THE LAURA was at anchor off the town and port of Malacca and Delancey was paying his courtesy call on the Company’s Resident, Captain William Farquhar, who had governed the place since its capture from the Dutch in 1796. He was a rather pedantic Scotsman, a little pompous on first acquaintance and seemingly embittered by the slowness of his promotion. His knowledge of the country and of the Malay language was profound and he knew all that was to be known about the local trade and commerce. He knew about Chatelard of the Subtile and gave careful thought to the system of intelligence upon which his operations might be based. He acknowledged that Chatelard might have an agent in Malacca, perhaps some Dutch Eurasian with French sympathies, perhaps some Javanese trader working merely for pay. With twenty thousand inhabitants, it would not be easy to find the spy among them. As for a fast outrigger sailing canoe, he had seen nothing of the sort but had to confess that he had made no study of the native small craft. When asked about Delancey’s brother, Michael, he was more forthcoming.
“There was a man here of that name when I first arrived. We thought at first that he was French and planned to take him into custody as a possible revolutionary. It appeared, however, that he was a native of Jersey, speaking English with only a trace of a foreign accent. He had been at sea but had sustained some back injury and came ashore, setting up in business as a small tradesman. His shop, I remember, was near the bridge and he lived with a Malay woman who had several children by him. I supposed at first that he was addicted to drink or drugs but was told by the police that he was merely eccentric. He was said to be especially interested in the primitive people of Malaya and was often to be seen practising with a blowpipe.”
“A blowpipe?”
“Yes, a weapon used mainly in hunting. I have one here.” The Resident took a slender dark-coloured stick from a corner of the room. Delancey saw that it was over five feet long, hollow, and shaped at one end like the mouthpiece of a bugle. His host took a dart made of bamboo, sharp at one end and fitted at the other end with a pith ‘cork.’ Inserting the dart, which exactly fitted the blowpipe, Farquhar inflated his cheeks and blew with pursed lips into the mouthpiece, like blowing the bugle but with an almost explosive puff. The dart was embedded an inch deep in the woodwork on the far side of the room.
“It is not lethal in itself,” Farquhar explained, “but the point is dipped in poison from the Ipoh tree. They use the same sort of blowpipe in Borneo, I am told.”
“Do the Malays use it?”
“No, they are more advanced in the ways of civilization. Nor do they live in the jungle. They live along the riverbanks and use firearms. Here, for example, is a small ‘lela’ or brass swivel gun of the type they mount in their war prahus.” He pointed to a rather ornate weapon of almost modern appearance.
“Perhaps they learnt about firearms and cannon from the Portuguese?”
“They had no need! The Malays had artillery before the Portuguese reached the Indian Ocean. I have sometimes wondered whether cannon were not actually invented here. This town, I believe, is where spectacles were first manufactured. People ingenious enough for that might have invented cannon as well.”
“But why do you think that probable?”
“Well, they had the blowpipe which embodies all the principles of the firearm except for the explosive. Their Chinese friends and neighbours had the gunpowder. It would require no genius to combine the two ideas. In one way, of course, the blowpipe is superior to the firearm for it is silent. The expert will seldom miss at twenty yards but if he does the monkey or parrot—or human, for that matter—is still unaware of the danger and may be the target for another shot. When Malacca was taken by Albuquerque in 1511 the Portuguese suffered more casualties from blowpipe darts than from the defenders’ artillery or elephants. They did not die immediately, of course, the poison often taking an hour or two to produce a fatal result.”
“How interesting!” said Delancey. “But my brother, from what you say, would seem to be no more eccentric than you or I.”
“I am not sure about that. He had gone native, as one might say, and may even have become a Muslim. He went away rather suddenly, no one knew why, but left his Malay woman here. His chandler’s shop is kept now by a Tamil but he is still, I suspect, the owner of it.”
“I envy you, sir, your knowledge of the country. When at Penang I was similarly envious of Mr Raffles.”
“Raffles? Well, he speaks Malay but cannot write it, nor has he been in the country very long. One must give him the credit for being at least interested. Francis Light, the founder of Penang, was the last man who understood the people of the Straits. The present government there is so absurdly overstaffed that the officials only meet each other. They will die before they can tell a Chinese from a Malay.”
“Several have died already, sir, the place being far less healthy than was at first supposed.”
