By Eastern windows

by Gretta Curran Browne

  ‘Never in a lifetime, John!’ Jane declared honestly. ‘Come tomorrow evening? Bring Charles with you.’

  ‘Very well, we'd be delighted.’ John Forbes glanced at Lachlan who was still looking down at the draft. ‘Now, if you will forgive me, I really must be off.’

  Lachlan laid down the draft and turned to perform the courtesy of seeing him out. He walked with John Forbes down the veranda and onto the drive where his palanquin and bearers waited for him.

  ‘A generous man, the brigadier,’ Lachlan murmured.

  ‘Yes, a dear old thing,’ Forbes agreed. `But then, you know, yourself and Jane have many friends in Bombay, Lachlan, many friends.’

  That was the problem. They had too many friends in Bombay.

  ‘It's strange, just the same,’ Lachlan said softly, ‘that the amount of his bequest should be the same as I applied to borrow.’

  ‘Is it?’ Forbes's eyes looked vague for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose it is, now you mention it. Strange that.’ He looked round sharply. ‘Does this mean you will no longer need to borrow the money?’

  Flinching inwardly, Lachlan answered through dry lips. ‘No, I don't suppose I will.’

  ‘No? Are we to be deprived of the interest? Oh dear!’ John Forbes shook his head as he climbed into his palanquin. ‘Still, I suppose the old brigadier was only doing his best without any desire to put us out of business.’

  When his bearer had closed the door, John Forbes extended his hand through the window. Lachlan reached to clasp it in farewell. ‘Goodbye, my friend,’ Forbes said lightly. ‘See you tomorrow evening, all being well.

  Lachlan nodded. ‘All being well.’

  He stood with a set face and watched the palanquin carried out of sight. Would he ever know the truth of it? But if the money had come from John Forbes's own pocket and not the brigadier's account, then one could only admire John's clever and delicate way of doing it – a personal gift to Jane, left to her in a Will by a dead officer whose estate the bank had been settling.

  Bunkum!

  Not for one minute did he believe the four thousand rupees had come from the brigadier's estate.

  Lachlan turned back to the house, riven by a humiliation that John Forbes had done his utmost to avoid.

  *

  The money paid for the silver and plate, but what was left did little to help Lachlan honour his debts. He began to yearn an escape from this life of Eastern luxury. And yet, in comparison to the rest of Bombay society, he and Jane were living a life of Scottish frugality.

  Like many another career-minded officer, he rode out to the country every morning before breakfast to keep himself strong and healthy. As he cantered along he thought of the daily routine of most other gentlemen in British Bombay, and wondered what his mother, a virtuous and hard working Scot, would think if she knew of the life here?

  He decided she would probably faint if she knew that a gentleman in Bombay steps out of his bed each morning to find a servant holding his clothes: one servant held his breeches, another his shirt, another his waistcoat, and so on and so on, and these were all put upon his body without the slightest effort on his part.

  The gentlemen is then seated in a chair while a servant washes and shaves his face and combs his hair; and while this is being done, a house servant places a cup of tea in one hand, and the hookah servant places the hookah smoking tube in his other hand. And all that before he has even left his dressing room.

  ‘My Goad, but that's sinful, Lachlan, sinful!’ Yes, that's what his mother would say. His father, on the other hand, if he had been alive, would slowly have shaken his tired head and refused to believe it.

  And these gentleman, almost all attached to the East India Company – the Civil Dogs – as so many of the soldiers secretly called them, were amassing great fortunes in India by hook or by crook but which they simply called ‘trading’.

  And when the nabob has finished his lucrative day's trading, usually by one o'clock, and usually making as much money for himself as for the East India Company, a sedan chair and bearers wait to carry him home before the sun gets too hot. And once home his servants are waiting to remove his waistcoat, his shirt, his breeches, and the afternoon is devoted to a nice relaxing sleep, in preparation for the pleasures of the evening socialising.

