A Far Horizon (25 page)

‘Set me free.’

The lantern continued to rock, throwing Emily Drake backwards and forwards between shadow and light. Then, for a moment, she stood quite still as her eyes alighted on Sati, knee deep in the muddy waters of the Hoogly, held back by Govindram.

‘Set me free.’

The cry came again and fell into the fast-flowing Hoogly. The Governor’s wife stood silhouetted against the dark night like a cameo. Then, suddenly she sat down in the boat. The lantern was steadied and the shadows grew deeper, swallowing up the craft.

T
he Chief Magistrate felt his life was unravelling. Nothing was going right. Except for a few isolated White Town houses in which beleaguered troops still battled away, the militia and garrison were now locked into Fort William. Siraj Uddaulah’s army was poised to shoot down into the fort just as the Chief Engineer foretold. Within the fort the Dutch mercenaries and the Portuguese were running amok in a drunken state, having looted the liquor store and the Chaplain’s cellar. Sickness had struck Bellamy down in a heartless way at the very moment of this loss. The makeshift hospital in the ballroom of Governor’s House was now filled with wounded and dying men, and neither bandages nor medicines were available. The cemetery was unreachable and the question of what to do with the dead grew daily more important. Temporary graves were being dug in the furthest reaches of Fort William. Although the women and children of White Town had been successfully evacuated, the refugees were now on the point of rioting. Worse than this, Manningham and Frankland, who had accompanied the women to the Governor’s Indiaman, refused to return to Fort William on the excuse that some guard was needed for the ladies. Several members of the militia, including the Chaplain’s assistant, Reverend Mapletoft, had also reached the boat and turned their backs on the fort. The
only bright point was that along with the women the treasure had also been loaded on to the
Dodaldy
and the
Diligence.
Throughout the day small craft had plied back and forth between the Governor’s and the Chief Magistrate’s ships and Fort William, carrying the treasure to safety unobtrusively.

It was now increasingly clear that the men of Fort William must also soon depart. How a second evacuation was to be manoeuvred, now that the refugees were alert to procedures, was beyond the Chief Magistrate’s frazzled comprehension. Letters continued to be smuggled to Rai Durlabh, but the tone of the commander’s replies made it increasingly clear that something obstructed him in his mission. Yet all these things diminished before the towering problem of gunpowder. Once more, the store of powder brought into the fort from the main magazine in town was damp and not fit for use. Without powder Fort William could not be held.

The Chief Magistrate was encamped in Governor’s House in a small ante-room leading to Drake’s office. The Chaplain was installed in the guestroom. Although surroundings were more amenable than Writers’ Row, the advantage of the latter quarters was their proximity to water. Without servants to lug buckets up and down stairs, the luxury of Governor’s House soon deteriorated to the level of squalor elsewhere in Fort William. The stench of excrement was little less than in Writers’ Row. Water was rationed and heat lay trapped by dry tatties. Rats and cockroaches roamed about aggressively, gnawing at overstuffed sofas, stores of biscuit, official documents and bags of sugar and tea. Lizards and bluebottles infested the house. A plague of flying ants had joined their earthbound brothers to irritate everyone further.

The Chief Magistrate made his way to Bellamy’s room and found him lying upon his bed, the linen heaped untidily about him. The Chaplain was weak but slightly recovered from the fever that had afflicted him. Empty bottles of claret and Madeira stood about the room. His grief at the looting of his claret continued to affect him. A
half-filled glass of wine stood beside Bellamy’s bed and he reached for it as the Chief Magistrate entered.

‘It took an armada of Indiamen to fill that cellar. It grieves me more than I can say to think of those ruffians consuming my bottles.’

The Chaplain still looked poorly, but the Chief Magistrate had his own troubles and could not find time in the present situation to discuss the trivial loss of some wine. Since the Chaplain was the oldest man in White Town, the Council of War had requested the Chief Magistrate to seek his advice.

‘These are extraordinary times.’ Holwell answered before broaching the issues he had come to discuss. He decided not to tell the Chaplain of Mapletoft’s desertion to the Governor’s ship, as it would unnecessarily upset the old man.

‘I fear the mutiny worsens. Refugee women have been molested. The soldiery have established their tabernacles in the very rooms where your liquor is deposited. They are rowdy and refuse to hear the call to duty. The refugees grow hourly more restless. Everything hangs upon Rai Durlabh, but I fear now he will not act as promised.’

