by Amitav Ghosh
Then one day news arrived that a contingent of sick sepoys from their brother unit – the other company of the Bengal Volunteers battalion – had been sent back from Chusan and were now languishing in the Misericordía. Kesri went to Captain Mee to ask if the reports were true; not only did the captain confirm them, he also gave Kesri permission to take a group of NCOs to Macau, to visit the sick sepoys.
Since their arrival in China the sepoys had not once set foot in Macau. Although this visit was anything but a pleasure trip, they were glad to have an opportunity to see the town. Nor were they disappointed: Macau made a tremendous impression on all of them, most of all on Kesri. Their group happened to land near the temple of A-Ma, the goddess of the sea, and Kesri could not resist going in to have a look. He was amazed by the number of things that looked familiar – the incense, the idols, the sacred trees, the carved figures that guarded the gates. Kesri had known of course that many Chinese were Buddhists but not till then did he have any sense of the similarities between their dharma and his own.
Afterwards, walking to the Misericordía, the sepoys got lost in the town’s winding lanes. But at every turn there was someone to ask directions from, not just in English but also Hindustani – there were Goans everywhere, running shops, patrolling the streets, guarding doors. A squad of Goan sepoys even showed them their barracks and gave them gifts of fruit.
The Misericordía was a sombre, grey building. The compound was very crowded and no one paid them any attention. Fortunately Kesri spotted Rosa, who recognized him from the Hind: she led the way to a small, dark room at one side of the building – this was the ward in which the sick sepoys were housed.
On inquiring about the conditions in Chusan, Kesri learnt that the initial seizure of the island had indeed been relatively uncomplicated, as he had thought – it was in the aftermath of the fighting that things had taken a hellish turn. Epidemics of fevers and other diseases had broken out; hundreds of sepoys and soldiers had been struck down by chronic, uncontrollable dysentery. In the field-hospital mattresses were packed so close together that the attendants couldn’t get through without stepping on sick and dying men.
The basic problem lay in the high command’s ignorance of the island, said the sick sepoys. Their campsites had been chosen without due regard for the terrain: the fact that the low-lying areas of Chusan were dotted with swamps and marshes had not been taken properly into account. As a result the troops had been exposed to noxious vapours and deadly miasmas. Often their tents would be flooded by rising waters. One detachment of sepoys had set up camp on a hill, but only to be beset by foul odours; the smells were so persistent that they had decided to dig down, in the hope of finding a solution to the mystery. Within a few inches of the surface they had hit upon skulls, skeletons and rotting bones: it turned out that the ‘hill’ was a burial mound. The officers had decided that the mound was a source of contagion and had ordered that it be blown up. The explosion had resulted in a crater of coffins and corpses.
On Chusan, said the sepoys, fresh water was so difficult to find that they had sometimes had to drink from the ditches that irrigated the rice-fields. Provisions, most of which had been procured in Calcutta, were scanty or rotten, infested with weevils and fungus: it was evident to the sepoys that someone had earned huge profits by providing substandard supplies. Yet so dire were the shortages that the commissariat had been forced to keep on buying, at vastly inflated prices, from the merchant vessels that had accompanied the occupying force on its northwards journey.
And then there was the heat, which even the sepoys had found hard to cope with: for the white soldiers it had been almost beyond endurance. On top of that, the occupiers had also had to cope with the unrelenting hostility of the island’s inhabitants. Because of the bounties offered by the Chinese authorities the soldiers had not been able to relax for a minute, for fear of being murdered or kidnapped. A few who had let down their guard had paid a steep price, among them a captain of the Madras Artillery who had been set upon by a mob and whisked away to the mainland: his Indian servant had died in the fracas.
Before arriving at Chusan the officers had told the troops that they would be welcomed by the islanders; the Manchus were so widely hated, they had said, that the soldiers of the expeditionary force were sure to be greeted as liberators.
In Chusan it had become clear that these were delusions.
