Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  ‘You cannot walk further on this. You must ride as you force me to do.’ Then she looked up at Aboli. ‘Make a fire to boil water,’ she ordered him.

  ‘We have no time for such tomfoolery,’ Hal murmured half-heartedly, but they ignored him. Aboli lit a small fire with a slow-match and placed over it a tin mug of water. As soon as it boiled, Sukeena prepared a paste with the herbs she had in her saddle-bag, and spread it on a folded cloth. While it still steamed with heat she clapped the cloth over Hal’s wounds. He moaned and said, ‘I swear I would rather Aboli pissed on my leg, than you burned it off with your devilish concoctions.’

  Sukeena ignored his immodest language and went on with her task. She bound the poultice in place with a fresh cloth, then from her saddle-bags she fetched a loaf of bread and a dried sausage. She cut these into slices, folded bread and sausage together, and handed one to each of the men.

  ‘Bless you, Princess.’ Big Daniel knuckled his forehead, before taking his ration from her.

  ‘God love you, Princess,’ said Ned, and all the others adopted the name. From then on she was their princess, and the rough seamen looked upon her with increasing respect and burgeoning affection.

  ‘You can eat on the march, lads.’ Hal hauled himself to his feet. ‘We have been lucky too long. Soon the devil will want his turn.’ They groaned and muttered but followed his lead.

  As Hal was helping Sukeena to mount, there was a warning shout from Daniel. ‘There the bastards come at last.’ He pointed back down at the open vlei at the bottom of the slope. Hal pushed Sukeena up between the saddlebags and limped back to the rear of the column. He looked down the hillside and saw the long file of running men who had emerged from the edge of the scrub and were crossing the open ground. They were led by a single horseman who came on at a trot.

  ‘It’s Schreuder again. He has found another mount.’ Even at that range there was no mistaking the Colonel. He sat tall and arrogant in the saddle, and there was a sense of deadly purpose about the set of his shoulders and the way he lifted his head to look up the slope towards them. It was obvious that he had not yet spotted them, hidden in the thick scrub.

  ‘How many men with him?’ Ned Tyler asked, and they all looked at Hal to count them. He slitted his eyes and watched them come out of the thick scrub. With their swinging trot they kept up easily with Schreuder’s horse.

  ‘Twenty,’ Hal counted.

  ‘Why so few?’ Big Daniel demanded.

  ‘Almost certainly Schreuder has chosen his fastest runners to press us hard. The rest will be following at their best speed.’ Hal shaded his eyes. ‘Yes, by God, there they are, a league behind the first platoon, but coming fast. I can see their dust and the shape of their helmets above the scrub. There must be a hundred or more in that second detachment.’

  ‘Twenty we can deal with,’ Big Daniel muttered, ‘but a hundred of those murdering green-backs is more than I can eat for breakfast without belching. What orders, Captain?’ Every man looked at Hal.

  He paused before replying, carefully studying the lie and the grain of the land below before he said, ‘Master Daniel, take the rest of the party on with Althuda to guide you. Aboli and I will stay here with one horse to slow down their advance.’

  ‘We cannot outrun them. They’ve proved that to us, Captain,’ Daniel protested. ‘Would it not be better to fight them here?’

  ‘You have your orders.’ Hal turned a cold, steely eye upon him.

  Daniel again knuckled his brow. ‘Aye, Captain,’ and he turned to the others. ‘You heard the orders, lads.’

  Hal limped back to where Sukeena sat on her horse, with Althuda holding the lead rein. ‘You must go on, whatever happens. Do not turn back for any reason,’ he told Althuda, and then he smiled up at Sukeena. ‘Not even if her royal highness commands it.’

  She did not return his smile but leaned down closer and whispered, ‘I will wait for you on the mountain. Do not make me wait too long.’

  Althuda led the column of horses forward again, and as they crossed the skyline there was a distant shout from the vlei below.

  ‘So they have discovered us,’ Aboli muttered.

  Hal went to the single remaining horse, and loosened one of the fifty-pound kegs of gunpowder. He lowered it to the ground, and told Aboli, ‘Take the horse on. Follow the others. Let Schreuder see you go. Tether it out of sight beyond the ridge and then come back to me.’

