China Flyer (3 page)

Sea spray misting his face, Horne lowered the spyglass and saw with his naked eye that the distant white speck was not sun glittering on silver waves but a ship approaching off the starboard bow.

From aloft, Jud verified, ‘Full sail, sir.’

Horne raised the spyglass; he estimated that the ship’s foresail was attached to a long boom but doubted if she was a native craft.

‘Sloop, sir,’ called Jud. ‘Flying no colours.’

Beside Horne on the quarter-deck Babcock
asked, ‘Enemy?’

Horne had forgotten about Babcock’s indiscipline, all his concentration on the approaching ship. Her foresail might be attached to gaff mast and boom but she was probably not one of the British sloops-of-war often rigged as a brigantine. She might be a packet boat carrying mail and passengers for Bombay, but if so, why was she bearing down on the
Huma
?
The frigate flew no flag. A rendezvous with an unidentified ship would be dangerous in these waters so infested with pirates and privateers.

Deciding to test the sloop’s intention, Horne called to the helm, ‘Two points to starboard.’

Spyglass back to his eye, he watched the white sail follow his tack and thought again about pirates. He had first sailed these waters seven years ago under Commodore James, Watson’s predecessor in Bombay Castle, serving as a midshipman aboard the flagship,
Protector.
The mission had been to flush out Malagasy pirates along the Malabar Coast,
but James had remarked that India’s western shores could never be totally rid of robbers who preyed on its busy trading routes.

Did the sloop belong to such a Malagasy chieftain?

‘Sails ho!’ Jud shouted from his perch. ‘Two sails on the northern horizon … two to the south …’

Horne swept his spyglass to the left. To the right. He spotted four white specks flanking the sloop, smaller craft which might possibly be a fishing fleet although it was unlikely they would be so far from the coast.

‘Sloop coming up fast, sir,’ reported Jud.

‘How many out there?’ asked Babcock.

‘One sloop and four coasting vessels?’

‘Pattimars?’

Horne could not yet make out whether the small craft were native vessels. If they were, they could be fitted with guns, tipping the odds against the
Huma
’s
fire power.

‘Hoist colours,’ he ordered Babcock.

‘Aye, aye, sir,’ answered Babcock in unexpected form.

To Kiro, Horne bellowed, ‘Clear for action!’

Moments later bare feet hurried across deck to the gun stations, Kiro dashing from crew to crew.

When the distant sloop still failed to raise her flag, Horne was convinced she was not approaching for any harmless exchange of information, for a peaceful rendezvous.

Aloft, Jud hailed, ‘Ahoy, sir!’

Horne snapped open his spyglass. The smaller vessels were widening their arc.

Strangely, though, the sloop continued on course …

No. She was tacking …

Jud had also spotted the change in the sloop’s direction.

‘Sloop going about.’

The mystery vessel was close enough now for Horne to
study the sleek line of her hull. His fist tightened on the spyglass as he caught sight of her gun ports; had the cannon been run out? As he watched he saw an object pass over the gunwale.

‘Boat lowered,’ reported Jud from his perch.

Boat
?
Why should the captain be lowering an open craft at such a moment?

The sloop was staying on the silver crested waves. But Horne ignored the shifting vessel as he scoured the water for the boat lowered in the change of course. What was happening? Did the sloop carry a sick man? Was there disease aboard? Fever?

The
Huma
’s
rails were lined with craning necks as the sloop receded to the east, leaving the small boat tossing from crest to crest on the choppy ocean.

As Babcock hurried men to lower a rowing crew to collect the small boat, Horne studied it through his spyglass, watching it fall and rise on the waves.

A strange object caught his eye. Yes, there was a man in the open boat. He was lying face-up on the thwarts. A red stain on his chest told Horne that his throat had been slit. The carved wooden fist attached to his right hand proclaimed his identity.

The only sounds were the slush of lapping water against the
Huma
hove-to in the wind and the scraping of rope on a pulley as Jingee’s crew raised the rowing boat from the sea. The other hands crowded the larboard rail, staring at the blood-stained corpse sprawled face-upwards in the small craft.

Babcock was standing beside Horne. ‘Why would
somebody
put a dead man to sea?’

‘For us to do precisely what we’re doing,’ answered Horne. From the quarter-deck he could not only identify the pirate whom Babcock had fought in Bombay but could also see the blotches of scarlet dotting the man’s drenched clothes.