“Aye, they are discovering what I could have told them, that malaria appears as soon as you fell the jungle. Let it alone and you can avoid the disease—except, of course, in the coastal swamps.”
At the end of an interesting conversation Delancey obtained from Farquhar the loan of a Portuguese police sergeant called De Souza who spoke Malay and was indeed a native of Malacca. With De Souza as guide he soon found himself outside the shop where his brother would seem to have lived. There were some noisy children in the street, possibly his own nephews and nieces, and De Souza’s inquiries finally led him to the Malay woman with whom Delancey’s brother had lived. She was fat and middle-aged but must once have been attractive. She was also suspicious, apprehensive, and shy, resolving to divulge the minimum of information about anything. After many evasions and periods of silence, she finally admitted to having known Tuan Delancey. Where had he gone? She said at first that she did not know. After further questioning she said something about the islands to the south. De Souza suggested Riau, Lingga, Bankka, Billiton, and Celebes but she merely shook her head. Could she mean Borneo? She again shook her head but with less emphasis. Delancey suggested some place-names in Borneo; Sambas, Singkawang, Djawi, Pontianak, Matan . . . Watching her carefully, Delancey thought he detected some slight response to the name Pontianak. At this point De Souza intervened, pointing out that the final “K” in Pontianak should not be pronounced. When he said the word correctly there was a long pause and she finally muttered “perhaps.” She was now asked why he had gone there. The conversation which followed was so long and frustrating that Delancey’s attention wandered to the shop’s stock in trade and finally to the Tamil shopman. “Would he know?” he asked finally, and De Souza repeated his question in Malay. Another long conversation followed and De Souza finally offered Delancey what little information he had gleaned from these two sources:
“So far as I can understand, Tuan, and I know no Tamil, this woman’s husband knew of some tribe, some people, who needed his help. Or else perhaps they would be led by him. He went to join them, meaning to return some day. I am not at all sure of this but I can get no more out of them. I think, but I’m not certain, that he had been to this place before.”
Delancey thanked the woman for her help and gave her some money. She looked more cheerful after that and actually volunteered a further bit of information. Her Tuan had not gone alone but had other men with him in a war prahu. At that point the interview ended and Delancey asked De Souza whether he had ever seen an outrigger boat at Malacca. Here again there were language difficulties and Delancey had finally to make a drawing on his sketching paper. By the time he had finished he was surrounded by an admiring crowd, few of whom identified his boat as such, but one Malay broke into rapid comment which De Souza finally translated. “He says, Tuan, that there is such a boat here now, drawn up on the beach, and that it comes from Bintan.” This meant nothing to Delancey but De Souza said that Bintan was in the Straits of Singapore.
Led by their Malay guide, Delancey and De Souza walked southward along the beach and presently found the catamaran pulled up under some overhanging palm trees. Her crew were not to be found but everyone agreed that they were not local men. Was the boat used for fishing? No one tried to answer that question but all agreed that a boat of this kind must sail very swiftly. A fisherman suggested that the boat’s owner might use it to visit his relatives. Delancey did not pursue his inquiry any further but thanked De Souza for his assistance and presently went back to his ship.
He felt certain now that his guess had been correct and that Chatelard’s success was due to information received. That it was delivered by fast-sailing catamaran seemed more than probable, and Bintan was central to the area in which the Subtile was known to operate. What was strange was that such clues as he had to Chatelard’s base and his own brother’s whereabouts pointed alike to the western shores of Borneo. He wondered wildly whether his brother might turn out to be a French spy. Then he rejected the idea as absurd. His brother might be eccentric, romantic, dissolute, or even deranged; he would not believe that he could be disloyal.
Before sailing from Malacca, Delancey was introduced by Farquhar to a retired Portuguese priest who had made a study of the aboriginal folk of the Malay Peninsula and the islands of south-east Asia. This was Father Miguel Silvestre, small, white-haired, and diffident, with eyes agleam behind his spectacles, an Orientalist of some note. In his missionary efforts he had found that followers of Islam were seldom if ever converted to Christianity, that Chinese paid little attention to his preaching but that the primitive tribesmen had only the crudest kind of nature worship and were therefore, in theory, fair game for missionary effort. The basic difficulty was to learn enough of their language to approach them, a difficulty made worse by the fact that each tribe seemed to have its own dialect. After many years of effort Father Miguel could point to no considerable body of converts. He could, however, claim to have collected a great deal of information.
