"You too!" van de Velde howled at the overseers, and with reluctance they obeyed. However, at that moment Hugo Barnard was screened by a pile of masonry blocks. He stepped quietly into the doorway to the kitchens, dragging his two hounds with him, and crouched there, waiting his opportunity.
Down from the scaffold scrambled the other seamen. Sparrow and Finch from the lower tier were first to reach the courtyard but Ned, Big Daniel and Billy Rogers were seconds behind them.
"Come on, Althuda!" Hal called, and Althuda dropped his mallet and chisel and ran to join him. "Catch!" Hal lobbed the jewelled scimitar in a high, glinting parabola, and Althuda reached up and caught it by the hilt, plucking it neatly out of the air. Hal wondered what class of swordsman he was. As a fisherman it was unlikely that he would have had much practice.
I shall have to shield him if it comes to a fight, he thought, and looked around quickly. He saw Daniel pulling the other weapons out of the pannier at the back of the carriage. The twin scimitars looked like toys in his huge fist. He tossed one to Ned Tyler and kept the other for himself as he ran to join Hal.
Hal picked up a sword that a sentry had dropped and threw it to Big Daniel. "This one is more your style, Master Danny," he yelled, and Daniel grinned, showing his broken black teeth, as he caught the heavy infantry weapon and made it hiss in the air as he cut left and right.
"Sweet Jesus, it's good to have a re all blade in my hand again!" he exulted, and tossed the light scimitar to Wally Finch. "A tool for a man, but a toy for a boy."
"Aboli, keep a firm hold on that great hog. Cut his ears off if he tries to be crafty," Hal shouted. "The rest of you follow me!" He dropped down the staircase and raced towards the doors of the armoury with Big Daniel and the others on his heels. Althuda began to follow him also, but Hal stopped him. "Not you. You look after Sukeena!" As Althuda turned back and they ran on across the courtyard, Hal snapped at Daniel, "Where's Barnard?"
"The murdering bastard was here not a moment past, but I don't see him now."
"Keep a good lookout for his top sails. We'll have trouble with that swine yet."
Hal burst into the armoury. The three men in the guard room were slumped on the bench. two were asleep and the third scrambled to his feet in bewilderment. Before he could recover his wits, Hal's point was pressed to his chest. "Stay where you are, or I'll look at the colour of your liver." The man dropped back into his seat. "Here, Ned!" Hal called to him as Ned rushed in.. "Play wet-nurse to these infants," and left them in his charge as he ran after Daniel and the other seamen.
Daniel charged the heavy teak door at the end of the passage and it burst open before his rush. They had never before had a chance to look into the armoury, but now at a glance Hal saw that it was all laid out in a neat and orderly fashion. The weapons were in racks along the walls, and the powder kegs stacked to the ceiling at the far end.
"Pick your weapons and bring a keg of powder each," he ordered, and they ran to the long racks of infantry swords, polished, gleaming and sharpened to a bright edge. Further back were the racks of muskets and pistols. Hal thrust a pair of pistols into the rope that served him as a belt. "Remember, you'll have to carry everything you take with you up the mountains, so don't be greedy," he warned them, and picked up a fifty-pound keg of gunpowder from the pyramid at the far end of the armoury, which he hoisted to his shoulder. Then he turned for the door. "That's enough, lads. Get out! Daniel, lay a powder trail as you go! Daniel used the butt of a musket to stove in the bungs of two of the powder kegs. At the foot of the pyramid of barrels he poured a mound of black gunpowder. "That lot will go off with an almighty bang!" He grinned, as he backed towards the door, the other keg under his arm spilling a long dark trail behind him.
Under their burdens they staggered out into the sunlight. Hal was the last to leave. "Get out of here, Ned!" he ordered, and handed him the weapons he carried as Ned ran for the door. Then Hal turned on the three Dutch soldiers, who were cowering on the bench. Ned had disarmed them their weapons were thrown in the corner of the guard room.
