Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 ..

by Taylor, Winchcombe

  He counted upon their support, when Eugene recovered, to obtain him an audience with the Prince, to whom he had brought a proposal: James' advisers felt confident that the great general would soon win against the Turks and, seeking new glory, could be induced to lead an invading army against Britain. It was a delicate matter to negotiate; but Brian, despite his disappointment in James during last year's debacle in Scotland, had volunteered to ride half across Europe to accomplish it.

  Hunger brought him out of his reverie and he fell to. When he finished, he stretched out his booted legs, leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, suddenly conscious that he had ridden thirty miles since morning.

  Thus he did not see the red-faced colonel with the deep scar who had come in with a lad and was followed respectfully by sev-

  eral other officers. And, understanding very little German, he could not appreciate that the colonel's own German was far from pure-All he did know was that the newcomers' voices competed jarringly with a roll of gunfire that indicated some night sortie.

  Dick was in fine fettle. Why not, since he was celebrating Ram's proven manhood? He'd already toasted the boy's confession. But, not wishing to be seen drunk before certain subordinates, he had brought a selected few here: Lieutenant Colonel von Bohlen, three Austrian captains and two French lieutenants. All were drinking slivovitz, the raw plum brandy of the country that scorched a man's throat and often made him see double.

  "Gentlemen!" He had to bellow to be heard above the gunfire. "I give you a toast—up on the table, Ram, and let all get a sight of you—I give you Volunteer Anstruther, who today spraddled his first whore and killed his first foes!"

  "Hoch, hochr the Austrians responded. "A ta sante, mon brave!" the Frenchmen applauded.

  Ram turned beet red, first with embarrassment, then with anger. First whore—Carla? God, no, she was his love, a part of himself! "Father," he appealed in English. "Father, please don't!"

  "Drink, damme," Dick ordered. "Respond to the toast. 'Tis a rare honor they're giving you." He reverted to his clumsy German. "The lad's a trifle shy, but for all that he's done better than I did. True, before I was his age, I'd split a dozen wenches; but I was nineteen before I spitted my first man—at Kinsale siege, back in '90. But that was no great feat, seeing he was an Irish rebel who ran so hard I had to thrust him through the back."

  "You lie!"

  Dick stiffened. "Himmel, who speaks?"

  "I." Brian stood up. However poor his German, he had understood Dick's boast. He spoke now in French. "I repeat, you lie!" All the old hatred surged back. Slowly he crossed the dirt floor.

  Dick awaited him, pain lancing his head. Who, in God's name, was this rogue who gave him the lie? "I like not your way, sir," he said deliberately in English.

  Normally, Brian still refused to speak the loathed tongue, though he had learned it long since from necessity. "You lie, saying any

  Irishman ever turned his back on you. I, an Irish prince, huri it in your teeth!"

  Swaying a little, Dick glared at him. "Damnation, am I to be insulted thus before my own officers?" He tore off his white coat. The slivovitz burning in his brain drove him into a red fury. "I'll not suffer it! Let's see the length of your steel. Irishman, and we'll soon know who lies!"

  "Father!" Though muzzy with brandy, Ram felt swift fear. This tall stranger with the white eyebrows looked dangerous.

  "Back, boy! Gentlemen, I call you to witness my honor's been questioned. Lights, and a clear space!"

  Von Bohlen, well versed in these affairs, became his second. One of the Frenchmen offered Brian his services and received his whispered name and rank.

  The duelists faced each other at swords' length.

  "En garde!"

  As the blades met, Dick knew he was engaging an implacable enemy. Already sweating, he cursed because the flickering candles seemed to be dancing and the dirt floor heaving. But his wrist was strong and he was sobering rapidly. He sensed an opening and lunged, was parried, but saw a red gash on his foe's right arm. Caution! came an inner warning. Tire him, don't expose yourself.

  To the onlookers, it was a fight between a stocky English bulldog and a lean Irish hound. Brian's sword was like quicksilver as it sought an opening. His brain was icy, fed by cold fury. Sasanach! He even had time to regret this encounter had come before he could be presented to Eugene. Not that he feared this English liar, whom he knew he would kill, but because that very result might prejudice his mission in the prince's mind. From a corner of his eyes he glimpsed the thin boy with the auburn hair, and the sight, bringing memories of his own lost child, added fuel to his hatred. He knew by Dick's gasping breaths he was tiring.

