by Wilbur Smith
He stormed back up the stairs and climbed to the parapet overlooking the bay.
The flotilla of dhows still rode at anchor. He saw that they were unloading the horses, lifting them out of the holds, swinging them over-side then lowering them to the water and turning them loose to swim to the beach. A considerable herd was already ashore, and the grooms were tending them.
He saw Zayn al-Din standing by the rail of the Sufi. Guy knew he should go back aboard to report to him, but first he had to control his anger and frustration. “No Arcturus, no Verity and, more important still, no gold. Where have you hidden with my gold, Tom Courtney, you bitch-born lecher? Was it not enough that you rutted on the belly of my wife, and saddled me with your bastard? Now you rob me of what is rightfully mine.”
He looked down from the parapet and his eyes followed the wagon track that ran out through the open gates of the fort and immediately forked. One track ran down to the beach, the other turned inland. It wound its way through patches of denser forest and swamp and, convoluted as a scotched serpent, climbed the far hills to vanish over the crest.
“Wagons!” Guy whispered. “You would need wagons to carry away fifteen lakhs of gold.” He rounded on Peters. “Tell these men to follow me.” He led them at a run through the gates of the fort, and down to the head of the landing where the horses stood. The grooms were unloading the saddlery from the boats.
“Tell them I will need twenty horses,” he told Peters, “and I will pick the men I want to go with me.” He hurried among them and slapped each of those he chose on the shoulder. They were all heavily armed and carried extra powder flasks. “Tell them to fetch saddles from the boats.”
When the head groom realized that Sir Guy intended to take the best of his horses, he shouted a protest into his face. Guy tried to push him away, shouting back at him in English, but the man grabbed his arm and shook it violently, still protesting. “I’ve no time to argue,” Guy said, drew the pistol from his belt and cocked the hammer. He thrust the muzzle into the groom’s startled face and fired into his open mouth. The man collapsed. Guy stepped over his twitching corpse and ran to the horse that one of his men was holding ready for him.
“Mount!” he shouted, and Peters and twenty Arabs followed his example. He led them off the beach, along the wagon trail, heading into the hills and the hinterland. “Hear me, Tom Courtney,” he said, “and hear me well! I am coming to retrieve my stolen gold. Nothing that you or anyone else can do will stop me.”
From the quarter-deck of the Sufi, Zayn al-Din watched with anticipation as Sir Guy led his men into the deserted fort. There was no sound of fighting, and no further sight of the fugitives who had escaped from the fort. He waited impatiently for a report from Sir Guy as to what was taking place within the walls. After an hour he had to send a man ashore to enquire. He returned with a message. “Mighty Caliph, the English effendi has discovered that the fort has been stripped of all furniture and stores except much ivory. There is a hidden door in the cellars below the building. His men are forcing it open, but it is of iron and very strong.”
An hour passed during which Zayn ordered the horses to be sent ashore. Then, suddenly, Sir Guy appeared on the parapet of the fort. Zayn could tell at once from his demeanour that he had been unsuccessful. Then, abruptly, Sir Guy seemed to become galvanized. He rushed out of the fort followed by most of his detachment. Zayn expected him to come back to report to him and was puzzled when he did not, but then Sir Guy’s men began to saddle most of the horses. There was a scuffle on the beach and a pistol shot rang out. Zayn saw a body lying on the sand. To his astonishment, Sir Guy and most of his men mounted and rode up from the water’s edge then out along the wagon road.
“Stop them!” he snapped at Rahmad. “Send a messenger ashore immediately to order those men to return.” Rahmad shouted to his boatswain, but before he could give the man his instructions Sir Guy’s desertion became irrelevant.
A cannon shot startled them all. The echoes duplicated themselves along the cliffs of the bluff. Zayn jerked round and stared across the waters of the bay to where smoke still hung in the air. A hidden cannon had fired upon them from the tangle of dense vegetation that covered the slope of the bluff. He could not see the weapon, even though he searched through the lens of his spyglass. It was too cunningly concealed, probably in some deep emplacement dug into the hillside.
