China Flyer (5 page)

‘Captain sahib,’ a voice pleaded in the hazy distance. ‘You must eat, Captain sahib.’

Horne emerged from unconsciousness, aware that he was lying on a narrow bunk, that the bunk was aboard a ship rising and dipping on ocean swells, and that there were figures gathered round him in the ship’s cabin, staring at him.

Attempting to raise himself on his elbows, he felt pain stab across his skull and collapsed back onto the thin pallet.

‘Captain sahib,’ implored the voice alongside him. ‘You must not move, Captain sahib.’

The speaker was Jingee; he was dressed in a fresh white cotton tunic and turban, holding a tray with a steaming mug of tea and a plate piled high with golden
chapatis.
Kiro and Groot hovered beside Jingee, their faces set with concern, Groot nervously twisting his blue cap.

Horne tried to speak but, feeling a sickly dryness in his mouth, swallowed and tried again. ‘What … happened?

‘You’ve been asleep for almost a day, Captain sahib.’

‘A day?’ Horne again tried to raise himself.

Setting down the tray, Jingee hurriedly arranged the hemp pillows behind Horne’s head as Groot asked, ‘Do you remember being struck,
schipper
?
Do you remember the boarding party?’

Horne recalled the Malagasy flotilla, the sea battle with the pattimars and sloop, his orders for hand-to-hand combat.

Jingee reminded him, ‘A few minutes after we boarded
the sloop, Captain sahib, someone hit you on the head.’

‘From behind,
schipper,’
added Groot.

Kiro stepped closer to the bed. ‘But I got your attacker, sir.’ He cut down the edge of one hand and grinned.

Horne looked in turn at Kiro, Groot and Jingee. ‘Was anybody killed?’

‘None of our men,
schipper,’
Groot answered proudly.

‘Where’s the sloop?’

Holding his blue cap in front of him, Groot replied, ‘It burned,
schipper.’

‘The Malagasies set it afire,’ elaborated Jingee. ‘They burn their ships rather than allow them to be captured, Captain sahib.’

‘The pattimars burned, too?’ Horne asked.

‘Aye,
schipper.
But their men escaped on rafts and small boats. Probably picked up by the first two pattimars.’

‘Did we take any prisoners?’

‘None,
schipper.’

Jingee interjected with disdain, ‘The stupid
sudras
prefer to drown than to come aboard a
feringhi
boat.’

Horne forced himself to sit higher on the pallet. ‘Groot, get me details of damages to the ship.’

Jingee rushed to Horne’s side. ‘Captain sahib, you must rest.’

Horne ignored the throbbing pain inside his head and pushed away Jingee’s hand. ‘Who’s in charge of the watch?’ he asked. ‘Who’s charting our course?’

‘Jud and I chart our course,
schipper.’

Throwing back the coverlet, Horne realised he was naked. ‘Jingee, bring me my breeches,’ he ordered.

As Jingee reluctantly handed Horne his clothes, Kiro and Groot answered his questions about crew, the damages the
Huma
had suffered in battle, the repairs done on hull and sails.

Horne only called an end to the meeting when a wave of nausea engulfed him. Reassuring the anxious men that he
only needed sleep, he sent them from the cabin and tried to ignore the niggling fear that his injuries were more serious than he was willing to admit.

The
Huma
continued her passage down the west coast of India without further incident. Dirk Groot charted the course through the Gulf of Mannar, taking advantage of the Magercoil winds to pass through the Ceylon Strait and begin the voyage north towards the settlements of Cuddalore and Pondicherry, with hopes of reaching Madras no later than the second week out of Bombay.

Halfway up the Coromandel Coast, Jud spotted the sails of a merchantman flying the red, white and blue pennant of the East India Company. Apart from a few fishing vessels off the south Arcot district, no other ships were sighted.

The sky remained cloudless day and night; the wind decreased after rounding the mainland’s tip and the sun’s torrid temperature became more apparent as the breeze waned.

Babcock and Jud served with Groot as ship masters, dividing the watches between them and, in their spare time, selecting men from the crew who showed interest in navigation. At the same time, Kiro drilled new gun crews as well as overseeing the repairs on the ship.

