The East Indiaman

by The East Indiaman (retail) (epub)

  ‘Surrender, M’sieur and I shall grant quarter!’ All motion on the deck seemed to still as the skirmish reached its climax.

  ‘What are you, meester?’ the wounded man queried, his voice proud and bitter. ‘You ’ave no uniform. Are you a pirate?’

  ‘I am a corsair, sir,’ Kite responded.

  ‘You are a pirate!’ the French officer cried putting up his guard.

  ‘Surrender, M’sieur! At once or I shall shoot you dead!’ They turned to see Sarah standing on the rail. She too was wounded, and Kite could see the red blood spreading on her right sleeve. In her left hand she held a pistol and the next second its report made them all jump. The ball threw the Frenchman’s head back, snapping his neck and burying itself in his brain as the back of the skull opened out and a pale cloud of dissipating matter appeared briefly. At this the second officer and his last man leapt forward with a cry. Kite felt his blade engaged with a ferocious energy. The second man also lunged at him and he was compelled to swing aside to avoid the fellow’s blade. His first assailant crashed against him, body-to-body.

  ‘Chien!’ howled the officer and Kite thrust him backwards so that both men recovered and came on guard again. To his right someone had caught the second man with a musket butt and he had fallen to his knees, dropping his empty pistol and his sword with a groan. A second prod and he stretched his length on the deck. Only one officer remained.

  Kite watched the eyes of this stubbornly courageous Frenchman. He was a fraction of Kite’s age and, from the poise of him, an expert swordsman. Kite felt the cold grip of fear seize his heart like a frozen fist. It was now that he wanted Sarah to blow brains out, now he wanted the deus ex machina of divine intervention, for he felt a sudden paralysis, as though his sword weighed a ton and had been enchanted.

  ‘You are alone, M’sieur,’ Kite said between clenched teeth. Kite saw the gleam of triumph in the younger man’s eyes and it was all he could do to raise his sword in an attempt to parry the blow. It was a feeble failure and he heard the surrounding gasp at his failure, felt the nick of the pointe and tried to swing aside. He was saved by his attacker slithering in the gore of his dead comrade. The pointe of the weapon was diverted as the Frenchman lost his balance and achieved no more than a sharp cut across Kite breast. As Kite saw the outstretched sword arm extend itself on the deck he instinctively stamped his booted foot on it.

  All around him a cheer went up. Kite, shaking with relief looked up to see Harper’s ugly face grinning at him.

  ‘I thought you’d bitten off more than you could chew there, Cap’n, just for an instant.’

  Kite nodded. Sweat poured down his brow and his breath heaved in his chest, working the flesh wound like a pump handle. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sarah and turning towards her he was confronted by the great white ensign standing out stiff in the breeze.

  ‘Strike that colour,’ he said, ‘and hoist the ship’s proper ensign!’ Then he turned and regarded the Spitfire’s crew and their prisoners. Men were still catching their breath and all were grimy from the powder smoke, wounds, and the tar and tallow smeared about the Carnatic’s lower shrouds.

  ‘My congratulations, Mr Harper, to you and your boat’s crew, and to the rest of you. Mr Davidson, do you take me to Captain Grindley’s quarters and Mr Cook, please direct Mr Harper where best to confine our prisoners.’

  ‘This way then, sir,’ Davidson led the way below. ‘I think the captain is with all the officers in the wardroom. It has a locked door.’

  Davidson proved correct. Though normally locked from within to prevent opportunist thieves in port, the French had simply reversed the process and Davidson turned the key and threw the door open. Grindley and his officers stood about the table, aware of the struggle on deck and apprehensively awaiting its outcome. Afterwards Grindley’s officers admitted that they had not expected rescue by a British ship. They had persuaded themselves that they were about to be taken prisoner by the Chinese. Lugubriously they were circulating the story of a foreigner who had been shut in a cage and paraded from town to town as a curiosity for the Celestials’ amusement.

  Their collective surprise was therefore manifest when Kite stepped inside the gloomy wardroom. ‘I give you good day, Captain Grindley,’ he looked about him at the astonished faces, ‘gentlemen…’ Then with a smile he offered a partial explanation. ‘You may thank providence and your friends Messrs Davidson and Cook for your liberty. Had they not risked all and had providence not directed them in our grain, you would not now be under my protection…’

  ‘I know you!’ Grindley shoved his way forward, his face a mask of anger and humiliation.

