The War Chest

by Porter Hill

  Jud moved towards Horne. ‘The storm might move to the east of us, sir.’

  Horne felt the wind behind him. ‘Or we’re going to blow straight into it.’

  ‘Sir, shall we close-roll the topsails?’

  Horne remained silent, concentrating on more than wind stretching the canvas; he was listening to the sounds of the ship, her cries, her groans, how supple she was under the growing storm waves. Like people, each ship weathered differently and, as this was Horne’s first storm watch for the Huma, he was anxious to learn the frigate’s each and every eccentricity.

  Jud offered, ‘Sir, why don’t I go aloft and send down the pirate?’ He and the other Marines referred to the men from the Huma’s former crew as ‘the pirates’, calling hands recruited from Company ships ‘Company jacks’ or ‘jacks’, and the new sailors from Madagascar coastal villages, ‘the lubbers’.

  The wind pitched the Huma more violently, driving her prow into the rollers, intensifying the roll and pitch pattern.

  Horne raised his eyes. ‘It’ll be a wild ride up there, Jud.’

  ‘Sir, we need a lookout. There’s a pirate up now and this weather could toss him over.’

  Horne agreed. A lookout was necessary, especially so close to the Agulhas current. He knew, too, that Jud enjoyed riding a storm, and would think of any excuse to scale the ratlines.

  Lowering his closely shaved head, Jud confessed, ‘It’s this push under my feet, too, sir. A storm troubles me, sir. I’d rather be—’ he raised his eyes, ‘—up top.’

  Sea turbulence made the deck rise against a man’s feet, creating an uneasy feeling. Smiling, Horne waved Jud fore, ordering, ‘Change course and gallants!’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Jud was gone, half-running along the gangway to the foremast, shouting to the pirates, jacks and lubbers.

  Horne gripped the quarterdeck rail, noticing men moving from the ship’s waist, drawn by the sudden shift in weather, curious to see the change in the sky, the way clouds rose and sped with the wind, their shapes altering quickly as the wind accelerated.

  A boiling sea, too, aggravated sea-sickness, and Horne looked to see if any men moved towards the scuppers, doubled over to lose their breakfast.

  But the Marines, as well as the new crew, seemed readily reconditioned to sea travel, including the men whom Governor Spencer had gleaned from the Malagasy fishing villages. Horne was less concerned about the ship’s provisional crew, however, than he was about the welfare of his Marines.

  Neither Groot nor Babcock showed any recurrence of their sickness, nor had it spread to any of the other Marines. Perhaps Babcock had been right. Perhaps Groot’s cooking had poisoned them.

  The one thing which Horne was most grateful for was that his men were not quarrelsome.

  Dissension amongst crew was dangerous. Arguments and fights had been known to sink ships, sow mutinies. Horne had insisted that none of his recruits be pugilistic. He wanted fighters, but not men who fought and squabbled and argued amongst themselves.

  Babcock was undisciplined, sometimes bordering on insubordinate and, frequently, downright sloppy. But he had excellent intuition, a keen nose for sniffing out trouble. Fred Babcock was a born survivor and Horne regarded him as one of his best men.

  Efficient, fastidious Jingee often irritated the other Marines—Horne had had to face that fact. But Jingee possessed the priceless knack of knowing when to give men elbow room, when to stop nagging his colleagues, how to turn criticism into flattery. Of all Horne’s men, Jingee was the only courtier.

  Mustafa was probably the most surly-tempered of the Marine unit, the least amicable of Horne’s men. Aggressively strong men were often tightly strung, their sensibilities pulled taut like the strings on a musical instrument, ready to snap at the slightest provocation; when played correctly, they produced beautiful music and rendered remarkable results.

  Kiro, like Mustafa, was also tightly strung. But, unlike Mustafa, Kiro knew how to keep himself busy. In this respect, Horne identified with him and his constant need to keep his physical drives flowing; always teaching, improving, honing, seeing room to improve oneself, pressing towards an unattainable excellence.

  The least difficult man to live and work with was, of course, the African giant, Jud. Kind, generous, quiet, obedient and fearless, Jud had formerly been matched in those qualities by that other affable Marine, Bapu. Ferocious but even-tempered; strong but gentle as a child; vengeful but as sentimental as a new bridegroom—yes, Bapu had been an ideal colleague and companion.

