The King's Privateer Read online

  “Six, we were told before we sailed from Plymouth,” Wythy said.

  “More since,” Twigg went on. “Governor Hastings told me today the count is up to ten. Well-armed ships, too. Indiamen, country ships, and the latest an Indiaman, the Macclesfield. Crew of nigh on two hundred, twenty-four guns, thirty super-cargo passengers. And over two-hundred-fifty-thousand pounds sterling to pay for teas and silks.”

  “Good God!” Sir Hugo paled. “I knew one of her officers. Gone, didje say?”

  “Last reported passing through the Malacca Straits,” Twigg told them. “Spoke a patrol cutter working out of Bencoolen not twenty leagues north of the Johore Straits where she would turn east into the South China Sea. Never reached Macao or the Pearl River estuary.”

  “Malay pirates,” Sir Hugo suggested. “Or some Dyak headhunters from Borneo.”

  “Usually we could assume that, or some nautical disaster. Fire, a dismasting gale, sir”—Twigg frowned even deeper than his usual wont—“but the weather was reported mostly fair, and no Indiaman’d get so close inshore she’d be prey to coasting praos. And even a lightly armed Indiaman in the open sea is more than a match for a fleet of pirate praos. Wythy?”

  “Balignini pirates work out of Borneo. Swords, spears, blowguns with poison tips, some poor bows and arrows,” Wythy informed them knowledgeably. “If they have cannon, they’re old stone-shooters and slow to load. Cutch-powder, too. A nuisance, they are, mostly. Know better’n tangle with a proper European vessel lest they catch her at anchor. The Borneo princes subsidize ’em for loot and slaves. East of Borneo ye’ll find the Moluccas, cross the Makasar Strait and the Celebes. Maluku pirates work from there, but it’s a long reach to place ’em in the Johore Strait. And they’re even worse equipped than the Balignini. Now there’s the Sea Dyaks that work out of the Seribas and Skrang rivers. Might be a possibility, except I’ve never known a European they’d trust, or not turn on whoever gives them anything sooner or later. And, being fairly close to the Malay princes, who mostly stay on decent terms with ‘John Company’ because of trade, I can’t see them doing it.”

  “Chinese, then, sir?” Alan dropped into the speculations.

  “I’d rather hope so,” Twigg sighed. “Else it’s the Lanun Rovers. Pirates of the Illana Lagoon on Mindanao. Worst of the lot.”

  “Big praos, pretty well-armed, too. Go off on three-year raiding cruises like Berserker Vikings,” Wythy agreed with distaste. “The Spanish can’t do a thing with ’em. Last expedition from Manila to Mindanao got cut up pretty bad, so I hear tell. Yes, they could sail or row—they have what amounts to slave-galleys—anywhere they want. South China Sea, Malacca Straits, Gulf of Siam, Gulf of Tonkin and use the port of Danang among the Annamese if they’ve a mind.”

  “Bencoolen’s done a fair job of suppressing Malay and Dyak piracy off Sumatra and in the Malacca Straits,” Sir Hugo mused as he filled a church-warden pipe. “The Dutch keep a sharp eye on the seas to the west, I’m told. So, it’s either the Chinese, or these Mindanao pirates.”

  “Perhaps a combination of both,” Twigg rasped. “But, once we tangle with them, we’ll know. By their weapons. Some booty they’ve taken from an English ship in their treasure-trove.”

  “Then we’ll know whom to chastise,” Captain Ayscough promised. “And chastise them, we shall. To the last root and branch.”

  “Take a fleet to do that, Captain Ayscough,” Twigg said, turning to gaze at his captain. “Hard as it may be on your soul, ’tis not our brief to completely stamp out piracy in these waters.”

  Thank bloody Christ for that, Alan thought; sounds like one of Hercules’ twelve damned labors. And poison arrows? Poison blowguns? Damme if I signed aboard for that, either!

  “We’re sure it’s not the Dutch, nor would the Dutch turn a blind eye to someone encouraging and arming pirates,” Twigg added. “Spain? Weak, plagued with problems in the Philippines as it is, their ships as much prey to these savage beasts as anyone. With more to lose, let me remind you. Without the annual treasure galleons, Spain suffers. I’d not expect a lot of help from them, but to sanction piracy? Not them!”

  “That leaves the French!” Ayscough harrumphed, clawing the idle port decanter to him and pouring a crystal glass to knock back without tasting. Whatever drove him, Ayscough’s hatred for the Frogs was hot as a well-stoked forge.

