Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  Strong Winds was sailing serenely through the long mid-summer evening.

  “She had a mortar loaded with illuminating flares. They’d darken ship just before dusk then steam around their patrol area, keeping radar watch. As soon as anything was spotted, anything at all, it was action stations. Searchlights and shouting and shots across the bows. The people on the kumpits were taken aboard and handcuffed to the guard-rail until they could be handed to the naval police. Then the crew of the Beckfoot sank their boats.”

  Great Aunt Ellen paused for a moment. She looked old and tired and depressed. Then she sighed and carried on.

  “The trouble was that not all of those people in their little boats were armed insurgents. Some were run-of-the-mill smugglers – loaded with cigarettes, clothing and electrical goods – and others ... were refugees.”

  “You were on a foreign office list,” Donny remembered something he’d heard through the study door at Erewhon Parva. “You were an Undesirable Alien.”

  “I rather thought I might have been,” she said with the ghost of a smile. “I’d changed my nationality by then. Though I still felt British. Always have done. It made it so much worse. I felt I knew those men on the Beckfoot. They’d been trained at Shotley, probably. Good brave lads most of them. Simply following orders.”

  “Attitude problem?” he wanted to lighten up the conversation. Didn’t think she should get agitated.

  “Bang right I had an attitude problem. Some of those families, out at night, crossing between the islands, had seen their villages destroyed. They were escaping, not attacking.”

  They could hear her struggling to breathe. Her lips looked pinched and blue again.

  “Ellen,” said Defoe, “may we have the rest of the story tomorrow? The skipper’s drawn up a watch system and some of us have to go below.”

  “Not me.” They could hardly hear her speak.

  “Of course not. You’re Top Brass here. You do exactly as you like.”

  Her breathing eased. That ghost of a smile again.

  “As they do. There’s not much more of the story to tell. We took that ship, Madame and I ...”

  “Madame?”

  “Li Choi San. Queen of the Pirates. These were her Three Islands. She liked to manage her own protection business and she didn’t like the Beckfoot interfering. I didn’t like it either, for different reasons.”

  “You took on ... the Royal Navy! You fought against machine-guns!”

  “Madame had cannon.”

  Several moments passed while they considered this. Strong Winds lifted and dipped, lifted and dipped, her cream sails curving to the breeze. The moon had risen. Her sails looked ethereal.

  “But ... would cannon have been much use? ’Cos the Hispan ... I mean the Beckfoot is probably steel. She’s a warship after all, even if she’s not a very big one. She’s got those engines and, presumably, you were sailing a wooden junk? Something like this?”

  “Black sails. Very fast and quick to put about. A top spec pirate ship. Built in Bias Bay.”

  “The Beckfoot had radar.”

  “Radar can’t see through islands. We were cunning and unscrupulous and operating in our own patch of sea. She never stood a chance. We set the entire crew adrift in their ship’s boats and took the Beckfoot as our prize. Mine, to be exact.”

  “Yours?”

  “I gave Madame my hand for her. And for her crew.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Crossing the Bar

  Somewhere at the top end of the Java Sea, mid-1960s

  It was velvety dark: warm with a breath of wind and the water rippling with phosphoresence at the slightest disturbance. A single flash of silver could have betrayed the junk as she sailed neatly and noiselessly towards the stern of the gunboat. Her black hull and black sails were otherwise invisible in the moonless night.

  The Beckfoot had intercepted a suspiciously overcrowded kumpit. They’d floodlit her and Lieutenant Drinkwater, the Beckfoot’s commanding officer, had ordered the suspects to abandon their vessel before she was destroyed. They’d obeyed instantly and had been taken on board, confused and panicky. They seemed quite stupid with fear and the process of handcuffing them to the guard-rail was more awkward than usual. Most available members of the ship’s company were dealing with the captives, others were lining up the abandoned kumpit. They’d be using her for target practice shortly.

  Then, at some unseen signal, the frightened voyagers turned on their captors. A dozen or so reinforcements came swarming over the gunboat’s stern from the black-hulled racing junk that had materialised out of darkness. The eighteen men on the Beckfoot were taken by surprise and swiftly overpowered. Now it was they who were cuffed to the guard-rail as their captors discussed their fate.

  The pirate chief was small and dark and deeply weathered. She was dressed in black silk tunic and trousers with an oldfashioned but effective-looking gun shoved casually into the broad black sash around her waist. Drinkwater and his crew knew who this must be and they didn’t much fancy their chances of survival. Madame Li Choi San’s reputation had spread far beyond her islands.

  There was a second woman there, similarly dressed and also small, not Chinese. English? Drinkwater tried to catch her eye. Wished he could understand what they were saying. A sinister-looking man was disagreeing angrily. Madame was listening to both. The man said something that made the Englishwoman gasp.

  Li Choi San turned towards her. There was a moment of standoff, of challenge. A tense, dangerous moment – Drinkwater felt certain their lives were in the balance. The woman looked at him and his men.

  “Did you any of you know Captain Palmer – of the Sparrow?” she asked suddenly.

  “He was my first commander, ma’am,” Drinkwater was able to reply. “A tragic loss.”

