As a young female dancer appeared beside the two performers, Jack agreed that the soldiers may well enjoy the show. Aware that this may be an elaborate trap, he kept a watch around the crowd, but every gaze was fixed on the dancer. There were no muskets on view, and the few men with dhas were watching the performance.
'The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go,'
He heard Myat's words even through the babble of the crowd and forced himself to watch the dancer. She was as slim as all Burmese women appeared to be, with minuscule breasts and flaring hips under a scarlet longyi. She was pirouetting in time to the wailing of what sounded a bit like bagpipes, leaping in the air and landing to the clashing of drums. Every eye of the men of the 113th focussed on the girl.
Eventually, the music climaxed. The girl's face was white with thanaka paste that protected the skin from the sun and stiff with concentration. The 113th was in unison with the Pegu crowd, cheering the dancer's rhythmic movements; they were part of this pwe, as was he. Jack allowed the atmosphere to wash over him. When the girl turned away from the audience and began to rotate her bottom to the pulsating rhythm the men of the 113th cheered loudly. I wonder if Myat could do that. The image of her in front of him came to his mind, and he found he was smiling, searching for her in the crowd.
Their eyes met, briefly and he looked away before she did. Then the music altered again, the girl came off to appreciative applause from the 113th, and the crowd surged forward.
A group of men surrounded Jack, nearly carrying him in their enthusiasm to make friends.
'Drink,' a man stumbled over the unfamiliar English word as he thrust a wooden cup of something into Jack's hand. He held it at arm's length until the man retrieved the cup, sipped, smiled and handed it back.
'Thank you,' Jack said. It tasted very sweet. He sipped more. He allowed the man to escort him inside a hut, where undressed teak poles held up a thatched roof, and bamboo covered the floor. Other men pressed closer, talking loudly, offering him fruit and drink, smiling, talking and so obviously wishing to prove their friendship that he relaxed. He sat cross legged on the floor beside the others, replying in English as they spoke in Burmese, but somehow language did not matter. He was among friends. He drank more of the sweet liquid and laughed out loud.
The music of the pwe continued to reverberate in Jack's head. He drank more and smiled as his Peguese friend filled his cup up, then saw Myat at the open door talking with an older man and waved to her. She nodded to him and moved closer, with the men moving to give her room. Myat tasted the drink in his cup.
'It's very sweet,' Jack heard the slur of his own words.
'It's made from sugar cane,' Myat told him.
Jack drank more, 'the greatest meditation is a mind that lets go,' he repeated her words.
Myat stood up; Jack watched her as she walked away. He wanted to reach out and pull her back; his mind filled with images he had suppressed for years and others he had never known before.
'Myat…'
She did not answer.
'Myat…'
She was gone. There were only men in the hut, Burmese and two soldiers of the 113th, together with a handful of women in cheap longyis and sandals; their black hair hung loose and open mouths displayed teeth stained red with betel juice.
Dear God: what am I doing? I am a British officer consorting here with rankers and women of the lowest morals.
Jack struggled up, spilling the contents of his cup. 'Excuse me,' he said, 'I have to go.' He stumbled out of the hut into the dark of the evening. 'I'm a visitor here,' he said to the first person he met.
Myat nodded. 'I know,' she said. Her eyes smiled at him.
Chapter Eleven
Pegu Province, October 1852
From Pegu they moved northward, deeper into Burma with the landscape growing wilder by the mile. Every day they stopped at a village, with Marshall talking to the headman as Jack and his men acting as escort in a procedure that grew so familiar it became routine.
'Bo Ailgaliutlo has a stockade only three days march from here,' Marshall emerged from the hut with what might pass for a smile on his face. 'We can be there in two by the river.' He looked skyward. 'And then we destroy them, man and boy, and burn the stockade to the ground.'
'Yes, sir,' Jack remembered the artillery and storming parties for the White House Picket and wondered how Marshall intended to capture a stockade held by tenacious Burmese dacoits with ten British infantrymen and the crew of a single John Company vessel.
'Two days to reach them,' Commander Marshall repeated, 'two days to reduce the place, another to hang the prisoners and a week to return to Rangoon. We will be back in fourteen days at the latest.'
