Chapter 6
CROSSING THE KRA

Samuel White stood straight and tall in his Harbor Master’s office in Mergui. When the river is high, he began, as it is now, our caravans cross the Kra leaving from here in Mergui.” He stopped for a moment and ran his finger across the parchment map spread out on his desk. “When the river is low,” he began again, “we make our crossings farther south where the isthmus is much narrower. In any event they are equally risky. I assume you are prepared to make the crossing.” It was a statement rather than a question.

The Greek sailor, Constantine Gerakis, was too awed to reply. He wasn’t even certain why he was there in the Harbor Master’s office. He had signed aboard Hopewell, the East India Company trader as chief gunner, and was preparing to sail for Melaka and then on to Calicut when the Harbor Master summoned him to the office. He was concerned, of course. He thought when he stepped through the door that he might be slapped in irons once again. He had even considered making a run for it but his curiosity reigned deeper. He knew well that he had been warned by the governor in Ayutthaya never to set foot in Siam again, and perhaps the governor had gotten word that he was in Mergui, a Siamese port. The Harbor Master, after all, was in the service of the King of Siam.

For this reason, ever since the Harbor Master had been assigned to the post by the king several months earlier, Gerakis had been avoiding him. He thought it best to stay clear of authorities. Gerakis was in Mergui when Samuel White first arrived from Madras, and, to keep a low profile, he even bypassed a party given in Samuel White’s honor. The entire community had been eagerly awaiting the new Harbor Master’s arrival. He came with his young bride, Mary Povey, bringing with them some juicy gossip that was quickly picked up by the news-starved Mergui foreign community. It seems Mary Povey had boarded HMS Loyal Subject in London, bound for Madras, where she was to marry an English gentleman, an officer in the colonial service. Samuel White was likewise a passenger aboard HMS Loyal Subject. His older brother George had sent for him, and had arranged for the position he now held as Harbor Master. It was a long monotonous two-month voyage, where anything and everything among the passengers could happen, and did happen. Often tempers ran thin. Arguments arose with the slightest provocation. Friendships were lost. Even marriages broke up. Or the opposite could happen. Secret affairs were hatched. Romances developed. Mary Povey and Samuel White fitted into the latter category. They fell in love. When Loyal Subject arrived in Madras, not all aboard were loyal. Mary married Samuel White rather than the government official, and, soon after, they sailed to Mergui. That’s the story that went around.

Gradually, as Gerakis stood before Samuel White, the pieces began to fall into place. Still, he couldn’t quite believe what he had been hearing. George White and Richard Burnaby wanted him in Ayutthaya. “They have made up a new identity for you,” Samuel explained. “We are to smuggle you across the isthmus and you will board one of my brother’s schooners in Songkau.” He pointed to a sea bag. “You have a complete new wardrobe. Your name now is Constantine Phaulkon.”

“When do I start?” Gerakis asked trying to maintain his composure.

“I have a shipment of goods to send across the isthmus leaving in two days. You travel by boat to the headwaters of the Tambling and then cut through the jungles. It’s a difficult trip. I have to remind you, the river is fast and hazardous. The climate is hot and damp. The jungles are thick and fever infested. There are savages lurking in its depth who want nothing more than to collect heads, particularly foreign heads, like yours and mine. You get off the trail and you are likely to be eaten by a tiger or stomped by wild elephants. But worst of all are the rebels.” He hesitated. “You want to hear the rest?”

“I can manage it,” Gerakis replied.

“Good, you look like you can handle yourself. That must be why they picked you. You are aware that the Dutch have claimed most of the islands of the Malay Archipelago and formed what they call the Dutch United East Indies Company. In Dutch it’s “de Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie.” For short, the VOC. They have subdued the natives, except for one group of diehards from the Celebes-the Makassars. The Makassars fled before the Dutch came with their guns and ships. They fled and found shelter on the Malay Peninsula. They are slowly moving upward into Siam. It is worrying the king.”

“What’s the solution?” Gerakis asked.

“The Makassars are seeking asylum in Siam,” Samuel continued. “Whether or not King Narai grants it is a question no one can answer. Perhaps he feels it’s better to contain them. The Makassars are a threat. They are a tough lot. They do not use firearms which they regard as inconsistent with personal valor and which detract from the value of physical strength and from their skill with the sword. They do not fear death. Their leader is a man named Mosafat. He’s young, in his 30s, and he is as tough as they come. The rumor is he is operating in the Kra area. You have to be careful. No confrontation, by order of the king. Any rebel that holds up a caravan, we must pay him tribute. Agreed?”

”As you like it,” Gerakis replied. “I am only going along for the ride.”

“Let me emphasize again,” Samuel said in closing, “this Kra Isthmus is the most unhealthy region in the tropics.”

After three days on the river, the Greek began to think Samuel White was right. After a week he was convinced he was right. The route was treacherous. Samuel outfitted the expedition with three sturdy dugouts, cut from single teak logs, each thirty meters long and each with cannon mounted on the bow. How they could ever fire the cannons in the dense jungle was a mystery to Gerakis, but then there was no need to worry. The cannons merely acted as a deterrent. The jungle itself was protection enough. The thick mass of vegetation that grew along the banks was impenetrable, or appeared to be, for it grew in one continuous unbroken wall. In places the growth formed a canopy that was like a tunnel through which they had to pass. Monkeys howled at their presence and strange birds called out from the foliage in a cacophony of weird and sometimes frightening sounds. Slowly they worked their way up the surging jungle river. Where the water was shallow, the crews poled their way upstream, and when they came to open stretches, always welcome, the crew took up oars and rowed the vessels. Lookouts stood at the bows, straddling the cannons, with long poles in hand. They used the poles to avoid rocks that might suddenly appear, and to fend off debris, sometimes whole trees, floating downstream with the current. When they came to rapids, which was often, the real task began. Everyone, to the tune of grumbles and groans, disembarked and worked the boats by sheer muscle power over the rocks. They slipped and fell, sometimes finding themselves completely submerged in swirling water and at the mercy of the river.

The sun beat down mercilessly and, with the boats loaded down to the gunwales, utmost care had to be taken that they didn’t swamp. At best they could cover six kilometers a day. By the fifth day the water became too shallow for the boats to continue and they returned down river. The cargo had to be unloaded and distributed into packs for porters to carry. In a single file they continued on foot, upriver until the river water became a dribble, and they then took to the jungle.

The ageless jungle closed in around them, and so dense did it become that the sun’s rays could not reach the forest floor. They forged ahead, with scouts cutting a path for others to follow, and slowly they moved through the strange wreckage of jungle, a tangle of lianas and vines that hung from towering heights.

At the end of each exhausting day they set up camp. They cut thorny creepers which they stacked around the periphery of each camp to keep wild beasts at bay. Gerakis wondered how a few twigs and creepers could stop marauding elephants on the rampage, or tigers stalking in the night. As another precaution, the men lighted huge campfires. They stacked the firewood as high as they could reach. The glow from the raging fire created a kind of cage that sealed them in, and kept the evil world out.

