A Far Horizon (28 page)

I
n the dark, the Chief Magistrate looked out at the river. A further nightmarish day had ended, and throughout it, he now realised, the Hoogly had commanded each hour. He stared at the river in hate.

There were not many of the militia now left in Fort William. Of these, the Dutch mercenaries could no longer be looked upon as a viable fighting force. They lurched uselessly about in an inebriated state whenever their expertise was needed. In their rare moments of sobriety they were mutinous. A large number of sepoys had already left the fort and gone over to the enemy. Those Portuguese that remained had stayed only because their wives and children still filled the parade ground. And they had to be berated constantly to fight. All will to attack had drained away in whatever contingents survived.

The Council of War sat around the table in the Council chamber. Above them the damage wrought by the enemy had opened a window to the sky. Rubble from the ceiling lay as it had fallen in a dusty heap, and members of the Council were forced to pick their way about it. The cannon ball had rolled a short distance and now lay against the wall under the portrait of Job Charnock.

The Chief Magistrate, anger ripe within him at the cowardly desertion of Minchin and Drake, swore loudly to continue to fight
for an honourable settlement. The Chaplain, still looking pale and ill, seemed now to find more solace in his claret than in the word of God. Instead of a Bible, he walked about with a bottle under his arm. From the Council chamber he stared at the empty vista of the Hoogly, devoid of the ships that would have removed them to safety, and gave a shuddering sigh.

‘The
Prince
George
has sailed back up river, but we must send a message to Captain Hague to return to evacuate us all immediately,’ the Chief Magistrate suggested. At the table the men at once looked hopeful, and young Pearkes offered to row out to the boat.

After Pearkes’s departure, the thought of the
Prince
George
’s imminent arrival carried them through the day, with its further shattering onslaught of cannon. There was an attempted scaling of Fort William’s walls by the enemy which was, with difficulty, repulsed. The houses surrounding the fort were now all occupied by the nawab’s soldiers. This made it impossible to fire from the bastions without being blasted by enemy muskets. Another score of the garrison’s diminishing force had died in this manner.

At last, in the mid-afternoon, the
Prince
George
sailed serenely into view, her great sails billowing in the hot breeze, sitting easily astride the wilful Hoogly. A cheer of relief went up in Fort William. The nawab’s forces at once retaliated by firing at Fort William again with the garrison’s own discarded cannon. When the Council of War returned its attention to the
Prince
George,
it was to find it heading for disaster. The treacherous Hoogly tried even the most experienced pilots. Ships were thrown about within its currents and tossed on to its sandbanks at will. One moment the
Prince
George
appeared to sail smoothly along; the next it spun about as if heading for the shore. As the men of Fort William watched, it was brought around with difficulty, only to drive into a sandbank. The ship shuddered and lurched and began to list, spilling rigging and men overboard. Each frantic effort to right it proved useless. Within an hour it was boarded by the enemy, plundered and set on fire. It burned brightly on the Hoogly under the gaze of the garrison.

In the dark, the Chief Magistrate stood with the Chaplain on the south-west bastion above the river, silently observing the blazing ship. Fort William was filled with solemnity. There appeared now to be only a choice of death or surrender; all hope of escape had gone. About the Chaplain and the Chief Magistrate a red glow lit up the night as the smouldering remains of White Town suffused the moonless sky. Holwell’s own great house a short distance from the fort was now unrecognisable. The charred frame of the upper storeys sat like a humiliating crown upon its once gleaming exterior. All day the Chief Magistrate had tried not to see the figures on its great balconies and within its many rooms, prising open cupboards or drawers, looting it of its finery. The sight of these men in his home left him sick with violation.

At the Chief Magistrate’s side, the Reverend Bellamy seemed almost too tired to stand. For a while he supported himself on the wall of the bastion and then sat down beside a cannon. He had suffered badly, not only from the looting of his liquor, but in the manner the enemy had treated his church. Three field pieces had been dragged into its interior and fired at Fort William to great advantage. The church was held hostage by the enemy, its broken spire a sullen reminder of Calcutta’s neglect, its walls brutally pitted by cannon but unable to fall. The Chaplain made a small sobbing sound.

