Nobody’s Child

by Andrew Wareham

  The prospect amused him for the rest of the week. Rather tedious, I thought.

  We rounded Ceylon, weather and wind still kind, and exchanged polite salutes with a Dutch two-decker.

  “Evidently we are at peace with Holland, Mr Jackson. We shall use the Straits of Malacca.”

  One of the difficulties of sailing the Oriental seas was the distance from London. Typically, we would not hear of any war until it was six months old. It was not uncommon for one side to be informed weeks, even months before the other. It was always wise to be ready to defend one’s vessel when doing the polite to a foreign warship in those waters.

  The coast of the Malay Peninsula, as they call it now, was as marshy and benighted as we had been led to believe. The wind was well in the southwest and blowing out to us, carrying that horrible old stink of the mangroves. I don’t know if it’s the trees that stink, or the mud that they grow in, but they are vile when you are downwind of them. They are worse when you are staggering about inside them – happened to me once, years later. Still got the scars on me feet and lower legs – the trunks were covered in some sort of mussel with razor-sharp shells. That’s another tale, for a later day, if I live to tell it.

  The mangroves petered out and we could see the hills inland far more clearly, the coastal strip narrower and less flat, covered in jungle with coconut palms on the lowlands, much like the coast of India. There was little chance of profitable farming there, which made the possibility of mines that Arbuthnot had mentioned more likely; a port had to have trade to justify its existence. We ordered the lookouts to watch for fishing boats and saw nothing other than tiny outrigger canoes for two days of pottering along making little more than steerage way. The third dawn showed a small junk not a mile off our bow, making its innocent way south and unable to match us on a wind.

  Twenty minutes and we were fifty feet off the junk’s beam and showing our teeth, guns run out and muskets levelled over the bulwarks. I shouted across in Pidgin that they must drop their sails and allow us aboard. A voice called back that we must not kill them. I promised that we would do them no harm at all, providing they behaved themselves.

  If they surrendered, they might be killed. If they fought, they would be destroyed out of hand. The sails came rattling down. We lowered our boats and boarded them, cautiously, just in case they had decided to take a few round-eyed foreign devils with them to Hell. They were very good, the whole crew huddled together, most of them on their knees, which was a normal position for the Chinese peasant.

  I had Captain Partridge’s permission to offer them their lives and goods if they would cooperate for a couple of days. I explained that we wanted to look at the new French port just up the coast. I was told that it was a very old local harbour, recently taken by the French. It had been the place where they traded for tin but the French had ordered them off and now they would have no rich cargo.

  Did we intend to kill the French? We assured them we did.

  The master of the junk bowed his thanks and ordered a man of his crew to go below. The seaman came back with a wooden board with a chart inked on. It was old and showed where the ink lines had been repeatedly renewed, but it was sufficiently detailed for us to see where the harbour must be. I leaned over the side and hailed Coromandel.

  “Captain Partridge, can you send a mate across to take a copy of a chart, sir?”

  “What, have those Chinks got charts?”

  How else did he think that men sailed thousands of miles through wild seas?

  The First Mate – I have forgotten his name after so many years – came across with his very sketchy chart of the South China Sea, showing the track followed by the China convoys in great detail and little else at all, and gleefully copied in the detail from the board.

  “I shall send this in to the Company in Bombay, Mr Jackson, with my name attached. They will pass it to the Admiralty and it will do me some good in my profession, that’s for sure!”

  “Is it sufficient to allow us to make our approach?”

  An hour of questioning and enthusiastic cooperation from the junk’s people gave us the information we needed and a pen-and-ink outline of the harbour from the sea together with the location of the deep-water channel. The First Mate was satisfied and left, clutching his charts to his chest and gleeful.

  I asked the Chinese master of French ships at anchor.

