Windrush (Jack Windrush Book 1)

by Malcolm Archibald

  Godwin looked toward Jack, pursed his lips and pushed his hands together as if in prayer. After a few minutes, he spoke again. 'As you seem to wish to be in the centre of things, Windrush, and obviously need a stricter hand to guide you than Colonel Murphy can provide, I am going to take Harcourt's advice and send you after this Bo Ailgaliutlo fellow and his dacoits.'

  'Up river sir? How far should I go?' Jack felt rather than saw Harcourt's look of smug triumph.

  'You will go as far as you need to go,' Godwin said. 'I will detach you and your blackguards from my army. I have not forgotten your ill-discipline in the assault.' He looked closer at Jack. 'I understand that young officers have fire and ambition, Windrush, but they must also obey the orders of their superiors. I will put you under the command of Commander Marshall; he knows how to control young whippersnappers like you.'

  Harcourt nodded vigorously. 'Well said, sir. Windrush is a disgrace.'

  'Where I am sending you, Windrush, will dampen your martial ardour and introduce you to the realities of soldiering out here.' General Godwin pulled his hands apart and laid them flat on the top of the desk. 'Follow that renegade, Windrush and get rid of him. Scatter his band of dacoits and either kill the leader or bring him back to a fair trial and the noose.'

  'Yes, sir.'

  I am being sent away from the main theatre of war to chase some dacoit; nobody will know anything that I do. It's the Curse of the 113th again.

  'Oh come, Windrush; don't look so gloomy,' Harcourt was enjoying Jack's discomfiture. 'Look on this an opportunity to redeem yourself.'

  Godwin scribbled a short note, handed it to Jack and nodded toward the entrance to his tent. 'Collect your men and report to Commander Marshall before dawn tomorrow. Give him my compliments and this slip of paper and inform him that you are his military escort. That's all.'

  So Colonel Harcourt has his revenge for me meeting his daughter. I am to be sent beyond the fringes of civilisation so that Burmese dacoits can slaughter me or some disgusting disease can kill me. I am to be sent into the unknown away from the eyes of anyone who could further my career.

  Jack plunged his hands deep into his pockets and slouched across the bustling encampment until his fingers touched the smooth gold of the Buddhas.

  I still have these; they matter more than ever now. Once I am out of this hellish place, I will resign my commission and buy some land. God knows that with my career in ruins even before it has begun I have no future in the army. The guilt does not matter; the future does.

  'Sergeant Wells!' Jack bellowed the name across the torch lit spread of the camp.

  Wells appeared at his side immediately. 'Sir!' Jack smelled the drink on Well's breath. Where he had got it was anybody's guess, but British soldiers had a knack for finding something alcoholic wherever they were, and as a sergeant with long experience, Wells would know every trick in the book and many that nobody had ever written down.

  'We are going on a little trip, Sergeant.'

  'Yes, sir. I heard the shave, sir.'

  How did he know that so soon?

  'I want the men ready for instant departure, with double ammunition and rations, plus water bottles full of water and not. 'Jack made it obvious that he was sniffing Wells' breath, 'not gin.'

  'The men will be ready sir. They'll have two hundred rounds each and enough rations for five days, plus twice the official water allowance.'

  'Well done, Sergeant. We are not staying here; we are going away from the main British Army.'

  'Yes, sir.' Wells did not look upset at the prospect. 'Where are we going, sir?'

  'I am not exactly sure yet,' Jack was candid. 'We are after that renegade that attacked us.'

  Wells nodded. 'Hunting dacoits is never easy, sir. It's like trying to catch smoke with a fishing net.'

  'Have you done it before?' Jack asked.

  'Yes sir, too often.'

  'Well, we have to report to a Commander Marshall.' Once again Jack wondered if he was unbending too much in front of a ranker. He had been brought up to believe that officers should always maintain a strict distance from the men.

  'Would that be Commander William Marshall sir?' Wells asked with a straight face. 'He is captain of Serangipatam, down in the Irrawaddy.'

  'How the devil do you know that, Sergeant?' Jack did not keep the surprise from his voice. 'Never mind, just make sure we all get there, would you?' He recognised the name of that ship. The black ship of the Company, he had been told.

  A soldier's life is full of variety. Three hours ago I was a bored subaltern on guard duty; now I am going beyond the reach of civilisation for days or maybe weeks.

