Ghost Fire

by Wilbur Smith

  She tried to scream, but there was not enough air in her lungs. She tried to wriggle away, but he was pushed against her, insistent as a lover. She ducked her head aside, so that his face fell nuzzling against her shoulder. He sagged down on her, threatening to suffocate her.

  The spark of anger was turning to ash, becoming terror. She would never escape. She saw that the fate that had brought her here was tightening the screw on her life, and now it would finish the job. Her heart raced. Her chest heaved to breathe.

  She thrust her foot between the dying man’s legs and raised it until she felt his knee. With all the force she could summon, she stamped down. His mouth twisted in a silent scream. Constance stamped again, and again. The bone snapped; the leg buckled. Deegan sank toward the floor. Now she could free her arms. She placed them on his shoulders and pushed, forcing him to slither down her front until he reached the floor.

  He knelt in front of her. His dying eyes stared up, imploring her for mercy. Her heart trembled, but only for a moment. She had to live.

  She kicked and jabbed until he disappeared into the darkness at her feet. She climbed on top of his sprawled body, raising herself above the mass of people and savoring a few heady seconds of air and space around her. It never crossed her mind that she had killed a man.

  The night wore on and more people became limp and waxen and died. As each man passed away his bowels opened, discharging noxious fluids. The floor became a lake of blood, sweat, vomit, urine and feces befouling their ankles. The air was rank and men fainted from breathing it, collapsing and drowning in the pools of rancid effluvia.

  By pushing aside the living and trampling the dead, Gerard had managed to force his way to the high barred window set in the wall. Revived by the air from outside, he had enough energy to fight off anyone who tried to displace him. He sucked the sweat from the sleeve of his shirt to moisten his tongue.

  Eventually he fell into an exhausted stupor. He was not quite dead, but surely not alive, not awake, never asleep but semi-conscious in the place of stasis before death, clinging to the window bars like a shipwrecked sailor. Whether he lived or died he did not care. He was entering Hell.

  •••

  The guards came before dawn. Gerard’s head drooped, images swam before his eyes, terrible visions of loss and destruction. He could barely focus on reality in the shifting nightmare. He thought the guards had come to mock again, but then he heard the jangle of keys. They were banging the door. They could not open it because of the pile of corpses jamming it shut. He floundered toward it, crawling over the dead three or four deep. He tried to move the slippery corpses that blocked the exit, but he was too weak.

  Bones snapped and flesh was crushed, limbs skewed in unnatural angles. Eventually the guards forced the door wide enough for a man to pass through. Gerard crawled outside, gulping air so deeply it made him retch. A fresh dew glistened on the parade ground. He flung himself onto it, lying on his belly and desperately licking the grass.

  Behind him, a furious argument was raging among their captors. A jemmautdar—the one who had offered the false truce the day before—was berating the guards. The nawab had not meant this to happen. Servants, from the untouchable caste, were already hauling the bodies out and flinging them onto handcarts. Clouds of flies descended on them.

  The jemmautdar stood over the feeble survivors, arms folded, his lip curled with disgust. Half naked, smeared with grime, they were almost indistinguishable from the dead. Gerard counted twenty-three of them.

  Twenty-three out of a hundred and forty.

  Constance was not among them. He did not grieve her loss: he felt nothing, except the pure relief of being alive. He thought he saw her body being thrown into one of the carts, but he could not be sure. He wanted to remember her as she had been, but he would rather erase all memory.

  The jemmautdar was speaking. His guards moved through the survivors, pulling out Holwell and four of the senior Company men. Either they did not recognize Gerard, or they did not know who he was. They left him lying with the others.

  The jemmautdar gestured to Gerard’s group. He pointed to them, and then to the gate, which stood open and unguarded. His meaning was clear. Go.

  With energy he had not known he had, Gerard pushed himself to his feet and hobbled out of the fort. One of the handcarts rattled past him, and he averted his eyes. They were no more. He was alive.