For some days Horne remained too ill to resume his usual place on the quarter-deck. Despite his persistent bouts of dizziness, however, he insisted on spending at least short periods in the fresh air.

His favourite time became the night when the sky was a vast bowl of twinkling pinpoints, occasionally slashed by falling stars. Jud’s soft midnight songs drifted over the continuously rolling waves.

Left alone during his nightly vigils, Horne remembered
his early days of training on the tumbledown Wiltshire estate of the old soldier, Elihu Cornhill. Cornhill had seen service in Canada and afterwards tutored young students in tactics he had observed among the North American Indians—surprise attack, survival in the wilderness,
camouflage
. He preferred choosing young men who had been involved with crime, either as a perpetrator or victim. A radical in his thinking, he equated warfare with crime.

As Horne recuperated in his late-night watches, he wondered if there had been a serious gap in Cornhill’s training. The old soldier had tutored his pupils for captivity—how to survive solitary confinement, how to resist enemy interrogation; but what does a fighting man do when he is sick or dying? How does a man combat the feeling of sheer uselessness?

Groot diverted his anxiety about Horne’s physical
well-being
into concern about Babcock. There was a delicate subject that he must broach with him.

A light sleeper, since leaving Bombay Groot had been awakened every night in his hammock by Babcock calling out in his sleep, ‘Pa … don’t hit me, Pa …’

Should he ask Babcock if something was troubling him about his father? Groot spent each forenoon watch at the helm, worrying about his predicament as the gentle slopes and curves of the Coromandel Coast slipped by off the larboard bow.

Groot did not know whether Babcock’s father was alive. The five Marines were good friends but no one except Jingee ever talked much about family. The main reason was that most of the Marines had no home ties.

Groot’s parents had died in Holland from fever when he had been a small child. As he was shunted from relative to relative, he struggled to keep a cheery face and learned how
to entertain himself by escaping into fantasy games. A Viking king, the Sultan of Constantinople, an explorer crossing the Americas—the young Groot had been all by turns, and his dreams for adventure had brought him to India on a Dutch merchant ship before his eighteenth birthday; carelessness landed him in gaol a little over a year later.

Knowing where he could steal a wagon of precious Saidabad silk belonging to the Honourable East India Company, he had made arrangements to sell it and return home to Amsterdam with the money, imagining himself entertaining all his friends and relatives with sumptuous feasts every night of the week.

Unluckily for Groot, the man who had said he was a Dutch trader interested in buying the contraband silk turned out to be an agent for the Honourable East India Company. Groot was sentenced to twenty years in the cells beneath Bombay Castle.

In the two-and-a-half-years which Groot had served of his sentence, he had returned to his fantasy life, planning adventures, imagining himself as everything from an oriental potentate to a gladiator in Rome’s ancient games. Since being released from prison by Adam Horne and training to become a Bombay Marine, however, he had found less and less need to day-dream about a life of adventure. Belonging to Horne’s elite squadron, he had helped kidnap the French Commander-in-Chief in India, fought pirates in the Indian Ocean, stolen a fortune in gold coins.

Groot’s optimistic nature helped him through the dull days ashore between assignments, but recently he was finding it increasingly difficult to share rooms with Babcock in Bombay.

On the last mission, Babcock had bought a monkey in Madagascar. After the animal had almost caused their ship to founder on hidden reefs, Groot had thought Babcock
would get rid of the pesky creature. But Babcock had taken the monkey back to the rooms in Bombay, and every night the wretched little beast would wake Groot from his sleep. Nevertheless, Groot tried to control his temper, for he knew Babcock loved the monkey; it was no secret that he would hate to part with it.

Thinking he would be able to sleep peacefully once he was back at sea, Groot found that it was Babcock himself who now disturbed his rest, calling out for his ‘Pa’ in troubled nightmares.

How long-suffering did a friend have to be? Should he tell Babcock about his cries? For some reason he thought the American might be embarrassed by the disclosure. Perhaps he should swap hammocks with Jud or Kiro and let one of them have the problem of telling Babcock.

Groot remembered his Aunt Sophie criticising him many years ago—
You’re
too
considerate
for
your
own
good,
child.
You
let
your
friends
walk
over
you.

