by Wilbur Smith
‘It’s a trap!’ Francis cried.
Tom could not sleep. Knowing Francis was out on the water, in the dark, risking his life to save Sarah and Agnes – he was not prone to anxiety, but now it devoured him. He had tried to lie down in his tent, hoping a nap would make the time pass quicker. In fact, it had slowed to a crawl, as every black thought and worry crowded his mind. What if the boom was not open? What if the pirate had played them for fools, or been found out by Angria and tortured to reveal their plan? What if—?
Eventually, he left his tent, and climbed to the top of the watchtower on the hill. From this height, he could see over the rim of the bay and down into the cove below, where Angria’s fleet was moored and where Francis would be by now. Tom had no doubt he would be leading the way.
He was proud of his nephew. The last few months, they had rarely been out of each other’s sight. Now, with Francis gone, he realized how keenly he felt the boy’s absence. He had come to rely on him: his youthful passion, his determination, his calm good humour. A son any man could be proud of.
A pang of guilt twisted in his belly. Once more, he replayed that dreadful scene on the banks of the Thames, so many years ago. Seeing the pistol in the caped man’s hand; hurling the Neptune sword like a javelin, and seeing it pierce the man’s heart. Aboli lifting the dead man’s hat, and finding Billy’s face on the corpse.
I killed Francis’ father. It was his original sin: the one, inescapable fact that confronted him every time he looked at Francis.
But Billy would not have loved Francis as he is, Tom thought. Billy would have hated the goodness in Francis’ heart, and beaten it out of him until it deformed the boy’s very soul. Francis would have become a twisted, cringing wreck. Or, worse, the mirror of Billy: a black devil who cared only for power, who drew his strength by inflicting pain on others.
I killed Billy. But I also saved Francis. The realization was like a key turning in Tom’s heart, opening a lock that had been fastened almost twenty years. He had not understood how tight it had bound him until it fell away. His spirit seemed to grow inside him, filling out his body. The cool night air in his lungs felt fresh and clean. Smells in the night he had not been aware of were suddenly fragrant in his mouth.
The guilt for Billy’s death would always be there. But now, at last, he had the promise of redemption also.
A light flared in the darkness below. Tom gripped the watchtower’s parapet, all thoughts of Billy driven from his head. Francis must have got past the boom, deep into the cove, and started hurling his incendiaries. Tom searched the night for Francis’ small boats. This was the most dangerous part of the plan. If Francis could not make good his escape quickly, he would be trapped under Angria’s guns.
But the flames had not come from the anchored ships. They came from shore: a huge bonfire shooting sparks into the night. A second one went up beside it, then another, and another, until the whole bay became a cauldron of light. Men appeared on the ships’ decks: not drowsy nightwatchmen clumsy with surprise, but squads of well-drilled men who raced to the tackles on the cannons.
Tom stared, sickened. Then he acted. He slid down the ladder, burning his hands, and ran to Shahuji’s tent.
‘They were expecting us,’ he blurted out. He did not have to explain. The boom of a cannon echoed through the tent walls, followed by many more: an unrelenting barrage. Tom could not bring himself to think of Francis in a small boat under those guns.
Shahuji rose from the couch where he slept and pulled on a robe. From the cove, the gunfire continued unabated.
‘Give me five hundred men,’ said Tom. ‘I can lead them down into the bay and create a distraction – or at least try to draw their fire.’
Shahuji shook his head. ‘I know your nephew is down there. But the cove’s sides are sheer cliffs: you would never get down them in the dark. And the approaches are covered by the castle’s guns. If they were expecting the boats, they will surely also expect us to try and rescue our men. Their gunners will be crouched behind those walls this very instant, waiting to cut you to pieces.’
Tom knew he spoke the truth. But fear for Francis drove all reason out of his mind. ‘I will go myself.’
‘You may do as you wish. But dying a martyr’s death will not save your nephew – or your wife, in the castle.’
Tom paused, rebuked by the rajah’s implacable calm. He should not need lessons in restraint from a man as young as Shahuji.
