Dead Reckoning (8 page)

“Come in, gentlemen, come in! Captain Delancey, your servant. And this officer? Mr Greenwell, I am happy to make your acquaintance. And do please remove your coats and loosen your cravats. It is hot enough in this climate without being overclothed as well!” Delancey and Greenwell discarded the garments they had just put on and bowed to the company at large. “And now you must meet my other guests. I need not introduce you to Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, nor perhaps to
Captain Macalister. Allow me, however, to present Mr Hobson, Mr Robinson, Mr Erskine, and Mr Ibbetson. Captain Laurence of the
Albion
. . . Mr Riley of the Admiral's staff, Mr Barstow of the
Duncan
. . .”

Sitting down, Delancey found himself next to Captain Macalister, a Member of Council and Commander of the Company's troops in the island.

“I am interested to meet someone of your name, Captain Delancey. It is not, I should say, a common name and yet there is—or was—another Delancey in the East Indies. Could it be a relative?”

“I had an elder brother who went to sea and to India but I have heard nothing from him for years and had assumed that he was dead. He was mate at one time of a parsee-owned country ship out of Bombay but that was when I was a midshipman. Is he really still alive?”

“There was a man of that name here in Georgetown and he had certainly been mate in a country ship. He sustained some injury, however, which brought him ashore as a ship's chandler. He was here for some years and I remember him quite well. Then he went to live on the mainland, in Kedah. I last heard of him in Malacca but was told at the same time that he had left there. Your brother—if it is your brother—would seem to be a rolling stone. Does that sound like the character you knew as a boy?”

“Yes, sir, I think it does. He was a good seaman, I fancy, but wild and unruly, seldom out of trouble.”

“Well, now you mention it, the Delancey I knew had a rather dubious reputation. I cannot recall now whether anything was proved but his departure was welcome, I think, to the government.
He had children by a Malay and finally deserted her and them. He is not a relative who would do you credit and I shall not mention the possible relationship to anyone else.”

When dinner was served Delancey found himself on the Admiral's right. Pellew was a vigorous man of middle age, with piercing eyes and hearty manner, somewhat running to fat but looking like the great seaman he was known to be. Their first meeting had been merely formal but the Admiral now studied Delancey with some care.

“I am glad of the chance that has made you my neighbour at dinner,” said the great man (but was it mere chance?). “I have heard about you from Woodfall, on whom you have made a great impression. By his account you saved the China Fleet!”

“He is too generous, Sir Edward. Most of the credit should go to the Commodore himself and not a little to the other commanders.”

“That is not their opinion, and I have learnt more from them than from your report.”

“I excluded from my report all mention of tricks we may wish to repeat.”

“We'll never dare repeat that one. I take your point, however, and applaud your brevity. Your immediate reward will be a good dinner. Look at that—our opponents in line ahead!”

The dinner table had been laid in a central room, opening on the veranda at either end and cooled by a through breeze and by the punkah overhead. The Admiral, on their host's right, was being offered rice, to begin with, from a large wooden bowl. The white-uniformed servant who carried it was followed in succession by thirty-one other servants, the leaders bearing dishes of curried meat, chicken, or fish, with the more junior servants
bringing up the rear with the sambals (chutney, bananas, prawns, cucumber, and so forth). Mere politeness compelled each guest to take a little from every dish and even the most cautious ended with a small mountain of food on the plate. Those who had begun with too much temerity were puzzled at the end about where to put the last delicacies which were offered. Wine was provided but most people preferred beer. They were soon mopping their foreheads as the curry had its effect and many began to feel unbearably replete.

“Rice fills you up,” the Admiral explained, “but the effect wears off, leaving you with some appetite for supper. One feels at this stage that one will never be hungry again!”

Hardly were the first plates empty before the column of servants re-formed for a fresh attack, but few would accept more than a token replacement. Then the toasts were proposed, to the King, to the Royal Navy, to the East India Company, to the prosperity of the island. By then the sweet was being served with a cooling effect and with it the formalities were relaxed.

