Birds of Prey (61 page)

‘Bless you, Princess.’ Big Daniel knuckled his forehead, before taking his ration from her.

‘God love you, Princess,’ said Ned, and all the others adopted the name. From then on she was their princess, and the rough seamen looked upon her with increasing respect and
burgeoning affection.

‘You can eat on the march, lads.’ Hal hauled himself to his feet. ‘We have been lucky too long. Soon the devil will want his turn.’ They groaned and muttered but followed
his lead.

As Hal was helping Sukeena to mount, there was a warning shout from Daniel. ‘There the bastards come at last.’ He pointed back down at the open
vlei
at the bottom of the
slope. Hal pushed Sukeena up between the saddlebags and limped back to the rear of the column. He looked down the hillside and saw the long file of running men who had emerged from the edge of the
scrub and were crossing the open ground. They were led by a single horseman who came on at a trot.

‘It’s Schreuder again. He has found another mount.’ Even at that range there was no mistaking the Colonel. He sat tall and arrogant in the saddle, and there was a sense of
deadly purpose about the set of his shoulders and the way he lifted his head to look up the slope towards them. It was obvious that he had not yet spotted them, hidden in the thick scrub.

‘How many men with him?’ Ned Tyler asked, and they all looked at Hal to count them. He slitted his eyes and watched them come out of the thick scrub. With their swinging trot they
kept up easily with Schreuder’s horse.

‘Twenty,’ Hal counted.

‘Why so few?’ Big Daniel demanded.

‘Almost certainly Schreuder has chosen his fastest runners to press us hard. The rest will be following at their best speed.’ Hal shaded his eyes. ‘Yes, by God, there they are,
a league behind the first platoon, but coming fast. I can see their dust and the shape of their helmets above the scrub. There must be a hundred or more in that second detachment.’

‘Twenty we can deal with,’ Big Daniel muttered, ‘but a hundred of those murdering green-backs is more than I can eat for breakfast without belching. What orders,
Captain?’ Every man looked at Hal.

He paused before replying, carefully studying the lie and the grain of the land below before he said, ‘Master Daniel, take the rest of the party on with Althuda to guide you. Aboli and I
will stay here with one horse to slow down their advance.’

‘We cannot outrun them. They’ve proved that to us, Captain,’ Daniel protested. ‘Would it not be better to fight them here?’

‘You have your orders.’ Hal turned a cold, steely eye upon him.

Daniel again knuckled his brow. ‘Aye, Captain,’ and he turned to the others. ‘You heard the orders, lads.’

Hal limped back to where Sukeena sat on her horse, with Althuda holding the lead rein. ‘You must go on, whatever happens. Do not turn back for any reason,’ he told Althuda, and then
he smiled up at Sukeena. ‘Not even if her royal highness commands it.’

She did not return his smile but leaned down closer and whispered, ‘I will wait for you on the mountain. Do not make me wait too long.’

Althuda led the column of horses forward again, and as they crossed the skyline there was a distant shout from the
vlei
below.

‘So they have discovered us,’ Aboli muttered.

Hal went to the single remaining horse, and loosened one of the fifty-pound kegs of gunpowder. He lowered it to the ground, and told Aboli, ‘Take the horse on. Follow the others. Let
Schreuder see you go. Tether it out of sight beyond the ridge and then come back to me.’

He rolled the keg to the nearest outcrop of rock and crouched beside it. With only the top of his head showing, he again studied the slope below him, then turned his full attention to Schreuder
and his band of green-jackets. Already they were much closer, and he could see that two of the Hottentots ran ahead of Schreuder’s horse. They watched the ground as they came on, following
exactly the route that Hal’s party had blazed.

They read our sign from the earth, like hounds after the stag, he thought. They will come up the same path we followed.

At that moment Aboli dropped back over the ridge and squatted beside him. ‘The horse is tethered and the others go on apace. Now what is your plan, Gundwane?’

‘’Tis so simple, there is no need to explain it to you,’ said Hal, as he prised the bung from the keg with the point of his sword. Then he unwound the length of the slow-match
he had tied around his waist. ‘This match is the devil. It either burns too fast or too slow. But I will take a chance on three fingers’ length,’ he muttered as he measured, then
lopped off a length. He rolled it gently between the palms of his hands in an attempt to induce it to burn evenly, then threaded one end into the bunghole of the keg and secured it by driving back
the wooden plug.

