Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon

by C11 Blue Horizon(Lit)

"My own hatred for him exceeds yours. Abubaker was my brother and al-Salil murdered him. There are other old scores, too, almost as compelling, which I still have to settle with him," Zayn reminded him. "Despite this setback, we have the noose round his neck. Now we will draw it tight."

  Over the next weeks Dorian watched the development of the siege from his command post on the minaret. The enemy fleet sailed round the peninsula and deployed across the entrance to the bay, just out of range of the batteries on the walls or even of the long nine-pounders on the two schooners. Some of the larger, less manoeuvrable dhows were anchored on the twenty-fathom line where the sea bottom shelved in. The more nimble vessels patrolled back and forth in the deeper waters, ready to seize any supply ships trying to enter the bay, or to intercept the two schooners if they tried to break through.

  The graceful hull and the elegant raked masts of the Arcturus hovered in the distance, sometimes hidden by the cliffs, sometimes dropping below the horizon. At intervals Dorian heard the distant rumble of her cannons as she fell on some unfortunate small vessel attempting to bring supplies in to Muscat. Then she reappeared from a different quarter. Mansur and Dorian discussed her as they watched her through their telescopes.

  "She points well up into the wind when she is close-hauled, unlike any of the dhows. She can carry a spread of canvas nearly half as large again as either of our ships. She has eighteen guns to our twelve," Dorian murmured. "She is a lovely ship."

  Mansur found himself wondering if Verity was aboard her. Then he

  thought, If Sir Guy is there, of course she must be with him. She is his voice. He could not do without her. He thought of having to turn his guns on the Arcturus if Verity were standing on the open deck. I will worry about that when the time comes, he decided, then answered his father. The Sprite and the Revenge are able to point higher. Between them they have twenty-four guns to Sir Guy's eighteen. Both Kumrah and Batula know these waters like lovers. Ruby Cornish is a babe in arms compared to them." Mansur smiled with the reckless abandon of youth. "Besides, we will make our stand here. We will send Zayn and his Turks running like curs with live coals tucked under their tails."

  "I wish I had the same confidence." Dorian turned his spyglass inland, and they watched the besieging army inch inexorably towards the walls. "Zayn has done this many times before. He will make few mistakes. See how he has begun to sap forward? Those trenches and the lines of gab ions will protect his assault forces until they are right under the walls." Each day he instructed Mansur on the ancient science of siege making. "See there, they are bringing up their great guns to position them in the emplacements they have prepared. Once they begin firing in earnest they will smash through the weak spots in our defences and shoot away any repairs faster than we can make them. When they have opened the breaches they will rush them from the head of the assault trenches."

  They watched the guns being dragged forward by the teams of oxen. Weeks earlier the remainder of Zayn's fleet had arrived from Lamu and had landed his horses, draught animals and the rest of his men on the other side of the peninsula. Now his cavalry patrolled the palm groves and the foothills of the interior. Their dust was always visible.

  "What can we do?" Mansur sounded less certain of the outcome.

  "Very little," Dorian replied. "We can sortie and raid the earthworks. But they are expecting us to do that. We will take heavy losses. We can shoot away a few of the gab ions but they will repair any damage we can inflict within hours."

  "You sound despondent," Mansur said, accusingly. "I am unaccustomed to that, Father."

  "Despondent?" Dorian said. "No, not of the eventual outcome. However, I should never have allowed Zayn to trap us in the city. Our men do not fight well from behind walls. They love to be the attackers. They are the ones losing heart. Mustapha Zindara and bin-Shibam are having difficulty keeping them here. Even they want to be out in the open desert, fighting the way they know best."

  That night a hundred of bin-Shibam's men threw open the city gates and, in a tight group, galloped through the Turkish lines and escaped

  into the desert. The guards were only just able to close the gates before the attackers rushed to exploit this opportunity.

  "Could you not have stopped them going?" Mansur demanded, next morning.

