by Wilbur Smith
‘One day I’ll go there!’ Tom told him fervently, at the end of one of these magical stories. ‘Will you come with me, Aboli?’
‘Yes, Klebe. We will sail there together, one day,’ Aboli promised.
Now the carriage jolted and crashed over the uneven surface, and splashed through the mud holes, and Tom perched between the two men trying to contain his excitement and impatience. When they reached the crossroads before Plymouth, a skeletal figure was hanging in chains from the gibbet, still wearing waistcoat, breeches and boots.
‘He’s been hanging there a month, come next Sunday.’ Big Daniel lifted his cocked hat to the grinning skull of the executed highwayman, from which the crows had picked most of the flesh. ‘God speed, John Warking. Put in a good word for me with Old Nick!’
Instead of continuing into Plymouth Aboli swung the horses onto the wide, well-travelled tracks that led eastward towards Southampton and London.
London, the greatest city in the world. Five days later, when they were still twenty miles off they saw its smoke on the horizon. It hung in the air and mingled with the clouds, like the great dun pall of a battlefield. The road took them along the bank of the Thames, broad and busy, bustling with an endless procession of small craft, barges, lighters and bum-boats, loaded deeply with timber and building stone, with bags of wheat and lowing cattle, with boxes, bales and kegs, the commerce of a nation. The river traffic grew denser as they approached the Pool of London, where the tall ships were anchored, and they passed the first buildings, each surrounded by open fields and gardens.
They could smell the city now, and the smoke closed over their heads, shading the sun. Each chimney stack was belching forth its dark fumes to deepen the gloom. The smell of the city grew stronger. The reek of green hides and new cloth in bales, of rotten meat and other strange, intriguing odours, of men and horses, of rats and chickens, the sulphurous stench of burning coal and raw sewage. The river waters turned dung brown, and the roadway became congested with cart and carriage, coach and dray. The open fields gave way to endless buildings of stone and brick, their roofs huddled together, and the side-streets became so narrow that two carriages could not pass each other. Now the river was almost obscured by the warehouses that stood four-square along either bank.
Aboli weaved their own carriage through the multitude, exchanging cheerful banter and insult with the other drivers. Beside him Tom could not drink it all in. His eyes darted back and around, his head twisted on his shoulders and he chattered like an excited squirrel. Hal Courtney had given in to Dorian’s pleading and allowed him to scramble onto the carriage roof where he sat behind Tom and added his shouts and laughter to those of his elder brother.
At last they crossed the river on a mountainous stone bridge, so massive that the river tide built up around its piles and swirled like a brown maelstrom through the piers. There were stalls along its length where ragged hucksters shrieked their wares to the passers.
‘Fresh lobsters, me darlings. Live oysters and cockles.’
‘Ale! Sweet and strong. Drunk for a penny. Dead drunk for twopence.’
Tom saw one man puke copiously over the side of the bridge and a drunken drab spread her tattered skirts around her as she squatted and peed in the gutter. Officers in splendid uniforms from King William’s Guards regiments, back from the wars, strutted through the throng with pretty girls in bonnets on their arms.
Warships were anchored in the river, and Tom eagerly pointed them out to Daniel.
‘Aye.’ Daniel spat tobacco juice over the side. ‘That’s the old Dreadnought, seventy-four guns. She was at the Medway. That one over there is the Cambridge . . .’ Daniel reeled off the names of glory, and Tom thrilled to hear them.
‘Look there!’ he cried. ‘That must be St Paul’s Cathedral.’ Tom recognized it from the pictures in his school books. The dome was only half complete, open to the sky and covered with a spider’s web of scaffolding.
Guy had heard him and stuck his head out of the carriage window. ‘New St Paul’s,’ he corrected his twin. ‘The old cathedral was completely destroyed in the Great Fire. Master Wren is the architect, and the dome will be almost 365 feet high . . .’
But the attention of his two brothers on top of the carriage had moved on.
‘What happened to those buildings there?’ Dorian pointed out the smoke-blackened ruins that were interspersed with the newer edifices along the banks of the river.
