his demeanour that he had been unsuccessful. Then, abruptly, Sir Guy seemed to become galvanized. He rushed out of the fort followed by most of his detachment. Zayn expected him to come back to report to him and was puzzled when he did not, but then Sir Guy's men began to saddle most of the horses. There was a scuffle on the beach and a pistol shot rang out. Zayn saw a body lying on the sand. To his astonishment, Sir Guy and most of his men mounted and rode up from the water's edge then out along the wagon road.
'Stop them!' he snapped at Rahmad. 'Send a messenger ashore immediately to order those men to return.' Rahmad shouted to his ; boatswain, but before he could give the man his instructions Sir Guy's i desertion became irrelevant. ;
A cannon shot startled them all. The echoes duplicated themselves.j along the cliffs of the bluff. Zayn jerked round and stared across the waters of the bay to where smoke still hung in the air. A hidden cannon had fired upon them from the tangle of dense vegetation that covered the slope of the bluff. He could not see the weapon, even though he searched through the lens of his spyglass. It was too cunningly concealed, probably in some deep emplacement dug into the hillside.
Then, suddenly, his view through the glass was momentarily obscured by a tall spout of water that leaped up directly in front of him. He dropped the glass to see that a cannon-ball had struck close alongside the anchored Sufi. As he stared, a strange phenomenon took place before his eyes. In the centre of the spreading ripples where the enemy cannon-ball had sunk, the shallow water began to seethe and boil, like
564 i a kettle, and steam rose in a dense cloud from the surface. For a long moment Zayn was at a loss to explain it. Then it came to him in a dread flash. 'Red-hot shot! The pork-eaters are firing heated shot!1 He trained his glass on the hillside where the smoke still drifted. Now that he was searching for it, he saw a shimmering column of heated air rising into the sky, like a desert mirage. There was no visible smoke. He knew what that meant.
'Charcoal furnaces!' he exclaimed. 'Rahmad, we must get our ships out to sea at once. This is a terrible trap we are in. The entire flotilla will be in flames within the hour unless we can clear the bay at once.'
In a wooden ship, fire was the most terrifying hazard. Rahmad shouted his orders, but before they could get the anchor aboard, another red-hot iron ball hurtled down towards them from the heights of the bluff. It left a trail of sizzling sparks behind it and struck the last dhow in the line of anchored ships. It plunged through her maindeck deep into her hull, shedding splinters of red-hot iron in its path which buried themselves deep in the dry planking. Almost immediately they began to smoulder. Then the air reached them. With miraculous rapidity dozens of fires blossomed in the hull, and spread swiftly.
On board the Sufi all was pandemonium as men rushed to the pumps and the anchor capstan, and still others clambered aloft to set the sails. The anchor broke out of the sandy bottom, Rahmad set his lateen sail and the ship came round slowly towards the exit from the bay. Then a hail rang out from the lookout at the Sufi's masthead. It was wild and incoherent. 'Deck below! In the Name of Allah! Beware, it is the curse of shaitan.'
Zayn looked up, and his voice was shrill with anger as he shouted, 'What have you seen? Make your report clear, you imbecile.' But the man was still jabbering, and pointing over the bows towards the exit channel from the bay.
Every man on deck followed the direction of his out-thrust arm. A groan of superstitious terror went up from them. 'A sea monster! The great snake from the depths that devours ships and men!' screamed a voice, and men dropped to their knees to pray, or simply stared in mute terror at the ophidian creature that uncoiled from one side of the channel. Its massive body seemed to undulate in endless humps as it swam through the water towards the far bank.
'It will attack us!' Rahmad shouted in terror. 'Kill it! Shoot it! Open fire!'
The gun-crews scrambled to their cannons, and the guns roared out from every ship in the squadron. Smoke and flame flew in sheets. Tall columns of seawater sprang up in a forest around the swimming monster.
In such a storm of shot some of the balls struck home. Clearly they heard the crack of impact. However, the creature swam on without any sign that it was injured. The head reached the far shore but the long serpentine body stretched from one bank of the channel to the other and bobbed and rolled in the flow and push of the current. The cannonballs fell about it like hail. Some glanced off the surface and ricocheted out to sea.
Zayn was the first man aboard to recover his wits. He ran to the near rail and stared at the thing through the lens of his telescope. Then he shrieked, in his high, penetrating voice, 'Cease fire! Stop this madness!' The bombardment petered out.
