Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith
‘Present your arms!’ Schreuder’s command rang out in the sudden silence. ‘Take your aim!’ The file of kneeling men lifted their muskets and aimed at the parapet. The blue smoke from the slow-match in the locks swirled about their heads, and they slitted their eyes to aim through it.
‘Heads down!’ Hal yelled.
The seamen in the gunpits ducked below the parapet, just as Schreuder roared, ‘Fire!’
The long, ragged volley of musketry rattled down the file of kneeling men, and lead balls hissed over the heads of the gunners and thumped into the earth ramp. Hal leapt to his feet and looked down to the far end of the line of gunpits. He saw his father jump onto the parapet, brandishing his sword, and, although it was too far for his order to carry clearly, his gestures were unmistakable.
‘Fire!’ yelled Hal at the top of his lungs, and the line of guns erupted in a solid blast of smoke, flame and buzzing grape shot. It swept through the thin green line of Dutch infantry at point-blank range.
Directly in front of him Hal saw one of them hit by the full fury of the volley. He disintegrated in a burst of torn green serge and pink shredded flesh. His head spun high in the air, then fell back to earth and rolled like a child’s ball. After that, all was obscured by the dense cloud of smoke, but though his ears still sang from the thunderous discharge, Hal could hear the screams and moans of the wounded resounding in the reeking blue fog.
‘All together!’ Hal shouted, as the smoke began to clear. ‘Take the steel to them now, lads!’
After the mind-stopping blast of the guns their voices were thin and puny as they rose together from the gunpits. ‘For Franky and King Charley!’ they shouted, and the steel of cutlass and pike winked and twinkled as they jumped from the parapet and charged at the shattered rank of green uniforms.
Aboli was at Hal’s left side and Daniel at his right as he led them into the mêlée. By unspoken agreement the two big men, one white the other black, placed protective wings over Hal but they had to run at their best speed to keep up with him.
Hal saw that his misgivings had been fully borne out. The volley of grape had not wrought the devastation among the Dutch infantry that they might have hoped for. The range had been too short: five hundred lead balls from each culverin had cut through them like a single charge of round shot. Men caught by the discharge had been obliterated, but for every one blown to nothingness, five others were unscathed.
These survivors were stunned and bewildered, their eyes dazed and their expressions blank. Most knelt blinking and shaking their heads, making no attempt to reload their empty muskets.
‘Have at them, before they pull themselves together!’ Hal screamed, and the seamen following him cheered again more lustily. In the face of the charge the musketeers started to recover. Some leapt to their feet, flung down their empty guns and drew their swords. One or two petty-officers had pistols tucked in their belts, which they drew and fired wildly at the seamen who rushed down on them. A few turned their backs and tried to flee back among the trees, but Schreuder was there to head them off. ‘Back, you dogs and sons of dogs. Stand your ground like men!’ They turned again, and formed up around him.
Every man of the Resolution’s crew who could still stand on his feet was in that charge – even the wounded hobbled along behind the rest, cheering as loudly as their comrades.
The two lines came together and immediately all was confusion. The solid rank of attackers split up into little groups of struggling men, mingled with the green serge coats of the Dutch. All around Hal fighting men were cursing, shouting and hacking at each other. His existence closed in, became a circle of angry, terrified faces and the clatter of steel weapons, most already dulled with new gore.
A green-jacket stabbed a long pike at Hal’s face. He ducked under it and, with his left hand, seized the shaft just behind the spearhead. When the musketeer heaved back, Hal did not resist but used the impetus to launch his counter-attack, leading with the Neptune sword in his right hand. He aimed at the straining yellow throat above the high green collar, and his point slid in cleanly. As the man dropped the pike and fell back, Hal allowed the weight of his dropping body to pull him free of the blade.
Hal went smoothly back on guard, and glanced quickly around for his next opponent, but the charge of seamen had almost wiped out the file of musketeers. Few were left standing, and they were surrounded by clusters of attackers.
He felt his spirits soar. For the first time since he had seen those two ships sail into the lagoon, he felt that there was a chance that they might win this fight. In these last few minutes, they had broken up the main attack. Now they had only to deal with the sailors from the Dutch frigate and the Gull as they tried to come ashore.
