Golden Lion (49 page)

‘That mast was not as tall as this one, Aboli,’ Hal said.

‘No it was not,’ Aboli admitted, then gestured at Mossie. ‘But if he falls I will catch him, just as I would have caught you.’

Hal looked down at Mossie, at those determined eyes, and he realized he respected the boy, admired the courage the lad still had in him after all he had been through, first at the hands of the slavers and then witnessing Judith’s abduction by the Buzzard.

‘And if by some chance I do not catch him, then we will clean up the mess before my lady discovers what is happening,’ Aboli said, putting on his most grim expression though his eyes were laughing. Not that Mossie was in the least put off.

‘Before my lady discovers what?’ a female voice asked, slicing as sharply as the blade of its owner’s sword through the hubbub of manly debate.

‘Oh, nothing, my darling,’ Hal said, making a painfully transparent attempt to deflect Judith’s curiosity. But any hope he might have had of getting away with it was dashed as Mossie piped up, ‘The captain said I could climb the mainmast …’

‘I said no such thing!’ Hal blustered.

‘And if I fall Mr Aboli is going to catch me.’

‘Is this true?’ said Judith, and eyes more experienced than Hal’s in the ways of women might have noticed that she was only just succeeding in suppressing a smile.

‘It is certainly true that this cheeky scamp was trying to persuade me to let him climb the mainmast, but it is absolutely not the case that I had said he could. You can rest assured of that.’

‘Cap’n’s right, m’lady,’ Ned Tyler intervened. ‘He wasn’t letting the boy climb the mast. Not likely!’

‘Really?’ asked Judith, and now it was her turn to adopt an air of complete innocence. ‘Why on earth not? I’m all for boys being given challenges. How will they grow up to be big, strong, brave men if they’re never allowed to test themselves?’

‘But I thought … I mean, you said …’ Hal searched in vain for the right words to express the outrageous injustice he had just suffered. Judith absolutely had made it clear that she didn’t want Mossie being put in harm’s way – and she knew it.

Judith, however, knew precisely when she’d pushed things far enough. So now she walked across to her man, took his arm, looked up at him adoringly, for all the crew to see, and then said, ‘I know you were doing what you thought I wanted, and I thank you for that. But this is your ship and it is for you, not me, to decide these things. If you feel Mossie is ready to climb the mast, then I will not object.’

‘Please, Captain! Please-please-please!’ Mossie piped up.

Hal knew when he was beaten, and in truth, he knew that both Aboli and Judith were right. He had done this sort of thing when he was a lad and it had indeed helped prepare him to be a man. So he got right down to business. ‘Very well, then, Mossie-my-lad, listen carefully. Once you start the climb, do not look down until you are safe at the top.’

‘No, sir,’ said Mossie. The grin on his face was as bright as the afternoon sun and his little feet danced a jig on the spot. ‘When I am up there with the gulls I will tell them who I am. I will tell them who you are too, Captain sir.’

‘I’ll tell them myself, boy,’ Hal said, ‘because I’m coming up there with you.’

‘What?’ Judith gasped, having been caught completely unawares.

‘I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the first rule of good leadership, my dear general. Never ask any man – or small boy – to do something you would not do yourself.’

There were plenty of grins and a few stifled chuckles among the crewmen. That was their Hal Courtney, all right.

‘Damn, but he reminds me of his dad sometimes,’ Ned Tyler said to Big Daniel as they stood together, looking on.

‘Aye, bet old Franky’s looking down on this and loving it,’ the massive boatswain replied.

Hal took off his shirt so that he stood there bare-chested and bare-footed, looking like any other sailor on the
Bough
, his torso, like theirs, sinewy with hard-earned muscle and scarred from many fights. There were other scars too and as Mossie saw them now his eyes grew large and his mouth fell open though he said nothing.

‘I too have lived like a slave, Mossie,’ Hal told the boy, knowing how terrifying were the whip-marks which latticed his back and flanks.

‘You must have been very disobedient, milord,’ Mossie said with a grin.