  Now! His blade was part of himself as he thrust forward, penetrating cloth and flesh. The coup brought him face to face with his victim and for an instant they stared into each other's eyes. Dick's were bulging, his mouth opening to emit a bellow that never came. Instead, he sagged, wrenching the saber from Brian's grasp. His legs

  drew up and his hands clenched spasmodically, his limbs relaxed and he grew still.

  A long-drawn sigh arose from the onlookers. The next instant blows rained on Brian's chest. The boy's convulsed face before him, he heard him scream, "You killed my father! You killed my father!"

  BOOK TWO

  WHITE COAT

  CHAPTER 6 BANKIPUR,

  1721-22

  "Land ho!"

  Ram heard the cry as he came up from below. Racing aft past some seamen and bleary-eyed soldiers, he gained the poop.

  "Where, Heer Matt?" he demanded eagerly.

  The officer handed him a spyglass. With it he swept the horizon until he saw a tiny object—a solitary palm that seemed to be growing out of the oily sea itself.

  "Mouth of the Hooghly, main channel of the Ganges." The mate pointed overside at the now yellow-pink water. "Soon we must heave to for a pilot." He sighed gustily. "Ach, it's good to arrive!"

  Ram agreed devoutly. UEsperance was seven dreary months out of Ostend, with brief calls only at the Cap Verdis, the Cape, Madagascar and Dutch-held Trincomalee in Ceylon. And now, having crossed the Bay of Bengal, the great river lay ahead.

  Handing back the glass. Ram hurried forward to the beakhead, whence he watched the distant palm turn into two, three, then an entire clump growing on a sandy spit.

  Soon the sea became myriad sparkles of light, fringed by more palms, mangroves and marsh reeds that gave off a sour mud smell. A strange craft appeared, made of two canoes joined together by a platform piled high with fish nets and carrying a triangular sail. It came closer, dancing gaily across the water, its near-black crew wearing only turbans and scanty loin rags.

  More of these catamarans were passed. Then a lugger-type craft ran alongside and, after much screamed bargaining between its crew

  and the captain, a native, wearing a cocked hat, a gold-laced coat and a mere breechcloth, scrambled aboard. The pilot.

  Ram grinned joyously. India! Land of Ophir, of Golconda, of magnificence untold; land of the Great Mogul. A far cry from Belgrade and Dalesview!

  "hne, Lieutenant Sahib, sight of my country enjoying you are?" a voice inquired in Bengali.

  "hxre, Munshi Sahib, good to be near land it is," Ram returned haltingly in the same tongue. For Babu Cov^^asji Mukerji had been teaching Bengali to the factors, writers and troops aboard. A silk merchant, he had daringly voyaged to Europe with his rich wares and was now returning to Dacca, where he would also act as agent for this nascent Ostend East India Company, most profitably, he hoped.

  "Wah, the very air delight to me brings. Few of my people across the Black Water traveled have, but returned I am, to voyage no more." He pointed, beaming. "A temple—there, the shore near. And beyond a mosque is. Arre, good to be home it is."

  Then both had to give place to seamen, who freed the stocks from the cat-heads and let the anchors rattle down into the mud.

  Ram went below, to breakfast with the factors, the writers and Oberleutnant Karl R
itter. The latter, chewing on a chunk of salt pork, belched. "Himmel, had I realized the months we'd live on this foul stuff, I'd have starved first in Vienna. Herr Gott, I'm turning into a pig myself!"

  Ram stifled a laugh. Ritter was piglike, with his tumed-up nose, small blue eves, colorless lashes and eyebrows. But he commanded the troops and was Ram's senior. He was also a bully.

  Jan van Hoven stood up. "Gentlemen, welcome to Bengal. A hundred and twenty miles upriver is Chinsurah, where for ten years I served the Dutch Company. No doubt I've mentioned that before!" he grinned guiltily. "Our own factory will be between Chinsurah and English Calcutta below, also close to the French Company's Chandernagore. We'll be beset by rivals, so I beg you give them no offense, or they may complain of us to the Great Mogul."

