Birds of Prey (2 page)

When the
Gull of Moray
was not cruising in the
guerre de course
, which was a euphemism for privateering, Angus Cochran, Earl of Cumbrae, rounded out his purse by trading for slaves
in the markets of Zanzibar. Once they had been shackled to the ringbolts in the deck of the long narrow slave hold, they could not be released until the ship docked at the end of her voyage in the
ports of the Orient. This meant that even those poor creatures who succumbed during the dreadful tropical passage of the Ocean of the Indies must lie rotting with the living in the confined spaces
of the ’tween decks. The effluvium of decaying corpses, mingled with the waste odour of the living, gave the slave ships a distinctive stench that identified them for many leagues down wind.
No amount of scouring with even the strongest lyes could ever rid a slaver of her characteristic smell.

As the
Gull
crossed upwind, there were howls of exaggerated disgust from the crew of the
Lady Edwina
. ‘By God, she stinks like a dung-heap.’

‘Did you not wipe your backsides, you poxy vermin? We can smell you from here!’ one yelled across at the pretty little frigate. The language bawled back from the
Gull
made Hal
grin. Of course, the human bowels held no mysteries for him, but he did not understand much of the rest of it, for he had never seen those parts of a woman to which the seamen in both ships
referred in such graphic detail, nor knew of the uses to which they could be put, but it excited his imagination to hear them so described. His amusement was enhanced when he imagined his
father’s fury at hearing it.

Sir Francis was a devout man who believed that the fortunes of war could be influenced by the god-fearing behaviour of every man aboard.

He forbade gambling, blasphemy and the drinking of strong spirits. He led prayers twice a day and exhorted his seamen to gentle and dignified behaviour when they put into port – although
Hal knew that this advice was seldom followed. Now Sir Francis frowned darkly as he listened to his men exchange insults with those of the Buzzard but, as he could not have half the ship’s
company flogged to signal his disapproval, he held his tongue until he was in easy hail of the frigate.

In the meantime he sent his servant to his cabin to fetch his cloak. What he had to say to the Buzzard was official and he should be in regalia. When the man returned, Sir Francis slipped the
magnificent velvet cloak over his shoulders before he lifted his speaking trumpet to his lips. ‘Good morrow, my lord!’

The Buzzard came to his rail and lifted one hand in salute. Above his plaid he wore half-armour, which gleamed in the fresh morning light, but his head was bare, his red hair and beard bushed
together like a haystack, the curls dancing on the wind as though his head was on fire. ‘Jesus love you, Franky!’ he bellowed back, his great voice easily transcending the wind.

‘Your station is on the eastern flank!’ The wind and his anger made Sir Francis short. ‘Why have you deserted it?’

The Buzzard spread his hands in an expressive gesture of apology. ‘I have little water and am completely out of patience. Sixty-five days are enough for me and my brave fellows. There are
slaves and gold for the taking along the Sofala coast.’ His accent was like a Scottish gale.

‘Your commission does not allow you to attack Portuguese shipping.’

‘Dutch, Portuguese or Spanish,’ Cumbrae shouted back. ‘Their gold shines as prettily. You know well that there is no peace beyond the Line.’

‘You are well named the Buzzard,’ Sir Francis roared in frustration, ‘for you have the same appetite as that carrion bird!’ Yet what Cumbrae had said was true. There was
no peace beyond the Line.

A century and a half ago, by Papal Bull
Inter Caetera
of 25 September 1493, the Line had been drawn down the mid-Atlantic, north to south, by Pope Alexander VI to divide the world between
Portugal and Spain. What hope was there that the excluded Christian nations, in their envy and resentment, would honour this declaration? Spontaneously, another doctrine was born: ‘No peace
beyond the Line!’ It became the watchword of the privateer and the corsair. And its meaning extended in their minds to encompass all the unexplored regions of the oceans.

Within the waters of the northern continent, acts of piracy, rapine and murder – whose perpetrator previously would have been hunted down by the combined navies of Christian Europe and
hanged from his own yard-arm – were condoned and even applauded when committed beyond the Line. Every embattled monarch signed Letters of Marque that, at a stroke, converted his merchantmen
into privateers, ships of war, and sent them out marauding on the newly discovered oceans of the expanding globe.

