Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  When the furniture and stores had been brought across, water casks and weapons chests, brine barrels of pickled meats, bread bags and barrels of flour, the pinnaces were also hoisted aboard and broken down by the carpenters. They were stowed away in the galleon’s main cargo hold on top of the stacks of rare oriental timbers. So bulky were they and so heavily laden with her own cargo was the galleon that to accommodate their bulk the hatch coamings had to be left off the main holds until the prize was taken into Sir Francis’s secret base.

  Stripped to her planks, the Lady Edwina rode high in the water when Colonel Schreuder and the released Dutch crew were ready to board her. Sir Francis summoned the colonel to the quarterdeck and handed him back his sword and the letter addressed to the Council of the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam. It was stitched in a canvas cover, the seams sealed with red wax, and tied with ribbon. It made an impressive bundle, which Colonel Schreuder placed firmly under his arm.

  ‘I hope we meet again, Mijnheer,’ Schreuder said ominously to Sir Francis.

  ‘In eight months from now I will be at the rendezvous,’ Sir Francis assured. ‘Then I shall be delighted to see you again, as long as you have the two hundred thousand gold guilders for me.’

  ‘You miss my meaning,’ said Cornelius Schreuder grimly.

  ‘I assure you I do not,’ responded Sir Francis quietly.

  Then the colonel looked to the break in the poop where Katinka van de Velde stood at her husband’s side. The deep bow that he made towards them and the look of longing in his eyes were not for the Governor alone. ‘I shall return with all haste to end your suffering,’ he told them.

  ‘God be with you,’ said the Governor. ‘Our fate is in your hands.’

  ‘You will be assured of my deepest gratitude on your return, my dear Colonel,’ Katinka whispered, in a breathless little girl’s voice, and the colonel shivered as though a bucket of icy water had been poured down his back. He drew himself to his full height, saluted her, then turned and strode to the galleon’s rail.

  Hal was waiting at the port with Aboli and Big Daniel. The colonel’s eyes narrowed and he stopped in front of Hal and twirled his moustache. The ribbons on his coat fluttered in the breeze, and the sash of his rank shimmered as he touched the sword at his side.

  ‘We were interrupted, boy,’ he said softly, in good unaccented English. ‘However, there will be a time and a place for me to finish the lesson.’

  ‘Let us hope so, sir.’ Hal was brave with Aboli at his side. ‘I am always grateful for instruction.’

  For a moment they held each other’s eyes, and then Schreuder dropped over the galleon’s side to the deck of the caravel. Immediately the lines were cast off and the Dutch crew set the sails. The Lady Edwina threw up her stern like a skittish colt and heeled to the press of her canvas. Lightly she turned away from the land to make her offing.

  ‘We also will get under way, if you please, Master Ned!’ Sir Francis said. ‘Up with her anchor.’

  The galleon bore away from the African coast, heading into the south. From the masthead where Hal crouched the Lady Edwina was still in plain view. The smaller vessel was standing out to clear the treacherous shoals of the Agulhas Cape, before coming around to run before the wind down to the Dutch fort below the great table-topped mountain that guarded the south-western extremity of the African continent.

  As Hal watched, the silhouette of the caravel’s sails altered drastically. He leaned out and shouted down, ‘The Lady Edwina is altering course.’

  ‘Where away?’ his father yelled back.

  ‘She’s running free,’ Hal told him. ‘Her new course looks to be due west.’

  She was doing precisely what they expected of her. With the sou’-easter well abaft her beam, she was now heading directly for Good Hope.

  ‘Keep her under your eye.’

  As Hal watched her, the caravel dwindled in size until her white sails merged with the tossing manes of the wind-driven white horses on the horizon.

  ‘She’s gone!’ he shouted at the quarterdeck. ‘Out of sight from here!’

  Sir Francis had waited for this moment before he brought the galleon around onto her true heading. Now he gave the orders to the helm that brought her around towards the east, and she went back on a broad reach parallel with the African coast. ‘This seems to be her best point of sailing,’ he said to Hal, as his son came down to the deck after being relieved at the masthead. ‘Even with her jury-rigging, she’s showing a good turn of speed. We must get to know the whims and caprice of our new mistress. Make a cast of the log, please.’

