Dewey Lambdin - The King

"Then why didn't you merely say so, Mister Twigg?" Captain Ayscough asked, with all innocence in his expression. "Right, then!"

Ayscough trotted out his chart of the South China Seas and laid it on the table, anchoring the corners with bottles and glasses so the wind wouldn't scud it off somewhere to leeward.

"If he thinks he's that bloody good, he can't have sailed too far to the east'rd." Ayscough chuckled. "West is out, 'cause he'd have to beat so far to windward against the prevailing sou'easterlies this time of year to get to his cruising grounds. Choate is scouting the Borneo coast now, and we may have good news from him soon. Down there is to windward, where I'd wish to base myself, were I this 'last of a noble seafaring line.' But there's a problem with that, too."

"The Borneo pirates," Lewrie interjected. 'There's little love lost between them and the Lanun Rovers, is there, sir?"

"Exactly so, Mister Lewrie. He may have some relations with 'em as a hole-card, so to speak, and he may be forced to play it to allow him one last chance to go home a winner, but… well, damme!"

"What?" Twigg rapped out.

"Well, here's this lad Choundas, born a commoner, normally denied his chance to shine in the French Navy, but thinking himself kin to ancient sea-kings. I see why you would think he would have to do something grand against us before going home, Mister Twigg, but think on this for a moment…" Ayscough beamed cleverly. "The Borneo boys are river-based, and they don't go out of sight of shore too often. Who would Choundas feel the most in common with?"

'The Lanun Rovers, still!" Twigg exclaimed.

"Right, then!" Ayscough said once more, rubbing his horny palms in satisfaction. "Were I looking for prizes, I'd be far south, opposite the Johore Straits. Around Anambas or Pulau Natuna, where we met that pirate fleet last year. Here at Spratly, maybe up farther north and still to windward of the Canton run on the Tizard Bank. No shelter there, though, if the winds pipe up."

'Too close to Dutch or English patrols down south, sir," Lewrie commented. "That's why he chose Spratly in the first place."

"Yes, so we must assume that he's somewhere up to windward, but not too far to the east'rd. With his resources reduced, he has to be close to the scene of action and do his own dirty work for a while. So if I were constrained in such a way, I'd be somewhere around the mouth of Balabac Strait." Ayscough frowned, pacing off a divider across the chart. "I'd not be too deep inside the Philippine Archipelago. If my allies started disliking me, there'd be no escape for a single ship, even as well-armed as we assume Poisson D'Or to be. So he would be west of the Sulu Sea. Still allied, even tenuously, with the Mindanao pirates. And using what's left of that alliance, and their reputation, as a shield to prevent pursuit."

"Is this not a Spanish naval base, here on Palawan?" Sir Hugo asked, leaning over the chart. "This Puerto Princesa? Seems they'd have this area covered. Why let some outsider upset what arrangement they have with their own native pirates? They'd kick him out soon as those Yankees let them know of it."

"Ah, but he doesn't even know that Stella Maris took a Yankee as prize, Sir Hugo," Ayscough grinned, hugely enjoying himself. "It don't signify, anyway, that the Spanish would even be aware of them being there. All they have are Guarda Costa luggers and such, not ships of worth. Hell, it's two hundred miles from Puerto Princesa to the Balabac Strait. The Dons are flat-broke, and all they care about are the northern islands. Anything south of Leyte is pretty much controlled in name only. They have a loose agreement with the natives in the south-'You don't kill us, we won't bother you!' Healthier for Spanish fortunes in the long run." Ayscough chuckled with mirth. "So aspiring young Dons don't get their throats cut, or their reputations ruined, by a raggedy-arsed pack of fanatics."

"So this Balabac Strait is pretty much the King's Highway to these pirates, sir?" Lewrie asked, peering at the chart.

"Yes, just so. And I'd expect Choundas to be somewhere near the western entrance, around the island of Banggi on the north tip of Borneo, or on the island of Balabac itself," Ayscough concluded, tossing down his dividers.

"We have little time, then, before the first ships sail from Calcutta and Madras for this year's trading season," Twigg fretted. "We'll not see him playing innocent in Canton again. One raiding season, then back he goes to the Indian Ocean, leaving other ships to be his bearers for the last loads of loot, whilst he's off like a hare to France. We might be able to stymie his designs by our presence, and defeat him that way. But there's the matter of all those ships we've lost the last two years. All those murdered men. Damme if I care much for him escaping with even the slightest hint of success, sirs! I wish him destroyed, utterly!"

"Like Cato's demand," Sir Hugo mused. "Carthage must be destroyed."

"Exactly, Sir Hugo," Twigg said firmly. "For everyone's peace of mind, Choundas must be destroyed."

"Mister Lewrie," Captain Ayscough asked. "Whatever did happen to those Veneti?"

"Caesar sank the lot of them in 56 B.C., sir," Lewrie replied.

To ease the overcrowding aboard Lady Charlotte, and not knowing how long they would be at sea, the battalion of troops had been spread out among all three ships. As had the fortune in silver, the captured powder and shot. Unfortunately, they had been forced to burn the bulk of the opium and trade goods, disposing of the remainder in the deeper part of the harbor at Spratly Island along with the cannon barrels and stands of arms. They would leave nothing behind that required a guard force to deplete their strength, and nothing for Choundas to regain should he double back on them.

