A Piratical Interlude
Over the years there must have been many, many attacks on BI ships by pirates of one kind or another. The normal method of repelling these attacks from dhows or other native craft was to turn jets of scalding water from the boiler on them, this proved very effective against even the most aggressive pirate. There was one attack though that was successful, the looting of the Cashmere.
The story of the Cashmere remains in the BI annals as the classic case of the Company's encounter with pirates. People most often think of piracy at sea as connected with the China coast and it is usually forgotten that many of the Persian Gulf ports were equally prone to this type of attack during the early days of the BI services there.
It was on the 13th June 1872, while the Cashmere lay at anchor off Busrea, at the mouth of the Shatt-el-Arab, on her regular mail run from Bombay, that the attack was made in the early hours of the morning by a well-organised gang of some eighty men. The opening moves on the previous evening were innocent enough, with the arrival alongside of a boatload of pirates masquerading as passengers. They were directed to the deck passengers quarters but soon returned aft, overpowered the seacunny and threatened him with immediate death if he tried to raise the alarm. They then signalled the rest of the gang to board and immediately occupied the vital parts of the ship, with one party keeping guard on the crew's forecastle, another at the entrance to the officers' quarters and a third at the saloon doors. It is said that one of the officers took refuge between the double coverings of the deck-awning and, his more pronounced curves showing through this hammock, was heartily prodded by the swords and scimitars of the pirates. But the affair was no joke; the pirates were deadly earnest in their endeavours.
The objective of the pirates was the treasure room in the after hold which contained a considerable quantity of specie and in endeavouring to defend this against overwhelming odds both the Chief Officer and the Ship's Clerk, Mr Bradford, sustained serious stab wounds, while a fireman who tried to come out on deck was promptly decapitated, the Third Officer, Mr Louttit was also wounded. The pirate were by no means left to conduct their operations in peace, though, for the Chief Engineer, in attempting to reach the engine room, was lucky to escape with only a sword slash on the arm, while the Master, who had been asleep on deck at the time of the attack, had valiantly tried to rally his crew to him on the poop by jumping through the skylight into the saloon where he began to distribute the ship's stock of fire-arms. Before anything effective could be organised the pirates departed as suddenly as they had come, taking with them specie to the value of Rs 42,000 but in their haste leaving behind on deck a further bag worth Rs 1,700.
The pirates were not long to enjoy the fruits of their attack, for within a month eleven of them and a third of the treasure had been recaptured and all those apprehended were summarily dealt with by the Sheikh of Muhommerah, they were hung in true Arab fashion. In acknowledgement of his assistance, BI ships for years thereafter always fired a salute on passing the Sheikh's palace while on a more prosaic note the Company eventually succeeded in recovering the full value of the missing specie from the Turkish authorities. This was because the Turkish Government was persuaded to admit liability for the acts of their nominal subjects.
There was one occasion when a BI ship was passing up the Shatt-el-Arab past the point of salute to the Sheikh of Muhommerah; a young officer slipped a cricket ball into the barrel of the mortar that was to make the appropriate noise. This missile landed very near the feet of one of the sentries of the palace guard; and it took a lot of diplomatic action to get the affair straightened out.
This incident, which occurred just after the ship had returned from re-engining, was the only time the Cashmere really made the headlines until her final loss. The Cashmere had made a number of voyages in the Aden-Zanzibar mail service and it was while south-bound on this run that she was wrecked near the Cape Guardafui on 5th July 1877 with the loss of seven lives.
A hundred years after the incident the story was still being told. I was told the story in the early 1970's when I first went to Abadan, the remains of the Sheikh's palace were still visible and it made a good story over a few beers (you could still have a beer in those days in the Gulf).
