Birds of Prey by Wilbur Smith
Just as darkness began to fall a longboat pulled away from the side of the Golden Bough and headed in towards the beach.
‘That’s Sam Bowles in the stern,’ Hal said, and his voice was filled with loathing.
‘Captain Bowles now, if what Jiri tells me is true,’ Aboli corrected him.
‘It is almost time to move,’ Hal said, as the shapes of the anchored ships began to merge with the dark mass of the forest behind them. ‘You know what to do, and God go with you, Aboli.’ Hal gripped his arm briefly.
‘And with you also, Gundwane.’ Aboli rose to his feet and went down into the water. He made no noise as he swam across the channel, but he left a faint phosphorescent trail on the dark surface.
Hal found his way back through the bush to where the others waited by the ungainly shapes of the two fireships. He made them sit in a tight circle around him while he spoke to them softly. At the end he made each repeat his instructions, and corrected them when they erred.
‘Now nothing remains but to wait until Aboli has done his work.’
Aboli reached the mainland and left the water quickly. He moved quietly through the forest, and the warm breeze had dried his body before he reached the cave of the paintings. He squatted beside the powder kegs and made his preparations as Hal had instructed him.
He cut two fuses from the slow-match. One was only a fathom in length, but the second was a coil thirty feet long. The time delay was an imprecise calculation and the first might burn for ten minutes, but the second for almost thrice as long.
He worked swiftly, and when both kegs were ready he tied the bundle of three cutlasses on his back, swung a powder keg up onto each shoulder and crept out of the cave. He remembered that the previous night when he had visited the hut in which Jiri and the other slaves were being held, he had observed that the Buzzard’s men had become careless. The uneventful months they had been camped here had lulled them into a complacent mood. The sentries were no longer vigilant. Still he was not relying on their sloth.
Stealthily he moved closer to the camp, until he could clearly make out the features of the men sitting around the cooking fires. He recognized many, but there was no sign of either Cumbrae or Sam Bowles. He set up the first keg in a patch of scrub on the perimeter of the camp, as close as he dared approach, and then, without lighting the fuse, moved away until he reached one of the trenches where the Buzzard’s men had been digging for treasure.
He placed the keg with the longest fuse on the lip of the trench and covered it with sand and debris from the excavation. Then he paid out the coiled fuse and took the end of it down into the trench. He crouched there and shielded the flint and steel with his body so the flare of sparks would not alert the men in the camp as he lit the slow-match. When it was glowing evenly he lit the fuse from it and watched it for a minute to make certain that it was also burning well. Then he climbed out of the trench and moved swiftly and silently back to the first keg. From the slow match in his hand he lit the shorter fuse.
‘The first explosion will bring them running,’ Hal had explained. ‘Then the second keg will go off in their faces.’
Still carrying the bundle of cutlasses, Aboli moved away swiftly. There was always the danger that the flame of one of the fuses might jump ahead and set off the keg prematurely. Once he was clear, and moving with more caution, he found the path that ran down towards the beach. Twice he was forced to leave the path as other figures came towards him out of the darkness. Once he was not quick enough but he brazened it out, exchanging a gruff ‘Good night!’ with the pirate who brushed past him.
He picked out the mud hut against the glow of the campfires and crept up to the back wall. Jiri responded immediately to his whisper. ‘We are ready, brother.’ His tone was crisp and fierce, no longer the cringing whine of the slave.
Aboli laid down the bundle of weapons and, with his own cutlass, severed the twine that held them. ‘Here!’ he whispered, and Jiri’s hand came out through the crack in the mud wall. Aboli passed the cutlasses through to him.
‘Wait until the first keg blows,’ he told him, through the hole in the wall.
‘I hear you, Aboli.’
Aboli crept to the corner of the hut and glanced round it. The guard sat in his usual position in front of the door. Tonight he was awake, smoking a long-stemmed clay pipe. Aboli saw the burning tobacco glow in the bowl as he drew upon it. He squatted behind the corner of the wall and waited.
