'Nicholas,' she was saying, her voice urgent. 'Can you hear me? Nicholas . . . Nicholas!'
He thought he was answering but everything seemed so far away. He shouted and his voice came out as a whisper, and he wished the pain in his arm would stop. 'Yes . . . yes.' That seemed about all he wanted to say. Quite why he was lying flat on his back, this awful pain in his arm, feeling that he was going to vomit any moment, and with something soft against his face, soft and warm, and moving slightly all the time, he did not know. Now someone was approaching with a lantern . . .
The light showed that he was lying by the mainmast of the Earl of Dodsworth and his head was cradled in a woman's arms. But he had swum away from the East Indiaman hours ago and boarded the Heliotrope alone.
What was happening in the Heliotrope? All those passengers, two of them children. He had explained what they were to do in French, and then the Calypso's boarding party had arrived. Yes, now he remembered that a privateersman had woken and roused the rest and there had been a desperate fight in that small cabin . . .
'Jackson! Jackson!' he shouted, and she heard him whispering, his teeth chattering with the violence of the shivering.
'He wants you,' she said to the American, the wetness of his hair soaking through her frock and chilling her breasts. While the American and the Italian continued tying the bandage round his arm, his face was as white as a sheet in the lanternlight: the cheekbones stuck out like elbows, the skin of his face stretched taut as though all the blood and much of the flesh had drained away in the sea while the men towed the raft with him lashed to it.
He was dying, of that she was sure, and her last words to him had been unpleasant; she had turned her back on him and walked away when all she wanted to do was kiss him and have him hold her. Now they had brought him back to die in her arms.
'Sir, it's Jackson,' the American crouched over him, his ears close to Nicholas's mouth. Sarah listened intently. Some last message for the Marchesa? No, he would give that to the young count. But she must not have these bitter thoughts now; if he died, two women would have loved him.
'Wha' happened?'
Jackson knew what his captain wanted to know. 'We saved the hostages, sir. The guards in the cabin were roused. One caught you with a cutlass as you spitted a man going for Spurgeon with a knife.'
'Di' we lose anyone?'
'Spurgeon, sir. The privateersman stabbed him the same moment the other one slashed you with his cutlass.'
'Wha'm I doing here?'
'Now, sir,' Jackson said soothingly, 'you rest now. The Lynx heard nothing. Mr Martin's in command in the Heliotrope and Mr Aitken's taken the Friesland.'
The American straightened himself and shouted aft: 'Look alive with those blankets! Sorry, ma'am,' he said to Sarah, 'but the captain's mortal cold.'
It was no good her explaining to this seaman that the passengers were so bewildered as to be almost helpless; that being seized by privateersmen in the first place had been a great shock; being suddenly rescued in the middle of the night was a second one; and now, having the man they regarded as their saviour dragged bleeding and unconscious up the side of the ship must seem like the end of the world to them.
God, he was shivering so violently. Now he was whispering again, every word taking so much effort. She reached out and tugged Jackson's shirt as he bent down to help Rossi with the bandage, which was a strip torn from a sheet.
'Calypso ... I must get to the Calypso . . .'
'Yes, sir, as soon as we can. Three of the men have swum over to fetch Mr Bowen and a boat.'
'Jackson, why bring me here?'
She realized that the American knew it was pointless to give soothing answers. 'You'd have bled to death a long time a'fore we reached her, sir. We started off for her but we couldn't swim fast enough towing the raft, and when you kept on bleeding in spite of the bandages and tourniquet, we reckoned we needed somewhere quick with dry bandages and a lantern.'
'Nicholas,' she said, 'they're trying to make you a hot drink, but they're frightened the glow of the galley stove might be seen from the Lynx. Will you sip this brandy?'
'Come on, sir,' Jackson said and uncapped a flat silver flask. Finally he said: 'It's no good, ma'am. I know what he's like from other times. He hates spirits.'
'Other times?' she whispered.
'We really thought we'd lost him the last time, didn't we, Rossi?'
'Mamma mia, when we blew up that Dutch frigate, I thought we were all loosed.'
'Lost,' Jackson corrected from habit, and said to Sarah.
'He'll be all right soon, ma'am; you wait until Mr Bowen arrives.'
'Who is he?'
'Our surgeon. Ah, about time!' he growled as two men arrived with blankets. 'We only needed two or three! Here, take that end and we'll slide one under him and use it to lift him.'
'Where are you going to take him?' she asked anxiously.
'Nowhere, ma'am. If you'll fold those other blankets into a mattress. Keep out a couple to go over him. Then we can lift him on to it.'
Reluctantly, like a woman having a suckling child taken away from her, she lowered his head and helped Rossi cradle the wounded arm.
'He's so cold,' she said to no one in particular.
'Ma'am,' Jackson said, 'if you'd just walk away for a minute or two...'
'Why?' Her voice was harsh.
'Oh ... I just want to - well, remove his wet clothes!'
She leaned over, saw the pin shining in the lanternlight among the folds of silk, and pulled it out, and then unwrapped the stock. The triangle of curly black hair glistened and the men gently lifted the blanket. She held the stock for a moment. There was not a hint of warmth in the silk; it was as though it had been a corpse's loincloth.
Once he was lowered on to the makeshift mattress she took one and then the other blanket and covered him, leaving the left arm outside so that they could keep an eye on it. Already blood was seeping through the bandage, a spreading black stain in the candlelight. His eyes were closed, his breathing shallow. She had earlier watched the rise and fall of his ribs and any moment expected it to stop, as if the effort was too much.
The loss of blood and the shadows thrown by the lantern emphasized his features. His nose was thin and slightly curved, like a beak, and the bone made a white ridge. The cheekbones frightened her; it was almost as if parchment covered a skull. Above his right eye there were two scars on the brow, thin, white bars on the skin, which itself seemed almost grey. The eyes, closed now, were sunk even deeper under heavy brows. His hair, wet and tangled, looked like a clump of seaweed tossed carelessly on a beach by a wave.
His right hand was plucking at the blanket and trying to reach across to his left arm. Before she could move, Rossi had leaned over and with surprising gentleness put the hand back under the blanket. The lips moved and Rossi bent down and listened.
'I think he wants you, ma'am, if you're "Sarah".'
She felt a surge of pleasure, then realized that this Italian seaman had probably misheard a murmured 'Gianna' as 'Sarah'. He was thinking of the Marchesa.
'Nicholas...'
'Sarah,' he whispered, and there was no mistaking it, 'they shouldn't have brought me here.'
Misunderstanding him, she said: 'Don't worry, Mr Bowen will be here at any minute. It's not a bad wound; it is just that you've lost a lot of blood.'
'No ... I meant -' he seemed to lose consciousness for a moment, then she realized he had shut his eyes to fight off a wave of pain '- I'm sorry to have frightened you ... but the Lynx is next, and then home.'