by Wilbur Smith
“What is it?” Instinctively Koots kept his voice low.
“Strangers,” Xhia replied. “They follow us.”
“Men?” Koots’s wits were still fuddled with sleep. Xhia did not deign to answer such an inanity. “Who? How many?” Koots insisted, as he sat up.
Quickly Xhia twisted a spill of dried grass. Before he lit it he held up a corner of Koots’s kaross as a screen from watching eyes. Then he held the spill to the dying ash of the fire. He blew on the coals, and when the spill burst into flame he screened it with the kaross and his own body. He held something in his free hand. Koots peered at it. It was a scrap of soiled white cloth.
“Ripped from a man’s clothing by thorns,” Xhia told him. Then he showed his next trophy, a single strand of black hair. Even Koots realized at once that it was a human hair, but it was too black and coarse to have come from the head of a northern European and it was too straight, free of kinks, to have come from the head of a Bushman or an African tribesman.
“This rag comes from a long robe such as Mussulmen wear. This hair from his head.”
“Mussulman?” Koots asked in surprise, and Xhia clicked in assent. Koots had learned better than to argue.
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Where are they now?”
“Lying close. They are watching us.” Xhia let the burning spill drop and rubbed out the last sparks in the dust with the palm of his childlike hand.
“Where have they left their horses?” Koots asked. “If they had smelt ours they would have whinnied.”
“No horses. They come on foot.”
“Arabs on foot! Then, whoever they are, that is what they are after.” Koots pulled on his boots. “They want our horses.” Careful to keep a low profile, he crawled to where Oudeman was snoring softly and shook him. Once Oudeman was fully awake he grasped quickly what was happening, and understood Koots’s orders.
“No gunfire!” Koots repeated. “In the dark there is too much risk of hitting the horses. Take them with cold steel.”
Koots and Oudeman crept to each of the troopers, and whispered the orders. The men rolled out of their blankets, and slipped singly down to the horse pickets. With drawn sabres they lay up among shrub and low brush.
Koots placed himself on the southern perimeter furthest from the faint glow of the dying campfire. He lay flat against the earth, so that any man approaching the pickets would be silhouetted against the stars and the fading traces of the great comet, by now only an ethereal ghost in the western sky. Orion was no longer obliterated by its light: at this season of the year he was standing on his head below the dazzle of the Milky Way. Koots covered his eyes to enhance his night vision. He listened with all his attention, and opened his eyes only briefly, so that they would not be tricked by the light.
Time passed slowly. He measured it by the turning of the heavenly bodies. For any other man it might have been hard to keep his level of concentration screwed up to the main, but Koots was a warrior. He had to close his ears to the mundane sounds made by the horses as they shifted their weight or cropped a mouthful of grass.
The last glimmer of the great comet was low on the western horizon before Koots heard the click of two pebbles striking together. Every nerve in his body snapped taut. A minute later, and much closer, there came the slither of a leather sandal on the soft earth. He kept his head low, and saw a dark shape move against the stars.
He is closing in, he thought. Let him start to work on the ropes.
The intruder paused when he reached the head of the horselines. Koots saw his head turn slowly as he listened. He wore a turban and his beard bushed and curled. After a long minute he stooped over the running line to which the head halters of the horses were secured by steel rings. Two of the animals jerked their heads free as the line slipped through the rings.
As soon as Koots guessed that the intruder was absorbed in unravelling the next knot he rose to his feet and moved towards him. But he lost sight of him as he crouched below the skyline. He was no longer where Koots expected him to be, and abruptly Koots stumbled up against him in the darkness. Koots shouted to warn his men, then the two of them were struggling chest to chest, too close for Koots to use his blade.
Koots realized at once that the man he was wrestling was a formidable adversary. He twisted like an eel in his grip, and he felt all hard muscle and sinew. Koots tried to knee his groin, but his kneecap was almost torn loose as it struck the hard, rubbery muscle of the man’s thigh instead of the soft bunch of his genitals. In an instantaneous riposte the man slammed the heel of his right hand up under Koots’s jaw. His head snapped back and it felt as though his neck was broken as he went over backwards and sprawled on the ground. He saw the intruder rearing over him and the glint of his blade as it went up high for the forehand cut to his head. Koots threw up his own sabre in an instinctive parry, and steel thrilled on steel as the blades met.
