Flood of Fire

by Amitav Ghosh

  The mood of the men gave Kesri much to worry about for the next day. He knew that an embarkation was a performance in its own right and the army’s Burra Sahibs would be watching closely. It was vital for the sepoys to get off to a good start by acquitting themselves well – and in their present state of mind he doubted that they would.

  But when the time came, B Company did him proud by putting on a flawless display. With drums beating and fifes trilling the notes of ‘Troop’ they marched out of the fort’s western gate in double column. On reaching the designated staging ground they wheeled into line and presented arms in perfect order. Then, squad by squad, they fell out and were ferried to the Hind in lighters. After the last sepoy had boarded, the lighters began to transfer the company’s allotment of howitzers, mortars and field-pieces.

  The camp-followers had embarked earlier and by the time the sepoys came aboard everything was in order to receive them. But despite all the planning and preparation, there was still a great deal of confusion. Very few of the sepoys had been on a deep-water ship before and some of them became disoriented when they stepped below deck. As tempers rose the camp-followers bore the brunt of it, as always: many had to put up with cuffs and kicks.

  After ignoring the gol-maal for a while Kesri brought things to order by unloosing a bellow that shook the timbers: Khabardar! He made the men stand to attention, beside their hammocks, and proceeded to give them a dhamkaoing that made their breath run short. He ended with dire warnings about what lay ahead: seasickness, flooding, objects cannoning around in bad weather, and so on. His most urgent strictures, however, concerned a hazard of a different kind – the lascars. These were the greatest budmashes on earth, he told the sepoys. To a man, lascars were thieves, drunkards, lechers and brawlers, with skulls as thick cannonshells. They were the sepoys’ natural enemies and would steal from them at the least opportunity: they had to be watched at every moment, especially when they were hanging from the ropes like bandars.

  Chastened, the men began to settle down, and when it came time to weigh anchor Kesri did not have the heart to confine them below deck. He gave them permission to go above to take a last look at the city.

  Leading the way was Kesri himself: he stepped on the maindeck just as the Hind began to move. Almost simultaneously a battery in Fort William started to fire a salute of minute-guns.

  Zachary too was up on deck: as the shots rang out, the planks under his feet seem to tremble in response. He remembered the last time he had set sail from this city, on the Ibis, with a shipload of coolies and overseers. It amazed him to think that only sixteen months had passed since that day – for the difference between that departure and this one seemed almost as great as the gap between the man he had been then and who he was now.

  From the other end of the maindeck, Kesri drank in the sights of the receding city – the temples, the houses, the trees – as if he were seeing them for the last time.

  As the city slipped past a strange, cold feeling crept through him and he realized, with a shock, that deep in his heart he too had come to believe that he would never see his homeland again.

  Twelve

  The Hind had advanced only a few miles downriver when Raju came running down in search of Zachary, who was in one of the cargo holds, taking inventory of Mr Burnham’s consignment of Malwa opium.

  ‘Mr Reid sir!’ cried the boy. ‘You’d better come up.’

  ‘Come where, kid-mutt?’

  ‘To the cabin, sir.’

  The cabin that Zachary had been assigned was in the poop-deck, and, exactly as Mr Burnham had promised, it was of comfortable size. This was providential since the Hind’s holds were filled to capacity with the Bengal Volunteers’ armaments, equipment and baggage. Storage space was now so short that Zachary had been forced to stow five chests of opium in his own cabin. That was where he had left Raju, with instructions to see to it that the five chests were properly stacked and covered with tarpaulin.

  ‘Did you finish with the chests, kid-mutt?’

  ‘No, sir. I couldn’t.’

  There was a note of fright in his voice which made Zachary look at him more closely. ‘What’s happened, kid-mutt?’ he said, softening his tone. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You’d better come and see, sir.’

  ‘All right then.’

  With Raju at his heels Zachary made his way up through the innards of the ship, past the crowded, noisome chaos of the steerage deck, up to the maindeck and past the dining salon. On reaching the gangway that led to his cabin he beheld a startling sight: all his baggage, including the five chests of opium, had been shoved out.

