Birds of Prey (96 page)

‘However, I do not believe that that is what he will do. If he sails directly to Arabia, the Emperor and the Tabernacle would have a dangerous and difficult overland journey to reach
either Muscat or India.’ He shook his head. ‘No. He will sail south through the Bab El Mandeb.’

Hal placed his finger on the narrow entrance to the Red Sea. ‘If we can reach there before he does, then he cannot avoid us. The Bab is too narrow. We must be able to catch him
there.’

‘God grant it!’ Judith prayed.

‘I have a long account to settle with the Buzzard,’ Hal said grimly. ‘I ache in every part of my body and soul to have him under my guns.’

Judith looked up at him in consternation. ‘You cannot fire upon his ship.’

‘What do you mean?’ He stared back at her.

‘He has the Emperor and the Tabernacle on board with him. You cannot risk destroying either of those.’

As he realized the truth of what she had said Hal felt his spirits quail. He would have to run down the
Gull of Moray
and close with her while the Buzzard fired his broadsides into the
Golden Bough
and he could make no reply. He could imagine the terrible punishment they would have to endure, the cannonballs ripping through the hull of his ship and the slaughter on her
decks, before they could board the
Gull
.

The
Golden Bough
ran on into the south. At the end of the forenoon watch Hal assembled all the men in the waist of the ship and told them of the task he demanded of them. ‘I will
not hide it from you, lads. The Buzzard will be able to have his way with us, and we will not be able to fire back.’ They were silent and sober-faced. ‘But think how sweet it will be
when we go aboard the
Gull
and take the steel to them.’

They cheered him then, but there was fear in their eyes when he sent them back to trim the sails and coax every inch of speed out of the ship in her flight towards the Bab El Mandeb.

‘You promise them death, and they cheer you,’ Judith Nazet said softly, when they were alone. ‘Yet you call me a leader of men.’ He thought he heard more than respect in
her tone.

Half-way through the first dog watch there was a hail from the masthead. ‘Sail ho! Full on the bow!’

Hal’s pulse raced. Could they have caught the Buzzard so soon? He snatched the speaking trumpet from its bracket. ‘Masthead! What do you make of her?’

‘Lateen rig!’ His heart sank. ‘A small ship. On the same course as we are.’

Judith said quietly. ‘It could be the one I sent to follow the
Gull
.’

Gradually they gained on the other vessel, and within half an hour it was hull up from the deck. Hal handed his telescope to Judith and she studied it carefully. ‘Yes. It is my
scout.’ She lowered the glass. ‘Can you fly the white cross to allay their fears, then take me close enough to speak to her?’

They passed her so closely that they could look down onto her single deck. Judith shouted a question in Geez, then listened to the faint reply.

She turned back to Hal, her eyes bright with excitement. ‘You were right. They have been following the
Gull
since dawn. Until only a few hours ago they had her top sails in sight
but then the wind strengthened and she pulled away from them.’

‘What course was she on when last they saw her?’

‘The same course she has held all this day,’ Judith told him. ‘Due south, heading straight for the narrows of the Bab.’

Though he entreated her to go down to his cabin and rest, Judith insisted on staying beside him on the quarterdeck. They spoke little, for both were too tense and fearful, but slowly there came
over them a feeling of companionship. They took comfort from each other, and drew on a mutual reserve of strength and determination.

Every few minutes Hal looked up at his funereal black sails, then crossed to the binnacle. There was no order he could give the helm, for Ned Tyler was steering her fine as she could sail.

A charged and poignant silence lay heavy on the ship. No man shouted or laughed. The off-duty watch did not doze in the shade of the main sail as was their usual practice but huddled in small
silent groups, alert to every move he made and to every word he uttered.

The sun made its majestic circle of the sky and drooped down to touch the far western hills. Night came upon them as stealthily as an assassin, and the horizon blurred and melded with the
darkening sky, then was gone.

In the darkness he felt Judith’s hand on his arm. It was smooth and warm, yet strong. ‘We have lost them, but it is not your fault,’ she said softly. ‘No man could have
done more.’

‘I have not yet failed,’ he said. ‘Have faith in God and trust in me.’

‘But in darkness? Surely the Buzzard would not show a light, and by dawn tomorrow he will be through the Bab and into the open sea.’

