Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Cumbrae returned the bow and, still rumbling with laughter, went down to the longboat and had himself rowed to the Gull.

  During the course of the morning the Dutch hostages had been brought ashore and installed in their new lodgings, which Hal and his gang had built for them. These were set well back from the lagoon and separated from the compound in which the Resolution’s crew were housed.

  Now the ship was empty and ready for beaching. As the tide pushed in through the heads the crew, under the direction of Ned Tyler and Hal, began warping it in towards the beach. They had secured the strongest sheaves and blocks to the largest of the trees. Heavy hawsers were fastened to the Resolution’s bows and stern, and with fifty men straining on the lines, the ship came in parallel to the beach.

  When her bottom touched the white sand they secured her there. As the tide receded they hove her down with tackle attached to her mizzen and foremasts, which were still stepped. The ship heeled over steeply until her mastheads touched the tree-tops. The whole of the starboard side of her hull, down as far as the keel, was exposed, and Sir Francis and Hal waded out to inspect it. They were delighted to find little sign of shipworm infestation.

  A few sections of planking had to be replaced and the work began immediately. When darkness fell the torches were lit, for the work on the hull would continue until the return of the tide put a halt to it. When this happened Sir Francis went off to dine in his new quarters, while Hal gave orders to secure the hull for the night. The torches were doused and Ned led away the men to find their own belated dinner.

  Hal was not hungry for food. His appetites were of a different order, but it would be at least another hour before he could satisfy them. Left alone on the beach, he studied the Gull across the narrow strip of water. It seemed that she was settled in quietly enough for the night. Her small boats still lay alongside, but it would not take long to lift them on board and batten down her hatches ready for sea.

  He turned away and moved back into the trees. He went down the line of gun emplacements, speaking softly to the men on watch behind the culverins. He checked once more the laying of each, making sure that they were truly aimed at the dark shape of the Gull, as she lay in a spangle of star reflections on the surface of the still, dark lagoon.

  For a while he sat next to Big Daniel, dangling his legs into the gunpit.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mr Henry.’ Even Daniel used the new and more respectful form of address naturally enough. ‘We’re keeping a weather eye on that red-bearded bastard. You can go off and get your supper.’

  ‘When did you last sleep, Daniel?’ Hal asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. The watch changes pretty soon now. I’ll be handing over to Timothy.’

  Outside his hut Hal found Aboli sitting as quietly as a shadow by the fire, waiting for him with a bowl that contained roasted duck and hunks of bread, and a jug of small beer.

  ‘I’m not hungry, Aboli,’ Hal protested.

  ‘Eat.’ Aboli thrust the bowl into his hands. ‘You will need your strength for the task that lies ahead of you this night.’

  Hal accepted the bowl, but he tried to determine Aboli’s expression and to read from it the deeper meaning of his admonition. The firelight danced on his dark enigmatic features, like those of a pagan idol, highlighting the tattoos on his cheeks, but his eyes were inscrutable.

  Hal used his dirk to split the carcass of the duck in half and offered one portion to Aboli. ‘What task is this that I have to perform?’ he asked carefully.

  Aboli tore a piece off the duck’s breast and shrugged as he chewed. ‘You must be careful not to scratch the tenderest parts of yourself on a thorn as you go through the hole in the stockade to do your duty.’

  Hal’s jaw stopped moving and the duck in his mouth lost its taste. Aboli must have discovered the narrow passage through the thorn fence behind Katinka’s hut that Hal had so secretly left open.

  ‘How long have you known?’ he asked, through his mouthful.

  ‘Was I supposed not to know?’ Aboli asked. ‘Your eyes are like the full moon when you look in a certain direction, and I have heard your roars like those of a wounded buffalo coming from the stern at midnight.’

  Hal was stunned. He had been so careful and cunning.

  ‘Do you think my father knows?’ he asked with trepidation.

  ‘You are still alive,’ Aboli pointed out. ‘If he knew, that would not be so.’

  ‘You would tell no one?’ he whispered. ‘Especially not him?’

  ‘Especially not him,’ Aboli agreed. ‘But take a care that you do not dig your own grave with that spade between your legs.’

