by Wilbur Smith
Crouching close under the walls, he stared up at them wistfully. Behind any of those windows Dorian might be lying in his slave cell. He imagined his little brother’s terror and loneliness, and shared those emotions to the full extent of his love.
Suddenly, almost without conscious volition Tom pursed his lips and whistled the opening bars of ‘Spanish Ladies’:
Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies,
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain.
For we’ve received orders to sail for old England . . .
Then he lay quietly and waited for some response. There was none. After a short while he stood up and moved quietly a little further along the wall. Again he whistled the tune, and waited.
Then movement caught his eye. Behind one of the high narrow windows someone had moved the lamp. He saw the angle of the shadows change. Tom’s heart thumped against his ribs and he crept closer. He was about to whistle the tune again when the dark shape of a head appeared between the lamp and the window. Someone was peering out through the loophole, but he could not see the face. Then a sweet unbroken voice whispered in the night,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar, all o’er the wild ocean,
We’ll rant and we’ll roar, all o’er the wild seas . . .
‘Dorry!’ Tom wanted to scream it out loud, but he stopped himself before it reached his lips. He crept closer to the foot of the wall, leaving the dense cover of the forest. He saw that a twisted liana rope climbed up the coral blocks to pass an arm’s length from the lighted loophole where the shadow of Dorian’s head still showed. He reached up and tried his weight on it. His hands were shaking with excitement and trepidation, but the liana was firm and solidly rooted. He slipped off his sword-belt and laid it, with his pistol, at the foot of the creeper.
Then he swung himself up on the liana. His body and every muscle in it had been forged and hardened in the ship’s rigging and he climbed with the agility of a monkey. He came level with the loophole and leaned out towards the opening. ‘Dorry?’ he whispered.
The reply was instant. ‘Tom! Oh, I knew you would come. I knew you would keep your promise.’
‘Shh, Dorry! Not so loud. Can you climb out through the window?’
‘No, I’m chained to the wall.’
‘Don’t cry, Dorry. They’ll hear you.’
‘I’m not crying.’ Dorian’s sobs were pitiful, even though he covered his mouth with both hands to muffle them.
‘Do you think I can climb through your window?’ Tom demanded. ‘I’ll come across and get you free.’
‘I don’t know, Tom. It’s so small, and you’re so big.’
‘There’s nothing else for it. I’m going to try.’ Tom moved out hand over hand, onto the branch of the liana that passed closest to the loophole. He felt it bend in his grip, but he kept moving carefully until he reached the end. He was still at least three feet from the sill of the window, and twenty feet above the ground. He let go with one hand and reached across.
‘Tom, be careful!’
Tom found a crack in the stonework that gave him a solid hold and took his other hand from the vine. He swung across the gap, hanging on his right hand, searching frantically with his left for another support. His toes clawed at the smooth coral beneath the sill but found no step.
‘Here!’ Dorian reached both hands through the loophole. ‘Give me your hand.’
Gratefully Tom locked hands with him in the sailors’ overlapping monkey-grip. His weight jerked the smaller boy forward and jammed his shoulders in the opening. Tom saw instantly that if it was too narrow for Dorian’s small frame, then his own broad shoulders, heavily muscled now from his exertions as a topmastman, could never pass through the opening. He was trapped. There was no entrance for him through the window, and the liana vine was three feet away, a long reach with his left hand.
‘It’s no good, Dorry.’ Their faces were only a foot apart. ‘We’ll have to come back for you.’
‘Please don’t leave me here, Tom.’ Dorian’s voice rose hysterically.
‘The Seraph is waiting just off-shore. Father, Big Danny, Aboli and me, we’re all here. We’ll be back for you soon.’
‘Tom!’
‘Dorry, don’t make so much noise. I swear to you we’ll come back for you.’
Tom was reaching back for his hold on the vine, but Dorian clung to his other wrist like a drowning man.
‘Tom! Don’t leave me alone, Tom!’
‘Let go, Dorry! You’ll make me fall!’