  Horne had decided not to try to replace Bapu. He had never set out to assemble any set number of Marines, and had originally chosen sixteen prisoners from Bombay Castle. That number had been pared down to seven. Now there were six.

  But should he think about a permanent team, a squadron of a fixed number? Was there a need for a band of saboteurs in warfare? There were Navies. There were Armies. There were Merchant fleets. There were privately conscripted forces which bore arms. But would anyone—any crowned head, democracy or company—require a band of men trained in specialised feats of combat?

  Hmmm. It was an interesting idea: men especially prepared for the hit-and-run attacks, a unit never to be disbanded. Or was that why Commodore Watson was maintaining an interest in Horne’s motley group of men? Did he have more noble ambitions for the small corps of Marines than Horne even suspected?

  His daydreams were interrupted by Jud’s cry from the rigging.

  * * *

  Moving fore, Horne saw Jud against the sky, beckoning to him with one hand, pointing southwards, hailing, ‘Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!’

  What did he see? The Royaume?

  Forgetting about his idle daydreams of a hit-and-run squadron of troubleshooters, forgetting about the winds tilting the masts and yards, Horne hurried down the gangway and, pulling off his boots, leapt barefooted for the shrouds. The soles of his feet were hardened from walking across rock and sand, and he easily climbed the hemp ratlines toward the forestay, keeping his eyes aloft; he wondered if he had had the good luck to find the French treasure ship so soon.

  Clearing the futtock shrouds, he enjoyed the moment of hanging backwards, a spine-tingling suspension in space before resuming his crawl towards the foretopgallant shrouds.

  Jud, both mahogany-brown legs locked around the crosstree, raised his right hand, pointing south as Horne approached the yardarm.

  Settling against the mast, Horne pulled the spyglass from his waistband, but first accustomed himself to the roll of the ship—a dizzying circle moving left, right, fore, aft—before raising the glass to his eye.

  Finding the blur among the distant clouds, he studied the triangle before passing the spyglass to Jud.

  Jud held the glass with both hands. ‘A brig, sir.’

  Now Horne could see the ship with his naked eye. ‘That’s what I make out, Jud. And a strong gale chasing her.’

  ‘With us right behind her.’

  ‘Can you catch her colours?’

  ‘I see red, sir, and—’ lowering the spyglass, he handed it to Horne. ‘I can’t say for certain, sir.’

  Horne tucked the spyglass into his waistband and surveyed the horizon. The view was magnificent from aloft, but he would have enjoyed it more without the yardarm circling in mid-air, one moment tipping him to the west, one moment tipping him facedown to the sea, the deck disappearing behind him, and the next moment dashing him backwards to face the sky. The wind was rising, too, and he shouted, ‘Let’s go below.’

  ‘If you leave your glass with me, sir, I could stay and try to catch a glimpse of her colours. The wind might help us gain on her.’

  It was a sensible idea. Brave, too.

  Trusting Jud not to put himself—or any of the hands—in danger, Horne passed back the spyglass and swung his leg over the yard, preparing to descend. He was not halfway down the shrouds when he heard Jud beginning to sing, raising his deep, rich voice in a song to the wind. Or, at least, Horne thought Jud’s words were addressed to
the wind, some mysterious African chant carried to the storm clouds gathering on the southern horizon.

  His thoughts went back to the ship, and her proximity in the brewing storm.

  * * *

  Horne was nearing the lubber’s hole when he heard a shout. Certain it was not part of Jud’s song, he tightened his grip on the ratline and looked aloft, to see Jud pointing south, calling, ‘Another ship, sir! A second ship!’

  Scurrying up the ratline, Horne swung onto the crosstree and grabbed the spyglass from Jud’s extended hand. Both legs locked tightly around the yard, he steadied himself with one hand as he raised the glass to his eye.

  Yes, there was a second sail on the horizon, a ship which had obviously come from the south towards the first vessel.

  Jud shouted over the wind. ‘She looks like another brig, sir.’

