Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

‘But Mr Reid’ — she whispered the syllables slowly, as though his name belonged to someone she did not know — ‘how can you possibly ask that of me now? After everything you have said? It is unthinkable, unimaginable. I cannot do it.’

‘Oh but you can, Mrs Burnham! And you shall. If Captain Mee can make a small sacrifice on the altar of love, why shouldn’t you?’

Mrs Burnham was now clutching the gunwale with both hands, as if to prevent herself from falling over. ‘Oh Mr Reid,’ she whispered. ‘What has become of you? What have you become?’

He was not slow to retort. ‘I have become what you wanted, Mrs Burnham,’ he said. ‘You wanted me to be a man of the times, did you not? And that is what I am now; I am a man who wants more and more and more; a man who does not know the meaning of “enough”. Anyone who tries to thwart my desires is the enemy of my liberty and must expect to be treated as such.’

Mrs Burnham began to sob, quietly. ‘Mr Reid — Zachary — you cannot do this. What you’re asking of me is utterly inhuman. Only a monster or demon could contemplate such a thing. I cannot believe that you are those things.’

‘It is yourself you have to thank, Mrs Burnham,’ said Zachary. ‘It was all your own doing, wasn’t it? It was you who decided that I needed to be re-made in a more enlightened mould. It might have been better for both of us if you had left me to languish where you found me. But you chose instead to rescue me from that dark, unnameable continent — and now it is too late.’

Zachary broke off to look up at the darkening sky; it was still cloudless but the wind had strengthened a little.

‘There is a storm coming, as you probably know. I will arrange our rendezvous once it blows over. And you need not worry, Mrs Burnham; everything will be done with the utmost discretion. But until then I’d advise you to be careful — it looks as though we’re in for quite a blow. I’m glad you’re going ashore. A ship is no place for landlubbers during a storm: you’ll be safer in the godown.’

‘You need not concern yourself with my safety, Mr Reid,’ she said, turning her back on him. ‘As I’m sure you know, I am perfectly capable of looking after myself.’

*

That night, word was received that six million silver dollars had finally been handed over by the Chinese authorities; the money had been transferred to the Blenheim for safekeeping.

In the four fortresses there was great relief: for the first time in many days, Kesri fell into a deep sleep.

But all too soon someone was shouting into his ears: Havildar-sah’b, utho! Wake up!

It was a little after daybreak and an orderly had brought an urgent message: Kesri was wanted by Captain Mee, up in the turret of the fortress.

Kesri dressed quickly, putting on a freshly washed vest before pulling on his red koortee. But once again the weather was hot and steamy: sweat poured off him as he climbed up the turret’s stairs and by the time he reached Captain Mee the vest was plastered clammily against his skin.

Captain Mee was sweating too. ‘It’s going to be another teakettle day,’ he said, mopping his face — but to Kesri it seemed that there was something different about the heat of that morning. The air was so still and heavy that even the birds and insects had fallen silent. And along the southern horizon there was a broad smudge of blue-black cloud. Kesri looked at it with foreboding: ‘I think today the storm will come, sir.’

‘You think so?’

‘Yes, sir — looks like a real tufaan.’

‘Well, it couldn’t have picked a worse time.’

The captain pointed to the rice-fields at the foot of the hill. ‘Look over there.’

Looking down, Kesri saw that the rice-fields were once again swarming with people, but these were not the refuge-seekers of the last few days: they were armed men, and instead of fleeing northwards they were heading towards the four fortresses.

How had so many men materialized in the fields overnight? ‘You think they are soldiers, sir?’

‘No, havildar — they could be irregulars, but they’re certainly not soldiers.’

Kesri took a closer look with the captain’s spyglass: he had the impression that the crowd was composed largely of youths like those who had been gathering in the villages over the last few days — except that their numbers had suddenly swelled a hundredfold or more.

Soon afterwards Captain Mee was summoned to a meeting at headquarters. On his return Kesri learnt that the general and his aides had taken notice of the crowds as well; they had concluded that something would have to be done to disperse them. As a first step Mr Thorn, the translator, had been sent to the mandarins, to demand that measures be taken to break up the gatherings.

But nothing had come of it: the mandarins had protested that they had nothing to do with the uprising and were themselves thoroughly alarmed; the crowds had gathered of their own accord, they had insisted, and for all they knew they might well turn against them too.

‘It’s a rabble,’ said Captain Mee to Kesri, ‘and since the mandarins can’t send them home then we shall probably have to do it for them.’

*

At daybreak the sky over Hong Kong was a dark, churning mass of cloud and there was only a faint glimmering of light to the east. Soon sheets of rain and seawater were blasting head-on into the Ibis , sweeping her decks, from fore to aft. At the same time, colossal waves were coming at her from the rear, swamping her stern.

The night before, Zachary had taken every possible precaution, dropping the sheet anchor, taking in the sails and yards, checking and double-checking the anchor cables, battening down the hatches. He had taken care also to make sure that there was a safe distance between the Ibis and every other vessel in the vicinity; the nearest of them was the Anahita two fathoms away — and as far as Zachary could tell she too was holding steady against the gale.

Over the next couple of hours there was no flagging in the fury of the wind. But a pale sheen of light slowly spread itself across the sky, so that it was possible, when the Ibis was carried aloft by a wave, to catch glimpses of what the storm had already wrought on the island. Zachary saw that dozens of junks and sampans had been driven aground and battered to pieces; most of the newly erected shacks and shanties had been blown away too and many buildings had also been damaged. But the godowns at East Point, Zachary was glad to see, were unharmed; so long as Mrs Burnham remained within those sturdy stone walls she would be safe.

Around mid-morning, when the light in the sky was still just a fractured grey glow, the Ibis ’s bows suddenly reared up and began to thrash about in a way that left little doubt that the cable of the bow anchor had snapped.

Zachary had anticipated that something like this might happen and had already made a plan. He took a dozen crewmen off the pumps and got them to roll the heaviest of the Ibis ’s cannon forward. On reaching the bows they attached a cable to the gun and heaved it over the side. The effect was immediate: the Ibis ’s head stopped its wild swinging.

As he was turning to go back inside, Zachary’s eyes happened to veer towards the Anahita . He saw now, to his shock, that the windows in her stern — which had been closed at last glance — had flown open. Even as he watched, a huge wave rose up behind the ship and went surging through the windows, swamping the Owner’s Suite.

Zachary knew that unless those windows were quickly secured, the Anahita would founder. In all likelihood the crew were not even aware of what had happened; they were probably down in the belly of the ship, working the pumps.