  There was but one and very small, but with a long line of gunports. It was no more than half of the size of Coromandel, he thought, and the guns not big. It sounded like a sloop of fourteen or sixteen guns, four pounders most likely. A single broadside and board her in the first light of dawn should work. It was rational that the French should not leave a flotilla there before the outbreak of war, or so I thought.

  Captain Partridge was satisfied with the information and gave me permission to release the junk. I begged an anker of rum from the stores and formally presented it to the master, bowing my best. He sniffed at the bung and bowed back, lower than me in expression of thanks and obligation. His crew lined up, cups in hand and smiles a yard wide on their faces. It seemed they had heard of Navy Rum. As we sailed off we saw the junk heading inshore with the obvious intent of anchoring.

  “Party time, sir.”

  “So it would seem, Mr Jackson. We have made friends there by the looks of it. Two score in that crew, more or less, and some sixty English pints in an anker. If they get through that there’ll be some headaches in the morning.”

  We had other concerns for the morning. According to the information, the harbour was a bare ten miles distant, sat in the shelter of a headland where a spur of hills led down to the sea.

  “Deep water into a timber wharf, Mr Jackson. The Chinaman says a ship the size of Coromandel could tie up there, but not the vast great East Indiaman. He knows a Company ship by sight, so we can probably trust his experience. With luck. I propose, Mr Jackson, to sail into the harbour, give a single broadside to the sloop and pass her by and tie up at the wharf. Leeds Castle to close the sloop and board her before sending her men into the wharf in boats.”

  It might well work. It was a good plan.

  “Then, sir, we leg it towards the French camp he pointed out. An ancient fortalice with a newer warehouse, so he said. He thinks perhaps two hundreds of soldiers. My seventy will have the advantage of surprise, but we will need assistance very rapidly.”

  “Coromandel’s guns will give you some support, Mr Jackson.”

  It was worth trying, or so I thought, then. I might not think the same today, but I was hungrier then.

  We closed the harbour with a leadsman in the chains, giving the naval set of calls. Probably a half of the British sailors in East Indiamen and country ships had naval experience, most of them having deserted to the safe haven the Company provided. Country ships did not have the protection granted to the Company, but any King’s ship that interfered with their trade in Indian waters would find the Company’s harbours and yards closed to it. The Navy knew the rules and by and large kept to them. They didn’t like it, perhaps, but that was their problem.

  The channel given by the Chinese master was fairly much exact, but junks often drew a lot of water, they had to navigate precisely. They had been trading the Malay coast for hundreds of years, as well. They knew their way about. It was essentially a question of whether the master had lied to us.

  There was a little of cloud and a new moon that gave only a glimmer of light but the headland had a distinctive shape to it and gave a leading mark.

  The first rays of the sun rising behind us showed the sloop at double anchor, on the edge of the deep channel as we had been told. She was distant two cables and the wind was light. The plan took its first revision.

  “Broadside, shoot! Reload!”

  Captain Partridge estimated that we could get a second in before we passed her line.

  Firing in sheltered waters at four hundred yards, it was no surprise that all six balls crashed home in the hull of the sloop, one of them lo
w at the waterline amidships, the others towards her stern.

  “Been better if they had hit towards the forecastle. Mr Jackson. Put splinters into the sleeping crew then. Nothing like twelve pound balls around your ears for waking up to.”

  “Good chance they will have hit the officers in the stern accommodation, sir.”

  “True.”

  Captain Partridge gave orders to the pair at the wheel, brought Coromandel on line for the wharf.

  The six gun-captains had their hands raised, signifying the ready.

  “Shoot!”

  Closer to one hundred and fifty yards this time, the balls clustered together at deck level and forward of the previous rounds.

  We heard the screaming as the crew went down.

  The balls themselves would have hit relatively few of the men, but the seasoned hardwood of the hull timbers would fracture into fist-sized chunks, the so-called splinters, that could rip the unlucky to pieces.

  Coromandel bellied up to the wharf and we began to yell, jumping over the side and running towards the French. The civilian population was large but provided no hindrance; they were galloping like hell for the hills, had taken off at the sound of a broadside.