The time passed so slowly that he began to fear that the fuse on the first keg had been faulty and had burned out before reaching it. He decided that he would have to go back to check it, but as he began to rise to his feet the blast swept through the camp.
It tore branches from the trees and sent clouds of burning ash and sparks swirling from campfires. It struck the mud hut, knocking down half the front wall and ripping the thatch from the roof. It hit the guard by the front door and hurled him over backwards. He floundered about on his back, trying to sit up, but his big belly made him ungainly. While he struggled Aboli stood over him, placed one foot on his chest, pinning him to the earth, swung the cutlass and felt the hilt jar in his hand as the edge hacked into the man’s neck. His whole body spasmed and then lay still. Aboli leaped away from him and grabbed the rope handle of the rough-hewn door to the hut. As he heaved at it the three men inside hurled their combined weight upon it from the far side, and it burst open.
‘This way, brethren.’ Aboli led them down towards the beach.
The camp was in uproar. The darkness was full of men blundering about, swearing, shouting orders and alarms.
‘To arms! We are attacked.’
‘Stand to here,’ they heard the Buzzard roar. ‘Have at them, lads!’
‘Petey! Where are you, me darling boy?’ a wounded man screamed for his shipwife. ‘I am killed. Come to me, Petey.’
Burning brands from the campfires had been carried into the scrub and the flames were taking hold in the forest. They gave the scene a hellish illumination, and men’s shadows made monsters of them as they rushed about, startling each other. Someone fired a musket, and immediately there was a wild fusillade as panic-stricken sailors fired at shadows and at one another. More screams and cries as the flying musket balls took their toll among the scurrying figures.
‘The bastards are in the forest behind us!’ It was the Buzzard’s voice again. ‘This way, my brave boys!’ He was rallying them, and men came rushing up from the beach to join the defence. They ran full into the musket fire of their nervous fellows among the trees and fired back at them.
When Aboli reached the beach he found longboats drawn up, abandoned by their crews who had rushed away to answer the Buzzard’s call to arms.
‘Where do they keep their tools?’ Aboli snapped at Jiri.
‘There is a store over there.’ Jiri led him to it at a run. The spades, axes and iron bars were stacked under an open lean-to shed. Aboli sheathed his cutlass and seized a heavy iron bar. The other three followed his example, then ran back to the beach, and fell upon the boats lying there.
With a few hefty blows they knocked in their bottom timbers, leaving only one unscathed.
‘Come on! Waste no more time!’ Aboli urged, and they threw down the tools and ran to the single undamaged boat. They thrust it out into the lagoon and tumbled aboard, grabbed an oar each and began to pull for the dark shape of the frigate, which was now emerging from the darkness as the flames of the burning forest lit her.
While they were still only a few oar strokes off the beach a mob of pirates poured out from the grove.
‘Stop! Come back!’ one shouted.
‘It’s those black apes. They’re stealing one of the boats.’
‘Don’t let them get away!’ A musket banged and a ball hummed over the heads of the men at the oars. They ducked and rowed the harder, putting all their weight into their strokes. Now all the pirates were firing and balls kicked spray off the water close at hand, or thumped into the timbers of the longboat.
Some of the pirates ran to the boats at the water’s edge and swarmed into them. They pushed off in pursuit, but almost immediately there were howls of dismay as the water poured in through the shattered floorboards and the boats swamped and overturned. Few could swim, and the yells of rage turned to piteous cries for help as they splashed and floundered in the dark water.
At that moment the second explosion swept through the camp. It did even more damage than the first for, in response to his bellowed orders, the Buzzard’s men were charging straight into the blast when it struck them.
‘There’s something to keep them busy for a while,’ Aboli grunted. ‘Pull for the frigate, lads, and leave the Buzzard to his kinsman the devil.’
Hal had not waited for the first explosion to shatter the night before he launched the fireship. With all the men in the party helping, they dragged the hull down the beach. Relieved of her cargo, she was a great deal lighter to handle. They piled into her the bundles of cutlasses and the chest filled with loaded pistols.