‘You had best hurry, Gundwane. Your old fencing partner, Schreuder, is in great haste to meet you again.’

Hal glanced up from his task and saw that the pursuers had crossed the meadow and were already starting up the slope towards them. ‘Keep out of sight,’ Hal told him. ‘I want to
let them get very close.’ The two lay flat on their bellies and peered down the hillside. Sitting high in the saddle, Schreuder was in full view, but the two trackers who led him were
obscured by the scrub and flowering bushes from the waist down. As they came on Hal could make out the ugly gravel graze down Schreuder’s face, the rents and dirt smears on his uniform. He
wore neither hat nor wig, had probably lost them along the way, perhaps in his fall. Vain though he was, he had wasted no time in trying to regain them, so urgent was his haste.

The sun had already reddened his shaven pate and his horse was lathered. Perhaps he had not bothered to water it during the long chase. Closer still he came. His eyes were fastened on the ridge
where he had seen the fugitives cross. His face was a stony mask, and Hal could see that he was a man driven by his volcanic temper, ready to take any risk or brave any danger.

On the steep slope even his indefatigable trackers began to flag. Hal could see the sweat streaming down their flat yellow Asiatic faces and hear their gasping breath.

‘Come on, you rogues!’ Schreuder goaded them. ‘You will let them get clear away. Faster! Run faster.’ They came scrambling and straining up the slope.

‘Good!’ Hal muttered. ‘They are sticking in our tracks, as I hoped.’ He whispered his final instructions to Aboli. ‘But wait until I give you the word,’ he
cautioned him.

Closer they came until Hal could hear the Hottentots’ bare feet slapping the ground, the squeak of Schreuder’s tack and the jingle of his spurs. On he came, until Hal saw the
individual beads of sweat that decorated the points of his moustache, and the little veins in his bulging blue eyes as he fixed his obsessed and furious stare on the skyline of the ridge,
overlooking the enemy who lay hidden much closer at hand.

‘Ready!’ whispered Hal, and held the burning slow-match to the fuse of the powder keg. It flared, spluttered, caught, then burned up fiercely. The flame raced down the short length
of fuse towards the bung hole.

‘Now, Aboli!’ he snapped. Aboli seized the keg and leapt to his feet, almost under the hoofs of Schreuder’s horse. The two Hottentots yelled with shock and ducked off the path,
while the horse shied and reared, throwing Schreuder forward onto its neck.

For a moment Aboli stood poised, holding the keg high above his head with both hands. The fuse sizzled and hissed like an angry puff-adder, and the powder smoke blew around his great tattooed
head like a blue nimbus. Then he hurled the keg out over the hillside. It turned lazily in the air before striking the rocky ground and bounding away, bouncing and leaping as it gathered speed. It
jumped up into the face of Schreuder’s horse, which reared away just as its rider had recovered his balance. Schreuder was thrown forward again onto its neck, lost one of his stirrups and
hung awkwardly out of the saddle.

The horse spun and leaped back down the slope, almost into the platoon of infantry that was following close upon its heels. As both maddened horse and bouncing powder keg came hurtling back
among them, the column of green-jackets sent up a howl of consternation. Every one recognized that the smoking fuse was the harbinger of a fearsome detonation only seconds away, and they broke
ranks and scattered. Most turned instinctively downhill, rather than breaking out to the sides, and the keg overhauled them, bouncing along in their midst.

Schreuder’s horse went down on its bunched hindquarters as it slipped and slid down the hillside. The reins snapped in one of its rider’s hands while the other lost its precarious
hold on the pommel of the saddle. Schreuder fell clear of his mount’s driving hoofs, and as he hit the earth the keg exploded. The fall saved his life for he had tumbled into the lee of a low
rock outcrop and the main force of the blast swept over him.

However, it ripped through the horde of routed soldiers. Those closest to it were hurled about and thrown upwards like burning leaves from a garden fire. Their clothing was stripped from their
mangled bodies, and a disembodied arm was thrown high to fall back at Hal’s feet. Both Aboli and Hal were knocked down by the force of the blast. Ears buzzing, Hal scrambled upright again and
stared down in awe at the devastation they had created.

