Sea Robber (35 page)

‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

‘There’s no one aboard,’ answered Hector.

Just then he caught a whiff of something burning. Stolck let out an oath, ran across the deck and began to stamp frantically on a thin rope. Hector saw a wisp of smoke beneath his feet.

At that moment a musket shot rang out, and a musket ball whirred past his head. Shocked, he spun round on his heel and was just in time to get a glimpse of a musket barrel being withdrawn through a small hatch in the bulkhead under the foredeck. A cloud of gun smoke hung in the air.

Hector dived for cover behind the skiff. Now he knew. The crew of the merchantman had retreated to close quarters. They had barricaded themselves into the forecastle, from where they would shoot down any boarders at point-blank range.

He lay flat on the deck, his eyes searching out the objects around him. A crew in close quarters usually left explosive devices on deck. They filled chests and glass bottles with gunpowder and scraps of metal and fitted fuses that could be lit from within their refuge. When the boarders arrived on deck, the home-made bombs and grenades were exploded, with devastating results. Stolck must have stamped on one such fuse. Perhaps there were others.

Ma’pang appeared from behind the mainmast, sprinting towards the forecastle. Another musket shot, and it must have missed, for the naked Chamorro vaulted up on to the foredeck in one huge leap. Now he was out of the line of fire.

Hector watched as Ma’pang poked and prised with his spear point, searching uselessly for a way to break into the stronghold from above.

Someone inside the forecastle began coughing loudly. The black powder must have blown back into the loophole. Then came a shout, and Hector caught words that sounded like ‘swart bastert’.

The accent sounded familiar, and Hector was trying to identify it when Stolck’s voice came from less than an arm’s length away, from the other side of the launch, where the Hollander had also taken cover. Stolck bellowed, ‘Halt ofsjitte, du idioat.’

There was a sudden silence.

‘Hwa bisto?’ called the voice from inside.

‘Stolck ut Friesland.’

Another long silence. Hector could hear the creaking of the ship. He wondered what was happening on the sakman, still lashed alongside the merchantman and out of sight.

There was another shout from within the forecastle.

‘What’s he saying?’ Hector hissed.

For the first time in several weeks the Dutchman gave a smile. ‘He asks what the hell I am doing in the company of naked savages.’

‘Tell him we’re trying to get a lift,’ Hector said. When Stolck relayed the answer, there was a pause. Then a heavy wooden door in the forecastle slowly opened and a strange figure emerged shakily. It was a heavily bearded man, coughing and stooped, dressed in worn sea-going clothing, his greasy, matted hair hanging down to his shoulders. He was nervously fingering a musket. He gave a great start as Ma’pang dropped down on the deck from behind him and wrenched the gun from his hands.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ called Hector, rising to his feet. ‘He’s a friend.’

Now that the man was closer, Hector could see he had the pasty skin and rheumy eyes of an invalid. ‘Are you in charge of these sea robbers?’ the sick man wheezed, speaking English now and in a very evident, deep guttural accent.

‘Ma’pang here is our leader. Who are you?’

‘Hendrik Vlucht, captain and part-owner of this shitten, luckless
Westflinge
.’

A slight movement in the open doorway behind Vlucht caught Hector’s attention. Another man emerged. He hung on to the door jamb to keep from falling. He too was coughing, his skeletal frame racked with spasms.

As the newcomer tottered forward, Hector noticed Ma’pang backing away, keeping his distance. There was an expression on his face that Hector hadn’t seen before: a look of alarm.

Hendrik Vlucht spoke again. ‘Thought our luck couldn’t get any worse, and then we saw your vessel coming towards us. No one fit to man the ship, let alone fight her guns.’

‘Where’s the rest of your crew?’ Hector asked.

‘Haven’t had time to check recently,’ answered the Dutchman sourly. ‘Started out with twenty-three, and dropped a dozen of them overboard before we lost the strength to do so.’ He doubled up and retched. When he straightened up, his knees sagged and he had to reach out to hold on to the launch for support. He nodded vaguely towards the poop deck. ‘Piet and I are strong enough to pull a trigger. But the others are too weak to move.’

‘What about the surgeon? Couldn’t he help?’

The Dutchman gave a cadaverous grin. ‘Never shipped a surgeon. Couldn’t afford one and there were no volunteers.’

‘But I thought every Company ship had to carry a surgeon.’ It was a piece of information that Hector had picked up from Stolck. Every ship of the Dutch East India Company carried a medicine chest and some sort of doctor. He presumed that the
Westflinge
belonged to the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, which held Holland’s monopoly of the East India trade.

‘Who says we’re a Company vessel?’ retorted Vlucht with a twist of his mouth. Hector recalled the colours of the ensign on the stern. They were not the red, white and blue of the Company.

Ma’pang broke into their conversation. The Chamorro warrior was still standing several paces away. ‘Hector, we must get off the ship at once. They have the shivering sickness.’

‘No, Ma’pang. I think they are suffering from sea fever.’

He could see that the big Chamorro did not believe him. Ma’pang’s voice was thick with fear and disgust. ‘If my people become ill like this, they die.’

He was already moving away across the deck, returning to the sakman.

‘Believe me, Ma’pang. I have some knowledge of this illness. I was once an assistant to a doctor,’ Hector called out to him.

Ma’pang shook his head vehemently. ‘Even the most skilful makhana cannot drive out the evil spirits that cause this sickness.’ He had reached the rail now.

‘At least take some guns with you,’ Hector said. ‘That’s what you came for.’

‘I know that the sickness travels. I do not want to bring it back to Rota with me. You and your people can do what you want.’