  There were those few, of course, who sought respite from the boredom of such long hot idle Indian days and nights by exciting themselves with an occasional smoke of opium – very expensive – but not for the Civil Dogs, considering the opium monopoly was held by the East India Company.

  Under the shade of a huge banyan tree, Lachlan turned his horse and sat looking up at the canopy of soft green leaves above his head … Even now, after four years in India, he still felt a tremendous awe for the magnitude of a single banyan tree, its many trunks swelling in all directions from the parent trunk of the tree, so that a banyan was a grove in itself, in which an entire company of soldiers could lie down and sleep with room to spare.

  Mynah, mynah, mynah … He turned his head and looked up at the mynah bird chatting cheekily down to him. He smiled, saluted, and rode on, cantering back at an easy pace, his mind returning to the world of British Bombay and the gentlemen who lived in it.

  To give them their due, many were rich and lazy, but no servant could wish for a more clement master than a British master. The lazy British nabob may insist on his every need being catered for, but if one of his native serving tribe suffered sorrow, or difficulties of any kind, then he became the very fount of human kindness and compassion, and any real distress of a servant was rarely pleaded in vain.

  And the native women of India, at least, had reason to be grateful to the British, for the custom of sutti – a widow being forced to burn herself alive with the corpse of her dead husband – was strictly forbidden in all districts ruled by the British, yet still widely practised in those states ruled by the maharajahs.

  But it was as friends that the British nabobs truly excelled and became such a problem. In the private world of personal friendships the British regarded themselves as one large and friendly family, although poor relations were sternly frowned upon as letting the home side down and often ostracised. Military officers were very acceptable as friends, as long as they were up to snuff and good entertaining, but common soldiers were merely rowdies to be avoided at all cost.

  And it was in this world of opulence, where generosity, comfort, and unlimited hospitality were the order of the day, that Lachlan watched his debts rising and rising, and saw no way out, no way at all.

  Until, at the end of May, the new Commander-in-Chief of the Army in Bombay, General Balfour, sent an urgent summons to Captain Macquarie to report to him at once.

  Balfour! Lachlan found himself thinking wryly about his old commanding officer as he walked towards the general's office at Headquarters. Balfour had long ago found the perfect solution to living in peace and escaping the expense and extravagance of Bombay society – he lived on a cruiser way out in the harbour – sailing back and forth from the cruiser in a small masoolah boat every day.

  ‘It's very far out,’ a Company nabob had said in a disgruntled tone to Balfour one day at the docks. ‘Your boat, Colonel, it's very far out. I must say, your removal from the shore will make it very difficult for people to drop in on you at evening time, as is the custom here in Bombay.’

  ‘Drop in?’ Balfour had cried. ‘My dear man, there is my boat on the beautiful blue ocean and anyone may drop in whenever they wish!’

  General Balfour was staring at a map on the wall when Lachlan was shown in. He looked round and exclaimed in surprise, ‘Captain Macquarie – why, you’re just the man I was hoping to see!’

  Lachlan saluted the old humbug. ‘You sent for me, sir?’

  ‘Did I? Oh yes, I think I did ... but first, before we get down to the tedium of official business, tell me…’ Balfour's face became paternal, his tone gentle, ‘how are you enjoying married life in Bombay?’

  Lachlan knew Balfour
was merely humouring him. Instantly he became wary.

  Balfour smiled. ‘Happy are you?’

  ‘Like you, sir, I would be happier on a boat.’

  ‘A boat, dear boy?’ Balfour seemed astonished at the answer. ‘You would prefer to be on a boat – away from Bombay society?’ He swatted at a fly above his eyes. ‘What an absolutely splendid coincidence, in view of the circumstances...’

  *

  Lachlan raced home to Jane and sped into the house, grinning with joy. He swung her up in his arms while she laughed and demanded to know the reason.

  ‘I'm leaving Bombay! My company and most of the 77th are being shipped out of Bombay within a month. No more playing the rich man! No more being the elegantly clad staff officer! I'm changing my coat, Jane, and going back to soldiering.’

  ‘When? Where?’

