Wilbur Smith - C11 Blue Horizon

by C11 Blue Horizon(Lit)

  Mansur looked along his deck and saw that his gunners were all at their action stations, although they had not yet run out the guns, which were loaded with round-shot. The slow-match was smouldering in the sand tubs and the men were laughing and talking excitedly. The days of gunnery practice and their successful attack on the Turkish infantry had imbued them with confidence. They were chafed by the inactivity of the last few weeks while they had been forced to lie at anchor, but now that Mansur and al-Salil were back in command of the flotilla they were eager for a fight.

  Kumrah made a small adjustment to their course. Although Mansur trusted his judgement, he felt a twinge of unease. On this heading Kumrah would take them into the boiling white surf below the cliffs that guarded the entrance to the bay.

  The nearest war-dhow altered her course towards them as soon as Kumrah's turn became apparent. They began to converge swiftly. Mansur raised his glass and studied the dhow. It was crammed with men. They lined the windward rail and brandished their weapons. She had already run out her big guns.

  "She is armed with short-barrelled Ostras," Kumrah told Mansur.

  "I do not know them."

  "That does not surprise me. They must be older than your grandfather." Kumrah laughed. "And with a great deal less power."

  Then it seems we are in greater danger of striking the reef than receiving a ball from those ancient weapons," Mansur said pointedly. They were still charging straight in towards the cliffs.

  "Highness, you must have faith in Allah."

  "In Allah I have faith. I worry only about the captain of my ship."

  Kumrah smiled and held his course. The dhow fired her first ragged broadside from all fifteen of her starboard guns. The range was still too far by half. Mansur spotted the fall of only one shot, and that was short by half a musket. However, the faint cheering of the dhow's crew carried to them faintly.

  Still the huge dhow and the two small ships converged. Gradually as they bore down on the breaking white water the cheering from the dhow subsided and the pugnacious display with it.

  "You have terrified the enemy, as you have me," said Mansur. "Do you intend scuttling us on the reef, Kumrah?"

  "I fished these waters as a boy, as did my father and his father before me," Kumrah assured him. The reef was still dead ahead, and they were closing rapidly. The dhow fired another broadside, but it was clear that the gunners were distracted by the menace of the coral. Only a single large stone ball howled over the Sprite and severed a mizzen shroud. Quickly Kumrah sent two men to replace it.

  Then, without reducing sail, Kumrah steered into a narrow channel in the reef that Mansur had not noticed. It was barely wide enough to accept the beam of the schooner. As they tore through, Mansur stared with dread fascination over side and saw huge mushroom heads of coral skimming by less than a fathom below the churning surface. Any one of them would have ripped the Sprite's belly out of her.

  This was too much for the nerves of the dhow captain. Mansur could see him in the stern of his ship, screaming and gesticulating wildly. His crew deserted their posts at the guns and scrambled to take in the billowing lateen sail and bring their ship on to the other tack. With the sail down they had to run the boom back to bring its butt round the mast, then home again on the port side. This was a laborious business and while they were about it the dhow wallowed helplessly.

  Stand by to go about!" Kumrah gave the order and his men ran to the stays. He was staring ahead, shading his eyes with one hand, judging his moment finely. "Up helm!" he called to his helmsman, who spun the wheel until the spokes blurred. The Sprite pirouetted and shot through the dogleg turn in the channel. They raced out of the far end into the

  deeper water, and the helpless dhow wallowed directly ahead of them with her sail in disarray and her guns unmanned.

  "Run out the starboard guns!" Mansur gave the order, and the lids of the gun ports crashed open. They crossed the dhow's stern so closely that Mansur could have thrown his hat on to her deck.

  "Fire as you bear!"

  In quick succession the cannons roared out, and each ball smashed into the dhow's stern. Mansur could see the timbers shatter and burst open in clouds of flying wood splinters. One of them as long as his arm pegged like an arrow into the mast beside his ear. At that range not a single shot missed the mark, and the iron balls raked through the dhow from stem to stern. There were screams of terror and agony from the crew as the Sprite sailed on past her into the open sea.

  Following her closely through the channel in the coral, the Revenge bore down on the stricken vessel in her turn. As she passed she raked her again, and the dhow's single mast toppled and fell over side

  Mansur looked ahead. The way was clear. Not one of the other dhows was in position to head them off. Kumrah's seemingly suicidal manoeuvre had taken them by surprise. "Run in the guns!" he ordered. "Close the ports and secure the gun tackles."

  He looked back and saw the Revenge only half a cable's length behind them. A long way back the dismasted dhow was drifting on to the reef, driven before the wind. She struck and heeled over violently. Through the glass Mansur saw her crew abandon her. They were leaping over the side, hitting the water with tiny white splashes, then striking out for the shore. Mansur wondered how many would survive the rip current at the foot of the cliffs, and the sharp fangs of the coral.

  He backed his mainsail and let the Revenge come up alongside, close enough to enable his father to hail them through the speaking trumpet: Tell Kumrah never to play that trick on us again! He took us through the gates of hell."

