Monsoon
Page 37
Hal exchanged flag signals of greeting with her, and when they were alongside each other both ships hove to and the Yeoman launched a boat. Edward Anderson’s bright red face glowed in the stern like a port lamp as he was rowed across, and he scrambled up the ladder with surprising agility for such a big man. He grasped Hal’s outstretched hand. ‘I hear from your Mr Fisher that you’ve been hard at work in my absence, Sir Henry, and that you have taken great prize.’ His chagrin was apparent in his tone and expression: only those captains who were in sight of the prize when she was captured were entitled to a share.
‘I have urgent employment for your ship, sir, and the promise of even greater treasure in the offing,’ Hal assured him – he thought it would be excessively cruel at this stage to mention the booty taken from the Arab dhows. ‘Come to my cabin.’
As soon as they were seated, Hal’s servant poured a glass of Madeira wine for each of them, then left them alone.
‘I bear letters for you from Mr Beatty and from your son Guy,’ Captain Anderson told him, and produced the canvas-wrapped package from the folds of his cloak.
Hal laid it aside to be opened and perused later. ‘How is Guy?’ The question was casual for he was anxious to get on with more urgent matters, but still Anderson’s reply startled him.
‘He was in good health when last I saw him, but I understand that he is to be married very shortly.’
‘Good Lord, man! He is only seventeen years of age.’ Hal scowled at him. ‘I was not consulted in the matter. You must be mistaken, sir.’
‘I assure you there is no mistake, Sir Henry.’ Anderson was even redder in the face than usual, and he moved uncomfortably in the chair.
‘Who is the woman?’ Hal demanded. ‘Surely there must be a dearth of young ladies in Bombay.’ He jumped to his feet in his agitation and began to pace the deck, frustrated at the lack of leg room in the tiny cabin, now made even smaller by the lavish furnishings purloined from al-Malik’s dhow.
‘I am informed that it is Mistress Caroline Beatty.’ Edward Anderson pulled a luridly coloured handkerchief from his tunic and mopped his face of the sweat of embarrassment, before he could continue. ‘I am led to believe that there is some urgency in the marriage. In fact, it was set to take place only a day or two after I sailed from Bombay. So your son is almost certainly a married man by this time.’
Hal came up short as the unsavoury truth started to break in upon him. ‘Tom!’ he said aloud.
‘No, Sir Henry, you misunderstand me. Guy, not Tom.’
‘Forgive me, I was thinking aloud,’ Hal apologized. The shock had distracted him from the more urgent business, but Anderson brought him back to it with his next remark.
‘Mr Fisher has told me the truly horrifying news that your youngest son has fallen into the hands of the enemy. You have my deepest sympathy, Sir Henry.’
‘Thank you, Captain Anderson. I shall rely heavily on your help to rescue my boy.’
‘My ship and crew are entirely at your disposal. That goes without saying.’
‘Then let us see to our dispositions.’
Hal had had weeks to make his plans for the assault on Flor de la Mar, and now he laid them out in detail for Anderson. They spent the rest of that day closeted in the stern cabin of the Seraph, going over every detail of the campaign, from the system of flag signals they would use ship to ship, and ship to shore, to the disposition of seamen to be used in the assault, and the delegation of the lesser commands to the various officers. Then they pored for another hour over the charts Hal had prepared. The sun was setting before Anderson was ready to go back to the Yeoman.
‘Bear in mind, Captain Anderson, what I have told you. Al-Auf has been ensconced in the fort for some years. All that time the Arab traders from every corner of the ocean have been drawn to the island, like flies to the dung-heap. They have brought with them vast quantities of bullion to trade for slaves and stolen goods. The prizes I have captured before your arrival will fade into insignificance in comparison. I believe that on Flor de la Mar we will find a treasure to outweigh anything that Drake or Hawkins ever brought home from their adventures.’
Edward Anderson’s blue eyes twinkled at the thought, and Hal went on to inspire him further. ‘You will merit a knighthood for your part in this venture, and I will use all my influence with the Honourable Company to see that you obtain it. With your share of the prize you will be able to afford a fine country estate. After this you need never put to sea again.’
