Coromandel!

by John Masters

  Emily said, ‘Don’t worry. He’s done it to plenty of people. Take the money out of his coat. Go on! You’re going to Master Wigmore? Tell him I sent you. But I told you you didn’t need to make Dick angry. I’d have made him let you go without that.’

  Jason stood up. ‘How? It doesn’t matter. I’ve done it now. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘How? Because I’m his wife,’ Emily said quietly. ‘He loves me. But I would have gone to Coromandel with you. Not now, Jason, not any longer. It was only a foolish dream you made me dream. I wouldn’t be happy in Coromandel any more than I would with chickens and pigs and a riding horse, would I? I’m a dancer and a whore. Run now, Jason.’

  Jason began to run, forcing his legs to move his heavy feet. This was a cruel horse that he was riding. He hadn’t meant to do anyone any harm.

  He ran up the stairs in Chain Street, swept together his belongings, ran down, ran eastwards. Half an hour later, when he could run no more, he pounded on the door of a house that showed a light. This was somewhere near. He shouted up, ‘Hey, master! Can you tell me the way to Master Nathan Wigmore’s house in Leadenhall Street?’

  The old couple leaned out of the upper window, wrapped in whatever they’d grabbed up, the candle in the woman’s hand, the flame writhing, leaning flat, towering in a new cold wind. They told him the way. A church clock down the street sang aloud its old, clear time.

  Chapter Three

  He strained his eyes into the west and held to the spar with hands and knees. The sails bellied and slatted below him in the irregular wind. He could not be quite sure yet. He stood up against the mast, swinging in circles, swooping from sky to sea, and looked out under his hand. The rising sun climbed slowly out of the trough of the waves astern.

  Ahead the sea stretched to a low dark line which might be the land. From horizon to horizon, covering all that sea, the white horses rode westward towards the doubtful coast. The waves swept up from behind the ship, passed her, and surged on in triumph. Squadrons of flying fishes flew by like the arrows of battle and flashed for a moment in the sunlight before striking the sea.

  Jason saw the land harden before his eyes as the ship rose on a great wave. He shouted, ‘Land Ho!’ and then: ‘Coromandel!’

  From the deck they answered him and went about their business as if nothing special had happened. But it was Coromandel, after so long. It did not tower out of the sea like the great cape of Africa. It did not rise at dusk, star-spangled among racing waves, like Ceylon. It lay low against the water, and there was a small pink cloud over it. It was Coromandel.

  Jason glanced down. Mr Drayton and the officers had gone below. They would not see land from the deck for an hour or two, even if the wind steadied. He felt in his breeches pocket and brought out his map. It was stained now and torn round the edges, but he could read the short words on it. He spread it out, holding on to nothing except the spar between his legs.

  In London he had learned how to read, but on this voyage he had learned other things too. He knew what a palm tree and a camel looked like. He had learned to keep his beliefs and dreams to himself. When he tried to share them men only laughed at him. The dreams seemed smaller and less valuable when he kept them to himself like this, but it was safer.

  He had become quite a favourite of Master Drayton, who was one of the ship’s owners and, here on board, represented the other owners, of whom Nathan Wigmore was one. Green, the sailing master, and Silvester, the mate, did not like him. But that was because Master Drayton did, and they did not like Drayton.

  And now, with his two eyes, he saw Coromandel. The palm trees of the map would line that low coast ahead. The City of Pearl would swim up as the ship swam forward, climbing up over the mysterious horizon, which always rolled away but yet did not slide the waters with it into disaster. But he could see no mountains. On the map some humps were marked about half-way between sea and sea; but he could not see them. He reminded himself that he had no way of knowing how far inland those mountains stood. Meru was much farther, and he did not expect to see that. He folded the map away. He’d have to go and find out.

  He glanced round the circle of sea. He clambered hastily to his feet and peered ahead. Half a mile or more away something dark rolled heavily in the swells. It might be a log--but there was a man on it. He shouted down to the deck, ‘Deck ahoy! Shipwrecked mariner a point off the larboard bow.’

  The watch on deck repeated the cry. Master Drayton and the officers climbed up from the cabin and walked forward.