  ‘I love her, Aboli,’ Hal whispered. ‘I cannot sleep for the thought of her.’

  ‘I have heard you not sleeping. I thought you might wake the entire ship’s company with your sleeplessness.’

  ‘Do not mock me, Aboli. I will die for lack of her.’

  ‘Then I must save your life by taking you to her.’

  ‘You would come with me?’ Hal was shocked by the offer.

  ‘I will wait at your hole in the stockade. To guard you. You might need my help if the husband finds you where he would like to be.’

  ‘That fat animal!’ Hal said furiously, hating the man with all his heart.

  ‘Fat, perhaps. Sly, almost certainly. Powerful, without doubt. Do not underrate him, Gundwane.’ Aboli stood up. ‘I will go first to make sure the way is clear.’

  The two slipped quietly through the darkness, and paused at the rear of the stockade.

  ‘You don’t have to wait for me, Aboli,’ Hal whispered, ‘I might be a little while.’

  ‘If you were not, I would be disappointed in you,’ Aboli told Hal in his own language. ‘Remember this advice always, Gundwane, for it will stand you in good stead all the days of your life. A man’s passion is like a fire in tall, dry grass, hot and furious but soon spent. A woman is like a magician’s cauldron that must simmer long upon the coals before it can bring forth its spell. Be swift in all things but love.’

  Hal sighed in the darkness. ‘Why must women be so different from us, Aboli?’

  ‘Thank all your Gods, and mine also, that they are.’ Aboli’s teeth gleamed in the darkness as he grinned. He pushed Hal gently towards the opening. ‘If you call I will be here.’

  The lamp still burned in her hut. The slivers of yellow light shone through the weak places in the thatch. Hal listened softly at the wall, but heard no voices. He crept to the door, which stood open a crack. He peered through it, at the huge four-poster bed that his men had carried from her cabin in the Resolution. The curtains were closed to keep out the insects, so he could not be certain that there was only one person behind them.

  Soundlessly he slipped through the door and crept to the bed. As he touched the curtains, a small white hand reached through the folds, seized his outstretched hand and dragged him in. ‘Do not speak!’ she hissed at him. ‘Say not a word!’ Her fingers flew nimbly down the buttons of his shirt front, opening it to the waist, then her nails dug painfully into his breast.

  At the same time her mouth covered his. She had never kissed him before and the heat and softness of her lips astonished him. He tried to grasp her breasts but she seized his wrists and held them at his sides as her tongue slipped into his mouth and twined with his, slithering and twisting like a live eel, goading and teasing him slowly, higher than he had ever been before.

  Then still holding his hands at his side she forced him over backwards. Her swift fingers opened the fastening of his moleskin breeches, and then in a flurry of silks and laces she bestrode his hips and pinned him to the satin coverlet. Without using her hands she searched with her pelvis until she found him and sucked him into her secret heat.

  Much later, Hal fell into a sleep so deep that it was like a little death.

  An insistent hand on his bare arm woke him, and he started up in alarm. ‘What—’ he began, but the hand whipped over his mouth and gagged his next word.

/>   ‘Gundwane! Make no noise. Find your clothes and come with me. Quickly!’

  Hal rolled gently off the bed, careful not to disturb the woman beside him, and found his breeches where she had thrown them.

  Neither spoke again until they had crept out through the gap in the stockade. There, they paused as Hal glanced up at the sky and saw, by the angle of the great Southern Cross to the horizon, that it lacked only an hour or so till dawn. This was the witching hour when all human resources were at their lowest ebb. Hal peered back at Aboli’s dark shape. ‘What is it, Aboli?’ Hal demanded. ‘Why did you call me?’

  ‘Listen!’ Aboli laid a hand on his shoulder and Hal cocked his head.

  ‘I hear nothing.’

  ‘Wait!’ Aboli squeezed his shoulder for silence.

  Then Hal heard it, far off and faint, blanketed by the trees, a shout of uncontrolled laughter.

  ‘Where …?’ Hal was puzzled.

  ‘At the beach.’

  ‘God’s wounds!’ Hal blurted. ‘What devilry is this now?’ He began to run, Aboli at his side, heading for the lagoon, stumbling in the darkness on the uneven forest floor with low branches whipping into their faces.

