The Blackbirder

Chapter 32

Madshaka stood ankle deep in the ocean, the damned, damned ocean. How he hated it. He had been a grumete, sure, and a good one, but that was only because he understood that working the coast was the short path to riches. He had always loathed it. In his essence he was a man of the forest, and the night.

And now the sea, which had once taken him, had brought a new threat.

Around and behind him, the Kru warriors he had led down to the beach to help him in his work. His plan: off through the surf with a boat, out to his prize, and five minutes’ work to cut through the anchor cable. The swells would drive the ship up on the beach. Most of the women and children aboard would make it to shore. Once the wreck was close in, he could send people out to take off what valuables they could.

That was the plan, but he was not happy about it. He was not happy about losing the ship itself, which was worth a great deal. He was not happy with the thought of getting a big boat through the surf with unskilled men at the oars. Landing was one thing-the waves did the chief of the work-but getting back out was something else altogether.

He was not happy about losing however many women and children would drown in the surf. Every dead body was like a coin taken from his purse. He did not like the idea of having to do any of this just to retain what was already his. It was not right. But it was better than losing it all.

The sea crashed, further out, foaming white in the moonlight, raced in and rushed around his ankles, then receded. It felt like it was tugging him along with it, pulling him out to the dark water.

And then in the quiet between the waves he heard something, some new noise, like the noise made by a body of men. And then the next wave curled and broke and drowned out everything but itself.

What was that? He cocked his ear, ready for the lull in the surf. Yes, it was still there, a big sound composed of a hundred little sounds, coming from out there. He heard the clash of steel, the squeal of blocks, voices, someone shouting.

It had to be from the new ship. It could not be from his prize. What were they about? Were they going to take his prize, sail it away? There was no wind, not nearly enough to work the ship off the beach. Madshaka understood enough about the ways of wind ships to know that. And if not the prize, then what? Why would they be coming ashore at that hour?

King James.

Madshaka felt the panic working its way like a poison through his limbs and his chest, could taste it in the back of his throat. Panic like he had not felt since waking up in the blackbirder’s hold.

King James. He knew the wealth and power that Madshaka had gathered for himself: the prize, the factory, the trunk full of slaves. He would want it for himself, and if he had talked those men on that heavily armed ship into joining with him, then he would have it.

No, no, no! He would not have it! Madshaka turned to the Kru, who, like good soldiers, were standing silent, waiting for orders. “They are coming, the men from the ship. I think they want to take the factory for themselves. We will lie in wait for them, on the trail, take them by surprise.” Heads nodded. Silent agreement. They would do as they were told.

Madshaka turned. “Come along,” he said, and the Kru followed. He headed back up the beach, his wide feet pushing aside quantities of the fine sand, and he hurried for the trailhead, hurried to get in front of the attackers, to lay his trap.

Marlowe was standing in the stern sheets of the Elizabeth Galley’s longboat, an oar in place of the rudder, but James had to admit that he did not have the same easy confidence, even exhilaration, that Madshaka had displayed. Marlowe was not a grumete. And to make matters worse, he was forced to use his uninjured left arm.

“Stand ready…,” Marlowe said, looked over his shoulder at the set of the waves, pushed the sweep a bit to one side. The boat rose up on a swell, stern first, then the stern came down fast and the bow rose up with a sickening motion, and then Marlowe shouted, “Now! Pull, pull!”

The men pulled, pulled hard, pulled with all they had, like panicked horses running away with a carriage. The big boat raced along with the surf, now surrounded by white water, curling, foaming, gunnel high. The oars came out of the water, forward, down. And in the undulating space between the waves, half of the starboard bank found only air.

James felt the boat slough around, felt it going over as it turned broadside to the surf. Marlowe was pushing hard on the sweep and shouting, “Starboard! Give way! Give way!”

The aftermost man on the starboard side had fallen back, thrown off balance by the lack of resistance on his oar. James leapt up, grabbed the long sweep before it was sucked into the ocean. He wrenched it from the tholes, thrust it down into the sea, levering it against the side of the boat, trying to force the boat back perpendicular to the surf.

But it was too late for that. James felt the boat start to roll. One second he was looking at sea and then he was looking at the stars, sweeping by, and then the boat was over and he was tossed into the waves. He felt arms and legs striking him and when he thrashed to the surface it was black and the surf was a dull and muted roar and he realized that he was under the capsized boat.

And in the next instant the boat rolled again, flying away like a roof torn from a house in a hurricane, and he was in the full roar and fury of the waves, tossed toward the beach, tumbling, flailing uselessly with arms and legs.

He felt himself drop and he hit with a jar on hard-packed sand. He felt a surge of relief, but only for an instant, and then the surf grabbed him again, lifting him, tumbling him. His head hit something hard, his mouth was filled with salt water and gritty sand. He gagged, tried to spit, and then once more he was deposited on hard ground.

He scrambled onto hands and knees and crawled up, up the beach, crawled as fast as he could before the long arms of the sea could reach him once more. He felt the water swirling around him, but it was only the fingertips of the surf and it did not have the power to move him, so he rolled over on his back, closed his eyes, breathed.

