Eagle Warrior

by Roger Mortimer

  ‘Come up – quickly!’

  Gideon eased open the door. The fore-castle was empty. Hugging the wall, he tiptoed to the arch that opened on to the deck. He peeped out, and looked along the length of the ship.

  Two sea-mice were lounging against the quarter­deck rail. Beside them, a swivel-gun pointed at the main deck. Two more mice leant over the starboard rail, watching the island. All four were peacefully puffing their pipes.

  Gideon melted back into the fore-castle and told the others what he had seen.

  ‘Do we kill them?’ hissed Daniel.

  Gideon looked at him coldly. ‘When you have done as much soldiering – yes, and killing, as Conal and I, you will know when to kill and when not to. Apart from the swivel-gun, those mice are unarmed. They have their backs to us. No, Daniel, we do not kill them. We walk silently out on deck, point our pistols at them and order them to surrender. We then tie them up and dump them in the hold. See?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Daniel, lowering his eyes.

  ‘Right,’ whispered Gideon. ‘Follow me!’

  Silently, they followed him on to the sunlit deck. The two mice by the rail caught the movement and turned in alarm – and saw, to their horror, a line of ragged, filthy mice, armed to the teeth and pointing pistols.

  ‘Paws up!’ snapped Gideon. Three of the mice obeyed, but one made a grab for the swivel-gun. Instantly, Conal’s pistol cracked and the mouse leapt back in terror as a bullet struck the gun-barrel and whined off out to sea.

  There was no further resistance. The guards were searched for weapons – they had none – then marched down to the gun-deck, where they were securely trussed up and dropped through the hatchway. Gideon bolted the hatch-cover.

  Back on deck, the four companions leant against the rail and looked towards the island.

  ‘Sir,’ said William, ‘I know we’re in control of the ship now, but we can’t sail it home. What are we going to do?’

  Gideon smiled down at the little mouse. ‘One step at a time, Will. We’ll pay a visit to the island and find out what’s going on. But first, we need food and drink. Not the muck we’ve been used to. Conal, see if you can find something decent!’

  ‘Officers’ vittles, is it, sir? Leave it to me! Come on, Daniel!’

  Gideon climbed to the quarter-deck, found a telescope and carefully examined the island. But he saw no sign of life.

  Conal and Daniel re-appeared, carrying a large, wickerwork hamper.

  ‘Any luck?’ called Gideon.

  ‘Well, not too bad,’ replied Conal. He had filled the hamper with olives, walnuts, four fat little white loaves, three bottles of preserved eggs, a great, oozing circle of soft cheese and two bottles of red wine.

  Gideon nodded approvingly. ‘Well done, Sergeant! Come along, youngsters – breakfast!’

  Both the ship’s boats had been taken by the crew. But William had the bright idea of using the main-deck’s hatch-cover as a raft, and Daniel suggested arming it with the swivel-gun. Conal discovered two spare oars above the beams of the gun-deck. When all was ready, they launched the raft and rowed with the current to the island.

  The sun was at its height as they waded ashore. Seeking the shade of the palm trees, they collapsed on the sand. The island was beautiful, but Gideon felt oppressed by the silence. No sound of birdsong came from the dense forest, and the stifling heat, even here in the shadow of the palms, made the sweat pour from his body.

  This is an awful place,’ he said quietly.

  ‘I’ll go take a look around,’ said Conal. ‘It’s as quiet as the grave, so it is, and about as cheerful. Those sea-mice must be somewhere, though not a sound of them I can hear!’

  He was back within an hour, news written all over his sharp, eager face.

  ‘You see that great cliff at the end of the harbour? Well, they came ashore just this side of it. I saw the boats – they’d pulled them up above the tide-line and tucked them behind a clump of bushes. Behind that, there’s a gap in the cliff. Just big enough for me to crawl through. I slipped in, and found myself in a tunnel. No sight nor sound of the crew, but judging by the paw-marks in the sand, that’s where they’ve gone.’

  ‘Very well,’ said Gideon. He glanced at the brothers, who were blissfully sleeping. ‘Let them rest. You sleep, too. I’ll watch for two hours then wake you. We’ll wait till dark. Then we’ll go and have a look at this tunnel.’