  Kumrah made a deep and penitent obeisance, but Dorian lowered the trumpet and saluted his cool head and nerves. Then he lifted the trumpet again. "It will be dark in an hour. I shall burn a single lantern in my stern port for you to keep your station on me. If we should become separated during the night, the rendezvous will be the same as always, Sawda island."

  The Revenge forged ahead and the Sprite fell in behind her. Weeks before Dorian had decided on their final destination. There was only one port in all the Ocean of the Indies open to them now. Zayn had all the Fever Coast and the harbours of Oman under his thrall. The Dutch had Ceylon and Batavia. The English East India Company controlled

  all the coast of India. Sir Guy would close that to them. There remained only the safe haven of Fort Auspice in Nativity Bay. There they would be able to gather their reserves and make plans for the future. He had marked the chart and given Mustapha Zindara and bin-Shibam the sailing directions for Fort Auspice: they would send a ship to find him there as soon as they had united the desert tribes and made all the preparations for his return. They would need gold rupees and strong allies. Dorian was as yet uncertain as to where he would find men and money, but there would be time to ponder this later.

  He turned to his immediate concerns, and the course that he set now was east by south-east to clear the Gulf of Oman. Once they were into the open ocean they could steer directly for Madagascar and pick up the Mozambique current to carry them southwards. Mansur took up close station on the Revenge and they sailed on beneath a sunset of awe inspiring grandeur. Mountainous anvil-headed thunderclouds marched along the darkling western horizon to the sound of distant thunder, and the sinking sun costumed them with suits of rosy gold and glittering cobalt blue.

  Yet all this beauty could not lift from Mansur's shoulder the sudden oppressive weight of the melancholia that bore down upon him. He was leaving the land and the people he had swiftly learned to love. The promise of a kingdom and of the Elephant Throne had been snatched from them. Yet all that was of little account when he thought of the woman he had lost before he had won her. He took from the inner pocket of his robe the letter he carried close to his heart, and read yet again her words: "Last night you asked me if I did not feel anything between you and me. I would not answer you then, but I answer you now. Yes, I do."

  It seemed to him that those were the most beautiful words ever written in the English language.

  Darkn
ess fell with the dramatic suddenness that is seen only in the tropics, and the stars showed through the gaps left in the high canopy of the storm clouds Within a short time they were closed by the rolling thunderheads and the darkness was complete, except for the tiny firefly of light that was the lantern on the stern of the Revenge.

  Mansur leaned on the compass pinnacle and let himself lapse into romantic fantasy, dreaming half the night away without seeking his bunk. Suddenly, he was roused by a stroke of forked lightning that flew

  from the cloud ceiling to the surface of the sea, and was followed immediately by a sky-shattering thunderclap. For an instant the Revenge appeared out of the darkness ahead, shimmering in vivid blue light, each detail of her rigging and sails stark and clear. Then the darkness fell over her again even more heavily than before.

  Mansur jumped erect from his slouch over the binnacle and ran to the starboard rail. In that blinding lightning flash he thought he had seen something else. It had been an evanescent flash of reflected light, almost on the far horizon.

  "Did you see it?" he shouted at Kumrah, who stood beside him at the rail.

  "The Revenge." Kumrah answered, from the darkness, and his tone was puzzled. "Yes, Highness. She is not more than a single cable's length ahead. There you can see the glimmer of her stern light still."

  "No, no!" Mansur cried. "Not on our bow. Abaft our beam. Something else."

  "Nay, master. I saw nothing."

  Both men peered out into the night, and again the lightning cracked overhead like a gigantic whip, then thunder deafened them and seemed to shiver the surface of the dark sea with its monstrous discharge. In that fleeting moment of diamond-sharp clarity Mansur saw it again.

  "There!" Mansur seized Kumrah's shoulder and shook him violently. There! Did you see it this time?"

  "A ship! Another ship!" Kumrah cried. "I saw it clear."

  "How far off?"

  "Two sea miles, no more than that. A tall ship. Square-rigged. That is no dhow."

  "Tis the Arcturusl Lying here in ambuscade." Desperately Mansur looked to his father's ship, and saw that the tell-tale lantern still burned on her stern. "The Revenge has not seen the danger."

  "We must catch up with her and warn her," Kumrah exclaimed.

  "Even if we clap on all our canvas we will not overhaul the Revenge and be within hail of her in less than a hour. By then it may be too late." Mansur hesitated a moment longer, then made his decision: "Beat to action quarters. Fire a gun to alert the Revenge. Then bring her on to the starboard tack and run in to intercept the enemy. Do not light the battle lanterns until I give the order. God grant we can take the enemy by surprise."

  The war drums boomed out into the dark, and as the crew scrambled to their stations a single peremptory gunshot thudded. As the Sprite came about, Mansur peered across at the other ship, waiting for her to extinguish her lantern or show some sign that she had taken heed of

  the warning, but at that instant the thunderclouds burst open and the rain teemed down. All was lost in the warm, smothering cascade of water. It seemed to fill the air they breathed, cutting out any faint glimmer of light and muting all sound other than the roar of the heavy drops on the canvas overhead and the deck timbers underfoot.

