The King's Privateer

by Dewey Lambdin

“An entire pirate fleet destroyed, sir,” Ayscough went on, hammering gaily away at Twigg’s arguments. “Ten out of eighteen Lanun Rover praos sunk, taken or burned, sir, and over twelve hundred cut-throats dead or made prisoner. Why, these Mindanao pirates haven’t suffered such a bloody check in a hundred years! Wiped from the face of God’s blue seas. As you demanded back at Bencoolen, sir.”

  “One might also mention the harbor properly surveyed for the first time in living memory, and the island’s exact location corrected, sir,” Sir Hugo prompted. “The late Captain Cook could have done no less in these waters, I shouldn’t doubt.”

  “And that American whaler freed, too,” Ayscough concluded.

  “Yes, that American whaler,” Twigg drawled. “Now off in Manila, shouting to high heaven. Letting the world in on our little secret! Did it not occur to you, Mister Lewrie, that our mission out here is secret?”

  Twigg got to his feet to pace his anger off.

  “It cannot be known publicly by any other power that England had disguised warships in these waters, or the recent treaty is violated, and we might face another disastrous war with France. Or any other nation that might decide to side with them. Those Yankees saw a battalion of East India Company troops, and a vessel flying Royal Navy colors, do battle with the French, sir! Now how secret do you believe our mission is any longer? You should have kept them here, found any excuse to delay their departure, until I could arrive so no one could learn of this, but no! You …”

  “Oh, bloody Hell!” Sir Hugo snapped, slamming boots on the deck. “Did it never occur to you, Mister Twigg, that there may have been a tad too much bloody worry about secrecy?”

  “I beg your pardon, Sir Hugo?” Twigg snarled back.

  “Two years ago, when our first ships started going missing, it would have made eminent sense to raise the hue and cry with every seafaring nation out here and make a concerted campaign to defend trade. Not just our trade, but everyone’s. Let the world know there’s need to chastise every bloody pirate in the Far East,” Sir Hugo went on. “But that may have been too much good sense for our masters back in London. Seems to me, sir, this exposure at last, with our American cousins shouting the loudest, is just the thing for us. In a year, the world’ll know it was this Choundas, and the Frogs, backing these pirates. Now, our work’s four-fifths done, and public pressure, and an end to all this bloody sneaking and hiding, will do the rest for us, without getting any more good men killed. I say, it’s time the wraps came off this bloody business. And as for freeing those Yankees, refitting their ship and all, well, that’ll stand us in good credit with those new United States. And should another war break out, we’ll need all the good credit we can stand, else they’d side with their former allies.”

  “I would not normally expect,” Twigg said after a long sigh, “such perspicacity in a military man, Sir Hugo. And in private, I might be able to agree with you. But the Crown decided otherwise. And it’s not simply about piracy, you see. It’s not even about this fellow Choundas, when you get right down to it, sir. It’s about laying combinations out here for the next war.”

  “Oh, bugger,” Sir Hugo growled.

  “You consider another war with France inevitable, Sir Hugo, as much as I. At this very instant, there may be three dozen schemes in play such as ours, and even I have no knowledge of them, and shouldn’t unless one of the others impinges upon mine. All to see that future foes have no strength or credit here in the Far East, nor any allies or secret bases that could threaten England. To put too much light on ours, sir, to expose any of them, would be to expose all of them, eventually. The best mushrooms, I am told, are grown in the dark.”

  “The best roses need the most cow-shit, too,” Ayscough huffed.

  “Nevertheless, sir,” Sir Hugo smiled, a disarming, lazy smile that Lewrie knew of old was one of eminent menace, “I do trust that when you come to write of this campaign, you shall sound at least the slightest bit grateful for what we’ve done for you so far. And commending.”

  “Of course I shall, Sir Hugo,” Twigg relented, obviously seeing the threat that lay behind that smile, and being enough of a political animal, with the ability to read others so he could best use them for his own purposes, or the Crown’s, to know he could carp no longer.

  “So,” Captain Ayscough grunted. “How best to conclude this’un? Now we’ve hamstrung this Choundas bugger so thoroughly.”

  “Have we, sir?” Twigg scowled. “And for how long?”

  “Well, he’s lost this island base of his,” Ayscough rambled. “Lost La Malouine, lost Stella Maris, and his secret’s soon to be out, thanks to those Yankee Doodle whalermen. Now he may have other cartel ships out here to serve him, but for now he’s on his own.”

