Golden Lion Page 36

  ‘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 th
e 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.’

  hey pulled the oars with long strokes, driving the two boats into the swift current of fresh water flowing out of the gorge. Their presence in this secret place disturbed the flocks of water fowl that rose shrieking and honking into the sky.

  So far they had not been disappointed with this secret place. No sooner had the Golden Bough dropped her anchor than her crew had been greeted by the sight of a small herd of elephants shambling out of the forest onto the beach, taking their lead from an old bull with massive tusks. When they saw human beings aboard the anchored ships, the grey giants stood their ground, raising their great heads, spreading their ears as they trumpeted a challenge at them.

  ‘Oh, what magnificent beasts,’ Judith said, watching them from the bows.

  ‘And cleverer than many people I have known,’ Aboli said in all seriousness.

  ‘Why don’t we shoot a few of them?’ Big Daniel suggested eagerly. ‘There’s a fortune in ivory right there. Good God, but the tusks on that bull must be ten feet long.’

  ‘There is easier plunder waiting for us, Dan,’ Hal said with a shake of his head. ‘I think we’ll leave them in peace.’

  Hal had anchored the Golden Bough opposite the ruins of the old fort, and ran out all the guns, loaded with grapeshot in case of a surprise attack from savages of any colour; brown, black or white. Then he took Judith aside.

  ‘I am going to ask you to stay here, instead of undergoing a long couple of days in a pinnace. Besides there will be very little leg room on the way back, if you get my meaning. On the other hand, if you wait for my return here you will have fifty men and more to watch over you, and those long sandy beaches on which you and the baby can relax.’

  ‘For the sake of the baby I will do it. But promise you will return as soon as you possibly can; for I will miss you desperately.’

  Before they had launched the two longboats and prepared the twelve-strong shore party the great grey pachyderms had lost interest and moved back into the forest, vanishing in an eerie silence.

  Now, as the men bent to the long sweeps, Hal, Daniel and Aboli looked up at the cliff tops on either side of them from which troops of baboons barked a challenge.

  They had rowed little more than ten miles from where the Golden Bough lay at anchor, the sails furled on her yards, until the fresh water stream narrowed abruptly and the cliff faces on either side of them were more sharply defined, as though the Great God Thor had cleaved them out of the rock with his celestial hammer.

  ‘This is the place, Master Daniel,’ Hal called to the other boat, and put the rudder across to steer her into the southern bank and moor her to the identical rock which his father had used for the same purpose. Hal sat for a moment in silent homage to the man who had given him birth and had prepared him so meticulously for the hard life on the ocean wave. When he roused himself and looked up, Aboli was watching him. They exchanged glances and Hal nodded at his friend and companion of the years; both men in total accord.

  Hal stood up and looped two coils of hempen rope over his shoulders so they crossed over his chest. ‘I’ll go first, you next,’ he told Aboli. ‘Daniel, keep four men with you to load the boats with whatever we lower down to you. The rest of you, light your match and keep your eyes wide open.’

  Hal jumped onto the narrow ledge below the rock wall and began to climb.

  ‘Go carefully, Gundwane,’ Aboli called after him. ‘There is no hurry.’

  Hal ignored him, for he was suddenly in a dreadful hurry. Had the treasure lain undisturbed all these years or had it been discovered by one of the many who were hunting for it? Was the cave barren or was it glutted with gold?

  Even though there was no obvious route up the rock face, he never paused, climbing with speed and fearless agility until he swung himself onto the narrow ledge that was invisible to those in the longboats far below. The stones blocking the cave’s narrow entrance were stacked as neatly as he and Aboli had left them so long ago. And his heart started to sing and rejoice, as he removed them one by one, and set them aside.

  When the hole was large enough he crawled inside then stood up carefully, for the roof was low and uneven. He waited while his eyes adjusted to the thin shaft of daylight that probed through the opening he had made, but the depths of the cave were shrouded in darkness.

  He reached up head-high to the stone ledge on the wall beside him, and his groping fingers came upon the articles that his father had placed there on their last visit. He hugged them to his chest and sank to his knees. On the rock floor of the cave he set out the two tallow candles, and then he struck a shower of sparks from the flint with the steel. The oakum tinder was dry as the Sahara, it flared into flames and Hal lit both candles from it. Then he sat back and with hope and dread equally mingled he raised his eyes and peered into the depths of the cave.