  At the waterfront, Gerard found a boat whose master was eventually persuaded to co-operate by Gerard’s promise of a handsome payment on their safe arrival. He had heard rumor that the rest of the English—Manningham, Drake and those who had escaped on the Company ships—had taken refuge at the Dutch settlement of Fulta, some twenty miles downriver.

  Gerard clambered on board with the other survivors, and let the boatmen ferry them away from the smoldering city.

  He did not look back.

  •••

  The Dutch trading post at Fulta was small and shabby. The ships that had abandoned Calcutta swung at anchor before a low town screened by trees. It could not possibly hold the dispossessed population that had descended on it in the past week. They camped in the open, on a great bend in the river where mudflats sloped down to the water, adding their waste to the already stinking mud.

  Even on the East Indiaman, across the wide river, the stench was overpowering. The ship’s captain had released Theo from the fetid brig, but the air on deck was foul. The smell permeated everything. Theo had been there three days, and still found it oppressive. “If we ever get home, I will never be able to look at a chamber pot without thinking of this place,” he told Nathan. But where could he call home? Calcutta had been destroyed. He had nothing in Madras now. His parents and his sister were dead. The small stretch of planking on the ship’s deck was as much a home as he had in the world.

  Nathan did not answer. He lay stretched on the deck, a handkerchief covering his face. Despite the heat, he was shivering. There were dangers in the camp that could not be avoided. Almost as soon as the refugees arrived, a fever had broken out. Despite the captains’ best efforts to quarantine their ships, it had spread on board. Half of the passengers were sick, especially those who had recently arrived in India. Every day, a dozen or more bodies were thrown overboard.

  Theo put his hand on Nathan’s brow, and felt the heat boiling inside him. He tipped a cup of water to his friend’s lips and poured some on the handkerchief to dampen it. He had to keep his friend from slipping away. “Tell me about your home,” he said to Nathan, “since I have none.”

  Nathan didn’t open his eyes. For a moment, Theo feared he might already be dead. When he spoke, it was as if he was dreaming.

  “It’s the winter I miss,” he said softly. “So cold you have to smash the ice in your basin to shave in the morning, but you don’t mind because it’s so beautiful. So clean and pure, when the snow’s just fallen, you think it’s wiped away every bad thing in the world.”

  Theo, who had spent his life in the tropics, could not imagine such a thing.

  “You take boiling maple syrup, pour it out on the snow and it hardens to candy. We eat it with spicebush tea, and it warms you right through.”

  He shivered again. “What I’d give for some spicebush tea now. I’m so cold, Theo. They told me India was supposed to be a hot country.”

  Theo held his friend’s hand, as if the grip would keep Nathan from slipping away. “What about your family?” he asked. At some stage, he thought, he would have to write them a letter explaining how their son had died in a festering backwater of a distant continent.

  “My parents won’t grieve me,” Nathan murmured. “They’ll see it as divine justice for the sinful life I’ve led.” He coughed. “Perhaps they’re right. I’ll miss my little sister, though. Abigail. You remember her name? You’d like her.”

  “Perhaps one day you can introduce us,” Theo said, with false confidence.

  Nathan shook his head. “Not now. But—have to—give her . . .” He trailed off,
worn out from the effort of speaking. At the same time, a challenge sounded from the bow. Looking over the side, Theo saw a crowded budgerow heading for their ship. The men aboard were filthy. He did not recognize them as Englishmen, until the man at the prow hailed them.

  “Permission to come aboard.” Even in his feeble state, his voice carried an air of command across the water.

  “Who are you?” called the officer of the watch.

  “Gerard Courtney. These men and I are the last survivors of the fall of Calcutta.”

  The men clambered aboard. Red sores had boiled up all over their bodies. Some were so weak they had to be hauled in the bosun’s chair, but Gerard mounted the ladder unaided. The men and women on deck stood apart to make way, as if touching these soiled wraiths would contaminate them.

  The captain had the crew use the pumps to sluice down the new arrivals, then took them below and gave them fresh slops to wear. As they re-emerged, people clustered around to hear their story, desperately seeking news of family and loved ones.