  “Cunning bastards,” Sir Hugo rumbled. “Had my fill of ’em in the last bit of the war out here. Helping Hyder Ali and his son Tippoo Sultan, skulking behind the scenes and urging them on to fight us, but never having the nutmegs to take us on in a real fight!”

  “Aye, Sir Hugo, you find skullduggery in this world, and I’ll lay you any odds you want, it’ll be some modern-day Richelieu behind it!” Ayscough agreed hotly, spitting out the name of the old cardinal-schemer like a sour turd he’d dredged up in his soup. “The first to claim their superiority in this world like they’re the Chosen People, but they’re sneaking, low, vile, torturing monsters under all their silks and lace, their gilt and be-shit manners and their honeyed words! Oh, aye, ’tis sharper than a serpent’s tooth, they are!”

  “We shall find these pirates, Captain Ayscough, let me assure you.” Twigg prophesied grimly, reaching out a hand like a taloned paw to pat the man on the shoulder. “And they will lead us to the Frenchmen behind this hideous plot. Then we’ll have revenge enough for all.”

  After Ayscough had calmed down from his sudden fit, Sir Hugo blew a lazy cloud of smoke at the ceiling and refilled his brandy.

  Ah, that’s more like my old father, Alan thought—can’t stir his arse up without a snifter in his hand!

  “So you wish me to supply troops from my pultan, my regiment, for this expedition against the pirates, sir?” Sir Hugo asked.

  “Yes,” Twigg nodded. “They’re low-caste, did you say?”

  “The Nineteenth Native Infantry are mostly Bengalis,” Sir Hugo informed them. “Not a bad lot of scrappers, though. No brahmin, no kshatriya and damme few vaishya caste. If any were, they were damned poor merchants, ’cause they came into the battalion with nothing but the clothes on their backs. No, they’re almost all sudras. Serfs. Ryots or zamindars at best. Well, needs must in wartime, when we recruited anyone. And I suspect I’ve an Untouchable or two lurking ’mongst ’em, but that don’t signify, long’s they may form line and fire three volleys a minute. There’s even some Goanese, some half Portugee mixed in, from our being down south toward the end of the war out here. No, they’ll go across the kala panee for you and not worry about breaking their caste. When and where do you need ’em, sir?”

  “A half-company now aboard Telesto for our voyage. The rest transferred to Bencoolen on Sumatra, to place them closer to the action until we need them.”

  “A damned unhealthy place,” Sir Hugo replied, shivering.

  “My God, where out here ain’t?” Alan muttered. “Yih achcha jaga naheen, eh, Mister Wythy? Like you said this morning.”

  “Sicklier’n most, young sir,” Wythy assured him.

  “Yes, sicklier in fever, heat … and in morals,” Sir Hugo went on. “Anyone sent there is sure to be peppered to his eyebrows with the pox. Regiments serving there go down like flies. Pox, drink …”

  And just when did Father ever worry about morals, Alan thought.

  “The death rate among even native levies is nothing short of extermination, sirs,” Sir Hugo complained. “Not to mention the effect the utter anarchy of Bencoolen exerts upon troop discipline. Had you the Brigade of Guards in Bencoolen, you couldn’t put a half-battalion on parade fit for a day’s march a month later, and those’d be so raddled and debilitated, so mutinous, you’d not be able to turn your back on ’em for a second.”

  “I’m sure your colonel would disagree with me, Sir Hugo,” Twigg replied, his voice calm and reasonable, but Alan had seen that thin-lipped asperity often enough to know he was on the verge of an explosion. “Besides, what good do your troops do us if we needs must return to Calcutta to fetch ’em
on short notice?”

  “We do not have a colonel for this regiment,” Sir Hugo admitted. “He died. Of cholera. And for your information, the Nineteenth N.I. is only six companies, only a little better than a half-battalion to start with. It was never more than a one-battalion regiment, anyway.”

  “The hell you say, sir!” Wythy burst out, covertly restraining his senior partner before Twigg blew up at being sassed.

  “As I said, we saw a lot of action down south against Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan,” Sir Hugo told them. “We suffered more than our fair share of casualties. And when the war ended, more than a few of my men ‘cut their names’ to take their small pensions. I doubt I could muster three hundred men this moment, including officers, the band and the color-party. And that, sir,” Sir Hugo huffed with a cruel grimace at Twigg’s discomforture, “is why this battalion was made available to you. We are all that may be spared. Trouble west and north in the Oudh, trouble with the Mahrattas west and south. Trouble on every border of the Bengal Presidency. If you transfer us now, with no chance to recruit, well …”

  Sir Hugo blew a smoke ring, which seemingly mesmerized Twigg.