‘You said if this attack fails, you may have to break off the siege,’ said Tom.
‘I told you once before, we are like rats in the attic. We nibble away at our enemies, and when the cats come, we run back to our holes. That is how we survive.’
The noise of battle sounded louder than ever. Tom felt the posts of the tent shivering with the vibrations. He had no time.
‘Angria knew we were coming to attack the harbour,’ he said suddenly.
‘It seems so.’
‘Then he will have sent men from the castle to reinforce the fleet.’ A plan was hatching in Tom’s mind: a desperate gamble, but he could think of no other. Francis, Sarah and Agnes – all their lives hung in the balance that night.
Shahuji saw the intent on his face. ‘What are you proposing?’
‘The last thing Angria will expect.’
The fires in the cove burned so high that their light touched the clouds. Smoke drifted across the water; the echo of the guns resounded around the bay.
At the back end of the bay, Francis’ boats were caught like kittens in a sack. To escape, they would have to run the gauntlet past the line of Angria’s anchored ships, the big grabs with their heavy broadsides. The men worked the oars to bring the gallivats around, but it was agonizingly slow work. Cannonballs sang through the air all around them. One took a man’s head clean off and carried it into the sea like a coconut from a shy. Another scored a direct hit on the boat behind. It snapped in two, tipping its crew into the water. Screams added to the roar of battle. Few of the Marathas could swim.
Francis grabbed the tiller and put it over. The gallivat’s bow turned towards the line of anchored grabs.
‘What are you doing?’ bellowed Merridew. ‘This is madness.’
‘We must head closer in among the fleet,’ Francis said. ‘Their cannon will not be able to bear on us there.’
The men pulled on the oars. Facing the stern, they could not see where Francis was steering them, but they could tell by the deepening roar of the guns what he intended. Now they could feel the heat of the guns on their backs, blasts of hot air as the cannon belched fire behind them. Iron balls tore the air around them. Shot screamed overhead, terrifying, but it no longer threatened the men. The boat had come so close that the gunners on the grabs could not depress their weapons low enough.
The bass note of the cannons gave way to the crack of musketry. Some of the men aboard the grabs had climbed the rigging, taking position in the tops and the crosstrees where they could fire down at will. All around the boats, a heavy rain of lead struck the sea and made it boil.
Many of the shots went home. In an open boat, packed so tight, there was nowhere for Francis’ men to shelter. Soon the bilge ran red with blood. The gunwales were ground to splinters; limp oars hung abandoned from their rowlocks, dragging on their progress.
‘Aim all your fire on the nearest grab,’ Francis shouted, though few men could have heard him above the screaming of the wounded. If they could not pin down the marksmen aboard the ship, the pirates would be able to empty their muskets into the small boat at will.
Francis looked ahead. The faces of the rowers stared back at him, hunched over their oars and spattered with blood. That they were still able to move at all, under that onslaught, was testament to their courage. But they were close to breaking. To take the fight to the pirates, they would need something more.
For the first time in his life, Francis understood the true burden of leadership. He would have to show them the way, even if he died in the attempt.
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He rose to his feet, crouching to keep under the flight of the cannon balls. The wind they made ruffled his hair, scant inches overhead. As he stood, his foot knocked something hard in the bottom of the boat. It was one of the incendiaries, forgotten when the pirates sprang the trap.
He grabbed one in each hand. ‘Get me a light.’
Merridew struck a flame and lit the wicks. Aiming carefully, Francis hurled the two pots at the ship. Under fire, from a boat that pitched and bobbed with the turmoil of wounded men, he could barely keep upright – but all their lives depended on it.
His aim was true. The pots struck the ship’s bulwarks, just below the gunwale, and exploded in two great flashes of flame. The pirates at the side were thrown back, spattered with the flaming oil. Some caught alight, and rolled on the deck to try and smother the flames that leaped from their hair and their clothes.
The gallivat bumped alongside the grab.
