Monsoon (Courtney Family Adventures)

1134 Pages·2003·2.71 MB·English

by  Wilbur Smith

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The Monsoon
Wilbur Smith
*
Synopsis:
It is the dawn of the eighteenth century. At the farthest edge of the known
world, the mighty Eastern India Trading Company suffers catastrophic losses
from pirates on the high seas.
After four years away from service, master mariner Sir Hal Courtney prepares
for his latest and most dangerous voyage, a death or glory mission in the name of
Empire and the Crown. Wilbur Smith - The Monsoon
*
The three boys came up through the gill behind the chapel, so that they were
hidden from the big house and the stables. Tom, the eldest, led them as he
always did, but the youngest brother was close on his heels, and when Tom
paused where the stream made its first turn above the village he renewed his
argument.
"Why do I always have to be the cat? Why can I never join in the fun, Tom?
"Because you are the littlest," Tom told him, with lordly authority. He was
surveying the tiny hamlet below them, which was now visible in the slot of the
ravine.
Smoke was rising from the forge in the smithy, and washing flapped in the
easterly breeze behind the Widow Evans's cottage, but there was no sign of
human life. At this time of day most of the men would be out in his father's
fields, for the harvest was in full swing, while those women who were not toiling
beside them would be at work in the big house.
Tom grinned with satisfaction and anticipation.
"No one's spotted us." No one to carry reports back to their father.
"It's not fair." Dorian was not so easily distracted from his argument. His
coppery gold curls spilled down on to his forehead, giving him the look of an
angry cherub.
"You never let me do anything."
"Who let you fly his hawk last week? I did." Tom rounded on him.
"Who let you fire his musket yesterday? I did. Who let you steer the cutter?"
"Yes, but,
"But me no buts." Tom glowered at him.
"Who's the captain of this crew, anyway?"
"You are, Tom." Dorian dropped his green eyes under the force of his elder
brother's stare.
"But, still-"
"You can go with Tom in my place, if you want." Guy spoke softly for the
first time.
"I'll play the cat." Tom turned to his younger twin, while Dorian exclaimed,
"Can I, Guy? Will you really?" It was only when he smiled that his full beauty
burst out, like sunlight through parting clouds.
burst out, like sunlight through parting clouds.
"No, he won't.. Tom cut in.
"Dorry's only a baby. He can't come.
He'll stay on the roof to keep the cat."
"I'm not a baby," Dorian protested furiously.
"I'm nearly eleven."
"If you're not a baby, show us your ball hairs," Tom challenged him. Since he
had sprouted his own, these had become Tom's yardstick of seniority.
Dorian ignored him: he had not even a pale ginger fluff to match the
impressive growth of his elder brother.
He went on to another tack.
"I'll just watch, that's all."
"Yes, you'll watch from the roof." Tom killed the argument dead in its tracks.
"Come on! We'll be late." He struck out up the steep ravine.
The other two trailed after him with varying degrees of reluctance.
"Who could come anyway?" Dorian persisted.
"Everybody's busy. Even we should be helping."
"Black Billy could come," Tom replied, without looking back. That name
silenced even Dorian. Black Billy was the oldest Courtney son. His mother had
been an Ethiopian princess whom Sir Hal Courtney had brought back from
Africa when he returned from his first voyage to that mystic continent.
A royal bride and a shipload of treasure plundered from the Dutch and the
pagan, a vast fortune with which their father had more than doubled the acreage
of his ancient estate, and in so doing had elevated the family to among the
wealthiest in all Devon, rivalling even the Grenvilles.
William Courtney, Black Billy to his younger half, brothers, was almost
twenty-four, seven years older than the twins. He was clever, ruthless,
handsome, in a dark wolf-like way, and his younger brothers feared and hated
him with good reason. The threat of his name made Dorian shiver, and they
climbed the last half-mile in silence. At last they left the stream and approached
the rim, pausing under the big oak where the hen harrier had nested last spring.
Tom flopped down against the hole of the tree to catch his breath.
"If this wind holds we can go sailing in the morning," he announced, as he
removed his cap and wiped his sweaty forehead with his sleeve.
There was a mallard wing feather in his cap, taken from the first bird ever
killed by his own falcon.
He looked around him. From here the view encompassed almost half the
Courtney estate, fifteen thousand acres of rolling hills and steep valleys, of
woodland, pasture and wheat fields that stretched down to the cliffs along the
shore, and reached almost to the outskirts of the port. But it was ground so
familiar that Tom did not linger long on the view.
"I'll go ahead to see if the coast is clear," he said, and scrambled to his feet.
"I'll go ahead to see if the coast is clear," he said, and scrambled to his feet.
Crouching low, he moved cautiously to the stone wall that surrounded the
chapel.
Then he lifted his head and peered over.
The chapel had been built by his great grandfather, Sir Charles, who had won