  “We’re fit for garrison duties only, now, and there’s not money enough to flesh us out. Send this battalion to Bencoolen at its present strength, equipped as we are, and one might do my sepoys a better kindness by simply shooting them here in Calcutta,” Sir Hugo related with a sad smile. “We’ve one foot in the grave already. For what you want to do, we’re a broken reed. At present, that is, sir.”

  “Well, damme,” Twigg sighed at last, leaking air and authority like one of that Frenchman Montgolfier’s hot-air balloons. “Would it be possible to recruit the Nineteenth here in Bengal before we sail?”

  “Assuredly, sir!” Sir Hugo beamed. “There is the matter of pay for the men, though, the joining-bounty. Uniforms, muskets. And if we become a full-fledged ten-company battalion once more, the Nineteenth would have need of a colonel once again.”

  That last made Twigg smile bleakly. Even after being ordered by the East India Company to comply with Twigg’s desires, Sir Hugo was angling for a promotion to lieutenant-colonel! Alan raised his brows at what his father was hinting at. No one else on the face of the earth would have the utter cock-a-whoop gall to do it, he thought!

  “What have you now, Sir Hugo?” Twigg inquired.

  “A grenadier company, light company and four thin line companies, Mister Twigg. Had to combine a few to even field that.”

  “And artillery?” Alan asked. “Two six-pounders, I’d imagine?”

  “At present, yes, son,” Sir Hugo replied, eyeing him with a quirky, bemused expression that had his dander up. Son, indeed!

  “We might need more’n that,” Wythy opined. “If we’re gonna go up against pirates ashore.”

  “Ship’s artillery, with suitable carriages,” Twigg agreed.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Lewrie interjected. “The pirates will live in jungles, around lagoons with lots of sand? Then better we have lighter guns, on light carriages. Three- or four-pounders. Perhaps even some two-pounder swivels. Or do we expect stone fortresses to be battered down? In that case, some heavy guns would come in handy.”

  “Yes, more artillery. Light guns.”

  “Something like Gustavus Adolphus’ light horse-artillery guns.” Sir Hugo pondered, going for the brandy decanter again. “Easier to man-haul through swamps and jungle. I’d suspect a full battery, six pieces, too. Half battery for each wing should we encounter a whole village of pirates. But that would take skilled gunners. More than are available here in Bengal. Most of the native artillery’s a poor joke, and the good artillerymen are mostly English. Already spoken for, I might add. I could procure the guns and carriages, and I might find natives who’ve been around cannon. It would help immensely, though, if some of your gunners could be seconded to my command. To train and stiffen my lads.”

  “I couldn’t spare many,” Ayscough squirmed. “Why, if we’re to trail our colors looking for pirates, or run up against these French privateers, we’ll need every skilled man on my great guns! Surely, Mister Twigg …”

  “We could consider it, Sir Hugo,” Twigg allowed, and Lewrie thought he could hear the man’s teeth grinding all the way across the table. “Now, how long do you think it would take for you to raise the Nineteenth Native Infantry to full-strength, and train them properly?”

  “Well, should Hastings approve the expense this very instant, I’d expect I could put ten companies in the field, well-trained as an English battalion, in four months. More like six, really, if you want ’em steady,” Sir Hugo informed them.

  “Damme, sir, I thought we were to be given full cooperation by ‘John Company,’” Ayscough carped. “We need trained troops now, do we not? Better we should go back to this fellow Hastings and tell him the Nineteenth won’t suit! Surely, there’s another unit that could take ship earlier than that. We could find these buggers in the next two months, and then we’re hamstrung without sufficient force!”

  “Caste, Captain Ayscough,” Twigg snapped. “This lot are the only ones available who could cross the ‘black water’ without breaking their bloody caste.”

  And, Alan suspected, Twigg couldn’t even dare go back to see this Hastings fellow over at Fort William. He had requests from the Crown in his pocket, not orders. From his fellow midshipman, Keith Ashbum, whose family was high up in the East India Company, he had learned long ago that out here in the Far East, and most especially in Indian matters, “John Company” was a law unto itself. Right now, they had a lot more on their plate than this one expedition, no matter that it was East India Company ships being taken as well as country ships. They’d much prefer a navy of their own than have to run to HM Government for help, or let Parliament get a finger-hold on their affairs. What aid Twigg had been offered, unsuitable as it was, was all he was going to get from the Company nabobs. And Sir Hugo knew it!

