The Bombay Marines

by Porter Hill

  The guard lowered his eyes to the pair of three-sided dice. ‘Show him where the Stables are.’

  Babcock stepped farther into the gatehouse, lowering his voice. ‘Can’t you take care of this, jack? My mates and me, we had a long night –’

  Outside the gatehouse, Groot and Mustafa began wailing at the streetlamp, like wolves howling at a new moon.

  The guard picked up the leather dice cup. ‘Take your friends and get lost.’

  Babcock hiccuped. ‘Come on, jack –’

  ‘I said, get lost.’

  Babcock shrugged. ‘If you say so, jack –’

  Turning from the kiosk, Babcock called to Groot and Mustafa, ‘Come on, mates. Let’s give this man here a hand.’

  Bapu surrendered the thick coil of rope to Mustafa and, gripping the elephant’s lead, he and Mustafa walked through the open gates of Fort St George, followed by Babcock and Groot.

  * * *

  The King’s Barracks

  Main Gate Street was cobbled inside the fortress walls. The houses lining both sides of the street were freshly whitewashed and uniformly decorated with green shutters. A straight line of coconut-oil streetlamps ran down the right side of the street, glowing like a row of luminescent dandelion balls in the early morning darkness.

  Babcock and Groot followed the elephant down Main Gate Street. Stepping to one side of the elephant, Babcock took a look at the inner fortress at the end of the street, then resumed his place beside Groot. ‘Straight ahead of us are the walls of the Governor’s House.’

  Groot raised his eyes to the right, seeing a church spire rising above the neat row of two-storey buildings. ‘There’s the Portuguese Church.’

  The air seemed fresher inside the fortress, less tainted by the stench of burning manure cakes, the sickly smell of rotting fruit and garbage heaped in gutters which had pervaded the Black Town.

  Bapu and Mustafa turned right at the end of Main Gate Street, leading the elephant into a wide cobbled stretch, moving towards a row of yellow stone buildings facing another wide expanse of cobblestone.

  Babcock and Groot followed the slowly plodding elephant, alert for landmarks and buildings they had studied with Horne in the shipboard session.

  Knowing they were crossing Portuguese Square, Babcock looked left and saw an iron grille embedded into the wall of the Governor’s House. He guessed that it must be the gate to the Magazine, the fort’s store of ammunition and explosives. Smiling, he felt the leather pouch hanging from his belt.

  Approaching the top end of Portuguese Square, Bapu and Mustafa turned left, leading the elephant across the cobbled avenue towards the Stables.

  Babcock and Groot remained standing at the top of Portuguese Square, acquainting themselves with the fort’s layout.

  Swinging the riding crop behind him, Babcock said, ‘This wide stretch here is called the Parade. The Stables and Storehouses are down to our left. The King’s Barracks to our right. There in front of us is the Guardhouse.’

  Groot, who was studying the Guardhouse, elbowed Babcock. ‘Look.’

  Babcock studied the three-storey building standing directly in front of them, with bales of straw piled along the façade, and raised his eyes to the deep stone porches on each floor above the iron entry gate.

  Groot elbowed him again. ‘The gate! Look inside the gate!’

  Babcock saw what Groot meant. Two men were unlocking the gate. From the inside.

  ‘Relax, man.’ Babcock raised his eyes up the front of the narrow building, remembering how the upper floors were divided into T’s, hallways leading to long rear corridors.

  Groot watched the men inside the gate. ‘What are they doing there? It’s not light yet.’

  ‘It’s better they’re doing it now than when Horne gets there, whatever it is.’ Babcock turned to his right. ‘Let’s go.’

  Walking in the opposite direction from Bapu and Mustafa, Babcock led Groot towards the King’s Barracks standing at the north side of the Parade. Approaching a small window lit from within by a flickering yellow light, Babcock rapped the butt of his riding crop on a pane of wavy glass.

  The window opened. A craggy-faced officer wearing the tan-and-red uniform of His Majesty’s 64th Regiment stuck out his head.

  Babcock knew there was little friendship between Company employees and the Military stationed inside Fort St George. He was appropriately brusque. ‘I want to see Fenner.’

