by Porter Hill
The morning’s changing winds had restored the weather gauge to the Huma, giving her superiority over the Unity in wind as well as gun power. But the rising gusts left both ships with less time to prepare for their deciding encounter.
A breeze against his cheek, Horne looked amidship for his own men, seeing Bapu with his red headband tied securely around his ears. The Indian warrior looked more like a weathered British seaman than someone who had been living in a Bombay elephant shed little more than seventy-two hours ago. Near him stood Babcock, who had ignored the gunners’ advice, leaving his big ears unprotected against the gun blast.
Mustafa and Kiro remained attached to the starboard battery, and Jingee still hurried on water brigade. Telling himself he had no need to concern himself with his men, Horne turned to concentrate instead on Tree, to ensure that the Second Mate passed correct orders at the correct moment.
The enemy—whoever commanded the Huma—grew closer, threateningly beyond the Unity’s larboard beam. Horne dropped the spyglass to watch her with his naked eye, waiting for the ship’s close-hauled sails to approach the foremast of the merchantman.
Aware only of the sound of sluicing water, he ordered calmly, ‘It is time to commence, Mr Tree.’
His first success had firmed Tree’s grip on the speaking trumpet and given a resounding confidence to his voice:
‘Prepare … guns!’
Horne, his eye on the Huma’s bow, knew the strike must come sooner this time than the last broadside. He hoped he was not acting prematurely as he murmured, ‘Now, Mr Tree.’
‘FIRE!’
Guns exploded; the Unity trembled; but the quake came from more than gun recoil. The enemy had fired at the same moment, Horne realised, pounding a devastating broadside against the Unity.
As thick, dense smoke rose from the bulwark, Horne looked for a sign of their own success and, yes, the Huma’s main topsail had altered, its yard gone completely, and the foresail had disappeared, the yard swinging from the rigging.
Remembering that the gunners had not been ordered to fire at will, Horne knew that Tree had to give the next command quickly and loudly. He shouted, ‘Mr Tree, repeat!’
‘Fire!’ bellowed Tree.
The second round roared louder than the first, belching grape across the waves, raising smoke and soot, causing the deck to rumble. But a louder crash came from the broadside the Huma struck against the merchantman.
Hearing screams and painful cries rise around him, Horne feared the worst, but the air was too thick with smoke to see any carnage.
The deck canted beneath Horne’s feet; battle continued around him, the fury between the two ships casting a black cloud across the sky. His eyes watered from the pungent smoke, and he was still unable to gauge any damage done to either vessel.
Tree’s voice cut through the tumult. ‘Horne! Can you hear me, Horne? They’re surrendering! They’re surrendering to us, Horne!’
Surrendering? Horne’s first instinct was one of distrust. False surrender was an old pirate trick.
Flailing his hands through the smoke, Tree shouted, ‘Look, sir! See! It’s a flag! A white flag!’
Better than a white flag, Horne saw men diving into the water from the Huma. Still suspicious, fearing the enemy might try to assemble a boarding party for hand-to-hand combat, he looked toward the frigate’s officers’ deck.
He was surprised to see two turbaned men waving a flag, a length of cloth as white as new dawn and—all around them—their crew diving from the ship, clawing to swim towards the pattimar.
It was true. The enemy was surrendering, not fleeing. Their crew was abandoning ship. Why? Had the Huma been damaged? Was she sinking? Or were the crew deserting their leader like many Oriental troops did in defeat? Was that why the ship was not hurriedly taking flight?
Whatever the reason, Horne decided the Unity should make the most of the situation.
‘Mr Tree,’ he suggested. ‘What do you think about sending a shot across the prow of that pattimar?’
Tree’s smile beamed through the soot caking his face. ‘Yes-s-s-s, sir!’
Horne turned to leave the quarterdeck, so that Tree could claim victory over both ships in full triumphal glory. He stopped abruptly when he saw Babcock at the foot of the companion ladder, looking up at him. The American was holding a mutilated body in his arms.
