Birds of Prey

by Wilbur Smith

  Behind this ill-matched pair sat a host of courtiers and officers, all richly dressed. Before the Prince knelt a translator who, his forehead pressed to the ground, was trying to keep up with the Buzzard’s flood of invective.

  The Buzzard stood before the Prince with his fists bunched on his hips. On his head was his beribboned bonnet, and his beard was more bushy and fiery than the dyed, barbered curls that covered El Grang’s chin. He wore half armour above his plaid. He turned with relief when Schreuder entered the tent and made deep and respectful obeisance, first to the Prince and then to El Grang.

  ‘Jesus love you, Colonel. I need you now to talk some sense into these two lovely laddies. This ape—’ Cumbrae spurned the grovelling translator with his boot. ‘This ape is blethering away, and making a nonsense of what I’m telling them.’ He knew that Schreuder had spent many years in the Orient, and that Arabic was one of the languages in which he was fluent.

  ‘Tell them that I came here to take prizes, not to match my Gull against a ship of equal force and have her shot away beneath my feet!’ the Buzzard instructed him. ‘They want me to do battle with the Golden Bough.’

  ‘Explain the matter to me more fully,’ Schreuder invited. ‘That way I may be able to assist you.’

  ‘The Golden Bough has arrived in these waters – we must presume under the command of young Courtney,’ the Buzzard told him.

  Schreuder’s face darkened at the name. ‘Will we never be rid of him?’

  ‘It seems not.’ Cumbrae chuckled. ‘In any event, he is flying the white cross of the Empire, and whaling into El Grang’s transports with a vengeance. He has sunk and captured twenty-three sail in the last week, and no Mussulman captains will put out to sea while he is in the offing. Single-handed he is blockading the entire coast of Ethiopia.’ He shook his head in reluctant admiration. ‘From the cliffs above Tenwera, I watched him fall upon a flotilla of El Grang’s war dhows. He cut them to pieces. By Jesus, he handles his ship as well as Franky ever could. He sailed circles around those Mussulmen and shot them out of the water. The entire fleet of Allah the All Merciful is all bottled up in port, and El Grang is starved of reinforcements and stores. The Mussulmen call young Courtney El Tazar, the Barracuda, and not one will go out to face him.’

  Then his grin faded and he looked lugubrious. ‘The Golden Bough is bright and clean of weed. My Gull has been at sea for nigh on three years. Her timbers are riddled with shipworm. I would guess that, even on my best point of sailing, the Golden Bough has at least three knots of speed on me.’

  ‘What do you want me to tell his highness?’ Schreuder asked scornfully. ‘That you are afraid to meet young Courtney?’

  ‘I am afraid of no man living – or dead, for that matter. But there is no profit in it for me. Hal Courtney has nothing I want, but if it comes to a single-ship fight, he could do me and my Gull fearful damage. If they want me to fight him they will have to sweeten my cup a little.’

  Schreuder turned back to the Prince and explained this to him in carefully chosen diplomatic terms. Sadiq Khan Jahan stroked his falcon as he listened expressionlessly, and the bird ruffled out its feathers and hooded its yellow eyes. When Schreuder had finished, the Prince turned to El Grang. ‘What did you say they called this red-bearded braggart?’

  ‘They call him the Buzzard, your highness,’ El Grang replied hoarsely.

  ‘A name well chosen, for it seems he prefers to pick out the eyes of the weak and the dying and scavenge the leavings of fiercer creatures rather than to kill for himself. He is no falcon.’

  El Grang nodded agreement, and the Prince turned back to Schreuder. ‘Ask this noble bird of prey what payment he demands for fighting El Tazar.’

  ‘Tell the pretty boy I want a lakh of rupees in gold coin, and I want it in my hands before I leave port,’ Cumbrae replied, and even Schreuder gasped at the audacity. One lakh was a hundred thousand rupees. The Buzzard went on amiably, ‘You see, I have got the Prince with his bum in the air and his pantaloons round his ankles. I intend to tup him full length, but not the way he likes it.’

  Schreuder listened to the Prince’s reply, then turned back to Cumbrae. ‘He says that you could build twenty ships like the Gull for a lakh.’

  ‘That may be so, but it won’t buy me a pair of balls to replace the ones that Hal Courtney shoots away.’