Rahmad ran to his caliph's side. 'What is it, Majesty?'
'The enemy have drawn a boom across the mouth of the bay. We are bottled in here like pickled fish in a tub.'
As he spoke another heated shot came flying from high on the slope of the bluff, glowing sparks snapping and popping in the air behind it. It plunged into the water only feet from their stern. Zayn looked about him. The first ship that had been hit was burning furiously. Even as he watched its great lateen sail caught fire and the flames engulfed it swiftly. The canvas collapsed over the deck trapping shrieking men under its weight, and incinerating them like insects in the flue of an oil lamp. Without the push of its sail, the vessel started a slow and aimless turn across the bay until it struck the beach and heeled over steeply. The surviving men of the crew sprang over the side and splashed and crawled ashore.
Yet another heated shot came swooping towards the Sufi in a smoking parabola. It passed only feet from their mainmast, then flew on to smash into the other war-dhow that sailed beside them. Almost at once her deck split open and tall flames burst out through her timbers. Her crew were already at the pumps, but the streams of water they aimed at the fire had no effect. The flames jumped higher.
'Steer closer to that ship. I will speak to her captain,' Zayn ordered Rahmad. The Sufi veered across to her, and as they drew alongside the burning ship Zayn called to the captain, 'Your ship is stricken and doomed. You must use it to clear an avenue of escape for the other ships of the squadron. Ram the enemy boom. Break it open.'
'As you command, Majesty!' The captain ran to the wheel and pushed aside the helmsman. While the other three ships backed their sails and let him forge ahead of them, he steered straight at the line of massive logs attached to a heavy ship's cable that sealed off the channel. Smoke and flame streamed back from the burning hull.
The officers on the deck of the Sufi cheered aloud as it struck, and the heavy log boom was plucked below the surface. The dhow heeled over. The top of her mast snapped off and her flaming sail ballooned down over the deck. She had stopped dead in the water, but even though her sail and rigging were in a shambles, she came slowly back on an even keel. Then the line of heavy logs that made up the boom surfaced again. They were intact. They had resisted the dhow's charge. The ship itself swung round aimlessly. She no longer had steerage way. She was not answering her rudder.
'She is mortally damaged below the waterline,' Rahmad said softly. 'See? She is already sinking by the bows. The boom has torn the guts clean out of her. The flames will devour the hull to the waterline.'
The crew of the doomed vessel had managed to launch two of their boats. They clambered down into them, and rowed for the shore. Zayn looked back at the rest of his squadron. Another of his ships was in flames. It headed towards the shore and piled on to the sand with its sails and rigging burning like a funeral pyre. Then another dhow was hit, and black smoke billowed into the sky above her. The blaze drove most of her crew into the bows. A few were overpowered by the smoke, collapsed on the deck and fire swept over them. The rest leaped over the side. Those who were able to swim struck out for the beach, but the others drowned almost at once.
There was a shout of fear from the officers clustered around Zayn and they all looked up towards the heights of the bluff. Another red hot ball came sparkling in a meteoric arc towards them. This one could not miss them.
The thunder of the cannon echoed from the cliffs of the tall bluff, and rolled out across the waters to where Kadem ibn Abubaker lay have to a mile off the mouth of the Umgeni river. The Caliph has begun his attack on the fort. Good! Now you must land your battalions,' Kadem told Koots, then turned to shout an order to the helm: 'Bring her back on the wind.' Obediently the dhow came round to the thrust of the big lateen, and they headed in towards the beach. The rest of the convoy followed his lead.
The transports were towing their boats, which were already packed with armed men. Others were waiting on the decks of the ships for their turn to embark in the boats as they returned empty from the beach. They sailed into the stain of yellow-brown effluent that poured from the
mouth of the river and sullied the blue sea for miles along the coast. Both Kadem and Koots studied the beach through their glasses as they approached,
'Deserted!' Koots grunted.
There is no reason for it to be otherwise,' Kadem told him. 'You will meet no opposition until you reach the fort. According to Laleh, the enemy guns are all aimed to fire out across the bay to cover the entrance channel. They are not sited to meet any attack from the landward side.'
'One quick rush while the enemy is busy with the attacking dhows and we will be over the walls and into the fort.'
'Inshallahl'
