The Bombay Marines Read online

  Rain dripping from his face, Pilkington leaned closer to Horne and shouted over the wind, ‘Sir, I brought you covering.’

  Ignoring the coat which Pilkington offered him, Horne continued weighing the idea which had occurred to him: a possible answer to his present dilemma and at least one reason for the behaviour of the three enemy ships.

  He looked into Pilkington’s rain-covered face. ‘The answer’s on the chart.’

  Pilkington leaned his head closer to hear.

  ‘Bull’s charts!’ shouted Horne. ‘Our answer’s on the charts drawn by Commodore Bull!’

  Pilkington shook his head. He did not understand what Horne meant.

  ‘The answer!’ Horne pointed ashore.

  Seeing confusion on Pilkington’s face, he realized it was futile to try to explain himself in a howling gale.

  ‘I want to see you in my cabin,’ he shouted. ‘My cabin!’

  Pilkington nodded to show he understood.

  Horne remembered that the quartermaster, Jim Striker, had replaced George Tandimmer at the wheel.

  ‘You. Tandimmer. Merlin. And Rajit. I want to see the four of you in my cabin.’ He held up four fingers. ‘Four!’

  Pilkington managed a salute. He turned, bracing himself against the gale, and moved towards the ladder.

  A roller smashed over the taffrail. Pilkington stopped, steadying himself in its wash, and continued towards the ladder. Horne followed in Pilkington’s wake.

  * * *

  At the foot of the companionway Horne shed his dripping frock coat and cocked hat. He pushed open the door of his cabin, stowing the sodden objects in the nearest locker and grabbed the first item he found in a sea chest to use as a towel.

  Moving towards the teak chart case as he rubbed his face and hair, he looked through the racks, finding the chart marked ‘Panaji Bank’.

  Enough light poured through the stern windows for him to read the vellum map spread on his desk. He did not raise his eyes from the indigo markings as he called for Pilkington and the other three men to enter the cabin.

  ‘That’s the reason right there.’ Horne stabbed his finger at the chart. ‘They’re wreckers.’

  The four men looked from Horne down to the chart, and a silence fell over the cabin.

  Pilkington spoke first. ‘Wreckers, sir?’

  ‘A trap I should have expected.’ Horne resumed drying his hair.

  Pilkington bent over the desk, careful not to drip any rainwater on the chart.

  Horne pointed towards the coastline. ‘See. By those tide markings. There’s a bank.’

  Confused, Pilkington raised his eyes from the chart. A few minutes ago, Horne had been pacing the quarterdeck in the storm, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Now he was enthusiastic, confident, a completely different man.

  George Tandimmer looked to where Horne’s finger pointed on the chart. ‘Angria’s Reef.’

  Horne nodded, shooting a conspiratorial glance at his Sailing Master.

  Pilkington’s voice was cautious. ‘A reef stands between us and the coastline?’

  Horne’s excitement was growing. ‘Yes. There’s been a drift and we’re dead off what’s called Angria’s Reef. We usually make east of it. But whoever those pirates are, they lured us towards the coastline.’

  Pausing, Horne looked down and saw that he was using his new silk shirt for a towel.

  The four men waited for him to continue.

  Horne tossed the shirt into a corner. ‘We’re trapped. North and south. With Angria’s Reef between us and shore.’

  Dick Merlin’s ruddy face tightened with anger. ‘So that bloody pop-gun fight was nothing but a trick to lure us off course.’

  Horne looked at his gun captain. ‘That’s right, Merlin. They have us exactly where they want us.’

  ‘But they caught some of our fire, sir.’ Merlin looked from Horne to Pilkington and Rajit. ‘They took two broadsides and a blast right up their arse. We can at least grin at that, can’t we?’

  Horne saw no reason to give any unrealistic hopes. ‘They’ll be the ones grinning, Merlin, when they gather our cannons from the wreckage on the reef.’

  Tandimmer moved forward. ‘Sir, should we forget about …’ He tapped the vellum, ‘… here?’

  Horne remained silent, keeping his eyes on Pilkington, Merlin and Rajit as they bent over the desk to study the point on the chart at which Tandimmer was pointing. Horne was pleased that at least one of his men had realized this possibility for movement.

