by Wilbur Smith
‘But yours are mine. You will not marry this girl. I forbid it, as your father and as Governor of the Bombay Presidency. You know that any marriage contracted in this colony must be approved by me in order to be valid.’
‘You would deny your own son?’
‘When he is out of his mind, yes.’ Guy pushed himself back in his chair. ‘You wish to marry? I will see to it. You are of age now, and it is right you should take a wife. I have been remiss: if I had acted sooner, perhaps we would have avoided this foolishness altogether. After the monsoon, we will sail to England together, and I will find you a suitable bride. Sir Nicholas Childs has a niece who is eligible, or perhaps the Earl of Godolphin’s grand-daughter. We will make a match that secures your prospects admirably.’
And mine, he thought, though it hardly needed to be said. What use was a son if not to advance his father’s interests? Already, in his mind, he was counting the extra shares he might acquire with a well-contracted marriage. Perhaps a seat on the Court of Directors, even a royal appointment as Ambassador Plenipotentiary.
Christopher just stared at him. He had always been a sullen boy, Guy thought, despite all his paternal efforts. An ingrate, who could not conceive how much Guy had sacrificed for him.
‘I hear from London that Sir Nicholas Childs is not a well man,’ Guy went on. ‘One day, perhaps you may find yourself sitting in the great office in Leadenhall Street.’
Even this optimistic prospect drew no reaction from the lad. It occurred to Guy that perhaps Christopher had not even been rogering the corporal’s daughter. Perhaps he had been saving himself, out of some misguided ideal of marriage. When Guy was his age, after all, he had believed in a pure, chaste love. Before his brother Tom had snatched his illusions from him.
‘I know you have needs. I am guilty of neglecting them.’ He pulled a golden pagoda from the locked drawer in his desk and tossed it to Christopher. ‘A down payment on your future bride’s dowry. Take yourself to the brothel by the customs house – the clean one, where the officers go – and find a girl who can service you.’ He chuckled. ‘Just don’t fall in love with her, for God’s sake.’
Christopher stared at the coin as if he had never seen one before. He held it up, so that the golden light played across his face.
‘You would do all this? For me?’
Guy felt a rare spark of paternal pride. ‘All I have ever wanted is a great future for you.’
The coin slipped through Christopher’s fingers and fell onto the desk. It landed on its edge, spinning round and round making a glittering orb.
‘You are a monster, Father. A cruel, calculating ogre with nothing but a strongbox where your heart should be. You would sacrifice your only son’s happiness to make me a pawn to your ambitions. I will not play that game.’
The coin fell flat as Guy stood, pushing the desk away from him in fury.
‘How dare you defy me?’
Christopher stood his ground. ‘I am not a little boy any longer, whom you can beat to your will. I will make my life how I choose, not how you design it. I will go where I please and marry whom I please.’
The veins in Guy’s neck throbbed. ‘Be careful, Christopher. There is nowhere on either side of this ocean that my power does not reach.’
‘I do not fear you.’
‘You should,’ said Guy dangerously. ‘I could destroy you.’
Christopher stared at him. ‘Can you hear yourself? What sort of a man would say such a thing to his son? Sometimes I think you cannot be my father.’
His words struck a nerve he had never touched before. With an incoherent howl of rage, Guy grabbed a silver paper knife from his letter basket and hurled it at Christopher. It flew past his ear and stuck, quivering, in the doorframe.
Christopher didn’t flinch. He stared down at his father, his body rigid with controlled fury. It occurred to Guy that he had never noticed how tall his son had become.
‘Farewell, Father. We shall not meet again.’
‘Wait,’ Guy called. But Christopher had gone.
The sunlight struck him like a bolt of lightning before his eyes. Dazed, reeling from the enormousness of what he had done, he stumbled across the square. Ruth met him by the shore, where rusting anchors and cast-off lengths of rope littered the strand. Though it was less than an hour since she had seen him last, she flung her arms around him and clung to him as if they had been parted for years.
