‘We should report this.’

  He was correct, of course. It was the right thing to do. The woman – the mother – must have a family; they would need to know what had happened to her. Yet Ann knew in her heart that they would not be found.

  ‘If there is no family . . . If no one claims the child . . . I want to keep him.’

  It seemed an eternity before Frank spoke. But he loved his wife, and – though he had not spoken of it – he grieved the daughter they had lost as much as he knew Ann did.

  ‘If he is truly an orphan, then, my darling wife, we will keep him.’

  Ann stood up and hugged him tight, so that the child was squeezed between them. ‘Thank you,’ she breathed. ‘Thank you. We will raise him as our own. We will have a family after all.’

  Frank did not notice the footprints in the sand that led away from the boat, punctuated by the round holes made by a makeshift crutch. Ann decided not to tell him about the man she had seen. Frank would want to find him, and that could only end badly for all of them. Ralph Courtney, she felt, was not a man who wanted to be found. Worse, Frank might insist that Ralph should take the baby back.

  The fog was lifting; the tent city was coming into view. She could hear the chatter of the other settlers, while the smell of cooking made her realise how ravenous she was. In the sunlight, it was difficult to believe that Ralph Courtney was more than a figment of her imagination.

  Maybe he never existed, she tried to convince herself, though the livid red welt where he had grabbed her wrist proved otherwise. She pulled her hand into the sleeve of her dress so that Frank would not see the mark.

  It did not matter; Ralph Courtney was gone. She was sure that she would never see him again.

  THREE YEARS LATER . . .

  ‘I

  s there anything as sad as a flightless bird?’

  A man sat on a boulder and watched a troop of penguins waddle towards the shore. His name was Marius Wessels. He stood several inches north of six feet, with broad shoulders and fat hands. His brown hair grew in an ungainly mop of curls, and – though he was only twenty-five – his fleshy features were creased like an old book. Yet when he looked at the penguins, his face lit up like a child’s. None of them were more than two feet tall, but they carried themselves with dignity, their white chests thrust out and their useless wings dangling by their sides. Noble, but also rather pathetic creatures.

  ‘They look at us and think the same,’ said the man next to him, in thickly accented English. ‘Hola, moegoes.’ His name was Jobe, a black man from one of the Bantu tribes of the African interior. He was almost as tall as the Dutchman, for his years of confinement had not bowed the pride in his bearing. His hair was cropped short; his arms were strong from two years of harsh labour. He wore an ivory bracelet on his upper arm.

  ‘Maybe they look at you and think you’re a cousin, hey?’ Marius retorted, pointing to where Jobe’s ebony skin was caked with white limestone dust. ‘You’re one of them.’

  If the insult stung Jobe, he did not let it show. After two years in prison, he had learned to hide his feelings. ‘If I was one of those birds, I would swim away.’

  ‘You can try any time you like.’

  Across the bay, the flat-topped peak of Table Mountain stood majestic against the blue sky. Five miles of open water stretched between them and the mountain, though from their viewpoint the horizon played tricks with distance so that it seemed little wider than a river. The bay’s true extent was hidden – as were the currents, whales and sharks that lurked in its icy depths.

  The place where they stood was called Robben Island, though it was not much of an island: barely a pimple on the face of the ocean. Even at its highest point, you felt that a strong tide might swamp it completely. It was a barren knoll covered in sparse, stunted trees and low scrub, unsuitable for any kind of life except penguins and seals. In the eyes of the Cape government, it was the perfect location for a prison colony.

  ‘Up,’ shouted one of the soldiers standing guard. ‘Back to work.’

  The prisoners took up their picks and hammers and returned to the rock face. Every day they had to break their quota of limestone. Once they had finished the day’s labour, they were free to roam the island as they liked. Some fished; others tended little allotments they had made to supplement their rations. If the prisoners wanted to escape, let them try. They could leave the island easily enough – and a few days later, their corpses would wash up on the shore.