  The first musket shots came from sentries, un-aimed and intent on giving the alarm in the easiest fashion. I stopped shouting long enough to call my score to form a double rank at my shoulder.

  I could see the French camp now. The bulk of the men were in bivouacs outside the broken walls of the old fort. They had thrown up rough huts of scrap timber with palm-leaf thatching overall. There were men running into the warehouse we had been told of, stone built, probably with blocks salvaged from the fort. There was no fence or wall round the huts.

  “Muskets! Halt and fire into the huts.”

  Two volleys, ten and ten, sounding like more for being together. I doubt they hit anything, but they would add to the panic and inform the French that they were under attack and might wish to run away. Some men would always panic, woken up by cannon fire and then musketry.

  Jamadar Rao was at my shoulder.

  “Take the warehouse, Mr Rao. Fire in and charge.”

  No need to tell him more than that.

  “Pistols, lads. Fire two and charge!”

  It was more important to keep going than to aim straight.

  Six loud crashes sounded behind us from Coromandel and twelve pound balls ploughed into the old stone walls with a very satisfactory roar of demolition. She could not fire closer for fear of hitting us but the noise of heavy guns did no end of good. I could see men running, empty-handed. Soldiers making a tactical retreat kept their muskets with them. Panicking men threw away the weight that slowed them.

  So far, so good. I risked a glance behind me, saw Leeds Castle tied up to the little sloop, dwarfed by the merchantman’s bulk, and boats pulling hard to reach the wharf. More boats than the trooper possessed – they must have grabbed local craft, or possibly the sloop had her boats on a line behind her, being in harbour.

  Twenty minutes would bring the first of the battalion into the fight. All we had to do was live that long.

  There was an outburst of shooting, screaming and wailing from the warehouse where Jamadar Rao had got into the garrison there. It was a good bet that the officers would be inside, I thought, preferring a solid roof to the flimsy huts their men had knocked together. Whatever the result of the encounter there, I expected no officers to come out to take command of their people. There were sergeants though, pulling their companies together. I spotted four separate groups of men forming up, the nearest of perhaps fifty muskets barely twenty yards away. I took the obvious course.

  I waved my sword in the air and drew a pistol left-handed.

  “Charge!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nobody’s Child Series

  Nobody’s Child

  We had no men down as yet as we charged and probably looked more like forty to men still recovering from an unexpected attack out of the dawn.

  I have always approved of the dawn assault – if nothing else, most of the opposition will wake up needing to take a pee and discommoded either by a full bladder or wet drawers.

  We fired our pistols as we ran and Fred cut loose with the dragons, all adding to the chaos though killing very few, then it was into them with the blades.

  I aimed for the sergeant – always best to take out the leaders. I swung my beautiful sword high, blade gleaming in the weak light. The sky was overcast and thinking about rain but there was sufficient light to see clearly. The sergeant threw up an arm, instinctively, and the Toledo steel sheared through it down close to the wrist, producing an agonised howl and a great shower of arterial blood, spraying out high over the forming ranks of the French. It broke their spirit, instantly. They ran.

  Can’t blame them. A faceful of blood ain’t very handsome first thing in the morning. Always leads to that ‘me next’ feeling, which can be very disconcerting.

  Coromandel fired again and the French decided that enough was sufficient. They stopped running and raised their hands.

  By the time Captain Young arrived, very properly at the head of his leading company, the fighting was done. He had the task of mopping up and showed most efficient. The advantage of experience – he knew exactly what to do and was far more effective than I could have been doing the same job.

  Two hours saw the little town settled down again, doors and windows closed tight but tranquil.

  We made our report to Captain Partridge, Captain Young first for being senior to me.

