Golden Lion

by Wilbur Smith

  Pett felt abandoned, deserted. He stood there, feet stuck to those boards like the crustaceans fastened to the underside of the ship’s hull, and felt the perspiration burst from his forehead, rolling in beads down his face.

  Give me another sign, Pett’s mind demanded. Anything. Damn you but this is our time! Look at him, helpless as a babe.

  The cloud re-formed and the cabin was cast into darkness again, and yet he could not unsee what he had seen: the cross of Christ illuminated at the very moment he was to kill a man, a sign as loud as a thunderclap in the heavens. But a sign to kill the man, or spare him?

  Oh but he was so close! It could be done in a moment. Two quick thrusts and a ripping of flesh and the job would be done. And yet something felt wrong. He had killed many times but this was the first time he had felt doubt, or even felt anything at all other than the inevitable thrill that comes with taking a man’s life without being caught in the act. If there were even a chance that the Lord did not want him to kill Henry Courtney then Pett knew he must hold off. But if he did not kill him, how much more insistent would the clamour in his mind become, how much more shrilly would other voices scream for blood, even as the Saint remained silent?

  Slowly, his breathing still even, he slid the spike back up his sleeve and backed away from the bed and the young lovers sleeping in it. He was almost at the door, just about to reach for the latch to open it again and let himself out when his right foot landed on a loose floorboard. It creaked. Not loudly, certainly no louder than any of the many other noises of wind in the sails, water against the hull and the constant groans of wood and rope that provided a constant chorus on a ship at sea. But it was a different noise and that was what woke Hal Courtney, who sat up in bed, his eyes wide open, took barely a second to register the scene before him and then, in puzzlement rather than fear, said, ‘Pett? What the hell are you doing in my cabin?’

  Now Judith was waking and murmuring sleepily, ‘What troubles you, Henry?’

  The reminder of her presence made Courtney more angry and he snapped, ‘How dare you, sir? Bad enough that you enter the captain’s quarters in the middle of the night, but to do so when there is a lady present … Explain yourself!’

  Pett was dumbfounded. For once in his life his gift for dissimulation failed him and he stood in helpless silence for what seemed like an eternity until … Oh, glory! The Saint returned and said, ‘Tromp. Consider Tromp.’

  Suddenly, Pett’s wits returned to him. ‘Forgive me, Captain, for this appalling intrusion. It was just that … well, I could not sleep, d’you see? There was a matter on my mind and I simply had to speak to you in private, away from the other members of the ship’s company …’

  ‘In the middle of the night? Are you mad?’ Courtney looked at him, frowning. ‘You’ve not been at the rum, have you?’

  ‘No, sir, I assure you that alcohol has played no part in my deliberations, or my actions, it was just that …’ Pett twisted his face into an expression of profound anguish, ‘my soul was so tormented. I have … well … I have been the victim of a vile slander, sir! And this on top of the most cruel and unjust mistreatment.’

  ‘What slander was that?’

  ‘’Twas the Dutchman, Tromp. Oh, I know he pretended to have misunderstood my meaning when he clearly and unambiguously questioned my courage for everyone to hear. But I know the man, both his command of English and his capacity for deceit. How, sir, can one trust the word of a man who boasts of ordering the manufacture of counterfeit religious relics, every one of them a blasphemy spat in the face of the Almighty?’

  Both Courtney and the woman were silenced by that, and Pett felt confidence flooding through him as he went on: ‘To call a man a coward in front of his peers is offence enough in itself. But this man locked me up like a common criminal in the most vile surroundings. You saw my plight for yourself, Captain. You saw me chained to the ship’s timbers, lying in filth and ordure, with only a dead man for company. How can a gentleman of good reputation possibly accept such indignity?’

  Courtney rubbed the sleep from his eyes. ‘You make very good and fair points, Mr Pett. You have good reason to feel hard done by. But I confess, I do not see why this should require you to enter these quarters in the middle of the night.’

  ‘The reason for that, sir, was that I have a request that can only be made to you in complete privacy, away from all your crew and your prisoners. I request … no, I insist, that you consent to my challenging Captain Tromp to a duel, on this ship, at the very earliest opportunity.’

