by Killigrew of the Royal Navy (Killigrew RN) (retail) (epub)
A leopard man swung a club at him. Killigrew ducked beneath the blow and rammed a fist into the man’s stomach. The two of them grappled, and the leopard man pushed Killigrew back against the wall of a hut and pressed his club against his throat. Then a horseman galloped past, inadvertently bumping into the leopard man and giving Killigrew a chance to snatch the club from his hands. He swung the club and struck the man to the ground.
He heard more hoof-beats and started to turn, but something heavy slammed into him from behind. He sprawled in the dust alongside the man he had just clubbed unconscious. He was aware of hoof-beats pounding the earth all around his head, and managed to crawl out of the way.
The leopard men had fought their way through the entrance to the village and now they rode amongst the huts, setting the thatched roofs ablaze with torches. Killigrew pushed himself to his feet and saw Ndawa fighting off two leopard men at once. He brought down the club on the head of one, allowing Ndawa to finish off the other with a spear-thrust. He thanked Killigrew with an upraised hand, and then ran off to help some of his fellow villagers.
Killigrew looked around for another enemy and saw no shortage of them. As the women and children of the village ran from the blazing huts, the leopard men herded them down the main thoroughfare, guiding them towards the entrance. One of the women – Ndawa’s wife – fought back, trying to snatch a spear from a leopard man. Another leopard man rode up behind her and clubbed her down.
Something inside Killigrew snapped.
The man whose spear Ndawa’s wife had tried to take grabbed her by the ankles and began to drag her through the dust towards the village entrance. Killigrew stepped into his path. The man did not see him until he bumped into him. He dropped her ankles and began to turn, only to receive the full force of the club in his face.
The horseman saw this and charged forwards. Killigrew waited for him, readying the club. The horse reared in front of Killigrew, hoofs flailing wildly. Killigrew side-stepped and dashed the club against the side of the horse’s head. The horse went down on its forelegs and pitched its rider over its head. He tried to get up, but Killigrew did not give him a chance.
He glanced up and saw Miss Chance, asleep on her feet, being dragged out of Ndawa’s hut between two leopard men, supervised by Prince Khari. Killigrew tried to run to her, but another leopard man blocked his path. Killigrew smashed his skull in.
As Killigrew charged forwards once more, Prince Khari glanced around and saw him. Recognising Killigrew, he grinned broadly and pulled a pistol from his belt. The pistol brought Killigrew up short, frozen in panic. Khari levelled the pistol and was about to fire when suddenly Tip-Top stepped out from behind a hut and gave the prince’s horse a sharp thrust in the hindquarters with his fighting stick. The horse reared as Khari squeezed his trigger and the shot went wide. Khari landed on his back in the dirt and Tip-Top was about to strike him on the head when another leopard man brought him down with a blow from a war-club, crushing his top hat. Khari jumped athletically to his feet, and another horse was brought for him.
Killigrew gazed about through the drifting smoke and dashing bodies, but Miss Chance and her captors had disappeared. He jumped on to the wall around the well to get a better view. Wherever he looked the young men, women and children of the village were being ridden down and caught in nets strung between two horsemen. He glimpsed Miss Chance being slung across the rump of a horse. He was about to jump down and go to her when another leopard man ran at him. Killigrew kicked him in the face. He saw a horseman about to ride past, and grabbed the rope by which the well’s pail was suspended from the primitive wooden derrick. He swung himself out from the well, caught the rider in the chest with both feet and knocked him clean out of the saddle. The rope swung back, and Killigrew dropped to the ground, kicking the dismounted rider in the side as he tried to get up.
By the time he got to the horse another leopard man was trying to climb into the saddle from the other side. Killigrew ducked underneath the horse and grabbed the man by the ankles, pulling his feet out from beneath him so that he cracked his head on the ground.
