by Wilbur Smith
As the Seraph came round, and lined up for the harbour entrance, the long green banner of the Sultan rose to the top of the flagpole on the west tower of the fort, and the battery of cannon on the ramparts opened up on them.
Even from the deck, they could clearly see the white-robed gunners frantically serving their pieces. Through the telescope Hal could make out the panic and confusion among them. As each of the massive cannon was reloaded and run out again, no attempt was made to correct their aim. As he watched, one of the over-enthusiastic gunners touched off his gigantic weapon while his team were still behind it, heaving on the tackles to run out the carriage. The recoil drove it back over them, crushing bones and amputating limbs. Hal could hear the agonized screams of the mutilated gunners even across the distance of two full cables’ lengths that separated them.
Hal saw the huge stone ball in flight: it soared upwards from the battlements and seemed to pause, like a tiny black speck, at the zenith of its trajectory, then arced down towards them. For a moment Hal thought it might strike the ship, but instead it plunged into the sea alongside and threw up such a towering fountain of spray and water that it fell across the quarterdeck and splashed Hal’s boots to the knees.
‘We must acknowledge such a rousing farewell.’ Hal looked at Ned Tyler, without a smile. ‘Kindly dip our colours in courtesy to the Sultan, Mr Tyler. Then bring the ship on to a southerly heading.’
‘It is not marked,’ Hal muttered, as he pored over the chart spread on his desktop, ‘yet I swear I have heard the name before. Flor de la Mar, the Flower of the Sea. With that name, and as Grey said, it must indeed be one of the old Portuguese possessions, of course.’ He had already questioned his officers, and sent them to ask the men, but none knew of it.
Piled beside the chart were eight heavy books bound in black calf leather. These volumes were among Hal’s dearest possessions. He selected one from the pile, opened the stiff crackling pages and gazed briefly at the beautiful flowing script and the ink drawings that closely covered every page on both sides. The writing was so familiar it seemed part of his very existence. It was that of his father, Sir Francis Courtney. These log books were part of the legacy Hal had received from him. The eight volumes covered thirty years of his father’s voyages and wanderings on the oceans of the globe, a lifetime’s accumulation of knowledge and experience, of such intrinsic and sentimental value that, for Hal, they were beyond any price in gold. Almost reverentially, he thumbed through the pages, searching for the name he had read somewhere in them so many years before. His search was spasmodic, as every so often he was diverted by some gem of observation or a captivating drawing of a foreign harbour, an exotic landfall, a portrait of a man, a bird or a fish that had caught his father’s keen eye and been faithfully recorded by his skilful pen.
Unsuccessful in his initial search, he laid the first volume aside and chose another, whose cover was marked, ‘Ocean of the Indies, Anni Domini 1632 to 1641.’ Hal’s search lasted so long that he had to refill the oil in the lamp. Then, suddenly, the name leaped out of the page into his red, aching eyes. He gave a heartfelt sigh of relief. ‘Isla Flor de la Mar’: it was the notation beneath the ink line-drawing of a landfall seen from the ocean, which depicted what was clearly an island. The compass rose and a scale of distances were marked in underneath. These showed an overall size for the landmass from south to north of five sea miles. Below the name was written the position, ‘11 degrees 25 minutes south lat. 47 degrees 32 minutes east long.’, and in smaller letters, ‘Known to the Mussul-men as Daar Al Shaitan or the Harbour of the Devil.’
Quickly Hal referred back to his chart. With ruler and compass he picked out the co-ordinates his father had given. Although he treated even Sir Francis’s estimate of longitude with reserve, he found that these measurements gave him a position about a hundred and fifty sea miles north of the Glorietta islands. However, on Hal’s chart nothing was marked at this location except the open sea. He referred back to his father’s log. Sir Francis had written a full page of description. Hal started to read and was immediately entranced. ‘This island was first reported by Affonse d’Albuquerque in 1508 when he was preparing to capture the Arab cities along the Fever Coast of the eastern African continent. From this sally-port he launched his attacks on Zanzibar and Dar Es Salaam.’ Hal nodded. He knew that Albuquerque had been known as the Great by his peers, and as al-Shaitan, the Devil, by the Arabs for the success of his naval forays into the Ocean of the Indies. He, more than even Tristão da Cunha, had been responsible for securing the pre-eminence of Portuguese power and influence on the Fever Coast and in the Persian Gulf. His ships had been the first of any European power to penetrate the Arab stronghold of the Red Sea. Hal turned back to his father’s writing.
