Birds of Prey c-1

by Wilbur Smith

  The head space in this deck was no higher than a man's waist so they were forced to crawl down it and drag the wounded men with them. Iron rings were set into the bulkhead, bolted into the heavy oak beam that ran the length of the hold. Sam and his four mates crawled down after them and shackled their chains into the ring bolts When they had finished, the captives were laid out like herrings in a barrel, side by side, secured at wrist and ankle, only just able to sit up, but unable to turn over or to move their limbs more than the few inches that their chains allowed.

  Hal lay with his father on one side and the inert hulk of Big Daniel on the other. Aboli was on the far side of Daniel and Ned Tyler beyond him.

  When the last man had been secured, Sam crawled back to the hatch and smirked down at them. "Ten days to Good Hope with this wind. One pint of water a day for each man, and three ounces of biscuit, when I remember to bring it to you. You're free to shit and piss where you lie. See you at Good Hope, my lovelies."

  He slammed the hatch closed, and they heard him on the far side hammering the locking pins into their seats. When the mallet blows ceased, the sudden quiet was frightening. At first the darkness was complete, but then as their eyes adjusted they could just make out the dark forms of their mates packed around them.

  Hal looked for the source of light and found a small iron grating set into the deck directly above his head. Even without the bars, it would not have been large enough to admit the head of a grown man, and he discounted it immediately as a possible escape route. At least it provided a whiff of fresh air.

  The stench was hard to bear and they all gasped in the suffocating atmosphere. It smelt like a bear-pit. Big Daniel moaned, and the sound loosened their tongues. They started to talk all at once.

  "Love of God, it smells like a shit-house in apricot season down here."

  "Do you think there's a chance of escaping from here, Captain?" , "Of course there is, my bully," one of the men answered for Sir Francis. "When we reach Good Hope."

  "I would give half my share of the richest prize that ever sailed the seven seas for five minutes alone with Sam Bowles."

  "All my share for another five with that bloody Cumbrae."

  "Or that cheese-headed bastard, Schreuder."

  Suddenly Daniel gabbled, "Oh, Mother, I see your lovely face. Come, kiss your little Danny." The plaintive cry disheartened them, and the silence of despair fell over the dark, noisome slave deck. Gradually they sank into a torpor of despondency, broken occasionally by the groans of delirium and the clank of the links as they tried to find a more comfortable position.

  Slowly, the passage of time lost all significance, and none were sure whether it was night or day when the sound of the anchor capstan from the upper deck reverberated through the hull and they heard the faint shouts of the petty-officers relaying the orders to get the Gull under way.

  Hal tried to judge the ship's course and direction by the momentum and heel of the hull, but soon lost track. It was only when the Gull plunged suddenly and began to work with a light, frolicsome motion to the scend of the open sea that he knew they had left the lagoon and passed out through the heads.

  For hour after hour the Gull battled with the sou'-easter to make good her offing. The motion threw them back and forth on the bare planks, sliding on their backs the few inches that their chains allowed before coming up hard on their manacles, and then sliding back the other way. It was a great relief when, at last, she settled into an easier reach.

  "There now. That's a sight better." Sir Francis spoke for them all. "The Buzzard has made his offing. He has come about and we are running free with the sou'-easter abaft our beam, heading west for the Cape."

  As time passed, Hal made some estimate of the passage of the days by the intensity of light from the grating above his head. During the long nights there was a crushing blackness in the slave deck, like that at the bottom of a coal shaft. Then the softest light filtered down on him as the dawn broke, which grew in strength until he could make out the shape of Aboli's dark round head beyond the lighter face of Big Daniel.

  However, even at noon the further reaches of the slave deck were hidden in darkness, from which the sighs and moans, and the occasional whispers of the other men echoed eerily between the oaken bulkheads. Then again the light faded away into that utter darkness to mark the passing of another day.

  On the third morning a whispered message was passed from man to man. "Timothy O'Reilly is dead." He was one of the wounded. he had taken a sword thrust in his chest from one of the green-jackets.

  "He was a good man." Sir Francis voiced his epitaph. "May God rest his soul. I would that we were able to afford him a Christian burial." By the fifth morning, Timothy's corpse added to the miasma of decay and rot that permeated the slave deck and filled their lungs with each breath.

  Often, as Hal lay in a stupor of despair, the scampering grey rats, big as rabbits, clambered over his body. Their sharp claws raised painful scratches across his bare skin. In the end he gave up the hopeless task of trying to drive them away by kicking and hitting out at them, and set himself to endure the discomfort. It was only when one sank its sharp, curved teeth into the back of his hand that he shouted and managed to seize it, squeaking shrilly, by the throat and throttle it with his bare hands.

  When Daniel cried out in pain beside him, he realized then that the rats had found him also, and that he was unable to defend himself from their attacks. After that he and Aboli took turns at sitting up and trying to keep the voracious rodents away from the unconscious man.

