Birds of Prey - Smith Wilbur (версия книг TXT) 📗
It had taken a prodigious effort by Colonel Schreuder, but by late afternoon the following day the three companies of infantry, each comprising ninety men, were drawn up on the parade ground outside the walls of the fort, ready to embark. The officers and non-commissioned officers were all Dutch, but the musketeers were a mixture of native troops, Malaccans from Malaysia, Hottentots recruited from the tribes of the Cape, and Sinhalese and Tamils from the Company's possessions in Ceylon. They were bowed like hunchbacks under their weapons and heavy backpacks but, incongruously, they were barefoot.
As Cumbrae watched them march out through the gates, in their flat black caps, green doublets and white cross belts, their muskets carried at the trail, he remarked sourly, "I hope they fight as prettily as they march, but I think they may be in for a wee surprise when they meet Franky's sea-rats."
He could carry only a single company with all its baggage on board the Gull. Even then her decks would be crowded and uncomfortable, especially if they ran into heavy weather on the way.
The other two companies of infantry went on board the naval frigate. They would have the easier passage, for De Sonnevogel, the Sun Bird, was a fast and commodious vessel. She had been captured from Oliver Cromwell's fleet by the Dutch Admiral de Ruyter during the battle of the Kentish Knock, and had been in de Ruyter's squadron during his raid up the Thames only months previously to her arrival off the Cape. She was sleek and lovely in her glossy black paint, and snowy-white trim. It was easy to see that her sails had been renewed before she sailed from Holland, and all her sheets and rigging were spanking new. Her crew were mostly veterans of the two recent wars with England, prime battle-hardened warriors.
Her commander, Captain Ryker, was also a tough, rugged deep-water mariner, wide in the shoulder and big in the gut. He made no attempt to hide his displeasure at finding himself under the direction of a man who, until recently, had been his enemy, an irregular whom he considered little short of a greedy pirate. His bearing towards Cumbrae was cold and hostile, his scorn barely concealed.
They had held a council of war aboard De Sonnevogel which had not gone smoothly, Cumbrae refusing to divulge their destination and Ryker making objection to every suggestion and arguing every proposal that he put to him. Only the arbitration of Colonel Schreuder had kept the expedition from breaking down irretrievably before they had even left the shelter of Table Bay.
It was with a profound feeling of relief that the Buzzard at last watched the frigate weigh anchor and, with almost two hundred musketeers lining her rail waving fond farewells to the throng of gaudily dressed or half-naked Hottentot women on the beach, follow the little Gull out towards the entrance to the bay.
The Gull's own deck was crowded with infantrymen, who waved and jabbered and pointed out the landmarks on the mountain and on the beach to each other, and hampered the seamen as they worked the Gull off the lee shore.
As the ship rounded the point below Lion's Head and felt the first majestic thrust of the south Atlantic, a strange quiet fell over the noisy passengers, and as they tacked and went onto a broad easterly reach, the first of the musketeers rushed to the ship's side, and shot a long yellow spurt of vomit directly into the eye of the wind. A hoot of laughter went up from the crew as the wind sent it all back into the wretch's pallid face and splattered his green doublet with the bilious evidence of his last meal.
Within the hour most of the other soldiers had followed his example, and the decks were so slippery and treacherous with their offerings to Neptune that the Buzzard ordered the pumps to be manned and both decks and passengers to be sluiced down.
"It's going to be an interesting few days," he told Colonel Schreuder. "I hope these beauties will have the strength to carry themselves ashore when we reach our destination."
Before they had half completed their journey, it became apparent that what he had said in jest was in fact dire reality. Most of the troops seemed moribund, laid out like corpses on the deck with nothing left in their bellies to bring up. A signal from Captain Ryker indicated that those aboard the Sonnevogel were in no better case.
"If we put these men straight from the deck into a fight, Franky's lads will eat them up without spitting out the bones. We'll have to change our plans," the Buzzard told Schreuder, who sent a signal across to the Sonnevogel. While he hove to, Captain Ryker came across in his skiff with obvious bad grace to discuss the new plan of assault.
Cumbrae had drawn up a sketch map of the lagoon and the shoreline that lay on each side of the heads. The three officers pored over this in the tiny cabin of the Gull. Ryker's mood had been alleviated by the disclosure of their final destination, by the prospect of action and prize_ money and by a dram of whisky that Cumbrae poured for him. For once he was disposed to agree with the plan with which Cumbrae presented him.
"There is a another headland here, about eight or nine leagues west of the entrance to the lagoon." The Buzzard laid his hand on the map. "With this wind there will be enough calm water in the lee to send the boats ashore and land Colonel Schreuder and his musketeers on the beach. Then he will begin his approach march." He stabbed at the map with a forefinger bristling with ginger hair. "The interlude on dry land and the exercise will give his men an opportunity to recover from their malaise. By the time they reach Courtney's lair they should have some fire in them again."
"Have the pirates set up any de fences at the entrance to the lagoon?" Ryker wanted to know.
"They have batteries here and here, covering the channel." Cumbrae drew a series of crosses down each side of the entrance. "They are so well protected as to be invulnerable to return fire delivered by a ship entering or leaving the anchorage." He paused as he remembered the rousing send-off those culver ins had given the Gull as she fled from the lagoon after his abortive attack on the encampment.
Ryker looked sober at the prospect of subjecting his ship to close-range salvoes from entrenched shore batteries.
"I will be able to deal with the batteries on the western approaches," Schreuder promised them. "I will send a small detachment to climb down the cliffs. They will not be expecting an attack from their rear. However, I will not be able to cross the channel and reach the guns on the eastern headland."