By means of using an interpreter (for the priest knew no English) Delancey managed to gain some knowledge of the aboriginal and other tribes of Borneo. Along the coast and up the rivers of Borneo there were Malays, Javanese, Bugis, and Chinese, usually living under the rule of a Malay Sultan: such rulers being established at places like Balikpapan, Pontianak, and Sambas. Further inland were the aborigines, the Kayan and Kenyah people of the Batang Kayan River, the Murut and Kelabit tribes, and the Sea Dyaks or Ibans who live on the northern tributaries of the Kapuas River. Certain Malay tribes had taken to piracy, notably the folk on the Kapuas River owing allegiance to the Rajah of Limbung. Their war prahus were based on Kurtanalia, south of Pontianak, a place within easy striking distance of the Karimata Channel, itself the approach to the Straits of Sunda. In all this piratical activity the Sea Dyaks up the River Nuri played no part and their patron, the Rajah of Djawi, was equally innocent. There had been wars in the past between the Kapuas Malays and the Nuri Sea Dyaks but the pirates had won and the men of Djawi had been compelled to make peace and pay tribute. In the light of this information it seemed to Delancey that Chatelard might base his operations on the Kapuas River, having reached with the Rajal of Limbung some agreement which gave the Kapuas Malays a share of the booty taken. If this were the situation, Chatelard was in alliance with pirates of the most cruel character, and this shed a new light on his character and motives. Before their conversation ended, Delancey asked Father Miguel whether he had known that other Delancey who had lived at Malacca. It soon appeared that they had been at least acquainted. Where had he gone? Father Miguel had been told that he was in Borneo, somewhere near Pontianak. Why had he gone there? The reply to this was hesitant but the priest thought that Michael Delancey, of whom he obviously disapproved, had some plan for trading with the Ibans, presumably in damar and rattan. He knew no more than that and of Chatelard he knew nothing at all. At the end of his inquiries Delancey had learnt all too little about Chatelard’s plans for commerce destruction. He knew enough, however, to start making a plan of his own.
Quitting the anchorage off Malacca, Delancey took the Laura southward down the Straits, calling at every port and questioning each merchantman he met. He could obtain no news of the Subtile, last definitely seen off the Little Andaman, and so had no idea whether she was ahead of him or behind him. Off Lingga, however, he saw for the first time a Malay catamaran at sea. Northmore called him on deck and handed him the telescope with the words “something of interest, sir!” For her size the outrigger canoe carried an extraordinary press of sail and was coming up astern of the Laura at a remarkable speed. The frigate had been under easy sail but Delancey now decided to make a race of it. “Mr Northmore,” he said, “crowd all sail and see if you can keep ahead!” It was a beautiful day with bright sun and high-piled cumulus cloud, a stiffening breeze from the north-east and a glimpse to starboard of Tanjong Djabung. The crew hurled themselves into action as the orders were shouted. “Set the top-gallants! Way aloft! Haul taut and make fast! Set the royals! Set the flying skysails! Set the foretopmast staysail! Set the flying jib! Set the weather stunsails!”
For an hour it looked as if the frigate were holding her own. Then the breeze began to slacken and the outrigger canoe began to creep up, being seen on the Laura’s windward quarter and then on her windward beam. Despite every effort that could be made the Malay craft began to draw ahead. Studying her through his telescope, Delancey felt pretty confident that she was the boat he had seen on the beach at Malacca. She had a crew of three and was going like the wind. Delancey had an insane impulse to sink her but realized that his whole theory was guess-work and that he had no solid fact to justify a suspicion, let alone a brutal gunfire. The Laura was fairly out sailed and the native craft vanished into the distance. Orders were then given to reduce sail and the voyage continued under all plain sail.
Delancey considered that his commissioned officers must now be taken into his confidence. If he were to die it was essential that they should know what his plan had been. He invited them to dinner and talked to them while the decanter circulated, reading first the orders he had received.
“So our task is to find and destroy the Subtile. Note, please, that it is our only task. Were we to hear of some other opportunity—a possible prize, a French sloop, say—we should not be entitled to go after her. Nor must we bring the Subtile in as a captured enemy privateer. Our orders are to destroy her and this we shall do. We have, however, to find her first. Studying all the facts available to me, I have come to the tentative conclusion that Pierre Chatelard has some sort of base in western Borneo. He has certainly been around the Straits for over a year without returning to the Ile de France. He must have refitted somewhere close to his cruising ground. There is evidence, moreover, that he has good sources of information and that news reaches him quickly about any possible prey. I think you all saw the native craft which overtook us earlier this afternoon. My guess is that Chatelard receives intelligence and warning by just such a fast-sailing craft and probably by that one. Having no such system of communication myself, I am compelled to rely upon mere guess-work. You will realize, gentlemen, that I am very much in the dark and it may well prove that all my guesses have been incorrect.”
