Wary of her hind legs, the marines edged around the stall. ‘Keep alongside ’er,’ snapped Johnson; ‘if she does lash out you won’t take t’full force of ’er feet that way.’
‘Ready!’ called Hervey, a hand on each fore cannon. ‘Now!’ And he snatched both feet back. She fell not too heavily, sliding down the side of the stall, and he whipped off the blanket from her head so that she might see him as well as hear his voice. Johnson lay across her flank as the marines edged back towards the stall sides to be clear of her still active legs. But in a few seconds she was calm again and Hervey dismissed them, to their obvious relief.
He kept her down a full fifteen minutes, calming her the while — stroking, talking softly, lying on her neck, though she had more than enough strength to throw both him and Johnson aside had she wanted. In that time the crew managed at last to put out the fire, but smoke still drifted from below, and the smell of charred wood and rope hung heavily on deck. He would keep her down a while longer — until the wind and the hoses had got rid of the worst of it.
Captain Peto was receiving the last of the damage reports from the carpenter when Hervey joined him half an hour after the flames had been finally doused. Things were bad; but they could have been much worse, of that Peto was sure. Before they had got up pressure on all the hoses, oil had run, burning, along the lower deck from the galley towards the hay and straw in the orlop. Two men were dead — both victims of their own panic more than the flames. One had missed his footing racing from the tops, falling across a spar and breaking his neck. The other had sunk like a stone when he threw himself into the sea, somehow persuaded by drink that it was the safer station. Midshipman Ranson had dived after him at once, but it was an hour before a boat fished the man out. Several of the crew were sorely burned. The cook, whose galley had been the source of the conflagration, was so badly scorched about the face that the surgeon did not expect him to live. His skin looked for all the world like that of the pig which had been roasted for the crew when they left France. Peto knew he was unlikely to learn, therefore, what had caused so fierce a blaze, or one so hot, for it had driven all back at first, even when pressure had been got up high on the hoses. Hervey could see well enough his chagrin, and he resolved not to be the first to speak.
‘You shall be delayed as little as is expedient, Hervey,’ said Peto — not sharply, but with exaggerated briskness nevertheless. ‘But I shall have to put in somewhere before Calcutta. To begin with, I have broken pumps, and we have shipped so much water — the hoses have sluiced us from top to bottom. I want to put the injured men ashore, too. I fear, in any case, that all your bedding and fodder is ruined.’ Hervey nodded. It was some time before he summoned the nerve to ask where they might put in.
‘Madras,’ replied Peto, ‘though there’s no wharfage there: everything has to go through the surf.’
He left the captain to his thoughts, and the occasional brisk word of command, for a good ten minutes. ‘How long might we be at Madras?’ he ventured when he sensed the ship’s routine was returning.
‘Four days, perhaps five.’
‘Then, with your leave, I would take Jessye ashore: she was excessively restive during the fire, and it will be well to let her run about. And it has been six months, sir: I am all anxiety myself to see what the country is about.’
V. THE HONOURABLE COMPANY
Madras Roads
Nisus dropped her anchor at two the following afternoon within sight of the great fort of St George, where Robert Clive had begun his service — a beginning that had taken him, as Hervey knew from his earliest lessons in the schoolroom, to Plassey and immortality. He climbed the shrouds better to spy their landfall, and soon he was able to make out the palaces extending for a mile or so along the shore — perfectly white, colonnaded, bespeaking a dignified wealth, a confident power. The massive walls of the fort — as big as those of any fortress he had yet seen — enclosed buildings of such grace and proportion as to suggest that Wren himself might have been here, the fine spire of St Mary’s church looking almost as if it were standing in the square mile of the City of London. How strange it seemed. He had expected an altogether more… native picture — the jungle encroaching, perhaps; domes and cupolas instead of the colonnades. Meanwhile, the quarterdeck having regained its spirits, Captain Peto was engaged in an exchange of signals with the fort, from which he emerged tolerably content to give instructions to make ready the boats.
The marines reassembled the sling tackle which had brought Jessye aboard, and lowered the canvas cradle into her stall. Private Johnson deftly fastened her in, and two dozen sweating men heaved on the halyards to lift her out of the square twelve feet that had been her stable these past months. She was swung out over the side with nothing more than a whicker, as she had been swung aboard, to Johnson’s evident relief and satisfaction. Hervey was already in the captain’s barge as the cradle descended slowly, watching apprehensively as Jessye began the instinctive treading motion when her feet felt the water. When she had reached her natural buoyancy and begun to swim properly, although still restrained by the sling tackle, Hervey leaned out to clip a leading-rope to her head collar. Although he did not suppose she would have difficulty following the boat, he knew she would feel more secure if he were leading her. As soon as it was fastened and the strain on the hoisting rope slackened, he leaned out as far as he could to unfasten the tackle and free her from the sling. Once she was safely astern, the oars struck for the shore, Hervey encouraging her the while.
