Текст книги "Birds of Prey"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

"Oh! You son of a pig, you have hurt me." But Hal took no heed of her complaint, and sprang to his feet. Naked, he rushed to the entrance of the cave and stared out. The entrance was situated high enough to enable him to see over the tops of the forest trees surrounding the lagoon. The bare masts of the Resolution towered into the blue noon sky. The air was filled with seabirds the thunderous sound had startled them from the surface of the water and the sunlight sparkled on their wings so that circling high overhead they seemed to be creatures of ice and crystal.

A softly rolling bank of mist obscured half the lagoon. It blanketed the rocky cliffs of the heads in silvery-blue billows that were suddenly shot through with strange flickering lights. But this was not mist.

The thunder broke again, reaching Hal long after the flare of lights, the distant sound taking time to reach his ears. The swirling clouds thickened, spilling densely and heavily as oil across the lagoon waters. Above this cloud bank, the tall masts and sails of two great ships floated as though suspended above the waters. He stared at them, stupefied, as they sailed in serenely between the heads. Another broadside broke from the leading ship. He saw at once that she was a frigate, her black hull trimmed with white, her gun ports gaping and the fire and smoke boiling out of her. High above the smoke banks the tricolour of the Dutch Republic rippled in the light noon breeze. In line behind her the Gull of Moray followed daintily, the colours of St. George and St. Andrew and the great red cross of the Temple bedecking her masts and rigging, her culver ins bellowing out their warlike chorus.

"Merciful God! Hal cried. "Why do not the batteries at the entrance return their fire?"

Then with his naked eye he saw strange soldiers in green uniform overrunning the gun emplacements at the foot of the cliffs, their swords and the steel heads of their pikes flashing in the sunlight as they slaughtered the gunners, and flung their bodies over the parapets into the sea below.

"They have surprised our men in the forts. The Buzzard has led the Dutch to us, and shown them where our guns are placed." His voice trembled with outrage. "He will pay with his blood for this day, I swear it."

Katinka sprang up from the grass mattress and ran to the entrance beside him. "Look! It is a Dutch ship, come to rescue me from the den of your foul pirate father. I give thanks to God! Soon I will be away from this forsaken place and safe at Good Hope." She danced with excitement. "When they hang you and your father from the gibbet on the parade outside the fort, I shall be there to blow you one last kiss and to wave you farewell." She laughed mockingly.

Hal ignored her. He ran back into the cave, pulled on his clothing hastily and belted on the Neptune sword. There will be fighting and great danger, but you will be safe if you stay here until it is over," he told her, and started down.

"You cannot leave me alone here!" she screamed after him. "Come back here, I command you!"

But he took no notice of her pleas and raced down the footpath through the trees. I should never have allowed her to tempt me from my father's side, he lamented silently as he ran. He warned me of the danger of the red comet. I deserve whatever cruel fate awaits me now.

He was in such distress that he was oblivious to all but the need to take up his neglected duties and almost ran full tilt into the lines of skirmishing soldiers moving through the trees ahead of him. just in time, he smelt the smoke of their burning match and then picked out their green doublets and the white cross belts as they wove their way through the trees of the forest. He flung himself to the ground and rolled behind the trunk of a tall wild fig tree. He peered out from behind it, and saw that the strange green-clad ranks were moving away from him, advancing on the encampment, pikes and muskets at the ready, keeping good order under the direction of a white officer.

Hal heard the officer call softly in Dutch, "Keep your spacing. Do not bunch up!" There could be no doubt now whose troops these were.

The Dutchman's back was still turned, and Hal had a moment's respite to think. I must reach the camp to warn my father, but there is not enough time to find a way round. I will have to fight my way through the enemy ranks. He drew the sword from its scabbard and rose on one knee, then paused as a thought struck him with force. We are outnumbered on land and on the water. This time there are no fireships to drive off the Buzzard and the Dutch frigate. The battle may go hard for us.

Using the point of his sword, he scratched a hole in the soft, loamy soil at the base of the wild fig. Then he slipped the ring from his finger and the locket with the miniature of his mother from his pocket and dropped them into the hole. After that he lifted the seal of the Nautonnier from his neck and laid it on top of his other treasures. He swept the loose soil back over them, and tamped it down with the flat of his hand.

It had taken him only a minute but when he started to his feet the Dutch officer had disappeared into the forest ahead. Hal crept forward, guided to his quarry by the rustle and crackle of the undergrowth. Without their officers these men will not fight so well, he thought. If I can take this one I will quench some of the fire in their bellies. He slowed as he drew closer to the man he was stalking, and came up behind the Dutchman as he pushed his way through the undergrowth, the noise of his progress masking the fainter sounds of Hal's approach.

