Thomas Hoover - The Moghul

The pilot's worth was never in question. A practiced seaman, he had steered them easily through the uncharted currents and hidden swallows of the bay. They had plotted a course directly east-north-east, running with topgallants on the night breeze, to make dawn anchorage at the mouth of the Tapti River. Through the night the Resolve had stayed with them handily, steering by their stem lantern.

When the first light broke in the east, hard and sudden, there it lay-the coast of India, the landfall, the sight they had waited for the long seven months. Amid the cheers he had ordered their colors hoisted-the red cross, bordered in white, on a field of blue-the first English flag ever to fly off India's coast.

But as the flag snapped its way along the poop staff, and the men struck up a hornpipe on deck, their triumph suddenly was severed by a cry from the maintop.

"Sails off the starboard quarter."

In the sudden hush that rolled across the ship like a shroud, freezing the tumult of voice and foot, Hawksworth had charged up the companionway to the quarterdeck. And there, while the masts tuned a melancholy dirge, he had studied the ships in disbelief with his glass.

Four galleons anchored at the river mouth. Portuguese men-of-war. Each easily a thousand ton, twice the size of the Discovery.

He had sorted quickly through his options. Strike sail and heave to, on the odds they may leave? It was too late. Run up Portuguese colors, the old privateers' ruse, and possibly catch them by surprise? Unlikely. Come about and run for open sea? Never. That's never an English seadog's way. No, keep to windward and engage. Here in the bay.

"Mackintosh!" Hawksworth turned to see the quartermaster already poised expectantly on the main deck. "Order Malloyre to draw up the gunports. Have the sails wet down and see the cookroom fire is out."

"Aye, sir. This'll be a bloody one."

"What counts is who bleeds most. Get every able man on station."

As Hawksworth turned to check the whipstaff, the long wooden lever that guided the ship's rudder, he passingly noted that curious conflict of body sensation he remembered from two encounters in years past: once, when on the Amsterdam run he had seen privateers suddenly loom off the coast of Scotland, and then on his last voyage through the Mediterranean, when his convoy first spotted the Turkish pirate galleys. While his mind calculated the elements of a strategy, coolly refining each individual detail, his stomach belied his rational facade and knotted in instinctive, primal fear. And he had asked himself whether this day his mind or his body would prevail. The odds were very bad, even if they could keep the wind. And if the Portuguese had trained gun crews…

Then he spotted the Indian pilot, leaning casually against the steering house, his face expressionless. He wore a tiny moustache and long, trimmed sideburns. And unlike the English seamen, all barefoot and naked to the waist, he was still dressed formally, just as when he came aboard. A fresh turban of white cotton, embroidered in a delicate brown, was secured neatly about the crown of his head, exposing his long ears and small, jeweled earrings. A spotless yellow cloak covered the waist of his tightly tailored blue trousers.

Damn him. Did he somehow know? Did he steer us into a trap?

Seeming to read Hawksworth's thoughts, the pilot broke the silence between them, his Turki heavily accented with his native Gujarati.

"This is your first test. Officers of the Moghul's army are doubtless at the shore, observing. What will you do?"

"What do you think we'll do? We'll stand the bastards. And with Malloyre's gunners I think we can…"

"Then permit me an observation. A modest thought, but possibly useful. Do you see, there"-he pulled erect and pointed toward the shore-"hard by the galleons, there where the seabirds swirl in a dark cloud? That is the river mouth. And on either side are many sandbars, borne there from the river's delta. Along the coast beyond these, though you cannot see them now, are channels, too shallow for the draft of a galleon but perhaps safe for these frigates. Reach them and you will be beyond range of all Portuguese ordnance save their stern demi-culverin. Then they will be forced to try boarding you by longboat, something their infantry does poorly and with great reluctance."

"Are there channels on both sides of the river mouth? To windward and to leeward?"

"Certainly, my feringhi captain." He examined Hawksworth with a puzzled stare. "But only a fool would not hold to port, to windward."

Hawksworth studied the shoreline with the glass, and an audacious gamble began to take form in his mind. Why try to keep both frigates to windward? That's what they'll expect, and any moment now they'll weigh and beat to windward also. And from their position, they'll probably gain the weather gage, forcing us to leeward, downwind where we can't maneuver. That means an open fight-when the Resolve can barely muster a watch. How can she crew the gun deck and man the sheets? But maybe she won't have to. Maybe there's another way.

"Mackintosh." The quartermaster was mounting the quarterdeck companionway. "Order the mains'l and fores'l reefed. And the tops'ls shortened. We'll heave to while we run out the guns. And signal the Resolve while I prepare orders for Kerridge."

The grizzled Scotsman stood listening in dismay, and Hawksworth read his thoughts precisely in his eyes. There's nae time to heave to. And for wha'? We strike an inch o' canvas an' the fornicatin' Portugals'll take the weather gage sure. Ha' you nae stomach for a fight? Why na just haul down colors and ha' done with it?

But he said nothing. He turned automatically and bellowed orders aloft.

Hawksworth felt out the morning breeze, tasting its cut, while he watched the seamen begin swinging themselves up the shrouds, warming the morning air with oaths as the Discovery pitched and heeled in the chop. And then he turned and strode down the quarterdeck companionway toward the Great Cabin to prepare orders for the Resolve. As he passed along the main deck, half a dozen crewmen were already unlashing the longboat from its berth amidships.

And when he emerged again on deck with the oilskin- wrapped dispatch, after what seemed only moments, the longboat was already launched, oarsmen at station. He passed the packet to Mackintosh without a word, then mounted the companionway ladder back to the quarterdeck.

The Indian pilot stood against the banister, shaded by the lateen sail, calmly studying the galleons.

"Three of these I know very well." His accented Turki was almost lost in a roll of spray off the stern. "They are the St. Sebastian, the Bon Jesus, and the Bon Ventura. They arrived new from Lisbon last year, after the monsoon, to patrol our shipping lanes, to enforce the regulation that all Indian vessels purchase a trading license from authorities in Goa."

"And what of the fourth?"

"It is said she berthed in Goa only this spring. I do not know her name. There were rumors she brought the new Viceroy, but early, before his four-year term began. I have never before seen her north, in these waters."

My God. Hawksworth looked at the warships in dismay. Is this the course of the Company's fortune? A voyage depending on secrecy blunders across a fleet bearing the incoming Viceroy of Goa. The most powerful Portuguese in the Indies.

"They are invincible," the pilot continued, his voice still matter-of-fact. "The galleons own our waters. They have two decks of guns. No Indian vessel, even the reckless corsairs along our southern coast of Malabar, dare meet them in the open sea. Owners who refuse to submit and buy a Portuguese trading license must sail hundreds of leagues off course to avoid their patrol."

"And what do you propose? That we heave to and strike our colors? Without even a fight?" Hawksworth was astonished by the pilot's casual unconcern. Is he owned by the Portugals too?