‘Then ask Dan, Maria and Jacques to join me,’ said Hector. He turned to face Vlucht. ‘There are four healthy men with me, all experienced seamen.’ He was speaking hurriedly, trying to make his point before Ma’pang left with the sakman. ‘There’s also a woman, and she can nurse your invalids. If you supply these natives with muskets and powder, we will stay aboard and help bring your vessel to safe harbour.’

The Dutch captain allowed himself a cynical laugh. ‘And if I refuse, then these savages will take our guns anyway. Of course I accept your offer.’

‘Wait, Ma’pang, wait just a few minutes,’ Hector called out. He turned back towards Vlucht. ‘Quick, where’s the arms chest?’

The Dutchman pointed towards a door under the overhang of the quarterdeck. Hector beckoned to Jezreel and together they ran to find the
Westflinge
’s store of guns. Moments later they had dragged the arms chest to the ship’s rail. Jezreel smashed open the lid and they began handing its contents down to the Chamorro, who nervously accepted the weapons while keeping as safe a distance as possible.

Maria and the others had scarcely set foot on the deck of the Dutch vessel before the Chamorro were casting off the lines holding the sakman alongside. They were in near-panic, handling the ropes as though fearful to touch them. They wouldn’t even reach out and fend off against the side of the merchant ship. Instead they waited for the rise and fall of the swell to drift the sakman clear. Nor was there a backward glance as the spidery shape of their vessel turned and headed back to the Thief Islands.

T
HE REGULAR THUMP
and shudder as the
Westflinge
’s steering gear slammed from side to side with each roll of the ship was grating on Hector’s nerves. ‘Do you mind if I deal with that?’ he asked the Dutch captain. Vlucht was racked with another fit of coughing and weakly waved a hand, indicating that, as far as he was concerned, Hector and his comrades could do as they liked.

Leaving Maria and the others, Hector went with Dan and Stolck to the half-deck. The helm was an old-fashioned, heavy whipstaff and it was banging back and forth. Dan picked up a short length of rope, took a turn around the tiller bar and secured it. The slamming stopped. Hector climbed on up to the quarterdeck with Stolck and walked aft to inspect the flag tangled around its staff. He unwound the cloth and let it flap in the breeze.

He had never seen the design before: three diagonal silver stripes on a dark-blue field. Stitched on the stripes were red heart-shaped symbols. He counted seven of them.

‘Whose flag is that?’ he asked Stolck.

‘Frisia – the place I come from,’ answered the Hollander. ‘Those red hearts represent the seven islands of our region. Some say there should be nine of them; others insist that they aren’t hearts, but pompebledden, leaves of water lilies.’

‘And why would Vlucht choose to fly such a flag?’

Stolck snorted. ‘Because we Frisians are pig-headed and stubborn. We like to show our independence.’

‘So Vlucht doesn’t see himself as a Hollander?’

‘Not unless it suits him. I’d say this ship is an interloper.’

Hector had come across interlopers before, in the Caribbees. Smugglers in all but name, they made surreptitious voyages to places where they had no right to be and trespassed on trading monopolies belonging to larger companies.

Stolck spat over the rail. ‘If the holy and sainted Dutch East India Company caught Vlucht in this area, the
Westflinge
and her cargo would be confiscated and he’d be given a stiff gaol sentence, whatever flag he was flying.’

‘Then surely there’s little advantage in sailing under false colours?’

‘It helps in foreign ports. If Captain Vlucht goes into Canton, for example, and claims he’s a Frisian ship – not Dutch – then the local merchants can do business with him directly, instead of going through the Company’s local agent and paying a commission.’

Hector looked at Stolck thoughtfully. The Hollander seemed to be remarkably well informed about interlopers and the China trade.

They made their way back to the main deck. Maria had just emerged from the forecastle, where Vlucht and his crew had been holed up. ‘Hector, we need to attend to the sick quickly,’ she said firmly. ‘You should see for yourself how ill they are.’

Hector followed her through the open door to the crew accommodation. As he stepped inside the gloomy, unlit cabin, the rancid stench of damp, sweat and vomit caught him by the throat. With its low ceiling, the forecastle was so dark that it was difficult to make out any details. There was a rough table and two benches in the centre of the room, all of them fixed to the floor. Crude bunks like stable mangers extended along the bulkheads, and sick men lay in them all. On the floor were several shapeless bundles. One of them moved slightly, and Hector realized it was a man struggling to sit up.

‘There are very sick men in here,’ Maria said. ‘They must be cared for.’

Hector made no reply. He’d recognized one reason for the smell. It was the rotting stink of scurvy, mixed with a sweetish fetid odour that he knew was the smell of dead flesh.

‘It started with Batavia fever,’ said Vlucht. He’d come into the doorway behind them, blocking out most of the already feeble light. ‘A few of the men began to complain of headaches and bone pains when we were only a couple of weeks into the voyage. That’s normal enough in these waters. Nothing to worry about.’

The invalid on the floor held out a tin cup. His arm was shaking. Hector saw that the man’s mouth was deformed by some sort of soft growth bulging from his gums. Maria took the cup and went to find water.

‘The fever did the rounds, as we expected, and soon we were accustomed to it. But the Chinese customs people used it as an excuse to send us on our way,’ Vlucht continued. ‘Quarantined the ship for a month before obliging us to leave.’ He laughed savagely. ‘Of course that was after they had impounded our cargo.’

Maria returned carrying the water and knelt down by the sick man, holding the cup to his ghastly mouth so that he could drink. Even from a yard away, Hector could smell the foul stink of his breath.