by Wilbur Smith
Tom went to find Anderson, and found him supervising the final loading of the heavy cargo they had captured. This was mostly spices and cloth, including magnificent silks from China.
‘Captain Anderson, I have discussed with my father the question of the Arab prisoners.’
‘I hope he does not think of releasing them. They are pirates, plain and simple. They have murdered hundreds of honest seamen.’
‘We could never countenance releasing them,’ Tom agreed. ‘Apart from any other consideration, it would set a dangerous precedent. We cannot let loose such a pack of tiger sharks to prey upon the sea lanes.’
‘I am pleased to hear that,’ Anderson grunted. ‘The rope’s end should be their final destination.’
‘By the last count we have five hundred and thirty-five of them. That’s a great deal of rope, Captain Anderson, and I doubt we have enough yard-arms on which to hang all of them out to dry.’
Anderson sucked his pipe as he thought about the logistical problems of executing so many men.
‘On the other hand, they would be worth at least thirty pounds a head on the slave block, perhaps more,’ Tom pointed out.
Anderson stared at him, his blue eyes popping. He had not thought of that. ‘God’s blood, they deserve it. But you cannot sell them in Zanzibar,’ he said at last. ‘The Sultan would never let you put Mussulmen up for sale in his markets. We would have another war on our hands.’
‘The Dutch have no such qualms,’ Tom said. ‘They are always on the lookout for slaves to work their cinnamon plantations in Ceylon.’
‘You are right.’ Anderson chuckled with delight. ‘It’s a round voyage of five thousand miles to Ceylon and back again, but the winds are fair and at thirty pounds a head it will be well worth the detour.’ He did a quick mental calculation. ‘Sweet heavens, that’s within spitting distance of sixteen thousand pounds.’ He was silent again as he worked out his own share of that amount, then grinned. ‘Al-Auf had sufficient slave chains stored in the fort to accommodate all his own men quite handsomely. That has a fine touch of justice to it.’
‘According to Dr Reynolds, my father will not be well enough to sail for at least two months. I propose that you should load the captives on board the Yeoman and convey them to Colombo. When you have sold them to the VOC governor there, you will rejoin us here. In the meantime I will send the captured dhow south to summon the Lamb from where she is lying in the Gloriettas. We will make the return voyage to England in convoy. With fair winds and God’s grace, we can drop anchor in Plymouth Ho before Christmas.’
The following day they loaded the Arabs on board the Yeoman. The blacksmiths from all the ships were needed for the work of riveting the leg irons on to the ankles of the long ranks of men. They were chained in batches of ten, then led down to the beach.
Tom was with Reynolds in the thatched hospital they had set up under the palm trees. He was visiting the wounded sailors lying there, hoping to give them a little cheer and encouragement. Two had already died when their wounds mortified and turned into the dreaded gas gangrene, but four had recovered sufficiently to return to their duties on board ship, and Reynolds was optimistic that the others would soon follow them.
Tom left the hospital and paused to watch the batches of prisoners shuffling past on their way to the waiting longboats. He felt a certain squeamishness at the thought that he was sending these men into a life of captivity. The Dutch were not famous as the gentlest of gaolers: he remembered the tales his father, Big Daniel and Aboli had told of their own experiences in the fort at Good Hope under their Dutch captors. Then he consoled himself that the decision had not been his alone: his father had concurred and signed the warrant for their transportation, under the powers granted him by the royal commission, while Captain Anderson had been positively delighted with the prospect of turning a fat profit on their sale. They were blood-smeared pirates, after all. When he thought of little Dorian, condemned to the same fate, any pity he had felt for the prisoners withered.
Anyway, he had argued with his elders and convinced both his father and Anderson to exempt the women and children of the garrison from the sentence of transportation into slavery. There were fifty-seven of these unfortunates, some of them infants only months old. Many of the women were heavily and obviously pregnant. Touchingly, five had elected to follow their husbands into captivity rather than suffer separation. The others would be kept here on Flor de la Mar until suitable transport to Zanzibar could be arranged for them.
