by Wilbur Smith
Thus before dawn on the fourth day of waiting, the Buzzard decided finally to close the trap on Hal Courtney. With his crew at their battle stations he sailed in through the heads that guarded the entrance to Elephant Lagoon from the Indian Ocean. He stood in the bows of the Madre de Deus with his telescope tucked under his arm, and his single eye glaring out through the hole in his leather mask across the waters of the lagoon. He saw that the Golden Bough was lying at her anchorage deeper in the lagoon, with her gun ports closed and her masts and yards bare of canvas. Her decks were empty, and there was only a single lookout at the masthead.
One of her pinnaces was beached near the head of the lagoon. Her crew had very obviously been filling the water barrels from the sweet water stream. The second pinnace was on the far side of the lagoon from the Bough. Her crew were busy loading bundles of cut firewood into her. But this early in the morning both crews were gathered around the fires on the beaches, swigging coffee and tea and guzzling their breakfast.
It was obvious that Hal Courtney was preparing for the long voyage home around the Cape of Good Hope and then back up the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles. But his crews were separated from his ship, and oblivious to the sudden and silent appearance of a three-masted fighting ship in the mouth of the lagoon.
The Buzzard turned and called back to Captain Barros on the poop deck. ‘Give them a gun shot to wake these apes out of their trance, please, Captain.’ Although distorted by his speaking hole, his voice was clearly understandable to the officers on the poop deck.
Barros snapped an order to the master gunner on the deck below him, and a single cannon shot thundered out across the waters, and echoed off the hills that surrounded this wide body of water.
The British crews looked up in total astonishment as the Madre de Deus appeared miraculously before them in full battle array.
‘Steer for the Golden Bough,’ the Buzzard gave his next order. ‘She will be easy pickings, for she is isolated from her men.’ He cleared his damaged throat, and spat a lump of yellow phlegm over the rail. ‘I want Courtney, do you hear. But if he is not aboard, then I want his woman.’
Judith Nazet was in the cabin of the Golden Bough that she and Hal shared; she was sitting at the small writing desk below the stern windows. There was a timid knock on the cabin door and Mossie stuck his curly mop of hair around the jamb.
‘Good morning to you, my kind mistress. I have coffee for you; no milk and no sugar.’
‘Thank you, Mossie, how did you know that is just how I like it?’
‘Because that’s how you always have it,’ he said with a wide white grin. This was an on-going ritual of theirs. He came in and closed the door carefully behind him and stood on tiptoe to set the silver mug on the desk before her.
‘Should I blow out the lamps for you, my lovely mistress?’ He reached out a hand to the lantern in its bracket on the bulkhead above her head. There were half-a-dozen of these identical lamps hanging from the ceiling above the double bunk, and at other odd points around the cabin.
‘No thank you, Mossie. It’s a dark, overcast day out there. Leave all the lamps burning until the sun breaks through.’ Mossie bobbed his head and tugged at his forelock as he had been taught to do, and backed out of the cabin. Judith smiled to herself. She had truly become fond of the lad. Then she sighed, dipped the nib of her pen into the inkwell and poised it over the open page of her diary.
Then she began to write, ‘… the little brute inside me kicked me awake all last night. I shall be greatly relieved when he pops out and stands on his own two feet …’
The cannon shot was so close and clear that it could have been fired in the same cabin as she was. She started so violently that the nib of her pen splattered ink across the page of her diary. Then she jumped to her feet and stared out of the stern windows across the lagoon.
The Madre de Deus was ghosting across the lagoon directly towards where she sat. She had never seen this ship before, but the warrior instincts which she had finely developed warned her that it was hostile, and that it posed a deadly threat.
The frigate was flying battle ensigns and all her gun ports were open with the long barrels of her cannon run out.
She wasted not another second, but pulled open the top drawer of her desk. Her two pairs of matching pistols lay close to hand in their moulded tray. All four of them were loaded and primed. She stuffed one pair into the yellow ribbon around her waist. She cocked the hammers on the second pair, and held them ready to fire. Then she crossed to the door of her cabin and threw it open, and then climbed the companionway to the main deck.
Before she reached the deck the ship shuddered under her feet and there was the crash of another hull coming into violent contact with that of the Bough. Simultaneously there came a wild burst of cheering, and the clatter of running footsteps from above. She stepped out onto the deck and looked about her quickly.
