Birds of Prey c-1

by Wilbur Smith

  He read the angle of the noon sun, and everyone in the band gathered around him to watch him mark their position on the chart. The string of dots on the heavy parchment sheet crept slowly towards the indentation on the coastline, which was marked on the Dutch chart as Buffels Baal or the Bay of the Buffaloes.

  "We are not more than five leagues from the lagoon now. "Hal looked up from the chart.

  Aboli agreed. "While we were out hunting this morning I recognized the hills ahead. From the high ground I saw the line of low cloud that marks the coast. We are very close."

  Hal nodded. "We must advance with caution. There is the danger that we might run into foraging parties from the Gull. This is a favourable place to set up a more permanent camp. There is an abundance of water and firewood and a good lookout from this hill. In the morning, Aboli and I will leave the rest of you here while we go on ahead to discover if the Gull is truly lying in Elephant Lagoon."

  An hour before dawn, Hal took Big Daniel aside and committed Sukeena to his care. "Guard her well, Master Daniel. Never let her out of your sight."

  "Have no fear, Captain. She'll be safe with me."

  As soon as it was light enough to see the track that led eastwards Hal and Aboli left the camp, Sukeena walked a short distance with them.

  "God speed, Aboli." Sukeena embraced him. "Watch over my man."

  "I will watch over him, even as you watch over his son." "You monstrous rogue, Abold" She struck him a playful blow on his great broad chest. "How do you know everything? We were so sure we had kept it a secret even from you." She turned laughing to Hal. "He knows!"

  "Then all is lost." Hal shook his head. "For on the day it is born this rascal will take it as his own, even as he did with me."

  She watched them climb the hill and wave from the crest. But as they disappeared the smile shrivelled on her lips and a single tear traced its way down her cheek. On her way back, she stopped beside the stream and washed it away. When she entered the camp again, Althuda looked up at her from the sword blade he was burnishing and smiled at her, unsuspecting of her distress. He marvelled at how beautiful and fresh she looked, even after all these months of hard travel in the wilderness.

  When last they had been here, Hal and Aboli had hunted and explored these *-hills above the lagoon. They knew the run of the river, and they entered the deep gorge a mile above the lagoon, following an elephant path down to a shallow ford that they knew. They did not approach the lagoon from this direction. "There may be watering parties from the Gull," Aboli cautioned. Hal nodded and led them up the far side of the gorge and in a wide circuit around the back of the hills, out of sight of the lagoon.

  They climbed the back slope of the hills until they were a few paces below the skyline. Hal knew that the cave of the ancient rock paintings, where he and Katinka had dallied, lay just over the crest in front of them, and that from the ridge there would be a panoramic view across the lagoon to the rocky heads and the ocean beyond.

  "Use those trees to break your shape on the skyline," Aboli told him quietly.

  Hal smiled. "You taught me well. I have not forgotten." He inched his way up the last few yards, followed by Aboli, and, gradually, the view down the far side opened to his gaze. He had not had sight of the sea for weeks now, and he felt his heart leap and his spirits soar as he looked upon its serene blue expanse, flecked with the white horses that pranced before the south-easter. It was the element that ruled his life and he had missed it sorely.

  "Oh, for a- ship!" he whispered. "Please, God, let there be a ship!"

  As he moved up, there before his eyes appeared the great grey castles of the heads, the bastions that guarded the entrance to the lagoon. He paused before taking another step, steeling himself for the terrible disappointment of finding the anchorage deserted. Like a gambler at Hazard, he had staked his life on this coup of the dice of Fate. He forced himself to take another slow step up the slope, then gasped, seized Aboli's arm and dug his fingers into the knotted muscles.

  "The Gull!" he muttered, as though it were a prayer-of thanks. "And not alone! There is another fine ship with her."

  For a long while neither spoke again, until Aboli said softly, "You have found the ship you promised them. If you can seize it, you will be a captain at last, Gundwane."

  They crept forward and, on the crest of the hill, sank on their bellies and gazed down upon the wide lagoon below. "What ship is that with the Gull?" Hal asked. "I cannot make out her name from here."

  "She is an Englishman," said Aboli, with certainty. "No other would cross her mizzen topgallant yard in that fashion."

  "A Welshman, perhaps? She has a rake to her bows and a racy style to her sheer. They build them that way on the west coast."

  "It is possible, but whoever she is, she's a fighting ship. Look at those guns. There would be few to match her in her class," Aboli murmured thoughtfully.

  "Better than the Gull, even?" Hal looked at her with longing eyes.

  Aboli shook his head. "You dare not try to take her, Gundwane. Surely she belongs to an honest English sea captain. If you lay hands upon her you turn all of us into pirates. Better we try for the Gull."

  For another hour they lay on the hilltop, talking and planning quietly while they studied the two ships and the encampment among the trees on the near shore of the lagoon.

