Page 92 - The Pirate Coast (By Sir Charles Belgrave)

Darkness came suddenly, as it docs in the Gulf, but at ten
o’clock, the moon rose over the sea, lighting up the pirate vessels
which were seen to be getting under weigh. The tide turned,
and one of the pirates tried to run out to sea, past the Eden,
hauling close-in to the shore. The Eden opened fire on her, and
she received a shot ‘which entered between wind and water,
passing from stern to stern’. After midnight, the disabled ship
ran ashore on the sandy beach. Another ship, a batil, attempted
the same manoeuvre, she had already been damaged by the Eden's
guns, and this, combined with the strong wind and heavy swell
put her out of action; she, too, ended up on the beach. At day­
break, Loch sent a party ashore to set fire to the two pirate vessels.
When the men returned, they brought with them three prisoners,
two men and a boy, and they reported that ‘the beach was strewn
with dead’.
On the 11 th, the Eden was again underweigh and ran into the
harbour where the rest of the pirate squadron had been left. Two
batils were ‘working windward out of the western passage’, Thc
wind had fallen, but they were using their ‘long sweeps’, rowing
close to the shore, and being towed, to help their progress, by
gangs of men from the crews, who moved along the beach ahead
of the ships, pulling them with long ropes. They were carrying
with them the survivors from the ships which had been destroyed.
The Eden was unable to get within range of the pirates and, by
the evening, they were out of sight. A third pirate ship was seen
stranded on the shore, and Moffath, with two boats, was sent to
destroy her; the boats returned loaded with rice, taken from the
hold of the ship. Loch learned that the intention of the pirates
had been to set up an ‘establishment’ at Bassidu on the western
point of Kishm Island, opposite Ras al Khaima, which would
have given them the control of both sides of the straits at the
entrance to the Gulf.
The last scrap with the pirate squadron, or what remained of
it, was on the 14th, when early in the morning a pirate vessel was
sighted in the open sea. The Eden gave chase; the pirate ship,
when attempting to tack, almost filled with water, but the crew
‘by extraordinary exertions, skill and knowledge of the vessel
succeeded in baling her out and, the wind shifting northward, put
her before the wind. ‘The powerful sail, which had almost
caused the destruction of the vessel, was now the means of carry-
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