The praos were burned as well, and the prisoners disarmed and left to fend for themselves with the wild livestock for sustenance and only the rudest remnants of the encampment for shelter.

Leaving Lady Charlotte to make her slower way astern, Telesto and Culverin ranged sou'east, beating up to windward, with an eventual rendezvous planned several days hence, once they had met up with Lieutenant Choate and Cuddalore as he scouted northward towards the Strait, too, and delivered his report, or lack of news, on Choundas' possible whereabouts.

Telesto had to stand off to seaward whilst the shallow-drafted Culverin did the main work closer inshore. Which arrangement was pleasant for Lewrie, since it got him out of snapping distance when Twigg and Ayscough had at each other like snarling wolves.

"And a half, four!" the leadsman in the chains said, getting bored and sunburned at his thankless task. They were skirting round the foetid, marshy tip of Borneo, near enough to a native settlement marked on the chart as Kudat (which was about all that the chart had gotten right in the past few days) to have seen several single praos out at sea. These at least had been peacefully fishing, but had run ashore as they drew close, leaving them sole possession of the sea.

"Time to change the leadsmen, sounds like," Lewrie said. He drew out his watch and looked at the time. "Almost the end of the day watch. Five minutes to eight bells, Mister Hogue."

"Stand off-shore once the watch changes, sir?" Hogue asked.

"I think we'll continue as we are for the first hour of the first dog-watch. After that, the light will be too far westerly for us to spot shoal-water," Lewrie replied.

"We'll alter course after four bells."

"Aye, sir," Hogue said, yawning.

"And a quarter less five!" the leadsman sounded out.

Borneo reeked, as did its shoals. Rotting vegetation, rotting weed washed up on her shores, stagnant mud-flats and dead-fish odors, and the heights inland blocked a proper sea-breeze to waft it all off. Now and then a hint of cooking, now and then some gorgeous aromas from riotously thriving flowers- but mostly it stank horribly like some gigantic slaughter-house. They'd all be glad to get out to sea.

"Something in the water!" the lookout on the tall main-mast shouted. "Three points off the starboard bows!"

"Shoal?" Lewrie wondered, raising his telescope for the umpteenth time that day. "It looks low enough. No, a rock, perhaps."

"Native boat, sir," Hogue said with the advantage of his almost uncanny eyesight. "Turned turtle, looks like. God, no! It's a ship's boat!"

"Fetch-to, Mister Murray!" Lewrie shouted to his bosun. "Lead the cutter 'round from astern and call away a boat crew."

"Shall I go, sir?" Hogue asked anxiously.

"No, you stay aboard," Lewrie said. "It's not half a cable off, and we're at least three-quarters of a mile offshore. Keep the hands near the guns, though, just in case. I'll be back shortly."

They rounded Culverin up into the slack winds, jibs backed to force her bows off the breeze, but mains'Is still drawing and trying to drive her forward, stalling her "in-irons" cocked up to the wind and unable to go forward or back, to drift on the slow current.

Cony was already in the boat at the tiller, with eight hands at the oars, held aloft like lances as they waited for Lewrie.

"Shove off, Cony," Lewrie said, once he had taken his salute at the rail and settled himself onto a thwart near the stern.

"Aye, sir. Shove off, bow man. Ship yer oars. Give us way, larboard. Backwater, starboard," Cony instructed. "Now, avast. Now give us way t'gether!"

Once the cutter was moving shoreward with both banks of rowers pulling at an easy stroke, Cony turned slightly on his buttocks and leaned over the tiller-bar. "D'ya think them pirates got fed up an' done fer this Choundas feller, sir?"

"T would be a fitting end for him, no error, Cony," Lewrie said in reply. "A thing devoutly to be wished."

"Boat-hook ready, there," Cony snapped, turning back to his duties. "Easy all. Un-ship yer oars… toss yer oars… boat yer oars."

It was a European ship's boat, right enough, half-sunk at the bows, and charred to crumbling cinders for much of its length, which sight made Lewrie shiver with dread that somehow it was La Malouine's boat he'd seen burn and capsize, that it had drifted all this way to confront him after all those months.

"Ah, Jaysus!" the bow-man gagged as he peered down into the boat. Up forward, two men lay in the bottom, stuffed under thwarts to keep them from sloshing about in the foot-deep water that flooded her. Or what was left of two men. They had bloated and split open with rot in the cruel heat and humidity, swelled like leather-hued steer carcasses and their clothing stretched taut as drum-heads where the seams had held together. Their wounds, where exposed to the air above the water level, swarmed with flies, blue-black and festering. One man had lost his leg below the knee, and some attempt had been made to tie it off with a tourniquet and bandage the stump. The other had the marks of several bullet wounds that had also been treated with scraps of clothing for bandages. But both faces gaped wide-mouthed under the scummy water in final, ghoulish rictuses of agony, and their eyes had gone for gull-food.

"They're sailors, anyway," Lewrie coughed on his bile as the odor hit them. "But whose?"

In the stern, which was somewhat dryer where only an inch or so of water sloshed about, there was a barricoe of water, a sodden biscuit bag and many bones and feathers littering a tarpaulin that might cover other supplies.

"Looks like they mighta et some sea-birds afore they died, sir." Cony shuddered. "Mighta been driftin' fer weeks out 'ere."