China Flyer

by Porter Hill

  Pushing through the crowd, Horne spotted brawny Fred Babcock and his swarthy opponent. The two men faced one another as they revolved in a circle, dipping and weaving, bodies smeared with dirt.

  As Horne edged closer, he saw that the contest was not the usual bareknuckle fight he had expected. The Asian had obviously chosen a local form of combat.

  Each man had his left hand tied behind his back and the right hand lashed to a cudgel, a thick piece of wood with a hollow base to accomodate the fist and carved to resemble clenched fingers. The combatants’ feet were bare except for a leather strap holding a blade to the right ankle.

  Watching the fighters as they jabbed the air with their fists and kicked their ankle blades at one another, Horne understood why many Indians believed that this sport was the forerunner of cockfighting. Afghani in origin, the club-and-blade contest had been brought to India by Moghul conquerers in the sixteenth century, when their fourteen-year-old ruler, Akbar, had ordered such matches to be held in Delhi between Hindu captives, to decide their fate.

  Despite its historic origins, Horne’s first instinct was to stop the match. It was not sport. It was blood lust. The ankle blades were sharply honed, the hand cudgels lethal weapons. The men might maim or kill one another.

  Circling Babcock, the pirate jabbed with the wooden fist, at the same time twisting the scythe-like blade jutting from his foot. Excited voices rose from the spectators, the majority of men cheering for the Malagasy, calling his name—Katu—and urging him to kill the topiwallah, a foreigner.

  A few natives cheered for Babcock, but his loudest support came from the small clutch of Marines standing across on the opposite side of the circle from Horne. Jingee, the delicately-boned Tamil, excitedly wagged his white-turbanned head, shouting like a man twice his size. Kiro bellowed in his native Japanese, making cutting and chopping movements with his hands as if he himself were fighting the pirate. Dirk Groot jabbered excitedly in a mixture of Dutch and English, his brilliant blue eyes following the two men inside the circle of noisy spectators.

  The only Marine who visibly disapproved of the match was the African, Jud, his black face scowling and wincing as the men pummelled each other.

  Horne turned from his men back to the fight.

  The pirate steadied himself from a blow in the stomach, quickly bringing his fist down sideways. The edge of the carved fingers drew a line of scarlet across Babcock’s bare shoulder.

  Lowering his head, Babcock charged forward like a bull.

  Katu stepped aside, twisting his right foot to raise the blade towards Babcock’s stomach.

  Babcock dived sideways.

  Continuing to circle, Katu punched the wooden fist to block Babcock’s path.

  Horne saw the quick movement and knew that the oak fist could crack Babcock’s skull, but, spotting the obstacle himself, Babcock dodged again and drove his left knee into Katu’s groin. As the pirate doubled over in pain, Babcock grabbed him by his greasy shanks of hair, simultaneously raising his right ankle to drive his throat onto the blade.

  At that moment a blast rent the air.

  * * *

  ‘Enough!’ Horne boomed over the rabble’s cheers and catcalls.

  Babcock paused in his attack, gaping at Horne who was holding a smoking flintlock in one hand.

  The pirate saw Babcock hesitate and, falling back, raised his right foot to slice open his stomach.

  Horne had anticipated the action. Flourishing his sword, he jabbed at the man’s throat, driving him to the ground and thundering, ‘I ordered stop!’

  Keeping his eyes on the Malagasy seaman, he shouted, ‘Babcock, report to the Huma immediately!’

  ‘But, Horne—’

  ‘Do as I say, Babcock. Report to the Huma.’

  Raising his voice, Horne called to the surrounding group, ‘All of you. Out of here. Go.’

  The uniform might be stifling, he thought, but seeing the crowd begin to disperse, he realised that the frock-coat’s blue-and-gold magnificence was recognised as a symbol of unquestionable authority.

  He pointed at the four Marines, adding for good measure, ‘What are you men gawking at? I’m talking to all of you. Out!’

  Jingee the Tamil’s dark eyes were large and alert under his white turban. ‘Leave and go to the … Huma, Captain sahib? Our old ship?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Horne pointed at the doorway. ‘Now out of here, all of you, before some Company snoop comes along and we have to answer to Commodore Watson for this fight.’