He was about to turn away when the familiar face and silver beard of Ben Abram among the prisoners caught his eye. ‘Bring that man to me,’ he called to the guards, who pulled him out of the ranks and dragged him to where Tom stood.
‘A pox on you,’ Tom reprimanded them. ‘He is an old man. Treat him gently.’ Then he spoke to Ben Abram. ‘How is it that a man like you was with al-Auf?’
Ben Abram shrugged. ‘There are sick to be tended everywhere, even among the outlaws. I never ask of a man’s good deeds or of his crimes when he comes to me to be healed.’
‘So, you treated the ferenghi prisoners of al-Auf as well as the true believers?’ Tom asked.
‘Of course. That is the will of Allah, the Compassionate.’
‘You cared for my brother? You gave him comfort?’
‘He is a winsome boy, your brother. I did what I could for him,’ Ben Abram said. ‘But Allah knows, it was not as much as I would have wished.’
Tom hesitated slightly before he countermanded his father’s orders, but then he reached a decision. ‘You have earned your freedom for that. I will send you back to Zanzibar with the women and children.’ He turned to the guards. ‘Have this man’s chains struck off, then bring him back to me. He is not to be transported to Ceylon with the rest of these blackguards.’ When Ben Abram returned, free of his chains, Tom sent him to help the surgeon’s mates in the makeshift thatched-roof hospital.
Laden with her human cargo, the Yeoman sailed with the following dawn, and Tom watched her from the beach until she disappeared below the eastern horizon. He knew that Anderson was optimistic in thinking he could make the long voyage across the Indian Ocean to Ceylon and return to Flor de la Mar within two months. ‘The longer he takes, the more time for Father to grow strong again,’ Tom whispered, as he closed the telescope and called for the longboat.
As soon as Tom entered the stern cabin he realized that his father was worse than when he had left him only hours before.
There was the sour smell of sickness in the cabin and Hal was flushed, restless. Once again he had relapsed into delirium. ‘There are rats crawling on my body. Black rats, hairy—’ He broke off and screamed, and struck out at things Tom could not see. In a panic Tom sent the longboat back to the island to fetch Dr Reynolds.
Tom bent over Hal and touched his face. The skin was so hot that he jerked away his hand in surprise. Aboli brought a bowl of cool water and they stripped back the sheets from Hal’s emaciated body, from which the fever had burned the flesh. As they exposed the stumps of his legs the stench of corruption rose in a thick cloud, strong enough to make Tom gag. ‘Tell the doctor to hurry!’ he bellowed and heard his order relayed to the approaching longboat. Aboli and Tom bathed the fever-hot body and laid wet cloths over Hal’s trunk to try to reduce his temperature. Tom was relieved when at last Reynolds came down the passage and hurried to Hal’s side. He unwound the bandages. Immediately the stink in the small hot cabin was stronger.
Tom stood behind him and peered in horror at the stumps of his father’s legs. They were swollen purple red, and the stitches of black cat-gut were almost hidden in the puffy flesh.
‘Ah!’ Reynolds murmured, and leaned forward to sniff the wounds like a connoisseur nosing a fine claret. ‘They have ripened very prettily. At last I can pluck the sutures.’
He rolled up his sleeves, and called for the pewter bowl. ‘Hold it like that under the stump,’ he told Tom.
‘Hold him down!’ he ordered Aboli, who leaned
over Hal and took his shoulders gently in his huge hands.
Reynolds took a firm hold of the end of one of the strings of cat-gut that hung out between the pursed crimson lips of the wound, and tugged at it. Hal stiffened and screamed, and the sweat burst out across his forehead in a white rash. The black string came free and slithered out of the wound, followed by a gush of greenish yellow pus, which dripped thick as cream into the pewter bowl. Hal dropped back on the pillows in a dead faint.
Reynolds took the bowl from Tom and sniffed the vile effluent again. ‘Lovely! It’s benign, not a taint of gas gangrene to it.’
While Tom knelt at his side, he plucked out the other sutures one at a time from the inflamed, swollen flesh. Each had a tiny piece of yellow detritus, the remains of the decayed blood vessel, caught in the knot at the end. He dropped them into the bowl. When he had finished he rebandaged the stumps with fresh white cotton strips.
