by Wilbur Smith
Hal watched for any unusual movement of the other shipping in the anchorage. Since he had last spoken to Grey, it seemed that there had been an increase in the number of small dhows entering and leaving the harbour. Many steered close to the Seraph and the crews hung over the gunwale to gape at the tall ship. This might have been due only to natural curiosity, but Hal was certain that the news of their imminent departure was being conveyed to interested ears out there in the blue.
During their last night in Zanzibar harbour there was a heavy thunderstorm, and while the thunder rolled great boulders across the roof of the sky and the lightning turned night to day, the rain cascaded on to the Seraph’s decks. The men on the gundecks had to shout to make themselves heard.
After midnight the clouds cleared, and myriad stars flared and flickered across the sky, reflecting in the surface of the harbour. It was so still that Hal, lying sleepless in his bunk, heard an Arab watchman in one of the dhows anchored nearby singing softly,
God is Great.
Man is as spume in the track of the monsoon.
Hold the Pleiades overhead,
And the Morning Star in your eye.
Only God knows all the ways of the ocean.
Only God endures for ever.
As the first promise of the dawn lightened the eastern sky and snuffed out the stars Hal roused himself and went on deck. The land breeze came in warm puffs from the island, and the Seraph stirred on her moorings, eager to be on her way. Hal nodded to Ned Tyler, who called both watches to get the ship under way.
The crew poured up into the rigging, and the sails billowed out, flapped and shook until the breeze filled them tightly and Seraph heeled, then swung her bows towards the harbour entrance. Hal walked back to the stern rail and saw that four dhows had slipped their moorings, hoisted their single lateen sails and were following them.
‘They could have chosen the beginning of the ebb to get under way,’ Ned murmured, at his elbow, as they stood looking back.
‘Anything is possible, Mr Tyler – even that Consul Grey is an honest man,’ Hal agreed.
‘I think that may be reaching for the moon, Captain,’ Ned said seriously.
Hal lifted his eyes to the high walls of the fort, glowing in the early light with a pearly luminosity, and grunted with sudden interest. There was a spark of fire on the eastern tower-top. As he watched it, a thin column of white smoke rose into the air, then drifted away on the monsoon wind. ‘Do you think they’re warming themselves up there?’ Hal asked quietly.
‘That smoke will be clear to see on the mainland across the channel,’ was Ned’s opinion.
‘Or twenty leagues out at sea.’
The channel was so narrow that, as the sun pushed its glowing rim above the horizon, they saw the African mainland etched in stark detail before them, its distant mountains ablaze with the sun’s fire.
Hal looked back over the stern. The small flotilla of dhows from the harbour was still following in their wake. He had not yet set all sail, and there were still three reefs in the main, so the Seraph was loafing along easily. Two of the larger following vessels were faster than the others. They were keeping pace with the Seraph, while the others dropped back gradually.
‘Deck! There’s more smoke from the mainland.’ Tom’s voice floated down from the masthead, and Hal crossed to the lee rail. A thin column rose from the green back of one of the headlands, which guarded a curving beach of white coral sand. The smoke was an unnatural silvery white, and rose straight upwards until suddenly the wind caught it and smeared it in a long trail across the tops of the green hills.
They sailed on southwards all that day. Keeping pace with their progress, more fires were lit upon the shore, always when the Seraph was level with some headland or bluff, and each billowed with the same silver smoke, which must have been visible for many miles around.
The straggling fleet of small dhows scattered down-channel continued to dog them, the two larger vessels keeping station two or three miles back in their wake. But as the sun dipped down towards the horizon, and turned the tumbled cumulus clouds red and gold, the two dhows shook out the reefs in their sails and almost imperceptibly closed the gap, until even in the fading light they were in clear view from the Seraph’s main deck. Through the lens, Hal made out the mass of men crowded into them. ‘I think we can expect something to happen very soon,’ he told Ned Tyler. ‘I want the crew to be given their dinner while it’s still daylight. They may be required to fight a night action.’
