Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon

by C11 Blue Horizon(Lit)

  "The gates will shut before we can reach them!" Mansur called to his

  father.

  Dorian ripped off his turban. "Show them who we are!" he cried. Mansur pulled off his own turban and they rode on with their bright red hair streaming behind them like banners.

  A cry went up from the parapets: "Al-Salil! It is the Caliph!"

  The gates began slowly to open again as the men on the winches bent to the handles.

  The Turks saw that they could not cut them off on foot. Their cavalry had not yet arrived: it was following in the second fleet. They halted and unslung their short recurved bows. The first flight of arrows rose dark against the blue and hissed like a pitful of serpents as it fell among the racing horses. One was struck, and went down as though it had run full-tilt into a tripwire. Mansur turned back, hauled Istaph from the saddle of the floundering horse, swung him up on to his stallion's withers and raced on. The gates started to close again the moment the Caliph had galloped through. Mansur shouted to the winch men as he came through the storm of Turkish arrows. They seemed not to hear him and inexorably the gates continued to shut in his face.

  Then, suddenly, Dorian turned back into the opening and stopped his horse full in the path of the great mahogany gates, which creaked to a standstill. Mansur galloped through with inches to spare. The gates slammed as the wave of Turkish attackers reached them, and the defenders on the parapets above fired muskets and arrows down into them. They fled back into the palm grove.

  Dorian galloped at once through the narrow alleys to the mosque and climbed the spiral staircase to the top balcony of the tallest minaret. On one side he had a sweeping view over the harbour and peninsula, and on the other over cultivated fields and groves. Earlier he had devised a system of flag signals to communicate with the gunners on the parapets and his two ships in the bay so that he could co-ordinate their actions.

  From this height he could make out through his telescope the forest of masts of Zayn al-Din's fleet showing above the high ground of the peninsula. He lowered the glass and turned to Mansur. "Our ships are still safe," he pointed to the Sprite and the Revenge at anchor, 'but as soon as Zayn brings his war dhows round the peninsula and enters the bay they will be exposed and vulnerable. We must bring them close in under the protection of the battery on the sea wall."

  How long can we hold out, Father?" Mansur lowered his voice and sPoke in English so that bin-Shibam and Mustapha Zindara, who had followed them, could not understand him.

  "We have not had enough time to finish the work on the south wall," Dorian replied. They will discover our weak places soon enough."

  "Zayn almost certainly knows of them already. The city is swarming with his spies. Look!" Mansur pointed at the corpses hanging on the outer wall like washing. "Although Mustapha Zindara is taking care of as many as he can lay his hands on, no doubt he has overlooked one or two."

  Dorian surveyed the gaps in the defences, which had been hurriedly stopped up with timber balks and gab ions filled with sand. The repairs were temporary, and would not withstand a determined attack by seasoned troops. Then he lifted his spyglass and ran the lens over the palm groves to the south of the city. Suddenly he stiffened and handed the glass to Mansur. "The first attack is gathering already." They could make out the sparkle of sunlight on the helmets and spearheads of the Turkish troops, who were massing under cover of the groves. "Mansur, I want you to go aboard the Sprite and take overall command of both our ships. Bring them in as close to the shore as is safe. I want your guns to cover the approaches to the south wall."

  Later, Dorian watched him being rowed out to the Sprite in the longboat. Almost as soon as he stepped aboard, both ships swung round as their anchor cables were hauled in. Under topsails they sailed deeper into the bay, Mansur in the Sprite leading Batula in the Revenge.

  In the light breeze they were barely under steerage way, and they loafed in over the sparkling water, their hulls dappled turquoise green by the reflection of sunlight off the white sand of the lagoon bottom. Then Dorian looked to the south, and saw the first wave of the Turkish assault swarming across the open fields towards the walls. He ordered a red flag hoisted to the pinnacle of the minaret: the prearranged signal to the squadron that an attack was imminent. He saw Mansur look up at the flag, waved down at him and pointed to the south. Mansur waved back in acknowledgement, and sailed on sedately.

  Then the ships turned in succession just below the harbour wall. Dorian watched the gun ports fall open and the guns run out, like the fangs of a snarling monster. Mansur's tall figure was pacing along the gundeck. He paused occasionally to speak to his crew as they gathered tensely around the gun carriages.

  The south wall and its approaches were still hidden by the angle of the tall stone ramparts, but as the Sprite cleared the range and angled in towards the beach the view opened before Mansur's eyes.

  The Turks were bunched up as they carried in the long scaling ladders. Some of them looked across the narrow strip of water as the two pretty little ships emerged from behind the citadel walls. The Turkish infantry had never seen the effect of shot from a naval nine pounder. Some even waved, and Mansur ordered his crews to wave back to lull their fears.

  It happened with dreamlike deliberation. Mansur had time to walk down his deck and lay each gun with his own hand, turning down the elevation screws. He found it difficult to convince some of his crew that the power of the guns was not enhanced when the screws were turned up to maximum. Closer and closer they crept in towards the beach and Mansur listened with one ear to the leadsman in the chains calling the soundings: "By the mark, five."

