RICHARD DELANCEY knew all too little about drug addiction but he supposed that Michael must eventually wake up, perhaps later in the day. Would he then take more opium? He thought of removing the temptation but decided to leave a note instead. On a piece of paper he wrote in capital letters: YOUR BROTHER RICHARD IS HERE TO SEE YOU AND WILL CALL AGAIN TOMORROW. Propping this note where Michael must see it, he walked back the way he had come, greeting the folk he saw with a wave and a smile. The Ibans were friendly enough but he had no means of conversing with them, or of gaining their friendship. His main problem was how to keep his men occupied for perhaps two days and this he solved on his way back to the boat.
“After dinner,” he announced to his boat-crew, “we shall build a proper landing-stage here, felling the timber as necessary and making it long enough to bring in a prahu alongside. This will be our gift to the people of the longhouse whose guests we are.”
The rest of the day was spent in this useful activity, the Ibans watching with amazement as the structure took shape. Before dark they came down in procession and brought with them a supper of chicken and rice with some potent, sickly, and bittersweet liquor called tuak served in coconut shells which Delancey made his men treat with extreme caution. They slept ashore that night and work was resumed in the morning, the landing-stage being finished off with a hand-rail and an attap roof to keep the sun off. Whether the lbans thought it an improvement he was never to know but he thought that they were, initially, more surprised than grateful. While the work neared completion Delancey went up to the longhouse again and went once more to the room at the far end. Michael, he found, was awake but in an ugly mood.
“You!” he growled. “You! Why must you come here? Why seek me out? Why couldn’t you let me be?” He fell back on the rice matting and mopped his forehead with a trembling hand. “I’ve had enough of your rotten world with its governors and captains, its cravats and stockings, its customs and laws. I’m through with it, d’ye hear? I’m done with it, and I’ll have nothing to do with your rotten war either, nothing at all. There are the French with their revolutionaries and rebels, their renegades and ruffians, and here are the British with their King and their Company, their Articles of War, and their articles for sale. Ah, I was part of the system once, chief mate and in line to become master. I was a gentleman once but could take no more of it and came ashore. I’ve moved further and further away from the whole stinking system, coming at last to join my friends on this remote river. And who comes to drag me back to the treadmill? My own younger brother! You, Richard, the one of us who obeyed the teacher, kept to the rules, never stepped out of line! But let me tell you that you are wasting your time. I shan’t leave with you. I shall stay here where all is quiet. I’ll smoke another pipe and presently forget that you exist. You come too late, Richard, you come too late . . .”
“You are quite wrong, Michael, I haven’t come to drag you away. I think you are quite right to stay here. I am happy to think that you have found peace. I like your friends and neighbours and only wish I knew more about them. What is your position here? Are you the chief of the tribe? What can you do for these people?” It was some time before Michael took in what Richard was trying to say. For some minutes he merely repeated himself, muttering “Why go back to Georgetown or Malacca? I’ve had enough of all that. My life is here and I live among friends . . . What can I do for them, you ask? Is that it?” He had come to the point but he drifted off it again, vowing once more to stay among his friends. “Why are they my friends? I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. I’ll not hide from you the fact that I can speak their language. It wasn’t easy, so don’t think it was. She taught me, you’ll understand, word after blessed word. Now, these people are head-hunters—bloody savages as some people would say. But head-hunting is religious, really, it helps the padi to grow. If it looks like a poor crop you go out at night and return with a head or two, taken from another tribe. But a Malay head will do very well and a European head may be better for all I know. You should see our collection—I did something to improve it. So now I can tell these people what to do. I see that they are given a fair price for their rattan. I give them quinine when they need it. I persuade the Rajah’s tax-gatherer to let them alone.”
“But haven’t your people lost some of their best hunting and fishing country?”
“So you have heard about that? Yes, they used to have long-houses on the Kapuas River but were driven away by the Malays. They would have fought but these Malays had been given muskets by the French. So the Dyaks ran away and made their homes here. Some would fight even now but I tell them not to fight against men with muskets. Their chance may come, I tell them, but they must be patient.”