They left Sabah to hold her and ran back to fetch the second vessel. The women ran beside them as they dragged it down to the water’s edge and scrambled on board. Big Daniel carried little Bobby and handed him to Zwaantie when she was safely seated on the floorboards. Hal lifted Sukeena in and placed her gently in the stern sheets. He gave her one last kiss.
‘Keep out of danger until we have secured the ship. Listen to Ned. He knows what to do.’
He left her and ran back to take command of the first boat. Big Daniel and the two birds, Sparrow and Finch, were with him, as were Althuda and Sabah. They would need every fighting man on the deck of the frigate if they were to take her.
They pushed the boat out into the channel and as their feet lost the bottom they began to swim and steered her for the anchored frigate. The tide was at high slack: soon it would turn and give them its help as they ran the frigate for the deep channel between the heads.
But first we have to make her ours! Hal told himself as he kicked out strongly, clinging to the gunwale.
A cable’s length from the Golden Bough Hal whispered, ‘Avast, lads. We don’t want to arrive before we’re welcome.’ They hung in the water as the boat drifted aimlessly in the slack of the tide.
The night was quiet, so quiet that they could hear the voices of the men on the beach and the tap and clatter of the frigate’s rigging as she snubbed her anchor and her bare masts rolled, almost imperceptibly, against the blaze of the stars.
‘Maybe Aboli has run into trouble,’ Big Daniel muttered at last. ‘We might have to board her without any diversion.’
‘Wait!’ Hal replied. ‘Aboli will never let us down.’
They hung in the water, their nerves stretched to breaking point. Then came the sound of a soft splash behind them, and Hal turned his head. The shape of the second boat crept towards them from the island.
‘Ned is overeager,’ Big Daniel said.
‘He’s only following my orders, but he must not get ahead of us.’
‘How can we stop him?’
‘I will swim across to speak to him,’ Hal answered, and let go his hold on the gunwale. He struck out towards the other boat in a silent breaststroke that did not break the surface. Close alongside he trod water and called softly, ‘Ned!’
‘Aye, Captain!’ Ned answered as softly.
‘There is some delay. Wait here and do not get ahead of us. Wait until you hear the first explosion. Then take her in and latch on to the frigate’s anchor cable.’
‘Aye, Captain,’ Ned replied, and looking up at the black hull Hal saw a head peering down at him over the side. The starlight glowed on Sukeena’s honey-gold skin, and he knew he must not speak to her again or swim closer lest his concern for her affect his judgement – lest his love for her quench the fighting fire in his blood. He turned and swam back towards the other boat.
As he reached its side and lifted his hand to grip the gunwale, the quiet night was shattered by thunder and the echoes that burst against the hills swept over the lagoon. From the dark grove, flames shot up into the night sky and, for a brief moment, lit the scene like dawn. In that illumination Hal saw every sheet and spar of the frigate’s rigging, but there was no sign of an anchor watch or other human presence aboard her.
‘All together now, lads,’ Hal said, and they struck out again with new heart. It took them only minutes to close the gap. But in that time the night was transformed. They could hear the shouting and musket fire from the beach and the flames of the burning forest danced and glimmered on the surface around them. Hal was afraid that they might be lit brightly enough to be spotted by a vigilant sentry on the frigate’s deck.
With relief they swam the awkward craft into the shadow cast by the frigate’s tall hull. He glanced back and saw Ned Tyler bringing the other boat close behind them. As Hal watched they reached the frigate’s drooping anchor line and he saw Sukeena stand up in the bows and take hold of the cable. He felt a lift of relief. His orders to Ned were to keep the women safely out of the way until they had control of the frigate’s deck.
He saw with satisfaction that a skiff was moored alongside the Golden Bough, a rope ladder dangling into her from the deck above. Even more fortunately, it was empty, and no heads showed above the frigate’s rail. However, he could hear a babble of voices above. The crew must be lining the frigate’s far rail facing the beach, staring across in alarm and consternation at the flames, watching the running figures and the flashes of musket fire in bewilderment.
