Nobody’s Child

by Andrew Wareham

  All business ceased for a week as the monsoon paid its visit, rain such as I have never seen elsewhere, so heavy that we could not see the bows of our small ship from the stern where we stood, hopefully covered in tarpaulins. I learned soon enough that trying to stay dry was a waste of time. Better to wear a jacket and a hat against the stinging raindrops, so heavy that they hurt exposed skin, and towel dry below decks. We kept our anchor watch as we must and stayed below while we could and lasted out the first heavy week, occasionally amusing ourselves by peering onshore and watching the collapse of ramshackle huts, their footings eroded by the rain flooding down slope.

  The monsoon eased - to the extent that the rain did not hammer down all day, every day – and business resumed.

  A forty years old Indian gentleman begged permission to board us, standing in his surf boat and calling in clear English. He was a small, lean, active brown man, very alert of face. He came running up the side and turned and raised his hat to the stern, suggesting he had sailed on naval ships at some time.

  “Jamadar Rao, sir,” he said to Captain Marker, picking him out as the most nearly uniformed of us. “I am informed, sir, that you wish to hire the services of a small company of men who have been sepoys. They are to serve as guards against Chinese pirates, taking any junk of dubious intent.”

  We thought that was particularly well expressed. Captain Marker agreed that Chinese junks must be our prime ambition. I had asked why, and he had pointed out that if we took them on their southward trip, they would be full of trade goods, while if we found them sailing north, they would have done the trading for us.

  “I have cutlasses and muskets for fifty men, Jamadar Rao. We might find junior officers useful as well. Four naiks, sepoy corporals would be of value and possibly a havildar, a sepoy sergeant, too?”

  That could be done, it transpired, would be no difficulty at all.

  “Payment, sir. I am informed that your ship offers shares to its seamen.”

  “It does, Jamadar Rao. The value of such shares depends entirely on the profits made by the ship. My men are looking at single shares of about twenty pounds on our voyaging thus far, Jamadar.”

  That was obviously a substantial sum in the Indian soldier’s eyes.

  “Would your men serve for a single share, with free rations aboard ship? The naiks to have an extra half, the havildar to be a two-share man and yourself four shares, Jamadar Rao?”

  I knew that Captain Marker had spoken to Arbuthnot during the week. He had obviously suggested the proper rate of pay.

  “That would be acceptable, Captain Marker. May I beg that the men be permitted to sign on again if they behave well on the first voyage?”

  A long-term supply of cheap fighting men could not be a bad thing in Captain Marker’s eyes.

  “On liking, yes, Jamadar Rao. Provided they wish to sail, and I am happy with their conduct, then they will be very welcome. Who are these men?”

  “All have stood in the ranks of our Light Infantry, sir. All have been to war and have at least two years of service behind them. Most were sent back to Bombay with wounds and were discharged with a few rupees to recover their health, or to die. Some had taken the fevers. I can find fifty who are now very healthy again, sir.”

  “Bring them aboard, Jamadar Rao. First though, I wish you to inspect the hold space we have made available to your men. You must tell me if it is satisfactory.”

  The men came aboard three days later, fifty of them as promised, in four platoons with a naik at the head of each and the havildar, the sergeant, watching their every move. They lined up in the waist in their ranks, very precise and warlike.

  ‘Not an ounce of spare flesh among them,’ was my first thought.

  Lean, short, dressed ragged in the remains of military uniform in which they had slept rough in the streets; they looked dangerous. That was what we wanted. Our first action was to issue them with clothing, for free, Jamadar Rao having suggested to me they would take it very kindly in us to do so.

  “These are men who fight for their officers and battalion, sir. They have no battalion now, so they must be part of the ship. To be given proper clothing to wear aboard will please them much.”

  I had been given command of all of the boarders in action. Captain Marker had been clear why.

