Wilbur Smith - C09 Birds Of Prey

by C09 Birds Of Prey(Lit)

  Van de Velde had been avidly following this conversation, and now he broke in. "The slave wench is right. You have succeeded in this underhand scheme Of yours, more's the pity. However, I am a reasonable man, Henry Courtney. Set my wife and me free now. Give the carriage over to us and let us return to the colony. In exchange I will give you my solemn undertaking to call off the chase. I will order Colonel Schreuder to send his men back to their barracks." He turned on Hal what he hoped was an open and guileless countenance. "I offer you my word as a gentleman on it."

  Hal saw the cunning and malice in the Governor's eyes.

  "Your excellency, I am uncertain of the validity of your claim to the title of gentleman, besides which I should hate to be deprived so soon of your charming company."

  At that moment one of the front wheels of the carriage crashed into a hole in the tracks. "The aardvarks dig these burrows," Althuda explained, as Hal clambered down from the lopsided vehicle.

  "Pray, what manner of man or beast is that?"

  "The earth pig, a beast with a long snout and a thick tail that digs up the burrows of ants with its powerful claws and devours them with its long sticky tongue," Althuda told him.

  Hal threw back his head and laughed. "Of course, I believe that. I also believe that your earth pig flies, dances the hornpipe and tells fortunes by cards."

  "You have a few things yet to learn about the land that lies out there, my friend,"Althuda promised him.

  Still chuckling, Hal turned from him. "Come on, lads!" he called to his seamen. "Let's get this ship off the reef and running before the wind again."

  He made van de Velde and Katinka get out and the rest of them strained with the horses to pull the carriage free. From here onwards, though, the track became barely passable, and the bush on either hand grew taller and more dense as they went on. Within the next mile they were stuck in holes twice more.

  "It is almost time to get rid of the carriage. We can get on faster on our own shanks, Hal told Aboli quietly. "How much further to the hedge?" -"I thought we should have reached it by now," Aboli replied, "but it cannot be far." They came to the boundary around the next kink in the narrow track. The famous bitter-almond hedge was a straggly and blighted excrescence, hardly shoulder high, but the road ended dramatically against it. There was also a rough hut, which served as a guard post to the border picket, and a notice in Dutch.

  "WARNING!" the notice began, in vivid scarlet letters, and went on to forbid movement by any person beyond that point, with the penalty for infringement being imprisonment or the payment of a fine of a thousand guilders or both. The board had been erected in the name of the Governor of the Dutch East India Company.

  Hal kicked open the door of the single room of the guard hut and found it deserted. The fire on the open hearth was cold and dead. A few articles of Company uniform hung on the wooden pegs in the wall, and a black kettle stood over the dead coals, with odd bowls, bottles and utensils lying on the rough wooden table or on shelves along the walls.

  Big Daniel was about to put the slow-match to the thatch, but Hal stopped him. "No point in giving Schreuder a smoke beacon to follow," he said, "and there's naught of value here. Leave it be," and limped back to where the seamen were unloading the carriage.

  Aboli was turning the horses out of the traces and Ned Tyler was helping him to improvise pack saddles for them, using the harness, leather work and canvas canopy from the carriage.

  Katinka stood forlornly at her husband's side. "What is to become of me, Sir Henry?" she whispered as he came up. "Some of the men want to take you up into the mountains and feed you to the wild animals," he replied. Her hand flew to her lips and she paled. "Others want to cut your throat here and now for what you and your fat toad of a husband did to us."

  "You would never allow such a thing to happen," van de Velde blustered. "I only did what was my duty."

  "You're right," Hal agreed. "I think throat-cutting too good for you. I favour hanging and drawing, as you did to my father." He glared at him coldly, and van de Velde quailed. "However, I find myself sickened by you both. I want no further truck with either of you, and so I leave you and your lovely wife to the mercy of God, the devil and the amorous Colonel Schreuder." He turned and strode away to where Aboli and Ned were checking and tightening the loads on the horses.

  Three of the greys had kegs of gunpowder slung on each side of their backs, two carried bundles of weapons and the sixth horse was loaded with Sukeena's bulky saddle-bags.

  "All shipshape, Captain." Ned knuckled his forehead. "We can up anchor and get under way at your command." "There's nothing to keep us here. The Princess Sukeena will ride on the lead horse." He looked around for her. "Where is she?"

  "I am here, Gundwane." Sukeena stepped out from behind the guard hut. "And I need no mollycoddling. I will walk like the rest of you."

  Hal saw that she had shed her long skirts and that she now wore a pair of baggy Balinese breeches and a loose cotton shift that reached to her knees. She had tied a cotton head cloth over her hair, and on her feet were sturdy leather sandals that would be comfortable for walking. The men ogled the shape of her calves in the breeches, but she ignored their rude stares, took the lead rein of the nearest horse and led it towards the gap in the bitter-almond hedge.

  "Sukeena!" Hal would have stopped her, but she recognized his censorious tone and ignored it. He realized the folly of persisting, and wisely tempered his next command. "Ald-tuda, you are the only one who knows the path from here. Go ahead with your sister." Althuda ran to catch up with her, and brother and sister led them into the uncharted wilderness beyond the hedge.