  'Serangipatam is one of the East India Company vessels that support the Royal Navy in this campaign. She is eighty long with two masts and a 70 horse power engine. Her hull is pierced for sweeps, and she has three twelve- pounder cannon on each broadside, one six pounder facing forward and another aft.' Commander Marshall was of medium height, wiry rather than broad and tanned so dark by the sun that he could easily have passed for a native of the country. 'We are the eyes and ears of the fleet, Ensign; we go in front and see what is happening, we take the first blows of the foe and report back when we find anything of significance, be that some new stockade, enemy forces or just shoal water.'

  Jack nodded. Serangipatam seemed crowded by men even without his ten soldiers. Sailors in white clothes were busily coiling lines or scrubbing the deck, working in a disciplined silence that spoke volumes about either their training or the personality of her commander and the three young officers who overlooked them. 'Yes, sir, and now we are following Bo Ailgaliutlo.'

  Marshall continued as if Jack had not spoken. 'Your duty is to follow my orders.' He ran a stern gaze over Jack's sweating soldiers. 'Where my vessel operates, there is no room for hesitation or dissent. When I give an order, you will obey it instantly.' His boots did not make a sound on the white-scrubbed deck as he stepped past and spoke to the 113th.

  'You men; Ensign Windrush is your officer, and I expect you to do as he says. In my ship, your duty is to obey every order of your lawful officers. Anything else is mutiny, and at sea, we hang mutineers. That's all.'

  Jack blinked; the Company's navy did things differently. There was no side and no pretence. He checked to see how his men had taken the threats. They looked unconcerned, with Wells watching the seamen at work, O'Neill's face as expressionless as Burmese teak and even Coleman standing at attention as if Marshall had said nothing unusual. Only Thorpe appeared worried, with his mouth working silently.

  'You soldiers get below until we are under way,' Marshall turned away.

  Mercifully the rains had eased that night. A flight of snipe bustled overhead as Marshall gave the order to cast off and Serangipatam eased into the swollen river. All around, a thin mist slithered across the mud-coloured water and concealed the Golden Pagoda of Rangoon behind a clinging damp curtain. There was silence save for insects as the seamen worked with only a minimum of orders, every man knowing his task and performing it as quickly as he could.

  Now the Rains are easing, Godwin will be preparing to march on to Ava and defeat the Tatmadaw – the Burmese Army - and here I am, nosing up a river with an ill-tempered sailor in charge of my future.

  Smoke from Serangipatam's funnel joined the rising mist as she eased upstream with her screw frothing the water and her wake raising waves that washed against the banks on either side. Early morning fishermen or rice field workers paused to watch this strange vessel that moved with no apparent method of propulsion while birds screamed their raucous calls overhead.

  'Look at that,' a red-headed lieutenant pointed to a pair of buffalo that plodded through a rice field. 'I wager they have been doing that for ten thousand years, and here we are passing by in a screw steamer. That's the difference between them and us.'

  Jack remembered the patient plodding of the cattle herds of Herefordshire. 'Sometimes I think we are not all that different,' he said.

  The lieutenan
t laughed and held out a hand. 'George Bertram. Welcome aboard.'

  'Jack Windrush.'

  'I know: you led the assault on the Golden Pagoda.'

  Jack liked this man immediately.

  Within ten minutes they were out of sight of Rangoon and chugging slowly upstream with the banks a tedious mixture of jungle and cultivated rice fields varied by an occasional little village whose fishing boats were set bobbing by the wake of Serangipatam. Twice men emerged from the patchy forest and pointed muskets at them, but nobody fired and the steamer continued, leaving a thin trail of black smoke that gradually merged with the persistent morning mist. Debris washed down the river carried by the swollen water, and once the corpse of a deer surged past.

  With the ship moving and one man in the bow casting a lead to check the depth, Commander Marshall sent most the crew down below, leaving only a handful on deck.

  'Your men can come up now,' he said to Jack. 'You will want to have them parade or whatever you soldiers do.' His gaze never left Jack's face, but he suddenly yelled out to the man aloft to remember to watch astern as well.

  'They'll be glad of the air,' Jack guessed that the men were suffering in their cramped quarters below decks.

  Marshall walked away without another word.