  “He still has the Lanun Rovers, sir,” Twigg pointed out, with some glee. “And he has his freedom to rebuild a semblance of his web, like some noisome spider.”

  “Without the silver and opium we captured here, without all the arms he would have given the pirates, or the trade goods, I doubt he still has the Lanun Rovers,” Captain Ayscough replied. “They lost too many of their brethren here for Choundas to hold their allegiance. Oh, he saved some few of ’em by showing up when he did, but he failed to rescue the rest. Even with that big, fine ship of his, he didn’t sail up and fight us. He may have ’em in name only, but not firmly in his grasp any longer. And for the moment, he’s vulnerable.”

  “If that’s so bloody obvious, then why isn’t he running home right now, cutting his losses?” Sir Hugo speculated, sitting back down and refilling his glass. “He must know this is his last raiding summer, and it’s riskier now more’n ever.”

  “Because he is who he is, Sir Hugo,” Twigg said with a knowing leer. “I’ve had a chance to interrogate the surviving Frogs from this Stella Maris. Amazing what a man will confess when threatened with a noose for piracy. The second mate told me that most of the officers thought Choundas a rather odd sort. Odder than most. Not merely in his sexual predilictions, but in his mind, sirs. Lieutenant Lewrie, do you recall that nonsense he spouted the day of the execution, what he had to say about the ancient Gauls and Celts being related?”

  “Aye, sir, I do,” Lewrie agreed, tensing for another lesson in just how simply clever Twigg thought himself to be. “He said that the Britons, the Gauls and the Celts were one race, sir. Damned fool.”

  “Us, kin of Frogs?” Sir Hugo spluttered. “I mean, the Normans aside, what a lot of … you will pardon the play on words, but, what gall!”

  “Choundas was born in low circumstances, yes,” Twigg related with relish, “though not fishmonger poor. His father owned several boats, and hoped for better things for his son. Education, and hopes he’d enter the priesthood. Don’t have to be a nobleman to do well in France if you wear the cassock. But the boy, besides being a superb sailor, developed a bent for scholarship in history, and in Latin, of course. Why he named Stella Maris by a Latin name, and not Etoile de la Mer, I s’pose.”

  “Does this have any bearing on anything?” Ayscough groaned.

  “What’s the thing all Latin students read, sir? Caesar’s Gallic Wars. Naturally, as a Breton, Choundas would sympathise with the ancient Gauls under Vercingetorix and such. But most specifically, he imagined himself, and his line, to be kin with the Veneti. When oared galleys daren’t go five miles offshore, these Veneti in their oak ships with leather sails would roam the entire known world, much as we do today. Their strength was in their Navy. Even the Vikings of latter days didn’t dare as much as they did.”

  “I think,” Lewrie summarized for them, unable to pass up the sterling opportunity to shine, or to spill the air from Twigg’s sails, “that what Mister Twigg means is that if he thinks he’s the last of this noble seafaring line of Veneti, and goes on about it so much he bores his compatriots to tears with it, we may assume the silly arse will tweak our noses and raid our ships this season, sirs.”

  “Then why didn’t you merely say so, Mister Twigg?” Captain Ayscough
asked, with all innocence in his expression. “Right, then!”

  Ayscough trotted out his chart of the South China Seas and laid it on the table, anchoring the corners with bottles and glasses so the wind wouldn’t scud it off somewhere to leeward.

  “If he thinks he’s that bloody good, he can’t have sailed too far to the east’rd.” Ayscough chuckled. “West is out, ’cause he’d have to beat so far to windward against the prevailing sou’easterlies this time of year to get to his cruising grounds. Choate is scouting the Borneo coast now, and we may have good news from him soon. Down there is to windward, where I’d wish to base myself, were I this ‘last of a noble seafaring line.’ But there’s a problem with that, too.”

  “The Borneo pirates,” Lewrie interjected. “There’s little love lost between them and the Lanun Rovers, is there, sir?”

  “Exactly so, Mister Lewrie. He may have some relations with ’em as a hole-card, so to speak, and he may be forced to play it to allow him one last chance to go home a winner, but … well, damme!”

  “What?” Twigg rapped out.

