Flood of Fire

by Amitav Ghosh

  Raju was amazed to learn that the banjee-boys actually marched into battle with the sepoys. Theirs was a vital job, Dicky told him; the drummers provided the rhythm for the march, and the fifers piped the signals for the manoeuvres. Without them the sepoys would not know when to wheel from column to line; nor would they be able to form an echelon for an attack. The pitch of the fifers’ instruments was so high that they could be heard over the din of battle.

  Still more amazing was the discovery that Dicky had actually been in battles himself. Dicky did not make too much of it: ‘We were fighting some Pindarees, men. Bloody buggers would always turn and run after the first volley. Junglee bastards – all beard and no balls.’

  After that, when he was alone in the cubby, Raju would often talk to Dicky, whispering through cracks in the bulwark, and soon enough he was speaking exactly like his new-found friend.

  Dicky’s stories mesmerized Raju: the lives of the fifers and drummers seemed impossibly glamorous; it was hard for him to believe that boys of his own age could have such exciting careers. His own existence seemed embarrasingly commonplace by comparison and he was surprised when Dicky displayed a keen interest in the dullest details of his past: had Raju studied in a school? Did he have a mother? A father? Did they eat in a mess or did his mother cook for them? Where had he learnt English?

  Sometimes Raju would drop his guard and reveal a little more than he had intended – as, for example, when he borrowed Dicky’s fife and played a tune on it.

  ‘Where’d you learn to play like that, men?’

  ‘Took music lessons, no? On the recorder.’

  Dicky goggled at him. ‘Arré? What kind of khidmatgar you are, men, taking music lessons and all?’

  Raju had to think quickly to retrieve the situation; he did so by inventing a story about how he had once been employed by a bandmaster.

  The next day one of the fifers fell ill and Dicky suggested to the fife-major that Raju be allowed to take his place for a few days. The fife-major was a short, hirsute man with a scowl permanently affixed to his face: behind his back the boys called him Bobbery-Bob, because of the exclamations and obscenities that constantly flowed off his tongue.

  Raju was allowed to audition and was dismayed to learn afterwards that Bobbery-Bob had said that he’d played like he was ‘shitting the squitters’. But Dicky laughed into his crestfallen face and said that this was in fact a rare accolade: ‘What it means, bugger, is that your notes flowed really smoothly. You’re almost one of us now!’

  *

  Kesri, no less than the younger sepoys, was awed by the sight that greeted them when the Hind sailed into Singapore’s outer harbour. Six warships were riding at anchor there, one of them a majestic triple-decked man-o’-war.

  The transport and supply vessels were moored at a slight distance from the warships. There were no fewer than twelve of them, their decks aswarm with red-coated soldiers and sepoys. The Hind dropped anchor right next to the troopship that was carrying their brother unit – the other company of Bengal Volunteers. The sepoys gathered on deck to exchange shouted greetings.

  Looking around the harbour, Kesri saw that the Royal Irish Regiment had already arrived, as had the left wing of the Cameronians. The colours of the 49th Regiment could also be seen on a ship that had just sailed in from Colombo. Only the 37th Madras Regiment was still to come.

  Later that day Captain Mee summoned Kesri to the quarterdeck for his daily report on the conditions below. Their business was quickly dispatched and afterwards the captain identified the warships for Kesri, rattling off their names one by one: that over there was the eighteen-gun Cruiser, and there was the ten-gun Algerine riding beside two twenty-eight-gun frigates Conway and Alligator. And towering over them all was the man-o’-war, Wellesley: she was a ship-of-the-line, said Captain Mee, armed with no fewer than seventy-four guns.

  The Wellesley was the tallest sailing vessel that Kesri had ever set eyes on. He assumed that she was, if not the most powerful vessel in the Royal Navy, then certainly of their number. But Captain Mee explained that by the standards of the Royal Navy the Wellesley was but a vessel of medium size, rated as a warship of the third class. Much the same could be said of the fleet itself, the captain added – although large for Asian waters, it was small by the standards of the Royal Navy, which frequently assembled armadas of fifty warships or more.

