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?” Lewrie 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’Is 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?”

“Twould 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.

“Ah, Jaysus!” the bow-man gagged as he peered down into the boat. Up forward, two men lay in the bottom, stuffed under thwarts to keep them from sloshing about in the foot-deep water that flooded her. Or what was left of two men. They had bloated and split open with rot in the cruel heat and humidity, swelled like leather-hued steer carcasses and their clothing stretched taut as drum-heads where the seams had held together. Their wounds, where exposed to the air above the water level, swarmed with flies, blue-black and festering. One man had lost his leg below the knee, and some attempt had been made to tie it off with a tourniquet and bandage the stump. The other had the marks of several bullet wounds that had also been treated with scraps of clothing for bandages. But both faces gaped wide-mouthed under the scummy water in final, ghoulish rictuses of agony, and their eyes had gone for gull-food.

“They’re sailors, anyway,” Lewrie coughed on his bile as the odor hit them. “But whose?”

In the stern, which was somewhat dryer where only an inch or so of water sloshed about, there was a barricoe of water, a sodden biscuit bag and many bones and feathers littering a tarpaulin that might cover other supplies.

“Looks like they mighta et some sea-birds afore they died, sir.” Cony shuddered. “Mighta been driftin’ fer weeks out ‘ere.”

Lewrie prodded the water butt with his sword, and it tumbled into the water, floating high and empty, the bung gone.

“Jesus Christ!” the bow-man screamed as the tarpaulin stirred. Lewrie felt the hairs on his head stand up in terror as a shape came up from the bottom boards of the boat, draped in the tarpaulin.

“A ghost!” one of the oarsmen keened in shrill horror.

Then the tarpaulin was flung back, revealing a ravaged face. That face also split in horror and screamed like a banshee, just as terrified as the boat crew! A bony, sun-scarred arm emerged with a seaman’s knife clenched in a lean and bony fist. Lewrie put his sword forward, ready to lunge. “Hold!” he shouted.

“Oh God no don’t kill me please don’t kill me, h’ain’t I been through enough?” the apparition managed to say through a dry throat and blistered lips. But he dropped the knife.

“Are you English?” Lewrie asked, aghast.

“Aye, sir. ‘R you? Please don’ be them Frog devils, oh, say yer English, please!”

“Cony, fetch the water butt,” Lewrie instructed.

“Water, God yes, lord love ye, sir, water!” the man raved. “I h’ain’t ‘ad no water fer days, jus’ some blood outen a gull, once’t!”

“What ship?” Lewrie asked, feeling another shiver of dread.

“Cuddalore, sir.”

“Cuddalore!” Lewrie burst out. “What happened to her?”

“ ‘At Frog ship Poison Door took ‘er, sir. A week ago ‘n more.”

“Goddamn my eyes,” Ayscough sighed, so pale and shaky it was as if he’d seen a ghost himself. “Is this Choundas in league with the devil? What the hell are we up against?”

“A bloody clever man, sir,” Twigg replied. “A bloody lucky one, but still, just a man, Captain Ayscough.”

“What else did he say, Mister Lewrie?”

“Sir, he said Cuddalore fought Poisson D’Or about a week ago,” Lewrie informed them somewhat gloomily. “Close inshore of Banggi and with the help of several praos. They put up a good fight, the man said, but eventually they were overwhelmed. Lieutenant Choate was killed.”

“Oh, poor man,” Ayscough groaned. “His poor family ...”

“Dismasted, shot to pieces,” Lewrie went on. “They captured her, sir. Murdered the survivors. Lieutenant McTaggart and all the mates and warrants. This fellow Prouty was lucky to get away, sir. His mates got into the boat, cut it loose from being towed astern, but the French shot them, dropped a round shot through the bow to sink it and set it afire. Prouty went over the side and clung to the rudder where he couldn’t be seen. They drifted ever since, forward or back on the currents and tides. No oars, no masts. ‘Tis a wonder he lived. Had to use their corpses to staunch the inflow.”

“What a gruesome experience he must have had,” Ayscough said. “Will he live?”

“The surgeon is not too hopeful, sir. Burns and exposure to the sun, no food but for one gull in all those days.” Lewrie sighed. “Prouty did inform us he watched Poisson D’Or take Cuddalore in tow, though, sir. Downwind to the north’rd.”

“Balabac!” Twigg exclaimed. “Where else to leeward could he find harbor in which to strip her.”

“And haul her in front of his Mindanao pirates to prove to them he’s still worth alliance,” Ayscough growled. “Aye. So, if it be Balabac, the best and most sheltered harbor is on the north end. See here.”

Ayscough shuffled through several rolled-up charts to find the one he wanted, and rolled it out onto his desk. “A good channel to east and west, some small spits of land to the north to shelter against the winds when they come nor’westerly. And a village.”

“A pirate village, sir?” Twigg asked.

“Not as I recollect.” Ayscough shrugged. “We patrolled around here during the last war after the Spanish came in on the Rebels’ side with France. Watered there, once. They were a peaceful enough lot. No big seagoing praos, just fishing boats and such. But if the Lanun Rovers put in, they’d have to go along with whatever those devils want, for safety’s sake. Better to suffer some looting and a rape or two than end up massacred.”

“Are there no better harbors, sir?” Lewrie asked, peering at the chart, which indicated several settlements and coves.

“There are others, to be sure, Mister Lewrie,” Ayscough allowed. “But most of those are more suited to praos, which may be beached like Greek ships of old. But Choundas needs at least five fathoms of water at low tide to feel comfortable with a proper ship, and this is the only one of which I am aware. If one were to need a snug harbor for repair, and a place to strip another vessel, this would be my choice.”

“And anything on the southern coast would be too exposed, no matter how tempting it would be to base closer to open water, I take it,” Twigg added.

‘The east-west channel leaves two avenues of approach or escape, yes,” Ayscough agreed. “And open water, deep water, either way. Without having to claw off a lee shore whilst the winds are out of the sou’east each time one leaves port.”

Ayscough drummed his fingers on the chart for a time, then slapped his palm on the chart, making them all jump. “My regards to Colonel Willoughby and Captain Cheney in Lady Charlotte. Signal ‘Captains Repair on Board.’ With luck, if we’re quick enough, we may have this bastard at last!”

After his successful defense at Spratly Island, Captain Cheney was almost resigned to playing warship one more time, in company with Culverin and Telesto. Sir Hugo peered at the chart for a long time in silence, cocking his head this way and that. When he did leave off an irritating humming, he asked a few questions about the various beaches, what the interior was like, what Ayscough remembered from years before about the terrain.

“Do you put my troops ashore here,” he finally said. “Three or more miles shy of the village. We shall proceed inland to here, where you remember crops and fields, Captain Ayscough. Open country where I may employ my troops to best advantage. That is, if you’re set upon this completely, without reconnaissance.”

“Oh, we’ll scout, sir,” Ayscough retorted. “We’ll put a boat down and send her inshore once we’re close enough.”

“Then I should request some cloth,” Sir Hugo said, smiling bleakly. “Something that could resemble yellow silk. A Navy Ensign as well, and some wood for staffs.”

“Hey?” Ayscough asked, perplexed.

“I shall also have need of your pipers, sir,” Sir Hugo added.