Nobody's Slave (23 page)

‘You, Samuel, give a hand below! Come on, lad, 'tis no time for gawping!’ Madu felt himself spun round by the powerful hand of a seaman, and hurried below to the gundeck, where a half-dozen men and boys were heaving in cables sent through gunports in the stern by boats ready to drag the galleon away from shore.

‘Here, clap on to that, and heave! Sooner she's belayed, sooner we'll be clear!’

But though they soon had five cables fastened, and the boats below were churning the water with their oars, at first the heavy old
Jesus
would not move at all. She was still attached by mooring lines at the bows to the island.

‘Come on, come on, get those bow-lines cut!’ growled someone, his shout scarcely audible above the racket from the decks above; and then, just as the Spaniards came down into the gun-deck, there was a jerk, and a slow surge as the ship began to move.

The Spaniards were rushing at the guns, trying to spike them so that they couldn’t  be fired. There were few men on the gun-deck - only two gun crews who had been firing point-blank into the Spanish ship alongside, and the half-dozen men around Madu. Before Madu knew it, he was attacking the Spaniards with the rest. There was really nothing else to do, though it was not his fight, and he had only the small knife of his page's uniform.

He saw a Spaniard turn, lift the hammer with which he had been about to drive a spike down into a touchhole, and smash it against a sailor's head. Then the man turned towards him with the spike; Madu grabbed it, pulling the man off balance, and lunged with his short knife sharp up, under the ribs. He saw the man's mouth open in a shocked gasp of horror, and then stagger sideways to collapse in a twitching heap over the barrel of a gun.

His first red-face! A surge of hot fury pulsed through him, and he looked about him with his bloody knife for the next, scarcely caring which tribe it should be. But the struggle was almost over; there were several bodies on the deck, a Spanish gentleman warding off two sailors with his sword, and then …

… Madu felt a great thud on the side of his head.

He fell sideways, seeing red stars spinning in a void. Slumped against the side of a gun, he struggled to rise, but a huge weight collapsed across him, cracking his head against a cannon, and he knew nothing more.

T
HE FIGHT on the maindeck of the
Jesus
was long, hard, and bloody. When the last few Spaniards had leapt overboard or surrendered Tom leant against the mainmast, his bloody sword in his hand, looking round at the heaps of slumped and twisted bodies scattered everywhere. The boats were slowly pulling the ship clear of the island.

‘You hurt, lad?' The bosun's face loomed over him, the livid scar on his neck red and writhing as though it were alive.

‘No. Only ...’

‘Then jump to it! Get this deck cleared, like a fighting ship! Dead Spaniards over the side, wounded to the sawbones, quick as you can.’

‘And the dead English?’ Tom stared dully at the body of Nicholas Antony, lying limply with his throat cut not three feet away. The dead face was already white as candlewax.

‘Line 'em up decent ready for burial.’ Which meant, as Tom saw when he came up the third time from the bloody horror of the surgeon's cockpit, a hurried reading of the funeral service by the Admiral, with the guns silent for a moment, and then an unceremonious heaving into the harbour, most without even a shroud or cannonball to make them sink. Tom thought, briefly, of Simon as he watched; then the guns boomed out again and Andrew Baines was yelling at him to help.

From the swivel-gun on the poop he could see more clearly what had happened. They were anchored a few cable-lengths offshore, near the
Minion
. The Spanish ships were caught for the moment between them and the guns on the island. The side of the
Minion
was half obscured behind clouds of smoke, as she poured an unremitting iron hail of shot into the largest of the Spanish ships, which had already lost her foremast and much of her rigging and was beginning to settle steadily lower into the water.

‘Concentrate your fire on the flagship! We'll send her to the bottom within the hour!’ yelled Hawkins along the line of gunners. His voice, even through the speaking trumpet, was heartening, gay with the glory of battle.

‘Aye, we've got the bastard now!’ muttered Andrew Baines, sighting carefully along the line of the barrel before jabbing the slowmatch to the touchhole.

