Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘One for each of our gentlemen. That’s twenty-six mugs, and no more,’ Sam Bowles told them cheerily.

  Big Daniel was now too far gone to drink unaided, and Aboli had to lift his head while Hal dribbled water between his lips. The other sick men had to be treated in the same way. Much of the water was lost when it ran out of their slack mouths, and it was a long-drawn-out business. Sam Bowles lost patience before they were half through. ‘None of you want any more? Well, I’ll be off, then.’ And he slammed the hatch closed and drove home the pins, leaving most of the captives pleading vainly, through parched throats and flaking lips for their share. But he was unrelenting, and they were forced to wait another day for their next ration.

  After that Aboli filled his own mouth with water from the mug, placed his lips over Daniel’s and forced it into the unconscious man’s mouth. They did the same for the other wounded. This method was quick enough to satisfy even Sam Bowles, and less of the precious fluid was lost.

  Sam Bowles chuckled when one of the men shouted up at him, ‘For God’s sweet sake, Boatswain, there’s a dead man down here. Timothy O’Reilly is stinking to the high heavens. Can you not smell him?’

  He answered, ‘I’m glad you told me. That means he will not be using his water ration. It will be only twenty-five mugs I’ll be serving from tomorrow.’

  Daniel was dying. He no longer groaned or thrashed about in delirium. He lay like a corpse. Even his bladder had dried up and no longer emptied itself spontaneously on the reeking planks on which they lay. Hal held his head and whispered to him, trying to cajole him into staying alive. ‘You can’t give up now. Hold on just a while longer and we will be at the Cape before you know it. All the sweet fresh water you can drink, pretty slave girls to nurse you. Just think on that, Danny.’

  At noon, on what he thought must be their sixth day at sea, Hal called across to Aboli, ‘I have something to show you here. Give me your hand.’ He took Aboli’s fingers and guided them over Daniel’s ribs. The skin was so hot that it was almost painful to the touch, and the flesh so wasted that the ribs stood out like barrel staves.

  Hal rolled Daniel over as far as his chains would allow, and directed Aboli’s fingers onto his shoulder blade. ‘There. Can you feel that lump?’

  Aboli grunted, ‘I can feel it, but I cannot see.’ He was so restricted by his chains that he could not look over the bulk of Daniel’s inert body.

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think I know what it is.’ Hal put his face closer and strained his eyes in the dim light. ‘There is a swelling the size of a walnut. It’s black like a bruise.’ He touched it gently, and even this light pressure made Daniel groan and fret against his bonds.

  ‘It must be very tender.’ Sir Francis had roused himself and leaned as close as he was able. ‘I cannot see well. Where is it?’

  ‘In the middle of his shoulder blade,’ Hal answered. ‘I believe that it is the musket ball. It has passed clean through his chest and is lying here under the skin.’

  ‘Then that is what is killing him,’ Sir Francis said. ‘It is the seat and source of the mortification that is eating him up.’

  ‘If we had a knife,’ Hal murmured, ‘we could try to cut it out. But Sam Bowles took the medical chest.’

  Aboli said, ‘Not before I hid one of the knives.’ He searched in the waistband of his breeches and held up the thin blade. It glinted softly in the faint light from the grating above Hal’s head. ‘I was waiting for a chance to cut Sam’s throat with it.’

  ‘We must risk cutting,’ Sir Francis told him. ‘If it stays in his body the ball will kill him more certainly than the scalpel.’

  ‘I cannot see to make the cut from where I lie,’ Aboli said. ‘You will have to do it.’

  There was a scuffling and clinking of the chain links, then Sir Francis grunted, ‘My chains are too short. I cannot lay a finger on him.’

  They were all silent for a short while, then Sir Francis said, ‘Hal.’

  ‘Father,’ Hal protested, ‘I do not have the knowledge or the skill.’

  ‘Then Daniel will die,’ Aboli said flatly. ‘You owe him a life, Gundwane. Here, take the knife.’

  In Hal’s hand the knife seemed heavy as a bar of lead. His mouth dry with dread, he tested the edge of the blade against the ball of his thumb and found it dulled by much use.

  ‘It is blunt,’ he protested.

  ‘Aboli is right, my son.’ Sir Francis laid a hand on Hal’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘You are Daniel’s only chance.’

