by Amitav Ghosh
This time Jodu was slow and deliberate in his sighting. He had stripped off his banyan and was bare-bodied now; lithe, slight and deft in his movements, he snatched up a crowbar and began to make minute adjustments in the angle of the barrel, his coppery skin gleaming with sweat.
What are you aiming at? said Neel.
The steam-chest, grunted Jodu. What else?
Murmuring a prayer, Jodu lowered the fusil and stepped back.
An instant later the Nemesis shuddered and Neel saw that a jagged gash had appeared under the smokestack, roughly where the steam-chest lay.
A hit! shouted Jodu. Legechhe! We’ve hit it!
Amazed, almost disbelieving, the crew raised a cheer – but soon the steamer’s giant paddle-wheels began to turn again, making it clear that the vessel was merely damaged, not disabled.
Yet to force the Nemesis to turn tail was no small thing either. The gunners on the Cambridge paused to catch their breath, giddy with excitement, savouring the moment.
But their elation was short-lived.
Even as the Nemesis was withdrawing, the masts of several other warships were seen in the distance, moving quickly towards them. The squadron hove into view with the steamer Madagascar in the lead; under heavy fire from the fort and the Cambridge the British ships began to deploy around the channel.
The warships held their fire as they manoeuvred into position; in tandem with the Madagascar a corvette pulled very close to the raft and turned broadside-on to the Cambridge. Then there was a rattling sound, as the wooden shutters of the vessels’ gun-ports flipped open. Suddenly Neel found himself looking into the muzzles of dozens of British guns.
The two ships delivered their broadsides in unison, with a blast that shook the planks under Neel’s feet.
Stay low! Jodu shouted over the din. They’re shooting canister.
As the musket-balls whistled past, Neel looked up. He saw that the awning above the deck had been shot to shreds; a patch of canvas, smaller than a kerchief, lay at his feet, pierced in a dozen places.
Crouching low, the gun-crew pushed the carriage against the bulwark again. They were preparing to fire when Chhotu Mian toppled over with a powder-cartridge in his hands. Glancing at his body Neel saw that he had been hit by a cluster of grapeshot; his banyan was riddled with holes; blood was spreading in circles around the punctures in the fabric.
Don’t stop! shouted Jodu. Load the cartridge.
Neel snatched up the packet of powder and rammed it in. After the ball had been loaded, Jodu shouted to Neel to fetch the next cartridge; he would have to take over as powder-monkey now that Chhotu Mian was dead.
Racing to the companion-ladder, Neel saw that the maindeck of the Cambridge was shrouded by a pall of smoke. As he stepped off the ladder his foot slipped on excrement, voided by some mortally wounded sailor. When he picked himself up again, Neel found that he was in the midst of a blood-soaked shambles: men lay sprawled everywhere, their clothes perforated with grapeshot. A cannonball had knocked down a heavy purwan and in falling on the deck it had pinned several men under it. The smoke was so thick that Neel could not see even as far as the quarter-deck, less than thirty feet away.
It turned out that the sailor responsible for distributing the powder had been grazed in the head. He was sitting on his haunches, with blood pouring down his face. The packets of powder were lying behind him; Neel took one and raced back to the fo’c’sle deck where he thrust it into the eight-pounder’s muzzle.
Theirs was now one of the last gun-ports on the Cambridge that was still active. But the gunners of the Nemesis were closing in; even as their eight-pounder was recoiling from its next shot, a heavy ball struck the bulwark, knocking out one of the rings that held the gun’s breech-ropes. A slab of wood fell out, yanking the gun-carriage towards the water. As it tumbled over the side, barrel and all, Neel heard the whoosh of a rocket and looked up: in the bright afternoon sunlight the projectile seemed to be heading directly towards him.
Neel froze as he watched the rocket arcing down from the sky. He would not have moved if Jodu had not pushed him: Lafao! Jump!
*
Shireen was walking along a beachside pathway in Hong Kong, with Freddie, when the smoke from the battle at the First Bar appeared over the horizon, spiralling slowly upwards.