  “Well, here’s this lad Choundas, born a commoner, normally denied his chance to shine in the French Navy, but thinking himself kin to ancient sea-kings. I see why you would think he would have to do something grand against us before going home, Mister Twigg, but think on this for a moment …” Ayscough beamed cleverly. “The Borneo boys are river-based, and they don’t go out of sight of shore too often. Who would Choundas feel the most in common with?”

  “The Lanun Rovers, still!” Twigg exclaimed.

  “Right, then!” Ayscough said once more, rubbing his horny palms in satisfaction. “Were I looking for prizes, I’d be far south, opposite the Johore Straits. Around Anambas or Pulau Natuna, where we met that pirate fleet last year. Here at Spratly, maybe up farther north and still to windward of the Canton run on the Tizard Bank. No shelter there, though, if the winds pipe up.”

  “Too close to Dutch or English patrols down south, sir,” Lewrie commented. “That’s why he chose Spratly in the first place.”

  “Yes, so we must assume that he’s somewhere up to windward, but not too far to the east’rd. With his resources reduced, he has to be close to the scene of action and do his own dirty work for a while. So if I were constrained in such a way, I’d be somewhere around the mouth of Balabac Strait.” Ayscough frowned, pacing off a divider across the chart. “I’d not be too deep inside the Philippine Archipelago. If my allies started disliking me, there’d be no escape for a single ship, even as well-armed as we assume Poisson D’Or to be. So he would be west of the Sulu Sea. Still allied, even tenuously, with the Mindanao pirates. And using what’s left of that alliance, and their reputation, as a shield to prevent pursuit.”

  “Is this not a Spanish naval base, here on Palawan?” Sir Hugo asked, leaning over the chart. “This Puerto Princesa? Seems they’d have this area covered. Why let some outsider upset what arrangement they have with their own native pirates? They’d kick him out soon as those Yankees let them know of it.”

  “Ah, but he doesn’t even know that Stella Maris took a Yankee as prize, Sir Hugo,” Ayscough grinned, hugely enjoying himself. “It don’t signify, anyway, that the Spanish would even be aware of them being there. All they have are Guarda Costa luggers and such, not ships of worth. Hell, it’s two hundred miles from Puerto Princesa to the Balabac Strait. The Dons are flat-broke, and all they care about are the northern islands. Anything south of Leyte is pretty much controlled in name only. They have a loose agreement with the natives in the south—‘You don’t kill us, we won’t bother you!’ Healthier for Spanish fortunes in the long run.” Ayscough chuckled with mirth. “So aspiring young Dons don’t get their throats cut, or their reputations ruined, by a raggedy-arsed pack of fanatics.”

  “So this Balabac Strait is pretty much the King’s Highway to these pirates, sir?” Lewrie asked, peering at the chart.

  “Yes, just so. And I’d expect Choundas to be somewhere near the western entrance, around the island of Banggi on the north tip of Borneo, or on the island of Balabac itself,” Ayscough concluded, tossing down his dividers.

  “We have little time, then, before the first ships sail from Calcutta and Madras for this year’s trading season,” Twigg fretted. “We’ll not see him playing innocent in Canton again. One raiding season, then back he goes to the Indian Ocean, leaving other ships to be his bearers for the last loads of loot, whilst he’s off like a hare to France. We might be able to stymie his designs by our presence, and defeat him that way. But there’s the matter of all those ships we’ve lost the last two years. All those murdered men. Damme if I care much for him escaping with even the slightest hint of success, sirs! I wish him destroyed, utterly!”

  “Like Cato’s demand,” Sir Hugo mused. “Carthage must be destroyed.”

  “Exactly, Sir Hugo,” Twigg said firmly. “For everyone’s peace of mind, Choundas must be destroyed.”

  “Mister Lewrie,” Captain Ayscough asked. “Whatever did happen to those Veneti?”

  “Caesar sank the lot of them in 56 B.C., sir,” Lewrie replied.

  Chapter 10

  To ease the overcrowding aboard Lady Charlotte, and not knowing how long they would be at sea, the battalion of troops had been spread out among all three ships. As had the fortune in silver, the captured powder and shot. Unfortunately, they had been forced to burn the bulk of the opium and trade goods, disposing of the remainder in the deeper part of the harbor at Spratly Island along with the cannon barrels and stands of arms. They would leave nothing behind that required a guard force to deplete their strength, and nothing for Choundas to regain should he double back on them.

