by Robert Adams
"By the well-crisped pecker of Saint Lawrence," blasphemed Otei, who had happened to be standing near Abdullah and his two dozen Bornu calivermen atop the river wall when the attackers appeared, "this will be no day on which we can save powder, sir knight. See the way those buggers have coated themselves with ashes? That means they mean to fight until we kill all of them or until they take the fort and kill us. They've never done this when they attacked me either of the other times. Someone of real importance must've been killed yesterday, then, one of their pagan juju priests, most likely—they wouldn't make themselves moon-white over a mere chief."
"When they rush this section, Abdullah, have your calivers try to drop those men carrying the notched logs. Not one in dozens of them can swim, so there's no way they can cross the moat here without those logs. There're not many of the man-eaters on this side, anyway—I think they're only here for the purpose of keeping us, those assigned here, here, so that we can't go to the aid of any of the other three sides."
He turned and addressed the officer in overall command of the cannon batteries on this wall. "Captain Latiq, unless a lot more of them show up after I leave, don't loose off anything big until they're nicely bunched together on the far side of the moat, then fire only enough guns to shred them and put them on the run, eh? Leave the survivors of your guns to the swivels and the calivers—they burn less powder."
Turning back to Abdullah, the fat but efficient Otei clapped a gauntleted hand on the Spaniard's armored shoulder. "Get yourself one of the spare calivers and join the fun, sir knight, but"—he chuckled—"try to not waste any powder."
Then he and his bodyguards were away up the wall at a fast pace.
Forever after, for all of his life, Abdullah recalled that early morning as a butchery, pure and simple. His veterans dropped all the log-carrying men at long ranges, then those who picked up the burdens and those who followed the second lot, and so on, their reloading times giving the near-naked savages just about enough time to lift the long, heavy, ill-balanced, and unwieldy sections of tree trunk and take a few steps with them before they began to be flung down by the heavy leaden balls. Abdullah himself was not a poor shot, and he did his part with the extremely heavy, wall-rested long gun.
Arrived at the far verge of the twenty-foot width of filled moat, the ash-coated spearmen hurled some javelins, clubs, axes, and even stones upward, but mostly just milled around while more closed in behind them and some few brave souls ran back to try to bring up the logs, most of these being dropped long before they could reach the artifacts.
Then the lowest level of casemate ports had swung open, the barrels of full cannon and cannon-royals had been run out and then touched off, all of them at point-blank range and all loaded to almost the muzzle-bands with tightly packed langrage—chopped-up metal scrap, imperfect small-aims balls, shovelsful of gravel and shards of broken glass bottles. The effect on the "targets" was unbelievable, unforgettable; more than one of the veterans atop that section of wall hurriedly thrust his head far out and retched his stomach's contents into the reddening waters of the moat. Abdullah was among them.
Then it became business as usual for the swivel gunners and the calivermen. They opened fire on the stunned, bemused attackers still standing there amid the incredible carnage wrought by the loads of langrage and continued to drop the survivors as they ran or staggered away, back toward the reed-grown swamp from which they had so recently emerged.
By the third hour after sunrise, it was over and another feast had been lavishly spread for the scavengers, on all four sides of the fortress, this time.
There were a few, too-short hours of rejoicing, but then, down the river in long war-boats, came Otei's other partner with news of fast-approaching doom.
CHAPTER THE SEVENTH
With the arrival of the Arab partner called al-Ain—"the Eye"—and his battered force, the Egyptian surgeon and his apprentices again became very busy, while Otei, the injured al-Gahzahr, and the third partner engaged in a nightlong conference from which the Captain and al-Ain emerged looking haggard and very grim. Michael Otei first issued a spate of orders to various subordinates, then sought out Abdullah and closeted with the Spanish knight.
"There is not much time, my boy, so don't waste any of the precious stuff arguing with me," he said, in preface. "Abdullah, you are a brave man, a good officer, you have served me well here, and I can but wish that our relationship had been of longer duration, but such is the will of God. The intelligence that al-Ain brought with him down from the north is, in a word, dreadful; under the existing circumstances, it could probably not be worse, and I feel a powerful sense of impending, utterly inescapable doom bearing inexorably down upon me, my partners, and my men, but I refuse to see anyone it is within my power to save dragged down into death with me. That includes at the top of the list you and your valiant Spaniards."