  “We don’t have a great mob of commission and warrant and petty officers like the Navy has. So, I must use what I’ve got – which is you, Giles. Five shares, to outmatch Jamadar Rao. Talk to him, Giles. Work out how you will use his men, and your twenty, because you have the whole score now. Assume we are to attack a junk the size of Jenny Dawes. Know where your men will be placed and what they will do. For a shore party, we are limited by the number of boats we have aboard, except we are able to go in over a quay. Think it through!”

  Five platoons, yet I did not think it wise to put the existing boarders under the command of the havildar. He ranked as a sergeant and was clearly an able man, but the Poole rascals would have none of a brown man giving them orders.

  They needed a corporal, or the equivalent, if I was to take charge of seventy men. I spoke to Captain Marker and then offered Maneater the extra half-share. He took it very kindly in me, thought I was a true gentleman to offer him such trust, bearing in mind his chequered background, or so he said.

  It was very difficult to determine a strategy for using the seventy men effectively. I had never seen a boarding as such and could not really envisage the scene. That was lucky, I suspect – had I known in advance of the antechamber of Hell which was the reality, then I should have run away.

  In the end, I decided that the men must board separately, they must not fall over each other all trying to jump from one ship to another at the same place. The original boarders were to form up on the forecastle and the Indian men to the waist, leaving the quarterdeck clear for the gunners to work their pieces. It made simple sense, or so it seemed to me.

  “Jerry? How tall are junks? Do their bulwarks stand high out of the water so that we should have to climb up to get into them?”

  That was a good question, it seemed, to which there was no single answer.

  “The greatest of junks stand as tall as an East Indiaman, such as you have seen in Bombay. Most are smaller than that. How much smaller will vary from ship to ship, as will the number in the crew. Those going to the waters of the Papues must needs have many fighting men aboard them. I have never seen one, myself, but I am told they use swords far more than muskets and pistols. The word is that many of them are accomplished weapon masters, able to defeat any seaman in battle. They have polearms as well, some of them of a different configuration to any we use in England.”

  That determined just how we should attempt to fight our battles. I begged formal audience of Captain Marker.

  “Before we sail, sir, despite the expense, will it be possible to purchase pistols from John Company’s arsenal? And more of grapeshot, sir? It seems to me that we will be well-advised to stand a distance clear of the Chinaman’s side and fire volleys from muskets and musketoons, the cannonades and six pounders firing grape the while. Then, sir, to come alongside her and wait for the Chinese to rush to meet us with their swords and then shoot all together as many pistols as we possess, six rounds apiece at very short range. That once done, sir, then we can come to hand-to-hand with our cutlasses. From the little I know, the Chinese are fierce hands with their swords, and we might be wiser to keep clear of them while we can.”

  The Captain led me off to speak to Mr Arbuthnot and he sent us to the arsenal with a note that our needs were to be looked after.

  “As for payment, gentlemen – when you return, covered in glory, no doubt, we shall square up as is right.”

  Captain Marker agreed, very meekly, that was an excellent course. I was used now to the need to kowtow to the Company and joined him in making his obeisances.

  We were taken to the arsenal and Mr Arbuthnot’s clerk handed the note to a skinny, red-nosed Scottish man, brown and dry fr
om years in the Indian sun, bald as a coot and yellow-eyed from a mixture of fever and gin. He was still wide alert and capable in his work.

  “Pistols, the noo. Well, and I hae them and fashioned for sea-service. Three-quarters of an inch, the bore. Single barrel, flintlock, as gaes wi’out saying.”

  The accent was substantially more barbarous than I record, but sufficient is enough, I say. It gives the impression.

  “Ye hae seventy of men, and that requires six apiece to make four hundreds and twenty. I hae them, each carried in a leather holster to go to the belt. Ye mun practice and fight too. One hundred ball apiece. That comes in a little short of the ton weight. Nineteen hundredweight, or unco’ nigh. Gunpowder of fine grain, for pistols do better loaded so; half a ton, which is forty of barrels, each of one quarter. Two bullock carts will be sensible. Hae ye swivel guns aboard?”

  We had not. I knew what a swivel was from the sloop and was certain we had none aboard. Captain Marker agreed that he had purchased none for Jenny Dawes.