  As they reached the first huts of the encampment, they heard more noise ahead, a snatch of slurred song and a hoot of crazed laughter.

  ‘The gunpits,’ Hal panted, and at that moment saw, in the last glimmer from the dying watchfire, a pale human shape ahead.

  Then his father’s voice challenged him. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘’Tis Hal, Father.’

  ‘What is happening?’ It was clear that Sir Francis had only just awakened for he was in his shirt sleeves and his voice was groggy with sleep, but his sword was in his hand.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Hal said. There was another roar of stupid laughter. ‘It comes from the beach. The gunpits.’

  Without another word, all three ran on, and came together to the first culverin. Here, at the edge of the lagoon, the canopy of leaves overhead was thinner, allowing the last rays of the moon to shine through, giving them enough light to see one of the guncrew draped over the long bronze barrel. When Sir Francis aimed an angry kick at him he collapsed in the sand.

  It was then that Hal spotted the small keg standing on the lip of the pit. Oblivious to their arrival, one of the other gunners was on his hands and knees in front of it, like a dog, lapping up the liquid that dribbled from the spigot. Hal smelt the sugary aroma, heavy on the night air like the emanation of some poisonous flower. He jumped down into the pit and seized the gunner by his hair.

  ‘Where did you get the rum?’ he snarled. The man peered back at him blearily. Hal drew back his fist and struck him a blow that made his teeth clash together in his jaw. ‘Damn you for a sot! Where did you get it?’ Hal pricked him with the point of his dirk. ‘Answer me or I’ll split your windpipe.’

  The pain and the threat rallied his victim. ‘A parting gift from his lordship,’ he gasped. ‘He sent a keg across from the Gull for us to drink his health and wish him God speed.’

  Hal flung the drunken creature from him and leapt onto the parapet. ‘The other guncrews? Has the Buzzard sent gifts to all of them?’

  They ran down the line of emplacements, and in each found sweetly reeking oaken kegs and inert bodies. Few of the crews were still on their feet, but even those who were, were staggering and slobbering in intoxication. Few English seamen could resist the ardent essence of the sugar cane.

  Even Timothy Reilly, one of Sir Francis’s trusted coxswains, had succumbed, and although he tried to answer Sir Francis’s accusation, he reeled on his feet. Sir Francis struck him a blow with the hilt of his sword across the side of his head and the fellow collapsed in the sand.

  At that moment, Big Daniel came running from the encampment. ‘I heard the uproar, Captain. What has happened?’

  ‘The Buzzard has plied the guncrews with liquor. They are all of them witless.’ His voice shook with fury. ‘It can only mean one thing. There is not a moment to lose. Rouse the camp. Stand the men to arms – but softly, mind!’

  As Daniel raced away, Hal heard a faint sound from the dark ship across the still lagoon waters, a distant clank of ratchet and pawl, that sent tingling shocks up his spine.

  ‘The capstan!’ he exclaimed. ‘The Gull is tightening up on her anchor spring.’

  They stared across the channel, and in the moonlight saw the silhouette of the Gull begin to alter, as the hawser running from the anchor to her capstan pulled her stern round, and her full broadside was presented to the beach.

  ‘Her guns are run out!’ Sir Francis exclaimed, as the moonlight glinted on the barrels. Behind each they could now make out the faint glow of the burning slow-match in the hands of the Gull’s gunners.

  ‘Satan’s breath, they’re going to fire on us! Down!’ shouted Sir Francis. ‘Get down!’ Hal leapt over the parapet of the gunpit and flung himself flat on the sandy floor.

  Suddenly the night was lit brightly, as if by a flash of lightning. An instant later the thunder smote their eardrums and the tornado of shot swept across the beach and thrashed into the forest around them. The Gull had fired all her cannon into the encampment in a single devastating broadside.

  The grape shot tore through the foliage above and branches, clusters of leaves and slabs of wet bark rained down upon them. The air was filled with a lethal swarm of splinters blasted from the tree-trunks.