‘Well done, lads. We can do it! We can thrash them,’ he shouted, and the seamen who heard him cheered again. Looking about him, he could see triumph on the face of every one of his men as they cut down the last of the green-jackets. Aboli was laughing and singing one of his pagan war-chants in a voice that carried over the din of the battle and inspired every man who heard it. They cheered him and themselves, rejoicing deliriously, in the ease of their victory.
Daniel’s tall figure loomed at Hal’s right side. His face and thick muscular arms were speckled with blood thrown from the wounds he had inflicted on his victims, and his mouth was wide open as he laughed ferociously, showing his carious teeth.
‘Where is Schreuder?’ Hal yelled, and Daniel sobered instantly. The laughter died as his mouth snapped shut and he glared around the quietening battlefield.
Then Hal’s question was answered unequivocally by Schreuder himself. ‘Second wave! Forward!’ he bellowed lustily. He was standing on the edge of the forest, only a hundred paces from them. Hal, Aboli and Daniel started towards him, then came up short as another massed column of green-jackets poured out of the forest from behind where Schreuder stood.
‘By God!’ Hal breathed in despair. ‘We haven’t seen the half of them yet. The bastard has kept his main force in reserve.’
‘There must be two hundred of the swine!’ Daniel shook his head in disbelief.
‘Quarter columns!’ Schreuder shouted, and the advancing infantry changed their formation: they spread out behind him three deep in precisely spaced ranks. Schreuder led them forward at a trot, their ranks neatly dressed and their weapons advanced. Suddenly he held his sword high to halt them. ‘First rank! Prepare to fire!’ His men sank to their knees, while behind them the other two ranks stood steady.
‘Present your arms!’ A line of muskets was raised and levelled at the knots of dumbstruck seamen.
‘Fire!’ roared Schreuder.
The volley crashed out. From a distance of only fifty paces it swept through Hal’s men, and almost every shot told. Men dropped and staggered as the heavy lead pellets struck. The line of Englishmen reeled and wavered. There was a chorus of yells – of pain and anger and fear.
‘Charge!’ Hal cried. ‘Don’t stand and let them shoot you down!’ He lifted the Neptune sword high. ‘Come on, lads. Have at them!’
On each side of him Aboli and Daniel started forward, but most of the others hung back. It was dawning on them that the fight was lost, and many looked back towards the safety of the gun emplacements. That was a dangerous signal. Once they glanced over their shoulders it was all up.
‘Second rank,’ shouted Schreuder, ‘prepare to fire!’ Fifty more musketeers stepped forward, their weapons loaded and the matches burning. They walked through the gaps in the kneeling rank that had just fired, advanced another two paces in a brisk businesslike manner, then knelt.
‘Present your arms!’ Even Hal and the dauntless pair flanking him wavered as they gazed into the muzzles of fifty levelled muskets, while a moan of fear and horror went up from their men. They had never before faced such disciplined troops.
‘Fire!’ Schreuder dropped his sword, and the next volley slashed into the wavering seamen. Hal flinched as a ball passed his ear so closely that the wind
At his side Daniel gasped, ‘I am struck!’ jerked around like a marionette and sat down heavily. The volley had knocked over another dozen of the Resolution’s men and wounded as many more. Hal stooped to aid Daniel, but the big boatswain growled, ‘Don’t dither about here, you fool. Run! We’re beaten, and there’s another volley coming.’
As if to prove his words, Schreuder’s next orders rang out close at hand. ‘Third rank, present your arms!’
All around them the Resolution’s men who were still on their feet, broke and scattered in the face of the levelled muskets, running and staggering towards the gunpits.
‘Help me, Aboli,’ Hal shouted, and Aboli grabbed Daniel’s other arm. Between them they hauled him to his feet and started back towards the beach.
‘Fire!’ Schreuder shouted, and at that instant, not waiting for a word from each other, Hal and Aboli flung themselves flat to earth, pulling Daniel down with them. The gunsmoke and the shot of the third volley crashed over their heads. Immediately they sprang up again and, dragging Daniel, ran for the shelter of the pits.
