The Eye of Neptune (12 page)

Dakkar felt a stab of annoyance. ‘No, you don’t,’ he snapped. ‘Apart from standing in your boathouse for a while, I’ve been at sea for weeks.’

‘Well, we’ve been at sea for days since then,’ Georgia tried to argue. She shielded her eyes against the setting sun. ‘Anyway, it’ll be dark soon. Any repairs will have to wait until tomorrow. We’ll camp on the beach but we’ll need some firewood.’

‘And I’m supposed to go and find it, am I?’ Dakkar snarled. ‘While you rest here? I’ve been attacked by a shark and nearly drowned today, or had you forgotten?’

‘Fine,’ Georgia muttered under her breath. ‘I was going to suggest we both went but if you’re too exhausted . . .’

Dakkar watched her stalk off up the inlet towards the line of trees.
Maybe I should go after her
, he thought, but he stayed back, weighed down by hurt pride. He sat on the beach and listened to the swish of the tide, wondering if Oginski heard the same sound somewhere else.

Soon Georgia returned with an armful of dead wood and threw it down beside Dakkar. Then she strode back to the
Liberty
, returning with a tinderbox.

‘There are breadfruit trees in there,’ she said, not meeting his eye. ‘We could boil some. It’d make a welcome change from salt beef.’

Dakkar gave a sigh and wandered off to the treeline.

The growing gloom of twilight deepened the shadows between the tree trunks. Dakkar shivered. Was there a movement in the darkness? A twig snapped and leaves rustled. Dakkar held his breath and crept forward. The undergrowth suddenly erupted, making him cry out as a flurry of brightly coloured birds squawked and flapped their way into the branches above. Dakkar blew out a sigh and laughed.

The breadfruit hung from the highest branches, requiring Dakkar to clamber up the trees. He was panting by the time he came back with a couple of decent-sized specimens.

A fire crackled on the beach and Georgia had set up a tripod and pan over it. Dakkar thought again of how ill prepared he’d been on the
Makara
and blushed at her efficiency.

‘They look good,’ she said, taking the breadfruit from him. ‘I heard you cry out. Was everything all right?’

Dakkar gave a cough and couldn’t help smirking. ‘Just some birds,’ he said. ‘They almost flew into my face!’

Georgia gave a laugh and cut into the breadfruit with a long-bladed knife. Dakkar squatted and helped plop the chunks into the boiling water.

‘I’m sorry I snapped at you before,’ he muttered as they prepared the breadfruit.

‘That’s all right,’ Georgia replied, giving a tight smile. ‘Fighting sharks and gigantic squid doesn’t put anyone in the best of humours.’

Dakkar laughed and relaxed a little. The breadfruit bubbled away and Dakkar realised just how hungry he was. The salt beef and weevily biscuits he’d been chewing on for the past few weeks had kept him from starving but the smell of something warm and fresh cooking made his mouth water.

Soon they were wolfing down hot chunks of the starchy fruit. Dakkar burned his mouth a couple of times but he didn’t care. It wasn’t long before the pan was emptied and the two of them were dozing by the fire with full bellies.

Dakkar shifted on to his elbow and stared at Georgia through the flames.

‘So where did you learn so much about the sea and sailing?’ he asked.

‘My pa was a sailor,’ Georgia said, blushing in the firelight. ‘He doted on me. Taught me everything he knew.’

‘You said “was”. Did he retire?’ Dakkar said.

‘He died,’ Georgia said, staring into the flames, ‘fighting His Majesty’s Navy.’

‘Oh,’ Dakkar said, suddenly feeling awkward. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Anyway!’ Georgia said, a false brightness in her voice. ‘What’s it like being a prince?’

‘I don’t know really,’ Dakkar said, frowning. ‘That all seems like another time, another life.’

‘You’ve been away from home for a long time?’ Georgia asked.

‘I’ve been in England for at least four years. I ran away from a few schools and then Oginski took me on and I’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like to be a prince.’

‘You ran away from school?’ Georgia said, wide-eyed.

‘Well, it’s hardly an adventure compared to this,’ Dakkar said.

