A Far Horizon (36 page)

R
ain had fallen through the dawn, abating as the sun increased. Now fog obscured the riverbank. The ship was anchored at Fulta until first light; no pilot took a vessel down the Hoogly at night. The early morning mist moved about the Chief Magistrate as he stood upon the deck. It lifted above the water lapping, opaque with mud, around the boat. Holwell stared down at the river and was reminded of a mutton curry that had left him ill for days. The tide was out and revealed a thin beach below the bank. Gossiping villagers squatted there attending to their morning rituals. A wind blew the reek of the river to him, the vapour weighting his coat as if it were blotting paper. The Chief Magistrate pulled down his hat and turned up his collar, but the ripe, clammy odour seeped to his bones.

Beyond the defecating villagers he could see the thatched huts in which now lived the survivors of Fort William. Others still resided in pitiful conditions aboard the
Dodaldy,
anchored in midstream. Holwell’s own ship, the
Diligence,
had been lost. On the way down river it had struck a sandbank and been plundered by a raja who lived in a nearby fort. All Holwell’s plate and jewels were gone. On his arrival at Fulta, he had found a ragged, dejected but fully functioning White Town community established in an order identical to that previously held in Calcutta. Drake, Manningham,
Frankland, Mackett and everyone else on the Council was there. Only Bellamy was sadly missing. Drake had once more set himself up as Governor, but it seemed his wife was gone. Some said madness had consumed her and that she had jumped from the
Dodaldy
and drowned. The Governor appeared to have quickly recovered from this sudden bereavement, showing no signs of grief. The sight of Drake, slimmer and even more careless about his person but still strutting about giving orders, was more than Holwell could bear.

In Fulta too he had found Demonteguy and Rita. The Frenchman had displayed further violence towards the Chief Magistrate and would not believe the diamonds were lost. For once Holwell told him the truth. On the journey from Murshidabad to Fulta the Chief Magistrate had stopped briefly in Calcutta. He had found it a painful experience. The remains of his home had been occupied by Black Town residents and bedecked with laundry. He had had no difficulty in entering the fort, for it consisted only of its outer walls. Across the parade ground he found the stairs to the waterhouses intact and descended with a racing heart. On the journey down river from Murshidabad he had imagined this moment again and again, like a reward that waited at the end of his sufferings. He visualised the magnificent gems spilling into his hands and knew that whatever was lost in money and pride he would soon regain through old Jaya’s jewels. His mouth had been dry with expectation as he prised the loose brick from the wall. At first he could not believe his eyes when he saw the empty hiding place. He had sat back on his heels in disbelief, the future crashing about him.

The telling of this story to Demonteguy had not elicted sympathy but only raised further wrath in the man. The Chief Magistrate was not intimidated. He had lost his last fear of the Frenchman on hearing that Dumbleton, the Notary, had died of a fever soon after reaching Fulta. Within days of Holwell’s arrival, the Frenchman took a ship to Malacca, where he had heard there was money to be made, leaving his wife to fend for herself. She had at once thrown herself on the Chief Magistrate, who, after his treatment in Murshidabad, was
loath to resume their relationship for fear of her derision. Instead he found a boat that would carry her back to Calcutta, to her daughter and mother.

The Chief Magistrate then found a place for himself on the first ship sailing back to England. Once home he intended to inform Leadenhall in person of the events that had occurred in Calcutta. He enquired from Drake about the Young Begum’s treasure and found a share had been kept for him. It was considerably smaller than he had anticipated, but he was helpless to protest. Others from the settlement besides the Fort William Council now knew of the treasure and had demanded a share in the spoils. Since the taking of the treasure was the cause of their present suffering, these people could not be denied. The mood in the community was not only menacing but there was nowhere to hide such treasure in Fulta. There had been no option, Drake explained, but to divide the riches amongst all the survivors. The Chief Magistrate had fumed at this further cruel twist of fate during his short but uncomfortable stay in Fulta. The mud hut in which he was forced to live was infested with insects which descended from the thatch each night to crawl unheedingly on him. Nightmares still plagued him, food was scarce and the sight of the ragged community depressed him more than he could say. Images of a world far away, that he had once desired only to leave now obsessed him.