The mornings were pleasant when the forest at that hour was still. Nocturnal creatures had retired to their dens, the tigers to their lairs and the elephants to their thickets of bamboo. But the morning mist quickly vanished and the downpour of heat began. Another day of torture faced them. Along the banks of the river they saw where elephants and tigers came down to the river to drink, side by side. For centuries merchants had been transporting goods across the isthmus rather than face marauding pirates and the treacherous passage with its menacing rocks and hidden reefs at the southern end of the peninsula. Yet after years of man’s relentless intrusion, there was not the semblance of a road nor even a trail through the jungle. Gerakis thought about this as he trudged along. There was not the slightest sign that man had been there before. The jungle claimed its right before man’s footprints could dry. Yet, he had heard that the king of Siam had considered digging a canal across the isthmus. He had to be a man of insight, Gerakis thought. He too now thought about that canal. He studied the valleys and waterways through which they passed, and he gave thought to the possibility of such a canal.

The jungle gave way in places to swamps where swarms of mosquitoes were so dense they appeared as clouds darkening the sky. The swamps were the worst. The inky stagnant water reached to their armpits. Gnarled, twisted trees blocked their way and strange reptiles slithered away as they approached. When a menace became more threatening, the men clutched their lances and held them at ready. They feared attack by crocodiles. Samuel White had mentioned that when crossing the peninsula more men were lost to crocodiles than to tigers.

Undaunted but cautious they pushed on. Gerakis’ admiration for the porters grew with each kilometer they forged ahead. They were men of the forest, Siamese by blood who were born to the ways of the jungle. They could with great skill swing a knife to cut a trail and make the undergrowth fall where they wished. They scaled the mud banks with little effort, rushed ahead to scout out the trail, and returned without as much as a shortness of breath. The weight they carried was staggering and, aside from the cumbersome loads they had to bear, they also carried sabers at their sides and lances in one hand and long cutting knives in the other.

Days slipped into a week and soon time was left behind. The sun revolved around them, and not they around the sun. Eventually the thick foliage of deep-rooted jungle gave way and they entered a flat plateau with less vegetation. It was a welcome sight but with it came a feeling of uneasiness. The protection of the jungle was gone. They were at the mercy of any man or beast that might hinder their way.

They had traveled but a short distance through a narrow pass when their worst fears were realized. A band of renegades blocked their way. Gerakis recognized them immediately-Makassars. They stood in the open in plain view, their sabers and knives prominently displayed. Their leader stood at their head, and neither he nor his men sought cover, nor did they cower or hide behind rock or bush. Gerakis wondered if the leader might not be Mosafat, the clan leader Samuel White had mentioned. He stood with legs apart, his hand on his hips, and from his dress there was no mistaking him to be Muslim. He wore a turban of sorts, a kind of loose fitting wrap around with one end that fell to his shoulder. About his waist was a sash from which the hilt of two jeweled knives protruded. From his side hung a long saber.

Gerakis stepped forward and addressed him in Malay, stating he and his men were not looking for a fight but they would not back away either. Gerakis remembered what Samuel had told him. There was to be no confrontation. Give the rebels what they wanted. This was not the way Gerakis liked to do things, to surrender before a fight. He studied the men before him, looking them over from head to foot. They were obviously brave fighters, about a dozen men, all well-armed. Gerakis had an equal amount of men but he was uncertain of their fighting ability. He was ready to take the chance, and he knew he had the advantage if he struck first and fast. But Samuel White’s message ran hard in his thoughts. Even if he succeeded and they won the fight, he would have lost the battle. This was not what the king wanted. Gerakis did what he had to do. He made the first approach and handed the leader his sword. The man hesitated, then took hold of the hilt, and in a gesture of fortitude, threw it down upon the ground as though the couch of it had burned his hand.

“Why do you not fight?” he asked.

“Do not take me for a coward,” Gerakis replied, his voice stern and unfaltering. “I do not fight because the king wants peace and not war with your people.”

The words stunned the Makassar chief and he was unable to speak. All he could do was stare at the white man standing before him. He felt cheated. He would like to have killed this man. One could see in his eyes his dislike for white men, all white men. Was it not white men who came in their ships with their guns and took his island from his people, and was it not white men who slaughtered others in the islands? Perhaps this man before him wasn’t Dutch but did it matter? All white men were the same, seeking the same ends, caking with greed what they wanted.

As Gerakis picked up his sword, dusted it off and put it back in to his scabbard, he announced he would like to give the leader and his men some presents. Anticipating that there might be trouble, Samuel had prepared a bulk of Indian silks for such an occasion. Gerakis had one of the Siamese bring the bulk forward and place it on the ground. The Makassars immediately began opening the packet. While they fumbled with the rawhide ties, Gerakis and his men quietly left them. No words were passed. Gerakis and his party then moved on toward the coast. Deep down Gerakis knew the fight was not over. He wondered who this leader was as he watched him conceal a knife behind his turban. Would they meet again?

They were a haggard but happy lot that reached Songkau late one afternoon. They immediately scattered, each to his own task at hand. Gerakis was interested in Songkau, his intended port-of-call when he was aboard Putra Siamang before the fatal shipwreck. Songkau was an ancient stronghold and had flourished during Sultan Sulaiman’s reign that ended in 1668, at which time the Muslims had abandoned the port. King Narai had given the French the right to settle at Songkau, which angered the Muslims, even though they abandoned the place. For the French this could not have been a more opportune moment to take control. They constructed a rectangular 18-gun fortress on Hua Khao Daeng hill that gave protection against invaders coming from the gulf. With trade and commerce, the port grew and prospered in a very short time.

But Gerakis, who now took on the name Phaulkon, had no time to linger. He shaved his beard, cut his hair and put on the officer’s uniform provided by Samuel White. He then boarded George White’s schooner bound for Ayutthaya. His passage this time up the Menam, the River of Kings, was much different than it had been two years before.

Chapter 5b
Beautiful Sceneries of Ayutthaya

They passed through one quarter after another, quarters that were assigned to foreigners: Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Muslims and Moors and Europeans. The houses where these foreigners lived were brick, and well built. The streets were all cobblestoned. Foreigners lived splendidly. Burnaby was impressed.

At times it was a chore to make their way through the masses of people shoving and pushing every which way through streets, people of every dress, from every country of the East. More than once they lost sight of the Sikhs leading the way and had a trying time locating them again. Fortunately the Sikhs with their turbans stood a head taller than the smaller Siamese and their other Asian cousins. Some streets were less crowded than others, those without shops and storehouses, and these were lined with trees that provided shade and made walking much easier. A few streets were paved with bricks, while others, the majority, were rutted from the wheels of heavy oxen carts, and these were dusty. Elephants with carved howdahs upon their backs where passengers sat, stirred up dust as they wobbled down the center of the streets and roadways. Elephants always had the right of way. Water buffalos by the scores grazed along the banks of the klongs. Young boys attending the buffalos lay sound asleep and stretched out, face down, on their wide generous backs, their naked bodies mud covered as were those of the buffalos. At other klongs boys, frolicking as boys do everywhere, dove from the banks and others from trees into the muddy water, shouting and screaming as they did, calling attention to the two white men as they passed. The entire city was intersected by klongs, and some klongs had become slums where the people lived aboard the tiny sampans. The stench here was terrible. Over the klong were bridges, not merely a few but bridges at every turn. One was never out of sight of a bridge over a klong. Some bridges were arched, elaborately made, constructed of brick, while others were fashioned from bamboo, so narrow and flimsy only skilled nimble walkers could pass over them. A real balancing act, Burnaby thought, and he wondered if the day would come when he too would be able to manage them.