At first all was well. Jessye kept up easily with the stroke of the oars. As they left the calm of the ship’s lee, however, she began to fall back, and the swell kept putting her out of sight. She was rapidly becoming distressed, and though there was but a half-mile to the shore, Hervey became anxious too, for at Corunna he had seen strong horses drown in their panic. ‘Captain, will you hold the rope?’ he asked. ‘I’d better go to her.’
Peto raised an eyebrow. ‘Of course, if you must,’ he replied, sighing as he handed the rope in turn to the midshipman in command of his barge.
Hervey threw off his coat and shoes, and slipped over the side. He had a moment’s vision of the sea snakes, shuddered at the thought, but then struck out for his mare. The water was warm, perhaps even warmer than the mill-race at Horningsham in summer, and he reached her in a couple of dozen strokes. She settled at once, with a whicker of contentment as soon as he touched her neck, and, the current taking them easily towards the shore, he even thought he would have a pleasant time of their swim. He was not as fast through the water, however, Jessye swimming in the only way she knew. A little abashed, he had to grab hold of her mane, taking care to keep his arm well stretched to stay clear of her busy legs. Once settled to the rhythm, however, they both seemed to enjoy it as much — more, for sure, than the times they had swum the half-frozen rivers of northern Spain. Then, sooner than expected, they were amid the breakers. The beach shelved gently and Jessye found her footing before her master did. But as soon as his feet touched bottom he sprang astride her.
The joy was instant — to be up on his little mare again after so many months — and she, kicking up through the surf, was likewise full of spirit once more. He was sure he could never describe it in any letter home — though try, in due turn, he must. He looped the rope about her neck and put her (or allowed her) into a canter along the water’s edge of the flat, sandy shore. She did not even buck. Months of box-rest, and here she was as good as gold! How genuine a horse could a man want? He could imagine no other as they slowed and turned after a quarter of a mile (for he wanted no strains), and he talked to her every yard of the way, encouraging, praising. She had stood patiently in that stall, in fair weather and foul, for half a year, and now she was responding to his leg and voice as if she were in the riding school at Wilton House. If only his old Austrian riding master could see them now: what pleasure would that eminent equestrian take in seeing the practical effects of his instruction!
Spain had been h
otter — much hotter. But there the heat had come unquestionably from the sun. Here it was as if the air had been warmed in some vast oven, for it touched every part of him the same. There was no hiding from it, no shade. Seeking shade was anyway of no help, for the sun had no especial strength. This was the heat of the land, collected, stored, year after year. This was a heat that annealed rather than scorched, invigorated rather than weakened. He looked about as they trotted back to where the captain’s barge was being hauled ashore. Faces were turned towards them — open, warm-looking. It took a while for him to tumble — black faces. Or rather, brown; darker, certainly, than he had somehow imagined, and in stark contrast to the pearl-white buildings behind them. And the colours of their clothes — so bright, so unrestrained. Never had he seen their like. Heavens, but these women were arresting — shapely, graceful, smiling unselfconsciously. He wanted to jump from Jessye’s back to embrace them. How a head could be turned in this place!
Up on the embanked promenade bearers were porting richly caparisoned palanquins. Only an elephant would have been needed to complete his schoolroom image of the Indies. And, though separated by half the globe from all he loved, he was roused once again by his commission here — and already thinking of how Henrietta too might one day, soon, thrill to such a landing.
As he came up to the captain’s barge he saw the ambassage engaged with Peto. ‘And this, we must presume,’ said one of the officials, turning, ‘by his most obvious and characteristic mounted landing, is the captain of cavalry of whom you speak?’
The voice was a little precious, the language overflorid, but it was nonetheless warm. Hervey, soaked to the skin and barefoot, jumped down and held out his hand. ‘This is Captain Hervey, Mr Lucie,’ said Peto; ‘Hervey, Mr Philip Lucie, fourth in council at the presidency here.’
Lucie was a little older than Hervey, about the same height, though with a sparer frame, and he wore his clothes with a studied elegance. ‘You are half-expected, sir,’ he said with some bemusement.
Hervey was even more bemused, for Madras formed no part of the itinerary given him by Colonel Grant. ‘Indeed, sir? How so?’
Lucie smiled. ‘My sister has received a letter from Paris informing us that you were to come to India.’
What in heaven’s name, he wondered, might this man’s sister have to do with Colonel Grant? ‘I am honoured to be the subject of such correspondence — though, I confess, somewhat puzzled.’
Peto made a restive noise which hastened Lucie to full revelation.
‘My sister has some affinity with the lady to whom you are engaged to be married. Which lady wrote to her here from Paris, though she did not imagine you would see Madras.’
Hervey looked astonished. ‘No, we… that is…’
‘I have explained our circumstances, Hervey,’ huffed Peto. ‘May we proceed to business, Mr Lucie? I have no time to waste.’
‘Of course, Captain,’ he smiled. ‘I have already alerted the naval commissioner to your presence. But since you expect to be engaged here these several days, perhaps I might extend to you and Captain Hervey the hospitality of my quarters at the fort? I believe we may offer you a table worthy of the Company — or, I should properly say, of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies.’
