The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  Richard drew back from the telescope, envious and proud, conscious above all of sudden, enormous nostalgia. Here, he thought, were discipline, order, and command; all the things for which Makassang cried out, concentrated in a few hundred British sailors, a few thousand tons of tested steel. He came to his resolution, though it was a resolution already made for him by all the pressures of the past – his birth, his self-respect, his twin senses of benevolence and authority.

  He had long hungered for some magic wand which would restore, not the trappings of rule, but a pattern of order on which decent, humble, and happy men could depend.

  The time had come, having found it, to put it into action.

  He had sent a messenger to the foot of the Steps of Heaven, ordering the state barge to be made ready, and to await his pleasure; he had called out a ceremonial guard of twelve men, under his own adjutant Paratang, a trusted man who was one of the Fifty. Now he dressed, very carefully, for his appointment with fate.

  He was excited, and keyed up with the knowledge that this must be a great occasion; his movements were quick and nervous, and he talked without ceasing, on any subject that came into his mind. It was to Sunara that he talked – a silent Sunara who, helping him to dress, was much preoccupied with her own thoughts. In all, she spoke only two sentences during this girding on; once she murmured: ‘It may be that I am to be saved from mortal sin,’ and once she was constrained to say: ‘Richard – stand still!’

  For such an occasion, he could not very well wear his Dutch admiral’s uniform; he was dealing now with people of consequence who took such matters seriously. He wore instead a longhi of royal purple, and a white tunic edged with gold thread; his turban was pure white silk, set with a ruby in the centre; his sandals were of ox hide, the straps inlaid with ivory emblems. He made two concessions, one to personal taste, and one to prudence; he wore his single gold earring, and he carried his pistols at his belt.

  Finally, when all was ready, he gave swift thought to the selection of a present, without which no great visitor could be greeted; the thought recalled the days of long ago, when old Amin Bulong had first come on board the Lucinda D with the Rajah’s gift of a magnificent ivory tusk. He summoned Durilla, his major-domo, and while he waited, he asked himself: What offering would be most welcome to a senior officer of the Royal Navy? Then he grinned, finding that he need waste little time in solving this particular puzzle. When Durilla appeared, bowing, Richard commanded: ‘Bring me five thousand rix dollars, in hundred-dollar pieces, in a silk purse.’

  Even Admirals of the Fleet were left, at the end, with no more than their half-pay pension.

  When Durilla, who had gone on his errand without question, came back bearing the purse of money from Richard’s private store, his curiosity overcame discretion. He inquired, with seeming servility: ‘When may I expect the Tunku to return?’

  ‘In due course,’ answered Richard, whose mood, at long last, was one of unrelenting determination. Durilla, like every other servant in the Sun Palace, owed his place to the Rajah, and his loyalty was, at the best, divided. Anything said here, of any consequence, would be likely to reach other ears, even the highest, within the length of time it would take a man of unobtrusive gait to walk down one long corridor, and up another.

  Durilla, a smoothly fat man who, as a companion and sometime friend of John Keston, had perhaps spent an uneasy night, was gently persistent. ‘Be sure we will await you, Tunku. Is it to be a long journey?’

  Richard, who was at that moment thrusting his primed and loaded pistols into his waist belt, looked up. With the die about to be cast, he felt that he owed it to his fortune to be frank. At certain crossroads, the time for action was also the time for truth.

  ‘It is to be a short journey, Durilla,’ he answered, with grim precision. ‘I find that I lack friends in Makassang. I therefore go to seek some.’

  With that, he kissed Sunara, called to Paratang and his escort, who were marshalled in the antechamber, and walked down the staircase and out into the palace grounds, towards the Steps of Heaven.

  Though it was still scarcely full day, the whole of the Sun Palace was already in a ferment; the passageways and the rooms, big and small, were a-twitter with servants and hangers-on and even minor officers of state, receiving and exchanging the rumours which now ran thick and fast through every corner of the great building. The throng moved restlessly, talking and whispering without end; there was a constant surge to and fro, first to crowd to the windows to look at the ships below, then to gather in knots and exchange fantastic stories of what had been seen, and what fresh wonder might next come into view. An anthill disturbed by a giant foot could not have been thrown into a greater uproar, nor have seemed more ludicrous in its pigmy chaos.

