The King's Privateer Read online

  “Hello, here comes somebody,” Lewrie said, pointing to a small ship that had appeared in mid-channel, shimmering like a mirage in the heat waves. “On her way down to the sea. What is she, sir? Venetian?”

  “Ha, appears to be! Local built. Good God! Haven’t seen a ship like that in a long time.” Brainard laughed. “Most country ships out here are built outa good, hard teak wood. Lasts forever. Seen a well-cared-for ship last a century out here, whilst good English oak rots away in five years. She’s like an old Venetian caravel, she is. Mighta been felucca or dhow-rigged once. See, below the crossed spars? How she carries fore’n’aft sails on lateeners? Good to windward this time of year. Probably started life as an oared galley God knows how long ago, and got rebuilt over the years.”

  “I don’t recognize the flag, though, sir.”

  “Ah, hmm. House flag. Part Portugee, part Parsee. Sharp businessmen, they are. Sort of Arabs.” Brainard sighed wistfully.

  Old and shabby she might be, Alan thought, but she was definitely exotic. Exotic in the extreme, just like everything they had seen in the last two days on their slow passage up the Hooghly. There were people working in fields in turbans and dhotis. Oxdrawn carts with only one axle and squealing, ungreased wheels one could hear nearly a mile away, with loads piled prodigiously high swaying along slowly. Dak bungalows here and there, a day’s slow bullock-cart travel apart.

  Elephants bathing and splashing mud on their broad backs on the river bank, their mahouts watching for snakes and crocodiles. Women in sarees, long head-cloths or cotton shawls out pounding clothing on the banks. Occasionally around some larger town or village, there were men doing the same labor, the dhobees from a prosperous house.

  A rare Buddhist priest in a saffron robe and his begging bowl. More often Hindu priests. A local rajah or rich trader with his procession of loaded gharies, his retinue of gaudily dressed mercenary soldiers on horseback. Curtained sedan chairs borne by sweating lower-caste men that might contain a babu, a fat native clerk, or a patchouli-scented courtesan. And once, to Burgess Chiswick’s delight, a column of infantry on the march. Exotic, they were, too, to one used to the sight of an English regiment. Red coats, white pyjammy trousers, white cross-belts, sandals and kurtaa shirts. Brown Bess muskets held at shoulder arms, cocked hats with neck-cloths bouncing against their necks to keep off the fierce sun and not a stitch more of European clothing on their backs. But they were well-closed-up and marching to fifes and drums, their English officers riding stocky native horses with their bearers trotting alongside.

  And India did smell, as Ayscough had said: smelled powerfully. Flowers, green sap, perfume and spice—cooking aromas that made the driest mouth water. And rot and corruption, too. There was nothing about the place that could be considered a halfway measure. It was a place of strong, almost violent contrasts, and they hadn’t even set foot ashore yet to discover one percent of them. Try to acclimate on the last stretch of the voyage as they could, the first sight of Calcutta set everyone’s mind into a hopeless spin.

  The harbor and the city banks were as busy as the Pool of London, with hundreds of ships anchored, everything from stately “John Company” Indiamen to ancient copies of galleons, from the largest to the smallest riverine trading ships. Hide-built coracles and rowing boats worked in a plague from the ghats built up along the river bank. Warehouses and docks stretched as far as the eye could see, with reddish Fort William brooding over it all, and behind the ghats there were pleasure gardens as gay as Covent Garden or Ranelagh, spacious as St. James’ or Hyde Park, where in one moment rich men rode in their carriages or strolled slowly, and the next, a lower-caste mehtar would dash by carrying his bucket of excrement to be dumped. Behind the European quarter, the cantonment where it was adjudged safe to live, there were native quarters, teeming with life crowded elbow to elbow from sunrise to sunset, except in the hottest parts of the day. Sacred cows strolled oblivious through the greenest, lushest cricket pitch anyone had ever laid eyes on while the players waited for their bearers to shoo them away, gently and without offense. Native markets hummed and buzzed with commerce, and smoke rose from cooking fires, fires where brass and bronzeware was molded and hammered, where hides were tanned or clothes washed. It was all of London crammed into half the area, still huge enough to daunt almost all of them from going ashore into such an exotic alienness.