  ‘You know me too, Captain Grindley,’ said Sarah appearing at her husband’s shoulder with a smile. Her right sleeve was entirely sodden in gore, but she held a sword and a pistol butt peered from the wide leather belt about her elegantly slender waist. More astonishing, her hair, though tousled, still bore the attentive hallmark of female vanity, so tight had the queue drawn it.

  Kite heard the shuffle of feet and one aside loud enough to confirm the suspicions of the dullest onlooker: ‘I’ll be damned! ’Tis a woman.’

  ‘Mistress Kite!’ Grindley’s jaw dropped. Then he looked from her to Kite and his brow darkened. ‘What do you mean, under your protection?’ he asked with an abrupt lack of civility.

  ‘You were taken by the French frigate Alcmene, were you not, Captain Grindley?’ Grindley grunted assent. ‘Well then, your vessel was a legitimate prize of war and I have retaken you from a French prize-crew. I have a letter-of-marque and…’

  ‘The devil you have!’ Grindley said. ‘Well I’ll be damned!’

  ‘We had better get under weigh as soon as possible, before the Alcmene comes back in search of her prize. We must also alert shipping in the Pearl River of the presence of an enemy cruiser in order that a convoy may be organised. But first, captain Grindley, you’d oblige me by transhipping a quantity of Malwa opium. I wish it to be sold in Canton for a decent profit and have already established a price, However, I require it to be entered on your manifest as the private venture of a, er a Mr and Mrs Harper.’

  ‘Who the devil are they?’

  ‘They are your passengers insofar as accommodating them is concerned. More germane to the matter in hand, Mr Harper commands the prize-crew.’ Kite turned away but Grindley protested.

  ‘I don’t need a prize-crew, Kite.’

  ‘You do not command this ship, Captain Grindley,’ Kite said, his tone reasonable. ‘Not at the moment. It is an irony that I do, don’t you think?’

  Part Four

  The Reckoning

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They returned to the Pearl River in company with their prize and in conclusion of the Carnatic’s outward voyage. Here Kite arranged for Nisha and Sarah to transfer to the bigger ship, installing them in Grindley’s spacious accommodation, to the intense annoyance of the displaced commander. Kite also went aboard, technically as prize-master.

  ‘I am sensible of the irony of fate, Captain Grindley,’ he said with a charming smile as the Carnatic’s master was obliged to move his personal effects into a state-room normally reserved for passengers. ‘It is not so very long ago you offered me a position as first officer, undertaking not to burden me with the actual duty. Now I am able to offer you something similar. I should not wish to take away from you the duties attaching to command; but, on the other hand, I shall retain the direction of the ship. I hope that you can accept such a situation under the circumstances, eh? Unless, of course, you wish to make alternative arrangements for your passage back to Bombay in another vessel. What d’you say, sir?’

  ‘That I am obliged to you, sir,’ Grindley said through clenched teeth, though an instant later his tongue darted out to moisturise his lips. After a moment he asked, ‘and do you intend that this arrangement should stand until we return to Bombay?’

  Kite nodded. ‘I can see no reason why it should not, can you?’

  ‘Unfo
rtunately not.’

  ‘Then we shall have to try and rub along together as well as may be.’

  Grindley made no reply and, in the succeeding weeks confined himself to the minimum of conversation with the man he uncharitably considered as his jailer. Fortunately for the Carnatic, few of Grindley’s officers saw the change in the ship’s hierarchy in quite the same light. As far as they were concerned, Kite had saved them from an unknown fate and their commander’s unpopularity lost nothing by his relegation. Most of them being youngish men thought the compensation of having two beautiful women on board sufficient a bonus to the voyage. The fact that both women were older than the majority of themselves, and that neither was unattached, simply meant that they were all able to flirt without rancour, a circumstance which added an unusual charm to the social life of the vessel.

  Kite left Harper in command of Spitfire.