They shook hands briefly. ‘Until the morrow!’ Anderson’s ruddy features split in a wide grin, and the grip of his huge fist was hearty.
‘Warn your men that my son is in the fortress.’ Hal struck a harsher note. ‘In the heat of the fighting, let there be no mistakes.’
Hal gave the orders to put the Seraph on course to resume her blockade of the island and returned at once to his cabin. He slit the stitching on the canvas package of letters that Anderson had brought from Bombay. He recognized Guy’s spidery handwriting on one of the folded sheets and set it aside to read later. He unfolded the letter from Beatty, and frowned as he read it.
The Residence
Bombay
6th Day November
Sir Henry,
The pleasure I experience in addressing you is somewhat mitigated by the circumstances that make it necessary. Not to put too fine a point on it, my daughter Caroline Beatty has been discovered to be with child. Dr Goodwin, the surgeon at the factory here in Bombay, puts the duration of her pregnancy at three months. This would set a date of conception to the time when my family was lodging ashore at Good Hope. You will recall that your son, Guy Courtney, was with us at the guest-house.
I am pleased to be able to inform you that your son, Guy Courtney, has behaved in a most gentlemanly fashion in this matter. He has admitted paternity of the child, and has asked if he might be allowed to marry my daughter. As he is now above the age of seventeen years he is quite within his legal rights to contract a marriage. My daughter Caroline turns eighteen years of age on Friday next so there is no difficulty as to the ages of the two young people.
My wife and I have thought it politic to give our permission to the marriage, and the date has been set down for next Friday, the same date as my daughter’s eighteenth birthday. Thus it is likely that the matter will have been accomplished by the time this epistle comes to your hand.
I have been able to provide my daughter with a dowry of £500. The Company will set a house in the cantonment at the disposal of the young married couple. Thus their immediate needs will be taken account of. No doubt you will see fit to provide your son with a suitable allowance to eke out his salary, and you will use your considerable influence on the board of governors of the Honourable Company to advance his career.
In this respect I am able to inform you that Guy has settled well into his new employment, and has received favourable comment on his efforts from Governor Aungier.
My wife joins me in assuring you, sir, of our highest esteem and duty,
your servant,
Thurston Beatty
Hal crumpled it in his fist, and glared at the letter from Guy, which lay unopened on the desktop. ‘The idiot! He has laid claim to the bird brought down by Tom’s arrow. What in the world could have possessed him?’
He tore Beatty’s letter into shreds and threw it out of the cabin window, watching the scraps floating away on the ship’s wake. Then, with a sigh, he turned his attention to the letter from Guy.
It added nothing to what Beatty had already written, except to express Guy’s ecstatic joy at his good fortune in having won the hand of the lovely Caroline. ‘Brother Tom did all the digging to unearth that diamond for you,’ Hal muttered, with disgust, and considered sending for Tom, informing him as to the fruits of his endeavours and venting his displeasure upon the elder twin. Then he sighed again. ‘To what possible advantage?’ he asked himself. ‘The deed is done, and all parties seem well enough pleased with the outcome, although
nobody seems to have solicited the bride’s views on the subject.’ He balled Guy’s letter, tossed it through the stern window and watched it bob away until at last it sank waterlogged below the surface.
At that moment there was a discreet knock on the cabin door, and a seaman called through the panel, ‘Begging your pardon, Captain, Mr Tyler sends his compliments and Flor de la Mar is in sight dead ahead.’
Hal’s domestic problems were in the instant submerged as deeply as Guy’s sodden missive. He girded on his sword-belt and hurried on deck.
