Nobody’s Child

by Andrew Wareham

  I bowed as the junk cast off, using the last of the light to work offshore, not wishing to remain overnight for not entirely trusting us in the darkness, no doubt. I wondered how many tens of thousands of catties of silver remained aboard her – I still wished we could have taken her, but the risk had been too great.

  The master of the junk appeared at the stern and formally bowed to me, signifying that he left satisfied with my good faith. He might have shown me his arse if he had been displeased.

  A sufficiently satisfactory result, in the circumstances. There were times when the better course is not to kill all comers. Less exciting, though.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Nobody’s Child Series

  Nobody’s Child

  A quiet time after that was marked by a trickle of coastal traders, all local rigs, little vessels of thirty and forty tons, running copra and local foodstuffs for the most part. They would pay us a dollar or two in token tax, but were of little interest to us, or we to them.

  Captain Norris wondered if we should not stop the local ships for word getting out of our presence.

  “Asking for pirates to attack, knowing we must have guns and powder and ball, Giles.”

  We had fallen into the most informal terms, Captain Myles Norris and I. Not a bad thing in a small outpost, but not perhaps to be encouraged where there was a larger society. Even Binks was willing to be called Charlie and was showing a willingness to forget our past. He nodded grave approval to my response.

  “Might be Myles, but I doubt we can prevent the word going up the coast. It must be known inland at the mines that we are here, and who we are. The tin ore is still coming down the track, so the people must not be too displeased at our presence. As for pirates – well, they can try. I doubt fewer than a thousand could do the job, ourselves in batteries and behind stone walls. Too many for the local pirates to put together. It’s not like the China coast where there are great fleets all under formal command and winked at by the Emperor. We might be raided, a quick dash into the harbour to take a ship at anchor, but even that I doubt. Keep the sentries up and the slowmatch burning in the two batteries and I suspect we shall be safe enough.”

  I was still acting as governor, to Norris’ pleasure, for avoiding the responsibility if it went wrong in the absence of orders from Bombay. I made the decisions and was pleased to. I did like being in command. I firmly believed that the general should be the most intellectually able in the army – and there were few cleverer than me, I suspected.

  I still think that. If you have the intellects, flaunt them, say I. Bugger this false modesty, or any other sort. No need to be arrogant, or not too much so, but I am damned if I’ll stand back while the village idiot gives the orders. I would never have made a regular soldier; I am not to be led by some half-wit whose sole claim to command is that his good mama whored to a king.

  No pirates attacked us for a good three months and then an aviso arrived from Bombay, carrying orders. She was a tiny schooner, perhaps a hundred tons, very fast and almost unarmed, designed solely for use as a messenger. Her captain, a lieutenant of the Bombay Marine, stayed long enough to take on water and firewood and to drink a glass with the three of us and pass on the latest news.

  “Revolution in France, gentlemen! Started last year. The mob is up and weak King Louis is down. Shame about Marie Antoinette, but he’s no loss to the world. So far, the word is that he is held in captivity and may yet agree a Constitution to make him answerable to a parliament. Good thing if he does. The news came by the overland route which the Frogs don’t use, so they probably don’t know it. Tell them, if you see any. I am to pass the word to any I meet up with. Bound for Canton yet. Must meet a Frog or two there.”

  We nodded thoughtfully. If France no longer had a legitimate government, then we could not be held to account for our dealings with the French garrison we had destroyed. We toasted the new regime and then the young gentleman trotted back to his ship, not even delaying to eat a dinner with us. Despatch carriers were duty-bound to make the quickest passage possible, must delay for nothing.

  I opened the message pouch addressed to me as governor. It contained a despatch to me and a sealed enclosure, very formal, addressed to Captain Norris and three letters from England, two of them lavender-scented for Binks, the third for the Captain.

  Just occasionally I wished there was someone, anyone, to write a letter to me. Not scented, perhaps.

