by Robert Adams
Otei said, "My boy, Master Abu pronounces that this man has learned enough to pass the testing of any country's or city's Guild of Surgeons, and he is not wanted anywhere for any crimes, having simply accompanied his master here, long ago; he would serve you and your men aboard this ship, if you will have him. He is called Ahmad ibn Wahzi and his chests contain a full set of instruments, medicants, and other necessaries."
Abdullah said gravely, "I would be more than pleased to have a skilled surgeon aboard this ship, Captain Otei. Few, save warships, ever have such, and no man knows just what may chance from day unto day. Master Ahmad should find a place below in which to swing his hammock. I will talk with him later."
Otei drew Abdullah's attention to the four servants. "These men are not slaves, lad, they are all free men, all well trained and most accomplished body servants, and they will accompany Patricius."
"Samuel," he addressed one of the four servants, "you and the others bear the four cases I already spoke about and pointed out to you behind us. My boy, let us repair to your cabin."
Following Captain Michael Otei's orders, they destroyed or sank each of the channel-marking buoys as they passed them on their way down the river to the sea. Patricius Olahda stayed in his cabin with his maps, charts, instruments, and books until just before they cleared the river mouth, then he appeared on the quarterdeck and informed Abdullah that he had plotted a course that, God willing, would deliver them to the Port of Saints Peter and Paul hard by the mouth of the River Niger. At that port, hopefully, Abdullah would be able to hire on a master navigator to take them back to Habana.
"How far?" asked Abdullah.
"Between four hundred and fifty and five hundred Spanish leagues, Don Abdullah," replied Olahda, adding, "Since none of us knows much about this ship and her sailing peculiarities, I cannot begin to guess the length of time that it will take us to get up to the Bight of Benin, of course."
But the ship, once it had been determined exactly how best to dress her sails, proved a good one, very responsive to helm, not a pitcher or a roller like the late and unlamented Ana Gomez had all too frequently proved herself to be. After tossing the log at different times over three days, Olahda opined that they should fetch into the Bight of Benin within seven or eight days, did the wind remain constant.
Of course, it did not. Just off an island marked on Olahda's Portuguese chart as Sao Tome, the sails fluttered briefly, then fell slack. Abdullah was trying to decide whether to have sea anchors cast out to prevent the ship being forced aground by currents or whether to draw in the two trailing boats, have them manned, and set oarsmen to the brutally hard labor of towing the ship when a flotilla of small boats was to be seen approaching from the island. When they had neared enough for Abdullah's long glass to see details of their motley, heavily armed crews, he decided he did not at all like the look of them.
He ordered all guns readied and loaded with grape or langrage, then run out of their ports into plain view. He also bade the Bornu mercenaries and his own sea-soldiers arm and stand ready for action. With the assistance of the four servants, he and Olahda arrayed themselves in half-armor and returned to the quarterdeck armed with swords, pistols, and dirks, these being covered by boat cloaks, the helmets not yet donned.
When the lead boat, a long oar-barge packed with an ugly pack of scruffy-looking men, numerous spirals of smoke from as many slowmatches curling up above them in the still air, came within easy hailing distance, a man in an old, rusty hauberk too short for even his froggy, not overly tall body stood up in the bow and demanded, "What in hell is a Spanish ship doing off the Isle of Sao Tome, anyways?"
"Not that it's any of your business," replied Abdullah in a far more grammatical Portuguese than the questioner had used, "but we are on our way to the Port of Saints Peter and Paul and the wind has just seen fit to die."
"What's your cargo?" snapped the froggy man, who was missing the top halves of both ears, had had his nostrils slit in the past, and owned a left cheek knife-scarred from temple to chin. "Better not try lyin' to me, now, 'cause we'll be coming aboard to check it out."
It was at that moment that the gunports all along the port side opened and the bronzen muzzles of the culverins emerged to grin of death and dismemberment at the islanders on the boats.
"No," replied Abdullah, "you'll not be boarding this ship, not a one of you spoilers, pirates, or whatever you are."
