Around the next bend they came within sight of the village, where the smug boat was still tied up at the jetty and the four unfinished junks stood in the stocks. ‘Those’ll have to be fired,’ said Hartcliffe.
Killigrew nodded. ‘We’ll take care of that on the way back. We can’t afford to waste any powder and shot until we know there are no more sea-worthy junks to be dealt with.’
‘Ambush?’
‘You can be sure of it. Zhai Jing-mu’s got fifteen more junks in this creek somewhere, and they’ll be waiting for us.’
‘All right, everyone keep a sharp look-out!’ ordered Hartcliffe. ‘If anyone spots a junk, I want to be the first to know about it!’
As the Tisiphone moved around the next bend, the creek grew narrower. Everyone on deck was silent, and the only sound to be heard was the throb of the engines and the plashing of the paddles.
Killigrew eyed the tree-lined banks of the creek. ‘He’s out there somewhere…’ he murmured, to himself as much as to Hartcliffe. He frowned. There seemed to be something wrong with the densely packed foliage on the west bank.
He was about to draw Hartcliffe’s attention to it when a cry came from the forecastle ‘Two junks, two points off the starboard bow!’
The junks came into view less than two cables’ lengths away as the Tisiphone rounded a slight headland which jutted into the creek, and a moment later both opened fire with an ear-shattering broadside which hurled round shot through the air towards them. The Tisiphone’s fore topmast was snapped off with a splintering crash and plunged through the netting over the deck, narrowly missing the bow-chaser’s crew. They worked on, and a moment later scored a direct hit on one of the junks with their first shot, a shell which ripped the junk apart.
Even as the echoes of the explosion were drowned by the cheers of the men on deck, a splintering, crackling sound came from behind them and Killigrew twisted to see a huge fence of interwoven leaves and branches come crashing down to reveal a hidden side-channel. Within seconds no less than half a dozen small, fast junks were propelled from the channel by their sweeps, opening fire on the Tisiphone’s stern. Killigrew felt the deck tremble beneath him as a shot smashed through the windows of the captain’s quarters.
‘Hard-a-starboard!’ ordered Hartcliffe, manoeuvring to bring the greater part of his firepower to bear on where the greatest threat lay, with the six junks which had emerged to cut off their line of retreat. A moment later the Tisiphone’s port-side thirty-two-pounder boomed and set one of the six junks ablaze.
‘Man overboard!’ yelled a voice from the forecastle.
‘Who the devil’s fallen overboard at a time like this?’ Killigrew wondered.
‘He’ll have to wait until we’ve got ourselves out of this pickle,’ said Hartcliffe. ‘Stop engine!’
Endicott ran across to the quarter-deck.
‘Why aren’t you at your quarters?’ Killigrew demanded angrily.
‘It’s the Chinese admiral, sir,’ said Endicott. ‘He’s the man overboard. He jumped. Molineaux said you’d want to know.’
Killigrew ran to the side and saw the admiral swimming strongly to where the remaining junk ahead of them was moored. Now that the first junk had sunk, he could see what had been hidden before: the fast boat which slipped away from Zhai Jing-mu’s flagship moments before it had exploded was tied up beside the second. Admiral Huang had obviously seen it and decided to grab the big fish for himself.
Killigrew cursed. He could not believe his eyes. It was impossible to imagine any Western admiral behaving in such a foolhardy manner, not even Nelson. But then English translations of Chinese words were notoriously inaccurate and Killigrew reflected that it was not beyond the realms of possibility that Huang’s title, translated as ‘admiral’ by the British, actually meant something along the lines of ‘escaped lunatic’.
‘It’s Huang all right,’ he called to Hartcliffe as another round shot screeched between the Tisiphone’s foremast and mainmast, parting a backstay.
‘That’s all I need!’ groaned Hartcliffe. ‘If a Chinese admiral gets himself killed while in the care of the Royal Navy, Bannatyne won’t need to start a war between Britain and China; we’ll have done his job for him!’
‘Want me to go after him while you take care of those fellows?’ Killigrew indicated the six junks behind them, now off the Tisiphone’s port quarter.
Hartcliffe nodded. ‘Take the second cutter.’