Another vessel lay alongside the Golden Bough, bound to her by a row of grappling hooks thrown from the strange vessel, and then a man’s head rose above the gunnel. She recognized him instantly by the description that Hal had given her, especially by the vivid pink scar that ran from the corner of his mouth up into his hairline.
He was the Portuguese slave ship owner who had once captured Hal, and sold him into slavery. His name was João Barros. She knew his ship was the Madre de Deus, and she made the immediate deduction that this must be his ship that lay alongside the Bough at this very moment.
Without even a second’s hesitation she brought up the pistol in her right hand and fired. The ball struck Barros in the centre of his forehead, and snapped his head back with such force that she heard his vertebrae part with a crack. He was thrown from her sight, but another head replaced Barros.
It was a head without a human face. Instead it wore a leather mask, fashioned into a grotesque parody of humanity. It had a single eye and an eagle beak for a nose. The hole in the mask that served it for a mouth was lined with rows of glaring white false teeth, set into a hideous grin.
‘The Buzzard!’ she gasped and the shock was so intense that for a heartbeat she was paralysed. Then she dropped the empty pistol in her right hand, and started to raise the pistol in her left hand. The Buzzard moved as fast as a striking adder, his sword blade darted out and sent the pistol spinning from her fingers. It slithered away down the deck. For an instant her whole arm was frozen by the force of the blow. She did not even consider trying to reach for the pistols in her sash. She knew he would cut off her hand at the wrist before she could take a grip. She ducked under his blade, and threw herself backwards down the open companionway. She tumbled down the steps in a tangle of skirts and both the pistols tucked in her sash flew out and clattered down the steps with her. One of them discharged of its own accord in a burst of smoke and flame, but the ball flew wide and gouged a cloud of splinters from the woodwork.
When she reached the bottom of the companionway she glanced up and saw the Buzzard charging down the steps after her, brandishing his sword and shrieking like a maddened banshee, but with his mask frozen in that insane toothy grin. His back was humped and his one shoulder was higher than the other so he moved more like a great ape than a man.
Judith rolled back onto her feet and ran to the door of her cabin which stood wide open. Once she was in she slammed it behind her, but in the next instant he crashed into it with all his weight behind it. It flew open again and threw Judith backwards onto the double bunk.
The Buzzard reared up over her with his sword over his head, but as he chopped down at her face she rolled to one side and the blade hacked through the frame of the bunk.
Judith was thrown in a tangle of skirts over the end of the bunk and ended up against the far bulkhead. The Buzzard’s blade was trapped in the woodwork of the bunk. He tried to lever it free and a torrent of filthy language came from behind his mask.
‘You stinking whore, I am going to slit open your foul and rotting womb and pull out your living bastard, and I am
going to chop him into little pieces and force them down your throat.’ He was still trying to free the blade of his sword.
Judith rolled away down the bulkhead and came to her feet. Desperately she looked about her. She had no weapons and the Buzzard blocked her way to the single door. The only escape route that remained open to her was through the stern windows at the far end of the cabin. If she could climb out through them then she would have a good chance of swimming to the beach.
She pushed herself off the bulkhead and darted towards the stern. The Buzzard saw her coming and he let go the hilt of his sword and aimed a swinging punch at her as she passed him. His fist caught her on the shoulder and knocked her off balance. She piled into her own writing desk below the window. She pulled herself up the bulkhead and stood at bay with her back pressed to the woodwork, facing the Buzzard as he came towards her with his humped-back, leg-dragging gait. He was reaching for her with his single three-fingered hand.
‘Please …’ She was pleading now. ‘Please let my baby live.’
Then she felt the heat on the back of her head. She lifted one hand to avoid it and her fingers touched the glass funnel of the oil lamp. There was a sharp hiss as her skin burned and blistered in the heat. Her spirits surged from blank despair to vaulting hope in the pain. She closed both her hands around the glass oil reservoir, and with all her strength tore it from its bracket and hurled it at the masked head in front of her.
The glass shattered and the viscose oil sprayed over the Buzzard’s masked head and shoulders. The flames spread and enclosed him in a dancing cone of searing heat. He fell backwards onto the bedstead, clawing feebly at the flames with his one good hand.
The bedclothes caught fire and the flames shot as high as the ceiling. The Buzzard lay in the centre of the inferno like the carcass of a pig on the spit. His mask burned through and the tatters of his real face were so ghastly that Judith fled from the spectacle. She ran from the cabin and up the companionway.
