The sun still beamed down, the breeze ruffled Kydd's hair playfully, but out of nowhere death had come to claim his own.
Chapter 12
Kydd stumbled up the path to the cooking fire, its ruddy glow a beacon in the gathering dusk. He could hear the distinctive twang of Gurney's American accent and saw that he was at the centre of a small group of seamen sitting together. He hurried to join them, still shocked by what he had seen, and needing human company.
'Abe, yer must've had a such a time of it - women, all the vittles a man c'd want, nothin'. to do. Why d'ye want ter go, mate?' asked an older sailor.
'Aye - it's paradise here,' added Doud. Gurney didn't answer at first, looking from one to the other with his head oddly cocked to one side as if in distrust of his audience. 'Yer think it is, shipmates?'
'Yair, paradise right enough,' said a young foretopman. Leaning forward, Gurney responded passionately, 'I grant ye, the weather's always top-rate, an' the vittles are there fer the takin', but think on this. You don't have nothin' to do! A-tall! Yer want anythin', yer reaches out an' picks it off a tree or somethin'. You never works, never gets the satisfaction,
each day th' same. Never see y'r own kind, never speak to a Christian soul — and the rest o' the world just ain't there, fer all ye hear of it. Fer all I know, King Louis may've come ter take back his Louisiana from the Spanish.'
Sardonic looks were exchanged. 'No, cuffin, King Louis ain't no more,' Doud told him gently. 'Frogs, they has a revolution o' their own, an' separates 'im from 'is 'ead.'
Gurney's eyes widened. 'Then how . . .'
'They has some sort o' citizens', er, parleyment - the gentry got their heads lopped off an' all, see.' Doud was clearly having difficulty with the idea that someone could be ignorant of the tumult of blood that was convulsing the world.
'And we're at war with the Crapauds — they're hard t' beat on land,' said Kydd, 'but they can't best us at sea,' he added, with feeling. He thought over other events of the last four years — the shocking mutiny on the ship Bounty, the Terror in Paris, George Washington becoming the first President of America, these things Gurney would learn about in time.
'Yeah, but me here with a bunch o' heathen, always feudin' and fightin', struttin' up 'n' down like.' He stared gloomily at the remaining figures on the beach. 'I seen sights'd make yer blood run cold. They're murderin' heathens, shipmates.'
Kydd thought of Renzi. High-minded thoughts would be no proof against the savagery of the warriors should they grow tired of peaceful trade. His thoughts drifted back to Tamaha. He would see her again tomorrow. Would she be thinking of him now? Would he tell Renzi of her? He knew that he was not immune to feminine charms — their rivalry over Sarah Bullivant had shown that. Sarah! The name caused a stab of feeling, but he had now detached that part of his past into a self-contained unit that carried her memory.
Darkness lay softly over the island, and Kydd finished the last of his meal, a boiled concoction of salt beef and yam served in a half coconut shell. Still no sign of Renzi. A buzz of talk washed about him. He lay back on the grass and gazed at the stars, thinking of nothing in particular, just enjoying the night air.
Drowsy, he went to the living hut. Their hammocks were still slung and the matting sides were rolled up to give an airiness to the warm night. As he climbed aboard his hammock Kydd saw a dark form by Renzi's position. 'Nicholas?' he called softly. The form froze. 'Is that you back with us?'
'Yes,' said Renzi shortly.
Kydd sensed a bridge had been crossed. 'Did you . . .'
'I had the transcendent experience of communicating with the savages in their innocence,' Renzi said stiffly.
So there would be no revision of Rousseau's Noble Savage. Kydd wondered what form the communication had taken, given the total lack of a common tongue. 'John Jones was taken by a devil fish,' he said. 'It was the strangest thing y' ever saw, just a single bite an' he was destroyed — Nathaniel Gurney says it was the Scorpion Fish, very bad. An' he also says as how the savage are treacherous heathens, given to murderin' each other and—'
'Gurney is a fool,' Renzi spat, 'an ignorant wastrel who, like us, is causing the foul corruption of civilisation to lay its dead hand on these islands.'
'How so?' Kydd replied, with heat. 'D'ye despise even y'r own society?'
Renzi paused, and Kydd could hear his angry breathing. 'I beg — we will talk no more of it,' Renzi said, his voice thick.
Kydd bit off his reply and settled in his hammock.
He awoke late with a muzzy head after a night of conflicting dreams. He looked over the edge of his hammock to Renzi's, but his friend had left — as he was entitled to, Kydd reminded himself. Their spell of duty did not begin until noon.
Tamaha was nowhere to be seen, and he didn't feel like going down by the lagoon or taking the steep climb to the peak. He wandered up to the observatory platform. The observations had begun, and Kydd watched Evelyn's total concentration at the gleaming brass instruments and his quick scrawls as he added to his growing pile of papers. Hobbes glowered at the inquisitive onlookers and continued his dour ministrations.