  The 113th filed on deck, scratching at mosquito bites and buckling on sundry pieces of equipment. Wells shouted them into order, threw Jack a salute and slammed to attention. 'All present and correct sir: eight men on parade.'

  'We are heading up river men,' Jack gave them as much information as he knew himself, 'hunting for Bo Ailgaliutlo, that is the renegade that attacked our camp and tried to murder General Godwin. We don't know what is waiting for us or where the trail will lead; we only know that we will hunt him until we catch him. We are well in advance of the army and on our own in a position of honour.' That was nothing like the truth but Jack thought it best to keep their morale up by boosting their self-respect. 'The Burmese will not like us being in their territory, and we all have experience of their military expertise; they are brave, they are stubborn, and they are defending their own land. We must be prepared for everything and anything.'

  The expressions remained stoic, as befitted British soldiers.

  'Right; let's get started then.' Jack ignored the sweat that was already trickling down his spine and dampening his forehead.

  He had his men marching up and down the deck with their heavy boots thumping on the teak and the sailors openly grinning at the antics of their red-coated guests.

  'Go easy on my deck!' Marshall did not raise his voice, 'if there are any scrapes it is you soldiers that will sand it level.'

  Musket drill was next, with the men standing at the rail presenting and aiming at points on the banks of the river.

  'Don't fire those blasted muskets, Windrush. We don't want to alert the Burmese or cause them to retaliate.'

  'Aim but don't fire,' Jack amended his instructions and glanced at the quarterdeck, where Marshall was watching. 'We'll withdraw the charges later.'

  By midday the heat was intense. Serangipatam altered her position from the centre of the river to the left side.

  'Keep watch on that bank,' Jack ordered. 'Keep alert.'

  In mid-afternoon, Marshall ordered manoeuvres that saw them ease onto what Jack assumed was a fork of the river. Water churned brown around them, carrying debris from upstream.

  'These trees are closer now,' Wells said, 'the monkeys can spit on us when we pass.'

  'Have we left the Irrawaddy?' Jack asked Bertram.

  When Bertram grinned, his freckles merged, so his face appeared almost as ginger as his hair. 'Strictly speaking, Ensign, we were on the Rangoon, or the Yangon as the Burmese call it. Now we are on one of the tributaries of the Yangon, the Pegu River, but still part of the Irrawaddy delta.' He glanced astern, where Marshall stood on the minuscule quarter deck.

  'What are we meant to be doing?' Jack asked. 'How do we know Bo Ailgaliutlo came this way?'

  'Only the Commander knows,' Bertram said, 'and God.' He gave a brief grin, 'if the Commander told him.' He looked away and fiddled with one of the ropes that secured a small boat. 'I think we only know half the truth of anything, Windrush.'

  'We are chasing Bo Ailgaliutlo,' Jack said.

  'We may be,' Bertram spoke softly, with his head turned away as he inspected the equipment on board the longboat. 'We are also what you in the army would call the forlorn hope, the verlorner hauf.' He waited for Jack's response.

  'The what?' Jack did not hide his confusion.

  'We are the verlorner hauf, as the Germans call it; the lost party.' Bertram opened the locker in the stern of the boat and prodded the rock hard bread. 'Commander Marshall always comes back though.'

  Jack grunted. 'Commander Marshall always comes back, but do his men?'

  Bertram straightened up from the longboat and glanced aft to the quarterdeck. The commander stood there, aloof, dignified and still as any of the gilded Buddhas in the Golden Pagoda.

  'Not always,' Bertram said. He lowered his voice to a whisper. 'Not often. Not from the places they send him.'

  'You came back,' Jack pointed out.

  'I came back,' Bertram agreed. 'But the other three officers on our last trip did not.' He glanced aft again. 'And we lost most of the marines; that's why you are here.'

  'I'm not sure that I understand,' Jack said. 'General Godwin sent us after Bo Ailgaliutlo.'

  'Oh, I know that,' Bertram said, 'and Commander Bertram will follow this Bo chap to the ends of the Earth or the furthest reaches of Darkest Asia, I assure you.' He dropped his voice. 'His methods, however, do not always bear investigation. This is a John Company ship,' he said, 'it should have Company marines or at least infantry, but their commanders refuse to send their men under Marshall.' He looked away as he spoke.

  'That's ominous,' Jack said, 'how many of the marines died on your last trip?'