And so indeed it proved. In half an hour the Spanish flagship was sunk; though, absurdly, the lagoon was so shallow that her fore- and stern-castles stayed above water, and a few guns continued to fire from them. The other warship was set on fire - a huge shimmering haze of half-invisible flame against the clear blue sky, twice rocked by shattering explosions as the magazines were reached. One Spanish merchantman had been sunk, and the others, having nothing like enough guns to match the English, were frantically occupied in drawing themselves out of range, to derisive cheers from below.

So now, had it not been for the guns on the island, the English fleet would have been safe.

Down in the hold, Madu looked along the line of chained, filthy figures, his aching head still spinning as he tried not to be sick.

 ‘If I can get the keys I will! Trust me, brothers, I will do my best! But you are safer below now while they are killing each other above!’

‘What if the ship sinks? We’ll all be drowned! We are trapped down here!’ The one voice was echoed by others, in a chorus that was close to panic.

‘I will save you if I can. But be ready! When the time comes you will have to be quick, and fight!’

Madu staggered to his feet, wondering if there was any way he could free them now. But it was hopeless. The guns were firing steadily up above, and red-face were constantly running down into the hold to fetch powder, as Madu should be doing too. A sailor yelled at him.

‘Hey, Sammy, get away from there! The Admiral wants you, topside! Jump to it!’

Madu climbed wearily, still half dazed by the blow on the head. The infernal boom of the guns did not disturb him, nor the blood running across the deck. He watched with curious interest as a man was blown in half by a cannon ball. That was all as it should be. This fight had nothing to do with him. It was fine for the red-face to kill each other. It did not occur to Madu that he might die, or that it would matter if he did.

‘Ah, there you are, Samuel. Good God, where has the boy been?’ The Admiral stared in wonder at the bloody ruins of Madu's page-boy clothes.

‘Killing Spaniards with his own knife, sir. I seed 'im!’ the bosun muttered, with dour approval.  Madu said nothing, marvelling only at how calm the Admiral appeared, amidst all this flying death. Did he, too, think the cannonballs were not concerned with him?

‘So. That's admirable. Fetch me a cup of beer, will you, lad? Thirsty work, this, and like to last a while longer, I think.’

Wondering, Madu fetched the beer in the Admiral's silver cup. Hawkins raised it on high before drinking, so all the sailors could see.

‘Lads, I drink to you all. Ply your guns like men, and we'll win the day yet!’

He drank, to a great cheer, and set the cup down on the quarter-deck rail between him and Madu. Just as he took his hand away, the cup vanished, blown away by the half-seen blur of a cannonball. Hawkins looked after it in surprise. His eye caught Madu's, and he laughed aloud.

‘By God, sirs, there's an omen for you! We need fear nothing now, for if God has preserved me from this shot, he will surely preserve us all from these treacherous villains of Spain!’

Madu, looking round, saw that all the red-face were laughing, Tom amongst the loudest of them all.

Tom wondered, in turn, at the stolid calm of the African page-boy. He had expected him to be afraid, yet clearly he was not; and the blood on his clothes witnessed how well he had fought. Tom smiled at him, but got no smile back. He seemed in another world almost, oblivious to the glory of the battle.

But there was little time now for worrying about such things. The island guns were no longer obstructed now by the Spanish ships. They poured a heavy hail of shot against the English that relentlessly took its toll. The little
Angel
was sunk, and the
Swallow
captured. The men who escaped from these ships came aboard the
Jesus
or the
Minion
, which still withstood the fire as best they could. Drake's
Judith
had escaped, sailing out of range to windward, but it became increasingly clear that the
Jesus
could not be moved after her. Unseaworthy before the battle started, her rigging was being cut up by the minute. Her mainmast tottered unsteadily with five cannonballs in it, and the top of the foremast had gone by the board. Hawkins ordered the
Minion
to come alongside, and they set about transferring everything of value out of the Queen's ship, into her consort.

The slaves, Madu saw, were not now of sufficient value. The red-face were taking boxes of gold and silver, rolls of leather hide - the things they had sold the slaves for.

‘Come on, Maddy, get a move on! Grab the end of this chest!’

Madu bent to help Tom heave a chest up to the deck, and as he did so, felt a rush of air pass over his head, and a crash as splinters of wood flew out of the cabin wall. He hesitated, and saw Tom grinning at him.