Then, suddenly, his view through the glass was momentarily obscured by a tall spout of water that leaped up directly in front of him. He dropped the glass to see that a cannon-ball had struck close alongside the anchored Sufi. As he stared, a strange phenomenon took place before his eyes. In the centre of the spreading ripples where the enemy cannon-ball had sunk, the shallow water began to seethe and boil, like a kettle, and steam rose in a dense cloud from the surface. For a long moment Zayn was at a loss to explain it. Then it came to him in a dread flash. “Red-hot shot! The pork-eaters are firing heated shot!” He trained his glass on the hillside where the smoke still drifted. Now that he was searching for it, he saw a shimmering column of heated air rising into the sky, like a desert mirage. There was no visible smoke. He knew what that meant.
“Charcoal furnaces!” he exclaimed. “Rahmad, we must get our ships out to sea at once. This is a terrible trap we are in. The entire flotilla will be in flames within the hour unless we can clear the bay at once.”
In a wooden ship, fire was the most terrifying hazard. Rahmad shouted his orders, but before they could get the anchor aboard, another red-hot iron ball hurtled down towards them from the heights of the bluff. It left a trail of sizzling sparks behind it and struck the last dhow in the line of anchored ships. It plunged through her maindeck deep into her hull, shedding splinters of red-hot iron in its path which buried themselves deep in the dry planking. Almost immediately they began to smoulder. Then the air reached them. With miraculous rapidity dozens of fires blossomed in the hull, and spread swiftly.
On board the Sufi all was pandemonium as men rushed to the pumps and the anchor capstan, and still others clambered aloft to set the sails. The anchor broke out of the sandy bottom, Rahmad set his lateen sail and the ship came round slowly towards the exit from the bay. Then a hail rang out from the lookout at the Sufi’s masthead. It was wild and incoherent. “Deck below! In the Name of Allah! Beware, it is the curse of shaitan.”
Zayn looked up, and his voice was shrill with anger as he shouted, “What have you seen? Make your report clear, you imbecile.” But the man was still jabbering, and pointing over the bows towards the exit channel from the bay.
Every man on deck followed the direction of his out-thrust arm. A groan of superstitious terror went up from them. “A sea monster! The great snake from the depths that devours ships and men!” screamed a voice, and men dropped to their knees to pray, or simply stared in mute terror at the ophidian creature that uncoiled from one side of the channel. Its massive body seemed to undulate in endless humps as it swam through the water towards the far bank.
“It will attack us!” Rahmad shouted in terror. “Kill it! Shoot it! Open fire!”
The gun-crews scrambled to their cannons, and the guns roared out from every ship in the squadron. Smoke and flame flew in sheets. Tall columns of seawater sprang up in a forest around the swimming monster. In such a storm of shot some of the balls struck home. Clearly they heard the crack of impact. However, the creature swam on without any sign that it was injured. The head reached the far shore but the long serpentine body stretched from one bank of the channel to the other and bobbed and rolled in the flow and push of the current. The cannon-balls fell about it like hail. Some glanced off the surface and ricocheted out to sea.
Zayn was the first man aboard to recover his wits. He ran to the near rail and stared at the thing through the lens of his telescope. Then he shrieked, in his high, penetrating voice, “Cease fire! Stop this madness!” The bombardment petered out.
Rahmad ran to his caliph’s side. “What is it, Majesty?”
“The enemy have drawn
a boom across the mouth of the bay. We are bottled in here like pickled fish in a tub.”
As he spoke another heated shot came flying from high on the slope of the bluff, glowing sparks snapping and popping in the air behind it. It plunged into the water only feet from their stern. Zayn looked about him. The first ship that had been hit was burning furiously. Even as he watched its great lateen sail caught fire and the flames engulfed it swiftly. The canvas collapsed over the deck trapping shrieking men under its weight, and incinerating them like insects in the flue of an oil lamp. Without the push of its sail, the vessel started a slow and aimless turn across the bay until it struck the beach and heeled over steeply. The surviving men of the crew sprang over the side and splashed and crawled ashore.
