The Huma swept south on the larboard tack, sails cut to storm jib, the rain driving at Horne like small, silver darts as he paced his beloved realm of the quarterdeck. He knew that somewhere beyond the storm wall lay two brigs‚ one quite possibly the Royaume carrying the French war chest, but the cursed storm held him in thrall.
Rollers crashed; foam swept over the bulwarks; the rigging creaked and timbers groaned; Horne was consoled, however, by Jud’s topmen—assisted by Babcock’s alternative watch—ready to lunge into action at any sudden change of sail.
Lifelines had been stretched for the men to grip as they inched along the thrashing deck, making their way across the wave-swept gangway. Jingee’s crew had secured anything loose; Kiro’s men had placed blocks under the trucks, a safeguard to stop the guns from breaking loose and careering across deck. Below deck, Mustafa’s gang had secured the water casks and stowed all movables.
At the frigate’s wheel, Groot stood as helmsman with a flat-faced mate whom Horne had assigned to him from the Huma’s former raiding crew, one of the so-called ‘pirates’. Within easy reach were ropes with which to lash themselves to the wheel should the storm begin to dash them in its turbulence.
Horne’s spyglass was useless against the cloud bank. The only thing for which he could be thankful was that the wind was warm and did not chill him. Trusting his bare feet more than leather soles, he had rid himself of his boots, thinking that if men accused Bombay Marines of being buccaneers, why not look and survive like them?
With the rain soaking his breeches and coarsely woven shirt, he considered his alternative course of action. If the storm worsened, he could abandon his plan to lurch his way towards the two ships. Instead, he could bring the Huma to the wind. The frigate would make no progress hove-to, but, at least, she might escape storm damage and men’s lives would be spared.
Frustrated by being so close to the two brigs, yet unable to close in on them or at least learn their identity, Horne felt blind and crippled on his own quarterdeck. He must find some way to see—if only a short distance. Glancing overhead at the brailed sails and furled canvas, he leapt, barefooted, to the mizzen shroud and climbed towards the mast.
The wind pasted the clothes to his body like a second skin; the rain felt as if it were driving tiny holes into his face; but he clung to the wet hemp, waiting for a break in the storm. If the Huma were a bird that never alighted then, in the name of the good Lord Almighty, he would be a willing rider on the tireless creature’s back.
* * *
The flat-faced, wiry young ‘pirate’ whom Horne had assigned to Groot as a mate spoke no English. Neither did he speak the other language which Groot knew—French. As the storm gale worsened, Groot felt a nervous impulse to talk to someone, but having nobody nearby who could understand him, he began speaking his native Dutch to the pirate, unworried that the latter did not know what he was saying.
He first described the house in Bombay where he, Babcock, and Mustafa had lived before the press gang had found them, and how Babcock had accused him of poisoning them with his stew of sausages, potatoes and lentils.
‘Oh, life there was boring‚’ he said, ‘waiting for Horne to bring us new orders. But it was not the schipper’s fault. He takes his orders from Commodore Watson. What was he to do?’
The pirate’s black shoe-button eyes shone in his brown face as he stared at Groot in bewilderment.
‘The Dutch name for Bombay is “good harbour”‚’ Groot continued, ‘but to me it was a bad place, a prison. I was so bored there I never stopped talking and worrying and talking more. I don’t look like a talkative person, I know. Talkative people are fat and have jolly faces. Me, I am lean and look quiet.
‘Babcock, he threatens to pull out my tongue if I don’t stop talking. Mustafa, he gets that blank look in his eyes when I talk and he never answers me. Sometimes I think Mustafa has nothing to say. Sometimes I think that inside his head there is nothing but air.
‘In prison I talked to myself. I was put into prison for stealing Hyderabad silk. I am not a thief, but I saw a chance to make some money so I took it. If it wasn’t for Horne, I’d still be in prison.
‘I did not think I was going to like Horne when I first saw him. He’s an aristocrat and I knew that fine English aristocrats look down their long noses at the Dutch. They call us cheeseheads. But Horne is not like that. No, the schipper is a quiet man. A kind man. A serious man. But a man who likes a good fight. On land, he fights with his hands and his elbows and his feet—anything he can use. And on sea, he fights with muskets and cannon-fire and swords—and anything else he can fight with too.
‘Our ship before this was called the Eclipse. It was a very fine ship. A frigate, very much like this ship and …’
A noise sounded in the distance.
Pausing, Groot held the wheel and looked around him, realising the sound was a hail in English.
Listening more closely, he said, ‘That was the schipper calling. I wonder if he saw the ships?’
At his side, the brown-skinned mate said, ‘Als je tijd hebt, Groot, moet je je verhaal nog eens afmaken over je laatste schip.’
Groot stared at him. ‘Spreek je Hollands?’
