The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection. George Fraser MacDonald
look-out straddled above me, a foot on either gunwale.
“Don’t like it altogether,” says Brooke. “Those bajoos say there are villages burning up towards the Rajang, and that ain’t natural, when all that’s sinful should be congregated up the Lupar, getting ready for us. We’ll take a sniff about. Give way!”
The slender spy-boat shot away like a dart, trembling most alarmingly under my feet, with the thirty paddlers sweeping us silently forward. We threaded through the little islands, Brooke staring over towards the far shore, which was fading in the gathering dusk. There was a light mist coming down behind us, concealing our fleet, and a great bank of it was slowly rolling in from the sea, ghostly above the oily water. It was dead calm now, and the dank air made your flesh crawl; Brooke checked our pace, and we glided under the overhanging shelter of a mangrove bank, where the fronds dripped eerily. I saw Brooke’s head turning this way and that, and then Paitingi stiffened behind me.
“Bismillah! J.B.!” he whispered. “Listen!”
Brooke nodded, and I strained my ears, staring fearfully across that limpid water at the fog blanket creeping towards us. Then I heard something – at first I thought it was my heart, but gradually it resolved itself into a faint, regular, throbbing boom, coming faintly out of the mist, growing gradually louder. It was melodious but horrible, a deep metallic drumming that raised the hairs on my neck; Paitingi whispered behind me:
“War-gong. Bide you; don’t even breathe!”
Brooke gestured for silence, and we lay hidden beneath the mangrove fronds, waiting breathlessly, while that h---ish booming grew to a slow thunder, and it seemed to me that behind it I could hear a rushing, as of some great thing flying along; my mouth was dry as I stared at the fog, waiting for some horror to appear – and then suddenly it was upon us, like a train rushing from a tunnel, a huge, scarlet shape bursting out of the mist. I only had a glimpse as it swept by, but the image is stamped on my memory of that long, gleaming red hull with its towering forecastle and stern; the platform over its bulwark crowded with men – flat yellow faces with scarves round their brows, lank hair flowing down over their sleeveless tunics; the glitter of swords and spear-heads, the ghastly line of white bobbing globes hanging like a horrible fringe from stem to stern beneath the platform – skulls, hundreds of them; the great sweeps churning the water; the guttering torches on the poop; the long silken pennants on the upper works writhing in the foggy air like coloured snakes; the figure of a half-naked giant beating the oar-stroke on a huge bronze gong – and then it was gone as swiftly as it had come, the booming receding into the mist as it drove up the Batang Lupar.26
The sweat was starting out on me as we waited, while two more praus like the first emerged and vanished in its wake; then Brooke looked past me at Paitingi.
“That’s inconvenient,” says he. “I made ’em Lanun, the first two; the third one Maluku. What d’ye think?”
“Lagoon pirates from Mindanao,” says Paitingi, “but what the h--l are they doin’ here?” He spat into the water. “There’s an end tae our expedition, J.B. – there’s a thousand men on each o’ those devil-craft, more than we muster all told, and—”
“—and they’ve gone to join Usman,” says Brooke. He whistled softly to himself, scratching his head beneath the pilot-cap. “Tell you what, Paitingi – he’s taking us seriously, ain’t he just?”
“Aye, so let’s pay him the same compliment. If we beat back tae Kuching in the mornin’, we can put oursel’s in a state o’ defence, at least, because, by G-d’s beard, we’re goin’ tae have such a swarm roond oor ears—”
“Not us,” says Brooke. “Them.” His teeth showed white in the gathering dark; he was quivering with excitement. “D’ye know what, old ’un? I think this is just what we wanted – now I know what we can expect! I’ve 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!”b
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