  The band of determined men surrounding Richard Marriott cleft through this chattering confusion like a knife through cheese; it hardly needed the bold show of arms, and the shouted words of command, for the throng to fall aside, to gape in wonder, and to be left behind like seawrack washed by the tide. Down the broad staircase they went, close-knit, unsmiling, intent; to Captain Paratang, a faithful friend, Richard had communicated his sense of urgent mission, and Paratang’s own men had caught the breath of danger. When they passed through the great audience chamber, full of vague and fearful figures, they might have been hawks cutting their way through a flock of starlings.

  But outside, on the lawn leading to the Steps of Heaven, there was a moment of high drama, which might have been a different matter altogether.

  Here was drawn up a company of soldiers, greatly outnumbering Richard’s bodyguard, under the command of Captain Sorba. Sorba’s men had been staring to seaward, watching the ships, talking among themselves; they now turned to stare at Richard’s advancing force. Their ranks were formed, their arms were ready; and they were stationed in an unbroken line across the head of the steps.

  Paratang, at a sign from Richard, checked his men’s advance. Then Richard stepped forward, confronting Captain Sorba with an easy confidence.

  ‘I pass your guard, Captain,’ he said formally.

  Sorba was clearly taken aback. He looked long at Richard, then at his surrounding bodyguard; he turned slightly to look at his own men – a fatal moment of indecision which revealed the weak man in a position of uncertainty. Finally he swallowed, as if to find his tongue, and said, in another military phrase of equal formality: ‘My guard stands fast.’

  Richard raised his eyebrows. ‘You did not hear me, Captain. I pass your guard.’

  ‘I have my orders,’ said Sorba, in great agitation. ‘No one may pass here.’

  ‘I will pass anywhere I please. If necessary I will fight to pass.’

  ‘You are joking, Tunku.’

  ‘Yes, I am joking.’ Richard’s tone was still careless, allowing a good-humoured end to this. ‘Enjoy your laugh, and then let me pass.’

  There was a silence of great uncertainty. Sorba looked again at his own men, and the sight could not have reassured him; already there was some broad byplay between Paratang’s force and his own – the invaders making gestures of menace, the defenders falling back in exaggerated alarm. All of them were from the Royal Regiment, and all were thus comrades; it seemed clear that, if it came to a struggle, they would play at fighting also. Sorba, hand on sword hilt, did the best he could.

  ‘My instructions are–’ he began.

  Richard cut him short, with the simplest of all gestures – he drew both his pistols.

  ‘My instructions to you,’ he said, with the same easy confidence as before, ‘are to stand aside. If you do not, I will kill you.’

  Captain Sorba, most unfortunate of men, wavered. ‘I am only obeying orders,’ he said.

  ‘Obey mine,’ answered Richard.

  At this point of crisis, Paratang also made his own simple contribution. He raised his sword arm, and shouted: ‘Guard – advance!’

  In a moment, without a drop of blood spilt or a bruise given, they were through.r />
  Breathing more freely, descending the Steps of Heaven towards his destiny, Richard walked with his head high. The burnished breastplates of his guard were ranged on either side of him; his own figure was magnificent; the show was a brave one. But he delayed their advance to its slowest speed. Let them see him coming.

  ii

  They had seen him coming. At the same moment as the royal barge left the foot of the steps, one of the gunboats, which must have hove short her cable, got underway smartly, and raced across the bay to meet them, her paddle wheels churning the shallow water to a pink cauldron of coral atoms. But it seemed a matter of honourable escort, not of precaution: the gunboat dipped her ensign as she met the barge – a salute which Richard, seated under his velvet canopy, gravely acknowledged – and then, after a boiling turn in her own length, settled down on a parallel course to accompany them to the flagship. The number of telescopes trained upon the barge was a flattering gauge of interest.

