Birds of Prey (23 page)

Hal saw one of their culverin struck squarely by a lead ball. The tackle snapped and it was hurled backwards off its train, so that its muzzle pointed to the stars.

The cries of the wounded and dying swelled in the pandemonium of despair as men deserted their posts and fled among the trees. The desultory return fire from the gunpits shrivelled until there
was only an occasional bang and flash of cannon. Once the battery was silenced, the Buzzard turned his guns on the remaining huts and the clumps of bush in which the
Resolution’s
crew
had taken shelter.

Hal could hear the crew of the
Gull
cheering wildly as they reloaded and fired. ‘The
Gull
and Cumbrae!’ they shouted.

There were no more broadsides, but a continuous stuttering roll of thunder as each gun fired as soon as it was ready. Their muzzle flashes flickered and flared within the sulphurous white smoke
bank like the flames of hell.

As he ran Hal heard his father’s voice behind him, fading with distance as he tried to rally his shattered, demoralized crew. Aboli ran at his shoulder and Big Daniel was a few paces
further back, losing ground to the two swifter runners.

‘We will need more men to launch,’ Daniel panted. ‘They’re heavy.’

‘You will not find them to help you now. They’re all hog drunk or running for their very lives,’ Hal grunted, but even as he spoke he saw Ned Tyler speed out of the forest just
ahead, leading five of his seamen. All seemed sober enough.

‘Good man, Ned!’ Hal shouted. ‘But we must hurry. The Buzzard will be sending his men onto the beach as soon as he has silenced our batteries.’

They charged in a group across the shallow channel between them and the island. The tide was low so at first they staggered through the glutinous mud-flat that sucked at their feet, then plunged
into the open water. They waded, swam and dragged themselves across, the thunder of the
Gull’s
barrage spurring them onwards.

‘There is only a breath of wind from the sou’-west,’ Big Daniel gasped, as they staggered out, streaming water, onto the beach of the island. ‘It will not be enough to
serve us.’

Hal did not reply but broke off a dead branch and lit it from his slow-match. He held it high to give himself light to see the path and ran on into the forest. In minutes they had crossed the
island and reached the beach on the far side. Here Hal paused and looked across at the
Gull
in the main channel.

The dawn was coming on apace, and the night fled before it. The light was turning grey and silvery, the lagoon gleaming softly as a sheet of polished pewter.

The Buzzard was training his guns back and forth, with the use of his anchor spring, swinging the
Gull
on her moorings so that he could pick out any target on the shore.

There was only the odd flash of answering fire from the gunpits on the beach, and the Buzzard responded immediately to these, swinging his ship and bringing to bear the full power of his
broadside, snuffing them out with a whirlwind of grape, flying sand and falling trees.

All of Hal’s party were blown by the hard run across the mud-flats and the plunge through the channel. ‘No time to rest.’ Hal’s breath whistled in his throat. The devil
ships were covered with mounds of cut branches and they dragged them clear. Then they formed a ring round the first of these vessels, and each took a handhold.

‘Together now!’ Hal exhorted them, and between them they just lifted the keels of the double-hulled vessel clear of the sand. It was heavy with its cargo, faggots of dried wood
drenched with pitch to make it more flammable.

They staggered down the beach with it, and dropped it into the shallows, where it wallowed and rolled in the wavelets, the square of dirty canvas on the stubby mast stirring idly in the light
puffs of wind coming down from the heads. Hal took a turn of the painter around his wrist to prevent it drifting away.

‘Not enough wind!’ Big Daniel lamented, looking to the sky. ‘For the sweet love of God, send us a breeze.’

‘Keep your prayers for later.’ Hal secured the vessel, and led them back at a run into the trees. They carried, shoved and dragged two more of the boats down to the water’s
edge.

‘Still not enough wind.’ Daniel looked across at the
Gull
. In the short time it had taken them to launch, the morning light had strengthened, and now, as they paused for a
moment to regain their breath, they saw the Buzzard’s men leave their guns, and, cheering wildly, brandishing cutlass and pike, swarm down into the boats.

‘Will you look at those swine! They reckon the fight’s over,’ grunted Ned Tyler. ‘They’re going in for the looting.’