  Slowly Hal reached out with his left hand, and felt the hard lump in Daniel’s hot flesh. It moved under his fingers, and he felt it grate softly against the bone of the shoulder blade.

  The pain roused Daniel, and he struggled against his chains. He shouted, ‘Help me, Jesus. I have sinned against God and man. The devil comes for me. He is dark. Everything grows dark.’

  ‘Hold him, Aboli,’ Hal whispered. ‘Hold him still.’

  Aboli wrapped his arms around Daniel, like the coils of a great black python. ‘Do it,’ he said. ‘Do it swiftly.’

  Hal leaned in close to Daniel, as close as his chains would let him, his face a hand’s breadth from the other man’s back. Now he could see the swelling more clearly. The skin was stretched so tightly over it that it was glossy and purple as an overripe plum. He placed the fingers of his left hand on each side of it and spread the skin even tighter.

  He took a deep breath, and placed the tip of the scalpel against the swelling. He steeled himself, counting silently to three, then pressed down with the strength of a trained sword arm. He felt the blade slide deep into Daniel’s back, and then strike something hard and unyielding, metal on metal.

  Daniel shrieked and then went slack in Aboli’s enfolding arms. A spurt of purple and yellow pus erupted from the deep scalpel cut. Hot and thick as carpenter’s glue, it struck Hal in the mouth and splattered across his chin. The smell was worse than all the other odours of the slave deck, and Hal’s gorge rose to scald the back of his throat. He swallowed back his own vomit, and wiped the pus from his face with the back of his arm, before he could bring himself to peer gingerly once more at the wound.

  Black pus still bubbled from it, but he saw extraneous matter caught in the mouth of the fresh cut. He dug at it with the tip of the scalpel, and freed a plug of dark and fibrous material, in which bone chips from the shattered scapula were mingled with jellied blood and pus.

  ‘It’s a piece of Danny’s jacket,’ he gasped. ‘The ball must have pulled it into the wound.’

  ‘Have you found the ball?’ Sir Francis demanded.

  ‘No, it must still be in there.’

  He probed deeper into the wound. ‘Yes. There it is.’

  ‘Can you get it out?’

  For a few minutes Hal worked in silence, thankful that Daniel was unconscious and did not have to suffer during this crude exploration. The flow of pus dwindled and now fresh clean blood oozed from the dark wound.

  ‘I can’t get it with the knife. It keeps slipping away,’ he whispered. He put aside the blade and pushed his finger into Daniel’s hot, living flesh. Breath rasping with horror, he worked in deeper and still deeper, until he could get his fingertip behind the lump of lead.

  ‘There!’ he exclaimed suddenly, as the musket ball popped out of the wound and dropped onto the planks with a thump. It was deformed by its violent contact with bone, and there was a mirror-bright smear in the soft lead. He stared at it in vast relief, then snatched his finger from the wound.

  It was followed by another soft rush of pus and lumpy foreign matter. ‘There is the musket wad.’ He gagged. ‘I think everything is out now.’ He looked down at his besmeared hands. The stench from them struck him like a blow in the face.

  For a while they were all silent. Then Sir Francis whispered, ‘Well done, Hal!’

  ‘I think he is dead,’ Hal answered, in a small voice. ‘He is so still.’

  Aboli released Daniel from his grip, then groped down his naked ch
est. ‘No, he is alive. I can feel his heart. Now, Gundwane, you must wash out the wound for him.’

  Between them they dragged Daniel’s inert body to the limit of his fetters and Hal half knelt above him. He opened his filthy breeches and dehydrated by the limited ration of water, strained to squirt a weak stream of urine into the wound. It was enough to wash out the last rotting shreds of wadding and corruption. Hal used the last few drops of his own water to cleanse some of the filth from his hands and then fell back, spent by the effort.

  ‘Done like a man, Gundwane,’ Aboli told him, and offered Hal the red headcloth, black and crackling with dried blood and pus. ‘Use this to staunch the wound. It is all we have.’

  While Hal bandaged the wound, Daniel lay like a corpse. He no longer groaned or fought against his chains.

