Free The War Chest by Porter Hill

pleasures, he replied, ‘I also enjoyed my time with you, sir. Thank you.’
    Goodair knew he had overstepped social boundaries. He said in a brighter voice, ‘You may rest assured, Captain Horne, that I shall inform your father what a fine son he has. A boon to his name.’
    Horne had completed the letter to his father but was having misgivings about sending it with Goodair. Theletter was brief and, Horne feared, gloomy. Bapu’s death had left him desolate, and the last rites had been a grim, painful farewell. Horne had wrapped the corpse in a hammock, sewing it shut and weighting the corners with shot. He had dropped it into the Arabian sea as Jingee read Praise For A Rajput Warrior. After the brief ceremony, Horne had tried to keep himself busy making repairs to the Unity and working aboard the Huma. The pirate frigate was Bombay-built, finer than Horne’s expectation. Tree had asked him to take command of it for the remainder of the voyage to Port Diego-Suarez, but Horne had adamantly refused, explaining that the East India Company would probably judge both the frigate and pattimar to be war prizes for the Maritime Service, distributing the reward money among the officers and crew. It would therefore be highly improper for an officer of the Bombay Marine to bring the Huma into port; there was already enough hostility between the Maritime Service and Bombay Marine.
    Tree, joining Horne and Goodair under the canopy on the quarterdeck, made his farewell to Horne, concluding, ‘Captain Horne, sir, you’ve taught me to respect the—’ he raised his voice—‘Bombay … Buccaneers !’
    Horne flinched. Tree had obviously meant no offence but he explained, ‘Mr Tree, a Marine goes into battle when someone calls him a “buccaneer”.’
    Bewildered, Tree looked from Horne to Goodair. ‘But … but … but … I’ve always heard Bombay Marines called “buccaneers”!’
    ‘Slang, dear boy, slang,’ interrupted Goodair, clutching the robe to his neck. ‘An unflattering description of the Company’s brave Marine.’
    Tree lowered his head. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I had no idea, sir.’
    Horne realised there were many things which Simon Tree did not know. He doubted, however, if any of those short-comings, major or trivial, would prevent the youngman from rising in the Honourable East India Company’s Maritime Service.
    * * *
    Madagascar, the shoe-shaped island off Africa’s southeast coast, was separated from the mainland by the two-hundred -and-fifty-mile wide Strait of Mozambique. The first Europeans to visit Madagascar had been the Portuguese in the sixteenth century. In the following two hundred years, the island had been controlled by a succession of English, French, and local Malagasy rulers. At present, the English were temporarily back in command of Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world.
    Fred Babcock learned these facts in an open boat while crossing from the Huma to the stone quay of Port Diego-Suarez . Horne had given his men the morning to explore the small settlement located at the island’s northern tip and Babcock, knowing that Horne was paying an official visit to Company House, guessed that the call concerned their new assignment which their Captain would later explain to his men.
    Two wine shops flanked the small harbour and, by late morning, men off the Unity had settled under the shady bamboo awnings or had drifted off into the surrounding streets, exploring the white-washed settlement for other public establishments. Groot, Kiro, Jud and Mustafa were grouped around Jingee and an old Malagasy villager, a shrivelled little man whom Jingee was questioning in Bantu about the island’s people, asking why they looked Oriental rather than African.
    At the moment Babcock was more interested in food than in local people or their ways; he decided to search out a cook shop.
    In the past, Babcock had been suspicious of native food, but he was convinced now that it was Groot’s cooking thathad