‘It is like a woman that you have taken for granted, not caring even to outfit her properly. Now I must watch as she is ravaged and understand at last what she means to me. It is the Lord’s punishment. And it is a just one. I have neglected my duties and must now know remorse. That is why I am here and not upon that boat I believe, Chief Magistrate, there is a reason the Lord has kept us here in this hell. He has a purpose for us all.’ As he spoke, Bellamy searched his pockets for the flask of Madeira he carried.

Holwell nodded; he was of the same mind as the Chaplain. He was equally perplexed at his own continued presence in the fort when he might have followed Drake. Now, like the Chaplain, he was sure the
Lord had a firm hand in things. God might need to put lessons of remorse before Bellamy, but for himself, the Chief Magistrate decided, He might well have other plans. With Drake’s surprise departure, Holwell, as the senior Council member, was at last in the position of Acting Governor. The Chief Magistrate was acutely aware that at this moment history would judge his every action. His life played out before him, crowded with incidents that had never made sense. Now he saw that everything fit a pattern that had conspired to bring him to this day.

‘Rai Durlabh is a traitor. He has betrayed us.’ The Chaplain’s face crumpled in despair.

‘As the Young Begum’s treasure is now safely aboard our ships, we may be able to make an honourable truce with the nawab. The longer we hold out, the stronger we appear when bargaining for surrender. Above all, we must not show weakness.’ The Chief Magistrate advised. Already he saw himself negotiating with the intractable nawab, the destiny of Calcutta in his hands at last.

Far away, almost lost to sight from Fort William the lanterns of the
Diligence
and the
Dodaldy
twinkled like distant stars in the night. The Chief Magistrate looked out at the remains of the
Prince
George
and the Hoogly washing about it. He realised now that the river had steered every disaster. Over her waters Drake had run, as if hearing the Siren’s voices. The refugee women had sunk and burned. The flotilla of rescue ships had been drawn away against all logic on her tide. Her moonless water was now lit by White Town fires. And when the Chief Magistrate had played his trump card of the
Prince
George,
she had crushed the ship before him. Holwell listened, as he had done each night on his veranda, to the incessant booming of the bullfrogs. It was as if those slimy balloons of foul air had set themselves up as attendants to the river’s genie. Beneath their ugly croaking, the sinuous silence of the river lay in the troubled night. He sensed the river still watched him, waiting to destroy him. Anger seized the Chief Magistrate; this was his moment, and he would not be denied it by the wily designs of the Hoogly.

The Chief Magistrate’s resolution was so fierce and his gaze was so determinedly fixed on the river that he failed to notice the fifty-six Dutch mercenaries deserting Fort William. They dropped silently over the walls of the fort and ran off to the enemy-occupied church. There, the nawab’s emissaries awaited them. When at last this further act of betrayal was brought to his notice, the Chief Magistrate shrugged resignedly. He knew suddenly that his battle was not with these mutinous men, nor even in some strange way with the waiting enemy. It was with the river and the heathen black spirit that lay buried in its depths. This realisation, and the new perception of his role in Fort William’s destiny, filled him with fresh certainty. History was his to form now from the balance of each moment.

He slept fitfully, rising at times to pace his room or stand upon its balcony staring at the river. The dank odour of the water mixed now with the stench of the corpses piled up in Fort William. In spite of Siraj Uddaulah’s cannon fire, in spite of the distant sight of charging figures and the rain of fire-arrows, whenever the Chief Magistrate closed his eyes the enemy became a shadow. It hovered on the edge of sleep, black, amorphous, uncertain in its predilection, containing a darkness he recognised as connected to himself. He always awoke with fear raging through him; fear that was as much of the enemy as it was of himself. On his bed he tossed and turned as through the open window the smell of the river and the smell of death entwined within the hot night.

The following morning, his dreams forgotten, the Chief Magistrate rose early, ready to claim his place in history. Entering Drake’s bedroom, he found a clean shirt in a tallboy. Although the neck was too large and the sleeves too short, it served its purpose. He made an attempt to shave but the soap would not lather and he cut himself. Still, he had the feeling he had gathered together some necessary threads, and in the darkness of the early morning, he made his way to the Council chamber.