  "By heavens!" Hal exclaimed abruptly. "There is the Buzzard himself. I would know that bush of fiery hair anywhere. "His voice was sharp with hatred and anger. "He is going out to the other ship. See him climb the ladder without a by-your-leave, as if he owns it."

  "Who is that greeting him at the companionway?" Aboli asked. "I swear I know that walk, and the bald scalp shining in the sunlight."

  "It cannot be Sam Bowles aboard that frigate... but it is," Hal marvelled. "There is something very strange afoot here, Aboli. How may we find out what it is?"

  While they watched the sun begin to slide down the western sky, Hal tried to keep his rage under control. Down there were the two men responsible for his father's terrible death. He relived every detail of his agony and he hated Sam Bowles and the Buzzard to the point where he knew that his emotions might override his reason. His strong instinct was to throw all else aside, go down to confront them and seek retribution for his father's agony and death.

  I must not let it happen, he told himself. I must think first of Sukeena and the son that she carries for me.

  Aboli touched his arm and pointed down the hill. The rays of the sinking sun had changed the angle of the shadows of the trees of the forest, so that they could see down more clearly through them into the encampment.

  "The Buzzard is digging fortifications, down there." Aboli was puzzled. "But there is no plan to them. His trenches are all higgledy-piggledy."

  "Yet all his men seem to be at work in the diggings. There must be some plan-" Hal broke off and laughed. "Of course! This is why he came back to the lagoon! He is still searching for my father's hoard."

  "He is a long way off course." Aboli chuckled. "Perhaps Jiri and Matesi have deliberately misled him."

  "Sweet Mary, of course those rascals have played the fool with him. Cumbrae bought more than he bargained for in the slave market. They will tweak his nose while they pretend to grovel and call him Lardy." He smiled at the thought, then became serious again. "Do you think they may still be down there, or has the Buzzard murdered them already?"

  "No, he will keep them alive as long as he thinks they are of value to him. He is digging, so he is still hoping. My guess is that they are still alive."

  "We must watch for them." For another hour they lay on the hilltop in silence, then Hal said, "The tide is turning. The strange frigate is swinging on her moorings." They watched her bow and curtsy to the ebb with a stately grace, and then Hal spoke again. "Now I can see the name on her transom, but it is difficult to read. Is it the Golden Swan? The Golden Hart? No, I think not. "Tis the Golden Bough!"

  "A fine name for a fine ship," said Aboli, and then h
e started, and pointed excitedly down at the network of trenches and pits amongst the trees. "There are black men coming out of that ditch, three of them. Is that Jiri? Your eyes are sharper than mine."

  "By heavens! So it is, and Matesi and Kimatti behind him."

  "They are taking them to a hut near the water's edge. That must be where they lock them up at night."

  "Aboli, we must speak to them. I will go down as soon as it's dark and try to reach their hut. What time will the moon rise?"

  "An hour after midnight," Aboli answered him. "But I will not let you go. I made a promise to Sukeena Besides your white skin shines like a mirror. I will go."

  Stripped naked, Aboli waded out from the far shore until the water reached his chin and struck out in a dog-paddle that made no splash and left only a silent oily wake behind his head. When he reached the far shore, he lay in the shallows until he was certain the beach was clear. Then he crawled swiftly across the open sand and huddled against the hole of the first tree.

  One or two camp fires were burning in the grove, and from around them he heard the sound of men's voices and an occasional snatch of song or a shout of laughter. The flames gave him enough light to discern the hut where the slaves where imprisoned. Near the front of it he picked out the glow of a burning match on the lock of a musket, and from this he placed the single sentry, who sat with his back to a tree covering the door of the hut.

  They are careless, he thought. Only one guard, and he seems to be asleep.

  He crept forward on hands and knees, but before he reached the back wall of the hut he heard footsteps and moved quickly to the shelter of another tree-trunk and crouched there. Two of the Buzzard's sailors came sauntering through the grove towards him. They were arguing loudly.

  "I'll not sail with that little weasel," one declared. "He would cut a throat for the fun of it."

  "So would you, Willy MacGregor."

  "Aye, but I'd no" be using a pizened blade, like Sam Bowles would."

  "You'll sail with whoever the Buzzard says you will, and that's an end to your carping," his mate announced and paused beside the tree where Aboli crouched. He lifted his petticoats and urinated noisily against the trunk. "By the devil's nuggets, even with Sam Bowles as captain I'll be happy enough to get away from this place. I left bonnie Scotland to escape the coal pit, and here I am digging holes again." He shook the droplets vigorously from himself and the two walked on.

  Aboli waited until they were well clear, and then crawled to the rear wall of the hut. He found that it was plastered with unburnt clay, but that chunks of this were falling from the framework of woven branches beneath. He crawled slowly along the wall, gently probing each crack with a stalk of grass until he found a chink that went right through. He placed his lips to the opening and whispered softly, "Jiri!"

