by Amitav Ghosh
‘Wait! Miss Lambert!’
The thought of losing her panicked Zachary. Leaping to his feet, he reached blindly towards the sound of her voice, forgetting, in the darkness, how small his cabin was. Almost as soon as he raised his hand, his fingers brushed against her arm; he made as if to pull away, but his palm would not move; instead, his thumb pushed back the fabric of her shirt. She was close enough that he could hear her breathing; he could even feel the warmth of her exhalations misting on his face. His hand went along her shoulder, to the back of her neck, pausing between her collar and bandanna, to explore the patch of bare skin that had been exposed by her upswept hair. Strange how he had once been appalled by the thought of seeing her as a lascar; strange that he had wanted to keep her forever wrapped in velveteen. For even though he could not actually see her now, the very knowledge of her guise made her seem more desirable than ever, a creature so changeable and elusive as to be impossible to resist: his mouth was suddenly fastened on hers, and her lips were pressed against his.
Even though they could see nothing in the darkness of the unlit cabin, their absorption was such that they both slowly closed their eyes. When a knock sounded on the door neither of them noticed. It was only when Mr Crowle shouted – ‘Y’in there, Mannikin?’ – that they sprang apart.
Paulette flattened herself against the bulwark as Zachary cleared his throat. ‘Yes, Mr Crowle: what is it?’
‘Could y’step out?’
Prising the door apart a few inches, Zachary saw that Mr Crowle was standing outside. Cowering beside him was Baboo Nob Kissin, whose neck was firmly in the first mate’s grip.
‘What’s going on, Mr Crowle?’
‘I’ve got something y’need to see, Mannikin,’ said the first mate, with a grim smile. ‘Something I got from our friend Baboon here.’
Zachary stepped quickly outside, pulling his door shut behind him. ‘What is it?’
‘I’ll show yer, but not here. And not while I’ve got this Baboon on my hands. Best he cools off in yer cabin.’ Before Zachary could say anything, Mr Crowle pushed the door open and kneed the gomusta in the small of his back, propelling him past Zachary, into his cabin. Without looking inside, the first mate pulled the door shut. Then he lifted an oar out of a wall-bracket and thrust the shaft through the looped handles. ‘That should hold him while we’re sorting this out.’
‘And where are we going to do that?’
‘My cabin’s as good a place as any.’
As with a bear in its den, the reassurance of being in his own space lent an extra heft to the first mate’s already formidable physique: once he and Zachary were inside, with the door closed behind them, he seemed to swell and expand, leaving Zachary very little room. The vessel was swaying wildly and they had to stretch out their arms to steady themselves against the sides of the cabin. But even then, standing spreadeagled and chest to chest, bumping against each other with the schooner’s every lurch, Mr Crowle seemed intent on using his height and bulk to crowd Zachary into sitting down on his bunk. But this, Zachary would not do: there was something in the first mate’s demeanour that spoke of an excess of emotion that was even more disturbing than the overt aggression of the past. In order not to yield any ground to the larger man, Zachary forced himself to stay on his feet.
‘Well then, Mr Crowle? What did you want to see me about?’
‘Somethin ye’ll thank me for, Reid.’ The first mate reached into his vest and pulled out a yellowing sheet of paper. ‘Got this off that gooby – Pander, innit? He was takin it t’the skipper. Ye’re lucky I got a-hold o’ it, Reid. Thing like this could do a cove a lot o’damage. Could’appen he’d never work on a ship again.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the crew-list – for the Ibis, on’er run out from Baltimore.’
‘And what of it?’ said Zachary, frowning.
‘Take a dekko, Reid.’ Holding up the lamp, the mate handed him the tattered slip of paper. ‘Go on – see fer y’self.’
Back when he first signed on to the Ibis, Zachary had known nothing of ships’ papers or crew manifests, or how the filling-in of them might vary from vessel to vessel. He had walked on board the Ibis with his ditty-bag, shouted his name, age and birthplace to the second mate, and that was that. But he saw now that along with a few other members of the crew, there was an extra notation next to his name: he narrowed his eyes, squinting, and suddenly he froze.
‘Y’see, Reid?’ said Mr Crowle. ‘See what I mean?’
Zachary answered by nodding mechanically, without raising his eyes, and the first mate continued. ‘Lookat, Reid,’ he said, hoarsely, ‘it don’t mean anythin to me. Don’t give a damn, I don’t, if ye’re a m’latter or not.’