“Their chance has come, Michael. The Malay pirates are going to be attacked from the sea. That gives your Dyaks a chance to attack them at the same time from the land. In that way they can recover the Kapuas River for themselves.”
There followed a long and tedious discussion, greatly prolonged by Michael’s inability to concentrate. His attention continually wandered. At one time he spoke of his boyhood in St Peter Port, of old Le Poidevin with whom they had gone fishing, of the crazy and leaking boat which was once their pride, of the time they were nearly caught robbing an orchard. He talked of the Malay woman with whom he had lived at Malacca, of the country ship in which he had been chief mate, of the stupid prejudices observable in the officials of Penang. Humouring him, Richard kept bringing the conversation back to the subject of the Dyaks and their claim to the Kapuas River. He eventually secured Michael’s promise to call the elders of the tribe together that evening. He had a proposal to put before them and Michael was his only possible interpreter.
That arrangement made, the two brothers shared a meal, the Dyaks at the same time providing a pig for the boat’s crew. Michael ate little and Richard saw that he was a sick man, his health undermined by malaria and opium. To enlist his help seemed an almost hopeless task. They were presently joined, however, by a Dyak called Penghulu Kanyan, evidently the chief man of the tribe, with whom Richard presently established some form of understanding. Kanyan, like Richard, knew a little Malay and Michael acted as a somewhat unreliable interpreter. When told of the attack to be made on his Malay enemies, Kanyan showed keen interest, evidently seeing the possibilities.
Richard showed in pantomime how the Malays would be firing in one direction while the Dyaks would approach them silently from the other. The difficulty was clearly to be one of timing and this again must depend upon the movements of the French privateer. By Delancey’s calculation the Subtile ought to refit in about June. Supposing she had entered the Kapuas River, how long would the Dyaks take to move overland from the Nuri River? The path through the jungle might be twenty miles, if it followed the most direct route (but would it?), added to which must be the distance up the Nuri and down the Kapuas; possibly fifty miles in all or roughly five days’ march. Allowing time for the message to reach the Dyaks, Delancey thought that a combined attack might be launched seven days after the Subtile had reached her base. Kanyan seemed to agree that five days would be sufficient for his march but Delancey wondered whether he had really understood the arithmetic. He went over it again, drawing a map in the earth near the longhouse, and persuaded Michael to repeat the whole narrative in the local dialect. It then transpired that Kanyan would have to consult with other chiefs living in other longhouses. He could make no final decision until a general meeting had been held. He could make no promise but he thought it probable that war against the Kapuas Malays would be agreed. They would do nothing, however, until they received the message. Added to the recapture of their territories, the Dyaks would have the plunder of the Malay settlement, a place enriched by the activities of the Subtile. Delancey’s message might be expected in two or three weeks’ time.
Delancey said good-bye to his brother that night, explaining that he would begin his return journey long before first light. Michael was more composed at the moment of parting, showing even some regret, but was evidently ill and unlikely to live for long. Kanyan, on the other hand, was at the new landing-stage when Delancey’s men embarked. He was carrying a blowpipe as a sign of his warlike intent and accompanied by other men similarly armed. For a surprise attack falling on the rear of a force already engaged they had, Delancey reflected, the ideal weapon. There was a friendly parting by torchlight and then the boat was pushed off and went downstream. The oars dipped in rhythm but with unequal power and Delancey soon realized that some of his men were unwell. He quickly relieved two of the oarsmen, who were plainly feverish, and replaced them by two marines. By midday one of the marines had the same symptoms and was replaced by the coxswain, the tiller being given to young Burnet. That night they encamped again on a small island, by which time another seaman was sick. They set off next morning with four men ill and ended with five lying in the bottom of the boat, Burnet taking an oar and Delancey now the helmsman. By the evening they had reached the Laura and Delancey asked at once whether Mr Wayland had returned. “No, sir.”
