Amitav Ghosh - Flood of Fire

So it was all true then? Deeti had indeed run away with another man: his little sister, who had never travelled even so far as Patna had set off to escape to an island across the black water.

As all of this was sinking in, Kesri slowly raised his head. Zachary saw now that the pupils of the havildar’s eyes were grey and somehow familiar. A strange, uncanny charge shot through him and a moment later, when Kesri said, ‘That woman — she is my sister, Deeti,’ Zachary knew it to be the shock of recognition.

‘Yes of course,’ he said. ‘I see the resemblance.’

‘Where is Deeti now?’ said Kesri hoarsely. ‘Do you know?’

‘I’m sure she’s in Mauritius,’ said Zachary. ‘I heard she was allotted to a Frenchman — a farmer whose land is in the southwest of the country.’

A kind of incredulity took hold of Kesri now and he shook his head, in wonderment. Who would have imagined that this boyish-looking sahib would be able to give him news of Deeti? Who would have thought that they had been separated all this while by a few yards of timber?

‘Was Deeti all right?’ said Kesri gruffly. ‘Her health was good?’

‘Yes,’ said Zachary. ‘As far as I know, she was in good health.’

There was much more that Kesri would have liked to ask but he could hear someone calling for him, down the gangway.

‘I must go now.’

Rising from his seat, Kesri said: ‘Reid-sah’b, we will not speak of this to anyone else, no?’

‘Of course not.’

With his hand on the door Kesri stopped and turned to face Zachary again.

‘Reid-sah’b,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry how Captain Mee talks to you. He is a good man, good officer …’ Unable to find the words he wanted, Kesri began again. ‘Mee-sahib — I have known him twenty years. I was his orderly — he is a good man, but sad, in his heart …’

Zachary made no answer, so Kesri said, simply: ‘I am sorry.’

‘It’s all right, havildar,’ said Zachary. ‘It’s not your fault.’

Kesri raised his hand to his forehead. ‘My salaams, Reid-sah’b. If you ever need anything, please tell me.’

‘Thank you, havildar.’

Just as Kesri was stepping out, Zachary remembered something: ‘Oh wait, havildar. There’s one other thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘Your sister. There’s something you should know.’

‘Yes?’

‘When we reached Mauritius she was pregnant. The child must be more than a year old now.’

*

The next day, a plume of smoke was spotted on the northward horizon: the Queen , a steamer, was out searching for distressed vessels. A Congreve rocket was fired from the maindeck of the Hind and soon afterwards the steamer pulled alongside, to the accompaniment of rousing cheers.

Before taking the Hind under tow, the steamer’s captain came over to freshen hawse with Mr Doughty. They spent a good while together, exchanging news over glasses of Bristol-milk and later, when the Hind was under tow, ploughing steady northwards, Mr Doughty gave Zachary an account of what he had learnt while he was coguing the nose with his fellow skipper.

The British fleet had arrived off the China coast five days earlier, and Captain Elliot had rendezvoused with Commodore Bremer near the Ladrone Islands. After extensive deliberations the Plenipotentiary and the commodore had agreed on a strategy that required the expeditionary force to be split into two wings. The first wing, consisting of a small squad of warships and transports, would remain in the south, to enforce a blockade on the Pearl River; in the meantime the other, much larger wing, would proceed northwards, with the objective of seizing a strategically placed island called Chusan, which sat astride the sea routes to some of the most important ports of the Chinese heartland — Hangchow, Ningbo and Shanghai. In order that the powers in Beijing should know exactly why these actions had been undertaken, the expedition’s leaders would attempt to hand over a letter from Lord Palmerston to the Emperor, listing Britain’s demands and grievances.

Once Chusan had been seized, the eastern seaboard of China would be at the mercy of the expeditionary force. With the island as its operating base, the British fleet would roam the length of the coast, threatening important ports, drawing up maps and charts, and making sure that the Manchu overlords of Peking were not left in any doubt of their vulnerability. Chusan was so close to the capital that the mandarins would not be able to conceal the news of its seizure from the Emperor: he would soon realize that he had no choice but to accede to Britain’s demands for the re-opening of trade and the restitution of past losses.

Since the resumption of the opium trade was one of the main objectives of the expedition, the fleet would be accompanied by a number of merchant vessels, many of them opium-carriers. The navy would ensure that British merchants were free to approach the major ports to dispose of their cargoes as they pleased.

For Free-Traders there was much to celebrate in this strategy which was closely modelled on the plans drawn up by William Jardine. They stood to make fortunes by selling opium to markets that had previously been beyond their reach. The accrual of demand in the Chinese heartland was thought to be like that of the Yellow River before a flood: prices were expected to shoot to unheard-of heights.

‘We’re arriving in the nick of time, Reid,’ said Mr Doughty. ‘The fleet will be sailing north in two days and I’m sure Mr Chillingworth will be keen to go along. Mr Burnham’s cargo of opium will have to be transferred from the Hind to the Ibis as soon as we drop anchor.’

*

The next day the Hind ’s passengers woke to find themselves in a stretch of water that seemed not quite of this earth. The colour of the sea had turned from deep blue to iridiscent turquoise, and hundreds of craggy islets had appeared, rising out of the depths like dragon’s teeth. Many of these outcrops of rock were ashen in colour, with flinty ridges; most were edged by sheer cliffs to which clung stunted trees of fantastically gnarled shapes. Every now and then, from the lee of one of these islands, an improbable-looking vessel would appear — sometimes a high-sterned fishing boat, sometimes a junk with matted sails, or a galleon-like lorcha that seemed to belong to another age.

The strangeness of the surroundings created a kind of stupor on the storm-shocked Hind : only when a cry rang out to announce the sighting of the mainland — kinara agil hai! — was the spell broken. The lookout’s shout set off a race to the maindeck; even some of the wounded, barely able to stand on their own feet, went hobbling forward to catch their first glimpse of the land of Maha-chin.

At first the coast was only a distant smudge on the horizon, but when its contours began to take shape, maps and telescopes were fetched so that the salient features could be identified. Standing by the binnacle Mr Doughty raised a fingertip and turned it in a northeasterly direction. ‘That over there, is the island of Hong Kong!’

On the starboard side of the quarter-deck, Shireen’s knuckles whitened on the gunwale as she leant forward, straining to look ahead.

‘Here.’Jogging Shireen’s elbow, Freddie held out a spyglass: ‘Here, with this you will see better, lah. Hong Kong is that one — tallest and biggest of those islands, over there.’

The distant peaks were wreathed in cloud but the slopes below were treeless, strangely barren. The island seemed to be sparsely inhabited; the only dwellings to be seen were a few clusters of houses on the shore.

A lump rose to Shireen’s throat as she stared at the windswept massif: so this was where Bahram had found his resting-place? This was where his journey had ended — this forbidding eyrie of an island, so far from his native Gujarat? The weather-battered desolation of the place created an aching melancholy in her: she tried and failed to envision Bahram’s grave, lying amidst those slopes.