by Wilbur Smith
It was almost midnight before he went below to his cabin, but even then Mansur and Verity could not sleep. They made love as though it would never happen again, then lay naked in each other’s arms, sweating in the tropical night, and they talked softly. Sometimes they laughed and more than once Verity wept. There was so much they had to tell, their whole lifetimes to relate to each other. At last, though, even their new love could no longer keep them awake, and they slept with their limbs entwined.
An hour before first light Mansur slipped from their bunk and left her to go back on deck. But within minutes Verity, too, came up the companionway and took a place in the angle of the quarter-deck and the poop, where she could be near him but unobtrusive.
Mansur ordered the cooks to give the men their breakfast and while they ate he went down the deck and spoke to them, giving them encouragement, making them laugh and others smile, even though they knew that the Arcturus was close behind them in the darkness and they would soon be called upon to fight her again.
As soon as the dawn sky began to pale Mansur and Kumrah were at the stern rail on the poop deck beside the stern chaser. The lantern on the main truck of the Revenge showed close astern, but as the circle of their vision opened they all stared beyond her for the first glimpse of the Arcturus. They were not disappointed. As the light strengthened they caught the loom of her against the still dark horizon, and Mansur had to check himself from giving voice to his disappointment. She had gained almost a mile on them during the hours of darkness, and now she was within long cannon shot. Even as Mansur stared at her through the lens of his telescope there was a flash from her bows, and a puff of white smoke.
“Your father is firing at us with bow chasers. Though I fancy the range is a trifle too long for him to do us any real damage for a while yet,” Mansur told Verity.
At that moment there was a hail from the masthead: “Land ho!” and they left the stern and went up into the bows to scan ahead with the spyglass.
“You excel yourself, Captain,” Mansur told Kumrah. “Unless I am very much mistaken, that is Ras al-Had dead ahead.” They went back to the chart table beside the traverse-board and pored over the chart. This masterpiece of the cartographer’s art had been drawn up by Kumrah himself, the work of a lifetime spent on the sea.
“Where is this Kos al-Heem?” Mansur asked. The name meant “the Deceiver” in the dialect of the Omani coast.
“I have not marked it on the chart.” Kumrah pricked the waxed leather with the point of his dividers. “Some things are best kept from the eyes of the world. But it is here.”
“How much longer to run?” Mansur asked.
“If this wind holds, we will be there an hour after noon.”
“By then the Arcturus will have overhauled the Revenge.” Mansur glanced across his father’s ship.
“If it is God’s will,” said Kumrah, with resignation, “for God is great.”
“We must try to shield the Revenge from the fire of the Arcturus until we reach the Deceiver.” Mansur gave Kumrah his orders, then went back to the stern where the gun-crew were gathered around the nine-pounder.
Kumrah shortened sail again and dropped back until he could interpose the Sprite between the other two ships. During that time the Arcturus fired twice with her bow chaser. Both shots fell short. However, the Arcturus’s next splashed heavily alongside the Revenge.
“Very well.” Mansur nodded. “We can try a ranging shot at her now.”
He chose a round-shot from the locker, rolling it under his foot to check its symmetry. Then he measured the charge of powder with care, and had his crew swab the bore carefully to remove as much powder residue as possible.
Once the gun was loaded and run out he stood behind it and noted how the stern of the Sprite lifted and yawed as she rode over the swells. He calculated the adjustments necessary to counteract these movements. Then, slow-match in hand, he stood well clear of the breech and watched for the next swell. As the Sprite kicked up her heels and lifted her stern, like a flirtatious girl swishing her skirts, he pressed the burning end of the match to the quill of powder in the touch-hole. The elevation would give the iron ball the extra carry.
The long cannon bellowed and slammed back into its tackle. Verity and Kumrah were watching for the fall of shot.
Seconds later they picked out the tiny feather of white that jumped from the surface of the dark sea. “Short by a hundred yards and about three degrees left,” Verity called sharply.
Mansur grunted and wound the elevation screw to its maximum height. They fired again. “Under again, but on line.” They kept firing steadily.