He wanted to tell her that all of this had been ordained long ago, that he was sailing south to meet a special destiny. Even though this might seem fanciful to her, he had to tell her.
‘Judith,’ he said, then paused as he sought the right words.

‘Deck!’ Aboli’s voice boomed out of the darkness high above. It had a timbre and resonance to it that made Hal’s skin prickle and the hairs at the back of his neck
stand.

‘Masthead!’ he bellowed back.

‘A light dead ahead!’

He placed one arm around Judith’s shoulders and she made no move to pull away from him. Instead, she leaned closer.

‘There is the answer to your question,’ he whispered.

‘God has provided for us,’ she replied.

‘I must go aloft.’ Hal dropped his arm from around her shoulders. ‘Perhaps we are too hasty, and the devil is playing us tricks.’ He strode across to Ned. ‘Dark
ship, Mr Tyler. I’ll keel haul the man who shows a light. Silent ship, no sound or voice.’ He went to the mainmast shrouds.

Hal climbed swiftly until he had joined Aboli. ‘Where is this light?’ He scanned the darkness ahead. ‘I see nothing.’

‘It has gone, but it was almost dead ahead.’

‘A star in your eye, Aboli?’

‘Wait, Gundwane. It was a small light and far away.’

The minutes passed slowly, and then suddenly Hal saw it. Not even a glimmer, but a soft luminescence, so nebulous that he doubted his eyes, especially as Aboli beside him had shown no sign of
seeing it. Hal looked away to rest his eyes then turned back and saw in the darkness that it was still there, too low for a star, a weird unnatural glow.

‘Yes, Aboli. I see it now.’ As he spoke it became brighter, and Aboli exclaimed also. Then it died away again.

‘It could be a strange vessel, not the
Gull
.’

‘Surely the Buzzard would not be so careless as to show a running light.’

‘A lantern in the stern cabin? The reflection from his binnacle?’

‘Or one of his sailors enjoying a quiet pipe?’

‘Let us pray that it is one of those. It is where we could expect the Buzzard to be,’ said Hal. ‘We will keep after it until moonrise.’

They stayed together, peering ahead into the night. Sometimes the strange light showed as a distinct point, at others it was a faint amorphous glow, and often it disappeared. Once it was gone
completely for a terrifying half hour, before it shone again perceptibly stronger.

‘We are gaining,’ Hal dared whisper. ‘How far off now, do you reckon?’

‘A league,’ said Aboli, ‘maybe less.’

‘Where is the moon?’ Hal looked into the east, ‘Will it never rise?’

He saw the first iridescence beyond the dark mountains of Arabia and, shyly as a bride, the moon unveiled her face. She laid down a silver path upon the waters, and Hal felt his breath lock in
his chest and every sinew of his body drawn tight as a bowstring.

Out of the darkness ahead appeared a lovely apparition, soft as a cloud of opaline mist.

‘There she is!’ he whispered. He had to draw a deep breath to steady his voice. ‘The
Gull of Moray
dead ahead.’

He grasped Aboli’s arm. ‘Do you go down and warn Ned Tyler and Big Daniel. Stay there until you can see the
Gull
from the deck, then come back.’

When Aboli was gone he watched the shape of the
Gull
’s sails firm and harden in the moonlight, and he felt fear as he had seldom known it in his life, fear not only for himself but
for the men who trusted him and the woman on the deck below and the child aboard the other ship. How could he hope to lay the
Golden Bough
alongside the
Gull
while she fired her
broadsides into them, and they could make no reply? How many must die in the next hour and who would be among them? He though of Judith Nazet’s proud slim body torn by flying grape. ‘Do
not let it happen, Lord God. You have taken from me already more than I can bear. How much more? How much more will you ask of me?’

He saw the light again on board the other ship. It glowed from the tall windows in her stern. Were there candles burning in there? He stared until his eyes ached, but there was no single source
to the emanation of light.

There was a light touch on his arm. He had not heard Aboli climb back to him. ‘The
Gull
is in sight from the deck,’ he told Hal softly.

Hal could not leave the masthead yet, for he felt a sense of religious dread as he stared at the strange light in the
Gull
’s stern.

‘’Tis no lamp or lantern or candle, Aboli,’ he said. ‘’Tis the Tabernacle of Mary that glows in the darkness. A beacon to guide me to my destiny.’