The man grinned coldly, showing a far from complete set of broken, yellow-brown teeth and an expanse of fire-red gums. "You better think twicet afore to let off them guns, Cap'n. It's a lot more of us than it is of you and we can be all over you and your stinkin' little ship afore you can reload them guns, too. It ain't as if we really wants much off you, see. You just let me and my boat crew come on board you and we'll tell you whatall we wants and your crew can load them two fine boats you got with what we picks out and then go on your way. Now ain't that better than killing and hurting a lot of us and getting kilt your own self?"
"We will give you scum nothing, save cannon loads and leaden balls," replied Abdullah with icy arrogance. He raised his voice and roared, "Calivermen, on deck!"
The sight of the blue-black, fully armed, half-armored soldiers crowding the waist of the ship, each with his long-barreled firearm gaping more than an inch at the muzzle, caused the spokesman to pale beneath his deep tan and his scarred chin to drop. The sight also caused not a few of the boats to begin frantic efforts to put about and point their bows shoreward.
Finally managing to start speaking again, the scarred man yelped, "What in the hell are you, a Spanish frigate or what? That there's a merchant flag you flying, you know."
With a broad wink at Patricius Olahda, Abdullah threw off the voluminous boat-cloak to reveal his arms and armor, then replied, "This ship, Nuestra Señora de los Penitentes, is a special frigate of His Majesty of Spain, sent out to rid the seas of the threat of you and evil men like you. Gunners, fire!"
The ship heeled at the recoil of the larboard culverins. At the range, closely as the boats and barges had been spaced, waiting to move in on the merchantman, there was no way that any of the big guns could miss.
Those who had circled around to the starboard side, however, were too widely spaced to make certain targets for the hard-to-traverse main-battery pieces, so swivels and calivers were used against them, while other calivermen and swivels blasted away at those who had survived the broadside and the one barge that lay close under the stern. Abdullah was saving the demiculverins in the waist, low as were his stocks of cannon powder; fortunately, the swivels were strong-walled enough to take the finer-grained caliver powder, of which there existed larger supplies aboard.
Spotting the scarred man swimming grimly toward the ship's side, a big knife gripped between his rotting teeth, Abdullah drew one of his wheel-lock dags and, waiting until the swimmer was almost to the ship, put a ten-bore ball through his head.
While the calm lasted, the two ship's boats were used to row parties of the Bornu mercenaries around from one still-floating island boat to another, killing stray swimmers and anyone still breathing in the boats, then taking aboard anything worth taking before bashing out the bottoms of the crafts. A few boats, mere specks at the distance, sat off watching, but made no move to come so much as one rod closer to those terrible guns and the shipload of men who had just proved—proved bloodily—their willingness to make use of them.
With the surrounding sea empty of anything save some floating corpses and several high, triangular fins of piscine morticians come to clean up the carnage, Abdullah—loath to be in proximity to the Isle of Sao Tome after sunset, if he could help it—was on the verge of ordering the boats to set to work towing the ship, when, with a first, hesitant flutter, the errant breeze once more blew.
Patricius Olahda's amateur effort at course-plotting proved very good indeed. On the morning of the ninth day after their departure from the point off the mouth of the Rio Kongo, they spotted the telltale discoloration of t
he sea that denoted the debouchment of a large river to the immediate north, and by mid-afternoon, Abdullah was dickering with a pilot who had come out in a barge from the Port of Saints Peter and Paul.
The argument went on for a few minutes, the pilot demanding far more than Abdullah thought his services were worth, then one of the calivermen shouted down something at him in his own language, whereupon the pilot grasped the foot of the swaying rope ladder and clambered up as easily and swiftly as an ape.
Once upon the waistdeck, he asked for Abdullah, a bit aggrievedly, "Why did his Spanish lordship not mention earlier in our discourse that he was carrying homewards-returning Bornu gentleman—soldiers rather than cargo and therefore qualifies, insofar as piloting fees are concerned, as a friendly ship-of-war or a pilgrim ship—that is, I will receive only what your lordship feels my skill to be worth."