‘On me,’ Francis yelled. A rope hung down over the side. He grabbed it, and swung himself up to the channels, the wooden platforms that fixed the standing rigging to the side of the ship. He had no time to be frightened. The oil had burned quickly but it had not set the ship alight. The pirates would already be regrouping.
He climbed the shrouds, leaped onto the deck and drew his sword. A pirate stumbled towards him, still blinded by the brilliance of the exploding oil. Francis aim a deft cut at his neck, and dropped him with a single blow.
He fought without mercy. For his life, for his men, for Sarah and Agnes – and for the hope that he might see Ana again. He leaped up on a cannon, feeling the heat of the barrel through his shoe, kicked a pirate in the face and then ran him through the belly as he stumbled back.
With a scream, a body thudded to the deck beside him. He looked up. More of his men were aboard now, and some had climbed the ratlines to dislodge the sharpshooters. They tore them from the rigging and hurled them down to their deaths.
The grab had not carried her full complement. Trusting to the number of his ships, Angria had spread his men thinly through the fleet – only enough to serve the guns. They had not expected to be boarded. Francis’ men fought with unbridled fury, fired by their betrayal and the terrors they had suffered in the small boat. Soon, all the pirates were dead or driven into the water.
Francis looked down the deck and realized the ship was theirs. But they were still deep in the anchorage, with many of Angria’s vessels still between them and the mouth of the bay.
‘Cut the cable,’ he ordered. It was the dark of the moon, and the spring tide was ebbing fast. It might yet carry the ship clear– if the pirates’ cannons did not sink it first.
With a shock, he realized he was almost the most experienced sailor aboard. That did not speak much to their chances. But Merridew was with him, and he knew what was required. He showed the Marathas the anchor cable, and where to cut it. While they did that, Francis found the sheets and set men to hauling on them. The mainsail came loose. Merridew ran out onto the yard and overhauled the clew lines. Awkwardly, haltingly, the ship began to make headway.
Merridew slid down the backstay and landed, catlike on the deck. ‘Might want to go below, sir.’ He pointed to the line of grabs moored ahead. ‘We’ve still to get past those to make open water.’
The bonfires had started to burn lower. The pirates on shore, unable to see clearly what was happening on the ship’s deck, had held their fire for fear of hitting their own crew. Now, though, they would surely guess that the Marathas had taken her – and turn their fire on them.
Francis looked at the open hatch. ‘I will not hide,’ he said firmly. He looked to the grab’s bow. A square forecastle was built above it, open at the rear. Inside gleamed the long barrels of two nine-pounder cannons.
‘Perhaps we can improve the odds.’
He picked out a dozen men whom he knew had crewed the siege guns, and sent them for’ard. The pirates had left plenty of powder and shot on deck. Working quickly, as Tom had drilled them, the men loaded the bowchasers and trained them on the stern of the ship ahead.
‘Aim as low as you can,’ Francis ordered. ‘We’ll rake her fore and aft.’
The ship shook as the guns roared out. To his delight, Francis saw the balls strike home through her stern, right in the line with the main deck. He knew, from being schooled by Tom and Aboli, that the balls would fly unimpeded down the length of her deck, cutting down any man in their way and leaving a bloody shambles.
‘Reload,’ he ordered. Most of the men could not speak English, but they understood the commands. They worked quickly, cleaning out the barrel, ramming home the new shot and hauling on the tackles to run out the gun again. The pirates, unused to such standards of gunnery, were not expecting another onslaught so quickly. They were now so close that Francis heard the screams coming from her gun deck.
Merridew had taken the wheel. Now, he altered course to bring them past the other ship. But rather than head for the clear channel to larboard, he made for the far side of the enemy grab. Francis nodded his approval. They could use Angria’s ships to screen them from the castle’s guns.
Even so, it was a dangerous course to steer. As they came level with the next grab in line, they passed so close that their yard arms clattered against each other. If the pirates had had their starboard guns ready, they could have broadsided Francis’ ship at point blank range. But, as Francis had anticipated, all their guns were aimed at the clear channel on the other side. He saw the crews hauling on the tackles, moving the guns with handspikes.
