Birds of Prey (32 page)

Hal reached the gunpit at the end of the line and jumped down beside Aboli, who was captaining the team of gunners there. Aboli thrust his burning match into the touch hole. The culverin leapt
and thundered. As the stinking smoke swirled back over them, Aboli grinned at Hal, his dark face stained even darker with soot and his eyes bloodshot with smoke. ‘Ah! I thought you might
never pull your root out of the sugar field in time to join the fight. I feared I might have to come up to the cave, and prise you loose with an iron bar.’

‘You will grin less happily with a musket ball in your tail feathers,’ Hal told him grimly. ‘We are surrounded. The woods behind us are full of Dutchmen. Daniel is holding
them, but not for much longer. There are hundreds of them. Train this piece around and load with grape.’ While they reloaded, Hal went on giving his orders. ‘We’ll have time for
only one shot, then we’ll charge them in the smoke,’ he said as he tamped down the charge with the long ramrod. As he pulled it out, a sailor lifted the heavy canvas bag filled with
lead shot, and forced it down the muzzle. Hal drove it down to sit upon the powder charge. Then they ducked behind the parapet on both sides of the gun, keeping clear of the area where the train
would recoil, and stared past the stockade into the forest beyond. They could hear the ring of steel on steel and the wild shouts as Daniel’s men charged then fell back before the
countercharge of the green-jackets. Musket fire hammered steadily as Schreuder’s men reloaded and ran forward to fire again.

Now they caught glimpses through the trees of their own seamen coming back. Daniel towered above the others: he was carrying a wounded man over one shoulder and swinging a cutlass in his other
hand. The green-jackets were pressing him and his party hard.

‘Ready now!’ Hal grated at the seamen around him, and they crouched below the parapet and fingered their pikes and cutlasses. ‘Aboli, don’t fire until Daniel is out of
the line.’

Suddenly Daniel threw down his burden, and turned back. He raced into the thick of the enemy, and scattered them with a great swipes of his cutlass. Then he ran to the wounded seaman, slung him
over his shoulder and came on again towards where Hal crouched.

Hal glanced down the line of gunpits. Although the forward-pointing cannon were still banging away at the ships in the lagoon, every second culverin was directed into the forest, waiting for the
moment to loose a storm of shot into the lines of attacking infantry.

‘At such short range the shot will not spread, and they are keeping their spaces,’ Aboli muttered.

‘Schreuder has them well under control,’ Hal agreed grimly. ‘We can’t hope to bring too many down with a single volley.’

‘Schreuder!’ Aboli’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not tell me it was him.’

‘There he is!’ Hal pointed at the tall wigless figure striding towards them through the trees. His sash glittered and his moustache bristled as he urged his musketeers forward.

Aboli grunted, ‘That one is the devil. We’ll have trouble from him.’ He thrust an iron bar under the culverin and turned it round a few degrees, trying to bring the sights to
bear on the colonel.

‘Stand still,’ he urged, ‘for just long enough to give me a shot.’ But Schreuder was moving up and down the ranks of his men, waving them on. He was so close now that his
voice carried to Hal as he snapped at his men, ‘Keep your line! Keep the advance going. Steady now, hold your fire!’

His control over them was apparent in the determined but measured advance. They must have been aware of the line of waiting guns, but they came forward without wavering, holding their fire, not
wasting the one fair shot they carried in their muskets.

They were close enough for Hal to make out their individual features. He knew that the Company recruited most of its troops in its eastern colonies, and this was apparent in the Asiatic faces of
many of the advancing soldiers. Their eyes were dark and almond-shaped and their skins a deep amber.

Suddenly Hal realized that the broadsides from the two warships had ceased and snatched a glance over his shoulder. He saw that both the black frigate and the
Gull
had anchored a
cable’s length or so off the beach. Their guns were silent, and Hal realized that Cumbrae and the frigate captain must have arranged with Schreuder a code of signals. They had ceased firing
for fear of hitting their own men.

That gives us a breathing space, he thought, and looked ahead again.

He saw that Daniel’s band was much depleted: they had lost half their number, and the survivors were clearly exhausted by their foray and the fierce skirmishing. Their gait was erratic
– many could barely drag themselves along. Their shirts were sodden with sweat and the blood from their wounds. One at a time they stumbled up and flopped over the parapet to lie panting in
the bottom of the pit.

