Birds of Prey (29 page)

The light was not strong enough for Hal to make out the detail of the portrait, but her face was graven in his mind and in his heart. Wordlessly he placed it in the breast pocket of his
doublet.

‘We should pray together for the peace of her soul,’ said Sir Francis quietly, and both bowed their heads. After many minutes Sir Francis again raised his head. ‘Now, it
remains only to discuss the earthly inheritance that I leave to you. There is firstly High Weald, our family manor in Devon. You know that your uncle Thomas administers the house and lands in my
absence. The deeds of title are with my lawyer in Plymouth …’ Sir Francis went on speaking for a long while, listing and detailing his possessions and estates in England. ‘I have
written all this in my journal for you, but that book may be lost or plundered before you can study it. Remember all that I have told you.’

‘I will not forget any of it,’ Hal assured him.

‘Then there are the prizes we have taken on this cruise. You were with me when we cached the spoils from both the
Heerlycke Nacht
and from the
Standvastigheid
.When you return
with that booty to England, be sure to pay over to each man of the crew the share he has earned.’

‘I will do so without fail.’

‘Pay also every penny of the Crown’s share to the King’s customs officers. Only a rogue would seek to cheat his sovereign.’

‘I will not fail to render to my king.’

‘I should never rest easy if I were to know that all the riches that I have won for you and my king were to be lost. I require you to make an oath on your honour as a Knight of the
Order,’ Sir Francis said. ‘You must swear that you will never reveal the whereabouts of the spoils to any other person. In the difficult days that lie ahead of us, while the red comet
rules my sign and dictates our affairs, there may be enemies who will try to force you to break this oath. You must bear always in the forefront of your mind the motto of our family.
Durabo!
I shall endure.’

‘On my honour, and in God’s name, I shall endure,’ Hal promised. The words slipped lightly over his tongue. He could not know then that when they returned to him their weight
would be grievous and heavy enough to crush his heart.

F
or his entire military career Colonel Cornelius Schreuder had campaigned with native troops rather than with men of his own race and country. He
much preferred them, for they were inured to hardship and less likely to be affected by heat and sun, or by cold and wet. They were hardened against the fevers and plagues that struck down the
white men who ventured into these tropical climes, and they survived on less food. They were able to live and fight on what frugal fare this savage and terrible land provided, whereas European
troops would sicken and die if forced to undergo similar privations.

There was another reason for his preference. Whereas the lives of Christian troops must be reckoned dear, these heathen could be expended without such consideration, just as cattle do not have
the same value as men and can be sent to the slaughter without qualm. Of course, they were famous thieves and could not be trusted near women or liquor, and when forced to rely upon their own
initiative they were as little children, but with good Dutch officers over them, their courage and fighting spirit outweighed these weaknesses.

Schreuder stood on a rise of ground and watched the long column of infantry file past him. It was remarkable how swiftly they had recovered from the terrible affliction of seasickness that only
the previous day had prostrated most of them. A night’s rest on the hard earth and a few handfuls of dried fish and cakes of sorghum meal baked over the coals, and this morning they were
cheerful and strong as when they had embarked. They strode past him on bare feet, following their white petty-officers, moving easily under their burdens, chattering to each other in their own
tongues.

Schreuder felt more confidence in them now than at any time since they had embarked in Table Bay. He lifted his hat and mopped at his brow. The sun was only just showing above the tree-tops but
already it was hot as the blast from a baker’s oven. He looked ahead at the hills and forest that awaited them. The map that the red-haired Scotsman had drawn for him was a rudimentary sketch
that merely adumbrated the shoreline and gave no warning of this rugged terrain that they had encountered.

At first he had marched along the shore, but this proved heavy going – under their packs the men sank ankle deep into sand at each pace. Also, the open beaches were interspersed with
cliffs and rocky capes, which could cause further delay. So Schreuder had turned inland and sent his scouts ahead to find a way through the hills and forest.

At that moment there was a shout from up ahead. A runner was coming back down the line. Panting, the Hottentot drew himself up and saluted with a flourish. ‘Colonel, there is a wide river
ahead.’ Like most of these troops he spoke good Dutch.