‘I don’t get your meaning.’ Babcock’s earlier swagger had vanished at the sight of the corpse.

‘But you recognise him?’ Horne pointed at the corpse, wondering if Babcock was being stupid or merely incapable of grasping the ramifications of such a situation. Admittedly, it was bizarre.

‘Hell, yes, I recognise him,’ Babcock mumbled. ‘It’s the guy from back in town. The man I fought.’ Pulling nervously on his ear, he added, ‘But why did his mates have to knife him and put him to sea in that peanut shell? Why tie the wooden mitt on his fist?’

Horne began his interpretation of the situation. ‘The man didn’t finish the fight with you and worse than dishonouring himself, he disgraced his friends. To fight and lose is better than not fighting to the bitter end.’

‘You stopped us,’ Babcock reminded Horne.

‘I’d do the same again. But that doesn’t change these people’s customs and superstitions. Don’t forget, Babcock, they’re Malagasy. Proud and steeped in folklore. When such a man is challenged to fight, he is expected to kill or be killed. A fight is fought to the finish. But yours wasn’t. Therefore his friends are taking up where he left off. Now. Here.’

‘Is that … law?’

‘More like tradition.’

‘Hell, Horne. I didn’t ask to get involved in no
tradition
.’

‘If I remember correctly, Babcock, you told the man you could beat him in a fight. Any way he chose.’

‘True …’

‘The man chose an old Indian way of fighting. It was to be a fight to the death. But he was denied both victory and defeat so his friends are finishing it for him. With us.’

‘A dead body? That’s a hat in the ring?’ Babcock shook his head. ‘I don’t understand any of it.’

‘The body’s their gage. Their challenge to us.’ Horne added, ‘They’ll be back to see if we accept it.’

Against the hazy coastline the sloop glimmered small and white, waiting, while the four native craft dotted the horizon like pearls loosely strung on black wire.

Babcock glanced over his shoulder. ‘All five of them are coming after us?’

‘They want to make certain they finish the fight this time.’

‘They’ll slaughter us.’

‘That’s what they hope to do.’

Pulling his ear, Babcock admitted, ‘It’s my fault. It’s me they want.’

Kiro emerged from the men crowding the port entry. Scrambling up the ladder, he reported to Horne, ‘Sir, the body’s been stabbed many times.’

Jingee followed Kiro.’ Captain sahib, the man’s throat has been slit like a chicken.’

Babcock asked miserably, ‘Why would they slit his throat and then stab him? Why not just throw him overboard in the boat and be done with it?’

Jingee’s dark eyes twinkled as he waited to speak. ‘Captain sahib?’

Horne nodded permission.

Jingee explained in his precisely-spoken English, ‘The Malagasy detest cowardice, Captain sahib. I suspect they used the man to absorb any unmanliness aboard their ship.’

‘Like a scapegoat,’ Horne said.

‘Yes, Captain sahib. Such behaviour is difficult for many Europeans to understand. First, the Malagasies slit the man’s throat, then probably knifed him in a ritual killing before setting the body adrift.’

Jingee’s explanation concurred with Horne’s own theory. ‘They put the body to sea for us to find it and haul it aboard. The corpse is our challenge.’

Jingee bowed from the waist, complimenting, ‘I should not be surprised, Captain sahib, that a man like you understands such things.’

‘Damned savages,’ mumbled Babcock.

Horne ordered Jingee, ‘Have the body sewn in a bag.’

‘Shall I also say prayers over the body, Captain sahib?’ asked Jingee.

Horne waved his hand dismissively. His thoughts were on the
Huma
and the fate of his men, not the reincarnation of a pirate into some higher caste in his next life-cycle.

Sending Kiro and Jingee to dispose of the body as quickly and respectfully as possible, he raised his spyglass to see if his hunch was proving correct.

The sloop was changing tack, he saw, and the native craft spreading in formation, two pattimars widening to the north, the other pair gliding south.

Babcock asked, ‘The buggers coming back?’

Horne was busily formulating an idea, believing that the pirates were creating what might prove to be a claw to close around the lone frigate.

Hove-to, the furling of the fore topsails had quieted the
Huma,
bringing her into the wind. Starboard to the open sea, she rose and dropped on the choppy water, steadied by the staysails.

