Birds of Prey c-1

by Wilbur Smith

  Sam crawled back and reached his side. "Shut your mouth!" He grabbed Peter's shoulder and heaved, trying to drag him clear. But the arm was jammed, and Peter screamed all the louder.

  "Ain't nothing for it," Sam growled, and from around his waist he pulled the length of rope that served him as a belt. He dropped a loop over the other man's head and drew the noose tight round his throat. He leaned back on it, anchoring both feet between his victim's shoulder blades, and pulled with all his strength. Abruptly Peter's wild screams were cut off. Sam kept the noose tight for some time after the struggles had ceased, then freed it and retied it about his waist. "I had to do it," he muttered to the others. "Better one man dead than all of us."

  No one spoke, but they followed Sam as he crawled forward, leaving the strangled corpse to be crushed to mincemeat by the shifting casks.

  "Give me a hand here," Sam said and the others boosted him up onto one of the casks below the hatch.

  "There's naught but a piece of canvas "tween us and the deck now," he whispered triumphantly, and reached up to touch the tightly stretched cover.

  "Come on, let's get out of here," Ed Broom whispered. "Still broad day out there." Sam held him as he tried to loosen the ropes that held the canvas cover in place. "Wait for dark. Won't be long now."

  Gradually the light filtering down through the chinks around the canvas cover dulled and faded. They could hear the ship's bell tolling the watches.

  "End of the last dog watch," said Ed. "Let's go now."

  "Give it a while more," Sam urged. After another hour, he nodded.

  "Loose those sheets."

  "What we going to do out there?" Now that it was time to move they were fearful. "You'll not be thinking of trying to take the ship?"

  "Nay, you donkey. I've had enough of your bloody Captain Franky. Find anything that floats and then it's over the side for me. The land's not far off."

  "What of the sharks?"

  "Captain Franky bites worse than any sodding shark you'll meet out there."

  No one argued with that.

  They freed a corner of the canvas, and Sam lifted the flap and peered out. "All clear. There's some of the empty water casks at the foot of the foremast. They'll do us just Jack-a-dandy."

  He wriggled out from under the canvas and darted across the deck. The others followed, one at a time, and helped him tear at the lashing that held the empty casks in place. Within seconds they had two clear.

  "Together now, lads," Sam whispered, and they trundled the first across the deck. They heaved up the cask between them and flung it over the rail, ran back and grabbed a second.

  "Hey! You men! What are you doing?" The challenge from close at hand shocked them all and they turned pale faces to look back. They all recognized Hal.

  "It's Franky's whelp!" one cried, and they dropped the cask and scampered for the ship's side. Ed Broom was first over. He dived headlong, with Peter Miller and John Tate close behind him.

  Hal took a moment to realize what they were up to, and then bounded forward to intercept Sam Bowles. He was the ringleader, the most guilty of the gang, and Hal tackled him as he reached the ship's rail.

  "Father!" he shouted, loud enough for his voice to carry to every quarter of the deck. "Father, help me!"

  Locked chest to chest they struggled. Hal fastened a head-lock on him, but Sam threw back his head then butted forward in the hope of breaking Hal's nose. But Big Daniel had taught Hal his wrestling, and he had been ready. he dropped his chin on his chest so that his skull clashed with Sam's. Both men were half stunned by the impact, and broke from each other's grip.

  Instantly Sam lurched for the rail but, on his knees, Hal grabbed at his legs. "Father!" he screamed again. Sam tried to kick him off but Hal held on grimly. Then Sam looked up and saw Sir Francis Courtney charging down from the quarterdeck. His sword was out and the blade flashed in the starlight.

  "Hold hard, Hal! I'm coming!"

  There was no time for Sam to free the rope belt from around his middle, and drop the loop over Hal's head. Instead he reached down and locked both hands around his throat. He was a small man, but his fingers were work-toughened, hard as iron marlin spikes He found Hal's windpipe and blocked it off ruthlessly.

  The pain choked Hal, and his grip loosened on Sam's legs. He seized the man's wrists, trying to break his stranglehold, but Sam placed one foot on his chest, kicked him over backwards, then darted to the side of the ship. Sir Francis aimed a sword cut at him as he ran up, but Sam ducked under it and dived over the rail.

  "The treacherous vermin will get clear away!" Sir Francis howled.

  "Boatswain, call all hands to tack ship. We will go back to pick them up."

  Sam Bowles was driven deep by the force with which he hit the water, and the shock of the cold drove the wind from his lungs. He felt himself drowning, but fought and clawed his way up. At last his head broke the surface, he sucked in a lungful of air and felt the dizziness, and the weakness in his limbs, pass.

  He looked up at the hull of the ship, trundling majestically past him, and then he was left in her wake, which glistened slick and oily in the starlight. That was the highway that would guide him back to the cask. He must follow it before the swells wiped it away and left him with no signpost in the darkness. His feet were bare and he wore only a ragged cotton shirt and his canvas petticoats, which would not encumber his movements. He struck out overarm for, unlike most of his fellows, he was a strong swimmer.