Then what? Back to being an outcast officer with no prospects while General Godwin leads the main British Army to glory against the King of Ava.
Jack stared at the gloomy bamboo jungle. Only the presence of Myat makes this campaign worthwhile. A monkey gibbered to him from its perch on an upper branch.
The drums started before dawn, so quiet that Jack barely noticed them. They thrummed from the dense jungle of the Pegu Yoma hills that stretched to the north as far as he could see, echoed along the dark banks of the river and invaded everything that he did. By the time the first grey-green beams of light filtered through the trees, they were audible to even the least sensitive of men so that Coleman nudged O'Neill with a whispered enquiry.
'Can you hear that, Paddy? I think it's the Burmese.'
O'Neill swivelled his eyes and turned his head to one side. He cupped a hand to his ear. 'Of course, I can hear it Coley; the whole bloody ship can hear it.'
'Quieten down lads!' Wells said, and the drums invaded again, throbbing through that morning as Serangipatam pushed upstream with the 113th on deck, swatting mosquitoes as sweat dampened their clothes and ran into their eyes.
'Keep a sharp look out, boys,' Jack loosened the revolver in his holster and peered into the jungle in the hope of seeing one of the drummers.
'You won't see them,' Myat seemed to read his mind. 'They can see us, but we'll never see them.'
'Who are they? The king's forces?' Jack could almost feel the predatory eyes probing into him as the ship eased upstream.
'Maybe, or perhaps a band of dacoits. It could be anybody.'
'Keep your men alert, Windrush,' Marshall's voice was quiet as ever.
'Yes, sir.'
The river eased into a succession of bends, each one tighter than the last, with Marshall giving precise orders to the helmsman to keep in the centre of the channel.
A seaman pattered past Jack and hauled a marked length of weighted rope into the river, pulled it out and started to chant the depth.
'Quarter speed,' Marshall ordered, and Serangipatam slowed further.
'Careful now boys,' Wells cocked his musket, 'this is the sort of place the dacoits might choose.' A monkey screamed from the trees, joined by a score of others.
'Bloody monkeys,' Graham aimed his musket at one and closed his left eye. 'Bang, bang.'
'Load your pieces,' Jack ordered and saw the relief on his men's faces as they poured powder and ball down the barrels of their muskets and added the percussion cap. He began to pace the length of the ship, one hand on his revolver.
The sound of drums increased, echoing through the trees.
'Battle stations,' Marshall ordered, 'handsomely now!'
The sailors ran to their guns and stood alert as the smoke from Serangipatam's funnel lay thick on the deck.
The leadsman continued to chant the depth as if nothing else was happening. 'Four fathoms, muddy bottom.'
The drums continued their beating, louder now as if in competition with the invasive throb of Serangipatam's engine. Jack flinched as a gaudily coloured bird exploded from the trees.
'Three and a half fathoms, muddy bottom.'
'Just around the next bend, men, there is a friendly village.' It was so unusual for Marshall to give out any information that Jack knew that the
persistent drumming must be unsettling even him.
There was no village around the next bend or the one after that; only the jungle; thick, tangled and unfriendly. Creepers hung over the river with some dragged by the current. A deer watched them for a second before turning to vanish in the undergrowth. There was something else there as well. At first, Jack was unsure what it was, monkey or human but as he stared, he saw it was a man, or rather a boy, tattooed so heavily he seemed to merge with the jungle.
'I smell smoke, sir,' Thorpe volunteered. 'Not our funnel smoke. Something's burning ahead.
'Thank you, Thorpe,' Jack said. It had a different scent, more acrid, sharper, laced with some odour he recognised but could not place.
'Meat,' Myat said, 'it's like cooked meat. They have made a feast for us.'
'Human flesh,' Wells said quietly. He eased his hands over the stock of his musket. 'I've smelled that before.'
They rounded the next bend, and the village came in sight. It was a typical neat Burmese riverside settlement with a score of thatched huts and half a dozen boats pulled up on the mud, except that every house was ablaze and the boats were holed and sinking. Piled at the water's edge was a mound of corpses, smouldering and sparking within a circle of flames.
