Hal lashed the sword hilt across his face and Grey stumbled but his big legs did not give way. He stood tall again, a bruise already blooming on his left cheek.
‘Where did they take Judith?’ Hal asked again.
This time Hal used his fist, hammering into Grey’s right temple.
Grey reeled and when he regained his balance his eyes were wide with fear.
‘You want to kill me, Hal, don’t you?’ he said. ‘Come, my boy, there must be some accommodation to be made.’
‘I will not ask again, sir,’ Hal said. ‘Tell me now what the Buzzard and his men have done with Judith.’
‘This is taking too long,’ Aboli said.
‘To hell with you, Courtney,’ Grey snarled, finding his courage at last. Or else perhaps he had given up any hope of surviving this night.
Hal raised the sword hilt to strike the man again.
‘Wait, Gundwane,’ Aboli said. Hal lowered the sword and looked at his companion. ‘I can make him tell you what you want to know.’
Hal hesitated, but Aboli pressed him. ‘Captain, we shall be here all night unless you let me persuade him to talk.’
Hal wanted nothing more than to thrust the point of the Neptune sword into the consul’s heart, but that would not save Judith and so he tried to smother the rage that burned inside him. ‘He’s all yours, Aboli.’
Aboli went over to the chair by the bed upon which the consul’s shirt and breeches lay neatly folded. He cut a strip from the shirt and forced it into Grey’s mouth, thrusting with his thumb until it was all in and the consul was retching. He pulled the chair into the middle of the room and sat the man in it before tearing more strips from the cotton bed sheets. These he rolled into thin ropes, using them to tie the consul’s legs to the chair’s legs. Hal knew what Aboli had in mind. He took Grey’s own belt and used it to bind his wrists together behind the chair’s back.
Grey stared at Hal with eyes that were swollen in their sockets. The whole left side of his face was turning the deep purple of port wine now and his fat legs were trembling against the seat of the chair.
Crouching behind the seated consul so that he was almost out of sight, Aboli went to work with his knife. Grey screamed but the sound was nothing but a strangled gurgle because of the gag filling his mouth, and Aboli grunted as he forced the blade to break through bone. When it was done, Aboli held up his hand and Hal saw the tip of one of the consul’s fat fingers nestled between the African’s index finger and thumb. Then Aboli stood and walked around the chair to show the consul the lump of his own fingernail, flesh and bone.
‘Tell the captain what he wishes to know, Mr Grey,’ Aboli said. ‘Or would you rather play at being dumb and blind? Maybe I should slice off your tongue and put out your eyes. Then you would not be playing.’
Grey nodded, frantically indicating that he would talk. Aboli placed the severed finger on the floor in plain sight then pulled the gag from Grey’s mouth. The consul looked on the verge of passing out. Hal took a jug of wine from the dresser and thrust it to his lips. Grey drank and spluttered and the wine poured down his hairy corpulent belly.
‘Where did the Buzzard take Judith?’ Hal asked and this time Grey nodded as though he wanted nothing more than to tell Hal everything.
‘The truth, Captain Courtney …’ Grey stared pointedly at the wine jug, seeking to numb the pain and so Hal poured another wash down his throat. ‘The truth,’ Grey went on, breathing heavily, ‘is that you will never see that black bitch again. Prince Jahan has her and will sell her at the monthly slave market, here in Zanzibar. That’s where all the prime bucks and prettiest fancies are auctioned.’ He glared at Hal, his face now pallid and slick with sweat and then said, ‘Once she’s been sold you’ll never find her. Buyers come from all over the Levant, North Africa and even the Indies, so she could end up any place from Constantinople to Calcutta. The next Courtney will be born and die a slave. And its mother will have the rest of her benighted life in which to rue the day she defied the will of Prince Jahan and the armies of the One True God.’
Suddenly Grey threw his weight back and the chair toppled before Hal or Aboli could make a grab for it. Chair and man thumped on the boards and Grey turned his face to the floor and started shouting for all his worth.
Then Hal heard a scurrying sound, a man’s shout of, ‘Oi!’ and the thump of a body landing on the wooden floor. He turned to see Stanley lying flat out on the floor and a flash of bare skin as Grey’s boy scampered out of the door, as fast as his legs would carry him.