  “There may be three hundred of mad, heathen Chinese aboard a larger junk, gentlemen. It is wise to have a means of killing them to hand. Two-pound swivels, set in the quarterdeck railings, for ye will nae hae fighting tops like a true ship of war. Very handy they are, loaded wi’ small shot or slugs or even with langrage, tho’ sic is less fashionable these days.”

  “How many have you to hand, sir?”

  “I can lend ye six, gentlemen. I am to sell ye pistols, but I hae no authority to sell swivels, so ye mun return them when ye leave these waters. I would nae see ye sailing wi’out the guns ye need.”

  We made our thanks and followed the slow oxcarts down to the beach and the surf boats. The oarsmen were uncommon skilled and set us aboard almost wholly dry, the powder barrels wrapped and protected.

  A quick expedition to the markets bought leather belts and we set the pistols to them, six apiece and then issued them to the men. They were heavy and we decided that they would lay them at the centreline of the deck when we went into action, firing their muskets and then taking up the pistols.

  The Carpenter conferred with Master Gunner and they set mountings for the swivels into the stern and side railings so that they could be mounted larboard or starboard as the need arose. The guns were simple little engines, set on a vertical iron rod which dropped into a socket. They looked like nothing so much as a short-barrelled and heavy musket, with a pole stock that the gunner could lean into; any of the seamen who was at a loose end at any moment could aim and fire a swivel, with a little of practice.

  Rations were of little problem in Bombay. Jamadar Rao sent ashore for a cook for his people and the man came aboard with sacks of rice – tons, in fact, and bags and little packets of spices and whatever. Heathen muck! How they eat such stuff is beyond me. Boiled beef does me well enough and so it should any true Englishman.

  Sailing east, we were following the monsoon, which takes four or five months in its transit from India to the Papues, varying each year, for it is not clockwork and precise. Some years it fails, in fact, and then the people die in their millions, for their crops have no water.

  The Chinese traders have been centuries in the waters of the East Indies and know to make a westing in the middle of the year and then to wait for the storms to diminish and follow the course of the monsoon to the east, trading as they go.

  We made Java Head in good time and came across our first junk soon after, working its way along the southern coast of the islands. The Dutch were to be found far more on the north coast of the islands at that time – they still may be for all I know. Their forts and ships were well out of our way.

  Chapter Seven

  Nobody’s Child Series

  Nobody’s Child

  “Silver, Master Giles! Bloody girt chests of it, all in same size chunks, as is, Master! They got a strongroom, so they ‘as, what ‘as got powerful timberin’ all over the sides and deck an’ deckhead besides. Us opened it easy, acos of it ain’t got no lock. Strengthening the hull, that’s all it be, Master.”

  Maneater’s English was generally more formal and accurate. Excitement evidently reduced him to deckhand’s language. It did sound as if he had reason to be excited.

  I ran along to see, was suitably amazed. The smallish junk was a treasure ship – not to compare with a Spanish galleon, but respectable in her little way.

  The cabin was perhaps ten feet in depth and eight wide, with a height of no more than sixty inches - the sort of space one might assign to six ship’s boys for sleeping, they being smallish chaps in the nature of things. It contained eight wooden chests, set in two rows of four and a little more than a quarter of the available height. There was room to walk in between them. I suppose each was of about five cubic feet.

  Jerry calculated for me that there was more than a ton of silver in each of the four containing taels.

  A glance showed two of the others to carry coppers while a pair were empty.

  The first need was to transfer the treasure to Jenny Dawes. That was easily done – seamen are in the habit of shifting great weights quickly. Block and tackle to the yard arms and the chests were lifted from one hull to the other as we lay alongside the junk. The only difficulty lay in heaving them out of the cabin onto the open deck; that was done by manpower using ropes and rollers. Simple, so they said.

  “A silver tael comes in at about eight shillings English in Bombay, Giles. The most common sort, which is a five-tael ingot, weighs in at two pounds sterling for about six ounces. Roughly six thousand of them to the ton, which amounts to about twelve thousand pounds sterling. That is a lot of money!”

