Adam Horne’s first clue to the identity of the man who would be receiving him at Company House came when a secretary said that His Excellency, Governor Spencer, was not expecting Horne to arrive in Madagascar until the following week.
Governor Spencer of Bombay, a slim man with a meticulously trimmed moustache and pointed goatee, was wearing a neatly cut but unfashionable frock-coat when he greeted Horne in a second-storey room in Company House. After a curt handshake, he nodded to a pair of gilt chairs in front of the tall, shuttered windows, saying, ‘Let us sit there.’
Horne sat down, his back to the window, cocked hat on his knee. He had met Spencer on only two previous occasions, both brief, before he had captured General Lally from Madras, a mission which had been ordered by Spencer and his two fellow Governors, Pigot of Madras and Vansittart of Bengal.
Dispensing with any social niceties, Spencer came straight to the point. ‘As you’re well aware, Captain Horne, the war with France is entering its sixth year.’
Horne kept his eyes on Spencer’s gaunt face, his complexion apparently untouched by India’s harsh weather which turned most men’s skin to leather.
The Governor, his voice clipped and impatient, went on. ‘The two countries seem to have reached a stalemate. The fighting has come to a lull. In the meantime, the French are still plagued with the problem which led to Lally’s downfall at Pondicherry: lack of money.’
Commodore Watson had also mentioned money, Horne remembered. Had Watson known that Spencer was waiting to see him in Port Diego-Suarez? If so, why had he not said anything about it?
Spencer continued, ‘But only in the past weeks, Captain Horne, have we heard about a consignment of gold being shipped from France to pay their troops in Mauritius.’
Commodore Watson had known about the mission, Horne was sure of it, but the Governors had obviously forbidden him to say anything about it. So the old walrus had done his best by uttering hints about a treasure ship.
‘The British Navy Board has instructed the East India Company to intercept the French gold shipment, Captain Horne. That’s why we are turning to you.’
Without waiting for Horne’s response, Spencer rose from his chair and moved to a large, delicately painted map stretched on the wall.
Pointing to the pastel-green tip of Africa, he said, ‘Governor Pigot, Governor Vansittart and myself are calling upon you, Captain Horne, to commandeer the French war chest between the Cape of Good Hope and—’
As Spencer pointed to a small dot directly east of Madagascar—Mauritius—Horne noticed that the Governor’s fingernails were torn and ragged. Apart from being at variance with his neat appearance, the bitten nails betrayed that he was a very troubled man.
* * *
‘With all due respect, Your Excellency, why does the Navy Board not dispatch its own ships on this mission?’
Horne’s question surprised Spencer. Looking over his shoulder, he studied the man sitting in the chair, his grey eyes dulling as he formed his answer.
Turning from the map, he nodded, explaining, ‘His Majesty’s Navy are servants of the King, Captain Horne. When England signs a peace treaty with France—an event which we see as being imminent—England will be made to repay any gold taken in war.’
‘Does not the Company’s charter give it the same responsibility as the state, Your Excellency? Would not gold taken from a French ship by the Honourable East India Company also have to be returned by articles of an international treaty?’
Spencer’s face softened. ‘Yes. But only if the East India Company could be directly connected with the … event—which it will not be if the attack goes as we hope it will.’
Horne began to understand. ‘The Navy Board—as well as the Company—want unidentifiable raiders to seize the French war chest.’
‘In a manner of speaking, yes.’
‘That’s why you’re turning to—’ Horne decided that only the Marines’ loathsome nickname would be appropriate. ‘—the Bombay buccaneers.’
‘Precisely.’
‘But why choose me to lead the mission, Your Excellency?’
‘Your performance at Madras makes you the most likely candidate, Captain Horne.’
‘I had the Eclipse.’
Spencer turned away from Horne. ‘I understand, Captain, that your recent voyage from Bombay to Madagascar was itself interrupted by raiders. I also understand that you helped thwart the attack as well as capture two ships, one of which is a frigate, a fine, strong ship called the Huma.’
Who told him that? Goodair? Tree?
Spencer continued, ‘Even as we talk, Captain Horne, below us in the harbour the Huma is undergoing repairs—masts replaced, guns fitted, entirely provisioned and crewed.’