his knighthood in the service of Good Queen Bess. As one of her se a captains
he had fought with great distinction against the armada of Philip of Spain. Over
a hundred years ago Sir Charles had built the chapel to the glory of God and in
commemoration of the fleet action at Calais. He had earned his knight, hood
there, and many of the Spanish galleons had been driven in flames on to the
beach, the rest dispersed to the storms that Vice-Admiral Drake had called the
Winds of God.
The chapel was a handsome octagonal building of grey stone, with a tall spire
that, on a clear day, could be seen in Plymouth almost fifteen miles distant. Tom
vaulted easily over the wall, and sneaked through the apple orchard to the iron-
studded oak vestry door. He opened it a crack and listened intently. The silence
was impenetrable.
He crept inside and went to the door that opened into the nave.
As he peeped in, the sunlight through the high stained-glass windows lit the
interior like a rainbow. Those above the altar depicted the English fleet locked in
battle against the Spaniards, with God the Father looking down approvingly
from the clouds as the Spanish galleons burned.
The windows above the main door had been added by Tom's own father. This
time the foes who were being battered into submission were the Dutch and the
hordes of Islam, while above the battle stood Sir Hal, his sword raised heroically
with his Ethiopian princess at his side.
Both of them were armoured and on their shields was blazoned the croix paug
of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail.
of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail.
The nave was empty today. The preparations for Black Billy's wedding, which
would take place next Saturday, had not yet begun. Tom had the building to
himself. He ran back to the vestry door, and stuck his head out. He put two
fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Almost immediately his two
brothers scrambled over the outer wall and ran to meet him.
"Up to the belfry, Dorry!" Tom ordered, and when it seemed that the redhead
might still protest, he took a menacing pace towards him.
Dorian scowled but disappeared up the staircase.
"Is she here yet?" Guy asked, with a hint of trepidation in his voice.
"Not yet. It's still early." Tom crossed the floor and went down the dark stone
staircase that led to the underground crypt. When he reached the bottom, he
unbuckled the flap of the leather pouch that hung beside the sheathed dagger on
his belt. He brought out the heavy iron key that he had removed from his father's
study that morning, and unlocked the grille gate, then swung it open on its
creaking hinges.
He showed no hesitation as he entered the vault where so many of his
ancestors lay in their stone sarcophagi. Guy followed him with less confidence.
The presence of the dead always made him uneasy. He paused at the entrance to
the crypt.
There were high windows at ground level through which glimmered an eerie
light, the only illumination.
Stone and marble coffins were arranged around the circular walls of the crypt.
There were sixteen, all of the Courtneys and their wives since Great-grandfather
Charles. Guy looked instinctively to the marble coffin that contained the earthly
remains of his own mother, in the centre of the line of his father's three dead
remains of his own mother, in the centre of the line of his father's three dead
wives. There was a carved effigy of her on the lid, and she was beautiful, Guy
thought, a pale lily of a girl. He had never known her, never taken suck at her
bosom: the three-day labour of giving birth to twins had been too much for such
a delicate creature. She had died of blood loss and exhaustion only hours after
Guy had vented his birth cry. The boys had been raised by a series of nurses, and
by their stepmother, who had been Dorian's mother.
He crossed to the marble coffin and knelt at the head.
He read the inscription in front of him: "Within this casket lies Margaret
Courtney, beloved second wife of Sir Henry Courtney, mother of Thomas and of
Guy, who departed this life on the 2nd of May 1673. Safe in the bosom of
Christ." Guy closed his eyes and began to pray.
"She can't hear you," Tom told him, not unkindly.
"Yes, she can," Guy replied, without raising his head or opening his eyes.
Tom lost interest and wandered down the row of coffins. To his mother's right
lay Dorian's mother, his father's last wife. It was only three years ago that the
cutter in which she had been sailing had overturned at the entrance to the bay,
and the rip tide had swept her out to sea. Despite her husband's efforts to save
her, the current had been too strong and had nearly taken Hal with her. It had
cast them both up in a wind-battered cove five miles down the coast, but by then
Elizabeth was drowned and Hal nearly so.
Tom felt tears welling up from deep inside of him, for he had loved her as he
could not love the mother he had never known. He coughed and brushed his
eyes, forcing the tears back before Guy could see his childish weakness.
Although Hal had married Elizabeth mainly to provide his orphaned twins
with a mother, very soon they had all come to love her, as they loved Dorian
from when she had given birth to him. All of them but Black Billy, of course.