  “Harbour taken, sir, and pickets of my men stationed on the two roads out, north and south along the coast, and on the wider and better-made highway leading inland, sir. Regularly used by buffalo-carts, by the looks of it, sir. Heavy loads. One hundred and two prisoners taken, sir, and under guard. Prisoners are employed in the burial of thirty-eight of their number, which includes all of their officers, sir. First estimate is that between twenty and forty soldiers fled the town, sir. Civilian casualties appear to be trivial, sir. It is possible that the townspeople lost no dead, the fighting all taking place in the harbour and there being no pursuit through the housing.”

  Captain Young’s report was precise and simple. He had taken no casualties but had no glory to dwell on either. I took up the tale.

  “As ordered, sir, my party landed and took the French camp and officer’s quarters in the warehouse. Jamadar Rao led his men into the warehouse, displaying his and their normal high degree of competence and courage.”

  I was quite proud of that sentence, had spent some minutes on it.

  “My group assaulted the camp, finding the French in a state of confusion and disarray. In an action of no more than fifteen minutes we achieved the surrender of the bulk of the French, though an unknown number made their escape into the jungle. Our casualties, sir, amounted to one killed and three wounded of my party and four dead and nine wounded of Jamadar Rao’s people, including one naik dead. Of the wounded, there is small hope for two of mine and six of Jamadar Rao’s people. The warehouses of the harbour are being examined now, sir.”

  “Very well done, gentlemen! Very quick and tidy. The butcher’s bill could have been far worse in the circumstances. My report will make much of the boldness of the assault and of the staunch nature of men and their commanders alike. The French sloop was taken without loss to Leeds Castle’s boarding party, the sloop surrendering to her for mistaking her for a two-deck ship of the Navy.”

  Leeds Castle, in common with most Indiamen, had a single row of gunports along the deck, and a false row beneath them, carefully painted on the hull timbers. It was easy to mistake a Company ship for a Fourth Rate or even a small sixty-four Third.

  “The butcher’s bill was substantial aboard the sloop, casualties from splinters very high.”

  It had been a very satisfactory morning. It left, however, the question of what to do with the French prisoners. As it stood, there had been a piratical attack upon the harbour and the Fre
nch had been destroyed. That had happened before to English, French and Dutch outposts in the Orient, was not out of the ordinary. The local people were fierce fighters. In this case, prisoners returned to France would tell the story of an attack by the Company’s forces, which would be an act of war. The prisoners could not return.

  None of us would have any part of massacring the taken men.

  Captain Partridge rather uneasily said that a solution had been put in place in advance, worked out between Mr Arbuthnot and others in Bombay.

  “Amboina, gentlemen. The Dutch have a need for workers there and will take them, no questions asked. Leeds Castle is to call there en route for Bombay.”

  Sold as slaves, in effect. It was better than putting them to the sword, the sole alternative. Captain Young seemed upset but said nothing. I nodded.

  “What of the sloop, sir?”

  “Strip it down and do as you see fit with the hull, when we have time. We cannot risk the French easily recognising their vessel in the next few months. The prisoners from the sloop to go to Amboina as well.”

  It was ruthless, perhaps, but the like had happened before and no doubt would again. The East was no place for men with scruples.

  All of our qualms of conscience were quelled within the hour, the sepoys discovering a warehouse containing hundreds of tons of crushed tin ore, stacked up in hessian sacks ready for transport to a refining smelter.

  “The Chinaman said that he had hoped for a cargo of tin, sir. It explains the heavy traffic on the cart-road inland, sir.”

  It changed the nature of our activities for the next few days. Instead of looting and leaving, it made sense to man a fort and claim the harbour for the Company. Tin was scarce and the demand for it in England was high. The Company would want this port.

  “There must be a permanent garrison, Mr Jackson, and it must be yours. Keep all of your followers, Mr Jackson, and hold until replacements come. I have no authority to leave Captain Young and his battalion here, otherwise I would. But the sepoys were to hold the port for a few days only while we made all tidy and I cannot change their orders.”