  ‘I shall return Rahman to you for the passage back to Bombay, Zachariah,’ he explained. ‘However, I confess that I despise myself for leaving you myself, for I am anxious about the condition of the schooner and I would not have you think that I do so out of callous disregard for you…’

  ‘Cap’n,’ Harper interrupted, ‘you must sail in the Carnatic, there’s no doubt of that, otherwise Grindley will cheat you. Besides,’ he added, ‘we shall be keeping you in company and it wouldn’t be fair on the women to leave them rattling around in that big Country-wallah, even with Maggie and McClusky to look after them. We shall be all right, Cap’n, the keel ain’t about to drop off this little ole schooner.’

  ‘I hope you are right, Zachariah.’

  ‘Well even if I am wrong, it is better that Nisha comes with you.’

  ‘You will miss her,’ Kite said with a conspiratorial smile.

  ‘I sure as hell will!’ Harper agreed ruefully, ‘but by heaven I shall make up for it when I get back to Bombay!’

  They lay at anchor at Whampoa for two months, the Carnatic was discharged of her cargo of cotton goods and Grindley was prevailed upon to act as a reluctant agent in the sale of Kite’s opium. It amused Kite and Rahman, who along with McClusky, had joined Kite aboard the Carnatic for the purposes of overseeing the negotiations over her cargo, to see Lee come aboard as shaw-bunder to deal with the inward freight of the Country ship. The Chinese official maintained his aplomb at the surprising and inexplicable sight of Kite and his Indian colleague, but ignored them in his subsequent pidgin dealings with Grindley. Ignorant of their former transaction and under pressure from Kite and Rahman, Grindley himself drove a hard bargain to which Lee had to accede, which he did with commendable imperturbability. At the conclusion of the negotiations Kite magnanimously conceded a half percent of the profit to Grindley, which cut the ground from under the captain’s feet.

  More ironic was the encounter between Grindley and the Selectmen Harrison and Blackstone. The two Commissioners were clearly cronies of the Country commander and Kite afterwards told Harper that he thought he could hear Grindley actually grinding his teeth as he explained the extraordinary presence of Kite and Rahman aboard the Carnatic. Among the Carnatic’s freight, Grindley’s private trade goods were consigned to Blackstone and thus the Commissioner was obliged to Kite for his recapture of the ship. It explained the man’s anxiety when Kite had first acquainted the two commissioners of the presence of the Alcmene in eastern waters. In the event the affair was glossed over in an outward show of mutual esteem and in due course, with two other Country ships and a late East Indiaman, Carnatic weighed her anchor and headed south, her holds full of Chinese produce.

  Kite learned Grindley was a shrewd master, and much of what he had loaded was not for the Indian market, but for London.

  ‘You will tranship this in Bombay?’ Kite queried as Grindley reluctantly showed him the manifest with Lee’s chop clearing ship and cargo outwards to Kite.

  ‘No,’ Grindley answered curtly, ‘I was hoping that the Carnatic would sail for London after discharging such of her lading that is consigned for Bombay.’

  ‘How so?’ Kite asked sharply, fixing Grindley with an interrogative glare.

  Grindley sighed. It was clear he was now beholden to Kite for far more than simply the release of the vessel and her cargo. His wet tongue ran about his lips as he mooted his reply.

  ‘My anxiety in wishing you to invest in this voyage,’ Grindley said in a tone that suggested the confession was causing him some agony, ‘was because it is intended that the Carnatic should sail to London as what is called an “extra Indiaman”, a vessel on charter to the Company for the duration of the voyage. A few Country ships have made the passage…’

  ‘Yes, I recall them arousing considerable interest for their size and appointments,’ said Kite, quietly rejoicing in the wisdom of allowing the Carnatic’s voyage to continue after her recapture. It amused him that, despite his rejection by the East India Company in London, he had become the de facto owner of an Indiaman! This thought was swiftly followed by another.

  ‘And that is why Hooker was so keen to invest in your enterprise and take up Buchanan’s share, is it not?’

  Grindley nodded, his tongue flashing in the dappled light dancing off the water under the stern and reflected in turn from the cabin’s deckhead.

  ‘You were long a partner of Zebulon Hooker’s I understand,’ Kite added with quiet off-handedness, picking up the manifest and casting his eyes over it. The hint of prior knowledge sprung the trap for Grindley and, without thinking, he admitted the fact. Kite laid the manifest down and turned to face him. ‘Well, you should have a grand profit on such a lading if you reach the London River,’ he said matter-of-factly, so that Grindley failed to notice the impact of his admission. ‘It only remains to arrange matters with Mister Banajee,’ Kite went on, diverting Grindley’s attention further, ‘for I see no reason why we should place this affair before the judgement of the prize-court, do you?’

