Jack Windrush Collection

Chapter 20

Lieutenant Bertram stood in the door of the hut. "None of us are fit to march. We are going by water. I outrank you, remember." His grin removed any sting from the words.

"I"m not b****y swimming."

Jack ignored Coleman"s harsh whisper as he nodded to Bertram. "Serangipatam is long gone, lieutenant. The Burmese burned her, I think."

Serangipatam"I"m not talking about Serangipatam." Bertram lurched forward. "This is a military stockade. The Burmese attacked us in war boats, correct?"

Serangipatam"Correct," Jack agreed, "but—"

"Bear with me, Ensign,." Bertram swayed so that one of his seamen dashed forward to support him. "The men of this garrison came in boats and left in boats, but they did not all leave. The guards were left behind. Their boat will be here somewhere."

"Well, let"s find it then." Jack met Bertram"s smile. "I don"t like marching at the best of times."

"You Serangis," Bertram said, "scour the edge of the river. You know how good the Burmese are at hiding traps, so their boats won"t be in the open."

Serangis"My men will help," Jack offered, but Bertram shook his head.

"Your lobster backs wouldn"t know a war boat from a walrus," he said. "This is a job for seamen. You and your redcoats can salute each other or march at attention or do something equally military."

Jack felt his spirits lift. Bertram was the opposite of Commander Marshall; a man under whom he could happily work.

Weak as he was, Bertram commanded his men with skill. He divided them into parties to search. "But watch for any of these infernal traps," he reminded. "We"ve lost enough good men, and we don"t want to lose any more."

"They won"t find anything." Wells had hardly spoken before there was a roar from the river bank.

"Here we are, sir!" a broken-nosed seaman shouted, "hidden under these ferns or whatever they are." He swore loudly. "Beg pardon sir, but it"s alive with spiders and things." He swore again and stamped hard on the ground as Bertram limped up.

They examined the war boat as it lay close to the bank; half-filled with water and with the stern covered with broken branches. There was a ragged hole in the hull near the bow, a hundred different insects scurried along the bottom, and half the paddles were missing.

"Oh, dear God, we can"t go in that," Jack said.

"She"s beautiful," Bertram decided announced with enthusiasm.

"It"s a b****y wreck." Coleman gave his candid opinion.

"We"ll have her seaworthy in no time." Bertram ignored the insolence. "Ensign Windrush, could you ensure that we are undisturbed? Shoot any of these Burmese rascals that come close."

"But only the rascally Burmese," Myat reminded, grave faced, "not the Peguese. We are on your side, remember."

Jack waved a hand as he checked the positions in which Wells had placed his men.

This waiting is playing on my nerves. I was all ready to march.

This waiting is playing on my nerves. I was all ready to march."What shall we call her, lads?"

Jack raised his eyebrows but said nothing. He had never heard an officer ask his men for an opinion before. He waited for their reaction.

"We could call her Burma, sir," one man said.

Burma"Or Serangy, after our ship."

Serangy"Would Mabel be allowed, sir? That"s my sister"s name." The seaman was small and very thin, with an anxious expression in huge eyes.

"What do you think, lads?" Bertram shouted out. "Mabel, Serangy or Burma?"

Mabel, SerangyBurmaThe reply came in a babble of voices, to which Bertram listened with a small smile on his face. "Mabel it is then," he decided.

Mabel"Thank you, sir," the thin seaman whispered.

Jack wiped away the sweat from his forehead, swatted vainly at the buzzing insects and felt the reassuring smoothness of the Buddhas in his pocket. "When will your boat be ready?"

Bertram drew a hand through his ginger hair and looked upward, where the sun was disappearing behind the trees. "Not today," he said.

That means another night here; another night vulnerable to dacoit attack.

That means another night here; another night vulnerable to dacoit attack."We will leave early tomorrow morning," Bertram said. "Give the men another few hours to recover their strength." His grin was surprising after so many weeks in captivity.

As always, there was a mist on the river and a pre-dawn chorus of insects and unseen birds as they clambered apprehensively into the narrow Burmese war-boat. Navy- style, Bertram was first on the boat and Jack last. Jack looked up at the log walls of the stockade.

"We should burn the place down."

"Too late now," Bertram didn"t hide his pleasure at being afloat again. "Come on lads, let"s get Mabel moving!"

MabelThe seamen studied the paddles with intense curiosity.

"Like this," Bertram demonstrated how to paddle. "We face the bows and push Mabel through the river, all the way to Pegu. "Watch the banks lads, and don"t talk. If we"re quiet, people might think we"re Burmese."

Jack felt rather than saw Myat"s disbelief.

Bertram balanced on the high prow, looking forward into the shifting mist. For a moment, Jack thought he looked exactly like a figurehead, a young, proud man facing a God-knew-what threat as he led his men forward like Jason or Odysseus, and then reality returned.

Carrying what weapons they could find, the men of the 113th were lean and weak after the past few months but were also tighter-knit. Despite their hardships, or because of them, they looked like soldiers.