Not one of the enemy was still on his feet. ‘By God, you killed them all!’ Hal marvelled, but at once there were confused cries and shouts among the flattened bushes. First one and
then more of the enemy soldiers staggered dazedly upright.

‘Come away!’ Aboli seized Hal’s arm and dragged him to the top of the ridge. Before they dropped over the crest Hal glanced back and saw that Schreuder had hoisted himself
upright. Swaying drunkenly he was standing over the mutilated carcass of his mount. He was still so dazed that, even as Hal watched, his legs folded under him and he sat down heavily among the
broken branches and torn leaves, covering his face with his hands.

Aboli released Hal’s arm, and changed his sword into his right hand. ‘I can run back and finish him off,’ he growled, but the suggestion stirred Hal from his own daze.

‘Leave him be! It would not be honourable to kill him while he is unable to defend himself.’

‘Then let us go, and fast.’ Aboli growled. ‘We may have put this band of Schreuder’s men up on the reef but, look! The rest of his green-jackets are not far
behind.’

Hal wiped the sweat and dust from his face and blinked to stop his eyes blurring. He saw that Aboli was right. The dustcloud from the second detachment of the enemy rose from the scrub of the
flatlands on the far side of the
vlei
, but it was coming on swiftly.

‘If we run hard now, we might be able to hold them off until nightfall and by then we should be into the mountains,’ Aboli estimated.

Within a few paces, Hal stumbled and hopped as his injured leg gave way under him. Without a word Aboli gave him his arm to help him over the rough ground to where he had tethered the horse.
This time Hal did not protest when Aboli boosted him up onto its back and took the lead rein.

‘Which direction?’ Hal demanded. As he looked ahead the mountain barrier was riven into a labyrinth of ravines and soaring rock buttresses, of cliffs and deep gorges in which grew
dense strips of forest and tangled scrub. He could pick out no path nor pass through this confusion.

‘Althuda knows the way, and he has left signs for us to follow.’ The spoor of five horses and the band of fugitives was deeply trodden ahead of them, but to enhance it Althuda had
blazed the bark from the trees along his route. They followed at the best of their speed, and from the next ridge saw the tiny shapes of the five grey horses crossing a stretch of open ground two
or three miles ahead. Hal could even make out Sukeena’s small figure perched on the back of the leading horse. The silver colour of the horses made them stand out like mirrors in the dark,
surrounding bush, and he murmured, ‘They are beautiful animals, but they draw the eye of an enemy.’

‘In the traces of a gentleman’s carriage there could be no finer,’ Aboli agreed, ‘but in the mountains they would flounder. We must abandon them when we reach the rough
ground, or else they will break their lovely legs in the rocks and crevices.’

‘Leave them for the Dutch?’ Hal asked. ‘Why not a musket ball to end their suffering?’

‘Because they are beautiful, and because I love them like my children,’ said Aboli softly, reaching up and patting the animal’s neck. The grey mare rolled an eye at him and
whickered softly, returning his affection.

Hal laughed, ‘She loves you also, Aboli. For your sake we will spare them.’

They plunged down the next slope and struggled up the far side. The ground grew steeper at each pace and the mountain crests seemed to hang suspended above their heads. At the top they paused
again to let the mare blow, and looked ahead.

‘It seems Althuda is aiming for that dark gorge dead ahead.’ Hal shaded his eyes. ‘Can you see them?’

‘No,’ Aboli grunted. ‘They are hidden by the folds of the foothills and the trees.’ Then he looked back again. ‘But look behind you, Gundwane!’

Hal turned and stared where he pointed, and exclaimed as though he were in pain. ‘How can they have come so quickly? They are gaining on us as though we were standing still.’

The column of running green-jackets was swarming over the ridge behind them like soldier ants from a disturbed nest. Hal could count their numbers easily and pick out the white officers. The
mid-afternoon sunlight flashed from their bayonets and Hal could hear their faint but jubilant cries as they viewed their quarry so close ahead.

‘There is Schreuder!’ Hal exclaimed bitterly. ‘By God, that man is a monster. Is there no means of stopping him?’ The dismounted colonel was trotting along near the rear
of the long, spread-out column but, as Hal watched him, he passed the man ahead of him on the path. ‘He runs faster than his own Hottentots. If we linger here another minute, he will be up to
us before we reach the mouth of the dark gorge.’