Daniel alone was indefatigable. He passed the wounded man over the parapet to the gunners and, so murderous was his mood, would have turned back and rushed at the enemy once more had not Hal
stopped him. ‘Get back here, you great ox! Let us soften them up with a little grape shot. Then you can have at them again.’

Aboli was still trying to line up the barrel on Schreuder’s elusive shape. ‘He is worth fifty of the others,’ he muttered to himself, in his own language. Hal, though, was no
longer paying him any heed, but trying anxiously to catch a glimpse of his father in the furthest emplacement, and take a lead from him.

‘By God, he’s letting them get too close!’ he fretted. ‘A longer shot would give the grape a chance to spread, but I’ll not open fire before he gives the
order.’

Then he heard Schreuder’s voice again: ‘Front rank! Prepare to fire!’ Fifty men dropped obediently to their knees, right in front of the parapet, and grounded the butts of
their muskets.

‘Ready now, men!’ Hal called softly to the sailors crowded around him. He had realized why his father had delayed the salvo of culverin until this moment: he had been waiting for the
attackers to discharge their muskets, and then he would have them at a fleeting disadvantage as they tried to reload.

‘Steady now!’ Hal repeated. ‘Wait for their volley!’

‘Present your arms!’ Schreuder’s command rang out in the sudden silence. ‘Take your aim!’ The file of kneeling men lifted their muskets and aimed at the parapet.
The blue smoke from the slow-match in the locks swirled about their heads, and they slitted their eyes to aim through it.

‘Heads down!’ Hal yelled.

The seamen in the gunpits ducked below the parapet, just as Schreuder roared, ‘Fire!’

The long, ragged volley of musketry rattled down the file of kneeling men, and lead balls hissed over the heads of the gunners and thumped into the earth ramp. Hal leapt to his feet and looked
down to the far end of the line of gunpits. He saw his father jump onto the parapet, brandishing his sword, and, although it was too far for his order to carry clearly, his gestures were
unmistakable.

‘Fire!’ yelled Hal at the top of his lungs, and the line of guns erupted in a solid blast of smoke, flame and buzzing grape shot. It swept through the thin green line of Dutch
infantry at point-blank range.

Directly in front of him Hal saw one of them hit by the full fury of the volley. He disintegrated in a burst of torn green serge and pink shredded flesh. His head spun high in the air, then fell
back to earth and rolled like a child’s ball. After that, all was obscured by the dense cloud of smoke, but though his ears still sang from the thunderous discharge, Hal could hear the
screams and moans of the wounded resounding in the reeking blue fog.

‘All together!’ Hal shouted, as the smoke began to clear. ‘Take the steel to them now, lads!’

After the mind-stopping blast of the guns their voices were thin and puny as they rose together from the gunpits. ‘For Franky and King Charley!’ they shouted, and the steel of
cutlass and pike winked and twinkled as they jumped from the parapet and charged at the shattered rank of green uniforms.

Aboli was at Hal’s left side and Daniel at his right as he led them into the mêlée. By unspoken agreement the two big men, one white the other black, placed protective wings
over Hal but they had to run at their best speed to keep up with him.

Hal saw that his misgivings had been fully borne out. The volley of grape had not wrought the devastation among the Dutch infantry that they might have hoped for. The range had been too short:
five hundred lead balls from each culverin had cut through them like a single charge of round shot. Men caught by the discharge had been obliterated, but for every one blown to nothingness, five
others were unscathed.

These survivors were stunned and bewildered, their eyes dazed and their expressions blank. Most knelt blinking and shaking their heads, making no attempt to reload their empty muskets.

‘Have at them, before they pull themselves together!’ Hal screamed, and the seamen following him cheered again more lustily. In the face of the charge the musketeers started to
recover. Some leapt to their feet, flung down their empty guns and drew their swords. One or two petty-officers had pistols tucked in their belts, which they drew and fired wildly at the seamen who
rushed down on them. A few turned their backs and tried to flee back among the trees, but Schreuder was there to head them off. ‘Back, you dogs and sons of dogs. Stand your ground like
men!’ They turned again, and formed up around him.