‘They were all burned down in the Fire,’ Tom told him. ‘See how the builders are at work.’
They crossed the bridge into the crowded streets of the city. Here the press of vehicles and humanity was denser still.
‘I was here before the Fire,’ Daniel told them, ‘long before you nippers were even thought of. The streets were half as broad as they are now, and the people emptied the chamber-pots into the gutters . . .’ He went on to delight the boys with other graphic details of the conditions that had prevailed in the city only twenty years previously.
In some of the open carriages they passed were grand gentlemen dressed in the height of fashion, and with them ladies in bright silk and satin, so beautiful that Tom stared at them in awe, sure that they were not mortals but heavenly angels.
Some of the other women who leaned from the windows of the houses that crowded the street did not seem so sacred. One singled out Aboli and screeched an invitation to him.
‘What does she want to show Aboli?’ Dorian piped wide-eyed.
Daniel ruffled his flaming red hair. ‘Better for you if you never find out, Master Dorry, for once you do you’ll never know peace again.’
They came at last to the Plough, and the carriage rumbled over the cobbles as Aboli wheeled it up to the entrance of the inn. The host rushed out to receive them, bowing and dry-washing his hands with delight. ‘Sir Hal, welcome! We were not expecting you until the morrow.’
‘The road was better than I feared. We made good time.’ Hal stepped down stiffly. ‘Give us a pitcher of small beer to wash the dust from our throats,’ he ordered as he stamped into the inn and flung himself down into one of the chairs in the front parlour.
‘I have your usual chamber ready for you, Sir Hal, and a room for your lads.’
‘Good, and have your grooms take care of the horses, and find a room for my servants.’
‘I have a message from Lord Childs for you, Sir Hal. He charged me most strictly to send him word the minute you arrived.’
‘Have you done so?’ Hal looked at him sharply. Nicholas Childs was the chairman of the governors of the English East India Company, but he ran it as though it were his personal fief. He was a man of vast wealth and influence in the city and at court. The Crown was a major shareholder in the Company, and thus Childs had the ear and favour of the sovereign himself. Not a man to treat lightly.
‘I have this minute sent a message to him.’ Hal quaffed from the pitcher of beer and belched politely behind his hand. ‘You can show me up now.’ He stood and the host led him up the stairs, backing ahead of him and bowing at every third step. Swiftly Hal approved the accommodation. His own chamber had a salon and private dining room. The boys were in the room opposite, and Walsh, their tutor, in the room beside them. They would use this as their schoolroom, for Hal was determined that they miss not a day of their studies.
‘Can we go out and see the town, please, Father?’ Tom begged.
Hal glanced at Walsh. ‘Have they finished the lessons you set for them on the journey?’
‘Master Guy has indeed. But the others . . .’ Walsh said primly.
‘You complete the task that Master Walsh has given you,’ Hal scowled at his sons, ‘to his complete satisfaction, before you set a foot outside the front door.’ As he turned away Tom made a ferocious face at Walsh’s back.
The messenger from Nicholas Childs arrived before Aboli and Daniel had finished bringing up the heavy leather trunks that had been strapped on the roof of the carriage. The liveried footman bowed and handed Hal the seal
ed sheet of parchment. Hal gave him a coin and split the wax seal of the East India Company with his thumbnail. The letter had been penned by a secretary: ‘Lord Childs requests the pleasure of your company to supper at eight of the clock this evening at Bombay House.’ Below this was a note in Childs’s own ornate hand: ‘Oswald Hyde will be the only other guest. N.C.’
Hal whistled softly: a private supper with the old man and the Chancellor of His Majesty King William III. ‘Something interesting afoot.’ He smiled and felt the tingle of excitement run through his veins.
Between them Aboli and Daniel had scrubbed the mud of the road off the carriage and curried the horses until once again their coats shone like polished metal. Hal had plenty of time to bath and have his clothes sponged by the chambermaid before it was time to set out to keep his appointment with Childs.