  ‘A duel?’ Courtney exclaimed.

  ‘Mr Pett, are you sure?’ Judith asked.

  ‘Yes, madam, absolutely. I will not be swayed from this desire. My honour will not allow it.’

  ‘But Mr Pett,’ Courtney insisted, ‘with the greatest of respect, sir, you are not a military man …’ He paused for a second to consider that statement and then, as a genuine question, added, ‘Are you?’

  ‘No, sir, I am a man of business.’

  ‘Very well, then, you are at home in the marketplace and the counting house, or wherever it is that you transact your business. But however disgraceful his behaviour may have been, Captain Tromp is a naval officer who is very evidently at home in the midst of a battle. Whatever his moral failings – and I agree with you that his behaviour leaves a great deal to be desired – I have seen him fight and he is an opponent I would respect. My point, Mr Pett, is that I fear that if I agree to your request, I may also be agreeing to your demise.’

  ‘That is a very worthy and considerate fear, Captain, but I assure you that you need not trouble yourself on my account. I have absolute faith that my cause is just and, that being the case, that God is on my side.’

  ‘I have defeated whole armies of men who thought that God would ensure their victory, Mr Pett,’ Judith said. ‘He moves in mysterious ways. We cannot know what He plans for us. I do not mean to doubt your conviction. I merely want to save you from harm.’

  ‘Thank you, madam, but let me ask you this. When you went into battle, knowing that you were fighting for the Tabernacle itself, did you not feel the armies of heaven marching beside you?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ Judith admitted.

  ‘And did that thought strengthen you in your conviction of victory?’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘Then since you had your faith, please allow me mine. If it is God’s will that I should perish, so be it. But I would rather die with my honour intact than live with the slur of cowardice against my name. I may be a man of business, but I am still a man and I will fight like one when the time comes.’

  ‘Well spoken, Mr Pett,’ said Hal. ‘It is my prayer that this matter can be settled without harm coming to you or Captain Tromp. Many a duel is settled to both parties’ satisfaction without blood being shed, or not fatally so, at any rate. I very much hope that this will be the case here. I pray that, even now, a way can be found to settle this matter peacefully. But if it cannot, Mr Pett, then, yes, you may have your duel.’

  ‘Are you sure, my love? Must we have more injury, more death?’ Judith pleaded.

  ‘I hope not, my love. But this is a matter of honour, and honour must be satisfied.’

  Pett worried for a moment that the woman might press her case. But having made her point once, she did not argue further. She, who has commanded men in their thousands, defers to this one man, Pett thought, simultaneously admiring Courtney and adding to the pleasure he would derive, when the time was right, from taking such a highly prized life. For now, though, he had found a way, with the aid of the Saint, to escape from an extremely grave predicament. There was nothing to be gained from tarrying any longer and so he uttered a simple, ‘Thank you, Captain,’ and exited the cabin.

  scant twelve hours had passed since Hal had given his assent to Pett’s request for a duel. He did not want to have the matter hanging unresolved over the ship and so the challenge had been made soon after dawn and accepted a short while later. Now the two men sto
od facing each other, twenty paces apart on the Bough’s deck. Pett had his back to the stern, Captain Tromp had his to the bow, and the crew lined the gunwales, thronged the rigging and even straddled the yards on all three masts to get a good view. The eight Dutch prisoners had been brought up from the hold to watch and even the skeleton crew which Hal had put aboard the Delft, anchored off the Bough’s larboard, hung in her shrouds waiting patiently for the entertainment to begin.

  The Amadoda, most of whom were in the rigging for they were now as sure-footed as any of the men out of Portsmouth or Plymouth, were whooping with joy and chattering noisily.

  ‘You can still stop this, Henry,’ Judith said. She stood beside Hal on the poop deck, looking down at the men who were checking their pistols, adjusting the length of the match to ensure the smouldering tip would hit the priming pan when the order was given to give fire.

  Hal shook his head. ‘It’s too late now.’ In truth he had been more moved by Judith’s objections than he had initially revealed and had sought further counsel from Aboli before he gave the final order for the duel to be held.