  Dirk Groot, the Dutchman, asked, ‘Do we have a new command, schipper?’

  ‘You won’t have anything if you’re all thrown back into Bombay prison for attending illegal assemblies.’

  Horne noticed a group of Malagasy seamen loitering beyond the low doorway. Hand on the hilt of his sword, he moved outside to disperse them before his men emerged from the barn. The last thing he wanted was for the Malagasies to try and settle the score in a grudge fight arranged for a later hour, in another part of town.

  Chapter Three

  THE HUMA

  A strong wind off the Malabar Coast laid the Huma over as her trimmed sails caught the gust. From the quarter-deck Horne studied the distant mountains of the mainland and wondered if a morning mist was making the jagged range hazy. Or were his eyes tired after three sleepless days and nights preparing to leave Bombay? Having reasoned that he could sleep once the frigate was under way, he had pushed himself during the final provisioning.

  He took one last look at the watch scrambling overhead through the jungle of rigging, spars, and sails before going below for the meeting he had called with his Marines. Although most of the crew were new to the Huma, they were a familiar mixture of Lascar sailors, island fishermen and nutbrown villagers terrified of the sea. Jud and Groot had drilled the new men arduously in harbour and Horne believed that, without a storm, they could survive the voyage around Ceylon and up the Coromandel Coast to Madras. The difficulty would be to stop them from scattering upon arrival at Fort St George. Desertion was a greater problem than recruitment, particularly in the larger Indian settlements where many of the crew had relatives or friends.

  Horne’s cabin was spartan but adequate for his needs. A trestle table; two rough chairs; a canvas hammock; a brass-bound sea chest packed with clothes and his few other possessions, its flat top serving as a wash-stand. Cases dotted the cabin’s deck—provisions provided by the East India Company for a captain’s use on the voyage.

  The trestle table doubled as Horne’s desk; he sat behind it, boots crossed in front of him, facing his five Marines as waves crashed against the pitching hull, the sound blending with the creaking of timbers and the harping of taut rigging.

  On the desk before him lay a parchment sheet giving him his formal command of the Huma for the voyage to Madras. Beside it lay the canvas envelope in which the document had been enclosed, complete with official wax seals. Signed by Bombay’s Governor Spencer, the command threw no light on their destination, but Horne now explained as much as he knew to the men lined up in front of him.

  ‘We are to find a company agent who’s gone missing from Fort St George,’ he began.

  The name ‘Madras’ alerted the men.

  Fred Babcock spoke first. ‘The damned Company’s not trying to catch us in a trap, is it, Horne? Sending us back into Fort George?’

  ‘That was my first suspicion,’ admitted Horne. ‘Nobody but the Governors knows we were inside the fort last April, and why.’

  Babcock shook his head. ‘Send us after one missing man? I don’t know, Horne. It smells like a trap.’

  Horne hated to begin every reunion by barking at Babcock about lack of discipline. His demands on the squadron were few, and critics often accused him of lax control. One of the few things he insisted upon, however, was being addressed respectfully by his men, for disrespect led to insubordination; moreover, they were sailing with a new crew for whom an example must be set.

  Appraising Babcock’s slouc
hed stance, sloppy clothes, tousled hair and unshaven face, Horne asked, ‘How long have you been a Marine, Babcock?’

  Babcock pulled at a big red ear. ‘Hasn’t a year passed, Horne, since you took us out of prison and trained us on Bull Island?’

  ‘I obviously didn’t do my job.’

  The lumbering American colonial grinned. ‘I’m alive, aren’t I?’

  ‘My efforts reflect poorly on me if you don’t even know how to address an officer, Babcock.’

  Babcock stuck out his bare chest, snapping a salute. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Horne sprang from his chair. ‘Damn it, Babcock. Nothing’s a joke except you.’

  The American held the ramrod-stiff posture, mocking, ‘But, sir, I’m a Bombay … Buccaneer!’

  The East India Company’s Bombay Marines had no more than six frigates and ten galliots patrolling the Company’s trading routes and drawing charts for their merchantmen. The Marines, often slipshod in dress, were looked down upon by the Company’s Maritime Service, the men who served aboard the merchantmen, and had been dubbed by them, and the men of the Royal Navy, the ‘Bombay Buccaneers’.

