Birds of Prey c-1

by Wilbur Smith

  While Hal daydreamed in the rigging, the ceremony on the deck below him drew to its conclusion. Behind the Governor were ranked the Dutch captain and the other captured officers. Colonel Cornelius Schreuder was the only one without a Hat, for a bandage swathed his head. Despite the blow Aboli, had dealt him his eye was still keen and unclouded and his expression fierce as he listened to Sir Francis list the spoils.

  "But that is not all, lads!" Sir Francis assured his crew. "We are fortunate enough to have aboard, as our honoured guest, the new Governor of the Dutch settlement of the Cape of Good Hope." With an ironic flourish he bowed to van de Velde, who glowered at him: now that his captors had realized his value and position, he felt more secure.

  The Englishmen cheered, but their eyes were on Katinka, and Sir Francis obliged them by introducing her. "We are also fortunate to have with us the Governor's lovely wife-" He broke off as the crew sounded their appreciation of her beauty.

  "Coarse peasant cattle," van de Velde growled and laid his hand protectively upon Katinka's shoulder. She gazed upon the men with wide violet eyes, and her beauty and innocence shamed them into an embarrassed silence.

  "Mevrouw van de Velde is the only daughter of Burgher Hendrik Coetzee, the stadhouder of the City of Amsterdam, and the Chairman of the governing board of the Dutch East India Company."

  The crew stared at her in awe. Few understood the importance of such an exalted personage, but the manner in which Sir Francis had recited these titles had impressed them.

  "The Governor and his wife will be held on board this ship until their ransom is paid. One of the captured Dutch officers will be despatched to the Cape of Good Hope with the ransom demand to be transmitted by the next Company ship to the Council in Amsterdam."

  The crew goggled at the couple as they considered this, then Big Daniel asked, "How much, Sir Francis? What is the amount of the ransom you have set?"

  "I have set the Governor's ransom at two hundred thousand guilders in gold coin."

  The ship's company was stunned, for such a sum surpassed their understanding.

  Then Daniel bellowed again, "Let's have a cheer for the captain, lads!" And they yelled until their voices cracked.

  Sir Francis walked slowly down the ranks of captured Dutch seamen. There were forty-seven, eighteen of them wounded. He examined the face of each man as he passed: they were rough stock, coarse-featured and unintelligent of expression. It was obvious that none had any ransom value. They were, rather, a liability, for they had to be fed and guarded, and there was always the danger that they might recover their courage and attempt an insurrection.

  "The sooner we are rid of them the better," he murmured to himself, then addressed them aloud in their own language. "You have done your duty well. You will be set free and sent back to the fort at the Cape. You may take your ditty bags with you, and I will see to it that you are paid the wages owing you before you go." Their faces brightened. They had not expected that. That should keep them quiet and docile, he thought, as he turned away to the ladder down to his newly acquired cabin, where his more illustrious prisoners were waiting for him.

  "Gentlemen!" he greeted them, as he entered and took his seat behind the mahogany desk. "Would you care for a glass of Canary wine?"

  Governor van de Velde nodded greedily. His throat was dry and although he had eaten only half an hour previously his stomach growled like a hungry dog. Oliver, Sir Francis's servant, poured the yellow wine into the long-stemmed glasses and served the sugared fruits he had found in the Dutch captain's larder. The captain made a sour face as he recognized his own fare, but took a large gulp of the Canary.

  Sir Francis consulted the pile of manuscript on which he had made his notes, then glanced at one of the letters he had found in the captain's desk. It was from an eminent firm of bankers in Holland. He looked up at the captain and addressed him sternly. "I wonder that an officer of your service and seniority with the VOC should indulge in trade for his own account. We both know it is strictly forbidden by the Seventeen."

  The captain looked as though he might protest, but when Sir Francis tapped the letter he subsided and glanced guiltily at the Governor, who sat beside him.

  "It seems that you are a rich man, Mijnheer. You will hardly miss a ransom of two hundred thousand guilders." The captain muttered and scowled darkly, but Sir Francis went on smoothly, "If you will pen a letter to your bankers, the matter can be settled as between gentlemen, just as soon as I receive that amount in gold." The captain inclined his head in acquiescence.

  "Now, as to the ship's officers," Sir Francis went on, "I have examined your enlistment register." He drew the book towards him and opened it, "It seems that they are all men without high connections or financial substance." He looked up at the captain. "Is that the case?"

  "That is true, Mijnheer."

  "I will send them to the Cape with the common seamen. Now it remains to decide to whom we shall entrust the ransom demand to the Council of the Company for Governor van de Velde and his good lady and, of course, your letter to your bankers."

  Sir Francis looked up at the Governor. Van de Velde stuffed another candied fruit into his mouth and replied around it, "Send Schreuder."