Ned looked grave: even a powerful fighting ship was at a disadvantage in a night action against an inferior but numerous enemy. Under cover of darkness a fleet of small dhows might be able to creep up on the larger ship, and put a mass of armed men onto her decks before the gunners could see to drive them off.
At that moment there was a hail from the lookout. ‘Deck! There’s a small boat dead ahead! She seems to be in difficulties!’
Hal strode to the rail and raised his telescope. Over the bows he could make out the hull of a fishing dhow wallowing low down in the water, with only her bottom planking exposed. There was a cluster of human heads in the water around her. As the Seraph bore down upon them they waved and their shouts came thin on the wind.
‘For the love of God!’
‘Mercy! God has sent you to save us.’
When they were close enough to make out the features of the men struggling around the wreckage, Hal gave the order to heave to. The Seraph swung round, head to the wind, and drifted closer to the swamped dhow.
‘Send a boat to pick them up!’ Hal ordered, and while the longboat was launched and pulled across to them, he counted the heads. ‘Twenty-two. A large crew for such a small boat, Mr Tyler.’
‘Indeed, Captain, an uncommonly large crew.’
Hal strolled across to the rail, where Big Daniel and Alf Wilson waited with a gang of armed men.
‘Are we ready to give them a fitting welcome, Mr Fisher?’
‘As loving a welcome as they will ever get this side of Paradise,’ said Big Daniel grimly. The longboat was now crowded with the sodden, bedraggled survivors from the dhow. It began to pull back towards the Seraph, low in the water.
Suddenly Alf Wilson whistled softly, and his dark, handsome features lit with a devilish pleasure. ‘That big one in the bows, with the beard.’ He pointed to one of the survivors. ‘I know him. By God, it will be a pleasure to greet him again. He was the leader of the gang of cutthroats who boarded the Minotaur under exactly the same ruse as this.’
‘Stand back, please, Mr Wilson,’ Hal warned him softly, ‘lest he recognize you also. Let us get him on board before he sees you.’
The longboat hooked on to the Seraph’s chains, and the first of the rescued men came up the ladder and fell upon his hands and knees. He pressed his forehead to the deck, and the sea-water streamed from his long sodden robe to form a puddle around him.
‘The blessings of Allah and all his saints be upon this ship. Your kindness and mercy shall be written in the golden book—’
‘Enough of that, my lad.’ Big Daniel lifted him to his feet with a kindly hand, and his men hustled the startled Arab to the far rail and surrounded him closely. The next man up the ladder and over the rail was the tall bearded one. He spread his arms, and his long wet robes clung to his lanky frame. ‘This is a most auspicious day. My children and my grandchildren—’ he began, in sonorous tones.
‘Salaam aliekum, Rachid,’ Alf Wilson greeted him. ‘My eyes have hungered many long days for the sight of your beauteous countenance.’
Rachid stared at him in alarm. Then Alf stepped closer and smiled at him. The Arab recognized him and looked about with wild dismay, seeking an avenue of escape, then leaped for the ship’s side. Alf Wilson seized him while he was in the air and bore him to the deck. He placed his knee in the small of his back and the point of his dirk against the soft skin under his ear. ‘I beg of you, Beloved of the Prophet, give me reason to slit your throat.’ He pricked the man
so that he squealed and writhed on the deck. Alf ran his free hand over Rachid’s body, then groped under his wet robe and brought out a murderously curved dagger. He tested the edge against Rachid’s ear and shaved away the lobe cleanly. A trickle of blood ran down into the man’s beard.
‘Ah! Sharp enough,’ Alf said happily. ‘This must be the same blade with which you cut the nose off my old shipmate Ben Brown, and murdered Johnnie Waite.’
Rachid sobbed, howled and pleaded for mercy. ‘God is my witness, I am innocent. You have mistaken me for another. I am a poor honest fisherman.’
The others were hustled onto the deck to stand in a bewildered group, surrounded by a ring of drawn cutlasses. Alf jerked the whining, cringing Rachid to his feet and shoved him across the deck to join his men. ‘If any one of you attempts to escape, or to draw one of the weapons you have concealed under your robes, my men have orders to lop off his head,’ Hal warned them. Then he turned to Ned Tyler. ‘Please get the ship under way again.’