The new confidence shown by the Chief Magistrate was noticed at once by all. Before the sun came up and the first cannon could
thunder, Holwell summoned the remainder of the garrison to a corner of the parade ground and exhorted them to fight. The refugees were forced to make room for them and looked on curiously as Holwell began his oration. The Chief Magistrate spoke in the manner of a preacher buoyed up by God, an ethereal lust in his eyes. The small group of bedraggled men listened, and the
dream-filled
night, when death had hovered upon the ragged edges of sleep, faded from their minds. The Chief Magistrate’s certainty grew as he spoke.

‘However many times they may assault us, we will show no weakness.’ The Chief Magistrate’s words rang out, breaking through the cobwebs of mist that hung over the Hoogly.

He was well aware of the Indians’ psychology. If the moment came for surrender, the enemy must believe a formidable fighting force still remained in Fort William. If not, and if surrender was unconditional, a bloody vengeance would ensue, for the Moors had no respect for weakness. Holwell raised his arms before the tattered garrison, exultant. And the exhausted men before him buried their misgivings, glad to place their terror upon shoulders so ready to bear it. Soon they went back to the shambles of their barracks, to a breakfast of thick
chapati
cooked over a fire of broken-up furniture from Writers’ Row. The Chief Magistrate walked to a meal of weevily rice cooked in pots commandeered from a wealthy refugee.

The Chief Magistrate’s speechifying was all before the sun arose or the first cannon had sounded. In that peaceful, misty silence it was easy to drift in hope. But as the morning dawned, it was clear the enemy was just as exultant as the Chief Magistrate. They had heard many truths from the deserting Dutch mercenaries and saw the great holes their cannon had wrought in the supporting walls of Fort William. They knew also about the Hatmen’s diminishing powder supply and, having no such troubles of their own, fought with new intensity. Their losses were not insubstantial, but with an army of thirty thousand, these casualties were but a piffling number. It was not so within Fort William. By mid-morning, twenty-five of the
remaining garrison had been killed and seventy more were wounded. All but fourteen gunners were dead. A great clamour now arose in Fort William for an immediate surrender before any further men were killed. The Chief Magistrate held out against this decision. Even when Witherington again rushed into the Council chamber to repeat the one piece of news he seemed destined to bring, that they had finally exhausted all the dry powder, the Chief Magistrate would still not give in.

As the morning progressed, the Chief Magistrate’s belief in his own destiny no longer communicated itself with such strength to his men. Anxiety and dissent ruffled the atmosphere in the Council chamber. The sun blazed down through the hole in the ceiling upon the remaining Council of War. The growing stench of unburied corpses ripening rapidly with each hour carried deep into the room. This odour now permeated everything and was a constant reminder of an omnipotence beyond the Chief Magistrate’s exhortations.

‘Siraj Uddaulah
must
be made to believe we can withstand a continued siege,’ Holwell insisted. The sun fell in a shaft upon him through the damaged ceiling. The buzzing hordes of flies and the layer of dust motes in the filthy room were illuminated, floating around him like celestial bodies.

‘Without powder nothing is possible,’ Mackett answered. ‘We must wave the white flag of surrender.’

‘Why not try once more to persuade the fat merchant to write a letter to the nawab? He may do it now, for he must be impatient for release from that prison. Let him argue our strength and demand an honourable settlement.’ The Chaplain spoke up in a trembling voice. Holwell regarded him with admiration; even in his frail state, Bellamy’s wisdom could still be relied upon.

Once again Holwell faced the parade ground for the journey to Omichand in the Black Hole. Since his last crossing, a great number of the Portuguese soldiers had laid down their lives for the garrison. The wailing of their widows and children now pressed hard upon the Chief Magistrate. The frenzy that had filled his last crossing of the
square had been replaced by lethargy. Children did no more than whimper; dazed women no longer grasped angrily at his clothes. Rats scampered boldly about. The goats had gone to keep the living alive. The stench of death was horrifying. Men, women and children lay where they had been felled. Rats feasted on rotting flesh. Hungry vultures, crows and adjutant storks made a continual nuisance of themselves, and had to be waved away from the corpses by grieving relatives. Above the parade ground, on the ramparts of Fort William, men still stood at their posts manning cannon and guns. Even from a distance, the Chief Magistrate could see that they were tired. Eventually he reached the Black Hole and demanded Omichand be brought out.