  ‘Captain Fenner?’

  Babcock nodded. ‘I want to speak to him about a gift for Governor Pigot.’

  ‘What kind of gift?’

  ‘Who takes custody, Captains or Lieutenants?’

  The Lieutenant repeated more testily. ‘What kind of gift?’

  Babcock stepped closer to the window. ‘A bloody big elephant, that’s what. I know Fenner’s in charge of the Stables. I also know he sleeps here in this lice-infested barracks. So I’m –’

  The clatter of marching boots began echoing from across the cobbled Parade.

  Turning, Babcock and Groot saw eight uniformed men marching out of the Guardhouse, an armed squadron escorting a man from the iron gate of the Guardhouse, a white-haired man clutching a crucifix to his chest.

  The Barracks Lieutenant poked his head farther out of the window. ‘What the hell –’

  Pulling back inside, he shouted behind him, ‘Kyle, where are they taking Lally?’

  Babcock and Groot exchanged glances. They looked back to the guards marching Lally across the Parade towards the top of Portuguese Square.

  The Lieutenant shouted louder inside the house. ‘Lally’s being moved from the Guardhouse, Kyle! Get your arse out here!’

  Stepping away from the window, Babcock whispered to Groot, ‘Follow Lally. See where they’re taking him.’

  Groot’s blue eyes were round with excitement. ‘Where do you go?’

  ‘To tell Horne about this change.’

  ‘Where are you going to see the schupper?’

  ‘Stop worrying, Groot. You just find out where they’re moving Lally. Meet me –’ Babcock thought of a good place for a rendezvous. ‘Meet me below Portuguese Square. At the foot of the Governor’s House. The south end. Do you remember where that is?’

  ‘Yah.’ Nodding, Groot spoke as if he were reciting for Horne aboard the Eclipse. ‘The south side of the Governor’s House is also called St Thomas Street. St Thomas Street runs north to south, leading to St Thomas Gate on the south –’

  ‘Good man’ Babcock thrust the riding crop towards his chest. ‘Here. Take this with you.’

  Groot stared quizzically at the riding crop. ‘Why this?’

  ‘So you look important.’

  Babcock turned and took long strides across the cobbled Parade, the leather pouch slapping against the side of his breeches.

  * * *

  The Nabob’s Bastion

  At the opposite end of the Parade from the King’s Barracks, Mustafa and Bapu led the elephant into the Stables. Bapu called loudly in Hindi for hay and water for the animal, creating a commotion for the mahoot on night duty as Mustafa moved quickly towards the back wall, finding the door to the steps which led up to the West Wall.

  The inner stairwell was narrow, rising steeply, and the sound of Bapu’s orders grew fainter as Mustafa felt his way in the darkness lit only by shafts of dark morning light pouring through apertures gashed into the stonework.

  Carrying the coil of rope in one hand, he halted at the top of the stone steps in front of an iron-banded door. Listening, he pulled back the bolt and – slowly – pushed open the door.

  Stepping outside onto a narrow walkway, he flattened himself against the wall, looking cautiously to his left and then to his right. All was clear and, pulling a slice of cork from his shirt pocket, he shut the door and bent to plug the cork at its base. Then he grabbed the rope and began edging his way to the left, moving towards the low-tiled roof of Nabob’s Bastion, a circular structure on pillars, silhouetted like a mushroom against the inky blue sky.


  A guard stood by one of the pillars, a lone figure leaning against his musket, looking eastwards towards the sky beginning to blot with the morning light, the surf crashing below him.

  Mustafa began feeding rope from the coil of his other hand, moving closer towards the guard, and as he reached the corner of the West Wall, he looked down the length of the South Wall. He saw no one approaching from the far lookout – St Thomas Bastion – and he made the last few steps.

  The rope whistled over the guard’s head. Mustafa tightened his grip until he felt the man weaken, the musket clattering to the stone floor.

  Lowering the unconscious body, Mustafa stuffed a rag into the guard’s mouth and corded it tightly with a leather thong. Binding the man’s hands and feet, he rolled him past a pyramid of cannonballs.