Albuquerque constructed a considerable fort on the north point of the island, hewing coral stone blocks for the construction, and employing Mussulmen prisoners for the heavy work. He armed the fort with cannon captured during his conquest of Ormuz and Aden. He named the island after his own flagship, Flor de la Mar. Some years later, in 1508, this same ship was wrecked on the coral reefs off the coast of Goa, and Albuquerque lost the vast personal treasure he had accumulated during his campaigns in these Oceans. After the success of his attacks on the African mainland Albuquerque abandoned his base on the island and transferred his flag to Zanzibar. The fort on Flor de la Mar was allowed to fall into disrepair.
I called here on the 2nd of November 1637. The island is five and a quarter sea miles in length and half a sea mile wide at its broadest point. The east side is exposed to the scend of the ocean and the prevailing winds, and offers no secure anchorage. The bay on the north-west extremity is well protected and guarded by a coral reef. The bottom is sand and shell and affords excellent holding. There is a passage through the reef which runs directly under the walls of the fort. Thus when the battlements were manned by the Portuguese any vessel entering the bay could have been brought under heavy fire by the batteries of the garrison.
In the middle of the page Hal’s father had made a detailed map of the bay and the fort, showing the passage through the reef and the various bearings and soundings. ‘Thank you, Father,’ Hal murmured, with feeling, and went on with his study of the text.
I went ashore and found that the walls of the fort had well stood the passage of almost a century and a half. They were sturdily built and would be impervious to all but modern siege engines. The brass cannon were still sited in their embrasures but the metal of the barrels was much corroded by the salt sea airs. The catchments and cisterns for the gathering of rainwater remained in working order, and we were able to refill our casks from them. There was a vast colony of sea birds nesting on the south point of the island. During the hours of daylight the multitudes of these birds formed a dark canopy over the island that could be discerned from many miles out at sea. The chorus of their combined voices was of such volume as to give offence to the ear and astound the senses. The flesh of these fowl was oily and strongly flavoured with fish but when salted and smoked became palatable. I despatched a shore party to gather in their eggs. They returned with ten large baskets, and all hands feasted upon them. There was besides much fish and oysters to be taken in the bay, and we lingered ten days and employed all hands in the catching and smoking of these bounties to replenish the ship’s stores. We sailed again on the 12th of November, bound for the Bab al Mandeb at the foot of the Red Sea.
Hal closed the log book with the same reverence as if it had been the family Bible – which, in a manner of speaking, it was – and turned his attention to the chart. Carefully he marked in the position of the island his father had given, then ruled in the course and bearing from their present position at the southern extremity of the Zanzibar Channel.
When he went on deck the sun was lying only a finger above the horizon, so shrouded in purple sea fret that he could look directly at its fuming red orb with his naked eye. With the coming of dusk, the monsoon wind had eased but still had sufficient
force to fill every sail tight and pearly as the breasts of a wet-nurse.
‘Mr Tyler, bring her up to the wind as close as she can sail on this tack,’ he ordered grimly. ‘Full and by.’
‘Full and by, it is, Captain.’ Ned touched his cap.
Hal left him and strode forward, glancing up to the yards of the foremast as he passed beneath them. Tom was still up there, as he had been ever since they had cleared the harbour at Zanzibar. Hal empathized with him, but he would not go up to join his vigil. He too wanted to be alone.
