Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  "Althuda, will there be any soldiers in our way?" Hal asked him.

  "There are usually guards at the first bridge and there is always a patrol at the bitter-almond hedge to shoot any Hottentots who try to enter," Althuda replied, without looking up from the musket he was loading.

  Then Sukeena sang out, "There will be no pickets or patrols today.

  From dawn I kept a watch on the crossroad. No soldiers went out to take up their posts. They are all too busy nursing their aching bellies." She laughed gaily, as excited and wrought up as the rest of them. Suddenly she leaped up in the body of the carriage and called out in a ringing voice, "Free! For the first time in my life I am free!" Her plait had tumbled down and come loose. Her hair streamed out behind her head. Her eyes sparkled, and she was so beautiful that she epitomized the dreams of every one of the ragged seamen.

  Although they cheered her, "You, and us also, darling!" it was Hal at whom she was looking with those laughing eyes.

  As they passed the buildings of the settlement, the warning cries had been shouted ahead of them. "Beware! The pirates have escaped. The pirates are on the rampage!" The good citizens of Good Hope scattered before them. Mothers rushed into the street to seize their offspring and drag them indoors, to throw the door-bolts and slam down the shutters.

  "You are safe now. You have escaped clean away. Please will you not let me free, Sir Henry?" Katinka had recovered from her shock sufficiently to plead for her life. "I swear I have never meant you harm. I saved you from the gallows. I saved Althuda also. I'll do anything you say, Sir Henry. just please set me free," she whimpered, clinging to the side of the carriage.

  "You may call me sir now and make me those declarations of goodwill but they would have stood my father in better stead while he was on his way to the gallows." Hal's expression was so cold and remorseless that Katinka recoiled and fell back in the seat beside Sukeena, sobbing as though her heart were breaking.

  The seamen running with Hal shouted their scorn and hatred at her.

  "You wanted to see us hanged, you painted doxy, and we're going to feed you to the lions out there in the wilderness," gloated Billy Rogers.

  Katinka sobbed afresh and covered her face with her hands. "I never meant any of you harm. Please let me go." The carriage rolled steadily down the empty street, and the last few huts and hovels of the settlement were all that lay ahead when Althuda rose from his seat and pointed back down the gravel-surfaced road towards the distant parade. "Horseman coming at a gallop!" he cried.

  "So soon?" Big Daniel muttered, shading his eyes. "I had not expected the Pursuit yet. Do they have cavalry to send after us?"

  "Have no fear of that, lads, Aboli reassured them. "There are no more than twenty horses in the whole colony, and we have six of those."

  "Aboli is right. "tis only one horseman!" shouted Wally Finch.

  The rider was leaving a pale ribbon of dust in the air behind him, leaning forward over his mount's neck as he drove the animal to its top speed, using the whip in his right hand to flog it onwards mercilessly.

  He was still far Off, but Hal recognized him from the sash that flowed out behind him with the speed of his gallop.

  "Sweet Mary, it's Schreuder! I knew he would join us before too long." His jaw clenched in anticipation. "The hot-headed idiot comes alone to fight us. Brains he lacks, but he has a full cargo of guts." Even from his seat Aboli could see what Hal intended by the narrowing of his eyes and the way he changed his grip on his sword.

  "Don't think of going back to give him satisfaction, Gundwane!"Aboli called sternly. "You will place every soul here at risk for any delay."

  "I know you think I'm no match for Schreuder but things have changed, Aboli. I can beat him now. I'm sure of it in my heart." Aboli thought that he might well do so, for Hal was no longer a boy. The months on the walls had toughened him, and Aboli had seen him match strength with Big Daniel. "Leave me here to see to this business, man to man, and I will follow you later," Hal cried.

  "No, Sir Hal!" shouted Big Daniel. "Maybe you could best him but not with that leg bitten to the bone. Leave your feud with the Dutchman for another time. We need you with us. There will be a hundred green-jackets following close behind him."