  The praos were burned as well, and the prisoners disarmed and left to fend for themselves with the wild livestock for sustenance and only the rudest remnants of the encampment for shelter.

  Leaving Lady Charlotte to make her slower way astern, Telesto and Culverin ranged sou’east, beating up to windward, with an eventual rendezvous planned several days hence, once they had met up with Lieutenant Choate and Cuddalore as he scouted northward towards the Strait, too, and delivered his report, or lack of news, on Choundas’ possible whereabouts.

  Telesto had to stand off to seaward whilst the shallow-drafted Culverin did the main work closer inshore. Which arrangement was pleasant for Lewrie, since it got him out of snapping distance when Twigg and Ayscough had at each other like snarling wolves.

  “And a half, four!” the leadsman in the chains said, getting bored and sunburned at his thankless task. They were skirting round the foetid, marshy tip of Borneo, near enough to a native settlement marked on the chart as Kudat (which was about all that the chart had gotten right in the past few days) to have seen several single praos out at sea. These at least had been peacefully fishing, but had run ashore as they drew close, leaving them sole possession of the sea.

  “Time to change the leadsmen, sounds like,” Lewrie said. He drew out his watch and looked at the time. “Almost the end of the day watch. Five minutes to eight bells, Mister Hogue.”

  “Stand off-shore once the watch changes, sir?” Hogue asked.

  “I think we’ll continue as we are for the first hour of the first dog-watch. After that, the light will be too far westerly for us to spot shoal-water,” Lewrie replied. “We’ll alter course after four bells.”

  “Aye, sir,” Hogue said, yawning.

  “And a quarter less five!” the leadsman sounded out.

  Borneo reeked, as did its shoals. Rotting vegetation, rotting weed washed up on her shores, stagnant mud-flats and dead-fish odors, and the heights inland blocked a proper sea-breeze to waft it all off. Now and then a hint of cooking, now and then some gorgeous aromas from riotously thriving flowers—but mostly it stank horribly like some gigantic slaughter-house. They’d all be glad to get out to sea.

  “Something in the water!” the lookout on the tall main-mast shouted. “Three points off the starboard bows!”

  “Shoal?” Lew
rie wondered, raising his telescope for the umpteenth time that day. “It looks low enough. No, a rock, perhaps.”

  “Native boat, sir,” Hogue said with the advantage of his almost uncanny eyesight. “Turned turtle, looks like. God, no! It’s a ship’s boat!”

  “Fetch-to, Mister Murray!” Lewrie shouted to his bosun. “Lead the cutter ’round from astern and call away a boat crew.”

  “Shall I go, sir?” Hogue asked anxiously.

  “No, you stay aboard,” Lewrie said. “It’s not half a cable off, and we’re at least three-quarters of a mile offshore. Keep the hands near the guns, though, just in case. I’ll be back shortly.”

  They rounded Culverin up into the slack winds, jibs backed to force her bows off the breeze, but mains’ls still drawing and trying to drive her forward, stalling her “in-irons” cocked up to the wind and unable to go forward or back, to drift on the slow current.

  Cony was already in the boat at the tiller, with eight hands at the oars, held aloft like lances as they waited for Lewrie.

  “Shove off, Cony,” Lewrie said, once he had taken his salute at the rail and settled himself onto a thwart near the stern.

  “Aye, sir. Shove off, bow man. Ship yer oars. Give us way, larboard. Backwater, starboard,” Cony instructed. “Now, avast. Now give us way t’gether!”

  Once the cutter was moving shoreward with both banks of rowers pulling at an easy stroke, Cony turned slightly on his buttocks and leaned over the tiller-bar. “D’ya think them pirates got fed up an’ done fer this Choundas feller, sir?”

  “T’would be a fitting end for him, no error, Cony,” Lewrie said in reply. “A thing devoutly to be wished.”

  “Boat-hook ready, there,” Cony snapped, turning back to his duties. “Easy all. Un-ship yer oars … toss yer oars … boat yer oars.”

  It was a European ship’s boat, right enough, half-sunk at the bows, and charred to crumbling cinders for much of its length, which sight made Lewrie shiver with dread that somehow it was La Malouine’s boat he’d seen burn and capsize, that it had drifted all this way to confront him after all those months.