“Forgive me, sir,” said Fitzgerald, “Were you not tempted to intercept that outrigger craft with a well-aimed cannon?”
“I was tempted,” said Delancey, “but I resisted the temptation. If that racing canoe is what I think she is, her movements will tell me something of what I need to know. My present conclusion is that the Subtile is ahead of me, not astern. That catamaran is sailing towards her employer, not away from him and that, I assume, is why she is in a hurry.”
“I could wish, sir,” said Fitzgerald, “that we knew what message she is to deliver.”
“But is that so difficult?”
“It is difficult, sir, for me.”
“Perhaps Mr Greenwell could tell us?”
“Not me, sir,” said Greenwell, with eyes downcast.
“Mr Northmore?”
“She might warn Chatelard that the Laura is heading southwards.”
“That much is clear from today’s sighting. But the message almost certainly informs Chatelard that the opium ship Fort William has left Malacca and will call at Lingga and Palembang.”
“How can the French agent know that?” asked Greenwell, astonished.
“How do I know it?” asked Delancey in turn. “He will surely know what is common knowledge. So that Chatelard will receive at the same time news of a possible prize and warning of a possible danger. Can we guess from that what he is likely to do?”
“Sail for Palembang?” asked Fitzgerald hopefully.
“I doubt it,” replied Delancey. “You forget that he will have other sources of intelligence and the news of other possible prey. I should guess, however, that he will keep away from the Straits of Sunda and will try to discover what we mean to do. We must expect to be watched by his native spies, including those we have seen already. But the point will come—and may have come already—when he comes to realize that a frigate has been sent to deal with him. What will he do then?”
There was a silence and then Northmore said: “He might hide at his base.”
“He might indeed,” replied Delancey, “but that plan fits ill with the character of Pierre Chatelard in so far as it is known to us. I do not see him as a man who would hide himself. He is more likely to do something.” There was another silence as Delancey looked from one to another of his officers.
“Well, gentlemen? What should we expect him to do?” Since there was no response, Delancey had to answer his own question. “Did none of you ever play hide-and-seek? If Chatelard guesses that we are going south to look for him he will surely decide to go north. Our heading for the Straits of Sunda will be his cue to make for the Bay of Bengal. He will be off the Sand-heads when we are off Bencoolen.”
“So your plan, sir, will be to double back and cruise off the Sandheads?” Fitzgerald was evidently relieved to find so simple a solution to the problem.
“Well, that is one possibility,” Delancey admitted, “but it is not the alternative I prefer. Chatelard began his present cruise in late December or early January. He may go north again but my guess is that he must return to his base in May or June. If we can locate his home port that is where we shall wait for him.”
When the party broke up Delancey realized how much he was missing Mather. Of his present officers only one, Northmore, had any brains and he, of course, lacked experience. What drudgery it was to help them see the obvious! Mather would have known at once what the alternatives were. Was his plan the right one? Who could tell? It was at least based, however, on a process of reasoning. Should he really have turned northward again after being sighted by that damned outrigger craft? The objection to that lay in the choice of passages. No, the better plan was one based on the fixed point, the place (if he could find it) to which Chatelard must return. He had narrowed that down to a definite stretch of coastline. What he lacked, however, was a man who knew the country—someone perhaps like Father Miguel. He would need to ask questions and could hardly do so without an interpreter. He himself had a few words of Malay but he realized that a knowledge of Dutch would have been of more immediate use. He turned to the chart again and put himself in Chatelard’s place. “If I still commanded a privateer and wanted a safe harbour on the west coast of Borneo, where should I begin to look for it?” At Sukadana or Padang? Or up north around Mempawak or Singkawang? No, it would be better to find a complex estuary with islands and creeks among which to hide. This thought brought him back to the confused coastline between Pontianak and Djawi, a mere hundred miles of it. That would be the first place to look; and there, incidentally, if anywhere, he might expect to find his missing brother. He wondered whether there was really any point in finding Michael, who probably needed no help and was happy in his own fashion, but he was still fascinated by the way that inclination and duty were leading him in the same direction. If Chatelard had a base for the Subtile, Michael was the very man to know all about it.
