Thanks loads for all your reviews. Here it is, then, the big scene. I've kept the impossible coincidence of everyone being in the same place at the same time, just like Disney: who cares, it's great drama!

CHAPTER 21

As the dawn light strengthened, the warriors gathered in the central space of the village. They had dedicated their bodies and their weapons to the spirits of war. Their faces were painted to inspire terror, their chests marked with the totems of their guiding spirits, to husband their courage and guard their hearts. The killing frenzy that they had practised in the darkness was laid aside with the cold new light. Now was the time of still, watchful readiness. The women and children were all gone. The men who belonged to the village had said formal goodbyes to their families the evening before. They were ready to march. But first there was the business of the evening to conclude, which also very properly looked forward to the day to come. The captured foreigner was to be killed: blood for blood, to ensure Kocoum's spirit would be assuaged and ready to help them in the battle; and a sacrifice to the gods, to call down their help too and sanctify this war unlike all other wars.

Chief Powhatan stood by the fading fire and weighed his war club in his hand. It seemed to him that the stone head was heavy with the stifled, burning anger that had grown within him ever since the foreigners had done their first harm to his people: the grief that he had not been allowed to reach old age and die seeing his kingdom secure; that the strangers had even come between him and his daughter; and the dark fear that even if the field were won today, it would not be the end of the story, that if these white men had come others would follow, and that in the end all that he knew would be swept away by their ugly, soulless power. He feared it and a cold finger on his heart told him it was true. Grasping the club he told himself that at least today he still had the strength to strike a blow for his people, and he prayed to the war-gods to guide his hand to strike hard and well, so that whatever came after no one could say that they gave themselves up lightly. He was ready.

'Bring out the prisoner,' he commanded.

In a little while three men led the prisoner out, with his arms bound and a rope around his neck, and pushed him into the file near the head, walking with the stiff awkward steps that were all he could manage in the fierce grip of his guards. They still fear him, thought Powhatan grimly, but not for much longer. When they see that he can bleed and die like other men, they will be heartened for the battle... He himself no longer doubted it. Then why did he still feel uneasy? Why was he reluctant to glance at the man's face? The face, white like bleached bone, scoured with pain and exhaustion, looked as if it might shatter at a touch, and yet was still and almost dreamy. It held none of the anger and defiance that prisoners of Powhatan's own race always took care to show until the end, calling on their own gods and mocking those of their captors. This man could not be a treacherous killer: in his heart Powhatan knew it very well. A spiritless coward? That did not fit either. But what on earth was he? Powhatan could not help seeing that, although the man could barely move a finger's breadth of his own choice, and although he had to keep throwing his head back or to the side to be able to breathe, he took the trouble to look up and eastward for several moments at the brightening sky. At that, Powhatan, who had never faltered when there had to be killing, felt pity and also a kind of awe for the complete aloneness of this man. What god could he call on, from beyond the endless sea towards which his eyes were turning? Why had he come to this country so far from his own, only to die? Do not weaken, Powhatan told himself sternly. Above all, today, your anger is needed, nothing else.

The long line of armed men wound slowly uphill, away from the houses and the river, between the rows of crops that grew on the slopes, the white man's boots sliding absurdly in the dark tilled earth among all the proudly planted bare feet. They went on upward under the cedars, where it was still almost dark from the unbroken clouds of foliage above. At last they came out of the trees onto a high plateau of heathery grass and scattered rocks. While they had been in the forest the sky had grown much brighter. The whole eastern quarter was red and the clouds on the horizon glowed where the sun was about to rise.

They halted at the extreme edge of the plateau. On the south side, in front of them, was a low cliff down into a gully, beyond which a steep slope led up to another expanse of rocky heath fringed by forest. On the left, the east side ended in a much higher cliff. At its feet, the whole of the misty forest and winding tidal waters of Powhatan's chiefdom stretched away to the ocean on the horizon, where the red fire of the sunrise flickered. The head of the procession stopped just where the low cliff turned the corner to the high one. The warriors coming behind passed by to line the cliff edge on each side. The shaman and a few others were chanting; most of the men stood silent and attentive. Those with the prisoner brought him forward to where one flat, grey, quartz-veined rock the size of a small table jutted out at the very turning point of the cliffs. They pulled him to his knees, then pitched him forward to land on his face on the rock. When they were sure that he would lie still, they stepped back a few paces to make room for Chief Powhatan. One of the chief's attendants ceremoniously handed him the club. The gold rim of the sun was just rising above the sea.