Giving orders to loose all sail to the wind, Horne kept checking the pirate flotilla’s steady progress towards the
Huma.

At his side Babcock moved uneasily. ‘We’re going to make a run for it?’

Horne scoured the horizon for further sail as he answered. ‘If they don’t get a fight from us, they’ll make trouble for some innocent party later.’

Babcock frowned at the raider’s flotilla. ‘We’re going to take on all … five?’

Horne ignored the question, calling to the helm, ‘Steady as you go, Groot. Steady.’

As the mainsails caught the wind, the
Huma
charged forward, the gust heeling her over, waves bursting across the prow.

The tilting deck, the breeze, the shuddering canvas overhead, reminded Horne that he was where he wanted to be. He momentarily forgot about Babcock beside him, even about the threatening enemy, and reflected that he had been too long on land, too long without a command. In Bombay he became short-tempered, pessimistic; he lived aimlessly from day to day.

Looking at the spread sails, he saw the new crew scurrying like flies across the yards. This was not the first time he had seen such a transformation of farmers and herdsmen into sea hands. It would probably not be the last.

Shortage of manpower was becoming too common. Horne seldom enjoyed a full complement of men to divide
into four-hour watches with dog watches. He had learned, too, to do without officers, inventing a makeshift rating to adapt to his crew. But, then, if he truly wanted a tightly run ship, could he not always join the Royal Navy?

A touch on his shoulder brought Horne back to the present.

‘Horne, I guess I should say I’m sorry.’

Did Babcock’s indiscipline truly bother him? Why hadn’t he taken drastic steps with him before? Did the lack of manpower make him suffer such laxness?

Babcock went on, ‘Like I said, this is my making.’

‘Babcock, there’s a time and place for apologies. This is not one of them.’

‘But—’

Over the crash of the waves, Horne shouted, ‘At the moment we have a battle to fight, Babcock.’

‘Aye, aye, Captain,’ answered Babcock cheekily.

Friendship was the problem, Horne realised. He had become too close to his Marines. How do you tie a friend to a grating and lash him for not addressing you
properly
?

As the
Huma
set a course straight for the pirate flotilla, Babcock remained near Horne on the quarter-deck.

As a boy, Babcock had never dreamt of going to sea. Born on a farm in America’s lush Ohio Valley, he had been raised to work the land, destined to marry the neighbour’s golden-haired daughter and become part of the pioneer community hewn from the wilderness. When he was nineteen, he quarrelled with his father and ran away from home, working in blacksmiths’ forges and on freight lines, doing any odd job he could find as he made his way eastwards, travelling through Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts.

His solid muscle and light-hearted disposition helped him readily find work; in Boston, he was signed aboard a trading ship bound for the Orient. But his size also proved to be a disadvantage. Two weeks out of port, an officer picked an argument with him. Babcock fought to defend himself but it was his bad luck to knock the officer’s head against a capstan. When the merchant ship called in Bombay, Babcock was sent ashore in shackles and locked in a cell honey-combed deep beneath Bombay Castle. It was fromthe subterranean prison that Adam Horne had chosen him to become a candidate for the Bombay Marine. Training with Horne on Bull Island had convinced
Babcock
that he had at last found a niche for himself in the world.

But belonging to Horne’s unit also had its drawbacks. The spells between missions were too long; weeks and months spent ashore. Babcock easily become bored, and when he was bored he drank too much. When he drank, he always got into trouble.

He had been drinking when he had met a group of leather-faced Asians in a Bombay beer shop. They had argued in pidgin English that all
topiwallahs
should get out of India. He had challenged any of the men to fight him in any manner they chose.

The ocean misted against Babcock’s bare chest as he gazed out to sea. He knew that Horne had a right to be angry with him; the knife-and-fist fight had been stupid, had put the
Huma
and all the men aboard in jeopardy.

Babcock also had another problem apart from drinking. An older problem.

Why couldn’t he address another man as a superior? He tried hard to remember to call Horne ‘sir’ and ‘Captain’; but he either forgot or the words stuck in his throat. Why? Didn’t he like submitting to authority? Couldn’t he admit that another man was better than himself, more superior in some way? Why couldn’t he pull his forelock and
grovel? Did it have to do with the fight he had had with his father years ago in Ohio? In his dreams he often confused the faces of his father and Horne. In his dreams, he often called Horne ‘pa’.