Dewey Lambdin - The King

"I shall have it done directly, sir," Alan offered.

"Sail ho!" the tower lookout screamed.

"Choundas?" Sir Hugo stiffened.

"It very well may be," Alan agreed grimly. " 'Tis the middle of April. Time enough for him realize Sicard isn't available any longer and then sail from Pondichery."

It was a jumbled run down to the enclosed fort, then up the rickety tower's bamboo ladders to the top platform. Easier to continue to the top of the hill he was already on, which was almost as high. Sir Hugo grabbed a spy-glass and they half-ran, half-trudged up the slope to the windswept crest.

"Where away!" Alan shouted down. He could not hear the lookout's returning shout, but the man pointed. To the east! "Bloody hell? Now who could this be?"

"Choundas, coming back from an early meeting with his natives," Sir Hugo snapped. "He might have never gone back to the Indian Ocean, not with us on his trail. Get an early start. And reinforcements."

Once they had gotten their breath back, and had steady hands, Sir Hugo extended the tubes of the telescope and peered at the eastern horizon.

"Here," he snarled. "Can't see a damned thing."

And, Alan noted, his hands were none too steady, either.

"If I might borrow your shoulder for a rest, sir?" he asked. "And, as the sailor in the family, I might know what to look for. A sail very much resembles what you might take for a cloud. Some…"

There was a sail out there to the east. In point of fact, there were a lot of sails. Dark tan, they looked, almost silhouetted by the early morning sun. And fairly low to the water. With the wind out of the sou'east now as a steady Trade Wind, he was looking at the cusps of someone's tops'Is, perhaps, angled to take the wind from the stern quarter, running almost free with a landsman's breeze. But there were so many of them! Almost as many as the first sight he'd had from the Desperate frigate's t'gallant yard the morning the French fleet under de Grasse sailed back into Chesapeake Bay!

"I count at least twelve, perhaps fifteen sail," Lewrie muttered. "It could be a fishing fleet, but I doubt it. They look like praos with their one square-sail flying. If they come up over the horizon, and don't pass on by, they're coming here."

"The Lanun Rovers!" Sir Hugo spat. "Come to meet with Choundas."

"Come to the Spratlys for whatever purpose they have, yes."

"Pray God they enter harbor," Sir Hugo snickered, shaking Alan's resting telescope. "With your batteries, your ship and my guns and my troops waiting ashore, we could make it damned hot for 'em."

"Well, let me tell you, we've tangled with praos before last autumn," Alan replied. "Hold still, would you please, sir? Each one carries nearly an hundred pirates. Not much in the way of artillery, but we have to be looking at… well, closer to fifteen boats now, so that could be a force of over fifteen hundred men."

"The more the merrier," Sir Hugo shrugged, waving the resting telescope tube about the sky, forcing Lewrie to close it and give up. "A bloody check here could ruin this fellow Choundas."

"How the devil do you come by that?" Alan asked.

"When you slap your invited guests in the face, they don't invite you to their house for supper any longer, now do they, lad?" Sir Hugo boomed.

"Then we'd better make sure we leave a few to carry word back to their lairs, should we not?" Alan said, getting the drift. Choundas would not know of this until he tried to meet up with his native allies. And they just might do the English the favor of cutting the man's heart out for spite.

"I wonder if those pirates yonder know the difference between a French and an English flag?" Sir Hugo speculated, humming some song to himself.

"Whether they do or not, sir, I do believe you're going to get a practical test of this battery of yours before the day's out."

By God, what a fearsome sight, Lewrie thought, pacing his tiny quarterdeck as the Mindanao pirates from the Illana Lagoon came into the harbor. No matter the surprises they'd discover once they got in range, no matter the number of artillery pieces ready to lash every inch of the bay, or the troops waiting with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets to receive them, they were a terrifying spectacle.

Eighteen large ocean-going praos, crammed with warriors, all experts with their wicked curved swords and krees knives, with artillery and muskets. Warriors used to raiding cruises that the unfortunate Mr. Wythy said lasted up to three years. No shore in all of Asia was safe from their depredations, no native troops could stand against them if such troops stood between them and plunder.

"Cheer 'em, boys!" Lewrie shouted with a grin plastered on his phyz. "They're your bloody allies, damn their black souls! They're going to help you take ships and make you rich!"

"Christ a'mighty," Hoolahan whispered, crossing himself as he stood by his carronade. "But they's a passel o' the fuckers, sor."

"Not a one of 'em half the man you are, Hoolahan," Lewrie assured him with a clap on the shoulder as he paced along down from the quarterdeck to the waist of the ship where the artillery waited, ready to fire when the word was given. "Got your swivel charges ready for 'em, Spears?"

"Oh, aye, sir!"

"Good lad. Now wave your hat and cheer 'em!"

The blood-red praos breasted easily over the harbor bar through the disturbed breaker-water and spread out, furling their single sails at long last after a long passage. They might have stopped off on the coast of Borneo, dangerous as that was even for them among the headhunters, and done the last three hundred miles to Spratly. Most of the men in the boats stood and waved back, brandishing swords, muskets or older matchlocks like Hindoo jezails, whooping fit to bust. They had livestock with them, crammed in any-old-how. And slaves to do the rowing at the long paddles. Yes, they must have replenished on Borneo, Alan decided, to have that much food aboard.