‘Are you hit?’ Aboli grunted at Hal, who shook his head, saving his breath. Few of his seamen were still on their feet. Only a handful had reached the line of gunpits and jumped into their shelter.
Half carrying Daniel, they staggered on, while behind them there were jubilant cheers, and the green-clad musketeers surged forward, brandishing their weapons. The three reached the gunpit and pulled Daniel down into it.
There was no need to ask of his wound for the whole of his left side ran red with blood. Aboli jerked the cloth from around his head, wadded it into a ball and stuffed it hurriedly into the front of Daniel’s shirt.
‘Hold that on the wound,’ he told Daniel. ‘Press as hard as you can.’ He left him lying on the floor of the pit, and stood up beside Hal.
‘Oh, sweet Mary!’ Hal whispered. His sweat-streaked face was pale with horror and fury at what he beheld over the parapet. ‘Look at those bloody butchers!’
As the green-jackets came clamouring forward, they paused only to stab the wounded seamen who lay in their path. Some of their victims rolled on their backs and lifted their bare hands to try to ward off the thrust, others screamed for mercy and tried to crawl away but, laughing and hooting, the musketeers ran after them, thrusting and hacking. This bloody work was quickly done, with Schreuder bellowing at them to close up and keep advancing.
In this moment of respite Sir Francis came dodging down the line and jumped into the pit beside his son.
‘We are beaten, Father!’ Hal said, dispiritedly, and they looked around at their dead and wounded. ‘We have lost over half our men already.’
‘Hal is right,’ Aboli agreed. ‘It is over. We must try to get away.’
‘Where to?’ Sir Francis asked, with a grim smile. ‘That way?’ He pointed through the trees towards the lagoon, where they saw boats speeding in towards the beach, driven by the oars of enemy sailors eager to join the fight.
Both the frigate and the Gull had lowered their boats which were crowded with men. Their cutlasses were drawn and the smoke of their matchlocks blued the air, trailing out across the surface of the water. They were shouting and cheering as wildly as the green-jackets in front.
As the first boats touched the beach the armed men spilled out of them and raced across the narrow strip of white sand. Howling with savage zeal, they stormed at the line of gunpits in which the empty culverins gaped silently, and the Resolution’s remaining crew cowered bewildered.
‘We cannot hope for quarter, lads,’ Sir Francis shouted. ‘Look at what those bloodthirsty heathen do to those who try to yield to them.’ With his sword he indicated the corpses of the murdered men that littered the ground in front of the guns. ‘One more cheer for King Charley, and we’ll go down fighting!’
The voices of his tiny band were small and hoarse with exhaustion as they dragged themselves over the parapet once more and sallied out to meet the charge of two hundred fresh and eager musketeers. Aboli was a dozen paces ahead, and hacked at the first green-jacket in his path. His victim went down under the blow but Aboli’s blade snapped off at the hilt. He tossed it aside, stooped and picked up a pike from the dead hands of one of the fallen English seamen.
As Hal and Sir Francis ran up beside him, he hefted the long oak shaft and thrust at the belly of another musketeer who rushed at him with his sword held high. The pike-head caught him just under the ribs and transfixed him, standing out half an arm’s length between his shoulder blades. The man struggled like a fish on a gaff, and the heavy shaft snapped off in Aboli’s hands. He used the stub like a cudgel to strike down the third musketeer who rushed at him. Aboli looked around, grinning like a crazed gargoyle, his great eyes rolling in their sockets.
Sir Francis was engaged with a white Dutch sergeant, trading cut for thrust, their blades clanking and rasping against each other.
Hal killed a corporal with a single neat thrust into his throat, then glanced at Aboli. ‘The men from the boats will be on us in an instant.’ They could hear wild cries in their rear as the enemy seamen swept over the gunpits, dealing out short shrift to the few men hiding there. Hal and Aboli did not need to look back – they both knew it was over.
‘Farewell, old friend,’ Aboli panted. ‘They were good times. Would that they had lasted longer.’