Zachary answered, as if by rote: ‘I’m not a mulatto, Mr Crowle. My mother was a quadroon and my father white. That makes me a metif.’
‘Don’t change nothing, Reid.’ Mr Crowle’s hand reached up and he brushed a knuckle against Zachary’s unshaven cheek. ‘Metif or m’latter, it don’t change the colour o’this . . .’
Zachary, still mesmerized by the paper, made no movement, and the hand rose higher still, to flick back a curly forelock with a fingertip. ‘. . . And it don’t change this neither. Y’are what y’are, Reid, and it don’t make no difference to me. If y’ask me, it makes us two of a kind.’
Zachary looked up now, and his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. ‘Don’t get the gist, Mr Crowle?’
The first mate’s voice sank to a low growl. ‘Look’ere, Reid, we di’n’t get off to a good start, there’s no denyin’it. Y’made a fool o’me with yer tofficky trolly-wags and yer buncomising tongue: thought y’was way above my touch. But this’ere paper, it changes everything – I’d never’a thought I could’ve been so far off course.’
‘What do you mean, Mr Crowle?’
‘Don’t y’see, Mannikin?’ The first mate put his hand on Zachary’s shoulder. ‘We could be a team, the two o’us.’ He tapped the paper and took it out of Zachary’s hand. ‘This thing – nobbut needs be in the know of it. Not the Captain nor anyone else. It’ll stay here.’ Folding the manifest, he slipped it under his vest. ‘Think about it, Reid, me as skipper, and y’self as mate. Tie for tye; no lies for y’self and none for me neither: we’d have the jin o’each other, both o’us. What more could two coves like us hope for? No need for gulling, no need for lies: ton for ton and man for man. I’d be easy on yer too, Mannikin; I’m one who knows what o’clock it is and which way the bull runs. When we’re in port ye’d be on the loose, free for whatever takes yer fancy: don’t make no difference to me, not ashore.’
‘And at sea?’
‘All ye’d have to do is cross the cuddy from time to time. That in’t so long a walk, is it? And if it in’t t’yer taste, y’can shut yer eyes and think y’self in Jericho for all I care. Comes a day, Mannikin, when every Tar has t’learn t’work ship in headwinds and bad weather. Y’think life owes y’any different from others just cause ye’re a m’latter?’
Despite the brutal roughness of the first mate’s tone, Zachary could sense that he was on the verge of an inner disintegration, and he was aware of an unexpected stirring of sympathy. His eyes sought out the piece of paper that he was holding between his fingers, and he was amazed to think that something so slight, so innocuous, could be invested with so much authority: that it should be able to melt away the fear, the apparent invulnerability that he, Zachary, had possessed in his guise as a ‘gentleman’; that it should so change his aspect as to make him appeal to a man who could desire, evidently, only that which he held in his power; that the essence of this transformation should inhere in a single word – all of this spoke more to the delirium of the world than to the perversity of those who had to make their way in it.
He could sense the first mate’s mounting impatience for an answer, and when he spoke it was not unkindly, but with a quiet firmness. ‘Look, Mr Crowle,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, but this deal o’yours won’t work for me. It may look to y
ou that this piece of paper has turned me inside out, but in truth it’s changed nothing. I was born with my freedom and I ain’t looking to give any o’it away.’
Zachary took a step towards the door but the first mate moved in front of him, blocking his way. ‘Boat yer oars, Mannikin,’ he said, on a note of warning. ‘Won’t do yer no good to walk yer chalks now.’
‘Listen, Mr Crowle,’ said Zachary, quietly. ‘Neither of us needs to remember this conversation. Once I step out this door, it’s over and done with – didn’t happen.’
‘Too late to toss up the bunt now, Mannikin,’ said the first mate. ‘What’s said is said and can’t be forgotten.’
Zachary looked him up and down and squared his shoulders. ‘What do you plan to do then, Mr Crowle? Keep me in here till I knock the door down?’
‘Aren’t y’forgetting something, Mannikin?’ The first mate tapped his finger on the paper that was tucked into his vest. ‘Wouldn’t take me more’n a couple o’minutes to run this over to the skipper.’
There was a desperation, almost a pathos, in this threat of blackmail, and it made Zachary smile. ‘Go ahead, Mr Crowle,’ he said. ‘Whatever that paper is, it’s not a letter of indenture. Take it to the Captain – believe me, I’d be glad of it. And I’ll wager that when he hears about the bargain you were of a mind to make, it’s not because of me that he’s going to be all cut up inside.’