Horne lowered his eyes from Babcock’s sooty face to the bleeding body in his arms. Despite gaping wounds in the man’s chest, he recognised him by the bandanna tied around his ears. It was Bapu.
Horne asked, ‘Is he … dead?’
‘Not yet.’
Babcock moved towards the companionway, Bapu in his arms.
* * *
The battle over, candles were relit aboard the Unity. Horne adjusted his eyes to the near darkness as he followed Babcock, carrying Bapu, into the wardroom dotted with candles and serving as a sick bay. The odour of camphor, rum, and sulphur cut through the sickening reek of the battle’s worst scourge—burnt flesh.
The ginger-haired surgeon, Ronald Shanks, came towards Babcock, carrying a pot of linseed oil and lime water in one hand, an anodyne for the burn victims. He motioned Babcock to lower Bapu onto a table.
A low hum of moans filled the wardroom, a pathetic chorus punctuated by piercing screams from men with broken arms, legs or ribs, and by the delirious cries of those victims who had been driven out of their minds by pain.
As Babcock eased Bapu down onto the table, Horne moved to raise the straps to fasten around Bapu’s lower legs, still thankfully intact, to prepare him for immediate surgery.
Shanks looked at the scarlet wetness of Bapu’s gaping chest and shook his head.
Horne tightened, ready to force the surgeon to tend Bapu.
He demanded, ‘What the hell’s the matter with you, Shanks?’
Shanks, tired and strained, began, ‘Sir, I can see now that your man is—’ He glanced down at Bapu’s smeared face.
Bapu’s eyelids fluttered. He looked from the surgeon to Horne. In a voice no louder than a whisper, he gasped, ‘Captain … Horne …’
Horne lowered his ear to Bapu’s mouth. ‘Yes, man? What is it?’
‘Don’t argue with … old … sawbones …’
‘You keep calm. You’ll pull through this.’
‘No …’ Bapu swallowed the blood welling in his mouth. ‘Don’t waste time on … me …’
Horne glanced at Babcock.
Bapu grasped Horne’s wrist and whispered hoarsely, ‘There’s only one thing I’m sorry about … Captain …’
‘What’s that, man?’
‘I’ll never know if it was … was worth it …’
‘Worth what?’ asked Horne, holding out his hand for Bapu to grip in his pain.
‘My waiting for our new mission … I’ll never know now what the new mission will … be …’
Bapu choked, coughed, clung tighter to Horne’s arm and, the next moment, Horne felt the big Indian’s hand go limp, fall lifelessly onto the table. Bapu was dead.
Chapter Six
PORT DIEGO-SUAREZ
The cliffs of Madagascar rose above a long white beach lapped by the Indian Ocean, a welcome sight for the Unity trailing her two prizes, the Huma and the rake-sailed pattimar. The vessels belonged to the Omani pirate, Hoodad al Sur, a long-standing predator of the trade of the East India Company. Hoodad himself had not been aboard either ship but his lieutenant, Junah, had been captured from the Huma and was being taken in custody to Madagascar.
Captain Goodair ventured from his cabin at the hail of landfall. It was his first visit to the quarterdeck in the eight days since receiving his injuries. His pain had abated and Mr Shanks kept his wounds dressed and a splint tied to his right arm. Goodair’s legs had not been broken but he used a stick in his slow progress from the roundhouse to the quarterdeck.
A blue awning had been stretched across the quarterdeck, and Goodair invited Adam Horne to sit with him in the shade to enjoy tea and sesame c
akes. Goodair’s First Mate, Charles Ames, had not yet recovered from his illness, so the Second Mate, Simon Tree, remained the ship’s acting senior officer. Horne knew that Goodair was on the way to recovery when the wry old commander said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘Mr Tree must be uniquely grateful for your companionship on this voyage, Captain Horne.’
Horne did not want to debunk any victory Tree might be claiming over the pirate ship. But neither did he want to spread lies.
‘I think you have a loyal man in Tree, sir.’ He stopped himself from saying that he also thought that Tree was uncouth, loud and, at the same time, was too familiar with superior officers to make an effective commander himself.