She had arrived with her father nine months earlier. Christopher had watched the arrival of the Indiaman that brought her. From the castle walls, he had glimpsed her in the boat that rowed her ashore: just sixteen, with alabaster skin and rich red hair, colours he’d never seen on a girl before. As her boat passed the castle, she had looked up – doubtless wondering about her new home – and caught Christopher’s eye. At that moment, he had felt a stir in his loins such as he had never felt before; he could hardly breathe with desire.
Of course, an English girl arriving in Bombay was like a rose in the desert, and there was no shortage of men wanting to pluck her for themselves. But they all retreated when they learned Guy Courtney’s son was interested.
Even then, it took time. Christopher was awkward; he did not know how to speak to a girl who was not a servant. Many nights he lay awake, abusing himself, imagining the taste of Ruth’s lips, furious at his lack of courage.
But Ruth was patient. She understood how Christopher felt, in a way his mother and father never did. She saw the love in his heart, and coaxed it out. At an assembly in the Governor’s house, where soldiers’ families were admitted because there were so few other women, she sought him out for a dance. The first time he touched her hand, his whole body convulsed. He had danced the whole night almost bulging out his breeches, certain that everyone must be laughing at him. But Ruth did not laugh. She helped him around the dance floor, and when they moved towards each other she overstepped just a little, so that she pressed against him and he felt every curve of her body through her thin cotton dress.
After that, he saw her almost every day: snatched moments behind the warehouses, or on the beach at Back Bay, beyond the coconut plantations. They held hands and walked across the sand while she told him about England, the country he came from but had never seen. She had seen so much, things he had only ever read in books or heard discussed among his father’s Company colleagues. She spoke to him with respect, talking easily while he stood tongue-tied by her beauty.
They kissed, and he thought life could not get any sweeter. Later, she had allowed him to unlace her bodice and touch her breasts, while she slipped her hand inside his breeches and teased his throbbing manhood. But she would not let him go further. ‘I cannot, until I am married,’ she insisted; and he buried his face between her breasts and promised, ‘I will marry you.’
Now, she saw Christopher’s desolate expression and cupped his face in her hands. ‘What did he say? Dear heart, are you ill? Did he give his permission?’
‘He forbade it.’ Christopher sat down hard on the hull of a rotting boat drawn up above the tideline. A cloud of flies rose off it in protest.
Tears clouded her innocent blue eyes. ‘Whatever will we do? I cannot live without you, my love. I would rather die.’
Christopher closed his eyes. The blinding light made it impossible to think. He rubbed his temples, replaying the conversation with his father. His love for Ruth was so pure, so true, how could his father deny it? How dare he? For a moment, the futility was so bleak he contemplated tying one of those rusting anchors to his leg and throwing himself into the harbour. He would end it all, escape the suffocating weight of his thwarted love and make his father understand.
But that would be no victory.
‘I will leave Bombay,’ he said suddenly.
‘Let me come with you!’
He shook his head. ‘My father has left me with nothing. I must earn my fortune the hard way, and it will be no place for a woman. Stay here, stay with your family, and wait for me to return.’
‘I cannot.’
‘You must. I know it will be hard, but you must for both our sakes.’ He stood and hugged her tight to him, breathing in the perfume of her hair. He was alive with desire for her, but even more than that he longed to prove his father wrong. ‘Stay here, and let him think he has won. When I return, my victory will be complete – and so will our happiness.’
She kissed him on the lips. ‘Promise me, Christopher. Promise me we shall be happy.’
‘I promise, my love. If you wait for me, I will make such a fortune that even my father cannot touch us.’
‘I will wait. I swear it, even if you are gone twenty years I will wait for you. I will sit every day in this place and watch the sea for your return.’
‘Like Odysseus and Penelope,’ said Christopher, stroking her hand.
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Who?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ He shrugged off the coat that was now heavy with his sweat. Now that he had decided, he was suddenly impatient to be away. Shading his eyes, he stared out into the harbour. The East Indiamen still slumbered at their moorings, but there was movement on the deck of a small coastal trader as her crew made ready for sea.