  'Lucky thirteen,' Bertram tested the lashings of the longboat and slipped further away. 'Best keep quiet; the commander does not like idle chatter.' When Bertram moved, he was as light on his feet as a ballet dancer.

  The novelty of passing jungle and rice fields soon paled. While the crew of Serangipatam occupied themselves working the ship, the men of the 113th began to fret with boredom and heat.

  Keep them busy, or they will cause trouble; God only knows how long this expedition may last.

  'Extra parade!' Jack yelled. I am not some little schoolboy to creep around on tiptoes, scared to move in case I incur the wrath of an irascible school master. 'Come on the 113th! On deck with you all! I want full kit including musket and pack!'

  Only eight men grumbled on deck. 'Where is Thorpe?' Jack addressed Wells; 'get him up here, Sergeant!' Jack was very aware that Marshall was watching from the quarterdeck. 'I want him on parade in three minutes flat!'

  Rather than wait for Wells, Jack followed below deck, with the humid heat increasing as he stepped down and the air so thick he fought for breath. Thorpe was lying on the tiny shelf he used as a bunk, facing upward with his eyes tightly clenched and his fists closed into balls. He wore only his shirt.

  Jack grunted at his state of undress. 'You have two minutes to get into uniform and onto the deck, Thorpe!'

  Thorpe said nothing.

  My first real disciplinary challenge and it's on a boat in the middle of the jungle with no support. What the devil do I do now?

  'Get up, Thorpe!'

  Jack grabbed hold of the sleeve of Thorpe's shirt and hauled him off the shelf. Taken by surprise, Thorpe roared once and landed with a crash.

  I am probably breaking every regulation in the book.

  'Get on deck!' Jack realised that he was shaking, either with anger or nervousness or a combination of both. 'Move you idle bastard!' He kicked Thorpe's prone body. 'Sergeant: bring his uniform and equipment!'

  Thorpe yelled and rolled on his side, so Jack landed a firm kick on his backside. 'Get moving Thorpe!' He kicked the same place until Th
orpe staggered up and lurched onward, with Jack kicking every time he hesitated. 'Faster!' He shoved him up the short ladder to the deck.

  The other men of the 113th were standing in small groups, watching the scenery drift past.

  'Stand to attention!' Jack roared. He dragged Thorpe across the deck by his hair and slammed him hard against the rail. 'You! Hold your musket above your head and double up and down the deck until I order you to stop! Move!'

  Thorpe gave him one scared glance and obeyed, with his bare feet padding off the hot wooden planks and bare legs flicking up his shirt and revealing various bits of him in a manner so ludicrous that in other circumstances Jack would have laughed.

  'Keep him moving Sergeant,' Jack moderated his voice. 'And if he slows down, we will see if he likes the cat. The rest of you…' he faced the suddenly subdued men, 'I will drill myself.'

  With Wells yelling at the perspiring Thorpe, Jack had the others marching and manoeuvring on the deck, presenting arms, kneeling and aiming, standing and aiming and marching again as Serangipatam steamed slowly up the muddy river.

  All the time he was aware of Marshall standing on the quarterdeck watching but saying nothing. Jack ignored him. Let him watch; if he tries to interfere with a Queen's officer doing his duty, he will learn that I am not one of his blasted seamen.

  After only ten minutes, Thorpe was flagging; after twenty he was staggering along the deck.

  'Keep him at it,' Jack snarled. 'Get those legs up Thorpe!'

  Only then did Jack realise there was somebody else on the quarterdeck beside the Commander. She was sitting on a canvas chair beside the rail, watching the scene on deck. The second Jack met her eyes she turned away, so he saw her profile, with the high cheekbones and determined chin he remembered from their previous meetings in Rangoon.

  What the devil are you doing here, Madam and who are you to be a passenger on a John Company ship? Despite himself, Jack spared her a second sideways look.

  'Thorpe! Get these legs higher! Move man!'

  Let the woman take what she likes out of that. The more Thorpe moved, the higher he kicked his legs, the more his shirt flopped up, and the more of him was revealed. Jack hid his smile. If that woman chose to come onto a ship filled with men she had to cope with whatever sights were there, including a man's legs. Jack sneaked another glance at her; she still looked over the stern of the ship as if what occurred on board was of no consequence to her at all.