  I agreed with Jerry.

  “Why? What are they to purchase with so much cash? Almost fifty thousand pounds - a huge sum.”

  “Out of the ordinary, that is for sure, Giles, especially in an unaccompanied merchantman. The Chinese have few of war junks, could not send an escort with their trading vessels. As well, I suspect that they have had few problems in recent years and have grown careless. They are masters of these seas and have a belief that they will be untouched by the disasters that can affect lesser folk. Foolish. They will know better in future years, perhaps.”

  We had no use for the cotton cloth and rice and no space for the ironware. The vessel itself was of little use to us and the masts and sails of the junk had been much damaged by our fire.

  “It would be a shame to sink her, or set her alight, Captain. The coast is poor, and the people are no enemies of ours…”

  “Take her under tow and bring her into the next inhabited bay, you think, Giles?”

  “It might cost us a day, sir. What harm could it do?”

  The answer had to be ‘none’. Captain Marker put a tow aboard the junk and set a passage crew on her. They were able to set a scrap of sail which made her handle far better and we set off down coast at about two knots, expecting to find a town or large village by morning. The great island was heavily populated although it was poor on this southern coast.

  As we sailed, we saw a few Chinese men watching us from cover. The watering party, we presumed.

  “What will they do, Jerry?”

  “Die, Giles. The local people will kill them, of that I have no doubt. They have no use for foreigners, will tolerate them – and us – only while it is to their advantage. Castaway mariners have little value. Come with me, Giles. The junk intrigues me. There must be a reason for the bullion it carried.”

  It took us three hours to discover the answer – those hours spent shifting bales of cotton cloth in one of the holds before Jerry found evidence.

  “Look at the timbers, Giles! There is your answer.”

  The frames of the lower hull must have been the better part of a foot square and the stringers little less, all of well-seasoned hardwood.

  “Timbers of this substance would be right for a two thousand ton three-decker first-rate ship of the navy, Giles. A ship that had to carry five hundred tons weight of great guns and hundreds of tons more of
powder and ball and men and their rations. This is a ship that is to carry great weights, Giles.”

  That seemed obvious, now that it was explained to me. Most puzzles seem simple, after they are unravelled.

  “What weight, Jerry? What is so valuable, and heavy, and rare enough that they will travel thousands of miles to find it?”

  Jerry knew the answer and was pleased to tell me.

  “They told me in Bombay that the Chinese demand silver for their tea and silks and will accept almost nothing else. One of the few goods they will willingly take is tin, and also copper, for the manufacture of bronze which they use much and which they value highly.”

  “Ah! Four tons of silver in exchange for perhaps two or even three hundred tons of tin or copper – in the ore, I presume, Jerry?”

  “Part-worked would be logical, Giles. I know little of smelting, but I would think it might be possible to concentrate the ore – to crush it and throw away some part of the dross – before loading it.”

  “The junk when loaded might be worth half a million sterling to them, Jerry, for they would want a high return for the risks they take. Ten for one might not seem too much – I would want big money if I was to take fifty thousand pounds out into far, dangerous waters on a trading venture.”

  Jerry agreed. A pity that we were not likely to be in the way of finding the mining port ourselves.

  “There is bound to be a garrison there and a battery of guns at least. Probably belonging to the local rajah. Distant a way from here – was it close to hand, they would fill their water there.”

  Too far for us to locate; too tough a nut for us to crack. A pity, but fifty thousand in silver made a handsome beginning to any voyage.

  We found a small port soon after dawn – a busy little town of some thousands of people with a large fisher fleet, mostly coming in from the sea at that time of day, and a couple of coasters tied up. There was an old fortalice at one end of a wooden quay, Portuguese, originally, Jerry thought. The two ships were local rig but on a European sort of hull, suggesting Dutch influence, the local people observing and modifying the foreign improvements to their own needs. They were no more than eighty tonners and we were not there to pirate them.