got it all plain now - just you watch!'
'Aye, weel, if we get home wi' all speed-—'
'Home nothing!' says Brooke. 'We're going in tonight! Give way, there!'
For a moment I thought Paitingi was going to have the boat over; he exploded in a torrent of disbelief and dismay, and expostulations concerning Scottish Old Testament fiends and the hundred names of Allah flew over my head; Brooke just laughed, fidgeting with impatience, and Paitingi was still cursing and arguing when our spy-boat reached Phlegethon again. A hasty summons brought the commanders from the other vessels, and Brooke, who looked to me as though he was in the grip of some stimulating drug, held a conference on the platform by the light of a single storm lantern.
'Now's the time - I know it!' says he. 'Those three lagoon praus will be making for Linga - they've been butchering and looting on the coast all day, and they'll never go farther tonight. We'll find 'em tied up at Linga tomorrow dawn. Keppel, you'll take the rocket-praus - burn those pirates at their anchorage, land the blue jackets to storm the fort, and boom the Linga river to stop anything coming down. You'll find precious little fight in Jaffir's people, or I'm much mistaken.
'Meanwhile, the rest of us will sweep past upriver, making for Patusan. That's where we'll find the real thieves' kitchen; we'll strike it as soon as Keppel's boats have caught us up—'
'You'll leave no one at Linga?' says Keppel. 'Suppose more praus arrive from Mindanao?'
'They won't,' says Brooke confidently. 'And if they do, we'll turn in our tracks and blow them all the way back to Sulu!' His laugh sent shivers down my spine. 'Mind, Keppel, I want those three praus destroyed utterly, and every one of their crews killed or scattered! Drive 'em into the jungle; if they have slaves or captives, bring 'em along. Paitingi, you'll take the lead to Linga, with one spy-boat; we don't need more while the river's still wide. Now then, what time is it?'
It may have been my army training, or my experience in Afghanistan, where no one even relieved himself without a staff conference's approval, but this haphazard, neck-or-nothing style appalled me. We were to go careering upriver in the dark, after those three horrors that I'd seen streaking out of the mist - I shuddered at the memory of the evil yellow faces and that hideous skull fringe - and tackle them and whatever other cut-throat horde happened to be waiting at this Linga fort. He was crazy, whipped into a drunken enthusiasm by his own schoolboy notions of death or glory; why the devil didn't Keppel and the other sane men take him in hand, or drop him overboard, before he wrecked us all? But there they were, setting their watches, hardly asking a question even, suggesting improvisations in an offhand way that made your hair curl, no one so much as hinting at a written order - and Brooke laughing and slapping Keppel on the back as he went down into his longboat.
'And mind now, Paitingi,' he cries cheerily, 'don't go skedaddling off on your own. As soon as those praus are well alight, I want to see your ugly old mug heading back to Phlegethon, d'you hear? Look after him, Stuart - he's a poor old soul, but I'm used to him!'
The spy-boat vanished into the dark, and we heard the creak of the longboats' oars as they dispersed. Brooke rubbed his hands and winked at me. 'Now's the day and now's the hour,' says he. 'Charlie Johnson, pass my compliments to the engineer, and tell him I want steam up. We'll have Fort Linga for our chota hazri!'*(* Early morning tea.)
It sounded like madman's babble at the time, but as I look back, it seems reasonable enough - for, being J.B., he got what he wanted. He spent all night in the Phlegethon's wheel-house, poring over maps and sipping Batavia arrack, issuing orders to Johnson or Crimble from time to time, and as we thrashed on into the gloom the spy-boats would come lancing out of the misty darkness, hooking on, and then gliding away again with messages for the fleet strung out behind us; one of them kept scuttling to and fro between Phlegethon and the rocket-praus, which were somewhere up ahead. How the deuce they kept order I couldn't fathom, for each ship had only one dark lantern gleaming faintly at its stern, and the mist seemed thick all round. There was no sign, in that clammy murk, of the river-banks, a mile either side of us, and no sound except the steady thumping of Phlegethon's engines; the night was both chill and sweating at once, and I sat huddled in wakeful apprehension in the lee of the wheel-house, drawing what consolation I could from the knowledge that Phlegethon would be clear of the morning's action.