The Dutchman was sweating in dark wet patches down the back of his serge coat. By his epaulettes Hal realized that he was a lieutenant in the Company's army. He was thin and lanky, with angry red pustules studding the back of his scrawny neck. He carried his bared sword in his right hand. He had not bathed for many days and smelt like a wild boar.

"On guard, Mij nheer!" Hal challenged him in Dutch, for he could not run him through the back. The lieutenant spun round to face him, lifting his blade into the guard.

His eyes were pale blue, and they flew wide with shock and fright as he found Hal so close behind him. He was not much older than Hal, and his face blanched with terror, emphasizing the rash of purple acne that covered his chin.

Hal thrust and their blades rasped as they crossed. He recovered swiftly, but with that first light touch he had assessed his adversary.

The Dutchman was slow and his wrist lacked the snap and power of a practised swordsman. His father's words rang in his ears. "Fight from the first stroke. Do not wait until you are angry." And he gave his heart over to a cold, murderous rage to kill. "Ha!" he grunted, and feinted high, aiming the point at the Dutch, mans eyes but balanced for his parry. The lieutenant was slow to counter, and Hal knew he could risk the flying attack that Daniel had taught him against such a foe. He could go for the quick kill.

His wrist tempered to steel by hours with Aboli on the practice deck, he caught up the Dutchman's blade, and whirled it with a stirring motion that threw the point off the line of defence. He had created an opening, but to exploit it with the flying attack he must open his own guard and place himself in full jeopardy of the Dutchman's natural riposte suicide in the face of a skilled opponent.

He committed himself, throwing his weight forward over his left foot, and sped his point in through the other man's guard. The riposte came too late, and Hal's steel spiked through the sweat-stained serge cloth. It glanced off a rib and then found the gap between them. Despite the days he had spent with a sword in his hand this was Hal's first kill with the cold steel, and he was unprepared for the sensation of his blade running through human flesh.

It was a soggy, dead feeling, which smothered the speed of his thrust. Lieutenant Maatzuyker gasped and dropped his own sword as Hal's point stopped at last against his spine. He clutched at Hal's razor-sharp blade with bare hands. It slashed his palms to the bone, severing the sinews in a quick flush of bright blood. His fingers opened nervelessly, and he sank to his knees staring up into Hal's face with watery blue eyes, as though he were about to burst into tears.

Hal stood over him, and tugged at the sapphire pommel of the Neptune sword, but the Toledo blade clung fast in the wet flesh. Maatzuyker gasped in agony and held up his mutilated hands in appeal.

"I am sorry," Hal whispered in horror, and heaved again on his sword hilt. This time Maatzuyker opened his mouth wide and whimpered. The blade had passed through his right lung, and a sudden gout of blood burst through his pale lips, poured down his coat front and splashed Hal's boots.

"Oh God!" Hal muttered, as Maatzuyker toppled backwards with the blade between his ribs. For a moment, he stood helplessly, watching the other man choke on and drown in his own blood. Then, close behind him, came a wild shout from the bushes.

A green-jacketed soldier had spotted him. A musket boomed, the pellets rattled into the foliage above Hal's head and -sang off the tree trunk beside him. He was galvanized. All along he had known what he must do but, until that moment, he had not been able to bring himself to do it. Now he placed his booted heel firmly on Maatzuyker's heaving chest and leaned back against the resistance of the trapped blade. He tugged once and then again with all his weight behind it. Reluctantly the blade slid out until suddenly it came free and Hal reeled backwards.

Instantly he recovered his balance and leapt over Maatzuyker's body just as another musket shot crashed out and the pellets hissed past his head. The soldier who had fired was fumbling with his powder flask as he tried to reload and Hal ran straight at him. The musketeer looked up in fright, then dropped his empty weapon and turned his back to run.

Hal would not use the point again but slashed at the man's neck, just below his ear. The razor edge cut to the bone, and the side of his neck opened like a grinning red mouth. The man dropped without a sound. But all around him the bushes were alive with green-jacketed figures. Hal realized there must be hundreds of them. This was not a raiding party but a small army attacking the encampment.

He heard shouts of alarm and anger, and now a constant barrage of musket fire, much of it wild and undirected, but some slashing into the undergrowth close on either side of him as he ran with all his speed and strength. In the midst of the uproar Hal recognized, by its power and authority, one stentorian voice.

"Get that man!" it bellowed in Dutch. "Don't let him get away! I want that one." Hal glanced in the direction from which it was coming, and almost tripped with the shock of seeing Cornelius Schreuder racing through the trees to head him off. His Hat and wig flew from his head, but the ribbons and sash of his rank were gold. His shaven head gleamed like an eggshell. His moustaches were scored heavily across his face. For such a big man, he was fast on his feet, but fear made Hal faster.

"I want you!" Schreuder yelled. "This time you will not get away."

Hal put on a burst of speed and, within thirty flying paces, had forged ahead to see the stockade of the encampment through the trees. It was deserted and he realized that his father and every other man would have been decoyed away to the lagoon's edge by the heavy fire of the two warships, and that they must be manning the culver ins in the emplacements.

