smiling happily, pursing his red lips as he signed his long signature under his new title 'Prince and Supreme Ruler of the sovereign possessions of Elat and Ras Telfa. 'Good, said Clinton briskly, rolling his copy of the treaty and slipping the retaining ribbon over it as he hurried to the door of his cabin. Mr. Denham, he bellowed up the companionway. 'I want a landing-party, muskets, pistols, cutlasses and carrying combustibles, forty men ready to go ashore at first light tomorrow! ' He was grinning as he turned back and told the Sheikh's translator, 'It would be best if His Excellency remained on board tonight. We will see him safely installed at noon tomorrow. ' And for the first time the Sheikh felt a thrill of apprehension. This Ferengi had the cold blue merciless eyes of a devil. 'El Sheetan, he thought, the very devil. ' And made the sign against the evil eye. Sir, may I speak? ' Mr. Denha Black Joke's first Lieutenant looked puzzled in the light of the binnacle.
It was an hour short of sunrise and he glanced down at the ranks of armed seamen squatting on the foredeck. Speak your heart, Clinton invited him magnanimously. Lieutenant Denham was not accustomed to this jovial mood from his captain, and he expressed himself cautiously. In essence Lieutenant Denham's views came very close to those of the Admiral in Cape Town. If you would like to make a protest against my orders, Lieutenant' Clinton interrupted him cheerfully, 'I will be pleased to enter it in the ship's log.'
Thus absolved of responsibility for having been party to an act of war on the territory of a foreign ruler, Lieutenant Denham was so relieved that when Clinton told him, 'I am taking command of the landing party.
You will command the ship in my absence, he shook Clinton's hand impulsively.
Good luck, sir, he blurted.
They went ashore in two boats, the whaler leading through the pass in the reef and the gig following two lengths astern. The moment the keel touched, Clinton sprang knee-deep into the blood-warm water and the rush of armed men followed him ashore. He drew his cutlass and his shoes squelched as he led his team of five men to the nearest dhow at a dead run.
As he jumped down from the ladder on to the dhow's heavily canted deck, an Arab watchman ducked out of the stern cabin and aimed a long jezail at Clinton's head.
The range was point blank and Clinton struck out instinctively in an underhand parry, just as the gun's lock clicked and smoke and spark shot from the pan under the steel and flint.
His blade clashed against the steel barrel, deflecting it upwards as the jezail roared an instant after the snap of the lock and a blinding billow of smoke and burning powder struck his face and singed his eyebrows, but the chunk of beaten potleg howled inches over his head.
When his vision cleared the watchman had thrown his empty weapon aside, leaped over the side of the dhow and was hopping and hobbling across the sand towards the grove of palms. Search her, and then put fire into her, Clinton ordered brusquely.
It was the first chance he had had to look across at the other dhows of the fleet. One of them was already on fire, the flames bright in the early light, rising straight up with little smoke. The furled mainsail was blackening like a dried leaf, and he could hear the crackle of the tinder dry timbers of the hull and stern cabin. His seamen were spilling out of her and straggling across to the next vessel. She's aflame, sir, his boatswain panted, and a hot gust of air struck Clinton's cheek at that moment and a quiver of heat hung over the main hatch.
We'd best be getting on, he said mildly, and scrambled down the ladder on to the packed damp sand.
Behind him the flames roared like a cageful of wild animals.
The biggest dhow, a two-hundred tanner, lay ahead of them and Clinton reached it fifty paces ahead of his men. Make sure there is nobody below, he ordered, and one of the seamen came back on deck carrying a rolled silk prayer rug under his arm. Belay that! snapped Clinton. 'There'll be no looting Reluctantly the seaman dropped the precious burden back into the hatchway, and the flames sucked up in a hot breath to accept it as though it was an offering to Baal.
By the time they reached the tree-line, all eight of the stranded vessels were burning fiercely, the stubby masts collapsing as they burned through at the base, the furled sails disappearing in bright explosions of flame. In one of the burning hulls a keg of powder went up with a thunderous crash of sound, and a tall column of dark smoke hovered over the beach for a few seconds, shaped like a gigantic grey octopus before it drifted slowly out across the reef, leaving the dhow shattered, its timbers scattered across the sand, the flames extinguished by the shock wave of the explosion. Was there anybody aboard her? ' Clinton demanded quietly. No, sir. ' His boatswain was panting beside him, redfaced with excitement, and with a bared cutlass in his hand. 'All accounted for.'
Clinton hid his relief behind a coot nod, and spent a few precious minutes drawing his men into an orderly formation, giving them time to regain their breath, and getting them well in hand again. Check your muskets, ' he ordered, and there was the click of the locks. 'Fix bayonets. ' Metal rattled on metal as the long blades were fitted to the barrels of the Enfield rifles. 'If there is resistance we'll find it in the town, I fancy, ' and he ran an eye down the uneven ranks. They were neither marines nor lobster-backs, he thought with quick affection. They might not be perfect in drill, but they were men with spirit and initiative, not paradeground automatons. Come along then. ' He waved them forward into the dusty street between the mud-brown flat-roofed buildings. The town smelled of wood smoke and raw sewage, of rice cooked with saffron and of ghee, clarified butter. Shall we burn 'em? ' His boatswain jerked a thumb at the buildings that flanked the deserted street. No, we are here to protect them, ' Clinton told him stiffly. 'They belong to our new ally, the Sheikh.'
I see, sir, ' the boatswain grunted, looking mildly perplexed, and Clinton took pity on him. We are after the barracoons, he explained.
as they trotted up the street in compact formation. They halted where the road branched left and right.
The heat was oppressive and the silence menacing.
There was no wind and the coconut groves had stilled the eternal clatter of their fronds. From the beach far behind them, came the faint popping of burning timbers, and overhead the ubiquitous pied crows of Africa circled and cawed raucously, but the buildings and dense coconut groves were deserted. I don't like this, ' one of the men croaked behind Clinton.
He could understand the man's point of view. A seaman always felt awkward when parted from his ship, and there were a mere forty of them, out of sight of the beach and surrounded by thousands of unseen but none the less savage warriors. Clinton knew he must keep the momentum of surprise rolling through the town, yet he hesitated a moment longer until he realized that the amorphous sacklike shape lying on the edge of the right hand street was a human body, naked and black and very dead. One of the slaves trampled in the previous day's panic and left where he had fallen.
That way must lie the barracoons, he decided. 'Quiet! ' he cautioned his men, and cocking his head, listened with all his attention to the faint sussuration on the still air. It might have been the wind except there was no wind, or the flames, except that the flames were behind them. It was the distant sound of human voices, he decided,