  He heard a startled movement on the far side of the wall, and a moment later a fearful whisper came back. "Is that the voice of Aboli, or is it his ghost?"

  "I am alive. Here feel the warmth of my finger "tis not the hand of a dead man."

  They whispered to each other for almost an hour before Aboli left the hut and crawled back down the beach. He slipped into the waters of the lagoon like an otter.

  The dawn was painting the eastern sky the colours of lemons and ripe apricots when Aboli climbed the hill again to where he had left Hal. Hal was not in the cave, but when Aboli gave a soft warbling bird-call, he stepped out from behind the hanging vines that screened the entrance, his cutlass in his hand.

  "I have news," said Aboli. "For once the gods have been kind."

  "Tell me!" Hal commanded eagerly, as he sheathed the blade. They sat side by side in the entrance to the cave from where they could keep the full sweep of the lagoon under their eyes, while Aboli related in detail everything that Jiri had been able to tell him.

  Hal exclaimed when Aboli described the massacre of the captain and men of the Golden Bough, and the way in which Sam Bowles had drowned the wounded like unwanted kittens in the shallows of the lagoon. "Even for the Buzzard that is a deed that reeks of hell itself."

  "Not all were killed," Aboli told him. "Jiri says that a large number of the survivors are locked up in the main hold of the Golden Bough." Hal nodded thoughtfully. "He says too that the Buzzard has given the command of the Golden Bough to Sam Bowles."

  "By heaven, that rogue has come up in the world," Hal exclaimed. "But all this could work to our advantage. The Golden Bough has become a pirate ship, and is now fair game for us. However, it will be a dangerous enterprise to hunt the Buzzard in his own nest." He lapsed into a long silence, and Aboli did not disturb him.

  At last Hal looked up and it was clear he had reached some decision. "I swore an oath to my father never to reveal that which I am now to show you. But circumstances have changed. He would forgive me, I know. Come with me, Aboli Hal led him down the back slope of the hill, and then turned towards the gorge of the river. They found a trail made by the baboons and scrambled down the steep side to the bottom. There Hal turned upstream, and the cliffs became higher and steeper as they went. At places they were forced to enter the water and wade alongside the cliff. Every few hundred yards Hal paused to take his bearings, until at last he grunted with satisfaction as he marked the dead tree. He waded along the lip of the bank until he reached it, then scrambled ashore and began to climb.

  "Where are you going, Gundwane?" Aboli called after him.

  "Follow me," Hal answered, and Aboli shrugged and began to climb after him. He chuckled when Hal suddenly reached down and gave him a hand onto the narrow ledge that he had not been able to see from below.

  "This has the smell of Captain Franky's lair to it," he said. "The Buzzard would have saved himself a lot of work by searching here instead of digging holes in the grove, am I right?"

  "This way." Hal shuffled along the ledge with his back to the cliff, and- the hundred-foot drop that opened under his toes. When he reached the place where the ledge widened and the cleft split the face, he paused to examine the rocks that blocked the entrance.

  "There have been no visitors, not even the apes," he said, with relief, and began to move the rocks out of the opening. When there was space to pass he crept through and groped in the darkness for the flint and steel box and the candle that his father had placed on the ledge above head level. The under flared at the third stroke of the steel on the flint, and he lit the candle stub and held it high.

  Aboli laughed in the yellow light as he looked upon the array of canvas sacks and chests. "You are a rich man, Gundwane. But what use is all this gold and silver to you now? It will not buy you a mouthful of food or a ship to carry it all away."

  Hal crossed to the nearest chest and opened the lid. The gold bars glinted in the candle-light. "My father died to leave me this legacy. I would rather have had him alive and me a beggar." He slammed the lid, and looked back at Aboli. "Despite what you may think, I did not come here for the gold," he said. "I came for this." He kicked the powder keg beside him. "And those!" He pointed to the piles of muskets and swords that were stacked against the far wall of the cave. "And these also!" He crossed to where the sheaves and gantry were piled in a heap and picked up one of the coils of manila rope that he and his father had used. He tried the strength of the line by stretching a length of it over his back and straining to break it with his arms and shoulders.

  "It is still strong, and has not rotted," he dropped the coil, "so we have all we need here."

  Aboli came to sit on the chest beside him. "So you have a plan. Then share it with me, Gundwane." He listened quietly as Hal laid it out for him, and once or twice he nodded or made a suggestion.

  THat same morning they set off for the base camp and by travelling fast, trotting and running most of the way, they reached it shortly after noon. Sukeena saw them climbing the hill and came running down to meet them. Hal seized her and swung her high in the air, then checked himself and set her down with great care as though she were woven of gossamer and might easily te
ar. "Forgive me, I treat you roughly."