‘The encounter with the Malagasies was brief. Damage to the
Huma
insufficient to slow progress …’

Horne lowered his pen. Less than a day remained before entering the Madras Roads. He was completing the dreaded task of writing the report for Governor Pigot on the voyage from Bombay to Madras.

The combination of sleep, Jingee’s good cooking, and fresh air had rallied Horne’s strength. The only thing that troubled him at the moment was a question which Kiro had recently put to him.

‘Captain, sir, I have a morbid question to ask,’ Kiro had announced the previous night on the first watch.

Horne had replied, ‘I’ve always been accused of being a trifle too morbid, Kiro.’

‘What would happen to your Marines, sir, if you were killed in battle.’

‘The unit as you know it, Kiro, would most likely be disbanded.’

Now Horne sat at his desk and wondered if he could leave a squadron in a last will and testament: To so-and-so I bequeath five men good and true.

Hmmm. He must consider the idea.

Governor Pigot rose from behind the gilded desk in his chambers in the Governor’s House and extended a small pink hand towards the chair facing him. ‘Welcome to Fort St George, Captain Horne,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Your Excellency.’ Horne was as greatly surprised by Pigot’s cordiality as he had been by the prompt summons to his headquarters. The
Huma
had only dropped anchor yesterday in the Madras Roads.

Pigot plopped down in his chair. ‘I read your report, Captain Horne, and was particularly intrigued with the account of the Malagasy attack. But you didn’t mention the taking of any prizes from the infidels.’

‘The Malagasies burned their vessels to prevent us taking them, Your Excellency.’

‘You recorded a personal injury, Captain Horne. How serious was it? Do you still suffer? Are there serious complications?’

‘I received a slight concussion while boarding the enemy sloop, Your Excellency.’ Horne regretted having had to mention the incident in the written statement. ‘I feel greatly improved, sir,’ he added truthfully.

‘Capital. I should hate any incapacity to delay the search for George Fanshaw.’

Pigot dropped his eyes to the desk, idly shuffling papers as he added, ‘Fanshaw’s defection took us all by surprise, Horne. But, then, betrayals are always difficult to accept, aren’t they?’ He looked up at Horne. ‘Commodore Watson did mention George Fanshaw to you, Horne? The reason I sent for the Bombay Marine?’

‘Commodore Watson informed me, Your Excellency, that an agent’s missing from Fort St George,’ answered Horne, noticing that Pigot’s manner had become agitated. ‘Commodore Watson also said, sir, that you would supply me with more complete details.’

Pigot pushed his chair back from the desk and folded both hands across the line of pearl buttons fronting his buttercup-yellow waistcoat.

There was a moment of silence in the tall-ceilinged room. Sounds drifted in through the double windows—the footfalls of soldiers marching on cobblestones, the creak of wagon wheels moving towards the native quarter, the distant crash of the surf beyond the fortress’s eastern sea wall.

‘You’re familiar enough with Company hierarchy, Horne,’ Pigot began more composedly, ‘to know that a senior merchant is responsible directly to the Governor. This is true in all three presidencies—Bombay, Calcutta, and here in Madras.’

As Horne listened, he decided
that, despite Pigot’s reputation for being an obstinate and sullen man, he had a definite congeniality to him. Or perhaps it was the uneasiness in his voice which mellowed him.

Pigot proceeded, his anxiety becoming plainer. ‘Watson should have told you, too, that gold’s missing from our coffers, Captain. But the missing gold’s not the worst part.’

What could be more important to the East India Company than gold? Horne could not imagine. It was no small wonder that Pigot was vexed.

His florid face quivering with frustration, Pigot explained, ‘Damned Fanshaw also took the
China
Flyer.’

The name meant nothing to Horne.

‘Raising a crew from the dregs of the Black Town, Fanshaw seized the
China
Flyer
and set off across the Bay of Bengal. We know for certain he’s gone as far as the Strait of Malacca because one of our Indiamen sighted the
China
Flyer
off the Nicobars. The frigate’s graceful as a sylph. She was flying no colours but she’s easily recognisable. Plies between Madras and Canton on a regular trading course.’

Pigot jumped up from his chair. Clasping both hands behind his frock-coat, he started pacing the floor. ‘A damned clever man, Fanshaw is. Audacious as hell. And clever. Clever as a hungry monkey.’