  He rolled the keg to the nearest outcrop of rock and crouched beside it. With only the top of his head showing, he again studied the slope below him, then turned his full attention to Schreuder and his band of green-jackets. Already they were much closer, and he could see that two of the Hottentots ran ahead of Schreuder’s horse. They watched the ground as they came on, following exactly the route that Hal’s party had blazed.

  They read our sign from the earth, like hounds after the stag, he thought. They will come up the same path we followed.

  At that moment Aboli dropped back over the ridge and squatted beside him. ‘The horse is tethered and the others go on apace. Now what is your plan, Gundwane?’

  ‘’Tis so simple, there is no need to explain it to you,’ said Hal, as he prised the bung from the keg with the point of his sword. Then he unwound the length of the slow-match he had tied around his waist. ‘This match is the devil. It either burns too fast or too slow. But I will take a chance on three fingers’ length,’ he muttered as he measured, then lopped off a length. He rolled it gently between the palms of his hands in an attempt to induce it to burn evenly, then threaded one end into the bunghole of the keg and secured it by driving back the wooden plug.

  ‘You had best hurry, Gundwane. Your old fencing partner, Schreuder, is in great haste to meet you again.’

  Hal glanced up from his task and saw that the pursuers had crossed the meadow and were already starting up the slope towards them. ‘Keep out of sight,’ Hal told him. ‘I want to let them get very close.’ The two lay flat on their bellies and peered down the hillside. Sitting high in the saddle, Schreuder was in full view, but the two trackers who led him were obscured by the scrub and flowering bushes from the waist down. As they came on Hal could make out the ugly gravel graze down Schreuder’s face, the rents and dirt smears on his uniform. He wore neither hat nor wig, had probably lost them along the way, perhaps in his fall. Vain though he was, he had wasted no time in trying to regain them, so urgent was his haste.

  The sun had already reddened his shaven pate and his horse was lathered. Perhaps he had not bothered to water it during the long chase. Closer still he came. His eyes were fastened on the ridge where he had seen the fugitives cross. His face was a stony mask, and Hal could see that he was a man driven by his volcanic temper, ready to take any risk or brave any danger.

  On the steep slope even his indefatigable trackers began to flag. Hal could see the sweat streaming down their flat yellow Asiatic faces and hear their gasping breath.

  ‘Come on, you rogues!’ Schreuder goaded them. ‘You will let them get clear away. Faster! Run faster.’ They came scrambling and straining up the slope.

  ‘Good!’ Hal muttered. ‘They are sticking in our tracks, as I hoped.’ He whispered his final instructions to Aboli. ‘But wait until I give you the word,’ he cautioned him.

  Closer they came until Hal could hear the Hottentots’ bare feet slapping the ground, the squeak of Schreuder’s tack and the jingle of his spurs. On he came, until Hal saw the individual beads of sweat that decorated the points of his moustache, and the little veins in his bulging blue eyes as he fixed his obsessed and furious stare on the skyline of the ridge, overlooking the enemy who lay hidden much closer at hand.

  ‘Ready!’ whispered Hal, and held the burning slow-match to the fuse of the powder keg. It flared, spluttered, caught, then burned up fiercely. The flame raced down the short length of fuse towards the bung hole.

  ‘Now, Aboli!’ he snapped. Aboli seized the keg and leapt to his feet, almost under the hoofs of Schreuder’s hor
se. The two Hottentots yelled with shock and ducked off the path, while the horse shied and reared, throwing Schreuder forward onto its neck.

  For a moment Aboli stood poised, holding the keg high above his head with both hands. The fuse sizzled and hissed like an angry puff-adder, and the powder smoke blew around his great tattooed head like a blue nimbus. Then he hurled the keg out over the hillside. It turned lazily in the air before striking the rocky ground and bounding away, bouncing and leaping as it gathered speed. It jumped up into the face of Schreuder’s horse, which reared away just as its rider had recovered his balance. Schreuder was thrown forward again onto its neck, lost one of his stirrups and hung awkwardly out of the saddle.