At one street where there were fewer people White stopped suddenly, and grabbing Burnaby’s arm, he whispered, “You are about to meet a very remarkable man.” He pointed up the street, and Burnaby looked in that direction. A priest in a black ankle-length robe stood there, herding a group of young children into a courtyard. “That’s Father Thomas,” he said. When the priest saw them approaching, he greeted them with cupped hands, as the Siamese do.

Father Thomas was beyond middle age, very gray, with a long gray beard and sad, watery blue eyes. His fingers were long and slender, and when he shook hands with Burnaby, Burnaby was surprised to find how cold they were to the touch. What’s the saying, he thought, cold hands, warm heart.

“So fine of you to come to our city. We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. His accent was Portuguese, and like White he called it “our” city. He glanced toward the children who were already inside the courtyard and getting away from him. “You have to excuse me,” he said, “but we will see more of each other, shortly.” In the next instant he was gone.

“He’s a Jesuit,” White said as they resumed their walk. “He runs a school for Siamese orphans. The Catholic French Missionaries don’t get along with him but they have to. He’s the king’s favorite. He’s an engineer, and an architect, and a good one too. He’s worked on a couple of projects for the Icing.”

George White lived in the Japanese quarters. He didn’t admit it openly to Burnaby but he did hint that since he was no longer officially with the East India Company it was best he lived someplace else other than the English quarter. His apartment was simple, well lighted, with few furnishings. What caught Burnaby’s immediate attention when he entered was White’s collection of weapons. They occupied one entire wall, and were both Western and Siamese arms. There were muzzle loaders and pistols in one section, and next to them hung swords with jeweled handles, gilded krises, cutlasses long and slender, and many sharp-bladed weapons of the Siamese. Burnaby was admiring the weapons, White called for his servant, and as silent as a shadow a manservant appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, on hands and knees, his head touching the floor. White gave an order, and when Burnaby looked again, the man had vanished, as silently as when he appeared. Time had hardly passed and he was there again, this time carrying a richly engraved silver tray. “We haven’t received our shipment of import beer,” White apologized. “You will try Siamese beer. Poor stuff but what the hell!”

Burnaby did not hear a word White had said. His attention fell upon a figure standing behind the manservant-a strikingly beautiful woman. She was not a white woman, nor an Asian. She was a mixture of the two, and the best of both. She was part Portuguese, he could tell that. Her hair was thick and black, so black that it made her face look very white. She was tall, very tall in fact, with firm breasts that protruded out from her Spanish lace cotton blouse. Her skirt, embroidered at the hem with dainty flowers, was long down to her ankles, and she wore tiny golden slippers upon her feet. She was a breath of beauty, and as she came across the room, no, as she flowed across the room, she stood beside White who was seated in his cane, fan-back chair. He affectionately put his arm around her slender waist, indicating, “She’s mine.”

“This is Myra,” he said, squeezing her slightly. “Her real name is more complicated so it’s Myra we use.”

Myra left White’s side and came to where Burnaby stood; as she did she brought with her a pleasing scent of fine perfume. She stretched out a hand and on her wrists were bracelets that clanged when she moved. Burnaby took hold of her delicate hand but was at a loss for words. He wanted to say something that would please her but he could not speak, for he was too taken by the unexpected, and then, when he had composed his thoughts, it was too late. A guard from the outside announced visitors had arrived. Without further ado Myra was gone. Only the scent of her perfume lingered on.

Walter McManus was one visitor. He apologized for his not meeting Burnaby when he arrived. “The king’s shipment arrived the same time, and I had to make sure it reached the godown all in one piece,” he said, and in the next breath mentioned that Potts was still at the godown and couldn’t come.

“Give the devil a chance, and you just did. No telling what he’s up to now,” White said to McManus. Then to Burnaby he said, “Potts, Samuel Potts, a scoundrel if there ever was one. Not much we can do about him though. He’s supposed to guard the godowns for the EIC.” Burnaby knew the name immediately. He had been instructed at the head office in London to beware of Potts. Potts was one of the reasons he was being sent to Ayutthaya, to check the records and books that Potts kept.

Others from the East India Company came and went, making brief appearances in the line of duty. Most of them were traders, Arabs and Jews, Portuguese and Dutch. A few Asians appeared, one a dark Japanese gentleman in a naval uniform, but, as White said when he was gone, he was an interloper and not an officer many navy.

The lunch was European, to White’s liking, and served in the garden. In a lull in their conversation, McManus asked how the voyage from India to Melaka was.

“Most interesting,” Burnaby replied, and then remembering a promise he had made to the Greek gunner, he turned to White. “I met an interesting chap and he asked me to give you his regards.”

”And who might that be?” White asked.

”A Greek. We called him gunner, a good man, but his name-” “Gerakis,” White interrupted. “That bastard, what do you know, he’s still with the company. Good on him. Great guy, great seaman, good with weapons and good with his fists-“

”And good with languages. He can speak half a dozen languages.” “More than half a dozen. Great chap. Lucky he’s alive. Could have lost his head had it not been for the governor turning soft. His two mates were turned loose and are still knocking around Ayutthaya.

I see them now and then. They’re doing well for themselves. And Gerakis, where is he now?”

Burnaby was quick to reply. He told how he and Gerakis had met, and that Gerakis was now waiting in Mergui for the monsoon to change so that he could ship back to India. Then he added, “I could make use of someone like him, with all his skills and his languages.”

“You say he’s in Mergui,” White said, lingering on the thought a moment, and then continued, choosing every word carefully. “The monsoons haven’t changed. The Greek is probably still there.”

“I imagine he is, still,” Burnaby replied with a chuckle. “The mate of the Hopewell said he found himself a half cast Indian lady that he fancies, to keep him company while he’s in port.”

”An Anglo-Indian, you don’t say,” White said and chucked to himself. “It must be that Greek blood. The ladies go for him.”

“You do all right,” McManus said, pointing to the upstairs. White didn’t respond. His thoughts were elsewhere far away. He was thinking about Gerakis, the gunner. He was hatching an idea. He knew well he wasn’t governed by the rules of the East India Company. He could do pretty much what he pleased. “You say you could use someone like him,” White said, not as a question but as a statement. “Then why don’t we bring him here?”

“You serious?” Burnaby questioned.

”As serious as I am White!”

“He’s banished from the kingdom.”

“A shipwrecked seaman who dared look at the king is banished. It shouldn’t have happened! I saw him when they were loading him aboard that frigate to take him away. He was a pathetic looking fool. There was nothing anyone could do. You don’t break rules when it comes to royalty. We couldn’t help him, even if we wanted to. Anyway Ayutthaya is full of derelicts, outcasts, white men, drunkards, swindlers, henchmen, just name it, men with a price on their head, men who would sell their souls for a pittance. What was to separate him from all the other riffraff? Good riddance everyone thought when he left. Anyone would have been a fool to try to defend him. No matter, he was getting off light, and with his head. He was in chains, and one could hardly recognize him. Change his name and who would know the difference?”

“Getting him here might be the problem,” Burnaby said.

“No problem,” White said. He seemed to feed on a new challenge. “We would have no difficulty smuggling the Greek back into Ayutthaya. The monsoon hasn’t changed yet, which means that he would still be in Mergui. My brother Samuel, as you know, is holed up there, working for the king, and I know Muslim merchants operating in the south. The Greek can cross the peninsula with them, on one of their smuggling trips to Songkau where the Greek can ship aboard one of my vessels sailing to Ayutthaya.”

