Текст книги "Birds of Prey"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Now Hal could hear the voices of Schreuder's men. They were closer than they had been when last they had stopped. They sounded as though they were just round the corner of the buttress behind them. Hal looked at Aboli with dismay, and tried to balance on his good leg to conceal the weakness of the other. They could hear the clink of sword on rock and the clatter of loose stones underfoot. The soldiers" voices were so clear and loud that Hal could distinguish their words, and Schreuder's voice relentlessly urging his troops onwards.

"Now you will obey me, Gundwane!"said Aboli, and he leaned across and snatched Hal's musket. "You will go on at your best speed while I hold them here for a while." Hal was about to argue but Aboli looked hard into his eyes. "The longer you argue– the more danger you place me in," he said.

Hal nodded. "See you at the top of the gorge." He clasped Aboli's arm in a firm grip, then hobbled on alone. As the path turned into the main gorge, Hal looked back and saw that Aboli had taken shelter crouching in the bend of the path, and that he had laid the two muskets on the rock in front of him, close to his hand.

Hal turned the corner, looked up and saw the gorge open up above him like a great gloomy funnel. The sides were sheer rock walls and it was roofed over by trees with tall thin stems that reached up for the sunlight. They were draped and festooned with lichens. A small stream came leaping down, in a series of pools and waterfalls, and the path took to this stream bed and climbed up over water worn boulders. Hal dropped to his knees, plunged his face into the fir At pool and sucked up water, choking and coughing in his greed. As the water distended his belly he felt strength flow back into his swollen, throbbing leg.

From the other side of the buttress behind him there came the thud of a musket shot, then the thump of a ball striking flesh, followed immediately by the scream of a man thrown into the abyss, a scream that dwindled and faded as he fell away. It was cut off abruptly as he struck the rocks far below. Aboli had made certain of his first shot, and the pursuers would be thrown back in disarray. It would take them time to regroup and come on more cautiously, so he had won precious minutes for Hal.

Hal scrambled to his feet, and launched himself up the stream bed.

Each of the huge, smooth boulders tested his injured leg to its limit.

He grunted, groaned and dragged himself upward, listening at the same time for the sounds of fighting behind him, but he heard nothing more until he reached the next pool where he stopped in surprise.

Althuda had left the five grey horses tethered to a dead tree at the water's edge. When he looked beyond them to the next giant step in the stream bed, Hal knew why they had been abandoned here. They could no longer follow this dizzy path. The gorge was constricted into a narrow throat high above his head and his own courage faltered as he surveyed the perilous route that he had to follow. But there was no other way, for the gorge had turned into a trap from which there was no escape. While he wavered, he heard from far below another musket shot and a clamour of angry shouts.

"Aboli has taken another," he said aloud, and his own voice echoed weirdly from the high walls of the gorge. "Now both his muskets are empty and he will have to run." But Aboli had won this reprieve for him, and he dared not squander it. He drove himself at -the steep path, dragging his wounded leg over glassy, water-polished rock, which was slippery and treacherous with slimy green algae.

His heart pounding with exhaustion, and his fingernails ripped to the quick, he crawled the last few feet upwards and reached the ledge in the throat of the gorge. Here he dropped flat on his belly and looked back over the edge. He saw Aboli coming up, leaping from rock to rock without hesitation, a musket clutched in each hand, not even glancing down to judge his footing on the treacherous boulders.

Hal looked up at the sky through the narrow opening of the gorge high above his head, and saw that day was fading. It would be dark soon, and the tops of the trees were turning to gold in the last rays of sunlight.

"This way! "he shouted down to Aboli.

"Go on, Gundwane!" Aboli shouted back. "Do not wait for me. They are close behind!"

Hal turned and looked up the steep stream bed behind him. For the next two hundred paces it was in full view. if he and Aboli tried to continue the climb, then Schreuder and his men would reach this vantage point while their backs were still exposed. Before they could reach the next shelter they would be– shot down by short-range musket fire.

We will have to make our stand here, he decided. We must hold them until nightfall, then try to slip away in the dark. Quickly he gathered loose rocks from the choked watercourse in which he hid and stacked them along the lip of the ledge. When he looked down he saw that Aboli had reached the foot of the rock wall and was climbing rapidly up towards him.