Bombay House stood behind high walls and was set in substantial gardens within a stone’s throw of the Inns of Court, an easy stroll from the headquarters of the East India Company on Leadenhall Street. There were guards at the high wrought-iron gates, but they swung open the gates as soon as Aboli announced his master. Three footmen were waiting at the double doors of the house to usher Hal in and take his cloak and hat. Then the major-domo led him on a march through a succession of grand rooms, hung with mirrors and huge oil paintings of ships, battles and exotic landscapes, and lit by forests of wax candles in crystal chandeliers and gilt oil lamps held aloft by statues of nymphs and blackamoors.
As they went further the grand public rooms gave way to meaner surroundings, and Hal realized that they had entered the private areas of the great house, closer to the kitchens and the servants’ quarters. At last they paused before a door so small and insignificant that he might easily have passed it by, but the head steward knocked once with his staff.
‘Enter!’ boomed a familiar voice from the far side, and Hal, stooping through the opening, found himself in a small but richly decorated cabinet. The panelled walls were hung with tapestries from Arabia and the Indies, and the space was only just sufficient to accommodate the large table piled high with silver chafing dishes and gilt tureens, which emitted succulent aromas and enticing wisps of steam.
‘Punctual as usual,’ Lord Childs complimented him. He was sitting at the head of the table, overflowing the large padded chair. ‘Forgive me for not rising to greet you properly, Courtney. Damned gout again.’ He indicated his foot, swathed in bandages, resting on a stool. ‘You have met Oswald, of course.’
‘I have had that honour.’ Hal bowed to the Chancellor. ‘Good evening, my lord. We met at Mr Samuel Pepys’s house last August.’
‘Good evening, Sir Henry. I well recall our meeting.’ Lord Hyde smiled and gave him a seated half-bow. ‘You are not the kind of man one readily forgets.’ It was a propitious start to the evening, Hal realized.
Childs waved him easily and informally to the chair at his side. ‘Sit here, so we can talk. Take off your coat and wig, man. Let’s be comfortable.’ He glanced at Hal’s thick dark hair, only lightly laced with silver. ‘Of course, you don’t wear a wig, damned sensible. We are all slaves to fashion, we unfortunates who live in the city.’
The other two had close-cropped heads, and were in their shirtsleeves, their collars loosened. Childs had a napkin tied round his neck, and they had not waited for Hal before beginning to eat. Judging by the pile of empty oyster shells, Childs had already accounted for several dozen. Hal shrugged out of his coat, passed it to a footman, then took the proffered chair.
‘What do you fancy, Courtney, the hock or the Madeira?’ Childs beckoned to one of the servants to fill Hal’s glass. Hal selected the hock. He knew from past experience that it was to be a long evening, and that the Madeira was deceptively sweet but powerful. Once his glass was charged and a platter of huge Colchester oysters in front of him, Childs dismissed the servants with a wave so that they could talk freely. Almost immediately they were away on the vexing question of the Irish war. The deposed King James had sailed to Ireland from France to raise an army among his Catholic supporters there, and was attacking the forces loyal to King William. Oswald Hyde bemoaned the cost of the campaign, but Childs rejoiced at the successful defence of Londonderry and Enniskillen by His Majesty’s arms.
‘You can be certain that, as soon as the King has taken care of the Irish, he will turn his full attention back to France.’ Oswald Hyde sucked another oyster from its shell and looked unhappy, an expression that seemed to come to him naturally. ‘I shall have to go back to Parliament for another appropriation.’
Even though he lived in the country, Hal kept himself well informed on the events of the day, for he had many good friends in London and corresponded with them regularly. He was able to follow the weighty twists and turns of the discussion and even to make his own noteworthy contributions. ‘We have little choice in the matter,’ he said. ‘Once Louis invaded the Palatinate, we were forced to act against him in accordance with the terms of the Alliance of Vienna.’ He had expressed an opinion with which the others concurred, and he sensed their approval, although Hyde continued to bewail the expense of a Continental war.