The Seraph led the Minotaur in line astern across the entrance of the bay. Ned Tyler had command of the Seraph, for Hal was not on board. As the two great ships drew within range they opened a steady bombardment on the Arab positions among the palm trees and on the walls of the fort. The months of practice that the gun-crews had endured now showed to good advantage, and even though their numbers were sorely depleted, their fire was rapid and accurate. Relying on the ineptitude demonstrated by the Arab gunners, Ned brought the Seraph close enough to skirt the outer edge of the reef. He was well within range of the heavy cannon on the walls of the fort, but the Seraph’s fire knocked chunks of coral off the battlements and threw the defenders into further disarray. Their return fire was spasmodic and erratic. The attacking ships were well under their guns, and although a few of the huge stone balls they fired fell close enough to throw spray onto the Seraph’s decks, most flew well out to sea.
The Arab encampment among the groves was within long musket shot of the two ships, and half their fire was directed into the thatched huts and lean-to shelters. The guns were loaded with grapeshot, and the lead balls swept through the throng of men and women who were scurrying for the sheltering walls of the fort. They left swathes of brown bodies lying along the pathway, like corn behind the reapers.
After the first pass the ships tacked in succession then came back again, as close as the reef would allow, their fire unrelenting. By now the Arab gunners had recovered from much of their initial confusion. Their stone balls fell close around the Seraph, and one crashed in through the frail wooden bulwark. It chopped off both legs of one of the powder boys as he came scampering up the companionway from the magazine, laden with the silk bags of black powder.
Ned glanced at the boy’s legless torso as it writhed in a spreading pool of blood close to where he stood at the helm. The dying boy was calling pitifully for his mother, but both branches of his femoral artery were spurting like open taps, and no man could be called from his duties to render him assistance. The thought of withdrawing beyond the range of the guns in the fort to prevent further losses did not occur to Ned. Hal had asked him to keep the ship close in-shore, the shore batteries engaged and the Arabs bottled up in the fort for as long as he was able. Ned would not flinch from his task, even though he mourned the loss of a single one of his brave lads.
On the far side of the island Hal heard the regular controlled gunfire of the two ships, and wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his arm. ‘Stout fellow!’ he applauded Ned’s determination, then turned all his attention to landing the rest of the men from the Yeoman of York. The boats were coming in through the pass he had marked in the reef so many weeks before. The four pinnaces were packed with men, riding so deeply in the water that they had barely a hand’s breadth of free board.
As the keel of each boat touched the sand the men jumped out knee-deep in the clear, warm lagoon water and waded ashore. Big Daniel and Alf Wilson marshalled them into columns and led them off the beach into the shelter of the palm grove.
Even with all the men that Anderson could spare from the Yeoman, Hal had less than four hundred in his landing-force to match al-Auf’s horde. The enemy might well be more than the thousand, or two, Hal had estimated, but so far they had not opposed his landing. It seemed that the bombardment by the Seraph and the Minotaur had produced the desired effect of sending all the defenders into the shelter of the fort.
The last boatload of seamen came trotting up the beach, heavily laden with weapons, powder-flasks and water-bottles, for fighting in this heat would be a thirsty business. Hal watched the empty boats rowing back towards the Yeoman, which was hovering off-shore, not more than half a mile outside the reef, then followed the tail of the marching column up into the forest.
The order of march had been carefully planned. Big Daniel had command of the vanguard with scouts thrown out ahead to prevent them running into an ambush. There were musket men sent out as flankers on both sides of the column. Hal kept the command of the main body of men under his own hand.
It was less than three miles from the cove in which they had landed to the fort on the north end and Hal pushed them hard, keeping up a trot through the soft, sandy footing. They had not covered a mile before there was a volley of musket fire in the forest ahead, and wild cries and screams. Hal hurried forward, fearful that Big Daniel had run into a set ambush, and dreading what he would find. Nine dead Arabs were scattered on both sides of the wide path trampled by the advancing seamen, and the sounds of the fighting were dwindling among the trees as the remaining Arabs fled back towards the fort with Daniel’s seamen in furious pursuit. A single sailor sat with his back to the trunk of a palm tree, wrapping a strip of cloth around the musket-ball wound in his thigh. Hal detailed a man to help him back to the beach to be taken off by the Yeoman, then hurried on after Big Daniel. The guns still boomed and thundered from the far side of the island, and now they were close enough to the fort to see the clouds of gunsmoke billowing over the tops of the trees not far ahead.