Burnaby was quite surprised that White talked openly about smuggling and illegal trading with members of the East India Company present, himself included.

It was decided by all, Gunner Gerakis would come to Ayutthaya, but not as Gerakis. They would give him a new identity. “Constantine Gerakis, his name in English, translates to ‘falcon,”‘ McManus said. “Another spelling for falcon is phaulkon.”

“That’s it,” said White jubilantly. “That’s it. His name henceforth is Phaulkon. That’s it-Phaulkon. Never again shall the name Gerakis be mentioned. It’s Constantine Phaulkon. I’ll draw up the papers and dispatch a message to Mergui.” The manservant uncorked another bottle of East India rum.

Chapter 5a
AYUTTHAYA CALLING

Eighteen days after departing Melaka, HMS Hopewell arrived at Ayutthaya. The last three days were painfully slow, waiting for the incoming tides to carry the trading square rigger upriver, mooring to kedging posts while the tides ebbed. At the lower Menam there was hardly enough wind to carry the ship upriver, and tacking in close quarters required the effort of the entire crew. Hopewell arrived at the southern gate of the city in the darkness, with an exhausted crew, and dropped anchor mid-stream. It was a mystifying world of strange sounds Richard Burnaby heard as he stood at the rail staring into the night. There was little he could see-the glow of lamps of other ships at anchor, the flickering of fires on shore, and an occasional flare of light that rose up from the city. A signal of some sort, Burnaby surmised. From out of the dark came strange sounds. The tongues of voices from other ships he couldn’t understand. They were shouts of ships’ crews working their anchors, and the call of boatmen paddling their scows and sampans to-and-fro the shore. He could only peer into the darkness, wondering what lay ahead for him in this strange land. It was an enormous responsibility that the East India Company entrusted to him, and he accepted it gladly, but now, as he stood at the railing listening to the unfamiliar sounds, for the first time he began to question his decision. Was he tough enough to challenge the East? Would he not have been better off accepting a post with the trading company with less responsibility? But, with a deep breath he sighed, and realized there was little he could do about it now. He would do his best for the East India Company, and for England. He wished he had that Greek gunner with him.

He slept little that night, awakened now and then by the sound of chain rattling in the hawse as the ship swung on its anchor with the shifting tide. He was wide awake at the first light of dawn, summoned by a frail light that filtered through his open porthole. He arose, and in the darkness below deck, he felt his way along the corridor to the ladder that led topside. He stepped on deck, nodded to the marine on watch, took out his pipe and found a place to sit on a forward hatch. The river was still at this hour with a mist rising up from the water. The shimmers of red sky in the east gave hint that dawn was approaching. He looked out upon the scene as one might upon a giant mosaic, and he had yet to comprehend where all the pieces might fit. As night turned to day, forms began to slowly take shape. Far down river, ships in line pulled at their anchors, a continuum of ships that faded away into a blur in the mist. There seemed to be no end to the vessels at anchor, stretching for what appeared to be several miles. Ships from more nations than he could count-Chinese junks with their high sterns, Makassar schooners from the Dutch East Indies, Arab dhows from the African coast, square riggers from the West, lighters and barges, skiffs and prows-they all came to engage in the business of trade.

Baffled by the magnitude of what lay down river, Burnaby turned to face the other direction, toward the town, and a sight even more startling befell him. Like a picture in a book of children’s fairytales, Ayutthaya loomed up before him, the kingdom of the East he had heard so much about but which few Westerners had ever visited. Was he feasting upon an allusion? Were his eyes deceiving him? Perhaps, after all, the Greek gunner was right. This was a city even mightier than Genoa and Venice. Only a cable or two from where Hopewell was anchored, edging its way to the river was a massive brick wall, crumbling in places, under repair in others. Even at this early morning hour, work on the wall had begun. An army of laborers, bent under the weight of heavy wicker baskets of bricks, carried their loads to hoists that lifted the bricks up the wall to where masons worked cementing them into place. Elephants in the dozens rolled heavy logs along the embankment, logs that formed the foundation for the scaffolding.

Above and behind the wall, in towering masses of masonry, rose the magnificent kingdom of the East called Ayutthaya, As he sat there, mesmerized by the dazzling beauty of the scene before him, the sun slowly began to appear from over the tops of trees in the distance, and as it did it cast a red glow upon an assortment of domes and spires, of temples and stupas, and of palaces with many tiered, upturned roofs, all festooned with Nagas at the eaves, each pointing skyward. Freckled patches of gold on the temples sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The sight was overpowering.

The great Menam flowed along the southern wall of the city, and here flat bottom scows and barges were run high up on the bank of the river, unloading their cargoes carried ashore from ships at anchor. Burnaby watched a longboat manned by a dozen rowers emerge from the frenzy and make a straight course for his ship. He watched it come through the mist, closer and closer, until it was alongside. Mooring lines were cast and the rowers shipped their oars smartly into an upright position. By their action Burnaby knew instantly the crew had been western trained. And indeed they were, for on a raised platform amidships stood a white man, his arms akimbo, his legs apart. He was garbed in tropical white, the mark of Europeans, and tucked under his arm was a tropical pith helmet. He shouted instructions to his small crew, and they responded with speed and certainty.

”Ahoy,” he called out to the marine sentry at the top of the ladder when his vessel was securely moored. The voice was English. “Ahoy,” he called again. The marine acknowledged and informed the man he could come aboard. Burnaby came aft to greet him. He knew at once who he was.

“Mr. White I assume,” he said, and stretched out his hand. He was right.

“George White, at your service,” the man replied.

George White it was, middle aged, tall and wide shouldered, and burned brown by years of tropical sun. He was tough and weathered, that was certain. He shook Burnaby’s hand. The grip was firm. Burnaby could study him better now once he was aboard. His hair was graying at the temples and he sported a huge handlebar moustache that cascaded over his upper lip. A crimson scar on his left cheek told that he was no slacker. His voice commanded respect and authority. Without asking Burnaby, he barked out orders to his Hindu sepoys who had followed him aboard, for them to go below deck and fetch Burnaby’s gear. “They can go by canal boat to your quarters,” he addressed Burnaby, “but we can walk, and you can see some of our city.” He called it “our” city. How unusual for a foreigner, Burnaby thought, but before he could say a further word, they were aboard the longboat headed towards shore.

Two turbaned Sikh footmen, each with a truncheon in hand, sabers at their sides, awaited them when they stepped ashore. They were stern men, unsmiling. No words were passed, and none was needed; they knew their duties. White explained they were in the employ of the East India Company, and had been assigned to be Burnaby’s security. The Sikhs led the way, waving their sticks, clearing a path for the two white men to follow.

They passed through the huge gate constructed of heavy timbers, crossed with beams, and studded with bolts and entered another world. Within the confines of the wall there were more waterways, a labyrinth of canals, which White called klongs. Upon these klongs were more vessels congested together: sampans, barges, scows, even bundles of bamboo that served as crude rafts used for transporting people and goods. There was hardly room through the center of the klongs for watercraft to move, but somehow they managed, aided by shouts and warnings. Some boats were rowed, oddly enough by a man or woman standing upright, deftly crossing the handle of one oar over the other. Some were paddled, and still others sculled by single oars aft. They came upon more boats, long and slender, beautifully carved and gilded in gold, their crews in wonderful bright uniforms, standing by. “They are at the beckon of the king,” White said.