  “I might ... do it,” she said, and turned back to continue negotiating with Li Choi San.

  Harwich Approaches, Saturday 30 June 2007

  Xanthe, Maggi and Anna were never going to be caught without fully charged mobiles again. As soon as Anna’s came within range of the English coast, in the early afternoon of the following day, texts began arriving from Maggi. The first was a warning:

  Shark-boat circling Harwich Harbour :( Smelling blood? xxM

  “Huh? Must be there for someone else. He can’t know about Gold Dragon. Not even that she’s coming home. Certainly not about how she is – or what she’s remembered. Don’t want him stressing her out though. Ask Maggi for updates.”

  “There’d be real sharks in the South China Sea,” said Anna as she pressed Send.

  “Why?”

  “I was thinking about the blood. When they cut off her hand. She must have bled like crazy. No wonder she forgot so much about it afterwards.”

  “It’s amazing she survived. She said the ship’s cook did it really quickly with a cleaver. And stitched up the stump straightaway. The other pirate, the older Zhang, hoped she’d die. He was her bitter rival.”

  “If she hadn’t done it all those crew men would be dead.”

  “And there’d have been a proper war. The Navy might have covered up the loss of a single ship ...”

  “Especially if they didn’t want to publicise exactly what she’d been up to ...”

  “But they’d have sent the fleet in if that Queen of the Pirates had killed eighteen British sailors!”

  “Should we tell anyone what Gold Dragon did? Like a newspaper or something?”

  “Probably not.”

  They both went quiet for a bit. Tried to enjoy the sailing. Failed.

  “As soon as she was okay she took the Beckfoot right out of the area to Bias Bay in Guangdong province on mainland China. Used her to pay for Strong Winds to be built – lived on Strong Winds happily ever after. Forty years!”

  “This shark-boat,” asked Defoe a little later. “It’s the Mr Big who tried to run you down when Ellen first came home?”

  “Fat Flint. Bully of the Seas. Yup, that’s him.”

&n
bsp; “She’d come across from Rotterdam, hadn’t she?” he was frowning slightly. “Crated Strong Winds in Shanghai, travelled with her as Polly Lee, then had her lifted off the container ship to sail the last stretch.”

  “She was coming to Shotley. It was quite emotional for her.”

  “Which was how she took everyone by surprise. I can’t help wondering what would have happened if she hadn’t.”

  “Her different names confused them mainly. Flint didn’t know that she was Polly Lee. Or that Palmer had been changed to Walker. Nor did I. Combination of Granny Edith and Gold Dragon certainly managed to brush over the family tracks.”

  “All the same, you’re tackling some powerful illegal organisation here and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it doesn’t also have a base in Holland. Rotterdam’s the biggest container port in Europe and it’s so close. I wish I’d thought of hiding her identity when I took her to the hospital. I think she may have been watched while she was there.”

  “It was amazing you turning up to rescue her at all.”

  “I’ve been looking for my sister all my life without knowing she existed. I think I earned a miracle.”

  Skye was steering Strong Winds, just as she’d done that night. She was confident and steady, her eagle eyes looking ahead for the next buoy.

  “But if I’d known earlier that it was you,” said Defoe sadly, “I could have followed you from the sky. Pride of Macao would never have dared attack and Ellen would still be well.”

  Another text arrived:

  Back to club for lunch. No fattypuff here. Last seen lurking near Landguard. Sis sailing like a demon :) I videoing for the greater good xxM

  “Why does videoing Xanthe count towards the greater good?” Donny wondered aloud. He didn’t understand why Xanthe had changed her mind so suddenly but he certainly didn’t grudge her this outburst of racing – he’d silently promised Lively Lady that before the weekend was out he’d have her down from her davits and back into the water where she belonged. He just didn’t see how winning the Laser area championships fitted into the bigger picture.

  “I’ll ask,” said Anna, thumbs twitching.

  They had passed the South Galloper and were once again approaching territorial waters and the Long Sand Head. Great Aunt Ellen had sat alone a long time in the bow of her ship then had gone peacefully below to sleep. Skye and Defoe had made lunch as if they’d been catering together since childhood and now there was nothing for anyone to do except keep the junk on course and enjoy the summer’s day.

  Except think. And worry.

  There was no obvious way Flint could harass them. While Gold Dragon had been in hospital, Edward had returned from his fishing holiday. He and Defoe had made sure all Strong Winds’ paperwork was up to date and her EU residency established. Even the VAT had been sorted out. All the same Donny knew they didn’t want a confrontation.

  Maggi texted back almost before Anna had finished.

  “She’s videoing Xanth because they want to ask the Port of Felixstowe management if they’ll sponsor Spray’s replacement. As long as Xanthe wins everything this weekend – which is pretty well a cert – they’re going to make an appointment with the PR people at the docks and offer them a showing. It’s their idea for getting past the gates. Then we can fill that unexplored space on our map and get another look at the container. They’ll write the numbers down so I can trace where it came from and they’ll use their phones to take a photo of the Mark.”

  “Brilliant,” said Donny.

  “She wants to know where we’re headed and our ETA.”