The breeze was warm but Goodair clutched a Kashmiri robe to his throat. ‘I’m sorry to be parting company with you in Port Diego-Suarez, Captain Horne. I’d enjoy more of your companionship myself. All the way back to England.’
‘Thank you, sir. But duty for me begins in Diego-Suarez.’
‘Your days aboard the Unity have hardly been restful, Captain.’
Horne hoped he did not sound arch as he answered, ‘Every voyage has its surprises, sir.’
‘As do you, Captain Horne. As do you.’
Dreading what Goodair might be planning to say Horne kept his eyes on the distant cliffs, verdant foliage darkening their crests.
‘I have spent more than a few hours in your company, Captain Horne,’ Goodair went on, ‘yet I feel as if I don’t know you at all.’
Horne was frequently accused of being secretive, overly protective of his privacy, drawing a circle around himself and refusing to let anyone through. Believing there was no reason to unfold his innermost thoughts, ambitions, fears, and pleasures, he replied, ‘I also enjoyed my time with you, sir. Thank you.’
Goodair knew he had overstepped social boundaries. He said in a brighter voice, ‘You may rest assured, Captain Horne, that I shall inform your father what a fine son he has. A boon to his name.’
Horne had completed the letter to his father but was having misgivings about sending it with Goodair. The letter was brief and, Horne feared, gloomy. Bapu’s death had left him desolate, and the last rites had been a grim, painful farewell. Horne had wrapped the corpse in a hammock, sewing it shut and weighting the corners with shot. He had dropped it into the Arabian sea as Jingee read Praise For A Rajput Warrior. After the brief ceremony, Horne had tried to keep himself busy making repairs to the Unity and working aboard the Huma. The pirate frigate was Bombay-built, finer than Horne’s expectation. Tree had asked him to take command of it for the remainder of the voyage to Port Diego-Suarez, but Horne had adamantly refused, explaining that the East India Company would probably judge both the frigate and pattimar to be war prizes for the Maritime Service, distributing the reward money among the officers and crew. It would therefore be highly improper for an officer of the Bombay Marine to bring the Huma into port; there was already enough hostility between the Maritime Service and Bombay Marine.
Tree, joining Horne and Goodair under the canopy on the quarterdeck, made his farewell to Horne, concluding, ‘Captain Horne, sir, you’ve taught me to respect the—’ he raised his voice—‘Bombay … Buccaneers!’
Horne flinched. Tree had obviously meant no offence but he explained, ‘Mr Tree, a Marine goes into battle when someone calls him a “buccaneer”.’
Bewildered, Tree looked from Horne to Goodair. ‘But … but … but … I’ve always heard Bombay Marines called “buccaneers”!’
‘Slang, dear boy, slang,’ interrupted Goodair, clutching the robe to his neck. ‘An unflattering description of the Company’s brave Marine.’
Tree lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I had no idea, sir.’
Horne realised there were many things which Simon Tree did not know. He doubted, however, if any of those short-comings, major or trivial, would prevent the young man from rising in the Honourable East India Company’s Maritime Service.
* * *
Madagascar, the shoe-shaped island off Africa’s southeast coast, was separated from the mainland by the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile wide Strait of Mozambique. The first Europeans to visit Madagascar had been the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. In the following two hundred years, the island had been controlled by a succession of English, French, and local Malagasy rulers. At present, the English were temporarily back in command of Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world.
Fred Babcock learned these facts in an open boat while crossing from the Huma to the stone quay of Port Diego-Suarez. Horne had given his men the morning to explore the small settlement located at the island’s northern tip and Babcock, knowing that Horne was paying an official visit to Company House, guessed that the call concerned their new assignment which their Captain would later explain to his men.
Two wine shops flanked the small harbour and, by late morning, men off the Unity had settled under the shady bamboo awnings or had drifted off into the surrounding streets, exploring the white-washed settlement for other public establishments. Groot, Kiro, Jud and Mustafa were grouped around Jingee and an old Malagasy villager, a shrivelled little man whom Jingee was questioning in Bantu about the island’s people, asking why they looked Oriental rather than African.
