There was no objection; all had heard of the butchery and many had seen the fort. Major Ponsonby-Willet had been white-faced outraged and had begged to accompany the soldiers to assist them in their duty.
"What of the prisoners on the prizes, sir?"
"Have you spoken to them, Sir Iain?"
"All say they had no part in it, sir. They stayed aboard ship and listened, sir, could do nothing else. They are out of the Mauritius, sir, under orders to use this port, or another as convenient, as a base for raiding down to the Cape, sir, as being unexpected and so less likely to be easily discovered."
"An alliance with the King of Madagascar, if there is such a being?"
"No, sir. More of a local sort of arrangement, the Duke of this port - that was the title they gave him - to be well paid and to take a share of the prizes and the loot from onshore at the Cape. They said that he was to provide soldiers as well, but they had not yet eventuated."
"We should return the Company brig to Bombay rather than the Cape, I think. The Admiral might like to make a show of the navy recovering the ship-of-war that the Company so carelessly lost, but I believe we should rather give them the sad news as quickly as possible. Where did they take the brig?"
"North of the Seychelles islands, sir, where she was nosing about inshore, apparently chasing a pirate. They caught her against a lee shore, sir, took her by boarding as she was trying to claw off, the reefs giving her no chance to run or even to attempt to exchange broadsides, she being unable to come round to run parallel. They sent the prisoners ashore, having been ordered to keep none aboard by their own admiral on Mauritius."
"We shall hold the prizes in company, Sir Iain, and make for Bombay before entering the Red Sea rather than after. It will make little enough difference to the Admiralty, and will very definitely keep the Company on our side. If ever there is a furore in London then I am much in favour of having John Company at my shoulder."
"Me too, sir!"
They took three days to destroy the town, a tropical rain storm extinguishing some of their fires so that they needed to set them again. By the time they had finished there was no building standing above waist high and every piece of cultivable land showed black.
"That will teach them, sir!"
Wickham was positively gleeful - he had conceived a great hatred for the people of Madagascar.
"I am sure it will teach them something, Mr Wickham, but I know not what... Nor really, do I care. They must know that if they kill our people in such a way then we shall be revenged, but I cannot imagine that it will stop them doing it. I would like to venture inland and engage their army, but dare not move out of gunshot. Just as far as a thirty-two pounder will accurately carry, that is our range of safe travel, sir. Look at them!"
Their telescopes showed tens of thousands of soldiers in organised bands, battalions in fact, some few with muskets but most carrying spear or sword.
"Far too many, sir. We would be surrounded and swarmed under. We might kill ten for our one, but there are at least twenty, I would estimate."
"Exactly! An invasion of this land would demand a large army, not a squadron of ships and a single battalion. Burning the one small town will have no effect upon the rulers of the land, but we can do no more. We sail tomorrow on the morning's tide."
"Sir, the French crews wish to offer their parole, they say. No difficulty with the ship-sloop, which is a national vessel, but Sir Iain wishes to know what is to be done with the privateersmen."
"A very good question, Mr Wickham. Off hand, I do not know... they may be of any nationality, that is the problem, including English. If one takes their parole then they are safe from any court; they cannot, for example, be charged with treasonable dealings with an enemy of the Crown. If I refuse them then they must be kept under guard in the hold, in tropical heat... That is to be inhumane, I feel, they having offered rather than being asked their parole. Inform Sir Iain that their parole must be accepted; you may tell him that I am happy that all are of foreign nationality and he is to record them as such. He is to make the usual offers to them."
In the absence of the passport and birth certificate in almost every country in the world, nationality was to a great extent a matter of personal choice. It was not uncommon to discover sailors who had served in several navies as had suited their convenience; among officers this sometimes caused an eyebrow to rise, but before the mast the shortage of hands was more important than theoretical questions of loyalty.
The privateers showed themselves much more heavily manned within the hour, the thin prize crews augmented by almost all of their original complement. Life in the navy would pay less well than privateering, but was far preferable to existence in a makeshift prisoner-of-war compound outside Bombay.
"Beg pardon, sir, but can they be trusted?"
"The national ship will simply be a prize and will make no attempt to escape, I should expect, Mr Wickham. Even the French may be relied upon in matters of parole. The private ships are another matter, but Sir Iain will have taken the name and description of their officers at least and they will know that breach of their sworn word of honour will make them pirates as far as we are concerned, to be run up to the yardarm without trial if captured again. They might choose to take that risk, but probably will not... They have the advantage, of course, that having accepted their word I must offer them absolute trust. I may suspect that they probably pledged loyal service to the French on Mauritius, but I have no choice - honour demands that I treat them as gentlemen of their word."
"What, sir, if you recognise bloody-handed mutineers among them, after accepting their parole?"
"What, if I was to discover a man from Pigott's Hermione, for example?"
"That springs to mind, sir."
"God alone knows, Mr Wickham. I have accepted his parole and cannot touch him; the most absolute orders from the Admiralty are that he must be taken up come what may. What I am to do, I know not. Let us pray that the occasion does not arise. I trust you are not asking for any specific reason?"