  And for the first time since Kite had offered him a small commission on the sale of the Malwa opium, Grindley expressed a grudging gratitude.

  ‘So, Captain Kite, you have brought my ship safely back to Bombay, eh?’

  Kite inclined his head. It was unbearably hot in Bombay and, even in the cool shadows of Pestonjee Banajee’s elegant dwelling, the constriction of his neck cloth threatened to choke him. He could feel only the slightest breath of air from the fan being wafted gently above his ancient host’s head by the immobile untouchable whose waking life consisted of this tedious task.

  ‘And what do you intend to do with her?’ Banajee went on. ‘I understand that you have a letter-of-marque?’

  ‘What would you like me to do with her?’ Kite said, running his finger round his throat.

  ‘I would be obliged if you did not submit her to the Admiralty Court for judgement as a prize of war,’ Banajee said, a hint of wheedling in his tone. ‘I am an old man, Captain, and the trouble… Oh, dear, the trouble…’

  ‘Unfortunately, sir, I too am becoming an old man but I, in turn, am not anxious to submit the Carnatic to the judgement of any court and I have thus advised Captain Grindley.’

  ‘But you are in expectation of some recompense for your trouble in recapturing the vessel, I understand.’

  Kite nodded. ‘Indeed. I lost one man in the attack and sustained some damage to the Spitfire – my schooner. At present your vessel is undoubtedly a prize of war, however I have yet to declare her so.’ Kite shrugged, suggesting compromise.

  ‘I know you have not been fortunate, Captain Kite, and I know that you were a man deceived by others who used you, but if I was to make you an offer,’ Banajee said, his dark and swimming eyes gleaming, ‘would you consider it?’

  ‘It would entirely depend upon its merit, Mister Banajee,’ Kite responded coolly.

  The reclining figure stirred. Banajee rearranged his emaciated limbs. His man-servant came forward to adjust his cushions, but Banajee waved him away.

  ‘I have no sons, Captain, but sometimes a son fails the expectations of a fat
her and a man conceives a liking for another. You are younger than I, young enough to be my son…’

  ‘You flatter me, sir, I am no such thing…’

  ‘You do not know that for certain, Captain Kite,’ said the old man, smiling.

  ‘That is true.’

  ‘And, as you rightly say, you have earned some recompense. Did you know it was our intention to obtain a charter as an Extra Indiaman?’

  Kite nodded. ‘Yes, so Captain Grindley informed me.’

  ‘After you had sailed for China, I bought up Buchanan’s share of the Carnatic. I had not intended to do so, but I had no wish for others to trouble my life by their interfering… Besides,’ Banajee said with, Kite realised afterwards, a significant pause, ‘I found the means to hand. Now, I propose that you should take over that share and the consequent profits that arise from it. I will advance you a sum of money against such profits you may make from her onward voyage so that you and your wife may settle here in Bombay for a year or two and, who knows, perhaps forever?’

  Kite considered the matter for a moment, judging Sarah’s response before he expressed his gratitude. He had enough to live of for some time from the profits of the opium sale and courteously refused Banajee’s advance. ‘I thank you for your offer, but it is not necessary. I shall be content, sir, if, in addition to my interest in the Carnatic you would fund the dry-docking of my schooner. Grindley tells me that you have a majority interest in the Wadia’s graving dock.’

  ‘Grindley’s tongue is sometimes too loose,’ Banajee said with a smile. ‘He makes a capable ship-master but is too poor a dissembler to make a good bargain. You,’ Banajee said, pointing a finger at Kite, ‘are more a man of calculation… I like that.’

  ‘Then matters may rest thus between us,’ Kite said.

  Banajee nodded. ‘It is customary to shake hands, is it not?’ said the old Parsee leaning forward and extending his thin arm with its bony fingers. After they had sealed their bargain, Banajee subsided on his cushions and called for refreshment. ‘We are partners, Captain Kite, and we may draw up papers to that effect tomorrow. Until you are able to find a house to your wife’s liking, you must consider yourself my guest here. I have many empty rooms.’