A moment later a fourth man walked confidently through the doorway. He was dressed like the others, only more richly, with a brocaded waistcoat over his loose shirt, and his red and blue turban was even bulkier and made of fine cloth. He was a much older man, his white beard neatly trimmed, and he seemed unperturbed by the commotion. In his hand he held a pistol. For a moment Hector thought that he would be shot for resisting so fiercely. But the newcomer only walked across to where Hector was now half-kneeling and, neatly reversing the pistol, brought the butt down on the young man’s head.
Just before the crash of pain and the black oblivion that followed, Hector heard the sound that was to haunt him for months to come: the frantic, repeated screams of his sister Elizabeth, calling for his help.
TWO
THE HARSH RASP of timber against his cheek brought him back to his senses. He was propped against some sort of wooden wall, lying awkwardly, and his face had scraped against the planking as he slid downwards. A painful lump on his head throbbed, and his skin was cold and clammy. Worse, it felt as if he was spinning helplessly in a black void that constantly expanded and contracted with each beat of his heart. Nauseous, Hector kept his eyes closed and, from deep down in his stomach, he retched. He was miserably aware that the real world around him was swaying and lurching, while close beside his ear was the gurgle and swirl of moving water.
Hector had only ever been to sea in small fishing boats and when it was calm so he had never experienced the torment of acute seasickness. Thus it was several hours before he felt well enough to take stock of his surroundings. He was in the bowels of a ship. That much was clear. There was the fetid stench of bilge water, the discordant creaks and groans of wood on wood, and the sound of moving water as waves washed against the hull. The stomach-churning pitch and sway of the vessel was exaggerated by the fact that barely any light penetrated into the hold of the vessel. He presumed that it was day time but whether it was morning or afternoon, or how long he had been unconscious, he had no idea. Not since he had fallen out of a tree as a boy and landed on his head, had he felt so bruised and battered. He reached up tentatively to touch the lump on his scalp, only to find that his wrists were shackled with iron manacles from which a thick tarred rope led to a ring bolt set in a cross beam. He was tethered in place.
‘That’s to stop you making trouble or jumping overboard,’ said a sly voice close by. Startled, Hector turned to see an old man crouched beside him. He was dirty and balding, and his face with its sunken cheeks and sickly blotched skin wore a pleased expression. Hector concluded that his observer was enjoying the sight of his sufferings. ‘Where am I? How long have I been here?’ he asked. The residue of vomit in his throat tasted sour. The man cackled and did not reply but scuttled away and laid himself down on the deck boards with exaggerated care, his face turned away from Hector.
Left without an answer Hector carried on taking stock of his surroundings. The hold was some five paces wide and ten paces long, and there was scarcely enough height for an ordinary-sized man to stand upright. In that airless space some thirty people were sitting despondently or slumped on the floorboards. A few had pulled old cargo sacks over themselves as blankets. Others were curled up with their heads buried in their arms. Hector recognised several villagers: the gangling figure of the carpenter and, seated just beside him, a brawny young labourer whom he had sometimes seen setting off from the village to cut peat on the hillside with his slean – a thin bladed spade – on his shoulder. Two men, clearly brothers, were the same fishermen who took it in turn to ferry visitors across to the island friary, and the older man with the gash on his jaw – where someone must have struck him with a club – was the cooper who made the barrels in which the villagers salted down their winter supply of pilchards. They were all still wearing the ragbag of clothes they had put on when they were snatched from their homes, and they looked broken and forlorn. There were also half a dozen children. One of them, perhaps six or seven years old, was whimpering with fear and exhaustion.
But the villagers were not the only occupants of the hold. There were several strangers. In addition to the bedraggled elderly lunatic who had accosted him, there was a small group of men who looked like seamen, and sitting by himself in one corner was a portly man wearing a wig. Judging by his expensive but soiled clothing, he must be a merchant or prosperous shopkeeper. How they all came to be thrown together in these strange and dismal surroundings was something that Hector could not comprehend.
Then, abruptly, he recalled his sister’s despairing wail for help and, looking round the hold again, noted that there were no women in the group.
There was the thump of a hammer blow. It came from directly above, the sound magnified in the hollow space. Then a shaft of light struck down into the gloom. Hector squinted upward to where a hatch was being opened. A pair of bare feet and shins appeared as a sailor came down the ladder leading into the hold. The man was dressed in the same garb as those who had attacked him. A sailor’s knife dangled from a lanyard around his neck, and he was swarthy and heavily bearded. He carried a large wicker basket which he set down on the floor. Without a word he climbed back up the ladder and closed the hatch. A moment later Hector heard the sound of wedges being driven home. Several of the men who looked like seafarers immediately made their way to the base of the ladder, and began to rummage in the basket.
Hector’s tether had been left long enough for him to join them, and he found they were pulling out sheets of thin flat bread which they ripped to pieces and shared out amongst themselves. Beside the basket stood a small tub of water with a wooden scoop. Hector took a sip, spat to wash his mouth out, and then drank deeply. He broke off a piece of the bread and tasted it. It was slightly gritty but wholesome. In the basket were also small fruits which he recognised as a delicacy his mother had occasionally received from her family in Spain. He bit into one and spat out the stone, an olive. Picking out half a dozen of them and another chunk of bread, he retreated to his place by the hull and began to eat, feeling better with every mouthful. Now he realised that he was the only person who had been manacled and tethered. Everyone else in the hold was free to move about.