The man answered, ‘Ik ben opgegroeid op Java. Het is m’n moerstaal.’
Groot blushed. The pirate had understood everything he had been saying. Having been raised on the island of Java, his mother-tongue was Dutch.
* * *
Horne’s first thought was that the outline of the ship was a figment of his imagination, that his eyes were playing tricks on him and he was only seeing what he wanted to see. But staring across the starboard bow from his perch in the shrouds, he realised that a break had come in the storm, that the gale had veered the storm clouds from the Huma’s path, and he was seeing one of the two mystery brigs making way. But where was the second ship? Had it escaped? Already?
Excitedly, he called as he scrambled down the shroud, ‘Groot! Prepare to go about!’
‘Aye, aye, schipper!’ came the reply. ‘Aye, aye.’
Back on the quarterdeck, Horne looked aloft, at the sails brailed and furled with double gaskets. Work would have to be fast to put speed into the bird.
‘Top ho!’ shouted Horne, noticing for the first time that the rainfall had slackened.
Jud appeared on the ratline, a spider across a wet web, quickly putting Horne’s commands into actions, bellowing men onto the bulky yards.
Groot, helped by his Javanese mate, both babbling Dutch to one another, held the Huma on her new course, waves lapping across deck; the lull in the storm had given the Huma the wind gauge and was sweeping her down towards the brig.
Clearly seeing the shape of the brig across the expanse of choppy waves, Horne watched her try to catch the wind for a quick flight. Raising both hands to his mouth, he shouted, ‘Run out the guns, Kiro!’
As the Huma became alive, Kiro’s crew rumbled out the guns; Horne held his eye on the sea, searching for the other brig, hoping she was not in some fine position to blast away at the Huma. Wouldn’t the joke be on him if he sailed into a French trap? A grim, heavy toll such a joke could demand, too!
But, no! There she was! The second brig! She had caught the wind, cutting to the northwest and leaving her sister ship behind.
As the Huma’s nose pressed southwest toward the laggard, Horne called, ‘Prepare larboard guns!’
Having run out the guns, Kiro called for grape shot in the harsh, brittle voice he had used on his Samurai students in Bombay. Behind the gun crew men scattered sand, precautions for the gunners on the rain-wet deck.
Snapping open his spyglass, Horne was pleased to see the brig was not catching her stays.
He called to the wheel, ‘Groot, the helm to larboard!’
A few moments later, Jud’s yell came from aloft, ‘She’s not the Royaume, sir!’
‘Can you see colours?’
‘French!’
Lifting the spyglass to his eye, Horne caught the brig’s stern and saw the gilt name, Tigre. He jabbed the spyglass into his sodden waistband. ‘Prepare to fire across her bow!’ he called.
Treasure ship or not, she would get a warning shot and perhaps worse. Damn it! Where was the Royaume? Was she the brig escaping?
As his hand chopped down, the gun flared, a volley shaking the Huma; Horne saw the ball’s splash in the wind-tossed sea.
Pulling out his spyglass, he studied the brig, now able to see her new tack as well as a view of open gunports.
Not waiting to hear their first roar, he bellowed, ‘Larboard … fire!’
The Huma was close enough to the Tigre for him to see the fore bulwark explode, splinters flying with the striking volley. A cloud of smoke rose from the Tigre’s gunports, but her retaliation was as ineffectual as her escape attempt.
Horne felt renewed puzzlement. Was the brig undermanned? Had most of the crew been evacuated to the other brig? Was the ship he was attacking in trouble? Was that the reason for the rendezvous, a distress meeting?
The Huma bore down on the brig, moving so snugly that Horne knew a full force from his larboard might more than cripple the Tigre. He did not want to capture smouldering timbers.
Looking amidships, he saw Babcock—monkey on shoulder—waiting with his men to participate in any attack that might be ordered.
‘Babcock, prepare boarding party!’
Babcock, excited by the prospect of action, returned Horne’s wave, answering, ‘Aye, aye, aye, aye!’
Why, Horne wondered, when Babcock did address an officer properly, did he do it so annoyingly?
To Groot, he called, ‘Put helm alee. We’re going alongside the enemy.’
Excitement rose aboard the Huma; in feverish anticipation the men began running for weapons to carry or fire or use as bludgeons.
Horne called, ‘Boarders, prepare grappling hooks!’
Apart from grapnel, men carried pikes, flintlocks, hammers, axes and lengths of rope to grip as garrottes.
The two ships were nearing, their hulls would soon scrape; pandemonium was spreading across the enemy deck as the Huma edged closer, the men waiting to jump from the hammock nettings, to stab across boarding planks.
‘Boarders … ready …’
Horne counted to himself: ‘One—two—three—’ He trumpeted, ‘Away … boarders!’
Shrieking, crying, bellowing, Babcock’s men poured aboard the Tigre.