Fitzgerald reported, “Coxswain Ellis had come aboard but reports that the others were all killed by the Malays.”
“Very well, Mr Fitzgerald, I have at least five men sick, probably with malaria. Tell the surgeon to look after them. Send Ellis to my cabin to make his report—and I think you should be present when he makes it.”
Five minutes later Ellis reported, clutching a roll of paper, and told a confused story.
“We passed a kampong called Kertamulia, sir, and Mr Wayland said not to stop there ‘cos we might be recognized. We hit a sandbank, though, and had some trouble getting the boat off. While we were doing this a Malay boat came near us, so near that the boatmen must have seen that we were not Malays. Our boatmen talked with theirs, too, and must have given us away. But Mr Wayland said to push on, it couldn’t be helped, and we came that evening to the place where they careen that French privateer, a shingle beach with a useful fall of the tide and a line of sheds or godowns as they call ’em on the starboard side of the river. Further down the river, two or three cables distant or maybe a half mile, they have a regular stockade with a fence down to the river on either side and some cannon mounted. They have a boom there to draw across the river from one stockade to t’other. There were no Malays around that evening but they appeared next day, a lot of’em armed at that. I was ashore to look more closely at the capstans and suchlike when I heard the first shots fired. There was a lot of shouting after that and I knew that things had gone wrong. Then I saw Mr Wayland running my way and all covered with blood. I fired my musket at the Malays who were after him, and they retreated again. Then there was another shot, rather distant, and Mr Wayland fell dead, dropping this roll of paper, which I picked up. I hid after that in an empty hut, knowing that the others must all have been killed. Later that night I crept out and found a sort of canoe and drifted in it down the river, passed Kertamulia, and so reached the river-mouth. Then I paddled out to the ship and made my report to Mr Fitzgerald, sir, who told me to show this paper to you.”
The roll of paper, when flattened out, revealed a quite useful diagram of the Kapuas River, indicating the position of the stockade and dockyard some two miles above Kertamulia and nearer the sea than Delancey had expected it to be. A second drawing showed some detail of the stockade but this was unfinished and stained with blood. Delancey thanked Ellis and dismissed him, turning to Fitzgerald for any further information he could add.
“Well, sir, Ellis forgot to report that a Malay woman helped him paddle that canoe and went off in it after he came aboard.”
“Was she pretty?”
“Pretty, sir? Well—yes, I suppose she was, and quite young too.”
“I see. And what do you think of Ellis’s story?”
“I think he did quite well, considering.”
“Do you? For myself, I don’t believe a word of it.”
“What really happened, then?”
“Ellis deserted the party in order to sleep with this Malay girl. He was with her when the party was attacked and remained in her hut until the fight ended. She then took him in her canoe—he picking up this map on the way to it—and went down river, he in the bottom of the boat and she answering challenges from the stockade or other craft. The man is lying but this map luckily tells the truth.”
“Shall I put him under arrest, sir?”
“Certainly not. We have no evidence against him. His only certain offence is in being a bad liar, lacking the brain to make up a better story.”
“I’m afraid that Wayland’s little expedition was something of a disaster.”
“Not at all. It was a success, giving me the information I wanted at the cost of three lives. The other information I wanted will probably cost me five lives. In this world, Mr Fitzgerald, there is a price to pay for everything. For the destruction of the Subtile the price is going to be heavy.”
On May 24th the Laura was through the Karimata Channel and cruising on a line between Dending, in Billiton, and the island of Kebatu. If Chatelard wanted to pick up a final prize before returning to the Kapuas River, this might well be the area in which he would operate. On the other hand, it was just as likely that he would make straight for his base, already satisfied with the captures he had made. He could also, far that matter, cruise in the Karimata Channel itself. The argument against this possibility was that the Karimata Channel is a hundred miles wide whereas the Laura, placed where she was, had only thirty-five miles to patrol. As Delancey saw the problem, Chatelard would prefer a near certainty to an outside chance. He saw Chatelard as that sort of man. Events, however, were to prove him wrong.