‘I tried to catch the little bastard, but he was as slippery as a wet eel,’ Stanley said.
There was a muffled shout from somewhere. Orders were being given.
‘More of them are coming,’ Aboli said, his ear to the door.
‘Then it’s time we left,’ Hal said. He paused by the door, while Aboli and Stanley dashed out onto the colonnade.
Grey was still bound to the chair. Still crying into the boards and jerking like a caught fish to make as much noise as possible.
‘Tell Judith to have faith,’ Hal snarled at him. ‘For I will find her and set her free.’
He left the room and sprinted after the other two. There was a hubbub of voices coming from down in the courtyard and then a single voice shouting out in alarm. A few seconds later a shot was fired and there was a sudden burst of marble chips from one of the columns just ahead of Hal, followed by more shouts and the sound of running feet. He had almost caught up with Aboli and Stanley as they disappeared into the room through which they’d entered the building. Hal slammed the door behind him, whipped the dustsheet off a large chest of drawers and called out, ‘Quick! Help me block the door.’
With frantic haste the three men shoved the chest across the door and then ran to the window, closing it behind them as they went out onto the balcony. Hal looked across the gap between the buildings to see Daniel, evidently alerted by the commotion coming from Consul Grey’s house, standing by the edge of the far roof, with the rope already held tight and his legs and back braced to take the strain. ‘You first, Stanley,’ Hal commanded.
Within seconds the boatswain was on the rope and halfway across the gap.
There was a hammering from the colonnade as the pursuers tried to force their way into the room and then a sudden hail of wood fragments and shot against the windows as someone blew a hole in the door.
‘You next, Aboli,’ Hal said.
‘But Gundwane …’
‘Go! That’s an order. I still have these …’
Hal gestured at the pistols that were shoved into his sash. Reluctantly, Aboli nodded then grabbed the rope and began making his way across. Hal stood on the balcony with his back to the wall beside the window, watching Aboli’s progress in front of him while listening to the sound of their pursuers behind. He took hold of one of the pistols.
Aboli was most of the way across when Hal heard a splintering of wood followed by a shout of triumph. He counted to three and then spun round so that he was framed by the window, kicked it open and took aim with his pistol. His target was a man, clambering over the top of the chest, no more than ten or twelve feet away. Hal forced himself to stay completely calm amidst the mayhem, steadied his arm and then fired. The man screamed in pain and then flopped headfirst over the chest. Hal shoved the empty pistol back into his sash and grabbed the next one. This one he fired into the hole in the door through which he could see a press of jabbering, gesticulating men. He fired again and there was another howl that seemed to go on endlessly.
Wherever I hit him, it hurt, thought Hal, turning to the balustrade and grabbing the rope. He’d bought himself a few precious seconds while the consul’s men recovered from the loss of two of their number. But then came the voice of a man who evidently knew what he was doing, taking command and putting some fight back into his men, and Hal knew that his respite was over. He was hanging upside down, pulling himself along the line when he heard another splintering of wood and the first muske
t fire as they broke into the empty room. He leaned his head back and looked at the far wall. He was about two-thirds of the way across.
‘If you’d like to hurry it up, Captain,’ Big Daniel called out.
‘They’re on the roof now, sir!’ Will Stanley shouted. ‘By God they’ve got their dead mates’ guns!’
Hal heard firing, two shots, and felt the gust of disrupted air as a bullet missed him by an inch before slamming into the wall.
Then there was another shout of delight from the balcony and suddenly Hal was dropping and swinging and smashing against the wall.
They’ve cut the bloody rope!
He felt himself slide down the wall and knew that Daniel would be struggling to keep a hold of the rope now that he had to take all the strain. Then his downward motion suddenly stopped with a jerk.
‘Don’t you worry, Captain!’ Daniel called down. ‘We’ve got you. Just take your time.’
The hell I will! Hal thought and scurried up the rope with the speed of a man to whom climbing a rope was as natural as climbing the stairs. There were more shouts from down in the street, and more shots, but then he was tumbling over the parapet and onto the roof. ‘Well done, Danny,’ he said. ‘Damned well done.’