When Aboli was half-way up, and fully exposed, there was a shout from further down the darkening gorge. Through the gloom Hal made out the shape of the first of their pursuers. There came the flash and bang of a musket shot, and Hal peered down anxiously but Aboli was uninjured and still climbing fast.

Now the bottom of the gorge was swarming with men, and a fusillade of shots set the echoes booming and crashing. Hal picked out Schreuder down there in the gloom. his white face stood out among the darker ones that surrounded him.

Aboli reached the top of the rock-wall, and Hal gave him a hand on to the ledge. "Why have you not gone on, Gundwane?" he panted.

"No time for talking." Hal snatched one of the muskets from him and began to reload it. "We have to hold them here until dark. Reload!"

"Powder almost finished," Aboli replied. "Only enough for a few more shots." As he spoke he was plying the ramrod.

"Then we must make every shot tell. After that we will beat them back with rocks." Hal primed the pan of his musket. "And when we have run out of rocks to throw, we will take the steel to them."

Musket balls began to buzz and crack around their heads as the men below opened up a sustained rolling volley. Hal and Aboli were forced to lie below the lip, every few seconds popping up their heads to take a quick glance down the wall.

Schreuder was using most of his men to keep up the fusillade, controlling them so that weapons were always loaded and ready to fire at his command while others reloaded. It seemed that he had chosen a team of his strongest men to scale the wall, while his marksmen tried to keep Hal and Aboli from defending themselves.

This first wave of a dozen or more climbers carrying only their swords rushed forward and hurled themselves at the rock wall, scrambling upwards. Then, as soon as Hal and Aboli's heads appeared over the lip, there came a thunderous volley of musket fire and the muzzle flashes lit the gloom.

Hal ignored the balls that flew around and splashed against the rock below him. He thrust out the barrel of his musket and aimed down at the nearest climber. This was one of the white Dutch corporals, and the range was pointblank. Hal's ball struck him in the mouth, smashed in his teeth and shattered his jawbone. He lost his grip on the slippery face, and fell backwards. He crashed into the three men below him, knocking them loose, and all four plummeted down to shatter on the rocks below.

Aboli fired and sent another two green-jackets slithering downwards. Then both he and Hal snatched up their pistols and fired again, then again, clearing the wall of climbers, except for two men who clung helplessly to a crevice half-way up the polished rock face.

Hal dropped the empty pistols and seized one of the boulders he had placed at hand. It filled his fist, and he hurled it down at the man below him. The green-jacket saw it coming, but could not avoid it.

He tried to tuck his head into his shoulders but the rock caught him on the temple, his fingers opened and he fell.

"Good throw, Gundwane!" Aboli applauded him. "Your aim is improving." He threw at the last man on the wall and hit him under the chin. He teetered for a moment, then lost his grip and plunged down.

"Reload!" Hal snapped, and as he poured in powder he glanced at the strip of sky above them. "Will the night never come?" he lamented, and saw Schreuder send the next wave of climbers to rush the wall. Darkness would not save them for, before they had reloaded the muskets, the enemy soldiers were already half-way up.

They knelt on the lip and fired again, but this time their two shots brought down only one of the attackers and the rest came on steadily. Schreuder sent another wave of climbers to join them and the entire wall seethed with dark figures.

"We cannot beat them all back," Hal said, with black despair in his. heart. "We must retreat back up the gorge." But when he looked up at the steep, boulder-strewn climb, his spirits quailed.

He flung down his musket and, with Aboli at his side, went at the treacherous slope. The first climbers came over the lip of the wall and rushed, shouting, after them.

In the gathering darkness Hal and Aboli struggled upwards, turning when the pursuers pressed them too closely to take them on with their blades and drive them back just far enough to give them respite to go on upwards. But now more and still more green-jackets had reached the top of the wall, and it was only a matter of minutes before they would be overtaken and overwhelmed. just ahead, Hal noticed a deep crevice in the side wall of the gorge and thought that he and Aboli might take shelter in its darkness.

He abandoned the idea, however, as he came level with it and saw how shallow it was. Schreuder would hunt them out of there like a ferret driving out a couple of rabbits from a warren.

