Golden Lion by Wilbur Smith

Ach!’ The captain shrugged and his face broke into a disarmingly friendly expression. ‘What does it matter, eh? Let us all just stop this senseless fighting, and talk a little sense.’
    Hal was gripped by indecision. He had seen his last love, Sukeena, killed by a poisoned blade when she too was with child. She and their baby had died in his arms and he would not see Judith suffer the same fate, nor let another child of his be killed before it had ever taken a single breath.
    Yet how could he yield his ship and everything he and his crew had fought so hard for? What manner of captain would that make him? Instinctively he glanced up at the quarterdeck half expecting to see his father Sir Francis standing there proud and steadfast and unafraid, his hard eyes boring into him, judging Hal against his own tall measure as he had ever done.
    But there was no ghost to tell Hal what to do. The
Golden Bough
was
his
ship.
He
was its captain.
    ‘I am Captain Tromp of the
Delft
and now it seems …’ the Dutchman said, a smile tugging the corner of his mouth ‘… of this fine ship the
Golden Bough
also.’ Tromp’s men cheered at this, evoking curses from the
Bough
’s crew who clamoured at their captain to be released once more to the slaughter. For still more men had come from below and now stood blinking in the dawn light, clean blades and primed pistols in their hands. One word from Hal and the
Bough
’s deck would become a slaughter yard again. But one of the corpses could easily be Judith, his love and her infant.
    ‘We outnumber you five to one, Captain Tromp,’ Hal called, trying to hide the desperation he felt for Judith, hoping she would not see it either, for it was important for a captain to appear decisive and composed.
    ‘And yet you are not fighting,’ Tromp said. ‘Which tells me that you would do anything to save this woman from harm. And though I am sure that you are a gentleman, Captain, I suggest that the reason you stay your sword is not a matter of mere chivalry. She has your heart, does she not?’
    Hal locked eyes with Judith and even by the early light of the dawn he could see the steel in them. She showed no sign of fear, only a cold resolve, as the pox-marked man with the knife to her throat growled obscenities in her ear.
    ‘I do not think he will kill her, Captain,’ Aboli said, breathing deeply at Hal’s right shoulder. ‘Because if he does then he knows he and all his men will certainly die.’
    ‘Let us carve them up, Captain!’ Robert Moone, one of the
Bough
’s boatswains, called.
    ‘Aye, we’ll feed their craven livers to the sharks!’ boatswain John Lovell yelled, pointing his sword at Captain Tromp.
    Hal wracked his brain, trying to find a way out of the choice that confronted him between his boat and crew on one side and his woman and child on the other.
    ‘How can I let them hurt her, Aboli?’ Hal hissed and was on the point of lowering his sword when Judith threw back her head, smashing her skull against her captor’s nose like a hammer against an eggshell. He howled in pain and let her go, dropping his knife as he instinctively raised his hands to his broken nose and bloody face. In a single, flowing sequence of movements Judith broke free, picked up her sword, slashed the razor edge across the belly of the man who had grabbed her and leapt at Tromp. His attention had all been on Hal. He was slow to react to what was happening behind him. By the time he had turned round Judith had covered the ground between them, and had put the pin-sharp tip of her blade to his throat before he could raise his own sword.
    Seeing this, some of the Dutchmen threw themselves at Hal’s men, believing they had no choice but to fight or die, but they were cut down where they stood and the rest of Tromp’s boarding party dropped to their knees and hoisted their swords and boarding axes above their heads.
    ‘It is over, Captain,’ Aboli said, stooping to saw his blade across the throat of