Blue Horizon

by Wilbur Smith

“He has had no time to hide his stolen booty,” Sir Guy agreed happily. “His ships will still be at anchor in the bay, and this wind will hold them landlocked until we attack.”

  “What the English effendi says is right. The wind is steady out of the east, mighty Caliph.” Rahmad looked up to the huge sail. “It will bear us in on this single tack. We will be able to enter the mouth of the lagoon before noon.”

  “Where is this river Umgeni in which the main force of Pasha Koots will disembark and go ashore?”

  “Majesty, it is not plain to see from this distance. There, slightly to the north of the entrance to the bay.” Abruptly Rahmad broke off, and his expression changed. “There is a ship!” He pointed. It took Zayn a few moments to pick out the fleck of canvas against the background of the land.

  “What ship is it?”

  “I cannot be certain. A felucca, perhaps. It is small, but that type is fast on the wind. See! It is coming up and escaping out to sea.”

  “Can you send one of our ships to capture it?” Zayn asked.

  Rahmad looked dubious. “Majesty, we have no vessel in the fleet fast enough to catch her in a stern chase. She has a lead of many miles. She will be over the horizon in an hour.”

  Zayn thought for a moment, and then shook his head. “It can do us no harm. The lookouts on the bluff must already have given the alarm to the enemy, and the felucca can pose no additional threat even to the smallest of our vessels. Let her go.”

  Zayn turned away and looked back at his own ships. “Make the signal to Muri Kadem ibn Abubaker,” he ordered.

  Zayn had divided the fleet into two divisions. He had taken personal command of the first. This comprised the five largest war-dhows, all armed with heavy batteries of cannon.

  At every opportunity since leaving Oman, Kadem ibn Abubaker and Koots had come on board the Sufi to attend his war councils. Zayn had been able to adjust his plans to take into account every new detail of intelligence they had gathered at all their ports of call along the way. Now, on the eve of battle, there was no need for Zayn to summon his commanders for another meeting. Every man knew in perfect detail what Zayn required of him. Like most good plans it was simple.

  Zayn’s first division would sail directly into Nativity Bay, and fall upon the enemy ships they found anchored there. With their superior numbers and firepower, and the advantage of surprise, they would engage them at close range and overpower them swiftly. Then all their guns would be turned upon the fort. In the meantime Kadem would land the infantry in the river mouth and Koots would march them swiftly round to attack the fort from the rear. As soon as Koots launched his attack, Sir Guy would lead a second landing party from the ships in the bay to support him. He had volunteered for this duty: he wanted to be there when the attackers broke into the treasury under the fort where his fifteen chests of gold bars were stored. He wanted to protect his property from looting.

  There was one possible flaw in this plan. Would the rebel ships be in the bay? Zayn had not jumped to a hasty conclusion. He had gathered all the intelligence from his spies in every port and harbour in the Ocean of the Indies, including Ceylon and the Red Sea. Not one had been able to report a sighting of al-Salil’s ships during the many months since his capture of the Arcturus. It seemed that they had vanished without trace.

  “They could not have disappeared from the sight of so many eyes,” Zayn reasoned. “They are hiding, and there is only one place for them to hide.” He wanted to believe this, but doubt itched like a flea in his undershirt. He wanted a final assurance. “Send for the holy mullah. We shall ask him to pray for guidance. Then I will ask Kadem ibn Abubaker for a sign.” Mullah Khaliq was a saint of vast sanctity and power. His prayers had been a shield to Zayn over the years, and his faith had lit the way to victory in some of his darkest hours.

  Kadem ibn Abubaker had the gift of prophecy, one of the reasons that Zayn al-Din valued him so highly. He relied on the revelations that sprang from him.

  In the great cabin of the Sufi, the three, caliph, mullah and admiral, prayed together through that long night. Khaliq’s expression was rapt, his single eye glittering, as he recited the most holy texts in his nasal, singsong voice.

  While he listened and made the responses, Kadem ibn Abubaker felt himself falling into that familiar dreamlike state. He knew that the angel of God was near. Just before break of dawn he fell into a sudden, heavy sleep, and the angel came to him. Gabriel lifted him out of his body and bore him up on white, rustling wings to a high place, a mountain shaped like the back of a whale.