"No, sir. Merely for my own edification. They say that as many as fifty of Bligh's people escaped justice, sir, not disappearing into the South Seas with the others but making their way onto merchantmen and back to England. I would expect some of them to surface over time, sir."
"That is an easier case, Mr Wickham. Bligh was the architect of his own misfortune and those sleeping dogs should be let lie. Ignore them!"
"That is probably the best course, sir. I never knew Captain Bligh, myself, sir, but was shipmates with a young gentleman who had served with him. An abrasive, bad-tempered, ill-mannered man, if ever one was, so he said, sir, his career saved only by his brilliance as a seaman. They said he was sent into the South Seas mainly because it would get him out of the way of civilised company for a few years."
"He did very well at Camperdown."
"Perhaps he has seen the light, sir, and changed his ways."
They sailed north in line abreast, sweeping from coast to far offshore. Each morning the masthead called to confirm the presence of the two privateer schooners, each exactly to station. Nothing else was to be seen. They proceeded to the Seychelles, bored by an empty ocean, but, Frederick consoled himself, it was an excellent exercise for the squadron. Nine days and he reversed course, knowing that the run south would be far less of a pleasure cruise. The wind was set in the south-west, as was to be expected, he understood, and that would demand repeated tacks and hard work to keep station. Each of the vessels handled differently, yet each had to perform exactly the same manoeuvres. In this case it was far more enjoyable to be the Commodore - all the others had to keep station on him.
The word was obviously out among the slavers - none were to be seen at sea. It was probable that they were creeping up the coast of East Africa, but the orders were to confine themselves to the shores of Madagascar and they could not be in two places at once.
They made Sambava on the day of the rendezvous, courtesy of some hard sailing. The winds had fresh
ened beyond expectation and had taken a more southerly bearing, forcing more tacks and some very careful choice of canvas for the smaller vessels. They had held their positions with very few rebukes of a morning; Frederick was pleased with them, though he saw little need to say so.
"No benefit to making them swollen-headed with unnecessary compliments, Mr Wickham. One expects ships of the navy to keep station! Is there anything in sight?"
"A pair of frigates, sir, just shaking out reefs, sir. I suspect they have been laying-to, having arrived before us, sir."
Frederick grinned - Vereker would have moved heaven and earth to make the rendezvous before him.
"Fair Isle has the mail pennant flying, sir."
"Order a boat and lieutenant from all ships, Mr Wickham. Fair Isle and Mercure to close the Commodore. 'All Captains', if you would be so good... no, belay that order, it is imprecise. Signal each of the squadron for her commanding officer to attend me, whether it be a lieutenant or a master and commander or a post-captain. Exclude the three prizes, of course."
“Gentlemen, we are to call at Bombay before we enter the Red Sea. The reason is, as you will appreciate, that we must discover whether the Company has chosen to escort the pilgrim ships this season. If they have, then we will add ourselves to the company squadron until we reach the entrance to the Red Sea, then making a sweep westwards in search of any pirates out of the African coast. That is, of course, provided that we receive no other information while at Bombay.”
The more senior captains could read between the lines of his little speech and realised that the orders from the Admiralty were either too vague or deliberately ambiguous and that as a result Frederick really did not know quite what to do next.
“We must show ourselves to the pilgrim ships this year, gentlemen. After that, well, we shall allow time for the great storms to work their will upon the empty seas of the Indian Ocean and then we shall wend our way south to the Cape, there to discover what, if anything, is actually happening there.”
“Beg pardon, sir.”
“Captain Vereker – have you news from the Cape itself?”
“Yes, sir. The Admiral and the Company have had a thorough falling out, sir, and as a result the East Indiamen are no longer to call at Cape Town. They will make the voyage uninterrupted as they did while the Dutch held the port.”
“How very silly!”
“Yes, sir.”
All were anxious to read the first letters since they had left Portsmouth and the meeting came very quickly to an end.
Frederick had three letters from Elizabeth; he read them last first, wanting to discover that all was well at home; she must be very close to her time.
Elizabeth was well, had come through her confinement with little travail and had borne a daughter, a frail mite, sadly, who had not survived her first few days. She had been hurriedly baptised, Mary, and now lay in her tiny grave in the churchyard, much grieved by all.
Frederick wept.
Later, the first sadness abated, he wondered whether it was not a punishment for his own misconduct with Admiral Clerke’s wife and then before in the Sugar Islands. He had behaved badly and his daughter had been taken from him and, most unfairly, from Elizabeth. He did not speak of his fears, merely told his followers of the sad event. They mourned for him, but could not be too surprised – babies died, that was a part of life, even for the rich and well fed.
“You got three, sir, strong and growing big, isn’t it, sir. Some folks, they lose every one, they all die, sir. Look at the good bit, isn’t it, sir.”
Bosomtwi’s words were true, but they did not help. Wickham, who had a little more of English education, pointed out the sad case of Queen Anne who lost all of fourteen.
“We must all count our blessings, sir.”
“How in Hell did she remain sane, Mr Wickham?”
“I cannot imagine, sir. I have often felt so sorry for the poor lady.”