  Theo had no desire to see Gerard again—but in the confines of the ship, it was unavoidable. Gerard found him an hour later, tending Nathan.

  “So these are the rewards of cowardice,” said Gerard. “I suppose I cannot blame you. Better men than you fled their post.”

  Theo ran his gaze over Gerard’s frame. Although washed and in a clean shirt, he still stank of the jail, while the red pustules on his skin made him look like a plague victim. “I suppose you covered yourself in glory.”

  “I am not here to prolong our quarrel. I came to tell you your sister is dead.”

  Theo stared at him dully. “I know. I tried to save her. That is how I ended up here.”

  “But that is nonsense,” said Gerard. “She died the night before last, in the press of the Black Hole.”

  Theo was astonished. “She drowned in the river, when the boat overturned.”

  “You are mistaken. I was with her. I saw them pull her corpse out of the prison yesterday morning.”

  Theo went gray. He searched his cousin’s face for any hint of deceit, wanting to see a lie so he would not have to believe it. All he found was truth. Neither man had the strength for dissembling. “Yesterday morning?” he repeated huskily.

  “You have heard what the nawab did to us?” Gerard asked. Theo shook his head. Gerard told him. “Constance was there.”

  Theo closed his eyes. In his heart, he knew it made no difference. He had thought Connie was lost—and now she was. But at the same time it changed everything. Theo could have stayed if he’d known better. He could have protected her to the last. Perhaps if he had been there, he could have saved her, or at least died in her place.

  His one consolation had been that he had done everything he could for her. Now that that had been ripped away, he had nothing. Chance is a brutal master. He gazed at Gerard, hating the man who had destroyed his last illusions. “What will you do now?”

  Gerard leaned against the mast. “The directors in London cannot let this insult pass. Siraj has sown the wind, and now he will reap the whirlwind. It will be a fight to the death. Either we will rule all Bengal, or we will be expelled from India forever.”

  “You will stay and fight?”

  Gerard’s lips spread a little, a faint indication of his old confident grin. “If we fail, I have nothing left to lose. But if we win, think of the opportunities. The richest province in the Indies would be ours, ripe for the picking.” He held out his hand. “I am sorry for what happened with Constance. Perhaps if you were older you would understand better. But we both loved her, in our way. We should honor her memory by avenging her death.”

  His hand stayed outstretched. Theo stared at it—but all he saw was Constance’s naked body writhing above Gerard’s. That quarrel had been the cause of all their misfortune. Without it, he would never have left Connie at the fort. Her death was all Gerard’s fault.

  He spoke slowly and clearly: “If we were standing against all King Louis’s armies, and you and I were the last two men left, I would kill you myself rather than fight beside you.”

  Gerard’s eyes flashed with anger. Then he shrugged his shoulders and withdrew his hand. “As you choose.”

  Theo turned his attention back to Nathan, who had lain silent while they spoke. His breathing was quieter, his eyes closed. But the moment Gerard had gone, they opened. “What will you do?” he croaked. He had heard the conversation.

  “I do not know,” said Theo, honestly. Then, in despair: “I wish I were dead.”

  Nathan grimaced. “It is poor manners to wish that in the presence of a dying man. If you were lying in my bones, you would not be so eager to throw your life away.”

  Theo blushed. “I’m sorry.”

  Nathan raised himself a little on the rolled-up shirt that served as a pillow. His hand pawed at the gold hooped earring he always wore.

  “Take it off.”

  Theo undid the clasp and pulled it out of Nathan’s ear.

  “The cap,” Nathan hissed.

  As he had seen Nathan do before, Theo unscrewed the cap from the hollow hoop. Threads of tobacco tumbled out. But there was something else, rattling inside at the bottom. He tipped it into his palm and stared.

  Two tiny stones winked and sparkled in his hand. Their cut facets threw rainbow points of light onto his skin. “Diamonds,” he breathed. He closed his hand quickly before anyone else saw. “But—where did you get them?”