  I flattened out the pair of folded quarto sheets bearing the Company’s seal and superscribed to the ‘Governor of Tin Harbour’. Better than being a tinpot governor, at least. I glanced at the signature first, ‘Arbuthnot, pp Denbigh, Governor’. The orders were official – we were no longer a clandestine expedition. It might be that we were officially to return to Bombay to be hanged as pirates, of course. I sat down to parse and examine every word for its precise implications – I had grown to be an untrusting youth.

  We were to name our outpost as Georgetown – I wondered just how many of those there were scattered around the world. Tin was evidently in great demand and excused all sins of commission and omission alike. We were possessors of a colony.

  I next discovered that I had been a good boy and had done well for the Company. Not being, however, in the direct employ of the Company, I must not remain as governor. That position was to pass to Captain Norris, promoted brevet-major while holding the office, with immediate effect upon reading the order.

  He could wait another five minutes, I decided, while I read the final sentences. I was a loose end and was to be tidied up, I suspected.

  An account had been opened with the Company in my name and was credited with the sum of two thousand pounds sterling as a grant and a further three thousand pounds as my share of the prize money from the taking of Georgetown. Payment had also been made for my recent services in Whampoa. Funds held for me by Mr Ainslie had also been transferred and the total in the account came to six thousand and five hundred pounds. For the while it was held at interest pending my return to Bombay.

  That would be a hundred and thirty pounds a year, at a rough estimate – a living if I ever returned wounded and unable to adventure any further and was forced to settle in Bombay.

  Finally, my presence was requested in Canton, at the British factory, and, if I would accept the employment, I was to make my way there on the next convoy. A sloop was to be detached from the escort to pick me up and transport me to Whampoa where I would be met.

  I gained the impression that I had little choice in the matter. Not to worry, there was much to be said for Canton.

  I walked across to the mess and greeted Captain Norris with a formal bow and addressed him as ‘Your Excellency’. He blushed.

  “I say, Giles, I did not expect this, you know. Thing is, of course, that I have a commission and you don’t. Pity. You’d make a fine officer. My orders are to hold Georgetown pending the arrival of a transport with a half-battalion and a battery of heavy guns and their gunners. Should be here inside a month. I shall send Binks back on it. Can’t be doing with his goings on, you know! I expect that’s why you broke his nose for him, is it?”

  I nodded

  “Enough said! Not surprised at all that you did. Well done! Turned out very fine for all of us. I am told you are to go to Canton, if you accept the appointment, to undertake important work for the Company. Will you go?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “Good. You are to take your personal guard with you, I see. Six men in all.”

  I had not thought that far, was happy to do so.

  We had a celebratory dinner that night. Next morning the sentries called a square-rigged ship in the distance.

  It was too soon to be the garrison and guns from Bombay. It was just possible that it was a country ship, a trader come to pick up tin, but it was far more likely that the Company would keep that trade to itself. The ship did not look right for an East Indiaman, though it was still distant from us.

  “Stand to!”

>   Governor Norris shouted his military commands and we ran to obey.

  I placed myself at the battery by the anchorage. The second was a little further back, designed to spread grape along the wharf rather than to fire at the ships themselves.

  Norris’ runner followed me after a few minutes with the instruction to allow the ship to belly up to the wharf if possible. If she came to an anchor, then I was not to open fire until she had boats in the water. If she sent an invasion force, then I was to destroy them. If it was a small party come to talk, let them land.

  The ship was a big merchantman, perhaps an eight hundred tonner, three masted, square-rigged, as we had seen. Definitely European. She came to single anchor.

  We peered at the masts, saw a flag going up.

  “White flag, sir. Wants to talk, maybe?”

  “Don’t think so, Maneater. I think that is the Bourbon flag. She is French. She is puzzled, I expect, not to see a French flag over the barracks or flying at the wharf.”