  Their fetters prevented them from squatting over the narrow gutter that ran along the foot of the bulkhead, designed to carry away their sewage. Every once in a while Hal heard the spluttering release as one of the men voided where he lay, and immediately afterwards came the fetid stench of fresh faeces in the confined and already musty spaces.

  When Daniel emptied his bladder, the warm liquid spread to flood the planks under Hal and soaked into his shirt and breeches. There was nothing he could do to avoid it, except lift his head from the deck.

  Most days, around what Hal judged to be noon, the locking pins on the hatch were suddenly driven out with thunderous mallet blows. When it was lifted the feeble light that flooded the hold almost blinded them, and they lifted their hands, heavy with chains, to shield their eyes.

  "I have a special posset for you merry gentlemen today," Sam Bowles's voice sang out. "A mug of water from out oldest barrels, with a few little beasties swimming in it and just a drop of my spittle to give it flavour." They heard him spit heartily, and then bray with laughter before he handed down the first pewter mug. Each mugful had to be passed along the deck, from hand to clumsy manacled hand, and when one was spilled there was none to replace it.

  "One for each of our gentlemen. That's twenty-six mugs, and no more," Sam Bowles told them cheerily.

  Big Daniel was now too far gone to drink unaided, and Aboli had to lift his head while Hal dribbled water between his lips. The other sick men had to be treated in the same way. Much. of the water was lost when it ran out of their slack mouths, and it was a long-drawn-out business. Sam Bowles lost patience before they were half through. "None of you want any more? Well, I'll be off, then." And he slammed the hatch closed and drove home the pins, leaving most of the captives pleading vainly, through parched throats and flaking lips for their share. But he was unrelenting, and they were forced to wait another day for their next ration.

  After that Aboli filled his own mouth with water from the mug, placed his lips over Daniel's and forced it into the unconscious man's mouth. They did the same for the other wounded. This method was quick enough to satisfy even Sam Bowles, and less of the precious fluid was lost.

  Sam Bowles chuckled when one of the men shouted up at him, "For God's sweet sake, Boatswain, there's a dead man down here. Timothy O'Reilly is stinking to the high heavens. Can you not smell him?"

  He answered, "I'm glad you told me. That means he will not be using his water
ration. It will be only twenty-five mugs I'll be serving from tomorrow."

  Daniel was dying. He no longer groaned or thrashed about in delirium. He lay like a corpse. Even his bladder had dried up and no longer emptied itself spontaneously on the reeking planks on which they lay. Hal held his head and whispered to him, trying to cajole him into staying alive. "You can't give up now. Hold on just a while longer and we will be at the Cape before you know it. All the sweet fresh water you can drink, pretty slave girls to nurse you. just think on that, Danny."

  At noon, on what he thought must be their sixth day at sea, Hal called across to Aboli, "I have something to show you here. Give me your hand." He took Aboli's fingers and guided them over Daniel's ribs. The skin was so hot that it was almost painful to the touch, and the flesh so wasted that the ribs stood out like barrel staves.

  Hal rolled Daniel over as far as his chains would allow, and directed Aboli's fingers onto his shoulder blade. "There. Can you feel that lump?"

  Aboli grunted, "I can feel it, but I cannot see." He was so restricted by his chains that he could not look over the bulk of Daniel's inert body.

  "I'm not sure, but I think I know what it is." Hal put his face closer and strained his eyes in the dim light. "There is a swelling the size of a walnut. It's black like a bruise." He touched it gently, and even this light pressure made Daniel groan and fret against his bonds.

  "It must be very tender." Sir Francis had roused himself and leaned as close as he was able. "I cannot see well. Where is it?"

  "In the middle of his shoulder blade," Hal answered. "I believe that it is the musket ball. It has passed clean through his chest and is lying here under the skin."

  "Then that is what is killing him," Sir Francis said. "It is the seat and source of the mortification that is eating him up. "If we had a knife," Hal murmured, "we could try to cut it out. But Sam Bowles took the medical chest."

  Aboli said, "Not before I hid one of the knives." He searched in the waistband of his breeches and held up the thin blade. It glinted softly in the faint light from the grating above Hal's head. "I was waiting for a chance to cut Sam's throat with it."

  "We must risk cutting," Sir Francis told him. "If it stays in his body the ball will kill him more certainly than the scalpel. "I cannot see to make the cut from where I lie," Aboli said. "You will have to do it."

  There was a scuffling and clinking of the chain links, then Sir Francis grunted, "My chains are too short. I cannot lay a finger on him."

  They were all silent for a short while, then Sir Francis said, "Hal."

  "Father," Hal protested, "I do not have the knowledge or the skill."

  "Then Daniel will die," Aboli said flatly. "You owe him a life, Gundwane. Here, take the knife."

  In Hal's hand the knife seemed heavy as a bar of lead. His mouth dry with dread, he tested the edge of the blade against the ball of his thumb and found it dulled by much use.