  In the quarry, the prisoners worked in pairs: one to hold an iron spike, the other to drive it into the rock. Having a man swing a sledgehammer with stone-smashing force a few inches from his partner’s fingers either ended in quick disaster, or fostered a certain trust between the pair. Marius and Jobe had been working together for six months, since Marius had arrived on the island. They resumed their accustomed positions – Jobe on the spike, Marius on the hammer. The dust made their eyes weep; the naked sun scorched their shirtless backs.

  ‘When I am free,’ said Marius, ‘the heaviest thing I’ll ever lift again will be a mug of beer.’

  He swung the hammer. His exposed muscles rippled with the effort. A puff of grit and dust exploded from the rock.

  ‘I will have a big house, and a fat wife, and fifteen children, and they will bring me a side of beef every evening for my dinner.’

  Another strike; a crack appeared in the rock. ‘I would be happy to go back to my people,’ said Jobe with a grunt. ‘And never see a white man again.’

  ‘It’s our country too, hey? You have to share it.’

  ‘When you say “share”, I think you mean “give”,’ growled Jobe.

  ‘And when you say “share”, you mean you will steal all our cattle, you black rascal.’ Marius raised the hammer again. ‘It’s a big continent. There should be enough land—’

  He checked his swing. A shadow had fallen over the quarry as the overseer rode up on his bay horse. The animal was an affectation: in the time it took to saddle it, the overseer could have walked anywhere on the island. But he was conscious of his status, and missed no opportunity to show it off. In the low society of the island, a man had to flaunt whatever privilege he could get.

  Two soldiers stood beside him, holding a man between them. He was a stranger, a new prisoner, judging by how clean his clothes were. A young man, in his early twenties, clean-shaven and with angelic fair hair. More than one of the prisoners eyed him with undisguised desire.

  The prisoner turned his head, and every lascivious thought disappeared. His right cheek, hidden until now, was a mask of snaking scar tissue. The hair on that side of his head still grew unevenly, while the eye regarded the world through a half squint.

  The soldiers pushed him forward into the quarry. The overseer extended a white-gloved hand and pointed to Marius.

  ‘Show him what to do.’

  He rode off, his retinue of guards jogging behind him. The rest of the men returned to their work, occasionally glancing at the new arrival, who seemed indifferent to them. Jobe, relieved of his duty, leaned against a rock and rolled a cigar.

  Marius sized up his new partner. The man had suffered some calamitous misfortunes in his life: burned, disfigured, and now imprisoned. Yet there was no trace of self-pity in his blue eyes, and the good corner of his mouth was set steady in a calm smile.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Marius asked.

  ‘Ralph.’

  ‘English?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Mongrel.’

  ‘A brak, hey? What are you here for?’

  ‘Theft.’

  ‘That does not usually get a man sent here.’

  ‘It depends what you steal. In my case, it was the governor’s daughter’s virginity.’ Ralph chuckled.

  Laughter went around the quarry. The other men had stopped their work and were listening. It was contrary to reason that Ralph, with his savage scars, could have seduced anyone. But if you looked in his eyes, at the power and the confidence brimming within them, perhaps it was not such a fanciful idea.

  ‘How long are you here?’

  ‘They sentenced me to ten years. But I do not expect to be detained here more than a few days.’

  More laughter, this time with a cruel edge.

  ‘Everyone thinks that,’ Marius advised him. ‘But I tell you, there are only two ways off this rock. When the governor says you can go – or in a box.’

  Ralph stayed silent. But the corner of his mouth twitched.

  That night, the men lay in their bunks in the barracks. It was a small, square stone room, with two beds, one either side of a barred window, and a slop bucket in the corner. Ralph, Marius and Jobe took three berths; the fourth was empty.

  Marius was scratching his initials into the stone wall with a nail, a painstaking business that had occupied him for weeks. Jobe sat on his bunk with a tallow candle, poring over a Bible. Ralph lay on his mattress, arms folded behind his head, listening to the rasp of the nail and the occasional guttering of the candle.

  Marius paused his work and looked down from his bunk. ‘Are you still dreaming about escaping, brak?’

  ‘I was thinking about rain,’ said Ralph.

  ‘They still make you quarry in the rain.’