  Bin-Shibam shrugged at his lack of understanding, and Dorian answered him. "The Saar do not accept orders, Mansur. They follow a sheikh just as long as they agree with what he asks of them. If they don't, they go home."

  "Now that it has begun, more will leave. The Dahm and the Awamir are restless also," Mustapha Zindara warned.

  At dawn the following day the enemy batteries in their deep, heavily fortified emplacements began to bombard the southern wall. Counting the flashes and the spurts of gunsmoke with each discharge, Dorian and Mansur determined that there were eleven guns of cavernous calibre. The stone balls they fired must have weighed well over a hundred pounds each. It was possible to watch the flight of the massive projectiles with the naked eye. Mansur timed the rate of fire: it took almost twenty minutes for each gun to be swabbed, loaded, primed, then run out, re laid and fired. Once the enemy guns had ranged in, the massive balls smashed into their target with disturbing accuracy, each one striking within a few feet of its predecessor. A single ball might crack a block in the wall, and the second, striking on the same spot, dislodged it entirely. If it struck the timber balks, which the defenders had used to repair the weak sections, it splintered them to toothpicks. By nightfall of the first day two breaches had been knocked through the walls. As soon as it was dark, teams of workmen under Mansur's command rushed forward to begin the repairs.

  With the dawn the bombardment began again. By noon the repairs had been swept away, and the stone balls were chipping away to enlarge the breaches. Dorian's gunners dragged half of their guns round from the harbour side to reinforce the battery on the south wall, and steadily returned the fire. However, Zayn's guns were well set in their emplacements, with deep banks of sand-filled gab ions protecting them. Only the gaping bronze muzzles were visible, and these were tiny targets to hit at such ranges. When the defenders' balls struck the gab ions the sand filled baskets of woven cane absorbed the shot so completely that it made almost no impression at all.

  However, half-way through the afternoon they scored their first direct hit. One of their twenty-pound iron balls struck the extreme left-hand gun full on the muzzle. The bronze rang like a church bell, and even that weight of metal was hurled backwards off its carriage, crushing the gun-crew behind it to mincemeat. The barrel stuck straight up in the

  air. On the city walls the gunners cheered themselves hoarse, and redoubled their efforts. But by dusk they had not achieved another hit, and the breaches in the walls gaped wide.

  As soon as the moon set, bin-Shibam and Mansur led a sortie into the enemy lines. They took twenty men each and crept up on the battery emplacement. Even though the Turks were expecting the raid, Mansur's party had almost reached the wall of the emplacement before they were spotted and one of the sentries fired his musket. The ball hummed past Mansur's head and he shouted at his men, "Follow me!"

  As he scrambled in through the embrasure, jumped up on the barrel of the gun and ran along the top of it, he stabbed at the throat of the man who had fired the shot at him. He dropped the musket he was trying to reload and grabbed the naked blade with both hands. When Mansur pulled it back the steel ran through the man's fingers, severing flesh and tendons to the bone. Mansur jumped over his twitching body and down among the Turkish gunners, who were dulled with sleep, and struggling out of their blankets. He killed another, and wounded a third before they ran howling with terror into the night. His men followed him in to join the attack. While they were busy, Mansur plunged the point of one of the iron spikes he carried in his pouch into the touch hole of the gun, and another of his men drove it home with a dozen lusty blows of the hammer.

  Then they ran down the connecting trench to the adjoining emplacement. Here the g
unners were fully awake, waiting to meet them with pikes and battleaxes. Within seconds they were a shouting, struggling mass, and Mansur knew they would never be able to reach the second gun. More of the enemy were rushing up the communication trench from the rear to repel them.

  "Back!" Mansur yelled, and they clambered over the front wall, just as Istaph and the other grooms rode up with horses. They galloped back through the city gates with bin-Shibam coming in close behind them.