"Presently, there will be a ship anchored in the river just far enough out to prevent her grounding as she is laden. She is a Dutch caravel of some four hundred tons, with three masts and drawing some eleven feet, laden. She is pierced for twelve guns on each side on the lower deck, seven on the higher decks, plus two stern-chasers."
"Your crew should already be aboard her by now, for she was not moored far away from here. Although the crew that sailed her in here was twice the size of yours, you'll just have to manage, for she is the only ship of any description I have on hand. My men will be rowing all of the lighters down and they will then set to work loading. They'll load all of the ship's gear that came off the Ana Gomez, provisions and water, sacks of charcoal and suchlike."
"You and your officers will be sailing away on this ship, then?" asked Abdullah.
Otei smiled sadly and shook his head tiredly. "No, my boy, none of us have anywhere else to go, you see. I am of the opinion that God has ordained we all die here in final retribution for our many and heavy sins. I would not have lived for much longer, in any case."
"You are ill?" demanded Abdullah. "You didn't look it yesterday or the day before, Captain."
"Not ill, not that I know of, my boy, but old, old and just now very, very tired." At Abdullah's disbelieving look, Otei added, "Yes, old, my boy. My fat hides my wrinkles and the fact that my servants shave my face and head each morning disguises the whiteness of my hair and beard. I was sixty-two on my last saint's day."
"But such trivialities aside, for as I earlier said, time is now of the essence. My men will be loading aboard the ship twenty-four fine bronze culverins, their trucks and necessaries for your main batteries, each of them throwing twenty-two pounds. There will be two long culverins of twenty pounds for your chasers, twelve demiculverins for your waist-guns, and a brace of twelve-pounder demicannons for your quarterdeck. There will be a plenitude of shot and waddings, but I won't be able to give you much cannon-grade powder, of course. Take all of the swivels you want, them and small arms of any description and in any quantity—calivers, arquebuses, dags, pistols, pole-arms, edge weapons, armor, anything."
"Those Bornu calivermen that you commanded so well these past days are honest mercenaries whom I hired on only some few years back, not homeless exiles and criminals like me and the rest, so you will carry them as passengers as far as the Port of Saints Peter and Paul, at the mouth of the River Niger or to another port if they so choose. When once they are all safely landed, the ship and all within it become yours, Abdullah."
The Spaniard sighed and shrugged, spreading his hands. "I'll do as you order, Captain, but I am not at all sure I can even find the place you indicate, not without a sailing master."
Otei asked, "Will you settle for a man who, though no seaman, has studied the arts of the navigator? Then look no farther. You of course recall Patricius Olahda—well, he will be sailing with you, also. He is a young man of depthless curiosity, and this led him at one time to secure and absorb books on navigation, instruments, and charts and maps. He is my only full sister's grandson and I have made of him my legal heir, for though I neve
r can return to my homeland, I still hold title to properties there. For some strange reason, I never in my life have been able to quicken any of my many wives, mistresses, or concubines, such has been the Creator's divine Will, so there will be no questioning the right of Patricius to succeed to that which was mine."
With a mighty rattling and clanging of his armor and weapons, the fat man heaved himself to his feet, saying, "Now I must see to so many other things, my boy. I will try to meet with you once more before you sail. Patricius will see that you receive almost anything that you find you will need for the voyage. God keep you, Abdullah."
At the Captain's request, expressed through Patricius Olahda, Abdullah spent some time in a rope chair slung over the side of the fine northern-type caravel marking the outlines of letters for the crew to paint in—Nuestra Señora de los Penitentes. The less than honest Dutch former owner/master had, shortly before he had paid the inevitable wages of his sins, felt constrained to sign over his ship to Otei, and the documents conveying said ship to one Don Abdullah de Baza, rendered in Spanish, Arabic, and one of the languages of Ghana, were given to the Spaniard by a one-eyed Arab who came aboard and introduced himself as the third partner of Otei, him they called al-Ain.