He waved one hand at a nearby window, explaining, ‘The surf here’s a large part of the problem. The Madras Roads are notorious. No harbour. No piers. Nothing but those damned rushing breakers. Makes landings bloody difficult. To-ing and fro-ing in those native craft gives the best of sailors quite a soaking.’

Horne pictured the awkward native boats, the
masulahs,
which carried travellers back and forth between anchorage and shore; deep, pliable boats manned by a single oarsman and frequently capsizing.

‘But weighing anchor,’ Pigot continued. ‘Getting the hell out of here. Ah, now. That’s a different matter. Quick pursuit is nigh on impossible.’

He wagged a stubby finger at Horne. ‘George Fanshaw’s no fool to take advantage of the Madras Roads. He boarded the
China
Flyer
and weighed anchor before his absence was missed.’

He resumed his nervous pacing. ‘But Fanshaw’s also a greedy man and that will ultimately be his undoing. You see, Horne, George Fanshaw undoubtedly plans to take advantage of his participation in Company business to profit from the China trade. I know that well enough to stake my life on it.’

‘Excuse me, Your Excellency,’ Horne cautiously
interrupted
. ‘But you say China? Is that where Fanshaw’s gone?’

‘China? Of course. What’s beyond the Malay peninsula but the South China Sea? What’s there apart from … China?’

‘So he chose to sail there on the—’ Horne paused for the name. ‘—the
China
Flyer.’

‘A ship familiar to the Hoppo in Macao. You understand, Fanshaw must receive permission at Macao—a ‘chop’, they call it—to progress up the Pearl River to Whampoa and Canton …’

Pigot paused to study Horne, asking as if it were an afterthought, ‘What do you know about China, Captain Horne? The island of Macao? The traders of Canton? The Hoppo?’

‘Only what I know through study and hearsay, Your Excellency.’

Pigot nodded. ‘Let me explain a little of what awaits you in China, Captain Horne.’

Governor Pigot anxiously paced the red-tiled floor of his chambers, hands clasped behind his frock-coat as he gave Horne a brief lesson in the history of the Honourable East India Company and China.

‘England’s trade with China goes back further than our ties with India. One century and a half. As you know, Captain, the Company is now firmly entrenched here in India. But, after a hundred and fifty years, we’ve scarcely tapped the riches of China. Why?’

Pigot paused behind Horne’s chair, answering his own question. ‘The Chinese are an obstinate people, Captain Horne. They refuse to bow to foreigners, whereas we ourselves have to kowtow—literally bang our foreheads on the decks of our ships—in front of them and pay dearly for every scrap of silk we get our hands on.’

Horne was pleased that Pigot could not see the smile on his face.

Walking on, Pigot elaborated. ‘I believe the year was 1612 when we opened a post at Firando. That’s in Japan. It
was from Firando that the Company expanded to Taiwan—on the island of Formosa—and to Amoy, a port on the China mainland. The Ming Dynasty ruled China then and were relatively favourable to foreign merchants putting down roots there.

‘Spurred on by a modest success, the Company decided to expand to Canton. But there we came squarely up against opposition from the Portuguese. Having established themselves in China around 1550, they naturally resisted our arrival in Macao. But through intercession with the Portuguese governor and—’ Pigot smiled.’—and through the use of a little local force, the Company successfully gained a foothold.’

Horne was not surprised to hear that warfare had gone hand in hand with the East India Company’s trade in China. Cannonfire had also increased their profits here in India.

Pigot lingered in front of a window, staring out at the crashing surf. The narrative seemed to be tempering the agitation he had previously shown. ‘By the year 1670, the Company had trading houses in both Canton and Macao. But, by then, too, the Manchu had toppled the Ming Dynasty, which created new problems for foreign traders.

‘The Manchu see all Europeans as barbarians, Captain Horne. They burned our original ports in Amoy and Taiwan. They only allowed us to continue trading in Canton under very difficult, very costly circumstances. Their demand for gifts is outrageous. The forms and warrants they require are not only time-consuming but frequently without purpose.’

Horne held his silence but thought how refreshing it was to hear the East India Company complain about other powers obliging them to toe the line.