"Hal Courtney!" a voice called from the dark crack in the rock. He peered into it and, in its depths, saw two men. One was Althuda, who had called him, and the other was a stranger, a bearded, older man dressed in animal skins. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but when both he and Althuda beckoned urgently neither Hal nor Aboli hesitated. They threw themselves at the narrow opening and squeezed in, between the two men already there.

"Get down!" the stranger shouted in Hal's ear, and stood up with a short-handled axe in his hand. A soldier appeared in the opening of the crevice and raised his sword to thrust at the four men crowded into it, but Althuda threw up the pistol in his hand and shot him at close range in the centre of his chest.

At the same time the bearded stranger raised the axe high then slashed down with a powerful stroke. Hal did not understand what he was doing, until he saw that the man had severed a rope of plaited bark, thick as a man's wrist and hairy. The axe bit cleanly through the taut rope, and as it parted the severed tail whipped away, as though impelled by some immense force. The end had been looped and knotted around a sturdy wooden peg, driven into a crack in the stone. The length of the rope ran round the corner of the crevice, then stretched upwards to some point lost in the gathering gloom higher up the steep gorge.

For a long minute nothing else happened, and Hal and Aboli stared at, the other two in bewilderment. Then there was a creaking and a rustling from higher up the funnel of the gorge, a rumbling and a crackling as though a sleeping giant had stirred.

"Sabah has triggered the rockfall!" Althuda explained, and instantly Hal understood. He stared out into the gorge through the narrow entrance to the crevice. The rumbling became a gathering roar, and above it he could hear the wild, terrified screams of green-jackets caught full in the path of this avalanche. For them there was neither shelter nor escape. The gorge was a death trap into which Althuda and Sabah had lured them.

The roaring and grinding of rock rose in a deafening crescendo. The mountain seemed to tremble beneath them. The screams of the soldiers in its path were drowned, and suddenly a mighty river of racing boulders came sweeping past the entrance to the crevice. The light was blotted out, and the air was filled with dust and powdered rock so that the four men choked and gasped for breath. Blinded and suffocating, Hal lifted the tail of his ragged shirt and held it over his nose and mouth, trying to filter the air so that he could breathe in the tumultuous choking dust-storm thrown out by the tidal wave of rock and flying stone that poured past.

The avalanche went on for a long time but gradually the stream of moving rock dwindled to become a slow, intermittent slither and tumble of the last few fragments.

At last silence, complete and oppressive, weighed down upon them, and the dust settled to reveal the outline of the opening to their shelter.

Aboli crawled out and balanced gingerly on the loose, unstable footing. Hal crept out beside him and both peered down the gloomy gorge. From wall to wall, it had been scoured clean by the avalanche. There was no sound or trace of their pursuers, not a last despairing cry or dying moan, not a shred of cloth or discarded weapon. It was as though they had never been.

Hal's injured leg could no longer bear his weight. He staggered and collapsed in the opening of the crevice. The fever in his blood from the festering wounds boiled up and filled his head with darkness and heat. He was aware of strong hands supporting him and then he lapsed into unconsciousness.

Colonel Cornelius Schreuder waited for an hour in the antechamber of the castle before Governor van de Velde condescended to see him.

When, eventually, he was summoned by an aide-decamp, he strode into the Governor's audience chamber, but still van de Velde declined to acknowledge his presence. He went on signing the documents and proclamations that Jacobus Hop laid before him, one at a time.

Schreuder was in full uniform, wearing all his decorations and stars. His wig was freshly curled and powdered, and his moustaches were dressed with beeswax into sharp spikes. Down one side of his face there were pink raw scars and scabs.

Van de Velde signed the last document and dismissed Hop with a wave of his hand. When the clerk had left and closed the doors behind him, van de Velde picked up Schreuder's written report from the desk in front of him as though it was a particularly revolting piece of excrement.

"So you lost almost forty men, Schreuder?" he asked heavily. "Not to mention eight of the Company's finest horses."

"Thirty-four men, Schreuder corrected him, still standing stiffly to attention.

"Almost forty!" van de Velde repeated, with an expression of repugnance. "And eight horses. The convicts and slaves you were pursuing got clean away from you. Hardly a famous victory, do you agree, Colonel?" Schreuder scowled furiously at the sculpted cornices on the ceiling above the Governor's head. "The security of the castle is your responsibility, Schreuder. The minding of the prisoners is your responsibility. The safety of my person and that of my wife is also your responsibility. Do you agree, Schreuder?"