A week later the Laura sighted Borneo just north of Pontianak and began a cautious approach through poorly charted waters. With the leadsman in the chains and with barely enough canvas to have steerage way, Delancey brought the frigate to what should have been, by all reckoning, the mouth of the Lava River on which Pontianak is placed. He finally dropped anchor opposite a belt of canebrake and mangrove and sent the launch in to investigate. Completely hidden to view from a distance, the river-mouth was finally located by the rush of fresh water and the Laura brought to a new anchorage near by. Pontianak was some ten miles inland but Delancey decided against taking his ship up the river. He took the launch instead and was able to sail for most of the way. When the breeze died away his men rowed the last mile or so under a hot sun, Delancey reflecting that Pontianak was almost exactly on the Equator.
When he sighted the place, sited in the angle between two confluent rivers, he was astonished to see that Pontianak was a city as well as a seaport. In the city proper was the Malay settlement centred on the Sultan’s palace and this was faced by two Chinese towns, one on either riverbank. Opposite this metropolis were moored a cluster of Chinese junks with two enormous vessels towering over the rest. Guided by a Malay prahu, the launch was brought to a landing-stage opposite the palace, where Delancey, Northmore, and Stock were met by a Malay chief, who presently showed them into the Sultan’s presence. The principal reception hall was of great size and centred upon a carpeted dais. On the dais stood a long table at which Delancey was presently seated, being offered tea and sherbet by way of refreshment. His elderly and richly dressed host, the Sultan, was polite and voluble but Delancey’s few words of Malay did not serve the purpose of a serious discussion. As interpreter the Sultan produced a Chinese youth who spoke Dutch and Delancey came to understand that Pontianak was under Dutch protection and that the only men-of-war which called there were under the Dutch flag. All efforts at interpretation failed at first but there finally appeared a Malay boy who spoke English and who asked, on the Sultan’s behalf, why his visitors did not speak Dutch. Delancey admitted, in reply, that his ship was not Dutch but claimed that he was friendly with the Dutch—a people with whom he was actually at war. The interpreter evidently explained to the Sultan that his visitors were French for the atmosphere improved even if mutual comprehension did not. The Sultan knew nothing, it transpired, of any other man-of-war frequenting the coast.
On the subject of another European called Delancey he was equally ignorant but he called into consultation a Malay chief who perhaps held some office equivalent to chief of police, who remembered a trader who might have been the man sought but who had long since gone elsewhere, perhaps to the village of Laut. With no other information forthcoming, Delancey was relieved when supper arrived, making further conversation needless.
The meal comprised chicken and salt fish with a dozen different curries, basins of rice, jars of pickles, and, later, sliced pineapple and cake, accompanied throughout by cool, sweet sherbet poured from an enormous jar. The crew of the launch were simultaneously entertained in an open-sided shed close to the beach, being given as much curry and rice as they could eat. All went to sleep soon afterwards but Delancey roused his men in the small hours, determined to reach the estuary before the heat of the day. Aided now by the current, they dropped down the river as the sun rose and were back on board the Laura for breakfast.
There was little wind that day and the frigate, heading South along the coast, was again overtaken by a native craft. This time it was a fishing canoe with branches of the coconut tree instead of sails. The branches were spread fanwise and held in place by a bamboo rod and the crew consisted of one Malay holding a steering paddle. On the following day what little breeze there had been died away and Delancey dropped anchor opposite a mangrove swamp. He was becalmed again on the following day, progressing southward only by the aid of a short-lived morning and evening breeze. All this coast looked much the same, with level alluvial swamps backed by more distant jungle trees. It was steamingly hot and seamen were distressed even under the awnings, few of them able to sleep much at night. At last, with a few men already sick, the frigate came within sight of the small village of Laut.
Drifting rather than sailing, Delancey brought his ship to within half a mile of the village. It was a calm, hot day, with a mist on the flat, mirror-like surface of the sea, the land revealed only by its jungle trees. Laut, like Pontianak, was under Dutch protection in theory, but passing ships, as he knew, would usually ignore the fact. He decided to send in a boat, bearing a message for Mr Michael Delancey. This mission was entrusted to David Stock, whose cutter was faithfully reflected, each dipping oar blade making a visible disturbance. Over an hour passed before the cutter was seen again and the oarsmen were dripping with sweat when they came aboard.