Hal laughed. ‘Yes … even more than you, lad.’ His hair had grown long and he pulled the leather thong from it and re-tied it so that the thick dark pigtail fell between his shoulder blades. ‘Shall we?’ he said, gesturing towards the mainmast the way he might invite a lady to go for a stroll at sunset.

‘Let’s see if the captain still has the legs for it!’ one of the men shouted.

‘Aye, I’ll wager a shilling that the boy beats him to the top.’

‘Ha! You haven’t got a bleeding shilling, Evans,’ Will Stanley said.

‘Nah! Young Courtney was born in the shrouds. He’ll be up there like the king’s hand up Nellie Gwyn’s skirts,’ another man called.

‘Win, my darling, win for me,’ Judith whispered, under her breath. The sight of her man, in all his youth, his strength and his virility had made her wish that she could drag him away from this race and off to their cabin. But since she had no option but to bide her time, she wanted her man to prove himself, to win and to mark himself unmistakably as the dominant male in the
Golden Bough
’s pack.

‘You devils get back to work!’ Hal bellowed at his idling crew, though he knew very well that every man aboard would be watching to see how well he climbed.

Aboli appointed himself the starter. ‘Are you ready?’ he called out, raising his hand in the air. Both the contestants nodded back at him, their bodies tensed in anticipation.

‘Go!’ Aboli shouted, and Mossie was off so fast it seemed that he was on the mast and climbing as the word was still leaving Aboli’s lips.

Hal cursed and set off after his young competitor. It was hot work. The sweat streamed down Hal’s face, stinging his eyes and rolling down his back and chest. He tried to keep the mast between him and the sun so that its fire did not blind him as he climbed, but mostly he tried to keep up with the boy.

‘He’s a natural born topmastman,’ Ned Tyler observed, like a trainer observing a yearling’s form on the gallops at Newmarket Heath, though he had to shout to be heard over the cheers and cries of encouragement coming from the men all around him.

‘Aye, but the captain still climbs like a monkey with a burning bum,’ Big Daniel proudly replied.

Their words were lost to Hal for he was now far above the deck, but still chasing the boy in front of him. But then Mossie looked down.

‘Eyes up, lad,’ Hal said, yet it was too late and the boy froze, arms clinging to the shrouds and his whole body trembling.

‘I am stuck, Captain sir!’

‘Take a breath. There’s nothing to it,’ Hal said. ‘Up you go.’ He could have told Mossie to go down, that he had gone high enough, but he knew that if the boy did not make the masthead now he might lose his nerve forever.

Down below, the men had fallen silent. They had all had to make their first climb and overcome the fear that struck all but a very few first-timers. So now they understood exactly what the boy was going through. The race was over as a contest. But the challenge facing Mossie was greater than ever.

‘My legs, Captain. They betray me, sir.’

‘They’ll do what you tell them, lad. Now get up there.’

‘I cannot move,’ Mossie said in a crestfallen voice on the verge of tears. His bony little knees were about to give way. Hal could count every rib as the boy’s belly sucked in and out like bellows.

‘You will climb to the masthead or I will put into the next port we pass and put you up for sale in the slave market,’ Hal said. It was a cruel threat. He knew it was. But he had to make the boy fear something more than he feared the height, and sure enough, though he was crying now, Mossie reached up and took hold of the next ratline.

‘That’s the way. Not far now,’ Hal said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Mossie said. Up he went, his legs still trembling but the pale soles of his feet flexing over the ratlines. Then he was up and over and into the masthead crow’s nest.

‘We’ll make a topmastman of you, boy,’ Hal said, climbing over the lip to sit beside him as cheers rang out from down below.

But Mossie was scowling.

‘You did well, Mossie,’ Hal said, pleased with his own performance too for he knew he had been fast and lithe and already his breathing was slowing, becoming measured again. ‘The whole ship saw you climb and you have earned their respect. Listen, they’re cheering you.’

‘But I … I could not move.’

‘You looked down,’ Hal said. ‘I told you not to.’

Mossie seemed ashamed but Hal would not coddle the boy. ‘So we’ve seen you climb. How is your eyesight?’ He pointed south at a ship running up the coast on a course parallel to their own, but with far more sail, pushing as hard as her captain could drive her.