It was in listening to stories like these that Kesri realized how very fortunate B Company had been in being stationed in the south. Although life on Saw Chow Island was none too pleasant, their provisions were certainly adequate, with plenty of supplies being brought in by the bumboat fleet. Although they too had suffered from sickness and disease, their field-hospital had not been strained beyond capacity. All in all, there could be no denying that they had been relatively lucky in their lot.
In late October, the remaining battalions of the 37th Madras Regiment began to trickle in from India. They too were quartered on Saw Chow Island and they told harrowing tales of their voyage. In order to save money the military establishment of Madras Presidency had hired leaky old tubs as transport vessels. The ships were barely seaworthy, not fit to weather even a mild storm – and as luck would have it, they had run into a monstrous typhoon in the South China Sea; all four vessels in the convoy had been badly damaged and blown afield. One had spent several days under siege by pirates; if a British steamer had not come to their rescue there was no telling what might have happened. Another ship had vanished after the typhoon. The name of this vessel was Golconda: she was the ‘headquarters ship’ of the 37th Madras and was carrying the regimental daftar, three hundred sepoys, and most of the officers too, including the CO. The worst was feared.
A few days later Captain Mee confirmed to Kesri that the Golconda had capsized and all on board had perished. He confirmed also that the ship was not seaworthy and should never have been hired as a transport vessel. It was common knowledge that many palms had been greased and that some officers had been paid off – possibly even one of those who had gone down with the vessel. There would very likely be an official inquiry.
‘It’s those money-grubbing civilians who’re to blame,’ said Captain Mee, through clenched teeth. ‘If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s these merchants who make money on soldiers’ lives. The bastards are worse than grave-robbers!’
That night, lying in his cot, Kesri thought of the two boys who had tried to desert in Calcutta and how they had revealed, under questioning, that they were afraid that their provisions would be rotten and their ships unseaworthy – all of which he had dismissed as lies and rumours. He remembered also how he had commanded the firing squad that executed them and how they had died, falling forward on their blindfolded faces.
Now the dead boys began to appear in his dreams, calling him a fool for parroting the words of the Angrez officers, taunting him as a nakli gora – a white-faker.
Through this time Kesri continued to visit the Misericordía at regular fortnightly intervals, to deliver sattu and other provisions to the sick sepoys. Often he would make the journey to Macau with Captain Mee; while the captain went off to call on friends and acquaintances, Kesri would lead a line of porters through the now familiar lanes of Macau.
These visits did much to sustain the sick sepoys, many of whom were starved of news, desperate to know when they might go home. Kesri would tell them what he had heard: that the Plenipotentiaries were still up north, trying to get the mandarins to recognize their claims.
What he did not say was that the end was nowhere in sight.
With every visit there was a steady increase in the number of sick sepoys until the Misericordía could take no more patients: those who arrived afterwards were sent on to Manila.
And still they kept coming: in early November Kesri heard that of the two and a half thousand soldiers who had seized Chusan two months before, only eight hundred were still on their feet.
It was not till the middle of the month that ther
e was finally a bit of good news to bring to the Misericordía.
Most of the expeditionary force’s troops were returning to the south! The British had pledged to return Chusan to the Chinese in return for some other island, to be used a base. In the meantime only a small garrison would remain on Chusan.
The rest of the troops were already on their way back to the south; they would enter the Pearl River estuary in a few days.
*
On arriving at Hong Kong Bay Zachary discovered that Mr and Mrs Burnham had gone to Macau on the Anahita. He wasted no time in boarding a Macau ferry-boat.
By the time Zachary stepped on the Anahita it was late in the afternoon: he was surprised to find the maindeck empty except for a couple of lascars, dozing in the shade of a staysail. It occurred to him to wonder whether Mrs Burnham was on board; it was not unlikely, he knew, and his heartbeat quickened.
Looking astern he saw that a canvas awning had been rigged over the Anahita’s quarter-deck, to shield it from the sun. He guessed that this amenity was intended mainly to accommodate Mrs Burnham’s dread of direct sunlight, and the thought that she might be up there now flashed guiltily through his mind. He tried to disregard it: nothing good could come, he admonished himself, of letting his mind stray in that direction. Yet, when his feet began to move towards the quarter-deck, he made no effort to stop them either. What could be more natural, he asked himself, than that he, a skipper himself, should go up to the quarter-deck? It was what any ship’s officer would do.