Peto, though tempted to make some remark touching on the propriety of that company, contented himself with a brisk acceptance for the following day; ‘For there is much to attend to aboard my ship while there is still light. But Hervey, here, is entirely free to avail himself of the Company’s hospitality at once.’
It took no time at all for Philip Lucie to arrange for Captain Peto to see the naval commissioner, and that officer, though about to proceed on home leave, threw himself with the greatest energy into the expedition of the captain’s several requests. The injured crewmen of the Nisus were brought ashore soon afterwards to the naval hospital — a fine-looking two-storey infirmary with an airy balcony running the length of the upper floor, and with separate quarters to isolate contagion. It stood half a mile or so outside the fort, surrounded by palm trees, and when Peto called on his return from the shipwright’s office he was quickly reassured in leaving his men in the care of its native staff, though their faces were more than ever alien to him after so many months at sea. His final business was with the storekeeper, and this was conducted with the same brisk efficiency as at the shipwright’s, so that Peto was afterwards able to express himself much privileged to meet with officials capable of such address. Even so, he declined once more Lucie’s invitation to dine at Fort George that evening: ‘My compliments to the governor, sir, but I must first superintend the repairs to my ship. Captain Hervey will, no doubt, have much to speak of with your sister.’
Madras was one of the most agreeable places Hervey had ever seen. Of that he was sure, even on so short an acquaintance. Most of the houses and public buildings which lay along the shoreline were extensive and elegant, limed with chunam which took a polish like marble, putting him in mind of pictures of Italian palazzi. Most had colonnades to the upper storeys, supported by arched, rustic bases, and it was not difficult to imagine himself somewhere along a Mediterranean rather than an Indian coast — though perhaps the minarets here and there might place him further towards Constantinople than to Naples. It was the pagodas which settled his true location, however, and it was as well that he should see them now, for a short distance away Fort George, with its lines and bastions, its Government House and gardens, and St Mary’s church, suggested that despite all contrary indications Madras was a place as British as Leadenhall Street — the distant headquarters of this remarkable company.
Madras, the captain’s clerk had told him, was a place that had turned its back on India, looking out to the east rather than to the country itself, unlike Bombay and Calcutta. Here, said the clerk, the English conducted themselves as if in London. The displays of fine equipage along the Mount Road of an evening, where to be seen at the cenotaph in memory of Lord Cornwallis was to attain the acme of society, rivalled anything that might be observed in Hyde Park. And afterwards, if there was no meeting at the racecourse nearby, whose graceful stand would have been the envy of Newmarket or Ascot, the occupants of these elegant carriages would return home, dress in great finery and dine to the accompaniment of the most superior wines. Then, perhaps, having dressed once more, they might repair to a ball, to dance until the early hours before at last retiring. And when husbands had, next day, gone to their offices, blades would visit from house to house retailing news, or to ask commissions to town for the ladies, to bring a bauble that had been newly set, or one of which the lady had hinted before — one she would willingly purchase for herself but that her husband did not like her to spend so much — and which she might thus obtain from some young man, a quarter of whose monthly salary would probably be sacrificed to his gallantry.
The captain’s clerk might warn that Madras was become depraved, but to Hervey that morning it was simply alive. ‘Then you must stay with us at Fort George for as long as you are able!’ said Philip Lucie. ‘Let us show you how civilized a country this may be.’
Nothing could have been more welcome to him, for the entreaty meant the indulging of Jessye in the presidency stables. Above all, it meant he might have some intimation of Henrietta’s response to his leaving Paris in such haste. The mere fact of her writing to a friend suggested she was not unsympathetic; but he was more than ever fearful that he had likely trespassed a journey too far.
That evening, as the oven heat of the day gave way to a balminess that seemed from the pages of an old Indiaman’s recollections, Hervey and the fourth in council dined together in the place of England’s first footing on the subcontinent. In the short time at his disposal, Philip Lucie had given considerable thought to their fare, at first supposing it apt to display the culinary glories of Madras, a taste to which he was wholly devoted. But he had later thought better of it, for he knew that the privations of a long sea voyage did not al
ways render the digestion welcoming of assault by spices (he had not been in the east for so long as to forget his own first, tumultuous encounter with Madrasi spices). So, instead, he conceded to digestive prudence: after a mild native pepper soup they would proceed to the finest beefsteaks in India.
They were to be made four at dinner, he explained. His sister would soon arrive, having spent the day driving in the peace and quiet of the hills west of the city, and they would be joined by another, whose company he was sure Hervey must admire. ‘But first allow me a quarter-hour’s leave. I have to sign articles of authority. Here,’ he said, handing him a sheet of paper, ‘this will entertain you — the bill of lading for our gallant general who left for England with his staff yesterday.’ And with that Lucie courteously abandoned him to the sights and sounds, and most conspicuously the smells, of his new surroundings.
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