by Wilbur Smith
Then he felt powerful hands seize him. When he opened his eyes again and forced back the darkness, he saw Aboli’s face only inches from his, his eyes wide open and the weird patterns of his tattoos giving him the aspect of some terrible monster of the deep. He held a knife between his filed teeth and silver bubbles streamed from the corners of his lips.
Aboli had seen the two boys fall with the shattered mast and, without any hesitation, had deserted his battle station. In the time it had taken him to cross the deck and reach the weather rail, Dorian had drifted fifty yards out from the Seraph’s side. In desperate haste Aboli had ripped off his Islamic robes and headdress and, wearing only his breeches, he had sprung to the rail and balanced there an instant while he decided which of the boys was in deepest peril.
Dorian seemed to be treading water easily, but he was drifting down to where the fleet of Arab dhows hovered. Tom, though, was trapped in the welter of billowing canvas and tangled ropes. Aboli hesitated, torn between his love for and duty to the boys. He found it impossible to decide between them.
Then, with a loud snap, one of the foremast spars cracked through and rolled over in the water. Tom was entangled in the ropes and had been plucked beneath the surface. Aboli threw one last desperate glance at Dorian’s drifting head, tiny in the distance, drew the knife from the sheath on his belt, clamped the blade between his teeth and dived over the side. He came up almost over the spot where Tom had gone down, snatched another quick breath and dived again. He used the trailing ropes to pull himself down, and peered through the water, which was curtained with whirlpools of turbulence and clouds of bright bubbles.
As he went deeper he saw Tom’s form appear out of the green haze beneath him. He was moving only feebly, near the point of drowning, and the yellow rope was wound around his legs like a python. Aboli reached down and seized his shoulders, then peered into the boy’s face. He saw Tom’s eyes open and squeezed his shoulders hard to brace him and give him hope. Then he snatched the blade from between his teeth and reached down to the rope that bound Tom’s legs. He did not hack wildly at it, for the blade was razor sharp and might inflict a serious wound in the boy’s bare legs. Instead, he worked carefully to sort out the tangle, sawing one loop at a time until the last strand dropped away and Tom was free. Then Aboli seized him under the armpits and shot upwards towards the surface. They broke out together, and even while Aboli hunted for air, his great chest filling and purging like a blacksmith’s bellows, he was holding Tom’s face well clear of the water and peering into his eyes for signs of life. Suddenly Tom coughed violently, vomited a gush of sea-water and fought for breath. Aboli dragged him onto the fallen mast and draped him over it, slamming his back with the flat of his hand so that the water Tom had swallowed erupted out of his gaping mouth and the air whistled in his throat.
Meanwhile Aboli was looking about desperately for sight of Dorian. The surface of the sea was misted with gunsmoke, which drifted in a heavy bank towards the land. The guns were still crashing out a discordant chorus, but gradually sinking into silence as the two ships pulled further and further apart.
At a glance Aboli saw that the Minotaur was already half a mile or more away, all her sails set and drawing, bearing up into the north. She was making no attempt to take advantage of the Seraph’s crippled state by attacking her while she was unable to manoeuvre. Instead she was fleeing to safety. Aboli wasted no more time on her but searched again for Dorian.
He saw three of the small dhows circling the Seraph at a wary distance, like jackals around a wounded lion. If the Seraph showed she was capable of giving chase to them, Aboli knew they would immediately head into the shallow water of the lagoon and the shelter of the coral reefs where the big ship could not follow them. Hampered by the tangle of wreckage hanging over her side, the Seraph was unable to come on the wind. She was drifting down with it and the current towards the fatal coral.