  ‘Let them fight it out, Gundwane,’ Aboli had said. ‘Having them both aboard, and Mr Pett hungering to satisfy his honour, is no good thing for us. Better to cut the ball out and clean the wound than let it fester and poison the flesh around it. This dispute has caused trouble among the crew. Daniel already had to stop two of our men beating one of the Dutch sailors half to death. Let us see an end to the matter.’

  ‘But what if Tromp kills Pett? The men won’t like it. Won’t that make matters even worse?’

  Aboli shrugged. ‘Do they care that much? Pett is an Englishman, but he is not one of us who sail on the Golden Bough. No one will weep for him. Let them fight. Give the crew a spectacle. Something to gamble on.’ He grinned. ‘Though of course their captain will not know that they are betting on the outcome.’

  Hal considered the matter and concluded that Aboli’s point was well made. An unresolved argument might poison the men’s spirits, but the chance to witness two men fight, right out in the open, would lift them. And so Mr Pett now faced Mr Tromp.

  The Dutchman had tried to settle the matter without recourse to violence. ‘It is not right for me to duel against an opponent who cannot win,’ he had said, on more than one occasion. But there were only so many times that he could seek to evade the issue without being accused of cowardice himself and so, in the end, he had accepted the challenge, albeit with a heavy heart.

  To Tromp’s surprise, Pett had given him the choice of weapons. ‘In that case, I choose pistols,’ he had said.

  ‘I’m surprised by your decision,’ Hal had remarked later, when the two men found themselves standing close enough together on the deck to be able to converse without being overheard. ‘I have seen you fight with a sword and you handle it well. If you would prefer a pistol, you must be a truly exceptional shot.’

  ‘On the contrary, I would be far more sure of my chances with a sword. And there lies the problem. It would be very difficult indeed for me not to kill that thickhead Pett if we were going sword to sword. But if we fight with pistols, well, they are notoriously unreliable weapons and frequently do not fire at all. Even when they do, they rarely hit their target at anything more than point-blank range. And that is on land. At sea, on a moving deck, well, if Pett does manage to kill me, then God really is on his side and He isn’t at all happy about those damn relics.’

  Hal had laughed. In truth, for all his scoundrel ways Tromp was much more Hal’s kind of man than the cold, pallid, bloodless Pett. Still, whatever his failings, Pett could not be called a coward. Just being willing to take his place on the deck, with his pistol in his hand, proved that there was nothing wrong with his guts.

  Captain Tromp’s own men stood along the starboard rail amidships, chained to each other by ankle irons, and Tromp called to them now in Dutch, telling them that he would win back their pride by putting a hole in the Englishman’s head. Some cheered him but most did not, for their captain had led them to disaster and they held it against him.

  ‘He’s sweating like a ripe cheese now,’ an experienced foremastman named Ralph Bigg said, pointing at Tromp.

  ‘Aye, he’s soggy as a pair of apple dumplings in a Spanish brothel,’ another man called, raising a chorus of bawdy laughter and insults aimed at the Dutch.

  ‘But look at Mr Pett,’ a good topmastman named Bosely said. ‘Not a bead on him. Calm as a millpond he is.’

  ‘Cold, more like,’ another man countered. ‘Cold as the frost on a witch’s tit.’

  Both men were dressed in breeches, shirt and nothing else, their feet and heads bare, whereas almost every other man aboard wore some manner of headgear to keep off the sun. Hal swept the broad-brimmed hat from his own head and dabbed his forehead with a kerchief, for it was approaching midday and getting hot. Even Judith was beginning to perspire, though she was born and raised beneath the African sun, and Hal had insisted on erecting an awning to keep her, and the baby she carried, well shaded.

  ‘It’s heat, not fear, that has Tromp sweating,’ Hal said, though he would not have put money on it. Tromp himself must have been wondering by now why Pett, who was supposedly so much more proficient at business than war, had so confidently given him the choice of weapons and why the Englishman was now standing there examining the dirt under his fingernails as though he had nothing more pressing to do.

