by Porter Hill
Groot thought of Amsterdam, the healthy, red-cheeked children there, cheery women with broad hips and scarves tied under their chubby chins, the old men sitting around wooden tables covered with bright carpets and drinking tall glasses of golden beer. Groot had no family left alive but he nevertheless felt homesick, faraway from that cosy world of red brick houses and windows criss-crossed with lace panels, of pigs turning on a spit over a crackling fire and swing-kettles bubbling with chicken stews.
The India which Groot knew seemed barren in contrast to Holland, and he asked, ‘How can people go on living so miserably here?’
‘Hindus believe that after death we shall be reborn to a higher caste if we have lived a good life, perhaps even coming back to earth as one of the highest order, the Brahmins, the priests who own the fields and control all the produce. Some men say that they were the first people to come to India. They say that the Brahmins took all the land and made a system to protect themselves from losing it. It is only in recent years that Europeans have come to India and given that system a name. The Portuguese who came here gave us their word castas – caste.’
‘Muslims and Brahmins and Portuguese. Bapu, India seems to me to be a land that’s always being conquered.’
Bapu shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s our dharma.’
‘What’s dharma?’
‘No Europeans can understand the meaning of dharma. We believe it tells us who we are, how to be true to the caste to which we have been born. Battle is the dharma of the Kshatriya caste. I am born to fight. I was true to my caste before I was imprisoned at Bombay Castle. But prison is against my dharma.’
‘Was it part of your caste or your dharma to rob and steal when you were a bandit?’
‘My glory is to fight. My honour is battle. I think Horne has the same dharma. He is a warrior. He would make a good Indian Rajput if he did not ignore the world inside him.’ Bapu touched his chest. ‘We Indians respect the world inside us. More than the world around us.’ He motioned to the night, then paused, his hand hovering in mid-air as he spotted a light in the distance.
Groot looked in the direction where Bapu was staring. He saw the dim glow of a flickering bonfire beside the road. He hopped from the cart as Bapu drew on the reins.
Behind them, Babcock bolted up from his sleep. ‘Why’d we stop?’
‘Shhh.’ Bapu raised his hand. There’s a blockade ahead.’
‘Blockade? What kind? English?’
‘Groot’s gone to see.’
Mustafa raised himself from the bed, rubbing his eyes, turning his head to see why they had stopped.
Babcock knelt beside Bapu, trying to count the men grouped around the fire. There were at least a dozen soldiers.
Groot returned from his quick reconnoitre, his blue cap pushed back on his prickly blond hair, his pale eyes wide with excitement as he whispered, ‘French!’
The four men hurried to unknot their canvas pack and began making the necessary preparations.
* * *
Groot, the only man of Sea Group who spoke French, drove the cart as Bapu huddled on the bench beside him, a turban wrapped around his bristly hair, the soiled mantle draped over his shoulders. Babcock and Mustafa lay in the back of the cart, water splashed on their bodies from the skin bag to look like splotches of feverish perspiration. All four men wore oddments of French military equipment – blue jacket, yellow sash, brown cap, brass-studded cross-belts, insignia.
Groot reined the donkey as three men moved from the darkness, the dancing flames glittering on their dusty blue-and-yellow uniforms.
Babcock began moaning as the wagon slowed, elbowing Mustafa to follow his example.
One Frenchman moved to speak to Groot while the other two soldiers leaned over the back of the cart. They quickly recoiled at the smell from the bed and the sight of the fever-soaked bodies.
Grabbing one of the men’s arms, Babcock licked his lips, mumbling feverish gibberish. The Frenchman jerked free from the American’s clutch, both men holding their noses against the stench as they moved back towards the guard questioning Groot.
The three Frenchmen huddled together near the front of the cart, speaking in low whispers. They beckoned two more men from the fire. The conference continued, the men glancing towards the cart as they spoke.
The first guard stepped back to the wagon, snapped a few words to Groot and stood back, waving his hand and ordering, ‘Allez! Allez!’
Groot mumbled to Bapu.