‘Should we not wash the legs first?’ Tom asked diffidently.
Reynolds shook his head firmly. ‘We will let them heal in the pus. It is safer to let nature take its own course without interference,’ he said, sternly. ‘Your father’s chances of survival are now very much improved, and within another few days I will be able to remove the main stitches that are holding the flaps of the stumps.’
That night his father rested much easier, and by the morning the heat and inflammation of his wounds had abated considerably.
Three days later Reynolds removed the remaining stitches. He snipped the black threads with a pair of scissors and used ivory tweezers to pull the last remaining pieces of cat-gut from the tormented flesh.
Within days thereafter Hal was able to sit up with pillows propped behind his back, and to take a keen, intelligent interest in the reports Tom gave him of events.
‘I have sent the captured dhow south to the Gloriettas to fetch the Lamb. She should rejoin the squadron within two weeks at the latest,’ Tom told him.
‘I shall be relieved when we have her and that fat cargo of tea once more under our guns,’ Hal said. ‘She’s very vulnerable lying down there unprotected.’
Tom’s estimate was accurate, and it was exactly fourteen days later that the two vessels, the small dhow and the matronly Lamb, sailed through the pass in the reef and dropped anchor once more in the lagoon of Flor de la Mar.
Tom had Mustapha, the captain of the dhow, and his terrified crew brought down from the cells in the fort where they had been imprisoned since their capture by the Minotaur. When they were paraded before him, they fell on their knees before him in the white beach sand, fully believing that the hour of their execution had come at last.
‘I do not believe you are guilty of piracy,’ Tom said, to calm their fears.
‘As Allah is my witness, what you say is the truth, exalted one,’ Mustapha agreed fervently, and touched the sand with his forehead. When he looked up again his forehead was dusted with the white grains like a sugared bun.
‘I am setting you free,’ Tom reassured him, ‘but I make only one condition. You must take certain passengers back with you to the port of Zanzibar. The chief of these is, like you, an honest man and a son of the Prophet. There are also the women and children who were with al-Auf when we captured the island.’
‘The blessings of Allah upon you, wise and compassionate one!’ Mustapha genuflected again and tears of joy streamed down into his beard.
‘However,’ Tom cut short this show of gratitude, ‘there is no doubt in my mind that you came here to trade with al-Auf, and that you knew full well that the goods he offered were the plunder of a pirate and that they were besmirched with the blood of innocent men.’
‘I call on God to witness that I did not know,’ Mustapha cried passionately.
Tom cocked his head on one side and looked heavenwards for a minute. Then he said drily, ‘God does not seem to answer your call. Therefore, I will fine you the amount of sixty-five thousand gold dinars, which is, by a remarkable coincidence, exactly the sum we found in your chest when we searched your ship.’
Mustapha wailed with horror at such terrible injustice, but Tom turned away and told the guards, ‘Release them. Give them back the dhow and let them go. They will take all the women and children. The Arab physician, Ben Abram, will go with them too, but send him to me before he goes aboard the dhow.’
When Ben Abram came, Tom led him away to the end of the long white beach so that they could make their farewells in privacy. ‘Mustapha, the owner of the dhow, has agreed to take you to Zanzibar when he sails.’ Tom gestured across the water of the lagoon to where the small ship lay at anchor. ‘He is taking the women and children from the garrison on board now.’
They watched the refugees being ferried aboard, clutching their infants and pathetic bundles of their possessions.
Ben Abram nodded gravely. ‘I offer you my thanks, but Allah will write your true reward against your name. You are young, but you will grow up to be a man of power. I have seen you fight. Any man who can overcome al-Auf in single combat is a warrior indeed.’ He nodded again as he considered that feat of arms. ‘The manner in which you have treated those weaker than yourself, the widows and orphans, shows that you temper your strength with compassion, and that will make you great.’
‘You are also a man of great heart,’ Tom told him. ‘I have watched you work with the sick and wounded, even those who do not follow the teachings of your Prophet.’