  Down there by the log something long and pale glistened in the sun. ‘He’s signalling!’ Jason cried excitedly. ‘No, he’s paddling!’ Now he saw that the man on the log was using a flat stick as a paddle.

  On deck Fremantle limped forward to join the officers. Fremantle was old now and did little work about the vessel, but when he was young the Portuguese had captured him off this coast and then put him in prison. He had escaped, only to spend ten years as a slave of the King of Madura. The owners had taken him on more as a guide and interpreter than as a sailor. On the voyage he had taught everybody a few words of Tamil, which he said was the local language.

  From the bows Fremantle examined the log and its rider. Then he shouted up, ‘ ‘Tis a fisherman of this coast, Jason.’

  Green called an order to the helmsman, and the Phoebe bore down on the strange craft. The crew lined the lee bulwark, and Jason ran out along the spar. Fremantle cupped his hands and shouted in the native tongue. The man on the log stood up and grasped a rope trailing from the Phoebe’s bow.

  Jason stared down in fascination. The man was slim, dark brown, and shining wet with the sea. He wore no clothes at all. His boat was three rough logs, unplaned and uncut, loosely tied together with cord at bow and stern. A forked stick, the tines pointing backward and fastened by the forward cord, made a kind of prow. The sea ran freely in and out between the logs, and lay several inches deep in the middle of the craft, where there was a pile of fish-netting. Four silver fish lay, bellies up, in the water inside the craft, so the man must have caught them. At least they would keep fresh that way.

  Jason muttered to himself, ‘ ‘Tisn’t a boat, ‘tis no more than a bundle of waterlogged tree roots.’ And even from the masthead of the Phoebe he could only just see the land.

  Fremantle shouted, ‘Manairuppu?’ That was the name of the city of Coromandel towards which they were heading.

  The fisherman pointed a little north of their present course. Master Drayton dropped an English knife into the well of the little craft, and the fisherman let go his hold on the rope. The wind strengthened, and in a few moments Jason could hardly pick out the craft and the fisherman in the swell of the sea.

  His relief scrambled up to him and shouted, ‘Shipwrecked mariner, eh? Silvester will give you a scolding for that.’ Jason slid down the rigging to the deck.

  As his feet hit the planking Master Drayton beckoned him and said, ‘I am going ashore as soon as we have anchored off Manairuppu. Master Silvester will accompany me, with Fremantle to interpret. You and Grant will also come, as my escort.’

  Drayton was a young fellow of the cavalier sort. He took snuff from a gold box, and even in the stiffest wind he wore a wide hat with flowing feathers. Today he was wearing a blue silk coat, and his boots, as always, seemed several sizes too large for him. They hung from his calves in folds and wrinkles, and the huge golden spurs on them clanked against the deck as he turned away.

  Jason said, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and touched his forehead.

  This afternoon his feet would tread the sands of Coromandel. He ran below.

  But Jason did not go ashore till the following day. The wind beat in on the open roadstead, and a heavy storm blew up, such as had pursued them for the last thousand miles from Africa. For safety they put out to sea again, and at dusk, when they approached the land once more, two men came out in a log boat and explained through Fremantle that such a ship as the Phoebe could not cross the bar of the Coromandel River until high tide
, and then only in daylight.

  So they crossed the bar at ten o’clock of a burning June day in the year of Our Lord 1628, and dropped anchor in the muddy stream of the Coromandel, opposite the sprawling city of Manairuppu, half a mile from the sea.

  At once a bigger boat than those Jason had seen earlier paddled out from the shore, loaded down with the weight of the three naked paddlers and three richly clothed fat men. The sun glowed high in the sky; the paddlers’ naked shoulders shone with sweat; and Jason’s clothes clung to his dripping body.

  The boat bumped the side of the Phoebe, and the three fat men clambered awkwardly on board. Green, the sailing master, led them to the poop, where Master Drayton awaited them, his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword and his right foot thrust negligently forward.

  Jason watched from a distance, among the crew. The fat men wore white skirts which folded in between their legs, and above those they wore long, heavy coats of pink velvet embroidered with gold thread. Strange marks were painted on their foreheads, and two of them carried palm-leaf fans.