Aboli shivered beside him. ‘’Tis true that it is a light not of this world, a fairy light, such as I have never seen before.’ His voice shook. ‘But how do you know,
Gundwane? How can you be so sure that it is the talisman that burns so?’

‘Because I know,’ said Hal simply, and as he said it the light died away before their eyes, and the
Gull
was dark. Only her moonlit sails towered before them.

‘It was a sign,’ Aboli murmured.

‘Yes, it was a sign,’ said Hal, and his voice was strong and serene once again. ‘God has given me a sign.’

They climbed down to the deck, and Hal went directly to the helm. ‘There she is, Mr Tyler.’ They both looked ahead to where the
Gull
’s canvas shone in the moonlight.

‘Aye, there she is, Captain.’

‘Douse the light in the binnacle. Lay me alongside the
Gull
, if you please. Have four spare helmsmen standing by to take the whipstaff when the others are killed.’

‘Aye, Sir Hal.’

Hal went forward. Big Daniel’s figure emerged out of the darkness. ‘Grappling irons, Master Daniel?’

‘All ready, Captain. Me and ten of my strongest men will heave them.’

‘Nay, Daniel, leave that to John Lovell. I have better work for you and Aboli. Come with me.’

He led Daniel and Aboli back to where Judith Nazet stood at the foot of the mainmast.

‘The two of you will go with General Nazet. Take ten of your best seamen. Do not get caught up in the fighting on deck. Swift as you can, get down to the
Gull
’s stern cabin.
There you will find the Tabernacle and the child. Bring them out. Nothing must turn you aside from that purpose. Do you understand?’

‘How do you know where they are holding the Emperor and the Tabernacle?’ Judith Nazet asked quietly.

‘I know,’ Hal said, with such finality that she was silent. He wanted to order her to stay in a safe place until the fight was over, but he knew she would refuse – and besides
which there was no safe place when two ships of such force were locked in mortal combat.

‘Where will you be, Gundwane?’ Aboli asked softly.

‘I shall be with the Buzzard,’ Hal said, and left them without another word.

He went towards the bows, pausing as he reached each of the divisions who crouched below the gunwale, and speaking softly to their boatswains. ‘God love you, Samuel Moone. We might have to
take a shot or two before we board her, but think of the pleasure that waits you on the
Gull
’s deck.’

To Jiri he said, ‘This will be such a fight as you will boast of to your grandchildren.’

He had a word for each, then stood once more in the bows and looked across at the
Gull
. She was a cable’s length ahead now, sailing on serenely under her moon-radiant canvas.

‘Lord, keep us hidden from them,’ he whispered, and looked up at his own black sails, a tall dark pyramid against the stars.

Slowly, achingly slowly they closed the gap. She cannot elude us now, Hal thought, with grim satisfaction. We are too close.

Suddenly there came a wild scream of terror from the
Gull
’s masthead. ‘Sail ho! Dead astern! The
Golden Bough
!’

Then all was shouting and confusion on the other ship’s deck. There was the savage beat of a drum calling the Buzzard’s crew to battle quarters, and the rush of many feet on her
planking. A loud series of crashes as her gunports were flung open, and then the squeal and rumble as the guns were run out. From twenty points along her dark rail came the glow of slow-match
burning, and the glint of their reflection from steel.

‘Light the battle lamps!’ Hal heard the Buzzard’s bellows of rage as he drove his panicky crew to their stations, then clearly his order to the helm. ‘Hard to larboard!
Lay the bastards under our broadside! We’ll give them such a good sniff of gunsmoke that they’ll fart it in the devil’s face when we send them down to hell.’

The
Gull
’s battle lanterns flared, as she lit up to give her gunners light to work. In their yellow glow Hal glimpsed the Buzzard’s bush of red hair.

Then the silhouette of the
Gull
altered rapidly as she came around. Hal nodded, the Buzzard had acted instinctively but unwisely. In his position Hal would have stood off and shot the
Golden Bough
to a wreck while she was unable to reply. Now he would have to be fortunate and quick to get off one steady broadside before the
Golden Bough
was upon him.

Hal grinned. The Buzzard was the victim of his own iniquity. Probably it had not even entered his calculations that Hal would hold his fire on account of a child and an ancient relic. If he were
in the same position as Hal, the Buzzard would have blazed away with all his cannon.