Hal had no chance to reply, for at that moment a hoarse voice said in English, ‘Hal Courtney, you bold puppy, your luck has just this moment ended.’ Cornelius Schreuder pushed aside two of his own men and strode forward to face Hal.
‘You and me!’ he shouted and came in fast, leading with his right foot, taking the quick double paces of the master swordsman, recovering instantly from each of the swift series of thrusts with which he drove Hal backwards.
Hal was shocked anew at the power in those thrusts, and it taxed all his skill and strength to meet and parry them. The Toledo steel of his blade rang shrilly under the mighty blows and he felt despair as he realized that he could not hope to hold out against such magisterial force.
Schreuder’s eyes were blue, cold and merciless. He anticipated each of Hal’s moves, offering him a wall of glittering steel when once he attempted the riposte, beating his blade aside then coming on again remorselessly.
Close by, Sir Francis was absorbed in his own duel and had not seen Hal’s deadly predicament. Aboli had only the stump of the pike-shaft in his hand – no weapon with which to take on a man like Cornelius Schreuder. He saw Hal, his immature strength already spent by his earlier exertions, wilting visibly before the overwhelming force of these attacks.
Aboli knew by Schreuder’s expression when he judged his moment and gathered himself to make the kill. It was certain, inevitable, for Hal could never withstand the thunderbolt which was ready to loose itself upon him.
Aboli moved with the speed of a striking black cobra, faster even than Schreuder could send home his final thrust. He darted up behind Hal, and lifted the oak club. He struck Hal down with a crack over his ear, rapping him sharply across the temple.
Schreuder was amazed to have his victim drop to the ground, senseless, just as he was about to launch the death thrust. While he hesitated Aboli dropped the shattered pike-shaft and stood protectively over Hal’s inert body.
‘You cannot kill a fallen man, Colonel. Not on the honour of a Dutch officer.’
‘You black Satan!’ Schreuder roared with frustration. ‘If I can’t kill the puppy, at least I can kill you.’
Aboli showed him his empty hands, holding up his pale palms before Schreuder’s eyes. ‘I am unarmed,’ he said softly.
‘I would spare an unarmed Christian.’ Schreuder glared. ‘But you are a godless animal.’ He drew back his blade and aimed the point at the centre of Aboli’s chest, where the muscles glistened with sweat in the sunlight. Sir Francis Courtney stepped lightly in front of him, ignoring the colonel’s blade.
‘On the other han
Schreuder glared at him, speechless with fury and frustration. He made no move to accept Sir Francis’s sword, but placed the point of his weapon on the other man’s throat and pricked him lightly. ‘Stand aside, or by God I’ll cut you down, Christian or heathen.’ The knuckles of his right hand turned white on the hilt of his weapon as he prepared himself to make good the threat.
Another hail made him hesitate. ‘Come now, Colonel, I am loath to interfere in a matter of honour. If you murder the brother of my bosom, Franky Courtney, then who will lead us to the treasure from your fine galleon the Standvastigheid?’
Schreuder’s gaze flicked to the face of Cumbrae as he came striding up to them, the great blood-streaked claymore in his hand.
‘The cargo?’ Schreuder demanded. ‘We have captured this pirate’s nest. We will find the treasure is here.’
‘Now don’t you be so certain of that.’ The Buzzard waggled his bushy red beard sadly. ‘If I know my dear brother in Christ, Franky, he’ll have squirrelled the best part of it away somewhere.’ His eye glinted greedily from under his bonnet. ‘No, Colonel, you are going to have to keep him alive, at least until we have been able to recompense ourselves with a handful of silver rix-dollars for doing God’s work this day.’
When Hal recovered consciousness, he found his father kneeling over him. He whispered, ‘What happened, Father? Did we win?’ His father shook his head, without looking into his eyes, and made a fuss of wiping the sweat and soot from his son’s face with a strip of grubby cloth torn from the hem of his own shirt.
‘No, Hal. We did not win.’ Hal looked beyond him, and it all came back. He saw that a pitiful few of the Resolution’s crew had survived. They were huddled together around where Hal lay, guarded by green-jackets with loaded muskets. The rest were scattered where they had fallen in front of the gunpits, or were draped in death upon the parapets.