It was Freddie who drew her attention to it. ‘Look there – must be more fighting, lah. Very far; too far for us to hear. Maybe near Whampoa.’
The smoke was just a dark smudge in the sky, but Shireen did not doubt that Freddie was right about its cause.
‘Do you think the British will press on to Canton now?’ said Shireen.
‘Yes, this time for sure, lah.’
On the Mor Shireen had overheard a long discussion of this subject that morning. Many of the seths were persuaded that this offensive would be called off like others before; they had convinced themselves that the Plenny-potty would again lose his nerve – and if not that, then the mandarins would surely succeed in bamboozling him once more.
The day’s tranquil beginning had only deepened their conviction; the excitement of yesterday, when the bombardment of the forts of the Tiger’s Mouth had jolted them out of their berths at sunrise, was still fresh in memory and the contrast between the din of that morning and the silence of this one seemed an ominous portent.
The mood had changed briefly when the first shots of a gun-salute were heard – but the seths’ spirits had plunged again when it was learnt that the shooting did not presage a renewal of hostilities but was intended, rather, as a tribute to a Chinese admiral. Of all things! Almost to a man the seths concluded that the salute was a sure sign that the hapless Captain Elliot had once again been duped by the mandarins.
Dinyar alone had remained incorrigibly optimistic. The night before, on hearing of the storming of the Tiger’s Mouth, he had predicted confidently that this time the British would not stop short of Canton itself.
The officers are all gung-ho now, he had told the other seths. The Plenipot wouldn’t be able to hold them back even if he wanted to.
Shireen had listened to the discussion with only half an ear; it was Freddie who was uppermost in her mind that morning. She had thought of little else but of how she might contrive to see him without anyone learning of it.
Fortunately it happened that Dinyar had an errand to run in Hong Kong that day. Hearing him call for the Mor’s cutter, Shireen had made up a story about needing to visit Sheng Wan village, to buy provisions. As luck would have it she had run into Freddie within minutes of stepping off the cutter.
‘Listen, Freddie,’ she said to him now. ‘There is a reason why I came to see you today.’
‘Yes?’
‘There is something I want to tell you – something important.’ Freddie nodded: ‘So then tell, lah.’ And when she hesitated he added with a smile: ‘Do not worry – I will not say anything to anyone.’
Shireen fortified herself with a deep breath and then a string of words came tumbling out with her scarcely being aware of it: ‘Freddie, you should know that Mr Karabedian has asked me to marry him.’
To her surprise Freddie took the disclosure in his stride, quite literally. Without missing a breath or a step he said: ‘And what your answer was, eh?’
‘I told him I wanted to talk to you first.’
‘Why me?’
‘But of course, I had to talk to you first, Freddie,’ said Shireen. ‘You have known Zadig Bey all your life – he has been like a second father to you. I do not want to do anything that might hurt you.’
‘Hurt me?’
Freddie glanced at her with a raised eyebrow: ‘Why it will hurt me, eh, if you marry Zadig Bey? I will be happy for him – and for you too. You should not worry about me – or Father also.’
A weight seemed to tumble off Shireen’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Freddie.’
Acknowledging this with a grunt he shot her a sidewise glance: ‘But what about all your Parsis, eh? What they will say if you marry Zadi
g Bey? They are very strict, ne?’
Shireen sighed. ‘They will cut me off, I suppose. Even my daughters will, at least for a while. And I will probably never again be able to enter a Fire Temple: that will be the hardest part. But no one can take my faith from me, can they? And maybe, in a few years, people will forget.’
They had come to a sharp bend in the path now and as they turned the corner Shireen caught sight of Dinyar: he was walking briskly towards them.
Freddie too had come to a stop beside her. ‘Oh, see there,’ he said, under his breath. ‘One of your Parsis.’
It had not occurred to Shireen that Freddie might be acquainted with her nephew. ‘Do you know Dinyar?’ she said.
‘Only by sight, lah,’ said Freddie. ‘He know me too but will not speak.’
‘Why not?’
Freddie’s lips curled into a crooked smile: ‘Because I am half-caste bastard, ne?’ he said. ‘He is afraid of me.’