  Horne was thinking less about the ship’s size than about the direction from which she had come. Mauritius lay to the east; the Agulhas current would come from the southwest. Was one ship an escort of the other? Was one the Royaume carrying the war chest from Le Havre?

  As Horne handed the spyglass back to Jud, a crack of lightning lit the ship.

  Ignoring the jagged streak, Jud studied the two vessels. ‘I see another blur of red, sir,’ he said. ‘The second ship’s colours look—’

  Lightning again streaked the quickly darkening sky.

  Horne held out his hand for the glass. ‘Enough, Jud. We’re going down. Everybody. I’m not losing a man to a storm.’

  ‘Sir, one question.’

  ‘Be quick about it.’

  ‘If we see them, sir, they see us.’

  ‘I’d think so.’

  ‘But the first ship does not appear to be in flight, sir. Not fleeing and not chasing.’

  ‘There could be two or three possibilities for that, Jud.’ Raising his voice above the strengthening gale, he went on, ‘One, they could be heavily armed. Not frightened of us. Or else they could be heading for an important rendezvous, willing to chance our presence for exchange of information.’

  ‘The treasure ship, sir?’

  Horne remained silent, not wanting to raise his hopes.

  ‘What are we going to do, sir.’

  ‘Go below‚’ Horne ordered.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Jud grinned, grabbing for the shrouds, eyes sharpening for any sign of pirates, jacks, or lubbers in the wildly tilting network of masts, spars, and rigging.

  * * *

  The Indian Ocean bubbled in the worsening storm, water churning around the Huma as she laboured under storm sail. The growing wind whipped the waves into sharp, jagged whitecaps, tossing them into rollers against the frigate’s hull as clouds coloured the sky like night, a heavy darkness lit by the occasional crack of lightning.

  Horne ignored the rain beginning to pelt the quarterdeck as he puzzled over the meaning of two mysterious ships, of not one but two brigs visible to naked eyesight.

  If their meeting was a rendezvous, what was its purpose? Why in the middle of the Indian Ocean? Was it accidental or planned? He knew the two vessels were more than merchant ships—he knew it. He trusted his intuition on that matter. They were not British ships, either, because Company or Navy vessels would raise a flag signal—even to an unmarked ship like the Huma.

  So who were they? More pirates? Privateers? If so, why hadn’t they given chase? Did the Royaume have an escort? Or was it in convoy? Would other ships soon be visible? Were they grouping for the storm?

  Horne’s only consolation was that the two ships—French, Dutch, Spanish, whoever they were—could go nowhere in these foul conditions. The storm came from their direction. The possibility was, though, that they could pass through a lifting storm more quickly than the Huma. So Horne had to remain alert, be ready to pounce at the first break in the storm, not losing track of them. If it weren’t the French treasure ship, whoever it was might have news of the Royaume and be able to give Horne some valuable information.

  Pacing the quarterdeck, holding the Huma to storm sail, Horne wondered if he was driving the ship too heavily through the gale. He remembered a stormy journey from his boyhood, riding in a coach with his father from Bath to London. His father had told the driver to tie burlap bags over the horses’ heads to prevent them being panic-stricken by the lightning. Horne Senior had urged the driver to use the whip on the frightened animals, to force them on in the storm. Young Horne had begged his father to spare the animals, to let them rest, but the elder man had insisted that his appointment in London was more important than any team of coach horses.

  Was he himself now doing the same thing? The Huma was no animal, of course, but a ship did have a life of its own, it was more than timber and canvas and rigging.

  Why, then, was he driving her so ruthlessly into the wind? The main masts had been destroyed recently by gunfire and the replacement and repairs could well have been slipshod. A strong gale would reveal faults, cracks, patchy repairs.

  He was troubled by less practical questions, too. He knew that he was uneasy about Governor Spencer’s orders, so why was he driving the Huma—and himself—like this to obey them? Why was he obsessed with the urge to achieve what might well be impossible? Why did he feel the need to excel, especially in an undertaking which he found suspicious and of which he did not wholeheartedly approve? Was this one of those occasions when obedience might be wrong?

  Chapter Eleven

  STORM BREAK

  The Huma swept south on the larboard tack, sails cut to storm jib, the rain driving at Horne like small, silver darts as he paced his beloved realm of the quarterdeck. He knew that somewhere beyond the storm wall lay two brigs‚ one quite possibly the Royaume carrying the French war chest, but the cursed storm held him in thrall.