White knew the city well. ”Ayutthaya is divided into quarters and each quarter by wide boulevards,” he explained like a teacher talking to his student. “The king’s quarters, of course, are the finest, but taboo for the likes of us.” White pointed them out as they passed. Through a wide gate flanked by guards clutching long javelins in each hand they could see beyond the opening great squares and tree-shaded walks, with the grand houses farther back where the nobility lived. Everywhere were sparkling pagodas with pointed roofs.

They came upon a huge, splendid temple, which White said was the Royal Wat. “We should take a quick look inside,” he said and led Burnaby up the steps to the entrance. While the Sikhs waited outside, they entered and once inside Burnaby could do little else but stand in awe before a statue of a magnificent golden Buddha. He judged the statue to be more than thirty-five feet high. It was molded in gold-pure gold, White said-and surrounded by many lesser golden idols inlaid with precious stones. “Everything in the bloody temple is of gold,” White announced. “See, the vases, the candlesticks, everything. The gold, where do they get all the gold? I’ll tell yah’. It’s given to the king, presented to him, as tribute from the rulers of Cambodia, Laos, Annan and other neighboring countries. When you’ve got might in the East you’ve got wealth. Simple as that. Wait till you see the king’s war elephants, thousands of the critters, and then you’ll understand.”

CH04

SIAM AT LAST

On the morning of the fourth day, the captives awoke to find the sea had calmed. Gerakis was certain they were nearing the mouth of the great river. He remembered hearing about a sandbar far out at sea that served as the first line of defense for the Siamese capital. Ships had to negotiate a narrow passage through the bar, a passage which only experienced pilots could navigate with certainty. If a ship ran aground, it might take weeks before a rising tide could set it free and there was always the chance that the ship might break up before that happened, especially when sudden storms swept down from the China Sea.

Gerakis saw it all before him in his mind’s eye. He had listened, over and over, to sailors tell tales about their passage upriver to Ayutthaya, a voyage that carried them for thirty leagues through a dazzling world of temples and spiral domes that sparkled in the sun, and where elephants came down by the hundreds to the water’s edge to cool off in the river. He wondered if there were Dutch gunboats still blockading the river. The Dutch had first arrived in 1604, built factories and warehouses, and, for nearly a half century, controlled a lucrative, flourishing trade, until the British and French made their way up the river to the capital. The Dutch believed they had the sole right to the trade, but when the king refused them special commercial privileges, they blockaded the river. That was a dozen years before Gerakis arrived and he now wondered who had control of the river.

Gerakis had never traveled the river, and yet he knew it well. He knew that the mouth was as wide as a lake, making it difficult for the Siamese to guard the kingdom against foreign intrusion. To counteract the threat, the Siamese loaded junks and barges with stones and sank them at marked locations in the river, forcing ships to enter a narrow passageway which they could control with their batteries of cannons on the shore. There was a fort there too, at a place called Pak Nam. Gerakis, with his head buried in his knees, listened intently for a sound he knew would come. With each dip of their paddles, they came closer and closer, and then, sure enough, the sound he waited for was clear and certain. It was the rattle of a chain. The seamen whose tales he had listened to were right. The Siamese placed huge chains across the entrance, and these they could lower and raise at will. He was certain now that cannons on the shore were trained at them as they passed.

The boat arrived at a dockside and Gerakis could hear shouting and movement from a gathering crowd above.

Finally the three captives were led ashore and their blindfolds removed. Gerakis had his first real glimpse at a Siamese town, but only briefly. Unaccustomed to the glaring sun, he had to keep his head lowered. Soon more prisoners, a mob of unruly ruffians, all shackled together, were brought to the dock and Gerakis and his two shipwrecked mates were shoved with them aboard a large riverboat. They were placed amidships, and forced to keep their heads down. Without further delay, their voyage upriver continued. Gerakis lost count of how many times they changed crews. Judging by the sun’s rays that bore down on them, he was aware that the river snaked around numerous bends and more than once nearly came back upon itself. It was, as he had been told, a winding river. Huddled in the bottom of the boat, he could hear sounds from the shore as they passed villages; he heard elephants trumpeting along the riverbanks where their mahouts brought them to bathe; he listened to the crew calling out to other crews as their vessels passed one another on the river. Everywhere there was activity of some sort, most of it strange and unfamiliar. Although he was bound, and feared raising this head for want of another beating, he still found it exciting. As uncomfortable as he was, he was very much at ease. He felt confident he would have no difficulty explaining his circumstances to the authorities and they would grant him permission to remain in the capital. After all, he reasoned, he had done nothing  wrong.

Even confined as he was, he put his time to use. He picked  up words from the crew and put them to memory. It would take him no time to master the Siamese language, he thought. The excitement of the voyage, with the thought of arriving in the Siam capital, enabled him to endure the pain. He tried not to think of the rattan cords that bound his hands and cut deeply into his flesh, nor about his body that ached from the cramped position he was forced to keep. For two nights the captives slept in the bottom of the boat, slouching in water. On the third day they reached their destination. Finally they were permitted to sit upright when soldiers boarded the boat and removed their blindfolds.  They had arrived at the walls of Ayutthaya. Beyond was the great Eastern city, claimed by sailors and merchants to be greater than Genoa and Venice. The truth was at hand.

Things happened quickly now. Soldiers pulled the prisoners from the boat and shoved them onto the dock, forcing them down to their knees. But they were not alone. All about them other boats were crowding the dock and their crews and passengers too-men, women and children-hurried frantically to get ashore, and they, like the prisoners, fell to their knees. No one moved; they uttered not a sound. Everyone faced in the same direction, away from the city, and down a wide unpaved road flanked by towering shade trees whose branches formed a kind of tunnel. Gerakis glanced in the other direction toward the city. A massive arched portal, with a drawbridge that was lowered over a moat, was opened by troops of soldiers guarding the entrance.

Then, from down the road, came the sound of a trumpet  and, at the signal, every person along the roadside and on the waterfront threw himself or herself down, prostrate to the ground, their arms stretched out before their bodies, their foreheads touching the ground. For a moment Gerakis remained with his body upright, baffled, uncertain what to do. Diego quickly came to his aid, and with a hand on his shoulder, cried, “Down, my friend, get down.”

Reluctantly Gerakis lowered his head. As he did he could see armed soldiers approaching the crowd with their lances at port arms. Gerakis had hardly lowered his head when he felt the earth beneath him tremble, ever so slightly at first, and then more violently. It was more than he could endure. His curiosity got the best of him. He slowly raised his head, and then his body to a half-sitting position to where he could see over the crowd. A sight befell him that he never, not in his wildest imagination, expected. It was a sudden explosion of color and grandeur. And he alone was the only one among the mass of people to witness it. All others, as far as he could see, remained with their bodies prostrate and their heads down.

Coming toward him was a magnificent elephant procession. It was dazzling beyond his comprehension. Dozens of elephants, no, hundreds, all brightly painted from their trunks to their backsides, and adorned with fancy ornaments and garlands of flowers, and upon these magnificent beasts were carved carriages fringed with gold filigree, shaded from the sun by bright canopies with trailing silk banners. The procession of elephants wobbled forward in a column of twos, shaking the earth beneath their feet as they trod ever so slowly and effortlessly along.

