The War Chest Read online

  Governor Spencer of Bombay, a slim man with a meticulously trimmed moustache and pointed goatee, was wearing a neatly cut but unfashionable frock-coat when he greeted Horne in a second-storey room in Company House. After a curt handshake, he nodded to a pair of gilt chairs in front of the tall, shuttered windows, saying, ‘Let us sit there.’

  Horne sat down, his back to the window, cocked hat on his knee. He had met Spencer on only two previous occasions, both brief, before he had captured General Lally from Madras, a mission which had been ordered by Spencer and his two fellow Governors, Pigot of Madras and Vansittart of Bengal.

  Dispensing with any social niceties, Spencer came straight to the point. ‘As you’re well aware, Captain Horne, the war with France is entering its sixth year.’

  Horne kept his eyes on Spencer’s gaunt face, his complexion apparently untouched by India’s harsh weather which turned most men’s skin to leather.

  The Governor, his voice clipped and impatient, went on. ‘The two countries seem to have reached a stalemate. The fighting has come to a lull. In the meantime, the French are still plagued with the problem which led to Lally’s downfall at Pondicherry: lack of money.’

  Commodore Watson had also mentioned money, Horne remembered. Had Watson known that Spencer was waiting to see him in Port Diego-Suarez? If so, why had he not said anything about it?

  Spencer continued, ‘But only in the past weeks, Captain Horne, have we heard about a consignment of gold being shipped from France to pay their troops in Mauritius.’

  Commodore Watson had known about the mission, Horne was sure of it, but the Governors had obviously forbidden him to say anything about it. So the old walrus had done his best by uttering hints about a treasure ship.

  ‘The British Navy Board has instructed the East India Company to intercept the French gold shipment, Captain Horne. That’s why we are turning to you.’

  Without waiting for Horne’s response, Spencer rose from his chair and moved to a large, delicately painted map stretched on the wall.

  Pointing to the pastel-green tip of Africa, he said, ‘Governor Pigot, Governor Vansittart and myself are calling upon you, Captain Horne, to commandeer the French war chest between the Cape of Good Hope and—’

  As Spencer pointed to a small dot directly east of Madagascar—Mauritius—Horne noticed that the Governor’s fingernails were torn and ragged. Apart from being at variance with his neat appearance, the bitten nails betrayed that he was a very troubled man.

  * * *

  ‘With all due respect, Your Excellency, why does the Navy Board not dispatch its own ships on this mission?’

  Horne’s question surprised Spencer. Looking over his shoulder, he studied the man sitting in the chair, his grey eyes dulling as he formed his answer.

  Turning from the map, he nodded, explaining, ‘His Majesty’s Navy are servants of the King, Captain Horne. When England signs a peace treaty with France—an event which we see as being imminent—England will be made to repay any gold taken in war.’

  ‘Does not the Company’s charter give it the same responsibility as the state, Your Excellency? Would not gold taken from a French ship by the Honourable East India Company also have to be returned by articles of an international treaty?’

  Spencer’s face softened. ‘Yes. But only if the East India Company could be directly connected with the … event—which it will not be if the attack goes as we hope it will.’

  Horne began to understand. ‘The Navy Board—as well as the Company—want unidentifiable raiders to seize the French war chest.’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’

  ‘That’s why you’re turning to—’ Horne decided that only the Marines’ loathsome nickname would be appropriate. ‘—the Bombay buccaneers.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But why choose me to lead the mission, Your Excellency?’

  ‘Your performance at Madras makes you the most likely candidate, Captain Horne.’

  ‘I had the Eclipse.’

  Spencer turned away from Horne. ‘I understand, Captain, that your recent voyage from Bombay to Madagascar was itself interrupted by raiders. I also understand that you helped thwart the attack as well as capture two ships, one of which is a frigate, a fine, strong ship called the Huma.’

  Who told him that? Goodair? Tree?

  Spencer continued, ‘Even as we talk, Captain Horne, below us in the harbour the Huma is undergoing repairs—masts replaced, guns fitted, entirely provisioned and crewed.’