‘No,’ Georgia said, still agog at Dakkar’s comment. ‘I mean, what a waste! A good education is a real gift. I’d give my right arm to have proper school learning.’

‘Believe me,’ Dakkar replied. ‘English schools are neither proper nor are they a gift. They’re brutal places full of bullying masters and hideous children.’

‘Well,’ Georgia said, ‘I’ve no love for the English at the moment.’

‘Now that’s one thing we have in common,’ Dakkar said.

‘Do you think we’ll find Uncle Robert and Oginski?’ she asked quietly, changing the subject.

There’s no doubt in my mind,’ Dakkar said, his voice sounding brittle. ‘We’ve just got to find Lafitte first.’

‘And what if he won’t help us?’ Georgia whispered.

Somewhere in the distance a bird screamed at the night, and things scurried and scuffled in the woodland higher up the beach.

‘Let’s make the fire up,’ Dakkar said, ignoring her question. ‘We’ll sleep on the beach tonight.’

Georgia rolled over and Dakkar threw more wood on to the fire. He watched the flames snap and flicker. More scurrying rattled the undergrowth and he peered into the darkness.

‘I don’t like this island,’ he muttered.

But Georgia just snored in response, leaving Dakkar sitting, watching the dancing shadows.

Chapter Fourteen

A Mystery

The warm morning sun woke Dakkar from his sleep by the smouldering ashes of the fire. He groaned as he rolled over the shingle, shaking pebbles and fragments of shells from his hair.

When did I nod off?
he wondered. He’d sat up for some time listening to the gentle whoosh of the sea – and the less comforting sounds from the woods behind him. But at some point he must have dozed off.

Georgia stood, flexing her arms and bending her legs, her red bathing dress flapping in the gentle breeze that blew in from the sea.

‘Right,’ she said, taking a deep breath. ‘Let’s have a look at the
Liberty
, decide what needs doing and then find what we need to make any repairs.’

‘Did you hear any strange noises last night?’ Dakkar asked her. ‘From the woods?’

‘Just birds, probably.’ She grinned. ‘Y’know, those vicious ones that tried to kill you when you were collecting wood!’

Dakkar rolled his eyes and shook his head, then followed her down to the shoreline where the
Liberty
was lying on her side like a beached whale.

They ran their fingers along the overlapping planks, then Georgia went inside and tapped on the clay, identifying the location of the leak.

‘Yes, that’s it,’ Dakkar called to her. ‘I can see where the plank has been pushed in. It could have been a lot worse.’

Georgia’s head popped round the prow of the sub. ‘She’s a tough one, all right!’ she said. ‘Do you think we can fix her?’

‘It should be a case of a little tar on this side and keeping your uncle’s clay on that one,’ Dakkar muttered. ‘If we can push the board out a bit that may help too.’

‘There’s a pot of tar in the back of the
Liberty
,’ Georgia said. ‘But it’ll need heating. We’ll need more firewood.’

‘I’ll get some,’ Dakkar said.

‘We’ll go together,’ Georgia said, flashing him a grin. ‘But let’s take some rifles with us.’

‘Rifles?’ Dakkar repeated. ‘Your uncle included firearms in the
Liberty
’s equipment?’

‘What’s the point of arming the sub and not the captain?’ Georgia said, wrinkling her freckled nose. She grew more serious. ‘Besides, after yesterday I’m not taking any chances.’

With powder belts and rifles flung over their shoulders, they trudged up the shingle towards the treeline. Dakkar felt a mounting dread. It wasn’t from anything obvious, just a bad feeling about the wood ahead of them.

‘I feel as though someone is watching me,’ Dakkar whispered, staring into the thick undergrowth. ‘This place seems so odd.’ He gazed above the trees at the rock that formed the highest end of the wedge-shaped island. This side of the rock rose up in a steep cliff face. ‘Are those buildings up on the cliffs there?’

Georgia shielded her eyes with one hand and peered at the rock. ‘They look like cave entrances,’ she replied.

‘Like square doorways,’ Dakkar agreed. ‘And why isn’t this place on your map?’

‘It’s a tiny island.’ Georgia shrugged. ‘Hardly important. I guess it wasn’t worth mapping out.’