  Mansur ran back to the binnacle and took a hasty bearing, but he knew that it was not accurate, and that the enemy ship might also have spotted them and changed her course and heading. His chances of coming upon her in this deluge were remote. They might pass each other by half a pistol shot without either being aware of the other's presence.

  Turn the hourglass and mark the traverse-board," he ordered the helmsman. Perhaps he could intercept her on dead reckoning. Then he snapped at Kumrah, Tut two good men on the wheel."

  He hurried to the bows, and through the sheets of blinding rain tried for a glimpse of the stern lantern of the Revenge. He took little comfort from the fact that he could see and hear nothing.

  "God grant that Father is aware of the danger, and that he has doused the lantern. Otherwise it might guide Sir Guy to him, and he could be taken unawares." He considered firing another gun to emphasize the urgency of the danger, but discarded the idea almost at once. A second gun would confuse the warning. His father might be led to believe that the Sprite had already engaged an enemy. It might alert the Arcturus and bring her down upon them. Instead he sailed on into the darkness and the torrents of blood-warm rain.

  "Send your sharpest lookouts aloft," he ordered Kumrah grimly, 'and have the gunners ready to run out on the instant. We will not have much warning if we come upon the enemy."

  The hourglass was turned twice, and still they sailed on in darkness, every man aboard straining all his senses for some warning of the enemy ship. And the rain never let up.

  The enemy might have sailed on without spotting us, Mansur thought. He pondered the chances and the choices that were open to him. Or she might have turned to intercept us, and have passed us close at hand. She might even now be creeping up on the unsuspecting Revenge.

  He reached a decision, and called to Kumrah, "Heave the ship to, and warn every man to keep his eyes peeled and his ears open."

  1 hey lay dark and silent, and another hour passed, measured by the soft slide of the sand in the hourglass. The rain abated, and the freshening breeze veered into the north, bringing with it the spicy odour of the desert, which was still not far off. The rain ceased. Mansur was about to give the order to set sail again, when a flickering glow lit the

  darkness far over their stern. It played like candlelight on the underbelly of the lowering cloud masses. Mansur held his breath and counted slowly to five. Then came the sound, the unmistakable rumbling roar of the guns.

  The Arcturus has slipped by us and she has found the Revenge. They are engaged," he shouted. "Wear ship and bring her round on to the port tack."

  With the night breeze on their quarter the Sprite tore through the darkness, both Mansur and Kumrah straining to coax every knot of speed from her. Ahead of them the flickering light and rumble of gun salvos grew brighter and louder as they sailed towards them.

  "God grant we are in time," Mansur prayed, and as he stared ahead the wind of their passage in his face brought tears to his eyes, or it may have been some other emotion. The two persons he loved most were caught up in that maelstrom of shot and flame, and he was still powerless to intervene. Even though the Sprite lay well over and ran before the breeze like a stag hard pressed by the hounds, she was still too slow for Mansur's heart.

  Yet the distance between them narrowed steadily and, standing in the bows, balancing to the ship's urgent motion, Mansur was at last able to make out the shapes of the two ships. They were locked in conflict, lit by the muzzle flashes of their cannon.

  Mansur saw that they were on the opposite tack to the Sprite, crossing their bows at an acute angle, so he yelled to Kumrah to bring the Sprite round two points on to an interception course. Now the range began to close more rapidly, and he could make out the more intimate details of the battle.

  In the Revenge, Dorian had somehow wrested the weather gauge from Captain Cornish, and was holding him off, frustrating his efforts to bring the Arcturus alongside and to board him. But Cornish was blocking any effort that Dorian might make to bring the Revenge before the wind on ' to her best point of sailing and to run away from his superior adversary. In this formation the two ships were almost perfectly matched for speed, and the Revenge could not evade the bigger ship for much longer. In a | duel of attrition like this the heavier weight of cannon must tell in the | end.

  However, the Sprite was closing rapidly, and soon she would throw her own weight into the unequal contest. The balance then would swing in their favour if Mansur could reach them before the Arcturus grappled and boarded the smaller ship.

  Closer and closer Mansur edged the Sprite towards the two ships Even though his impulse was to rush in recklessly and hurl himself at

  the Arcturus, he restrained his warlike instincts, and manoeuvred across t
he wind.

  He knew that he was still shrouded in the night, invisible to the captains and crews of either ship. He must take the utmost advantage of the surprise element. There were many minutes still before he was in position to put up his helm and charge out of the darkness, to cross the Arcturus's stern, then to grapple and board her from across her port quarter. Mansur watched the development of the conflict through the lens of his spyglass.

  Although the guns were firing steadily, the range was still too long for them to inflict telling damage on each other. He saw that a number of the Revenge's shots had smashed holes in her opponent's hull above the waterline. The shattered timbers were bright with fresh splinters. There were rips and holes in some of her sails, and a few spars had been knocked away in her rigging, but all her guns were firing steadily.