  They found a safe anchorage where Telesto would have room to moor, and dropped the best bower anchor. The sails were clewed up to the yards, then brailed up and secured with harbor gaskets for the first time since Capetown. Yards lowered slowly, and squared away Navy fashion. A stream anchor was lowered from the stern and rowed out to keep her from swinging afoul of another ship. The sun awnings were rigged across the decks, and, unlike Navy fashion, would be left deployed day and night, instead of being taken in each day at sundown, for they provided some protection from the rains that would come during this season.

  “Very well, Mister Choate. Dismiss the hands,” Ayscough said after the last bit of tidying and straightening had been done to his, the bosun’s and the first officer’s satisfaction.

  “Um, the matter of shore leave, sir,” Choate ventured.

  “Firewood and water first, Mister Choate. Ready the ship for sea should it become necessary, then we’ll consider it,” the captain grunted, though his own nose was twitching to get ashore.

  “Bosun, watering party!” Choate yelled.

  “Excuse me if I suggest something,” Twigg interrupted, coming down from his regal perch on the poop deck with his servant in tow. “You’ll want to rinse out the ship’s water barrels, of course. I’d suggest boiling water for that.”

  “Er, they are a bit foul, sir, even being sluiced at Capetown not so long ago,” the purser chuckled. “A bit on the tan side, our water is.”

  “Yes, see to it. And from my prior experience, all the water we take aboard should be boiled first. Else it’ll come out of this river,” Ayscough harrumphed. They had all seen the garbage floating in the Hooghly, the excrement dumped, thankfully downstream from the city and their anchorage.

  “You read my mind, sir,” Twigg replied with a slight bow and a twitch of those tight lips of his. “Further, though. It is my experience in Asian waters that thin gauze should be procured for insect netting, if not for each hand to swath about his hammock, then at least for the hatches that lead below. I do not know why, nor do any physicians of my past acquaintance, but the incidence of malaria is much reduced if this is done.”

  “As long as it does not come out of ship’s funds, though …” the purser objected. “Why, the Navy Board’s …”

  “Silence,” Twigg snapped, raising a hand in warning. “And I tire of reminding you, sir, that I and Mister Wythy are funding this vessel? You may not care about the health of the men in your charge, but I do. If only for the inability to find trained seamen enough in India to replace the ones who die. And die they will, in job lots, no matter what precautions we may take.”

  “I merely meant …” the purser stammered on, red-faced.

  “I’ll speak to you in my cabins later, Mister Abernathy,” the captain snapped. “Do what … our owners suggest.”

  After witnessing that entertaining exchange at the expense of “Mr. Nip-cheese,” as Abernathy and most pursers were termed, Lewrie went to the larboard bulwarks to stare at the ghats that led down to the river in terraced steps. He’d seen insect netting used before in the West Indies, and sickly as that region was, he’d expected nothing less of the East Indies. Besides, he consoled himself, I’ve had the Yellow Jack once before, and everyone said back on Antigua that once you survived it, you couldn’t get it again. He rubbed the top of his left arm where the family surgeon had punctured him over and over and made him howl with pain and terror even before he was out of nappies, to inoculate him against the smallpox. There were two major risks of the tropics taken care of. As for the rest, he was young, healthy as a rutting yearling bull, wasn’t he? He was well-off financia
lly, an established English gentleman—his kind was bloody immortal!

  As for other diseases, he’d sleep with the nets, drink nothing but imported wine or ale, make sure his water was boiled first should he be forced to drink such a dull beverage—perhaps nothing but tea, he speculated. One had to boil tea-water if one wanted a decent pot.

  Food could be washed in boiled water, he supposed, and anyway, there was salt-meat to fall back on. And he would take his sheep-gut condom ashore with him, should he ever be allowed ashore. Twigg and Wythy hadn’t snarled at him in the last two months, so he supposed he had outlasted their anger at him. He’d not been allowed ashore at Oporto, Madeira or Capetown. Surely, he’d touch land—and a few other softer things—here in Calcutta!