  Groot interrupted, ‘Question, please, schipper.’

  Ignoring the Dutchman’s request to speak, Horne was still glaring at Babcock. Was there only one way to teach respect to this man? Had the time come to break the rule about not using the lash?

  Groot tried again from the other end of the line. ‘Schipper, what job does the missing man do for the Company in Madras?’ As usual, Groot made an attempt at showing Horne respect, using the Dutch word for captain. It was Groot, too, who always tried to divert attention from Babcock’s mistakes or misdemeanours. On shore between missions, they shared rooms in Bombay.

  ‘A purchasing agent, Groot,’ answered Horne and turned back to Babcock. ‘The man’s name is Fanshaw. He buys goods for merchants back in England.’

  Horne looked at the other three men, noticing the Tamil, Jingee, glancing around the cabin at the work to be done, planning where to stow supplies, move bulkheads, serve meals when Horne was using his one table as a desk.

  Groot asked, ‘Schipper, do they have any suspicion where the man’s gone?’

  Horne gestured at the letter. ‘If so, Governor Spencer doesn’t say.’

  Kiro saluted, touching the red band knotted around his shiny black hair. ‘Captain Horne, sir, if the Company’s called the Marine for assistance, does that not mean they suspect the man’s escaped on a ship?’

  Horne nodded his approval at the Japanese. ‘I agree, Kiro. If they believed Fanshaw had fled, say, across the Chingleputt Hills, Governor Pigot could have called on the troops garrisoned at Madras to pursue him. Not the Marine.’

  He looked from Kiro to Jud, to Jingee, to Groot. ‘Although Governor Spencer doesn’t allude to the possibility in his letter, I believe we must also be prepared to deal with kidnappers.’

  ‘Kidnappers, schipper?’ Groot kneaded the blue cap he held in his hands. ‘Men demanding big rewards from the Company?’

  ‘Possibly.’ Horne liked firing the men’s imaginations but he hated suspicions running wild. ‘I mention the point merely for you to consider.’

  Jingee stepped forward, touching his white turban. ‘Captain sahib, might not the man, Fanshaw, already be dead? Had his throat cut? His head sliced from his neck. His heart ripped out. His arms and legs hacked from his body. His …’

  Horne repressed a grin. Wasn’t it like Jingee to suspect murder, and a brutal murder at that? Horne had found Jingee jailed for stabbing to death an English factor.

  ‘True, that’s another possibility to consider, Jingee,’ he agreed. ‘The man might already be dead.’

  Rising from his chair, he said, ‘We’ll meet again tomorrow. Between now and then there are other things to think about, such as our new men. Study them. See if there are possible recruits for the Marine.’

  Stopping in front of Babcock, he said, ‘I expect better conduct from you on this voyage, Babcock.’

  Babcock repeated his mock salute. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Damn it. Doesn’t the man ever stop playing the fool?

  A hail cut through the sounds of water sluicing against the ship’s hull.

  ‘Ahoy … ship … ahoy … ship …’

  Horne looked to Jud. ‘Who’s up top?’

  ‘The Ceylonese, sir.’

  ‘Join him,’ ordered Horne. ‘Check what he sees.’

  Grabbing his spyglass he dismissed all the men, calling after Babcock, ‘Don’t think I’m forgetting about you.’ He moved toward the door, ordering, ‘For the moment, get your arse up on the quarter-deck.’

  Chapter Four

  OPEN BOAT

  Sea spray misting his face, Horne lowered the spyglass and saw with his naked eye that the distant white speck was not sun glittering on silver waves but a ship approaching off the starboard bow.

  From aloft, Jud verified, ‘Full sail, sir.’

  Horne raised the spyglass; he estimated that the ship’s foresail was attached to a long boom but doubted if she was a native craft.

  ‘Sloop, sir,’ called Jud. ‘Flying no colours.’

  Beside Horne on the quarter-deck Babcock asked, ‘Enemy?’

  Horne had forgotten about Babcock’s indiscipline, all his concentration on the approaching ship. Her foresail might be attached to gaff mast and boom but she was probably not one of the British sloops-of-war often rigged as a brigantine. She might be a packet boat carrying mail and passengers for Bombay, but if so, why was she bearing down on the Huma? The frigate flew no flag. A rendezvous with an unidentified ship would be dangerous in these waters so infested with pirates and privateers.