Killigrew quickly picked out a crew and they lowered the cutter into the water abaft the starboard paddle-box while the Tisiphone exchanged shots fast and furiously with the junks to port. Two more junks had been blown out of the water by the time Killigrew slid down the life-line and landed lightly in the stern of the cutter.
‘Bear off and give way with a will! Cheerly does it!’
The cutter skimmed so swiftly across the water that it was only a few yards behind when Admiral Huang hauled himself up the side-ladder on to the junk’s deck. The admiral certainly had courage. Killigrew directed the marines amongst the cutter’s crew to give him covering fire, and one of the marksmen brought down a pilong who appeared at the entry port directly above the admiral.
‘Rowed of all! Watch for stink-pots!’
The cutter bumped against the junk’s side and Killigrew rushed up the side-ladder without waiting to see if his men followed. He flung himself over the bulwark, kicking a pilong in the chest as he did so, and drew his cutlass to parry a sword-stroke aimed at his neck. Huang was there, enthusiastically hacking and slashing expertly with his own sword like a man half his age. The pilongs were so tightly packed around Killigrew there was no room for any skilful fencing; all he could do was hack, thrust and shove. Savage, screaming faces surrounded him on all sides. He narrowly avoided being skewered on a sword-point and drew his pepperbox in his left hand. Pressing it hard against a pilong’s side, he pulled the trigger and the pilong fell away.
Then the rest of the cutter’s crew swarmed on to the junk’s deck, and months of cutlass drill paid off as they butchered the pilongs expertly and the deck ran red with blood. The pressure around Killigrew was relieved enough for him to look around and take stock of the situation. A well-aimed blow from Huang’s sword saved a British seaman’s life: the admiral was clearly perfectly capable of looking after himself.
Then Killigrew spotted Zhai Jing-mu, unmistakable in his white suit and crimson sash, halfway up the companion ladder to the high poop deck.
Zhai paused to aim his pistol at Huang. Killigrew raised his pepperbox and fired. The shot narrowly missed, but it was enough to put Zhai off his aim. Scowling, the pilong took his other pistol from his sash and fired at the lieutenant. The bullet splintered the bulwark behind him. Zhai threw the pistol at Killigrew’s head and resumed his ascent.
Killigrew ducked and ran across the deck. A pilong moved to block his path, sword raised. The lieutenant brought him down with a shot in the chest. He slid his cutlass back in its scabbard and ascended the companion ladder to the poop. Another pilong appeared above him. He pulled himself close to the ladder to avoid a sword-thrust, and then leaned out to shoot the pilong under the jaw.
‘Behind you, sir!’ Cavan was busy defending himself with his cutlass against a pilong swordsman, but he was able to draw Killigrew’s attention to the man who ran at his back with a spear. Killigrew twisted and shot his would-be assassin, and then shot the man fighting Cavan for good measure. Cavan waved his thanks and then ran to help Molineaux, while Killigrew resumed his ascent of the ladder. He paused just beneath the top rung, and then bobbed up, pepperbox first, sweeping the poop with the muzzle. Zhai Jing-mu was climbing over the taffrail, preparing to jump over the side and swim for the shore.
‘Stop right there!’ shouted Killigrew.
Zhai Jing-mu twisted and, recognising his nemesis, he jumped overboard. Killigrew climbed on to the poop and ran to the taffrail to see Zhai Jing-mu swimming for the shore, less than thirty yards away.
Huang joined him at the
taffrail. ‘Shoot him!’
‘No bullets.’ Killigrew glanced over the deck. The Tisiphones were getting the upper hand wherever he looked and Cavan seemed to have the situation under control. Glancing across the creek, Killigrew saw the Tisiphone had sunk all but one of the junks which had appeared astern. He hooked his pepperbox to his belt and scabbarded his cutlass. He was not going to let Zhai Jing-mu get away this time. ‘Cover me.’ He swung one leg over the taffrail, then the other, and dived into the water.
Zhai reached the shore twenty yards ahead of him and turned with his sword drawn to attack Killigrew as he emerged from the shallows, but a shot sounded behind the lieutenant and he saw an explosion of dust amongst the rocks at Zhai’s feet. He twisted in the water and spied Huang at the taffrail with a smoking gingall in his hands. Molineaux was also there and he took the empty gingall from Huang, exchanging it for a fresh one. As Huang took aim once more, Zhai turned and bounded away from the water’s edge, climbing the steep bank like a mountain goat.