At the moment Babcock was more interested in food than in local people or their ways; he decided to search out a cook shop.
In the past, Babcock had been suspicious of native food, but he was convinced now that it was Groot’s cooking that had made him sea-sick. Groot had prepared a Dutch hot-pot on the day when the Press Gang had surprised them and Mustafa, who had refused to eat Groot’s stew, had not fallen ill. Babcock decided it would be safer eating local dishes than anything the Dutch Marine concocted. As he left the main square, he was dreaming of a bowl of rice, some thick sauces, fresh pastries stuffed with lamb, cheese, dates, nuts, or a combination of some of them, if not all.
The day was hot, but a sea breeze cooled the hillside. Babcock walked between the rows of low houses topped with thatched roofs, emerging into a small opening—more of a triangle than a square. A cluster of familiar faces from the Unity had gathered in front of a clay building, each man holding a large bamboo cup.
‘Babcock, my boyo! Come and join us!’ shouted the gunner’s mate.
A red-haired man held up his cup. ‘Try the local poison, Cockers!’
A bewhiskered Scotsman invited, ‘Aye, take a swill with us, laddie.’
The Unity must wait here at Port Diego-Suarez for the merchant convoy to arrive from the China Sea. Babcock knew that seamen often became restless in port, drinking too much, usually ending up quarrelling or worse. Knowing he was likely to find himself in the middle of a fist-fight, he decided to keep trudging up the hill.
Company House sat on the crest, a sprawling white building which commanded a sweeping view over the deep-water harbour and the turquoise sea beyond. As Babcock passed the ornately wrought gates guarding the drive, he thought of Horne who was inside the large house at that very moment, probably receiving orders which could affect the next few months, possibly even years.
Thinking about Horne, Babcock remembered how upset he had been by Bapu’s death. Babcock did not know much about the Indian caste system, only that there were four main castes, and that Bapu had supposedly been born into one of the highest, the caste of warriors. But Babcock thought that Bapu had been very like himself, a man who did not follow the life set out for him. Instead of being a valiant warrior serving some maharajah or even the Grand Moghul, Bapu had been a thief, the leader of a mountain band which had attacked Company supply wagons in Rajasthan.
Babcock himself should have been a farmer. Back in Ohio, he would almost have been gentry by now—upright, respectable, a husband and father, probably even an elder in the church. But Babcock had quarrelled with his father and run away to sea. Aboard a ship out of Boston, an officer had goaded him about his hulking size; he was forever pushing Babcock, finally forcing him into a fight. Babcock had defended himself but,
unfortunately, the officer had struck his head on a capstan and died, and Babcock had been imprisoned in Bombay Castle.
When Horne had chosen his men from the underground prisons at Bombay Castle, Babcock had suspected he was taking them to another prison, or to form some kind of work gang. They had gone to a penal colony, certainly, but Horne had taken them there—to Bull Island—only to separate the wheat from the chaff, to school his recruits to be a squadron of highly-trained saboteurs.
During the few short weeks that Babcock had spent with Horne on Bull Island and, later, at Madras, he had felt as if he were being set back on the right path in life; Horne believed in him, and in his abilities. Babcock suspected, too, that the other men respected Horne as much as he did, and were as grateful to him.
As for the new mission, what would it be like? Would it last longer than the foray into Fort St George at Madras? Would they remain together afterwards like a true unit? Babcock and Horne’s other men were Bombay Marines, yes, but they avoided conscription aboard Marine ships, voyages that would take them on chart-making expeditions, locking them into a life of drudgery.
A chattering sound disturbed Babcock’s reflections.
To the left of the stone path he saw a pile of bamboo cages containing monkeys; the animals were gripping the bamboo slats, baring their brown teeth at Babcock as an old crone in front of the cages held out a hand to him, asking, ‘Buy? Buy? Buy?’
Chapter Seven
COMPANY HOUSE
Adam Horne’s first clue to the identity of the man who would be receiving him at Company House came when a secretary said that His Excellency, Governor Spencer, was not expecting Horne to arrive in Madagascar until the following week.
