Birds of Prey

Hal took a moment to realize what they were up to, and then bounded forward to intercept Sam Bowles. He was the ringleader, the most guilty of the gang, and Hal tackled him as he reached the ship's rail.

"Father!" he shouted, loud enough for his voice to carry to every quarter of the deck. "Father, help me!"

Locked chest to chest they struggled. Hal fastened a head-lock on him, but Sam threw back his head then butted forward in the hope of breaking Hal's nose. But Big Daniel had taught Hal his wrestling, and he had been ready. he dropped his chin on his chest so that his skull clashed with Sam's. Both men were half stu

Instantly Sam lurched for the rail but, on his knees, Hal grabbed at his legs. "Father!" he screamed again. Sam tried to kick him off but Hal held on grimly. Then Sam looked up and saw Sir Francis Courtney charging down from the quarterdeck. His sword was out and the blade flashed in the starlight.

"Hold hard, Hal! I'm coming!"

There was no time for Sam to free the rope belt from around his middle, and drop the loop over Hal's head. Instead he reached down and locked both hands around his throat. He was a small man, but his fingers were work-toughened, hard as iron marlin spikes He found Hal's windpipe and blocked it off ruthlessly.

The pain choked Hal, and his grip loosened on Sam's legs. He seized the man's wrists, trying to break his stranglehold, but Sam placed one foot on his chest, kicked him over backwards, then darted to the side of the ship. Sir Francis aimed a sword cut at him as he ran up, but Sam ducked under it and dived over the rail.

"The treacherous vermin will get clear away!" Sir Francis howled.

"Boatswain, call all hands to tack ship. We will go back to pick them up."

Sam Bowles was driven deep by the force with which he hit the water, and the shock of the cold drove the wind from his lungs. He felt himself drowning, but fought and clawed his way up. At last his head broke the surface, he sucked in a lungful of air and felt the dizziness, and the weakness in his limbs, pass.

He looked up at the hull of the ship, trundling majestically past him, and then he was left in her wake, which glistened slick and oily in the starlight. That was the highway that would guide him back to the cask. He must follow it before the swells wiped it away and left him with no signpost in the darkness. His feet were bare and he wore only a ragged cotton shirt and his canvas petticoats, which would not encumber his movements. He struck out overarm for, unlike most of his fellows, he was a strong swimmer.

Within a dozen strokes he heard a voice in the darkness nearby. "Help me, Sam Bowles!" He recognized Ed Broom's wild cries. "Give me a hand, shipmate, or I'm done for."

Sam stopped to tread water and, in the starlight, saw the splashes of Ed's struggles. Beyond him he saw something else lift on the crest of a dark swell, something black and round.

The cask!

But Ed was between him and this promise of survival. Sam started swimming again, but he sheered away from Ed Broom. It was dangerous to come too close to a drowning man, for he would always seize you and hang on with a death grip, until he had taken you down with him.

"Please, Sam! Don't leave me." Ed's voice was growing fainter.

Sam reached the floating cask and got a handhold on the protruding spigot. He rested a while then roused himself as another head bobbed up beside him. "Who's that?" he gasped.

"It's me, John Tate," the swimmer blurted out, coughing up sea water as he tried to find a hold on the barrel.

Sam reached down and loosened the rope belt from around his waist.

He used it to take a turn around the spigot and thrust his arm through the loop. John Tate grabbed at the loop too.

Sam tried to push him away. "Leave it! It's mine." But John's grip was desperate with panic and after a minute Sam let him be. He could not afford to squander his own strength in wrestling with a bigger man.

They hung together on the rope in a hostile truce. "What happened to Peter Miller? "John Tate demanded, "Bugger Peter Miller!" snarled Sam.

The water was cold and dark, and both men imagined what might be lurking beneath their feet. A pack of the monstrous tiger sharks always followed the ship in these latitudes, to pick up the offal and contents of the latrine buckets as they were emptied overboard. Sam had seen one of these fearsome creatures as long as the Lady Edwina's pi

"Look!" John Tate choked as a wave hit him in the face and flooded his open mouth. Sam raised his head and saw a dark, mountainous shape loom out of the night close by.

"Bloody Franky come back to find us," he growled, through chattering teeth. They watched in horror as the galleon bore down on them, growing larger with each second until she seemed to blot out all the stars and they could hear the voices of the men on her deck.

"Do you see anything there, Master Daniel?" That was Sir Francis's hail.

"Nothing, Captain," Big Daniel's voice boomed from the bows. Looking down onto the black, turbulent water it would be nigh on impossible to make out the dark wood of the cask or the two heads bobbing beside it.

They were hit by the bow wave the galleon threw up as she passed and were left twisting and bobbing in her wake as her stern lantern receded into the darkness.

Twice more during the night they saw its glimmer, but each time the ship passed further from them. Many hours later, as the dawn light strengthened, they looked with trepidation for Resolution, but she was nowhere in sight. She must have given them up for drowned and headed off on her original course. Stupefied with cold and fatigue, they hung on to their precarious handhold.