He climbed the companion-ladder slowly, and when his head drew level with the deck, he looked carefully from side to side. Seeing no sign of Mrs Burnham or anyone else, he breathed a deep sigh – whether of relief or disappointment, he himself did not know. Stepping up to the deck he saw that there was a carved, circular bench at the foot of the mizzenmast. That was where he would wait, he decided.
But as he was crossing the deck a door flew suddenly open. Turning on his heel, Zachary beheld a veiled figure, encased in an armature of clothing.
‘Mr Reid!’
‘Mrs Burnham?’
Even though it was a chilly day Mrs Burnham had spared no effort to protect herself from the sun: from neck to toe she was enveloped in white calico, trimmed with lace; her arms were covered with elbow-length cotton gloves and her head and face were sheltered by a circular hat, from the brim of which hung a visor-like veil of white netting. In one of her hands was a parasol, made of fine white linen, with a trimming of lace.
Now, as Zachary stood transfixed on the deck, her hat, with its visor of netting, began to swivel, turning from one direction to the other. Then, with a flick of her wrist, Mrs Burnham flipped her veil back upon the brim of her hat.
‘It seems that we are alone for the moment, Mr Reid. My husband has gone to the Wellesley to call on Captain Elliot.’
Zachary could not think of what to say, how to respond. What was the most natural way for a man in his position to greet his employer’s wife? Unable to think of an answer he moved towards the starboard bulwark, where he steadied himself by taking hold of the gunwale. Even when he heard the rustling of cloth behind him he did not look around but kept his gaze fixed ahead, on the Wellesley, a quarter-mile away. His senses were now at such a pitch that he could follow Mrs Burnham’s movements without looking: he knew that she had stationed herself beside him, but at a distance that seemed to be precisely calibrated to suggest to an onlooker that they were but two casual acquaintances, standing at the bulwark to take in the view.
‘I am very glad, Mr Reid,’ she said, ‘that we have been granted this opportunity to meet on our own.’
Suddenly a wave of thwarted desire surged over Zachary and he found himself saying, not without some bitterness: ‘You surprise me, Mrs Burnham. When we parted last I had the clear impression that you wanted to be rid of me.’
From under the cover of her slowly spinning parasol Mrs Burnham shot him an imploring glance. ‘Oh please, Mr Reid; you know very well the circumstances. If I seemed unkind it was only because it was so very difficulty to forsake our … our intimacy. Anyway the past doesn’t matter now: I have something of the greatest importance to say – and I don’t know if there will ever be another opportunity. Mr Burnham will be back all too soon, so there is very little time.’
Startled by the intensity of her tone, Zachary said: ‘What is it, Mrs Burnham? Tell me.’
‘It is about Paulette: I know you have written to her, to sever your connection. She has told me about your chitty.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She did not say much but I could tell that she was deeply, deeply wounded.’
‘Well I am sorry about that, Mrs Burnham,’ said Zachary. ‘I tried to be polite but the truth is that I too was deeply hurt by the things she had said about me.’
‘But that’s just the cheez!’ Mrs Burnham caught her breath with a muted sob. ‘Paulette didn’t mean what I thought she had! It was all a terrible misunderstanding on my part.’
‘I don’t understand, Mrs Burnham.’ Zachary’s voice fell to a whisper. ‘Do you mean that she never implied that she was “with child”?’
‘Not intentionally. No.’
‘But what of her relations with your husband? They were not entirely innocent surely?’
‘Well Mr Reid, I do believe they were, at least on Paulette’s part. I am sure her stories of the beatings were true; I am sure also that she did it without knowing what she was doing – and when she realized what it signified, she fled our house immediately, before things could go any further.’