‘Stow yer magging, Reid!’ The first mate’s hand came flying out of the shadows to strike Zachary across the face. Then a blade flashed in the lamplight and its point came to rest on Zachary’s upper lip. ‘I’se done my time, Mannikin, and ye’ll do it too. Ye’re just a broth of a boy: I’ll bring y’to yer bearings soon enough.’
‘With your knife, Mr Crowle?’ Now the blade began to descend, travelling downwards in a straight line, from Zachary’s nose, past his chin to the base of his throat.
‘I tell yer, Mannikin, ye’re not nigger enough to leave Jack Crowle hangin a-cockbill; not when he’s all catted and fished. I’ll corpse yer before I let yer gi’me the slip.’
‘Better do it then, Mr Crowle. Better do it now.’
‘Oh, I’d kill yer without a thought, Mannikin,’ said Mr Crowle, through his teeth. ‘Don’t y’doubt it. I’se done it before and I’ll do it again. Wouldn’t make a penn’orth o’difference to me.’
Now Zachary could feel the cold metal point pushing against his throat. ‘Go on, Mr Crowle,’ he said, steeling himself. ‘Do it. I’m ready.’
With the tip of the knife biting into his skin, Zachary kept his eyes fixed upon the first mate’s, even as he was preparing himself for the thrust. But it was Mr Crowle’s gaze that wavered first, and then the knife faltered and fell away.
‘God damn yer eyes, Reid!’
Throwing his head back, the first mate gave voice to a howl that welled up from the bottom of his belly. ‘The devil take yer, Reid; God damn yer eyes . . .’
Just then, even as the first mate was standing in front of Zachary, staring in disbelief at the knife he had been unable to use, the door of the cabin creaked open. Framed in the doorway stood the slight, shadowy figure of the half-Chinese convict: he had a sharp-tipped handspike in his grip, Zachary saw, and he was holding it not as a sailor would, but like a swordsman, with the point extended.
Sensing his presence, the first mate spun around, with his knife at the ready. When he saw who it was, he snarled in disbelief: ‘Jackin-ape?’
Ah Fatt’s presence seemed to have a tonic effect on the first mate, restoring him instantly to his usual self: as if exhilarated by the prospect of violent release, he made a swinging lunge with his knife. Ah Fatt swayed easily out of the way, seeming hardly to move at all, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. His eyes were almost closed, as if in prayer, and his handspike was no longer extended, but folded against his chest, its point tucked under his chin.
‘Going to cut yer tongue out, Jackin-ape,’ said Mr Crowle, in a voice that was filled with menace. ‘Then I’m a-goin to make yer eat it too.’
The mate made another thrust, aiming at the belly, but Ah Fatt turned sideways, eluding the point of his blade. This time the momentum of the strike carried the mate forward, exposing his flank. Spinning on his heel, like a bullfighter, Ah Fatt thrust the handspike through his ribs, burying it almost to the hilt. He held on to his weapon as the mate dropped to the deck, and when the spike was free of his body, he turned the bloody point towards Zachary. ‘Stay where you are. Or else, you too . . .’
Then, just as quickly as he had come, he was gone: slamming the door behind him, he thrust the handspike through the handles, locking Zachary into the cabin.
Zachary fell to his knees beside the pool of blood that was leaking out of the first mate’s flank: ‘Mr Crowle?’
He caught the sound of a choking whisper: ‘Reid? Reid . . .’
Zachary lowered his head, to listen to the faltering voice.
‘Y’were the one, Reid – the one I’se been lookin for. Y’were the one . . .’
His words were choked off by a surge of blood, gushing up through his mouth and nose. Then his head snapped back and his body went rigid; when Zachary put a hand under his nostrils, there was no evidence of breath. The schooner lurched and the first mate’s lifeless body rolled with it. The edge of the old crew-list could be seen peering out of his vest: Zachary pulled it out and stuffed it into his own pocket. Then he rose to his feet and shoved his shoulder against the door. It gave a little, and he jiggled it gently until the handspike slipped out, falling to the deck with a thud.
Bursting out of the first mate’s cabin, Zachary saw that his own door was already open. Without pausing to look inside, he went racing up to the quarter-deck. Rain was lashing down from the sky in knotted sheets; it was as if the schooner’s sails had come unfastened and were tearing themselves apart against the hull. Instantly drenched, Zachary raised a hand to shelter his eyes from the sting of the rain. A wave of lightning surged across the sky, widening as it travelled westwards, flooding the water below with a rolling tide of radiance. In that unearthly light a longboat seemed to leap out at Zachary, from the crest of a wave: although it was already some twenty yards off the schooner’s beam, the faces of the five men who were in it could be clearly seen. Serang Ali was at the rudder, and the other four were huddled in its middle – Jodu, Neel, Ah Fatt and Kalua. Serang Ali had seen Zachary too, and he was raising his hand to wave when the craft dropped behind a ridge of water and disappeared from view.