Every man of the
Resolution
’s crew who could still stand on his feet was in that charge – even the wounded hobbled along behind the rest, cheering as loudly as their
comrades.

The two lines came together and immediately all was confusion. The solid rank of attackers split up into little groups of struggling men, mingled with the green serge coats of the Dutch. All
around Hal fighting men were cursing, shouting and hacking at each other. His existence closed in, became a circle of angry, terrified faces and the clatter of steel weapons, most already dulled
with new gore.

A green-jacket stabbed a long pike at Hal’s face. He ducked under it and, with his left hand, seized the shaft just behind the spearhead. When the musketeer heaved back, Hal did not resist
but used the impetus to launch his counter-attack, leading with the Neptune sword in his right hand. He aimed at the straining yellow throat above the high green collar, and his point slid in
cleanly. As the man dropped the pike and fell back, Hal allowed the weight of his dropping body to pull him free of the blade.

Hal went smoothly back on guard, and glanced quickly around for his next opponent, but the charge of seamen had almost wiped out the file of musketeers. Few were left standing, and they were
surrounded by clusters of attackers.

He felt his spirits soar. For the first time since he had seen those two ships sail into the lagoon, he felt that there was a chance that they might win this fight. In these last few minutes,
they had broken up the main attack. Now they had only to deal with the sailors from the Dutch frigate and the
Gull
as they tried to come ashore.

‘Well done, lads. We can do it! We can thrash them,’ he shouted, and the seamen who heard him cheered again. Looking about him, he could see triumph on the face of every one of his
men as they cut down the last of the green-jackets. Aboli was laughing and singing one of his pagan war-chants in a voice that carried over the din of the battle and inspired every man who heard
it. They cheered him and themselves, rejoicing deliriously, in the ease of their victory.

Daniel’s tall figure loomed at Hal’s right side. His face and thick muscular arms were speckled with blood thrown from the wounds he had inflicted on his victims, and his mouth was
wide open as he laughed ferociously, showing his carious teeth.

‘Where is Schreuder?’ Hal yelled, and Daniel sobered instantly. The laughter died as his mouth snapped shut and he glared around the quietening battlefield.

Then Hal’s question was answered unequivocally by Schreuder himself. ‘Second wave! Forward!’ he bellowed lustily. He was standing on the edge of the forest, only a hundred
paces from them. Hal, Aboli and Daniel started towards him, then came up short as another massed column of green-jackets poured out of the forest from behind where Schreuder stood.

‘By God!’ Hal breathed in despair. ‘We haven’t seen the half of them yet. The bastard has kept his main force in reserve.’

‘There must be two hundred of the swine!’ Daniel shook his head in disbelief.

‘Quarter columns!’ Schreuder shouted, and the advancing infantry changed their formation: they spread out behind him three deep in precisely spaced ranks. Schreuder led them forward
at a trot, their ranks neatly dressed and their weapons advanced. Suddenly he held his sword high to halt them. ‘First rank! Prepare to fire!’ His men sank to their knees, while behind
them the other two ranks stood steady.

‘Present your arms!’ A line of muskets was raised and levelled at the knots of dumbstruck seamen.

‘Fire!’ roared Schreuder.

The volley crashed out. From a distance of only fifty paces it swept through Hal’s men, and almost every shot told. Men dropped and staggered as the heavy lead pellets struck. The line of
Englishmen reeled and wavered. There was a chorus of yells – of pain and anger and fear.

‘Charge!’ Hal cried. ‘Don’t stand and let them shoot you down!’ He lifted the Neptune sword high. ‘Come on, lads. Have at them!’

On each side of him Aboli and Daniel started forward, but most of the others hung back. It was dawning on them that the fight was lost, and many looked back towards the safety of the gun
emplacements. That was a dangerous signal. Once they glanced over their shoulders it was all up.

‘Second rank,’ shouted Schreuder, ‘prepare to fire!’ Fifty more musketeers stepped forward, their weapons loaded and the matches burning. They walked through the gaps in
the kneeling rank that had just fired, advanced another two paces in a brisk businesslike manner, then knelt.

‘Present your arms!’ Even Hal and the dauntless pair flanking him wavered as they gazed into the muzzles of fifty levelled muskets, while a moan of fear and horror went up from their
men. They had never before faced such disciplined troops.