  Horne refused to allow himself to become excited about the possibility of the majestic Huma being assigned to his command. Instead, his voice sharpened as he asked, ‘What ship would have been assigned for the mission had the Huma not been captured, Your Excellency?’

  The young man’s questions disturbed Governor Spencer. He did not like subordinates being so thorough.

  He replied, ‘A Company brig was to have been spared.’

  ‘How, sir, can one ship—brig or frigate—hope to take an entire convoy?’

  ‘You’re assuming that the French gold is travelling in convoy, Captain Horne. Our sources in France report that the gold departed six months ago from Le Havre aboard a ship called the Royaume.’

  ‘And the ship is still at sea, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, how do you receive information so quickly?’

  ‘The Royaume is also laden with cargo, Captain. Heavy cargo. Progress is slow.’

  Horne thought of one possibility of danger. ‘Could not Mauritius also have been alerted and be sending an escort for the Royaume when she passes into the Indian Ocean?’

  ‘That could be dealt with.’

  ‘Am I to understand by that remark, Your Excellency, that Pocock’s fleet will also be participating in the operation? If only in a minor capacity?’

  ‘Admiral Pocock and His Majesty’s Navy will be kept informed, yes.’

  It was on the tip of Horne’s tongue to argue that word passed by sea messenger would not help him and his men in a difficult situation, not if they needed immediate support.

  Spencer said, ‘You look troubled, Captain Horne? Why? At Madras, the odds against success were much greater.’

  ‘At Madras, Your Excellency, you and your distinguished colleagues supplied me with ground plans for Fort St George. Watch charts. Time lists. I have nothing now except a fairly dated report saying that the French have dispatched a treasure chest—aboard a ship named the Royaume—destined for the island of Mauritius.’ Unimpressed, Horne shrugged.

  ‘Ah, but you do have a squadron of highly trained Marines, Captain Horne. Six of them.’

  Not seven? Governor Spencer’s source of information about the Marines must be impeccable, including the news of Bapu’s death. Horne had an inexplicable feeling that his enemy might easily be not the French, but England’s Honourable East India Company.

  * * *

  Horne had left Company House. Governor Spencer sat at a table in a small room, holding the letter which Horne had written to his father in London. Chips from the wax seal were scattered across the table’s leather top.

  Reading the simply-written communication, Spencer liked Horne even less than he did in person. The letter’s tone was like Horne himself: straightforward, yes, but it seemed to be hiding something. As Horne did.

  Horne had written of a leader’s responsibility to his troops, of man’s need to be constantly ready for death, of the fact that death in a distant, alien land was not as terrifying as the prospect of death in one’s homeland.

  Reading these thoughts, Spencer wondered what kind of relationship a son had with his father when he could write to him about such ideas instead of gossiping about cousins and marriages and blisters, and too much rice and not enough potatoes. Spencer pictured the red-nosed tradesman who had sired him and felt a strange, new jealousy of Horne.

  Despite the fact that it was no normal letter home, the pages contained no mention of any mission, no fact
s which Horne might have deduced from Watson and was passing on to his father. The Honourable East India Company was insisting that there must be no hint to anyone—not even family, especially an influential family like Horne’s—about the assignment to seize the French war chest. Ramifications were going to be difficult enough without unnecessary inquiries. The undertaking was volatile.

  Putting aside the letter, Spencer rang a silver bell on the table to summon his secretary. The letter could be resealed and given back to Goodair to deliver in London. Spencer also made a mental note that Goodair must somehow be rewarded by the Company for his co-operation in handing over the letter. Perhaps a ceremonial sword, something given to him at a Company banquet, something to make the old man swell his pigeon chest.

  As he sat waiting, Spencer decided that what troubled him most about Adam Horne was his lack of resemblance to most young men who came out to India. In general they were running away from gambling debts in England; from a wife, from scandal or crime. Although rumour had it that Horne had fled London after his fiancée had been murdered by a well-bred hooligan, Spencer had the distinct feeling that he had come to India not running from anything, but looking for something. But what? Who? Why?

