Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  Hal was on the point of diving and swimming under water out of the circle of heat but he heard Cumbrae's order. The painter still trailed around his legs, and he groped beneath the surface for the end, clenching it between his feet. Then he sank below the water and swam under the fire ship hull, coming up in the narrow gap between it and the Gull.

  The Gull's rudder stock broke the surface and, spitting lagoon water from his mouth, Hal threw a loop of the painter around the pintle. His face felt as though it were blistering as the heat beat down upon his head with hammer strokes, but he hitched the flaming craft securely to the Gull's stern.

  Then he dived again and came up next to Aboli. "To the beach!" he gasped. "Before the fire reaches the Gull's powder store."

  Both struck out overarm, and Hal saw the longboat, close by, almost close enough to touch, but the Buzzard had lost all interest in them. He was whirling the small anchor around his head, and as Hal watched he hurled it out over the burning vessel, hooking onto her.

  "Lie back on your oars!" he shouted at his crew. "Tow her off." The boatmen went to it with all their strength, but immediately the fire ship came up short on the mooring line Hal had tied, and their blades beat the water vainly. She would not tow, and now the planking of the Gull's side was smouldering ominously.

  Fire was the terror of all seamen. The ship was built of combustibles and stuffed with explosives, wood and pitch, canvas and hemp, tallow, spice barrels and gunpowder. The faces of the longboat's crew were contorted with terror. Even the Buzzard was wild-eyed in the firelight as he looked up and saw the other two fireships drifting remorselessly upon him. "Stop those others!" he pointed with his claymore. "Turn them away!" Then he turned his attention back to the burning vessel moored to the Gull.

  By now Hal and Aboli were fifty yards away, swimming for the beach, but Hal rolled onto his back to watch and trod water. He saw at once that the Buzzard's efforts to tow away the fire ship had failed.

  Now he rowed around to the Gull's bows and scrambled up onto her deck. As his crew followed him he roared, "Buckets! Get a bucket chain going. Pumps! Ten men on the pumps. Spray the flames!" They scurried to obey, but the fire was spreading swiftly, eating into the stern and dancing along the gunwale, reaching up hungrily towards the furled sails on their outstretched yards.

  One of the Gull's longboats had grappled Ned's fire shiP and, with frantically beating oars, was dragging it clear. Another was trying to get a line on Big Daniel's fire shiP but the flames forced them to keep their distance. Each time they succeeded in hooking on, Daniel swam round and cut the rope with a stroke of his knife. The men in the longboat who carried muskets and pistols were firing wildly at his bobbing head, but though the balls kicked up spray all around him, he seemed invulnerable.

  Aboli had swum on ahead, and now Hal rolled onto his belly and followed him "back to the beach. Together they raced up the white sand, and into the shot-shattered forest. Sir Francis was still in the gun pit where they had left him, but he had gathered around him a scratch crew of the Resolution's survivors- They were reloading the big gun as Hal ran up to him and shouted, "What do you want me to do?" Come find more of the men. "Take Aboli with You to Load another culverin.

  Bring the Gull under fire. Sir Francis did not look up from the gun, and Hal ran back among the trees. He found half a dozen men, and he and Aboli kicked and dragged them out of the holes and bushes where they were cowering, and led them back to the silenced battery.

  In the few short minutes it had taken him to gather the gm crew the scene out on the lagoon had changed completely.. Daniel had guided his fire ship up to the Gull's side and had secured her there. Her flames were adding to the confusion and panic on board the frigate.

  Now he was swimming back to the beach. He had seized two of his men, who could not swim, and was dragging them through the water.

  The Gull's crew had snared Ned's fire ship they had lines on it and were dragging it clear. Ned and his three fellows had abandoned it, and were also floundering back towards the shore. But, even as Hal watched, one gave up and slipped below the surface.