  Chapter 2

  With so many hired stevedores, and those working for less than anyone could credit, the cargo was finally landed in their warehouse and factory ashore. Twigg and Wythy went with it, thank the good Lord, to establish their putative trading firm. Telesto rode higher out of the water. Firewood and water were brought aboard and stowed away. A distillery was established at the factory to supply them daily. Crates of chickens, small flocks of goats and sheep were hoisted aboard for fresh meat. The crew complained about the lack of juicy fresh beef, no matter the explanations that cattle were a protected species to Hindoos. The passengers had left the first day, Burgess Chiswick included. They’d shared one last bumper of claret and then he was off to Fort William for his assignment with the East India Company’s army. There were some more chores that Captain Ayscough wished performed before shore leave would be allowed. The ship was smoked and scoured below decks, the bilges pumped clean and the many rats that had come aboard with the cargo hunted down and dispatched, or at least thinned out. Rigging had to be re-rove to replace spliced or storm-raveled cordage; sails had to be patched. Cosmetics about the look of the ship could go hang for a while, but she must be made ready in all respects to go to sea at a moment’s notice before the hands were to be allowed a monumental rut or two.

  Finally, after six days of labors, Ayscough summoned all hands aft and announced that he was pleased enough to let them have leave.

  “Now this is a rupee,” Tom Wythy said, counting out coins on his desk in the factory offices ashore, while Alan fidgeted and wriggled with impatience. “Worth about fifteen rupees to the pound sterling. You run across a gold coin, that’s a mohur. Same as a guinea.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Think of a rupee as a strong shilling. Now these are annas. Like pence, but sixteen to the rupee. Have you got that so far, sir?”

  “Aye, I think so, Mister Wythy,” Alan almost groaned.

  “And pyce are like ha’pennies—four to the anna. You’ll be amazed how cheap things are here in Calcutta.”

  “How much—I say kit nah?” Alan recited. “Bahut mehanga is too much. God help me if the bastard wants to haggle, though, I’m flat out of the lingo.”

  “Round the port, Fort William and the European cantonment, ye’ll find enough bazaar-wallahs and bunniahs who savvy English,” Wythy growled. “Their stores and stalls’d die if they couldn’t. Mind now, ye’ll be safer not goin’ into the native quarters without a guide or bearer. Yih achcha jaga naheen, sahib! A no good place, ’specially for a feringhee such as y’self. End up with yer purse lifted, poxed to the eyebrows by some cutch-whore, or knifed in an alley by some budmashes.”

  “The third officer and I, and my man Cony, will go together, sir,” Alan assured him. “Swords for all, and a pocket pistol each.”

  “Good thinking,” Wythy allowed. “Well, ye’re on yer own, God help ye. Enjoy.”

  Enjoy, Alan did! Though for the first few minutes, he wasn’t sure he could walk. He’d not been off a ship’s deck for over six months, rocketing from beam to beam in storms, permanently heeled over in strong winds, and used to the motion of a ship. Even during their brief port stays, Telesto still snubbed at her cables, lifted and rolled gently to tide or off-shore breezes, and heavy as she was, was never still.

  Once outside, they’d headed up one of the major thoroughfares, aiming for a grove of monstrous trees they couldn’t recognize, anxious for some shade, but they simply couldn’t attain them.

  The land was so still, yet it seemed to heave and roll, to yaw to windward like a ship with too much weather-helm! Alan found himself paying off to leeward, staggering and shambling as if he’d just put down half a dozen bottles of wine. Colin McTaggart and Cony were not much help, either. Either they were staggering on the opposite tack, crossing under his hawse and threatening to trip him up, or they were bearing down on each other in collision.

  Holding on to each other to raft up for mutual support wasn’t such a good idea, either, for they tugged in opposite directions even standing still!

  “God, ’elp me, Mister Lewrie, sir!” Cony wailed. “H’an’t nivver been land-sick afore, but h’it’s acomin’ over me ’ellish strong, damme’f h’it h’ain’t!”

  “Perhaps if we closed our eyes,” McTaggart suggested, his dark tan turning very pale. “Noo, that’s nae the way.”

  Alan had tried that, but as soon as he did, the canals of his ears began to swirl like milk in a butter-churn, making him feel as if he were spiraling out of the sky like a well-shot duck!