‘I agree there must be war with France but, in God’s name, we have not yet paid off the costs of the Dutch war and the Fire. The Black Boy and Jamie left us with debts owing to every bank in Europe.’ The Black Boy was the nickname of Charles II, the Merry Monarch. Jamie was James II, who had succeeded him and ruled for three scant years before his overt Roman Catholicism forced him to flee to France. William, the Stadholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands and fourth in line of succession, had been invited, with Mary his wife, to take the throne of England. Mary was the daughter of James, which made their claim to the throne all the more valid, and, of course, they were staunch Protestants.
Once the oysters had been dealt with, Childs called back the footmen to serve the other courses. He fell upon a Dover sole as though it were an enemy, and then they went on to the lamb and the beef, with three different flavours of soup from the silver gilt tureens to wash them down. A good red claret replaced the rather insipid hock.
Hal sipped sparingly at his glass, for the conversation was fascinating and opened insights into the interwoven structure of power and world politics which he was seldom vouchsafed. He would not let even the finest wines cloud his mind. Their talk ranged widely from the coronation of Peter as the Tsar of Russia to the incursions of the French into Canada, from the massacre of their settlers at Lachine by the Iroquois Indians, to the rebellion of the Marathas against the rule of the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb in India.
This last item of news led the conversation directly to the true reason for this meeting, the affairs and fortunes of the English East India Company. Hal sensed the change that came over his companions in the way that they regarded him. Their eyes upon him became shrewd and appraising.
‘I understand that you are a considerable shareholder in the Company?’ Lord Hyde asked innocently.
‘I was fortunate enough to purchase a little of the Company stock when I returned from the East, in the seventies,’ Hal admitted modestly, ‘and since then, from time to time, when fortune has been kind I have added to my holdings.’
Childs waved away his disclaimer. ‘All the world is aware of the distinguished exploits of you and your father during the Dutch wars and thereafter, and the very considerable additions that you made to the privy purse from the prizes of war, and the fruits of your trading voyages to the spice islands and the eastern coasts of the African continent.’ He turned to the Chancellor. ‘Sir Henry controls four and a half per cent of the Company stock, which does not include the dowry of Alice Grenville who so recently married his eldest son,’ he concluded drily.
Hyde looked impressed as he mentally calculated the monetary value that that represented. ‘A valiant and resourceful sea captain you have proved yourself,’ Hyde murmured. ‘And a prudent investor. You richly deserved those rewards.’ He was watching Hal with a piercing gaze, and Hal knew that
they were coming at last to their true purpose. ‘Moreover, your personal interests are closely linked to our own,’ the Chancellor went on quietly, rubbing his cropped pate so that the short, stiff hairs rasped under his fingers. ‘We are all stockholders, the Crown the largest of all. Thus, the recent news from the East Indies affects us all most painfully.’
Hal felt the sudden constriction of dread in his chest. He straightened in his chair and his voice was tight as he murmured, ‘Forgive me, my lord, but I arrived in London only this morning and I have heard no news.’
‘You are fortunate then, for the news is not good,’ Childs grunted, and lifted a lump of beef, dripping blood, to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, then took a gulp of the claret. ‘Two weeks ago the Company ship Yeoman of York tied up at the East India docks. She was sixty-two days out from Bombay with a cargo of cotton and cochineal, and despatches from Gerald Aungier, the governor of the colony.’ Childs frowned and shook his head, reluctant to speak the next words. ‘We have lost two ships. The Minotaur and the Albion Spring.’
Hal rocked back in his chair as though he had taken a punch to the head. ‘Those two are the pride of the fleet,’ he exclaimed.
It was almost impossible to believe. The East India-men, those stately, magnificent vessels, were the lords of the oceans, built not only for the carrying of cargo but for the prestige of the great and prosperous company that owned them and of the English Crown under whose charter they sailed.
‘Wrecked?’ Hal hazarded. Even the might of the Company must be shaken by the magnitude of the loss. One such vessel sunk was a terrible blow. Two ships lost was a disaster – perhaps worth a hundred thousand pounds with the cargoes.
‘Where were they wrecked?’ he demanded. ‘The Agul-has Bank? The coral reefs of the Mascarenes?’
‘They were not wrecked,’ said Childs ominously.