  The horse spun and leaped back down the slope, almost into the platoon of infantry that was following close upon its heels. As both maddened horse and bouncing powder keg came hurtling back among them, the column of green-jackets sent up a howl of consternation. Every one recognized that the smoking fuse was the harbinger of a fearsome detonation only seconds away, and they broke ranks and scattered. Most turned instinctively downhill, rather than breaking out to the sides, and the keg overhauled them, bouncing along in their midst.

  Schreuder’s horse went down on its bunched hindquarters as it slipped and slid down the hillside. The reins snapped in one of its rider’s hands while the other lost its precarious hold on the pommel of the saddle. Schreuder fell clear of his mount’s driving hoofs, and as he hit the earth the keg exploded. The fall saved his life for he had tumbled into the lee of a low rock outcrop and the main force of the blast swept over him.

  However, it ripped through the horde of routed soldiers. Those closest to it were hurled about and thrown upwards like burning leaves from a garden fire. Their clothing was stripped from their mangled bodies, and a disembodied arm was thrown high to fall back at Hal’s feet. Both Aboli and Hal were knocked down by the force of the blast. Ears buzzing, Hal scrambled upright again and stared down in awe at the devastation they had created.

  Not one of the enemy was still on his feet. ‘By God, you killed them all!’ Hal marvelled, but at once there were confused cries and shouts among the flattened bushes. First one and then more of the enemy soldiers staggered dazedly upright.

  ‘Come away!’ Aboli seized Hal’s arm and dragged him to the top of the ridge. Before they dropped over the crest Hal glanced back and saw that Schreuder had hoisted himself upright. Swaying drunkenly he was standing over the mutilated carcass of his mount. He was still so dazed that, even as Hal watched, his legs folded under him and he sat down heavily among the broken branches and torn leaves, covering his face with his hands.

  Aboli released Hal’s arm, and changed his sword into his right hand. ‘I can run back and finish him off,’ he growled, but the suggestion stirred Hal from his own daze.

  ‘Leave him be! It would not be honourable to kill him while he is unable to defend himself.’

  ‘Then let us go, and fast.’ Aboli growled. ‘We may have put this band of Schreuder’s men up on the reef but, look! The rest of his green-jackets are not far behind.’

  Hal wiped the sweat and dust from his face and blinked to stop his eyes blurring. He saw that Aboli was right. The dustcloud from the second detachment of the enemy rose from the scrub of the flatlands on the far side of the vlei, but it was coming on swiftly.

  ‘If we run hard now, we might be able to hold them off until nightfall and by then we should be into the mountains,’ Aboli estimated.

  Within a few paces, Hal stumbled and hopped as his injured leg gave way under him. Without a word Aboli gave him his arm to help him over the rough ground to where he had tethered the horse. This time Hal did not protest when Aboli boosted him up onto its back and took the lead rein.

  ‘Which direction?’ Hal demanded. As he looked ahead the mountain barrier was riven into a labyrinth of ravines and soaring rock buttresses, of cliffs and deep gorges in which grew dense strips of forest and tangled scrub. He could pick out no path nor pass through this confusion.

  ‘Althuda knows the way, and he has left signs for us to follow.’ The spoor of five horses and the band of fugitives was deeply trodden ahead of them, but to enhance it Althuda had blazed the bark from the trees along his route. They followed at the best of their speed, and from the next ridge saw the tiny shapes of the five grey horses crossing a stretch of open ground two or three miles ahead. Hal could even make out Sukeena’s small figure perched on the back of the leading horse. The silver colour of the horses made them stand out like mirrors in the dark, surrounding bush, and he murmured, ‘They are beautiful animals, but they draw the eye of an enemy.’

  ‘In the traces of a gentleman’s carriage there could be no finer,’ Aboli agreed, ‘but in the mountains they would flounder. We must abandon them when we reach the rough ground, or else they will break their lovely legs in the rocks and crevices.’

  ‘Leave them for the Dutch?’ Hal asked. ‘Why not a musket ball to end their suffering?’

  ‘Because they are beautiful, and because I love them like my children,’ said Aboli softly, reaching up and patting the animal’s neck. The grey mare rolled an eye at him and whickered softly, returning his affection.

  Hal laughed, ‘She loves you also, Aboli. For your sake we will spare them.’