‘The refugees grow restless because they are not fed,’ Bellamy pointed out.

‘We have rice and wheat enough for six months but few pots to cook it in, that is the problem,’ the Chief Magistrate explained.

‘Then you had better depart to the ships with speed,’ Bellamy murmured, his mind still upon his wine.

‘We are forced now to think either of departure or surrender. Either way it is likely we may lose Calcutta. We are now without much powder,’ the Chief Magistrate admitted.

‘Without powder we cannot fight.’ Bellamy looked up in alarm.

The Chief Magistrate nodded, the strength draining rapidly from him. He sat down to mop his brow and caught sight of himself in a mirror. Like everyone else, he had been reduced to discarding unnecessary clothing and wore only his breeches and shirt. He was unused to such informal attire and felt as vulnerable as if he walked about naked. He stared at his pinched face in the glass, at the eyes
drawn small with anxiety, at the grim line of his mouth and at something more that swam up from within him to fill his face. That a piece of glass could reflect his soul suddenly disturbed him.

At the Chief Magistrate’s news the Chaplain had grown
thoughtful.
‘Why not offer a bribe to Rai Durlabh? Perhaps that is what he is waiting for. Get Omichand to write the next letter to the commander. His influence still remains very great.’ The Chaplain threw out his advice in a careless manner while refilling his glass with wine.

‘What good can the fat merchant do?’ the Chief Magistrate had almost forgotten Omichand, still held with Kishindas in the Black Hole.

‘Who knows? His voice has a stronger effect on his people than does ours,’ the Chaplain remarked, and returned to his claret, unable to contemplate any further disagreeable twists of fate.

‘If we evacuate the fort, all will be lost. If we can surrender honourably it is possible we may be able to bargain some concessions, most importantly to remain in control of Fort William,’ the Chief Magistrate confided. Bellamy nodded weakly, closed his eyes and lay back upon his pillows with an exhausted sigh. Soon he gave a light snore.

The Chief Magistrate left the Chaplain to sleep and made his way back to the Council chamber. He found it in the usual disarray. Apart from deteriorating conditions, its members now showed the strain of constant discussion. Most were inebriated with Bellamy’s wine and waited only for departure. They gazed longingly from the windows towards the Hoogly, where the Governor’s ship, the
Dodaldy,
waited with its cargo of women and children. Beside it the
Diligence,
the Chief Magistrate’s own vessel, already loaded with his valuables, waited for the Fort William men.

The Chief Magistrate sat down and gave the Council a brief synopsis of his discussion with the Chaplain. He refrained from mentioning the powder situation. Instead he ordered a letter to be prepared for Omichand to sign, promising a large bribe to Rai
Durlabh to rid them of the nawab. Then, at the insistence of the Council of War, the Chief Magistrate proceeded on to the Black Hole to visit Omichand with this letter.

As he set foot upon the parade ground, the suffering crowd of refugees shifted before him like an angry ocean brewing up a storm. The late afternoon sun now threw the shadow of Governor’s House over the ground. The refugees huddled within this shade, the first respite they had known that day. Once more no food had been forthcoming. Misery swirled about the Chief Magistrate as he left the steps of Governor’s House. Women begged for food, children clawed at his clothes, emaciated goats stood in his path and excrement soon smeared the soles of his shoes. Eventually he reached the Black Hole and Omichand.

The Chief Magistrate had not seen Omichand since his arrest and he could not contain his surprise. He peered in through the small barred windows of the cell and saw what appeared to be a heap of rags at one end. A guard threw open the doors of the prison upon the Chief Magistrate’s orders, and the fat merchant sat up. Behind him Kishindas stirred, his hair wild and matted. At the sight of the Chief Magistrate, Omichand let out a spluttering sound, his breast heaving up and down.

‘You have grown thin,’ the Chief Magistrate said in amazement as Omichand came towards him. The fat merchant’s robes trailed extravagantly over the floor; deprived of corpulence, his cheeks lay flat against his bones, and his eyes appeared suddenly larger.

‘Only dry biscuits. Sometimes not even that. And for water we have also to beg,’ Omichand exploded.

‘We too have only dry biscuits. We have rice and wheat for six months but few pots can be found to cook it in. The Chaplain’s wine is all we have in abundance. I shall have some sent to you, and whatever odds and ends of food can be found.’