‘Good job you do what I say, Madu - that way you don't lose your head!’

Shocked, Madu heaved at the chest, and they staggered across the wobbly planks that led down into the
Minion
. Three times they made the journey; and each time the deck of the
Jesus
was more ploughed up and scarred than before. The cannonballs threw up flying splinters of wood as long as a man's arm, and jagged as a saw. As Madu turned to go back a fourth time, Tom plucked his sleeve to hold him back.

‘That'll do, I reckon. Look, they'm all coming down now. Something's happening.’

It was true. Far more men were coming down out of the
Jesus
than going into it, hurrying almost in a panic. There were dozens of seamen aloft in the
Minion
, shouting to be allowed to set her sails, and John Hawkins, from the quarterdeck of the
Jesus
, was yelling across at the
Minion
through his speaking-trumpet.

‘Stay where you are! She'll miss us by fifty yards. There's no danger!’

But the men around Madu were less certain. ‘Fire! A fireship! We'll all be up in flames, blown to pieces! Set sail above!’

Fire!
Madu did not know what a fireship was, but he had seen men leap blazing from the Spanish ship earlier, into the sea. He clambered back up one of the planks towards the
Jesus
, drawing curses from sailors trying to come down.

‘Maddy! Where are you going? Get back here!’

Madu ignored Tom's call, pausing on his way onto the maindeck of the
Jesus
in time to see another shower of splinters strike a man in the back. About a quarter of  a mile away to windward, he saw the danger. A Spanish ship, with all sails set, red flames crackling on the deck and licking up the masts, was bearing down on them.

He saw Hawkins, still calm on the quarterdeck, watching the fireship and then calling anew to the
Minion.
Madu scrambled up the ladder, jarring his shin on the steps, and rushed up to him.

‘Sir! Sir, the slaves. They ...’

‘What, you still here?' Hawkins grinned, with that amazing calm of his that gave him command at all times, and ruffled Madu's crinkly hair. ‘’Tis brave of you, boy, but I've no need of you now. Get across to the
Minion.
'

‘But sir, the sla …’

‘Brail up those sails, you fools! Await the order!’

‘No, no! The fire! Let fly!’

There was a terrific noise of shouting, and the crack and flap of canvas from the
Minion
as the sailors, desperate to escape, let down their sails in defiance of the Admiral. Hawkins lifted his speaking trumpet, then let it down again with a curse. In their panic, the few remaining sailors were not obeying him.

‘The villains! They’re in more danger of sailing straight into her path!’

He sprang into action, striding briskly to the ladder and shouting to the few men left aboard. ‘Quickly, sirs! To the
Minion
before it’s too late!’

‘But the slaves! They burn!’ Madu screamed the alien red-face words, but they coincided with a shattering explosion of guns from the island, and Hawkins did not hear them. Then, while Madu still hesitated, the Admiral sprang lightly across a plank to the helping hands of the
Minion,
which was moving even as he came. A moment later her sails filled, and drew her away, and the gangplank fell uselessly into the sea.

Madu was left on the
Jesus
. There was a crash behind him, and a shower of splinters whizzed past his head. He stared briefly at where Tom was pointing wildly at him from the swarming decks of the
Minion
, and then looked round at the fireship. She was nearer now, much nearer, and some of her lower sails were alight, charring darkly at the bottom as the invisible flames licked up them and the black smoke floated ahead. He could hear the crackle and bang of timbers, smell the burning, bubbling tar. Perhaps she would miss the
Jesus
- he could not tell. Either way, there was only one thing he had to do.

He ran down to the maindeck and across to the forecastle, nearly being hit by a six-foot length of falling spar on the way. What if the bosun had taken the keys? Desperately, he searched in the able seamen's mess, in the bosun's cabin, in the armoury, where he had hardly ever been. No ... no …
yes
! Here were keys, but were they the right ones? He grabbed a great clanking metal keyring, as big as his head, from a hook on the wall, and dashed out with it just as a shot from the shore hummed through the tiny hole of the window and embedded itself in the six-inch oak of the opposite wall, and then dropped dully, its force spent, to the floor.