was an elixir, cut only with the scent of the tarred lines, the musty smell of the sail canvas and, now and then when the wind was right, the sweet, spicy aroma of the soil of Africa itself wafting across the ocean from the coast.
He peered north into the gloom for a sign of the Dutchman that had last been seen three leagues off the Bough’s stern. A glimpse of white caught his eye, where the cloud had torn to let the last glimmer of moonlight through. Hal knew his eyes were as good as those of any man aboard – that was one reason he had chosen to look for himself, rather than rely on another to do it – but as he searched the ocean the clouds closed ranks once more, the darkness returned and then there was nothing to be seen.
‘Where are you then?’ he murmured.
Dawn came, a bloodstain on the hem of night’s gown as the last of the northerly played out across the canvas and the Bough slowed to a crawl, then drifted without purpose as she lost steerage, eventually refusing to go another yard into the south. As the sea mist settled over the surface, shrouding the ship and the waters around her in a soft blanket that muffled sound as much as it hampered vision, the Bough rolled gently in the swells. Hal might have been lulled to sleep like a baby in its cot had he not been startled by Ned Tyler calling up to him. The helmsman was asking permission to let go the anchor, for it was better to stay where they were than risk drifting blindly at the whim of the tides until they found themselves high and dry on a sand bar.
Hal felt a little guilty then, being up there like a young ensign instead of on the quarterdeck or the poop like the captain he was. But he refused to abandon the search just yet, not when every instinct told him it must be the Dutchman out there. She was a small caravel: three-masted and square rather than lateen-rigged. A captured prize most likely, taken from the Spanish or Portuguese Hal guessed, for it was rare to see such a ship flying Dutch colours. She would still be getting enough out of the breeze to keep her moving for she was only half the size of the Bough. Hal knew he had nothing to fear from such a ship, and not just because his culverins could blast her out of the water if it came to a fight.
‘Damn this truce,’ he whispered, narrowing his eyes as if they could somehow penetrate the mist and catch another glimpse of canvas. Peace now prevailed between the English and the Dutch, though Hal wished it did not. It had been a Dutch governor of the Cape Colony who had ordered the torture and murder of his father and Dutchmen who had followed his instructions to the brutal, gory letter. Hal longed for the legitimacy that war provided. For then he would be able to spill Dutch blood by the gallon in retribution for his father’s suffering.
Suddenly he fancied he caught the Dutchman’s scent in the air, a waft of fresh tar and the stale sweat of her crew, but it was gone again in a heartbeat. Aboli was right to say that Sir Francis had prepared Hal well for the responsibilities of captaining a ship. And yet there was something else too, something that even his father could not have taught him, and that was the warrior’s instinct. Hal felt that coursing through him like the blood in his veins. He could, when it was called for, be a killer. That instinct had made him leave his soft bed and the beautiful woman sleeping in it to climb up there to the masthead. It was that same instinct that alerted him to the danger now.
He had not seen the first of the cloth-muffled grappling hooks that clumped onto the Golden Bough’s deck, but Hal saw the first dark shapes coming over the side in the mist.
‘To arms! To arms!’ He gave the alarm, as the first pistols spat flames which cut through the murk, briefly illuminating the faces of the men who had come to kill them. Hal was already out of the crow’s nest. Down he came into the chaos that was enveloping them.
He thanked Almighty God for inducing the Amadoda tribesmen to sleep beneath the stars, for now they were leaping to their feet, seizing their weapons and hurling themselves into the fight. Faced by the tribesmen’s ferocity, spears and axes, the attackers must be regretting their impertinence. But even from halfway down the mast, Hal could tell that those men clambering over the Bough’s gunnels were heavily armed. Each had a pistol in hand and another pair tied with cords around their necks. As Hal glanced down he saw one of the Amadoda thrown back by the force of a pistol ball that blew a hole in his naked chest. The man fell to the deck, with the whites of his eyes rolling up into his skull.
Hal jumped the last five feet to the deck. As his feet hit the planking he suddenly realized that he was unarmed. He had not thought to pick up his flintlock pistol or his sword when he left his cabin.
‘Here, Gundwane!’ Hal turned and caught the sabre by the hilt, nodding to Aboli who had thrown it. Then he launched himself into the chaos, slashing open a man’s face, then spinning away to stab the blade deeply into another’s guts.
‘Golden Bough on me!’ he shouted, and the Amadoda cheered, as they surged forward. Others of the Golden Bough’s crew were pouring up through the hatches.
Shoulder to shoulder Hal and Aboli hacked their way into the enemy. And yet the Dutchmen still had loaded pistols and these roared, spitting out death and disaster.
One huge Dutchman whose features were masked by a dense growth of dark beard, fired his pistol then reversed it and clubbed down the black man who opposed him. Three Amadoda went down before him but then Big Daniel was there. His sword had lodged in a dead man’s shoulder, but his own raw strength was weapon enough. Daniel threw up a brawny arm to block the Dutchman’s pistol, then clutched his beard in both hands and pulled its owner’s face towards him as he thrust his own head forward, smashing the big man’s nose with a splintering crack that Hal heard even above the din of battle.
The Dutchman staggered, blood cascading down his face and beard. Big Daniel glanced to one side, retrieved his sword from the dead man’s shoulder and went at the bearded man like a butcher at a side of beef.
Hal shouted with exultation. Any advantage the Dutch may have gained with the surprise of their attack had been nullified by the speed and ferocity with which the Bough’s men had responded. Victory was still not entirely his, but even in his young life Hal had fought enough ship-board battles to know when the balance was shifting. One last effort and that shift would be decisive. He was about to utter his rallying cry when he heard Aboli’s voice call out, ‘Gundwane!’
Hal glanced across the deck and saw that Aboli was pointing with his sword aft towards the mêlée around the foot of the mizzenmast.
‘No!’ he told himself in despair. ‘That cannot be!’
Judith was already waiting for him, dressed only in her nightgown but with her sword in hand. Her hesitation over what to wear to go aboard the Bough had saved her life, for instead of being packed in one of her trunks and stowed away in the hold, her kaskara sword had come with her in her travelling baggage and had been placed in her cabin.
The man who was first through the window had barely laid a toe on the cabin deck when he took the point of the kaskara through his throat. Judith pulled the blade away. Then as he went down she spun as nimbly as a dancer around the second boarder as he blundered past his wounded comrade. Then she aimed a savage, slashing blow across the small of his back that sliced through one of his kidneys and dropped her arm, with him writhing, screaming and bleeding at her feet.
More men were piling into the cabin now and Judith realized that she was in danger of boxing herself into a corner, for the men she’d downed had formed a barrier, partially blocking the way between her and the cabin door. She moved fast, fighting her way to the door, her sword flashing from side to side as she parried, stabbed and slashed, struggling to defend herself against the increasing number of men who now opposed her. She fended one thrust away above her left shoulder, then swung her curved sword down and across