  Rollers crashed; foam swept over the bulwarks; the rigging creaked and timbers groaned; Horne was consoled, however, by Jud’s topmen—assisted by Babcock’s alternative watch—ready to lunge into action at any sudden change of sail.

  Lifelines had been stretched for the men to grip as they inched along the thrashing deck, making their way across the wave-swept gangway. Jingee’s crew had secured anything loose; Kiro’s men had placed blocks under the trucks, a safeguard to stop the guns from breaking loose and careering across deck. Below deck, Mustafa’s gang had secured the water casks and stowed all movables.

  At the frigate’s wheel, Groot stood as helmsman with a flat-faced mate whom Horne had assigned to him from the Huma’s former raiding crew, one of the so-called ‘pirates’. Within easy reach were ropes with which to lash themselves to the wheel should the storm begin to dash them in its turbulence.

  Horne’s spyglass was useless against the cloud bank. The only thing for which he could be thankful was that the wind was warm and did not chill him. Trusting his bare feet more than leather soles, he had rid himself of his boots, thinking that if men accused Bombay Marines of being buccaneers, why not look and survive like them?

  With the rain soaking his breeches and coarsely woven shirt, he considered his alternative course of action. If the storm worsened, he could abandon his plan to lurch his way towards the two ships. Instead, he could bring the Huma to the wind. The frigate would make no progress hove-to, but, at least, she might escape storm damage and men’s lives would be spared.

  Frustrated by being so close to the two brigs, yet unable to close in on them or at least learn their identity, Horne felt blind and crippled on his own quarterdeck. He must find some way to see—if only a short distance. Glancing overhead at the brailed sails and furled canvas, he leapt, barefooted, to the mizzen shroud and climbed towards the mast.

  The wind pasted the clothes to his body like a second skin; the rain felt as if it were driving tiny holes into his face; but he clung to the wet hemp, waiting for a break in the storm. If the Huma were a bird that never alighted then, in the name of the good Lord Almighty, he would be a willing rider on the tireless creature’s back.

  * * *

  The flat-faced,
wiry young ‘pirate’ whom Horne had assigned to Groot as a mate spoke no English. Neither did he speak the other language which Groot knew—French. As the storm gale worsened, Groot felt a nervous impulse to talk to someone, but having nobody nearby who could understand him, he began speaking his native Dutch to the pirate, unworried that the latter did not know what he was saying.

  He first described the house in Bombay where he, Babcock, and Mustafa had lived before the press gang had found them, and how Babcock had accused him of poisoning them with his stew of sausages, potatoes and lentils.

  ‘Oh, life there was boring‚’ he said, ‘waiting for Horne to bring us new orders. But it was not the schipper’s fault. He takes his orders from Commodore Watson. What was he to do?’

  The pirate’s black shoe-button eyes shone in his brown face as he stared at Groot in bewilderment.

  ‘The Dutch name for Bombay is “good harbour”‚’ Groot continued, ‘but to me it was a bad place, a prison. I was so bored there I never stopped talking and worrying and talking more. I don’t look like a talkative person, I know. Talkative people are fat and have jolly faces. Me, I am lean and look quiet.

  ‘Babcock, he threatens to pull out my tongue if I don’t stop talking. Mustafa, he gets that blank look in his eyes when I talk and he never answers me. Sometimes I think Mustafa has nothing to say. Sometimes I think that inside his head there is nothing but air.

  ‘In prison I talked to myself. I was put into prison for stealing Hyderabad silk. I am not a thief, but I saw a chance to make some money so I took it. If it wasn’t for Horne, I’d still be in prison.

  ‘I did not think I was going to like Horne when I first saw him. He’s an aristocrat and I knew that fine English aristocrats look down their long noses at the Dutch. They call us cheeseheads. But Horne is not like that. No, the schipper is a quiet man. A kind man. A serious man. But a man who likes a good fight. On land, he fights with his hands and his elbows and his feet—anything he can use. And on sea, he fights with muskets and cannon-fire and swords—and anything else he can fight with too.