Killigrew got a foot in the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle. The whole village was ablaze now. The acrid smoke stung his eyes and clawed at his throat. Whichever way he turned the horse, he found his path blocked by the flames. The only way out – using the phrase ‘way out’ in its widest possible sense – was a fence, five feet high and burning fiercely. He tried to ride the horse at it, but it balked and almost threw him from the saddle. He backed it up as much as possible, until its rump was scorched by the hut burning behind it. It broke into a gallop without any goading. Within seconds it was upon the fence, but by now it was moving too fast to have any chance of stopping or swerving in time.
It leaped.
For a moment smoke and flames filled Killigrew’s vision, and then he was treated to a grandstand view of the savannah stretching beyond the fence. A moment later the cassava field immediately below the fence hurtled up to meet them, and he was jerked viciously in the saddle as the horse’s hoofs hit the soft earth. The horse stumbled, and Killigrew almost fell to the ground, righting himself in the saddle at the same time that the horse regained its footing.
He looked around. The leopard men had got what they had come for and were herding their captives back towards the trees while a few of their number fought a rearguard action against Ndawa and the other men who had managed to avoid being taken. Killigrew dug his heels into the horse’s flanks and galloped towards them.
‘Ndawa!’ yelled Killigrew. The young man turned and saw him. ‘Spear!’ Killigrew made a throwing motion. Ndawa understood, and tossed a spear up to him as he rode past. Killigrew caught it by the shaft and urged the horse onwards, towards the rearguard. Seeing him bear down on them, they scattered. Beyond them he could see Prince Khari seated astride his horse, riding alongside the horse over which Miss Chance was slung.
‘Khari!’
The prince twisted in his saddle, saw Killigrew, and turned his horse to meet his charge. Killigrew readied his spear to launch it at Khari’s chest, and saw the prince pull a second pistol from his belt. The pistol came up unwaveringly. Killigrew knew he was too far away, but hurled the spear anyway, trying to give it some spin in flight the way he had seen the Africans do, so it would fly further and straighter, like a bullet from a rifle.
He missed Khari by about three inches, the spear sailing past his head to bury itself in the ground behind him. Khari did not even flinch. A moment later he pulled the trigger and disappeared in the puff of blue-tinged smoke which burst from the muzzle of his pistol. The next moment everything went crimson and Killigrew was blinded. He felt his horse stumble beneath him and then he was thrown forwards. The ground slammed into him and he rolled over and over. Wiping the horse’s blood from his eyes with his sleeve, he tried to get up but his ankle gave way beneath him. He tried again, and stood up just in time to be slammed to the earth as Khari rode him down. He crawled a short distance, and felt rather than heard the hoof-beats pounding towards him as Khari rode him down again. Through the muzziness which clouded his vision, he just managed to glimpse the horse’s fetlocks, and then something smashed into his skull.
Chapter 18
Coffle
Half a mile into the jungle they came to where the leopard men had left their mules, and the captives were reorganised into a proper coffle. Men, women and children alike had their wrists tied behind their backs, and the men were yoked in pairs, one behind the other. A rope ran from the wrists of the rearmost man in each pair to the wrists of the next captive, a woman, who had her hands tied behind her; another rope, tied around her neck, ran back to the wrists of the next man behind her, the first in the next pair with his neck in turn in one end of a double-ended yoke. The children were mixed in with them.
The leopard men reloaded their muskets to keep the slaves covered, and exchanged war-clubs for cat-o’-nine-tails which they used unstintingly on any slave who even looked as if h
e or she might try to cause trouble, lashing them until the blood poured from their flayed skin.
Molineaux saw Miss Chance pulled from the rump of a horse and then placed in a litter made by stretching a pole between two mules and slinging a hammock from beneath it. She looked unharmed, but it was obvious she was in no condition to travel. He wanted to go to her to give her a few words of reassurance, but he was in the coffle at the front end of a yoke, his wrists tied before him and linked by a rope to a noose around the neck of Momolu’s daughter Abena. As the coffle got under way he had no choice but to follow her or else risk choking her. He gagged as the man behind him was slow to keep up, pulling back on the yoke which cruelly chafed both their necks.