She had a grandstand seat, though; when dawn came pale and sudden, we were thrashing full tilt up the oily river, a hare half-mile from the jungle-covered bank to starboard, and nothing ahead of us but one spy-boat, loitering on the river bend. Even as we watched here, there was a distant crackle of musketry from up ahead, and from the spy-boat a blue light shot into the foggy air, barely visible against the pale grey sky; 'Keppel's there!' yells Brooke. 'Full ahead, Charlie!' and right on the heels of his words came a thunderous explosion that seemed to send a tremor across the swirling water.
Phlegethon tore down on the spy-boat, and then as we rounded the bend, I saw a sight I'll never forget. A mile away, on the right-hand shore, was a great clearing, with a big native village sprawling down to the shore, and behind it, on the fringe of the forest, a stockaded fort on a slight rise, with a green banner waving above its walls. There were twists of smoke, early cooking-fires, rising above the village, but down on the river-bank itself there was a great pall of sooty cloud rising from the glittering red war-prau which I recognized as one of those we had seen the previous evening; there was orange flame creeping up her steep side. Beyond her lay the two other praus, tied up to the bank and swinging gently in the current.
Keppel's praus were standing in towards them, in line ahead, like ghost ships floating on the morning mist which swirled above the river's surface. There was white smoke wreathing up from Keppel's own prau, and now the prau behind rocked and shuddered as fire blinked on her main-deck, and the white trails of the Congreves went streaking out from her side; you could see the rockets weaving in the air before they smashed into the sides of the anchored vessels at point-blank range; orange balls of fire exploded into torrents of smoke, with debris, broken sweeps, and spars flying high into the air, and then across the water came the thunder of the explosions, seconds later.
There were human figures swarming like ants on the stricken pirate vessels, dropping into the river or scattering up the shore; another salvo of rockets streaked across the smoking water, and as the reek of the explosions cleared we could see that all three targets were burning fiercely, the nearest one, a flaming wreck, already sinking in the shallows. From each of Keppel's craft a longboat was pulling off for the shore, and even without the glass I could make out the canvas shirts and straw hats of our salts. As the boats pulled past the blazing wrecks and touched shore, Keppel's rockets began firing at higher elevation, towards the stockaded fort, but at that range the rockets weaved and trailed all over the place, most of them plunging down somewhere in the jungle beyond. Brooke handed me his glass.
'That's cost the Sultan of Sulu a penny or two,' says he. 'He'll think twice before he sends his skull-fanciers this way again.
I was watching our seamen landing through the glass: there was Wade's burly figure leading them at a fast trot through the village towards the fort, the cutlasses glittering in the early light. Behind, the boat crews were hauling their bow-chasers ashore, manhandling them on to wheeled sledges to run them forward so that they could be brought to play against the fort. Others were trailing bamboo ladders, and from one of the boats there were landing a group of Malay archers, with firepots - it was beginning to dawn on me that for all his bull-at-a-gate style, Brooke - or someone - knew his business; they had all the right gear, and were moving like clockwork. Keppel's praus must have rounded the bend and come in sight of the town at the precise minute when there was light enough to shoot by; any later and their approach might have been seen, and the pirates been on the q.v. .
'Wonder if Sharif Jaffir's awake yet, what?' Brooke was striding about the platform, grinning like a schoolboy. 'What d'you bet, Charlie, he'll be scampering out of the fort this minute, taking to the jungle? We can leave it to Keppel, now, I think - full ahead!'
While we had been watching, the rest of our fleet had passed by, and was surging upriver, the sweeps going like billy-oh, and the square sails of the praus set to catch the light sea-breeze. A spy-boat was scooting out towards us from Keppel's prau, the burly figure of Paitingi in the bow; beyond him the village was half-hidden by the smoke from the pirate praus, which were burning down to the waterline, and the rockets were firing again, this time against the smaller praus which were assembled farther up, near the Linga river mouth. I watched until my eye ached, and just before the Phlegethon rounded the next bend, a couple of miles upstream, cheering broke out from the vessels around us - I turned my glass, and saw that the green flag on the distant fort was coming down, and the Union Jack was running up in its place.
Well, I was thinking, if it's as easy as this, we don't need to break much sweat; with any luck you'll have a quiet passage, Flash, my boy - and at that very moment Brooke was at my elbow.