As the lightning was retreating across the sky, Zachary became aware that he was not the only one who was watching the boat: there were three others on the main deck, below, standing with their arms interlinked. Two of them he recognized immediately, Paulette and Baboo Nob Kissin – but the third was a woman in a sodden sari, who had never before uncovered her face in his presence. Now, in the fading glow of the clouds, she turned to look at him and he saw that she had piercing grey eyes. Although it was the first time he had seen her face, he knew that he had glimpsed her somewhere, standing much as she was now, in a wet sari, hair dripping, looking at him with startled grey eyes.
Acknowledgements
Sea of Poppies owes a great debt to many nineteenth-century scholars, dictionarists, linguists and chroniclers: most notably to Sir George Grierson, for his Report on Colonial Emigration from the Bengal Presidency, 1883, for his grammar of the Bhojpuri language, and for his 1884 and 1886 articles on Bhojpuri folk songs; to J. W. S. MacArthur, one-time Superintendent of the Ghazipur Opium Factory, for his Notes on an Opium Factory (Thacker, Spink, Calcutta, 1865); to Lt Thomas Roebuck, for his nautical lexicon, first published in Calcutta, An English And Hindostanee Naval Dictionary Of Technical Terms And Sea Phrases As Also The Various Words Of Command Given In Working A Ship, &C. With Many Sentences Of Great Use At Sea; To Which Is Prefixed A Short Grammar Of The Hindostanee Language (reprinted in London in 1813 by Black, Parry & Co., booksellers to the Hon. East India Company; later revised by George Sma
ll, and reissued by W. H. Allen & Co., under the title A Laskari Dictionary Or Anglo-Indian Vocabulary Of Nautical Terms And Phrases In English And Hindustani, London, 1882); to Sir Henry Yule & A. C. Burnell, authors of Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary Of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words And Phrases, And Of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical And Discursive; and to the Chief Justice of Calcutta’s Supreme Court of Judicature for his verdict in the 1829 forgery trial of Prawnkissen Holdar (reprinted in Anil Chandra Das Gupta, ed., The Days of John Company: Selections from Calcutta Gazette 1824–1832, West Bengal Govt. Press, Calcutta, 1959, pp. 336–38).
This novel has been greatly enriched by the work of many contemporary and near-contemporary scholars and historians. The complete list of books, articles and essays that have contributed to my understanding of the period is too long to reproduce here, but it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge my gratitude for, and my indebtedness to, the work of the following: Clare Anderson, Robert Antony, David Arnold, Jack Beeching, Kingsley Bolton, Sarita Boodhoo, Anne Bulley, B. R. Burg, Marina Carter, Hsin-Pao Chang, Weng Eang Cheong, Tan Chung, Maurice Collis, Saloni Deerpalsingh, Guo Deyan, Jacques M. Downs, Amar Farooqui, Peter Ward Fay, Michael Fisher, Basil Greenhill, Richard H. Grove, Amalendu Guha, Edward O. Henry, Engseng Ho, Hunt Janin, Isaac Land, C. P. Liang, Brian Lubbock, Dian H. Murray, Helen Myers, Marcus Rediker, John F. Richards, Dingxu Shi, Asiya Siddiqi, Radhika Singha, Michael Sokolow, Vijaya Teelock, Madhavi Thampi and Rozina Visram.
For their support and assistance at various points in the writing of this novel, I owe many thanks to: Kanti & Champa Banymandhab, Girindre Beeharry, the late Sir Satcam Boolell and his family, Sanjay Buckory, Pushpa Burrenchobay, May Bo Ching, Careem Curreemjee, Saloni Deerpalsingh, Parmeshwar K. Dhawan, Greg Gibson, Marc Foo Kune, Surendra Ramgoolam, Vishwamitra Ramphul, Achintyarup Ray, Debashree Roy, Anthony J. Simmonds, Vijaya Teelock, Boodhun Teelock and Zhou Xiang. I owe a great debt of gratitude also to the following institutions: the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, England; the Mahatma Gandhi Institute, Mauritius; and the Mauritius National Archives.