'Jesus!' Knight lifted his musket.
'Jesus must have looked the other way,' Wells glanced at Jack. 'Are we going in, sir?'
That depends on the Commander.
'Steer straight on, helmsman,' Marshall spared the village a single glance.
'There could be somebody left alive sir,' Jack suggested. 'We might be able to help them.'
'They can't help us,' Marshall unbent sufficiently to explain.
Smoke from the village merged with that from the ship as they passed.
'There may be a survivor, wounded and injured…'
Marshall did not reply. Serangipatam rounded the next bend and the landscape altered with banyan trees amidst swampy fields of rice on one bank and patchy forest on the other.
'These fields will be untended then,' Wells said.
'Why is that, sergeant?' Coleman asked.
'There's nobody left to look after them,' Wells jerked his head in the direction of the village. 'The dacoits have killed them all.' The drumming surrounded them, beating at their ears, rebounding from the hull of the ship.
'Where are they?' Thorpe licked his lips with a dry tongue, 'why don't they attack?'
'They will,' Wells said. 'When they are ready, and they think we are not.'
'We'll anchor in mid channel tonight,' Marshall gave the order. 'Keep sentries posted Windrush. The dacoits may try to attack in the dark.'
'They're everywhere,' Knight said, 'they're all around us.'
'There's something in the river sir,' the sailor at the masthead shouted, 'it's some sort of boat.'
'Stand by!' Marshall shouted. 'Slow ahead; cutlass men forward.'
'Ready men,' Jack echoed. He pulled his revolver from its holster as half a dozen seamen pattered past, each holding a cutlass.
Serangipatam eased on.
'There it is,' Lieutenant Bertram pointed. 'It's a raft, sir, with somebody on it.'
'Boathooks,' Marshall ordered, 'bring him in.'
'Keep alert, men,' Jack ordered. 'This could be a trick.'
The raft was about six foot square with a man lying on top. As the current brought the raft alongside, Jack saw that the man was stark naked, spread-eagled and with his hands and feet fastened to the corners of the raft. A seaman leaned over the bow and hooked the raft in so it bobbed and bounced at the side of Serangipatam. The man stared up through sightless eyes.
'He's dead, sir,' the seaman said.
'Let him go,' Marshall ordered.
The seaman released the boathook, and the raft resumed its lonely voyage. The drums continued, mocking the handful of British seamen and soldiers.
Despite the clammy heat, Jack shivered as night raced in. The jungle sounds always seemed louder in the dark, the cry of unseen animals and unknown birds were sinister, as though they came from a soul tortured beyond endurance.
'Double sentries, Sergeant,' he said. 'I don't want the men standing alone tonight.' He knew he did not have to explain his decision.
'They'll be tired tomorrow,' Wells took advantage of his leniency.
'They'll have more chance of being alive tomorrow!' Jack turned abruptly away.
He slumped in the stifling cubicle that was more like a coffin than a cabin. I am too easy on these men. I should retain a proper distance to maintain my authority. They will take advantage of me. I must be a laughing stock. The lapse of duty in Pegu still preyed on his mind. I hope the men did not see me drunk.
The bed was damp with the sweat of the engineer with whom he shared, and the high pitched whine of insects disturbed his attempts at sleep. Thoughts and images bustled through his mind, from the piled up corpses in the last village to the constant throbbing of the drums.
The shout penetrated the muddle of his mind, so he sat up with a jerk.
'Halt and identify yourself!'
Jack was at the door of the cabin before he realised he had neither sword nor pistol. As he turned back there was the sharp report of a musket, and then another.
'Get back you hound of hell! Back to the jungle damn you!'
By the time Jack got onto the deck, there was nothing to be seen. O'Neill was reloading as Armstrong peered into the vicious dark.
'What happened here?'
'Something in the water,' O'Neill tested the hammer of his musket. 'It might have been dacoits, it might not, but I thought best to let them see we are ready for them.'
Marshall appeared on the quarterdeck. 'Call all hands; Windrush, get your men on deck.' As always he spoke softly but his words carried throughout the ship.