  Horne troubled Spencer. He was a puzzle, an aristocrat by attitude if not birth, who lived by his own rules. Spencer’s one consolation was that young men like Adam Horne did not know what a relentless world they lived in, that they were innocent creatures compared to men like Spencer who had to plot, connive, juggle right and wrong to reach a profitable end. Men like Spencer used men like Adam Horne.

  Chapter Eight

  MONKEY-FACE

  Adam Horne strolled down the hill from Company House wishing there was some way to be a Bombay Marine without being connected to the East India Company. Involvement with them made him feel dishonest. He too often suspected them of dishonourable activities, sensing that his work helped unlikeable men to achieve ignoble ends.

  Horne held no illwill against commerce. His father was a banker, and the profits from business had fed and clothed him since childhood. But the size of the East India Company was now giving businessmen the power of kings, allowing them control over life and death. To Horne’s mind, this privilege was exceedingly dangerous.

  In 1600 Queen Elizabeth had granted a royal charter to a collection of English merchants who wanted to participate in the wealth being brought back to Europe from the Orient by Dutch and Portuguese trading companies. Quickly surpassing Holland and Portugal, England had also overtaken France’s East India Company, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales, turning a war with France from a struggle for trade into a battle for territory.

  One hundred and sixty-one years after its conception, England’s East India Company possessed more wealth, more power than most nations. In recent years Horne had seen how the Governors were beginning to increase the Company’s profits with the help of the sword, deposing Indian rulers who refused to grant them trading rights, planting company puppets on native thrones. Robert Clive, the former Governor of Bengal, had been the first man to hold a Company post as well as a commission in the Army. Retiring to London on his vast wealth from India, Clive was considered to be the richest man in the world.

  Suspicious of Governor Spencer’s real reasons—together with those of his two colleagues, Pigot of Madras and Vansittart of Bengal—for sending the Company’s Marines to seize the French war chest, Horne reached the bottom of the hill, wondering if the Governors were trying to fuel a mutiny within the French forces. A mutiny could rid the East Indies of the French once and for all.

  Or did the British Navy Board truly want the French war chest for their own coffers, needing the gold to finance other colonial campaigns in, say, Canada? Despite his pleasure at being given the Huma, Horne suspected that there was some sinister motive behind this sea venture.

  The sounds of a bare-knuckle fight made him pause at an opening between the sun-bleached houses and, looking through the gap, he saw a group of men shouting and laughing.

  * * *

  More than thirty men had formed a tight circle around the combatants and were calling out encouragement:

  ‘Give him a taste of your knuckles, Dave!’

  ‘Smash that monkey-face!’

  ‘Show the Bombay buccaneer who’s a man!’

  The mention of ‘Bombay buccaneer’ alerted Horne. Pushing his way through the circle, he saw the heads of two men, recognising one of them as Babcock, the other as Dave Linderman, the boatswain’s mate from the Unity, a bear of a man with a pug-nose and bushy side-whiskers.

  ‘Hit him harder, Dave!’

  ‘Bloody that American blow-hard!’

  ‘Black and blue the big lubber!’

  Babcock was fast on his feet for a man of his size; he was dancing around Linderman, throwing alternating blows of his fists in quick, hard-hitting succession—the left, the left, the right—knuckles cracking against Linderman’s face, breaking his skin, smashing his nose, pummelling his ears.

  Bobbing to the left and right, Linderman had failed to avoid most of Babcock’s punches; blood was streaming from his nose, and his lower lip was cut and swollen. The crew, however, continued to cheer Linderman and jeer at Babcock.

  Linderman struck a blow to Babcock’s ribs and repeated the strike, concentrating on this target with a burst of new energy. Doubling over, Babcock brought his elbows to his side as the cheers rose for Linderman.

  Bursting from the crouch, Babcock wrapped his left arm around Linderman’s neck, locking the seaman’s head under his upper arm like a wrestler, and began driving his fist against Linderman’s face.