  The sight of the drowning spurred Hal's anger. he poured a handful of powder into the culverin's touch hole as Aboli used an iron marlin spike to train the barrel around. It bellowed deafeningly, and Hal's men shouted with delight as the full charge of grape smashed into the longboat towing Ned's abandoned craft. It disintegrated at the blast, and the men packed into her were hurled into the lagoon. They splashed about, screaming for aid and trying to clamber into another longboat nearby, but it was already overcrowded and the men in her tried to beat off the frantic seamen with their oars. Some, though, managed to get a hold on the gunwale, and yelling and fighting among themselves, they caused the longboat to list heavily, until suddenly she capsized. The water around the burning hulks was filled with wreckage and the heads of struggling swimmers.

  Hal was concentrating on reloading, and when he looked up again, he saw that some of the men in the water had reached the Gull and were climbing the rope ladders to the deck.

  The Buzzard had at last got his pumps working. Twenty men were bobbing up and down like monks at prayer as they threw their weight on the handles, and white jets of water were spurting from the nozzles of the canvas hoses, aimed at the base of the flames, which were now spreading over the Gull's stern.

  Hal's next shot shattered the wooden rail on the GulPs larboard side, and went on to sweep through the gang serving the bow pump. Four were snatched away, as though by an invisible set of claws, their blood splattering the others beside them on the handles. The jet of water from the hose shrivelled away.

  "More men here!" Cumbrae's voice resounded across the lagoon, as he sent others to take the places of the dead. At once the jet of water was revived, but it made little impression on the leaping flames that now engulfed the Gull's stern.

  Big Daniel reached the shore, and dropped the two men he had rescued on the sand. He ran up into the trees, and Hal shouted, "Take command of one of the guns. Load with grape and aim at her decks. Keep them from fighting the fire."

  Big Daniel grinned at Hal with black teeth and knuckled his forehead. "We'll play his lordship a pretty tune to dance to," he promised.

  The crew of the Resolution, who had been demoralized by the Gull's sneak attack, now began to take heart again at the swing in fortunes. One or two more emerged from where they had been skulking in the forest. Then, as the fire started to crash from the beach batteries and thump into the Gull's hull, the others grew bold and rushed back to serve the guns.

  Soon a sheet of flame and smoke was tearing from out of the trees across the water. Flames had reached the Gull's mizzen-yards and were taking hold in the furled sails.

  Hal saw the Buzzard striding through the smoke, lit by the flames of his burning ship, an axe in his hand. He stood over the anchor rope where it was drawn tightly through its fair lead and, with one gigantic swing he cut it free.

  Immediately the ship began to drift across the wind. He raised his head and bellowed an order to his seamen, who were clambering up the shrouds.

  They shook out the main sail and the ship responded quickly. As she caught the rising breeze, the flames poured outwards, and the fire-fighters were able to run forward and direct the water from the hoses onto the base of the fire.

  She towed the two fireships for a short distance, but when the lines that secured them burned through, the Gull left them as she headed slowly down the channel.

  Along the beach the culver ins continued to pour salvo after salvo into her but, as she drew out of range, the battery fell silent. Still streaming smoke and orange flame behind her, the Gull headed for the open sea. Then, as she entered the channel between the heads and looked to have sailed clear away, the batteries hidden in the cliffs opened up on her. Gunsmoke billowed out from among the grey rocks and cannonballs kicked up spouts of foam along the Gull's waterline or punched holes in her sails.

  Painfully she ran this gauntlet, and at last lef
t the smoking batteries out of range.

  "Mister Courtney!" Sir Francis shouted at Hal even in the heat of the battle he had used the formal address. "Take a boat and cross to the heads. Keep the Gull under observation."

  Hal and Aboli reached the far side of the bay, and climbed up to the high ground on top of the heads. The Gull was already a mile offshore, reaching across the wind with sail set on her two forward masts. Wisps of dark grey smoke trailed from her stern, and Hal could see that her mizzen sails and her spanker were blackened and still smouldering. Her decks seethed with the tiny figures of her crew as they snuffed out the last of the fire and laboured to get the ship under full control and sailing handily again.