  ‘I did not mean African rain.’ Ralph’s voice was distant. ‘I spent the first half of my life in India, the second in China. When the rain comes there, it falls like bullets, and even on the wettest day the air is still warm as blood.’

  ‘He’s a bloody poet,’ grunted Marius.

  ‘I would like to feel cool rain on my face.’ His hand crept to the scars on his cheek. ‘I cannot stand the heat any longer. I want to be somewhere clean and cool.’

  ‘And instead you’re a prisoner on Robben Island. Life is a cruel mistress.’

  Ralph ignored him. ‘My grandfather had a house in Devon – in England. My father kept a picture of it in the house where I grew up. I used to stare at it for hours – I could not imagine a place so green. My father told me that even the summers there are cold.’

  ‘Sounds bloody miserable.’

  ‘When I get out of here, I will make my fortune, go to England, buy back that house and live out the rest of my life there.’

  Marius snorted. ‘By the time you get off this rock, your back will be broken and your fingers will be so sore you won’t even be able to hold your own cock.’

  ‘It cannot be so hard to escape.’ Ralph pointed to the bars on the window. The iron was rusted, and the mortar that held them in place crumbling.

  ‘I could pull those out any time I like,’ Marius said. ‘But where would I go then? It is not the cell that keeps us prisoners. It is the island. Those lazy guards only lock the door at night because they are afraid that we’ll get out and murder them.’

  ‘Do you never dream of being somewhere else?’ Ralph asked.

  ‘Me?’ The question surprised Marius. ‘I have had enough living by other men’s rules, hey? When I get out, I will take my wagon across the Kei River and find some land of my own to farm. And I will be free.’

  ‘That is Xhosa land,’ said Jobe, looking up from his Bible. ‘If you go, my people will kill you.’

  Marius cracked his knuckles. ‘I’d like to see those Kaffirs try.’

  ‘You will get what you wish,’ Jobe replied. ‘If you cross the Kei.’

  ‘And I will be ready.’ Marius turned to Ralph. ‘You know why our swart friend is here? He’s a bloody prophet. Over on the eastern frontier, he tried to whip up the tribes, start a war against the white man.’

  Ralph studied Jobe with new interest. In India and in China, he had learned many times never to underestimate a man because of the colour of his skin. Spending time in Cape Colony, it was too easy to see every black man as a servant or a slave. Yet looking at Jobe now, focusing on the man himself, Ralph could see the pride and intelligence in his eyes.

  ‘Why did you want to start a war?’

  ‘The British started the war.’ Jobe’s voice was rich with anger. ‘When we fought back, they said it was our fault.’

  ‘Don’t you believe him.’ Marius snorted. ‘It was a cattle raid, nothing more.’

  ‘Cattle that were grazing on land you took from my people.’

  Marius was grinning, but there was a dangerous edge in his voice. Jobe was tensed like a warrior ready for battle. Ralph marvelled that the two men had shared a cell for so long and not yet killed each other.

  ‘If you hate the British so much, why are you reading our scriptures?’ Ralph asked.

  The question deflected Jobe’s anger from Marius, but only so he could scowl at Ralph. ‘The word of Jesus does not belong to the white man.’ Without looking at the Bible, he recited: “‘The Lord has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to set the downtrodden free.”’

  ‘Liberty to captives would be a fine thing,’ said Marius.

  ‘Where did you learn to read?’ Ralph asked.

  Jobe stiffened, wary of any slight or insult Ralph intended. When he saw that Ralph was merely curious, his posture softened.

  ‘When I was a boy, my mother worked for a white farmer. He beat her, and did . . . worse things.’

  Marius looked as if he was about to say something flippant. The cast of Jobe’s expression made him decide otherwise.

  ‘When my mother died, I ran away. There was a mission station, and a preacher named John Weston. He found me and me the way of Jesus. The farmer came, and the missionary would not give me up. He said I was saved.’

  ‘This is why we should not educate the Kaffirs,’ said Marius. ‘They twist a man’s own religion against him.’

  Ralph ignored him. ‘How did you come from there to here?’