The Revenge had joined in the bombardment. The Arcturus closed in slowly, firing her bow chasers as she came on. However, by the middle of the morning none of the ships had managed a hit, although some of the shot had fallen close. Mansur and his gun-crew were stripped to the waist in the rising heat: their bodies were shining with sweat, and their faces were blackened with gunsmoke. The barrel of the cannon was too hot to touch. The wet swab sizzled and steamed as it was thrust down the bore. For the twenty-third time that morning they ran out the long nine-pounder and Mansur laid it with care. The Arcturus appeared much taller as he squinted at it over the sights. He stood back and waited for the pitch and roll of the hull under him before he fired.
The gun carriage bounded back violently and slammed against its tackle. This time, though they strained their eyes through the lens, there was no splash of falling shot. Instead Verity saw shattered timbers explode from the Arcturus’s bows and one of her chaser cannon knocked from its carriage and upended.
“‘A hit! A very palpable hit!’”
“Say Miss Verity and the Bard!” Mansur laughed and gulped down a mouthful from the water dipper before laying the next shot.
Seemingly in retaliation, the Arcturus dropped a ball from the remaining bow chaser so close under the Sprite’s stern that a fountain of spray rose high into the air, then cascaded over them, drenching them to the skin.
All this time the rocky cape of Ras al-Had was rising higher out of the sea, and Arcturus was slowly overhauling them from astern.
“Where is Kos al-Heem?” Mansur asked impatiently.
“You will not see it until you are about to strike. That is how it was given the name, but these are the landmarks. The white streak in the cliff face, there. The tip of the egg-shaped rock that stands to the left of it, there!”
“I want you to take the helm now, Kumrah. Luff her a little and spill your wind. I want to let the Arcturus close up to us, without making it obvious that it is deliberate.”
The raging duel between the ships carried on. Mansur hoped to distract Cornish’s attention from the hazard ahead, and to let the Revenge draw further ahead. The Arcturus came on eagerly, and within the hour she was so close that through the glass Mansur and Verity could recognize the burly figure and distinctive features of Captain Ruby Cornish.
“And there is Sir Guy!” Mansur had been about to say “your father,” but he changed the words at the last moment. He did not want to emphasize the relationship of his enemy to his love.
In comparison to Ruby Cornish, Guy Courtney cut a slim, elegant figure. He had changed his attire, and even in this heat he wore a cocked hat and a blue coat with scarlet lapels, tight-fitting white breeches and black boots. He stood staring across at them. His expression was set and hard, and there was a deadly purpose about him that chilled Verity to the marrow: she well knew this mood of his and dreaded it like the cholera.
“Kumrah!” Mansur called to him. “Where is this Deceiver? Where is Kos al-Heem? Is it something you dreamed after a pipe of hashish?”
Kumrah glanced at the Revenge, which had forged slowly ahead. She was now leading them by a quarter of a sea mile.
“The Caliph, your revered father, is almost upon the Deceiver.”
“I can see no sign of it.” Minutely Mansur studied the waters ahead of the other ship, but the swells marched on inexorably, and there w
as no break or check in their ranks; no swirl nor flurry of white water that he was able to descry.
“That is why it is called the Deceiver,” Kumrah reminded him. “It keeps its secrets well. It has murdered a hundred ships and more, including the galley of Ptolemy, the general and favourite of the mighty Isakander. It was only by God’s favour that he survived the wreck.”
“God is great,” Mansur murmured automatically.
“Praise God,” Kumrah agreed and, as he spoke, the Revenge abruptly put up her helm and turned her bows into the wind. With all her sails backed and shuddering, she hove to.
“Ah!” cried Kumrah. “Baris has found and marked the Deceiver for us.”
“Run out the port battery and prepare to come about on the starboard tack,” Mansur ordered. While the crew ran to their battle stations, he eyed the approaching Arcturus.
She was rushing in towards them jubilantly, with every stitch of canvas set. Even as he watched, Mansur saw the lids of her gunports crash open and the muzzles of her cannon poke out menacingly along her sides. He turned and strode forward until he had a full view of the Revenge, hove-to dead ahead; she also had run out her guns, offering battle.