  Working quickly, he anchored one end of the rope to the base of a cannon and tossed the other end over the wall. He sat down beside the stack of cannonballs, aware that his heart was pounding. He was excited. He felt alive for the first time in – how long?

  He realised he had not been this excited – this happy – in the eight years since he had left his parents’ home in Alanya, after strangling his brother in a fight. Running away to the Turkish port of Izmir, he had joined the Ottoman Navy and served aboard one of the Sultan’s warships until he was recognized by a man who remembered him from Alanya. He had jumped ship in Port Said and joined a merchant crew of the East India Company in Suez.

  After fighting with and fatally garrotting a Greek sailor aboard the Company merchant ship, Mustafa was condemned to Bombay Castle.

  He had thought he was going to be imprisoned in the dungeons there for the rest of his life and had been immediately suspicious when Adam Horne had chosen him from the other criminals to go to Bull Island. At first he had feared that he was being sent back to Turkey, then that he was being taken to a life of hard labour in a penal colony. But Horne had been telling the truth. Mustafa had not been imprisoned. He had been fed, exercised, trained and brought on a mission as Horne had promised.

  But Mustafa was still confused. This was not work. This was not war. Horne had even cautioned them to try to avoid taking men’s lives! So what kind of navy – or army – was this ‘Bombay Marine’? What kind of officer didn’t want you to kill men?

  Sitting beside the unconscious guard in the Nabob’s Bastion, Mustafa remembered how Land Group had entered the fortress, how they had passed so easily in front of the guards’ very eyes, and he began to laugh.

  He was still laughing when the rope tugged against his leg.

  He laughed louder. Look! He had caught himself a fish!

  Oh, yes, he liked being a Bombay Marine. What would their next mission be?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  OLD ACQUAINTANCES

  The Guardhouse

  Sea Group reached the base of the fortress’s South Wall and Adam Horne immediately found the rope dangling from the Nabob’s Bastion. After testing that it was securely attached across the overhead battlements, he stepped back for Kiro to lead the climb up the wall.

  Dressed in twill breeches, shirt and tall boots, like the rest of Sea Group, Kiro moved quickly up the rope, a leather packet of explosives dangling from his belt as his hands gripped their way upwards, his feet walking the wall.

  When he disappeared over the red tiled battlements, Jud followed, ascending as easily as he had scaled the shrouds and ratlines of the Eclipse. Jingee went next, gripping the rope, his turbanned head back, his dark eyes trained on the overhead goal, a leather packet of supplies dangling from the side of his breeches.

  The leather wrappings had kept Sea Group’s disguises and supplies dry when the masulah had capsized in the surf. No serious harm had been done except that the mishap had cost time, the surf washing them ashore a hundred yards farther down from the fortress’s South Wall than Horne had wanted. A bamboo break had provided necessary cover for them to slip into the Company twill clothing and make a dash across the shipyards towards the South Wall.

  Horne waited for Jingee to disappear into the Nabob’s Bastion, then he too gripped the rope, moving upwards hand-over-hand, hoping there was enough darkness to cover his climb. Dawn would soon be breaking.

  Swinging over the stone battlement, he saw that everyone – Mustafa included – had left for their posts. The only person remaining in the circular enclosure was the guard, bound and lying face down on the stone floor. The next change of watch would not be until six o’clock – the time when the bells rang in the English Church – and Horne hoped to be starting back to the Chingleput coastline by then.

  Pulling up the rope from the wall, he took out his knife, slit off the length he needed, and dropped the rest over the bastion.

  He glanced along the South Wall towards St Thomas Bastion, but could see no one approaching on the watch-walk. Satisfied, he made his way down the West Wall with the small coil of rope, quickly finding the door flush with the stone. Falling to his knees, he pulled at the door’s base and a piece of cork tumbled onto the stone step.

  Closing the door behind him, he shot the bolt and waited until his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Then he descended the spiralling steps and swept one hand along the wall, halting when he felt the edges of a wooden hatch built into it. Locating its wire lock, he pushed open the hatch, threw out the rope and climbed out after it onto a flat roof.