When he reached the stem he stepped up onto the base of the bowsprit and clung to the forestay, peering ahead into the darkening sea, which was turning the colour of overripe plums. At intervals the Seraph tore the crest off a larger wave, and tossed it back over the bows, dashing a spattering of drops into his face. He made no effort to wipe them away, but let them drip down from his chin onto his chest.
Far behind them, Africa had disappeared into the distance and the hazy dusk. There was no sight of land ahead. The dark ocean was boundless and wide. What hope to find one small boy in all its limitless expanses? he wondered. ‘And yet I will, should it take me the rest of my natural life,’ he whispered. ‘And no mercy on any who stand in my way.’
The dhow was a slaver, employed in carrying its cargo of misery from the mainland across the channel to the markets of Zanzibar. It stank of the waste of the human body, and of the agony of the human spirit. It was a foul miasma that hung over the little vessel, and permeated the hair and clothing of all aboard her. It entered Dorian’s lungs with every breath he drew, and seemed to corrode his very soul.
He was chained in the lower deck. The iron staples were driven through the heavy timber main frame and the heads were riveted. His leg-irons were hand forged and the chain was passed through the eye of his fetters. There was space for a hundred captives in the long low hold, but Dorian was alone. He squatted on one of the dhow’s main frames, trying to keep his feet out of the noisome bilges, which slopped back and forth with each pitch and roll of the narrow hull, filled with fish scales and pieces of sodden copra – the dhow’s alternative cargoes.
Every hour or so, the hatch above his head was thrown open and one of the Arab crew peered down at him anxiously. His gaoler would pass down a bowl of rice and fish stew or a green coconut from which the top had been hacked away. The coconut juice was sweet and faintly effervescent, and Dorian drank it eagerly although he spurned the stew made from half-rotten sun-dried fish.
Apart from his fetters and the foul confines of the cabin, his Arab captors had treated him with the utmost consideration. More than that, they were evidently concerned for his welfare, and made certain that he went neither hungry nor thirsty.
Four times in the last two days the captain of the dhow had come down into the slave deck and stood over him, staring at him attentively, with an expression that was difficult to fathom. He was a tall man with very dark pockmarked skin and a beaked nose. It was he who had pulled Dorian from the sea and held the dagger to his throat. On his first visit he had attempted to question the boy.
‘Who are you? Where are you from? Are you a true believer? What where you doing on an infidel ship?’ The captain’s accent was strange and his pronunciation of some words much different from the manner in which Dorian had been taught by Alf Wilson but he understood the man without difficulty, and could have replied fluently. Instead he had hung his head and refused to look up at him. He wanted desperately to vent his fear and his anger on the Arab. He wanted to warn him that he was the son of a powerful, wealthy man, but he sensed that this would be the utmost folly. He wanted to blurt out, ‘My father will come for me soon, and when he does he will have no mercy upon you, or any man of yours.’ Instead he had bitten down painfully on his tongue to prevent himself from responding to these questions.
In the end, the captain had given up the attempt to make him speak, had squatted down beside him and taken a handful of his thick curls. Then he had fondled them almost lovingly. To Dorian’s astonishment he had whispered a prayer. ‘God is great. There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet.’
On his subsequent visits to the slave deck, he had made no further efforts to question Dorian. However, each time he had gone through the same ritual of stroking and caressing Dorian’s head and muttering the prayer.
On his last visit he had suddenly pulled the dagger from the sheath on his belt. Dorian had been lulled by his previous behaviour, so now he was shocked as the bright razor-sharp blade was flashed in his face. He prevented himself from crying out, but shrank away fearfully.
The Arab bared his twisted, discoloured teeth in a horrible grin, which was meant to be placatory, and instead of injuring Dorian had merely cut off a long lock of his red-gold hair before he slipped the dagger back into its sheath.
Dorian was puzzled and confused by this behaviour, and he had much time to ponder it in the dark, stinking slave hold. He realized that it was the colour and texture of his hair that fascinated his captors, and had some special significance for them. When first he had been hauled from the sea, it had seemed certain that the Arabs would vent their anger and spite upon him. He could vividly remember the sting of the dagger held to his throat and even now, when he ran his fingertips over it, he could feel the scabs on the scratch that the blade had left on his skin.
