A torpor fell over the Huma after the killing of the Malayan swimmer. Horne knew better than to push the men for the remainder of the afternoon in the jobs invented to fill their idle hours. He suggested that Jud read from the Koran for the victim’s soul and then allowed the crew to settle under their sun shelters, to fish and exchange stories while they awaited the evening meal. When the supper of rice, fish and dates was finished, and the sinking sun coloured the still water in a lurid spectrum of purple and red, a Hindu began strumming a sitar and singing a dirge.
The musician’s haunting voice drifted through the humid night as Horne sat behind the desk in his cabin, staring blankly at the motionless flame glowing on a squat candle. What could he do to raise the men’s spirits? There was ample drinking water, no imminent threat of running out of food, but the swimmer’s death had exacerbated the general lethargy. Should he organise them into teams to tow the Huma across the hammered-steel water in rowing boats? Make them at least think they were doing something to escape their trap?
Then he turned to brooding about the nature of his search for the China Flyer.
Governor Pigot had produced charts to replace those which Fanshaw had presumably taken from Fort St George. He had also assigned Cheng-So Gilbert as a translator to Horne, and given the Huma a small cargo of cloth and opium to present as a cumshaw to the Chinese officials in Macao and Whampoa. Horne had been granted full licence, too, in the way he chose to bring Fanshaw back to Madras to face criminal charges. Pigot had assured him that the monetary worth of the China Flyer would be divided amongst his crew if they brought the ship home as a prize.
Those preparations and precautions were incidental, however, to the search itself. Had Fanshaw reached Canton by now, or would Horne have to scour far-flung islands and follow China’s meandering coastline? Pigot had set him no time limit; how long should he continue the search? It might take him years. Meanwhile Fanshaw could easily disappear to another part of the world.
The Huma’s danger might be greater if Fanshaw had already arrived in China, for he could well be mustering support from the Chinese in anticipation of pursuit by the Bombay Marine. From what Horne had heard, Fanshaw was not a stupid man, unlikely to steal a ship from the East India Company and undertake such a bold venture without expecting repercussions. Anticipating that the Company would send the Bombay Marine in search of him, he might well be leading them into a dangerous trap.
What did Fanshaw hope to achieve by taking a Company frigate? Horne wondered. Did he think he could steal Company gold without precipitating a hue and cry? Horne could not imagine any man risking a respected position within the Company hierarchy to abscond to a safe haven in China. Pigot might be correct: Fanshaw was going to China to make a fortune. But where would he live thereafter? Did he have highly-placed friends in England to protect him from the law? The East India Company certainly had the power to prosecute him there, and in India.
On the other hand, Horne could understand a man venturing all for a truly audacious plan—such as setting out to establish a rival trading company. He would need rich and influential contacts in England for such an ambition, but they might also be ready to defend his actions against criminal allegations made by the Honourable East India Company. If such a plan proved to be true, Fanshaw would be using all his previous knowledge from the Company to enormous advantage, taking secrets and privileges to the new company like a traitor defecting to another country.
Horne returned to his old complaint. Why didn’t the East India Company entrust him with more information, or at least discuss the issues with him? It was always so easy to despatch—and dismiss—a Marine.
* * *
The time was shortly after the first hour of the morning watch. Tossing fitfully from worry and the cloying heat, Horne had finally fallen asleep in his bunk.
Hearing a call, he sat bolt-upright in the darkness, his nakedness covered with beads of perspiration.
Had the cry come from the mainmast?
Blinking in the dim cabin, he thought: Was I dreaming?
The hail came a second time.
‘Sails ho … sail to north-east …’
Pulling on his breeches and grabbing his spyglass from the rack, Horne bounded from the cabin. As he dashed up the companionway, he realised that if a ship was approaching the Huma, then, by God, there must be a wind in the vicinity.
Daylight was bleaching the sky to the east, the early morning blackness fading into white, lavender, grey.
Standing on the quarter-deck, Horne scanned the northeastern horizon with his naked eye but saw nothing, not even a pattern of ripples on the inky-black waters. Raising the spyglass, he studied the distant haze through the lens, but still he saw nothing.
What had Jud spotted?
Looking up at the mainmast, Horne’s eyes lingered on the topgallant. What was that? A flutter to the canvas?
‘Sail ho!’ hailed Jud. ‘Sails to north-east!’
Around the deck, men were beginning to stir in their hammocks, word of an approaching ship spreading among them.
Horne studied the horizon again, now feeling a breeze against his bare skin. But still he could not spot another ship. Below him, the crew was breaking into cheers as the sails began to flap, the limp moth-wings slowly coming to life. Babcock, Groot, Jingee and Kiro appeared at his side, as anxious about the approaching ship as they were excited by the rising breeze.
Horne’s attention was caught by a distant serration. He passed the glass to Babcock. ‘What do you see?’
The four Marines took turns studying the horizon; Groot handed the glass to Jingee, saying to Horne, ‘Schipper, there is more than one sail.’
‘A bloody navy out there,’ growled Babcock, his eyes still swollen with sleep.