  Hal and Aboli brought up the rear of the column as it wound through the dense scrub and bush. No men had trodden this path recently. It had been made by wild animals. the marks of their hoofs and paws were plain to see in the soft sandy soil, and their dung littered the track.

  Aboli could recognize each animal by these signs, and as they moved along at a forced pace, he pointed them out to Hal. "That is leopard and there is the spoor of the antelope with the twisted horns we call kudu. At least we shall not starve," he promised. "There is a great plenty of game in this land."

  This was the first opportunity since the escape that they had had to talk, and Hal asked quietly, "This Sabah, the friend of Althuda, what do you know of him?"

  "Only the messages he sent."

  "Should he not have met us at the hedge?"

  "He said only that he would lead us into the mountains. I expected him to be waiting at the hedge," Aboli shrugged, "but with Althuda to guide us we do not need him."

  They made good progress, the grey mare trotting easily with them hanging onto her traces and running beside her. Whenever they passed a tree that would bear Aboli's weight he shinned up it and looked back for signs of pursuit. Each time he came down and shook his head.

  "Schreuder will come," Hal told him. "I have heard men say that those green-jackets of his can run down a mounted man. They will come."

  They moved on steadily across the plain, stopping only at the swampy waterholes they passed. Hal hung onto the horse to ease his injured leg and, as he limped along, Aboli recounted all that had happened in the months since they had last been together. Hal was silent as he described, in his own language, how he had retrieved Sir Francis's body from the gibbet and the funeral he had given him. "It was the burial of a great chief. I dressed -him in the hide of a black bull and placed his ship and his weapons within his reach. I left food and water for his journey, and before his eyes I set the cross of his God." Hal's throat was too choked for him to thank Aboli for what he had done.

  The day wore on, and their progress slowed as men and horses tired in the soft sandy footing. At the next marshy swamp where they stopped for a few minutes" rest, Hal took Sukeena aside.

  "You have been strong and brave but your legs are not as long as ours, and I have watched you stumble with fatigue. From now on you must ride." When she started to protest he stopped her firm
ly. "I obeyed you in the matters of my wounds, but in all else I am captain and you must do as I say. From here on you will ride."

  Her eyes twinkled. She made a pretty little gesture of submission, placing her fingertips together and touching them to her lips, "As you command, master," and allowed him to boost her up on top of the saddle-bags on the leading grey.

  They skirted the swamp and went on a little faster now. Twice more Aboli climbed a tree to look back and saw no sign of pursuit. Against his natural instincts Hal began to hope that they might have eluded their pursuers, that they might reach the mountains that loomed ever closer and taller without being further molested.

  In the middle of the afternoon they crossed a broad -open vlei, a meadow of short green grass where herds of wild antelope with scimitar-curved horns were grazing. They looked up at the approach of the caravan of horses and men, standing frozen in wide-eyed astonishment! their coats a metallic blue-grey hue in the afternoon sunlight.

  "Even I have never seen beasts of that ilk Aboli admitted.

  As the herds fled before them, wreathed in their own dust, Althuda. called back, "Those are the animals the Dutch call blaauwbok, the blue buck. I have seen great herds of them on the plains beyond the mountains."

  Beyond the vlei the ground began to rise in a series of undulating ridges towards the foothills of the range. They climbed towards the first ridge, with Hal toiling along at the rear of the column. By now he was moving heavily, in obvious pain. Aboli saw that his face was flushed with fever, and that blood and watery fluid had seeped through the bandage that Sukeena had placed on his leg.

  At the top of the ridge Aboli forced a halt. They looked back at the great Table Mountain, which dominated the western horizon. To their left, the wide blue curve of False Bay opened. However, they were all too exhausted to spend long admiring their surroundings. The horses stood, heads hanging, and the men threw themselves down in any shade they could find. Sukeena slid off her mount and hurried to where Hal had slumped with his back to a small tree-trunk. She knelt in front of him, unwrapped the bandage from his leg and drew a sharp breath when she saw how swollen and inflamed it was. She leaned closer and sniffed the oozing punctures. When she spoke her voice was stern.

  "You cannot walk further on this. You must ride as you force me to do." Then she looked up at Aboli. "Make a fire to boil water," she ordered him. , "We have no time for such tomfoolery," Hal murmured halfheartedly, but they ignored him. Aboli lit a small fire with a slow-match and placed over it a tin mug of water. As soon as it boiled, Sukeena prepared a paste with the herbs she had in her saddle-bag, and spread it on a folded cloth. While it still steamed with heat she clapped the cloth over Hal's wounds. He moaned and said, "I swear I would rather Aboli pissed on my leg, than you burned it off with your devilish concoctions."

  Sukeena ignored his immodest language and went on with her task. She bound the poultice in place with a fresh cloth, then from her saddle-bags she fetched a loaf of bread and a dried sausage. She cut these into slices, folded bread and sausage together, and handed one to each of the men.

  "Bless you, Princess." Big Daniel knuckled his forehead, before taking his ration from her.

