In Clive's Command: A Story of the Fight for India

by Herbert Strang

Meanwhile the Biluchis had returned some distance along the path by which they had come from the fort, then turned off to the left, and came to a place where a number of small boats were drawn up just above high water. The boats were the ordinary tonis {small boats cut out of the solid tree, used for passing between the shore and larger vessels} of the coast, each propelled by short scull paddles. Moving quickly but with great caution the Biluchis collected the paddles from all these boats save one, carried them noiselessly down to the water's edge, waded a few yards into the surf, and, setting down their burdens, pushed them gently seawards. They then returned to the one boat which they had not robbed of its paddle, and lay down beside it, apparently waiting.

By and by they were joined by the Mysoreans. The four men lifted the toni, and carrying it down to the jetty, quietly launched it under the shadow of the woodwork. A few yards away the Babu sat upon the barrel. This was lifted on board, and one of the men, tearing a long strip from his dhoti, muffled the single paddle. Then all five men squatted at the waterside, awaiting with true oriental patience the signal for further action.

Not one of them but was aware that the plight of the two sentries they had left behind them in the fort might at any moment be discovered. The hourly call must be nearly due. When no response came from the sentry whose beat ended at their shed the alarm would at once be given, and in a few seconds the silent form of the sentinel on the bastion would be found, and the whole garrison would be sped to their pursuit.

But at this moment of suspense only the Babu was agitated. His natural timidity, and the tincture of European ways of thought he had gained during his service in Calcutta, rendered him less subject than his Mohammedan companions to the fatalism which rules the oriental mind. To the Mohammedan what must be must be. Allah has appointed to every man his lot; man is but as a cork on the stream of fate. Not even when a low, half-strangled cry came to them across the water, out of the blackness that brooded upon the harbor, did any of the four give sign of excitement. The Babu started, and rose to his feet shivering; the others still squatted, mute and motionless as statues of ebony, neither by gesture nor murmur betraying their consciousness that at any moment, by tocsin from the fort, a thousand fierce and relentless warriors might be launched like sleuth hounds upon their track.

Meanwhile, what of Desmond and the Gujarati?

During the months Desmond had spent in Gheria he had made himself familiar, as far as his opportunities allowed, with the construction of the harbor and the manner of mooring the vessels there. He knew that the gallivats of the Pirate's fleet, lashed together, lay about eighty yards from the head of the jetty under the shelter of the fortress rock, which protected them from the worst fury of the southwest monsoon. The grabs lay on the other side of the jetty, some hundred and twenty yards towards the river--except three vessels which were held constantly ready for sea somewhat nearer the harbor mouth.

He had learned, moreover, by cautious and apparently casual inquiries, that the gallivats were under a guard of ten men, the grabs of twenty. These men were only relieved at intervals of three days; they slept on board when the vessels were in harbor and the crews dispersed ashore.

In thinking over the difficult problem of escape, Desmond had found himself in a state of perplexity somewhat similar to that of the man who had to convey a fox and a goose and a bag of corn across a river in a boat that would take but one at a time. He could not, with his small party, man a gallivat, which required fifty oarsmen to propel it at speed; while if he seized one of the lighter grabs, he would have no chance whatever of outrunning the gallivats that would be immediately launched in pursuit. It was this problem that had occupied him the whole day during which Diggle had fondly imagined he was meditating on Angria's offer of freedom.

A few moments after their five companions had left them, Desmond and the Gujarati climbed with the agility of seamen along the ties of the framework supporting the jetty, until they reached a spot a yard or two from the end. There, quite invisible from sea or land, they gently lowered themselves into the water. Guided by the dim light which he had noticed, and which he knew must proceed from one of the moored gallivats, Desmond struck out towards the farther end of the line of vessels, swimming a noiseless breast stroke. Fuzl Khan followed him in equal silence a length behind.

The water was warm, and a few minutes' steady swimming brought them within twenty or thirty yards of the light. The hulls of the gallivats and their tall raking spars could now be seen looming up out of the blackness. Desmond perceived that the light was on the outermost of the line, and, treading water for a moment, he caught the low hum of voices coming from the after part of the gallivat. Striking out to the left, still followed by the Gujarati, he swam along past the sterns of the lashed vessels until he came under the side of the one nearest the shore. He caught at the hempen cable, swarmed up it, and, the gallivat having but little freeboard, soon reached the bulwark.