Aboli saw that Big Daniel already had a gang of men with swinging axes clearing away the wreckage. He tried to shout to the men on the deck for help, but they were too intent on their work and his voice did not reach them above the thump of the axe-heads into the timbers and the shouted orders. Then, suddenly, he saw the hull of one of the longboats swing out over the Seraph’s side and drop swiftly to the surface. Immediately the men at the oars pulled furiously towards where Aboli and Tom clung to the shattered foremast. Aboli saw with amazement that Hal was at the tiller. He must have left the ship in Ned Tyler’s charge to come to the rescue of his sons. Now he was on his feet, yelling to Aboli as he approached, ‘Where is Dorian? In God’s name, have you seen him?’ Aboli could not spare the air from his tortured lungs to reply but the longboat reached them within a minute and three men leaned over to haul them aboard. They dropped Tom onto the deck timbers between the thwarts before they jumped back to take their places at the oars. Aboli saw with relief that Tom was struggling to sit up, and reached down to help him as Hal repeated his question. ‘For God’s sake, Aboli, where is Dorian?’
As yet unable to use his voice Aboli pointed out into the banks of drifting gunsmoke. Hal leaped onto the thwart and balanced there easily, shading his eyes against the reflected glare of the low morning sun.
‘There he is!’ he yelled, with wild relief, and then to the oarsmen, ‘Pull, lads! Pull for all you’re worth!’ The longboat built up speed under the thrust of the long oars, pulling for where the tiny speck of Dorian’s head bobbed a quarter of a mile away.
This sudden precipitous dash out into the open sea, away from the Seraph’s safety, must have caught the attention of the men aboard one of the dhows that were stalking the ship. The Arab crew pointed to Dorian’s drifting head and their excited shouts carried faintly to the men in the longboat. The man in the stern of the dhow hauled the long steering sweep hard across and she altered course. Her crew scrambled to trim her single lateen sail around, and she bore down swiftly towards the child, racing the longboat to be first to reach him.
‘Pull!’ Hal roared, as he realized the danger.
Aboli dropped Tom back onto the deck, and leaped to a place on the thwart. He pushed the man already there to one side and threw all his massive weight onto the oar. His muscles bulged and bunched with the effort. ‘All together, pull!’ He set the stroke and the longboat leaped forward, the waves bursting over her bows and splattering over the straining backs of her crew as they raced towards Dorian.
Just then a taller wave lifted the boy high and he saw the longboat coming towards him. Dorian lifted one hand and waved. They were still not close enough to see the expression on his face but it was clear that he had not noticed the dhow skimming in towards him from the opposite direction.
‘Swim, lad!’ Hal shouted. ‘Swim towards us!’ But Dorian could not hear him. He waved again weakly, and it was clear that his strength was waning. The morning breeze was light and fitful, and the longboat was making better speed than the dhow, but they were further away from Dorian.
‘We’re gaining, lads!’ Hal told them. ‘We’ll reach him before they do.’
He felt the wind puff on his cheek, die away for a moment, then come again stronger and with more determination. He watched it darken the surface of the sea, pass over Dorian’s head, then swell the dhow’s sail tight as a wineskin. The dhow heeled then sped ahead, her bow-wave curling white in the early sun.
Dorian must have heard the cries of the Arabs as they bore down on him for his head swivelled round and then he began to swim, his arms flopping and splashing with exhaustion as he tried to drag himself away from the racing dhow towards the longboat. He made little headway through the choppy, disturbed water.
With dismay Hal tried to estimate the relative distance and speed of the two vessels, and saw that they could not outrun the dhow. ‘Pull!’ he cried in despair. ‘A hundred golden guineas if you reach him first! Pull! For God’s sake, pull!’
There were at least twenty men in the dhow. It was an ugly little craft, the sail tattered, patched and stained wit
h filth, the paintwork peeling from the hull, the planking zebra-striped where her crew had defecated over her gunwale. One of them lifted a long-barrelled jezail, and aimed over the narrowing gap at the longboat. White smoke spurted from the ancient weapon, and Hal heard the ball snap past his head but he did not even flinch.
Aboli heaved on the long oar with such force and effort that his eyes bulged from their sockets, suffused with blood, and his tattooed face locked in a horrible, snarling rictus. The oar bent like a green branch in his great hands, and the water hissed softly under the bows to spread in an arrow-straight shining wake behind.
The dhow was swifter still, though, and she had less distance to travel. Hal felt the ice of dread encase his chest as he realized, at last, that they could not win: they were still a hundred yards from Dorian as the dhow captain came level with him and rounded up into the wind, heaving to just long enough for five of his men to lean out over the side and reach down to seize the child.