From the deck of the ship that would take him to England, the Chief Magistrate looked back in the direction of Calcutta, but only a wall of mist was seen. As always, the river lay in his mind as a mercurial road, leading to Murshidabad.
Murshidabad.
Feared and fabled, city of domes and minarets, of kings and alabaster, of depravity and shit; he knew it now too well. By day the city soaked in sun, by night the ground discharged its heat. He remembered its fire against his cheek on that bed of straw in the stable. He turned his head now to stare down river. Somewhere lay the ocean. Its rolling back would carry
him home, like a packhorse returning a wounded soldier. Then, from that parched place deep within his soul, he would vent his anger.

The settler made history; Chief Magistrate Holwell knew this now with certainty. Legend was his to cut and fashion, tucked or
bias-bound
, knotted about iron stays. Within its manufactured shape identity strutted and strayed. And what if egos did engorge, like the flayed skin of a goat filled with water? The native learned only to stay in his place, and by doing so served his purpose; defining light by darkness, knowledge by ignorance. The Chief Magistrate pushed from his mind the sudden vision of a water skin, the stubs of goat legs thrusting skywards, riding high upon a swarthy shoulder.

History was a storybook within which time embroidered
unpredictably
, ignoring truth, condoning lies. Such a capricious
winnowing
of fact was the basis of all stories. The Chief Magistrate looked again towards the shrouded land. Behind the mist, India, like a tenacious female, had worked to dispossess him. He would not be denied. What she refused to yield he would force from her now.

Fog still hid the shore. But Holwell saw suddenly that this did not matter. Calcutta would rest in his imagination beyond a far horizon. And, like the story he would tell, the further the truth receded within the mists of time, the stronger it would eventually emerge from those same mists, moulded to his will. The dead had no tongue with which to speak. Their story was always told by the living. Time was his tool. As the sun rose higher his shadow grew away from him on the deck as if taking a life of its own.

Now at last the boat began to move. The leadsman was taking soundings, heaving the lead from the paddle-box. His voice sang out into the morning.

‘By the mark six. A quarter less three.’ The treacherous, shifting sands that could catch a ship slid safely past below them. And slowly, then, India too slipped away, unseen, still shrouding herself to spite him. For a moment he caught the smell of the river as the water stirred about him, as if the black goddess reached out a last time. But already the scent of the ocean reached him.

He made his way down then into his cabin and took up his quill, as he knew he would, at this strange moment in time. As the heathens believed a soul took rebirth, so too, he now saw, experience might enter the crucible of the alchemist. In this ending was his beginning.

He knew what he must say. Already, on that journey down river from Murshidabad, he had copied out a rough draft. But this would alter yet again, and yet again, until it pleased his pen. He pressed the quill upon the paper, shaping those first words.

J
ohn Zephaniah Holwell returned to England on the
Syren-Sloop
in 1757. On his arrival he soon published his story of the Black Hole, in which he claimed that one hundred and forty-six people went into the small prison at Fort William and only twenty-three survived. It created a stir. He did not remain in England for long. He soon recovered from his ordeal at the hands of Siraj Uddaulah and returned to Calcutta in 1758.

At the time of Holwell's departure from India in ill health, Robert Clive defeated Siraj Uddaulah at the battle of Plassey, on the 5th of February 1757. Both Rai Durlabh and Mir Jaffir took part in the attack. Siraj Uddaulah fled the battleground but was soon found and murdered. As a result, Calcutta returned again into British hands. With Clive's consent Mir Jaffir was installed as the new nawab.

On his return to Calcutta, Holwell once more took up his duties on the Fort William Council. From January to July of 1759 he briefly held the post of Governor. During his short time in office he erected an obelisk in The Park to the victims of the Black Hole. Holwell finally returned to England in 1760, supposedly after a quarrel with Robert Clive. He settled first in Walton-on-Thames before moving to Pinner, where he died in 1798 aged 87.

Roger Drake stayed on in India and had a part in the Battle of
Plassey. His share of the loot from the battle was 133,000 rupees. He retired in 1759, after being demoted in favour of a rotation government. He died in 1765 aged 43.

Calcutta was soon entirely rebuilt. Clive's military dominance and his alliance with the Murshidabad court established the British in the position of king-makers, able to place on the throne of Bengal compliant nawabs of their own choosing. The era of Empire had begun.

Although some of the happenings and characters in this book are based upon real events that took place in Fort William and Calcutta in 1756, their interpretation is purely imaginative. Some characters have kept their real names from that time but their personalities again are of my own making.

Meira Chand

I
would like to thank Professor Edwin Thumboo and The Centre for the Arts, National University of Singapore, for giving me the space in which to work during part of the writing of this book.