Yet another heated shot came swooping towards the Sufi in a smoking parabola. It passed only feet from their mainmast, then flew on to smash into the other war-dhow that sailed beside them. Almost at once her deck split open and tall flames burst out through her timbers. Her crew were already at the pumps, but the streams of water they aimed at the fire had no effect. The flames jumped higher.
“Steer closer to that ship. I will speak to her captain,” Zayn ordered Rahmad. The Sufi veered across to her, and as they drew alongside the burning ship Zayn called to the captain, “Your ship is stricken and doomed. You must use it to clear an avenue of escape for the other ships of the squadron. Ram the enemy boom. Break it open.”
“As you command, Majesty!” The captain ran to the wheel and pushed aside the helmsman. While the other three ships backed their sails and let him forge ahead of them, he steered straight at the line of massive logs attached to a heavy ship’s cable that sealed off the channel. Smoke and flame streamed back from the burning hull.
The officers on the deck of the Sufi cheered aloud as it struck, and the heavy log boom was plucked below the surface. The dhow heeled over. The top of her mast snapped off and her flaming sail ballooned down over the deck. She had stopped dead in the water, but even though her sail and rigging were in a shambles, she came slowly back on an even keel. Then the line of heavy logs that made up the boom surfaced again. They were intact. They had resisted the dhow’s charge. The ship itself swung round aimlessly. She no longer had steerage way. She was not answering her rudder.
“She is mortally damaged below the waterline,” Rahmad said softly. “See? She is already sinking by the bows. The boom has torn the guts clean out of her. The flames will devour the hull to the waterline.”
The crew of the doomed vessel had managed to launch two of their boats. They clambered down into them, and rowed for the shore. Zayn looked back at the rest of his squadron. Another of his ships was in flames. It headed towards the shore and piled on to the sand with its sails and rigging burning like a funeral pyre. Then another dhow was hit, and black smoke billowed into the sky above her. The blaze drove most of her crew into the bows. A few were overpowered by the smoke, collapsed on the deck and fire swept over them. The rest leaped over the side. Those who were able to swim struck out for the beach, but the others drowned almost at once.
There was a shout of fear from the officers clustered around Zayn and they all looked up towards the heights of the bluff. Another red hot ball came sparkling in a meteoric arc towards them. This one could not miss them.
The thunder of the cannon echoed from the cliffs of the tall bluff, and rolled out across the waters to where Kadem ibn Abubaker lay hove to a mile off the mouth of the Umgeni river.
“The Caliph has begun his attack on the fort. Good! Now you must land your battalions,” Kadem told Koots, then turned to shout an order to the helm: “Bring her back on the wind.” Obediently the dhow came round to the thrust of the big lateen, and they headed in towards the beach. The rest of the convoy followed his lead.
The transports were towing their boats, which were already packed with armed men. Others were waiting on the decks of the ships for their turn to embark in the boats as they returned empty from the beach. They sailed into the stain of yellow-brown effluent that poured from the mouth of the river and sullied the blue sea for miles along the coast. Both Kadem and Koots studied the beach through their glasses as they approached.
“Deserted!” Koots grunted.
“There is no reason for it to be otherwise,” Kadem told him. “You will meet no opposition until you reach the fort. According to Laleh, the enemy guns are all aimed to fire out across the bay to cover the entrance channel. They are not sited to meet any attack from the landward side.”
“One quick rush while the enemy is busy with the attacking dhows and we will be over the walls and into the fort.”
“Inshallah!” Kadem agreed. “But you must move swiftly. My uncle, the Caliph, is already engaged. You must drive your men hard to encircle the fort before any of the defenders can escape with the booty.”
The crew took in the sail, and the anchor went overside. A cable’s length beyond the first line of breakers the dhow settled quietly to ride the long swells running into the beach.
“And now, my old comrade in arms, it is time for us to part,” Kadem said, “but always remember your promise to me, if you should be so fortunate as to capture al-Salil or his puppy.”
