Birds of Prey (11 page)

F
or the first time in his life aboard ship, Hal had a cabin of his own. He need no longer share every sleeping and waking moment of his life
crammed in enforced intimacy with a horde of other humanity.

The galleon was spacious by comparison with the little caravel, and his father had found a place for him alongside his own magnificent quarters. It had been the cupboard of the Dutch
captain’s servant, and was a mere cubby-hole. ‘You need a lighted place to continue your studies,’ Sir Francis had justified this indulgence. ‘You waste many hours each
night sleeping when you could be working.’ He ordered the ship’s carpenter to knock together a bunk and a shelf on which Hal could lay out his books and papers.

An oil lamp swung above his head, blackening the deck overhead with its soot, but giving Hal just enough light to make out his lines and allow him to write the lessons his father set him. His
eyes burned with fatigue and he had to stifle his yawns as he dipped his quill and peered at the sheet of parchment onto which he was copying the extract from the Dutch captain’s sailing
directions that his father had captured. Every navigator had his own personal manual of sailing directions, a priceless journal in which he kept details of oceans and seas, currents and coasts,
landfalls and harbours; tables of the compass’s changeable and mysterious deviations as a ship voyaged in foreign waters, and charts of the night sky, which altered with the latitudes. This
was knowledge that each navigator painstakingly accumulated over his lifetime, from his own observations or gleaned from the experience and anecdotes of others. His father would expect him to
complete this work before his watch at the masthead, which began at four in the morning.

A faint noise from behind the bulkhead distracted him, and he looked up with the quill still in his hand. It was a footfall so soft as to be almost inaudible and came from the luxurious quarters
of the Governor’s wife. He listened with every fibre of his being, trying to interpret each sound that reached him. His heart told him that it was the lovely Katinka, but he could not be
certain of that. It might be her ugly old maid, or even the grotesque husband. He felt deprived and cheated at the thought.

However, he convinced himself that it was Katinka and her nearness thrilled him, even though the planking of the bulkhead separated them. He yearned so desperately for her that he could not
concentrate on his task or even remain seated.

He stood, forced to stoop by the low deck above his head, and moved silently to the bulkhead. He leaned against it and listened. He heard a light scraping, the sound of a something being dragged
across the deck, the rustle of cloth, some further sounds that he could not place, and then the purling sound of liquid flowing into a basin or bowl. With his ear against the panel, he visualized
every movement beyond. He heard her dip water with her cupped hands and dash it into her face, heard her small gasps as the cold struck her cheeks, and then the drops splash back into the
basin.

He looked down and saw that a faint ray of candlelight was shining through a crack in the panelling, a narrow sliver of yellow light that wavered in rhythm to the ship’s motion. Without
regard to the consequence of what he was doing, he sank to his knees and placed his eye to the crack. He could see little, for it was narrow, and the soft light of the candle was directly in his
eye.

Then something passed between him and the candle, a swirl of silks and lace. He stared then gasped as he caught the pearly gleam of flawless white skin. It was merely a flash, so swift that he
barely had time to make out the line of a naked back, luminous as mother-of-pearl in the yellow light.

He pressed his face closer to the panel, desperate for another glimpse of such beauty. He fancied that over the normal sound of the ship’s timbers working in the seaway he could hear soft
breathing, light as the whisper of a tropic zephyr. He held his own breath to listen until his lungs burned, and he felt light-headed with awe.

At that moment the candle in the other cabin was whisked away, the ray of light through the crack sped across his straining eye and was gone. He heard soft footfalls move away, and darkness and
silence fell beyond the panelling.

He stayed kneeling for a long while, like a worshipper at a shrine, and then rose slowly and seated himself once more at his work shelf. He tried to force his tired brain to attend to the task
his father had set him, but it kept breaking away like an unruly colt from the trainer’s noose. The letters on the page before him dissolved in images of alabaster skin and golden hair. In
his nostrils was a memory of that tantalizing odour he had smelt when first he burst into her cabin. He covered his eyes with one hand in an attempt to prevent the visions invading his aching
brain.