Over the last many months Zachary had come to be convinced that Paulette had wilfully and maliciously deceived both himself and Mrs Burnham; that his suspicions might be unfounded was hard to accept. ‘How do you know all this?’ he demanded. ‘Did you ask her about it?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Burnham. ‘I did not ask her directly. But one day when my husband and I were in Macau we ran into her unexpectedly. I watched the two of them closely and you can take my word for it that she behaved in a way that entirely gave the lie to the conjectures that you and I had nurtured. She was completely natural and unafraid – it was my husband who seemed sheepish and apprehensive. I am convinced now that she told you the truth about what had passed between them – it was only that and nothing more.’
Still unconvinced, Zachary persisted: ‘I don’t see how you can be so sure.’
‘But I am indeed sure, Mr Reid,’ she said. ‘I realize now that I had let my imagination run away with me. I was at a loss to understand why Paulette had fled our house and the only explanation I could think of was that you had puckrowed and impregnated her. When you came to ask for that job, this suspicion weighed heavily upon me; I thought that if I had you within my grasp, I could make you repent of your loocherism and cure you of it forever. But then something changed; against my own will I found myself drawn to you and was powerless to resist. That was why, perhaps, I was willing to believe the worst of Paulette – yet she was utterly without blame. The fault was entirely mine.’
Now, at last Zachary began to give ground. ‘The fault was as much mine as yours, Mrs Burnham,’ he said grudgingly. ‘What you have owned of yourself is true for both of us. I too was prepared to believe the worst of Paulette – perhaps because it seemed to lessen our own guilt.’
‘Yes, we are both guilty—’
She cut herself short as a skiff appeared in the distance, pulling away from the Wellesley and heading towards the Anahita.
‘Oh there is my husband’s boat!’ said Mrs Burnham breathlessly. ‘He will be here in a matter of minutes and after that I must go into town, to make a few calls. We have very little time left, so please, Mr Reid, you must listen jaldee.’
‘Yes, Mrs Burnham?’
‘We – or rather I – have done Paulette a terrible injustice, Mr Reid. I would have liked to make amends myself, but I dare not, for fear of revealing too much, about us – you and I.’
‘So Paulette doesn’t know a
bout us?’
‘No, of course not,’ said Mrs Burnham. ‘I told her nothing for fear that it might put an end to the possibility of a future for you and her.’
Zachary’s eyebrows rose: ‘What do you mean by “future”, Mrs Burnham?’
‘I mean your happiness, Mr Reid.’ Mrs Burnham raised a hand to brush away a tear. ‘You were destined to be together, you and Paulette – I can see that now. And so you might have been, if not for me.’
She looked him in the face, eyes glistening. ‘I am a vile, selfish, weak creature, Mr Reid. I succumbed to temptation with you and have been the cause of much unhappiness for yourself and for Paulette, for whom I have nothing but affection. I know all too well what it is to have one’s love destroyed and I am tormented by the thought that I may myself have been the cause of it, for the two of you. You cannot let me go to my grave with that weighing upon my soul. I will have no peace until I know that you have been reunited with her.’
‘But there is nothing to be done, Mrs Burnham,’ protested Zachary. ‘Paulette still has my letter – I cannot take it back.’
‘Yes you can, Mr Reid. You can apologize to her; you can explain that you had been deceived by salacious gossip. You can beg forgiveness. You must do it for my sake if not for your own – if ever I meant anything to you, you must do it for me.’
Such was the urgency in her voice that Zachary could not refuse. ‘But Mrs Burnham, how am I to meet with her? I doubt that she would receive me.’
‘Oh do not worry about that, Mr Reid; I have already thought of a way to bring the two of you together.’
Mrs Burnham’s voice grew increasingly hurried now, seeing that the skiff had pulled abreast of the Anahita.
‘You will have an opportunity very soon. On New Year’s Day, we are holding a sunset levée on the Anahita. Mr Burnham wants to receive and entertain some of the expedition’s officers. There will be some ladies too, and I have invited Paulette as well. She has accepted – perhaps because she does not know that you are here. You must come – you can speak to her then.’