“Yes, I shall remember it well.” Koots smiled like a cobra. “You want them for yourself. I swear, if it is within my power, I shall deliver them to you. For myself I want only Jim Courtney and his pretty wench.”
“Go with God!” Kadem said, and watched Koots go down into the crowded boat and head for the shore. A swarm of small craft followed him. As they approached the river mouth, the swells sent them swooping in over the sandbar that guarded it. As soon as they were into the protected water, the boats turned into the bank. From each one twenty men jumped overside into the waist-deep water and waded ashore, their weapons and packs held high.
They assembled in their platoons above the high-water mark and squatted in patient ranks. The empty boats returned to the anchored ships, the oarsmen driving them through the lines of waves at the river mouth. As soon as they were alongside the transports the next wave of men swarmed down into them from the high deck. As the boats ferried back and forth, and more and more men went ashore, the stretch of beach grew more crowded, but still none ventured into the thick jungle beyond.
Kadem watched through his telescope and began to fret. What is Koots doing? he wondered. Every minute now, the enemy will be rallying. He is throwing away his chances. Then he turned his head and listened. The distant sound of the bombardment had ceased and there was silence from the direction of the bay. What has happened to the Caliph’s attack? Surely he could not have overpowered the fort so swiftly. He looked back at the men on the beach. As for Koots, Kadem thought, he must move now. He cannot afford to waste more time.
Since he had landed, Koots had been able to form a better estimate of the kind of terrain that lay ahead of him, and had been most unpleasantly surprised. He had sent scouting parties into the bush to find the easiest way through, but they had still not returned. Now he was waiting anxiously at the edge of the jungle, thumping a clenched fist into the palm of the other hand with frustration. He understood as well as Kadem how dangerous it was to allow the momentum of his attack to dissipate, but on the other hand he dared not rush into the unknown.
Would it be better to take them along the beach? he wondered, and looked along the sweep of honey-brown sand. Then he glanced at his own feet. He was ankle-deep in it and the effort of walking even a few paces was demanding. Such a march under heavy packs would exhaust even the hardest of his men.
An hour past low tide, he estimated. Soon the tide will be in full flow. It will flood the sand and force us off it and into the bush.
While he still hesitated, one of the scouting parties pushed their way through the thick wall of vegetation and into the open. “Where have you been?” Koots bellowed at the leader. “Is there a way through?”
“It is very bad for three hundred yards. There is a deep swamp directly ahead. One of my
men was taken by a crocodile. We tried to save him.”
“You idiot.” With his scabbard Koots struck the man across the side of the head, and he dropped to his knees in the sand. “Is that what you have been doing all this time, trying to save another useless bastard like yourself? You should have let the crocodile have him. Did you find a path?”
The man came to his feet, swaying slightly and holding his injured face. “Have no fear, Pasha effendi,” he mumbled. “After the swamp there is a spur of dry ground that leads towards the south. There is an open path running along it, but it is narrow. It will take only three men abreast.”
“Any sign of the enemy?”
“None, great Pasha, but there are many wild beasts.”
“Lead us to the path at once, or I will find a crocodile for you also.”
“If we attack them now, we will sweep them with a single charge back into the sea whence they came,” said Beshwayo, fiercely.
“No, great king, that is not our purpose. There are still many more of them coming ashore. We want all of them,” said Jim, in a reasonable tone. “Why kill a few of them when, if we wait awhile, we will kill them all?”
Beshwayo chuckled and shook his head so that the earrings Louisa had given him jangled. “You are right, Somoya. I have many young warriors seeking the right to wed and I do not want to deprive them of that honour.”
Jim and Beshwayo had waited on the hills above the coast from where they had an uninterrupted view out to sea. They watched Zayn’s fleet sail in and separate into two divisions. The five largest ships sailed into the bay, and the gunsmoke billowed up as they began to bombard the fort. It seemed that this was the signal for which the second, larger division had been waiting out at sea, for they immediately came directly in towards the mouth of the Umgeni river. Jim waited until they anchored close inshore. He watched them launch their boats, filled with men, and send them in towards the beach.