"And so," Don Guillermo had told Don Felipe on that day in the fort at Boca Osa, "my old friend Don Abdullah finally sailed back into Habana harbor to find that he was considered dead, that a stone had been raised for his missing body, and that his in-laws had already arranged a remarriage for his wife as soon as the set period of mourning was over."
"The first meeting with his in-laws after his return was fiery. His father-in-law, the grasping, half-breed bastard, claimed the new ship, of course. Abdullah railed at him for sending him on so long a voyage aboard a defective ship to begin, then informed him that the ship would be scuttled in the harbor before it would be turned over to the grasping merchant, whereupon Master Cristòbal ordered Don Abdullah out of his house."
"Abdullah went gladly, fearful that if he stayed longer, his temper might slip and he might do serious or even deadly injury to the older man. Certain that the powerful merchant would soon try to physically seize the ship, Abdullah went directly aboard her and saw her sailed some two leagues eastward along the coast to be anchored in a hidden bay near the estancia of a friend from the expeditions in Mexico. He stayed there that night, then borrowed a horse and set out for Habana before the dawn."
"Somewhat of a celebrity after his miraculous return from the dead, he sought and gained audience with His Excellency the Governor, and spoke to him as one Spanish-born hidalgo to another. The result of that pleasant meeting was that when the Creole merchant pressed his claim, the decision was that while the ship should indeed go to Master Gomez, anything not built into the fabric of the ship, anything detachable—guns, swivels, sails, spars, running gear, supplies, cargo if any, tools, and even water-butts—was the property of Don Abdullah. The court furthermore stated that the act of claiming the ship would serve as indication that the firm of Gomez, Gomez and Gomez did agree to absolve Don Abdullah de Baza of any guilt or indebtedness pursuant to the loss of the ship Ana Gomez, her fittings and supplies, her guns and her cargo at time of loss."
"It is said that persons on the streets far from the palace could clearly hear Master Cristòbal Gomez's shrieks of rage and grief at the announcement of the decision."
"The greedy bastard screamed even more loudly when another court, after hearing evidence, decided that Don Abdullah, since he had been assumed dead a bit prematurely under the law, might keep all of his wife's dowry, whether or not his sometime father-in-law actually obtained the annulment for which he had very recently prayed of the archbishop."
"Of course, my boy, Don Abdullah and I saw that ship stripped of anything and everything that would move, even the stone ballast. As he had promised the governor, half of those fine guns went to the Castle of the Moor, which guards the harbor of Habana, along with all of the powder and shot for them. Everything else, he sold, and I may tell you that those Venetian guns brought a pretty sum from divers ship owners. Each of his crewmembers received of him a full onza of gold, save the barcogalòn, the carpintero, and the Egyptian surgeon, whom he gave three each."
"To the archbishop himself, into that prelate's own two hands, he delivered a quantity of garish golden jewelry, including a huge, perfect opal set in a strange sphere of solid gold. He asked that the worth of these treasures be applied to perpetual masses for the repose of the souls of one Captain Michael Otei, Captain Don Haroun al-Ain, and Captain Ahmed al-Gahzahr, deceased but most penitent sinners, all."
"He already had a measure of standing with the Church in Habana, since his late father, in Spain, was a bishop. But this offering has elevated him to quite a lofty place in the consideration of all churchmen who matter in Cuba. Therefore, when the ecclesiastical at length heard old Gomez's annulment plea, they referred that plea, itself, to Rome; however, they refused to set aside the finding of the viceregal court that had awarded all of the original dowry to Don Abdullah."
"At this, Master Cristòbal Gomez must have temporarily taken leave of his wits. He railed out first that his larcenous if gently born scrapegrace of a son-in-law had bought both courts—lay and church—then began to babble that Don Abdullah surely must be a warlock and that he had apparently bewitched every judge in the province. Can you imagine such a thing, Don Felipe?"
The younger knight had shaken his head in wonderment. "Captain, the man must have been mad. Even to breathe a word of witchcraft in a Church court were enough by itself, but to speculate that the very holy men making up that court had been bewitched . . . ? May I inquire what came of such calumny?"