  The Prince smiled at this response. ‘Tell the Buzzard he must have lost them long ago, but he makes a fine eunuch. I could always find a place for him in my harem.’

  The Buzzard guffawed at the insult, but shook his head. ‘Tell the pretty pederast, no gold and the Buzzard flies away.’

  The Prince and El Grang whispered to each other, gesticulating. At last, they seemed to reach a decision.

  ‘I have another proposition that the bold captain might find more to his taste. The risk he takes will not be so great, but he will receive the lakh he demands.’ The Prince rose to his feet, and all his court fell upon their knees and pressed their foreheads to the ground. ‘I will leave Sultan Ahmed El Grang to explain this to you in secrecy.’

  He retired through the curtains at the back of the tent, and all his retinue went with him, leaving only the two Europeans and the Sultan in the cavern of silk.

  El Grang gestured to both men to come closer and to sit in front of him. ‘What I have to say is for the ears of no other living soul.’ While he arranged his thoughts, he fingered the old lance wound that ran in a ridge of raised scar tissue from below his ear, down under the high collar of his tunic: half his vocal cords had been severed by that old injury. He began to speak, in his hoarse, wheezing voice. ‘The Emperor was slain before Suakin and his infant son Iyasu has inherited the crown of Prester John. His armies were in disarray when there arose a female prophet who proclaimed that she had been chosen by the Christian God to lead his armies. She came down from the mountains leading fifty thousand fighting men and carrying before her a religious talisman that they call the Tabernacle of Mary. Her armies, inspired by religious fanaticism, were able to check us at Mitsiwa.’

  Both Schreuder and Cochran nodded. This was nothing new. ‘Now, Allah has given me the opportunity to seize both this talisman and the person of the infant Emperor.’ El Grang sat back and lapsed into silence, watching the faces of the two white men shrewdly.

  ‘With the Tabernacle and the Emperor in your hands, the armies of Nazet would dissolve like snow in the summer sun,’ Schreuder said softly.

  El Grang nodded. ‘A renegade monk has come in to us, and offered to lead a small party commanded by a bold man to the place where both the talisman and the Emperor are hidden. Once the child and the Tabernacle have been captured, I will need a fast, powerful ship to carry them to Muscat before Nazet can make an attempt to rescue them from us.’ He turned to Schreuder and said, ‘You, Colonel, are the bold man I need. If you succeed, your payment will also be a lakh.’

  Then El Grang looked at Cochran. ‘Yours is the fast ship to carry them to Muscat. When you deliver them there, there will be another lakh for you.’ He smiled coldly. ‘This time I will pay you to fly from El Tazar, rather than confront him. Are your balls big and heavy enough for that task, my brave Buzzard?’

  The Golden Bough ran southwards, her sails glowing in the last rays of the sun, like a tower of gold.

  ‘The Gull of Moray lies at anchor in Adulis Bay,’ Fasilides’ spies had brought the report, ‘and her captain is ashore. They say he sits in council with El Grang.’ But that intelligence was two days’ stale.

  ‘Will the Buzzard still be there?’ Hal fretted to himself, and studied his sails. The Golden Bough could carry not another stitch of canvas, and every sail was drawing sweetly. The hull sliced through the water, and the deck vibrated beneath his feet like a living creature. If I find her still at anchor, we can board her even in darkness, Hal thought, and strode down the deck, checking the tackle of his guns. The white seamen knuckled their foreheads and grinned at him, while the squatting ranks of Amadoda grinned and cross
ed their chests with their open right hand in salute. They were like hunting dogs with the scent of the stag in their nostrils. He knew that they would not flinch when he laid the Golden Bough alongside the Gull and led them onto her deck.

  The sun dipped towards the horizon and quenched its flames in the sea. The darkness descended and the outline of the land melted into it.

  Moonrise in two hours, Hal thought, as he stopped by the binnacle to check the ship’s heading. We will be into Adulis Bay by then. He looked up at Ned Tyler, whose face was lit by the compass lantern.

  ‘Hoist our new canvas,’ he ordered, and Ned repeated the order through the speaking trumpet. The new canvas was laid out on the deck, the sheets already reeved into the clews and earing cringles, but it took an hour of hard, dangerous work before her white canvas was brought down and stowed away, and the sails that were daubed with pitch were hoist to the yards and unfurled.