Early in June he intercepted a valueless Dutch merchantman bound for Java. She had on board three Englishmen, the master, first and second mates of a country ship captured by the Subtile off Billiton a few days earlier. Chatelard had rid himself of these prisoners by putting them on board the Dutchman, having no wish, obviously, to take them into the Kapuas River. Delancey released the Dutch ship, being unwilling to spare a prize crew, and headed north again for the Karimata Channel. Having put his three Englishmen on board a country ship bound for Calcutta, he at last obtained his first distant glimpse of the Subtile. She was to windward of him on a northerly course and Delancey recognized her at once from the descriptions he had heard or read. He went in chase but soon realised that she was a faster ship than the Laura and superbly handled. By nightfall she was at once further to windward and further ahead. Dishearteningly, moreover, the privateer had gained this distance without any special effort while the Laura had crowded all the sail she had. Annoying as this might be at the time, Delancey had at least the satisfaction of knowing that he had been right not to seek the Subtile in the Bay of Bengal. He could never have overtaken her without the aid of another man-of-war. With two ships he might have trapped her against the land but he had not been given the force needed. So he was justified in seeking to pinpoint the privateer’s base. He felt certain, moreover, that Chatelard would now be on his way there. Having taken one more prize and having sighted the Laura, he would surely conclude that his cruise was over. This would be his cue to vanish, refit, and rest, assuming that the frigate would have gone by the time he emerged.
There was no sign of the Subtile by daybreak but Delancey felt justified in making directly for the Kapuas River. Were Chatelard tempted to take another prize it was just possible that the Laura might be there before him. Having been mistaken once about Chatelard’s possible plans, Delancey was now less confident of his guess-work. It was clear, however, that he must head for the Kapuas River and wait.
But how was he to know if the Subtile had already entered the river? His first instinct was to call at Djawi and ask that question of his Chinese informant. But could the news have reached him in time? And might not the Subtile enter the river while he was at anchor off Djawi? Given the choice, he wanted to deal with the privateer at sea rather than in the river. She was, in herself, no match for the Laura but ashore the odds would be more even, the French being reinforced by their Malay allies. To attack that stockade would be to risk heavy losses from battle and disease. The Dyaks might help but would they appear on the right day and would Michael be fit enough to direct them? The Dyak alliance had seemed real enough when it was discussed with Kanyan but did it really amount to more than a vague possibility? Would the other tribal elders agree to it? Were they able to deliver the attack?
The best plan beyond question was to intercept the Subtile at the river-mouth, and Delancey plotted his course accordingly, sighting the coast just before sunset on June 10th. There was a faint sea-breeze and the Laura came slowly into the anchorage and finally dropped anchor in eight fathoms. There was a period of minutes during which the jungle trees were lit for a moment by the purple sunset, and then, quite suddenly, it was dark. There was nothing to be seen on that moonless night and nothing to be heard except the murmur of fresh water against the ship’s side. Delancey gave orders to clear for action and beat to quarters. After going the round of the gun-deck he had a final word with his lieutenants.
“I have reason to believe, gentlemen, that the French privateer Subtile will soon try to enter the Kapuas River. All lights, including battle lanterns, are to be extinguished. We must maintain complete silence, every man at his post. We shall then be in position to engage her should she make the attempt.”
“But will Chatelard try to enter the river at night?” Fitzgerald clearly thought the idea absurd.
“I don’t know, Mr Fitzgerald,” but I think it possible. Chatelard knows this river very well. His preference, no doubt, would be to enter in daylight but what if he knows that the Laura is on his tail? In that event he would want to enter unseen and therefore after dark.”
“But can he be aware, sir, that we know about his base?”
“Yes, Mr Fitzgerald, he can. His Malay friends, who are in touch with him, may have taken our men prisoners and learnt something from them.”