Pigot continued from his position by the window. ‘Each subsequent year, the Manchu’s demands grow more
burdensome. They appointed an Imperial Superintendent of Custom, the Hoppo, who boards each arriving ship to collect his
cumshaw
—a gift whose value dictates how thoroughly a ship will be searched. Oh, make no mistake about it, Captain. Despite China’s profusion of dialects and tongues, they manage to find a common language with our captains, and haggle like fishwives over fees and charges. When they finally agree on a fee, the Hoppo presents a ship with its chop to proceed to Whampoa. That’s the port of Canton, as you may or may not know.

‘Around the turn of the century, the Manchu appointed an Imperial merchant to work alongside the Hoppo and supervise all foreign trade. From that time, the Hoppo, the new Imperial merchant, and the men of his new agency all had to be plied with gifts. Free trade as we knew it came to an end.’

Free trade? Horne bit back a retort. He had heard another version of the story. The Honourable East India Company had insisted on a monopoly with China,
appointing
an official in China called the
Tai-pan.
It was then that China countered the British request by creating their ‘Imperial merchant’. According to Horne’s information, it was the British who originally stopped the free trade with China. The Chinese merely went one better!

Pigot proceeded with his history.

‘The Company believed affairs could not become worse but, in 1720, the Manchu introduced a new monster. The Co-Hung. This is a committee of merchants with whom we now have to deal, men called ‘mandarins’. The only good thing to come out of this change is that the Manchu now grant European ships permission to stay in Macao for the winter months.’

Pigot looked over his shoulder at Horne, saying as an aside, ‘The advantageous time to sail to China is between Spring and September. A captain must leave with the north-east monsoon which begins in the spring.’

Questions were beginning to form in Horne’s mind—about China, George Fanshaw, and the ship which Fanshaw had supposedly commandeered from the Madras Roads.

Pigot gripped the lapels of his frock-coat, saying, ‘Ten years passed before we got our next shock.

‘Until 1755, the Co-Hung was not involved in the disposal of foreign cargo. But the Manchu suddenly forbade all trade with small merchants, whether buying or selling, especially those with anchorages outside the harbours. All foreigners must now go directly to Canton and deal with the government-sponsored trade. Naturally this is a ruling made by the mandarins and we can only deduce from it that their powers are on the increase.’

Horne asked, ‘Mr Fanshaw’s familiar with these
committees
? The Co-Hung? The Hoppo? The mandarins and the gift-giving?’

Pigot paused beside his desk. ‘George Fanshaw originally came out from London as a clerk. A bright young lad, he learned several Hindu dialects. Then he began learning Malayan. Next Chinese. More and more dialects. He became an important translator for our traders, gradually becoming a trader and agent himself. If there’s anything to know about China, Fanshaw knows it.’

‘And you think, sir, he’s in Canton now?’

Pigot’s earlier agitation had returned. ‘Most definitely. He’s gone there to buy goods cheap and reap a quick profit back in England. I shall give you more details about Fanshaw after you have studied the charts of Macao, Canton, and the whole area.’

Horne thought of the vast South China Sea, and the slim chance of finding one ship in it.

Pigot saw his furrowed brow. ‘The slightest lead will help the Company, Captain Horne. My suggestion is to make straight away for Macao.’

‘Shall I have access to the Company’s trading records with the Chinese, as well as sailing charts, Your Excellency?’
The prospect of embarking soon for China excited Horne, despite the awesome task ahead of him.

‘Everything you need to see is in our library, Captain. It’s located next to the new arsenal … where the old one used to be.’

Pigot moved behind his desk. ‘I dare say, Horne, you know where the old arsenal was.’ He sat down laughing.

Horne gave a start. It was the first reference that Pigot had made to the Bombay Marine’s previous visit to Fort St George. Horne had ordered the arsenal to be exploded.

Reaching for a sheet of paper, Pigot went on, ‘I have a letter here for you, Horne, which will serve as permission to use the library.’

A few hours later Horne began working his way though the leatherbound chart cases which the secretary brought to his desk in the library. It was not until he had searched through the third case that Horne realised that the charts he was looking for were missing from each set.

Someone had anticipated his visit to the library.