  "No!" agreed Wally and Stan. "Stay with us, Captain." "We've put our trust in you," said Ned Tyler. "We can never find our way through the wilderness without a navigator. You can't desert us now."

  Hal hesitated, still glaring back at the swiftly approaching rider. Then his eyes flicked to the face of the girl in the carriage. Sukeena stared at him, her huge dark eyes full of entreaty. "You are sorely wounded. Look at your leg." She leaned over the door of the carriage, so that she was very close, and spoke so softly that he could only just make out the words above the din of men and wheels and horses. "Stay with us, Gundwane."

  He glanced down at the blood and pale lymph oozing from the deep puncture wounds. While he wavered Big Daniel ran back and jumped up onto the step of the carriage.

  "I'll take care of this one," he said, and lifted the loaded musket from Althuda's hands. Holding it, he dropped from the step into the dirt of the road and stood there checking the burning matchlock and the priming in the pan. He took his time as the carriage trotted away from him and Colonel Schreuder galloped down on him.

  Despite all their pleas and warnings Hal started back to intervene. "Daniel, don't kill the fool." He wanted to explain that he and Schreuder had a destiny to work out together. It was a matter of chivalric honour in which no other should come between them, but there was no time to give voice to such a romantic notion.

  Schreuder galloped to within earshot and stood in his stirrups. "Katinka!" he shouted. "Have no fear, I am come to save you, my darling. I will never let these villains take. you."

  He plucked the bell-muzzled pistol from his sash and held the matchlock in the wind so that the smouldering match flared. Then he lay flat along his horse's neck with his pistol arm outstretched. "Out of my way, oaf! "he roared at Daniel, and fired. His right arm was thrown high by the discharge and a wreath of blue smoke swirled around his head, but the ball flew wide, hitting the earth a foot from Daniel's bare right leg, showering him with gravel.

  Schreuder threw aside the pistol and drew the Neptune sword from its scabbard at his side. The gold inlay on the blade glinted as he wielded it. "I'll cleave your skull to the teeth!" Schreuder roared, and raised the blade high. Daniel dropped on one knee and let the Colonel's horse come on the last few strides.

  Too close, Hal thought. Much too close. If the musket misfires Danny is a dead man. But Daniel held his aim steadily and snapped the lock. For an instant Hal thought his worst fear had been realized but then, with a sharp report, a spurt of flame and silver smoke, the musket discharged.

  Perhaps Daniel had heeded Hal's shout, or perhaps the horse was a bigger and surer target than the rider upon its back, but he had aimed into the animal's wide, sweat drenched chest and the heavy lead ball for once flew true. At full charge Schreuder's steed collapsed under him. He was thrown over its head, slamming face and shoulder into the ground.

  The horse struggled and kicked, lying on its back, thrashing its head from side to side while its heart-blood pumped from the wound in its chest. Then its head fell back to earth with a thump and, with one last snorting breath, it lay still.

  Schreuder lay motionless on the sun-baked road, and Hal felt a moment's fear that his neck was broken. He almost ran back to aid him, but Schreuder made a few disjointed movements, and Hal paused. The carriage was drawing away swiftly, and the others were shouting to him, "Come back, Gundwane!" "Leave the bastard, Sir Henry."

  Daniel sprang up, grabbed Hal's arm. "He ain't dead, but we soon will be if we lie becalmed here much longer," and dragged him away.

  For the first few steps Hal resisted and tried to shake off Daniel's hand. "It can't end like this. Don't you understand, Danny?"

  "I understand well enough," Big Daniel grunted, and at that Schreuder sat up groggi
ly in the middle of the road. The gravel had torn the skin off one side of his face, but he was trying to get to his feet, lurching and falling, then trying again.

  "He's all right," said Hal, with a relief that almost surprised him, and allowed Daniel to pull him away.

  "Aye!" said Daniel, as they caught up with the carriage. "He's right enough to crop your acorns for you when next you meet. We'll not be rid of that one so easily."