Astride one of the leading elephants rode a bejeweled noble of high rank, and Gerakis knew instantly he had to be His Majesty the King, the ruler of Siam. So splendid was his raiment, so regal did he appear, that there could be no mistaking who he was. Indeed, he was King Narai himself. On another elephant at his side sat an officer of high rank, which Gerakis learned later was General Phetracha, King Narai’s close friend since childhood. They were coming from the field and about  to enter the city.

The procession drew closer, and was about to pass but a few meters away from the prisoners, when the king caught sight of one prisoner who stood out from all the others, one whose head that was not lowered. It was Gerakis. For a brief moment their eyes met-the king in his entire fine splendor, and the prisoner, a white man, unkempt and in torn rags. That glimpse of the king, and their eye-to-eye contact, would be the last thing that Gerakis would remember. So engrossed was he in seeing the king that he took no notice of the soldier approaching from behind with his lance raised high above his head. The solider brought the butt-end of the weapon down hard on the prisoner’s  head.

All the rest was blanked out from his memory. When he next awoke, he was in prison.

CH04

Chapter 4
MASTER OF THE SEAS

It was the fair southeast monsoon winds that brought the East India Company merchant ship HMS Hopewell from Calicut across the Bay of Bengal toward Melaka. In the fading light of day a lone figure sat with his back against the shrouds on the foremast far above deck, staring out at the great arch of empty sea that stretched before them. It was too early for the stars to appear, even Venus, and only a sliver of moon appeared above the horizon. The man sitting there was Gerakis, the ship’s gunner. He had been a year aboard Hopewell in the service of the East India Company. “What does he do up there every night?” Richard Burnaby asked Captain Farnsworth, master of Hopewell. The two men were standing at the binnacle behind the helmsman.

“That I don’t know,” the captain replied, “and it ain’t nary me business to pry. He’s a good seaman and that’s what’s important.” Burnaby had already reached that conclusion, that the gunner was a good seaman, for he had been following him ever since they left Calicut. The gunner was a hard man not to notice. He was everywhere at once. A call from the mate for the larboard watch on deck, and he would be the first there. When a call came to ease the starboard braces, he was there. He knew how to trim sails to get the best from them, and when the seas were calm and the men sat on deck stitching canvas and splicing line, he was there to join in the tedious work. He could set a dead eye with a marlinspike faster than anyone. And in a storm he handled himself remarkably well. In a force eight wind while rounding the cape he was up the ratlines to the topgallant and reefing canvas before some men were out of the hatch and on deck.

But it was more than his seamanship that captured the attention of Burnaby. In Calicut before they sailed, he watched the young gunner conducting ship’s business on the waterfront, acting on behalf of the mate and supercargo, speaking Portuguese to officials, Malay to the workers, and Tai to some Siamese merchants. He seemed to know everyone, and they knew him. He accompanied the supercargo ashore on every occasion, and he wheeled and dealed, always securing a good bargain, adding to the ship’s profit.

But there was something even more than the gunner’s command of languages and his ability to set the main course in a gale that fascinated Burnaby. It was his awareness of the world in which he lived. He never volunteered information, but when asked he had answers. Often the captain invited Gerakis to dine at the captain’s mess for the officers enjoyed his company. On these occasions Burnaby queried him about many things, about trade in the remote Spice Islands, the ports they were to visit, about Mergui and Melaka, Hopewell was putting into Melaka to discharge cargo before sailing around the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and then through the South China Sea to Ayutthaya far up the River Menam. Captain Farnsworth was under orders to carry Burnaby to his new post in Ayutthaya, but first they had to stop at Melaka. Gerakis would leave the ship there and continue up the coast aboard another East India Company vessel to Mergui. In Mergui he would wait out the monsoon.

Those aboard Hopewell who hadn’t been to Melaka wanted to learn more about the port, and thus Melaka was a subject they kept pestering Gerakis about. What was Melaka like? Who in his opinion were the best rulers, the Portuguese or the Dutch? It never ended. One night at the captain’s table, after they lit their cigars and rum was poured, Burnaby again asked the question, was Melaka better off before colonial rule?

“Before the Portuguese and the Dutch it was the Chinese who were a threat to Melaka, and they still are,” Gerakis answered. “And before that, there was nothing, nothing at all up and down the coast of the peninsula, only jungles, pestilence and wild beasts ready to pounce on anyone who stepped ashore. Only fishermen stopped by, and of course pirates who hid out in the coves and mangrove swamps. The Malays you find there today are not native to the country. They came from Sumatra across the strait. They were not invited; they just came. I never could understand the complaint about the Portuguese and the Dutch, they were never invited, true, but neither were the Malays. Maybe only the little black people who dwell deep in the jungle are the rightful owners. As for the Dutch, they are the tough masters.”

From the tone in his voice it was clear that he didn’t like the Dutch. He continued: “Until twenty years ago Melaka was Portuguese. They held it for one hundred and fifty years. When they captured the port the Sultan thought they would plunder the place and move on. Nothing of the kind. The Portuguese had other ideas; they were determined to make it one of the mightiest strongholds in the East. They demolished mosques and used the bricks to build themselves a walled fortress. They were here to stay. Within a couple years Melaka became the trading center of the East. Their commander, Admiral d’Albuquerque, gave each of his soldiers a horse, a piece of land and a brown-skin wife.”

“What did the local men have to say about that?” Burnaby questioned

“Not much they could say,” Gerakis replied. “The Portuguese had bigger guns, and Portuguese seamen had no complaint about taking dark-skin ladies for mates-” he said it with a smile-“but then all that ended when the Dutch came with their swords and guns. Real bloody assassins they were. They destroyed everything Portuguese, everything the Portuguese had done for the people. Left only the gate standing as a reminder. They re-built the city in the likes of Amsterdam. The walls of the fortress were repaired and the bastions renamed. A moat was dug around the fortress and a drawbridge built. And that’s where we are headed now-Melaka.”

Gerakis spoke of the East with feeling and compassion. He had sincere admiration for the Portuguese and told how they sailed up the River Menam and so impressed the King of Siam that the king made a treaty with them, granted them trading rights, and he agreed his kingdom would not stand in their way if the Portuguese wanted to take Melaka. He was a wise king, as wise as the present king, Gerakis emphasized. “He was no fool like some Westerners thought,” Gerakis said. “Let the Portuguese fight the Chinese. The Chinese also had designs on Melaka. And so the Portuguese took Melaka, and they established trading agreements with the Siamese.” Gerakis talked at length about these and many other things, and everyone listened with interest. The young Greek was certainly well informed. But what Gerakis liked most to talk about was the incredible voyages of a forgotten Chinese admiral named Zheng He. He revealed how this little known Chinese admiral sailed his fleet of junks, some with many hundreds of crew, from the Chinese mainland to Siam, up the River Menam to Ayutthaya, and then to Melaka and as far as the Africa coast. Admiral Zheng He made seven voyages in all. On one voyage he commanded sixty-two ships and twenty-six thousand men, and carried the daughter of the Emperor of China for her hand in marriage to the Sultan of Melaka. To accompany his daughter, the emperor sent aboard the same vessel five hundred handmaidens. “And they were all virgins,” Gerakis added with a grin.