Sir Francis Courtney’s own letter had been signed by Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the Lord Chancellor of England, in the name of His Majesty King Charles II. It sanctioned him to hunt
down the ships of the Dutch Republic, with which England was at war.

‘Once you desert your station, you forfeit your rights to claim a share of any prize!’ Sir Francis called across the narrow strip of water between the ships, but the Buzzard turned
away to issue orders to his helmsman.

He shouted to his piper, who stood at the ready, ‘Give Sir Francis a tune to remember us by!’ The stirring strains of ‘Farewell to the Isles’ carried across the water to
the
Lady Edwina
, as the Buzzard’s topmast men clambered like monkeys high into the rigging, and loosed the reefs. The
Gull’s
top-hamper billowed out. The main sail filled
with a boom like the discharge of cannon, she heeled eagerly to the south-easter and pressed her shoulder into the next blue swell, bursting it asunder.

As the Buzzard pulled away rapidly he came back to the stern rail, and his voice lifted above the skirling of the pipes and the whimper of the wind. ‘May the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ
shield you, my revered brother Knight.’ But on the Buzzard’s lips it sounded like blasphemy.

With his cloak, which was quartered by the crimson
croix pattée
of the Order, billowing and flapping from his wide shoulders, Sir Francis watched him go.

Slowly the ironic cheering and heavy banter of the men died away. A sombre new mood began to infect the ship as the company realized that their forces, puny before, had been more than halved in
a single stroke. They had been left alone to meet the Dutchmen in whatever force they might appear. The seamen that crowded the
Lady Edwina’s
deck and rigging were silent now, unable
to meet each other’s eyes.

Then Sir Francis threw back his head and laughed. ‘All the more for us to share!’ he cried, and they laughed with him and cheered as he made his way to his cabin below the poop
deck.

For another hour Hal stayed at the masthead. He wondered how long the men’s buoyant mood could last, for they were down to a mug of water twice a day. Although the land and its sweet
rivers lay less than half a day’s sailing away, Sir Francis had not dared detach even one of the pinnaces to fill the casks. The Dutchmen might come at any hour, and when they did he would
need every man.

At last a man came aloft to relieve Hal at the lookout. ‘What is there to see, lad?’ he asked, as he slipped into the canvas crow’s nest beside Hal.

‘Precious little,’ Hal admitted, and pointed out the tiny sails of the two pinnaces on the distant horizon. ‘Neither carries any signals,’ Hal told him. ‘Watch for
the red flag – it’ll mean they have the chase in sight.’

The sailor grunted. ‘You’ll be teaching me to fart next.’ But he smiled at Hal in avuncular fashion – the boy was the ship’s favourite.

Hal grinned back at him. ‘God’s truth, but you need no teaching, Master Simon. I’ve heard you at the bucket in the heads. I’d rather face a Dutch broadside. You nigh
crack every timber in the hull.’

Simon let out an explosive guffaw, and punched Hal’s shoulder. ‘Down with you, lad, before I teach you to fly like an albatross.’

Hal began to scramble down the shrouds. At first he moved stiffly, his muscles cramped and chilled after the long vigil, but he soon warmed up and swung down lithely.

Some of the men on the deck paused at their labours on the pumps, or with palm and needle as they repaired wind-ripped canvas, and watched him. He was as robust and broad-shouldered as a lad
three years older, and long in limb – he already stood as tall as his father. Yet he still retained the fresh smooth skin, the unlined face and sunny expression of boyhood. His hair, tied
with a thong behind his head, spilled from under his cap and glistened blue-black in the early sunlight. At this age his beauty was still almost feminine, and after more than four months at sea
– six since they had laid eyes on a woman – some, whose fancy lay in that direction, watched him lasciviously.

Hal reached the main yard and left the security of the mast. He ran out along it, balancing with the ease of an acrobat forty feet above the curling rush of the bow wave and the planks of the
main deck. Now every eye was on him: it was a feat that few aboard would care to emulate.

‘For that you have to be young and stupid,’ Ned Tyler growled, but shook his head fondly as he leaned against the whipstaff and stared up. ‘Best the little fool does not let
his father catch him playing that trick.’

