Raging Rajahs (Man of Conflict Series, Book 2)

by Andrew Wareham

  Colonel Vaughan and both majors took passage on the merchant ships, as was normal practice, while the company officers remained on the troopers with their men – though in very different classes of accommodation.

  The night before they sailed there was the inevitable banquet and ball, attended by the bulk of the merchants as well as the Royal Navy and Company and King’s officers and officials. The town and British community was still small enough that every excuse was taken for a celebration. The dinner was rounded off by presentations made to the majors of the Hampshires who had so thoroughly protected the property of the merchants that there had been no losses at all during the late outbreak of rioting, a unique experience, they were assured. They were given massive great lumps of silver plate, enormous chargers almost too heavy to lift in one hand - which made for difficulties during the actual ceremony – and ornately engraved with the thanks of all concerned.

  Both majors had been warned and had prepared speeches of four minutes length – quite sufficient, Colonel Vaughan had said – expressing their surprise and pleasure at such magnificent gifts – they had heirlooms which future generations would be proud of.

  “Two hundred ounces of silver – fifty pounds sterling in bullion alone, sir!”

  Major Reynolds was openly impressed, rather to Colonel Vaughan’s distaste.

  They danced and drank a little too much and made their farewells – they would almost certainly never see any of the inhabitants of Bombay again, being so far distant – and took to their boats at dawn, the convoy making sail as soon as all were aboard.

  Septimus was last into the boats, having been delayed a minute by Mr Aynscow and a small committee of merchants from the warehouses closest to his.

  “Seeing as ‘ow you went out of your way to look after us, Major Pearce, we put us ‘ands in our pockets for something from ourselves, sir. I ain’t no man for speeches, but if my ware’ouse ‘ad been burned I’d ‘ave lost my everything, sir, so thank’ee truly, sir!”

  Aynscow thrust a package into Septimus’ hands, waited for him to open it and disclose a solid gold mug, ornately chased and engraved with the words, ‘with thanks from the free merchants of Bombay’. There was a brooch with a massive star ruby inside.

  “For thy lady, who so liked the rubies, sir!”

  Septimus shook hands all round and fled to his boat, almost overcome, for Aynscow’s gift came so truly from his heart.

  Aboard ship he packed the plate and the gold mug into his travelling baggage, being unwilling to badger the supercargo to open the hold and place them with the three boxes he had had stowed away.

  Man of Conflict Series

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter Eleven

  Six months at sea was a long, long time, particularly sailing as a single man.

  Once a week Septimus was rowed across to the trooper carrying his five companies and performed a meticulous inspection, demanding perfect uniform and then examining the black holes below decks which were the men’s quarters and casting a very thorough eye over the galley where their rations were prepared. The men had been many years in the habit of throwing their uniforms across to the barracks-room servants; it came hard to them, sitting down and polishing and pipeclaying for themselves.

  The inspection took the whole of a morning, but that left a lot of time without occupation.

  He had some books and there was a whist table, but unfortunately an odd number of players so that the foursomes had to rotate to allow seven men to get a regular game. Other games were played but Septimus had no taste for gambling and generally kept clear. There were three merchants returning home to prosperous retirement and they staked five and ten pounds on a turn of vingt-et-un or one of the various forms of brag, playing carelessly often when the drink took them. Septimus recognised that he could have turned a profit from afternoons at their table, but he had no wish to do so – he was no grubby money-maker.

  He walked the deck for two rigorous hours every day, determined not to grow fat, commonly in the company of Colonel Vaughan, talking quietly about very little.

  “I could never have become a sailorman, sir. So many hours, so many days and weeks, crossing vast expanses of empty sea!”

  “Tedious indeed, Major Pearce.”

  “A year of my life taken in doing nothing other than sail to India and back again – it is a sacrifice in many ways, sir. I do not think I shall willingly return.”

  “Nor I, Major Pearce. What is to come next for you, sir?”

  “I suspect that I shall seek to purchase a battalion of my own, sir. I believe I can accept that degree of responsibility.”

  “I would have no doubt that you could do so, Major Pearce. It may be the case that Horse Guards will have other plans for you. What will you do then, sir?”

  Septimus had never considered the possibility – he had expected to remain an officer of the line for his whole career.

  “Probably that is what will be demanded of you, Major Pearce. I do not know, of course, being at such a distance and as out of touch as one must be in India. I do know that we have been called home earlier than one might have expected. I had thought we would have served another year in India. It may well be that there is a degree of upset in England. There was this silly Peace while we were busy – not long lasting, of course, but a surprising sort of affair, nonetheless. There was word of the Frogs considering an invasion across the Channel when the war restarted. That might be why they called us back, of course.”