‘That ship will be sailing on the tide. I will take passage with her, and go wherever she takes me.’ He kissed her again, and she thrilled at the feel of his strong arms around her.
‘Wait for me, my love.’
‘I promise I will.’
He had no baggage to take with him. All his possessions were in his room in the Governor’s house, and he could not go back there. Christopher went to the landing place and hailed one of the small bumboats to take him out to the trader. He read her name Joseph, carved on her transom as the boatmen rowed him out to the trader.
He went aboard. Most of the crew were Indians, dark-skinned men working almost naked to stow the cargo. The only white man on deck seemed to be the master, a large man with close-cropped hair and a mermaid tattoo on his bulging forearm. He broke off from supervising the loading and came over.
‘Well?’ he barked.
‘I want to join your ship.’
The master looked him up and down. His face soured. ‘I know you. You’re Christopher Courtney, the Governor’s son.’
Christopher nodded.
‘He’s a sorry twat.’
He was so close that his spittle sprayed Christopher’s face. Christopher didn’t flinch.
‘Well?’ said the master. ‘Are you going to let me insult your father and just stand there? What sort of a man would do that?’
‘If I cared what my father thought, I wouldn’t be here.’
The master gave him a stinging slap across his cheek. ‘That’s enough impertinence. You respect your betters on this ship, or else.’
He bared his teeth, daring Christopher to strike back. Christopher fought the urge and forced himself to stay still. If he had learned one thing from his father, it was how to take a beating.
The master spat on the deck. A gob of phlegm landed next to Christopher’s toe.
‘Have you ever worked a ship?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ever been to sea before?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then why should I take you on my crew? This isn’t one of your father’s gold-plated Indiamen with a crew of layabouts. Every man here earns his keep, or by God I’ll have him off this ship so fast you won’t even hear the splash.’
‘I’m a hard worker, sir.’
‘You don’t know the meaning of hard work.’ He snatched Christopher’s hand and turned it palm up. ‘Look at that lily-white skin. The only thing you’ve ever used these hands for is jerking your own cock.’ He turned his back. ‘Get off my ship, before I throw you in.’
‘Wait,’ said Christopher. He grabbed one of the bales of cloth sitting on the deck. ‘What is this? Culbeleys? Silk mixed with carmania wool? And this is jurries, the longest-lasting cotton cloth. This one—’
‘Get your hands off my cargo.’ The master grabbed Christopher by his shirtfront, lifted him off the deck and carried him to the side. He pushed him out over the gunwale.
‘Eight rupees,’ gasped Christopher. ‘Eight rupees the yard. That is what the East India Company will pay for culbeleys. Six rupees for jurries.’
He teetered on the gunwale. The master’s face loomed above him, framed by a matrix of rigging and the blue sky behind.
‘How do you know this?’
‘I clerked for my father. I wrote the entries in his ledger books. I know what the Company will pay for every cargo in every port on this coast.’ Big hands choked his neck; he could hardly breathe. ‘That knowledge could be useful to you.’
The master let him go. He slumped onto the deck, rubbing his neck.
A heavy boot kicked him in the ribs.
‘Get up.’
Ignoring the pain and the nausea in his stomach, Christopher stood. The master studied him like a hungry shark.
‘I’ll take you as my apprentice. Your pay is four rupees a month, less deductions for rations and slops.’ He saw the look on Christopher’s face and laughed. ‘You think you’re worth more than that, you lily-fingered bum boy? Find another ship.’
Christopher clenched his fists. You knew it wouldn’t be easy, he told himself. You must learn a trade before you can hope to make your fortune.
‘I accept.’
The master almost looked disappointed. He wants to hit me again, Christopher realized. The thought didn’t frighten him. Growing up with Guy, he took it almost for granted.
The master fetched the muster book and Christopher signed his name. His neatly printed English letters were like genteel islands against the sea of marks, crosses and Indian characters the other sailors had left on the page.