  The angel pointed down and his voice echoed weirdly in Kadem’s head: “Behold, the ships are in the bay!”

  They floated on a circle of bright waters, and on the deck of the largest stood a tall, familiar figure. When Kadem recognized al-Salil, the hatred flowed through his veins like poison. Al-Salil raised his bare head and looked up at him; his hair and his beard were red gold.

  “I shall destroy you!” Kadem shouted down at him, and as he said the words al-Salil’s head burst into flame, and burned like a torch. The flame leaped up into the rigging, and spread swiftly, consuming everything, man and ships. The waters of the bay boiled, the steam rose in a great cloud and blotted out the dream.

  Kadem woke with a deep sense of religious joy, and found himself once more in the great cabin with Zayn al-Din and Khaliq watching him for the sign.

  “My uncle, I have seen the ships,” he told his caliph. “The angel has shown them to me. They are in the bay and they shall be destroyed by fire.”

  After that Zayn had no more doubts. The angel would deliver his enemy to him. Now he looked across the white flecked sea at the distant mountain.

  “Al-Salil is here. I can smell him in the wind, and taste him in my mouth,” he muttered. “I have waited a lifetime for this moment.”

  Peter Peters translated his words and Sir Guy agreed at once. “I have the same conviction. I shall stand once more on the deck of my lovely Arcturus before this day is done.” While Peters relayed this, Sir Guy had another thought that was almost as poignant. Not only would he recover his ship but his daughter too. Verity would come back to him. Even if she was no longer virgin, sullied and dirtied, no matter. His breath rasped in his throat as he imagined how she must be punished, and how sweet would be the reconciliation that followed. Their previous close and happy state would be restored. She would love him again, as he still loved her.

  “Majesty, Muri Kadem’s division is heaving to,” Rahmad reported.

  Zayn roused himself, and walked back to the stern. This was how he had planned it. Kadem had the five smaller war-dhows under his command and the fifteen troop transports and supply ships. None of the transports was armed: they were merchant vessels Zayn had commandeered for this expedition, crammed with soldiers.

  Kadem would lie offshore until the first division entered the bay and attacked the rebel fort. When he heard the guns open up, that would be the signal for him to take in the second division, and to land Koots and his troops in the Umgeni river mouth. When Koots had secured the landing, they could bring in the supply ships that were transporting the horses and land them through the surf. The cavalry would follow the infantry, and mop up any survivors who tried to fly from the doomed fort.

  However, the long voyage in the heavy seas of the kaskazi had been terribly hard on the horses. They had already lost almost two in every five, and those that had survived were in poor condition. Weak and emaciated, they could still be used to pursue the fugitives. However, it would take many weeks for them to recover fully.

  Many of the infantry were in scarcely better condition. The ships were overcrowded and the troops were ravaged by sea-sickness, the half-rotted rations they had to eat, and the water that was thick with green slime. However, Koots would stiffen them up once he had them ashore. Koots could get a corpse to stand up and fight until it was killed again. Zayn smiled wolfishly.

  They left the second division hove-to and Zayn’s division forged ahead, straig
ht for the entrance to the bay. As they closed in under the brooding height of the bluff, Zayn could pick out the calmer water of the channel. On either side of it the white surf broke, lashed into a fury by the onshore wind.

  “They cannot escape us,” he gloated. “Even if they spot us now, it will be too late for them.”

  “I long for sight of my Arcturus.” Sir Guy stared ahead eagerly. Verity might still be aboard. He imagined her lying on her bunk in the beautifully decorated cabin, her long hair trailing over her shoulders and her soft white bosom.

  “May I beat to quarters, my caliph?” Rahmad asked respectfully.

  “Do so!” Zayn nodded. “Run out the guns. By now the enemy must have seen us. They will be waiting for us in their ships and on the parapets of the fort.”