*****

In the end it had been much quicker and easier than John Smith had expected. He had underestimated the relief of having nothing demanded of him, and everything done for him. He was not obliged, any more, to persuade, to decide, to make anything happen; only to go where he was led, like an animal to slaughter, and apathy was a wonderful drug against fear. He grieved, vaguely, though, that he had never finished his overnight work, that he had not succeeded in grasping the reality of his death: only in pulses, as when he saw the weapon that was to kill him, in the hand of the man next to the chief. Instead of feeling relief at the sight, he felt dismay. Horrible as his worst imaginings had been, they had still allowed a measure of escape from the final, brutal fact. It was going to be quick. But that meant, too, there would be no time to accustom himself to dying, no buffer between full awareness and extinction. His failure to face the end would be the last thing he knew… The next moment his mind had strayed from his fear to notice some ordinary thing, a plant or rock beside the path, or the pattern of the clouds in the glowing sky. Strange to think that these would all outlive him. At times he wondered if his men – who, far in the past, had depended on him – would all die today as he would, or if they might escape. There were moments of peace, when the thought of Pocahontas and the rainbow on the waterfall visited him. But none of it was under his control: it was all in fragments, and it passed very quickly. When they reached the end of the march and he recognised the last place he would ever be, from which he would never move again, he felt the last wave tearing his walls away.

He sobbed as his face struck the rock, with pain and with the knowledge that it was over, that John Smith, who had been a good companion, was already as spilled and scattered as he would be in another minute when his brains were dashed on the stone.

But I am not the one who matters. The rainbow. The stillness. Be there when I am not.

And now, for a time he could not measure, all was quiet and nothing happened. How long must he wait? Though he kept his face pressed to the rock, his eyes glanced sideways: he must know, or try to know, the exact moment ... He sensed, rather than saw, the club swing upward and hang poised.

Now.

He heard a voice screaming a single word, loud and long. He thought it must be his own and, in his last islet of consciousness, he was ashamed.

But the club had come down – he heard it drone in the air – and he was not dead. Something struck his head, but lightly, and a web of black hair fell past his eyes.

*****

She had flung herself forward like a diver so that her head lay on his and her arms reached down his back. She must have run a long way: he could feel her shuddering breathing all through his body. But she took only two breaths and then spoke clearly in a voice like the hiss of a drawn knife.

'If you kill him, you'll have to kill me too.'

John Smith wished she had not come. He was certain that he was going to die, that nothing she could do would make any difference; the torture had nearly been over and now he must endure more of it, agonising moments that seemed like drops of acid scalding away any last strength that he had. He felt impossibly distant from her – faint, already dead by all but a technicality. He scarcely cared what happened, if only it could be over.

He heard Powhatan's voice, charged and strained like that of a man trying to lift a load much too heavy for him.

'Daughter, stand back!'

This time Pocahontas cried back loudly, as instantly as the magnified echo of a shout in the mountains:

'I won't!' Then, more quietly, her voice breaking: 'I love him, Father.'

Suddenly John felt, as he had not done before, the comfort of her arms, the protective warmth of her head on his, calling him back into life. He did not want to feel it. Surely now they will drag her off, he thought. And then please let it be quick.

Pocahontas knew how near she was to death. She stared up into the face of her father, distorted with rage and disbelief, looking as if he did not know her. But she felt inexpressible relief that she had spoken the truth at last. Once the words were out in the open air, shame seemed to dissipate like vapour, and only love and pride remained. If he kills me now, so be it, she thought. He had checked the first stroke of his club in mid-air, but was now prepared to strike again. Yet still he hesitated.

Powhatan now understood everything that had happened. Black rage for a moment blotted out all else in his mind. His daughter had betrayed her people and was proclaiming her shame openly before all his warriors. She was dishonoured beyond recovery and so would he be unless he acted at once. 'Kill her!' cried the voices of battle-frenzy and pride in his heart. The voice of cunning, that had often stood him in good stead, murmured, 'No. Give it time. Take her away and kill him quickly and then we shall see. Perhaps something can be saved out of this.'