When the Seraph was on the wind and sailing down channel once more, Hal snapped at the prisoners, ‘Disrobe, all of you! Down to your unwashed skins.’
There were cries of protest. ‘Effendi, it is not fitting. Our own nudity must shame us in the sight of God.’
Hal pulled one of the pistols from his belt and drew back the hammers. He placed the muzzle against Rachid’s head. ‘All your clothes! Amaze us with the girth and length of your circumcised pricks, as you will delight the houris in the gardens of Paradise when I send you to them.’
Reluctantly Rachid stripped off his wet robe, and stood in his loincloth.
‘All of it!’ Hal insisted, and one after the other the Arabs shed their clothing. They laid it down with exaggerated care so that whatever was hidden in the folds did not clink or bump weightily against the deck timbers. At last they stood in a miserable huddle trying to cover their private parts with cupped hands, wailing and protesting their innocence. Their discarded clothing lay in a heap on the deck.
‘Search these!’ Hal ordered, and Aboli and Big Daniel ran each item through their hands, pulling out the selection of daggers concealed in the wet folds. By the time they had finished there was a heap of weapons on the deck.
‘Rachid!’ Hal singled out the leader, who fell on his knees with tears streaming down to mingle with the blood from his injured ear. ‘What is the plan of al-Auf? What signal were you to make to show him that you had seized control of my ship?’
‘I do not understand you, effendi. I know of no man named al-Auf. Have mercy on a poor fisherman! Without me to provide for them my children will starve.’
‘Allah, the All Merciful, will provide for your wretched orphans,’ Hal assured him, and ran his eye over the terrified prisoners. ‘That one!’ He selected a villainous-looking rogue, with a scarred face and one empty eye-socket. Aboli dragged him out of the huddle. He wound a short length of heavy chain around his neck and secured it with a shackle. ‘I will ask you once more.’ Hal grinned at Rachid. ‘What is the signal?’
‘In God’s name, effendi, I do not know this person, al-Auf. I know of no signal.’
Hal jerked his head at Aboli, who picked up the chained Arab as if he were a child and carried him to the rail. He lifted him high over his head and threw him over the side. The man hit the water and disappeared instantly, snatched beneath the surface by the weight of the chain. A horrified silence fell over every man on deck, even the English sailors. They had never guessed that their captain could be so ruthless. Then the group of naked prisoners let out a soft wail and, as one man, dropped to their knees, hands clasped before their eyes as they pleaded for their lives.
‘The signal?’ Hal asked quietly, looking straight at Rachid.
‘As God is my witness, I know of no signal.’
‘Take him,’ Hal said to Aboli. He seized Rachid by his wounded ear and dragged him, squealing and bleeding, to the ship’s side. He threw him flat on the deck, placed one huge bare foot between his shoulder-blades to pin him down and wound another length of chain around his neck. Then he lifted him easily over his head. ‘Throw him to the sharks,’ ordered Hal, ‘though even they will sicken on such offal.’
‘I will tell you,’ Rachid howled, kicking in the air. ‘Only tell this black shaitan to put me down and I will tell you.’
‘Hold him over the side,’ Hal ordered.
Aboli changed his grip and held Rachid by the ankles far out above the Seraph’s rushing bow-wave. ‘Speak,’ he rumbled softly, ‘for my arms grow tired. They will not support your weight much longer.’
‘Two lights,’ shrieked Rachid. ‘Two red lanterns at the masthead. That is the signal to al-Auf that we have taken the ship.’
Aboli pulled him back on board and dropped him to grovel on the deck.
‘What course did he order you to steer? Where were you to meet him?’ asked Hal.
‘He told me to steer south and stay close to the land, heading for Ras Ibn Khum.’ Hal knew that that was a prominent headland that jutted out into the channel.
‘Chain all of them and lock them in the forecastle with a guard to watch them at all times. Shoot the first one who tries to escape,’ Hal ordered Aboli, in Arabic for benefit of the prisoners.