There was a shout from the battlements above them. A voice cried out in Arabic, ‘Who is it? Who is down there?’
‘The guards, Dorry! Let me go!’ Tom looked up and saw two heads outlined against the starry sky, peering down at him from the battlements. He was stretched out along the wall, one hand with a precarious grip on the liana, the other clutched by his brother. He saw one of the men above him swing a long-barrelled jezail over the top of the wall and aim it directly into his face. ‘Let go of me, Dorry.’ Tom braced both feet against the coral blocks and flung himself backwards just as the jezail roared and a bright tongue of flame and powder sparks shot from the muzzle.
Tom heard the ball whip past his head, but he was falling free, plummeting down the wall, dropping twenty feet with his guts swooping up against his ribs, until he slammed into the ground with stunning force. The wind was driven out of his body and he lay for a while, trying to fill his empty lungs.
Another shot from the top of the wall galvanized him. He did not hear the ball this time, but he scrambled to his feet, still wheezing and whistling for air. He tried to run back into the grove, but when he put weight on his left foot pain shot up from his ankle into his groin like the stab of a giant hornet’s sting.
He forced himself forward, running through the pain. He found his cutlass and pistol and snatched them up. Hopping and skipping to keep the weight off his injured ankle, he ran for the edge of the trees. Behind him he could hear Dorian’s faint heartbreaking cries, shrill and desolate, only Tom’s name uttered coherently. They were more agonizing to him than his injured ankle. Before he had covered a hundred yards the shots and the shouting had roused the entire corsair garrison.
Tom paused, and leaned against a tree-trunk. While he strapped on his sword-belt he tried to reorientate himself and decide what to do. He knew he could not make it back unaided to the south point where the boat waited for them. He had to hope that his father and Aboli would be alerted by the uproar and come back to find him. In the darkness that seemed a forlorn hope.
He did not have much time to reach a decision, for suddenly the grove seemed alive with men. They were shouting to each other, and every few minutes there was a rapid flurry of gunfire as they shot at the shadows.
‘Who is it? What is happening?’ More were coming up from the beach, cutting off Tom from his rendezvous.
‘It is a Frank, an infidel. I saw his face.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He went towards the bay.’
‘Where did he come from? There is no infidel ship.’
The voices were coming closer and Tom could hear men running and crashing through the undergrowth. He pushed himself off the tree trunk, taking his weight on the ankle again, and hobbled forward. He had not gone fifty yards when there was a shout close behind him. ‘There he is! Don’t let him get away!’ Another shot boomed out and Tom heard the ball crack into the trunk of one of the palms beside him. He placed his crippled foot full on the ground and forced himself to a run.
He was streaming with the sweat of agony. It poured down his face and into his eyes, half blinding him. Each pace was a torment that made his vision star into bright lights, but he ran on. His pursuers were gaining on him – he looked back over his shoulder and saw their white robes flitting through the forest behind him.
He skirted a clump of bush too thick to plunge through and, as he came round the other side, suddenly, shockingly, he was seized from behind and borne to the ground. He struck out
wildly at his captor, but the grip upon his wrist was like an iron shackle. The weight of the man on his back crushed him into the soft sandy earth.
‘Tom!’ his father’s voice was in his ear. ‘Don’t struggle. Don’t make a sound.’ He felt a great rush of relief. ‘Are you hurt?’ Hal demanded urgently. ‘Why are you limping?’
‘My ankle,’ Tom blurted out. ‘I fell. I think it’s broken.’
The sounds of pursuit were close now.
‘Have you seen him?’ an Arab called. ‘Which way did he go?’
‘I saw him go that way,’ someone answered. They were closing in. Then Aboli’s voice rumbled, ‘The lad cannot outrun them. I will lead them away to give you a chance to get back to the boat.’ He rose to his feet from where he had been lying beside Hal, and darted away into the night. When he was twenty yards from where they lay he bellowed in Arabic, ‘There he goes! He is doubling back towards the far side of the island. Head him off!’ He fired his pistol and loped away through the forest.
Immediately there was a hubbub of shouts and shots. ‘There he goes.’