They lifted him, struggling and kicking, from the sea with the water streaming from his clothing, his terrified shrieks ringing in Hal’s head. Hal drew the pistol from under his waistcoat and pointed it in despair, but he knew it was futile even before Aboli growled, ‘No, Gundwane! You might hit the boy.’
Hal lowered it and watched as Dorian was dragged over the filthy gunwale and the dhow captain put over the sweep and swung the craft back on to the wind. Her sail filled with a clap and she bore away, coming round with surprising speed and handiness on to her best point of sailing. She sped away towards the land. The Arab crew screamed abuse and mockery at them. A few fired their jezails and the bullets splashed into the sea around the longboat.
Hal’s crew collapsed gasping and streaming with sweat on their oars and watched her go. No one spoke, just stared after the speeding dhow, devastated at the loss of the winsome lad who was everyone’s favourite.
Then two of the Arabs lifted Dorian’s small struggling body high in the air, so that the men in the longboat could see his pale face clearly. One drew the curved dagger from its sheath at his belt and lifted it high over his own head so that the silver blade caught the sunlight and glinted. Then he lifted Dorian’s chin and pulled back his head like a pig for the slaughter. Deliberately he placed the blade against his throat and held it there, grinning back at the other men in the dhow.
Hal felt part of himself shrivel and die deep inside, and a whisper forced itself unbidden from his lips: ‘Lord, I pray you, spare my boy. Anything you ask of me, I will do, but spare me this.’
Dorian was still struggling in the Arab’s grip, and suddenly the cap fell from his head. His red-gold locks tumbled down onto his shoulders and shone in the sunlight. In obvious consternation, the man jerked the blade away from his throat. There was a sudden commotion in the dhow and the rest of the crew crowded around Dorian, gesticulating and shouting. Then he was bundled away out of their sight. On its wide triangular sail the dhow sped away.
It was two miles distant before Hal could bring himself to give the order to row back to the drifting Seraph, but all the way he was looking back over his shoulder. He saw the dhow following the tiny shape of the Minotaur up the channel into the north.
‘That is where I will look for them,’ he whispered. ‘And I will never cease until I find them.’
On board the Seraph there was desperate work to be done to save the ship. This helped Hal to survive the first dreadful hours of his loss. The ship could not steer up into the wind with the foremast, sails and rigging dragging through the water like an enormous sea anchor. Hal set all sail on the standing masts to try to hold her off the lee shore, but this merely delayed the moment when she would be carried aground.
Led by Aboli and Big Daniel, ten axemen clambered out on to the foremast and hacked away the twisted mass of ropes and canvas. It was dangerous work: as every rope parted under the axe-blades, the strain was transferred unevenly and the mast rolled and kicked, threatening to throw the men into the water.
Closer they drifted to the coral reefs while the Seraph fought the immense drag of her shattered tackle, and Hal hurried from one side of her to the other, watching the closing land and directing the axemen in their efforts, pointing out to them the vital strands of rope that still held the fallen mast.
Always the green, humped back of Ras Ibn Khum loomed closer and higher above the ship as she battled for her life. The swells reared up under the hull as the bottom shelved towards the reef and the fangs of black coral grinned at the Seraph, waiting to tear the bowels out of her.
But at last the broken mast was held only by the single ten-inch manila rope of the forestay. It was stretched as tight and hard as a bar of iron, so that under the immense strain the sea-water jetted from the twisted strands. Big Daniel sent all the other axemen back on deck while he balanced easily on top of the heaving mast. He braced himself and judged his stroke, then swung the axe-head high and brought it down again on the stretched cable. He had judged it so finely that the thick cable-laid rope was not severed through all at once and only five of the strands parted.
As the remaining strands unravelled and gave under the strain, with a series of loud snaps and whipcracks and the mast rolled ponderously under his feet, Big Daniel had just time enough to race back up its slanting length and leap onto the deck. Then the butt-end of the broken mast rasped and grated over the side and at last dropped away and floated clear of the ship’s side.
