Birds of Prey

Four o'clock in the morning. It would be light in an hour. Hal scrambled up and, rubbing his eyes, staggered to the stinking bucket in the heads and eased himself. Then, fully awake, he hurried down the heaving deck, avoiding the sleeping figures that cluttered it.

The cook had his fire going in the brick-lined galley and passed Hal a pewter mug of soup and a hard biscuit. Hal was ravenous and gulped the liquid, though it scalded his tongue. When he crunched the biscuit he felt the weevils in it pop between his teeth.

As he hurried to the foot of the mainmast he saw the glow of his father's pipe in the shadows of the poop and smelled a whiff of his tobacco, rank on the sweet night air. Hal did not pause but went up the shrouds noting the change of tack and the new setting of the sails that had taken place while he slept.

When he reached the masthead and had relieved the lookout there, he settled into his nest and looked about him. There was no moon and, but for the stars, all was dark. He knew every named star, from the mighty Sirius to tiny Mintaka in Orion's glittering belt, They were the ciphers of the navigator, the signposts of the sky, and he had learned their names with his alphabet. His eye went, unbidden, to pick out Regulus in the sign of the Lion. It was not the brightest star in the zodiac, but it was his own particular star and he felt a quiet pleasure at the thought that it sparkled for him alone. This was the happiest hour of his long day, the only time he could ever be alone in the crowded vessel, the only time he could let his mind dance among the stars and his imagination have full rein.

His every sense seemed heightened. Even above the whimper of the wind and the creak of the rigging he could hear his father's voice and recognize its tone if not the words, as he spoke quietly to the helmsman on the deck far below. He could see his father's beaked nose and the set of his brow in the ruddy glow from the pipe bowl as he drew in the tobacco smoke. It seemed to him that his father never slept.

He could smell the iodine of the sea, the fresh odour of kelp and salt. His nose was so keen, purged by months of sweet sea air, that he could even whiff the faint odour of the land, the warm, baked smell of Africa like biscuit hot from the oven.

Then there was another scent, so faint he thought his nostrils had played a trick on him. A minute later he caught it again, just a trace, honey-sweet on the wind. He did not recognize it and turned his head back and forth, questing for the next faint perfume, sniffing eagerly.

Suddenly it came again, so fragrant and heady that he reeled like a drunkard smelling the brandy pot, and had to stop himself crying aloud in his excitement. With an effort he kept his mouth closed and, with the aroma filling his head, tumbled from the crow's nest, and fled down the shrouds to the deck below. He ran on bare feet so silently that his father started when Hal touched his arm.

"Why have you left your post?"

"I could not hail you from the masthead they are too close. They might have heard me also."

"What are you babbling about, boy?" His father came angrily to his feet. "Speak plainly."

"Father, do you not smell it?" He shook his father's arm urgently.

"What is it?" His father took the pipe stern from his mouth. "What is it that you smell?"

"Spice!" said Hal. "The air is full of the perfume of spice."

They moved swiftly down the deck, Ned Tyler, Aboli and Hal, shaking the off-duty watch awake, cautioning each man to silence as they shoved him towards his battle stations. There was no drum to beat to quarters. Their excitement was infectious. The waiting was over. The Dutchman was out there somewhere close, to windward in the darkness. They could all smell his fabulous cargo now.

Sir Francis extinguished the candle in the bi

In haste the chests were opened and the weapons passed from hand to hand. The cutlasses were of good Sheffield steel, with plain wooden hilts and basket guards. The pikes had six-foot shafts of English oak and heavy hexagonal iron heads. Those of the crew who lacked skill with the sword chose either these robust spears or the boarding axes that could lop a man's head from his shoulders at a stroke.

The muskets were racked in the black powder magazine. They were brought up, and Hal helped the gu

Hal preferred the bow; the famous English longbow that had decimated the French knights at Agincourt. He could loose a dozen shafts in the time it took to reload a musket. The longbow carried fifty paces with the accuracy to strike a foe in the centre of the chest and with the power to spit him to the backbone, even though he wore a breastplate. He already had two bundles of arrows lashed to the sides of the crow's nest, ready to hand.

Sir Francis and some of his petty officers strapped on their half armour, light cavalry cuitasses and steel pot helmets. Sea salt had rusted them and they were dented and battered from other actions.

In short order the ship was readied for battle, and the crew armed and armoured. However, the gun ports were closed and the demi-culver ins were not run out. Most of the men were hustled below by Ned and the other boatswains, while the rest were ordered to lie flat on the deck concealed below the bulwarks. No slow-match was lit the glow and smoke might alert the chase to her danger. However, charcoal braziers smouldered at the foot of each mast, and the wedges were knocked out of the gun ports with muffled wooden mallets so that the sound of the blows would not carry.

Aboli pushed his way through the scurrying figures to where Hal stood at the foot of the mast. Around his bald head he wore a scarlet cloth whose tail hung down his back, and thrust into his sash was a cutlass. Under one arm he carried a rolled bundle of coloured silk. "From your father." He thrust the bundle into Hal's arms. "You know what to do with them!" He gave Hal's pigtail a tug. "Your father says that you are to remain at the masthead no matter which way the fight goes. Do you hear now?"