The intruder broke off the attack and disappeared into the darkness. Koots crawled to his knees, still half stunned. There were shouts and the sound of blows from all around, and he heard both Oudeman and Richter bellowing orders and encouragement to the others. Then there was the bang and flash of a pistol shot. That galvanized Koots.
“Don’t shoot, you fools! The horses! Have a care for the horses!” He pulled himself to his feet, and at that moment heard the clatter of shod hoofs behind him. He glanced around and saw the dark outline of a horseman bearing down upon him at full gallop. A sword glinted dully in the starlight and Koots ducked. The blade hissed past his cheek, and he glimpsed the turbaned head and beard of the rider as he raced by.
Wildly he looked about him. Nearby, the grey mare was a pale blob against the darker background. She was the fastest and strongest of the entire string. He sheathed his sword, and checked the pistol in the holster at his hip as he ran to her. As soon as he was astride her back he listened for the sound of hoofs, turned her with his knees and kicked her into a full gallop.
Every few minutes during the next hours he was forced to stop and listen for the fugitive’s hoofbeats. Although the Arab often twisted and turned to throw off Koots’s pursuit he always headed back towards the north. An hour before dawn Koots lost the sound of him altogether. Either he had turned again or he had slowed his mount to a walk.
North! He is set on north, he decided.
He placed the great Southern Cross squarely over his shoulder and rode into the north, keeping to a steady canter that would not burn up the mare. The dawn came up with startling rapidity. His horizon expanded as the darkness drew back, and his heart bounced as he made out the dark shape moving not a pistol shot ahead of him. He knew at once that it was not one of the larger species of antelope, for the shape of the rider upon its back was plain to see against the lightening veld. Koots pushed the mare harder and came up on him swiftly. The rider was not yet aware of him and was holding his horse to a walk. Koots recognized the bay gelding, a good strong mount, almost a match for his mare.
“Son of the great whore!” Koots laughed with triumph. “The bay has gone lame. No wonder he had to slow down.” Even in this poor light it was plain to see that the gelding was favouring his off fore. He must have picked up a sharp stone or a thorn in the frog, and he was making heavy weather of it. Koots raced down upon them, and the fugitive swivelled round. Koots saw that he was a hawk-faced Arab, with a curling bush of beard. He took one quick look at Koots, then flogged the gelding into a laboured gallop.
Koots was close enough to risk a pistol shot and try to end it swiftly. He threw up his weapon and fired for the centre of the Arab’s broad back. It must have been close for the Arab ducked and shouted, “Swords, infidel! Man to man!”
As an ensign Koots had spent years with the VOC army in the Orient. His Arabic was fluent and colloquial. “Those are sweet words!” he shouted back. “Stand and let me thrust them down your throat.”
Within two hundred yards the gelding was pulled up. The Arab slipped off his back
, and turned to face Koots, flourishing the naval cutlass in his right hand. Koots realized he had no firearm: if he had carried a musket when he entered the camp, he had lost it somewhere along the way. He was dismounted, and had only the cutlass—and, of course, a dagger. An Arab always had a dagger. Koots had a great advantage, and no quixotic notions ever entered his calculations. He would exploit it to the full. He charged straight down on the Arab, leaning out to sabre him from horseback.
The Arab was quicker than he anticipated. As soon as he read Koots’s intention, he feinted away from the charge and then, at the last moment, darted back under his sword arm, brushing down the flank of the running mare with the grace of a toreador leaning inside the horns of the charging bull. At the same time he reached up, grabbed a handful of the skirt of Koots’s leather coat and threw all his weight on it. It was so sudden and unexpected that Koots was taken by surprise. He was leaning far out from his mount’s bare back, without stirrups or reins to steady himself, and he was hauled bodily off the mare.