It was to no avail: his mind was beyond his control. He reached for his Bible, which lay beside his journal, and opened the leather cover. Between the pages was a fine gold filigree, that single
strand of hair that he had stolen from her comb.

He touched it to his lips, then gave a low moan: he fancied he could still detect a trace of her perfume on it, and he closed his eyes tightly.

It was some time before he became aware of the actions of his treacherous right hand. Like a thief it had crept under the skirts of the loose canvas petticoat that was his only garment in the
hot, stuffy little cubby-hole. By the time he realized what he was doing it was too late to stop himself. He surrendered helplessly to the pumping and tugging of his own fingers. The sweat ran from
his every pore and slicked down his hard young muscles. The rod he held between his fingers was hard as bone and endowed with a throbbing life of its own.

The scent of her filled his head. His hand beat fast but not as fast as his heart. He knew this was sin and folly. His father had warned him, but he could not stop. He writhed on his stool. He
felt the ocean of his love for her pressing against the dyke of his restraint, like a high and irresistible tide. He gave a small cry and the tide burst from him. He felt the warm flood of it spray
down his rigid straining thighs, heard it splatter the deck, and then its musky odour drove the sacred perfume of her hair from his nostrils.

He sat, sweating and panting softly, and let the waves of guilt and self-disgust overwhelm him. He had betrayed his father’s trust, the promise he had made him, and with his profane lust,
he had besmirched the pure and lovely image of a saint.

He could not remain in his cabin a moment longer. He flung on his canvas sea-jacket and fled up the ladder to the deck. He stood for a while at the rail breathing deeply. The raw salt air
cleansed his guilt and self-disgust. He felt steadier, and looked about him to take stock of his surroundings.

The ship was still on the larboard tack, with the wind abeam. Her masts swung back and forth across the brilliant canopy of stars. He could just make out the lowering mass of the land down to
leeward. The Great Bear stood a finger’s breadth above the dark silhouette of the land. It was a nostalgic reminder of the land of his birth, and the childhood he had left behind.

To the south the sky was dazzling with the constellation of Centaurus standing above his right shoulder, and the mighty Southern Cross, burning in its heart. This was the symbol of this new
world beyond the Line.

He looked to the helm and saw his father’s pipe glow in a sheltered corner of the quarterdeck. He did not want to face him now, for he was certain that his guilt and depravity would still
be so engraved on his features that his father would recognize it even in the gloom. Yet he knew that his father had seen him, and would count it as odd if he did not pay him respect. He went to
him quickly. ‘Your indulgence, please, Father. I came up for a breath of air to clear my head,’ he mumbled, not able to meet Sir Francis’s eyes.

‘Don’t idle up here too long,’ his father cautioned him. ‘I will want to see your task completed before you take your watch at the masthead.’

Hal hurried forward. This expansive deck was still unfamiliar. Much of the cargo and goods from the caravel could not fit into the galleon’s already crammed holds and was lashed down on
the deck. He picked his way among the casks and chests, and bronze culverins.

Hal was still so deep in remorse and guilt that he was aware of little around him, until he heard a soft, conspiratorial whispering near at hand. His wits returned to him with a rush, and he
looked towards the bows.

A small group of figures was hiding in the shadows cast by the cargo stacked under the rise of the forecastle. Their furtive movements alerted him to something out of the ordinary.

A
fter their trial by their peers, Sam Bowles and his men had been frogmarched down into the galleon’s lower decks and thrown into a small
compartment, which must have been the carpenter’s store. There was no light and little air. The reek of pepper and bilges was stifling, and the space so confined that all five could not
stretch out at the same time on the deck. They settled themselves as best they could into this hellhole, and lapsed into a forlorn, despairing silence.

‘Whereabouts are we? Below the waterline, do you think?’ Ed Broom asked miserably.

‘None of us knows his way about this Dutch hulk,’ Sam Bowles muttered.

‘Do you reckon they’re going to murder us?’ Peter Law asked.

‘You can be sure they ain’t about to give us a hug and a kiss,’ Sam grunted.

