Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [334]
He took a moment to recover from the shock of landing, then began to move cautiously through the looming dim bulks of the stacked cargo. Everything seemed blurred round the edges. It wasn’t only the faint light, he thought; everything in the hold was vibrating very slightly, thrumming to the shiver of the hull beneath. He could hear it, if he listened closely; the lowest note in the ship’s song.
Through the narrow aisles between the ranks of crates, past the huge bellies of the serried water casks. He breathed in; the air was full of the smell of wet wood, overlaid by the faint perfume of tea. There were rustlings and creakings, plenty of odd noises—but no sign of any human presence. Still, he was sure that someone was here.
And why are you here, mate? he thought. What if one of the steerage passengers had taken refuge here? If someone lay hidden here, chances were good that they had the pox; Roger could do nothing for them—why bother to look?
Because he couldn’t not look, was the answer. He didn’t reproach himself for failing to save the pox-stricken passengers; nothing could have helped them in any case, and perhaps a quick death by drowning was not in fact more terrible than the slow agony of the disease. He’d like to believe that.
But he hadn’t slept; the events of the night filled him with such a sense of horror and sick futility that he could find no rest. Whether he could do anything now, or not, he must do something. He had to look.
Something small moved in the deep shadows of the hold. Rat, he thought, and turned reflexively to stamp on it. The movement saved him; a heavy object whizzed past his head and landed with a splash in the bilges below.
He put his head down and lunged in the direction of the movement, shoulders hunched against an expected blow. There was nowhere to run, and not much place to hide. He saw it again, lunged, and grabbed cloth. Jerked hard, and got flesh. A quick scuffle in the dark, and a cry of alarm, and he found himself pressing a body hard against a bulkhead, clutching the skinny wrist of Morag MacKenzie.
“What the hell?” She kicked at him, and tried to bite, but he ignored this. He got a good grip on the scruff of her neck and hauled her out of the shadows, into the dim brown light of the hold. “What are you doing here?”
“Nothing! Let go! Let me go, please! Please, I beg ye, sir—” Force not availing to free herself—she weighed perhaps half what he did—she turned to pleading, words pouring out in a half-whispered stream of desperation. “For the sake of your own mother, sir! Ye canna do it, please ye cannot let them kill him please!”
“I’m not going to kill anyone. For God’s sake, hush yourself!” he said, and gave her a small shake.
From the blackest shadows behind the anchor chain came the high, thin wail of a fretful baby.
She gave a small gasp and looked up at him, frantic.
“They’ll hear him! God, man, let me go to him!” Such was her desperation that she succeeded in wrenching herself free, and fled toward the sound, clambering over the great rusted links of the anchor chain, heedless of filth.
He followed, more slowly; she couldn’t get away—there was nowhere for her to go. He found them in the darkest spot, crouched against one of the ship’s knees, the huge angled timbers that framed the hull. There was barely a foot of clearance between the rough wood of the hull and the piled mass of the anchor chain; she was no more than a darker blot on the stygian blackness.
“I will not hurt you,” he said softly. The shadow seemed to shrink away from him, but she didn’t answer.
His eyes were slowly growing accustomed to the dark; even back here, a faint light seeped through from the distant hatch. A patch of white—her breast was bared, giving suck to the child. He could hear the small wet noises as it fed.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, though he knew well enough. His stomach clenched tight, and not just because of the foul smell of the bilges. He squatted next to her, barely able to fit in the tiny space.