"How far is Pegu?" Coleman asked.

"Downstream with no obstructions it is three days journey," Myat answered at once.

"Bo Ailgaliutlo put obstacles in the river to stop Serangipatam," Jack reminded.

Serangipatam"I know," Bertram spoke over his shoulder without looking round, "that"s why I"m up here. I"ll see them first."

The thin sailor swore as he missed his stroke and his paddle caused a mighty splash.

"Keep your voices down!" Bertram ordered, "there could be ears listening."

The sailors were not expert paddlers; there were more loud splashes and subdued cursing as Mabel moved erratically down the misted river.

"I hope this fog lasts all day," Jack said, and at that moment, it began to lift.

"Slow ahead," Bertram said, and then amended his order to "stop paddling, back water." There was a flurry of activity as the seamen tried to master the art of the paddle. Eventually, Mabel came to an untidy halt and bobbed in the current, with two men paddling to keep her static.

"Look ahead," Bertram pointed, "there"s Serangy."

Serangy"What"s left of her," one seaman muttered, while another cursed the Burmese with a string of foul oaths. Bertram didn"t order him into silence.

Serangipatam lay on her side on the near bank of the river. Her upper works and part of her hull were burned entirely away with the remainder charcoal black and twisted by the heat. Above the wreck and hanging by his neck was the skeleton of a man, picked clean by birds and insects.

Serangipatam"I wonder who that poor bugger was," Coleman asked.

"Commander Marshall," Bertram said quietly. "That renegade fellow told me exactly what they did to him."

"What was that, sir?" Thorpe asked, but Bertram shook his head.

"It was not a quick death," was all he said.

The Burmese had once again staked the river to prevent British warships from passing, but as the war-boat was narrower than Serangipatam, Bertram managed to manoeuvre between the stakes. He steered to where Serangipatam lay.

SerangipatamSerangipatam"We"ll give him a Christian burial," he said. "A British seaman deserves better than to hang forever in Burma."

With the forest a backdrop and a chorus of birds replacing the solemn hymns of a church, they hacked out a ragged grave, and the seamen lowered in the skeleton of their commander with as much reverence as they could muster.

"Does anybody know the words?" Bertram asked. "No? Well, I will do what I can, then."

Jack remembered the funeral of his father. He listened as Bertram stumbled over a handful of phrases that vaguely resembled the burial service, and then he sent his men on picket duty around the boat and the gathering.

"He was a hard man," Jack said.

"He was a good seaman." Bertram remained loyal to his superior.

They left Commander Marshall on that muddy riverbank in upper Pegu province with a roughly fashioned cross above the grave. Nobody looked back.

"Bastards," the thin seaman said with every forceful stroke of the paddle, "b****y Burmese bastards."

When Jack glanced at Myat, she was sitting close to Wells, her face impassive. For once,there was no need to order the 113th to stay alert. They positioned themselves around the boat, hugged their muskets and scanned the passing forest, scrubland and fields.

"What"s that in the river?" Wells pointed to the side. "It might only be an animal."

"It"s a man," the thin seaman called out. He reached out with his paddle as Bertram steered them in that direction. "No," he continued, "it"s not. It"s a woman."

She floated face up with her hands spread out.

"Do we bury her, sir?" The thin seaman asked.

"No," Bertram decided after a pause. "We don"t have time."

"We took time with the Commander," the thin seaman reminded.

"He was one of us," Bertram said. "She is only Burmese."

Wells reached over to touch Myat on the arm. Jack looked away, aware of the jealousy that twisted inside him.

There was another body later that day, headless, and a third without arms, trailing blood within a frenzy of feeding fish.

"Bo Ailgaliutlo"s been busy," Wells said.

I led my men to defeat. Every death here is my fault for failing at the stockade.

I led my men to defeat. Every death here is my fault for failing at the stockade."He"s dead; everybody"s b****y dead. I"ll do for that murdering Burmese bugger!" Coleman pulled the dha from his belt and kissed the blade. "I swear it!"

They smelled smoke before they paddled around the bend, and the village was only a smouldering mess.

"Keep paddling," Bertram decided. "We can"t do anything here."

There were other villages, either burned or deserted, with the rice fields untended, the huts ruined, and fishing boats holed and sunk at the river"s edge.

"It"s like Attila the Hun passed here," Bertram said.

"No," Jack shook his head, "just Bo Ailgaliutlo and his dacoits. War here is not civilised."

"Is war anywhere civilised, Ensign Windrush?" Myat asked softly. "The war in the Punjab killed thousands, the war in Afghanistan saw a British Army destroyed, and all the camp followers slaughtered, and they were mere skirmishes compared to your great war with France."

"How on earth do you know that?" Jack asked.

Myat gave a nod that didn"t hide the mockery in her eyes. "I know, ensign. I am only a native and not one of you." Her glance at Bertram was meaningful. "I have no right to know about European history or anything else."

Jack felt the colour rise to his face. "I didn"t mean…" He did not complete the sentence. What did I mean, if not that?

What did I mean, if not that?