“The Emperor trusted him with five hundred virgins on board?” Captain Farnsworth asked.

“Why not!” Gerakis said and laughed aloud. “Admiral Zheng He, he was a eunuch. What do you expect? The emperor had nothing to fear from him.”

“You mean-” Burnaby started to ask, but Gerakis cut him short. “I mean everything. They cut everything off in one sweeping hack of the knife. And like all eunuchs he carried his jewels in a small leather sack around his neck. Couldn’t be buried without them. Chinese custom.”

”I’d rather have them where they belong,” Captain Farnsworth said in earnest. The others agreed.

“That must be loyalty in the Asian way of things,” Burnaby said. “Not that I believe loyalty has to go that far.”

“Loyalty to the emperor,” Gerakis interjected, “but not to fellow man. That’s the Asian way.”

One evening after dinner when Burnaby and Gerakis were alone on deck smoking their pipes, Burnaby asked Gerakis if he would like to accompany him to Ayutthaya.

“I would like nothing better, Sir,” he replied, “but I’m afraid that would be impossible.” He then explained to Burnaby why he was unable to return to Ayutthaya. “If caught it would mean my death for sure. But you can do one thing for me when you arrive in Ayutthaya. You can look up a free trader for me, an interloper he is, and the best in his field. His name is George White and he lives there in the capital. We met aboard a company ship sailing from London bound for Madras. We became good friends. At the time White worked for the East India Company but since then he has become an interloper. Nevertheless, being an Englishman with good standing in the East, he remains under friendly terms with the East India Company, and I hear they respect him. Give him my regards.”

“You’re in luck,” Burnaby replied. “He’s the man I am to meet when I arrive in Ayutthaya.”

HMS Hopewell made its routine stop in Melaka, concluded its trading business there and prepared to sail to Ayutthaya. Gerakis bid Captain Farnsworth and Burnaby farewell. He wished he could go with them, a thing more than anything else in the world he wanted to do. But he couldn’t go, not then. That didn’t exclude, however, his ever returning to the Siamese capital. He wasn’t giving up. Somehow he would find a way to get back to Ayutthaya.

Two days later, after Hopewell had departed, Gerakis sailed northward through the narrow Melaka Strait, past Junkceylon Island to Mergui. It was here in Mergui that he had to wait for the monsoon winds to change. Half the year the monsoon blows from the northeast, and sailing vessels took advantage of the wind and sailed westward to the Coromandel Coast and around the cape on to Europe. The other half of the year the wind blows from the southwest, and these winds brought vessels from Africa and India to Melaka, and then on to the rest of Southeast Asia, as far as the Spice Islands of the East Indies. Gerakis would have to wait months for the winds to change, but he would not be idle. The East India Company was certain to make use of his services while he was in port, and there was a long-hair, coffee-eyed lady that helped him pass the time.

CH03

THE GREEK SAILOR, “CONSTANTINE GERAKIS”

He lay in the sand, face down, and a voice came from far away.

“Wake up,” it called. ‘Wake up.” Slowly he awoke like one does when coming out of a trance. It was a pleasant dream and he didn’t want to wake up. He was a boy again, back in Greece, long before he ran away and went to sea. It was all peace and quiet. But, as he slowly recovered his senses, the dream became a frightening nightmare with terrible screaming in the night and the terrifying sounds of rigging crashing down and timbers splintering. The ship was going down. There was the hatch, with the line tied to his wrist. It all came back to him, except it was not a nightmare, nor a bad dream. It was real. He was shipwrecked, cast up on a forbidden shore. A shore but which shore? The voice he heard was Malay. The ship went down in Malay waters, pirate waters. He heard the voice again, and now he felt a nudge on his shoulder. “Wake up,” it demanded, and a hand forcibly rolled him over on his back. The sun had yet to rise and against the soft glow of the gray sky he brought into focus not one but two faces staring down at him. He gave a faint smile and a hand reached down to pull him up to a sitting position. The men were not Malay. They were Portuguese, two deck passengers he had seen from time to time aboard Putra Siamang.

He had fleeting glimpses of them in the storm, not together but singly, each at his own endeavor to save the doomed ship. The taller of the two, the older one, labored frantically to lash down the main boom to keep it from swinging dangerously out of control. The other man, with the wind tearing the shirt from his body, struggled at the wheel along with the helmsmen to keep the ship on course. His too, like his mate’s, was a losing battle. The Greek saw them, and then he didn’t, until now. The men must have thought he was Malay, or Javanese. The Greek was often mistaken for an islander. He was dark, not from birth but from his years under a tortuous tropical sun which had turned him the color of mahogany. He answered them not  in Malay but in Portuguese, a tongue he had learned while working with the East India Company out of Goa. He introduced himself “Constantine Gerakis,” he said. They shook hands. The older of the two men called himself Diego, and the other, Christoph. They too were en route to Ayutthaya, to cast their luck with the British there, rather than remain with their Dutch masters in Batavia from where  they came.

The  three men took stock of their situation. They were happy to have survived the storm and, like lost old friends, slapped one another on their backs. But their merriment was short-lived. They heard shouting coming from down the way. They stopped and turned in that direction.

All along the shoreline was the shattered wreckage of the ill-fated ship: bodies had washed up on the sand, along with the debris, bits of rigging and splintered masts, tangled with torn sails and lines. They then saw the soldiers, a patrol of about a dozen men, brandishing long lances. By their dress they knew instantly they were Siamese, for they wore wrap-around baggy breeches and leather hats, like skullcaps, except these hats extended down to their shoulders and covered their ears. As they worked their way up the beach, they prodded the bodies with the butt-ends of their lances, checking if any were still alive; they rummaged through the debris, lifting pieces of planks and boards with their lances, turning some of them over. They were delighted at their discovery of the wreck, as though it was their doing, shouting  and frolicking like victors after winning a sporting event. They suddenly turned solemn when they saw the three castaways up the beach, standing there, very much alive. It was too late for the three men to run and attempt to make good an escape. The soldiers bore down on them, swinging their lances like war clubs. They charged as wild animals charge, circling the three helpless men, knocking them down to their knees.

Gerakis attempted to calm them down by speaking to them first in Malay, next in Portuguese, and  finally in English;  but his endeavor only tended to fire their anger more and make the situation far worse. The soldiers turned upon him and mercilessly pounded him across his back with their lances, knocking him flat into the sand. Gradually the soldiers, finding their prey helpless, eased off and, after conferring with one another, blindfolded the captives and bound them with their arms secured behind their backs. They then herded the prisoners up the beach a few hundred meters to where an inlet of water flowed to the sea. When the men found it was fresh, they fell to their knees and began lapping  up the water, like craved animals, as the soldiers kept prodding them to move along. They kept stumbling through the shallow water until they bumped against the bulwark of a vessel.

Still blindfolded, Gerakis and the two Portuguese were forced aboard and made to sit three abreast in the bilge amidships. Gerakis reasoned the vessel was a longboat of sorts, large enough to be sea going. He had heard seamen talk about these boats, men who had sailed the River of Kings, or the Menam as some called it, to Ayutthaya. They spoke of them as remarkable vessels, some more than a hundred feet long, with finely carved bows and sterns that  rose high into the air. Gerakis surmised this was the same type of vessel, propelled not by sail power but by oars, or in this case, paddles.