‘But why should Dinyar be afraid of you?’
Freddie flashed her another smile. ‘Because he also have made half-caste bastard, lah. In Macau. He know I know. That is why he is afraid.’
Freddie smiled again as she stared at him, her eyes widening in shock. ‘Now I must go, lah. Goodbye.’
*
The tide happened to be coming in when Neel tumbled headlong into the Pearl River: it was to this fact that he owed the preservation of his life – if the current had been flowing in the other direction then he would have been swept towards the raft, to be picked off by British sharpshooters. Instead he was carried in the other direction, towards Whampoa.
Neel had never before been out of his depth in a river; his experience of swimming consisted of paddling around pukurs and jheels – the placid ponds of the Bengal countryside. He had never encountered anything like the surge of the Pearl River’s incoming tide. For the first minutes he could think of nothing but of fighting his way to the surface to gulp in a few breaths.
As he was tumbling through the murky waters he caught a glimpse of a dark trail swirling around his limbs: one end of it seemed to be stuck to his right hip. Thinking that some floating object had attached itself to his body he twisted his head around to take a closer look. He saw then that the trailing ribbon was his own blood, flowing out of a wound. Only then did he become conscious of a sharp, stabbing pain in his flank. Flailing his arms he pushed himself to the surface and shouted for Jodu: Tui kothay? Tui kothay re Jodu?
Twenty feet away, a head, bobbing in the water, turned to look in his direction. A few minutes later Jodu’s arms were around Neel’s chest, pulling him towards the shore, into a thicket of reeds and rushes.
Leaning heavily on Jodu, Neel staggered out of the water but only to collapse on the bank. There was a long rent in his banyan, and underneath it, just above his hip, was a gaping wound where a musket-ball had entered his flesh.
The bullet had to have hit him when he was about to jump, or even perhaps as he was falling. In the tumult of the moment he had not been aware of it – but the pain seemed to have been waiting to waylay him for it assailed him now with a force that made him writhe and thrash his arms.
Lie still!
Neel gritted his teeth as Jodu examined the wound.
The ball’s gone too deep, Jodu said. I won’t be able to get it out, but maybe I can stop the bleeding.
Pulling off the bandhna that was tied around his forehead, Jodu tore it into strips and bound up the wound.
In the meantime the cannon- and gun-fire from the British warships had continued uninterrupted. Jodu and Neel were not far from the fighting, for the current, strong as it was, had brought them only a few hundred yards upriver from the Cambridge. Now, suddenly, there was an explosion that shook the breath out of them: the Cambridge had erupted, throwing up a solid tower of flame. The column climbed to a height of over three hundred feet, ending in a black cloud that was shaped like the head of a mushroom. A few seconds later debris began to rain down and Neel and Jodu had to crouch down, with their arms wrapped protectively around their heads. They did not look up even when the top half of a ship’s mast, thirty feet in length, landed nearby, with a huge thud. It had fallen out of the sky like a javelin, burying itself in the riverbank a few yards away.
A few minutes later there was another powerful explosion, on the river this time. When the smoke cleared they saw that a section of the raft had been destroyed. Within moments dead fish began to float up from below, clogging the river’s surface.
Soon they spotted puffs of smoke heading in their direction. Peering through the rushes they saw that a British steamer had pushed through the shattered raft and was moving rapidly upriver, swivel-guns twitching and turning. Suddenly a fusillade slammed into an already crippled war-junk; then another stream of fire hit something on the shore.
Neel and Jodu flattened themselves on the bank as the steamer swept past, unloosing bursts of fire, apparently at random. In a few minutes a second steamer appeared and went paddling after the first. Then came a couple of corvettes.
After the vessels had passed, Jodu climbed to the top of the bank.
There are some abandoned sampans nearby, he said, after looking around. The owners must have taken fright and run away. Once it gets dark I’ll get one.
Neel nodded: he knew that if they could get to the Ocean Banner Monastery they would be safe, at least for a while.