  We had a flagpole, inherited from the French, but had not brought the Honourable Company’s flag with us. We had nothing to fly, not having expected to make ourselves a new colony.

  “What do we do, sir?”

  “Nothing. The Governor will decide. We will simply obey orders.”

  I raised my voice, just a little.

  “Gunners! Aim at the quarterdeck. Reload ball, if I give the word.”

  The ship was at the limit of four fathom water, nearly a cable distant, point-blank range. She dropped a second anchor as we watched, evidently deciding that there was no immediate hazard.

  “Don’t want to swing with the tide, sir. Must be she draws a good few feet, sir. Ocean-going, like the East Indiamen. Not shallow-draught like the Dutchies are and that big junk was.”

  I said nothing, having little idea of what Maneater was talking about.

  “Lowering a boat, sir. Just one.”

  There were flat boats, barges you might say, tied up in the harbour, for use in loading ships too deep to tie up at the wharf. The ship was not expecting to use her own boats for loading which suggested her master knew the harbour and its ways.

  “How would you say she was laden, Maneater?”

  “More nor half, sir. Maybe a lot more. Less of freeboard than I might look for. Stores, maybe, sir.”

  Soldiers took up more space for far less weight. It did not seem likely that she had hundreds of men belowdecks.

  The ship was just too far distant to pick out details, but I did not think the men dropping down into the boat were uniformed.

  The runner came scurrying back, scuttling low and hopefully unseen by the ship.

  “Governor’s compliments, sir. Greet the party at the wharf. Bring them to the Governor under escort, sir. Whether they want to or not.”

  I had my six with me and should be able to take the party under arrest without making too much display.

  I waited until the boat had reached the wharf and tied up. Five men climbed ashore and stood looking about them, trying to make sense of the lack of any welcome, of the absolute stillness along the shore. Perhaps they wondered if they had landed in a plague port.

  “At my shoulder, Fred. Maneater, in a line. Muskets slung but ready. Gunners, grab the boat if needs be.”

  The gunners all carried pistols and a blade of their choice.

  I stepped out from the battery and came round to its front and down the couple of steps to the timbers of the wharf.

  “Good morning, gentlemen!”

  “Who are you?”

  I wore no uniform, nor did the six with me. We were armed in a military fashion. Now that they looked closely at the wall I had appeared from, they spotted trails of smoke from slowmatch in the linstocks and realised there were cannon waiting to be run out, to show their barrels over the stonework. They could not see how many guns, or how big. Looking about, they spotted the second battery.

  “My name is Jackson and I am in the service of the Honourable East India Company. This is our port of Georgetown, sir.”

  “Where is our garrison?”

  “The Governor invites you to join him at the barracks, gentlemen.”

  “This is a French port.”

  “This is Georgetown, gentlemen. Please to come with me to meet the Governor.”

  “Are we made prisoner?”

  “Possibly. Not if you will come with me to speak to the Governor.”

  “If I refuse?”

  “Then you will come with me to speak to the Governor, sir. I must, by the way, offer my congratulations on your understanding of my language, sir. No doubt the Governor will wish to commiserate with you on the events in France.”

  “What events?”

  “The Governor will wish to discuss them with you, sir.”

  The Frenchman, twice my age and confident-seeming - a middle-ranking officer, major or such, I would have sworn – was thrown a little off-balance, as I had intended. He was not so sure of what might have happened and knew that the Company received news from Europe months before his own people. It might be the case that Paris had given us the harbour behind his back.

  “Bien! I shall come with you, sir. I shall send my boat back to the ship with the message that I am doing so.”

  I shook my head.

  “No need, sir. The boat can wait here to take you back, if the Governor so wishes.”

  He and his four carried personal arms, pistols and sword or cutlass, but he suspected that he would not be able to fight his way clear.

  “The boat will remain. Lead on.”