  Three days later, as Hal leaned over to give him water, Daniel suddenly reached up, pushed away his head and took the mug from Hal’s hands. He drained it in three long swallows. Then he belched thunderously and said, in a weak but lucid voice, ‘By God, that was good. I’ll have a drop more of that.’

  Hal was so delighted and relieved that he handed him his own ration and watched him drink it. By the following day, Daniel was able to sit up as much as his chains would allow.

  ‘Your surgery would have killed a dozen ordinary mortals,’ Sir Francis murmured, as he watched Big Daniel’s recovery with amazement, ‘but Daniel Fisher thrives upon it.’

  On the ninth day of their voyage Sam Bowles opened the hatch and sang out cheerily, ‘Good news for you, gentlemen. Wind has played us false these last fifty leagues. His lordship reckons it will be another five days before we round the Cape. So your pleasure cruise will last a little longer.’

  Few had the strength or interest to rail at this dread news, but they reached up for the pewter water mug with frantic hands. When the daily ceremony of watering was done, this time Sam Bowles altered the routine. Instead of slamming the hatch closed for another day, he stuck his head down and called, ‘Captain Courtney, sir, his lordship’s compliments, and if you have no previous engagement, he would be obliged if you would take dinner with him.’ He scrambled down into the slave deck and, with two of his mates to help him, unscrewed Sir Francis’s shackles from his wrists and ankles, and withdrew them from the ringbolts in the bulkhead.

  Even once Sir Francis was free, it took all three men to lift him to his feet. He was so weak and cramped that he swayed and staggered like a drunkard as they helped him climb painfully through the hatch. ‘Begging your pardon, Captain,’ Sam laughed in his face, ‘you ain’t exactly no bed of roses, you ain’t. I’ve smelt pig-sties and cesspools a sight sweeter than you, that I have, Franky me lad.’

  They dragged him up on deck, and stripped the stinking rags from his shrunken body. Then four seamen worked the handles of the deck pump while Sam turned the stream from the canvas hose full on him. The Gull had entered the tail end of the cold green Benguela current that sweeps down the west coast of the continent. The jet of icy seawater from the hose almost knocked Sir Francis from his feet, and he had to cling to the shrouds to keep his balance. Shivering and choking when Sam directed the hose full into his face, he was able yet to scrub most of the crusted filth from his hair and body. It was of no concern to him that Katinka van de Velde leaned on the rail of the poop deck and scrutinized his nudity without the least indication of modesty.

  Only when the hose was turned off and he was left to stand in the wind to dry off did Sir Francis have a chance to look about him and form some estimate of the Gull’s position and condition. Although his emaciated body was blue with cold, he felt refreshed and strengthened by the dousing. His teeth chattered and his whole frame shuddered with involuntary spasms of cold as he looked overside, and he folded his arms over his chest to try to warm himself. The African mainland lay ten leagues or so to the north, and he recognized the cliffs and crags of the point that guarded the entrance to False Bay. They would have to weather that savage point before they could enter Table Bay on the far side of the peninsula.

  The wind was almost dead calm, and the surface of the sea as slick as oil, with long, low swells rising and falling like the breathing of a sleeping monster. Sam Bowles was telling the truth: unless the wind picked up it would be many more days before they rounded the Cape and dropped anchor in Table Bay. He wondered how many more of his men would follow Timothy before they were released from the confines of the slave deck.

  Sam Bowles threw a few pieces of threadbare but clean clothing on the deck at his feet. ‘His lordship is expecting you. Don’t keep him waiting now.’

  ‘Franky!’ Cumbrae rose to greet him as he stooped through the doorway into the Gull’s stern cabin. ‘I am so pleased to see that you look none the worse for your little sojourn below decks.’ Before Sir Francis could avoid it, Cumbrae seized him in a bear-hug. ‘I must apologize deeply for your treatment but it was at the insistence of the Dutch Governor and his wife. I would never have treated a brother Knight in such a scurvy fashion.’

  While he spoke the Buzzard ran his great hands quickly down Sir Francis’s body, checking for a concealed knife or other weapon, then pushed him into the largest and most comfortable chair in the cabin.

  ‘A glass of wine, my dear old friend?’ He poured it with his own hand, then gestured for his steward to place a bowl of stew in front of Sir Francis. Though saliva flooded into his mouth at the aroma of the first hot food he had been offered in almost two weeks, Sir Francis made no move to touch the glass or the spoon beside the bowl of stew.