  Within a dozen strokes he heard a voice in the darkness nearby. "Help me, Sam Bowles!" He recognized Ed Broom's wild cries. "Give me a hand, shipmate, or I'm done for."

  Sam stopped to tread water and, in the starlight, saw the splashes of Ed's struggles. Beyond him he saw something else lift on the crest of a dark swell, something black and round.

  The cask!

  But Ed was between him and this promise of survival. Sam started swimming again, but he sheered away from Ed Broom. It was dangerous to come too close to a drowning man, for he would always seize you and hang on with a death grip, until he had taken you down with him.

  "Please, Sam! Don't leave me." Ed's voice was growing fainter.

  Sam reached the floating cask and got a handhold on the protruding spigot. He rested a while then roused himself as another head bobbed up beside him. "Who's that?" he gasped.

  "It's me, John Tate," the swimmer blurted out, coughing up sea water as he tried to find a hold on the barrel.

  Sam reached down and loosened the rope belt from around his waist.

  He used it to take a turn around the spigot and thrust his arm through the loop. John Tate grabbed at the loop too.

  Sam tried to push him away. "Leave it! It's mine." But John's grip was desperate with panic and after a minute Sam let him be. He could not afford to squander his own strength in wrestling with a bigger man.

  They hung together on the rope in a hostile truce. "What happened to Peter Miller? "John Tate demanded, "Bugger Peter Miller!" snarled Sam.

  The water was cold and dark, and both men imagined what might be lurking beneath their feet. A pack of the monstrous tiger sharks always followed the ship in these latitudes, to pick up the offal and contents of the latrine buckets as they were emptied overboard. Sam had seen one of these fearsome creatures as long as the Lady Edwina's pinnace and he thought about it now. He felt his lower body cringe and tremble with cold and the dread of those serried ranks of fangs closing over it to shear him in two, as he might bite into a ripe apple.

  "Look!" John Tate choked as a wave hit him in the face and flooded his open mouth. Sam raised his head and saw a dark, mountainous shape loom out of the night close by.

  "Bloody Franky come back to find us," he growled, through chattering teeth. They watched in horror as the galleon bore down on them, growing larger with each second until she seemed to blot out all the stars and they could hear the voices of the men on her deck.

  "Do you see anything there, Master Daniel?" That was Sir Francis's hail.
>
  "Nothing, Captain," Big Daniel's voice boomed from the bows. Looking down onto the black, turbulent water it would be nigh on impossible to make out the dark wood of the cask or the two heads bobbing beside it.

  They were hit by the bow wave the galleon threw up as she passed and were left twisting and bobbing in her wake as her stern lantern receded into the darkness.

  Twice more during the night they saw its glimmer, but each time the ship passed further from them. Many hours later, as the dawn light strengthened, they looked with trepidation for Resolution, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have given them up for drowned and headed off on her original course. Stupefied with cold and fatigue, they hung on to their precarious handhold.

  "There's the land," Sam whispered, as a swell lifted them high, and they could make out the dark shoreline of Africa. "It's so close you could swim to it easy."

  John Tate made no reply but stared at him sullenly through eyes scalded red and swollen.

  "It's your best chance. Strong young fellow like you. Don't worry about me." Sam's voice was rough with salt. "You'll not get rid of me that easy, Sam Bowles," John grated, and Sam fell silent again, husbanding his strength, for the cold had sapped him almost to his limit. The sun rose higher and they felt it on their heads, first as a gentle warmth that gave them new strength and then like the flames of an open furnace that seared their skin and dazzled and blinded them with its reflection off the sea around them.

  The sun climbed higher, but the land came no closer. the current bore them inexorably parallel to the rocky headlands and white beaches. Idly Sam noticed a patch of cloud shadow that passed close by them, moving darkly across the surface of the water. Then the shadow turned and came back, moving against the wind, and Sam stirred and lifted his head. There was no cloud in the aching blue vault of the sky to cast such a shadow. Sam looked down again and concentrated his full attention on that dark presence on the sea. A swell lifted the cask so high that he could look down upon it.

  "Sweet Jesus!" he croaked, through cracked salt-seared lips. The water was as clear as a glass of gin, and he had seen a great dappled shape move beneath, the dark zebra stripes upon its back. He screamed.

  John Tate lifted his head. "What is it? The sun's got you, Sam Bowles." He stared into Sam's wild eyes, then turned his head slowly to follow their gaze. Both men saw the massive forked tail swing ponderously from side to side, driving the long body forward. It was coming up towards the surface and the tip of the tall dorsal fin broke through, only to the length of a man's finger, the rest still hidden deep beneath.