‘We’re not home and dry yet, Captain,’ Big Daniel said.
Hal grinned. ‘Let’s get to that boat, then.’ And with that they ran, heedless of stealth now but compelled by the need to get back to the Delft before Consul Grey roused the city garrison that was manned by Omani Arab soldiers. They fled west towards the sea, scrambling over tiled roofs and leaping across gaps, the shouts of their pursuers becoming fainter until at last, when they were sure they had slipped the noose, the four men descended a stone stairway down to a moonlit thoroughfare two streets back from the harbour front. They stood at the bottom of the steps, hands, on knees, heads bent over, their chests heaving.
And then they ran again.
They sprinted along the harbour front, the sea on their left white-flecked in the half-light, towards the landing steps where the longboat was waiting. But that meant they were running towards the fort that guarded the harbour and the garrison that was certainly mobilizing, the commander’s strings pulled by Consul Grey.
They were a cable’s length from the fort’s white walls when a great iron-studded door creaked open and a platoon of Omani soldiers rushed out, brandishing their weapons. Their officer spotted Hal and some of his men stopped to give fire, their long arms spitting gouts of flame into the night. Hal heard the balls ripping the air around them as he ducked his head and ran the harder.
‘Keep going!’ Hal called. ‘Don’t stop!’ So they ran straight at the mob of white-robed soldiers who were pouring out of the gates of the fort.
‘God and the king!’ Hal roared, his Neptune sword in his right hand, the flintlock in his left. ‘God and the king!’
And suddenly another dozen voices were heard as the crew of the longboat came racing up the steps from their mooring, bursting out onto the quayside and firing their pistols into the confused mass of garrison soldiers. This sudden, completely unexpected intervention threw the Arabs into disarray as the volley of pistol fire tore into them and those still on their feet turned to meet this unexpected threat.
‘God and the king and the Golden Bough!’ Big Daniel roared, leading the charge, taking a man’s head off his shoulders with a sweep of his cutlass. Then the other Bough’s men joined the fray, hacking and stabbing like furies.
‘The Bough!’ Hal bellowed, scything his sword at a soldier’s face. As the man before him fell he looked around. Now he saw that the advantage of surprise had been lost, sheer weight of numbers was telling against his men.
‘Looks like we’ve outstayed our welcome, lads,’ Hal yelled. ‘Man the longboats, Master Daniel!’
The ring and scrape of steel blades and the grunts and screams of men fighting for their lives filled the Zanzibar night. Hal saw one sailor he’d known all his life killed by a curved dagger which slashed open his throat and another clubbed to the ground with his skull staved in by the butt of a musket. He saw Will Stanley lop off an Arab’s arm and he saw Aboli killing three Arabs in the time it takes a school boy to count to that number.
But more Arabs were pouring out of the fort.
‘To the boats!’ Hal shouted above the din, and they ran.
Hal was climbing aboard the second boat when he heard the Omani officer shout the command to fire. There was a thunderous fusillade and the lad beside Hal was thrown forward into the water.
‘Get us out to the Delft, if you please, gentlemen,’ Hal called, his back straight and head up as musket and pistol balls whipped into the sea around them.
The enemy fire became more erratic and wild as the range opened, until they clambered on board the waiting Delft.
‘Take her out, Mr Tromp,’ Hal snapped as he clambered up through the larboard port. ‘Steer for the channel, if you please. At the earliest opportunity we shall let her run before the wind.’
‘The channel it is, sir,’ Tromp acknowledged, as he put the whipstaff over. The canvas crackled as loud as the distant gunfire on the walls of the fort as it filled to the stiff night breeze.
‘You know the ship best, Mr Tromp, so set the sails as you see fit. But fast, mind. We’d better not linger with those guns staring down at us.’
Tromp barked a series of commands and the Delft responded like a thoroughbred racehorse, thrilling to the beam reach on her larboard tack, her sails gleaming white against the night sky as she bore away.
She was flying now so the gunners on the fortress walls had to keep altering their aim and elevation of their guns, by which time the Delft was out of range and turning her bows to the south to run downwind.