  Kesri was both chastened and reassured to learn of this. He understood from the captain’s tone that from the British perspective this expedition was a relatively minor venture and that they were completely confident of achieving their objectives. This was just as well, as far as Kesri was concerned. Heroics were of no interest to him – he had wounds enough to show for his years in service, and all that concerned him now was getting himself and his men safely back to their villages.

  Later in the day Captain Mee and his subalterns went off in a longboat, to attend a meeting on the Wellesley. When they returned, several hours later, Captain Mee summoned Kesri to his stateroom for a briefing.

  There had been some major changes in the expedition’s chain of command, the captain told him. Admiral Frederick Maitland, who was to have commanded the expedition, had taken ill and another officer had been given his post – Rear-Admiral George Elliot, who, as it happened, was the cousin of the British Plenipotentiary in China, Captain Charles Elliot.

  Rear-Admiral Elliot was on his way from Cape Town and would join the expedition later; until then Commodore Sir Gordon Bremer would be in command, while Colonel Burrell would be in charge of operational details. The colonel had already taken some important decisions regarding the force’s stay in Singapore. One of them was that the soldiers and sepoys would remain on their ships, through the duration of the stay.

  Kesri was disappointed to hear this, for he had been hoping to spend a few days on dry land. ‘Why so, sir?’

  ‘Singapore is a small colony, havildar, not yet twenty years old,’ said Captain Mee. ‘To set up a camp large enough to hold all of us would be difficult because the island’s forests are very dense. And there are tigers too – a couple of men were killed just this week, on the edge of town.’

  ‘So how long will we be here, sir?’

  ‘There’s no telling,’ said the captain. ‘A third or more of the force is still to arrive. I’d say it’ll take another couple of weeks, at the very least.’

  ‘Will there be liberty, sir? Shore leave?’

  The captain shot him a glance. ‘It wouldn’t be much use to you, havildar,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘If you’re thinking of bawdy-baskets, you can put that out of your mind. Women are as scarce as diamonds in Singapore – the knocking-shops are full of travesties so you’d probably end up with a molly-dan. And if back-gammoning isn’t to your taste, then the only other diversion is chasing the yinyan.’

  ‘So what will the men do here, sir, for two weeks?’

  The captain laughed. ‘Drills, havildar, drills! Boat drills, attack drills, bayonet drills, rocket drills. Don’t worry – there’ll be plenty to do.’

  When Shireen learnt the name of the tall seventy-four-gun frigate in the harbour she gave a cry of recognition: ‘The Wellesley! Why, I know that ship – she was built in Bombay, by our friends the Wadias. I was there for the launching. They named her in honour of Sir Arthur Wellesley.’

  ‘The Duke of Wellington?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Shireen. ‘I saw him once, you know. It was just after he’d won the Battle of Assaye. He was being fêted in Bombay and the Wadias threw a big burra-khana for him at Tarala, their mansion in Mazagon, and we were invited. They allowed the girls and women to watch from a jharoka upstairs. Sir Arthur was the sternest-looking man I’ve ever seen.’

  Zadig burst into laughter. ‘Bibiji, for a woman who has spent much of her life in purdah, you’ve certainly seen a lot!’

  Shireen laughed too, but more out of nervousness than amusement. Zadig understood exactly what was on her mind. ‘You’re worrying about Freddie, aren’t you,
Bibiji?’

  Shireen bit her lip and nodded. ‘Yes I am, Zadig Bey – I can’t stop thinking about him.’

  ‘Would you like to come along when I go to look for him, tomorrow?’

  The question threw Shireen into a panic. The prospect of meeting her late husband’s son in an unfamiliar place, without preparation, was deeply unsettling. ‘No, Zadig Bey,’ she said, ‘it can’t happen like that. You must give me time, and warning, so that I can be ready.’

  ‘All right, Bibiji. As you say.’

  When it came time for Zadig to go ashore the next morning Shireen was on deck to see him off. Through the rest of the morning she and Rosa took it in turns to keep watch for his return.

  Around noon, there was an excited knock on the door of Shireen’s stateroom.

  Bibiji! said Rosa, sticking her head in. Zadig Bey is back – he’s waiting for you on the quarter-deck.

  Shireen went hurrying out and found Zadig sitting on a bench, under the awning that had been rigged up to cover the quarterdeck. He rose to his feet with a smile.