They pushed the fireship the last few feet and bumped softly against the side of the empty skiff. Immediately Hal hauled himself out of the water over her side, leaving the others to secure her, and swarmed up the rope ladder to the deck.
As he had hoped, the skeleton crew of the frigate were all watching the disturbance, but he was dismayed at their numbers. There must be fifty of them at least. However, they were absorbed in what was happening ashore, and as Hal gathered himself to climb out onto the deck there was another mighty detonation from out of the forest.
‘By God, will you no’ look at that?’ one of Sam Bowles’s pirates shouted.
‘There’s a bloody great battle going on out there.’
‘Our shipmates are in trouble. They need our help.’
‘I owe no favours to any of them. They’ll get no help from me.’
‘Shamus is right. Let the Buzzard fight his own battles.’
Hal swung himself onto the deck and, with half a dozen quick steps, he had reached the shelter of the break in the forecastle. He crouched there and surveyed the deck. Jiri had told Aboli they were holding the frigate’s loyal crew in the main hold. But the hatch was in full view of Sam Bowles’s men at the far rail.
He glanced back, and saw Big Daniel’s head appear at the entryport. He could not delay. He jumped up, ran out to the main hatch coaming and dropped on his knees behind it. There was a mallet lying beside the hatch, but he dared not use it to hammer out the wedges. The pirates would hear him and be upon him in an instant.
He knocked softly on the timbers with the hilt of his cutlass and spoke in a quiet voice. ‘Ahoy there, Golden Bough. Do you hear me?’
A muffled voice from beneath the hatch cover answered immediately, in a lilting Celtic accent. ‘We hear you. Who are you?’
‘An honest Englishman, come to set you free. Will you fight with us against the Buzzard?’
‘God love you, honest Englishman! We beg you for a taste of his mongrel blood.’
Hal glanced round. Big Daniel had brought up a bundle of cutlasses, and both Wally Finch and Stan Sparrow carried others. Althuda had the chest of loaded pistols. He lowered it to the deck and opened the lid. At first glance the weapons within seemed dry and ready to fire.
‘We have weapons for you,’ Hal whispered to the man under the hatch. ‘Lend a hand to throw back the hatch when I knock out the wedges, then come out fighting like terriers but call your ship’s name, so we will know you and you us.’
He nodded to Daniel and hefted the heavy mallet. Big Daniel seized the lip of the hatch and put all his weight under it. Hal swung the mallet, and with a resounding crack the first wedge flew across the deck. He leaped across the hatch and with another two more full-blooded swings of the mallet sent the remaining wedges clattering to the deck. With Big Daniel straining above and the trapped crew of the Golden Bough heaving underneath the coaming cover flew back with a crash and the prisoners came boiling out like angry wasps.
At this sudden uproar behind them, Sam Bowles’s men turned and gaped. It took them a long moment to realize that they had been boarded and that their prisoners were free. But by that time Hal and Daniel faced them across the firelit deck, cutlass in hand.
Behind them Althuda was striking sparks from flint and steel as he hurried to light the slow-match on the locks of the pistols, and Wally and Stan were tossing cutlasses to the liberated seamen as they stormed out of the hold.
With a wild shout a pack of pirates led by Sam Bowles charged across the deck. They were twenty against two, and their first rush drove Daniel and Hal back, steel ringing and rasping against steel as they gave ground slowly. But the pair held them long enough for the seamen of the Golden Bough to dash into the fight.
Within minutes the deck was thronged with struggling men, and they were so mingled that only their shouted war-cries identified foe from new-made friend.
‘Cochran of Cumbrae!’ Sam Bowles howled, and Hal’s men roared back, ‘Sir Hal and the Golden Bough!’
The frigate’s freed sailors were mad for vengeance – not merely for their own imprisonment but for the massacre of their officers and the drowning of their wounded mates. Hal and his men had a thousand better reasons for their rage, and they had waited infinitely longer to pay off this score.
Sam Bowles’s crew were cornered animals. They knew they could expect no help from their fellows on the shore. Nor would they receive mercy or quarter from the avengers who confronted them.