Springing angrily to his feet, Bapu shouted to the French soldiers in the Urdu dialect of the Sepoy camps. The Frenchman kept waving his hand, shouting for the wagon to pass. Bapu jabbed a forefinger at Babcock and Mustafa in the back of the cart, still shrieking in Urdu at the Frenchmen. But Groot snapped the reins and the little donkey slowly clattered down the road. As the cart passed the French soldiers by the fire, they turned away their heads, holding their hands to their noses against the smell.
When the fire’s red glow finally receded in the darkness, Babcock lifted himself from the bed, whispering, ‘What happened?’
Groot kept his eyes on the rocky road. ‘I told them no village or camp would give us shelter. That you two have – How you say it? Yellow Fever?’
‘And?’
‘I asked them if we could sleep by their fire.’
‘And?’
‘No. They refused.’
‘They sent us away?’
‘Yah, they say they have no medicine. That it’s better if we keep going.’
‘Go where?’
‘They didn’t say. Just go, go. Allez, allez.’
‘The bastards.’
Bapu looked over his shoulder at Babcock. ‘What are you complaining about, man? We got through, yes?’
‘But what if we really were dying?’
Bapu frowned. ‘You might be dying if you go on talking so loudly.’
Mustafa grunted, his dark eyes surveying the far shadows.
Chapter Twenty-Three
THE MADRAS ROADS
Sea Group
Adam Horne sailed as far north as he dared go in the masulah, travelling until Sea Group came within sight of merchant ships in their anchorage, near enough to see the masts, spars, and rigs tilting in the turbulent surf, the roar of the Madras Roads sounding like a river crashing over rapids.
From the cluster of ships tossing at anchor, Horne and his men looked across the churning white water towards the walls of Fort St George. Turrets rose at both ends of the castellated walls. Ramparts slanted down to the waves crashing onto the white beach. Rows of cannon were trained towards the sea.
The spectacle reminded Jud of Sheik Al Hadd’s Castle of the Golden Sand stretching along the coast of Oman. He thought of Maringa’s death, he remembered the promise he had made to the spirit of his dead son the night Horne had rescued him from the maintop mast aboard the Eclipse and how, in turn, he himself had saved Horne’s life. Looking at the yellow walls of Fort St George, he made another quick prayer to the spirit of his son, thanking the dead boy for helping them to get this far. From here onward he knew they would have to use human powers.
Kiro also was reminded of scenes from his past. He had stood as a child in the pine forest above the Suo-nada and, looking at the Dawn Palace, had thought how he would storm it with a team of Ninja raiders when he reached manhood. Adam Home had helped him come closer to that dream than he had ever been. Having chosen him from prison, Horne had helped Kiro prove to himself he could be as elite as a Ninja. The time had come to show his worthiness.
Jingee stood beside Horne in the masulah, looking across the crashing surf at Fort St George, wondering what awaited them beyond this point? Would Horne keep him in the squadron? Where would they go from here? Would he be able to go on serving Horne? He hoped so. Horne raised service to an honour.
Hurrying Sea Group to dismantle the masulah’s mast and rudder, Horne stowed them with the sails to prevent them from injuring someone in a capsize. Having dumped the hemp bags of foodstuf
fs overboard, the four men began folding their equipment – uniforms, boots, Chinese explosives, knives, everything they would use later – into compact leather packets which they secured to their belts.
Wearing nothing except dhotis and leather belts dangling with the waterproof packets, the four men waited at the oars as the current began speeding them towards the surf.
* * *
‘Row!’ Horne shouted as the surf grabbed the boat, and the men began moving their oars in unison. The wave tilted them. Tipped them. Twisted the masulah’s pliable hull. The boat was pitched upwards. Dashed forwards. Dropped into a trough with a thud. Skittering along what seemed to be a surface of smooth glass, the boat flew to the peak of the next breaker as a wave rose behind it, chasing it, dropping it, flooding it with the wash. A brief pause followed the deluge – the few seconds of the surf’s middle stage – before the next wave roared behind the boat, sweeping it to a new crest. Feeling as if they were being dropped in mid-air, the men were pummelled by another wave, and the boat began to recede, carried back out to sea with the wash of the tide. For this, the third and most dangerous stage of the surf, Horne began shouting, ‘Forward … forward … forward …’ and the men plied their oars against the backwash of the tide, rowing to the time of the shouts as the hull twisted and strained from the force. Another breaker rose beneath them. A crack filled the air. The boat was hurled upwards. It flipped, emptying, Horne, Jingee, Kiro and Jud into the thundering white surf.