  "Close enough," Mansur murmured, and then to Kumrah, "Bring her up a point."

  The Sprite settled on the new course parallel to the shore. "We will now serve out a taste of Mr. Pandit Singh's very best," he murmured, without lowering the glass. The Sprite's guns began to bear by the bows. Still he waited. Mansur knew that the first broadside would do the most damage. After that the enemy would scatter into cover.

  They were so close that through the lens he could see the links in the chain-mail of the nearest Turks and the individual feathers in the plumed helmets of the officers.

  He lowered the glass and walked back down the battery. Every gun was bearing and the gun-crews were watching him, waiting on his command. He lifted the scarf of scarlet silk in his right hand, and held it high.

  "Fire!" he shouted, and snapped it down.

  Kadem ibn Abubaker and Herminius Koots, that unlikely couple, stood on a rocky eminence and looked across the open ground towards the southern ramparts of the city. Their staff were gathered around them, among them the Turkish officers whose authority they had usurped when Zayn al-Din had promoted them.

  They watched the assault troops moving forward in three columns of two hundred men each. They carried the scaling ladders, and on their shoulders were strapped the round bronze targes to defend them against the missiles that would rain down on them from the walls as soon as they were within range. Close behind them, in massed quarter columns, followed the battalions that would surge forward to exploit any foothold they won on the parapets. "It is worth the risk of losing a few hundred men against the chance of a quick break-in," Koots said.

  "We can afford the loss," Kadem agreed. The rest of the fleet will arrive within days, another ten thousand men. If we fail today, we can begin the formal siege works on the morrow."

  "You must prevail on your revered uncle, the Caliph, to bring his warships round to begin the blockade of the bay and the harbour."

  "He will give the order as soon as he has seen the outcome of this first assault," Kadem assured the Dutchman. "Have faith, General. My uncle is a seasoned commander. He has been waging war on his enemies since the day he ascended the Elephant Throne. The treacherous revolution of these pork-eating swine we see before us," he pointed to the lines of defenders on the city wall, 'was the only defeat he has ever suffered through treason and betrayal within his own court. It will not h
appen again."

  "The Caliph is a great man. I never said different," Koots assured him j hastily. "We shall hang those traitors by their own entrails on the walls | of the city."

  "With God's favour, thanks be to God," Kadem intoned.

  The first tenuous bond between them had been tempered to steel J links over the two years they had been together. That terrible journey, forced upon them after they were routed by Jim Courtney in the | disastrous night attack, was one that lesser men could not have survived. They had braved disease and starvation across thousands of leagues of ':| wild country. Their horses died of sickness and exhaustion, or had been killed by hostile tribesmen. They had covered the last stages on foot :| through swamps and mangrove forest before they reached the coast again. There they had come across a fishing village. They attacked it in |

  the night and slaughtered all the men and children at once, but they killed the five women and the three little girls only after Koots and Oudeman had expended their pent-up lust on them. Kadem ibn Abu baker had kept aloof from this orgy. He had prayed upon the beach while the women screamed and sobbed, then gave one last shriek as Koots and Oudeman slit their throats.

  They had embarked in the captured fishing-boats that were nothing more than ancient, dilapidated outrigger canoes. After another arduous journey, they at last reached Lamu harbour. There they prostrated themselves before Zayn al-Din in the throne room of his palace.

  Zayn al-Din had welcomed his nephew warmly. He had thought him dead, and was delighted by the tidings he brought of Yasmini's execution. As Kadem had promised, the Caliph looked with favour on Kadem's new companion and listened to accounts of his ruthless warlike talents with attention.

  As a trial he had sent Koots with a small force to subdue the remaining strongholds of the rebels who still held out upon the African mainland. He expected him to fail, as all the others before him had done. However, true to his reputation, within two months Koots had brought all the ringleaders back to Lamu in chains. There, with his own hands and in Zayn's royal presence, he had disembowelled them alive. As his reward Zayn gave him half a lakh of gold rupees from the plunder, and his pick of the female slaves he had captured. Then he had promoted him to general and given him command of four battalions of the army that he was assembling to attack Muscat.

  "The Caliph comes to us now. As soon as he arrives you can order the assault to begin." Kadem turned and went to meet the palanquin that eight slaves were carrying up the hill. It was covered with a sun canopy of gold and blue, and when they set it down Zayn al-Din stepped out.

  He was no longer the chubby child whom Dorian had thrashed in the harem on Lamu island and whose foot he had maimed in the struggle to protect Yasmini from the torments Zayn had heaped upon her. He still limped, but the puppy-fat had fallen away long ago from his frame. A lifetime of intrigue and constant strife had hardened his features as it had sharpened his wits. His eyes were quick and acquisitive, his manner imperious. If it were not for the cruel lines of his mouth and the fierce cunning in his dark eyes, he might have been handsome. Kadem and Koots prostrated themselves before him. In the beginning oots had found this form of respect abhorrent. However, like the Oriental attire he had adopted, it had become part of his new existence. Zayn gestured to his two generals to rise. They followed him to the

  brow of the hill, and looked down over the open ground on which the assault force was drawn up. Zayn studied the dispositions of the troops with a practised eye. Then he nodded. "Proceed!" His voice was high pitched, almost girlish. When he had first heard it, Koots had despised Zayn for it, but the voice was the only feminine thing about him. He had fathered a hundred and twenty-three children, and only sixteen were girls. He had slain his enemies in thousands, many with his own sword.