  With all her great cannon loaded, and the gun crews crouching behind them, the Sufi led the line of warships up the centre of the channel. Laleh was the pilot, for he was the only one aboard who knew the channel well. He stood beside the helmsman at the wheel and listened to the chant of the man in the bows who was calling the soundings. The bulk of the bluff towered at their left hand, and on their right spread the jungle and mangroves of the littoral. Laleh judged the turn in the channel and gave the order to the helm.

  The Sufi slatted her canvas, then filled it again with a subdued thunder, and they were round the rump of the bluff. But their speed through the water was scarcely diminished. Zayn stared ahead eagerly: he seemed to snuffle the air like a hunting dog hard on the heels of his quarry. Before them opened the wide sweep of the inner waters of the bay. Slowly Zayn’s warlike glare faded and was replaced by an expression of disbelief. The vision that the angel had shown Kadem could not have been false.

  “They are gone!” Sir Guy whispered.

  The waters of the bay were empty. There was not even a fishing-boat at anchor in its whole wide expanse. The silence was ominous.

  Still the line of five ships tore on, straight towards the walls of the fort on which the muzzles of the enemy guns stared at them blankly from a mile away. Zayn fought off the sense of foreboding that threatened to debilitate him. The angel had shown Kadem a vision, yet the ships were gone. He closed his eyes and prayed aloud: “Hear me, Holiest of All. I pray you, great Gabriel, answer me.” Both Sir Guy and Rahmad looked at him strangely. “Where are the ships?”

  “In the bay!” He heard the voice reverberate in his head, but there was a sly, sardonic tone to it. “The ships that shall burn are already in the bay.”

  Zayn looked back, and saw that the fifth and last of his war-dhows was coming through the deep-water channel into the bay.

  “You are not Gabriel,” Zayn blurted. “You are the shaitan Iblis, the Fallen One. You have lied to us.” Rahmad stared at him in astonishment. “You showed us our own fleet,” Zayn cried out. “You have led us into a trap. You are not Gabriel. You are the Black Angel.”

  “Nay, great caliph,” Rahmad protested. “I am the most loyal of all your subjects. I would never think to lead you into a trap.”

  Zayn stared at him. Rahmad’s consternation was so comical that he was forced to laugh, but it was a bitter sound. “Not you, you poor fool. Another more cunning than you.”

  A single cannon shot boomed out across the waters of the bay, and forced Zayn’s attention back to the present. Powder smoke rolled from the parapet of the fort and the ball struck the water and ricocheted across the surface of the bay. It crashed into the hull of the Sufi and there was a scream of agony from the lower decks.

  “Anchor the fleet in line and open fire on the fort,” Zayn ordered. He felt a sense of relief that at last the battle had begun.

  As each of the war-dhows dropped anchor and took in its canvas, it rounded up to the wind, and turned its starboard battery on the fort. One after another they opened the bombardment and the heavy stone balls kicked showers of dust and loose earth from the glacis, or smashed into the log walls. It was immediately obvious that the fortifications could not withstand such furious fire for long. The timbers shattered and burst open to each massive impact.

  “I had been made to believe that it was an impregnable fortress,” Sir Guy watched the effects of the bombardment with grim satisfaction, “but those walls will be down before nightfall. Peters, tell the Caliph that I must assemble the assault party at once to be ready to go ashore as soon as the fort is breached.”

  “The traitor’s defence is pathetically inadequate.” Zayn had to shout above the crash and thunder of the guns. “I can see only two cannon returning our fire.”

  “There!” Sir Guy shouted back. “One of their guns has been hit.” Both men focused their glasses on the gaping hole that had been blown in the parapet of log poles. They could see that the gun carriage had been overturned, and the broken body of one of the enemy gunners was hanging like beef on a butcher’s hook from the splintered stumps.

  “Sweet Name of Allah!” Rahmad shouted. “They are deserting the fort. They have given up. They are running for their very lives.”

  The gates of the fort were dragged open and out rushed a panic-stricken mob. They scattered into the jungle, leaving the gates wide, the parapet deserted. The enemy guns fell silent as the last gunner fled his post.

  “At once!” Zayn turned to Sir Guy. “Take your battalion ashore and storm the fort.”