  "We have given his lordship a lesson he'll long remember, Hal exulted. "I doubt we'll be having any more trouble from him for a while," "The wounded lion is the most dangerous, Aboli grunted. "We have blunted his teeth, but he still has his claws."

  When Hal stepped out of the boat onto the beach below the encampment he found that his father already had a gang of men at work, repairing the damage to the battery of culver ins along the shore.

  They were building up the parapets and levelling the two guns that had been shot off their mountings by the Gull's broadsides.

  Where she lay careened on the beach, the Resolution had been hit by shot. The Gull's fire had knocked great raw wounds in the timbers. Grape shot had peppered her sides but had not penetrated her stout planks. The carpenter and his mates were already at work cutting out the damaged sections and checking the frames beneath them, preparatory to replacing them with new oak planking from the ship's stores. The pitch cauldrons were bubbling and smoking over the coals, and the rasping of saws and soughing of planes resounded through the camp.

  Hal found his father further back among the trees, where the wounded had been laid out under a makeshift canvas shelter. He counted seventeen and, at a glance, could tell that at least three were unlikely to see tomorrow's dawn. Already the aura of death hung over them.

  Ned Tyler doubled as the ship's surgeon he had been trained for the role in the rough empirical school of the gundeck, and he wielded his instruments with the same rude abandon as the carpenters working on the Resolution's punctured hull.

  Hal saw that he was performing an amputation. One of the topmast-men had taken a blast of grape in his leg just below the knee and the limb hung by a taller of flesh and exposed stringy white sinew from which protruded sharp white splinters of the shin bone. Two of Ned's mates were trying to hold down the patient on a sheet of blood-soaked canvas, as he bucked and writhed. They had thrust a doubled layer of leather belt between his teeth. The sailor bit down so hard upon it that the sinews in his neck stood out like hempen ropes. His eyes started out of his straining crimson face and his lips were drawn back in a terrifying rictus. Hal saw one of his rotten black teeth explode under the pressure of his bite.

  He turned his eyes away and began his report to Sir Francis. "The Gull was heading west the last I saw of her. The Buzzard seems to have the fire in hand, although she is still making a cloud of smoke, -" He was interrupted by screams as Ned laid aside his knife and took up the saw to trim off the shattered bone. Then, abruptly, the man lapsed into silence and slumped back in the grip of the men who held him. Ned stepped back and shook his head. "Poor bastard's taken shore leave. Bring one of the others." He wiped the sweat and smoke from his face with a blood-caked hand and left a red smear down his cheek.

  Although Hal's stomach heaved, he kept his voice level as he went on with his report. "Cumbrae was cracking on all the sail the Gull would carry." He was determined not to show weakness in front of his men and his father, but his voice trailed off as Ned started to pluck a massive wood splinter from another seaman's back. Hal could not drag away his eyes.

  Ned's two brawny assistants straddled the patient's body and held him down, while he got a grip on the protruding end of the splinter with a pair of blacksmith's tongs. He placed one foot on the man's back to give himself purchase and leaned back with all his weight. The raw splinter was as thick as his thumb, barbed like an arrowhead and relinquished its grip in the living flesh only with the greatest reluctance. The man's screams rang through the forest.

  At that moment Governor van de Velde came waddling towards them through the trees. His wife was on his arm, weeping pitifully and barely able to support her own weight. Zelda followed her closely, attempting to thrust a green bottle of smelling-salts under her mistress's nose.

  "Captain Courtney!" van de Velde said. "I must protest in the strongest possible terms. You have placed us in the most dire danger. A ball passed through the roof of my abode. I might have been killed."

  He mopped at his streaming jowls with his neck cloth

  At that moment the wretch who had been receiving Ned's ministrations let out a piercing shriek as one of the assistants poured hot pitch to staunch the bleeding into the deep wound in his back.