  In the hot, tropical night, the only sound was the soft hiss of the sea on the sand, and even that faded as the four friends cautiously entered the narrow passage.

  ‘Listen!’ said Gideon.

  ‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Daniel.

  ‘I can,’ murmured William. He took a few, tentative steps into the tunnel. ‘Yes,’ he said and beckoned to the others.

  They listened intently. The sound that came to them, on the very fringe of hearing, was a low rumble, like a distant murmur of thunder.

  ‘Let’s go and find out what it is,’ said Gideon. ‘William and I will lead. Conal, you and Daniel pull those bushes back across the entrance and follow us closely.’

  He adjusted his sword-belt and checked the priming of his pistols. ‘Have your weapons ready but do not draw them yet. We don’t want to risk shooting one another in the dark!’ He smiled at William and Daniel, who felt a sudden stab of excitement at the thought of going into action with the famous Lord Gideon.

  For a while, the tunnel ran straight. At first, it was pitch dark but as it veered to the left the mice became aware of a faint glimmer of light, which gradually grew brighter while the strange, thundery sound grew louder.

  ‘Stop a moment,’ said Gideon. ‘What is that noise?’

  Conal shrugged. ‘Sounds like the thumping of machinery.’

  ‘William?’ asked Gideon.

  The little mouse listened intently. ‘There are different sounds, all mixed up together. I can hear rumbling but it’s not machinery. More like... iron wheels running along tracks. Like those trucks that carry the iron to the cannon-foundry in Aramon.’

  ‘What else?’ Gideon prompted gently.

  ‘Groaning,’ said William with a shudder. ‘Hundreds of voices, groaning in pain. There must be a huge open space ahead of us to hold so many!’ His eyes were shut, his body tense, his whiskers quivering. ‘I can feel their suffering ...’ He opened his eyes, and the pain he could sense showed in his troubled gaze. ‘What is it, sir?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out,’ said Gideon grimly. ‘Draw one pistol each. Come on!’

  Cautiously, they advanced round the next curve. The light grew brighter. The noises grew louder.

  Finally, the tunnel straightened out. The noises now hammered at their ears and the yellow glow, so faint and quavering at first, shimmered brightly on the rock walls ahead.

  ‘Sergeant,’ said Gideon, ‘go ahead and look.’

  As Conal crept forward, the noise battering at his ears, he knew that William was right. Some vast space was setting up echoes and sending them reverberating down the passage. As he neared the end, he dropped on to all fours and crawled the last few yards. Finally, he stretched out flat, lifted his pistol clear of the ground, and inched forward until he was almost at the end of the tunnel.

  Hundreds of flaring torches rippled across the rocky surface of a vast cavern, its roof so high that it was lost in darkness. The rumbling and groaning, pierced now with shouts and strange, cracking noises, echoed deafeningly around him.

  He realized that the source of the noises was coming from somewhere beyond and below him. The tunnel must end high in the rock wall of this huge cave. If he wished to see what was happening, he would have to go further, to the very edge.

  He crawled the final few inches and peered over. A narrow flight of steps, cut into the rock, led to the floor below. Conal looked down – and gazed in disbelief.

  It was a huge gold mine. He could see the rich, glowing rock, the torchlight rippling over it, making it shine like silk. Far below him, on metal rails, stood a li
ne of wooden trucks, each one overflowing with gold. Around the cavern, in two parallel galleries, dozens of mice toiled with pick and shovel, hacking out gold from the rock-face and passing it to other mice who carried it down ladders, where yet more mice heaved it on to the trucks.

  The labourers were naked. Sweat glistened on their matted fur and they groaned as they toiled. Tough-looking guards, comfortably dressed in loose-fitting shirts and breeches and armed with whips, patrolled ceaselessly; shouting, cursing and lashing out at any mouse guilty of pausing for breath.

  As Conal watched, one of the guards yelled an order. At once, twenty or so mice who had been loading the trucks dragged themselves to the front of the little train, and picked up a long, double rope. Heaving, straining, and cruelly lashed by the guards, they pulled. With a loud shrieking of metal that almost drowned the groans of the miners, the train began to move. With agonizing slowness, it lumbered down the tracks until it was swallowed in darkness. But Conal could still hear the rumble of the wheels, the groans of the mice, and the vicious cracking of whips.