  He crawled on his stomach to the edge of the tiled roof and peered out at the fortress spread before him. The Governor’s House stood in the centre, its walls thick and cornered by their own sturdy bastions. Beyond it rose the peaked roof of the Sea Gate, a row of columns leading from the gate to the entry of the Governor’s House. The spire of the Portuguese Church rose to Horne’s left, while to his right was the steeple of the English Church. The Parade ran directly below him; the King’s Barracks to his left, the Stables to his right; he was on the roof of the Guardhouse.

  Tightening one end of the rope to a stone kerb, Horne threw the other end over the front of the Guardhouse, wondering if Kiro had crossed the Parade by now and reached the English Church.

  Looking southeast beyond the slim steeple of the English Church, he saw the arched roof of the side entrance, St Thomas Gate. Jud and Jingee should be making their way there. Mustafa had a shorter distance to go, rejoining Bapu in the Stables to prepare the horses for escape, working to finish before the day shift came on duty.

  A racket shattering the early morning’s stillness answered Horne’s question about Kiro’s whereabouts.

  At the sound of the pop, pop, popping of Chinese fireworks exploding on the far side of the Governor’s House, he swung over the edge of the Guardhouse, springing down the front wall and hoping that no glass panes had been installed across the front of the porches in the time since Governor Pigot had supplied Commodore Watson with details about the fortress.

  Making his last spring, he swung beneath a sandstone cornice – and landed on stone floor!

  Horne left the rope hanging down the front of the Guardhouse, and flattened himself against a wall while he took bearings in the darkness. There was no one in the first hallway and, creeping along a stucco wall, he moved to what he hoped was the back corridor.

  Reaching the end of the wall, he listened before peering around the corner.

  The back corridor was long, lit by one torch sputtering in an iron wall-ring. Horne was surprised to see no guard standing duty outside Lally’s room. The place seemed deserted.

  Edging around the corner, he wondered if he had entered the wrong building. Landed on the wrong floor. Or had Lally’s guard been changed earlier than usual today? If so, where was the relief? Horne had planned to create a diversion here with his own fireworks, a ruse to give him the opportunity to tackle the guard. But where was the guard?

  He had now reached the door of what should be Lally’s prison. He stepped forward and saw that the door was ajar.

  Moving closer, he peered into the room.

  Empty.

 
Slowly he pushed open the door and stepped into the whitewashed room, finding no window or torchlight there to give him light. Examining the room in the glow from the hall torch, he saw a narrow bed against one wall. He noticed that the mattress had been slept on. There was a table against the opposite wall with a candle and books. Reaching towards the table, he felt the candle’s wax: it was still warm, pliable in his fingers. The titles of the books were French …

  ‘Stand where you are!’

  Horne spun round at the sound of the voice.

  Two men blocked the doorway, the hall’s torchlight glittering the gold epaulettes paired on their shoulders. The red coats, white breeches and gold stripes instantly identified them as officers in His Britannic Majesty’s Army.

  The taller of the two officers stepped into the room. He levelled a pistol at Horne. But, tilting his head to one side, he began to laugh, saying, ‘Why, I’ll be damned. If it isn’t … Adam Horne!’

  * * *

  A few stunned seconds passed before Horne recognized Oliver Giltspur.

  Looking as rakish as Horne remembered him from London, Giltspur spoke in the same clipped manner which Horne also remembered – and loathed – from the days before he had come to India.

  ‘Horne, what in damnation are you doing here of all places? I heard you’d joined the Bombay Marine.’ I say, that’s the best outfit for you! The bloody Bombay – Buccaneers!’

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Giltspur.’ Horne studied Giltspur’s face, sideburns arched across high cheekbones, a thin aristocratic nose and strong chin.

  ‘A compliment’s not intended, Horne.’

  Turning to his companion, Giltspur explained, ‘Lieutenant, my old acquaintance here, Adam Horne, came out to this God-forsaken land of his own free will.’

  He turned back to Horne and asked, ‘Am I correct, Horne? Was it free choice? Or did you flee England after Starington killed Isabel … what was her name? Isabel Springer?’