  Deciding to test the sloop’s intention, Horne called to the helm, ‘Two points to starboard.’

  Spyglass back to his eye, he watched the white sail follow his tack and thought again about pirates. He had first sailed these waters seven years ago under Commodore James, Watson’s predecessor in Bombay Castle, serving as a midshipman aboard the flagship, Protector. The mission had been to flush out Malagasy pirates along the Malabar Coast, but James had remarked that India’s western shores could never be totally rid of robbers who preyed on its busy trading routes.

  Did the sloop belong to such a Malagasy chieftain?

  ‘Sails ho!’ Jud shouted from his perch. ‘Two sails on the northern horizon … two to the south …’

  Horne swept his spyglass to the left. To the right. He spotted four white specks flanking the sloop, smaller craft which might possibly be a fishing fleet although it was unlikely they would be so far from the coast.

  ‘Sloop coming up fast, sir,’ reported Jud.

  ‘How many out there?’ asked Babcock.

  ‘One sloop and four coasting vessels?’

  ‘Pattimars?’

  Horne could not yet make out whether the small craft were native vessels. If they were, they could be fitted with guns, tipping the odds against the Huma’s fire power.

  ‘Hoist colours,’ he ordered Babcock.

  ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ answered Babcock in unexpected form.

  To Kiro, Horne bellowed, ‘Clear for action!’

  Moments later bare feet hurried across deck to the gun stations, Kiro dashing from crew to crew.

  When the distant sloop still failed to raise her flag, Horne was convinced she was not approaching for any harmless exchange of information, for a peaceful rendezvous.

  * * *

  Aloft, Jud hailed, ‘Ahoy, sir!’

  Horne snapped open his spyglass. The smaller vessels were widening their arc.

  Strangely, though, the sloop continued on course …

  No. She was tacking …

  Jud had also spotted the change in the sloop’s direction.

  ‘Sloop going about.’

  The mystery vessel was close enough now for Horne to study the sleek line of her hull. His fist tightened on the spyglass as he caught sight of her gun ports; had the cannon been run out? As he watched he saw an
object pass over the gunwale.

  ‘Boat lowered,’ reported Jud from his perch.

  Boat? Why should the captain be lowering an open craft at such a moment?

  The sloop was staying on the silver crested waves. But Horne ignored the shifting vessel as he scoured the water for the boat lowered in the change of course. What was happening? Did the sloop carry a sick man? Was there disease aboard? Fever?

  The Huma’s rails were lined with craning necks as the sloop receded to the east, leaving the small boat tossing from crest to crest on the choppy ocean.

  As Babcock hurried men to lower a rowing crew to collect the small boat, Horne studied it through his spyglass, watching it fall and rise on the waves.

  A strange object caught his eye. Yes, there was a man in the open boat. He was lying face-up on the thwarts. A red stain on his chest told Horne that his throat had been slit. The carved wooden fist attached to his right hand proclaimed his identity.

  Chapter Five

  THE GAGE

  The only sounds were the slush of lapping water against the Huma hove-to in the wind and the scraping of rope on a pulley as Jingee’s crew raised the rowing boat from the sea. The other hands crowded the larboard rail, staring at the blood-stained corpse sprawled face-upwards in the small craft.

  Babcock was standing beside Horne. ‘Why would somebody put a dead man to sea?’

  ‘For us to do precisely what we’re doing,’ answered Horne. From the quarter-deck he could not only identify the pirate whom Babcock had fought in Bombay but could also see the blotches of scarlet dotting the man’s drenched clothes.

  ‘I don’t get your meaning.’ Babcock’s earlier swagger had vanished at the sight of the corpse.

  ‘But you recognise him?’ Horne pointed at the corpse, wondering if Babcock was being stupid or merely incapable of grasping the ramifications of such a situation. Admittedly, it was bizarre.

  ‘Hell, yes, I recognise him,’ Babcock mumbled. ‘It’s the guy from back in town. The man I fought.’ Pulling nervously on his ear, he added, ‘But why did his mates have to knife him and put him to sea in that peanut shell? Why tie the wooden mitt on his fist?’