  Horne saw that Babcock might seriously injure his opponent if he continued. Bolting forward, he grabbed Babcock by the shoulder, separating the two men.

  Babcock spun, ready to attack his new opponent, but seeing it was Horne, he hesitated, gasping, ‘What the hell—?’

  Horne moved between him and Linderman. ‘Get out of here, Babcock.’

  ‘Hell I will! They started it!’

  Horne wanted to collect his Marines and tell them the news about the Huma, perhaps help join the work being done on the frigate.

  As the seamen backed away, subdued by the sight of the gold-trimmed uniform, Horne repeated, ‘Babcock, get out of here.’

  A man called from the circle, ‘Go on, you big monkey! Go with him!’

  Babcock pointed at the man. ‘Hear that? Hear what they called me? Monkey!’

  ‘Monkey!’ shouted another seaman. ‘You look just like your kid!’

  Babcock lunged for the man.

  Grabbing Babcock by the shoulder, Horne raised a fist to his face. At the same moment, a small, nut-brown monkey wrapped its small furry arms around Horne’s leg and leaped, chattering, to swing from Horne’s bicep to Babcock’s shoulder, hugging Babcock’s neck and licking his blood-streaked face with a wide, wet tongue.

  Horne demanded, ‘Whose is that?’

  Babcock wiped perspiration mixed with blood from his brow. ‘Mine.’

  Part Two

  ‘PASS THE PARCEL’

  Chapter Nine

  THE HUMA

  Horne awoke to the absence of gulls mewing, the first time in five days that the scavenger birds had not awakened him with their tormenting chorus. Having cleared Madagascar, the Huma had emerged from the southern waters of the Strait of Mozambique and had passed far enough east from Africa to be rid of the foul, harping land birds.

  Leaping from his berth, he grabbed the twill trousers he had substituted for the breeches of his uniform. Three sharp knocks sounded on the cabin door as he stood looking to see where he had tossed the dungri shirt he had sleepily pulled off last night after studying charts, examining current flows, estimating where—and when—the Huma might spot the French treasure ship.

  Calling for the early morning visitor to enter the cabin, Horne was not surprised to see Jingee carrying in a breakfast tray. He never ceased to be amazed by the way the young Tamil found time to perform watch
duties as well as act as his valet, personal cook and dubash. Horne had eaten better since leaving Port Diego-Suarez six days ago than he had in six months in Bombay.

  The distribution of duty aboard the Huma was prejudiced, Horne knew. He had appointed his Marines to positions of officer rank aboard the frigate. Whilst he was familiar with the abilities of his men, he knew nothing about the recruits whom the East India Company had gathered on Madagascar. Governor Spencer had culled a skeleton crew from three Company ships in harbour and from the sailors who had previously served aboard the Huma. He had also found a handful of young islanders anxious to escape the tedium of their villages. The result was a shipful of lascars, pirates, fishermen—a motley crew over whom Horne’s six Marines had command.

  Jingee, proud to be one of the Huma’s new ‘officers’, still wore his turban, dhoti and loose cotton shirt. Transferring a plate and bowl from the bamboo tray to Horne’s desk, he announced, ‘The wind’s strong from the west this morning, Captain sahib.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Horne stood on one foot, pulling on a tall leather boot, the footgear being the only part of his uniform he chose to wear aboard the frigate.

  Jingee continued arranging Horne’s breakfast on the desk rather than setting a proper table. The bowl of fruit he placed on the neatly pressed cloth was more for ornamentation than consumption. Horne suspected that if he asked for a vaseful of flowers to decorate his table, Jingee would somehow produce roses or lilies or field flowers in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

  Ramming his foot into the second boot, Horne inhaled the tempting aroma wafting from the steaming dishes. He normally did not enjoy eating in the morning, but Jingee inevitably prepared some tempting fare—hot bread laced with cinnamon, porridge dotted with succulent raisins, fruit-flavoured teas.

  Curious about the activity on the quarterdeck, Horne reconfirmed as he moved to the desk, ‘Jud’s morning watch?’