Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

“Well, Mister Pilot D’Souza,” growled our Captain, “pray take the conn and get this bucket up to Shalimar Point as soon as may be: I want my hook in Garden Reach before dark.”

The little man was wonderfully skilful; he rapped out orders to the helmsman in an unending succession all day long, leading our ship in the most improbable directions along and across the vast, muddy river. The Captain stood behind him for much of the time, sometimes snorting but never once contradicting an order. The pilot asked for a new helmsman every hour or so, for the work was testing, and this was not denied him. Sure enough, we dropped our anchor just before dusk and the Captain immediately called away his gig to set the pilot ashore. At the last moment, he decided to join him and bade the First Mate to join the party. I think he wanted to make sure that no other skipper in the trade was there before him.

Peter Stevenage had the anchor-watch and, after having the boarding-nets spread (for there are thieves in Calcutta), he retired to the taffrail for a snooze. The Second was in his cabin as usual, moodily pulling the wings off flies, I fancy. In the circumstances, my usual little meeting at the rail with Blanche was in more darkness than usual and more private. I taught her a new Dutch sentence in which one or two words were so close to English that I think she must have suspected that it cannot really have meant “Where is there a good milliner in this town?” This night my schoolmasterly kiss strayed to her lips and was answered warmly although it was clear that she had never been taught to kiss in the way that lovers do. I taught her. She had misgivings at first but was soon an adept pupil, so engrossed in this new art that she seemed unaware that my hand had firmly captured one of her delightful breasts. Her breathing quickened but all of a sudden she broke away, bade me goodnight and fled to her cabin. I was puzzled and chagrined as I stood by the rail alone, until I heard what she must have heard sooner: a boat approaching, the oars propelled by the long Navy-stroke which our Captain always insisted on.

I, too, fled, but to the galley to see what was for supper. The doctor had bought from a bum-boat some hens and coconuts and was confecting a kari-stew of these which ravished my nostrils. (How strange it is that language has words for being deaf, dumb and blind but no word for the shocking deprivation of being without the sense of smell! To speak plainly, I would rather be dumb, although not deaf , because I love to hear what certain grandchildren murmur behind my back: I should not like to write an ill-considered will.)

I found Peter on the poop and we leaned and gazed in silence at the thousands of little flickering lights which flowered and died in the great heathen city, listened to the strange sounds of drums and wailing music which wafted across the water to us and, when a little off-shore breeze arose, snuffed the scented air — an air laden with spices, woodsmoke, rotting fruit and shit. It was a magical moment and my spirits were exalted beyond the plane of mere human existence and its attendant lures of Captain’s wives.

“Are there many whores in Calcutta?” I asked Peter at last.

“More than you could pleasure in a life-time, Karli. The best and safest are the temple-prostitutes: to them it is a religious rite.”

“Do you mean that it is free ?”

“Of course. But, of course, you must make a donation to the temple treasure, that is only civil. Besides, it does save your throat from being slit on the way home.”

“That seems prudent,” I said.

Later, I ate great store of the hens seethed in spices and coconut-milk but when I went to bed my thoughts turned again to Blanche and my supper lay surlily on my stomach like a hastily-chewed dead dog. Sleep was slow to come and, when it came, was visited with evil dreams. Peter woke me up once or twice, saying that I had been speaking unguardedly in my sleep. I took my bedding onto the deck but certain flies stang me so bitterly that I fled back to the hot and fusty cabin.

Promptly, as the ship’s bell struck to signify the end of the watch at noon, next day, the Captain made his appearance on the deck in a splendid uniform, gallooned with gold braid, that I had never seen before. Lubbock was awaiting him, also clad in some sort of marine finery which made him look quite gentlemanlike. They were attended by the comprador and the Captain’s two Chinese boys, all bedecked in silks and marvellous head-cloths. The Second glumly joined the glittering throng, wearing a rusty garb of antique cut, made all the more shabby-looking by the splendid sword at his hip. The Captain was off to inspect the first wares at the opium auction.

Peter, who once again had the anchor-watch — an undemanding chore — confided to me that he proposed to become a little drunk.

I do not much love to become drunk of an afternoon when the weather is hot, so I took but a glass with him before retiring to the lazaretto to check the slop-chest stores, the comprador being ashore, you see.

There Orace found me, fast asleep upon a pile of oilskins, an hour or two later. He looked at me curiously as I rubbed my eyes, for he was growing up fast, then delivered his message. “Mum” — by which he meant the Captain’s wife — “sends her compliments and wishes you to take a dish of tea with her in half an hour.”

“Very well, Orace. Have I any clean linen?”

“In course, Sir.”

“Then come to the cabin and dress me suitably for tea-parties.”

Having shifted my linen and shaved, I gave Orace a pile of clothes for him to attend to and warned him that I wished to see them back spotless in precisely two hours: no more and no less.

“Aye aye, Sir,” he replied smartly in the maritime fashion he was now affecting.

Blanche was sitting behind the tea-table primly — or as primly as a young woman can sit who is wearing a light tea-gown of a kind which makes it evident that she is, indeed, young and a woman.

“The servants are all ashore,” she said, still primly, “and I do not make tea well. Perhaps you will be content to share a glass of white Cape wine with me?”

I mumbled assent and we drank the delicious wine. The English, particularly the English women, have a notion in their strange heads that slightly-sweet white wine is not an alcoholic beverage. I already knew that this was an error for I was not, in those days, a naturalised Englishman. I drank frugally.

After a little the conversation drew around to Dutch customs. She reminded me, in an off-hand fashion, that I had been telling her the night before that Dutchmen kissed in a different fashion from Englishmen. I did not, of course, refresh her memory that I had demonstrated this Continental practice, for that would have been uncivil. I walked around the table and lifted her in my arms. Laying her gently on the sofa I began to teach her how Dutchmen kiss desirable women. She had, I think, been considering the matter, for now she seemed quickly to master the art of it, so much so that at times I had difficulty in drawing breath. So engrossed was she that, when her silk gown slid away from her shoulders and my hands took both of her naked breasts and gently squeezed them, she seemed quite unconscious of the action but continued with her lesson. When she began to tremble and hold me fiercely I drew away and said, half-jokingly:

“Blanche, be ready in four and one half minutes.”

To my astonishment she rose instantly and flew into the sleeping-cabin as I drew out my gun-metal watch. The four and one half minutes seemed long, long: I believe I could have recited the whole of the Torah before the minute hand erected itself to the desired mark.

On that very instant I opened the door of the sleeping-cabin and stepped in, closing it behind me.