But a true chief has to listen to other voices, too. He can never give himself up entirely to rage or love, grief or happiness; whatever the burden, he has to hold the balance, be able to remember at any moment what his people need to forget. So Powhatan hesitated, and grew aware of what was going on around him.

His warriors were murmuring, stirring, fitting arrows to their bows and setting feet a pace forward all along the line. Across the gully the enemy had appeared. Pale men, in their clumsy dress with their deadly weapons, were strung out along the forest margin, irresolute but clearly preparing for battle: the huge man who was their chief was striding among them giving orders, bringing them forward. Battle would be joined at any moment. Powhatan had to act.

Pocahontas saw it too. Here and now, she and she alone had to prevent not only the death of her lover, but the battle that would destroy both peoples. She raised her head and cried in desperation:

'Look around you! This is where the path of fear has led us!' Then, burying her head passionately again in the fair hair beneath it, 'This is the path I choose. What will yours be?'

For the first time Powhatan realised how utterly fixed her purpose was; that if he tried to drag her away from this path she would leap back into it like an upright sapling that one bends down and releases – indeed, that she could do no other. He noticed the delicate shape of her head around her ear where the hair usually hung and had been tossed aside, and his heart gripped with anguish to think how close he was to destroying this. She was his daughter, who feared nothing and had never told a lie in her life, whose honour he would have trusted to the end of the world.

His warriors were looking to him for a sign of command. On the further slope, too, the white men were in line with their weapons at the ready. All waited for something to end the frozen moment, for slaughter to break out as they had all intended, or for something else ...

The sun was clear of the horizon and suddenly the red that had suffused the air seemed to fade, and things to take on the bright diverse colours of daylight. A gust of wind blew in from the sea, singing in the bowstrings and rustling in the grass. Powhatan closed his eyes, tilted his head a fraction, listening for the fainter voice of the spirit he had thought would delude him: the spirit that had turned his heart towards the man whom it was his task to kill, and that made him see the new, unheard-of honour in the course his daughter had chosen. To retreat to the known, or surrender to the unknown: the choice was his.

Pocahontas stared at her father, unable to halt, as the moments still passed, the keen surge of hope that rushed into her. John Smith, though he still lay unmoving, felt his heart hammering in his throat. He, too, had given way to hope. The calm and the horror of the certainty of death were swept away. He had never guessed how strong the desire to live was until now.

Powhatan opened his eyes and again grasped his club, but this time crossways with both hands above his head, in the gesture of a chief to whom all must listen, and raised his voice.

'A god has spoken through Pocahontas, or she could never be so bold,' he said. 'She asks for this man's life, and, for her fearlessness, I grant it. I, Powhatan, summoned you to war, but this sign calls us to peace. I offer peace to his countrymen, and may the gods guide them and us.'

He let fall the club, head downwards at his feet.

John felt himself begin to tremble all over, and in a moment he was drenched with sweat. He pulled himself uncertainly up onto his knees and looked at the world with half-seeing eyes. He was going to stay there; he was not going to die. He felt, of all things, foolish and angry, as if a cruel trick had been played on him: as if, after all that he had been through that night and morning, no one had taken it seriously except himself. But Pocahontas was kneeling opposite him with a smile breaking through the tears and anguish on her face. He saw only her, and knew that in truth he had not been alone: that she, too, had suffered, and that for the moment it was over.

The issue still hung in the balance. The warriors stared at one another: for what other purpose had they come here than to kill? Yet they all respected their chief to the utmost, and had come out ready to obey his command. And so, when Powhatan added:

'Release him!', a man immediately stepped forward and slid a knife-blade under the thongs round the prisoner's wrists, levering until they snapped. The white man, already on his knees, got to his feet, and so did the chief's daughter. They looked at one another: it was hard to say which of them was more spent, and they moved together rather to support one other than to embrace. The girl took the man's numbed hands between hers seemingly in disbelief, with the tentative fingers with which she might touch her newborn child, or a sacred object that she was unsure she was allowed to handle. The warriors looked on in equal disbelief. The sight was obscene: a condemned foreigner and their chief's daughter ... Yet it had been allowed, therefore, being so far beyond the accustomed, it became sacred. Their disbelief turned to wonder, and all lowered their weapons as they tried to come to terms with this unheard-of reality.