  Black was her hull, and black as midnight her canvas. The Golden Bough would show no flash in the moonlight when they sailed into Adulis Bay to take unawares the anchored fleet of Islam.

  Let the Buzzard be there, Hal prayed silently. Please, God, let him not have sailed.

  Slowly the bay opened to them, and they saw the lanterns of the enemy fleet like the lights of a large town. Beyond them the watchfires of El Grang’s host reflected off the belly of the low cloud of dust and smoke.

  ‘Lay the ship on the larboard tack, Mr Tyler. Steer into the bay.’ The ship came around and bore swiftly towards the anchored fleet.

  ‘Take a reef in your mains. Furl all your top-hamper, please, Mr Tyler.’ The ship’s rush slowed and the rustle of the bow wave dwindled as they went in under fighting canvas.

  Hal walked towards the bows and Aboli stood up out of the darkness. ‘Are your archers ready?’ Hal asked.

  Aboli’s teeth flashed in the gloom. ‘They are ready, Gundwane.’

  Hal made them out now, dark shapes crouched along the ship’s rail between the culverins, their bundles of arrows laid out on the deck.

  ‘Keep them under your eye!’ Hal cautioned him. If the Amadoda had one fault in battle it was that they could be carried away by their blood lust.

  As he went on to Big Daniel’s station in the waist, he was checking that all the burning slow-match was concealed in the tubs and that the glowing tips would not alert a watchful enemy. ‘Good evening, Master Daniel. Your men have never been in a night battle. Keep a tight rein. Don’t let them start firing wildly.’

  He went back to the helm, and the ship crept on into the bay, a dark shadow on the dark waters. The moon rose behind them and lit the scene ahead with a silvery radiance, so that Hal could discern the shapes of the enemy fleet. He knew that his own ship was still invisible.

  On they glided, and they were close enough now to hear the sounds from the moored vessels ahead, voices singing, praying and arguing. Someone was hammering a wooden mallet, and there was the creak of oars and the slatting of rigging as the dhows rolled gently at anchor.

  Hal was straining his eyes to pick out the masts of the Gull of Moray, but he knew that if she were in the bay he would not be able to spot her until the first broadside lit the darkness.

  ‘A large dhow dead ahead,’ he said quietly to Ned Tyler. ‘Steer to pass her close to starboard.’

  ‘Ready, Master Daniel!’ He raised his voice. ‘On the vessel to starboard, fire as you bear!’

  They crept up to the anchored dhow and, as she came fully abeam, the Golden Bough’s full broadside lit the darkness like sheet lightning and the thunder of the guns stunned their ear-drums and echoed off the desert hills. In that brief eye-searing illumination Hal saw the masts and hulls of the entire enemy fleet brightly lit, and he felt the lead of disappointment heavy in his guts.

  ‘The Gull has gone,’ he said aloud. Once again, the Buzzard had eluded him. There will be another time, he consoled himself. Firmly he put the distracting thought from his mind, and turned his full attention back to the battle that was opening like some hellish pageant before him.

  The moment that first broadside tore into the quarry, Aboli did not have to wait for an order. The deck was lit by the flare of many bright flames as the Amadoda lit their fire-arrows. On each cane shaft, tied behind the iron arrowhead, was a tuft of unravelled hemp rope that had been soaked in pitch, which spluttered and then burned fiercely when touched with the slow-match.

  The archers loosed their arrows, which sailed up in a high, flaming parabola and dropped down to peg into the timbers of an anchored vessel. As the screams of terror and agony rose from the shot-shattered hull, the Golden Bough glided on deeper into the mass of shipping.

  ‘Two vessels a point on either side of your bows,’ Hal told the helmsman. ‘Steer between them.’

  As they passed them close on either hand, the ship heeled first to one side and then to the other as her broadsides thundered out in quick succession, and a rain of fire-arrows fell from the sky upon the stricken vessels.

  Behind them the first dhow was ablaze, and her flames lit the bay, brilliantly illuminating the quarry to the Golden Bough’s gunners as she ran on amongst them.

  ‘El Tazar!’ As Hal heard the terrified Arab voices screaming his name from ship to ship, he smiled grimly and watched their panic-stricken efforts to cut their anchor cables and escape his terrible approach. Now five dhows were burning, and drifted out of control into the crowded anchorage.