‘This way! Head him off!
Hal pushed Tom’s face down into the dried leaves. ‘Lie still! Don’t move!’
Footsteps pounded close to Tom’s head, but he did not try to look up. He heard the pursuit swing away and crash through the scrub towards the east side of the island, and Aboli’s shouts growing fainter.
Gradually silence returned and Hal released his grip on the back of Tom’s neck. ‘Which leg is it?’ he snapped unsympathetically.
Tom sat up, still panting wildly. ‘This one.’
Hal ran his fingers over the ankle. ‘You left your post,’ he accused Tom as he worked. ‘You could have got us all killed. Your pig-headed stupidity has put Aboli in dire danger.’
‘I’m sorry, but I just had to do it,’ Tom panted, and then, with a rush, he said, ‘I found Dorry.’
Hal’s hands froze and he looked up at Tom, his face pale in the moonlight filtered through the trees. ‘You found him? Where?’
‘In the fort. I spoke to him through the window.’
‘My God!’ Hal whispered, his anger subsiding. ‘How is he?’
‘Very frightened, but they have not hurt him. They’ve chained him up in one of the cells on the north-west side.’
Hal considered this. Then, ‘There’s nothing we can do for him now. We have to get back to the ship.’ He squeezed Tom’s shoulder hard. ‘You did well, Tom, but never disobey me again. Your ankle is swelling very rapidly and we must get back to the beach.’ He stood up and hauled Tom to his feet, ‘Lean on me. Come.’
It took them most of what was left of the night to struggle back through the forest to the south point of the island. Even through the agony in his ankle, Tom fretted aloud about Aboli. They stopped every half-hour or so to listen for him, or for sounds of chase behind them, but they heard nothing more.
The moon was slanting down towards the African mainland when at last they staggered together out into the open ground of the sea-bird colony. By this time Tom’s ankle was blown up like a pig’s bladder, and Hal was half carrying and half dragging him along.
The eggs crunched and popped under their feet, and the birds rose in a black cloud around them, shrieking and circling their heads in the moonlight. They swooped down to peck at their heads, but both Hal and Tom were wearing caps.
‘Cover your eyes,’ Hal muttered, as they tried to beat away the creatures with their hands. ‘Their beaks are like spears.’
‘Al-Auf’s men will hear this din from miles off.’
At last, even through the cacophony of the birds, they heard the surf breaking on the beach of the cove, and staggered the last few yards. Hal saw the dark blob against the sand where he had left the packet of rockets.
‘Thank the Lord,’ he gasped, for they were both almost at the end of their strength. Then he cried with alarm, ‘Look out! It’s an ambush.’
A huge dark form rose out of the darkness before them. Hal dropped Tom to the sand and drew his sword.
‘What took you so long, Gundwane? It will be light in an hour.’ Aboli spoke from the darkness.
‘Aboli! God love you!’
‘The longboat is waiting just beyond the surf-line,’ Aboli told him, and lifted Tom in his arms as though he were a baby. ‘Do not send up a rocket. It will alert the enemy. Come, it is time we left this place.’
He whistled once, high and sharp, and was answered from out on the dark sea. Then Tom heard the sound of oars creaking in rowlocks as Big Daniel brought in the pinnace to pick them up.
The Seraph stood in towards the land in the dark of the moon. It was two nights after Hal and Tom’s landing and fortuitous escape from the island.
Silently the Seraph glided the last mile and then, at Hal’s quiet order to the helm, she turned into the light breeze and hove to. Hal crossed to the weather rail and listened intently. The booming of the surf on the outer beaches of Flor de la Mar was faint, but unmistakable.
‘We’re about a mile off-shore.’ Ned Tyler confirmed Hal’s own estimate.
‘Launch the boats,’ Hal ordered. ‘I leave you in charge of the ship, Mr Tyler. Hold your station here, and await our signal.’
‘Aye, Captain. And good luck, sir.’
The boats were lined up on the open deck. One after the other they were swung out and dropped to the surface of the water alongside. Then the armed men went down into them quickly and quietly, and took their places on the rowing benches.