  More in surprise than indignation, Zachary turned to Raju: ‘What happened here, kid-mutt? Who did this?’

  Raju made no answer but gestured mutely ahead, in the direction of the cabin. ‘I tried to stop them, sir …’

  Stepping up to the cabin Zachary saw, to his astonishment, that two young lieutenants were lounging in the bunks, in full uniform, devoid only of their shakoes, with their swords strapped to their sides and their booted feet thrust against the bulkheads.

  The casual brutality of this usurpation astonished Zachary and he was unable to keep his voice down: ‘What the hell’re you doing in my cabin?’

  ‘Your cabin?’

  One of the lieutenants swung his boots off the bunk and came right up to Zachary. He was a thin, pimply youth but what he lacked in bulk he more than made up for in swagger and sneer.

  ‘You are mistaken, sir,’ said the lieutenant, thrusting his nose to within a few inches of Zachary’s. ‘This is not your cabin. It has been reassigned.’

  ‘On whose authority?’

  Now suddenly another voice cut in: ‘On my authority, sir.’

  Turning on his heel Zachary found himself facing another officer.

  ‘I am Captain Mee of the Bengal Volunteers; I am in command of the soldiers on this ship. It is on my authority that this cabin has been reassigned.’

  The captain was a man of imposing build and stature: even without his gold-braided shako he towered above Zachary by at least a full head. His broad, deep chest had a yellow sash slung diagonally across it, running from his right epaulette to his waist. There was a bend in his nose that gave him a look of natural disdain; his jaw was massive and there was something about its cut that indicated a fiery temper: it was almost bristling now as he returned Zachary’s gaze with hard, unsmiling eyes.

  ‘You had no right to reassign my cabin, sir,’ Zachary protested. ‘Only the captain of this vessel has that authority.’

  ‘You are mistaken, sir,’ said Captain Mee. ‘This vessel is currently a military transport. Army personnel have priority in all matters.’

  ‘Sir, this cabin was allotted to me by the shipowner himself,’ said Zachary, trying to sound reasonable. ‘I am his representative and the supercargo of this vessel.’

  ‘Oh is that what you are?’ The captain lowered his eyes to the chests of opium, all of which bore the markings of the Ghazipur opium factory. He drew his foot back and kicked one of the chests: ‘Why, sir, I could have sworn that you were a common opium-pedlar.’

  The captain’s curled lip, and the glint of contempt in his eye, made Zachary’s face burn. Controlling his voice with some difficulty, he said: ‘I am carrying a cargo, sir, that is legal by the laws of this land. I have every right to take it where I wish.’

  ‘And I, sir,’ retorted the captain, ‘have every right to tell you that I do not care for drug-pedlars.’

  ‘Then your quarrel, sir,’ said Zachary sharply, ‘is not with me but with the Honourable East India Company, whose uniform you wear – for as you can see, the seal of the Company’s factory is clearly stamped upon these chests.’

  At this the captain’s scowl deepened and his hands moved towards the hilt of his sword. ‘Don’t you get gingery with me, sir,’ he growled. ‘You are insulting my uniform and I will not stand for it.’

  ‘What I said, sir, is no more than the truth,’ sai
d Zachary.

  ‘Well here is another truth for you then,’ said Captain Mee. ‘You would do well to get yourself and your cargo out of my sight right now. And let me assure you, sir, that if it should come to my ears that you’ve been peddling your merchandise to my sepoys, I shall personally see to it that your cargo is thrown overboard. You may consider that fair warning.’

  A rush of blood flooded into Zachary’s head now and he forgot about the captain’s sword. Bunching his fists he took a step in his direction – ‘Why you …’ – but only to find that someone had taken hold of his elbow and was pulling him back.

  ‘Reid! Haul your wind!’

  It was Mr Doughty who had appeared at his side: ‘Let’s not make a goll-maul here, Reid. These military fellows will have their way, one way or another. We’ll make other arrangements, don’t worry. There’s a nice little cumra down in the steerage deck that will be ekdum theek for you. Come on now, let’s be off to freshen hawse.’