  I took them silently up to the barracks and waved them in. Jamadar Rao was waiting out of sight from the shore, with a file of his sepoys. They presented arms as the French passed them, a salute that was also a threat, a warning that the Company’s army was present. Binks, in full uniform, bowed and waved the French indoors; he called me to join them.

  Governor Norris stood as they entered and introduced himself, pointing to chairs around his large working table. I had been content with a very small office but Norris had a fine idea of his own importance as Governor.

  “Well, gentlemen, who are you and why do you fly the flag of the old regime?”

  Uncompromising and designed to unsettle the Frenchmen. I was impressed by Norris’ strategy.

  The Frenchman was forced to confess ignorance. He had been sent with stores for the garrison and was to load with ore for transport back to France. He knew no more.

  Governor Norris explained that the King of France had been deposed, that as far as was known, France was perhaps to become a constitutional monarchy, but might have followed the example of America by now.

  “Revolution!”

  “Yes, sir. Successful, it would seem. Bourbon France is no more. I can only suggest that you offload your stores and then return to your home port for orders.”

  “We are due to sail for Bordeaux with a cargo of ore, sir.”

  “There will be no cargo of ore. All tin ore will be the perquisite of the Honourable East India Company. You may load copra, of which there is some stored in the warehouses here. Coir is available as well, naturally enough.”

  A shipload of tin ore might easily be worth a quarter of a million landed in France, or Britain. The same weight of copra and coir might come home at ten thousands, which was not to be sniffed at, exactly, but was somewhat of a comedown.

  The French master agreed, reluctantly, but exploded in rage when he was informed that he must purchase his cargo. The Company would take his stores and would negotiate their price with his owners, all to be done from Calcutta or Bombay. His trading with France was his concern.

  He refused to land the stores.

  Binks called for his havildar to place the Frenchmen under arrest.

  “Mr Jackson, you are to take the French ship and bring her crew ashore into captivity. There is a need for workers at the tin mines. Make the arrangements for the men to be chained and taken away.”

  I stood and doffed my hat to him
in salute, then ran calling for Jamadar Rao and Maneater.

  “Wait!”

  I stopped and turned an enquiring eye to the French gentleman.

  “Send out the barges. My crew will load them. I have an amount of specie aboard ship, to be sent to France as a tax payment. It can be used to purchase a cargo.”

  Governor Norris agreed that to be an excellent suggestion, far better than slavery in the tin mines.

  I boarded the ship with one of the officers and a full platoon under Binks’ havildar. We watched as the holds were emptied, examining goods sent ashore and then rummaging through those to be left aboard, as not being part of the stores consignment. There was a few tons of indigo dye which I sent aboard the barges, but I left the remainder, which was jute fibre, as hardly worth pinching. The Frenchmen fumed and regarded us as no more than brigands. No doubt they were right, but they had chosen not to fight and must take what was thrown at them.

  The merchants of Georgetown were invited to trade with the French and encouraged to charge top price in order to allow for a modicum of taxation.

  It was a very satisfactory couple of days, but I doubt it made us many friends in the French colonies in India.

  “No matter, Mr Jackson. They are to be taken in the next war. There is no place for the French in our India.”

  Governor Norris was more than pleased with himself. His storehouses were full and for free; the French had provided barrels of salted meat in addition to more of wheat flour and olive oil and tubs of various fats which left him with a surplus of income over expenditure on rations for the coming year. A substantial part of that surplus would end up in his own purse. Some of it reached mine.

  Two more months of idleness followed and then the sloop from the convoy arrived, escorting a Company ship, as promised. She landed six of long thirty-two pound cannon for the batteries and four companies of sepoys. A Governor came ashore and Mr Norris became a captain again, and second and advisor to the new man.

  Lieutenant Binks was informed that he had been dismissed from the Company’s employ for unspecified failings in his character and behaviour. He could accept the termination of his commission and free passage back to England or could request court-martial. If found not guilty, he would be retained in employment with no stain on his character. A guilty verdict would see him shot.