  There they found they had lost five men killed and another dozen wounded. In the dawn light they saw that the Turks had stripped the corpses of the missing men and displayed them on the front wall of the emplacement. Between them, Mansur and bin-Shibam had managed to spike only two of the guns, and the remaining eight opened fire again. Within hours the stone balls had ripped away all the repairs that had been thrown up during the night. In the middle of the afternoon a single lucky shot brought twenty feet of wall tumbling down in a heap r masonry and rubble. Surveying the damage from the top of the minaret, Dorian estimated, "Another week at the latest, and Zayn will be ready to launch his attack."

  That night two hundred of the Awamir and the Dahm saddled their horses and rode out of the city. The next day, as was customary, the muezzin gave his wailing call to the faithful from the minaret of the main mosque in the city. Both sides responded: the big guns stopped firing, the Turks took off their round helmets and knelt among the palm groves, while on the parapets the defenders did the same. Before he joined in the worship, Dorian smiled ironically at the notion that both sides prayed to the same God for the victory.

  This time there was a new development to the ritual. After the prayers Zayn's heralds rode around the perimeter of the walls shouting a warning to the defenders on the parapets: "Hear the words of the true Caliph. "Those of you who wish to leave this doomed city may do so without let. I grant you pardon for their treachery. You may take with you your horse and your weapons and return to your tents and your wives. Any man who brings me the head of the incestuous usurper al Salil, I will reward with a lakh of gold rupees."

  The defenders jeered at them. However, that night another thousand warriors rode out through the gates. Before they went, two of the lesser sheikhs came to take their leave of Dorian. "We are not traitors or cowards," they told him, 'but this is not a fight for a man. Out in the desert we will ride with you unto death. We love you as we loved your father, but we will not die here like caged dogs."

  "Go with my blessing," Dorian told them, 'and may you always find favour in the sight of God. Know you that I will come to you again."

  "We shall wait for you, al-Salil."

  The next day, at the time of prayers when the guns fell silent the heralds circled the walls again.

  "The true Caliph Zayn al-Din has declared a sack of the city. Any man or woman who is found within the walls when the Caliph enters will be put to death by torture."

  This time only a few voices jeered back. That night almost half of the remaining defenders left. The Turks lined the road as they passed and made no effort to prevent them.

  You are distracted, my darling." Caroline Courtney watched her daughter's face quizzically. "What is it that troubles you so?" Apart from a vague greeting, Verity had not spoken to her mother since she had come up on the deck of the Arcturus from her father's great cabin. The meeting with the Caliph's military commander, Kadem ibn Abubaker, had lasted most of the morning. Now Verity stood at the ship's side and watched the fast felucca conveying the general back to the shore. She had translated Abubaker's report to her father, and relayed to him the Caliph's orders to tighten the blockade of the bay to prevent any enemy ships escaping when at last the city was captured from the usurper.

  She sighed and turned to her mother. "The siege is entering its final stages, Mother," she answered dutifully. The two had never been close. Caroline was a nervous, hysterical woman. She was dominated by her husband and had little time or energy remaining for her role as mother. Like a child, she seemed unable to concentrate on a single matter for any extended period, and her mind flitted from one subject to the next like a butterfly in a spring garden.

  "I will be so relieved when this awful business is over and your father has dealt properly with this al-Salil rascal. Then we can have done with the whole dreadful business and go back home." For Caroline, home was the consulate in Delhi. Behind the stone walls, in the manicured gardens and cool courtyards with bubbling fountains, she was safe and shielded from the cruel, alien world of the Orient. She scratched at her throat, and moaned softly. There was a scarlet rash on the white skin. The humid tropical airs and confinement in the hot little cabin had aggravated her prickly heat again.

  "Shall I help you with some of the cooling lotion?" Verity asked. She wondered how her mother could so easily make her feel guilty. She went to where Caroline lay on the wide hammock that Captain Cornish had had rigged for her in a corner of the quarter-deck. A canvas sunscreen shaded her, but allowed the cooling airs of the trade wind to flow over her plump, moist body.

