"Sir?" Percival gawped, swelling with pride, but unsure about what he had done in spite of himself.
"Who has the largest crew? Sicard. But who has the frigate-built ship with more gunports? Choundas. Somewhere out at sea, in the islands, perhaps among the native pirates, I believe these two ships trade hands back and forth. Perhaps there's more of his fell crew waiting with the Mindanao pirates or the Sea Dyaks even now for his return for them. Well, at the moment, he's a little short of the wherewithal, and shall be for some months, if La Malouine will play the innocent here in Canton."
"No point in her not, sir," Ayscough agreed. "There's little profit in taking an outward-bound vessel, 'less he's willing to give up hands enough to take her all the way back to France. Better he lays low until the opium and silver start heading for Canton next summer."
"Then once Sicard sails, we follow him, and he leads us to Choundas, sir?" Choate asked. "Then it's two ships against our one."
"Aye, he'd like that, I'm thinking," Twigg replied, nodding. "In fact, this departure could be another ruse to draw us out, with Sicard in pursuit a few days later for just that purpose. Well, we shall not be drawn, sir. Truly, we shall not."
"It occurs to me, though, sir," the first officer went on. "Surely, if we know who he is now, sir, and may lay this plot to our government officials back in Calcutta, there'd be a stiff note to the French ambassador, and the game's blocked at both ends for them. And they know who we are, more's to the point, Mister Twigg. Surely, this Choundas'll haul his wind and cut his losses. Go back to France."
"And go home a failure?" Twigg barked, rounding on Choate. "I think not. That wouldn't show him clever enough to remain a secret. And if we did send a 'stiff note,' as you say, it's fourteen to eighteen months before a reply could be sent out here from London or Paris. Once they'd wrangled over where the commas go. And who'd take his place, sir, soon as we're called home? How many more ships'd disappear the next time? Well, we're here now, and we have a chance to stop this bugger's business so thoroughly the French'll give up on the whole bloody idea. Wrap things up neat and proper before we lay eyes on the Lizard."
Poisson D'Or let fall her tops'ls as she took the night wind abeam, drifting slantwise away from her anchorage. Her taff-rail lanterns were burning, as were many smaller work-lights to illuminate her crew's labors. They could espy Choundas by the quartermasters by her wheel on the quarterdeck. They could watch him stroll over to the starboard bulwarks to look back at them as his ship's bows turned down-river.
There was just enough light, for those with telescopes, to see the smug sense of victory on his face.
IV
"Nunc love sub domino caedes et vulnera
semper, nunc mare, nunc leti mille repente viae."
"But now that Jupiter is lord, there are wounds
and carnage without cease; now the sea slays,
and there are a thousand ways of sudden death."
"The Poet Sick-To Messalla"
– Tibullus
Chapter 1
In March, the trading season ended in Canton. Whampoa Reach emptied slowly, as ships drifted down-river to Macao, at the mouth of the Pearl River estuary. For many traders and merchants, their families awaited them, and for a time, Macao rang with balls and parties in celebration of a successful season. For some ships, there was time enough to celebrate their freedom from the strictures of Chinese law in one of the most sinful seaports known to mankind, then hoist anchor and hope for the best in the South China Seas as the winds shifted more favorably for Calcutta, Pondichery, Chandernargore, He de France in the middle of the Indian Ocean or all the way to the Cape of Good Hope to begin the long voyage home laden with the treasures of the Far East.
Telesto was one of the first ships to put to sea after two perfunctory days of revel and refit in Macao, bearing south for the Johore Straits and the Straits of Malacca. And in her wake, sure as Fate, another ship dared the changing Monsoon winds-Sicard and La Malouine. They could recognize her, hull down over the horizon, during the first day of passage. And though she fell back until only her tops'ls could barely be espied as the days passed, she was there every morning, the sight of which tops'ls made Twigg almost hum a snatch of song now and again in sheer delight.
"Ship's company, off hats!" Lieutenant Choate commanded. The hands, brought aft by the summoning call from the "Spithead Nightingales," the bosun's pipes, took off their flat-brimmed dark tarred felt hats, or the tarred woven sennet ones, and stood swaying and shuffling in a dense pack.
Perhaps they thought it was a call aft to witness punishment.
The sight of their officers and mates wearing steel on their hips was rare. Rarer still was Chiswick's half-company of native sepoys clad in dhotis, red coats and cross-belts, tricornes and puggarees for the first time in over six months, drawn up like a Marine detachment on a proper warship with their muskets held stiffly at shoulder arms, Chiswick and his native subadar and havildars before them.
"Men!" Captain Ayscough began in a rumble that could carry as far forward as the fo'c'sle belfry. "I know there have been some rumors flying below decks about just what it is we're doing out here."
Amen to that, most of the men nodded in agreement.
"What are we doing with such a heavy battery hidden away below. Why do we have Hindoo troops with us," Ayscough continued, hands in the small of his back and rocking easily to Telesto's motion from the vantage point of the quarterdeck nettings overlooking the waist and upper gun deck. "Maybe you wondered why we run this ship 'Admiralty Fashion.' And, I'm sure, since poor Mister Wythy's death in Canton, you've been wondering what led to it. Well, it's come time to tell you all. It's the French, lads! The bloody French!"
Ayscough sketched out for them the fact that they were a Navy vessel in disguise. He outlined what Sicard and Choun-das were up to with the native pirates. How good English sailors had been overcome and slaughtered far from home for opium and silver by not only native pirates, but by the French as well.
He drew a sheaf of documents from one large side pocket of his dark blue frock coat. "I bear a Letter of Marque from 'John Company,' lads! I hold active commission from our good King George the Third! And I have a Frog pirate lurking off my stern-quarters! They risked drawing steel on Mister Lewrie, one of your officers. They murdered an agent of the Crown back in Canton, and then their leader, Choundas, threw his henchman's life away, let him be strangled to death at the hands of those Goddamned heathen Chinee rather than let him answer questions! Choundas is out here somewhere, men, and we're going to find him and kill him, him and all his sneering, torturing, Godless Frog crew. And any pagan pirate that'd deign to shake hands with him. For now, though, the ship that gathers up his spoils, washes good English blood off their foul booty and sails the seas acting innocent as your own babies, is astern of us. Well, we'll stop this bugger's dirty business. We'll do it to save the lives of other God-fearing English seamen. We'll do it to revenge Mister Wythy's murder. And we'll do it to put such a fear of retribution into the bastardly Frogs and all their help-meets in these waters that them that survived'll tremble in their beds and piss their breeches whenever they think of it!"
There was a ragged howl of agreement with Captain Ayscough's sentiments. No fouler creature drew breath than a Frenchman, to true English thinking. No Jolly Jack would abide a pirate. Unless of course he was English, and preyed on other nations' shipping-then he was Drake and Robin Hood rolled into one. And sailors were a most sentimental lot, their feelings simple sometimes, but close to the surface, and closely held dear. Ayscough had them.