But Koots was a fighting man too, and, like a cat, he landed on his feet with his grip on the hilt of his sabre. The Arab went for the forehand cut to the head again. Then immediately he reversed and cut low for the Achilles tendon. Koots met the first stroke, deflecting it with a twist of the wrist, but the second was so fast that he had to jump over the swing of the cutlass. He was in balance when he landed and thrust straight at the Arab’s dark glittering eyes. The Arab rolled his head and let the stroke fly over his shoulder, but so close that it razored a tuft of his beard from below his ear. They sprang apart and circled each other. Neither was even breathing hard: two warriors in peak condition.
“What is your name, son of the false prophet?” Koots asked easily. “I like to know who I am killing.”
“My name is Kadem ibn Abubaker al-Jurf, infidel,” he said softly, but his eyes glittered at the insult. “And, apart from Eater-of-Dung, what do men call you?”
“I am Captain Herminius Koots of the army of the VOC.”
“Ah!” said Kadem. “Your fame goes ahead of you. You are married to the pretty little whore named Nella who has been fucked by every man who ever visited Good Hope. Even I had a few guilders’ worth of her behind the hedge of the Company gardens when I was in the colony only a short while ago. I commend you. She knows her trade and enjoys her work.”
The insult was so barbed and unexpected that Koots gaped at him—the Arab even knew her name. His sword arm faltered with the shock. On the instant Kadem was at him again, and he had to scramble backwards to avoid the attack. They circled and came together, and this time Koots managed a touch high on his left shoulder. But it barely scratched the skin and no more than a few scarlet drops showed through the thin soiled cotton sleeve of Kadem’s robe.
They essayed a dozen more passes without a hit, and then Kadem scored, slicing open Koots’s hip, but only skin deep. The blood made it look worse than it was. Nevertheless Koots gave ground for the first time, and his sword arm ached. He regretted that wasted pistol shot. Kadem was smiling, a thin reptilian curl of the lips, and suddenly, as Koots had expected, a thin curved dagger appeared in his left hand.
Then Kadem came on again, very fast, leading with his right foot, his blade turning into a darting sunbeam, and Koots went back before it. His heel caught on a patch of thorns and he nearly fell, but recovered with a sideways twist that jarred his spine. Kadem broke off again and circled out left. He had read Koots accurately. Left was his weak side. Kadem was not to know that, years ago, during the fighting before Jaffna, he had taken a ball through that knee. It was aching now and he was panting for breath. Kadem came on again, steely and relentless.
By now Koots was flailing his blade a little, not thrusting straight and hard. His breath whistled in his own ears. He knew that it would not be much longer. The sweat burned his eyes, and Kadem’s face blurred.
Then, abruptly, Kadem pulled back and lowered his cutlass. He was staring over Koots’s shoulder. It might have been a ruse, and Koots refused to respond. He watched the dagger in Kadem’s left hand, trying to steady and compose himself for the next pass.
Then he heard the sound of hoofs behind him. He turned slowly, and there were Oudeman and Richter mounted and fully armed, Xhia leading them. Kadem let both the dagger and the cutlass drop from his hand, but still he stood with his chin lifted and his shoulders squared.
“Shall I kill the swine-pig, Captain?” Oudeman asked, as he rode up. His carbine was resting across the saddle in front of him. Koots almost gave the order. He was shaken and angry. He knew how close he had come, and Kadem had called Nella a whore. It was the truth, but death to any man who uttered it in Koots’s hearing. Then he checked himself. The man had spoken of Good Hope. There was something to learn from that, and later Koots would kill him with his own hands. That would give him more pleasure than letting Oudeman do it for him.
“I want to hear more from him. Tie him behind your horse.”
It was almost two leagues back to camp. They bound Kadem’s wrists together and tied the other end of the rope to the snap-ring on the wing of Oudeman’s saddle. He dragged Kadem at a trot. When he fell Oudeman jerked him to his feet again, but each time Kadem lost a piece of skin from where his elbows or his knees struck the hard ground. He was coated with a paste of dust, sweat and blood when Oudeman dragged him into the camp.
Koots swung down from the back of the grey mare, and went to inspect the other three Arab prisoners that Oudeman had captured.
“Names?” he demanded of the two who seemed uninjured.