  Verity knelt beside her and dabbed the white liquid on to the inflamed and itching rash. Caroline waved a hand languidly. Her diamond rings were deeply embedded in pasty white skin. The slim brown Indian maid in her beautiful silk said knelt on the opposite side t the hammock from Verity and offered her a dish of sweetmeats. Caroline picked out a pink cube of Turkish Delight. When the maid

  began to rise to her feet Caroline stopped her with a peremptory snap of her fingers and selected two more of the flower-flavoured jellies and popped them into her mouth. She chewed with unbridled pleasure, and the fine white icing sugar dusted her lips.

  "What do you suppose will happen to al-Salil and his son Mansur if they are captured by Kadem ibn Abubaker?" Verity asked mildly.

  "I have no doubt that it will be something utterly detestable," Caroline said, without interest. "The Caliph does beastly things to his enemies, trampling by elephants, shooting from cannon." She shuddered and reached for the glass of honey sherbet that the maid offered her. "I really do not want to discuss it." She sipped, and brightened. "If this business is over by the end of the month, then we might be back in Delhi for your birthday. I am planning a ball for you. Every eligible bachelor in the Company will attend. It is high time we found a husband for you, my dear. By the time I was your age, I had been married four years and had two children."

  Suddenly Verity was angry with this vapid, famous woman as she had never been before. She had always treated her mother with weary deference, making allowance for her gluttony and other weaknesses. Not until her meeting with Mansur had she understood the depths of her mother's subservience to her father, the guilt that had placed her in his power. But now she was outraged by her smug, mindless complacency. Her anger boiled over before she could check it.

  "Yes, Mother," she said bitterly. "And the first of those two children was Tom Courtney's bastard." No sooner were the words past her lips than she wished them back.

  Caroline stared at her with huge, swimming eyes. "Oh, you wicked, wicked child! You have never loved me!" she whimpered and a mixture of sherbet and half-chewed Turkish Delight dribbled down the front of her lace blouse.

  All Verity's sense of deference vanished. "You do remember Tom Courtney, Mother?" Verity asked. "And what tricks the two of you played while you were on passage to India in Grandfather's ship the Seraph?"

  "You never-Who told you? What have you heard? It isn't true!" Caroline blubbered hysterically.

  "What about Dorian Courtney? Do you remember how you and my father left him to rot in slavery when he was a child? How you and Father lied to Uncle Tom? How you told him that Dorian had died or the fever? You told me the same lie. You even showed me the grave on Lamu island where you said he was buried."

  "Stop this!" Caroline clapped her hands over her ears. "I will not listen to such filth."

  "Tis filth, is it, Mother?" Verity asked coldly. Then who do you think is this al-Salil, whom you wish trampled by elephants or shot from
a cannon? Do you not know that he is Dorian Courtney?"

  Caroline stared at her, her face white as buttermilk, the inflamed rash more evident in contrast. "Lies!" she whispered. "All terrible wicked lies."

  "And, Mother, al'Salil's son is my cousin, Mansur Courtney. You want a husband for me? Look no further. If ever Mansur does me the honour of asking me to marry him, I shall not hesitate. I shall fly to his side."

  Caroline let out a strangled shriek, and fell out of the hammock on to the deck. The maid and two of the ship's officers ran forward to help her to her feet. As soon as she was up, she struggled out of their grip, the fat quivering beneath her lace and pearl-studded dress, and heaved herself to the companionway that led down to the great cabin.

  Sir Guy heard her shrieks of anguish and rushed out of the doorway in his shirtsleeves. He seized his wife's arm and drew her into the cabin.

  Verity waited alone by the ship's rail for the retribution that she knew must surely follow. She stared beyond the rest of the blockading fleet of war dhows, into the entrance of Muscat bay to the distant spires and minarets of the city.

  In her mind she went over once again the dreadful news that Kadem ibn Abubaker had brought to her father, and which she had translated to him. Muscat would be in the hands of Zayn al-Din before the month was out. Mansur was in the most dire danger, and there was nothing she could do to help him. Her dread and frustration had led her to the gross indiscretion with her mother she had just perpetrated. "Please, God!" she whispered. "Do not let anything befall Mansur."