Killigrew staggered out of the water and scrambled up the rocks after him. At the top of the bank the ground levelled out and he saw Zhai making for a small farmhouse. He drew his cutlass and charged after him. The lao-pan disappeared into the farmhouse and emerged a moment later leading a sturdy pony by a halter. Somehow it did not surprise Killigrew that the pilong admiral had had an escape route planned all along.
The pony was already harnessed and Zhai swung himself into the saddle. He gazed up the track leading inland, glanced at Killigrew, and then at the track again as if trying to make up his mind. Then he tugged on the pony’s bridle and charged to meet Killigrew. When he was only a few yards away he drew his sword and aimed a slashing blow at Killigrew’s neck.
The lieutenant ran backwards to receive the attack. As Zhai swung, Killigrew tried to duck and parry at the same time. He tripped and fell heavily, narrowly avoiding landing beneath the pony’s hoofs. The cutlass skittered from his hand.
He stood up, but Zhai had wheeled the pony for his next charge before he could recover the cutlass. Killigrew instead ran to meet him, dropping on the ground before the pony. The beast instinctively leaped over the prone man. Caught off guard, Zhai had to drop his sword and cling on for dear life to avoid being thrown from the saddle.
Killigrew jumped up and sprinted after him. Zhai looked about, but the lieutenant had positioned himself behind and to the left of the pilong, in his blind spot. Zhai had to wheel the pony before he saw Killigrew, and by then it was too late. The lieutenant seized the lao-pan’s left arm in one hand and his sash in the other. He hauled Zhai out of the saddle and hurled him over his head to land on the ground.
Zhai rolled over and over. As Killigrew approached him, the pilong snatched up a stone and threw it at Killigrew’s head. The lieutenant staggered back, stunned. Zhai was on his feet in an instant. He drew a dagger from his belt and hurled himself at Killigrew. The lieutenant caught him by the wrist with his left hand, but the pilong hooked one foot behind his leg and tripped him over. Killigrew went over backwards and Zhai landed on top of him. His face a snarling mask of rage, Zhai tried to force the tip of his dagger into Killigrew’s left eye, but the lieutenant refused to relinquish his grip on the pilong’s wrist.
With his right hand, Killigrew clawed at Zhai’s face and dragged his eye patch down until it was around his neck. Then he reached behind Zhai’s head and pushed the thong away, twisting it until the pilong gagged, his one remaining eye bugging from his skull while the empty socket made his face look even more demonic. With his left hand he swept Killigrew’s arm away, breaking his grip on the eye patch. He seized the lieutenant’s throat in his left hand and squeezed. Killigrew felt himself choking. As his grip weakened on Zhai’s wrist, the pilong pulled his arm free and then raised the dagger for a blow to the heart.
Killigrew closed his eyes and braced himself for death. Above him, Zhai’s body shuddered violently. When the death blow did not come, he opened his eyes again. Zhai was staring at him with a shocked expression on his face. He glanced down at his chest. Following his gaze, Killigrew saw a bloody hole in the pilong’s chest big enough to stick a fist in. He could see daylight on the other side.
Zhai Jing-mu lifted his gaze to stare at Killigrew in bewilderment, and then his one blue eye rolled up in his skull and he slumped sideways.
With a shudder of disgust, Killigrew pushed the grisly corpse off him and twisted to see Huang marching towards him with a gingall carried on one shoulder and a beam of satisfaction on his features. Molineaux followed behind him.
‘Looks like the goddess T’ien Hou finally won through for you,’ Killigrew muttered thickly, rubbing his throat where Zhai had gripped it.
‘For both of us, Lieutenant.’ As Molineaux helped Killigrew to his feet, the admiral marched across to where the pony stood. The beast shied away skittishly, but Huang calmed it and took the saddle bags from its back.
‘You oh-kay, sir?’ asked Molineaux.
Killigrew nodded. Zhai was dead, Peri was avenged, but somehow he did not feel satisfied. It was not because he had not had the privilege of killing Zhai himself, but because he could not help feeling that even Zhai Jing-mu had only been a puppet in all of this.
Drawing his sword, Huang marched back to Zhai Jing-mu’s corpse and decapitated it with a single blow. He picked up the head by its queue, put it in one of the saddle bags and slung the bags over his shoulder.