"Yes, your excellency." A nerve beneath Schreuder's eye began to twitch.

"You allowed the prisoners to escape. You allowed them to plunder the Company's property. You allowed them to do grievous damage to this building with explosives. Look at my windowsP Van de Velde pointed at the empty casements from which the stained-glass panels had been blown.

"I have estimates from the Company surveyor that place the damage at over one hundred thousand guilders!" He was working himself steadily into a rage. "A hundred thousand guilders! Then, on top of that, you allowed the prisoners to abduct my wife and myself and to place us in mortal danger-" He had to break off to get his temper under control. "Then you allowed almost forty of the Company's servants to be murdered, including five white men! What do you imagine will be the reaction of the Council of Seventeen in Amsterdam when they receive my full report detailing the depths of the dereliction of your duties, hey? What do you think they will say? Answer me, you jumped-up popinjay! What do you think they will say?" "They may be somewhat displeased," Schreuder replied stiffly.

"Displeased? Somewhat displeased?" shrieked van de Velde, and fell back in his chair, gasping for breath like a stranded fish. When he had recovered, he went on, "You will be the first to know whether or not they are somewhat displeased, Schreuder. I am sending you back to Amsterdam in the deepest disgrace. You will sail in three days" time aboard the Weltevreden, which is anchored in the bay at this moment."

He pointed out through the empty windows at the cluster of ships lying at anchor beyond the surf line. "My report on the affair will go to Amsterdam on the same ship, together with my condemnation of you in the strongest possible terms. You will stand before the Seventeen and make your excuses to them in person." He leered at the colonel gloatingly. "Your military career is destroyed, Schreuder. I suggest you consider taking up the calling of whoremaster, a vocation for which you have demonstrated considerable aptitude. Goodbye, Colonel Schreuder. I doubt I shall have the pleasure of your company ever again."

Aching with the Governor's insults as though he had taken twenty lashes of the cat, Schreuder strode out to the head of the staircase. To give himself time in which to regain his composure and his temper, he paused to survey the damage that the explosion had inflicted on the buildings surrounding the courtyard. The armoury had been destroyed, blown into a rubble heap. The roof timbers of the north wing were shattered and blackened by the fire that had followed the blast, but the outer walls were intact and the other buildings only superficially damaged.

The sentries who once would have leapt to attention at his appearance now delayed rendering him his honours, and when finally they tossed him a lackadaisical salute, one accompanied it with an impudent grin. In the tiny community of the colony news spread swiftly, and clearly his dishonourable discharge from the Company's service was already known to the entire garrison. Jacobus Hop must have taken pleasure in spreading the news, Schreuder decided, and he rounded on the grinning sentry. "Wipe that smirk off your ugly face or, by God, I will shave it off with my sword." The man sobered instantly and stared rigidly ahead. However, as Schreuder crossed the courtyard, Manseer and the overseers whispered together and smiled behind their fists. Even some of the recaptured prisoners, now wearing chains, who were repairing the damage to the armoury stopped work to grin slyly at him.

Such humiliation was painfully hard for a man of his pride and temperament to bear, and he tried to imagine how much worse it would become when he returned to Holland and faced the Council of Seventeen. His shame would be shouted in every tavern and port, in every garrison and regiment, in the salons of all the great houses and mansions of Amsterdam. Van de Velde was correct. he would become a pariah.

He strode out through-the gates and across the bridge of the moat.

He did not know where he was going, but he turned down towards the foreshore and stood above the beach staring out to sea. Slowly he brought his turbulent emotions under some control, and began to look for some escape from the scorn and the ridicule that he could not bear.

I shall swallow the ball, he decided. It's the only way open to me. Then, almost instantly, his whole nature revolted against such a craven course of action. He remembered how he had despised one of his brother officers in Batavia who, over the matter of a woman, had placed the muzzle of a loaded pistol in his mouth and blown away the back of his skull. "It is the coward's way!" Schreuder said aloud. "And not for me."

Yet he knew he could never obey van de Velde's orders to return home to Holland. But neither could he remain here at Good Hope, nor travel to any Dutch possession anywhere upon this globe. He was an outcast, and he must find some other land where his shame was unknown.