"I'm going to blow this place to hell," he told them in Dutch. "Run for the gates, and if you're wise you'll keep running without looking back. Go!" They sprang up and, in their haste to get clear, jammed in the doorway. They struggled and fought each other until they burst out into the courtyard and raced across it.
"Look out!" they yelled, as they sprinted for the gates. "They're going to blow up the powder store!" The gaolers and the other common convicts who, until this point, had stood gaping at the carriage and the hostage Governor in Aboli's grip, now turned their heads towards the armoury and stared at it in stupid surprise.
Hal appeared in the armoury doorway with a sword in one hand and a burning torch that he had seized from its bracket in the other.
"I am counting to ten," Hal shouted, "and then I am lighting the powder train!" In his rags, and with his great bushy black beard and wild eyes, he looked like a maniac.
A moan of horror and fear went up from every man in the yard. One of the convicts threw down his spade and followed the fleeing soldiers in a rush for the gate. Immediately pandemonium overwhelmed them all. Two hundred convicts and soldiers stormed the gates in a rush for safety.
Van de Velde struggled in Aboli's grip and screamed, "Let me go! The idiot is going to blow us all to perdition. Let me go! Run! Run!" His shrieks added to the panic, and within the time it takes to draw and hold a long breath the courtyard was deserted except for the group of seamen around the carriage and Hal. Katinka was screaming and sobbing hysterically, but Sukeena slapped her hard across the face. "Keep quiet, you simpering ninny, or I'll give you good reason to blubber," and Katinka gulped back her distress.
"Aboli, get van de Velde into the carriage! He and his wife are coming with us," Hal called, and Aboli lifted the Governor bodily and hurled him over the top of the door. He landed in an ungainly heap on the floorboards and struggled there, like an insect on a pin. "Althuda, put your sword point to his heart and be ready to kill him when I give the word."
"I look forward to it!" Althuda shouted, dragged van de Velde upright and thrust him into the seat facing his wife. "Where should I give it to you?" he asked him. "In your fat gut, perhaps?"
Van de Velde had lost his wig in the scuffle and his expression was abject, every inch of his huge frame seeming to quiver with despair. "Don't kill me. I can protect you," he pleaded, and Katinka started weeping and keening again. This time, Sukeena merely held her a little tighter, lifted the point of the dagger to her throat and whispered, "We don't need you now we have the Governor. It won't matter at all if I kill you." Katinka choked back the next sob.
"Daniel, load the powder and the spare weapons," Hal ordered, and. they piled them into the carriage. The elegant vehicle was no wagon, and the coach work sagged under the load on its delicately sprung suspension.
"That's enough! It will take no more." Aboli stopped them throwing the last few powder kegs on board.
"One man to each horse!" Hal commanded. "Don't try to board them, lads. You're none of you riders. You'll fall off and break your necks, which won't matter much, but your weight will kill the poor beasts before we have gone a mile, and that will matter. Lay hold of their rigging and let them tow you along." They ran to their places around the team of horses, and latched onto their harness. "Leave space for me on the larboard bow, lads," he called, and even in her excitement and agitation Sukeena laughed aloud at his use of the nautical terms. His men understood, though, and left the offside lead horse for him.
Aboli leaped to his place on the coachman's seat, while in the body of the carriage Althuda menaced van de Velde and Sukeena held her dagger to Katinka's white throat.
Aboli wheeled the team and shouted, "Come on, Gundwane. It's time to go. The garrison will wake up at any moment now." As he said it they heard the flat report of a pistol shot, and a garrison officer ran from the doorway of the barracks across the square waving his smoking pistol, shouting to his men to form up
on him. "Stand to arms! On me the First Company!"
Hal paused only a moment to light the slow-match of one of his pistols from the burning torch, then tossed the torch onto the powder train and waited to see it flare and catch. The smoking flame started snaking back through the doors of the armoury into the passageway that led to the main powder magazine. Then he sprang down the steps into the courtyard and raced to meet the overloaded carriage as Aboli drove the horses in a circle and lined up for the gates.