  Aboli braked the carriage to allow them to catch up, and Hal grabbed the bridle of the leading horse and allowed it to lift him off his feet. He looked back to see Schreuder on his feet in the middle of the road, dusty, and bleeding. He staggered after the carriage like a man with a bottle of cheap gin in his belly, still brandishing the sword.

  They pulled away from him at a brisk trot and Schreuder gave up the attempt to overhaul the departing carriage, instead screamed abuse after it. "By God, Henry Courtney, I'm coming after you, even if I have to follow you to the very gates of hell. I have you in my eye, sir, I have you in my heart."

  "When you come, bring with you that sword you stole from me," Hal shouted back. "I'll spit you with it like a sucking pig for the devil to roast." His seamen hooted with laughter and gave the colonel an assortment of obscene farewell gestures.

  "Katinka! My darling!" Schreuder changed his tone. "Do not despair. I will rescue you. I swear it on my father's grave. I love you with my very life."

  Throughout all the shouting and the musket fire, van de Velde had been crouching on the floor of the carriage but now he heaved himself back onto the seat and glared at the battered figure in the road. "Is he raving mad? How dare he address my wife in such odious terms?" He rounded on Katinka with a red face and wobbling jowls. "Mevrouw, I trust you have given the dolt of a soldier no cause for such licence."

  "I assure you, Mijnheer, his language and address come as more of a shock to me than they do to you. I take great offence, and I implore you to take him seriously to task at the first opportunity," replied Katinka, clinging to the door of the carriage with one hand and to her bonnet with the other.

  "I will do better than that, Mevrouw. He will be on the next ship back to Amsterdam. I cannot abide with such impertinence. Moreover, he is responsible for the predicament we are now in. As commander of the castle, the prisoners are his responsibility. Their escape is due to his incompetence and the dereliction of his duty. The Bastard has no right to speak to you in such a fashion."

  "Oh, yes, he does," said Sukeena sweetly. "Colonel Schreuder has the right of conquest in his favour. Your wife has been lying under him often enough with her legs in the air for him to call her darling, or even to call her whore and slut if he chose to be more honest."

  "Quiet, Sukeena!" shrilled Katinka "Are you out of your mind? Remember your place. You are a slave."

  "No, Mevrouw. A slave no longer. A free woman now, and your captor," Sukeena told her, "so I can say to you anything I please, especially if it is the truth." She turned to van de Velde. "Your wife and the gallant colonel have been playing the beast with two backs so blatantly as to delight every tattle-tale in the colony. They have set a pair of horns on your head that are too large for even your grossly bloated body."

  "I will have you thrashed!" van de Velde gurgled apoplectically. "You slave bitch!"

  "No, you won't," said Althuda, and placed the point of the jewelled scimitar against the Governor's pendulous belly. "Rather, you will apologize for that insult to my sister."

  "Apologize to a slave? Never!" van de Velde began in a bellow, but this time Althuda pricked him with more intent and the bellow turned into a squeal, like air escaping from a pig's bladder.

  "Apologize not to a slave, but to a free-born Balinese princess," Althuda corrected him. "And swiftly."

  "I beg your pardon, madam," van de Velde gritted through clenched teeth.

  "You are gallant, sir." Sukeena smiled at him. Van de Velde sank back in his seat and said no more, but he fixed his wife with a venomous stare.

  Once they had left the settlement behind them, the surface of the road deteriorated. There were deep wheel ruts left by the Company wagons going out to fetch firewood, and the carriage rocked and lurched dangerously through them. Along the edge of the lagoon the water had seeped in to turn the tracks to mud and slush and, in many places, the seamen were forced to put their shoulders to the tall rear wheels to help the horses drag the vehicle through. It was late morning before they saw ahead the framework of the wooden bridge over the first river.

  "Soldiers!" Aboli called. From his high seat he had picked out the glint of a bayonet and the shape of the tall helmets.