A minute of that, no more, and he pulled himself to his feet, took a few faltering steps, and then composed himself, looked around. The longboat was flung far up the beach, capsized, lying at an odd angle. Men were staggering up from the water’s edge, some walking, some crawling. Some were lying in the surf, flopping back and forth with the surge of the water.

“Come on,” James said to the few men around him. He led them down to the water’s edge where they grabbed those men lying there by their coats or under their arms and dragged them up the beach. Some would be dead and some merely unconscious. They could sort them out later.

Then Marlowe’s voice, calling the men to him, and James was relieved to hear it. He trotted across the sand with the others.

“Who have we lost?” Marlowe asked. Bickerstaff, looking at once bedraggled and composed, stood beside him.

“Johnson…,” a voice called out.

“Llewelyn, but I don’t think he’s dead…”

“Starkey…”

Three more names after that. The first body count, and that was only fighting the surf.

“Very well,” said Marlowe. “I don’t expect anyone has a grain of dry powder left, so it’s cold steel. James, lead on.”

James circled the crowd, stood for a second beside Marlowe, then waved the men forward. They had been told what the factory would be like, how they would attack over the open ground, what kind of resistance they could expect.

Their ardor did not seem in the least cooled by the fact that they would now be fighting without the advantage of firearms. The Elizabeth Galleys were a greedy bunch, and largely amoral, but they were not cowards. Or at least their greed quite eclipsed any hesitation they might have had.

They stepped across the beach and onto the forest trail that James was coming to know quite well, despite himself. They moved between the trees, and the light from the moon was all but blotted out, leaving just enough for them to see the difference between beaten track and forest edge. Every now and again one of the men would stumble and curse his misstep. It was not the silent approach that James had envisioned. If anyone was listening, they would hear the sailors approaching from a long way off.

They pressed on, and James turned that thought around in his head. The trail was the perfect place for an ambush. If Madshaka had left a man on the beach, watching, there would have been plenty of time for that man to race back to the factory and report and for Madshaka to set up just such a surprise.

“Captain Marlowe…”

“Yes?”

“I going to press ahead, see if I can smoke any trap. Might be better if your men walk with weapons drawn.”

“Hmm, yes. Good idea.” It did not sound as if the thought of ambush had occurred to Marlowe, and now he did not sound too pleased with the possibility. “Good, then. Go on ahead.”

James pulled his cutlass from the frog of the shoulder belt, more to keep it from slapping as he ran, then broke into a trot. He rolled with each step, heel to toe, listened for the sound of his own footfall but could hear nothing.

Soon he had left the Elizabeth Galleys behind, one hundred yards at least, and he slowed his pace to a brisk walk. He was part of the forest again. His nose took in the cumulative smell, his brain deciphered its many parts. He listened to the sounds and knew the rustle of leaves and the creak of tree on tree and the scurry of the tiny night hunters in the undergrowth.

He walked at the edge of the trail, right up against the tree line, as invisible as he could be. He thought of what Bickerstaff had said to him. “It would have been nothing for you to disappear forever in this country…”

It was true, but that was all he could do. Disappear. Because his homeland was no longer his home. He had suspected it from the first mention of Africa, at the first meeting of the people he had freed from bondage. And now he knew. He had been gone too long. There was nothing for him there, not anymore.

Nor was he a part of the New World. Twenty years of slavery had taken everything but his life, had left him a floating entity, bobbing in the air, with no place left for him to come down.

And then a silent alarm rang in his head and he froze and all his introspection was whisked away. Something was wrong. He listened, but there was nothing for him to hear, save for a soft rustle. An animal, perhaps.

It was the smell. He caught it again, through the rotten vegetation and the warm dirt and the flowering plants. Human smell. Dried sweat on the soft breeze.

He crouched low, took a step back, wondered if the people to whom that smell belonged were aware of his presence. Back, he had to get back to Marlowe but he did not want to move, to give himself away.

If he was aware of them, then they, watching as they were, had to be aware of him. But why then did they not move on him? Because they knew he was a scout, and they were waiting for the main body of men.

He could hear the Elizabeth Galleys now, in their clumsy advance, somewhere down the trail. They were marching right into it.

Another step back. “Marlowe! Ambush! Here!” he shouted with all his voice, the sound startling in the night forest, and then they were on him.

They broke from the brush like furies, screaming, swords raised. A gun flashed, the bullet passed close. Kru warriors, a dozen or more. They still wore their pirate clothes, the clothes they had pillaged on the high seas, but there was no mistaking them. And in the flash of the gun, Madshaka, hanging back, a grinning mountain.

James brought his cutlass up, caught a sword as it came down on him, turned it aside. His vision had been hurt by the flash, but he reckoned it had blinded the others too, and when the counterstroke missed him by a foot he knew he was right. Thrust, and the point of his cutlass caught flesh, penetrated. A scream, very close, and James leapt back as another man hacked at him.

Another pistol shot, wider than the first, and a glimpse of the men arrayed against him, and from down the road the sound of Marlowe’s men running, shouting, cursing as they raced to the fight.