  Pilkington looked from the map to Horne. He understood Tandimmer’s suggestion but disagreed. ‘Sir, that’s open sea! The storm’s from the west. That could be worse than the reef!’

  Horne shook his head. ‘At least we have a chance there, Lieutenant.’

  ‘But the gale, sir.’ Pilkington looked to Merlin and Rajit for support. ‘The wind could drive us straight onto the reef.’

  ‘Possibly, Lieutenant. But we have a better chance of escape if we beat to windward, trying to make board by board. The going will be slow and tedious. But we must try to make headway.’

  He scanned the faces of his men for their reaction. Pilkington’s thin eyebrows were knit, obviously still unconvinced by the plan. Merlin remained red with rage at the wreckers. Rajit showed no opinion one way or other, a true soldier. Tandimmer’s freckled face beamed with the possibility of tackling the challenge.

  ‘We have no time to lose, men. We must all work in unison.’ Horne looked at Rajit. ‘Sergeant, detail the prisoners to the bilge pumps for the next watch.’

  Rajit stiffened to attention.

  ‘All prisoners except for three, Sergeant. Leave Groot the Dutchman and Kiro the Japanese for the jib. And Jud the African for up top.’

  ‘Suh!’

  Horne turned to the gunner. ‘Merlin, I want the blocks checked under all the trucks. We don’t need to be chasing twelve-pounders in a storm.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Dismissing Rajit and Merlin, he opened a desk drawer for a flint light. The storm had worsened in the past few minutes, darkening the sky and making a lantern necessary for Pilkington, Tandimmer and himself to be able to study the chart and plot a path to safety.

  * * *

  The Arabian Sea thundered against the Eclipse; steep waves lifted the frigate, tilting her at an incline, and dropped the bow down through the rollers, letting the stern crash into a trough.

  Adam Horne worked with George Tandimmer on the first steps of their plan, tying two helmsmen to the wheel for the men’s safety in the storm, and to hold the westerly course charted away from the coastline.

  Waves swept the decks as the ship rocked side to side, creeping forward board-by-board into the storm under short sail.

  The topsman came down from the main mast and, finding Horne in the protection of the forecastle, reported that Jud, the African prisoner, was following him down from the top gallant.

  Horne sent the topsman below deck to eat supper. Wrapping an oilskin coat tighter around himself, he stepped out from the overhang and tried to spot Jud in the foaming crash of waves.

  Satisfaction from guessing the enemy’s trap had abandoned him. He was remembering that two of the sixteen prison recruits were dead. In the chilling, wet face of the storm’s turbulence, he realized more than ever how undermanned the Eclipse was. He felt a mixture of revulsion at having to waste two human lives and a selfish, cold-hearted outrage at losing valuable manpower for his mission.

  Squinting his eyes against the whipping spray, Horne studied the snapping ratlines for the movement of the African prisoner. He did not want to lose another man.

  Lightning flashed across the sky, making the masts and shrouds flicker in the pattern of spider-webbing against the storm. But there was no sign of Jud.

  Stepping back to the protection of the forecastle, Home shed the long tarpaulin coat and began pulling off his leathered-soled boots. Bare-footed, he moved cautiously across the canting deck, reaching the weather foremo
st shroud, and jumped to grab the ratlines. He climbed hand-over-hand in the biting rain, swinging back and forth in the gale, until he reached the lubber’s hole.

  While the wind pasted his clothes to his body, he swung to the futtock shroud and, hanging backwards from the ropes, continued his climb until he reached the fore top gallant yardarm. Then, steadying himself on the cross tree, he squinted through the driving wind. Jud was stretched a few feet away from him on the yardarm.

  The African lay face downwards, clinging with both arms to the yardarm, the pink soles of his bare feet facing Horne.

  The storm was tossing the ship’s masts in a circle, dipping Jud downwards as the ship tilted to larboard, rushing him backwards into a momentary upright position as she heaved to starboard, his face turned to the sky, then crashing his head back down to the sea.

  A bowline had tangled around Jud’s ankle, and Horne saw that the African could not free himself without releasing his hold.

  Falling belly down on the yardarm, Horne eased himself out towards Jud, using his knees to propel himself, and gradually pulling himself along with his hands. His fingers soon located the cause of the trouble. Rain and wind had tightened the bowline and knotted it firmly around Jud’s ankle.