‘Name of a dog!’ Schreuder cursed. ‘We will fall further behind and our rendezvous is only two days from now. Show me the way.’ The scout led him towards the crest of the
hill.

At the top of the slope a steep river valley opened beneath his feet. The sides were almost two hundred feet deep and densely covered with forest. At the bottom the estuary was broad and brown,
racing out into the sea with the tide. He drew his telescope from its leather case and carefully scanned the valley where it cut deeply into the hills of the hinterland. ‘There does not seem
to be an easier way to cross and I cannot afford the time to search further.’ He looked down at the drop. ‘Fix ropes to those trees at the top to give the men purchase on the
slope.’

It took them half the morning to get two hundred men down into the valley. At one stage a rope snapped under the weight of fifty men leaning on it to keep their footing as they descended.
However, although most sustained grazes, cuts and sprains as they rolled down to the riverbank, there was one serious casualty. A young Sinhalese infantryman’s right leg caught in a tree root
as he fell, and was fractured in a dozen places below the knee, the sharp splinters of bone sticking out of his shin.

‘Well, we’re down with only one man lost,’ Schreuder told his lieutenant, with satisfaction. ‘It could have been more costly. We might have spent days searching for
another crossing.’

‘I will have a litter made for the injured man,’ Lieutenant Maatzuyker suggested.

‘Are you soft in the head?’ Schreuder snapped. ‘He would hold up the march. Leave the clumsy fool here with a loaded pistol. When the hyena come for him he can make his own
decision who to shoot, one of them or himself. Enough talk! Let’s get on with the crossing.’

From the bank Schreuder looked across a hundred-yard sweep of river, the surface dimpled with small whirlpools as the outgoing tide spurred the muddy waters on their race for the sea.

‘We will have to build rafts—’ Lieutenant Maatzuyker ventured, but Schreuder snarled, ‘Nor can I afford the time for that. Get a rope across to the other bank. I must see
if this river is fordable.’

‘The current is strong,’ Maatzuyker pointed out tactfully.

‘Even a simpleton can see that, Maatzuyker. Perhaps that is why you had no difficulty in making the observation,’ said Schreuder ominously. ‘Pick your strongest
swimmer!’

Maatzuyker saluted and hurried down the ranks of troops. They guessed what was in store and every one found something of interest to study in sky or forest, rather than meeting
Maatzuyker’s eye.

‘Ahmed!’ he shouted at one of his corporals, grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of the huddle of men where he was trying to make himself inconspicuous.

Resignedly Ahmed handed his musket to a man in his troop and began to strip. His naked body was hairless and yellow, sheathed in lithe, hard muscle.

Maatzuyker knotted the rope under his armpits and sent him into the water. As Ahmed edged out into the current it rose gradually to his waist. Schreuder’s hopes for a swift, easy crossing
rose with it. Ahmed’s mates on the bank shouted encouragement as they paid out the line.

Then, when he was almost half-way across, Ahmed stumbled abruptly into the main channel of the river, and his head disappeared below the surface.

‘Pull him back!’ Schreuder ordered, and they hauled Ahmed back into the shallower water, where he struggled to regain his footing, snorting and coughing up the water he had
swallowed.

Suddenly Schreuder shouted, with more urgency, ‘Pull! Get him out of the water!’

Fifty yards upstream he had seen a mighty swirl on the surface of the opaque waters. Then a swift V-shaped wake sped down the channel to where the corporal was splashing about in the shallows.
The team on the rope saw it then and, with yells of consternation, they hauled Ahmed in so vigorously that he was plucked over backwards and dragged thrashing and kicking towards the bank. However,
the thing below the surface moved more swiftly still and arrowed in on the helpless man.

When it was only yards from him its deformed black snout, gnarled and scaled as a black log, thrust through the surface, and twenty feet behind the head a crested saurian tail exploded out. The
hideous monster raced across the gap, and rose high out of the water, its jaws open to display the ragged files of yellow teeth.

Then Ahmed saw it, and shrieked wildly. With a crash like a falling portcullis the jaws closed over his lower body. Man and beast plunged below the surface in a whirlpool of creaming foam. The
men on the line were jerked off their feet and dragged in a struggling heap down the bank.