  A long, slow confabulation began on the poop. Gradually Jason lost interest and turned his attention to the bank of the river.

  The ship lay less than a hundred yards out from a kind of rough stone jetty, which appeared to have been recently constructed. The muddy foreshore of the river sloped up to the jumbled houses of the city, except that a square of waste land lay directly behind the jetty. Half a hundred logs lay along the bank above the high tide mark, and Jason thought they had been dragged up there for firewood until he saw two naked Indians come out of a house, drag together three of the logs, whip cords around them fore and aft, haul the ‘boat’ to the river, and paddle out to sea in it.

  The houses were of all sizes and patterns and colours. There were low hovels, such as men used for pigs in England; and whitewashed houses with thatched roofs and children playing in the square doorways; and, in the distance, a tall, flat-sided tower of dark red stone.

  But--he nudged Grant beside him--the women! He muttered, ‘Have a look at that!’ The women wore nothing above the waist, but strutted about with their breasts sticking out ahead of them, as proud of their nakedness as the Whitehall ladies of their finery.

  ‘Grant! Savage!’ Master Drayton called them, and they ran aft. The sailing master was showing the deputation over the side and using scant ceremony in the process. When Grant and Jason arrived at the poop Master Drayton said angrily, ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘I’m going ashore now. But not to see the king. We have to see Don Manoel d’Alvarez, the Portugal agent here.’ He kicked the deck petulantly and turned to glower at the men in the pink velvet coats. ‘Those fellows say that the king will not see us until we have talked with the Portugals.’

  ‘The Dons have a strong hold on this coast,’ Silvester, the mate, said.

  ‘I was told they had not,’ Drayton snapped. ‘Well, we shall go and see the Don.’

  The sailors lowered the shallop into the water, and they were rowed ashore. At noon Jason jumped on to the jetty and rubbed his bare feet against the hot stones. Rows of strong-smelling fish lay drying in the sun there, and a half-naked girl was staring at him with open interest.

  Coromandel!

  They crossed the waste land and entered the city. The people gathered together and ran along behind them in scores, shouting cheerfully to one another and trying to finger the English clothes. Sometimes one of the men in pink coats, who was acting as a guide, would shout commandingly, and for a moment the people would fall back, only to engulf the party again a minute later. Dust rose thick in the narrow street, and flies buzzed about Jason’s head as he walked, and the sudden blare of unseen horns deafened him. He saw a cow eating from a shopkeeper’s stall; and then a troop of brown monkeys jabbering on a house-top caught his eye; and then, above and behind, he saw a fat man in a yellow hat peering down at them from the upper balcony of a domed and pillared palace. Jason waved his hand cheerfully in greeting, and the man moved behind a pillar, but his head and his yellow hat still stuck out.

  Jason drew a deep breath. What a place! Anything could be true here! Any dream could come true here! He began to laugh aloud and shout back his few words of Tamil to the people hurrying and jabbering beside him. ‘Food!’ he shouted, and, ‘Pearls. Which way? No. Yes. Woman. Which road? How much?’ The people laughed and shouted back.

  Then the guide stopped at a wrought-iron gate in a high wall and called out in a loud voice. There was a long wait, and the crowd drifted away. Now the street was almost empty, except for their own party and an old man standing on his head beside the wrought-iron gate. A shady garden lay beyond the gate, and Jason stared at it longingly. At last a black man came running and opened the gate from the inside. The guide gestured slightly, indicating that the Englishmen should enter. One behind another, they passed through into the garden. The servant clanged the gate shut behind them. Jason glanced back and saw the guide waddling away along the street.

  Behind the black man they walked up a wide gravel path among orange trees and banks of scarlet flowers, all wilting and heavy in the coppery heat. Now they could see the blue walls of a house beyond the orchard, and Jason thought: This is familiar; this reminds me of something. Then he remembered--this was very like some of the houses he had seen in the two days the ship had spent at Lisbon, in Portugal, on another wide river.