  "Schreuder?" Sir Francis riffled through the papers until he found the colonel's commission. "Colonel Cornelius Schreuder, the newly appointed military commander of the fort at Good Hope?" ja, that one." Van de Velde reached for another sweetmeat. "His rank will give him more standing when he presents your demand for my ransom to my father-in-law," he pointed out.

  Sir Francis studied the man's face as he chewed. He wondered why the Governor wanted to be rid of the colonel. He seemed a good man and resourceful; it would make more sense to keep him at hand. However, what van de Velde said of his status was true. And Sir Francis sensed that Colonel Schreuder might play the devil if he were kept captive aboard the galleon for any length of time. Much more trouble than he's worth, he thought, and said aloud, "Very well, I will send him."

  The Governor's sugar-coated lips pouted with satisfaction. He was fully aware of his wife's interest in the dashing colonel. He had been married to her for only a few years, and yet he knew for a certainty that she had taken at least eighteen lovers in that time, some for only an hour or an evening.

  Her maid, Zelda, was in the pay of van de Velde and reported to him each of her mistress's adventures, taking a deep vicarious pleasure in relating every salacious detail.

  When van de Velde had first become aware of Katinka's carnal appetite, he had been outraged. However, his initial furious remonstrations had had no effect upon her and he learned swiftly that over her he had no control. He could neither protest too much nor send her away for on the one hand he was besotted by her, and on the other her father was too rich and powerful. The advancement of his own fortune and status depended almost entirely upon her. In the end his only course of action had been, as far as possible, to keep temptation and opportunity from her. During this voyage he had succeeded in keeping her a virtual prisoner in her quarters, and he was sure that, had he not done so, his wife would have already sampled the colonel's wares, which were ostentatiously on display. With him sent off the ship. her choice of diversion would be severely curtailed and, after a prolonged fast, she might even become amenable to his own sweaty advances.

  "Very well," Sir Francis agreed, "I will send Colonel Schreuder as your emissary." He turned the page of the almanac on the desk in front of him. "With fair winds, and by the grace of Almighty God, the round trip from the Cape to Holland and back here to the rendezvous should not occupy more than eight months. We can hope that you might be free to take up your duties at the Cape by Christmas."

  "Where will you keep us-until the ransom is received? My wife is a lady of quality and delicate disposition."

  "In a safe place, and in comfort. That I assure you, sir." "Where will you meet the ship returning with our ransom monies? "At thirty-three degrees south latitude and four degrees thirty minutes east."
/>   "Where, pray, might that be?"

  "Why, Governor van de Velde, at the very spot upon the ocean where we are at this moment." Sir Francis would not be tricked so readily into revealing the whereabouts of his base.

  In a misty dawn the galleon dropped anchor in the gentler waters behind a rocky headland of the African coast. The wind had dropped and begun to veer. The end of the summer season was at hand; they were fast approaching the autumnal equinox. The Lady Edwina, her pumps pounding ceaselessly, came alongside and, with fenders of matted oakum between the hulls, she made fast to the larger vessel.

  At once the work of clearing her out began. Blocks and tackle had already been rigged from the galleon's yards. They took out the guns first. The great bronze barrels on their trains were swayed aloft. Thirty seamen walked away with the tackle and then lowered each culverin to the galleon's deck. Once these guns were sited, the galleon would have the firepower of a ship of the line and would be able to attack any Company galleon on better than equal terms.

  Watching the cannon come on board, Sir Francis realized that he now had the force to launch a raid on any of the Dutch trading harbours in the Indies. This capture of the Standvastigheid was only a beginning. From here he planned to become the terror of the Dutch in the Ocean of the Indies, just as Sir Francis Drake had scourged the Spanish on their own main in the previous century.

  Now the powder kegs were lifted out of the caravel's magazine. Few remained filled after such a long cruise and the heavy actions she had fought. However, the galleon still carried almost two tons of excellent quality gunpowder, sufficient to fight a dozen battles, or to capture a rich Dutch entrept on the Trincomalee or Javanese coast.

  When the furniture and stores had been brought across, water casks and weapons chests, brine barrels of pickled meats, bread bags and barrels of flour, the pirmaces were also hoisted aboard and broken down by the carpenters. They were stowed away in the galleon's main cargo hold on top of the stacks of rare oriental timbers. So bulky were they and so heavily laden with her own cargo was the galleon that to accommodate their bulk the hatch coamings had to be left off the main holds until the prize was taken into Sir Francis's secret base.

  Stripped to her planks, the Lady Edwina rode high in the water when Colonel Schreuder and the released Dutch crew were ready to board her. Sir Francis summoned the colonel to the quarterdeck and handed him back his sword and the letter addressed to the Council of the Dutch East India Company in Amsterdam. It was stitched in a canvas cover, the seams sealed with red wax, and tied with ribbon. It made an impressive -bundle, which Colonel Schreuder placed firmly under his arm.