  After a moment’s hesitation, Zachary allowed himself to be led away, but under protest: ‘This is all wrong, Mr Doughty. I was assured that I’d have that cabin …!’

  Glancing back, Zachary saw that the three officers were observing his retreat with expressions of amused contempt. Their voices followed him as he was led away:

  ‘… lucky little cockquean, to get off without copping a porridge-popper …’

  ‘… another minute and he’d have been jawed in the fiszog …’ ‘… if anyone ever needed a fist in the frontispiece it’s that little sprig of myrtle …’

  Zachary could do nothing but grind his teeth.

  *

  Once the Hind was on the open sea, cruising towards Singapore, Shireen became increasingly preoccupied with the prospect of meeting her husband’s unacknowledged son.

  ‘Tell me about Freddie, Zadig Bey. You must know him as well as anyone. What was he like as a child?’

  Zadig’s hand rose to stroke his chin. As a boy, he said, Freddie had been good-natured, trusting, a little bewildered; left to himself he would probably have been content to be apprenticed to a boatman or fisherman, as was the custom with the children of Canton’s boat-people. But Bahram would not hear of this. He had nurtured many ambitions for his son: he had wanted him to grow up so that he would be able to hold his own among gentlemen of all sorts – European, Chinese and Hindustani. He had wanted him to be able to quote poetry and he had also wanted him to excel in gentlemanly sports like fencing, boxing and riding. He had hired tutors to teach him English, Classical Chinese, and many other things – no easy matter that, since there were strict rules in China about who could learn what and from whom. But with the help of his compradore Bahram was able to ensure that the boy got an education, although Freddie himself had shown little inclination for it.

  Bahram had certainly meant well, said Zadig, but he hadn’t made life any easier for the boy. Freddie’s peers knew of course that his father was an ‘Achha’ – which was what Hindustanis were called in Canton – and they knew also that he was a rich merchant, of the ‘White Hat’ variety (which was what they called Parsis). This made it hard enough for Freddie to fit in, and the fact that he received lessons from tutors, and was often given expensive presents, made it harder still. At times he had felt very lonely and had even spoken of escaping to India. He had dreamt of meeting his half-sisters and stepmother, and had longed to live in Bombay, with his rich step-family; having grown up on a kitchen-boat in Canton’s floating city, the idea of a mansion, with servants and coachmen, was no doubt impossibly attractive.

  But on this matter Bahram had been inflexible: indulgent though he was of Freddie he made it clear that he would not, on any account, take him to India. Bahram had been convinced that if the boy’s existence were made public a terrible scandal would ensue; that he would be destroyed, as a father, a husband and a businessman.

  So Freddie had had no option but to fit in as best he could in Canton, which meant that he had drifted into the company of others like himself – the half-Chinese children of sailors, merchants and other foreigners. At a certain age Freddie had moved out of his mother’s kitchen-boat and gone off to live somewhere else: he would visit Chi-mei occasionally but when she asked what sort of work he was doing he would give evasive answers. This had led her to believe that Freddie had fallen in with one of the many criminal gangs and brotherhoods of the Canton waterfront.

  At their last meeting Chi-mei had confided to Zadig that she feared for the life of her son.

  Shortly afterwards Freddie had disappeared. On a subsequent visit to Canton, Zadig had learnt that Chi-mei had been murdered at about the time of Freddie’s disappearance, in the course of what appeared to be a burglary. Bahram was back in Bombay then, and Zadig had written to let him know that Chi-mei had died and Freddie was untraceable.

  After that, for a long time, there was no news at all of Freddie. Both Bahram and Zadig had begun to fear that he was dead – but then he had re-surfaced again, in Singapore.

  Bahram was on his way to Canton then, for what would prove to be his last visit. It so happened that Zadig was in Singapore too, en route to the same destination. They had met up and Bahram had offered Zadig a berth on his ship.

  Zadig was on the Anahita one day when Vico went ashore to buy clothes at a weekly market on the outskirts of Singapore – and there, unexpectedly, Vico had run into Freddie. He was with a friend, a Bengali – this was none other than Anil Kumar Munshi, the man who would later become Bahram’s secretary.