  They had dined with the senior captain of the escort, a line-of-battle ship and a small frigate, and he had insisted at length that the Navy still ruled the seas of the world, but had admitted that it would not be impossible for the French and the Spanish to put a fleet together that might seize control of the Channel for a few days. He had suggested that if the Danes were to show aggressive in the German Ocean and to draw a fleet north then it might be possible to attack successfully from the south. It was unlikely that Bonaparte would achieve success though, because the English had Nelson and he was worth a fleet on his own.

  They had been away from England for too long, were unaware of the over-confident hero-worship of Nelson that had developed there. The public, and the government, could not conceive that Nelson might ever be defeated; Nelson seemed to share that belief.

  “All very well, but…”

  “Exactly, Major Pearce. One is unwise to make plans that do not allow for all possibilities. At this distance we can only surmise, but I suspect we are part of some plan which we shall eventually discover – if ever this voyage should end.”

  The convoy of saltpetre and soldiers was exceptionally valuable and the escort had changed course more than once to avoid a brewing storm, adding a few days to the passage time on each occasion. They were lucky in the Doldrums, however, picking up the northward moving currents that were occasionally met with and never actually finding themselves becalmed and unmoving. They reached Madeira and stayed in port for a single day, too short a time for the soldiers to take shore leave. There were merchantmen in port awaiting escort to England and they attached themselves to the convoy which sailed early at the port authority’s urging.

  “There is a French fleet out in the Mediterranean, or so it is suspected, and so it is as well to make haste before it may come out into the Atlantic.”

  They called at Gibraltar, risking the loss of time for the need to gain information. Any French fleet must have been observed from the Rock if it had passed out of the Mediterranean.

  The word was of nothing seen but that privateers were more than usually active in the Bay and in the Approaches generally.

  The senior captain of the escort suggested that the soldiers might be of use in case of an attack by privateers. Massed volleys of musketry would be effective against any boarders he thought.

  “Privateers try not to use their cannon too much, gentlemen – for fear of sinking their prize, at minimum of spoiling its cargo. They will try to close quickly and put a hundred or m
ore of men aboard. They will try to take an Indiaman rather than any other ship – so much richer a prize.”

  “The saltpetre carriers to cluster close to your Third Rate, sir. The frigate to hover by the other merchantmen; the two troopers, which look just like any other Indiamen to be left just a little exposed…”

  Septimus shifted from his comfortable cabin to the more Spartan accommodation of a trooper, taking his baggage with him but leaving his hold cargo where it was. Reynolds joined his companies as well.

  Septimus called his captains to him, explained the possibility of action to them.

  “If we are attacked then the master of the ship will man his cannon and fire a few rounds. Not many and inefficiently, ordering his men to abandon the guns in a panic at an early stage. Our men will remain below deck until I blow my whistle. They will then run up, but all bent over and hidden from view. They are not to wear their coats, gentlemen. No red to give the alarm.”

  “I say, sir! That is hardly decent, is it? Can we really skulk like villains, in our shirtsleeves, sir?”

  “Yes, Captain Taft! We can, and we shall, sir!”

  They placed the exact location of each company, to fire at Septimus’ command.

  “Rolling fire, gentlemen, by company, all to the sergeants’ time. Be sure that the men fire low, gentlemen.”

  Septimus was quite pleased when the word was passed of a sail closing them from the east. The men needed the exercise and he was bored - life on the trooper was even more tedious than in the comfort of his own Indiaman. The junior officers had their own Mess and had done their best to entertain him, but none played whist and gambling for chicken stakes quickly became tedious.

  The master informed them that the sail was certainly a privateer, a lugger, which was a common rig for the Biscaymen, and showing full of boarders.

  “Very fast, Major, and will probably tack to come upon us from off the starboard bow, where we cannot point the broadside guns.”

  Septimus lounged near the wheel, his coat discarded and his shirt open at the neck, the very picture of a degraded seaman. He blew his whistle as the privateer made its dash at them.

  “Low, low, keep your heads down!”

  Three hundred muskets in hiding, crouched below the bulwarks, waiting his command; he watched and twitched as he waited.

  The lugger came alongside and threw grappling hooks to bind herself to them.

  “A Company! Fire!”

  The volleys crashed in sequence and the boarding parties disintegrated.

