Blood Diamond Chapter 1

It was dark on the night they came to kill Daniel Feelding. There were no stars and only a shiver of silver played on the black sea. The slap of the waves against the bow of the large East Indiaman, the sigh of the oak beams rolling through the wide ocean, the creak of the foremast and the dull clatter of the reefed topsails and main against the salt-stained wooden cross-trees were the only sounds on that long dogwatch, but still Daniel did not hear them coming.

The first blow stunned him and dropped him to the spruce-wood deck. A boot near staved in his ribs. He lay on his side, gasping, and a pair of heavy hands seized him by the collar and pulled him upright.
“Well then, Mr Feelding, sir,” said a rough voice close to his ear. “And are you so very high and mighty now?” Before he could reply a dark shadow stepped forward and drove a belaying pin into Daniel’s gut. He doubled over, his lungs burning, and all the world went suddenly dark as a rough hessian sack was drawn over his head and shoulders, pinning his arms to his side. Then he was moving; two pairs of hands were propelling him forward, a hand seized the waistband of his trousers and lifted, and then suddenly Daniel Feelding was falling, falling, his arms tight inside the sack, only his legs kicking in the air.  Somewhere in the distance he heard a boy’s voice screaming.

He turned a slow arc in the air as he fell, landing feet-first in the brine. The cold black water closed over him and the force of his entry ripped the sack over his head and off. Instantly the blackness of the sack was replaced by the blackness of the heaving night sea. Daniel kicked furiously, clawing at the water, hardly knowing if he was swimming up or down, until his head broke the surface and he drew air gratefully into his lungs.

The ship was some way away already, yellow specks of light from the dangling lanterns drawing his eyes. There was the sound of high-up laughter on the quarterdeck. He couldn’t see who was laughing, but he knew who they were. Then there came a thin voice: “Mr Feelding! Mr Feelding!”

It was the boy’s voice, Jim Larkin. As he bobbed between the sharp troughs of the waves, Daniel could see a lantern swinging urgently from the poopdeck, high on the roundhouse at the stern. “Mr Feelding!” There was a small figure. As Daniel struck out toward the fading hulk of the Indiaman, blind and futile, by the vanishing light of the lantern and through his salt-stinging eyes he saw the small figure of Jim Larkin lift something large and heavy, almost the size of the boy himself, and wrestle it over the edge of the balustrade.

Daniel heard the splash as it entered the sea and thrashed desperately toward the sound. The sea was pulling him away, plucking him back, the weight of his clothing dragging him under. The ship and its pin-pricks of light had vanished now but still Daniel dragged himself through the rising water until … there! It was lying low in the water just ahead of him, like some gigantic wooden turtle. It was a barrel, the sort used for storing salted pork or hard-tack biscuits on the long voyage. Daniel clutched at it gratefully, his fingers slipping and scrabbling on the slick wet sides until he could find a purchase and pull himself on top of it. He lay gasping and wretched, spitting up salt water, his hands and feet trailing in the black sea and watched as the lights of the Indiaman disappeared and he was left alone in the wide Indian Ocean.

Copyright Rannulph Moore

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Ranulph Moore describes himself as an explorer, who became a writer to purge himself of the adventures that were crowding his life. He says he has seen it all, in a life spent observing the lives of others.
He will travel anywhere – as long as he can make a decent cup of tea and launder a linen jacket. He describes Africa as one of his great loves. He has spent time in every country on the continent.
If he can’t find a good champagne, he has been known to resort to gin. He has homes in Paris, Jura and Cape Town. At present, he lives in Madagascar, where he is researching his latest book.
Read an interview with Ranulph Moore.