  ‘Bibiji – good news! I found Freddie!’

  ‘Where, Zadig Bey? Tell me everything.’

  ‘Finding him was easy, Bibiji. It was he who spotted me as I was walking along Boat Quay. He came hurrying up to greet me, which was lucky, for if I had seen him in a crowd I wouldn’t have recognized him.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘He is completely changed, Bibiji, in many different ways – even his way of speaking English is different now. His looks have changed too: he is very thin and has grown a beard. To be honest, he does not look well.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  Clearing his throat, Zadig said: ‘There is something I haven’t told you, Bibiji.’

  ‘Yes? Go on.’

  ‘Bibiji, you should know that Freddie is an opium-smoker. This is not unusual in itself, for many people in China smoke occasionally. But Freddie is one of those who has had problems with it. I thought he had given up, but I think he has started again. This has been a difficult time for him, no doubt – Bahram-bhai’s death, especially, has been very hard on him.’

  Only now did it occur to Shireen that her husband’s death, which had so powerfully affected her own life, might have had similar repercussions for his son.

  ‘Do you suppose he misses his father?’

  ‘Yes, Bibiji. Even though things were never easy between them, Bahram-bhai was like a great rock that Freddie could both rage against and shelter behind. Now that his father is gone, and his mother too, he is truly alone. It has come as a great blow to him, especially because he was not there at the end, for either of them. In his heart, you know, he is very Chinese, and it weighs on him that he was not able to put his father’s soul to rest. He seems, in a way’ – Zadig tipped his head back and looked up at the sky as though he were searching for a word – ‘haunted.’

  ‘Haunted?’ A shiver ran through Shireen. ‘By whom? I don’t understand, Zadig Bey. Please explain.’

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you this, Bibiji, but what Freddie said is that he sometimes hears Bahram-bhai’s voice and feels his presence. In fact he said that this was the reason he moved from Malacca to Singapore. He said he knew I would be coming – he’s been waiting for me.’

  ‘Had you written to him?’

  ‘No, Bibiji – I don’t know how he learnt that I was coming. It’s very strange – we can ask him about it tomorrow, when he comes to visit.’

  ‘Is he coming tomorrow?’ cried Shireen. ‘So soon?’

  ‘Yes, Bibiji,’ said Zadig, on a note of finality. ‘He will be here tomorrow morning; of course you need not meet with him, if you don’t wish to.’

  Shireen passed a restless night and in the morning, when she saw Zadig on the quarter-deck, she was unable to conceal her misgivings: ‘Zadig Bey, I don’t know if it’s well-advised to meet with Freddie. What good can possibly come of it? I am beginning to feel that I made a mistake. I should not have set out to look for the boy just to indulge my curiosity.’

  Zadig shook his head. ‘No, Bibiji. That is not why you have sought him out – it’s because only you can give this boy peace of mind. Only you can give him a sense of having a place in his father’s world. Very few women would have the courage to do what you are about to do, Bibiji. You must not flinch now.’

  Shireen’s hands rose to her fluttering heart. ‘Oh but I’m afraid, Zadig Bey!’

  ‘Bibiji, you don’t have to go through with it if you don’t want to,’ said Zadig. ‘Why don’t you wait and see? I will say nothing to him until you give me a sign.’

  So it was arranged between them that Shireen would watch from a distance while Zadig welcomed Freddie on board.

  When Freddie’s lighter pulled up Zadig went down to the maindeck while Shireen hid herself in a corner above, on the quarterdeck. From the shelter of the balustrade she kept watch, veiled by a shawl, as Freddie stepped off the side-ladder and boarded the Hind.

  He was trim in figure and of medium height, dressed in shabby European clothes: a fraying linen suit and a wide-brimmed hat. The sun was at such an angle that Shireen could not get a good look at his face, which was shaded by the hat. But then, as Zadig was leading him across the deck, they happened to run into Zachary, with whom Zadig had become acquainted in the course of the voyage. He stopped now to make introductions: ‘Mr Reid, this is my godson – Mr Freddie Lee.’

  ‘I am glad to meet you, Mr Lee,’ Shireen heard Zachary say as he stuck out his hand.