  Shark! "John Tate hissed. "Tiger!" He kicked frantically, trying to turn the cask to interpose Sam between himself and the creature.

  "Stay still," Sam snarled. "He's like a cat. If you move he'll come for you."

  They could see its eye, small for such girth and length of body. It stared at them implacably as it began the next circle. Round it went, and round again, each circle narrower, with the cask at its centre.

  "Bastard's hunting us like a stoat after a partridge."

  "Shut your mouth. Don't move," Sam moaned, but he could no longer control his terror. His sphincter loosened, and he felt the fetid warm rush under his petticoats as involuntarily his bowels emptied. Immediately the creature's movements became more excited and its tail beat to a faster rhythm as it tasted his excrement. The dorsal fin rose to its full height above the surface, as long and curved as the blade of a harvester's scythe.

  The shark's tail beat the surface white and foamy as it drove forward until its snout crashed into the side of the cask. Sam watched in terror as a miraculous transformation came over the sleek head. The upper lip bulged outwards as the wide jaws gaped. The ranks of fangs were thrust forward, fanning open, and clashed against the side of the wooden cask.

  Both men panicked and scrabbled at their damaged raft, trying to lift their lower bodies clear of the water. They were screaming incoherently, clawing wildly at the barrel staves and at each other.

  The shark backed off and started another of those terrible circles. Beneath the staring eye the mouth was a grinning crescent. Now the thrashing legs of the struggling men gave it a new focus, and it surged in again, its broad back thrusting aside the waters.

  John Tate's shriek was cut off abruptly, but his mouth was still wide open, so that Sam looked down his pink gulping throat. No sound came from it but a soft hiss of expelled breath. Then he was jerked beneath the surface. His left wrist was still twisted into the loop of line and, as he was pulled under, the cask bobbed and ducked like a cork.

  "Leave go! Sam howled as he was thrown around, the rope biting deep into his own wrist. Suddenly the cask flew to the surface, John Tate's wrist still twisted into the hight of line. A dark roseate cloud spread to disco lour the surface around them.

  Then John's head broke out. He made a harsh, cawing sound, and his bloodstained spittle sprayed into Sam's eyes. His face was icy white as his life's blood drained from him. The shark came surging back and, beneath the surface, latched onto John's lower body, worrying and shaking him so that the damaged cask was again pulled under. As it shot once more to the surface, Sam sucked in a breath, and tugged at John's wrist. "Get away!" he screamed at both man and shark. "Get away from me." With the strength of a madman, he pulled the loop free and he kicked at the other man's chest, pushing him clear, screaming all the while" "Get away!"

  John Tate did not resist. His eyes were still wide open but although his lips writhed, no sound came from them. "Below the surface his body had been bitten away below the waist, and his blood turned the waters dark red. The shark seized him once again, then swam off, gulping down lumps of John Tate's flesh.

  The damaged cask had taken in water and now floated low, but this gave it a stability it had lacked when it rode high and lightly. At the third attempt Sam dragged himself up onto it. He draped both arms and legs over it, straddling it. The cask's balance was precarious and he dared not lift even his head for fear of upsetting it and being rolled back into the sea. After a while he saw the great dorsal fin pass before his eyes as the creature came back once more to the cask. He dared not lift his head to follow the narrowing circles, so he closed his eyes and tried to shut his mind to the beast's presence.

  Suddenly the cask lurched under him and his resolve was forgotten.

  His eyes flew wide and he shrieked. But after having bitten into the wood the shark was backing away. Twice more it returned, each time nudging the cask with its grotesque snout. However, each attempt was less determined, perhaps because it had assuaged its appetite on John Tate's carcass and was now discouraged by the taste and smell of the splinters of wood. Eventually Sam saw it turn and move away, its tall fin wagging from side to side as it swam up-current.

  He lay unmoving, draped over the cask, riding the salty belly of the ocean, rising and falling to her thrusts like an exhausted lover. The night fell over him, and now he could not have moved even if he had wished to. He fell into delirium and bouts of oblivion.

  He dreamed that it was morning again, that he had survived the night. He dreamed that he heard human voices near at hand. He dreamed that when he opened his eyes he saw a tall ship, hove to close alongside. He knew it was fantasy for, in a twelve-month span, fewer than two dozen ships rounded this remote cape at the end of the world. Yet, as he watched, a boat was lowered from the ship's side and rowed towards him. Only when he felt rough hands seize his legs did he realize dully that this was no dream.

  The Resolution edged in towards the land with only a feather of canvas set and the crew standing ready for the order to whip it off and furl it on her masts.

  Sir Francis's eyes darted from the sails to the land close ahead. He listened intently to the chant of the leadsman as he swung the line and let the weight drop ahead of their bows. As the ship passed over it, and the line came straight up and down, he read the sounding. "By the deep twenty!" "Top of the tide in an hour." Hal looked up from the slate. "And full moon in three days. She'l
l be making springs."