Now his gaze focused on the cluster of shipping anchored out in Table Bay. There was the Weltevreden, upon which van de Velde wished to send him back to face the Seventeen. His eye moved on over the three other Dutch vessels lying near it. He would not sail on a Dutch ship but there were only two foreign vessels. One was a Portuguese slaver, outward-bound for the markets of Zanzibar. Even the thought of sailing on a slaver was distasteful he could smell her from where he stood above the beach. The other ship was an English frigate and, by the looks of her, newly launched and well found. Her rigging was fresh and her paintwork only lightly marred by the Atlantic gales. She had the look of a warship, but he had heard that she was privately owned and an armed trader. He could read her name on her transom. the Golden Bough. She had fifteen gun ports down the side, which she presented to him as she rode lightly at anchor, but he did not know whence she had come nor whither she was bound. However, he knew exactly where to find this information so he settled his Hat firmly over his wig and struck out along the shore, heading for the nearest of the insalubrious cluster of hovels that served as brothels and gin halls to the seafarers of the oceans.

Even at this hour of the morning the tavern was crowded, and the windowless interior was dark and rank with tobacco smoke and the fumes of cheap spirits and unwashed humanity. The whores were mostly Hottentots but there were one or two white women who had grown too old and pox-ridden to work in even the ports of Rotterdam or St. Pauli. Somehow they had found ships to carry them southwards and had come ashore, like rats, to eke out their last days in these squalid surroundings before the French disease burned them out entirely.

His hand on the hilt of his sword, Schreuder cleared a small table for himself with a sharp word and haughty state. Once he was seated he summoned one of the haggard serving wenches to bring him a tankard of small beer. "Which are the sailors from the Golden Bough?" he asked, and tossed a silver rix-dollar onto the filthy table top. The trull snatched up this largesse and dropped it down the front of her grubby dress between her pendulous dugs before she jerked her head in the direction of three seamen at a table in the far corner of the room.

"Take each of those gentlemen another chamber pot filled with whatever foul piss you're serving them and tell them that I'm paying for it."

When he left the tavern half an hour later Schreuder knew where the Golden Bough was heading, and the name and disposition of her captain. He sauntered down to the beach and hired a skiff to row him out to the frigate.

The anchor watch on board the Golden Bough spotted him as soon as he left the beach, and could tell by his dress and deportment that he was a man of consequence. When Schreuder hailed the deck of the frigate and asked for permission to come aboard, a stout, florid-faced Welsh petty-officer gave him a cautious greeting at the entry port then led him down to the stern cabin where Captain Christopher Llewellyn rose to welcome him. Once he was seated, he offered Schteuder a pewter pot of porter. He was obviously relieved to find that Schreuder spoke good English. Llewellyn soon accepted him as a gentleman and an equal, relaxed and spoke easily and openly.

First they discussed the recent hostilities between their two countries, and expressed themselves pleased that a satisfactory peace had been concluded, then went on to speak about maritime trade in the eastern oceans and the temporal powers and politics that governed the regions of the East Indies and Further India. These were highly involved, and complicated by the rivalry between the European powers whose traders and naval vessels were entering the Oriental seas in ever greater numbers.

"There are also the religious conflicts that embroil the eastern lands," Llewellyn remarked. "My present voyage is in response to an appeal by the Christian King of Ethiopia, the Prester John, for military assistance in his war against the forces of Islam."

At the mention of war in the East Schreuder sat up a little straighter in his chair. He was a warrior, at the moment an unemployed warrior, and war was his trade. "I had not heard of this conflict. Please tell me more about it."

"The great Mogul has sent his fleet and an army under the command of his younger brother, Sadiq Khan Jahan, to seize the countries that make up the seaboard of the Great Horn of Africa from the Christian king." Llewellyn broke off his explanation to ask, "Tell me, Colonel, do you know much about the Islamic religion?"

Schreuder nodded. "Yes, of course. Many of the men I have commanded over the last thirty years have been Muslims. I speak Arabic and I have made a study of Islam."

"You will know, then, that one of the precepts of this militant belief is the hadj, the pilgrimage to the birthplace of the prophet at Mecca, which is situated on the eastern shores of the Red Sea."