"To arms!" he screamed as he ran, with Schreuder pounding along only ten paces behind him. "Rally to me, the Resolution, In your rear!" As he burst into camp he saw, with huge relief, Big Daniel and a dozen seamen responding to his call, rushing back from the beach to support him. Immediately Hal rounded on the Dutchman.

"Come, then," he said, and went on guard. But Schreuder came up short as he saw the Resolution's men bearing down on him and realized that he had outrun his own troops, had left them without a leader, and was now outnumbered twelve to one.

"Again you are lucky, puppy," he snarled at Hal. "But before this day ends, you and I will speak again."

Thirty paces behind Hal, Big Daniel pulled up short and lifted the musket he carried. He aimed at Schreuder but, as the lock snapped, the Colonel ducked and spun on his heels, the shot went wide and he bounded back into the forest, shouting to rally his attacking musketeers as they came swarming forward through the trees.

"Master Daniel," Hal panted, "the Dutchman leads a strong force. The forest is full of men."

"How many?"

"A hundred or more. There!" He pointed as the first of the attackers came running and dodging towards them, stopping to fire and reload their muskets, then running forward again.

"What's worse, there are two warships in the bay," Daniel told him. "One is the Gull but the other is a Dutch frigate." "I saw them from the hill." Hal had recovered his breath.

"We are outgunned in front and outnumbered in the rear. We cannot stand here. They will be on us in a minute. Back to the beach."

The coloured troops behind them clamoured like a pack of hounds as Hal turned and led his men back at a run. Ball and shot thrummed and whistled around them, kicking up spurts of damp earth at their heels, speeding them on their way.

Through the trees he could see the piled earth of the gun emplacements and the drifting bank of gunsmoke. He could make out the heads of his own gunners as they reloaded the culver ins Out in the lagoon the stately Dutch frigate bore down on the shore, wreathed in her own powder smoke. As Hal watched, she put her helm over, bringing her broadside to bear, and again her gun ports bloomed with great flashes of flame. Seconds later the thunder of the cannonade and the blast of howling grape shot swept over them.

Hal flinched in the turmoil of disrupted air, his eardrums singing. Whole trees crashed down, and branches and leaves rained upon them. Directly in front of him he saw one of the culver ins hit squarely, and hurled off its train. The bodies of two of the Resolution's sailors were sent spinning high into the air.

"Father, where are you?" Hal tried to make himself heard in the pandemonium but then, through it all, he heard Sir Francis's voice.

"Stand to your guns, lads. Aim at the Dutchmen's ports. Give those cheese-heads out there some of our good English cheer."

Hal leapt down into the gun pit beside his father, seized his arm and shook it urgently.

"Where have you been, boy?" Sir Francis glanced at him, but when he saw the blood on his clothing he did not wait for an answer. Instead he grunted, "Take command of the guns on the left flank. Direct your fire, -" Hal interrupted, in a breathless rush, "The enemy ships are only creating a diversion, Father. The real danger is in our rear. The forest is full of Dutch soldiers, hundreds of them." He pointed back with his blood-stained blade. "They'll be on us in a minute."

Sir Francis did not hesitate. "Go down the line of guns. Order every second culverin to be swung round and loaded with grape. The front guns continue to engage the ships, but hold your fire with the back guns until the attack in our rear is point-blank. I will give the order to fire. Now, go!" As Hal scrambled out of the pit, Sir Francis turned to Big Daniel. "Take these men of yours, and any other loafers you can find, go back and slow the enemy advance in our rear. Hal raced down the line, pausing beside each gun pit to shout his orders and then running on. The sound of the barrage and the answering fire from the beach was deafening and confusing. He reeled and almost went sprawling to the ground as another broadside from the black frigate swept over him like the devil-winds of a typhoon, smashing through the forest and ploughing the earth around him. He shook his head to clear it and ran on, hurdling a fallen tree-trunk.

As he passed each emplacement and alerted the gunners, they began to train the culver ins around, aiming them back-into the forest. Back there they could already hear musket fire and angry shouts as Big Daniel and his small band of seamen charged into the advancing hordes that poured from the forest.

Hal reached the gun pit at the end of the line and jumped down beside Aboli, who was captaining the team of gunners there. Aboli thrust his burning match into the touch hole. The culverin leapt and thundered. As the stinking smoke swirled back over them, Aboli grinned at Hal, his dark face stained even darker with soot and his eyes bloodshot with smoke. "Ah! I thought you might never pull your root out of the sugar field in time to join the fight. I feared I might have to come up to the cave, and prise you loose with an iron bar."

