CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Since the encounter with the Victory, the Ghost had undergone a voyage along the African coast and spent time on the island of Madagascar while Fial recuperated. The natives had powerful potions to fight infections which assisted in Fial's rehabilitation.
Naval sea power could be encountered from all directions, some not known to Fial, so they began to move around at night using Fial's inbuilt celestial navigation skills. The closer to the Persian Gulf the Ghost went the stranger the ships were that they encountered. Persia was at war with Russia and warships from Persia found solace with the Qawasim clan in Ras al-Khaimah, a port at the entrance to the Persian Gulf located at the Gulf of Oman in the Arab Emirates.
The Ghost made port in Ras al-Khaimah after an incident with a Chinese pirate ship. The ship had attempted to attack the Ghost and had been quickly sunk. Fial found the ship strange; it was about the same length as the Ghost with one large sail from a centre mast and multiple oarsmen along each side with only one level. The bow and stern of the ship incorporated figureheads in the shape of a dragon. The ship was slow and overloaded, and it was made of some kind of wooden tubing, useless against the agility and firepower of the Ghost.
The ship had fired some kind of projectile out of a wooden tube, creating tails of fire through the air. Fial retrieved two floundering seamen from the ship but only one was Chinese. The Chinese man was small, skinny and sat without expression or movement. The palms of his hands were covered in calluses from using an oar and his shoulder and arm muscles well developed compared to the rest of his body. Bongo understood some of the words spoken by the other dark, olive-skinned man dressed in a fine, silk tunic and baggy pants. His shoes pointed up at the toe curling round. Bongo through a series of some words and hand signals worked out he was an Arab of the Qawasim tribe from the port of Ras al-Khaimah. His merchant ship had been sunk by the Chinese and he pleaded to go home. This incident had occurred in the Arabian Sea off the coast of Oman. Fial had planned to head east to India but he set a course through the Gulf of Oman to Ras al-Khaimah port as he was interested in finding out more about the place he had heard was a den of pirates.
The Ghost lay at anchor half a mile from the coast near the harbour of Ras al-Khaimah. Fial did not enter the main harbour, choosing to sit in deeper water with the gunwales open and the crew armed. The Arab man, now thought to be called Zella, took the longboat into the harbour inlet with two crewmen rowing for him.
They returned some hours later with an English-speaking Arab called Yasin. He explained that Zella was a rich merchant and brother to a warlord in the port; they were most grateful for his return and Fial's ship was invited into Ras al-Khaimah Harbour as a guest of the warlord. The area was in turmoil with warring factions battling for control. Fial made the trip into the harbour with the longboat with the two African oarsmen and left the rest of the crew to guard the ship.
Fial was surprised to see privateers and pirate vessels from varied factions anchored and tied up in the sprawling harbour. He learned this was commonplace as the British, French and Spanish did not venture into the waters of the area, with the Qawasim gradually gaining control and considered by the British Crown to be pirates. He was received well by the warlords of the area as saving a brother of the clan leaders was considered an act of mutuality. Fial explained he was Irish and was at war with the British, French and Spanish, not liking the trade of slaves. People were not treated much better in Ras al-Khaimah but Fial was careful not to upset the local law as he was not familiar with the peoples’ background or beliefs.
The warlords wanted the Chinese man from the ship that had taken Zella. Fial had no use for him so he handed him over. The Qawasim immediately tortured and put him to death; Fial was not to forget this.
They stayed for several days and Fial was told of a French galleon captained by a Corsair plundering the Gulf merchant shipping. It was known to be north in the Persian Gulf; the captain had vowed to return demanding supplies and had bombarded the coast of the port in demonstration, threatening far worse should he not be given what he needed. The ship was described as having three big masts and two row decks of cannon, forty on each side of the ship; a first class warship.
No pirate or privateer in port was game enough to confront the ship and it was expected back within the next few days. The local dhows or bhagalas were totally inadequate for the situation even in large numbers. If Fial could defeat the ship he would be given free range of the port by the warlords.
The Ghost had been moving around at night with great success, the Africans had well above average night vision and cloudy nights were rare in the Middle East, allowing Fial to navigate by sight of the stars with ease. Provisions and supplies of powder and shot were given to Fial and his larder and magazine were once again full. He planned to wait for the ship’s arrival and make sail away from the port, waiting for the Corsair to drop anchor; he would then strike her in the hours of darkness. This was something he had wanted to try since he saw his crew operate at night time after time. The French giant would be full of booty from its voyage of plunder and Fial planned to buy himself a navy.
It was a week before the French giant appeared. Fial recognised her: the Valencia, a first class French man of war that was damaged at Trafalgar but got away. She was sold in a poor condition to the current Corsair Victor Dubois, a man who had spent much time with famous French Corsair Robert Surcoaf as his first mate and who then became second in command. He grew tired of taking orders and decided to buy his own vessel with a Letter of Marque from the French navy recognising him as a legitimate combatant for the French navy, and entitled to a large portion of any booty seized.
Fial pulled anchor and made sail toward the Gulf of Oman away from the approaching giant, giving the impression of fleeing the area. Dubois sighted the ship in his long glass but could not recognise her, seeing only the stern of a brigantine heading out to sea. He paid it no further mind.