‘It’d be important if you ran aground on it during the night,’ Dakkar pointed out. ‘Or if you needed a beach to land on, like we did.’

They had reached the first scrubby undergrowth of the wood now and they began to snatch up any dead branches they could see. Georgia gave a snort of disgust and pulled her hand back. Her fingers were smeared in a greeny brown substance.

‘Yuck!’ she said, flicking her fingers away from herself. ‘It smells like chicken poop!’

‘It’s big for a chicken.’ Dakkar grimaced at the huge dollop that was smeared over the branches. ‘And smellier!’

‘It’s truly foul,’ she said, wiping her fingers on a broad leaf and then smiling when she realised her joke. ‘Foul . . . fowl. D’you see?’

Dakkar rolled his eyes and carried on collecting firewood.

As they searched through the bushes, they found themselves climbing the hill towards the other end of the small island. Dakkar looked up at the square cave entrances.

‘Now we’re closer you can see they’re man-made,’ he said, pointing to the chisel marks. ‘And look at the steps there.’

A narrow flight of stairs carved out of the rock wound up to the first row of caves.

‘D’you think we should take a look?’ Georgia murmured, but Dakkar had already put his wood pile down and was climbing up the steps.

The darkness inside the first cave blinded Dakkar for a moment. He paused, allowing his eyes to become accustomed to the gloom. It smelt musty and damp. Gradually, he made out the shapes of overturned boxes and chests, racks of cracked, cobwebbed bottles. Tables lay broken on the ground. A huge cage, its bars bent and twisted, stood in the corner.

‘It looks like an abandoned workshop,’ he whispered, picking up a bottle. ‘I wonder who it belonged to.’

The crest on the sides of the crates showed a snake curling around a letter C with a trident poking up behind it.

‘I’ve never seen a crest like this,’ Georgia said, tracing a finger over it. ‘What might it stand for?’

‘Remember your uncle’s diary,’ Dakkar said, his eyes wide. ‘He referred to ‘‘C’’.’

‘The C could stand for anything though,’ Georgia said. ‘I wonder what this place was.’

They stepped into another room behind the workshop. More cages met their gaze, lined up like wounded soldiers, all wrecked beyond use.

‘What lived in these?’ Georgia said, tugging at the warped metal.

‘Ask him,’ Dakkar whispered, pointing.

Georgia stifled a scream. A skeleton lay in the corner of the room. He wore a black uniform and the fabric of the breeches was torn and ragged. His jacket bore the same crest as the boxes.

‘He doesn’t look to have died peacefully,’ Dakkar said, gesturing to the pistol in the skeleton’s hand.

He squatted down and gingerly pinched a thin slip of paper from inside the skeleton’s coat. ‘It looks like orders of some kind.’ The paper crumbled in Dakkar’s hands but he managed to read: ‘
Destroy all the specimens before they break free . . .
’

‘Specimens – they’re animals or things in a collection, right?’ Georgia said, examining one of the cages. ‘They must have been big.’ She prised open a small barrel that lay next to the skeleton. ‘And I betcha the next part of the orders was to blow this place sky-high.’

‘Is that gunpowder?’ Dakkar said, his eyes widening as he stared into the barrel.

‘No, it’s snuff.’ Georgia laughed. ‘Of course it’s gunpowder! And look – there’s more!’

Another barrel lay on its side by the door leading to the next cave. More bones lay scattered on the ground, belonging to four skeletons, judging by the skulls.

‘Something must have torn them apart before they could blow the place up,’ Dakkar gasped.

‘I don’t like this,’ Georgia said. ‘Let’s get our firewood and get off this island.’

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ Dakkar said, hurrying to the front cave.

But he stopped at the entrance. The trees that surrounded the clearing at the foot of the cliff swirled and thrashed about.

‘Look,’ Dakkar hissed. ‘There’s something down there. Something big.’

Lower branches swayed and snapped as whatever it was moved among the trees. Dakkar glimpsed white and black but couldn’t work out what it was.

‘Is it a big cat?’ Georgia whispered. ‘A tiger or a lion maybe?’