Don Guillermo smiled grimly. "Certain investigations were shortly thereafter undertaken into the personal backgrounds of the family Gomez, reaching back to Spain as well as to the indio forebears of the casa. It is felt, I have been told, that no matter what the Creole's state of agitation on that day, some personal knowledge of the black arts must be indicated by such a shocking and baseless accusation lodged against so good and pious a man as our own Don Abdullah de Baza."
"After all of this, Abdullah saw his wife evicted from the estancia that was part of her dot; she now is back in the bosom of her parsimonious family, one hears, awaiting an annulment and a new spouse. Then he bought slaves to farm it and hired on folk to live there and supervise the establishment. After he had bought a small mansion in Habana and hired permanent servants, and bought all needed furniture and slaves for it, he invested the not inconsiderable sum remaining from his adventures in enterprises of my Creole father-in-law, who is not in the least of the same stripe as the despicable Gomezes."
"Moreover, since he has had his fill of Creole merchants, at least on a purely personal level, and since he now is become a man of some measure of wealth and standing in the province, he intends to send back to Spain for a wife, immediately this assignment of mine be ended and another comandante be sent to take my place here."
"And so you see, my boy, a man of honor, faith, and discipline can aspire quite high in this new world of ours. No, I am not so wealthy as my old friend, but I am of comfortable means, due to my investments with my father-in-law's ventures over the years. I have—God be praised—three sons to carry on my casa, with enough set by to outfit them for war and to properly dower my two daughters. I am held in esteem by His Excellency as a soldier, and I therefore can expect powerful backing in future expeditions, should I feel again inclined to undertake them."
"Persevere, young sir, let your inbred honor and piety guide you in your dealings, and I cannot doubt but that you will rise as far and as fast as have Don Abdullah and I, both of us not yet forty years of age and with our lives and futures as secure as God ever allows."
Now lying up in the prickly brush on the soggy mat of leaves covering the pebbly ground, Don Felipe recalled that day with Don Guillermo in the comandante's office at the fort downriver, remembered the recountal of the thrilling expeditions against the indios—the fabulously wealthy indios of Mexico—and the exploits of Don Abdullah in far away Afriqah, and he wondered if, ever, on their own adventures, his two superiors had been so thoroughly miserable as he was just then.
On the day before, he and his squires had viewed the nearly completed fort going up just a bit downriver of the Shawnee stockade. They had watched the furious
battle against the old bear or whatever it had been and Don Felipe had adjudged, simply from the numbers of gunmen atop the wooden walls then, that somehow, from somewhere, the objective had been reinforced. And this boded ill for the comandante's plans to attack it.
CHAPTER THE EIGHTH
Mike Sikeena came back around the corner of the charred cabin, saying, "Some fucking body's been here, all right, Arsen, and not just a few of the fuckers, either; leveled out, it's a good three or four inches' worth of fresh turds in that slit-trench latrine back there."
Arsen frowned. "Well, that eliminates an Indian party—they wouldn't of bothered using that latrine, they all just dump where the urge hits them. How in hell have you bastards been missing these fuckers on the river, huh? Those goddam boats are big, too, some of them long as the band's station wagon or longer even. What do you do, just set the carrier to run its fucking self and then flake out in it?"
Seeing Mike's expression of hurt resentment, Arsen placed a hand on the Arab-American's shoulder, saying, "No, Mike, not you, Greg maybe, or even John, but I know you always try to do a good job at whatever you do. I'm sorry. I guess I'm just still jumpy from all the fucking shit that went down yesterday and then damn near no sleep at all last night, is all."
"Yeah, I know how that feels, Arsen," said Mike. "I still feel shaky whenever I think back to how that hairy, manlike fucker just kept coming up those rocks with the mosta his fucking arm shot off by that fucking portingal ball . . . although Simon, he 'lows as how he's seen at least one real man, back in England when he was a horse soldier, do damn near the same thing until he finally got it into his head he was dead and just fell down and never did get up again." He wrinkled his brows and added, "Simon says it's the spirit that keeps a man or a horse going when they're hurt that bad."