“But our boat’s crew were all killed, sir.”
“We have only Ellis’s word for that and I don’t believe a word he says.”
“So you think, sir, that the Subtile may be approaching the river-mouth now.”
“I don’t think it probable. But we should look very foolish if Chatelard were to make the attempt and we were all in our hammocks. I have told Mr Stock to have the flares ready to ignite at a moment’s notice. Our first broadside should follow five seconds later. Our object must be to cripple the Subtile at the outset.”
Removing his shoes so as to step silently, Delancey prowled the decks, ready to reprove anyone who coughed or shuffled. The silence, however, was very well observed and he finally returned to the quarter-deck and took post near where young Stock had his well-shrouded lantern. Hours passed and it was nearly four o’clock when Burnet whispered, “Look, sir—there.”
The boy pointed but Delancey could see nothing at all. “A sail, sir.”
Could the lad be imagining things? “How distant?”
“A half-mile, sir.”
If there was anything there, it had to be the Subtile. No other ship in the world would attempt the Kapuas River in darkness. Some tense minutes passed, Delancey worried to think that his eyesight was failing, and finally young Stock whispered, “I see her now!” and pointed in a slightly different direction. The bearing had changed with the enemy’s approach. Delancey sent Fitzgerald to alert the gun-captains and repeat the order for silence. Then he strained his eyes until, finally, he glimpsed the enemy and heard the leadsman singing out after each cast. He now saw with surprise that there were dimmed lights aboard the privateer. In the still night he could hear men at work or in conversation, having no thought of imminent action. The Subtile must now be within four hundred yards, the range diminishing . . . Then there was a shout from the other ship and Delancey knew that the Laura had been seen. “Flare—Now!” he said to Stock, and the whole scene was suddenly illuminated, showing the Subtile on course to pass the Laura. In that split second Delancey could see that she was a beautiful ship in immaculate order, commanded by an artist in his profession. “Fire!” said Delancey to the gun-captain of the aftermost quarter-deck carronade, and “Flare!” to David Stock. The whole broadside followed, making the frigate shudder and reel. The effect of surprise could not have been more complete.
Delancey was to say afterwards that the recovery of the Subtile did Chatelard infinite credit. He was in battle before he had even cleared for action. Many a commander would have hauled down his colours to avert the impending massacre. Far from surrendering, Chatelard drove his men to their guns and made some sort of reply to the Laura’s second broadside. The scene on board the privateer must have been one of indescribable confusion and bloodshed. After receiving the third broadside the Subtile slid past her stationary opponent and was soon outside the Laura’s arc of fire. “All hands make sail!” shouted Delancey but the order was obeyed too slowly. Some minutes passed before the pursuit began and the Subtile was still the swifter ship of the two.
Three more broadsides were fired at the retreating enemy, whose stern-chasers replied, but the range was lengthening and little damage was done. Ten minutes later the action ended abruptly as the frigate gently ran aground. The depth of water on the bar of the river was sufficient for the privateer but not for her antagonist. By the time the Laura had been refloated, not without difficulty, the morning light silhouetted the jungle trees and the Subtile had vanished from sight.
Delancey anchored the frigate in deeper water and called for casualty and damage reports. There were seven killed and eighteen wounded, four of them unlikely to recover. There was some damage to the rigging and to the bowsprit and five shot holes to plug, all above the waterline. The frigate was little the worse for the encounter but the privateer, it could be assumed, was little better than a wreck.
After making his report, Fitzgerald offered to complete the Subtile’s destruction.
“Let me take the boats in, sir, and finish her off while the French morale is low.”
“Thank you for that offer, Mr Fitzgerald. I shall be glad to see you perform that service but not immediately. I shall make the attack in a week’s time.”
“But the French will have recovered by then. They will have strengthened their stockade, sir, and mounted their cannon ashore.”