  The frail huts gave no protection to the men within. The broadside slashed through, sending poles flying and flattening the flimsy structures as though they had been hit by a tidal wave. They heard the terrified yells of men awakening into a nightmare, and the sobs, screams and groans of those cut down by the hail of shot or skewered by the sharp, ragged splinters.

  The Gull had disappeared behind the pall of her own gunsmoke, but Sir Francis leapt to his feet and snatched the smouldering match from the senseless hand of the drunken gunner. He glanced over the sights of the culverin and saw that it was still aimed into the swirling smoke behind which the Gull lay. He pressed the match to the touch hole. The culverin bellowed out a long silver gush of smoke and bounded back against its tackle. He could not see the strike of his shot, but he roared an order to those gunners down the line still sober enough to obey. ‘Fire! Open fire! Keep firing as fast as you can!’

  He heard a ragged salvo but then saw many of the guncrews heave themselves up and stagger away drunkenly among the trees.

  Hal jumped onto the lip of the emplacement, shouting for Aboli and Daniel. ‘Come on! Each of you bring a match and follow me. We must get across to the island!’

  Daniel was already helping Sir Francis reload the culverin, swabbing out the smoking barrel to douse the burning sparks.

  ‘Avast that, Daniel. Leave that work to others. I need your help.’

  As they started off together along the shore, the fog bank that covered the Gull drifted aside and she fired her next broadside. It had been but two minutes since the first. Her gunners were fast and well trained and they had the advantage of surprise. Again the storm of shot swept the beach and ploughed into the forest with deadly effect.

  Hal saw one of their culverin struck squarely by a lead ball. The tackle snapped and it was hurled backwards off its train, so that its muzzle pointed to the stars.

  The cries of the wounded and dying swelled in the pandemonium of despair as men deserted their posts and fled among the trees. The desultory return fire from the gunpits shrivelled until there was only an occasional bang and flash of cannon. Once the battery was silenced, the Buzzard turned his guns on the remaining huts and the clumps of bush in which the Resolution’s crew had taken shelter.

  Hal could hear the crew of the Gull cheering wildly as they reloaded and fired. ‘The Gull and Cumbrae!’ they shouted.

  There were no more broadsides, but a continuous stuttering roll of thunder as each gun fired as soon as it was ready. Their muzzle flashes flickered and flared within the sulphurous white smoke bank like the f
lames of hell.

  As he ran Hal heard his father’s voice behind him, fading with distance as he tried to rally his shattered, demoralized crew. Aboli ran at his shoulder and Big Daniel was a few paces further back, losing ground to the two swifter runners.

  ‘We will need more men to launch,’ Daniel panted. ‘They’re heavy.’

  ‘You will not find them to help you now. They’re all hog drunk or running for their very lives,’ Hal grunted, but even as he spoke he saw Ned Tyler speed out of the forest just ahead, leading five of his seamen. All seemed sober enough.

  ‘Good man, Ned!’ Hal shouted. ‘But we must hurry. The Buzzard will be sending his men onto the beach as soon as he has silenced our batteries.’

  They charged in a group across the shallow channel between them and the island. The tide was low so at first they staggered through the glutinous mud-flat that sucked at their feet, then plunged into the open water. They waded, swam and dragged themselves across, the thunder of the Gull’s barrage spurring them onwards.

  ‘There is only a breath of wind from the sou’-west,’ Big Daniel gasped, as they staggered out, streaming water, onto the beach of the island. ‘It will not be enough to serve us.’

  Hal did not reply but broke off a dead branch and lit it from his slow-match. He held it high to give himself light to see the path and ran on into the forest. In minutes they had crossed the island and reached the beach on the far side. Here Hal paused and looked across at the Gull in the main channel.

  The dawn was coming on apace, and the night fled before it. The light was turning grey and silvery, the lagoon gleaming softly as a sheet of polished pewter.

  The Buzzard was training his guns back and forth, with the use of his anchor spring, swinging the Gull on her moorings so that he could pick out any target on the shore.

  There was only the odd flash of answering fire from the gunpits on the beach, and the Buzzard responded immediately to these, swinging his ship and bringing to bear the full power of his broadside, snuffing them out with a whirlwind of grape, flying sand and falling trees.