  "It is blunt," he protested.

  "Aboli is right, my son." Sir Francis laid a hand on Hal's shoulder and squeezed. "You are Daniel's only chance." Slowly Hal reached out with his left hand, and felt the hard lump in Daniel's hot flesh. It moved under his fingers, and he felt it grate softly against the bone of the shoulder blade.

  The pain roused Daniel, and he struggled against his chains. He shouted, "Help me, Jesus. I have sinned against God and man. The devil comes for me. He is dark. Everything grows dark."

  "Hold him, Aboli," Hal whispered. "Hold him still."

  Aboli wrapped his arms around Daniel, like the coils of a great black python. "Do it," he said. "Do it swiftly."

  Hal leaned in close to Daniel, as close as his chains would let him, his face a hand's breadth from the other man's back. Now he could see the swelling more clearly. The skin was stretched so tightly over it that it was glossy and purple as an overripe plum. He placed the fingers of his left hand on each side of it and spread the skin even tighter.

  He took a deep breath, and placed the tip of the scalpel against the swelling. He steeled himself, counting silently to three, then pressed down with the strength of a trained sword arm. He felt the blade slide deep into Daniel's back, and then strike something hard and unyielding, metal on metal.

  Daniel shrieked and then went slack in Aboli's enfolding arms. A spurt of purple and yellow pus erupted from the deep scalpel cut. Hot and thick as carpenter's glue, it struck Hal in the mouth and splattered across his chin. The smell was worse than all the other odours of the slave deck, and Hal's gorge rose to scald the back of his throat. He swallowed back his own vomits and wiped the pus from his face with the back of his arm, before he could bring himself to peer gingerly once more at the wound.

  Black pus still bubbled from it, but he saw extraneous matter caught in the mouth of the fresh cut. He dug at it with the tip of the scalpel, and freed a plug of dark and fibrous material, in which bone chips from the shattered scapula were mingled with jellied blood and pus.

  "It's a piece of Danny's jacket," he gasped. "The ball must have pulled it into the wound."

  "Have you found the ball?" Sir Francis demanded. "No, it must still be in there."

  He probed deeper into the wound. "Yes. There it is." "Can you get it out?"

  For a few minutes Hal worked in silence, thankful that Daniel was unconscious and did not have to suffer during this crude exploration. The flow of pus dwindled and now fresh clean blood oozed from the dark wound.

  "I can't get it with the knife. It keeps slipping away," he whispered. He put aside the blade and pushed his finger into Daniel's hot, living flesh. Breath rasping with horror, he worked in deeper and still deeper, until he could get his fingertip behind the lump of lead.

  "There!" he exclaimed suddenly, as the musket ball popped out of the wound and dropped onto the planks with a thump. It was deformed by its violent contact with bone, and there was a mirror-bright smear in the soft lead.

  He stared at it in vast relief, then snatched his finger from the wound.

  It was followed by another soft rush of pus and lumpy foreign matter. "There is the musket wad." He gagged. "I think everything is out now." He looked down at his besmeared hands. The stench from them struck him like a blow in the face.

  For a while they were all silent. Then Sir Francis whispered, "Well done, Hal!" "I think he is dead," Hal answered, in a small voice. "He is so still."

  Aboli released Daniel from his grip, then groped down his naked chest. "No, he is alive. I can feel his heart. Now, Gundwane, you must wash out the wound for him."

  Between them they dragged Daniel's inert body to the limit of his fetters and Hal half knelt above him. He opened his filthy breeches and dehydrated by the limited ration of water, strained to squirt a weak stream of urine into the wound. It was enough to wash out the last rotting shreds of wadding and corruption. Hal used the last few drops of his own water to cleanse some of the filth from his hands and then fell back, spent by the effort.

  "Done like a man, Gundwane," Aboli told him, and offered Hal the red head cloth black and crackling with dried blood and pus. "Use this to staunch the wound. It is all we have."

  While Hal bandaged the wound, Daniel lay like a corpse. He no longer groaned or fought against his chains. Three days later, as Hal leaned over to give him water, Daniel suddenly reached up, pushed away his head and took the mug from Hal's hands. He drained it in three long swallows. Then he belched thunderously and said, in a weak but lucid voice, "By God, that was good. I'll have a drop more of that."

  Hal was so delighted and relieved that he handed him his own ration and watched him drink it. By the following day, Daniel was able to sit up as much as his chains would allow.

  "Your surgery would have killed a dozen ordinary mortals, Sir Francis murmured, as he watched Big Daniel's recovery with amazement, "but Daniel Fisher thrives upon it."

  The ninth day of their voyage Sam Bowles opened the hatch and sang out cheerily, to "Good news for you, gentlemen. Wind has played us false these last fifty leagues. Hi
s lordship reckons it will be another five days before we round the Cape. So your pleasure cruise will last a little longer."