  With the glass in hand, Hal timed the wooden log on its reel, dropped from the bows on its journey back along the hull until it reached the stern. He made a quick calculation on the slate, and then looked up at his father. ‘Six knots through the water.’

  ‘With a new mainmast she will be good for ten. Ned Tyler has found a spar of good Norwegian pine stowed away in her hold. We will step it as soon as we get into port.’ Sir Francis looked delighted: God was smiling upon them. ‘Assemble the ship’s company. We will ask God’s blessing on her and rename her.’

  They stood bare-headed in the wind, clutching their caps to their breasts, their expressions as pious as they could muster, anxious not to attract the disfavour of Sir Francis.

  ‘We thank you, Almighty God, for the victory you have granted us over the heretic and the apostate, the benighted followers of the son of Satan, Martin Luther.’

  ‘Amen!’ they cried loudly. They were all good Anglicans, apart from the black tribesmen among them, but these Negroes cried, ‘Amen!’ with the rest. They had learned that word their first day aboard Sir Francis’s ship.

  ‘We thank you also for your timely and merciful intervention in the midst of the battle and your deliverance of us from certain defeat—’

  Hal shuffled in disagreement, but without looking up. Some of the credit for the timely intervention was his, and his father had not acknowledged this as openly.

  ‘We thank you and praise your name for placing in our hands this fine ship. We give you our solemn oath that we will use her to bring humiliation and punishment upon your enemies. We ask your blessing upon her. We beg you to look kindly upon her, and to sanction the new name which we now give her. From henceforth she will become the Resolution.’

  His father had simply translated the galleon’s Dutch name, and Hal was saddened that this ship would not bear his mother’s name. He wondered if his father’s memory of his mother was at last fading, or if he had some other reason for no longer perpetuating her memory. He knew, though, that he would never have the courage to ask, and he must simply accept this decision.

  ‘We ask your continued help and intervention in our endless battle against the godless. We thank you humbly for the rewards you have so bountifully heaped upon us. And we trust that if we prove worthy you will reward our worship and sacrifice with further proof of the love you bear us.’

  This was a perfectly reasonable sentiment, one with which every man on board, true Christian or pagan, could be in full accord. Every man devoted to God’s work on earth was entitled to his rewards, and not only in the life to come. The treasures that filled the Resolution’s holds were proof and tangible evidence of his approval and consideration towards them.

  ‘Now let’s have a cheer for Resolution and all who sail in her.’

  They cheered until they were hoarse, and Sir Francis silenced them at last. He replaced his broad-brimmed hat and gestured for them to cover their heads. His expression became stern and forbidding. ‘There is one more task we have to perform now,’ he told them, and looked at Big Daniel. ‘Bring the prisoners on deck, Master Daniel.’

  Sam Bowles was at the head of the forlorn file that came up from the hold, blinking in the sunlight. They were led aft and forced to kneel, facing the ship’s company.

  Sir Francis read their names from the sheet of parchment he held up. ‘Samuel Bowles. Edward Broom. Peter Law. Peter Miller. John T
ate. You kneel before your shipmates accused of cowardice and desertion in the face of the enemy, and dereliction of your duty.’

  The other men growled and glared at them.

  ‘How say you to these charges? Are you the cowards and traitors we accuse you of being?’

  ‘Mercy, your grace. It was a madness of the moment. Truly we repent. Forgive us, we beg you for the sakes of our wives and the sweet babes we left at home,’ Sam Bowles pleaded as their spokesman.

  ‘The only wives you ever had were the trulls in the bawdy houses of Dock Street,’ Big Daniel mocked him, and the crew roared.

  ‘String them up at the yard-arm! Let’s watch them dance a little jig to the devil.’

  ‘Shame on you!’ Sir Francis stopped them. ‘What kind of English justice is this? Every man, no matter how base, is entitled to a fair trial.’ They sobered and he went on. ‘We will deal with this matter in proper order. Who brings these charges against them?’