  Glancing back to where the trucks had stood, he saw Bultivar, Pombal and several more officers and crew from the Bonaventure. Bultivar was deep in conversation with a squat, brutal-looking mouse, armed with pistols.

  Conal had seen enough. He took a final glance at the poor wretches toiling and groaning in the upper gallery – and with a shock, he recognized one, then another and, incredibly, a third. The truth hit him like a fist in the stomach. These were mice he had last seen riding the eagles.

  The miners were prisoners of war, Eagle Warriors and other soldiers of the King’s army, captured at the Battle of Barrowdown, and sent to this hellish place to hack out gold for their conquerors. This mine was a vast labour camp, where prisoners toiled until they dropped dead from sheer exhaustion. For a few moments, Conal stared intently at these poor mice, fixing their strained, gaunt faces in his mind. Then in his pity and his eagerness to recognize as many of them as possible, he raised his head.

  Bultivar caught the sudden movement and saw him.

  Back in the tunnel, Gideon heard the sudden, frenzied yelling, then Conal was up and running and his friends needed no word of command: they turned and fled.

  ‘They saw me!’ panted Conal as he caught up with them. ‘Bultivar an’ his mice – they’ll be up the steps and after us!’

  While the tunnel twisted, they were invisible to their pursuers. But the final stretch was straight and it was here that Bultivar saw them, silhouetted against the faint starlight that beckoned from the tunnel’s exit. Skidding to a halt on the sandy floor, the Captain raised his double-barrelled pistol and fired twice. The first shot whined over Conal’s head and flattened itself against the roof of the tunnel. The second hit Daniel in the back. He crumpled and fell without a sound.

  William stopped, dragged a painful breath into his burning lungs, and ran back to where his brother lay motionless. Through his shock and grief, the little mouse was vaguely aware of Gideon and Conal crouching in front of Daniel’s body. Then the tunnel erupted in thunder, smoke and flame. Two of Bultivar’s mice fell dead, but as Gideon and Conal threw down their pistols and drew their cutlasses, the enemy swept over them with a triumphant yell.

  Flat on their backs, Gideon and Conal fought on, hacking and stabbing, yelling in fury until the narrow tunnel was a bedlam of shouts, cries and the clash and clang of swords.

  ‘Get that one!’ panted Bultivar. Two sea-mice dragged William to his feet and held him fast. Bultivar drew his second pistol and held it to the little mouse’s head. Gideon and Conal gave up the struggle and lay still.

  ‘That’s better,’ snarled Bultivar. ‘One move from either of you and this mouse gets it. What about the other one?’

  William winced as the Captain gave Daniel’s body a vicious kick.

  One of the officers bent down. ‘Dead, sir.’

  ‘No!’ yelled William. ‘He can’t be! Oh, Lord Gideon, can’t you help him?’

  In the sudden silence, as his sea-mice gaped at the prisoners, Bultivar smiled.

  ‘So! The great Lord Gideon himself! And you must be the equally famous Sergeant Conal! Nothing to say for yourselves? Ah, well, it doesn’t matter. Back to the ship, lads!’ he shouted. ‘This time, we’ll tie these scum to the mainmast! And,’ he added with a malicious sneer, ‘when we get home, old Cambray will reward us handsomely for bringing him two such prizes. It’s been a profitable voyage, and no mistake. Probably the richest yet!’

  15. The Battle of Quincy Manor

  Swartscutt and Ringtail, from General Cambray’s long range patrol, were expert trackers: patient, silent and deadly. All day, they had been scouring the woods for traces of Armand and his rescuers. At last, as the sun was sinking below the trees, they found four sets of paw-prints. Many days old, but still clear and easy to follow. They tracked them patiently beneath the overhanging branches until at last they reached the edge of the wood. Almost invisible in their green and brown camouflage uniforms, they crouched beneath the trees. Across a narrow stream were the rambling buildings of a large farm.

  ‘That’s the Quincy place,’ murmured Ringtail. ‘I knows it. General Quincy’s a King’s mouse. If anyone’s sheltering traitors, it’ll be him.’

  ‘They’ll be on the look-out if they’ve anything to hide.’

  ‘Aye. Probably got a sentry on that hill behind the house.’