So far none of the leopard men seemed to have noticed that whereas all the other male captives wore breech-clouts, Molineaux was wearing a pair of white cotton undershorts purchased from Mrs Cropper’s penny bazaar in Liverpool. He thought about pointing out that he was not an African and that the leopard men had no right to enslave him, a British citizen, but decided against it. They had no right to enslave any of these people, but that had not stopped them from doing so. Any demand to see the British consul in Monrovia would be received at best with jeers and at worst a swift death to stop him from causing trouble.
Not that he was in a position to cause much trouble. The unspoken language of… well, not love, perhaps, but a certain mutual attraction… which had served him so well with Abena the night before last, was useless in any attempt to plot an escape with the other slaves. They called out to each other in Mande, words of hope and encouragement to give one another strength, he supposed. Not understanding, he felt horribly isolated.
He wondered if Killigrew was all right. Probably. White men always managed to survive somehow, and compared to the rest of his pasty-faced brethren, Killigrew had struck him as being particularly adept at looking after himself. Would Killigrew try to rescue him? Certainly he would not allow Miss Chance to be carried off by the slavers; and, to be fair, he would probably try to free Molineaux and the other captives if he could. But could he? Molineaux doubted it. No, if he was going to get out of this, he would have to do it himself. Secured to Abena in front of him, and another man behind him, under the vigilant eyes and guns of the leopard men, there was nothing he could do but watch and wait and bide his time until a better opportunity presented itself.
Some of the leopard men shouted at the captives and lashed them angrily. For some reason Molineaux was spared; when the other captives fell silent, he realised that the leopard men were ordering them not to talk.
Two of the leopard men fell into step alongside Abena, joking in whatever language it was they spoke, and laughing. It was obvious they were referring to her, and one of them reached across to grab one of her breasts. She shrank away, and the man grabbed a fistful of her hair at the back, pulling her head back to tilt her pain-ridden face to the sky, snarling something at her.
Molineaux was perfectly positioned to kick him in the crotch from behind, and saw no reason to refrain.
The man clutched at himself and sank to his knees, sobbing in agony. His friend turned and smashed Molineaux in the face with the butt of his musket. The side of his face exploded in pain and he went over sideways, jerking the man behind him forwards and twisting his own neck in the yoke. He lay there, half-throttled, unable even to move, let alone defend himself. The man stood over him and lashed at him with a cat-o’-nine-tails, and Molineaux cried out as the knotted thongs lacerated his skin. ‘Ow! Jesus Christ! All right, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’
The man stopped and stared at him, before whirling to where Prince Khari rode at the head of the column. He shouted something, and Prince Khari wheeled his horse and rode back to where Molineaux lay. ‘You speak English?’ Khari asked, reining in.
Molineaux said nothing, and shrugged as if he did not understand.
‘You shrug like a white man,’ spat Khari. He made it sound like an insult.
‘And you’ve got a face like a warthog’s arse,’ Molineaux could not resist replying, ‘but you don’t hear me complaining.’
Khari said something to the leopard man, who lashed at Molineaux again, once, twice, three times. Molineaux bit his lip in spite of the pain, determined not to give them the satisfaction of crying out a second time. ‘What’s the matter?’ he taunted Khari, when the leopard man backed away to admire his bloody handiwork. ‘Haven’t you got the grit to get down off that prad and fight me yourself? And me yoked and bound and all.’
‘Where did you learn to speak English?’ demanded Khari.
Molineaux decided this would not be a good time to speak of his British parentage. ‘From a missionary. Where did you learn yours? ’Cause I’d ask for my money back if I were you, you big ignorant hunk of shit.’
Khari repeated his order to the leopard man, who lashed at Molineaux again. ‘Brave feller, eh? I’d like to see you try that if I wasn’t bound,’ Molineaux spat through the pain.
Khari leaned on the pommel of his saddle to address him. ‘You were not born in Africa. Perhaps you are a runaway, who was shipped back to Sierra Leone or Monrovia? I cannot place your accent, but it does not matter. I ought to kill you for your impertinence towards a prince of royal blood, but a slave who already speaks English will fetch a good price at market in the United States.’