  “Can’t be the cholera, or malaria, could it?” Alan paled.

  “Nae sa soon, surely not!” McTaggart sighed. “An ale shop up yonder. Let’s hae us a sit-doon, for the love o’ God!”

  A few milds, and some time safely ensconsed in solid chairs seemed to help abate the reeling.

  “Looks as if we’re not the only ones suffering,” Alan pointed out. Three hands off another ship were short-tacking up the walks in front of the European shops on the far side of the street, careering from storefront to the verge of the curbing in a series of short tacks from beam to beam quick as a regatta of tiny pleasure boats on the Thames. One grizzled bosun followed them; older and wiser to the predicament, he trailed the fingers of his right hand along the buildings for a reference point, groping like a blind man.

  They espied several others who did not suffer mal de terre as badly, these bucketing along normally as any other pedestrian, but with the rolling gait of a long-passage sailorman.

  Once the symptoms abated somewhat, they found their tailor, a darzee named Gupta, who measured them and ran up their requirements. Light, locally loomed cotton shirts, duck waist-coats light as number 8 serge de Nimes sailcloth for use in the softest weathers. He could supply cummerbunds to wrap about their waists, which he assured them was a healthy thing to do, purvey hats in European styles made of tightly woven straw that let their scalps breathe, but kept off the cruel sun.

  Alan fingered a bolt of cloth, a very light, almost metallic mid-blue fabric that shone richly as the light struck it. Gupta went into raptures, assuring him it would make a coat as fine as any rajah wore, rich as the Great Moghul himself in distant Delhi, and only “paintis, burra-sahib!” Only thirty-five rupees , heroic as Alan’s stature was. Brass buttons extra, of course. Alan knocked him down to thirty rupees, and fabric-covered buttons, and ordered more in silver-grey, and pale blue. Two pounds sterling each for a coat, he marveled, that a titled lord would gladly shell out fifty guineas for back in London, if he could get it!

  He outfitted Cony with a straw hat, cummerbund and lighter cotton shirts, and a dark blue duck jacket to take the place of his wool sailor’s jacket. Brass buttons one rupee extra, of course.

  Then they were off for a tour of the bazaar.

  “My God, it truly is Puck’s Fair!” Alan exclaimed. It was as grand a sight everywhere he looked as the most intriguing raree-shows he had ever paid to see back home in England, and it was all free to the eye here!

  There were rickety stalls spilling over with flower garlands and necklaces, with bundles of blooms the like of which he had never seen or smelled. There were ivory carvers to watch, wood carvers to admire. Strange, multi-armed little statues in awkward dance poses to
haggle over. Rug merchants and weavers sewing dhurries from Bengali cotton, or imported fur. Persian or Turkey carpets down from the highlands of the northwest with their eye-searing colors and intricate designs.

  In another corner were grouped the brass and copper wares: here gem cutters, there gold and silversmiths. In between there were stalls heaped with fruits, vegetables and livestock. Now and then, there would be a cooking stall with the most enticing steams and spices wafting into their parched nostrils. Doves and snipe, ducks and wild fowl, chickens flapping as they hung upside down by one leg from overhead poles prior to sale.

  There were pet birds in cages, colorful and noisy. Monkeys on leashes. And there were elephants actually being ridden by a man! Some working-plain, but a rare few painted with symbols and caparisoned as rich as a medieval knight’s steed, adrape in silks and satins, real gold tassels and silver medals, brocades with little mirrors winking from knitted rosettes, and crowned with feathered plumes and bejewelled silk caps. And camels swaying under heavy loads!

  There were sword-swallowers and sword-dancers beguiling the shuffling throngs for tossed money. Snake charmers tootling on flutes as they swayed in unison with deadly cobras. There were jugglers and acrobats, magicians and dancers, some young boys as beautiful as virgin brides who pirouetted to the enthusiastic clapping and cheers of a circle of onlookers, ankle bangles and bells jingling, with their eyes outlined lasciviously with kohl. There were girls in tight bodices and loose, gauzy skirts with their midriffs bare, the skirts and the gauze head-dresses flying out behind them as they danced, showing more to the amazed and love-starved eyes of him and his companions than most husbands would ever get to see of their wives back home in England!