  Ringtail was right. That evening, Bella was on watch. But her eyes were fixed on the distant moorland, and she failed to notice the two mice snaking through the long grass towards the stream. There they lay concealed by the tall reeds that fringed the bank. When they were certain that nobody had spotted them, they forded the shallow water and crawled to the shelter of the dry-stone wall that encircled the orchard.

  Their view of the farmyard was obstructed by a tangle of branches; but Ringtail and Swartscutt simply lifted their snouts to the wind, sifting the rich farm-smells for a hint of Armand and his friends.

  An elderly mouse emerged from the barn and crossed towards the house. ‘That’s old Benjamin,’ whispered Ringtail. ‘I’ve heard of him. The cider-maker. See, he’s carrying a couple of flagons. I can smell the stuff on his clothes. And that’s Mrs Quincy, just coming out of the dairy. Who’s that with her?’

  It was Armand. But a very different Armand from the hunted fugitive of a few weeks ago. His eyes sparkled, his fur glowed with health, and he looked like a country-mouse in Tom Quincy’s old clothes. Never had he felt so happy. Tom and Bella treated him like a brother, the old General treated him like a long-lost son, and stout Mrs Quincy had become a second mother. His own mother had died giving him birth, and there had always been an unfilled gap in his life – until now. Every day, he worked with Mrs Quincy in the dairy, mastering, to his great pride, the arts of butter-churning and cheese-making.

  ‘That ain’t the Prince,’ murmured Swartscutt. ‘He’d smell of silks and satins. That one stinks of cheese! We’re wasting our time.’

  ‘Maybe. But we can’t go yet. Look!’

  Hooves clattered and clinked on the cobbles as the little dairy cattle emerged from the milking-parlour and ambled across the yard. Behind them walked two mice. One was Colin, the sturdy young country-mouse in charge of the herd. The other was Dabo.

  As the cattle left the yard, Ringtail and Swartscutt crouched lower. But the herd swung away towards the distant pasture and the soldiers cautiously lifted their snouts.

  ‘They stink of cow,’ said Swartscutt. ‘Aye. Them’s both country-mice, not a doubt of it. Gideon and the other traitors, them’s soldiers. Wouldn’t know what to do with a cow if they saw one.’

  ‘Right. Let’s get out. Be dark soon.’

  ‘Better wait till those two come back.’

  When the two mice returned from the pasture, Colin climbed to his loft over the milking-parlour, where he washed his paws and changed his clothes for supper. Already, delicious smells were floating across the yard. But Dabo wandered into the orcha
rd. It had become one of his favourite spots, peaceful and private, a place to think about the past and wonder about the future. He sauntered through the trees as far as the wall and flopped on to the grass. The setting sun was gleaming on the pink buds, soon to be a riot of blossom, and through the branches he could just see the corner of the old house that he had come to love.

  Like Armand, Dabo had never been so happy. It was as if this ancient manor possessed a special magic that kept all danger away. Dabo decided that if ever General Cambray were defeated, and Armand followed his poor old father as King, he would ask his friend to lend him the money for a farm just like this one. He’d keep a dairy herd and make butter and cheese, grow corn and cider-apples, strawberries, raspberries...

  ‘Reckon he’s gone to sleep?’ whispered Swartscutt.

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

  They were halfway to the stream when a loud voice from the orchard froze them in their tracks.

  ‘Come on, Dabo!’ called Tom. ‘Supper time! The others have started, so you’d better hurry up before Armand scoffs your share!’

  Swartscutt and Ringtail stared at one another in amazement. Then, grinning triumphantly, they slunk away into the night.

  Armand awoke. He had been dreaming of his father and the tears made little rivulets in his fur. As the dream faded, he sat up and rubbed his eyes, wondering why he had been crying in his sleep.

  Suddenly, Dabo burst into the room. ‘Armand, get up, quick! We’re being attacked!’

  With butterflies leaping about in his tummy, Armand scrambled into his clothes and followed Dabo on to the landing. Here they met General Quincy carrying several rifles, powder horns and bullet-bags. The old mouse’s fur was bristling, and the light of battle gleamed in his single eye.

  ‘Fine morning for a fight!’ he said cheerfully, and passed each of them a rifle and ammunition. ‘Dabo, cover that side-window. They may attack across the garden. Armand, come with me. From this window you’ve a clear view of the yard but don’t fire till I give the word!’