  Cumbrae noticed his refusal and, although he raised one bushy ginger eyebrow, he did not urge him but seized his own spoon and slurped up a mouthful from his own bowl. He chewed with all the sounds of appetite and approval, then washed it down with a hearty swallow from his wine glass, and wiped his red whiskers with the back of his hand. ‘No, Franky, left to my own choice I would never have treated you so shabbily. You and I have had our differences in the past, but it has always been in the spirit of gentlemanly sport and competition, has it not?’

  ‘Such sport as firing your broadside into my camp without warning?’ Sir Francis asked.

  ‘Now, let us not waste time in idle recrimination.’ The Buzzard waved away the remark. ‘That would never have been necessary if only you had agreed to share the booty from the galleon with me. What I really mean was that you and I understand each other. At heart we are brothers.’

  ‘I think that I understand you.’ Sir Francis nodded.

  ‘Then you will know that what gives you pain, pains me even more. I have suffered every minute of your incarceration with you.’

  ‘I hate to see you suffer, my lord, so why not release me and my men?’

  ‘That is my fervent wish and intention, I assure you. However, there remains one small impediment that prevents me doing so. I need from you a sign that my warm feelings towards you are reciprocated. I am still deeply hurt that you would not share with me, your old friend, what was rightly mine in the terms of our agreement.’

  ‘I am certain that the Dutch have given you the share you lacked before. In fact I saw you loading what seemed to me a generous portion of the spice aboard this very ship. I wonder what the Lord High Admiral of England will make of such traffic with the enemy.’

  ‘A few barrels of spice – barely worth the breath to mention it.’ Cumbrae smiled. ‘But there ain’t nothing like silver and gold to rouse my fraternal instincts. Come, now, Franky, we have wasted enough time in the pleasantries. You and I know that you have the bullion from the galleon cached somewhere close by your encampment on Elephant Lagoon. I know I will find it if I search long enough, but by then you will be dead, sent messily on your way by the executioner at Good Hope.’

  Sir Francis smiled and shook his head. ‘I have cached no treasure. Search if you will, but there is nothing for you to find.’

  ‘Think on it, Franky. You know what the Dutch did to the English merchants they captured on the isle of Bali? They cruci
fied them and burnt off their hands and feet with sulphur flares. I want to save you from that.’

  ‘If you have nothing further to discuss, I will return to my crew.’ Sir Francis stood up. His legs were stronger now.

  ‘Sit down!’ the Buzzard snapped. ‘Tell me where you hid it, man, and I will put you and your men ashore with no further harm done, I swear it on my honour.’ Cumbrae wheedled and blustered for another hour. Then at last he sighed. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Franky. I tell you what I’ll do for you. I would do it for no one else, but I love you like a brother. If you take me back and lead me to the booty, I’ll share it with you. Fifty-fifty, right down the middle. Now I can’t be more fair than that, can I?’

  Sir Francis met even this offer with a calm, detached smile, and Cumbrae could hide his fury no longer. He slapped the table so viciously with the palm of his hand, that the glasses overturned and the wine sprayed across the cabin. He bellowed furiously for Sam Bowles. ‘Take this arrogant bastard away, and chain him up again.’ As Sir Francis left the cabin he shouted after him, ‘I will find where you hid it, Franky, I swear it to you. I know more than you think. Just as soon as I have seen you topped on the Parade at Good Hope, I will be going back to the lagoon, and I won’t leave until I find it.’

  One more of Sir Francis’s seamen died in his chains before they anchored off the foreshore in Table Bay. The others were so stiff and weak that they were forced to crawl like animals up the ladder to the upper deck. They huddled there, their ragged clothing crusted with their own filth, gazing around them, blinking and trying to shield their eyes from the brilliant morning sunshine.

  Hal had never been this close inshore of Good Hope. On the outward leg of their cruise, at the beginning of the war, they had stood well off and looked into the bay from a great distance. However, that brief glimpse had not prepared him for the splendour of this seascape, where the royal blue of the Atlantic, flecked with wind spume, washed up on beaches so dazzling they hurt his weakened eyes.