‘Nicely done, Mr Tromp,’ said Hal, as they left the island of Zanzibar behind them. ‘Now take us back to the Bough. If you please.’
he storm came out of the north-east, from India and the high Himalayas, like the vengeance of God. Young Sam Awdy up in the mizzen was the first to see it coming. He had yelled down to the quarterdeck that the sky three leagues off the Golden Bough’s stern was changing. A great towering shelf of cloud darkened the sky and no sooner had Hal turned his telescope on the ominous mass than the ocean below it began to seethe, white spume whipping off the racing furrows.
‘There’s no outrunning her, Mr Tyler,’ Hal called, then looked at Tromp. ‘Better to reef too early than reef too late, eh, Mr Tromp?’
The Dutchman smiled to hear this age-old sailors’ wisdom. ‘Reef too late and you never reef again, Captain,’ he agreed.
‘Let’s not give her too much canvas to play with, Mr Tyler!’ Hal said. ‘Bring the bows around and we shall introduce ourselves like proper gentlemen.’
Mr Tyler gave the order and men scrambled up the shrouds and along the yards to put some reefs in the sails as the helmsman leant against the whipstaff to bring the Bough round to face what was coming.
Hal went back to the stern rail to face the colossal mass of cloud and rain sweeping across the sky and was relieved to see that John Lovell, following in line astern, was also taking canvas off the Delft, and was bringing her into the wind, matching the Bough’s movements like a dancer with her partner.
Now Hal turned back to his own ship. ‘Mr Stanley, secure the hatches. Master Daniel, kindly ensure all the guns are lashed down nice and tight.’ The last thing they needed was a culverin rolling around the gundeck, crushing men or punching a hole through the hull.
‘She’s coming for us, lads!’ Hal called. ‘And she’s got teeth by the looks of her.’
Hal looked over his ship. To an untrained eye it was a scene of chaos, but to a seaman it was a beautiful sight, as the crew rushed to their stations and went about their work, every man, be he an Amadoda tribesman, a Limburger from southern Holland or a Devonshire man, tending to the needs of the ship, giving himself, his crewmates and the Golden Bough the best chance of coming through this test unbeaten.
‘
Captain, do you suppose this is judgement?’ Robert Moone asked. ‘That we are facing the final summons for what we’ve got down there.’ He gestured towards the main deck but Hal knew he was talking about what lay in the hold beneath it, where the barrels of bogus bones and pieces of the True Cross, the scraps of saints’ skin and an assortment of Holy Grails now sat.
‘If we are to be judged, Mr Moone, it will not be for the cargo in our hold but for the intent in our hearts. For our actions.’
Moone frowned. ‘If you say so, Captain.’
‘Have we not once already rescued the one true Cup of Christ from the infidel, Mr Moone?’ Hal asked. ‘Our cargo is a means to an end, nothing more.’
He had not liked bringing the Delft’s strange cargo aboard the Golden Bough and truth be told he’d been uncomfortable ever since, knowing it was down there in his hold. But the last thing he needed was a crew fearing divine judgement. Sailors were superstitious enough as it was without them believing they had invited their own doom by seeking to profit from the sale of false relics. Hal switched his full attention to the storm swooping towards them.
‘Well, Mr Moone, have you no work to do?’ Hal asked, and the man begged his pardon and went to make sure the longboats were secure.
There was no time for the crew to go below and put on their tar-daubed canvas jackets. Not that any sailor worth his salt would be thinking about his own comfort now, for they all knew that a squall moving as fast as this one could be a ship-killer. The mass of cloud roiled threateningly, spreading across the heavens, tumbling towards them like an avalanche.
‘Hurry it up, Mr Tyler, if you please.’ Hal felt the nerves in his stomach tightening. ‘No dawdling now. We don’t have long.’
Hal turned away and looked back at the sky. ‘I’m ready for you,’ he challenged it.
Then his eyes switched to the top of the mainmast, and he yelled, ‘Get down, Awdy!’ The lad was still clinging to the crow’s nest. ‘Damn the bone-headed fool!’ Being up there in a battle was the safest place to be. In a storm such as this it was suicide.