  They plunged down the next slope and struggled up the far side. The ground grew steeper at each pace and the mountain crests seemed to hang suspended above their heads. At the top they paused again to let the mare blow, and looked ahead.

  ‘It seems Althuda is aiming for that dark gorge dead ahead.’ Hal shaded his eyes. ‘Can you see them?’

  ‘No,’ Aboli grunted. ‘They are hidden by the folds of the foothills and the trees.’ Then he looked back again. ‘But look behind you, Gundwane!’

  Hal turned and stared where he pointed, and exclaimed as though he were in pain. ‘How can they have come so quickly? They are gaining on us as though we were standing still.’

  The column of running green-jackets was swarming over the ridge behind them like soldier ants from a disturbed nest. Hal could count their numbers easily and pick out the white officers. The mid-afternoon sunlight flashed from their bayonets and Hal could hear their faint but jubilant cries as they viewed their quarry so close ahead.

  ‘There is Schreuder!’ Hal exclaimed bitterly. ‘By God, that man is a monster. Is there no means of stopping him?’ The dismounted colonel was trotting along near the rear of the long, spread-out column but, as Hal watched him, he passed the man ahead of him on the path. ‘He runs faster than his own Hottentots. If we linger here another minute, he will be up to us before we reach the mouth of the dark gorge.’

  The ground ahead rose up so steeply that the horse could not take it straight up, and the path began to zigzag across the slope. There was another joyous cry from below, like the halloo of the fox hunter, and they saw their pursuers strung out over a mile or more of the track. The leaders were much closer now.

  ‘Long musket shot,’ Hal hazarded, and as he said it one of the leading soldiers dropped to his knee behind a rock and took deliberate aim before he fired. They saw the puff of muzzle smoke long before they heard the dull pop of the shot. The ball struck a blue chip off a rock fifty feet below where they stood. ‘Still too far. Let them waste their powder.’

  The grey mare leaped upwards over the rocky steps in the path, much surer on her feet than Hal could have hoped. Then they reached the outer bend in the wide dogleg and started back across the slope. Now they were approaching their pursuers at an oblique angle, and the gap between them narrowed even faster.

  The men on the path below welcomed them with joyous shouts. They flung themselves down to rest, to steady their pounding hearts and shaking hands. Hal could see them checking the priming in the pans of their muskets and lighting their slow-match, preparing themselves to make the shot as the grey mare and her rider came within fair musket range.

  ‘Satan’s breath!’ Hal muttered. ‘This is like sailing into an
enemy broadside!’ But there was nowhere to run or hide, and they laboured on up the path.

  Hal could see Schreuder now: he had worked his way steadily towards the head of the column and was staring up at them. Even at this range Hal could see that he had driven himself far beyond his natural strength: his face was drawn and haggard, his uniform torn, filthy, soaked with sweat, and blood from a dozen scratches and abrasions. He heaved and strained for breath, but his sunken eyes burned with malevolence. He did not have the strength to shout or to shake a weapon but he watched Hal implacably.

  One of the green-jackets fired and they heard the ball hum close over their heads. Aboli was urging on the mare at her best pace over the steep, broken path, but they would be within musket range for many more minutes. Now a ripple of fire ran along the line of soldiers along the path below. Musket balls thudded among the rocks around them, some flattening into shiny discs where they struck. Others sprayed chips of stone down upon them, or whined away in ricochet across the valley.

  Unscathed, the grey mare reached the outward leg of the path and started back. Now the range was longer and most of the Hottentot infantrymen jumped to their feet and took up the pursuit. One or two started directly up the slope, attempting to cut the corner, but the hillside proved too sheer for even their nimble feet. They gave up, slid back to the angled pathway and hurried after their companions along the gentler but longer route.

  A few soldiers remained kneeling in the path, and reloaded, stabbing the ramrods frantically down the muzzles of their muskets, then pouring blackpowder into the pan. Schreuder had watched the fusillade, leaning heavily against a rock while his pounding heart and laboured breathing slowed. Now he pushed himself upright and seized a reloaded musket from one of his Hottentots, elbowing the other man aside.

  ‘We are beyond musket shot!’ Hal protested. ‘Why does he persist?’

  ‘Because he is mad with hatred for you,’ Aboli replied. ‘The devil gives him strength to carry on.’