  ‘To a military station five hundred miles away, down the Malabar coast, at Calicut, a little south of Tellicherry.’

  Jane stood very still, holding on to his arms as if dizzy. He was being sent back into the field, and leaving her alone in Bombay.

  ‘For how long?’ she asked.

  ‘A year, two years - who knows with the Army? All that matters is you and I will be getting away from all the artificiality and ridiculous expense of Bombay!’

  ‘You mean ... I can come too?’

  ‘Of course you’re coming too!’ He smiled at her expression. ‘I go nowhere without you – except into a battle area. And we'll take Bappoo with us. And Marianne.’

  ‘Marianne and Bappoo!’ She threw herself into his arms, kissing his face with little tender kisses as if he had given her some extraordinary pleasure.

  He breathed in her perfume and allowed it to go straight to his head, deciding that the only thing he wanted to do now was to take her immediately to their bedroom and revel in his good news and her – and why not? It was the afternoon, the hottest time of the day.

  ‘I must go and tell Marianne,’ she said excitedly, drawing back.

  ‘Afterwards,’ he said, smiling as he took her hand and led her out of the room and down the hallway. ‘After a bit of play in the games room.’

  *

  Afterwards, Jane opened dark-fringed eyes as if she had been drugged. She moved her body slowly, and then lay for a time in lassitude. The sun was burning on the roof but the heat did not affect her. Coming from a hot country she was more acclimatised to these hot afternoons than he would ever be.

  Finally, she gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling and began to ask questions about the new life ahead of them. Would Major Oakes's wife be going? She liked Mrs Oakes. And Mrs Stirling? Was she going? And Mrs Shaw?

  Her thoughts stirred her into movement. She sat up and shook out the heavy waves of her long hair, then settled herself happily against the pile of pillows covered in a cool yellow satin, and her questions continued. How far from the town of Calicut was the military station?

  He did not answer. She turned her face to look at him and saw that his eyes were closed. She shook his shoulder roughly. ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, there is one wee little thing I forgot to tell you, Jane,’ he murmured. ‘You will be the only officer's wife on the station.’

  She half rose on the pillows then dropped back again, as if the breath had been knocked out of her. For a long moment she lay staring at the ceiling, then she blurted out in a wail, ‘I'm to be thrown amongst the wolves! A whole regiment of them!’

  He stirred himself at last to drag himself up to kiss her bare shoulder and humour her with an easy smile.

  ‘As a company commander's wife you will be treated like a queen. And the 77th are a fine bunch of lads,’ he added. ‘The best in India.’

  *

  A few days later, in the cantonments of Colaba, a company of that fine bunch of lads was lined to attention on the parade ground in preparation for being put through their drill.

  The fact that their company commander had specially ridden over to watch them, accompanied by two lieutenants, did not disturb them in the least. They liked Captain Macquarie, thought him a good skin and one of the few pukka officers in the regiment. Not like some of the others who had too many airs and graces and strutted around like generals. But Captain Macquarie was down to earth and always ready to fight for his men if he thought any complaint against them unjustified.

  The sun was getting higher and promised another day of swelter. Everyone was now watching for clouds and counting the days to the arrival of the monsoon, which usually reached Bombay in mid-June, bringing with it the blessed coolness that everyone craved.

  On the parade ground, Captain Macquarie stood to the side with his officers and nodded to the drill-sergeant to commence.

  Sergeant McGinnis wheeled round to face the men, opened his mouth as wide as a whale's and began barking out a series of commands that went on for almost an hour.

  The sergeant finally called a halt.

  The men, red-faced and panting like blown cattle, looked to their company commander who had been watching them throughout, hoping desperately that he would give Sergeant McGinnis the signal that would allow them to fall out.

  They saw him looking at them thoughtfully, and then he beckoned to Sergeant McGinnis who marched over to him. He spoke very quietly to the sergeant, occasionally glancing in the direction of the men. Then he spoke to Lieutenant Lacey, who nodded and strolled towards the men with a supercilious smirk on his face. Lacey, they had decided, was just another one of those officers who had all the airs and graces of an exiled prince.