And it appeared they'd come prepared for a long stay. Every prao was piled high below her rowing benches with bamboo logs and palm leaves with which to make huts.

Lewrie made his way back to the quarterdeck, watching the pirate fleet advance in a ragged band, making for the beach. Steering a course for Culverin, and for Lady Charlotte. Lady Charlotte wore the French merchant flag on her stern, and her spanker gaff had been given a stuns'l boom lashed to its inside end, to make it look like the older lateen that the pirates would expect to see on Sicard's La Malouine. Culverin, too, flew an extemporized French ensign painted on one of Lewrie's bed sheets.

"Oh, Christ, don't beach your damned ship there!" Hogue prayed as three praos angled for the inviting strand on the western peninsula. There were troops there, hidden in the rocks at the crest, with some light artillery to support them. Unlike newer naval guns, those were fired with powder-filled goose quills or tin ignition tubes to ignite the powder charges in the barrels, and that required a burning length of slow-match to touch the quills or tubes off. Slow-matches which were now lit and smouldering, giving off tiny trails of smoke. If a pirate spotted that before the ambush could be sprung, they'd have a battle-royal on their hands. And the troops could not hope for total cover in the rocks. Let someone walk up the beach a few yards, and the game would be over!

There were thousands of the buggers, just as he had surmised, and even with modern weaponry, Sir Hugo's troops could be overwhelmed. The two ships could be swamped with fanatically enraged pirates with no hope of aid from shore.

"Come on, you buggers!" Lewrie muttered. "Go on and beach your silly arses by the fort, where the goodies are waiting!" The plan was to wait, wait until most of the pirates had beached or anchored their boats at the fort. Canvas-covered piles of what looked to be trade goods sat out in the open, delectably available. Once between Lady Charlotte and Culve-rin's guns, and the fire-power available ashore, the trap would be sprung. Sir Hugo had enough men to cover the north shore around the fort, and part of the western headland, only able to spare a half-company to reinforce the heavy battery on the point. If the pirates tumbled to it earlier, it would be a near thing as to who would get the worst of it.

Praos drifted by to bow and stern, some coming very close in as they passed. It was much like being in the middle of a pack of hungry sharks.

"I think this bastard wants t' come aboard, sir!" Murray said, pointing to one prao that was rounding up below the entry port. "Do we let 'em, sir?"

"Christ!" Lewrie hissed. Hard as the battle to take the island had been on his nerves, it couldn't hold a candle to this. There was a person of some rank among the pirate band standing on the rails of his boat, waving and shouting, demanding entry. "Ashore!" Lewrie said, pointing in that direction. "Ashore, hey? You… go… there! No come here!" He was all but wiggling his bottom, trying to get the gist of his message across. One pirate's eyes over the bulwarks to see loaded cannon and crews at the ready, and they'd swarm Culverin like a hive of disturbed bees!

"He don't sound too happy about it, sir," Murray warned. The pirate, clad in a cloth-of-gold turban, green silk skirt, jewels and weapons, was gesticulating and swearing to beat the band, upset that his will was being defied, that his august personage was being waved off instead of catered to.

"Oh, God, look sir!" Hogue yelped.

Those three praos had beached themselves on the western shore and their crews were disembarking, stretching and bending to loosen muscles kept taut at sea, and were spreading out in a dense pack over the peninsula's beach.

"Stand by with those grenadoes, Mister Hogue," Lewrie warned. "Well, if you want to come up, who am I to stop you, you little bastard?" he relented, waving and bowing for the pirate to scamper up. "All hands, stand ready! Ready to hoist the proper colors!"

The pirate took on a smug look, having gotten his way with the infidels at last, and began to step up to the main-mast chains. The rail of the prao was not so far below Culverin's bulwarks.

"Most of 'em past us?" Lewrie asked, going to the starboard gangway to greet his unwelcome visitor.

"About half, looks like, sir," Hogue shuddered, like to faint with anxiety. "Only 'bout half, so far."

"Best we'll do, then," Lewrie sighed, his own nerves twittering like a dropped harpsichord. He stood and waited for his visitor, a smile on his face. The pirate stepped up on the bulwarks and frowned when he saw what waited him. He opened his mouth to yell.

Lewrie drew his hanger and lunged. He put the point in just around the navel and sank an unhealthy foot of steel into the man's belly. Before he even had time to shout or draw breath, he was over the side, tumbling back into the water between the ships!

"Grenadoes!" Lewrie screamed. "Open your ports and open fire! Get English colors aloft!"

The signal for the opening of the battle. Even as the pirates were beginning to realize their captain was dead and starting to howl with rage, empty wine bottles went over the side, with wicks burning.

Some were filled with whale oil, some with gunpowder and cut up scrap-iron bits. When they shattered, they burst into flames among the densely packed pirates, among their galley-slaves at the rowing benches. Those that did not shatter, those wrapped about with cloth to protect them, exploded as their fuses burned out and reached the powder. They caused more panic than casualties, but it didn't do the pirates' nerves any good.