"You will grin less happily with a musket ball in your tail feathers," Hal told him grimly. "We are surrounded. The woods behind us are full of Dutchmen. Daniel is holding them, but not for much longer. There are hundreds of them. Train this piece around and load with grape." While they reloaded, Hal went on giving his orders. "We'll have time for only one shot, then we'll charge them in the smoke," he said as he tamped down the charge with the long ramrod. As he pulled it out, a sailor lifted the heavy canvas bag filled with lead shot, and forced it down the muzzle. Hal drove it down to sit upon the powder charge. Then they ducked behind the parapet on both sides of the gun, keeping clear of the area where the train would recoil, and stared past the stockade into the forest beyond. They could hear the ring of steel on steel and the wild shouts as Daniel's men charged then fell back before the counter charge of the green-jackets. Musket fire hammered steadily as Schreuder's men reloaded and ran forward to fire again.

Now they caught glimpses through the trees of their own seamen coming back. Daniel towered above the others. he was carrying a wounded man over one shoulder and swinging a cutlass in his other hand.

The green-jackets were pressing him and his party hard.

"Ready now!" Hal grated at the seamen around him, and they crouched below the parapet and fingered their pikes and cutlasses. "Aboli, don't fire until Daniel is out of the line."

Suddenly Daniel threw down his burden, and turned back. He raced into the thick of the enemy, and scattered them with a great swipes of his cutlass. Then he ran to the wounded seaman, slung him over his shoulder and came on again towards where Hal crouched.

Hal glanced down the line of gun pits Although the forward-pointing cannon were still banging away at the ships in the lagoon, every second culverin was directed into the forest, waiting for the moment to loose a storm of shot into the lines of attacking infantry.

"At such short range the shot will not spread, and they are keeping their spaces," Aboli muttered.

"Schreuder has them well under control," Hal agreed grimly. "We can't hope to bring too many down with a single volley."

"Schreuder!" Aboli's eyes narrowed. "You did not tell me it was him."

"There he is!" Hal pointed at the tall wig less figure striding towards them through the trees. His sash glittered and his moustache bristled as he urged his musketeers forward.

Aboli grunted, "That one is the devil. We'll have trouble from him." He thrust an iron bar under the culverin and turned it round a few degrees, trying to bring the sights to bear on the colonel.

"Stand still," he urged, "for just long enough to give me a shot."

But Schreuder was moving up and down the ranks of his men, waving them on. He was so close now that his voice carried to Hal as he snapped at his men, "Keep your line! Keep the advance going. Steady now, hold your fire!" His control over them was apparent in the determined but measured advance. They must have been aware of the line of waiting guns, but they came forward without wavering, holding their fire, not wasting the one fair shot they carried in their muskets.

They were close enough for Hal to make out their individual features. He knew that the Company recruited most of its troops in its eastern colonies, and this was apparent in the Asiatic faces of many of the advancing soldiers. Their eyes were dark and almond-shaped and their skins a deep amber.

Suddenly Hal realized that the broadsides from the two warships had ceased and snatched a glance over his shoulder. He saw that both the black frigate and the Gull had anchored a cable's length or so off the beach. Their guns were silent, and Hal realized that Cumbrae and the frigate captain must have arranged with Schreuder a code of signals. They had ceased firing for fear of hitting their own men.

That gives us a breathing space, he thought, and looked ahead again.

He saw that Daniel's band was much depleted. they had lost half their number, and the survivors were clearly exhausted by their foray and the fierce skirmishing. Their gait was erratic many could barely drag themselves along. Their shirts were sodden with sweat and the blood from their wounds. One at a time they stumbled up and flopped over the parapet to lie panting in the bottom of the pit.

Daniel alone was indefatigable. He passed the wounded man over the parapet to the gunners and, so murderous was his mood, would have turned back and rushed at the enemy once more had not Hal stopped him. "Get back here, you great ox! Let us soften them up with a little grape shot. Then you can have at them again."

Aboli was still trying to line up the barrel on Schreuder's elusive shape. "He is worth fifty of the others," he muttered to himself, in his own language. Hal, though, was no longer paying him any heed, but trying anxiously to catch a glimpse of his father in the furthest emplacement, and take a lead from him.

"By God, he's letting them get too close!" he fretted. "A longer shot would give the grape a chance to spread, but I'll not open fire before he gives the order."

Then he heard Schreuder's voice again. "Front rank! Prepare to fire!" Fifty men dropped obediently to their knees, right in front of the parapet, and grounded the butts of their muskets.

"Ready now, men!" Hal called softly to the sailors crowded around him. He had realized why his father had delayed the salvo of culverin until this moment. he had been waiting for the attackers to discharge their muskets, and then he would have them at a fleeting disadvantage as they tried to reload.

"Steady now!" Hal repeated. "Wait for their volley!" "Present your arms!" Schreuder's command rang out in the sudden silence. "Take your aimV 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 gun pits 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 gun pits 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 gun pits "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 attack. 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.