“Rashood, effendi.”
“Habban, effendi.” They touched their foreheads and breasts in respect and submission. He went to the third prisoner, who was wounded. He lay groaning, curled like a foetus in the womb.
“Name?” Koots said, and kicked him in the belly. The wounded man groaned louder, and fresh blood trickled from between his fingers where he was clutching his stomach. Koots glanced at Oudeman.
“Stupid Goffel,” Oudeman explained. “He was carried away with excitement. Forgot your orders and shot him. It’s in the belly. He won’t live until tomorrow.”
“So! Better this than one of the horses,” Koots said, and drew the pistol from the holster on his sword belt. He cocked it and held the muzzle to the back of the wounded man’s head. At the shot the prisoner stiffened, his eyes rolled back in their sockets. His legs kicked spasmodically, then lay still.
“Waste of good powder,” said Oudeman. “Should have let me use the knife.”
“I haven’t had my breakfast yet, and you know how squeamish I can be.” Koots smiled at his own sense of humour and returned the smoking pistol to its holster. He waved his hand towards the other prisoners. “Give them each ten with the sjambok across the soles of both feet to put them in a friendlier mood, and as soon as I have finished my breakfast I will speak to them again.”
Koots ate a bowl of stew made from the shanks of the hartebeest, and watched Oudeman and Richter lay on the sjambok to the bare feet of the Arab captives.
“Hard men.” Koots gave grudging approval when the only sound they made was a small grunt to the fall of each stroke. He knew what agony they were enduring. Koots wiped out the bowl with a finger and sucked it as he went back to squat in front of Kadem. Despite his torn and dusty robe, the cuts and abrasions that covered his limbs, Kadem was so obviously the leader that Koots wasted no time on the others. He glanced up at Oudeman and indicated Rashood and Habban. “Take these pig-swine away.”
Oudeman knew that he wanted them out of earshot while he questioned Kadem so that they would not hear his replies. Later he would question them separately and compare their responses. Koots waited until the Hottentot troopers had dragged them, limping on their swollen feet, to a tree and tied them to its trunk. Then he turned back to Kadem. “So you visited the Cape of Good Hope, Beloved of Allah?”
Kadem stared back at him with fanatical, glittering eyes in his dusty face. However, the mention of the plac
e stirred something in Oudeman’s sluggish mind. He fetched one of the muskets they had captured from the Arabs and handed it to his captain. Koots’s first glance at the weapon was perfunctory.
“The butt-stock.” Oudeman directed his attention. “See the emblem in the wood?”
Koots’s eyes narrowed and his lips formed a thin, hard line as he traced the design that had been burned into the wood with a branding iron. It depicted a cannon, a long-barrelled nine-pounder on a two-wheeled carriage, and in the ribbon below it the initials CBTC.
“Good, so!” Koots looked up and stared at Kadem. “You are one of Tom and Dorian Courtney’s men.”
Koots saw something flare in the depths of those dark eyes, but it was so swiftly hidden again that he could not be certain of it, but the emotion the names had engendered was passionate. It might have been loyalty, dedication or something different. Koots sat and stared at him. “You know my wife,” Koots reminded him, “and I might have to castrate you for the way you spoke of her. But do you know the Courtney brothers, Tom and Dorian? If you do, it might just save your balls.”
Kadem stared back at him, and Koots spoke to Oudeman: “Sergeant, lift his skirts that we can judge how big is the knife we must use for the job.”
Oudeman grinned and knelt beside Kadem, but before he could touch him Kadem spoke.
“I know Dorian Courtney, but his Arabic name is al-Salil.”
“The Red-headed One,” Koots agreed. “Yes, I have heard him called that. What of his brother, Tom? The one whom men also call Klebe, the hawk.”
“I know them both,” Kadem affirmed.
“You are their hireling, their creature, their lackey, their lickspittle?” Koots chose his words with care to provoke him.
“I am their implacable enemy.” Kadem rushed into the trap, his pride bristling. “If Allah is kind, then one day I will be their executioner.”
He said it with such fierce sincerity that Koots believed him. He said nothing, for often silence is the best form of interrogation.