As Hal went to the rail and the ladder, Tom was waiting for him. He was hunched over the crutch that one of the carpenters had made for him. ‘Would that I were coming with you, Father,’ he burst out. ‘I would gladly cut off this leg of mine to do so.’ He stamped the crutch on the deck in frustration. Dr Reynolds had determined that although the bone was not broken Tom would not be able to walk on it for many weeks.
‘We could have found use for your strong right arm, Tom,’ Hal told him. He had forgiven his son’s disobedience, which had placed them all in such danger.
‘Will you try to find Dorry?’
‘You know that we’re only attacking the shipping in the bay. After the other night al-Auf must know we’re in the offing, and his men will be on the alert. Without the advantage of surprise, we could never hope to carry the fort with so few men.’
‘I am mad with worrying about what those swines are doing to poor Dorry.’
‘So are we all, but once we have seized or burned al-Auf’s ships we will have him trapped on the island. He won’t be able to escape with Dorian. Then, when Captain Anderson returns with the Yeoman, we will have sufficient strength to storm the fort. We must contain ourselves until then.’
‘I pray to God that the Yeoman returns swiftly.’
‘Yes, lad. Pray! That never hurt anyone. But, in the meantime, we will reinforce your prayers with a little powder and steel,’ said Hal grimly, and went down into the waiting pinnace.
They pushed off from the Seraph’s side, Hal leading the flotilla in the first pinnace. Big Daniel had command of the second, and Alf Wilson was in charge of the two longboats. Behind them, the Seraph came on the wind under shortened sails, prepared to wait out the long hours until the men returned.
The oars of the small boats were muffled and the crews enjoined to strict silence as they crept in towards the island. Hal navigated by the compass, stopping every once in a while to listen for the sound of the surf. Each time it was louder, and then the man in the bows pointed ahead. Hal jumped up on the stern sheets and picked out the bright speckling of fires, which marked the encampment below the walls of the fort. He realized at once that the current had pushed them down towards the south, and altered course to head for the pass through the coral reef into the bay.
Hal could almost smell the nervous tension in the crew of the pinnace. For all fighting seamen there was a peculiar allure in the cutting out of an enemy ship from a protected anchorage. This bearding of the lion was an English
speciality, an innovation of men like Drake, Fro-bisher and Hawkins.
Hal had enough men to take out only two of the ships he had seen in the bay. He and Aboli had studied them all carefully from the beach, and though it had been dark, the moon had given him light enough to make his selection. First, of course, had been the Minotaur. Though she had been badly neglected in the hands of the corsairs, and severely damaged in her short encounter with the Seraph, she was still a well-found vessel of great value. Hal estimated she would be worth ten thousand pounds when he tied her up in London. He had no way of knowing how much of her cargo remained on board, but it might be considerable.
The other ship he had selected was a Dutchman that, clearly, had been pirated from the VOC. She was a big-bottomed vessel built in the Rotterdam style that would fetch as much as the Minotaur. If he could bring both ships out, it would mean twenty thousand pounds for the night’s work.
He leaned forward in his seat at the tiller and whispered to the men nearest him, ‘There’s twenty pounds a man lying there in the bay for the picking. Pass that along.’ They chuckled fiercely, and turned on the thwarts to send the message down the length of the pinnace.
There’s nothing like the smell of gold to raise a bloodthirst in an English seamen, Hal thought, and smiled to himself in the dark. It was a great shame that he could not bring out the other craft. Two more tall ships and a dozen dhows of varying shapes and sizes would add nicely to the bag, but he would have to settle for the smell of the smoke of their funeral pyres.
As they approached the pass through the reef the other boats moved into a single column behind him to follow him through. This was where the entire expedition could end before it had begun in bloody disaster. He had only his father’s chart and his own instinctive seamanship to carry them through.
He stood as high as he could on the thwart and stared ahead. He was watching the snore of the surf curling white on the murderously jagged spikes of the reef, picking out the dark spot towards the north end where the deeper water remained unbroken.