‘Yeah? Well, when I’ve finished with you, the only market you’ll fetch any kind of price in will be a meat market.’
Prince Khari chuckled, and ordered the leopard man to give Molineaux another half a dozen lashes before riding back to the head of the coffle and ordering them to move on.
* * *
Killigrew heard voices. They did not make any kind of sense. He wondered if it was because they were speaking in a foreign language, or because the blow to his head had deprived him of his senses.
His senses certainly felt addled, at least those of them he was using. Aside from his hearing, he could taste the dust in his mouth, could smell smoke and blood, and could feel the hard earth pressing against his body and the agonising throbbing in his skull. He could not see because his eyes were shut. He kept them shut because he was afraid that if he opened them he might find that he was blind.
He felt hands on his shoulders, turning him on his back. He rolled over and opened his eyes. If he was blind, then keeping his eyes shut for the rest of his life was not going to make a – he winced – blind bit of difference.
He could still see. All he could see was blinding white light, but it was better than nothing. Then Ndawa’s head eclipsed the sun.
‘O-ke?’ asked Ndawa, his face full of concern.
‘No,’ said Killigrew. He raised a hand to his head and discovered with astonishment that his skull had not been caved in, although a huge lump had risen on one side of it. The horse’s hoof must have struck him a glancing blow. ‘Not “o-ke”.’
Ndawa helped him up. Killigrew tried to stand on his own two feet, but his left ankle gave way the moment he put his weight on it. He would have fallen if Ndawa had not caught him. Ndawa put one of Killigrew’s arms across his shoulders and helped the white man limp back towards the village.
A scene of carnage greeted them. There were corpses everywhere: several of them leopard men, but not nearly enough to put out the rage that smouldered within Killigrew. Like a moorland fire it had gone underground and seemed to be extinguished, but in time it would burst out afresh, more fierce and destructive than ever before. And when the reckoning came someone, Killigrew was determined, was going to get very, very badly burned indeed.
Most of the people left in the ruins of the burned-out village were the elderly ones, too weak and feeble to be worth taking away as slaves. The women moved amongst the bodies of their sons and grandsons, weeping, while the men went to work, trying to clear up the mess.
Killigrew had hoped that the witch doctor would be able to give him some kind of ointment to put on his twisted ankle to take away the pain – he had tried heathen remedies in
the past and found them at least as effective as the latest European techniques – but the doctor was dead, run clean through the body with a spear which had grotesquely pinned him to the side of Ndawa’s hut. At least Ndawa’s wife was there, and not too badly hurt. Then Killigrew remembered Miss Chance and his heart filled with despair. They had taken her. She was not well enough to travel; she would be lucky if she survived the journey back to Salazar’s barracoon; he had no doubt that was where Prince Khari would take her. And even if she did live that long, what kind of a fate awaited her when she arrived?
‘Where’s Molineaux?’ he asked Ndawa. The young man shrugged, not understanding. ‘Sekou,’ said Killigrew. Again Ndawa shrugged. He did not know. He turned away and went to help tend the wounded. These people had enough concerns of their own, without worrying about a British seaman and an American missionary. Killigrew tried to go in search of a horse, but before he had taken two steps his ankle gave way beneath him and he collapsed against the wall of the hut, sliding to the ground with a sob of frustration.
‘Ce n’est pas bon,’ said a voice beside him, and he turned to see Tip-Top standing over him, knocking his battered top hat back into shape.
Killigrew looked up at him in surprise. ‘You speak French?’
‘A little,’ admitted Tip-Top. ‘As do you, evidently.’
‘I wish you’d said something earlier. It’s better than messing about with pidgin English.’
Then Killigrew saw Momolu. There was a bloody graze on his temple and his face was ashen, but his voice remained strong as he said something bitterly to Killigrew. ‘What did he say?’ Killigrew asked Tip-Top.
‘He says: “Now you know what the leopard people are.”’