*****

The English saw their captain stand up unharmed and let his head fall on the shoulder of the girl who had saved him. They saw the long, shining line of arrow-points that had fenced the edge of the opposite cliff waver, dip and turn away. The golden morning light poured over everything: the compassionate girl looked like the Maiden Mother in the pictures some remembered seeing in their churches at home, the chief, in his feathered crown and robe, like an archangel, receiving saints into heaven. John Smith was accepted into this glowing world, they themselves were ordinary sinners hesitating in the shadows outside. Some of them had forgotten about battle completely and let their muskets sink to their sides when they heard Governor Ratcliffe's hoarse, excited call:

'Look – now's our chance, men!' He drew his sword. 'Fire!'

Ratcliffe had missed his moment. Every man hesitated, hoping that his neighbour would take a lead, then found that his neighbour hesitated as well. Men glanced uneasily at one another. Not a single one fired.

The governor repeated his order at full pitch. Still nothing happened; and what had been mere hesitancy could be felt hardening into obstinacy.

Thomas, in line a few places to the governor's left, reached a wordless understanding of what the night's events had been about. John Smith had been trying to stop the battle and had nearly died in the attempt. He, Thomas, had been used as a pawn against him. He would be a pawn no longer. If he was the only one who understood, then it was up to him to act. Feeling the blood rush to his head so that it almost blinded him, he stepped forward out of the line, lowered his gun, and said 'No.'

He waited, feeling the cool air all around him, wondering from which direction he would be shot. But instead another man stepped out to join him – Ben – and then three or four more. In a few moments the whole line was ragged and crooked, and voices murmured:

'They let him go!'

'They don't want to fight!'

From all around, stubborn eyes stared at Ratcliffe.

He glanced right and left with the look of a cornered boar, and then, with quick decision, snatched the musket of the man nearest him. 'Very well – I'll settle this myself!' he said between his teeth and put the gun to his shoulder.

*****

John Smith had just found himself able to stand on his own feet, and he suddenly began thinking again at unnatural speed, like a man in a fever. He might be alive but he was still on the edge of a cliff. It was necessary to do something, now that he was free to act. He must make some gesture to the chief, of gratitude and apology for himself and his men.

He glanced at Powhatan and then at once looked where Powhatan was looking, and so became the last person in the place to discover that the English were there. His eyes fixed instantly on Ratcliffe and the black eye of the musket aimed across the gully. In no time, as if the thought leaped straight to his mind from Ratcliffe's, he knew what the governor was about. He saw Chief Powhatan facing Ratcliffe broad-chested and uncomprehending; weighed the long range of the shot against what he knew of Ratcliffe's marksmanship; saw Pocahontas's victory disappearing in a storm of shot and blood, and knew that if he did not act at once then he and she might as well have saved their trouble from the beginning: it was double or quits. With all this in mind and in no time at all, he sprang in front of Powhatan without ceremony and thrust him out of the way. He never heard the report of the musket because by the time the sound had travelled to him the impact of the bullet had already tossed him aside in the air and thrown him down, and he knew that he had been unlucky this time; that the night's work had been practice for something after all.

'No!' screamed Thomas.

The settlers stared dumbfounded across to the cliff. One or two of them groaned or sobbed.

'He shot him!'

The line became a circle around Ratcliffe. He glanced about, suddenly afraid, his certainty falling away.

'He stepped right into it – it was his own fault!' he said, his voice becoming high-pitched with fear, with no authority left. The centre of the circle closed in a jostling mass:

'Smith was right!'

'We should never have listened to you!'

'Traitor!'

'Get the gun!'

Only a few men hung back. At least five were holding onto Ratcliffe and had disarmed him when Thomas shouldered his way to the front. He looked directly into Ratcliffe's face, which was thrust forward and screaming in outrage, 'I'll see you all hanged for this!'

Some huge force seemed to have taken possession of Thomas and be pushing him into action with a speed and strength not his own. He did not even think what to do. As it went through his mind that Ratcliffe was speaking the truth, that this was mutiny and he could indeed have them all hanged, he was already planting the barrel of his own musket on Ratcliffe's chest. As his mind's eye tried hopelessly to deny the sight of John Smith fallen on the cliff top, he was shouting to the other men: 'Get back! Everyone! Behind me! Get back behind me, get away from him!' He did not recognise his own voice and everyone obeyed him.