Schreuder leapt after them and seized the rope’s end. He took two turns around his wrist and flung his weight back on the line. Out in the brown tide-race there was another boiling
explosion of foam as the huge crocodile, its fangs locked in Ahmed’s belly, rolled over and over at dizzying speed. The other men on the line recovered their footing and hung on grimly. There
was a sudden stain of red on the brown water as Ahmed was torn in half, the way a glutton might twist the leg off the carcass of a turkey.

The bloodstain was whipped away and dissipated downstream by the swift current, and the straining men fell back as the resistance at the other end of the rope gave way. Ahmed’s upper torso
was dragged ashore, arms jerking and mouth opening and shutting convulsively, like that of a dying fish.

Far out in the river the crocodile rose again, holding Ahmed’s legs and lower torso crosswise in its jaws. It lifted its head to the sky and gulped and strained to swallow. As the
dismembered carcass slid down into its maw, they saw it bulge the soft, pale scaly throat.

Schreuder was roaring with rage. ‘This foul beast will delay us for days, if we allow it.’ He rounded on the shaken musketeers who were dragging away Ahmed’s sundered corpse.
‘Bring that piece of meat back here!’

They dropped the corpse at his feet and watched in awe as he stripped off his own clothing, and stood naked before them, flat, hard muscle rippling his belly and his thick penis jutting out of
the mat of dark hair at its base. At his impatient order they tied a rope under his armpits, then handed him a loaded musket with the match burning in the lock, which Schreuder shouldered. With his
other hand he grabbed Ahmed’s limp dead arm. An incredulous hum of amazement went up from the bank as Schreuder stepped into the river dragging the bleeding remnants with him. ‘Come,
then, filthy beast!’ he bellowed angrily, as the water reached his knees and he kept going. ‘You want to eat? Well, I have something for you to chew on.’

A moan of horror burst from every throat as, upstream from where Schreuder stood, with the water at his hips, there was another tremendous swirl and the crocodile rushed down-river towards him,
leaving a long slick wake across the brown surface.

Schreuder braced himself and then, with a round-arm swing, hurled the upper half of Ahmed’s dripping, dismembered corpse ahead of him into the path of the crocodile’s flailing
charge. ‘Eat that!’ he shouted, as he lifted the musket from his shoulder and levelled it at the human bait that bobbed only two arms’ span ahead of him.

The monstrous head burst through the surface and the mouth opened wide enough to engulf Ahmed’s pitifully shredded remains. Over the sights of the gun Schreuder looked down into its gaping
jaws. He saw the ragged spikes of teeth, still festooned with shreds of human flesh, and beyond them the lining of the throat, which was a lovely buttercup yellow. As the jaws opened, a tough
membrane automatically closed off the throat to prevent water rushing down it into the beast’s lungs.

Schreuder aimed into the depths of the open throat and snapped the lock. The burning match dropped and there was an instant of delay as the powder flared in the pan. Then, as Schreuder held his
aim unwaveringly, came a deafening roar and a long silver-blue spurt of smoke flew from the muzzle straight down the throat of the crocodile. Three ounces of antimony-hardened lead pellets drove
through the membrane, tearing through windpipe, artery and flesh, lancing deep into the chest cavity, ripping through the cold reptilian heart and lungs.

Such a mighty convulsion racked the great lizard that fifteen feet of its length arched clear of the water and the grotesque head almost touched the crested tail before it fell back in a tall
spout of foam. Then it rolled, dived and burst out again, swirling in leviathan contortions.

Schreuder did not pause to watch these hideous death throes, but dropped the smoking musket and dived headfirst into the deepest part of the channel. Relying on the beast’s frenzy to
confuse and distract any other of the deadly reptiles, he lashed out towards the far bank with a full overarm stroke.

‘Pay out the rope to him!’ Maatzuyker yelled at the men who stood paralysed with shock, and they recovered their wits. Holding it high to keep it clear of the current they let it out
as Schreuder clawed himself across the channel.

‘Look out!’ Maatzuyker shouted, as first one then another crocodile pushed through the surface. Their eyes were set on protuberant horny knuckles so they were able to watch the
convulsions of their dying fellow without exposing the whole of their heads.