* * *
‘Guard!’ Thomas Lally beat the arm of his wooden crucifix on the door of his prison. ‘You’ll get no sleep, Guard, till you move me from this room! I demand to be moved, Guard!’
During the night, Lally had realised that the French would try to assassinate him. He was certain of it. They would know by now that he had surrendered Pondicherry. They would suspect him of trying to trade military secrets with the British for his life. They would show no mercy. His mother had been French. King Louis had made him Baron de Tolendahl. He was a hero in France. But his father had been Irish and – to the French in times of defeat – he would be no different from a full-blooded Briton. An assassin was probably on the way to silence him at this very moment.
Gripping the crucifix in his hand, Lally chopped it against the door, shouting, ‘Guard! I demand to be moved to a safer prison, Guard! Guard! I demand to be moved! MOVED!’
Chapter Twenty-Four
FORT ST GEORGE
The Black Town
Like the hours of daytime, Indian nights were divided into four pahars. It was the time of the fourth pahar – shortly before dawn – when the woman named Prasada was working by lamplight in the garden room of the dancing-girl house she kept on Adams Street in the jumble of wooden and clay houses beyond the North Wall of Fort St George – the native section of Madras called the Black Town.
Prasada, a small-boned Indian woman in her late thirties, wore turquoise silk trousers with a matching overskirt, and a yellow mantle edged with glittering gold bangles. A delicate golden ring pierced her left nostril and small ornamental bells jangled from the filigree bracelets encircling her wrists and ankles. Her eyes were painted with antimony and kohl, and a blue tilaka spot was centred between her thinly pencilled eyebrows.
Sitting cross-legged on a Persian carpet, Prasada counted piles of coins in front of her on the floor. She jotted numbers onto small slips of paper, rolled each paper, stuck them into bamboo tubes, and dropped the tubes into a reed basket. This was her system of accounts.
Dancing girls. Dice. The hookah. Rice beer. Spiced beer. Arrack. Glasses of hemp called bhang. Plates of rolled betel leaves. Bowls of opium balls. Prasada provided whatever her customers required but prided herself that she employed no Nautch girls – common whores.
Prasada’s business could have been better if her house had adjoined the taverns and punch-houses on Main Gate Street, the thoroughfare leading to Fort St George. The Black Town obeyed Hindu rules, however, and as a woman of the Dancing Girl caste was not allowed to live on the same street as a Brahmin, Prasada could not run her establishment near the priests’ house.
Hurrying to finish her accounts so that she could go to sleep before sunrise, Prasada paused when she heard shouting in the night.
Sitting motionless, trying not to jangle her bells and bracelets, she wondered who could be making so much noise at this hour. Trouble-makers? Thieves?
The sound of running feet moved across the courtyard and, stopping outside the amber beads hanging from the arched entrance, an excited voice called, ‘Lady Prasada! Lady Prasada!’
Prasada recognized the voice and frowned. ‘Shashi, what do you want?’
A slim Indian male servant clattered through the beaded curtain, falling face down in front of Prasada, his turban pressed to the carpet, his arms stretching in front of him, the white twists of his dhoti protruding into the air like tail feathers.
‘Shashi, what is the meaning of this?’
‘Thieves, Lady Prasada! Thieves came and took her!’
‘Took whom, Shashi?’
‘Jasmine, Lady Prasada! Thieves came and took Jasmine!’
‘How many strangers, Shashi?’
‘Four, Lady Prasada. One was a big man with eyes close together like a snake. I think the others were English, Lady Prasada.’
Shashi explained how four men had awakened him from his sleep in the stables and had held a knife to his throat. They had tied a rope around the neck of the four-ton cow elephant named Jasmine and led her from the stables.