‘God is great,’ Ben Abram intoned. ‘In his sight we are all worthy of mercy.’
‘Even the young children.’
‘Especially the young children,’ Ben Abram agreed.
‘That is why, old father, you are going to tell me those things concerning my brother that so far you have kept from me.’
Ben Abram came up short and stared at Tom, but Tom returned his gaze steadily and Ben Abram dropped his eyes.
‘You know the name of the man who bought my brother from al-Auf,’ Tom insisted. ‘You know his name.’
Ben Abram stroked his beard and looked out to sea. Then, at last, he sighed. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘I know his name, but he is a mighty man, of royal blood. I cannot betray him. That is why I have concealed his name from you, even though I have sympathy for your loss.’
Tom was silent, allowing the old man to wrestle with his conscience and his sense of duty. Then Ben Abram said, ‘You already know the man’s name.’ Tom stared at him, puzzled. ‘You captured one of his dhows,’ Ben Abram prompted him.
Tom’s expression cleared. ‘Al-Malik!’ he exclaimed. ‘Prince Abd Muhammad al-Malik?’
‘I did not say the name,’ said Ben Abram. ‘I did not betray my prince.’
‘So the lakh of rupees that was on board the dhow of al-Malik was indeed the payment for my brother, as we suspected?’ Tom asked.
‘I cannot say if that is true.’ Ben Abram ruffled his silver beard. ‘But neither can I say that it is false.’
‘Both my father and I believed that was so, but I could not understand how Dorry could be gone from Flor de la Mar before the payment arrived on the island. I cannot believe that al-Auf would trust anyone with such a valuable slave as Dorry without receiving full payment first.’
The old man replied, ‘The Prince is the most powerful man in Araby, save only for his elder brother, the Caliph himself. Al-Malik cannot count his ships and his gold, his warriors and his camels, his slaves and his wives. His fame spreads from the mighty River Nile and the deserts of the north, east to the kingdom of the Great Mogul, west to the forbidden forests of Africa, and south to the land of the Monamatapa.’
‘You are saying that al-Auf trusted him with the debt of a lakh of rupees?’ Tom demanded.
‘I am saying that al-Auf trusted no living man, but Prince Abd Muhammad al-Malik.’
‘When you leave here, Ben Abram, will you return to Lamu, where al-Malik is the governor?’
‘I will return to Lamu,’ the old man agreed.
‘Perchance you will see my brother again?
’
‘That is in the hands of God.’
‘If God is kind, will you give a message to my brother?’
‘Your brother is a boy of great beauty and courage.’ Ben Abram smiled at the memory. ‘I called him my little red lion cub. Because of the kindness you have shown me, and because of the affection I have for the child, I will carry your message to him.’
‘Tell my brother that I will be true to the dreadful oath I swore to him. I will never forget that oath, not even on the day of my death.’
Dorian sat on a mattress on the stone floor. The only air in his cell came through the narrow loophole opposite him. It was a faint eddy of the monsoon that reached him, and kept the heat bearable. When he listened he could hear the sounds of prisoners in the other cells along the passage, their muttering broken at intervals by outbursts of abusive shouting at their Arab guards and bitter argument among themselves. They were like dogs confined in cages too small for their numbers, and in the oppressive heat these naturally aggressive, violent sailors became murderous. Only yesterday he had heard the sounds of a terrible conflict, and of a man being strangled to death in the next cell while his mates cheered on the murder. Dorian shuddered now, and reapplied himself to the task he had chosen to while away the monotony of his captivity. He was using a link of his leg-irons to scratch his name into the wall. Many others who had been confined in this cell had left their marks carved into the soft coral blocks. ‘Perhaps one day Tom will find my name here and know what happened to me,’ he told himself, as he rubbed away at the stone.
His captors had put the chains on him only the previous morning. At first they had left him unfettered, then yesterday they had caught him trying to wriggle out through the narrow loophole in the far wall. Dorian had not been daunted by the thirty-foot drop below the opening, and he had succeeded in forcing the top half of his small body through it before there had been cries of alarm behind him, his gaolers had seized his ankles and dragged him back into the cell.