  ‘We do!’ roared the crew in unison.

  ‘Who are your witnesses?’

  ‘We are!’ they replied, with a single voice.

  ‘Did you witness any act of treachery or cowardice? Did you see these foul creatures flee from the fight and leave their shipmates to their fate?’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘You have heard the testimony against you. Do you have aught to say in your defence?’

  ‘Mercy!’ whined Sam Bowles. The others were dumb.

  Sir Francis turned back to the crew. ‘And so what is your verdict?’

  ‘Guilty!’

  ‘Guilty as hell!’ added Big Daniel, lest there be any lingering doubts.

  ‘And your sentence?’ Sir Francis asked, and immediately an uproar broke out.

  ‘Hang ’em.’

  ‘Hanging’s too good for the swine. Keel haul ’em.’

  ‘No! No! Draw and quarter ’em. Make them eat their own balls.’

  ‘Let’s fry some pork! Burn the bastards at the stake.’

  Sir Francis silenced them again. ‘I see we have some differences of opinion.’ He gestured to Big Daniel. ‘Take them down below and lock them up. Let them stew in their own stinking juices for a day or two. We will deal with them when we get into port. Until then there are more important matters to attend to.’

  For the first time in his life aboard ship, Hal had a cabin of his own. He need no longer share every sleeping and waking moment of his life crammed in enforced intimacy with a horde of other humanity.

  The galleon was spacious by comparison with the little caravel, and his father had found a place for him alongside his own magnificent quarters. It had been the cupboard of the Dutch captain’s servant, and was a mere cubby-hole. ‘You need a lighted place to continue your studies,’ Sir Francis had justified this indulgence. ‘You waste many hours each night sleeping when you could be working.’ He ordered the ship’s carpenter to knock together a bunk and a shelf on which Hal could lay out his books and papers.

  An oil lamp swung above his head, blackening the deck overhead with its soot, but giving Hal just enough light to make out his lines and allow him to write the lessons his father set him. His eyes burned with fatigue and he had to stifle his yawns as he dipped his quill and peered at the sheet of parchment onto which he was copying the extract from the Dutch captain’s sailing directions that his father had captured. Every navigator had his own personal manual of sailing directions, a priceless journal in which he kept details of oceans and seas, currents and coasts, landfalls and harbours; tables of the compass’s changeable and mysterious deviations as a ship voyaged in foreign waters, and charts of the night sky, which altered with the latitudes. This was knowledge that each navigator painstakingly accumulated over his lifetime, from his own observations or gleaned from the experience and anecdotes of others. His father would expect him to complete this work before his watch at the masthead, which began at four in the morning.

  A faint noise from behind the bulkhead distracted him, and he looked up with the quill still in his hand. It was a footfall so soft as to be almost inaudible and came from the luxurious quarters of the Governor’s wife. He listened with every fibre of his being, trying to interpret each sound that reached him. His heart told him that it was the lovely Katinka, but he could not be certain of that. It might be her ugly old maid, or even the grotesque husband. He felt deprived and cheated at the thought.

  However, he convinced himself that it was Katinka and her nearness thrilled him, even though the planking of the bulkhead separated them. He yearned so desperately for her that he could not concentrate on his task or even remain seated.

  He stood, forced to stoop by the low deck above his head, and moved silently to the bulkhead. He leaned against it and listened. He heard a light scraping, the sound of a something being dragged across the deck, the rustle of cloth, some further sounds that he could not place, and then the purling sound of liquid flowing into a basin or bowl. With his ear against the panel, he visualized every movement beyond. He heard her dip water with her cupped hands and dash it into her face, heard her small gasps as the cold struck her cheeks, and then the drops splash back into the basin.

  He looked down and saw that a faint ray of candlelight was shining through a crack in the panelling, a narrow sliver of yellow light that wavered in rhythm to the ship’s motion. Without regard to the consequence of what he was doing, he sank to his knees and placed his eye to the crack. He could see little, for it was narrow, and the soft light of the candle was directly in his eye.

