Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

She held up the length of intestine and slowly pried its lips apart, dribbling a thin trickle of oil down his stomach and groin. Then followed a few minutes of fumbling as she tried to slip the sock into place.

‘It is a slippery business, Mr Reid, and our sepoy is making it no easier with all his twitching and quivering. Can he not be made to understand that this is no time to practise a bayonet drill?’

Her face had sunk deep between his legs now, and he could see only her brow. A frown appeared on it as she concentrated on the ribbon: ‘Oh I have made a mess of it and must use my teeth to undo the knot. Hold still, Mr Reid, do not move!’

He was aware of the nipping of her teeth and the puffing of her breath: it blew on him like a warm breeze gusting against a flagpole. Throwing his head back he groaned: ‘Oh Mrs Burnham, please be done, or I shall be fetched and finished.’

‘On no account! Hold your fire!’

He felt the flight of her fingertips again, and then she gave a little squeal of delight: ‘Oh Mr Reid! I wish you could see the pretty little bow I have tied for you! I am tempted to fetch you a looking-glass so that you may admire it.’

‘No! Please — enough!’

‘Well, I assure you, my dear mystery, there is not a bonnet in the world that sports a better-tied ribbon: the bow sits upon your goolie-pouch like a wreath below a mast! The Queen herself has never had a finer flag hoisted in her honour.’

He was now at the end of his ratline: removing the bowl from his belly, he took hold of her arms and pulled her upon him. ‘And you, Mrs Burnham, have earned yourself a royal gun-salute!’

She laughed and kissed him on the tip of his nose: ‘You see, Mr Reid — you are not as poor in invention as you would have us believe.’

Afterwards, when the ribbon, now sodden, had been undone and the freshly filled intestine was back in the bowl, he said: ‘You are so expert in these arts, Mrs Burnham — I cannot but wonder how often you have done this before.’

She raised her head from the pillow and frowned at him. ‘But never!’ she cried. ‘I have never done this before, Mr Reid.’

‘But there have been others before me, have there not, Mrs Burnham? Lovers with whom you’ve deceived your husband?’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘No; never! I swear to you, Mr Reid, before you entered this boudoir, I had never been unfaithful, never foozled my husband. I was, in my own way, a virtuous wife.’

‘But you have told me yourself, Mrs Burnham, that you hardly ever share a bed with him. And I have seen for myself how ardent you are. Surely you have had your … wants?’

She smiled and raised her eyebrows. ‘What have “wants” to do with husbands and faithfulness, my dear?’ she said. ‘A mem has no want that cannot be satisfied by a long bath, in which she is waited on by maids and cushy girls — or even another memsahib. You may take my word for it, Mr Reid, mems are never happier than when the sahibs are away — which is just as well since they are always gone anyway, on their endless campaigns and voyages.’

Zachary’s mouth fell open, in disbelief. ‘You cannot mean it! Do you mean that your cushy girls give you shokes in your bath? Does Mr Burnham know?’

‘Well it is certainly no secret, my dear: intimate massages, by a nurse, was the cure that was prescribed for my hysteria, by the doctor. It is the standard remedy for the disease, you know, so I have always had to employ a maid or two to administer it. Mr Burnham is well aware of that and he does not disapprove — how can he, when a doctor has prescribed it? It may even be a source of satisfaction to him that he does not have to concern himself about my fidelity. And indeed, until a certain mystery entered my life I had never felt the slightest inclination to stray with any man — and it is amazing to me now, my dear, to think that when you first arrived here, I saw you as a rival, rather than a lover.’

‘You’ve lost me, Mrs Burnham — a rival for what?’

She smiled impishly and scratched him on the chin. ‘Well, my dear, you should know that the reason I was so peevish with you, when you first came here, was that I held you responsible for confounding my plans for Paulette. If not for you, I thought, she would have taken my advice and married Mr Kendalbushe, after which she and I would have been able to share many a happy goozle. I blamed you for dashing my hopes and was utterly resolved to punish you for your loochering; but such is kismet that it is you who are here now, and one day, when you leave me and run off with Paulette, I do not know who I shall be more jealous of — you or her.’

This strange notion cast Zachary’s head into a whirl: as so often with Mrs Burnham, he had the sense that he was floundering in waters that were far deeper and more turbulent than any he had ever been in before. Yet, strangely, instead of cutting him adrift it made him want her all the more.

She was perfectly well aware of this and gave a little laugh. ‘Ah, I see that our sepoy has heard the reveille and is ready to present arms again — although it is but a few minutes since he retired from the fray.’

He smiled grudgingly: ‘One thing I’ll say for you, Mrs Burnham — you sure know how to rattle a fellow’s rigging.’

Although Kesri had spent a fair amount of time in Calcutta over the course of his career he had never before been quartered inside the walls of Fort William, the citadel that kept watch upon the city across the treeless expanse of the Maidan. Sepoys were rarely billeted within the fort, which was garrisoned mainly by white soldiers. Indian troops were usually quartered in the Sepoy Lines, an area that was separated from the fort by a wide stretch of empty ground.

On his previous postings to Calcutta, Kesri too had stayed in the Sepoy Lines, where the conditions were similar to those of other bases and cantonments, with the sepoys being responsible for their own food and housing — the army provided neither barracks nor messes. Rank-and-file jawans either built their own huts or pooled their money to rent them, and their food was prepared by shared servants. Havildars and other senior NCOs usually hired individual hutments and were looked after by their personal attendants.

But Calcutta’s sepoy encampment was special in one important respect: it was far bigger than most others. The bazar that was attached to it was a vast, permanent establishment, a town in itself — its offerings were so varied that a young jawan could spend months there without wishing to venture out.

Left to himself, Kesri would have liked to return to the bazar at the Sepoy Lines, but it was out of the question this time, for he was under strict orders not to step out of Fort William. The formation of the expeditionary force was still a secret because no formal orders had yet been received from London: to keep word from leaking out, it had been decided that the volunteers would be confined to the precincts of the fort.

Kesri had grumbled when he was first told that he could not leave Fort William. But once installed in his new lodgings he found the confinement less irksome than he had expected. His quarters were in a barracks, which was itself a new experience, and being among the first to move in, he was able to commandeer one of the best rooms for himself. It occupied a corner of the building and had big windows on two sides; it was also on the third floor which added to the novelty, for Kesri had never before lived so high off the ground or enjoyed such a good view of his surroundings.

On the other hand it was burdensome to be constantly on duty. In most bases and cantonments there was a comfortable division between the sepoys’ military duties and their living arrangements: at the end of the day, when they returned to their living quarters, they would change into dhotis and vests. At Fort William, by contrast, sepoys had to be in uniform all through the day, just like every English swaddy, and this took some getting used to. But still, these arrangements were not without their advantages: it was good to be spared the trouble and expense of dealing with a servant and managing a household.