  “Say we’re not sure: you’ll text her later.”

  Gold Dragon had appointed him skipper for this trip – where should he take them? Gallister Creek was too remote – what if his great-aunt needed a doctor? Shotley marina felt too public and he didn’t know if anyone had any money. He’d been planning on a return to Pin Mill but not with Flint cruising the Orwell entrance.

  “What about the River Deben?” suggested Anna. “You come in past Bawdsey – like we did last March – then you can go right up to Woodbridge. I’ve been there with Mum and the kids. We’re going to school there in the autumn. You should check it out. If Skye and Gold Dragon like the town and you can get a mooring for Strong Winds maybe you could transfer as well?”

  “Fees ... exams ... posh parents with big cars. Get real, Anna! They won’t have me at your new school. You inherited three million pounds, remember? Skye’s still on income support.”

  She put her mobile away and laughed as if this was the best thing that had happened all day.

  “Sometimes you’re so way off beam that you could hit an iceberg on the equator. I’m not going to a private school. I never was. I only took their exams to prove that I could go if I wanted to. And I could. I got really good marks – even in Latin. They didn’t have exams in my actual best subjects – like electronics and computer science. Luke and I are going to the local comp. I’d have told you ages ago if you’d bothered to ask. But you’ve been in such a sulk.”

  “Oh Anna!” he said and hugged her for the first time ever. “I’m such an idiot!”

  “You are,” she said and gave him a quick hug in return, before backing off, looking pink again and glancing quickly at Skye and Defoe.

  “Saxon King Raedwald went up the River Deben,” said Defoe, covering her embarrassment. “I believe we could sell the idea to our noble cargo.”

  “I’ll check the tide times first,” said Donny recovering his wits. “There’s a shingle bar across the entrance. She won’t want us going in on the ebb. But if it looks okay, I’ll work out our new course.”

  He took the remains of his tea and headed for the cabin. Anna followed. His great-aunt seemed to be asleep.

  “How could I have thought that all this time!” he asked her, “How could you have let me?”

  “Mostly it was funny but some days I felt totally furious with you. Then I worked harder. So it was quite useful.”

  “Makes me shiver. Could you maybe direct that fury back towards Flint and Toxic?” He’d found a chartlet of the River Deben entrance but he wasn’t looking at it. “They are so much worse than the Tiger because they’ve got no excuse. They’re not from some poor island somewhere. They’re arrogant and greedy and they’re abusing a system that’s meant to care for people. But I can’t see how we’re going to finish them off. I can’t get the connections.”

  “No faith in your own map-making?”

  “You said yourself that I could hit an iceberg on the equator!”

  “This isn’t navigation. It’s a map to help us think. We’ve seen things happening. Definite things in actual places. So we put them all down and see if we can join the dots. If you spotted an iceberg on the equator, you’d put some sort of cross on your chart, wouldn’t you? And then you’d probably start asking yourself how it got there. Winds and currents and stuff.”

  “Or whether maybe I’d miscalculated the equator?”

  “But we’re not doing calculations. We’re only putting things that we’re sure about, things that have actually happened.”

  “And what’s about to happen if you dismiss calculation in that arty manner,” said a sharp voice from the opposite bunk, “is that I’ll take back my command. Strong Winds has got a GPS. If you’ve lost the use of compass and pencil you’ll find the current Woodbridge Haven waypoint already entered. You can be as forensic as you like once we’re back in port, but if you’re planning to waft me to a grave mound up the Deben, I’d prefer that you did it without running us slap on the Cork sand.”

  They’d made that mistake again – they’d thought Gold Dragon was asleep or too far away mentally to understand what they were talking about.

  “Um, I don’t think we’re quite as far as the Cork yet.”

  “No doubt that’s what they thought on the Titanic.”

  Donny shut up and got busy with his plotter and dividers.

  When he’d finished and given Skye their new course, he
sat down beside his great-aunt. Anna had gone back on deck.

  “We’ve been trying to make a chart,” he said. “We didn’t do one on holiday so I couldn’t answer your message. You asked whether we’d done war or exploration and Anna said to say ‘forensics’ because it felt like we’d been at a crime scene. We’re marking stuff in. Things that have happened since I’ve been living down here.”

  He had the beginnings of their chart with him. He unrolled it on the saloon table.

  “We saw Flint and the Tiger killing a budgie in Felixstowe dock. And we know that Bill was bribed and frightened there. Except he’s still too scared to say. And we saw other birds fluttering round the Hispaniola (okay Beckfoot). And we know where Lottie lived in the town with some of the hidden workers and how she was trapped by her debts. Except she still doesn’t want to say all that much because she doesn’t want to get the others into trouble if Zhang’s still in charge. Cage-birds is a word they use but she won’t explain exactly what it means. There was that Chinese cleaner, I told you about her. She was nice. But Joshua’s having a problem in the hospital because Pura-Lilly have been cleaning his ward and all his patients have been going sick. That’s why he wants to leave. June wants him to stay and get evidence.”

  He was showing her his drawing as he spoke and she was nodding, her face tight as a skull. He wondered whether he should stop but she rapped her hook on the table to make him carry on.