Mansur went back to the helm. He was conscious that from the angle below the poop Verity was watching him intently. Her expression was calm and she showed no fear.
“I would like you to go below, my love,” he told her quietly. “We will very soon be under fire.”
She shook her head. “The ship’s timbers offer no protection from nine-pound iron balls. This I know from experience,” she replied, with a naughty sparkle in her eyes, “when you fired upon me.”
“I have never apologized for my bad manners in so doing.” He smiled back at her. “It was unforgivable. But I swear I will make it up to you in spades and trumps.”
“All other things apart, from now on my place is at your side, not cowering under the bunk.”
“I shall always treasure your presence,” he said, and turned to look back at the Arcturus. She was within easy cannon shot at last. Now he must engage all her attention, and lure her on at the top of her speed. Kumrah was watching for his order.
“Up helm,” Mansur snapped, and the Sprite turned like a dancer. Suddenly she had turned her full broadside on the Arcturus.
“Steady, gunners!” Mansur shouted, through the trumpet. “Make good your aim!” One after the other the captains raised their right arms to show that they had laid their pieces true.
“Fire!” Mansur cried, and the broadside bellowed out like a single clap of thunder. Gunsmoke poured back across the deck in a thick grey cloud, but was almost at once blown away by the wind and they could see a single spout of seawater rise from under the Arcturus’s bows, but the rest of the broadside smashed into her stem, tearing holes in her timbers. The ship seemed to tremble to these terrible blows but came on without a check in her speed.
“Bring her about on the old course,” Mansur ordered, and the Sprite obeyed her helm at once. They sped away towards where the Revenge lay waiting for them. Bows on to them, the Arcturus had not been able to fire her own broadside in return, but the manoeuvre had cost the Sprite almost all of her lead, and the enemy was scarcely more than a cable’s length behind her. She fired her bow chaser, and the Sprite shuddered as the ball struck her stern and tore through her hull.
Kumrah was staring ahead with slitted eyes, but Mansur could see no sign of the Deceiver. Kumrah called a correction to the helm and the man on the wheel eased her over to port a trifle. This cleared the range for the Revenge, and now she could fire without fear of hitting the Sprite. She was still presenting her broadside to the enemy, and disappeared momentarily behind the curtain of her own gunsmoke as she let fly with all her cannon.
The range was long but she hit with at least some of her shot. The Arcturus was so close by now that Mansur could hear the iron round-shot strike against her timbers like heavy hammer strokes.
“That will invite all Cornish’s attention,” Verity said, and her voice was clear in the sudden silence that followed the broadside. Mansur did not answer. He was gazing ahead with a worried frown.
“Where is this triple-damned Deceiver—” He broke off as he saw the sparkle of bright specks like drifting snow-flakes deep in the blue waters directly under their bows. They were so unexpected that for a moment he was at a loss. Then it dawned upon him.
“Fusiliers!” he exclaimed. These shoals of tiny, jewelled fish always hung over submerged reefs, even out here in the mid-water at the edge of the continental shelf. The shoals scattered as the Sprite’s hull cut through them, and Mansur saw the dark, terrible shadows rising from the depths, like blackened fangs, directly in the ship’s path. Kumrah stepped across and pushed away the helmsman. Then he took the wheel of his ship in lover’s hands to steer her through.
Mansur saw the dark shapes harden as they rushed down upon them. They were three horns of granite that reached up from dark waters to within a fathom of the sunlit surface. So sharp were the points that they offered little resistance to the flow and push of currents and waves. This accounted for the lack of surface turbulence.
Instinctively Mansur held his breath as Kumrah steered into the centre of this cruel crown of stone. He felt Verity’s hand on his arm as she clung to him for comfort, her fingernails digging painfully into his flesh.
The Sprite touched the rock. To Mansur it felt as though he had ridden a horse at full gallop through the forest and a thornbush had tugged at his sleeve. The deck shuddered softly under his feet, and he heard the granite horn rasp against their bottom timbers. Then the Sprite pulled herself free and they were through. Mansur let the air out of his lungs with a sigh, and beside him Verity cried, “That was as close as I ever want to be.”