The warlords were furious as the Ghost slipped out of sight and the Valencia dropped anchor in deep water adjacent to the harbour inlet, able to fire on any ship that came out or went in to the harbour. It was late evening and the Valencia fell silent as the night came in, with only a four man watch. The ship’s hourly bell chime was all that could be heard; the captain and crew of two hundred and fifty slept to ready themselves for the morning’s deadline that had been delivered to the Qawasim on arrival.
At three thirty in the morning the Ghost came out of the night and delivered a silent blow to the bow of the Valencia. By the time the captain and crew made deck she had decimated the stern, turning directly across the side of the ship’s closed gun ports. The men of the watch fired muskets and railing scatter cannon at the Ghost but she slipped away. She returned from out of the darkness some minutes later, delivering a final blow to the bow waterline, turning and disappearing into the darkness. The Ghost circled and waited for first light.
The sun began to come up and the Valencia had listed to stern, her first row of cannon only just above the water. Dubois studied the Ghost, lowering his long glass slowly and pushing it together with a crack. "Le Fantôme de McMurrin, j'ai pensé que était mort. Fichu nous sommes condamnés. Abandonner le bateau, abaisser des bateaux longs combattent pour vos vies. Cet homme est un meurtrier impitoyable !" "The Ghost of McMurrin, I thought he was dead. Damn we are doomed. Abandon ship, lower longboats fight for your lives. This man is a ruthless killer, every man for himself!"
Fial waited until the ship touched the bottom, leaving only the quarterdeck and masts above the water. The Ghost raised the red flag and turned on her. He passed at speed, forty yards from her port to port discharging her cannon across the quarterdeck and slicing a longboat in two on the way. He turned and passed starboard to starboard, decimating the foredeck. The Ghost’s crew broke barrels of lantern oil onto the water around the Valencia then threw torches onto the water setting it ablaze; the screams of the men in the water could be heard by the warlords looking on from the
shore.
Two longboats had broken away and the Ghost hunted them down, ignoring musket fire and splitting them apart with the bow, the figurehead dagger taking the brunt of any musket fire. The sea fell silent and the Valencia burned to the waterline. The warlords of the Qawasim named the ship the Ghost of the Night, a further feather in her legendary cap.
Divers retrieved the booty from the sunken Valencia. Valuable treasures were given to the Qawasim warlords and other booty purchased supplies for some of the privateers and pirates in port who had been stuck with no funds.
Fial spent the next two months in Ras al-Khaimah Harbour; night manoeuvres were so successful that the Ghost only ventured out at night, eliminating any threats to the port of Ras al-Khaimah. The Chinese stopped venturing into the Gulf of Oman, terrified of the Ghost of the Night.
Fial had equipped the Ghost with a Chinese weapon found on their ships. Powder in thick paper tubes a yard long and six inches wide ignited as one end with a pointed nose shot through the air like a cannon ball, exploding and often setting fire to a wood target. Fial improved the delivery tubes made of wood by making them of metal and he mounted them on the Ghost railings at regular points on the bow to the stern. The ship was painted in dull, black pitch rendering her near invisible at night, her previous paint having a satin finish that in some instances could be reflective. The sails were dyed black using pigments from Arab silk makers.
Fial’s was gradually joined in his ventures by privateers from Persia, America, India, Russia and England as the word spread; all had been declared pirates by the respective governments when no longer required. They took a share of the booty from the now regular raids along the coast of Africa and India; this gradually spread to as far as Portugal, Fial getting the slaver ships and crashing them to shore, releasing the slaves to whatever country they landed on.
Fial found it difficult to get his associates to work together. Some had been enemies all their lives so he developed the tactic of striking in the night close to morning and the fleet coming in at first light to finish the job. This worked well but he knew it would not last. As ships made their fortune sailors returned to their families; he could understand this.
Putting black slaves ashore as free men in countries far from their homeland had also caused some problems. Some had been captured or set upon and killed; more thought was required on his quest. Ras al-Khaimah had become his home and the Qawasim tribesmen had become his friends, especially Yasin who had become a crew member of the Ghost, expanding the languages that could be used.
News came to Fial of the law instigated by William Wilberforce outlawing the carrying of any person to be sold as a slave on British ships. This did not change his tactics and he continued to plunder all slaver convoys. The French stopped sailing at night, putting to anchor in coves or harbour inlets; this just made it easier for the Ghost and her rag tag fleet, giving them static targets in shallow water. The Spanish and Dutch increased their escort power to the cost of the Napoleonic Wars; the Ghost sinking two first class warships in as many days off the coast of the Congo.
In August 1807 Fial’s fleet now numbered twenty-two ships. He had just returned from an ambush of a British merchant escort off the coast of Oman just east of the Island of Masirah. The fastest ship in Fial’s fleet, an armed American schooner called the Columbus, made port only two hours after the Ghost. They reported that at first light they were attacked by two British frigates lying off the convoy. They had taken the slowest ship, a Persian gun ship Shiraz, captive. For the first time in many months the Ghost made full sail in daylight towards the Arabian Sea, hugging the coast of Oman towards Masirah Island.