In the heat, the ink dried almost faster than he could put it on the page. The master slammed the book shut.
‘You belong to me now, and God help you if I catch you shirking your duty. Aboard my ship, your father’s name counts for nothing. You may have white skin and pretty writing, but I’ll flog you as hard as any of these darkies if you cross me. You understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The master glared at him. Christopher dropped his head meekly, stooping his shoulders in a submissive attitude he had often adopted during his father’s tirades. The master grunted.
‘Now get to work.’
In less than ten minutes, Christopher discovered the hardship he had let himself in for. Stripped to his waist, still wearing his best wool britches, he joined the other seamen on the capstan to haul up the anchor. The sun flayed his naked back; the capstan bars rubbed his hands raw. He glanced up, staring at the horizon to take his mind off the pain. Ashore, he saw a commotion on the waterfront: a group of men in Company uniforms gesticulating at the Joseph. Was it his father? Perhaps he had reconsidered.
A heavy blow fell across his back. He jerked around, and was almost knocked down by the capstan bar swinging into him from behind. He resumed his position at the capstan bar. From the corner of his eye he saw the master watching from the sidelines, dangling the short length of rope he’d used to strike him.
‘No second thoughts, Lilyhands. Desert, and I’ll see you keelhauled.’
‘Don’t let him goad you,’ whispered a voice behind him. He spoke Portuguese, the lingua franca of the Malabar coast. Christopher craned back, still trudging at the capstan, and saw a slim youth with dark skin and bright eyes, pushing at the near spoke. He must have been younger than Christopher, but his hands were calloused and his young body rippled with muscles.
‘Captain Crawford’s a devil,’ he whispered again, barely audible over the creak of the capstan. ‘But there are ways to avoid him. The more you fight him, the more he’ll try to break you.’
The anchor came up and was catted and fished. The sails were loosed, and slowly they filled with the afternoon breeze coming off the sea. Christopher hauled on the ropes as he was ordered, always with a lick of Crawford’s starter rope to
encourage him. He refused to look back.
That night, he made his bed on deck, near the bow. He lay on the hard planking, feeling the aches racking his body, and stared at the stars. That morning, he’d woken in his feather bed at the Governor’s house, servants jumping to his every need. Now he didn’t even have a blanket to lie on.
A dark figure came and sat beside him. White teeth gleamed in the darkness. It was the youth who’d spoken to him on the capstan.
‘My name is Danesh,’ he introduced himself.
‘Christopher.’
‘Is your father really the Governor of Bombay?’
‘Yes.’
‘You must hate him very much.’
Christopher remembered the look in Guy’s eyes. ‘Yes. I do.’
Danesh handed him a blanket. ‘Before we are finished, you will hate Crawford even more.’
The next three weeks were the hardest Christopher had known in his life. On the second day, Crawford sent him aloft to reef a sail. It was only when he was halfway up the shrouds that he looked down and realized no one had followed. The other men waited on deck, watching him, making wagers among themselves.
A gust of wind made the ship heel over. Only gently, but to Christopher it felt like a hurricane. He tipped back; the waves seemed to race towards him. The men on deck catcalled and jeered, Crawford shouted something, but he could hardly make out the words above the blood pounding in his ears. His grip started to slip.
The ship rolled back. His stomach lurched again. His gaze began to drift down, but he knew that if he looked at the sea again he would let go and fall. He wrenched his gaze upwards, fixing his sight on the main top and forcing himself to move, one hand at a time, hauling himself up. Each step was pure terror; each time his hands closed on the ropes again, he gripped them like a baby clutching his mother’s finger.
At last, he reached the top. It was misnamed, for it was only the top of the main mast – the topmast and topgallant mast rose higher still – but to him it felt as if he’d conquered the highest mountain.
Down on deck, no one cheered him. With a shock, he realized they were not impressed with what he had achieved. Rather, they had wanted to see him fall. That was all his life was worth: entertainment to liven up the watch.