‘Ned Tyler is keeping the sons of the Prophet from their prayers,’ Hal muttered, sweat pouring down his face into his beard and soaking his shirt as though he had stood under a waterfall.
For many minutes he had been aware of a foul stench, which was becoming insufferably strong in the humid heat of the forest. When they burst out into open ground, Hal stopped so suddenly that the men who followed him ran into his back. Even in his haste and urgency he was taken aback by the horrors of al-Auf’s execution ground. The sun-blackened corpses hanging on the tripods were grotesquely bloated with their own stomach gases and a few had burst open like overripe fruit. They were covered by a moving iridescent mat of blue flies.
Hal could not stop himself from searching the ranks of dead bodies for a smaller one with bright red hair, and felt a swoop of relief in the pit of his stomach when he did not find what he was looking for. He forced himself to go on between the hanging figures and to ignore the clouds of buzzing insects that rose thickly around him and brushed against his face.
Aboli and Tom were waiting for him in the trees on the far side of the clearing. ‘Can we go now?’ Tom shouted, from a distance of thirty paces. He, Aboli and the three men with them were all dressed in Arab robes and head-cloths. Hal saw that his son’s face was set with determination and impatience, and that his sabre was bared in his right hand. He felt another stab of regret that he had given in to Tom’s entreaties and had allowed him to go with Aboli. The one consideration that had influenced him was that Tom was the only man among the attackers who had been on the walls and knew where they could be scaled by a small party of determined men. Tom also knew the cell in which they were holding Dorian. Dressed as corsairs, they would try to reach Dorian and protect him from the fighting and slaughter that would follow the storming of the fort.
Hal grabbed Aboli’s arm and hissed, ‘Keep Tom under your eye. Don’t let him do anything stupid. Cover his back at every moment.’
Aboli looked back at Hal with smoky dark eyes and did not deign to answer. Hal went on, ‘Don’t let him begin the climb until we draw every man on top of the wall away to the east side.’
Aboli whispered back fiercely, ‘Do your work, Gundwane, and I will do mine.’
‘Go to it, then.’ Hal pushed him away lightly, and watched the small party, Tom and Aboli running shoulder to shoulder at its head, jog away, circling out through the forest to reach the far side of the fortress.
Hal looked back over his shoulder and saw that, even after the long, hard run through forest, the column of seamen was closing up behind him, with few stragglers. He led them on and found Big Daniel waiting at the edge of the trees.
Across a hundred and fifty paces of open ground the white walls of the fort stood fifty feet high. The arched gates were closed, heavy beams of mahogany reinforced by iron studs. There were no defenders in sight on the battlements. They must all be on the west wall facing the sea. As the last shots of the bombardment died away, Hal heard their thin, distant cheers as they saw off the squadron of attacking ships.
‘We have them at a disadvantage,’ Hal told Big Daniel, ‘but we must work quickly if we are to keep the element of surprise.’
Behind him the men of the column were still coming up, bowed under their loads. Sweating and panting they flopped down and raised their water-bottles, gulping down long draughts greedily. Hal strode among them, rallying them and sending them to take up their positions along the edge of the treeline.
‘Keep your heads down. Keep out of sight. See to your priming, but do not fire until I give the order!’
The teams carrying the five heavy powder-kegs had fallen back to the rear of the column, but at last they came staggering up with each of the fifty-pound kegs slung on a pole between two men. They stacked them under the palm trees and Hal and Daniel set to work to prepare the fuses.
Hal had cut slow-match as short as he dared, and this was always a delicate business, for no two pieces of match would burn at the same rate. They tapped each length of fuse with the handle of a knife to try to spread the fulminate evenly, then they threaded a fuse through the bung-hole of each cask. Every second was precious now and they could not spare time to make certain that each fuse was perfect. If one failed there were four others to set off the explosives.