‘Possibly a fishing fleet,’ answered Horne, but there was little conviction in his words.
Jingee passed the glass back to Horne. ‘The sails look slanted.’
Cheng-So Gilbert had appeared on the quarter-deck behind the Marines. Horne handed him the glass, saying, ‘Give us your opinion, Mr Gilbert.’
The interpreter studied the approaching line of ships and said, ‘Praus.’
‘Praus?’ repeated Babcock.
Cheng-So Gilbert kept the glass to his eye. ‘Narrow ships with reed sails. We spoke about them this afternoon.’
‘Sulu pirates,’ remembered Groot.
Cheng-So Gilbert surrendered the eyeglass to Horne. ‘There are many types of praus in these waters. The lateen sails of the Madrese. The square-sail outrigger from Borneo. The tilted double sails of the Sulu.’
‘Those are double,’ Kiro said, looking at the fleet drawing closer from the north-east, both extensions of its arms stretching back into the morning darkness.
‘At an angle to the mast,’ added Groot.
Estimating that there must be more than fifty native craft in the approaching flotilla, Horne thought about running out the guns. The wind was rising too slowly to attempt an escape but the Huma could defend herself temporarily with cannon fire.
Sometimes, however, it was wiser not to aggravate an enemy. In rare instances it was ill-advised to put up a defence which stood no chance of success. How could they hope to win against such a horde?
‘They must have been watching us all night,’ Jingee suggested.
‘Waiting for a wind,’ said Babcock, now totally awake.
‘Or for daylight to attack,’ added Kiro.
Babcock looked at Cheng-So Gilbert. ‘Are you certain they’re Sulu?’
‘There’s not enough light to see the decorations which the Sulus paint on their boats.’
‘Look.’ Jingee pointed at the small navy.
Three boats were emerging from the line, the middle vessel no longer than a canoe, the two escorts topped with a pair of rectangular sails rigged at a forty-five degree slant.
Studying the trio through the glass, Cheng-So Gilbert said, ‘They want to parley.’
Horne ordered Jingee, ‘Get me my speaking trumpet.’
The Tamil reappeared on the quarter-deck in only a few minutes, handing the trumpet to Horne as a man rose in the canoe across the water and called in a clear, resonant voice.
Cheng-So Gilbert listened and turned to Horne. ‘He wants to talk to the nakhoda, the captain of the ship. He speaks the Bugis tongue of the Sulu.’
‘Ask them to identify themselves,’ said Horne. ‘Where they come from. What they want from us.’
Cheng-So Gilbert took the speaking trumpet and, holding the small ivory circle to his cherubic lips, called across the waves in a voice which sounded shrill in comparison with the deep tone of the Sulu spokesman.
Listening to the reply, Cheng-So Gilbert turned back to Horne. ‘They are from the Sulu islands of Lanani. They are looking for a ship which attacked a village on one of their islands. They say the ship belongs to the East India Company. Its leader is English.’
‘Tell them we are also looking for an East India Company ship. Tell them that the ship we are looking for is called the China Flyer but its “leader” could easily have painted out the name.’
As Horne listened to another exchange of words, he saw by the increasing light of day that each prau had cannon mounted on deck and directed on the Huma. Thank the Lord he had not attempted an escape. The Huma would have been blasted to splinters and he and his men become food for the sharks.
‘They say we must go with them and speak to their chieftain,’ Cheng-So Gilbert reported.
‘Does he say where?’ Horne asked. ‘Ask him. Try to buy time with more questions.’
At that moment, praus were moving out from the end of the phalanx, surrounding the Huma in a breeze which had taken four days to appear. The Sulus had finished talking.
* * *
‘What have you got us into now, wilful woman?’ Jud complained to his wife. ‘I asked you for a breeze and you bring us pirates!’
Black legs wrapped around the topgallant yard, Jud clung to the rigging as the prau fleet sailed in close escort around the Huma. The crew had followed Horne’s orders to weigh anchor and catch the rising breeze, but their excitement had abruptly given way to trepidation in face of the gathering Sulu fleet.
Jud’s wife Maringa had been a household slave in Sheik All Hadd’s Castle of the Golden Sand in Oman. Since she had died giving birth to their son, Jud had formed a habit of talking both to her and to the dead boy, in moments of joy as well as in fits of desperation.
Maringa gave Jud consolation. She assisted him. Her spirit and that of their son were with him night and day. They watched over him.
In the days immediately following their deaths, Jud had become a thief, looting and stealing, leading a shameful life, until the authorities apprehended him and gaoled him in Bombay Castle. Later, he attributed his arrest to Maringa’s protective eye; it had been her way of taking care of him, of putting him back on the straight and narrow path.
Maringa’s spirit had also led Adam Horne to Jud’s cell, helped to free him from prison and make him a Bombay Marine. Maringa made life as happy for Jud as it could be without her and their son.
But what did Maringa have in mind now? Why could she not just blow him a little bit of wind from Heaven and be done with it?
‘Perverse woman,’ he scolded at the sky. ‘Can’t you once give me what I ask for? Do I always have to suffer for it?’