He thought of his mother weeping and his brothers ashamed to say his name. Then he thought of how it had amused Ratcliffe to order him to betray the man he loved best in the world, and how Ratcliffe himself had played with that man's life like a card up his sleeve, and what had now come of it.

He and the governor stood alone facing each other, the musket in Ratcliffe's ribs. 'Sir,' said Thomas thickly, 'do you remember you once told me to learn how to use this thing properly?'

The veins in Ratcliffe's forehead knotted with rage, but he could not speak.

'This is its proper use,' said Thomas, and shot him.

*****

Thomas looked down at Ratcliffe and, when he was sure that he was dead, laid the musket down carefully on the ground beside him. Then he moved two paces away, put his hands behind his head and shouted: 'I killed Governor Ratcliffe! You all saw it! I killed him, no one else laid a finger on him. Come and get me!' He was still caught up by the purpose which had flung him into action, and could see nothing beyond it, but his voice was now boyish, shrill and close to tears.

Several hands took his arms and shoulders, but instead of fitting irons on they were slapping and shaking him. 'Shut up, you soft ninny!' hissed Ben. 'No one saw anything! The governor had an accident with his gun! Keep quiet – do you want to be hanged?'

'And good for you, mate, whether or no,' came another voice from behind him.

'Yes!' grunted another. 'Bear up, boy, all it takes is a good lie!'

A small crowd stood protectively around Thomas. It was noticeable that it was made up of the rank and file of the settlers. The men in authority who were now coming up – the captain's mate, the master gunner, the surgeon – were stern and dubious.

After a slight hesitation the mate took command. 'Two of you – Brown and Gresham – stay with him,' he shouted. 'The rest of you get back in line. You look like a rabble. The Indians could clean you up in five minutes. Guns at the ready, but no one fire unless I give the order. Go!'

The men stood gaping for a moment, then began to scatter to their positions. The two who were left held Thomas's arms, and the mate looked him up and down.

'Well, you know what you've done,' he said grimly.

'Yes, sir,' said Thomas.

'You can expect to hang, but we'll talk about that later. For now we need someone to go and speak with those fellows over there.'

'But we've no …' broke in the gunner.

'Yes,' said the mate. 'No one knows who's in command until we know if Captain Smith's alive. That's one reason we need to go and talk to them. You take over here. I'm going, and so are you' (he glanced at the surgeon) 'and Thomas here.' He looked round at them all. 'Anyone got anything white?'

'They won't know what that means,' said the surgeon.

'No,' said the mate. 'Well, leave all your weapons.'

Thomas was utterly bewildered. He had thought that his part was over and he had nothing left to do but shut his eyes and wait to die. Now he was expected to act. It was difficult for him to remember anything that had happened more than five minutes before, but with an effort he did.

'Sir,' he said, 'I can't go over there. I killed one of the Indians last night when I went looking for Captain Smith. That's why they were going to kill him. The girl saw. She'll know me.'

'Ah,' said the mate. 'Well, but you must because you know more than any of us of what Captain Smith was about, and we haven't much choice now but to take his line. You can decide what it was. And if they recognise you and kill you, it'll save us the trouble and save your family the disgrace. So come along.'

Thomas looked at the mate's wooden face and felt steadied. There was the slightest twitch of sympathetic irony at the corner of his mouth.

The three men started across the gully together, walking slowly with their arms spread wide. The Indians still stood in battle order but with their weapons at rest, gazing, some at the approaching men and some at the small group on the turning point of the cliffs. The chief was standing looking down at John Smith, and the long-haired shaman was kneeling over him. The girl had his head in her lap, and as the settlers came closer they could see her face crumpled with weeping. When Thomas was near enough to see the cold sweat on John's face, his closed eyes, and the slow movement of his breathing, in and out, marking its own appalling retarded time, he wished he had Ratcliffe in front of him again, to make him suffer like this, and worse.

Plot change, as you see! The solution to the Ratcliffe problem in the cartoon was a comedy solution; it would never have worked in real life, the so-and-so would have made things impossible for them all: he had to die! This isn't an ideal solution either, but it's the best I could think of.