‘Keel-hauling,’ Ed whispered. ‘I seen it done once. When they’d dragged the poor bastard under the ship and got him out t’other side he was drowned dead as a rat in
a beer barrel. There weren’t much meat on his carcass – it were all scraped off by the barnacles under the hull. You could see his bones sticking out all white, like.’

They thought about that for a while. Then Peter Law said, ‘I saw ’em hang and draw the regicides at Tyburn back in ’fifty-nine. Them as murdered King Charlie, the Black
Boy’s father. They opened they bellies like fish, then they stuck in an iron hook and twisted it until they had caught up all they guts, and they pulled their intestines out of them like
ropes. After that they hacked off their cocks and their balls—’

‘Shut your mouth!’ Sam snarled, and they lapsed into abject silence in the darkness.

An hour later Ed Broom murmured, ‘There’s air coming in here some place. I can feel it on my neck.’

After a moment Peter Law said, ‘He’s right, you know. I can feel it too.’

‘What’s behind this bulkhead?’

‘Ain’t nobody knows. Maybe the main cargo hold.’

There was a scrabbling sound, and Sam demanded, ‘What you doing?’

‘There’s a gap in the planking here. That’s where the air’s coming in.’

‘Let me see.’ Sam crawled across and, after a few moments, agreed. ‘You’re right. I can get my fingers through the hole.’

‘If we could open her up.’

‘If Big Daniel catches you at it, you’re in bad trouble.’

‘What’s he going to do? Draw and quarter us? He aims to do that already.’

Sam worked in the darkness for a while and then growled, ‘If I had something to prise this planking open.’

‘I’m sitting on some loose timber.’

‘Let’s have a piece of it here.’

They were all working together now, and at last they forced the end of a sturdy wooden strut through the gap in the bulkhead. Using it as a lever they threw their weight on it together. The wood
tore with a crack and Sam thrust his arm into the opening. ‘There’s open space beyond. Could be a way out.’

They all pushed forward for a chance to tear at the edges of the opening, ripping out their fingernails and driving splinters into the palms of their hands in their haste.

‘Back! Get back!’ Sam told them, and wriggled headfirst into the opening. As soon as they heard him crawling away on the far side they scrambled through after him.

Groping his way forward Sam choked as the fiery reek of pepper burned his throat. They were in the hold that contained the spice casks. There was a little more light in here: it came in through
the gaps where the hatch coaming had not been secured.

They could hardly make out the huge casks, each taller than a man, stacked in ranks, and there was no room to crawl over the top, for the deck was too low. However, they could just squeeze
between them, but it was a hazardous passage.

The heavy casks shifted slightly with the action of the ship. They scraped and thumped on the timbers of the deck and fretted against the ropes that restrained them. A man would be crushed like
a cockroach if he were caught between them.

Sam Bowles was the smallest. He crawled ahead and the others followed. Suddenly a piercing scream rang through the hold and froze them all.

‘Quiet, you stupid bastard!’ Sam turned back in fury. ‘You’ll have ’em down on us.’

‘My arm!’ screamed Peter Law. ‘Get it off me.’

One of the huge casks had lifted with the roll of the hull and then come down again, its full weight trapping the man’s arm against the deck. It was still sliding and pounding down on his
limb, and they could hear the bones in his forearm and elbow crushing like dry wheat between millstones. He was screeching in hysteria and there was no quieting him: pain had driven him beyond all
reasoning.

Sam crawled back and reached his side. ‘Shut your mouth!’ He grabbed Peter’s shoulder and heaved, trying to drag him clear. But the arm was jammed, and Peter screamed all the
louder.

‘Ain’t nothing for it,’ Sam growled, and from around his waist he pulled the length of rope that served him as a belt. He dropped a loop over the other man’s head and
drew the noose tight round his throat. He leaned back on it, anchoring both feet between his victim’s shoulder blades, and pulled with all his strength. Abruptly Peter’s wild screams
were cut off. Sam kept the noose tight for some time after the struggles had ceased, then freed it and retied it about his waist. ‘I had to do it,’ he muttered to the others.
‘Better one man dead than all of us.’

No one spoke, but they followed Sam as he crawled forward, leaving the strangled corpse to be crushed to mincemeat by the shifting casks.