He was almost there, raising his hand to seize the bridle of the leading grey gelding, when suddenly Aboli shouted in agitation, "Gundwane, behind you! Have a care!" Hugo Barnard had appeared in the doorway where he and his hounds had taken shelter at the first sign of trouble. Now he slipped both dogs from the leash and with wild yells of encouragement sent them in pursuit of Hal. "Vat horn! Catch him!" he yelled and the animals raced towards him in a silent rush, running side by side, striding out and covering the length of the courtyard like a pair of whippets coursing a hare.
Aboli's warning had given Hal just time enough to turn to face them. The dogs worked as a team, and one leaped for his face while the other rushed for his legs. Hal lunged at the first while it was in the air and sent his point into the base of the black throat where it joined the shoulders. The flying weight of the hound's body drove the blade in full length, transfixing it cleanly through heart and lung and on into its guts. Even though it was dead, the momentum of its flight drove it on to crash into Hal's chest, and he staggered backwards.
The second hound, snaked in low to the ground and, while Hal was still off balance, sank its fangs into his left shin just below the knee, jerking him over backwards. His shoulder crashed into the stone paving, but when he tried to rise the animal still had him in its grip and pulled back on all four braced legs, sending him sprawling again. Hal felt its teeth grate on the bone of his leg.
"My hounds!" Barnard yelled. "You are hurting my darlings." With his drawn sword in his hand he rushed to intervene. Again Hal tried to rise, and again the hound pulled him down. Barnard reached them and raised his sword to his full height above Hal's unprotected head. Hal saw the blow coming and rolled aside. The blade struck the flint cobbles beside his ear in a sheet of sparks.
"You bastard!" Barnard roared, and lifted the sword again. Aboli swerved the team of horses and drove them deliberately to Barnard. The overseer's back was turned to the approaching carriage, and he was so engrossed with Hal that he did not see it coming. As he was about to strike again at Hal's head, the rear wheel caught him a glancing blow on the hip and sent him staggering aside.
With a violent effort Hal hauled himself into a sitting position, and before the hound could drag him flat again, he stabbed it in the base of the neck, driving his blade at an angle back between its shoulder blades like the bullfighter's coup, finding the heart. The beast let out an agonized howl and released its grip on his leg, staggered around in a circle then collapsed on the cobbles, kicking feebly.
Hal heaved himself to his feet just as Barnard rushed at him. "You have killed my beauties!" He was maddened with grief, and hacked again at Hal, a wild uncontrolled blow. Hal turned it effortlessly aside and let it fly an inch past his head.
"You filthy pirate, I'll cut you down!" Barnard gathered himself and rushed in again. With the same apparent ease Hal deflected the next thrust, and said softly, "Do you remember what you -and your dogs did to Oliver?" He feinted high left, forcing Barnard to open his guard in the mid-line, and then, like a bolt of lightning, thrust home.
The blade took Barnard just under the sternum, and sprang half its length out of his back. He dropped his sword and fell to his knees.
The debt to Oliver is paid!" Hal said, placed his bare foot on Barnard's chest and, against its resistance, pulled his blade clear. Barnard toppled and lay beside the carcass of his dying hound.
"Come on, Gundwane!"Aboli was struggling to hold the team of greys, for the shouting and the smell of blood had panicked them. "The magazine!" It was only seconds since Hal had lighted the powder train, but when he glanced in that direction he saw clouds of acrid blue smoke billowing from the doorway of the armoury.
"Hurry, Gundwane!" Sukeena called softly. "Oh, please, hurry!" Her voice was so filled with concern for his safety that it spurred him. Even in these dire straits, Hal realized that it was the first time he had ever heard her speak his nickname. He started forward. The dog had bitten deeply into his leg, but its fangs could not have severed nerves or sinews for Hal found that, if he ignored the pain, he could still run on it. He leaped across the yard and grabbed hold of the leading horse's bridle. It tossed its head and rolled its eyes until the pink lining showed, but Hal hung on and Aboli gave the team its head.