‘Let us see how they like this strong medicine,’ he muttered. He found another grenado, lit it, and hurled it across the narrow gap onto the other boat. It landed on a coil of ropes and exploded. In an instant, the pirates forgot all thought of the guns, and raced to douse the blaze before it reached the casks of powder they had intemperately left on deck. One man poured a bucket of water over the fire, and was engulfed by a great sheet of flame that reared up from the burning oil.
A steady breeze blew off the land, funnelled through the narrow cove into something stronger. The grab, designed to manoeuvre in the lightest of winds, gathered speed. Now they had passed the last of the big ships, and were heading for open sea. A few cannons on shore opened up, but they did not trouble Francis. The guns in the castle could not depress low enough, while those across the bay were poorly aimed. None of the balls came near them.
He looked back, surveying the anchorage. They had sprung the trap, and made the pirates pay for their treachery. They had cut out one ship, and burned another, which had drifted among Angria’s gallivats, sinking or burning half a dozen more. But over half the pirate fleet still survived – and of the two hundred men who had rowed into the bay, only thirty or so were now escaping. It was a heavy price, and Francis felt the full weight of it on his shoulders.
He wondered what had happened to the boat he had left to guard their escape. He looked forward again, scanning the dark sea. That was where the attack had begun, he remembered: shots fired at the mouth of the bay.
He could not see the boat. But as he searched for it, he became aware of a thick dark line drawn across the sea. For a moment, his unwilling mind tried to believe it could be a shadow, or a trick of the waves. But that was a lie. He could not deny the evidence of his eyes: thick tree-trunks, fastened with chains, shutting off the whole mouth of the bay.
‘They’ve closed the boom,’ he cried.
The ship shuddered as Merridew put over the wheel.
‘Hold your course,’ said Francis wildly.
‘But that’ll take us straight into the boom,’ protested Merridew.
‘Then we will ram it.’
‘It’ll stave our bow. We’ll sink.’ They had both observed, reconnoitring earlier in the day, the pattern of ripples that spoke of vicious undercurrents where the bay met the open ocean. ‘We’d be swept out to sea and drown.’
Hope died in Francis’ breast as he realized the truth of what Merridew said. He thought they
had escaped the trap; in fact, it had closed around them. Now their only choices were to smash their ship to pieces, or sit there and let the pirates blast them out of the water.
A cannon ball from the shore battery struck the bow. Angria’s gunners were finding their range at last. Astern, a flotilla of gallivats swarmed after them, like sharks converging on a wounded whale.
Francis thought of Ana. He thought of Agnes and Sarah. Most of all, he thought of Tom, and how he had failed the Courtneys.
‘What shall we do?’
Tom had never seen an army assemble as fast as Shahuji’s. They swarmed from the camps, forming up in silent ranks on the slopes of the hill. He should not have been surprised. The Marathas were mountain warriors, men who slept with their swords in their hands and their spears at their sides.
Mohite, the hubladar, was there too, with the men who had followed him from Brinjoan. Tom was glad to have them. Mohite had put on a padded cotton cuirass, borrowed from the Marathas. His firelock was slung across his back, with the ammunition pouches on his belt next to the curved dagger. Most terrifyingly of all, he carried a mace, with a grip like a sword and a tip like an iron fist.
The Maratha warriors were passing small jars along the line. They dipped their fingers in, and daubed streaks across their faces.
‘What are they doing?’ wondered Tom.
‘It is turmeric,’ Mohite explained. He took the jar he was given, and drew three parallel yellow lines across his cheeks. ‘It is sacred to the gods. By putting it on, we dedicate ourselves to them. Then we need have no fear of death, for the gods hold us in their hands.’
He handed Tom the jar. Tom scooped out the sticky yellow paste and copied the pattern Mohite had made. He offered a silent prayer to whichever god or gods held sway over that continent. He did not fear death – only failure. He could not leave Sarah, Agnes and Francis to die.