  The Englishmen climbed slowly up a flight of shallow steps and passed through open double doors. The servant held back a tall crimson curtain on the right, and they entered a great hall. It was like a church in there, cool and stony, and the air musty with aromatic wood. The floor was of red and white stone tiles. On one side three tall windows pierced the wall; the other walls were bare. A low dais occupied the farther end of this cathedral nave, and a throne of carved black wood stood on the dais, and a man sat on the throne. Drayton’s spurs made an abominable clatter, and he began to walk on tiptoe, trying to quiet them.

  A coat of arms, painted on a metal shield six feet high, hung over the throne. The man up there had a round face, spectacles, and a short, pointed beard. His clothes and skull-cap were of dull crimson, and his ruff was white, deep, and small. A shaven-headed old priest in black robes stood at his right hand. The priest’s gold crucifix shone warmly in the light from the windows.

  The magnificence and the silence awed Jason, and he was glad his feet were bare. Drayton’s spurs still clinked noisily, for it was impossible to quiet them. Suddenly Jason wished he had big boots like that. He would clump them down and let his scabbard strike loudly on the tiles as he walked, to show the silent man on the black throne that he was not afraid of him. John Silvester, the mate, must have felt the same, for he muttered, ‘ ‘Tis only a blind Portugoose and a black Popish beetle, Master Drayton. Tell him we are Englishmen.’

  Drayton recovered his poise and strolled on across the stone acres. Near the throne he stopped. The sailors stopped behind him. No one spoke. Behind the spectacles the small brown eyes of the man on the throne darted from one to another of their faces. A crimson ring glittered on the little finger of his right hand, and Jason saw that the hand was shaking.

  Master Drayton said, ‘In my country, Sir Don, it is the manner of a host to make some welcoming remark to those who visit him-- ‘Steeth, I suppose he doesn’t understand English.’

  The man on the throne said, ‘The servants of His Most Catholic Majesty are under no obligation to be polite to pirates.’ He spoke good English--slow, but nearly faultless in accent.

  ‘Pirates, you say?’ Silvester broke out indignantly. ‘The Phoebe is a ship of the Company of Merchants of London, and--‘

  ‘Be calm, master mate,’ Drayton muttered. The priest had a long jowl and pale, dull eyes. Drayton continued, ‘Sir Don, we are not pirates but traders. As a matter of courtesy--no more--we have come here to tell you of our plans. We hope you will help us in a work of trade which will bring great good to all Christendom.’r />
  Silvester muttered, ‘Hope he will help us! Blow his teeth in, I say.’

  The man on the throne said, ‘Great good to Christendom! But talking will do no harm. Perhaps you will dismiss your sailors so that we may speak freely. They can wait in the garden.’

  Drayton said, ‘Very well. Savage, Grant, Fremantle, leave us. We will be some hours. I have a lot to discuss with His Excellency Sir Don--?’

  ‘Don Manoel d’Alvarez, milord. My chaplain, Padre Felipe. And may I have the honour of. . . ?’

  Jason followed the other two sailors out of the room.

  The heat in the garden was stifling. Old Fremantle lay asleep under an orange tree. Grant sat with his back to the wall, his head nodding. Jason went to the gate and peered through into the street.

  The earlier bustle had subsided, and the city was much quieter. The smells were the same--of filth and animals and dead fish and cooking food--but now he could smell the sea too, a salty tang which underlay all the other smells. Occasionally a woman passed and Jason stared surreptitiously at her breasts, but he was becoming used to that now, and almost woke up Grant when a very young girl who had her nakedness decently covered by a bodice hurried by.

  And now a man came slowly down the street, and, though he seemed strong and well, he walked with painful slowness and swept the ground in front of him with a long-handled brush as he came.

  This was too strange. Jason looked at Fremantle, then at Grant. They were both asleep. God’s blood, it wasn’t very long since he had decided it was no use trying to share the wonders that he saw and felt.

  He climbed over the gate and dropped lightly into the dusty street. The man who was sweeping the road passed carefully by. Jason walked alongside him and tried to find the words to ask him in Tamil why he swept the ground so carefully before putting his feet down on it. But he did not know the words, and the man took no notice of him, so Jason returned to the gate. There was the old man he had noticed when they first came, still standing on his head against the garden wall.