  ‘Are you ready, gentlemen?’ Big Daniel called from where he hung six feet off the deck in the mainmast shrouds, close to Pett and Tromp, yet away from the line of fire between them.

  Both duellists called their assent and now a hush fell across the deck. The wagers had been placed, the catcalls and insults had long since drifted off across the ocean like gun smoke on the breeze, and the stage was set.

  ‘You will not give fire until I give the word fire,’ Daniel continued. ‘Then you may each fire once, as and when you will. Only in the event of a grievous wound to either man, so that he is unable to fire his pistol, or both pistols having been shot, will the duel be over. Do you understand?’

  ‘Let us get on with it,’ Captain Tromp replied. Pett simply nodded.

  Instinctively Hal stepped in front of Judith. It would have to be an appalling shot, taken at the moment of being shot himself perhaps, for Tromp to hit anyone standing on the poop deck, but Hal would take no chances.

  Time seemed to stretch out like the ocean. Somewhere a man farted loudly, which caused a ripple of laughter and only made Big Daniel keep them waiting longer, both men’s arms stretched before them, the pistol in Tromp’s hand beginning to tremble.

  ‘Fire!’ Big Daniel bellowed and there was a delay, then a flash of flame and a wisp of smoke followed by a loud crack from Tromp’s pistol and Pett’s left shoulder was thrown back though his feet remained planted on the deck. There was a murmur from the crowd and blood bloomed scarlet on Pett’s shirt, and Hal thought that both pistols must have gone off at the same time and that Pett must have missed. But then it was clear that Pett had yet to fire, for his arm was still outstretched, the pistol in his hand still cocked, its match smouldering.

  Pett hardly felt the wound that was spilling blood down his side to stain his breeches because he was savouring the moment the way a lord might savour his finest wine. He had never missed from this range. He had never failed to kill a man he meant to kill and so he would make them all wait now so that they might see how it was done properly. His attention was so absolutely concentrated on the gun in his hand and the figure of Tromp who was standing with a horrified look on his face – the look of a man who realizes too late that he has been played for a fool and is about to suffer the consequences – that he did not even notice the quiet all around, not just on the deck but also in his head. The voices were silent, all of them.

  Then he squeezed the trigger and the dog catch brought the match coal onto the priming pan and there was a flash followed by a report and Tromp flinched as the ball gouged the flesh from
the top of his left arm.

  ‘Jesus Christus!’ he blurted, all teeth and scowl.

  Pett looked at his pistol, glaring at it as though it had betrayed him.

  ‘Swords would have been better,’ a sailor called Logward shouted, crossly, as an air of anti-climax settled over the deck. Hal, however, was delighted by the outcome, breathing a long sigh of relief that both men had survived. He knew full well that even a scratch could kill if it turned gangrenous, but he would deal with that problem if and when he came to it.

  ‘That’s it then!’ Big Daniel called. ‘It’s over.’ Both men stood there still, staring at one another. It was clear that neither had received a fatal wound, though it was impossible to say whether each was relieved to be alive, or rather wishing for more powder and shot so that they could try again.

  ‘Are you satisfied then, Mr Pett?’ Tromp called, wincing in pain the moment he had asked the question.

  Pett handed the pistol back to Big Daniel. ‘I am satisfied, Captain Tromp,’ he said, but his flat voice and expressionless face were in stark contrast to the storm that raged in his head.

  ‘Aboli, go to my cabin and fetch the French brandy,’ Hal said.

  ‘Are we celebrating, Captain?’ Will Stanley asked.

  ‘It’s to wash out their wounds, Stanley, you mud,’ Ned Tyler said.

  ‘I can piss on them to save your brandy,’ Aboli called loud enough for the two duellists to hear. His belief that human urine prevented wounds becoming infectious was well known among those who had sailed with him the longest, and some had even had cause to admit, through gritted teeth and a tightly pressed nose, that the treatment appeared to work.

  ‘You keep your great black snake trapped in your breeches,’ Tyler shouted, ‘or I’ll wager Mr Tromp would rather take his chances with the sharks.’