“For your skirmish with Commodore Garnier you deserved a good dinner,” said the Admiral to Delancey, “but you also deserve a relief from convoy duty. Perhaps you will have heard the name mentioned of Pierre Chatelard, commanding the
Subtile?
”

“The French privateer? Yes, sir.”

“I want the
Subtile
destroyed.”

“She will not be easy to take, sir.”

“Nor is it enough to take her. I want her burnt, sunk or completely wrecked.”

“And that is to be my task?”

“Yes, I think you are the man to do it. In the ordinary way we treat privateers like mosquitoes. We have some sort of mosquito
net to keep them out of particular places like the Bay of Bengal. We slap at them when they bite us. We never plan a systematic hunt for one particular mosquito. But this man Chatelard has gone too far. I mean to detach a frigate with no other duty, her orders to destroy the
Subtile.
I need a captain with brains and I think you should be the man. Have I made a good choice?”

“I may be as good a man as the next. But it is not a task that everyone will want. A privateer is not a Spanish register ship from which to make a fortune. She is not a French frigate from the capture of which a captain might gain credit. Out of a privateer destroyed we cannot even make prize-money. I have given some thought, however, to the problem posed by Pierre Chatelard and have reached one conclusion. It is this, that Chatelard acts upon information received from spies on shore, one of them probably in this settlement.”

“Why are you so sure of that?”

“Because he has no failures. If one of our sloops were to turn pirate, the first merchantman her captain saw would have naval escort, the second would be too heavily armed, the third would be too fast, and the fourth would be in ballast. The
Subtile
is never outsailed or outgunned. She appears in the right place at the right moment, clearly as the result of good intelligence.”

“One might think that you had commanded a privateer.”

“I did command one, years ago.”

“That being so, you are the very man I want. I shall give you your orders in writing tomorrow but their substance I give you now—“Find and destroy the
Subtile.
” Do you think you can do it?”

“I think it probable, sir. But you must be prepared to accept a heavy loss of life. Cruising among the islands will lead to sickness
among my crew, the result of proximity to all these pestilent swamps. Destroying the
Subtile
may mean the destruction of the
Laura
as well.”

“A heavy price, I must confess. But I have to confront the government, the merchants, and underwriters and they leave me no alternative.”

“Would you think it wrong of me to ask for a reward?”

“What do you ask?”

“For the
Laura
to be sent home.”

“I'll do my best. Failing that, I could transfer you to the Cape, as a move at least in the right direction. By next year we may regard the
Laura
as worn out. She would have been built in—let's see—in about 1775? At the beginning of the last war?”

“No, sir—in 1773.”

“Thirty-three years . . . yes, she's an old ship. She should be sent home in 1808 at latest and this I shall be prepared to recommend.”

“Thank you, sir. My chances of locating the
Subtile
would be greatly improved if your staff could list the prizes she has taken and the location of each capture.”

“Tell Riley what you want. I gather, by the way, that Chatelard has been extremely kind to his prisoners; they all live to tell the tale.”

“The good privateersman is always humane, sir. He thus encourages merchantmen to surrender without a fight.”

“You know the trade too well, Delancey. I wonder you gave it up!”

“To be a successful privateer, sir, one needs to be on the losing side. Our privateer commanders made fortunes during the last war. It is the French who have their opportunity in this.”

“And that's a fact and be damned to them!”

It was late afternoon when the dinner ended, everyone more than replete. As if by magic the different carriages began to appear at the door. Waiting their turn to say good-bye, Delancey and Greenwell could look across the straits to the mountains on the mainland culminating in Kedah Peak; the green carpet of jungle trees darkened by a cloud shadow moving slowly towards them. As they watched, the peak was blotted out by greyness. The wind had risen and the air felt cooler as they left. “If you ask me,” said Greenwell, “I think it is going to rain.” As their carriage drove off the two officers, who had donned their uniform coats before leaving, removed them again, reflecting that these garments existed in the East only for the purpose of a very fleeting ceremony. The sky presently darkened and a few drops of rain fell, at which their syce, smiling broadly, produced two umbrellas made of oiled paper on a bamboo frame.