Horne refused to allow himself to become excited about the possibility of the majestic Huma being assigned to his command. Instead, his voice sharpened as he asked, ‘What ship would have been assigned for the mission had the Huma not been captured, Your Excellency?’
The young man’s questions disturbed Governor Spencer. He did not like subordinates being so thorough.
He replied, ‘A Company brig was to have been spared.’
‘How, sir, can one ship—brig or frigate—hope to take an entire convoy?’
‘You’re assuming that the French gold is travelling in convoy, Captain Horne. Our sources in France report that the gold departed six months ago from Le Havre aboard a ship called the Royaume.’
‘And the ship is still at sea, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘With all due respect, sir, how do you receive information so quickly?’
‘The Royaume is also laden with cargo, Captain. Heavy cargo. Progress is slow.’
Horne thought of one possibility of danger. ‘Could not Mauritius also have been alerted and be sending an escort for the Royaume when she passes into the Indian Ocean?’
‘That could be dealt with.’
‘Am I to understand by that remark, Your Excellency, that Pocock’s fleet will also be participating in the operation? If only in a minor capacity?’
‘Admiral Pocock and His Majesty’s Navy will be kept informed, yes.’
It was on the tip of Horne’s tongue to argue that word passed by sea messenger would not help him and his men in a difficult situation, not if they needed immediate support.
Spencer said, ‘You look troubled, Captain Horne? Why? At Madras, the odds against success were much greater.’
‘At Madras, Your Excellency, you and your distinguished colleagues supplied me with ground plans for Fort St George. Watch charts. Time lists. I have nothing now except a fairly dated report saying that the French have dispatched a treasure chest—aboard a ship named the Royaume—destined for the island of Mauritius.’ Unimpressed, Horne shrugged.
‘Ah, but you do have a squadron of highly trained Marines, Captain Horne. Six of them.’
Not seven? Governor Spencer’s source of information about the Marines must be impeccable, including the news of Bapu’s death. Horne had an inexplicable feeling that his enemy might easily be not the French, but England’s Honourable East India Company.
* * *
Horne had left Company House. Governor Spencer sat at a table in a small room, holding the letter which Horne had written to his father in London. Chips from the wax seal were scattered across the table’s leather top.
Reading the simply-written communication, Spencer liked Horne even less than he did in person. The letter’s tone was like Horne himself: straightforward, yes, but it seemed to be hiding something. As Horne did.
Horne had written of a leader’s responsibility to his troops, of man’s need to be constantly ready for death, of the fact that death in a distant, alien land was not as terrifying as the prospect of death in one’s homeland.
Reading these thoughts, Spencer wondered what kind of relationship a son had with his father when he could write to him about such ideas instead of gossiping about cousins and marriages and blisters, and too much rice and not enough potatoes. Spencer pictured the red-nosed tradesman who had sired him and felt a strange, new jealousy of Horne.
Despite the fact that it was no normal letter home, the pages contained no mention of any mission, no facts which Horne might have deduced from Watson and was passing on to his father. The Honourable East India Company was insisting that there must be no hint to anyone—not even family, especially an influential family like Horne’s—about the assignment to seize the French war chest. Ramifications were going to be difficult enough without unnecessary inquiries. The undertaking was volatile.
Putting aside the letter, Spencer rang a silver bell on the table to summon his secretary. The letter could be resealed and given back to Goodair to deliver in London. Spencer also made a mental note that Goodair must somehow be rewarded by the Company for his co-operation in handing over the letter. Perhaps a ceremonial sword, something given to him at a Company banquet, something to make the old man swell his pigeon chest.
As he sat waiting, Spencer decided that what troubled him most about Adam Horne was his lack of resemblance to most young men who came out to India. In general they were running away from gambling debts in England; from a wife, from scandal or crime. Although rumour had it that Horne had fled London after his fiancée had been murdered by a well-bred hooligan, Spencer had the distinct feeling that he had come to India not running from anything, but looking for something. But what? Who? Why?
Horne troubled Spencer. He was a puzzle, an aristocrat by attitude if not birth, who lived by his own rules. Spencer’s one consolation was that young men like Adam Horne did not know what a relentless world they lived in, that they were innocent creatures compared to men like Spencer who had to plot, connive, juggle right and wrong to reach a profitable end. Men like Spencer used men like Adam Horne.