"Wilbur Smith - Courtney 03 - Blue Horizon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith Wilbur)

keen, a fine weapon. The sturdy little file had three cutting edges. She felt a lift of hope, the first in all those long months. She looked down at the irons on her ankles. The skin beneath the cruel bonds was calloused. Knife and file were invaluable gifts, but it was the comb that touched her deepest. It was an affirmation that he had seen her as a woman, not as gaol dregs from the slums and the gutter. She rummaged in the bottom of the bag for the letter he had promised. It was a single sheet of cheap paper, folded cunningly to form its own envelope. It was addressed to "Louisa' in a bold but fair hand. She unfolded it, careful not to tear it. It was in poorly spelt Dutch, but she was able to make out the gist of it.

Use the file on your chains. I will have a boat under the stern tomorrow night. When you hear the ship's bell strike two bells in the middle watch, jump. I will hear the splash. Have courage.

Her pulse raced. At once she knew that the chances of success were negligible. A hundred things could go wrong, not least a musket ball or a shark. What mattered was that she had found a friend and with it new hope of salvation, no matter how remote. She tore the note into shreds and dropped them into the reeking latrine bucket. None of the gnards would try to retrieve it from there. Then she crept back under the cannon, into the darkness that was her only privacy, and sat with her legs folded under her so she could easily reach the links of her leg irons. With the first stroke of the little file she cut a shallow but bright notch and a few grains of iron filtered down to the deck. The shackles had been forged from untempered steel of poor quality but it would take time and heart-breaking perseverance to cut through a single link.

"I have a day and a night. Until two bells in the middle watch tomorrow night," she encouraged herself, and laid the file into the notch she had already cut. At the next stroke more iron filings dusted the deck.

The longboat had been relieved of the heavy load of produce and now she rode lightly. Mansur was at the tiller, and Jim gazed back over the stern as he rowed. Every now and again he grinned as he went over in his mind the brief meeting with Louisa. She spoke English, good English, with only a touch of a Dutch accent, and she was spirited and quick-witted. She had responded swiftly to the circum62

stances. This was no dull-witted lump of gaol-bait. He had seen her bare legs through the chink in the port-lid as she helped him prise it open. They were starved painfully thin, and galled by her chains, but they were long and straight, not twisted and deformed by rickets. "Good breeding there!" as his father would say of a blood filly. The hand that had taken the canvas bag from his was grubby, and the nails were cracked and broken, but it was beautifully shaped, with gracefully tapered fingers. The hands of a lady, not a slave or scullery maid "She does not smell like a posy of lavender. But she's been locked up in that filthy tub for Lord alone knows how long. What do you expect?" He made excuses for her. Then he thought about her eyes, those wondrous blue eyes, and his expression was soft and dreamy. "In all my life, I have never laid eyes on a girl like that. And she speaks English."

"Hey, coz!" Mansur shouted. "Keep the stroke. You will have us on Robben Island if you're not more careful." Jim started out of his daydream just in time to meet the next swell that lifted the stern high.

"Sea's getting up," his father grunted. "Like as not it will be blowing a gale by tomorrow. We'll have to try to take out the last load before it gets too rough."

Jim took his eyes off the receding shape of the ship, and looked beyond her. His spirits sank. The storm clouds were piling up high and heavy as mountains upon the horizon.

I have to think up an excuse to stay ashore when they take out the next load to the Meeuw, he decided. There is not going to be another chance to make ready.

A the mules dragged the longboat up the beach, Jim told his father, "I have to take Captain Hugo his cut. He might scotch us if he doesn't have some coin in his fat fist."

"Let him wait for it, the old sheep thief. I need you to help with the next shipment."

"I promised Hugo and, anyway, you have a full crew for the next trip out to the ship."

Tom Courtney studied his son with a searching gaze. He knew him well. He was up to something. It was not like Jim to shirk. On the contrary, he was a rock on which Tom could depend. It was he who had established good terms with the purser on the convict ship, he had obtained the licence to trade from Hugo, and he had supervised the loading of the first shipment. He could be trusted.

"Well, I don't know..." Tom stroked his chin dubiously.

Mansur stepped in quickly. "Let Jim go, Uncle Tom. I can take over from him for the time being."

"Very well, Jim. Go and visit your friend Hugo," Tom acquiesced, 'but be back on the beach to help with the boats when we return."

Later, from the top of the dunes, Jim watched the longboats rowing back towards the Meeuw with the final load of produce. It seemed to him that the swells were higher than they had been that morning, and the wind was starting to claw off the tops in a parade of leaping white horses.

"God spare us!" he said aloud. "If the storm comes up I will not be able to get the girl off until it passes." Then he remembered his instructions to her. He had told her to jump overboard at precisely two bells in the middle watch. He could not get another message to her to stop her doing that. Would she have the good sense to stay on board if there was a full gale blowing, realizing that he had not been able to keep the rendezvous, or would she throw herself overboard regardless and perish in the darkness? The thought of her drowning in the dark waters struck him like a fist in his belly, and he felt nauseous. He turned Drumfire's head towards the castle and pressed his heels into the horse's sides.

Captain Hugo was surprised but pleased to have his commission paid so promptly. Jim left him without ceremony, refusing even a mug of coffee, and galloped back along the beach. He was thinking furiously as he rode.

There had been so little time to lay his plans. It was only in the last few hours that he had been sure the girl had the spirit to chance such a hazardous escape. The first consideration, if he succeeded in getting her ashore, would be to find a safe hiding-place for her. As soon as her escape was discovered the entire castle garrison would be sent out to find her, a hundred infantry and a squadron of cavalry. The Company troops in the castle had little enough employment, and a manhunt or, better still, a woman-hunt would be one of the most exciting events in years. Colonel Keyser, the garrison commander, would be hot for the honour of capturing an escaped convict.

For the first time he allowed himself to consider the consequences if this hare-brained scheme fell to pieces. He worried that he might be making trouble for his family. The strict law laid down by the directors of the VOC, the almighty Zeventien in Amsterdam, was that no

foreigner was permitted to reside or carry on a business in the colony. However, like so many other strict laws of the directors in Amsterdam, there were special circumstances by which they could be circumvented. Those special circumstances always involved a monetary token of esteem to His Excellency Governor van de Witten. It had cost the Courtney brothers twenty thousand guilders to obtain a licence to reside and trade in the Colony of Good Hope. Van de Witten was unlikely to revoke that licence. He and Tom Courtney were on friendly terms, and Tom contributed generously to van de Witten's unofficial pension fund.

Jim hoped that if he and the girl simply disappeared from the colony, there would be nothing to implicate the rest of his family. There might be suspicions, and at the worst it might cost his father another gift to van de Witten, but in the end it would blow over, just as long as he never returned.

There were only two avenues of escape from the colony. The natural and best was the sea. But that meant a boat. The Courtney brothers owned two armed traders, handy and fleet schooners with which they traded as far as Arabia and Bombay. However, at the present time both these vessels were at sea and were not expected back until the monsoon changed, which would not be for several months yet.