  "God love you, Princess," said Ned, and all the others adopted the name. From then on she was their princess, and the rough seamen looked upon her with increasing respect and burgeoning affection.

  "You can eat on the march, lads." Hal hauled himself to his feet.

  "We have been lucky too long. Soon the devil will want his turn." They groaned and muttered but followed his lead.

  As Hal was helping Sukeena to mount, there was a warning shout from Daniel. "There the bastards come at last." He pointed back down at the open vlei at the bottom of the slope. Hal pushed Sukeena up between the saddlebags and limped back to the rear of the column. He looked down the hillside and saw the long file of running men who had emerged from the edge of the scrub and were crossing the open ground. They were led by a single horseman who came on at a trot.

  "It's Schreuder again. He has found another mount." Even at that range there was no mistaking the Colonel. He sat tall and arrogant in the saddle, and there was a sense of deadly purpose about the set of his shoulders and the way he lifted his head to look up the slope towards them. It was obvious that he had not yet spotted them, hidden in the thick scrub.

  "How many men with him?" Ned Tyler asked, and they all looked at Hal to count them. He slitted his eyes and watched them come out of the thick scrub. With their swinging trot they kept up easily with Schreuder's horse. "Twenty," Hal counted.

  "Why so few?" Big Daniel demanded.

  "Almost certainly Schreuder has chosen his fastest runners to press us hard. The rest will be following at their best speed." Hal shaded his eyes. "Yes, by God, there they are, a league behind the first platoon, but coming fast. I can see their dust and the shape of their helmets above the scrub. There must be a hundred or more in that second detachment."

  "Twenty we can deal with," Big Daniel muttered, "but a hundred of those murdering green-backs is more than I can eat for breakfast without belching. What orders, Captain?" Every man looked at Hal.

  He paused before replying, carefully studying the lie and the grain of the land below before he said, "Master Daniel, take the rest of the party on with Althuda to guide you. Aboli and I will stay here with one horse to slow down their advance."

  "We cannot outrun them. They've proved that to us, Captain," Daniel protested. "Would it not be better to fight them here?"

  "You have your orders." Hal turned a cold, steely eye upon him.

  Daniel again knuckled his brow. "Aye, Captain," and he turned to the others. "You heard the orders, lads."

  Hal limped back to where Sukeena sat on her horse, with Althuda. holding the lead rein. "You must go on, whatever happens. Do not turn back for any reason," he told Althuda, and then he smiled up at Sukeena "Not even if her royal highness commands it."

  She did not return his smile but leaned down closer and whispered, "I will wait for you on the mountain. Do not make me wait too long."

  Althuda led the column of horses forward again, and as they crossed the skyline there was a distant shout from the vlei below.

  "So they have discovered us," Aboli muttered.

  Hal went to the single remaining horse, and loosened one of the fifty-pound kegs of gunpowder. He lowered it to the ground, and told Aboli, "Take the horse on. Follow the others. Let Schreuder see you go. Tether it out of sight beyond the ridge and then come back to me."

  He rolled the keg to the nearest outcrop of tock and crouched beside it. With only the top of his head showing, he again studied the slope below him, then turned his full attention to Schreuder and his band of green-jackets. Already they were much closer, and he could see that two of the Hottentots ran ahead of Schreuder's horse. They watched the ground as they came on, following exactly the route that Hal's party had blazed.

  They read our sign from the earth, like hounds after the stag, he thought. They will come up the same path we followed.

  At that moment Aboli dropped back over the ridge and squatted beside him. "The horse is tethered and the others go on apace. Now what is your plan, Gundwane?"

  "Tis so simple, there is no need to explain it to you," said Hal, as he prised the bung from the keg with the point of his sword. Then he unwound the length of the slow match he had tied around his waist. "This match is the devil. It either burns too fast or too slow. But I will take a chance on three fingers" length," he muttered as he measured, then lopped off a length. He rolled it gently between the palms of his hands in an attempt to induce it to burn evenly, then threaded one end into the bunghole of the keg and secured it by driving back the wooden plug.

  "You had best hurry, Gundwane. Your old fencing partner, Schreuder, is in great haste to meet you again."

  Hal glanced up from his task and saw that the pursuers had crossed the meadow and were already starting up the slope towards them. "Keep out of sight," Hal told him. "I
want to let them get very close." The two lay flat on their bellies and peered down the hillside. Sitting high in the saddle, Schreuder was in full view, but the two trackers who led him were obscured by the scrub and flowering bushes from the waist down. As they came on Hal could make out the ugly gravel graze down Schreuder's face, the rents and dirt smears on his uniform. He wore neither Hat nor wig, had probably lost them along the way, perhaps in his fall. Vain though he was, he had wasted no time in trying to regain them, so urgent was his haste.

  The sun had already reddened his shaven pate and his horse was lathered. Perhaps he had not bothered to water it during the long chase. Closer still he came. His eyes were fastened on the ridge where he had seen the fugitives cross. His face was a stony mask, and Hal could see that he was a man driven by his volcanic temper, ready to take any risk or brave any danger.

  On the steep slope even his indefatigable trackers began to flag. Hal could see the sweat streaming down their flat yellow Asiatic faces and hear their gasping breath.