  ‘And I too, Mr Reid,’ Freddie responded. Looking a little flustered he took off his hat and held it to his chest; only now was Shireen able to get a proper look at his face.

  He was skeletally thin, with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes and an unclipped beard – but none of this surprised Shireen. What startled her was that the cast of his countenance seemed completely Chinese, so much so that at first it seemed impossible that he could be Bahram’s son.

  But then, as she looked on from above, Shireen slowly began to revise her first impression: the more she looked at Freddie’s face the more she saw echoes of Bahram’s – in his dark, heavy eyebrows, his full lips, and most of all, in his fine nose, with its hint of a curve. Then Freddie happened to smile – ‘You have never been in Singapore, eh Mr Reid? I would be glad to show you around, lah!’ – and for an instant it was as though she were looking at a long-ago version of Bahram himself. It amazed her now that she could have doubted for a minute that the boy was her husband’s son.

  When Zadig’s eyes flickered in her direction she gave him a nod and went hurrying down to the passengers’ salon.

  To her relief the salon was empty. She seated herself on a settee, facing the door, and removed the veil from her face.

  Freddie entered the salon ahead of Zadig and, to Shireen’s astonishment, when their eyes met he gave her a smile and a nod, as if to say that he recognized her and knew who she was.

  ‘Freddie,’ said Zadig. ‘I want to introduce you to someone—’

  Freddie cut him short. ‘There is no need, lah. I know who she is.’

  Summoning a smile, Shireen patted the space beside her, on the settee.

  ‘Please … won’t you sit down?’

  When he’d sat down, hat in hand, she pronounced his name experimentally – ‘Freddie’ – and extended her hand towards him. If he had put out his hand too she would perhaps have shaken it, but he didn’t, so her hand strayed towards his face and her fingertips skimmed over his eyebrows, touching his nose and chin – and suddenly it was as if Bahram had come alive and was sitting beside her. Her eyes flooded over and she pulled Freddie towards her so that his forehead sank on to her shoulder: she could tell that he too was sobbing now, just as she was.

  When she looked at him again, his eyes were red and there was a kind of wildness in them: it was as if the curtains of adulthood had parted to give her a glimpse of a deep well of suffering that went back to his boyhood.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for yo
u, lah,’ he said, almost on a note of accusation. ‘I was thinking when you would come, eh?’

  ‘But how could you know that I would come?’

  He smiled. ‘Because my father tells me, ne? He always say you will come, before month of Hungry Ghosts.’

  Here, seeing that Shireen had gone pale, Zadig signalled to Freddie to say no more. But Shireen would not let him stop. ‘Go on. Please. What else does your father say?’

  A few minutes passed before Freddie spoke again. ‘He say that I must go with you. I must burn offerings for him and my mother, at his grave in Hong Kong.’

  *

  Zachary’s first impressions of Singapore were disappointing: from a distance the settlement had the appearance of a clearing in the jungle. Nor did it improve greatly on closer inspection: Boat Quay, where he had disembarked from the lighter that had brought him over from the Hind, was a muddy mess, and he had to scramble across a teetering bamboo jetty to get to the shore.

  Yet, even though the port looked more like a fishing-village than a town, there was nothing sleepy about it. Stepping off the jetty, he was swept along by a crowd to an open crossroads that went by the name of Commercial Square. It was lined with saloons, shipchandling establishments, shops, brokerages, barbershops and the like.

  Spotting a sign with ‘tiffin’ on it, Zachary went in and ordered some tea and mutton patties. While waiting to be served he picked up a copy of a paper that had been left behind by another customer. The paper was called the Singapore Chronicle and Zachary’s eyes went straight to a column that began: ‘In some quarters of this town, the retail price of a chest of the best Bengal opium has risen to 850 Spanish dollars.’

  Zachary sat back, stunned. He had been led to expect that chests would fetch seven hundred dollars if he was lucky: this was a windfall!

  Wolfing down his patties and draining his tea, he stepped outside, into the sunshine, and looked at the square with new eyes. How was it possible that a ramshackle place like this could pay such steep prices? It defied belief.

  A touch on his elbow woke him from his reverie.