  "You must keep these oafs of yours quiet." Van de Velde waved disparagingly towards the severely wounded seaman. "Their barnyard bleatings, are frightening and offending my wife."

  With a last groan the patient sagged back limply into silence, killed by Ned's kindness. Sir Francis's expression was grun as he lifted his Hal to Katinka. "Mevrouw, you cannot doubt our consideration for your sensibilities. It seems that the rude fellow prefers to die rather than offend you further." His expression was hard and unkind as he went on, "Instead of caterwauling and indulging in the vapours, perhaps you might like to assist Master Ned with his work of tending the wounded?"

  Van de Velde drew himself to his full height at the suggestion and glared at him. "Mijnheer, you insult my wife. How dare you suggest that she might act as a servant to these coarse peasants?"

  "I apologize to your lady, but I suggest that if she is to serve no other purpose here other than beautifying the landscape you take her back to her hut and keep her there. There will almost certainly be further unpleasant sights and sounds to test her forbearance." Sir Francis nodded at Hal to follow him, and turned his back on the Governor. Side by side, he and his son strode towards the beach, past where the sail makers were stitching the dead into their canvas shrouds and a gang was already digging their graves. In such heat they must be buried the same day. Hal counted the canvas-covered bundles.

  "Only twelve are ours," his father told him. "The other seven are from the Gull, washed up on the beach. We have taken eight prisoners too. I'm going to deal with them now."

  The captives were under guard on the beach, sitting in a line with their hands clasped behind their heads. As they came up to them Sir Francis said, loudly enough for all to hear, "Mister Courtney, have your men set eight nooses from that tree." He pointed to the outspreading branches of a huge wild fig. "We will hang some new fruit from them." He gave a chuckle so macabre that Hal was startled.

  The eight sent up a wail of protest. "Don't hang us, sir. It were his lordship's orders. We only did as we was bade."

  Sir Francis ignored them. "Get those ropes hung up, Mister Courtney."

  For a moment longer Hal hesitated. He was appalled at the prospect of having to carry out such a cold-blooded execution, but then he saw his father's expression and hurried to obey.

  In short order ropes were thrown over the stout branches and the nooses were knotted at the hanging ends. A team of the Resolution's sailors stood ready to heave their victims aloft.

  One at a time the eight prisoners from the Gull were dragged to a rope's end, their hands bound behind their backs, their heads thrust through the waiting nooses. At his father's orders Hal went down the line and adjusted the knots under each victim's ears. Then he turned back to face his father, pale-faced and sick to the stomach. He touched his forehead. "Ready to proceed with the execution, sir."

  Sir Francis's face was turned away from the condemned men and he spoke softly from the corner of his mouth. "Plead for their lives."

  "Sir?" Hal looked bewildered.

  "Damn you." Sir Francis's
voice cracked. "Beg me to spare them."

  "Beg your pardon, sir, but will you not spare these men?" Hal said loudly.

  "The blackguards deserve nothing but the rope's end," Sir Francis snarled. "I want to see them dance a jig to the devil."

  "They were only carrying out the orders of their captain." Hal warmed to the role of advocate. "Will you not give them a chance?"

  The noosed heads of the eight men swung back and forth as they followed the argument. Their expressions were abject, but their eyes held a faint glimmer of hope.

  Sir Francis fingered his chin. "I don't know." His face was still ferocious. "What would we do with them? Turn them loose into the wilderness to serve as fodder for wild beasts and cannibals? It would be more merciful to string them up."

  "You could swear them in as crew to replace the men we have lost," Hal pleaded.

  Sir Francis looked still more dubious. "They would not take an oath of allegiance, would they?" He glared at the condemned men who, had not the nooses restrained them, might have fallen to their knees.

  "We will serve you truly, sir. The young gentleman is right. You'll not find better men nor more loyal than US."