  Bahram had been overjoyed to be reunited with his son. He had invited Freddie to move to the Anahita, with his friend, and they had spent several happy days together on the ship. Freddie had seemed a changed man, mellower and more forgiving of his father. But about himself he was still reticent: when asked where he had been these last few years all he would say was that he had been travelling around the East Indies.

  When the Anahita’s repairs were completed and it came time for Bahram to leave Singapore, he had asked Freddie to accompany him to Canton. But Freddie had declined, saying that he wanted instead to go to Malacca where his half-sister lived.

  ‘Was that the last time my husband saw him then?’

  ‘Yes, Bibiji. It was the last time I saw him too – more than a year and a half ago.’

  ‘After all this time do you think you’ll be able to find him in Singapore?’

  ‘Yes, Bibiji. If he’s there I should be able to trace him.’

  In lieu of his cabin Zachary was allotted a cubicle in the steerage-deck: formerly a sail-maker’s closet it was sandwiched between the fo’c’sle, where the lascars were berthed, and the large cumra that was occupied by the camp-followers. The cubicle had no window and was so cramped that there was barely space for the single hammock that was strung up in it. At first glance it seemed impossible that it could accommodate a man and boy as well as eight hundred pounds of opium. But in the end, by tightening the ropes of the hammock until it was almost flat against the ceiling, Zachary was able to fit everything in. His chests and sea-trunk he stacked underneath the hammock so that they became a makeshift bunk for Raju to curl up on.

  The boy made no complaint and even seemed to enjoy sleeping on the chests: he would lie there for hours, with an ear pinned to the bulkhead that separated the cubicle from the adjoining cumra.

  This bulkhead was no more than a thin partition, made of a few badly fitted planks of wood. When the ship tossed or heaved, cracks would open up between the planks, providing glimpses of the adjacent cumra; sometimes the planks would rise, so that gaps opened up in the partition. Peeping through the openings, Raju saw that a squad of fifers and drummers, many of them of about his own age, had been berthed right next to the cubicle.

  The banjee-boys were a high-spirited lot; to Raju even their quarrels were interesting – not least because of the way they spoke. Their argot was like some brightly coloured kedgeree, studded with nuts and raisins, but also filled with grit: chummy expressions like ‘yaar’ and ‘men’ rolle
d off their tongues almost as often as swear words like ‘bahenchod’ and ‘chootiya’; ‘motherfucker’ and ‘arse-hole’.

  Sometimes, when the ship heaved, the partition between the cubicle and the cumra would rise clean off the deck-planks, allowing small objects to slip through. One evening, when he was alone in the cubby, Raju looked down to find that a gleaming silver-coloured pipe had appeared on his side of the divide. It had lodged itself under Zachary’s sea-trunk, in a position where it was in danger of being crushed.

  Raju hurried to rescue the instrument and no sooner had he done so than a commotion broke out on the other side of the bulwark. Putting his ear to a crack in the wood, Raju realized that someone was searching frantically for the fife that he was now holding in his own hands.

  How to let the boy know that his fife was safe? An idea came to Raju: he had taken music lessons and was not unfamiliar with instruments like flutes and recorders. Putting the fife to his lips he played a few notes.

  The effect was exactly as he had hoped. There was a silence followed by a whispered question: Is that a fife?

  Yes, said Raju. It rolled over here.

  Another pause and then an entreaty: Yaar, can you meet me outside?

  Raju stepped out into the narrow gangway that ran past the cubicle. Shortly afterwards a snub-nosed, brown-haired boy came running towards him.

  The gangway was lit by a single, flickering lamp. In the dim light Raju saw that the fifer was not much taller than himself, although he looked much more grown up because of his uniform, with its braided epaulettes.

  The fifer received his pipe gratefully and stuck out his hand: Tera naam kya hai yaar? What’s your name?

  Raju. Aur tera?

  Dicky.

  Gesturing in the direction of the camp-followers’ compartment, the fifer added: I have to practise now but we can talk tomorrow.

  The next day the boys talked briefly on the maindeck. Later, they continued their conversation below deck, whispering through cracks in the partition.