Reporting on the quarter-deck, young Stock handed the letter back and stated that Mr Delancey had been in Laut and had done business there but had gone. A Chinese merchant who knew some English had told him that Tuan Delancey had gone southwards along the coast to Djawi or Matan. Delancey decided at once to follow but dead calm delayed him for two days more. Then at Djawi, eighty miles further south, he sent in a boat again. This time Stock came back with the news that an Englishman had been there but had gone inland some time ago—perhaps two or three years since—accompanied by several Malays. This time the information came from an Indian tradesman who had once lived in Malacca. Delancey now decided to follow up this clue and bring the frigate in closer to the shore.
The day was windless and the Laura was finally towed in by her boats, dropping anchor opposite the village, the inhabitants of which lined the shore to watch. Almost at once a sampan came off from the land and headed for the frigate with several passengers on board. As the distance lessened it became apparent that the visitors included a minor Malay chief, perhaps the village headman, distinguished by headcloth, sarong, and kris, two other armed Malays, a Chinese towkay, and the Indian with whom Stock had already conversed. Delancey ordered a one-gun salute, the parading of a marine guard, and the piping of the side.
Impressed by this reception, the party from the shore were led to the captain’s cabin and offered some refreshments, alcoholic and otherwise. All chose to squat on the deck while the preliminary courtesies were exchanged, the Indian acting as interpreter and the Chinese merely bowing and smiling. The Malay chief finally asked why the Laura was honouring Djawi with a visit Delancey replied at once that he wanted to buy provisions; pigs, poultry, fruit, and so forth. There would, it appeared, be no difficulty over this, provided that payment was made in dollars. After some further discussion about prices, Delancey made very casual mention of an Englishman who had come to Djawi, he believed, from Pontianak. There followed a muttered conversation between the visitors, the question having evidently upset them. After some minutes the Indian asked “Why you want to know?” To this Delancey replied “He is my brother,” a reply which led to another discussion in Malay. There was evidently a family resemblance, to which the Indian drew attention, for the fact of relationship seemed to be accepted. The Indian finally replied “He left here long ago.”
No further information could be extracted so Delancey went on to ask about a French ship with many guns called the Subtile. Without the need for any discussion all at once shook their heads. The Indian went on to emphasize that no French ship had ever been seen near Djawi. Watching their faces and noting their unanimity, Delancey concluded that they were lying and had agreed beforehand what lie to tell. He expressed his regret, therefore, adding that he had been prepared to pay a thousand dollars for information about the Subtile’s usual port of call. What a pity, he said “that no one was ready to help him. He could think of no simpler way of making money. He would have to go on to Matan where he supposed that people might be readier to accept money without having to work for it. Much could be done with a thousand dollars. One could buy a fishing boat with it. One could set up one’s son in business. One could provide a dowry for one’s daughter. But, there, if no one wanted the money . . . He changed the topic of conversation and asked about the health of the Sultan of Limburg. His guests looked upset again—it was far from obvious why—and went into secret conclave. After a prolonged discussion the Indian was empowered to answer, rather sulkily, “He very well.” Delancey talked again about pigs and poultry and so brought the conference to an end on a happier note. The sampan presently returned to the shore, a plan agreed for shipping provisions on the following day.
As the light was failing that evening a sampan appeared alongside and a boatman hailed the ship. There was only one passenger this time, the Chinese who had said nothing on the earlier visit. His English was now fluent and he had clearly understood all that had taken place. He had occasion to spend two thousand dollars, more than he happened to have at the moment and more than he could borrow except at an extortionate rate of interest. He knew something about a French ship, something of which his friends were ignorant. He also knew the whereabouts of the Englishman who had left Djawi . . . Delancey regretted blandly that he had only a thousand dollars to spare, having to spend so much on poultry, eggs, and fruit. At the end of a prolonged discussion the Chinese agreed to accept fifteen hundred dollars, telling Delancey all that he wanted to know. He finally drew a sketch-map of the Kapuas River (north of Djawi) and made a cross on its more northerly channel, a few miles from the estuary. There, he explained, the French ship came to refit with the Sultan’s permission. As for the Tuan who was the Captain’s brother, he had gone up the Nuri River and was living at a kampong on the way to Djenu. Another sketch-map was drawn to show where the kampong was and a drawing added to indicate that the kampong was really a longhouse; a village, as it were, under a single roof. If this information was correct, Delancey’s brother was living with the primitive folk of the interior, which seemed likely enough in view of Michael’s reputed interests.