Immediately the Seraph responded gratefully to the release from her bonds. The heavily canted deck levelled itself, and she answered her helm almost joyously. Her bows came round, aiming at last to clear the headland of Ras Ibn Khum that had threatened to entrap her.
Hal crossed quickly to the lee rail and watched the jettisoned foremast drift away towards the reef, carefully marking the spot where it must be thrown ashore. Then he turned all his attention to bringing his ship into a safe anchorage.
By altering and adjusting the sail setting on the two standing masts, and making small changes in the helm, he managed to slip the grievously wounded Seraph past the point of the headland and into the bay beyond. Then he saw at once why al-Auf had chosen it as the place in which to lay his ambush.
It was an enclosed bay, of water so deep that it glowed blue as lapis-lazuli in the sunlight. It was protected from the monsoon wind by the tall headland, and when he looked down over the side he could see the smooth, sandy bottom ten fathoms down.
‘Stand by to drop anchor, Mr Tyler,’ he said, and as it splashed over the bows and the cable roared out through the hawsehole, the flood of grief that had threatened for these last dreadful hours to overwhelm him came down upon him with a black weight that threatened to crush the very life out of him. He could think of nothing but Dorian. The picture of the small body in the hands of the Arab corsairs, the knife held at his throat, was engraved in his mind and he knew it would never be expunged. He was unmanned by sorrow. It seemed to have sucked the strength from his limbs, the very breath from his lungs. He wanted to seek oblivion. Then he longed to go to his cabin and throw himself on his bunk and give himself over to his grief.
He stood alone on the quarterdeck, for his officers and all the crew kept clear of him, and none even looked in his direction. With the innate tact of hard, rough-hewn men, they were leaving him to his agony. Hal stared at the empty horizon to the north. The blue waters of the channel sparkled prettily in the sunlight, but they were void of any sail or promise of succour. Dorian was gone. He could not even rouse himself to consider his next action, to form his next order to the men who waited without looking at him.
Then Aboli went to him and touched his arm. ‘Gundwane, there will be a time for this later. If you wish to save your son, you must have the ship ready to follow him.’ He glanced down the deck at the stump of the foremast, the raw timber shattered by the heavy iron ball. ‘While you weep, the day steals away from you. Give the order.’
Hal looked at him with the blank eyes of a bhang smoker. ‘He is so young, Aboli
, so small.’
‘Give the order, Gundwane.’
‘I am so tired,’ said Hal, ‘so very tired.’
‘No matter how it aches within you, you cannot rest,’ Aboli said softly. ‘Now, give the order.’
Hal shuddered with the effort, then lifted his chin. ‘Mr Tyler! I want both pinnaces and the boats launched.’ The words came tentatively to his lips, as though he spoke a foreign language.
‘Aye, Captain.’ Ned hurried to him, relief apparent on his face.
Hal felt the strength flow back into his body, and his resolve hardened. His voice firmed as he went on, ‘The boat crews will recover the jettisoned mast. In the meantime the carpenters are to trim the stump of the foremast ready to fish her back in place. Sail-makers to break out the spare sails and the ropes and cables to rig the new mast.’ As he reeled off the string of orders to begin the repairs to the ship, he glanced at the sun. It was already past its zenith. ‘Let the crew eat by watches. There’ll be precious little time to rest or eat again until we have the ship under way once more.’
Hal was at the tiller of the leading pinnace as the little flotilla of small boats rounded the point of Ras Ibn Khum. The two pinnaces had been reassembled. They were open boats, twenty-five feet in length, but weatherly, capable of long voyages in the open sea or of the type of heavy work Hal had in mind.
No sooner had they rounded the point of the headland than Hal spotted the foremast. Even from two miles away, it was easy to pick out, wrapped in its own gleaming white canvas against the black coral reef that held it. As they approached Hal saw that it would take hard work to free the long shaft of pine, for the canvas and the trailing ropes were tangled in the jagged coral and the humped swells coming in from the channel were bursting upon the reef and swirling over the mast in whirlpools of foam and white water.