  Close to, the Warrior was gigantic – a great looming bulk of grey like the side of an enormous building, towering above the royal barge as it edged alongside the lowered gangway. Richard prayed that his helmsman might make a good approach, and he was not disappointed: the shouted commands, the rolling beat of the drum, and a furious swirl of backing oars, put the barge into a position so exact and so motionless that he could step on to the ornamental ladder with scarcely an effort. As he set his foot on the lowest part of the roped platform, a waiting officer came to the salute, and inquired, with a certain swiftness: ‘Sir, may I know your rank?’

  ‘I am the Prince of Makassang,’ answered Richard pleasantly.

  ‘The ruling prince?’

  ‘The son and heir of the ruling Rajah.’

  The officer turned, with the same adroit swiftness, and made an unobtrusive gesture to someone above him on the maindeck. Then, as Richard Marriott began to climb the sloping stairway, with his guard following, the first of several gunshots boomed out, echoing across the bay, in the salute appropriate to the heir to a ruling house.

  Richard stepped on to the quarter-deck, his hand raised to his turban in acknowledgement. A dozen bosuns’ pipes shrilled; a line of junior officers equipped with telescopes sprang to attention; and he walked across a short space of deck towards another group of officers, this one a veritable sea of gold braid, frock coats, and ceremonial swords. From the midst of these, one small trim figure stepped forward, his hand outstretched, his arm heavy with an admiral’s insignia of rank, and said heartily: ‘Well met, Dick!’

  It was his brother Miles.

  Richard had been prepared for everything but this; for a moment he came within an ace of surrendering his carefully-guarded demeanour, and treating the occasion on a brotherly plane which would entail a lapse from dignity. But then he stiffened. In a cursory glance, he saw that Miles, though much improved physically, was now very much the admiral, and bore himself with all his old air of high-and-mighty consequence. A lifetime of remembered slights rose to choke a possible cordiality. Nor had he welcomed the salutation ‘Dick’, which had been far removed from his mood of high resolve. If Miles could be very much the admiral, he himself could be very much the Tunku of Makassang, prince of a country richer and greater than any ship … He shook his brother’s hand, with only the briefest of smiles, and sought for an appropriate answer. It came easily enough.

  ‘Good day, Admiral,’ he said, with some condescension. Then, conscious of a hundred staring eyes, an attendant frieze of gold lace, he went on: ‘Thank you for your courteous welcome … My title is the Tunku of Makassang … Pray present your officers to me.’

  It said much for Miles Marriott – indeed, it told much of the changes wrought by twelve years – that by no flicker ofan eyelid did he betray any sense of the absurd; he went through Captain This, Commander That – with the gravest of politeness imaginable. The bowing, the saluting, the exchange of formal greetings occupied a full ten minutes, in the airless heat under the awning. Then it was Richard’s turn, and Richard’s pleasure, to play a gracious role in answer.

  Leaving the last of the presentation line – a young lieutenant who stared goggle-eyed at him as if he were some unidentified character from Holy Writ – Richard signed to Captain Paratang, who in turn snapped his fingers at the soldier who bore the purse of rix dollars. Then Richard turned back to his brother Miles.

  ‘My congratulations on a distinguished body of men, Admiral … It is our custom here to welcome notable visitors with gifts, in token of our peaceful hospitality … Pray accept this small offering.’

  He handed the small offering, which weighed several pounds, to Miles. Miles received the silken bag with a quizzical look. It might have contained anything; there was only one thing certain, and that was, that it was not empty. Every instinct of politeness demanded that he should not inquire what that ‘anything’ might be. But there was a limit to politeness, especially between brothers. Weighing the gift in his hands, he answered: ‘I thank you, Tunku … I accept your offering on behalf of Her Imperial Majesty, who reciprocates the compliment … Perhaps you will understand my curiosity when I inquire the nature of your gift?’

  ‘It is coinage of our realm,’ said Richard, with especial delight. ‘Five thousand rix dollars, to be exact. You would prefer to express it as one thousand English pounds. And though I heard you accept it on behalf of the Queen, it is in fact intended for yourself. It is our custom in Makassang to honour our visitors personally.’