As they sat in the bottom of the boat, water sloshed against their buttocks each time one of the crew came aboard or disembarked, causing the boat to heel to one side. Helpless, all they could do was listen to the sounds and wonder  about their fate. They heard the crew take positions along the port and starboard sides and then the thumping of their paddles against the hull. The boat backed down the waterway, and once free from the channel, turned and faced the onslaught of an incoming sea. The crew took up a chant to a cadence set by a drummer stationed somewhere aft, and in unison, they dipped their paddles and the longboat moved forward, slowly at first. But with each thrust of their paddles, and with an increase in tempo of the beat of the drummer, it gained momentum and was soon gliding over the surface of the water at what seemed to be above the waves. When the sun rose above the horizon, the sun’s rays fell on their starboard and Gerakis determined they were heading northward toward the River of Kings, the waterway that would hopefully carry them upriver to the Siamese capital. At last, he was going to Ayutthaya, not exactly by a method he had in mind, but, nevertheless, to Ayutthaya.

For three days and three nights the crew labored at their paddles.

Every few hours they changed relief with the boat constantly kept in motion. On the morning of the second day, a crewman freed their hands and removed their blindfolds. He handed them wooden bowls, and from a bucket he ladled out watery rice mixed with seaweed. When they finished that, he refilled their bowls with hot water floating with a few tea leaves. Once done, he blindfolded them again and bound their hands, and the voyage continued.

CH03

CH02

SURVIVED

Things began to fall apart on the fifth day when a man died-a Dyak from Borneo. The passengers thought his death was a curse, and they were convinced of it when they learned, while burying him at sea, that he was a bomoh, a witch doctor.

On the seventh day, a slight breeze from the northeast rustled the sails and with it came hope as the crew hurried to set the main. But hope turned to alarm by nightfall. The wind increased, not slowly, but with a sudden fury. The crew had to reef the main. By nightfall it had reached gale force strength and sails were lowered. By midnight it was blowing a full storm. By dawn much of the rigging and top sails had been carried away and still the force of the winds grew in strength. When night fell on the second day, the Greek knew the tossing little ship would not see another day.

While the terrified crew huddled in fright along the deck on the lee-side of the main cabin, the Greek was hard at work on the foredeck. Between bashes of lightning, he labored to remove the hatch from its hinges, and once it was free, he tied one end of a line to it and the other end to his wrist. And there he waited. He knew it wouldn’t be long. Water had begun entering open seams in the ship’s hull faster than the crew could bail. Finally they gave up in despair.

The captain, who lay drunk and passed out in his cabin, was of no help. The helmsman worked hard to save the vessel, keeping her close-hauled into the wind, but the closer he pointed her bow into the eye of the storm, the more violently she pounded. With each thrust of wave the bow rose up high, shuddering as it did, like a dog shaking water from its back, only to come crashing down into a deep trough, completely submerging itself once again. The helms man could fall off and ease the pounding but out there, somewhere to port in the blackness of night, was land, but not friendly land. It was inhospitable land of which he was well aware. To become shipwrecked on the eastern shore of the peninsula that jutted south from Siam was a fate worse than drowning at sea. Malay pirates waited in coves for ships in distress. Despite his effort to keep the tossing ship on its northern course, the gale, for certain, was blowing them toward land.

The doomed ship shuddered and groaned; their only hope now was that they might have sailed far enough to the north to be in Siamese waters, away from the pirate coast to the south. It was far better to be shipwrecked along a coast under control of Siamese, who wanted to take their captives alive, to make slaves of them to build their cities and great temples, rather than be taken by Malay pirates who wanted plunder, and whose Dyak crews wanted not riches but human heads for their prizes.

Then it happened! In one choking green sea, with white foam everywhere, the Greek, clinging to the hatch on the foredeck, had fleeting glimpses of splintered masts crashing down while bodies in tangled rigging flew by in blurred images that would forever haunt him. He had survived other wrecks, some terribly violent, but now they seemed to have been only tests for what was to come. It was terrifying, the cracking sound of the ship breaking up. Then, in one violent thrust, the hatch cover he was tethered to broke free from the vessel and he found himself clinging to it among the tossing debris of the wreck. Voices called out in the darkness, helpless voices, but he could offer no condolence, and give no help.

Relief came when he heard the surf breaking. In his dazed confused mind he knew enough to untie himself from the hatch and let the unrolling surf carry him ashore and deposit him on land. He had survived.

CH02

CH01

SHIPWRECKED

The passengers and crew of Putra Siamang had seen little of the Greek on deck before the storm. It wasn’t until the ship began to break up under them that they saw him rushing around the deck attempting to make some order out of chaos. The Greek had not been pleased with the trading schooner from the moment he stepped aboard in Batavia, nor was he in favor of the half-cast Portuguese captain and his dozen Javanese crew. The ship was terribly overcrowded and unseaworthy. The Greek knew it was a bad choice to book passage aboard the trader but he had no other option: there were no other vessels sailing to Ayutthaya.

In addition to her captain and crew, the supercargo and her six cabin passengers, Putra Siamang sailed under the Dutch flag with something like sixty deck passengers-Javanese, Malays, Chinese and Siamese, men, women and children, each with their sleeping mats, pandanus sacks filled with clothing, to say nothing of bundles of food stuff.

Nevertheless, it had started as a promising voyage.

Their first port-of-call after leaving Batavia was to be Songkau, a seaport in southern Siam. The King of Siam had opened Songkau to trade and, in less than a decade, she had grown rich and prosperous. Chinese merchants came down from the Chinese mainland, Arab traders from Muscat and Dubai, and Muslim immigrants from Java and other islands in the Dutch East Indies, all eager to engage in trade and, with some, desirous to make new homes for themselves. The Portuguese captain, seeing the chance to make a bit of profit for himself, overloaded the vessel in Batavia; all the same when they set sail, no one had cause for complaint, neither the regular cabin passengers nor the sixty-five deck passengers either. All had begun well and, at most, it was only a seven days passage to Songkau. There the deck passengers would disembark and much of the cargo would be unloaded.

But Putra Siamangwas overloaded, terribly. She was only seventy tons and the captain had no right to carry the mob on board that he did. Beneath her hatches she was jammed with trade goods for the Siamese market. Even the chart room was packed full with cargo. It was a miracle that the Javanese could work her. There was no moving around on decks, and to get about they had to climb back and forth along the rigging.

At night time they were forced to walk upon the sleepers who carpeted the deck, two deep. There were also chickens and a number of goats on deck, plus sacks of durians, while every conceivable space was festooned with strings of drinking coconuts and bunches of rambutans and bananas. On both sides, between the fore and main shrouds, lines had been stretched, just low enough for the fore boom to swing clear. From these lines at least fifty bunches of bananas were suspended.

The tiny ship was also pushing the southeast monsoon to its limit. The season was near its end and, once the northeast winds began blowing, it would be a difficult, if not an impossible passage to make. Sailing ships never fought the northeast monsoon. The loading of cargo in Batavia had taken longer than expected. Time was against them.

In the beginning the southeast monsoon had little wind and they could only ghost along. Then, after three days, the winds died away in a dozen or so gasping breaths. The calm continued for the next four days-with a glaring sun overhead and a glassy calm sea beneath-and thirst became constant with everyone aboard. But the very thought of drinking foul tepid water from leather goatskin sacks was nauseating. The drinking coconuts had long since been consumed.

CH01