  Ritter scowled. "I've fifty men to punish any who insult us, be they heathens, Dutch, French or boastful English!" He shot Ram a sneer. The British desertion of 1712 was still unforgotten.

  "The chief trader will decide our actions," reminded Hendrick

  Rooses, the junior factor. "Mijnheer van Hoven, myself and even you must obey him. After all, Mijnheer Hume served the English Company many years and will know how to deal with it and others."

  "He awaits us at Bankipur," van Hoven sniffed, having hoped to be made chief trader himself. But he'd left the Dutch Company years before and returned to Europe, so must start again under Hume.

  Breakfast over, the younger men gathered on deck to wait for the muddy flood to change and be borne back into the river. With the ship hove to, the heat became oppressive.

  Ram climbed up into the gig, which was lashed upon the cutter on the starboard side. Here he had some shade from the mainmast, yet was high enough to see over both bulwarks. He drowsed, aware of the sounds around him but hugging his own thoughts. What lay before him? Adventure? The chance to become a colonel like Father? Father! As always. Ram's thoughts went back to the night of his murder—for it was murder to have killed him when he was drunk. Pictures formed: Father dead, blood oozing from his chest and mouth; himself being held by the officers as he tried madly to get at the victor, who sheathed his sword and walked out contemptuously. Then an orderly panting in, seeking Father with orders for his regiment to get under arms, the Prince would attack at dawn.

  Ram's own part in the battle still had a nightmarish quality for him: Von Bohlen insisting harshly that Father would have expected his son to fight with the regiment. Then swirling mist, yawning trenches, contorted Asiatic faces; shooting, stabbing. And victory, with enormous spoils, the greatest triumph ever gained over the Turks, when Eugene led 50,000 inspired Europeans to beat 200,-000 infidels and pursue them, slaughtering them, for miles.

  Ram had been ill afterward from grief and dysentery. People had been kind: Carla hovered devotedly before being dragged away by Meg; James Oglethorpe came and told him that Eugene himself had noted Ram's bravery and had promoted him to Fahrenjunker — officer cadet. But when Ram swore vengeance against the murdering Irishman, Oglethorpe said sternly that, as James Stuart's envoy, the man was inviolate; besides, he had already returned empty-handed to his exiled king.

  When Ram rejoined the army, peace was being made and, aware that the Imperial forces would be cut, he tried for another British

  commission. But with all Europe soon to be at peace, it was impossible.

  Eugene became governor general of the Austrian Netherlands— that part of Flanders taken from Spain in 1712—and to compete with the British, Dutch and French, he sent trading ships to the Indies. The first two voyages paid so well that a company was formed, based upon Ostend, to have trading stations in India.

  Ram had been back at Dalesview over a year when Eugene's letter came, offering him a coveted junior lieutenancy in the troops assigned to the company. Naturally, he was wild to accept; especially since Gammer was trying to turn him into a farmer. No, he was a soldier, would always be one, just like Father.

  It was the generous trading rights the company offered its servants that decided Hannah. Hadn't many men returned wealthy from India after only a few years? So she gave Ram £500 capital with which to make a quick fortune to further improve Dalesview.

  So here he was, with the company's vanguard to set up a factory on the Hooghly. Another would be started at Coblom, near British-held Madras. In fact, the Coblom-bound La Paix had kept company with L'Esperance as far as Trincomalee, carrying aboard it Haupt-mann von Bruck with the other half of the troops.

  Ram was still drowsing in the gig when Feldwebel Czappan's bark told that the men were falling in for the daily drill. He went below to his stifling cabin, where he spruced himself before hurrying back to stand under the poop's break until Ritter should appear.

  When the oberleutnant did arrive, the feldwebel called the men to attention, advanced stifHy to Ram and reported all present. In turn. Ram marched to Ritter, bowed and reported the half-company present. In reverse order the command was relayed for drill to commence. Czappan, assisted by Sergeant Kempny, exercised the fully equipped men for an hour. Ritter and Ram stood under the poop's slight shade, scrutinizing each evolution, the slightest nod or even a frown, bringing a sergeant's halberd across some unattentive private's shoulders.

