Ocean Without End Read Free

dusty track into the hills, then Mama led us off through some bushes, skirting huge limestone boulders, and into a valley. A narrow goatherd’s path threaded along the side of the hill and down towards the stream. Even here we could hear the cannon, still firing in the distance.
    Lucas was tiring quickly, so we sat down under an old cedar to munch on some bread. Nobody spoke much. We were all too exhausted.
    Mama roused us, and we pressed on again, dipping down into the valley and then heading up a steep climb to the very top of a boulder outcrop everyone called Lion Rock. You could see it from all over the island, but I’d never been so close to it before. As we clambered up the last few steps underneath the lion’s mane, Lucas gave a yell and ran forward. ‘It really is a cave. Woo-hoo!’
    Mama followed him into the darkness, calling out. ‘Watch out for snakes. They probably haven’t had any company up here for years.’
    â€˜There’s an old fireplace. See, Lil?’ Lucas shouted. ‘Someone’s been here. There’s fish bones everywhere.’
    I turned around and looked back along the way we’d come. The path was invisible from here. A few miles away, the old stone town nestled around the harbour. The water still glistened in the sun, and out to sea the fishing boats bobbed on the gentle ocean.
    All my life, there had been alarms of wars and pirates approaching our island, Santa Lucia, and on many a moonlit night there were smugglers in the rocky coves around the coast. Many’s the time the fishing fleet had kept to its harbour for fear of being taken by Arab marauders. But the town itself, with its fine ramparts and English garrison, had never been attacked. Not in my memory, anyway.
    It was a different place now, filled with gunfire and explosions. From up here, it looked as if the quayside warehouses were on fire, with great clouds of black smoke billowing up. The cannon on the hill were pouring shot down into the harbour, where boats were aflame and the great ship still floated, further out of range now, firing its massive guns.
    Our little island was no longer a safe haven in these dangerous waters.
    I waited until it was dark and Lucas was asleep before moving closer to Mama to ask the question that had troubled me all afternoon.
    â€˜What really happened to Papa?’
    She stared at the tiny campfire we’d built in the shelter of the cave.
    I waited for her to speak, but it was a long time before she began.
    â€˜I don’t know. That was the worst of it, never really knowing what happened.’
    â€˜What did they tell you?’ I urged. ‘You must have heard something.’
    â€˜It’s all very confused.’ She stoked the fire with a burnt stick. ‘I heard so many tales. First, I heard he was taken as a slave by corsairs, probably from Tripoli. But there was one story that he’d given too much trouble and been marooned on a rocky island somewhere in the middle of the ocean. Someone told me they’d found a body … a skeleton. Once I heard he was still alive and sailing along the Barbary Coast. But I just can’t be sure if it was really him.’
    â€˜So he might still be alive somewhere?’ My eyes searched her face for clues.
    â€˜If he was alive, he’d have come home by now. Only slavery or death would keep him away from us. I want you to remember that.’ She was grinding the stick deep into the ashes of the fire, sending sparks floating up to the blackened roof of the cave.
    â€˜They weren’t corsairs,’ I said.
    â€˜What do you mean?’ She was watching me closely.
    â€˜The ship that attacked us this morning. It wasn’t a Barbary galley — it looked more like a Spanish or Dutch ship. So you don’t have to worry that the corsairs have come back to take us.’
    She smiled, just a little.
    â€˜Pirates are pirates, my darling girl, whether they are raiders from