Prasada considered the situation. If she sent Shashi after the thieves, the lazy devil might sneak off and go to sleep. If she pursued the villains herself, she would have to call upon the Fort Guards, and that might involve an official search of her house. She did not want that.
Deciding on the safest action, she reached into the basket of bamboo tubes. ‘Captain Green can pay for Jasmine.’
Astonished, Shashi sat back on his haunches. ‘But Captain Green didn’t take Jasmine, Lady Prasada. It was strangers! Feringhi!’
‘I know. I know. But Jasmine’s gone and somebody’s got to pay for her.’ She clattered through the bamboo tubes in the basket.
Kneeling in front of Prasada, Shashi continued, ‘Oh, the four strangers smelled so bad.’ He held his snub brown nose between his thumb and forefinger.
Prasada ignored him as she dug for the English Captain’s account.
‘Before the strangers took Jasmine, Lady Prasada, they climbed into her water barrel. It was very, very funny to see Jasmine put her trunk into the barrel and gave them a bath!’
Holding his stomach, Shashi laughed at the picture of the elephant spraying water onto the naked strangers. ‘Oh, Lady Prasada! Jasmine’s such a Nautch girl!’
Prasada waved her hand irritably. ‘Forget about Jasmine. She ate too much anyway. I am thankful she’s gone. Now tell me how much rope they took so I can –’
She raised her eyes in time to see Shashi reaching into a blue-and-white bowl standing next to the carpet.
‘Thief!’ Prasada hurled the bamboo tube at her servant. ‘Dirty little Sudra thief!’
Rolling backwards, Shashi clattered through the hanging beads, laughing as he ran across the courtyard, one fist clutched to his chest.
Cursing to herself, Prasada added five opium balls to Captain Green’s account. She knew that the English officer would pay any amount to keep his wife from learning he visited a dancing-girl’s house. Without jealous English wives, Prasada could not have made a living in the Black Town.
* * *
The Main Gate
Land Group, bathed and changed into clothing they had carried in canvas packs from the Eclipse, walked with an elephant along Main Gate Street through the Black Town. The time was still in the fourth pahar – shortly before dawn.
Adjoining the North Wall of Fort St George, the buildings of the Black Town were as varied as its inhabitants: Hindu pagodas rubbed shoulders with columned English façades; a jumble of brow
n clay hovels crowded next to the stately wooden home of a Portuguese merchant; brightly painted swing-signs hung in front of ‘The London Tavern’ and ‘The Mayfair Coffee House’. There were Armenian cookshops, Persian astrologers, Arabian chandlers.
Babcock, dressed in twill breeches, shirt, and brown boots, his hands clasped behind his back, idly wagged a leather riding crop as he ambled towards two round street-lamps glowing on either side of the open fortress gates ahead of him.
Groot and Mustafa followed him down Main Gate Street, also dressed in the twill clothing worn by clerks working for the East India Company in Madras. Walking with their arms round each other’s shoulders, they stumbled like two friends who had spent a long night in a tavern. Both were better actors than Babcock had expected. Horne would be proud of them.
Bapu, wearing a dhoti and a turban wrapped around his head, and looking like a true Asian, lagged behind the three men, leading the elephant and carrying a large coil of rope in his other hand.
Waiting for the others to catch up with him, Babcock idled by the Bazaar intersecting Main Gate Street less than a hundred feet from the fortress’s North Wall. Farmers were still unloading fruit and vegetables from their buffalo and donkey carts. Lights flickered in hanging jars festooned from stalls opened for early morning trade.
Turning back towards the Main Gate, Babcock casually approached a gatehouse to the right of the gates where two guards sat inside playing dice.
Leaning his head into the small kiosk, Babcock asked, ‘Who gets the gifts?’
The shorter guard looked blankly at Babcock. ‘Gifts?’
Babcock thumbed over his shoulder. ‘There’s an elephant out here for Governor Pigot. A gift from some rajah in Bangalore. The papers for it are arriving today. But the mahoot’s got to do something with the animal ’tween now and then.’
Outside the guardhouse, Bapu stood smiling in front of the elephant, wagging his turban from side to side.