  At last the exhausted men were dismissed and clamored around the water butt. Ram went below and returned with his two rapiers, the parting gift of Gaston who had said: "For a hundred years a

  Villebonne has owned these. Now an Anstruther will do them honor."

  Today, as always when the weather allowed, he would practice with them, their buttons firmly fixed. Czappan awaited him. The grizzled Czech, far the best swordsman aboard, was delighted whenever the Herr Leutnant honored him with a bout.

  Stripped to the waist, they set to. Now almost eighteen and greyhound lean. Ram no longer found his blade too long for comfort. Another year, he felt, and he'd have his full strength.

  "Touche!" He acknowledged a slight blow above his right nipple.

  The feldwebel grinned politely. "If my officer permits, he opened himself by a small inattention. It's four days since I was last able to touch him. Now the left hand, eh?"

  Ram was using this other-hand play so that both wrists would be strengthened equally. This time his point slid under the sergeant's guard and dabbed a white mark below his heart.

  "Touche!" Czappan admitted, panting, "Ach, my officer, age gives way to youth. Soon I'll never be able to touch you—I, who once displayed my skill before the Emperor himself,"

  Reeking with sweat, they went forward, where Ram's temporary servant, Beyer, flung buckets of water over them. While they were dressing, the tide turned, and once more the ship got under way.

  Ram regained his old place in the beakhead and watched the distant shores open until the vessel seemed to be entering a wide strait. Small craft of new and exotic rig became more frequent: dhows, dingees, feluccas, junks from China, many-oared galleys from Borneo and the Arabian Sea. Both shores were dotted with villages, dominated by temples or mosques and swarming with people, dragonfly-like in their bright-hued clothes.

  The banks drawing closer until they were barely a mile apart, the Ostend ship sailed slowly up the teeming river until the blood-red sun set, when she anchored, to swing with the tide, her lanterns throwing streaks of red, gold and silver on the waters.

  At dawn she continued upstream, now towed by native boats, her poles almost bare since barely a breath of wind stirred, A flurry of signals was exchanged with the guard fort at Falta, above which flew the British Honorable East India Company's flag.

  Next afternoon UEsperance fired a three-gun salute and anchored

  off Calcutta, the H.E.I.C. headquarters in Bengal. Fort William's guns answered, and soon a barge put off from the Water Gate.

  Ram, standing with Ritter before their ranked men in the waist, saw that with the port officials in the barge were two redcoats of the H.E.I.C.'s private army, and he wondered why he hadn't had the wit to apply for a commission in it himself, after he'd failed to
get another in the Royal Army.

  The visitors were piped aboard and mounted to the quarterdeck, where they were awaited by the factors and the ship's captain.

  "Herr Leutnant!" came a summons from van Hoven, and at once Ram ran up the ladder and bowed to the assembled group.

  "You speak English?" demanded the senior army officer, a captain.

  "I am English. Servant, sir."

  "Huh! Then, b'God, you're a damned traitor! I've a mind to haul ye ashore and throw you into the Black Hole."

  "What?" Ram was stunned. Then anger flared. "The man who calls me traitor must answer for it! I'm an Austrian officer."

  "A Parliament Act forbids Britons to serve foreign companies in India," the other blustered. "Also, all ships not duly authorized are interlopers and subject to capture. Tell these men that!"

  When he did, consternation swept the Ostenders. So Ram took it upon himself to demand: "How can we be interlopers when we sail under the passport of Prince Eugene of Savoy? D'ye think to keep all India for yourselves? What of the Dutch, French and the Portuguese? Are they interlopers?"

  "Why does a trading ship carry troops?" the captain countered. "Are ye marines or do ye intend a settlement here?"

  Ram let van Hoven answer that, but when he had translated the reply, the Englishman grew so furious he threatened to turn the fort's guns on the ship. In turn, Ritter, who had come up from the waist, begged permission to shoot down this insolent English dog.

  At last tempers cooled. Eugene's passport was shown and the captain, whose name was Rale, admitted it seemed valid. He even explained that all the European companies were plagued by individual traders of many nations who, seeking only quick profits, made bargains with every petty rajah. Then they usually broke their pacts and sailed away, leaving behind native hatred for all Europeans.