'Lanterns,' Marshall ordered. 'Bertram, attach lanterns on long poles and hang them over the sides.'
The dark seemed to press upon them, dense, humid and alive with the whine of insects. One by one Bertram had lanterns lit and hung from the spars so a halo of light illuminated Serangipatam; she was a ghost ship trapped within a circle of predatory night.
'Now they can see us,' Wells stood at attention at the rail of the ship, 'but we can't see a bloody thing.'
'We're attracting every bloody moth and flying brute in Burma,' Coleman muttered.
For a few moments, Jack was unaware of the silence; he merely knew something had changed.
'They've stopped,' O'Neill's voice broke the silence. 'The drums have stopped.' Only the sounds of nature remained, frightening in their variety and intensity as insects and night-prowling creatures competed to make the night hideous.
'What does that mean?' Thorpe asked, 'maybe they've all gone away?'
Lantern light reflected from Myat's hair when she appeared on the quarterdeck. She spoke to Marshall. He nodded and raised his voice a fraction. 'Man the guns.'
'Out there!' Bertram shouted. 'War boats: dozens of them!'
They surged into the circle of light, long, high prowed vessels packed with warriors, each with muscular men paddling the river into white-frothed fury.
Dear God, there are scores of them.
'Aim at that first boat,' Jack ordered. 'Volley fire!' Ten muskets cracked out, 'reload, fast as Christ will let you.' He did not look to see the result but flinched as the gun crew next to him fired. The sound was shocking, the results terrible as a charge of grapeshot crashed directly into the second Burmese war-boat. The carnage was immediate with dead and wounded men flung backwards and head, arms and dismembered torsos flung up in the air. For a second Jack saw a hanging curtain of blood that pattered to the water.
'And that's done for you, you bastards,' O'Neill's voice sounded through the screams and yells of the wounded.
A spear thudded into the deck beside Jack, and a seaman yelled and plucked at the arrow that spouted miraculously from his arm.
'They're in the trees above us,' Jack shouted, 'Wells, you and O'Neill concentrate on
the trees, and the rest take the war-boats.'
'Quarter speed ahead,' Marshall ordered. 'Bertram: put a man in the bows with a line.'
Serangipatam rocked as she picked up speed, nosing ahead of the slender war-boats that crowded around. One war-boat tried to close and board, but Marshall altered course and Serangipatam rammed her amidships and split her in two. Jack saw pieces of wreckage and shrieking men on either side of the hull, with seamen and soldiers firing at the survivors.
'Keep them at a distance!' Jack said. 'Volley fire is best; six shots to one boat are of more use than single shots to half a dozen. That boat there,' he indicated a vessel that approached rapidly from the bows. 'Give it a volley!'
Jack flinched as a Burmese ball smacked into the rail at his side, and another lifted a splinter of wood from the deck at his feet. Lantern light reflected from the hazy powder smoke that drifted in their wake.
Another two Burmese boats loomed into the circle of light and for a second Jack saw a nightmare vision of wiry, sturdy men in loin cloths and simple turbans paddling vigorously as a score of yelling warriors brandished dhas or fired long muskets at Serangipatam.
The man who stood in the bow of the leading boat wore a loin cloth and a much-patched coat that had once been scarlet but had faded to a dirty pink. For an instant, he gazed directly into Jack's eyes, and despite the haze of powder smoke and the flickering lantern light, Jack knew this was Bo Ailgaliutlo. This man was not afraid in the slightest; his eyes were sharp and lively as if he relished the encounter with an Honourable Company vessel and its contingent of British soldiers.
'That boat!' Jack pointed directly at Bo Ailgaliutlo, 'and that man. Give him a volley.'
But the renegade had his own plans. He shouted something and the musket men in his war-boat fired a volley of their own. The muskets, Burmese and British, crashed out together and two of the British lanterns exploded in a thousand splinters of glass.
'He's putting out the lights,' Jack yelled. 'Give him another volley!'
'I can't see him, sir; where is he?' Graham shouted.
Windrush (Jack Windrush Book 1) Page 16