There’s a man in a hurry
, thought Hal. There was something familiar about the outline of the ship, though Hal could not quite place it.
Damn! Are my eyes starting to betray me already?

‘What colours is she flying?’ he asked Mossie.

Mossie shook his head. ‘No colours, Captain,’ Mossie said, knuckling the last residue of tears from his eyes.

‘Strange,’ Hal muttered. He would have liked to stay up there longer to take another good look at the mystery ship. But their first descent from the top of the mast was often even worse for new sailors than getting there had been. Mossie needed guiding back down to the bottom, and his men needed livening up. The sight of a ship outpacing the
Bough
so comprehensively served only to remind him how casual their progress had become.

‘Come on then, boy, let’s get back down to deck,’ Hal said.

‘My legs will not betray me again, Captain,’ Mossie said, defiantly.

‘I know they won’t, boy,’ Hal said. ‘Now let’s get down to that deck.’

he Buzzard was crouched in the shadow of the tall trees that grew on the rocky heads that guarded Elephant Lagoon, looking past the gun emplacements where once the Courtneys had placed culverins to defend their hidden refuge, across an expanse of dark green water that was deep enough for the mightiest warship in any king’s navy to drop anchor without the slightest fear of running around. And yet there was not so much as a rowing boat to be seen, either bobbing on the lagoon or pulled up on the beach of shining white sand, where the only inhabitants were not men, but three elephants, quietly walking along the strand, like huge, grey gentlefolk taking a promenade in the park. Barros was not in a mood to be charmed by the sight.

‘Damn you! I have worked my men to the point of mutiny and my ship is held together by little more than my prayers … and for what? Nothing! Courtney has been and gone! We will not see a scrap of gold, not the tiniest speck of it.’

‘Stop whining, man! Your ship’s perfectly sound. You’ve torn a couple of sails, cracked a spar or two and you’ve a few loose timbers, but you know as well as I do that’s nothing – less than a day’s work for the boatyards at the Cape. As for your men, they’ll be fine as long as they think there’s a spot of good stuff at the end of the voyage.’

‘But I don’t see any stuff around here, good or bad!’ Barros complained, his voice rising in pitch as well as volume.

‘You didn’t think it would be laid out on the beach for you, did you?’ The Buzzard’s eye winked at him from beyond its mask hole. ‘Come with me.’

‘Will it be safe down there?’ Barros asked, showing the first sign that he had even noticed the creatures from which this secret world took its name.

‘One sniff of your stink and they’ll be gone like smoke in the wind.’

They pushed a way through the thick forest that fringed the lagoon until they came to the remains of the huts that had once been slept in and fought over by both the Courtneys and the Buzzard.

Aye, when I was still a man, with all my limbs, and everything else in perfect working order
, he thought to himself.

There were the scattered ashes of old campfires dotted here and there, but it was obvious that they all dated back to that earlier time.

‘No one’s been here in months,’ the Buzzard gave his opinion.

‘If I were Courtney, I would not allow my men to come ashore,’ Barros said. ‘I would keep them on the ship and then go with one or two of my most trusted officers – no more than that – and fetch this treasure.’

The Buzzard gave a croaking burst of laughter. ‘Young Courtney would not do that. He’d let his men off the ship to fish, hunt for fresh meat and find wood to repair the ship. The boy’s as soft as warm butter.’

‘A great weakness.’ Barros shook his head deprecatingly.

‘Aye, it’ll be the death of him yet.’ The Buzzard laughed. ‘And pretty soon, too.’

‘So what shall we do?’

‘We anchor your
Madre
in the next bay to the south of here, so that Courtney doesn’t spot it as he comes in from the north. Leave lookouts watching the lagoon, with their longboat well hidden. When Courtney arrives one of his first moves will be to go and check his bonny little treasure trove, wherever he has stashed it away. When he returns to his ship we will be right there to give him a right royal welcome, relieve him of his treasure and follow that up immediately afterwards with an equally royal funeral.’