  The enemy’s capitulation had taken them all by surprise. Zayn had expected them to put up a more determined resistance. Valuable time was wasted while the boats were launched, and the assault party scrambled down into them.

  Guy stood impatiently at the head of the gangway, shouting orders at the detachment of men he had chosen as his own. They were all hard men: he had seen them at work and they were like a pack of hunting dogs. Added to that, many of them understood and even spoke a little English. “Come, waste no more time! Your enemy is getting clean away from you. Every minute and your booty is being taken.”

  They understood that, and for those who did not Peters repeated it in Arabic. From somewhere Peters had found a sword and pistol and they were belted around his skinny waist, sagging so that the point of the scabbard dragged on the deck, and his jacket was pulled out of shape. He cut an absurd figure.

  The bombardment raged on without pause, and the great stone balls crashed mercilessly into the ruined walls of the fort. The last few defenders fled back into the forest, and the building was deserted. But at last all the boats were loaded and Guy and Peters scrambled down into the largest.

  “Pull!” Guy shouted. “Straight for the beach.” He was desperate to reach the treasury, and his gold chests. As soon as they were half-way across, the ships ceased firing for fear of hitting them. A heavy silence fell over the bay, while the small boats streamed towards the beach. Guy’s longboat was first to reach it. As the bows touched the sand he leaped out and waded ashore.

  “Come on!” he yelled. “Follow me!” With the information they had wrung out of Omar, the prisoner captured by Laleh, he had been able to draw up a detailed map of the interior of the fort. He knew exactly where he was going.

  As soon as they were through the open gates, he sent men up to the parapets to secure the walls, and others to search the buildings to make sure none of the enemy remained. Then he hurried to the powder magazine. The defenders might have placed a time fuse to blow it up. Four of the men with him carried heavy crow-bars and prised the door off its hinges. The magazine was empty. This should have been a warning to Guy, but he could think of nothing but the gold. He ran to the main building. The staircase that led down to the strongrooms was concealed behind the fireplace in the kitchens. It was cunningly built and even though he knew it was there it took him some time to find it. Then he kicked open the door and went down the circular staircase. An iron grating set in the arched ceiling let in a little light, and he stopped in astonishment at the foot of the stairs. The long low room ahead of him was filled to the roof with neatly stacked ivory.

  “The devil take me, but Koots was right! There’s tons
of the stuff here. If they abandoned such a wealth of ivory, then did they also leave my gold?”

  Omar had explained how Tom Courtney had used the ivory to conceal the door to the inner strongroom. But Guy would not rush ahead blindly: before going further he waited for one of his captains to come down the stairwell and report to him. The man was panting with exertion and excitement, but there was no blood on his clothing or the blade of his weapon. “Ask him if they have secured the fort,” Guy ordered, but the man knew enough English to understand the question.

  “All gone, effendi. Nothing! No man or dog left inside the walls.”

  “Good!” Guy nodded. “Now get twenty of the men down here to clear the ivory from the right-hand wall of this chamber.”

  The most massive tusks had been used to cover the entrance to the inner strongroom and it took almost two hours of hard work to reveal the small iron door, and another hour to batter it open.

  As the door toppled out of its frame and crashed to the stone floor in a dense cloud of dust, Guy stepped forward and peered into the room. As the dust settled the interior was revealed. With a stab of angry disappointment he saw that the room was bare.

  No, not quite bare. A sheet of parchment was nailed to the far wall. The writing on it was in a distinctive bold hand, which he recognized immediately, even after nearly two decades. Guy tore down the sheet and scanned it swiftly. His face darkened and twisted with fury.

  RECEIPT FOR GOODS

  I, the undersigned, gratefully acknowledge fair receipt of the following goods from Sir Guy Courtney:

  15 Chests of Fine Gold bars.

  Signed on behalf of Courtney Brothers Trading Company at Nativity Bay this 15th day of November in the year 1738,

  Thomas Courtney esq

  Guy crumpled the sheet in his fist and hurled it at the wall. “God rot your thieving soul, Tom Courtney,” he said, quivering with fury. “You dare to mock me? You shall find the interest that I will collect from you to be far from any joke.”