Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

Although the men listened attentively, few of them echoed Kesri’s optimism. When it was their turn to dictate letters most of them struck a note of resignation.

Tomorrow our paltan will leave for Maha-chin to fight for the Honourable Company Bahadur. We do not know when we will return. Tell Babuji and Ammaji not to worry. My health is good, although last month I was in hospital with a fever. If I die do not grieve — I will go wearing a warrior’s garb, sword in hand. In my absence it will fall to you to look after my children and their mother. If there is any delay in obtaining my pension then you should send someone to petition the district officers in Patna. In addition there will be arrears of salary and prize money. Do not fail to recover everything. It should be enough to provide for my children till they are grown.

And:

We are going to a place that is very far. We know nothing about it. If I do not return I want to make sure that my field with the mango tree goes to my brother Fateh Singh. I am filled with sorrow that I have not fulfilled all my obligations to my family. For that reason alone will I regret my death. Other than that it is the duty of every Rajput to give up his life for the honour of his caste. I am ready for what may come.

The mood of the men gave Kesri much to worry about for the next day. He knew that an embarkation was a performance in its own right and the army’s Burra Sahibs would be watching closely. It was vital for the sepoys to get off to a good start by acquitting themselves well — and in their present state of mind he doubted that they would.

But when the time came, B Company did him proud by putting on a flawless display. With drums beating and fifes trilling the notes of ‘Troop’ they marched out of the fort’s western gate in double column. On reaching the designated staging ground they wheeled into line and presented arms in perfect order. Then, squad by squad, they fell out and were ferried to the Hind in lighters. After the last sepoy had boarded, the lighters began to transfer the company’s allotment of howitzers, mortars and field-pieces.

The camp-followers had embarked earlier and by the time the sepoys came aboard everything was in order to receive them. But despite all the planning and preparation, there was still a great deal of confusion. Very few of the sepoys had been on a deep-water ship before and some of them became disoriented when they stepped below deck. As tempers rose the camp-followers bore the brunt of it, as always: many had to put up with cuffs and kicks.

After ignoring the gol-maal for a while Kesri brought things to order by unloosing a bellow that shook the timbers: Khabardar! He made the men stand to attention, beside their hammocks, and proceeded to give them a dhamkaoing that made their breath run short. He ended with dire warnings about what lay ahead: seasickness, flooding, objects cannoning around in bad weather, and so on. His most urgent strictures, however, concerned a hazard of a different kind — the lascars. These were the greatest budmashes on earth, he told the sepoys. To a man, lascars were thieves, drunkards, lechers and brawlers, with skulls as thick cannonshells. They were the sepoys’ natural enemies and would steal from them at the least opportunity: they had to be watched at every moment, especially when they were hanging from the ropes like bandars.

Chastened, the men began to settle down, and when it came time to weigh anchor Kesri did not have the heart to confine them below deck. He gave them permission to go above to take a last look at the city.

Leading the way was Kesri himself: he stepped on the maindeck just as the Hind began to move. Almost simultaneously a battery in Fort William started to fire a salute of minute-guns.

Zachary too was up on deck: as the shots rang out, the planks under his feet seem to tremble in response. He remembered the last time he had set sail from this city, on the Ibis , with a shipload of coolies and overseers. It amazed him to think that only sixteen months had passed since that day — for the difference between that departure and this one seemed almost as great as the gap between the man he had been then and who he was now.

From the other end of the maindeck, Kesri drank in the sights of the receding city — the temples, the houses, the trees — as if he were seeing them for the last time.

As the city slipped past a strange, cold feeling crept through him and he realized, with a shock, that deep in his heart he too had come to believe that he would never see his homeland again.

The Hind had advanced only a few miles downriver when Raju came running down in search of Zachary, who was in one of the cargo holds, taking inventory of Mr Burnham’s consignment of Malwa opium.

‘Mr Reid sir!’ cried the boy. ‘You’d better come up.’

‘Come where, kid-mutt?’

‘To the cabin, sir.’

The cabin that Zachary had been assigned was in the poop-deck, and, exactly as Mr Burnham had promised, it was of comfortable size. This was providential since the Hind ’s holds were filled to capacity with the Bengal Volunteers’ armaments, equipment and baggage. Storage space was now so short that Zachary had been forced to stow five chests of opium in his own cabin. That was where he had left Raju, with instructions to see to it that the five chests were properly stacked and covered with tarpaulin.

‘Did you finish with the chests, kid-mutt?’

‘No, sir. I couldn’t.’

There was a note of fright in his voice which made Zachary look at him more closely. ‘What’s happened, kid-mutt?’ he said, softening his tone. ‘What’s going on?’

‘You’d better come and see, sir.’

‘All right then.’

With Raju at his heels Zachary made his way up through the innards of the ship, past the crowded, noisome chaos of the steerage deck, up to the maindeck and past the dining salon. On reaching the gangway that led to his cabin he beheld a startling sight: all his baggage, including the five chests of opium, had been shoved out.

More in surprise than indignation, Zachary turned to Raju: ‘What happened here, kid-mutt? Who did this?’

Raju made no answer but gestured mutely ahead, in the direction of the cabin. ‘I tried to stop them, sir …’

Stepping up to the cabin Zachary saw, to his astonishment, that two young lieutenants were lounging in the bunks, in full uniform, devoid only of their shakoes, with their swords strapped to their sides and their booted feet thrust against the bulkheads.

The casual brutality of this usurpation astonished Zachary and he was unable to keep his voice down: ‘What the hell’re you doing in my cabin?’

‘Your cabin?’

One of the lieutenants swung his boots off the bunk and came right up to Zachary. He was a thin, pimply youth but what he lacked in bulk he more than made up for in swagger and sneer.

‘You are mistaken, sir,’ said the lieutenant, thrusting his nose to within a few inches of Zachary’s. ‘This is not your cabin. It has been reassigned.’

‘On whose authority?’

Now suddenly another voice cut in: ‘On my authority, sir.’

Turning on his heel Zachary found himself facing another officer.

‘I am Captain Mee of the Bengal Volunteers; I am in command of the soldiers on this ship. It is on my authority that this cabin has been reassigned.’

The captain was a man of imposing build and stature: even without his gold-braided shako he towered above Zachary by at least a full head. His broad, deep chest had a yellow sash slung diagonally across it, running from his right epaulette to his waist. There was a bend in his nose that gave him a look of natural disdain; his jaw was massive and there was something about its cut that indicated a fiery temper: it was almost bristling now as he returned Zachary’s gaze with hard, unsmiling eyes.