  "Only four," said Hal. His eyes were still the sharpest of all. "They'll not be expecting trouble from this direction." He was right. The corporal of the bridge guard came forward to meet them, puzzled but unalarmed, his sword sheathed and the match on his pistols unlit. Hal and his crew disarmed him and his men, stripped them to their breeches and sent them running back towards the colony with a discharge of muskets over their heads.

  While Aboli walked the carriage over the bridge and took it on along the rudimentary track, Hal and Ned Tyler climbed beneath the wooden structure and roped a barrel of gunpowder under the heavy timber king post When it was secure Hal used the butt of his pistol to drive in the bung of the barrel, thrust a short length of slow-match into it and lit it. He and Ned scrambled back onto the roadway and ran after the carriage.

  Hal's leg was painful now. It was swelling and stiffening, but he was looking back over his shoulder as he hobbled along through the ankle-deep sand. The centre of the bridge suddenly erupted in a spout of mud, water, shattered planks and piers. The wreckage fell back into the river.

  "That will not hold the good colonel long, but at least he will get his breeches wet," Hal muttered, as they caught up with the carriage. Althuda jumped down and called to him, "Take my place. You must favour that leg."

  "There is little wrong with my leg," Hal protested.

  "Other than that it can barely carry your weight," said Sukeena sternly, leaning over the door. "Come up here at once, Gundwane, or else you will do lasting damage to it."

  Meekly Hal climbed up into the coach and took the seat opposite Sukeena Without looking at the pair, Aboli grinned to himself Already she gives the orders and he obeys. It seems they have the tide and a fair wind behind them.

  "Let me look at that leg," Sukeena ordered, and Hal placed it on the seat between her and Katinka.

  "Take care, clod!" Katinka snapped, and pulled away her skirts. "You will bloody my dress."

  "If you do not have a care to your tongue, it will not be the only thing I will bloody," Hal assured her, and scowled. She withdrew into the farthest corner of the seat.

  Sukeena worked over the leg with swift, competent hands. "I should lay a hot poultice on these bites, for they are deep and will certainly fester. But I need boiling water." She looked up at Hal.

  "You will have to wait for that until we reach the mountains," he told her. Then, for a while, their conversation broke down and they gazed into each other's eyes bemusedly. This was as close as they had ever been and each found something in the other to amaze and delight them.

  Then Sukeena roused herself. "I have my medicines in the saddle-bags, she said briskly, and climbed over the seat to reach the panniers on the back of the carriage. She hung there as she rummaged in the leather bags. The carriage jotted on over the rough track, and Hal looked with awe on her small rounded bottom, pointed skywards. Despite the ruffles and petticoats that shrouded it, he thought it almost as enchanting as her face.

  She climbed back with cloths and a black bottle in her hand. "I will swab out the wounds with this tincture and then bind them up," she explained, without looking again into the distraction of his green eyes.

  "Avast!" Hal gasped at the first touch of the tincture. "That burns like the devil's breath."

  Sukeena scolded, "You have endured whip and shot and sword and savaging by an animal. But the first to
uch of medicine and you cry like a baby. Now be still."

  Aboli's face creased into a bouquet of tattoos and merry laughter lines but, though his shoulders shook, he held his peace.

  Hal sensed his amusement, and rounded on him. "How far ahead is the bitter-almond hedge?"

  "Another league."

  "Will Sabah meet us there?"

  "That is what I believe, if the green-jackets don't catch up with us first."

  "Methinks we will have some respite. Schreuder made an error by rushing alone in pursuit of us. He should have mustered his troops and come after us in an orderly fashion. My guess is that most of the green-jackets will be chasing the other prisoners we turned free, They will concentrate on us only once Schreuder takes command."

  "And he has no horse," Sukeena added. "I think we will get clear away, and once we reach the mountains-" She broke off and lifted her eyes from Hal's leg. Both she and Hal looked ahead to the high blue rampart that filled the sky ahead.