Mansur seized her hand and they ran back to the stern rail. They watched the Arcturus run into the trap at full tilt. Despite her battle damage and her soot-blackened rigging she presented a beautiful picture, with every sail drawing and a tall white bow wave sparkling and curling back from her forefoot.
She hit the stone pinnacles and stopped dead in the water, transformed in a single instant from a thing of airy grace to a shambles. Her foremast snapped off level with the deck and half her yards came tumbling down. Her underwater timbers crackled and roared as they shattered and she hung in the water like part of the reef. The granite horns of the Deceiver were driven deep into her belly. The top yardsmen in her rigging were hurled from their perches, like pellets from a slingshot, to splash into the water half a pistol shot from the ship’s side. The rest of her crew were skittled down the deck to slam into the masts and bulwarks. Their own cannons were turned against them as they were catapulted into the unyielding metal with the full impetus of the ship’s way. Arms, legs and ribs broke like green twigs, and skulls cracked like eggs dropped on to a stone-flagged floor. The crews of the two smaller vessels lined the sides, and stared in awe at the devastation they had wrought, too overwhelmed to cheer the destruction of the enemy.
Mansur hove to alongside his father’s ship. “What now, Father?”
“We cannot leave Guy in such a state,” Dorian shouted back. “We must render what help we can. I shall go across in the longboat.”
“No, Father!” Mansur called back. “You can spend no more time here. Your ship is also in extremes. You must go on to find the safe harbour at Sawda island, where we can repair the underwater damage before she founders and sinks.”
“But what of Guy and his men?” Dorian hesitated. “What is to become of them?”
“I shall take care of that business,” Mansur promised. “You can be certain that I will not let your brother, Verity’s father, perish here.”
Dorian and Batula conferred quickly, and then Dorian returned to the Revenge’s side. “Very well! Batula agrees that we must get into safe anchorage before another storm brews up. We cannot ride out rough seas in the shape we are now in.”
“I shall take off the survivors from the Arcturus, and foll
ow you with all speed.”
Dorian put the Revenge once more before the wind, and headed in towards the mainland. Mansur handed over command to Kumrah, and went down into the longboat. He stood in the stern sheets as they rowed in towards the stranded and heavily listing Arcturus. As soon as they were within easy hail he ordered the boat crew to rest on their oars. “Arcturus! I have a surgeon with me. What help do you need?”
Cornish’s red face appeared over the top of the canted bulwark. “We have many broken limbs. I need to get the wounded back to the infirmary on Bombay island, or they will die.”
“I am coming on board!” Mansur shouted back.
But another voice rang out angrily: “Stand off, you filthy rebel scum!” Sir Guy Courtney was clinging to the main shrouds with one hand. His other arm was thrust into the front of his jacket, using it as a makeshift sling. He had lost his hat, and fresh blood caked his hair and the side of his face from the deep lacerations in his scalp. “If you try to board this ship I shall fire into you.”
“Uncle Guy!” Mansur called. “I am your brother Dorian’s son. You must allow me to help you and your men.”
“In God’s Holy Name, you are no kith or kin of mine. You are a heathen bastard, an abductor and violator of innocent English womanhood.”
“Your men need help. You yourself are wounded. Let me take you and your men to the port of Bombay island.”
Guy did not reply but staggered along the listing deck to the nearest cannon. He snatched a smoking slow-match from the sand tub. The heavy weapon still poked its gleaming bronze barrel through the open gunport, but Mansur was not alarmed. The weapon was harmless. The angle of the deck pointed the muzzle down into the water close alongside.
“Listen to reason, Uncle. My father and I wish you no harm. You are of our blood. See! I am unarmed.” He held up his open hands to prove it. But with a chill of horror he realized that Guy was not intending to fire the great cannon. Instead he seized the long handle of the murderer that sat squat and ugly in its gimbal fixed to the bulwark: it was a hand-cannon, designed to repel enemy boarders, loaded with a hatful of lead goose-shot. At short range its name described its gruesome capabilities accurately.