Hal hesitated. Two more devil ships still lay at the edge of the forest, but to launch them would take too long. ‘Then we must give them aught to change their opinion,’ he said
grimly, and gripped the burning match between his teeth. He waded out as deep as his armpits to where the first devil ship bobbed, just off the beach, and lobbed the slow-match onto the high pile
of cordwood. It spluttered and flared, blue smoke poured from it and drifted away on the sluggish breeze as the pitch-soaked logs caught fire.

Hal grabbed the painter attached to the bows, and dragged her out into the channel. Within a dozen yards he was into deeper water and had lost the bottom. He swam round to the stern, and found a
purchase on it, kicked out strongly with both legs and the boat moved away.

Aboli saw what he was doing and plunged headlong into the lagoon. With a few powerful strokes he reached Hal’s side. With both of them swimming it out, the boat moved faster.

With one hand on the stern Hal lifted his head clear of the water to orientate himself and saw the flotilla of small boats from the
Gull
heading in towards the beach. They were crowded
with wildly yelling seamen, their weapons glinting in the morning light. So certain was the Buzzard of his victory that he could have left only a few men aboard to guard the ship.

Hal glanced over his shoulder and saw that both Ned and Daniel had followed his example. They had led the rest of the gang into the water and were clinging to the sterns of two more craft,
kicking the water to a white froth behind them as they pushed out into the channel. From all three boats rose tendrils of smoke as the flames took hold in the loads of pitch-soaked firewood.

Hal dropped back beside Aboli and set himself to work doggedly with both legs, pushing the boat ahead of him, down the channel to where the
Gull
lay at anchor. Then the incoming tide
caught them firmly in its flood and, like a trio of crippled ducks, bore them along more swiftly.

As Hal’s boat swung its bows around he had a better view of the beach. He recognized the flaming red head and beard of the Buzzard in the leading longboat heading into the attack on the
encampment, and fancied that, even in the uproar, he heard peals of his laughter carrying over the water.

Then he had something else to think about for the fire in the cargo above him gained a firm hold and roared into boisterous life. The flames crackled and leapt high in columns of dense black
smoke. They danced and swayed as their heat created its own draught, and the single sail filled with more determination.

‘Keep her moving!’ Hal panted to Aboli beside him. ‘Steer her two points more to larboard.’

A gust of heat swept over him so fiercely that it seemed to suck the air from his lungs. He ducked his head beneath the surface and came up snorting, water cascading down his face from his
sodden hair, but still kicking with all his strength. The
Gull
lay less than a cable’s length dead ahead. Daniel and Ned followed close behind him, both their vessels wreathed in tarry
black smoke and dark orange flame. The air over them quivered and throbbed with the heat like a desert mirage.

‘Keep her going,’ Hal blurted. His legs were beginning to ache unbearably, and he spoke more to himself than to Aboli. The painter tied to the bows of the devil ship trailed back,
threatening to wrap around his legs, but he kicked it away – there was no time to loosen it.

He saw the first of the
Gull’s
longboats reach the beach and Cumbrae leap ashore, swinging his claymore in flashing circles around his head. As he landed on the sand he threw back
his head, uttered a blood-curdling Gaelic war-cry, then went bounding up the steep beach. As he reached the trees he looked back to make certain his men were following him. There he paused with his
sword held high, and stared back across the channel at the tiny squadron of devil ships, blooming with smoke and flame and bearing down steadily upon his anchored
Gull
.

‘Nearly there!’ Hal gasped, and the waves of heat that broke over his head seemed to fry his eyeballs in their sockets. He plunged his head underwater again to cool it, and this time
when he came up he saw that the
Gull
lay only fifty yards ahead.

Even above the crackling roar of the flames he heard the Buzzard’s roar: ‘Back! Back to the
Gull
. The bastards are sending fireships at her.’ The frigate was stuffed
with the booty of a long, hard privateering cruise, and her crew sent up a wild chorus of outrage as they saw the fruits of three years so endangered. They raced back to their boats even faster
than they had charged up the beach.

The Buzzard stood in the bows of his, prancing and gesticulating so that he threatened to upset her balance. ‘Let me get my hands on the pox-ridden swine. I’ll rip out their
windpipes, I’ll split their stinking—’ At that moment he recognized Hal’s head at the stern of the leading fireship, lit by the full glare of the swirling flames, and his
voice rose a full octave. ‘It’s Franky’s brat, by God! I’ll have him! I’ll roast his liver in his own fire!’ he shrieked, then lapsed into crimson-faced,
inarticulate rage and hacked at the air with his claymore to spur his crew to greater speed.