  ‘John Weston went back to England. I returned to my tribe and tried to teach them the truth of Jesus Christ. I thought if they were Christians, the white men would not cheat and fight them.’

  Ralph laughed. Jobe’s jaw tightened with wounded pride.

  ‘I was laughing at the way of the world,’ Ralph explained. ‘Not at you. I have seen how the British conduct their business wherever they go. Whatever they can find different in a people – the colour of their skins, their gods, their methods of government – that is what they will use against them. And if there is nothing that they can manipulate in their favour, they will simply take what they want at the mouth of a cannon.’

  ‘There we can agree.’ Marius picked up the nail and began vigorously scratching at the wall again. ‘All of us know what it is like to have our freedom taken away by the bloody British.’

  The three men lapsed into silence, each nursing his own personal dream of freedom.

  ‘I will tell you where I would go,’ said Marius suddenly. A light had come into his eyes; he leaned forward off the bunk. ‘You like stories? Let me tell you this one.’

  He took out his pipe and filled it with tobacco while the others waited. Only when it was lit and glowing did he continue.

  ‘This was a few years ago. I was away hunting up on the frontier, past Grahamstown by the Fish River. One day, I was fishing at a drift when I saw a man on the far bank. A white man – stark naked. All he had was a hat on his head and a gun on his back.

  ‘I helped him across the drift, brought him to my camp and gave him a blanket. He was a Frenchman, name of Du Toit. I asked him where he came from.

  ‘“Cape Town,” he says.

  ‘“You’ve come the long way round, then,” I say. “Cape Town’s a thousand miles in the opposite direction.”

  ‘“That I have,” he agrees. “I have been across the Karoo and the Orange River, over mountains, down to the ocean and now back here. You have not laid your eyes on sights such as those that I have seen.”

  ‘Of course I didn’t believe him. “That must have taken you three years.”

  ‘“Five years,” he says.

  ‘“What were you doing there?”

  ‘“Hunting.”

  ‘“And not a lot to show for it, hey?” Because this man is drinking my coffee with his Jakob hanging out . . .’ Marius laughed. ‘He gives me a look, like a man who swallowed a diamond and shit out a rock. “Ah, Boer, you have no idea. Now I have fallen on hard times, but six months ago I was the richest man in Africa. With my gun, I made myself a lord. Up there” – he points to the north – “there is every kind of animal and almost no one to hunt them. I had enough hides to carpet every street in Paris, feathers in every colour of the jewellery box, and ivory – a mountain of it. There is so much ivory up there, the natives use it to mend their fences, or else leave it lying in the dust.”

  ‘I did not believe a word of his tale, but he was a good storyteller and I was bored, so I asked him: “What happened then?”

  ‘“A bad journey,” he said. “It is one thing to accumulate wealth, but another to bring it out. The tribes between there and here are terrible people. They robbed me of everything I had, even the clothes off my back. They tried to murder me. If I had not had my gun, I would not have survived.” By now, his head had sunk into his hands. “And that is how you see me now, this pitiful ghost of the man I was.”

  ‘He was so sad about it that I almost believed him. I gave him some of the food I had, which he ate like a horse, and brandy, which he liked even better. We sat by the fire, and he spun me yarns of the places he had been.’ Marius drifted off, remembering. ‘He was a good storyteller.

  ‘Next morning, I woke and he had gone.’ He sat back on his bunk, drawing on his pipe. ‘That was the last time I saw him. But I will never forget his story. When I am free again, maybe I will go north and look for that land of his.’

  The room fell silent. Each man stared into space, alone with his thoughts.

  ‘Did he say how far this country was?’ Ralph asked.

  ‘Four hundred miles north of the Fish River.’ Marius blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘It must be lies, hey? If such a country existed, someone would have gone there by now.’

  ‘Not if the Xhosa block the way,’ said Jobe.

  ‘Ja.’ Marius sighed. ‘And even if it is there, and you fought your way in overland, past the Xhosa, and piled up all the ivory you can dream of, you still have the same problem as the Frenchman. You are only rich if you can get it out.’