As she burst out onto the open deck and stood weeping with release from fear, and gasping the sweet sea air to purge the smoke from her lungs, a pair of strong arms closed about her and a beloved voice demanded of her, ‘What in the name of Almighty God is happening? Why are you weeping so?’
Judith spun around in the circle of Hal’s arms, and clung to him. ‘My darling! Thank God you are here. He was going to kill us, me and the baby.’
‘Who was it?’
‘The Buzzard!’
‘Cochran? Where is he now? I have to stop him.’
‘He is in our cabin, but the ship is on fire. It is the only way I could stop him.’ She wasn’t making good sense, but Hal knew that they were caught up in dire circumstances. He glanced around quickly to make an assessment of the danger. He saw the strange ship had cut herself free and was making all haste to escape through the heads and get out into the open sea again.
‘Let them go!’ he decided. ‘Where is the fire, you said it is in our cabin?’
Judith nodded vigorously. ‘Yes! In our cabin!’
Hal released her, and spun around. ‘Aboli! Big Dan! Fire! Fire down below. Man the pumps!’
It took all the ship’s pumps and the entire crew half the morning to bring the flames under control, but when at last Hal was able to lead Judith back to the master cabin the two of them stood in the doorway and stared in at the blackened and still smoking interior and the charred body lying on the bunk amongst the smouldering ashes like the carcass of a piglet left too long on the spit.
‘Is that the Buzzard?’ Judith asked in a whisper. ‘But he seems so small.’
‘Fire does that to a man.’ Hal placed his arm around her shoulders. ‘He burned the first time as Cochran. Then he burned the second time as the Buzzard. Now he will burn through all eternity with Old Nick, the devil, stoking the flames around him.’
She shuddered against him, and he led her from the blackened and burnt-out cabin up onto the open deck. Big Daniel Fisher was waiting for him at the top of the companion way. He knuckled his forehead to Hal.
‘Orders if it please you, Captain.’
‘Firstly,’ Hal replied, ‘get the cargo out of the pinnace and safely stowed in the main hold.’ Big Danny grinned at the mention of the treasure.
‘Aye aye, Captain. And what next?’
‘Get the carpenters to clean and repair my burnt out cabin. Tell them to paint it white this time. General Nazet and I are tired of those sky blue coloured bulkheads.’
He went on issuing orders to the coxswain for a little longer, and then he turned back to Judith and took her by the hand. He led her up to the poop deck, the only place where they could be alone. They leaned together on the stern rail with his arm around her shoulders, and they were silent for a while. At last Judith sighed and said softly,
‘The Grail is saved. My duty is done. I have had my fill of fighting and killing. Cannot we find some place where I can have our baby; and you and I can live in peace and happiness together for the rest of our lives?’
Hal chuckled. ‘You have just accurately described High Weald.’
‘High Weald? What a strange name! What is it and where is it?’
‘It is my ancestral home in the south of England; the safest and the most beautiful place in the whole wide world.’
‘Take me there, my dearest. Please take me there at once; Please! And pretty please!’ She turned in the circle of his arms and kissed him, while he hugged her tight.
About Wilbur Smith
Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written over thirty novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books are now translated into twenty-six languages.
For all the latest information on Wilbur visit his author website, www.wilbursmithbooks.com
WilburSmith
thewilbursmith
About Giles Kristian
Giles Kristian is the author of the bestselling Raven series of Viking novels, God of Vengence, and two novels of the English Civil War, The Bleeding Land and Brothers’ Fury. He lives in Leicestershire. For more information about Giles and his books, please visit his website, www.gileskristian.com
Also by Wilbur Smith
The Egyptian Series
River God
The Seventh Scroll
Warlock
The Quest
Desert God
The Courtney Series
When the Lion Feeds
The Sound of Thunder
A Sparrow Falls
The Burning Shore
Power of the Sword
Rage
A Time to Die
Golden Fox
Birds of Prey
Monsoon
Blue Horizon
The Triumph of the Sun
Assegai
The Ballantyne Series
A Falcon Flies
Men of Men
The Angels Weep
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness
Thrillers
The Dark of the Sun
Shout at the Devil
Gold Mine
The Diamond Hunters
The Sunbird
Eagle in the Sky
The Eye of the Tiger
Cry Wolf
Hungry as the Sea
Wild Justice (UK); The Delta Decision (US)
Elephant Song
Those in Peril
Vicious Circle
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