"Ah!" Schreuder said. "I can see where you are heading. Any pilgrim from the Great Mogul's realm in India would be forced to enter the Red Sea by passing around the Great Horn of Africa. This would bring the two religions into confrontation in the region, am I correct in my surmise?"

"Indeed, Colonel, I commend you on your grasp of the religious and political implications. That is precisely the excuse being used by the Great Mogul to attack the Prester John. Of course, the Arabs have been trading with Africa since before the birth of either our Saviour, Jesus Christ, or the prophet Muhammad. From a foothold on Zanzibar island they have been gradually extending their domination onto the mainland. Now they are intent on the conquest and subjugation of the heartland of Christian Ethiopia."

"And where, may I be so bold to ask, is your place in this conflict?" Schreuder asked thoughtfully "I belong to a naval chivalric order, the Knights of the Temple of the Order of St. George and the Holy Grail, committed to defend the Christian faith and the holy places of Christendom. We are the successors to the Knights Templar."

"I know of your order," Schreuder said, "and I am acquainted with several of your brother knights. The Earl of Cumbrae, for one."

"Ah!" Llewellyn sniffed. "He is not a prime example of our membership."

"I have also met Sir Francis Courtney," Schreuder went on.

Llewellyn's enthusiasm was unfeigned. "I know him well," he exclaimed. "What a fine seaman and gentleman. Do you know, by any chance, where I might find Franky? This religious war in the Great Horn would draw him like a bee to honey. His ship joined with mine would make a formidable force."

"I am afraid that Sir Francis was a casualty of the recent war between our two countries." Schreuder phrased it diplomatically, and Llewellyn looked distraught.

"I am saddened by that news." He was silent for a while then roused himself. "To give you the answer to your question, Colonel Schreuder, I am on my way to the Great Horn in response to the Prester's call for assistance to repel the onslaught of Islam. I intend sailing with the tide this very evening."

"No doubt the Prester will be in need of military as well as naval assistance?" Schreuder asked abruptly. He was trying to disguise the excitement he felt. This was a direct answer to his prayers, "Would you look kindly upon my request for passage aboard your fine ship to the theatre of war? I, also, am determined to offer my services."

Llewellyn looked startled. "A sudden decision, sir. Do you not have duties and obligations ashore? Would it be possible for you to sail with me at such short notice?" indeed, Captain, your presence here in Table Bay seems like a stroke of destiny. I have this very day freed myself from the obligations of which you speak. It is almost as though I had divine premonition of this call to duty. I stand ready to answer the call. I would be pleased to pay for my passage, and that of the lady who is to be my wife, in gold coin."

Llewellyn looked doubtful, scratched his beard and studied Schreuder shrewdly. "I have only one small cabin unoccupied, hardly fit accommodation for persons of quality."

"I would pay ten English guineas for the privilege of sailing with you," Schreuder said, and the captain's expression cleared.

"I should be honoured by your company, and that of your lady. However, I cannot delay my departure by a single hour. I must sail with the tide. I will have a boat take you ashore and wait for you on the beach."

As Schreuder was rowed away he was seething with excitement. The service of an oriental potentate in a religious war would surely offer opportunities for martial glory and enrichment far beyond what he could ever have expected in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He had been offered an escape from the threat of disgrace and ignominy. After this war, he might still return to Holland laden with gold and glory. This was the tide of fortune he had waited for all his life and, with the woman he loved beyond everything else at his side, he would take that tide at the full.

As soon as the boat beached he sprang out and tossed a small silver coin to the boatswain, "Wait for me!" and strode off towards the castle. His servant was waiting in his quarters, and Schreuder gave him instructions to pack all his possessions, have them carried down to the foreshore and placed upon the Golden Bough's longboat. It seemed that the entire garrison must know already of his dismissal. Even his servant was not surprised by his orders, so none would think it odd that he was moving out.

He shouted for his groom and ordered him to saddle his single remaining horse. While he waited for the horse to be brought round from the stables, he stood before the small mirror in his dressing room and rearranged his uniform, brushed out his wig and reshaped his moustaches. He felt a glow of excitement and a sense of release. By the time that the Governor realized that he and Katinka were gone, the Golden Bough would be well out to sea and on course for the Orient.