Hal was only a dozen yards now from the
Gull’s
tall side, and found fresh strength in his exhausted legs. Tirelessly Aboli swam on, using a powerful frog-kick that pushed back the
water in a swirling wake behind him.

With the Buzzard’s longboat bearing down swiftly upon them, they covered the last few yards and Hal felt the fireship’s bows thump heavily into the
Gull’s
stern timbers.
The push of the tide pinned her there, swinging her broadside so that the flames were fanned by the rising morning breeze to lick up along the
Gull’s
side, scorching and blackening the
timbers.

‘Latch onto her!’ bellowed the Buzzard. ‘Get a line on her and tow her off!’ His oarsmen shot straight in towards the fireship but, as they felt the full heat blooming
out to meet them, they quailed. In the bows the Buzzard threw up his hands to cover his face, and his red beard crisped and singed. ‘Back off!’ he roared. ‘Or we’ll
fry.’ He looked at his coxswain. ‘Give me the anchor! I’ll grapple her, and we’ll tow her off.’

Hal was on the point of diving and swimming under water out of the circle of heat but he heard Cumbrae’s order. The painter still trailed around his legs, and he groped beneath the surface
for the end, clenching it between his feet. Then he sank below the water and swam under the fireship’s hull, coming up in the narrow gap between it and the
Gull
.

The
Gull’s
rudder stock broke the surface and, spitting lagoon water from his mouth, Hal threw a loop of the painter around the pintle. His face felt as though it were blistering as
the heat beat down upon his head with hammer strokes, but he hitched the flaming craft securely to the
Gull’s
stern.

Then he dived again and came up next to Aboli. ‘To the beach!’ he gasped. ‘Before the fire reaches the
Gull’s
powder store.’

Both struck out overarm, and Hal saw the longboat, close by, almost close enough to touch, but the Buzzard had lost all interest in them. He was whirling the small anchor around his head, and as
Hal watched he hurled it out over the burning vessel, hooking onto her.

‘Lie back on your oars!’ he shouted at his crew. ‘Tow her off.’ The boatmen went to it with all their strength, but immediately the fireship came up short on the mooring
line Hal had tied, and their blades beat the water vainly. She would not tow, and now the planking of the
Gull’s
side was smouldering ominously.

Fire was the terror of all seamen. The ship was built of combustibles and stuffed with explosives, wood and pitch, canvas and hemp, tallow, spice barrels and gunpowder. The faces of the
longboat’s crew were contorted with terror. Even the Buzzard was wild-eyed in the firelight as he looked up and saw the other two fireships drifting remorselessly upon him. ‘Stop those
others!’ he pointed with his claymore. ‘Turn them away!’ Then he turned his attention back to the burning vessel moored to the
Gull
.

By now Hal and Aboli were fifty yards away, swimming for the beach, but Hal rolled onto his back to watch and trod water. He saw at once that the Buzzard’s efforts to tow away the fireship
had failed.

Now he rowed around to the
Gull’s
bows and scrambled up onto her deck. As his crew followed him he roared, ‘Buckets! Get a bucket chain going. Pumps! Ten men on the pumps.
Spray the flames!’ They scurried to obey, but the fire was spreading swiftly, eating into the stern and dancing along the gunwale, reaching up hungrily towards the furled sails on their
outstretched yards.

One of the
Gull’s
longboats had grappled Ned’s fireship and, with frantically beating oars, was dragging it clear. Another was trying to get a line on Big Daniel’s
fireship, but the flames forced them to keep their distance. Each time they succeeded in hooking on, Daniel swam round and cut the rope with a stroke of his knife. The men in the longboat who
carried muskets and pistols were firing wildly at his bobbing head, but though the balls kicked up spray all around him, he seemed invulnerable.

Aboli had swum on ahead, and now Hal rolled onto his belly and followed him back to the beach. Together they raced up the white sand, and into the shot-shattered forest. Sir Francis was still in
the gunpit where they had left him, but he had gathered around him a scratch crew of the
Resolution’s
survivors. They were reloading the big gun as Hal ran up to him and shouted,
‘What do you want me to do?’