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

The girl did not seem to notice.

One of the gaolers stepped up behind her. "Keep moving, you stupid cow." With the length of knotted rope he hit her across the top of her thin bare arm, raising a vivid red welt. Jim fought to stop himself rushing to protect her, and the nearest guard sensed the movement. He swung the muzzle of his musket towards Jim, who stepped back. He knew that at that range the buckshot would have disembowelled him. But the girl had seen his gesture too, recognized something in him. She stumbled forward, her eyes filled with tears of pain from the lash, massaging the crimson welt with her other hand. She kept those haunting eyes on his face as she passed where Jim stood rooted to the deck. He knew it was dangerous and futile to speak to her, but the words were out before he could bite down on them and there was pity in his tone. "They've starved you."

A pale travesty of a smile flickered across her lips, but she gave no other sign of having heard him. Then the harridan in the line behind her shoved her forward: "No young cock for you today, your highness. You'll have to use your finger. Keep moving." The girl went on down the deck away from him.

"Let me give you some advice, kerel," said the purser at his shoulder. "Don't try anything with any of those bitches. That's the shortest way to hell."

Jim mustered a grin. "I'm a brave man, but not a stupid one." He held out his hand and the purser counted eight silver coins into his palm. He swung a leg over the rail. Till bring out a load of vegetables for you tomorrow. Then perhaps we can go ashore together and have a grog in one of the taverns." As he dropped down into the skiff, he muttered, "Or I could break your neck and both your fat legs." He took his place at the tiller.

"Cast off, hoist the sail," he called to Zama, and brought the skiff on

to the wind. They skimmed down the side of the Meeuw. The port-lids on the gun ports were open to let light and air into the gun decks Jim looked into the nearest as he came level. The crowded, fetid gundeck was a vision from hell, and the stench was like a pig-sty or cesspit. Hundreds of human beings had been crowded into that low, narrow space for months without relief.

Jim tore away his gaze, and glanced up at the ship's rail, high above his head. He was still looking for the girl, but he expected to be disappointed. Then his pulse leaped as those unbelievably blue eyes stared down at him. In the line of women prisoners the girl was shuffling along the rail near the bows.

"Your name? What's your name?" he called urgently. At that moment to know it was the most important thing in the world.

Her reply was faint on the wind, but he read it on her lips: "Louisa."

Till come back, Louisa. Be of good cheer," he shouted recklessly, and she stared at him expressionlessly. Then he did something even more reckless. He knew it was madness, but she was starved. He snatched up the red stump nose he had kept back from the sale. It weighed almost ten pounds but he tossed it up lightly. Louisa reached out and caught it in both hands, with a hungry, desperate expression on her face. The grotesque trull in the line behind her jumped forward and tried to wrest it out of her grasp. Immediately three or four other women joined the struggle, fighting over the fish like a pack of she-wolves. Then the gaolers rushed in to break up the melee, flogging and lashing the shrieking women with the knotted ropes. Jim turned away, sick to the guts, his heart torn with pity and with some other emotion he did not recognize for he had never experienced it before.

The three sailed on in grim silence, but every few minutes Jim turned to look back at the prison ship.

"There is nothing you can do for her," Mansur said at last. "Forget her, coz. She's out of your reach."

Jim's face darkened with anger and frustration. "Is she? You think you know everything, Mansur Courtney. We shall see. We shall see!"

On the beach ahead one of the grooms was holding a string of harnessed mules, ready to help them beach the skiff. "Don't just sit there like a pair of cormorants drying your wings on a rock. Get the sail down," Jim snarled at the other two with the formless, undirected anger still dark upon him.

They waited on the first line of the surf, hanging on the oars, waiting for the right wave. When Jim saw it coming he shouted, "Here we go. Give way together. Pull!"

It swept under the stern and then suddenly, exhilaratingly, they were

surfing on the brow of the curling green wave, racing on to the beach. The wave carried them high, then pulled back to leave them stranded. They jumped out and when the groom galloped in with the team of mules, they hitched on to the trek chain. They ran beside the team, whooping to drive them on, dragging the skiff well above the high-water mark, then unhitched it.

Till need the team again first thing tomorrow morning," Jim told the groom. "Have them ready."

"So, we're going out to that hell ship again, are we?" Mansur asked flatly.

"To take them a load of vegetables." Jim feigned innocence.

"What do you want to trade in return?" Mansur asked, with equal insouciance. Jim punched his arm lightly and they jumped on to the bare backs of the mules. Jim took one last, brooding look across the bay to where the prison ship was anchored, then they rode round the shore of the lagoon, up the hill towards the whitewashed buildings of the estate, the homestead and the go down that Tom Courtney had named High Weald after the great mansion in Devon where he and Dorian had been born, and which neither of them had laid eyes on for so many years. The name was the only thing that the two houses had in common. This one was built in the Cape style. The roof was thatched thickly with reeds. The graceful gabled ends and the archway leading into the central courtyard had been designed by the celebrated Dutch architect, Anreith. The name of the estate and the family emblem were incorporated into the ornate fresco of cherubs and saints above the archway. The emblem depicted a long-barrelled cannon on its wheeled carriage with a ribbon below it, and the letters "CBTC' for Courtney Brothers Trading Company. In a separate panel was the legend: "High Weald, 1711'. The house had been built in the same year that Jim and Mansur were born.

As they clattered through the archway and into the cobbled courtyard, Tom Courtney came stamping out of the main doors of the warehouse. He was a big man, over six foot tall, heavy in the shoulders. His dense black beard was shot through with silver and his pate was innocent of a single strand of hair, but thick curls surrounded the shiny bald scalp and bushed down the back of his neck. His belly, once flat and hard, had taken on a magisterial girth. His craggy features were laced with webs of laughter lines, while his eyes gleamed with humour and the contentment of a supremely confident, prosperous man.

"James Courtney! You've been gone so long I'd forgotten what you

looked like. It's good of you to drop in. I hate to trouble you, but do any of you intend doing any work this day?"