It was only when the captain had pulled the Mon-mouth cap from his head and Dorian’s long hair had streamed out in the wind that he had lifted the blade from the boy’s throat. In the terror of those moments, Dorian had taken no heed of the jabbering and loud arguments of his captors as they hustled him below deck and chained him in the slave hold, but he remembered that every man in the dhow had taken a chance to touch or stroke his head. Now he recalled snatches of their excited talk.
Many had mentioned a ‘prophecy’ and some had called out a name, which was obviously revered by them all for the others had chorused, ‘May Allah show him mercy,’ after anyone mentioned it. To Dorian the name had sounded like ‘Taimtaim’. Afraid, and so alone, he crouched on the rough stool in the dark, stinking hold and thought of Tom and his father, pined for them with a longing that threatened to crush his heart in his chest. Sometimes he dozed for a few minutes, but each time he was jerked awake by the plunging hull as the dhow was struck by a larger wave, and he slipped off his precarious perch. He was able to keep a check on the procession of day and night when the hatch above his head was opened and food and drink was passed down to him, or when the captain came down to gloat over him, and it was on the twelfth day after his capture that the iron fetters were knocked off his ankles. He was dragged out through the hatch onto the deck were the sunlight was so strong after the gloom below that he had to shield his eyes against it. It took him many minutes to adjust to its brilliance, and then, still blinking painfully, he looked about him. He found that half the crew were gathered around him in a fascinated circle. This time he took note of what they were saying.
‘This is verily part of the prophecy, God be praised.’
‘It cannot be so, for al-Amhara does not speak the tongue of the Prophet.’ Dorian understood that by al-Amhara, which translated as the Red One, they meant him.
‘Beware that you speak no blasphemy, O Ishmael. It is not for you to judge whether he be the child of the prophecy or not.’
‘God’s ways are marvellous and cannot be fathomed,’ said another, and they all chorused, ‘Praise be to God!’
Dorian looked beyond the circle of dark, bearded faces and out over the bows. The waves ahead were wind-driven and curled silver-headed in the sunlight, but on the horizon lay a dark, unnatural cloud. He stared at it so hard that his eyes watered in the wind. It seemed to be smoke that swirled and eddied, but then, with his sharp young eyes, he picked out the tiny shapes of palm trees beneath it, and realized that he was seeing a great flock of birds.
Even as he watched, smaller flocks of ten or twenty sea birds flew past the dhow, hurrying to join that vast agglomerati
on. He wanted to see more of what lay ahead, and at the same time to test the mood of his captors, to see how much latitude they would allow him. He walked forward, and the circle of Arabs gave way before him: they stepped respectfully out of his path as if afraid or reluctant to check him. One touched his head as he passed but Dorian ignored him.
‘Watch him well,’ the captain of the dhow shouted from the tiller. ‘He must not escape.’
‘Ah! So, Yusuf,’ one answered him, ‘is al-Amhara then so blessed that he can fly like the angel Gibrael?’ They all laughed but none made any effort to restrain Dorian. He went forward and leaned against the single stubby mast.
Gradually the fringe of palm trees below the cloud of sea birds hardened, and then he could make out the shape of a promontory to the north end of what was clearly a small island. Closer still, and the walls of a square building, made of white blocks, glinted in the sunlight. Then he saw cannon on the walls and a flotilla of ships moored in the bay beneath the fort.
‘The Minotaur!’ he exclaimed suddenly, as he recognized the tall masts and shape of the ship that the Seraph had fought only days previously. With her superior speed she must have arrived well ahead of the tiny dhow. She was anchored in the middle of the bay under bare yards, and as they sailed closer Dorian could make out clearly the damage that the Seraph’s guns had inflicted upon her. Closer still he could just read the new name that had been painted in Arabic script on the transom, replacing her English name: Breath of Allah.