“That is true, Mr Fitzgerald. You are forgetting, however, that we have the Malays to deal with. Their morale is unaffected because they have not even been in action. The sound of firing will have brought them to the scene in force. After a week during which nothing has happened, they will begin to drift away again. They never have provisions for more than a few days. Then I shall try again to achieve surprise.”
Soon after daybreak the Laura was under sail, presently dropping anchor again off Djawi. Once more a sampan came off from the shore, this time with just the one passenger: the Chinese from whom Delancey had gained the vital information. Although Djawi was nearly forty miles from the Kapuas River, the Chinese already knew about the skirmish at the river-mouth. Wasting no time, Delancey came straight to the point. Would his Chinese friend like to earn another five hundred dollars? He would indeed. Would he then make it widely known that the Laura was now on her way back to Malacca and Penang?
Assuming that the Subtile had been put out of action, and being short of supplies, Delancey had decided to quit the neighbourhood and go north. He had called at Djawi for poultry and fruit but had to leave again almost immediately. So far as the Malays were concerned, the coast would be clear from tomorrow. Could the Chinese ensure that this news would reach Kertamulia? There was no difficulty about that, it seemed, the Chinese having business contacts all along the coast. He had no love, Delancey thought, for the Malays of the Kapuas River and had already guessed what Delancey meant to do. It would be a pleasure, the Chinese said, to see that Delancey’s plans became generally known. There followed some everyday transactions, enough to explain the Laura’s presence at Djawi, and the Chinese went happily ashore.
Sailing before sunset, Delancey dropped anchor next morning at the mouth of the Nuri River. Sending for Topley, he told him that he was to take a written message to Mr Michael Delancey. He was to command the cutter but Mr Burnet would be his pilot, having been up the river before, and his coxswain would also have had that experience. The object of the expedition was to persuade the Dyaks to attack the Kapuas Malays in one week from today. Topley was to be back at a rendezvous in four days and should be able to report that the Dyaks were on their way.
As soon as the cutter had been lowered and had rowed off, Delancey plotted a course for the island of Pedjantan. He had watered there before and thought the place suitable for a landing exercise and for rehearsing the attack on a stockade. Fitzgerald was brave enough but did he know how to deal with a boom so placed as to block a river? He might not have known the secret before the exercises began. He certainly knew all about it before they came to an end.
The Laura was back on the Borneo coast in time to rendezvous at nightfall with Topley’s cutter at an unfrequented bay on the north side of the Nuri estuary. Three of the cutter’s crew were sick but Topley was able to report on a successful mission. He also brought with him two Dyaks, one of them a minor chief and the other a young man who was to act as the chief’s runner. He had seen the Dyaks begin their overland march and reported that Michael Delancey had gone with them and knew the exact day on which their attack was to be staged.
“But why did you bring these Dyaks with you?”
“I thought that they might serve a useful purpose and Mr Delancey agreed with me. The elder Dyak is called Tedong and he knows the Kapuas River, having formerly lived on its banks. The younger man, Sochon, is a good hunter and able to travel quickly through the jungle. You will notice, sir, that he wears the head-hunter’s sword with a staghorn hilt. When the attack is launched Tedong may act as guide and Sochon might try to make contact with the Dyak force under Kanyan.”
“A very good idea, Mr Topley. And you think that Kanyan will be with us when the day comes?”
“Yes, sir. He and others seem to be bitter against the Malay pirates.”
“And is my brother in good health?”
Topley hesitated over his choice of words, anxious to tell the truth without giving offence.
“He is not very strong, sir, but he wants his Dyaks to regain their territory. I think he will keep going until the campaign is over. He might fall sick again afterwards.”
“Thank you, Mr Topley. You have done very well, using your brains and showing a readiness to take responsibility.”
Two more days were spent in training and in drawing up a detailed plan. The central problem was the removal of the boom, without which the boats could not attack the Subtile. Delancey decided to storm the stockade in three stages. There would be, to begin with, a feint on the left. Then the real attack, on the right, would be directed against the end of the boom on that side and would culminate in the ropes being cut and the timber parts set adrift. In the final stages the boats would pass through and form line abreast for the assault on the privateer.