  "One red rocket." Koots nodded to his aide-de-camp. Swiftly the order was relayed down the back slope of the hill to the signallers. The rocket sparkled like a ruby as it rose into the cloudless sky on a long silver tail of smoke. From the foot of the hill they heard faint cheering, and the massed troops swarmed forward towards the walls. A slave stood in front of Zayn, who rested his long brass telescope on the man's shoulder, using him as a living bipod.

  The leading ranks of Turks had reached the ditch below the walls when suddenly the Sprite came into view from behind the stone ramparts. She was followed almost immediately by the Revenge. Zayn and the officers switched their telescopes to the two ships.

  Those are the ships in which the traitor, al-Salil, arrived in Muscat," snapped Kadem. "Our spies warned us of their presence."

  Zayn said nothing, but his features altered at the mention of the name. He felt a stab of pain in his crippled foot, and the acid taste of hatred rose in the back of his throat.

  "Their guns are run out." Koots stared at them through the glass. "They have our battalions in enfilade. Send a galloper to warn them," he snarled at his aide-de-camp.

  "We have no horses," the man reminded him.

  "Go yourself!" Koots seized his shoulder and shoved him away down the slope. "Run, you useless dog, or I shall have you shot from a cannon's mouth." His Arabic was becoming more fluent every day. The man raced away down the slope, shouting, waving his arms and pointing towards the small squadron of warships. However, the Turks were fully launched upon the attack, and none looked back.

  "Signal the recall?" Kadem suggested, but they all knew it was too late for that. They watched in silence. Suddenly the leading ship erupted in a cloud of white powder smoke. She heeled slightly to the broadside of her long black cannons, then came back on even keel, but her hull was blotted out by the billowing smoke cloud. Only her masts showed high above it. The thunderous sound of the blast reached their ears only seconds after the discharge, then rolled away in diminishing echoes among the distant hills.

  The watchers on the hilltop turned their telescopes back to the dense pack of humanity on the plain below. The havoc shocked even these old soldiers, who were hardened to the carnage of the battlefield. The grape-shot spread so that each blast cut a swathe twenty paces wide through the massed battalions. Like the scythe blade through a field of ripe wheat, it left not a single one standing in its path. Chain-mail and bronze armour offered the same protection as a sheet of brittle parchment. Severed heads, bearded and still wearing their soup-bowl helmets, were tossed into the air. Torsos, with arms and legs torn off, were piled upon each other. The cries of the dying and wounded carried clearly to the men on the hilltop.

  The Sprite put up her helm and tacked round into the open waters of the bay. The Revenge sailed serenely into her place. On shore the survivors stood in stunned dismay, unable to fathom the extent of the disaster that had swept through their ranks. As the Revenge levelled her cannon on them, the moans of the wounded were drowned out by the survivors' wails of despair. Few had the presence of mind to throw themselves flat against the earth. They dropped the scaling ladders, turned their backs on the menace of the guns and ran.

  The Revenge loosed her broadside upon them. Her shot swept the field. She put up her helm and followed her sister ship round.

  The Sprite completed her tack across the wind, then came back on the other leg, offering her port battery to the fleeing Turks. Meanwhile her starboard battery had reloaded with canvas bags of grape, and the gunners were standing ready to take their next turn.

  Like dancers performing a stately minuet, the two ships went through a series of elaborate figures-of-eight. Each time their guns bore they loosed another thunderclap of smoke, flame and cast-iron grapeshot across the narrow strip of open water.

  After the Sprite had completed her second pass, Mansur snapped his telescope shut and told Kumrah, "There is nothing more to fire at. Run in the guns, take her out into the bay." The two ships sailed back blithely to their anchorage under the protection of the guns on the parapets of the city walls.

  Zayn and his two generals surveyed the field. Corpses littered the ground, thick as autumn leaves.

  |How many?" asked Zayn, in
his high girlish voice.

  "Not more than three hundred," Kadem hazarded.

  "No, no! Fewer." Koots shook his head. "A hundred and fifty, two hundred at the most."

  They are only Turks, and another hundred dhows full of them will arrive before the week is out." Zayn nodded dispassionately. "We must

  begin digging the approach trenches and throw up a wall of gab ions filled with sand along the bayside to protect our men from the ships."

  "Will Your Majesty order the fleet to take up a blockading station across the entrance to the bay?" Kadem asked respectfully. "We must bottle up those two ships of al-Salil and, at the same time, prevent supplies of food reaching the city by sea."

  The orders have already been given," Zayn told him loftily. The English consul will place his own ship at the head of the fleet. His is the only vessel to match those of the enemy for speed. Sir Guy will prevent them breaking out through our blockade and escaping to the open ocean."

  "Al-Salil and his bastard must not be allowed to escape." Kadem's eyes lit with the dark mesmeric glare as he said the name.