As the fat merchant seemed slightly cheered by the promise of sustenance, the Chief Magistrate broached the subject of the letter to
Rai Durlabh that Omichand must sign. ‘It might end this ordeal peacefully for everyone,’ Holwell reasoned.

‘If such a letter fell into the wrong hands I should lose my life,’ Omichand shouted, and turned back into his cell, ignoring the Chief Magistrate’s protests. Kishindas hurried behind him.

‘If you do not sign, we must surrender. We will then have to live in our own town upon the nawab’s terms. It will be insufferable,’ Holwell admitted, stepping into the cell after Omichand. At once the sun was shut away and the fetid smell of old brick enclosed him. The Chief Magistrate halted at the entrance and proceeded no further into the gloomy interior.

‘Perhaps that is what Raja Rai Durlabh is wishing. Perhaps he has decided
not
to do away with the nawab,’ Omichand replied, sitting down heavily upon a plinth built along one wall of the room.

‘What have you heard of the matter?’ The Chief Magistrate took a step forward in alarm.

‘I have heard nothing. I only surmise,’ Omichand replied.

No amount of persuasion could convince Omichand to sign the Chief Magistrate’s letter. Holwell raised his voice, then called the guard at the door to hold a musket to Omichand’s brow. Nothing softened the fat merchant. In the end Holwell was forced to leave with the letter unsigned. As he stepped out of the Black Hole he caught a sly gleam in the merchant’s eye before the door swung shut upon him.

Once more the wails of women and children filled the Chief Magistrate’s ears as he faced the parade ground. He plunged resolutely into the mass of people to make his way back to Governor’s House. At once his balance was threatened when a child clutched at his shirt, dragging it from his breeches. Then an old crone started up before him, screaming abuse. He stepped back in shock and trod on a goat that protested by biting his leg. All he saw was the dark, toothless cave of the woman’s mouth spewing upon him its bitter fury. She reached up a long-nailed claw and fastened herself to his wrist. It seemed as if an immeasurable force had risen
to consume him. Behind the old hag he had a vision of thousands of faces, all turned at this moment towards him. In a spasm of horror he tore himself free and stumbled on towards Governor’s House.

At last he reached the doorway. His heart pounded uncomfortably. The sight of that gnarled and filthy claw fastened upon him would not leave his mind. He was reminded suddenly of Rosemary. Soon after her arrival in India, in a spirit of misguided adventure, she had gone with her ayah into the Black Town bazaar. There she had become parted briefly from the woman and stumbled on a ritual that intrigued her. A group of gaudily dressed young girls were gathered about two women, who painted their hands with delicate designs in a thick black mud. Before she was able to refuse, Rosemary had been drawn into the group. The women took hold of her hands to demonstrate their art. Soon she appeared to wear a pair of ornate lace gloves and looked in fascination at the finely drawn designs. The ayah eventually found her and drew her away, saying the women were prostitutes. Rosemary had been horrified and immediately wiped the henna from her fingers. The mud had rolled easily off but a pale orange filigree remained beneath. Rosemary had returned to the house in a hysterical state, her fingers made raw by rubbing. For days she scrubbed at her hands, but nothing removed the dye. It lingered deeper than memory and stained her to the core. The Chief Magistrate had shown no sympathy at the time for the manner in which she felt marked. He was only concerned about the impression the crude stains would make upon their friends.

Now, sympathy for his estranged wife flowed generously through him. However hard he tried, he knew he would never forget the demeaning sight of the parade ground. It was as if not just Fort William but his very person had been invaded. He knew now how Rosemary must have felt.

The Chief Magistrate soon recovered himself and made his way back to the Council chamber. The Council of War turned their lethargic gaze from the Hoogly to stare at him bleary-eyed. The Chief Magistrate’s announcement of Omichand’s stubborn behaviour
shattered the inertia. The commotion was so great and lasted so long that Drake was forced to bang on the table for quiet.

‘We must think clearly,’ the Governor announced. Even as he said the words he doubted his mind would move other than slowly, rusted over with exhaustion and fear. He looked towards the Chief Magistrate for enlightenment, but Holwell was mopping his brow. In need of immediate inspiration, Drake gazed up at the portrait of Job Charnock. Clusters of flying ants had settled upon Charnock’s eyes and gave him the appearance of blindness. Drake turned away in fright.

‘There is no way now but to evacuate,’ Mackett shouted. There was a roar of approval from around the Council chamber.