  One minute of rapid fire at close range by three hundred men, starting from loaded, the better part of twelve hundred rounds concentrated on the deck of a small ship. It was, literally, a bloodbath.

  Septimus watched to see that movement had ceased, blew his whistle.

  “Captain Carter, board her if you please, take any prisoners there may be. Secure the ship.”

  Septimus looked around him, saw two smaller vessels motionless by Reynold’s ship, a quarter of a mile away. There was a cloud of powder smoke dissipating in the wind and it was reasonable to assume he had been equally successful. The frigate was coming towards them rapidly, put a pair of boats into the water and sent them to take over the privateers before closing them to within shouting range.

  “Well done, sir! We shall take them into Portsmouth. Not a lot of gain to it, they will be worth almost nothing in prize money, but it makes a show of our enterprise and will produce a story worth telling – prizes taken by the army on the high seas!”

  Gunfire drew their attention suddenly, cannon in the near distance.

  "That's our ship, sir, Arundel!"

  The frigate was tacking, doing her best to claw up against the wind, but she had been caught well out of position and the two-decker could not fire her broadside because of the Indiamen clustered around her. Arundel had fallen a little out of her place and a pair of French naval ships had picked her out for their own. They had waited for the privateers to attract their attention, to draw the frigate off station and then had taken their chance.

  A small ship, a corvette, had grappled the Arundel, had certainly taken her, while a larger vessel was manoeuvring to cross the course of the frigate.

  A pair of broadsides and the frigate had lost a mast and was in danger of being sunk, was unable to do anything for the taken Indiaman. The other merchant ships were scurrying to obey the signals from the line-of-battle ship, cleared out of the way in time for her to fire a slow, long-range broadside into the Frenchman, sufficient to send her off to join her consort and their prize.

  Septimus stared in silence at his rupees disappearing into the distance, in French hands and never to be seen again. Insurance had not, in the circumstances, been possible, and he said farewell to the better part of thirty thousand pounds. He consoled himself that he had not had to work for the money, and he still had Marianne's ruby brooch and the two presentation pieces. But that was two square miles of farmland, or had been, in his mind.

  He realised as well, when he could think of anything else, that he had just lost Colonel Vaughan. The colonel might eventually be exchanged, but that would take many months at best, and might not be possible; the probability was that he was a prisoner till the war's end, if he lived even.

  No money and no influence at Horse Guards. It had been a bad morning.

  "Bugger India!"

  # # #

  Thank you for reading Book Two of the “Man of Conflict Series.” Book Three’s projected release date is early 2016. In the meantime, please take look at my other novels listed on the following pages.

  For any author, gaining exposure relies on readers spreading the word, so if you have the time and inclination, please consider leaving a short online review wherever you can.

  Thanks once again, Andrew

  By the Same Author

  A Poor Man at the Gate Series: Book One: The Privateersman. Escaping the hangman’s noose in England, commoner Tom Andrews finds himself aboard a privateering ship before fleeing to New York at the time of the Revolutionary War. It is a place where opportunities abound for the unscrupulous. Hastily forced to return to England, he ruthlessly chases riches in the early industrial boom. But will wealth buy him love and social respectability?

  Kindle links to the whole series:

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  http://tinyurl.com/A-Poor-Man

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  The Duty and Destiny Series: Published in 2014, these superbly-crafted novel length sea/land stories are set in the period of the French Revolutionary War (1793 – 1802). The series follows the naval career and love-life of Frederick Harris, the second son of a middling Hampshire landowner, a brave but somewhat reluctant mariner.

  Please note: This series is currently available to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

  Kindle links to the whole series:

  US/worldwide:

  http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series

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  http://tinyurl.com/Duty-and-Destiny-Series-UK

  A Victorian Gent: Naïve Dick Burke is hoodwinked into marrying a man-hungry aristocrat’s daughter who just seven months later produces a son! It’s the start of a long humiliation that sees Dick flee to America as the Civil War looms. Siding with the Union, the bloody conflict could be the making or the breaking of him, as could his alliance with Elizabeth, an attractive and feisty American businesswoman.

  Universal Kindle Link: http://getbook.at/Victorian

  In the early 1900s gutter rat, Ned Hawkins aims to rise from the grinding poverty of an English slum, but is forced to flee the country and ends up in Papua. It is a dangerous place where cannibalism and cannibals are never far away. Despite this menacing backdrop, he prospers and almost by accident, finds love. However, there are ominous stirrings in the land that bode ill for the future

  Universal Kindle Link: http://getbook.at/Cannibal-One

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