  Miles bowed slightly. ‘I defer to your custom.’

  ‘I was sure that you would do so,’ said Richard.

  ‘I think,’ said Miles, with perceptible readiness, ‘that the time has come to conduct you to my quarters below.’

  In the cool of the admiral’s day cabin, with its private sternwalk high over the water, the brothers shook hands again, with open emotion. They had not seen each other for twelve years; the memories of that parting at Marriott, though acknowledged to be hurtful, had faded with the years; now they had met, in extraordinary circumstances, and found that achievement and honour had wiped out much of the dross of the past, and had improved them. Miles, to his credit, was the first to pay this tribute. Having seen Richard comfortably settled with a cool glass of gin and water, he said with complete friendliness: ‘It was good to see you step aboard, Dick. And by God, my small surprise did not shake you! You played that entrance magnificently!’

  ‘You knew I was here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Miles gestured with his free hand. ‘We have our agents. And you have fame in these parts, as you must know.’ He grinned. ‘Thank you for that purse of silver, Dick. It will not come amiss.’

  ‘It was of no consequence.’ Richard looked at his brother. ‘I have changed much, Miles.’

  Miles stared back at him. ‘Do me the compliment of believing that I have changed also.’

  It was true, as Richard swiftly realized; the prim and proper post-Captain, so sure that his candle burned bright and upright in a naughty world, had given place to a man of authority, who need strike no attitudes, nor stand on fancied dignity, to gain his place among men. Richard could even see that his first impression, out on the quarter-deck, had been mistaken, a relic of the unhappy past. Miles conducted himself like an admiral, not from conceit, but because it was necessary for him to play such a part to the world’s satisfaction – as necessary as it was for the Tunku of Makassang to assume a bearing of gravity and consequence. They were both entitled to the great and small airs which marched with the rank they had won … Richard, sipping his drink, found that he could at last meet and deal with his brother, without jealousy and without the poisoned rancours of the past.

  ‘I believe you, Miles. Let us start afresh … If you know of me, you know that I have married, that I have sons, that I have risen to some position in Makassang. If you have agents, you know what that position is worth today, and what could hang on your visit … But we will talk of that later. Tell me of yourself, tell me of Marriott! How goes the house?�
��

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ answered Miles, ‘with an absentee landlord who cannot oversee it. I have been much away on sea duty, these last few years, and the place as you know needs a constant eye. You would have made a far better squire than I.’

  Richard could not forbear to answer: ‘I had little chance of that.’

  ‘I know it, Dick.’ Miles was truly contrite. ‘I played you false, I admit, and I have lived to regret it, in many ways.’

  ‘Let us leave it in the past. It belongs there … What of Sebastian Wickham?’

  ‘The old man died, some ten years back.’ Miles’s eyes were briefly shadowed again. ‘I saw to it that he did not want, though there is little merit in that. To my shame, I sent him away, and he could not stand the parting from Marriott. But there was no employment for him there, Dick – you must allow me that much credit. And Lucinda thought him too much of a friend to you – as may have been true. She did not want such a reminder.’

  ‘You married Lucinda?’

  ‘Within six months. But we have been parted now, for many years. She lives in London, where her chosen friends seem to be.’

  ‘And children?’

  ‘None.’ Miles smiled at last, ready to assign this small tragedy to its appointed place. ‘You may believe me, Dick, they were not the happiest years of my life.’

  ‘I am sorry for that,’ said Richard, and he meant it. ‘But you have other things to comfort you. To be made admiral at thirty-three! And with a sea-command like this one. For the first time I am envious – I have never in my life seen a ship like the Warrior.’

  ‘There is none in all the world!’ Lured on by a matter of professional pride, Miles Marriott became boyish in his ardour. ‘We call them broadside iron-clads, and this is the first one to be launched. She will do fifteen knots under her steampower, even though she is two-thirds armourplated, and we mount forty guns in all. Even my gunboats have an eight-inch gun apiece, and yet they only draw four feet. They are for close work inshore … Oh, we have some fine new ships in the Navy – not before they were due! Mine is just the force for a business like this.’