The return letter was hard to write, the more for not wishing to rake up old pains, for the babe would be nearly a year dead by the time Elizabeth read his words. He allowed none of his own self-accusation to colour the letter – his misconduct was his private business and was his to make amends for. He made much of the squadron’s successes and gravely informed her of the addition of Mercure and the nature of her anomalous captain – she would be much entertained by the scandal.
“Is there a prize court at Bombay, sir?”
“There is, Mr Wickham. Unfortunately, the Bombay Marine gunbrig must go before it. She had been taken for more than twenty-four hours and is therefore a prize and John Company must pay us her value. The process of valuation can be a cause of grievance. I much hope that the admiral commanding the flotilla in the East Indies will be absent elsewhere in his huge station, or that if he is present he is not a stickler for the letter of the law or a money-grabber. The admiral will receive no share himself but he might well be minded to demand every penny he can lay a hand on for the navy. It will be very easy to cause gratuitous offence to the Company.”
Wickham could not understand why that should be a problem and Frederick saw little need to enlighten him. Had he expected his premier to be promoted, to command his own ship, then it would have been only right to explain the need to placate the authorities on shore, whoever they might be, but Wickham needed no such education – he would never tread his own naval quarterdeck. That raised the question again of what he should do with the man – too old for command and yet too efficient in his post to be passed over in any honesty. He must never be given a sloop or frigate and shore posts were very few for master and commander, and it would be a poor reward to see him promoted onto unending half-pay, and even poorer to leave him without recognition at all.
That was a problem for another day. It might not be impossible, if John Company was kept in good humour, to find Wickham something in Bombay, a comfortable post outside of the navy.
“Course for Bombay, Mr Mason?”
“The most efficient and direct is to make a southing, sir, deep into the Ocean, and then to drive down the wind, which seems set for the while, as it should be at this season. The possibility of a storm is always there, of course, and there will be high seas and hard sailing which the older ships might not appreciate. The alternative is to run north to the mouth almost of the Red Sea and then to make a slower passage to the south and east. I believe that we may expect a wind on the Arabian coast, sir.”
The slower passage had the advantage that it conformed more obviously to his orders – it would keep the squadron in the pirate and pilgrim waters.
“Hot, slow and tedious, Mr Mason. We are sufficiently up for water and must take the second course. Inform Mr Wickham and make the signal to the squadron, if you please.”
They were five weeks on passage, as long as an Atlantic crossing, speeding north, as far as it could be said that either of the seventy-fours could do more than make a pedestrian trot, and then crawling eastwards increasingly hot in a failing wind and finally tacking laboriously down the shores of India. They spoke not a ship in that time, though they saw a few small fishing craft distantly inshore and making their best speed into shoal waters and safety.
"Dangerous seas where fishermen run away from strangers, Mr Wickham."
"Slavers know no laws, sir. I have had windsails rigged, sir, and ordered the portlids raised, but it is mortal hot belowdecks even so. The doctor, sir, begs that he may bring his patients up on deck, rigging an awning for them on the forecastle."
"How many has he in his care?"
"Four of the quotamen, sir, who are lung sick. For them, he says, it is no more than a matter of making them comfortable in their last days. They should have been placed in a paupers' ward in their home towns, sir, but were sent away to save money for the Poor Law."
"Why were they not refused at Portsmouth?"
"They were scared to be dumped ashore, sir, on their own in a foreign town miles from home, and so hid that they were coughing bloody."
"Poor fellows - they have been badly used. At least they may lie out in the sunshine and be comforted by its warmth; they may die the more easily. Who else?"
"Five poxes, sir, too far gone for their mercury to do them good. They have only a few weeks left, the doctor says, the blindness and paralysis and madness already upon them."
"Then they may be put on show, as it were, a lesson for all the young men, a salutary reminder of the wages of casual fornication!"
Wickham was surprised by the harshness in Frederick's voice; he had not previously put him down as a moralist.
"Apart from that, sir, one new rupture and a rope-burn and one with broken fingers, all three from being careless at gun-drill."
"Twelve men - not so many, it could be far worse from the complement of a line-of-battle ship. Has the rupture any skills that may make him useful? He will never be able to haul any weight again."
"He was a handloom weaver, sir."
"Dispossessed of a living by the new mills of the North Country! Sailmaker's party, perhaps? If not that then he must become a wardroom servant. He will not really have the strength to be a loblolly in the surgeon's employ - he would never be able to hold an amputation motionless on the table. How severe is the rope-burn?"
"Damned fool, sir! He wrapped the rope over his shoulders so as to take a better heave at it! The rope scored and excoriated the flesh over a length of eighteen inches and two fingers wide. He cannot lie down comfortably, or stand or sit, and is at his wits' end for pain. The doctor has filled him with laudanum, and hopes the wound-rot will not appear."
Gangrene was an unending fear in the tropics, less at sea than on land but still ever present.
"They must all come on deck. Does the doctor wish them to sleep there at night?"
"No, sir! Certainly not! Nothing so dangerous as night airs for the sick, sir."
"Will the broken fingers heal, by the way?"
Wickham shrugged; they had not been amputated so the breaks must have been within reason clean; all things were possible.
Far Foreign (The Duty and Destiny Series, Book 9) Page 9