  “And then,” Sir Hugo went on blandly, “there is the matter of how much all this is going to cost. Arms, uniforms, accoutrements. Pay. Passage to Bencoolen with all rations and supplies. What’s more, just who exactly pays for it, Mister Twigg?”

  “Partly from Crown funds,” Twigg harrumphed, looking like he’d been robbed at knifepoint. “‘John Company’ will contribute their fair share. And”—here the grinding teeth could be imagined once more—“partly from the proceeds we gain in our guise as merchants.”

  “Well, if all’s been approved so far”—Sir Hugo smiled once more—“then I’d better be about beginning, shouldn’t I? If we are agreed, in all particulars, hmm? The Nineteenth to recruit to full muster. Light artillery to be procured, and carriages built. Troops to be trained for action somewhere in the Far East. Transport to be provided to Bencoolen once they’re ready. Of course …” He paused.

  “Yess?” Twigg drawled out, his face flushing with restraint from mayhem upon Sir Hugo’s grinning phyz.

  “It strikes me as how you shall have a half-company detachment of my light company, sir,” Sir Hugo sighed. “And one of my white officers and an experienced native subadar. Perhaps I should recruit to flesh out the existing light company in their absence, and add a second light company for skirmishing, ’stead of another line company. That will put us over our usual troop allotment, but under the circumstances, it seems reasonable. And in jungle conditions, they might prove more useful. Or do you not think so, Mister Twigg?”

  “Do what you think best, within reason, Sir Hugo,” Twigg replied, “I cannot profess to proficiency in the arcana of soldiering. But,” he said with one of those bleak little smiles, “let us say that we load cargo for Canton, beginning tomorrow. We may be in the Pearl River by the beginning of the trading season, or slightly before, late August. We may stay the entire six months in Canton, we may not, depending on whether we discover the identity or presence of those French pirates who have been preying upon English vessels. We may need your troops earlier than March of ’85. So once you have recruited, and
trained your sepoys to a fair level of competence, you will take ship to Bencoolen on Sumatra, the problems there notwithstanding, and continue to train in jungle conditions, awaiting our summons. The transport will stay with you, so you might practice embarkation and amphibious landings in ship’s boats. I do believe we are agreed in all particulars now, Sir Hugo? And I am sure that your brevet to lieutenant-colonel shall be forthcoming, if you satisfy my desires, hmmm?”

  “I believe we understand each other completely, Mister Twigg,” Sir Hugo smiled back. Of course they did, Alan thought! His father had just picked Twigg’s pockets, gotten himself a boost in rank and had the man over a barrel. Twigg had to give in, or have nothing to fight pirates with. The deployment to Bencoolen was Twigg’s only sop to his ego. Sir Hugo would pay that price for everything else.

  “This’ll be expensive,” Wythy sighed. “Thank the good Lord cotton an’ opium’s dead-cheap. We’ll still have a full cargo for Canton.”

  “Opium, Mister Wythy?” Chiswick asked, breaking his long junior officer’s silence. “That’s some sort of medicament, is it not, sir?”

  “An’ a most powerful one, sir,” Tom Wythy beamed. “The Chinee desire it more’n anything we could haul from England. Their mandarins’d cut your head clean off yer shoulders for smugglin’ it, but the profit’s so great, they can’t stop the trade. Ye smoke it, sir, smoke it an’ see the dragon! Bliss of heaven in a little pill of it rolled up in a pipe. Hard as life is for the Chinee, they need it. An’ once they try it a few times, they need it even more, until they pay any price t’ get it. The Co Hong merchants won’t touch it, but their creatures or the mandarins’ll slip down t’ Lintin Island or Nan’Ao an’ buy ev’ry scrap we may carry. Pay good silver, too. Taels o’ silver … lacs of the stuff. See, ’tis the only goods we have so we may get silver to support the China trade, or we’d bankrupt the Treasury back home, else. Country ships sell opium for silver, the silver goes t’ the East India Company for our legal cargoes, and they use the silver t’ purchase teas, silks, furniture an’ such. We make a profit on the opium, the Company makes money, too.”