The carriage went rocking and clattering under the archway of the gates, across the bridge, over the moat and out onto the open Parade. Suddenly from behind them came a shattering explosion, and a shock-wave of disrupted air swept over them like a tropical line squall. The horses reared and plunged in terror, and Hal was lifted off his feet. He clung desperately to the traces and looked back. A tower of dun-Coloured -smoke rose swiftly from the interior courtyard of the castle, spinning and revolving upon itself, shot through with dark flames and scraps of debris and wreckage. In the midst of this plume of destruction a single human body cartwheeled a hundred feet into the sky.
"For Sir Hal and King Charley!" Big Daniel roared, and the other seamen took up the cheering, beside themselves with excitement at their escape.
However, when Hal looked back again he could see that the massive outer walls of the castle were untouched by the detonation. The barracks had been built of the same heavy stonework, and almost certainly had withstood the blast. Two hundred men were housed in there, three companies of green-jackets, and even now they were probably recovering their wits after the explosion. Soon they would come pouring out through the castle gates in full pursuit and where, he wondered, was Colonel Cornelius Schreuder?
The carriage was pounding across the Parade at a gallop. Ahead ran a mob of escaped convicts. They were scattering in every direction, some leaping over the stone wall of the Company gardens and heading for the mountain, others running for the beach to find a boat in which to make good their flight. Out on the Parade were the few stunned burghers and house slaves who were abroad at this time of the forenoon. They gawked in amazement at the tide of fugitives, then at the rolling cloud of smoke that enveloped the castle and then at the even more extraordinary sight of the advancing Governor's carriage, festooned with a motley array of desperate tatterdemalion outlaws and pirates, screaming like madmen and brandishing their weapons. As the vehicle bore down on them they scattered frantically.
"The pirates have escaped from the castle. Run! Run!" At last they recovered and spread the alarm. The cry was taken up and shouted ahead of them through the huts and hovels of the settlement. Hal could see the burghers and their slaves hurrying to escape the bloodthirsty pirate crew. One or two of the braver souls had armed themselves, and there was a desultory popping of musket fire from some of the cottage windows, but the range was long, the aim hurried and poor. Hal did not even hear the flight of the balls and none of the men or horses were hit. The carriage swept on past the first buildings, following the only road that skirted the curving beach of Table Bay, and headed out into the unknown.
Hal looked back at Aboli. "Slow down, damn you! You'll blow the horses before we've got past the town." Aboli stood upright and pulled the horses back. "Whoa, Royal! Slow down, Cloud!" But the team were bolting and had almost reached the outskirts of the settlement before Aboli was able to wrestle them to a trot. They were all sweating and snorting from the gallop, but were far from spent.
As soon as they were under control, Hal loosed his grip on the harness and turned back to jog beside the carriage. "Althuda," he called, "instead of sitting up there like a gentleman on a Sunday picnic, make sure all the muskets are primed and loaded. Here!" He passed up the pistol with the burning
match. "Use this to light the match on all the weapons. They'll be after us soon enough." Then he looked from Althuda to his sister.
"We have not been introduced. Your servant, Henry Courtney." He grinned at her, and she laughed delightedly at his formal manner.
"Good morrow, Gundwane. I know you well. Aboli has warned me of what a fierce young pirate you are." Then she turned serious. "You are hurt. I should see to your leg."
"Tis nothing that cannot wait until later," he assured her.
"The bite of a dog will mortify swiftly if it is left untreated, she told him.
"Later!" he repeated, and turned to Aboli.
"Aboli, are you acquainted with the road to the boundary of the colony?"
"There is only one road, Gundwane. We have to go straight through the village, skirt the marshland then head out across the sandy flatlands towards the mountains." He pointed. "The bitter-almond fence is five miles beyond the marsh."
Looking beyond the settlement, Hal could already see marshland and the lagoon ahead, stands of reeds and open water, over which hovered flocks of water birds. He had heard that crocodiles and hippopotami lurked in the depths ofthelagoon.
Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey Page 46