Unlike the other Arab partner, the one called al-Gahzahr, this slender, wiry, graying man spoke and comported himself like the gentlemen he clearly had been reared to be. While his workforce and the ship's crew performed the brutally hard task of getting the world-heavy, cast-bronze gun tubes and the equally heavy, clumsy hardwood-and-iron gun trucks up off of the lighters, then down through the main hatch onto the gun deck, mounted the one onto the other, secured them, and then placed them, al-Ain graciously accepted Abdullah's offer and availed himself of refreshment in the largest cabin of the caravel.
When first the man had clambered up out of the leading lighter, Abdullah had known who he was before he introduced himself, and had known just how he had acquired his present nom de guerre. At some time in the past, the Arab had lost his left eye and had filled the emptied socket with a huge and magnificent opal set in solid, ruddy gold. Save alone for this outré prosthetic and a very old silver thumb ring—now so old that the Arabic script snaking around it was become indecipherable—this partner sported no jewelry.
Abdullah thought that, sitting there in his tight doeskin breeches tucked into the low tops of fancifully tooled boots, his sleeved cotton shirt of European cut, plain dagger belt, and soft cap of velvet, with his long legs gracefully crossed at the knee, al-Ain—disregarding his "eye"—looked far more the part of a distinguished retired knight than he did that of an active slave trader and fierce warrior.
"I felt that I had to meet you, Don Abdullah," remarked al-Ain, simply. "I have known Michael Otei for more than twenty years and never in all that time have I ever known him to even consider giving so much as one of his precious cannon away, not to anyone for any purpose. Now you come along and he is giving you no less than forty of the best pieces in the fortress—Venetian-cast, every one of them, only about ten years old and sound as the day they were unmolded, real bronzen treasure."
"To be frank, though, I'm as glad to see them go, the larger ones, for we've always had too many guns too big for our needs here; I've had shouting match atop shouting match with Michael about it over the years, too; the only place we have need of anything larger than a saker is on the riverside wall and towers, where we might be compelled to match shot-tonnage with ships' guns. Elsewhere, they are all useless, powder-costly fripperies."
Abdullah, having so recently seen the kind of damage wrought by the multitude of large-caliber cannon upon the attacking cannibals, most of it at distances beyond accurate small-arms shot—thus keeping the vastly more numerous and blood-mad pagans far from the walls or any close-range fighting where their numbers would easily have prevailed—was not so sure that the Arab gentleman was right, but he held his peace, smiling politely.
"I cannot understand," he told his guest, "just why you, the Captain, the other officers, and as many troops as possible do not come aboard this ship, man your boats and lighters, and flee this place if you all expect to shortly die here, as seems to be a fact accepted by everyone. The Captain, at least, owns a great wealth of gold, gems, silver, and other valuables, so you all could live well for the rest of your lives, in comfort, in some more civilized place, I would think."
The thin lips of the Arab twisted slightly, and he shook his head. "Alas, Don Abdullah, you know not just how infamous are we three—Michael, al-Gahzahr, and I, at least. We, none of us, would be safe for long in any more civilized area of this world, not unless we were to make voyage to perhaps Hind, Sind, or the Spice Isles, and quite possibly not even then. We all own powerful and wealthy and most vindictive enemies. One of these—or his son, rather—has searched and found us even here and now is leading a large force down upon us from the north. He is called Shaikh Hassan al-Ohsiyahr ibn Omar al-Shakoosh; in the dialect of Arabic from which these two sobriquets come, al-Shakoosh means 'the Hammer,' while al-Ohsiyahr means 'the Short One.' Long years ago, before we all came here and began slaving, an old, dying juju-man pronounced that Michael would be killed by 'the get of a hammer,' I by 'something short and red,' and the others of our then-five partners by various means, all of which have come to pass in the ways predicted, and, therefore, we have no slightest reason to doubt but that his predictions will prove accurate in our cases, too. Hassan is short of stature and has red hair, I am told; he also is the get of a hammer. Who, my friend, can long elude Kismet? In what land does a man's fate not finally overtake him? No, this has been the only real home that many of us ever have known; we shall fight for it or we'll die for it, as God wills. But, if die we must, we first will see to it that Shaikh Hassan and his men know and long remember that they have been in a fight, have fought men of mettle."