‘A gift for my emperor,’ explained Huang, seeing the expression on Killigrew’s face. ‘Will you not do the same for your queen when you have killed Bannatyne?’
Killigrew shook his head. ‘Somehow I don’t think she’d be amused.’
They made their way back to where Huang and Molineaux had left the fast boat they had come ashore in. All of the junks which had tried to outflank the Tisiphone were sunk now. Killigrew and Molineaux rowed the admiral back to the junk, where they found Cavan and the others tidying up the mess. There were no prisoners: the pilongs had fought to the last man.
‘Everything under control, Mr Cavan?’
Ashen-faced as he wiped blood from his cutlass, the midshipman nodded. His face was streaked with tears. Glancing down, Killigrew saw a large damp patch on the crotch of his pantaloons. ‘Don’t feel embarrassed, Mr Cavan. No one’s going to laugh at you. There isn’t a man aboard the Tisiphone who didn’t do exactly the same thing when he got his first taste of real fighting, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a dammed liar.’
‘Even you, sir?’
Killigrew nodded gravely. ‘Even me. And even Robertson. Just remember that next time he’s weighing you off, and it won’t seem so bad.’
Cavan managed a wan smile through the tears. ‘What happened to Zhai Jing-mu, sir?’
‘If he’s planning to seat himself on any more dragon thrones, he’ll have to find himself one in Hell.’
‘Sir!’ yelled Molineaux.
Killigrew turned and what he saw filled him with dismay. The remaining seven junks of Zhai Jing-mu’s fleet were sailing down from the head of the creek. Several of them opened fire with their bow guns, sending up plumes of water all around the paddle-sloop.
He turned to Cavan and the others. ‘All right, let’s see if we can’t turn this junk on her springs and bring her broadside to bear! You there! Get those guns shotted and run out, chop chop!’
Even as the seamen on the deck of the junk cleared for more action, another shot sounded, the unmistakable boom of a sixty-eight-pounder, and a moment later one of the seven new arrivals was blown apart by a direct hit from a shell. In the same moment, the Shanghae came into sight around the spur of land astern.
The Tisiphone fired her starboard-side thirty-two-pounder and another of the newcomers received a direct hit which set her poop deck ablaze. Within seconds the rest of the junks had raised white flags.
Molineaux mopped his cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘Permission heave a huge sigh of relief, sir.’
‘Permission granted, Able Seaman.’
>
‘Is it over?’
‘Not quite.’
Chapter 18
Jobbernowl
The flotilla remained in the creek into the afternoon. Zhai Jing-mu’s ammunition store was rifled for powder and shot which could be used on board the Mœander and the Tisiphone, while Killigrew and a team of men set fire to the four unfinished junks in the stocks. Three of the junks which had been captured intact would be towed back to Hong Kong as transports for the prisoners and then auctioned for prize money; the rest would be destroyed so that they could never be used by pirates again.
Cargill came ashore to interrogate the lao-pans of the captured junks. ‘Ask them if they know anything about a plot due to take place in Hong Kong tonight at the hour of the pig,’ suggested Killigrew.
‘Zhai Jing-mu’s dead, Killigrew,’ said Cargill. ‘I’m sure whatever plan he and his friends concocted between them died with him.’
‘I wish I could be so sure…’
One of the prisoners suddenly broke away from the rest of the group and lunged at Cargill, bawling in Cantonese so rapid Killigrew could not follow a word he said. The others tried to take advantage of the diversion to make a break for it. One of them slipped past Killigrew but he blocked the path of the rest and covered them with his pepperbox. Cargill had dropped his pencil and notebook and was grappling with the lao-pan. Molineaux went to help him, but Cargill laid the lao-pan low with an uppercut. A moment later more bluejackets had arrived on the scene to surround the pirates.
Killigrew glanced over his shoulder. The pilong who had broken free had almost made it to the corner of a hut when Keppel stepped into view in his path. The pilong tried to side-step him. Keppel quickly assessed the situation, seemed to make way for the pilong, but then tripped him up as he passed. The pilong landed heavily on his face. Keppel picked him up by the scruff of his neck and dragged him across to where the rest of the prisoners were being held. ‘Did someone mislay this?’
Killigrew and the Golden Dragon Page 38