  “In—the house,” Nathan wheezed.

  Theo took a moment to understand what he meant. “In the battle?” He remembered Nathan disappearing for a moment during the frantic fighting in the mansions. He must have found the jewels in some lady’s dressing room, forgotten in her flight. “You stole them?”

  “Only fair. Owners—won’t miss.”

  Nathan tapped Theo’s closed fist. “My sister,” he whispered.

  “You want me to take these to your sister?”

  “One for you. One for her.”

  “In America?”

  “Yes.”

  Theo stared over the ship’s side. Beyond the muddy river, beyond the squalid camp and the gabled roofs of the Dutch houses at Fulta, his gaze rose to the distant hills. This was the only country he had ever known: a land of heat and dust, teeming cities, unbearable poverty and inconceivable riches. Could he sail away to the far side of the world, a dim frontier of snowy forests and savage peoples?

  Could he bear to stay?

  He dropped the diamonds carefully back inside the earring, making sure the cap was screwed in tight. He removed his belt and put it into his mouth, biting down firmly. Then, gripping the ring’s clasp, he drove the pin into his earlobe. Warm blood spurted out and trickled over his hand, but he bit harder on the belt until he felt the pin prick through to the other side.

  The pain and the blood felt cleansing, consecrating his decision: the birth-blood of a new chapter in his life.

  A few drops of blood fell on Nathan’s face, shocking splashes of color against the gray skin. Theo started to wipe, but as his hand touched Nathan’s cheek he paused. The skin was cold. Nathan’s eyes were closed, and his chest was not moving. Theo put his ear against his mouth and felt no sign of breathing.

  Another wave of guilt surged through him. He had not been there for his friend’s last moments. Once again, he had failed the people he loved best.

  But then he saw the expression fixed on Nathan’s face: the calm smile of a man at peace. He knew what Theo had decided. He had died passing on a part of his soul.

  Theo unrolled the handkerchief and covered Nathan’s face. In the west, on the far side of the continent and across the oceans, the sun was setting. He stared in the direction of the sunset’s horizon, shading his eyes but absorbing the promise of its golden light.

  That was where he would go.

  •••

  The road out of Fort William was strewn with the detritus of battle: rubble that had been blasted from the fort’s walls, spent cannonballs,
pieces of furniture looted from the mansions and abandoned. The cart being manhandled along the track was overloaded, weighed down with numberless bodies.

  It was grim work, but the men were used to it. Undertaking and grave-digging were unclean professions, confined to the lowest caste—they were the untouchables, avoided and shunned since to touch them would be to acquire the pollution they carried. The men could imagine no other life. They sang as they worked, lifting down the corpses and lining them in the pit, a former defensive ditch hacked out of the ground. It was too shallow, but no one cared about formal ceremony.

  Some of the bodies were so heavy it took four men to carry them, and the gaunt gravediggers were contemptuous at how fat the hat-wearers had become on the profits of their trade. Only one corpse gave them pause, that of a woman among the scores of men they had buried. Her skin was marble smooth; her beauty obvious even in death. One of the men unlaced her bodice and pulled open her dress to reveal the white breasts underneath. But his companions chided him: enough sullying of the dead, they said. They carried her respectfully and laid her gently in the grave with the others.

  They took their shovels and began to fill the grave with red earth.

  Constance had barely noticed the jolting journey to the burial ditch. She vaguely sensed pressure lifting as the pile of bodies on top of her was unloaded, felt space and swaying as the men lifted her out of the cart. But if it registered at all, it was only as ripples on the edge of her deathly dreams.

  She dreamed she was at the bottom of a deep well, staring up at a full moon. Then the moon became Theo’s face. He reached down to pull her out, but however far she stretched her hand would not reach. He grew angry. He shouted and swore at her, but there was nothing she could do. She would be trapped forever.

  A spray of dirt and grit struck her face. The shock sprang her from her dream. She opened her eyes as another spadeful of earth hit her. She tasted soil in her mouth.