"Now, it is time that I go and supervise the disassemblies and removals of the next load of culverins, Don Abdullah, and you should accompany me to mark the swivels that you want for the ship. After that, go down to the armory and choose whatever you want or need, for far better that they go to a friend than provide spoils and loot to an enemy. Place all of your choices in the outer room in piles and they will be brought out to the ship tomorrow."
By the morning of the fourth day, the Nuestra Señora de los Penitentes was completely ready for sea. Before any loading had commenced, however, Abdullah's barcogalòn and the carpintero had seen the bilges pumped completely dry and gone over the vessel from stem to stern, masthead to keel, and had reported her sound in all ways saving only for some sections of rigging that could be easily and quickly replaced, numerous embedded bullets and holes from their passages, these mostly in the waist, and a plethora of old bloodstains in the planking and bulkheads throughout the ship.
At Abdullah's carefully phrased question, al-Ain had replied, "The Dutchman, Don Abdullah? Oh, him, yes, he had an eminently unpronounceable name, like so very many of his ilk. The whole of those tongues when spoken sound like unto angry dogs growling, to me. He was no slaver, but rather a merchant captain who had heard that the slave dealer here paid hard gold specie for gunpowder in all grades, refined niter—that which the Church still chooses to call 'priests' powder'—brimstone, pig-lead, pig-iron, and cast-iron shot of almost all calibers."
"So he sailed up the river of a day with a cargo to sell, he averred. The two casks and one barrel he brought ashore were all fine-quality, from top to bottom, and the price he demanded was reasonable for the value of such goods brought so far. An agreement was reached, a weight of gold changed hands, and lighters brought a number of barrels ashore and our men bore them into the fortress. Had he upped anchor immediately the last barrel was winched down into the last lighter, he most likely now would be laughing over his tipple somewhere telling the funny story of how he bilked a black savage in far southern Afriqah, but he did not."
"God was watching over us that day, not over him. In handling the barrels within the fortress, a misch
ance caused one to roll down a flight of stairs and shatter at the bottom, revealing it to be packed with nothing save powdered charcoal, with not a trace of brimstone or niter. The casks of niter proved, upon close examination, to be niter right enough, but raw niter, completely unrefined; only the brimstone casks contained what they were sold to us to be."
"To compound our righteous wrath at being so cheated, we knew that should we be so stupid as to allow this sharper to escape with his ship, his crew, his life, and our gold, the stories certain to be spread all over Christendom by him and his seamen would shortly see a virtual swarm of dishonest merchants descending upon the simple savages, all anxious to relieve us of some of the burden of our wealth."
"And so, under the cover of darkness, we drew up to the sides of the ship in native river craft, which can be propelled more silently than can oared boats. Then we all swarmed up the ship and over the rails and began to kill, but trying to take the captain and his officers alive. Dragged back to the fortress, on his knees in the palace, he and they admitted to everything, all the while begging most abjectly and piteously that their lives be spared."
"After taking a hand and an eye from each of two of the officers, we put them aside to be shipped out aboard the next ship that came to call, that they might be witness to the rewards of those who made to cheat us. When once the perfidious Dutchman had signed over his ship to Michael, he and his other two officers were maimed a bit for sport, then locked away and fed until Michael heard of a nearby column of soldier ants, when he had the swine all three staked out directly in the path of the ants, whose habit it is to eat anything—animal or vegetable—that cannot flee them."
The Bornu calivermen came aboard, all more than simply well armed, for, like Abdullah, they had been given by Otei free choice of all that the fortress armory contained. Patricius Olahda came aboard next, along with men bearing his effects to stow them in one of the three cabins aft of the mainmast, then he returned to shore, and when next he climbed up the ladder, he was followed by the Captain and four of the palace servants whom Abdullah recognized, each of them bearing a thickish bundle and a hammock of woven grass, all wearing abundant amounts of jewelry he did not recall having seen them wearing in the palace. Next to climb up from the lighter was one of the alcoholic Egyptian surgeon's apprentices; then a succession of chests were handed up to be stacked by the port rail.