Shortly before nightfall Jodu slipped away, to return soon after, in a covered sampan. He had changed into some clothes he had found inside the boat: a tunic and loose trowsers, the usual garb of Cantonese boat-people. Of his face, almost nothing was visible: the upper part was hidden by a conical hat and the lower by a bandhna, tied like a scarf around his nose and mouth.
Jodu had found the garments below a deck-plank; after helping Neel into the boat he reached under the plank again and pulled out some more clothes, for Neel. He also came upon a jar of drinking water and some fried pancakes. The pancakes were stale but edible; Jodu devoured two of them before pushing the boat away from the shore.
Their way was lit by fires, kindled by the British gun-boats: blazing war-junks lay slumped over on their beams; the embers of shattered gun-emplacements smouldered on the river’s banks; on a small island trees flamed like torches. Jodu kept to the shadows and was careful to feather the oars so the boat glided along with scarcely a sound.
At Whampoa Roads a British corvette could be seen, in the flickering light of burning houses. The vessel was riding at anchor, her looming silhouette pregnant with menace, her guns swivelling watchfully. Along the edges of the waterway hundreds of boats were slipping through, heading in the direction of Guangzhou. Such was the panic that nobody paid Jodu or the sampan any notice.
As they drew closer to Guangzhou the signs of destruction multiplied. At the approaches to the city two island fortresses were on fire. Abreast of each was a British warship. The vessels had created such fear that people were pouring out of their homes, jamming the roadways.
Approaching the Ocean Banner Monastery they found a steamer anchored off it, abreast of the Thirteen Factories. On both shores people were milling about in large numbers; in the midst of the confusion no one noticed as Neel staggered through the monastery’s gates, leaning heavily on Jodu.
*
For ten days after the Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth the Bengal Volunteers remained in the vicinity of Chuenpee, on their transport vessel. Through that time they were constantly on the alert. Even though all Chinese troops had been withdrawn from the area new threats appeared every day: there were random attacks by bandits and villagers; some British units lost stragglers while patrolling ashore; there were rumours of camp-followers and lascars being kidnapped and killed.
As a result the men of B Company became impatient to return to their camp at Saw Chow. But instead the opposite happened: the troops who had proceeded up the Pearl River earlier were withdrawn and sent back to Hong Kong, and the Bengal Volunteers were ordered to move forward to Whampoa.
When it came to be learnt that the Hind was to sail upriver, there was much swearing and cursing. Only Raju was pleased: he knew that Whampoa was close to Canton and he imagined that if he could but get to the city his father would miraculously appear.
But on arriving at Whampoa Raju saw that nothing much was to be expected of it. It was just a way-station on the river, ringed by small townships and villages: it reminded Raju of the Narrows at Hooghly Point, where ships and boats often anchored on their way to and from Calcutta. The worst part of it was that nothing could be seen of Canton – and nor was there anything of interest nearby except a few pagodas and temples.
The boys’ first excursion ashore ended at one of those temples. It was like no temple that Raju had ever seen, with its hanging coils of incense and its unrecognizable images – yet there was an air of sacredness in it that was very familiar.
At a certain point Raju succeeded in giving the other fifers the slip. Stealing into a darkened shrine-room, he knelt before the figure of a gently smiling goddess and joined his hands in prayer.
‘Ya Devi sarvabhutéshu,’ he prayed, mouthing the first words of a remembered invocation: ‘Devi, my father is somewhere nearby. Help me find him, Devi, help me.’
*
For Zachary, the excitement of the Battle of the Tiger’s Mouth was followed by several weeks of oppressive tedium. His orders were to keep the Ibis at anchor near Humen, which was occupied by a small detachment of British troops. Other than ferrying provisions ashore and watching for thieves and bandits, there was little to occupy him.
With time hanging on his hands Zachary fell prey to anxiety, especially in regard to Captain Mee. The inconclusive end of their last meeting gave him much to worry about: he had no way of knowing whether the captain had reconsidered his threats or not. To wait for him to make his move would be an error, he knew, and he was impatient to bring matters to a head. But there was no chance of doing that while the captain was at Whampoa and he was posted to Humen.