Hal reached the end of the yard and without pause swung out onto the brace and slid down it until he was ten feet above the deck. From there he dropped to land lightly on his hard bare feet,
flexing his knees to absorb the impact on the scrubbed white planks.

He bounced up, turned towards the stern – and froze at the sound of an inhuman cry. It was a primordial bellow, the menacing challenge of some great predatory animal.

Hal remained pinned to the spot for only an instant then instinctively spun away as a tall figure charged down upon him. He heard the fluting sound in the air before he saw the blade and ducked
under it. The silver steel flashed over his head and his attacker roared again, a screech of fury.

Hal had a glimpse of his adversary’s face, black and glistening, a cave of a mouth lined with huge square white teeth, the tongue as pink and curled as a leopard’s as he
screamed.

Hal danced and swayed as the silver blade came arcing back. He felt a tug at the sleeve of his jerkin as the sword point split the leather, and fell back.

‘Ned, a blade!’ he yelled wildly at the helmsman behind him, never taking his eyes off those of his assailant. The pupils were black and bright as obsidian, the iris opaque with
fury, the whites engorged with blood.

Hal leaped aside at the next wild charge, and felt on his cheek the draught of the blow. Behind him he heard the scrape of a cutlass drawn from the boatswain’s scabbard, and the weapon
slide across the deck towards him. He stooped smoothly and gathered it up, the hilt coming naturally to his hand, as he went into the guard stance and aimed the point at the eyes of his
attacker.

In the face of Hal’s menacing blade, the tall man checked his next rush and when, with his left hand, Hal drew from his belt his ten-inch dirk and offered that point also, the mad light in
his eyes turned cold and appraising. They circled each other on the open deck below the mainmast, their blades weaving, touching and tapping lightly, as each sought an opening.

The seamen on the deck left their tasks – even those on the handles of the pumps – and came running to form a ring around the swordsmen as though they watched a cockfight, their
faces alight with the prospect of seeing blood spurt. They growled and hooted at each thrust and parry, and urged on their favourites.

‘Hack out his big black balls, young Hal!’

‘Pluck the cockerel’s saucy tail feathers for him, Aboli.’

Aboli stood five inches taller than Hal, and there was no fat on his lean, supple frame. He was from the eastern coast of Africa, of a warrior tribe highly prized by the slavers. Every hair had
been carefully plucked from his pate, which gleamed like polished black marble, and his cheeks were adorned with ritual tattoos, whorls of raised cicatrices that gave him a terrifying appearance.
He moved with a peculiar grace, on those long muscular legs, swaying from the waist like some huge black cobra. He wore only a petticoat of tattered canvas, and his chest was bare. Each muscle in
his torso and upper arms seemed to have a life of its own, serpents slithering and coiling beneath the oiled skin.

He lunged suddenly, and with a desperate effort Hal turned the blade, but almost in the same instant Aboli reversed the blow, aiming once more at his head. There was such power in his stroke
that Hal knew he could not block it with cutlass alone. He threw up both blades, crossing them, and trapped the Negro’s high above his head. Steel rang and thrilled on steel, and the crowd
howled at the skill and grace of the parry.

But at the fury of the attack Hal gave a pace, and another then another as Aboli pressed him again and again, giving him no respite, using his greater height and superior strength to counter the
boy’s natural ability.

Hal’s face mirrored his desperation. He gave more readily now and his movements were uncoordinated: he was tired and fear dulled his responses. The cruel watchers turned against him,
yelling for blood, urging on his implacable opponent.

‘Mark his pretty face, Aboli!’

‘Give us a look at his guts!’

Sweat greased Hal’s cheeks and his expression crumpled as Aboli drove him back against the mast. He seemed much younger suddenly, and on the point of tears, his lips quivering with terror
and exhaustion. He was no longer counter-attacking. Now it was all defence. He was fighting for his life.

Relentlessly Aboli launched a fresh attack, swinging at Hal’s body, then changing the angle to cut at his legs. Hal was near the limit of his strength, only just managing to fend off each
blow.

Then Aboli changed his attack once more: he forced Hal to overreach by feinting low to the left hip, then shifted his weight and lunged with a long right arm. The shining blade flew straight
through Hal’s guard and the watchers roared as at last they had the blood they craved.