  The men groaned when they learned there was to be no falling out, but a display of their firing skills.

  Lieutenant Lacey organised the drill, lining the men into ranks. Captain Macquarie watched carefully as the men loaded and fired their fifty-six inch long muskets, the bullets zapping towards the target boards lined against the end wall, loaded and fired, loaded and fired, three rounds a man.

  When the noise on the parade ground finally died down and the smoke had settled, the ‘best in India’ were ordered back into lines.

  Only then did Captain Macquarie walk over and give them his opinion of their performance.

  ‘As soldiers, nothing but your cleanliness deserves praise. All your movements were slovenly executed. Your firing was neither close nor regular. Your discipline and strength has gone to the devil. You are slack and slow and out of condition and have obviously had life a bit too easy since returning from Mysore. So I think a few changes are in order.’

  He looked at Sergeant McGinnis. ‘The men must be shaped up and returned to a high standard, Sergeant. Allow them to cool off for fifteen minutes, then get them working again and keep them sweating for at least another hour. After that it will be two hours of drill morning and evening. Parades three times a day, sunrise, noon and sunset. And musket practice twice a day until we leave Bombay.’

  The men stared at him, appalled.

  Lachlan understood their outrage, but as their company commander the responsibility for the lives of these men had been entrusted to him, and if they were being moved down the coast to go into battle, as he suspected they were, then the best way to help them survive was to make sure they were fighting-fit and ready for anything.

  And there was another matter he was forced to make them consider. ‘I do understand,’ he said, ‘that boredom is the curse of peacetime soldiering. And nowhere moreso than here in India where a soldier has little to do outside routine than carouse in brothels, indulge in drunkenness, and smoke opium.’

  His eyes moved along the lines in an expression that said he had more than a suspicion that a few of them were freely indulging in the latter.

  ‘But any soldier found to be in possession of opium will suffer the severest punishment the Army can give him. You have all seen the effects of opium on the Indian armies. In battle it inspires a false courage that leads to a short period of brutal frenzy followed by staggering imbecility.’

  Sergeant McGinnis's face was puce with shame as he listened to
the captain addressing the men slowly and distinctly with a determined edge to his voice.

  ‘You will drill until you can all march on the parade ground as one man, in perfect synchronisation. You will have musket practice until you can load and refire three rounds inside one minute and not three. You will, if nothing else, be a credit to this regiment of the British Army.’

  He turned away, leaving the sergeant to dismiss the men who stood staring after him as he strode from the parade ground with his junior officers.

  ‘Bloody Breda! Whoever said he was pukka?’

  ‘Aye, well … I reckon there’s something brewing.’

  ‘Silence! Shut your blethering gobs!’ Sergeant McGinnis had come out of his shock and shame and was glaring at the men like a demon on fire.

  ‘Ye lazy shower o' buggers! Ye couldn't even pretend to be soldiers, could ye? Ye couldn't help out a poor old sarge who’s always been good to ye. Oh, God! I wish I was dead! Dead and no longer in charge of ye sods! Almost six years in Hindooo land – and where's it got me? I'll never make Regimental Sergeant-Major now!’

  Emotion cracked his roaring voice. ‘Well if my career's ruined I'm taking ye lot with me! Ye needn't worry about drills or anything else because I'm not going to give them to ye! I'm going to do what the captain should've done – I'm going to get one of the regiment's cannons – and then I'm going to blow ye all to buggery!’

  He looked at the men with a sudden clearness, and saw them all regarding him with patient eyes. They all knew his bark was far worse than his bite.

  *

  Colaba was one of the small islands very close to the shore of Bombay and linked to the mainland by a causeway over which pedestrians and carriages could travel. Every day Lachlan rode out to spend most of his time in the cantonments of Colaba watching the men of his company in training.

  Other company captains had heard of Macquarie's lecture and how he was reported to be now leaning very hard on his men. Not to be outdone, they quickly followed suit.