  "I hope we meet again, Mijnheer," Schreuder said ominously to Sir Francis.

  "In eight months from now I will be at the rendezvous," Sir Francis assured. "Then I shall be delighted to see you again, as long as you have the two hundred thousand gold guilders for me."

  "You miss my meaning, "said Cornelius Schreuder grimly. "I assure you I do not," responded Sir Francis quietly. Then the colonel looked to the break in the poop where Katinka van de Velde stood at her husband's side. The deep bow that he made towards them and the look of longing in his eyes were not for the Governor alone. "I shall return with all haste to end your suffering," he told them.

  "God be with you," said the Governor. "Our fate is in your hands."

  "You will be assured of my deepest gratitude on your return, my dear Colonel," Katinka whispered, in a breathless little girl's voice, and the colonel shivered as though a bucket of icy water had been poured down his back. He drew himself to his full height, saluted her, then turned and strode to the galleon's rail.

  Hal was waiting at the port with Aboli and Big Daniel. The colonel's eyes narrowed and he stopped in front of Hal and twirled his moustache. The ribbons on his coat fluttered in the breeze, and the sash of his rank shimmered as he touched the sword at his side.

  "We were interrupted, boy," he said softly, in good unaccented English. "However, there will be a time and a place for me to finish the lesson."

  "Let us hope so, sir." Hal was brave with Aboli at his side. "I am always grateful for instruction."

  For a moment they held each other's eyes, and then Schreuder dropped over the galleon's side to the deck of the caravel. Immediately the lines were cast off and the Dutch crew set the sails. The Lady Edwina threw up her stern like a skittish colt and heeled to the press of her canvas. Lightly she turned away from the land to make her offing.

  "We also will get under way, if you please, Master Ned!" Sir Francis said. "Up with her anchor."

  The galleon bore away from the African coast, heading into the south. From the masthead where Hal crouched the Lady Edwina was still in plain view. The smaller vessel was standing out to clear the treacherous shoals of the Agulhas Cape, before coming around to run before the wind down to the Dutch fort below the great table-topped mountain that guarded the south-western extremity of the African continent.

  As Hal watched, the silhouette of the caravel's sails altered drastically. He leaned out and shouted down, "The Lady Edwina is altering course."

  "Where away?" his father yelled back.

  "She's running free," Hal told him. "Her new course looks to be due west."

  She was doing precisely what they expected of her. With the south-easter well abaft her beam, she was now heading directly for Good Hope.

  "Keep her under your eye."

  As Hal watched her, the caravel dwindled in size until her white sails merged with the tossing manes of the wind driven white horses on the horizon.

  "She's gone!" he shouted at the quarterdeck. "Out of sight from here!" Sir Francis had waited for this moment before he brought the galleon around onto her true heading. Now he gave the orders to the helm that brought her around towards the east, and she went back on a broad reach parallel with the African coast. "This seems to be her best point of sailing," he said to Hal, as his son came down to the deck after being relieved at the masthead. "Even with her jury-rigging, she's showing a good turn of speed. We must get to know the whims and caprice of our new mistress. Make a cast of the log, please."

  With the glass in hand, Hal timed the wooden log on its reel, dropped from the bows on its journey back along the hull until it reached the stern. He made a quick calculation on the slate, and then looked up at his father. "Six knots through the water."

  "With a new mainmast she will be good for ten. Ned Tyler has found a spar of good Norwegian pine stowed away in her hold. We will step it as soon as we get into port." Sir Francis looked delighted: God was smiling upon them. "Assemble the ship's company. We will ask God's blessing on her and rename her."

  They stood bare-headed in the wind, clutching their caps to their breasts, their expressions as pious as they could muster, anxious not to attract the disfavour of Sir Francis.

  "We thank you, Almighty God, for the victory you have granted us over the heretic and the apostate, the benighted followers of the son of Satan, Martin Luther."

  "Amen!" they cried loudly. They were all good Anglicans, apart from the black tribesmen among them, but these Negroes cried, "Amen!" with the rest. They had learned that word their first day aboard Sir Francis's ship.

  "We thank you also for your timely and merciful intervention in the midst of the battle and your deliverance of us from certain defeat. -" Hal shuffled in disagreement, but without looking up. Some of the credit for the timely intervention was his, and his father had not acknowledged this as openly.

  "We thank you and praise your name for placing in our hands this fine ship. We give you our solemn oath that we will use her to bring humiliation and punishment upon your enemies. We ask your blessing upon her. We beg you to look kindly upon her, and to sanction the new name which we now give her. From henceforth she will become the Resolution."

  His father had simply translated the galleon's Dutch name, and Hal was saddened that this ship would not bear his mother's name. He wondered if his father's memory of his mother was at last fading, or
if he had some other reason for no longer perpetuating her memory. He knew, though, that he would never have the courage to ask, and he must simply accept this decision.