For the main attack Delancey detailed four groups, all under the direction of Mr Fitzgerald. One group would give covering fire with musketry. Two groups, left and right, would place scaling ladders against the stockade, climb them, and deal with the defenders by means of hand grenades. The last group would also have scaling ladders, would pass between the other groups and, crossing the stockade, would cut the boom adrift with their axes. This last group must be led by an officer, inevitably Mr Green-well, and the two grenade parties would be led, respectively, by Topley and Stock. The gunner, Mr Woodley, would lead the feint attack, assisted by Midshipman Burnet. The boats, each commanded by a midshipman, would finally go though—led by whom? There must be one officer left in command of the ship and this would normally be the captain, but Delancey decided to direct the whole operation and lead the boats himself, ordering Northmore to stay on board the frigate. This was a difficult decision to make but he realized that the assault on the privateer would have to be planned on the spot. He could not know, to begin with, whether the French would be on the stockade or on board their ship. He supposed that Chatelard would have to divide them, but in what proportion? The Malays again were an unknown quantity. As pirates they would know little about fighting but they might be numerous. Of their strength he could make no estimate at all. Nor could he assume that the Dyaks would intervene effectively. They might, but his plan could not be based upon them. Supposing they did not appear and supposing that half his men were lost in storming the barricade, which was then found to be manned only by Malays, all further operations would have to be cancelled, at least for the time being. Who but he could take that responsibility? No, he must direct the operation as a whole and lead the final advance in person.
Delancey explained his plan of attack at a final conference attended by all officers down to the rank of midshipman. He had a large diagram pinned to the cabin bulkhead and drew arrows to show what had to be done by whom. When all questions had been resolved the officers withdrew but Fitzgerald returned at once to say that Mr Northmore wished for an interview with the captain. Delancey agreed to see him, knowing perfectly well what the young man was going to say. Some protest was inevitable and Northmore, white-faced and trembling, made a passionate plea to be allowed to take part in the operation. He felt disgraced, he said, to be left out of it.
“Mr Northmore,” Delancey replied, “I should have been disappointed in you had you failed to protest at this moment. We are on the eve of an enterprise which should reflect credit on all who take part in it. In all I said just now, with the others present, I assumed that our efforts would succeed. But now, with none present except Mr Fitzgerald and yourself, I want you to consider the possibility of failure. I should not ordinarily talk about that but I am paid to think about it and about every other possibility. Assume now that we attacked at daybreak and found that stockade impregnable, defended by numerous cannon and by a thousand resolute opponents. By midday our losses include all officers and over a hundred men. The survivors make their way back to the frigate, many of them wounded and all exhausted. It then becomes the duty of the officer who was left on board to sail the ship back to Prince of Wales Island with only half a crew. Nor should you forget that the Laura may be attacked by the pirates while most of the crew are out of the ship. After the boats have gone up the river you will have more to do than bite your nails and wait for them to return. You have made your protest and I have rejected it. You need now to work and plan, listing the men you have and assigning them to the work they will have to do.”
“Thank you, sir. I do understand that you have to leave a commissioned officer on board the ship. I exchanged a word just now, however, with Mr Greenwell. I think he would be willing, sir, to take my place.”
“Indeed. I wonder why?”
“He thought, sir, that my prospects in the service are better than his. It may be, also, that he is not feeling well.”
“If sick he would do better to tell me about it. As for you taking his place, I will not agree to it. I have good reason to allocate the duties as I think best. I have to make decisions. I do not have to defend them in argument. Your request, Mr North-more, is refused.”
Delancey turned to Fitzgerald after Northmore had gone, saying:
“I don’t much like the sound of this.”
“Nor do I, sir.”
“I am not changing my plans, however, nor shall I allow my officers to exchange their duties. We shall attack the stockade at daybreak tomorrow.”