James stepped back into the tree line. Heard a cutlass swish past, searching him out. He jumped forward, slashed at the attacker, felt the blade cut, and then back into the trees.

Madshaka was shouting something in Kwa and his men were shouting back and James reckoned they were arranging themselves for Marlowe’s assault. His vision was coming back, he could see the men on the trail, Madshaka behind them. They were preparing for the real threat, the armed brigands coming up the trail. They had forgotten about him, for the moment.

He moved through the tree line, just feet from the trail, but unseen by the men there, crashing through until he was behind their line of defense. And directly in front of him, Madshaka, his focus on the trail, on the growing sound of Marlowe’s privateers hustling into battle.

James crashed out of the trees, cutlass raised. From his throat, a long, whooping battle cry, a Malinke cry, a sound he had not heard or uttered or even recalled for twenty years. Madshaka whirled, the look on his face shock, panic. He stumbled back, raised his sword just in time to prevent James from cleaving his skull in two. He shouted something in Kwa, took a step back, and then his dirk was in his other hand and he met James’s fresh attack with crossed blades, caught the attacking cutlass in the V, turned it aside.

Madshaka circled around, both blades before him. He was too much the warrior to be shaken for long by the surprise rush from the tree line, and he was recovered now, tensed, a dangerous man.

James backed up, his eyes darting from Madshaka to the Kru and back, afraid to linger on either for a split second more than necessary. And then a movement caught his eye, a great surge, as the Elizabeth Galleys burst round the bend in the trail and fell on the Kru and in that instant of distraction, Madshaka attacked.

James did not see it coming until it was there, the dirk shooting forward like a snake, striking at his belly, catching him in the side as he twisted to escape. There was screaming on the trail, guns going off, two, three, four, Madshaka lit with the flashes of orange light. He drove the dagger blade home and James screamed with the agony of it and twisted further. The blade cut its way free as he jerked sideways to avoid the death thrust from Madshaka’s sword.

The sword missed his neck, scraped along his shoulder, cutting through shoulder belt and jerkin and shirt and then flesh, a hot, searing pain. But Madshaka had committed everything to the lunge and now he was off balance and James grabbed the big man’s wrist, pulled him forward, slashed with his own cutlass. He felt the blade bite, somewhere around Madshaka’s waist, but the two men were face-to-face, too close for James to deliver any mortal wound.

And for a second, less than a second, they stood there, face-to-face, their breath intermingling, huge Madshaka looking down at James, as if they were telling each other secrets. Then Madshaka grinned his horrible leer, and twisted his wrist free. Strong as James was, Madshaka was stronger still and he broke the grip, pushed James away.

They stumbled apart, two bleeding fighters, ready to go at each other again, when they were swept away by a wave of men, Marlowe’s men pushing the Kru up the trail, locked in bloody fighting. All the guns had been fired, and now it was steel on steel, and the Galleys’ superior numbers were telling. James was knocked to the earth and he saw Madshaka look to his side, saw the surprise register, and then he too was knocked down by the press of men, the Kru yielding ground, first inches, then feet.

They would yield, but they would not run. They would hold that ground until they died, because they were Kru warriors.

Screaming, blades flashing in the dull light, cursing, shouts of fury and anguish in Kwa and English, men doubling over with wounds to the belly, hacked down by heavy blades.

James’s cutlass was gone and he flailed around with his hands on the ground, searching for it, eyes up, waiting for Madshaka to appear, looming over him, his face in that grin, his sword dropping like an ax for the execution.

His hand touched cold steel. He put his palm down on it. Cold steel and hot, sticky blood-it was the blade of his cutlass. He found the hilt and snatched it up, pushed himself to a crouch. The cloth of his shirt pulled free from the wound in his side, sending a shaft of pain through him. He cried out in agony and in battle fury, pushed aside the man in front of him, and staggered through the combatants, looking for Madshaka.

Through the dark and the struggling men James could not see him, but he knew he had to be there. He saw him fall, saw him lose his sword. He could not have moved so far in the few seconds since they had been shoved apart.

But he was not there. He was not in the fight, not one of the handful of Kru still battling the privateers. Had he been, James knew he could not miss him. Madshaka was the biggest of them all, his great stature was the very thing that gave him the permanent aura of command, a quality he had used well. But he was not there.

James staggered back. He pressed a hand against the wound in his side, felt the hot blood oozing between his fingers, but the pressure felt good. The tip of his cutlass dragged on the ground.

The factory. Madshaka must have gone back there. He looked up the trail, as far as he could see. There was no sign of him. But there was no other explanation. James fought through the clouds of pain in his head. The Kru would all be dead soon, and if he, James, could see that, then Madshaka could see it as well. So Madshaka would be taking his leave, ahead of Marlowe’s men.

No, he must not. That was all that James could think. No, he must not.

He took a stumbling step up the trail, found his footing, took another. With his hand pressed to his side it was not so bad. He could move fast, not a run but something like it. The sounds of the fight were behind him, already growing more distant, the trees staggering past as he moved at his best pace, his breathing loud in his own ears.

Madshaka. He would kill Madshaka. There was no other thought. That was all he had left.