After the Chinese had received his reward and gone, Delancey was pondering the information so far gained when a sharp challenge was heard forward and it became obvious that another boat was alongside. He walked forward to inquire and saw by moonlight another sampan, again with one passenger, the Indian who had formed part of the previous deputation. He did not come aboard but called softly that he now remembered some fact which the Tuan Captain might like to know. He knew that he could count on a suitable reward—say, fifteen hundred dollars—and that the whole transaction could remain a secret. “Too late, my friend,” said Delancey and bade his visitor good-night. An hour or so later came another challenge and the sound of another boat alongside. This time it was a Malay prahu, its only passenger the Malay chieftain whom Delancey had already met. He called to Delancey that he did, after all, have some knowledge which might be of interest to the Tuan. It had slipped his memory that morning but had come back to him since. Now, about that thousand dollars . . . “Too late, my friend.” said Delancey, “selamat jalan.” He turned in that night with the feeling that he had made some progress with his mission.
There could be no doubt that the information received about the Kapuas River was correct. For Delancey’s purpose, however, it was insufficiently precise. Where, exactly, did the Subtile refit? Neither the river nor the coast itself was charted and the diagram he had gave no idea of distance. Dared he send a boat up the river? Obviously not. Its presence would alarm the Malays, who would find means to warn Chatelard that his base had been discovered. His better plan would be to procure a Malay prahu and send it up the river with a single officer in Malay costume. Who was he to send? Wayland, perhaps, master’s mate? Or Top-ley? Topley had to some extent proved himself. So maybe Wayland should be given his chance? Or would he make a mess of it? He thought that the risk was worth while provided that Wayland had a good petty officer at his elbow and two armed seamen to keep the Malay boatmen in their place. As a first step, Delancey sent for his commissioned officers and told them what had to be done.
“I propose to send one small party to reconnoitre the Kapuas River and fix the position of Chatelard’s base. I propose to lead another and larger party up the Nuri River, leaving Mr Fitzgerald in command of the ship. If you have questions to ask, now is the time to ask them.”
“Might I ask, sir,” said Fitzgerald, “whether the boat expedition up the Nuri River is not a suitable task for the first lieutenant?”
“In the ordinary way, it certainly is,” replied Delancey, “but the man whose help we need happens to be my brother. I have, I think, the best chance of persuading him to do what I want.”
“But isn’t the other patrol more proper for a commissioned officer, sir?” asked Northmore.
“It is, but I can’t spare a commissioned officer. Mr Wayland is the man I can spare. Should I be lost, it is important that the rest of you know what Wayland has been sent to do. You will be present, therefore, when I give him his orders. Pass the word there for Mr Wayland!” A few minutes later Wayland reported, a burly young man with fairish hair, a red face, and an earnest, well-meaning expression.
“Mr Wayland,” said Delancey, “I have been told that the French privateer Subtile is based upon a shore establishment set up in the Kapuas River. I propose to destroy her while she is refitting there. Towards doing this the first step is to locate her base, making a rough chart of the river and indicating where the Subtile will be. This must be done secretly, without the knowledge of the Malays whose alliance Chatelard has secured. I propose to hire a Malay craft with the necessary four oarsmen and entrust you with the mission, assisted by Coxswain Ellis. With him as petty officer you will have two armed seamen but all, like you, in Malay costume. Having made a chart and placed the Subtile in position on it, you will report back to me here at the mouth of the river. What will you need apart from your personal arms and those issued to your crew?”
“Well, sir, I’ll need provisions for a week, a tent of some sort, ammunition for all arms carried, cooking utensils, and bedding.”
“Is that all?”
“All I can think of, sir.”
“You are forgetting your mission. You will also need paper, pencils, pens and ink with a board to use as desk, a sextant, telescope, compass, chart, and a piece of canvas to protect the equipment. Add to that a Malay dictionary and a notebook in which to keep a log.”
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
“You will leave before daylight tomorrow and should make your preparations now, darkening your skin and purchasing for each man a Malay baju, sarong, and headcloth. What do you know of the language?”
“Very little, sir.”
“Then you will have to learn quickly. Off with you.”