  Some enemy vessels were firing wildly, blazing away without making any attempt to lay their aim on the frigate. Stray cannonballs, aimed too high, howled overhead, while others, aimed too low, skipped across the surface of the water and crashed into the friendly ships anchored alongside them.

  The flames jumped from ship to ship and the whole sweep of the bay was bright as day. Once again Hal looked for the Gull’s tall masts. If she were here, by this time the Buzzard would have set sails and his silhouette would be unmistakable. But he was nowhere in sight, and Hal turned back angrily to the task of wreaking as much destruction as he could upon the fleet of Islam.

  Behind them one of the blazing hulls must have been loaded with several hundred tons of blackpowder for El Grang’s artillery. It went up in a vast tower of black smoke, shot through with flaring red flames as though the devil had flung open the doors of hell. The rolling column of smoke went on mounting into the night sky until its top was no longer visible and seemed to have reached into the heavens. The blast swept through the fleet striking down those vessels closest to it and shattering their timbers or rolling them over on their backs.

  The wind from the explosion roared over the frigate and, for a moment, her sails were taken aback and she began to lose steerage way. Then the offshore night breeze took over and filled them once more. She bore onwards, deeper into the bay and into the heart of the enemy fleet.

  Hal nodded with grim satisfaction each time one of the Golden Bough’s salvoes crashed out. They were one sudden shock of thunder and a single flare of red flame as every gun fired at the same instant. Even Aboli’s Amadoda launched their flights of arrows in a single flaming cloud. In contrast, there was never such a wild discordant banging of uncontrolled shot as stuttered from the enemy ships.

  El Grang’s shore batteries began to open up as their sleep-groggy gunners stumbled to their colossal siege guns. Each discharge was like a separate clap of thunder, belittling even the roar of the frigate’s massed volleys. Hal smiled each time one of their mighty muzzle flashes tore out from the rock-walled redoubts across the bay. The shore gunners could not possibly pick out the black sails of the Golden Bough in the confusion and smoke. They fired into their own fleet and Hal saw at least one enemy ship smashed to planks by a single ball from the shore.

  ‘Stand by to go about!’ Hal gave the order in one of the fleeting moments of quiet. The shore was coming up fast, and they would soon be landlocked in the depths of the bay. The topmastmen handled the sails with perfect timing, and the bows swung through a wide arc then steadied as the
y pointed back towards the open sea.

  Hal walked forward in the brilliant light of the burning ships and raised his voice so that the men could hear him: ‘I doubt not that El Grang will long remember this night.’ They cheered him even as they heaved on the gun tackles and nocked their arrows.‘The Bough and Sir Hal!’

  Then a single voice sang out, ‘El Tazar!’ and they all took up the cry so heartily that El Grang and the Prince must have heard them as they stood before the silken tent on the knoll above the bay and looked down upon their shattered fleet.

  ‘El Tazar! El Tazar!’

  Hal nodded at the helm. ‘Take us out, please, Mr Tyler.’

  As they wove their way through the burning hulks and floating wreckage, and drew slowly out towards the entrance a single shot fired from one of the drifting dhows smashed in through the gunwale, and tore across the open deck. Miraculously it passed between one of the guncrews and a group of the half-naked archers without touching them. But Stan Sparrow was standing at the far rail, commanding a gun battery, and the hot iron ball took off both his legs neatly, just above the knees.

  Instinctively Hal started forward to succour him, but then he checked himself. As captain, the dead and wounded were not his concern, but he felt the agony of loss. Stan Sparrow had been with him from the beginning. He was a good man and a shipmate.

  When they carried Stan away, they passed close by where Hal stood. He saw that Stan’s face was ivory pale, and that he was drained of blood. He was sinking fast but he saw Hal and, with a great effort, lifted his hand to touch his forehead. ‘They was good times, Captain,’ he said, and his hand dropped.

  ‘God speed, Master Stan,’ Hal said, and while they carried him below, he turned to look back into the bay, so that in the light of the burning ships no man might see his distress.

  Long after they had run out of the bay and turned away northwards towards Mitsiwa, the night skies behind them glowed with the inferno they had created. The captains of divisions came one at a time to make their battle reports. Though Stan Sparrow was the only man killed, three others had been wounded by musket fire from the dhows as they sailed past, and another man’s leg had been crushed in the recoil of an overshotted culverin. It was a small price to pay, Hal supposed, and yet, though he knew it to be weakness, he mourned Stan Sparrow.