  Pulling and working at the soaked line with one hand, Horne’s fingers soon tired and he switched to the other hand. The frigate dipped and rose continuously, the storm blowing as if to wrench Home and Jud from their roost.

  Horne finally freed a knot by loosening a gasket holding the bowline and pulled it from the line, so allowing Jud to loosen the rest of the rope with quick jerks of the ankle. He hurried back towards the cross tree and made room for Jud to follow.

  Jud tried his ankle in a few cautionary twists, grinned his gratitude at Horne over his shoulder and scooted in from the yardarm.

  Horne gestured to Jud to lead the way back down to deck.

  A wave crested as Jud reached the futtock shroud, Horne following a short distance behind. Jud cleared the lubber’s hole but Horne waited until the wash of the next wave exploded with a loud crash and diminished into foam.

  Continuing downward, Horne halted occasionally on the slippery ratlines as the gale thrashed him back and forth. Resuming his hand-under-hand descent, he stepped into mid-air with his left foot, felt his right foot slipping on the rope, and the next thing he knew his hand could not find support, and he was falling.

  * * *

  African spirits came through ancestors. But as Jud had never known his parents he prayed instead to the spirit of his dead son, asking the boy to help him save this Englishman who had risked his life rescuing him.

  Adam Horne’s motionless body lay heavy on Jud’s back as he inched his way across the canting deck from the spot where Horne had fallen from the ratlines.

  The waves crashed over the bulwark, washing the deck. Jud paused in the foamy wake, begging his dead son to give him strength to reach the hatch, then continued crawling on his hands and knees towards the coaming.

  Jud’s son had died in childbirth at Sheik All Hadd’s Castle of the Golden Sand, the fortress in Oman where Jud’s Nubian wife, Maringa, had been a household slave.

  Carrying Horne on his back, Jud promised his son that, if this ship reached Bull Island, he would work hard to prove himself a good man, a strong man, to make amends for having turned to crime after Maringa had died.

  Chapter Seven

  A BAD DREAM

  The Eclipse lay before the gale, the sea smothering her decks with iron-black waves as jagged spears of lightning cracked open the sky. The crash of water and thunder was cut by a rasp of rock tearing wood, beginning at the ship’s bow, shaking the frigate … shaking it … shaking it …

  ‘Captain sahib! Captain sahib! Wake up, Captain sahib! You’re having a bad dream!’

  Adam Horne sat bolt upright in bed. He stared at a young turbanned Asian shaking him by the shoulder.

  ‘Captain sahib, you fell and hit your head. You sleep and sleep and then you have, oh such bad dreams. Captain sahib.’

  Horne focused his eyes more clearly and recognized the small, neatly groomed Indian as the prisoner, Jingee, the young dubash who had stabbed an Englishman to death for blaspheming Hindi caste system. Looking round, he saw a food tray on the brass-bound sea chest next to his bed.

  Jingee began straightening the rumpled bed sheets. ‘I boiled you tea, Captain sahib. I cooked you cakes. Moong dal. Very good for you.’

  Horne pushed Jingee aside. ‘I can’t lie here sipping tea and eating cakes in a storm, boy.’

  ‘The storm’s over, Captain sahib.’ Jingee lifted a corner of the thin mattress. ‘We passed through the storm last night.’

  Naked, Horne paused, half-out of the narrow bed. Jingee continued tucking at the foot of the mattress. Horne glanced from Jingee to the stern windows. He noticed for the first time that sunshine poured through the mullioned panes, filling the cabin with bright, golden light.

  ‘We sailed far, far south while you slept, Captain sahib.’

  Horne’s hair was tousled from bed but his eyes were alert and quick, the eyes of a man unfamiliar with his bearings.

  He looked back to Jingee. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

  ‘Ten, twelve hours.’ Jingee shrugged. ‘Do not worry, Captain sahib. Mr Tin Hammer comes every two hours to see if you are awake. Mr Tin Hammer says everything – ship shape.’

  ‘Mr … who?’

  ‘Tin Hammer.’