  It was all still there. It was untouched. Every keg, barrel, sack and chest was stacked just as he and his father had left it. The silver plate and gold ingots stood in neat piles. The precious metals were bright and unsullied.

  He sank back on his knees and remembered the words of his father.

  Every one of us owes God a death. When the time comes for me to pay my debt I want this to be my legacy to you, his father had said.

  ‘It is far too much, Father. What do you want me to do with such riches?’ Hal spoke aloud, and another voice answered him immediately.

  ‘Just for a start you could pay Viscount Winterton what you still owe him for the Golden Bough. Then you could find yourself a few thousand acres of prime land on England’s green and glorious shores and a mansion to fill with a lovely woman and a dozen squealing infants.’

  Startled, Hal jumped to his feet and turned to find Aboli behind him. He was breathing heavily from the exertions of his climb up the cliff. Hal clasped his shoulder, and the two of them stood in silence for a while, as if in homage to the man who had won this mighty fortune for his son, and paid for it with his life.

  They remembered the agony he had suffered at the hands of Slow John, the torturer and executioner who did his terrible work on the orders of van de Velde, the governor of the Dutch colony of the Cape of Good Hope.

  ‘Was it worth it, Aboli?’ Hal broke the silence at last.

  ‘Your father believed it was.’ Aboli shrugged. ‘He gave his life for this, so now it is your duty to accept it, lest his sacrifice be in vain.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Hal said softly, but sincerely. ‘Without that sound advice I might have spurned my father’s legacy and spent the rest of my life suffering for it.’

  They spent the next two days swaying this tremendous weight of metal and precious stones down the cliff face and packing it into the two longboats. By the time they had completed the transfer and the loading there was very little free-board remaining on either boat. Hal ordered most of the men ashore with ropes to tow the boats along the bank, while he and Aboli steered them with the tillers. It was slow going and they had to camp the first night on the river bank. Before sunrise the next morning they set off again.

  They had another half a league to go to reach the head of the lagoon where the Golden Bough was anchored when there was a rumble in the sky ahead of them, like distant thunder. Every one of them paused in their labours and looked up at the sky in surprise. However, though the clouds were dense and dark, there was no other sign of an approaching storm.

  ‘Thunder?’ hazarded Daniel.

  ‘No!’ Aboli yelled from the leading boat. ‘That was not thunder; that was a cannon shot!’

  ‘Like as not, a distress signal from the
Golden Bough!’ Hal cried. ‘She must be under attack.’

  He was not the Buzzard, damn all of them who thought it. He was and had always been Angus Cochran, Earl of Cumbrae and a Nautonnier Knight of the Temple of the Order of St George and the Holy Grail, just as was Hal Courtney and his father before him.

  The only difference between them was that they made a great fuss about honour and dignity and the battle for Christ and the Holy Grail, whereas he had always known that they were meaningless medieval claptrap. They had sought to mock him by calling him the Buzzard, just as Prince Jahan had tried to humiliate and enslave him by locking him into this bloody mask.

  But now the mask empowered him. It had brought him back from the edge of fiery death. It had covered his ruined face and converted him into a creature of mystery. It struck terror into the hearts of his enemies. He was strong once more. He was again a warrior fierce and pitiless.

  He had set his snare and caught young Hal Courtney in it; with his breeks around his ankles and his arse flapping in the wind.

  Cochran might have lost an arm, an eye and most of his cock, but his brain was still in perfect working order, and the sword in his right hand was still deadly.

  For the last three days, ever since the arrival of the Golden Bough at Elephant Lagoon, the Madre de Deus had been ready for immediate action. Now her topmastmen were at their stations, ready to unfurl every scrap of canvas she could carry, and the gun crews were standing by their cannons which were shotted and loaded.

  The Buzzard’s spies had seen the two pinnaces leave the Golden Bough and row up to the top end of the lagoon, where they entered the stream of fresh water, and disappeared around the first bend in the river heading up through the valley towards the inland plateau. Through their telescopes they had even been able to recognize Hal Courtney and his black henchman, Aboli. But they had not seen them return. Of course they might have done so after nightfall, when the lookouts would not have spotted them, but they could not escape from the lagoon without him knowing about it.