  Then something passed between him and the candle, a swirl of silks and lace. He stared then gasped as he caught the pearly gleam of flawless white skin. It was merely a flash, so swift that he barely had time to make out the line of a naked back, luminous as mother-of-pearl in the yellow light.

  He pressed his face closer to the panel, desperate for another glimpse of such beauty. He fancied that over the normal sound of the ship’s timbers working in the seaway he could hear soft breathing, light as the whisper of a tropic zephyr. He held his own breath to listen until his lungs burned, and he felt light-headed with awe.

  At that moment the candle in the other cabin was whisked away, the ray of light through the crack sped across his straining eye and was gone. He heard soft footfalls move away, and darkness and silence fell beyond the panelling.

  He stayed kneeling for a long while, like a worshipper at a shrine, and then rose slowly and seated himself once more at his work shelf. He tried to force his tired brain to attend to the task his father had set him, but it kept breaking away like an unruly colt from the trainer’s noose. The letters on the page before him dissolved in images of alabaster skin and golden hair. In his nostrils was a memory of that tantalizing odour he had smelt when first he burst into her cabin. He covered his eyes with one hand in an attempt to prevent the visions invading his aching brain.

  It was to no avail: his mind was beyond his control. He reached for his Bible, which lay beside his journal, and opened the leather cover. Between the pages was a fine gold filigree, that single strand of hair that he had stolen from her comb.

  He touched it to his lips, then gave a low moan: he fancied he could still detect a trace of her perfume on it, and he closed his eyes tightly.

  It was some time before he became aware of the actions of his treacherous right hand. Like a thief it had crept under the skirts of the loose canvas petticoat that was his only garment in the hot, stuffy little cubby-hole. By the time he realized what he was doing it was too late to stop himself. He surrendered helplessly to the pumping and tugging of his own fingers. The sweat ran from his every pore and slicked down his hard young muscles. The rod he held between his fingers was hard as bone and endowed with a throbbing life of its own.

  The scent of her filled his head. His hand beat fast but not as fast as his heart. He knew this was sin and folly. His father had warned him, but he could not stop. He writhed on his stool. He felt the ocean of his love for her pressing against the dyke of his restraint, li
ke a high and irresistible tide. He gave a small cry and the tide burst from him. He felt the warm flood of it spray down his rigid straining thighs, heard it splatter the deck, and then its musky odour drove the sacred perfume of her hair from his nostrils.

  He sat, sweating and panting softly, and let the waves of guilt and self-disgust overwhelm him. He had betrayed his father’s trust, the promise he had made him, and with his profane lust, he had besmirched the pure and lovely image of a saint.

  He could not remain in his cabin a moment longer. He flung on his canvas sea-jacket and fled up the ladder to the deck. He stood for a while at the rail breathing deeply. The raw salt air cleansed his guilt and self-disgust. He felt steadier, and looked about him to take stock of his surroundings.

  The ship was still on the larboard tack, with the wind abeam. Her masts swung back and forth across the brilliant canopy of stars. He could just make out the lowering mass of the land down to leeward. The Great Bear stood a finger’s breadth above the dark silhouette of the land. It was a nostalgic reminder of the land of his birth, and the childhood he had left behind.

  To the south the sky was dazzling with the constellation of Centaurus standing above his right shoulder, and the mighty Southern Cross, burning in its heart. This was the symbol of this new world beyond the Line.

  He looked to the helm and saw his father’s pipe glow in a sheltered corner of the quarterdeck. He did not want to face him now, for he was certain that his guilt and depravity would still be so engraved on his features that his father would recognize it even in the gloom. Yet he knew that his father had seen him, and would count it as odd if he did not pay him respect. He went to him quickly. ‘Your indulgence, please, Father. I came up for a breath of air to clear my head,’ he mumbled, not able to meet Sir Francis’s eyes.

  ‘Don’t idle up here too long,’ his father cautioned him. ‘I will want to see your task completed before you take your watch at the masthead.’

  Hal hurried forward. This expansive deck was still unfamiliar. Much of the cargo and goods from the caravel could not fit into the galleon’s already crammed holds and was lashed down on the deck. He picked his way among the casks and chests, and bronze culverins.