  Horne was more confused. He remembered climbing the shrouds to the yardarm. He remembered untying the knot from Jud’s ankle. He had followed Jud down to deck but had fallen on the ratlines. He had obviously hit his head and lost consciousness. But what had happened since then? And who was ‘Tin Hammer’?

  Jingee bunched the tips of his small brown fingers together and beat them against both cheeks, explaining, ‘Mr Tin Hammer. The man with oh so many little red dots all over his face.’

  ‘Tandimmer.’

  Jingee nodded. ‘Him.’

  Horne moved back under the sheet, momentarily reassured by the mention of familiar, trustworthy people.

  ‘Those dots are called freckles, Jingee and …’

  Horne paused. What was he doing lying here in bed, taking another man’s word for the safety of his ship?

  Jingee picked up the food tray from the chest and placed it on Horne’s lap. ‘Eat while it’s hot, Captain sahib. You need food.’

  Horne’s first instinct was to push aside the tray and go up on deck. But the food smells were tempting and, telling himself that the Eclipse did not seem to be in peril, he broke off a chunk from the warm wheel of cake.

  He gobbled it down and broke off a second piece. It was like a pancake – bread – and he realised fleetingly how narrow-minded he had been in not eating Indian food when he was ashore.

  He reached for the steaming cup. ‘Hmmm. Orange tea. Delicious.’

  Jingee beamed with pride, steepling the flats of both hands together and bowing. ‘Thank you, Captain sahib. I hope this is better than the food from the galley.’

  Horne chose to ignore this prim little convict’s criticism of the ship’s provisions. He broke off another piece of warm cake as he looked around his cabin.

  The leather envelopes and the ship’s bound ledgers were neatly arranged on his desk. The wooden boxes and wicker hampers were stacked in orderly fashion under the stern window. The carpet had been brushed and lay neatly on a gleaming deck.

  Jingee stood quietly alongside the bed as Horne evaluated the condition of the cabin. ‘I cleaned for you, Captain sahib. But I opened no lockers or chests without your permission.’

  Horne was suspicious of people trying to organize his living habits. He had only considered allowing one person to become so close to him and that had been Isabel.

  ‘Quite right, Jingee.’

  ‘I found these, Captain sahib. I tried to dry them but …’

  Jingee produced two shapeless objects. One was large, the other small, an
d he held them with the tips of his fingers as if he were frightened of them.

  Horne studied the two objects before recognizing his new frock coat and hat – sodden, limp, ruined. Cursing his stupidity for wearing the new uniform in a storm, he broke off another chunk of bread and, as he began chewing, asked, ‘Can you try drying them again, Jingee?’

  ‘Yes, Captain sahib.’

  Like the dutiful dubash Jingee had been trained to be, he continued his report. ‘Captain sahib, the man called Mr Flannery says he’s a surgeon and comes often to examine you in the cabin. But I tell him you need sleep more than him poking at your head. I do not let Mr Flannery disturb you, Captain sahib.’

  ‘Quite right.’ Horne had smelled liquor on Flannery’s breath when he had last spoken to him.

  The cabin – the ship – seemed to be in good order. The sounds of footsteps creaked overhead as the officer of the watch paced the quarterdeck. The call of men’s voices rose with the singing of the shrouds and the creak of timber. A familiar sound of pumps rose from the bilges.

  Horne started the second bread wheel. ‘Tell me, Jingee, what are you doing out of the bilges and here taking care of me?’

  Jingee bowed, palms together. ‘The African man who goes up the masts. He brought you down to the bilges after your fall, Captain sahib.’

  ‘Jud carried me?’

  ‘Yes, Captain sahib. You were unconscious.’

  ‘Jud carried me all the way down to the bilges?’

  ‘That was the only place aboard ship, Captain sahib, you allowed us prisoners to go.’

  Horne realised that Jud had returned the favour, and had ended up by saving his life.

  Jingee continued. ‘I am no sailor, Captain sahib, but I know something about ships and the wise men who sail them. So I told everybody in the bilges that Captain sahib must not be brought to no go-down. I told everybody that it’s only proper for Captain sahib to be in his private cabin. Mr Tin Hammer says I am right. I helped bring you here with Mr Tin Hammer.’

  ‘Tandimmer,’ corrected Horne.

  Jingee bowed. ‘Lieutenant Pilkington, too.’