Wayland withdrew and Delancey turned to face the other officers.
“He must do the best he can. I could not spare anyone else. Now I must detail the crew for the launch, complete with a midshipman. I’ll take Burnet, I think. It will be good experience for him. We shall need a gun in the bows, Mr Fitzgerald, and canvas enough to make an awning, with axes, saw, hammer, and nails and plenty of spare rope and twine. See to it, please. Yes, and detail Lakin as coxswain. I’ll want two marines with a musket and cutlass for each seaman, and two pistols each for myself, Lakin and Burnet.”
There was a great deal of work to be done but both boats, the hired Malay craft and the launch, were away long before daylight, the one with men disguised but the other with every appearance of a man-of-war boat, lacking only the British ensign.
The Nuri River narrowed quickly as the sea was left behind. It was placid, with a slow current, the jungle coming down to the banks on either side, fringed in places by a belt of mangrove swamp. There were blue hills in the distance with, above them, a high-piled bank of cumulus cloud in white and grey. All was very still, the only noise to be heard being the regular splash of the oars and sometimes a few words exchanged among the launch’s crew. By Delancey’s reckoning the launch would have about sixty miles to go, following a right-hand tributary ten miles below Djenu. The boat’s present speed would be four miles an hour so that it would be a two days’ pull, allowing for time to rest the oarsmen. There was an hour for dinner spent on a shell beach below a small headland.
At nightfall the party camped on a small sandy island only twenty yards from the swampy shore. They were plagued by mosquitoes, which the smoke from the camp fire did little to disperse, and there were alligators to be seen on the far bank of the river. Delancey had allowed himself one luxury and only one: a piece of mosquito netting with which to cover his head at night. Frustrating the mosquitoes, it added to the heat and left him the more exhausted. He roused his men in the small hours, hoping to make good distance before the heat of the day began. By that evening they had in fact reached the point at which the tributary joined the main river, having seen only the occasional Malay kampong with a few fishing craft glimpsed in the distance. They camped again near the confluence and spent another night fighting the mosquitoes, this time in a clearing which had once been planted with rice. Early next day they passed close to a village built on piles over the water where swarms of naked children played with dugout canoes. An hour later they saw a long roof among the trees, set back from the river, and Delancey concluded that this was his destination.
The longhouse, approached by a path from the riverbank, must have been over two hundred feet long. The living quarters were on a platform some ten or twelve feet above the ground and under a steep attap roof. There were some padifields beyond and some goats and poultry wandering around. The primitive inhabitants, nearly naked, gazed at Delancey and his men with curiosity but without fear. They had plainly seen Europeans before and Delancey guessed that there were Dutch traders to be seen, on occasion, at Djenu. The diminutive men who came to greet the visitors were evidently Ibans or Sea Dyaks and quite ready to offer hospitality. They were short, dark men, strongly built, wearing only a loincloth or sirat but with blue-black tattooing on their bodies. Some of them wore a sheathed parang, rather like the West Indian machete. They led Delancey to the end of the longhouse where there was a shaky bamboo ladder. Leaving his four seamen to squat in the shade, Delancey climbed the ladder and found himself in a wide veranda stretching the whole length of the building. This, he could see, was the village street in which people met, conversed, and worked. Opening on to the veranda, on his left, were a succession of rooms in which the families slept. He realized at once that this was the coolest building he had entered since coming to the East. The air space between ceiling and roof provided insulation while the sketchy nature of side-walls, partitions, and floor allowed air to circulate freely throughout. He looked about him with interest, The inhabitants to be seen were mostly bare-breasted women and naked children, the men having presumably gone out to work, fish, or hunt. They looked up as Delancey passed but were too well mannered to stare or point and some were too shy even to smile. He strolled past successive groups at work, each falling silent as he passed, and looked into successive rooms, most of them unoccupied. An older Iban, self-appointed guide, was trying to explain something to him but in a language of which he knew nothing. He pointed, however, and Delancey, following the indication, went on to the end of the longhouse. There, in the last room of all, clad in tattered shirt and trousers, a bearded and haggard European lay asleep on some rice matting. So wild was his appearance that Delancey could only with difficulty identify his brother Michael. Beside him was an opium pipe and his was evidently the drugged sleep of an addict. Considered as a possible ally, Michael was completely useless—so much seemed obvious. For all practical purposes he might merely be regarded as dead.