“A cheap imitation,” said Greenwell. “I could wish that I had my boat cloak.”

“On the contrary,” replied Delancey, “I have been told that the umbrella was invented in these parts and took this form, of which the European version is the copy. As for your boat cloak, you would be as wet with perspiration in it as you are going to be without it.”

“I see what you mean, sir.”

Abruptly and without further warning the downpour began, such rain as Delancey had never seen before. It fell solidly as if thrown down by invisible buckets. They were wet through in a matter of seconds and no conceivable umbrella or cloak could have made the slightest difference. Rain drummed and bounced on the track, cut through the foliage of trees, and turned each ditch into a miniature river or torrent.

The whole world had turned, seemingly, to water, a fact
which gave amusement to their driver if not to the ponies. The vehicle was finally brought to a halt under a clump of trees which offered a little protection. Ten minutes later the rain stopped and the sun came out again, turning much of the water into vapour. In the atmosphere of a Turkish bath the journey was resumed and the two-horse palanquin brought them back to the waterfront near the fort, the point from which their journey had begun. Delancey had been given a great deal to think about.

Calling next day on the Admiral, Delancey was given his written orders and told to victual his frigate for a six-month cruise. The flag lieutenant gave him, in addition, a list of captures made by Pierre Chatelard. To this was added a sealed letter, to be opened after the capture of the
Subtile,
authorizing him (he was told) to proceed to the Cape. A further sealed packet was to be opened after twelve months if the
Subtile
should have eluded him. Armed with these various orders, Delancey said good-bye to the Admiral with a certain finality. “Remember,” Sir Edward concluded, “I don't want to have the
Subtile
as a prize. I don't want to have Chatelard as a prisoner. I merely don't want to hear of them again!” Going back to the
Laura,
Delancey placed the list of captures alongside the chart and neatly marked them in with the date of each. He dined alone that day and spoke to nobody, returning continually to the chart and studying what he must try to see as a pattern. The art of the thief-taker, he told himself, is to forecast the future crimes of one whose past crimes reveal a certain habit. If the same man broke into houses A, B, and C, we may know something at least about his preferences and methods. What could he tell, in the same way from a list of prizes taken?

The list read as follows:

One thing apparent from the chart was that Pierre Chatelard's most valuable captures had been among the latest; probably the
Susannah
and the
Ganges.
These were the losses which had spurred the Calcutta merchants into activity and protest. The next point of interest was the apparent length of the cruise. No ship could remain so long at sea without returning to base for supplies. A man-of-war could refit at sea with the aid of a supply ship but a privateer could rely on no such system. The
Subtile
had sailed from Mauritius, but could not possibly have refitted there, or anywhere so distant, between October 28th and January 21st. That period represented, nevertheless, a break in her activities. In theory, Chatelard might have been merely unlucky during those weeks. But Delancey thought that unlikely. It was
far more probable that he had withdrawn then from the trade routes in order to refit at some chosen port of call. How long would such a refit take? Pierre Chatelard was, he remembered, a man of the old regime who had been at sea before the revolution. He would almost certainly choose to be in port for Christmas with sucking pig as the chief item on the menu. Allowing time for the seasonal festivities he would want a month ashore, roughly the month of December. His chosen port must therefore be within three weeks' sail of the Sandheads and at no greater distance from Pulo, Pangkor. The distance might be something over two thousand miles. It could not be in the Andamans or Nicobars. He doubted whether he could use a harbour in Sumatra without the fact being known in Penang, and the same argument applied almost equally to Java. The
Subtile,
he concluded, must have a secret base in Bali, Lombok, or Timor. But Timor, come to think of it, was too distant . . . His thoughts turned to Borneo, to a thousand miles of unexplored and imperfectly charted coastline. But much of this, he argued, would be too far away. The ideal base would be somewhere, surely, between Cape Datoe and Cape Sambar, somewhere more or less equidistant from the Straits of Malacca and Sunda. To search that area would be to cover six hundred miles of coastline with little or no help from the primitive inhabitants. Before attempting such a search he would need better information than he now possessed.