flooded into the town. It took the running figures beyond the church and swallowed them. It came up in an angry burst of breakers to the steep slope of the road and the harbour was suddenly four times bigger than it normally was, a great, expanse of swirling water, lashed with whirlpools as conflicting currents roared back from the higher slopes. The roofs and top floors of the houses floated above the flood like foundering arks. And then the water moved back, draining down the streets, rushing across the harbour and foamin
g the breaking at the harbour mouth.

  Lesset watched as though he were caught up in a wild dream. He was fascinated and horrified while the sunlit nightmare lasted. The waters drained out of the harbour, sucked back to leave great stretches of the harbour bed bare … a wild, grotesque reach of land shining with weeds and silvered with turbulent channels between the exposed rocks and piled with the wreckage of the first onslaught … upturned, smashed boats, furniture, crates and animals that still moved and struggled. From the mud and sandbanks stranded fish leapt and arched, vivid blade-like forms in the blue morning. And then the sea, angry, ravening, sluiced back, but the inundation this time was broken and ragged and not so high. Five times the sea retreated and then came back again, and each time the violence grew less.

  They watched and they said no word. There was only the noise of the sea, the cry of the excited gulls and the soft, despairing rumble of a wall or a roof giving way. And then the whole thing was over. They stood looking down on a wrecked Portos Marias. Only a few houses had been completely destroyed but most had suffered damage. Portos Marias lay there under the sun, quiet and peaceful.

  The harbour waters were discoloured, heaving restlessly still, and littered with flotsam. A slow swell broke with a steady booming against the foot of the protecting headland and the wet cliff rocks shone like metal. Of all the craft that had been in the harbour not one remained afloat. The air was heavy with the thick tang of mud and seaweed.