As the sun sank smouldering into the sea, Hal shortened sail and stood further off-shore, as any prudent captain would with a lee shore looming so close at hand. They sailed on slowly southwards, and once or twice during the early part of the night the lookouts made out a dim lantern light on one or other of the dhows shadowing them.
On board the Minotaur, wherever she was lurking, al-Auf would expect his men to seize the Seraph only after most of her crew were asleep. Therefore, Hal waited until four bells in the middle watch – two o’clock in the morning – before he ordered the two red signal lanterns lit and placed at bows and masthead. They glared out into the night like dragon’s eyes.
Then he ordered Aboli and twenty other chosen men to don the still-damp discarded robes of the captured Arabs. While they were winding on their headcloths, Hal went down to his cabin and dressed quickly in the clothing he had worn on the night of the visit to the souk in Zanzibar. When he came on deck again the Seraph was sailing quietly on through the dark waters. When the moon set, the dark shape of the land, with its pearly necklace of phosphorescent surf, was lost in the darkness.
Hal went down the deck and spoke to each group of men squatting beneath the gunwales. ‘This is the dangerous time,’ he told them softly. ‘Be alert. They can be upon us before we see them.’
Two hours before dawn, in that darkest time of the night, Hal sent for the two boys. When they came to him, Tom was alert and snapping with excitement, but Dorian must have been curled on his pallet for he was still half-asleep, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
‘I want both of you to go now to your battle quarters at the masthead,’ he said sternly. ‘If the ship becomes engaged you are to stay there, no matter what is happening on the decks below you. Do you understand me?’
‘Yes, Father.’ Tom’s face was intent in the dim light from the binnacle.
‘I place you in charge of your brother, Tom,’ Hal said, as he had so many times before. ‘Dorian, you are to obey Tom, whatever he tells you to do.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘I shall be much occupied. I will not be able to keep an eye on you. I want to know you are both safe and high above the fighting.’
He walked with them to the foremast shrouds and, under cover of the darkness, placed a hand on their shoulders and squeezed. ‘God love you, lads, as I do. Don’t try to be heroes. Just stay well out of harm’s way.’ He watched them clamber up the shrouds then disappear into the darkness above. He went back to his place on the quarterdeck.
With the dawn it rained again, so the night was prolonged. Then, simultaneously with the sunrise, the rainclouds parted, and the day burst upon them with dramatic suddenness. During the night, with the vagaries of the current in the narrow channel, the Seraph had been carried
in close to the land.
Two miles to starboard the African mainland was rimmed with white beaches, and the fangs of coral reefs snarled in the shallow green inshore lagoons. Dead ahead was the whale-backed headland of Ras Ibn Khum, which thrust out into the channel. Hal quietly ordered a change of course to carry them clear of it.
During the night the fleet of following dhows, guided by the signal lanterns at Seraph’s masthead, had closed the gap between them. The leading vessel, a ship of some hundred tons and packed with men, was less than a cable’s length astern of the ship. As soon as they saw the Seraph appear, with magical suddenness, out of the darkness ahead of them, they burst out cheering and fired their jezails into the air. Clearly they believed from the signal lamps that the ship was already in al-Auf’s hands. Feathers of gun-smoke spurted into the air, while their voices and the popping of their weapons carried thinly across the dark, choppy waters as they danced and waved them.
‘Greet them, lads,’ Hal told his men in Arab gear. They capered and waved back at the dhow, their robes flapping and billowing in the morning breeze off the land. Hal made no move to slow the ship so the gap between them was not reduced.
He looked ahead, judging his safe distance off the green headland that jutted out ahead, then felt his chest tighten and his breathing come short as, not two miles ahead, another square-rigged ship with black sails came charging around the point.
At once Hal realized that she had been lying at anchor in the bay beyond, waiting in ambush while the signal fires along the coast warned her of the Seraph’s approach. Now she rushed out to meet them, with a bow-wave curling white under her forefoot. She was followed by a horde of small craft, a dozen or more small dhows.