Ram; being the tale of one Ramillies Anstruther, 1704-55 .. (17 page)

As governor, Hume was obliged to obtain firmans—official permissions to trade—from the Nawab and lesser potentates, and aware

how a show of strength impressed Orientals, he decided that the company needed native troops. So a hundred men were recruited, mainly Bengalese, who made most military-looking soldiers.

Ram trained them, with Czappan as drillmaster, and when they had become a coherent body, he asked Ritter to inspect them. The oberleutnant agreed and rode along the ranks, with Ram and the feldwebel following proudly. He reined in abruptly and indicated one man. "Him! He was a laborer at the fort. I dismissed him as a spy. Why is he here?"

"He's one of the best," Ram said, surprised. "He's a Maratha."

"Have him out. I'll deal with him."

Reluctantly, Ram ordered the sepoy brought before all-powerful Ritter Sahib, who flung questions at him. Why had he dared to enlist, after being dismissed as a spy?

He admitted he was interested in how Feringis built forts and trained soldiers, but, he swore, he was no spy and only wished to serve the sahibs loyally.

"Feldwebel, parade the Europeans and set up the halberds." Ritter grew savage. "We'll treat this rogue to twoscore lashes. If we don't make these bastards fear us, we'll be at their mercy."

Though too disciplined to protest before the troops. Ram felt that Ritter was wrong. Too, he liked Baja Rao who, with flashing eyes and impressive mustaches, seemed more warlike than the rest.

So the miserable business was executed, despite the Maratha's frantic pleas. With the Europeans paraded, he was stripped of his uniform and triced up. Then, his back in ribbons, he was cut down, dragged outside the fort and ordered never to return.

"Good," Ritter commented. "The rest will improve faster now."

Ram disagreed, but he was wrong: the Bengalese did improve as drill soldiers. Later, while talking with some, trying to learn their habits and thoughts, he found them indifferent to Baja Rao's fate. He was an alien from distant Indore, they said, a boaster who told fantastic lies of his courage; it was good he was gone.

Soon afterward Hume sent for Ram. "Sit ye down, lad, I've been so busy wi' things I've had no time to talk wi' ye. Tell me now, are ye no' one of the Anstruthers of Fife?"

"I'm Yorkshire bred though Holland born, but my great-grandfather came from Fife, sir. Isn't there an Anstruther town there?"

"Aye," Hume beamed. "Thought there was good Scots blood in ye. I'm from Berwickshire maself. Well, we're the only two Britons among all these foreigners, so mayhap our interests are alike, eh?"

"My deepest wish, sir," Ram agreed politely, though puzzled, Hume was old enough to be his grandfather.

The other asked about the sepoys' progress. "I must away soon to the nawab at Murshidabad. A fine soldier escort would gi' me great izzat in his eyes, and mayhap he'll grant our firman for only one lakh of rupees' bribe instead of four or five. Would ye no' wish to lead the troops?"

Ram said dutifully that it was Ritter's right to go, but Hume didn't agree, "Yon German's experienced, no doubt, so its best he stays. Suppose the fort's attacked treacherously? It's happened elsewhere. Nay, it's you I'll be taking,"

So when Hume set out on his 400-mile journey. Ram led twenty mounted Austrians. Behind marched the sepoy company, officered by writers de Boer and van der Heer, newly made ensigns. Hume, van Hoven and Rooses traveled in palanquins borne by sturdy natives. Camels carried gifts for the Nawab and his principal ministers.

As the column advanced upcountry, Hume told Ram much about current Indian history: The nawab, Murshid Kuli Khan, owed allegiance to the Great Mogul who sat on the Peacock Throne in Delhi. But the blood of the Moslem conquerors ran thin in its present occupant, Muhammed Shah, so that his viceroys and nawabs had become virtually independent, while the subject Hindus were rebelling, defeating his armies and winning back their old lands.

"Bad for traders," Hume added. "Forces us to take sides. But we never keep together. If the British make agreement wi' one rajah, the Dutch or French back t'other. As for ourselves, we're new and a prey for all, if I can't win the nawab's good will."

Murshidabad was the first Indian city Ram had seen, and as he led the troops through its packed streets, his eyes were so busy it was hard for him to hold his head disdainfully high. There were great temples, minareted mosques, ornamented palaces, seething bazaars; men of every Asian nation, from undersized Moplahs to rawboned Afghans and slant-eyed Mongols; women, the Hindus in lovely saris that accentuated their fluid grace, the Moslems veiled so that only their fine eyes showed.

Then the audience at the nawab's durbar. As military commander. Ram accompanied the traders into the vast palace and was permitted to salute the Great Mogul's viceroy. Hume ordered the presents to be piled at the foot of the dais; then, half deferential, half haughty, he told of the advantages of having a new company which could distribute Bengal's wares in new areas of Europe. He spoke, too, of the company's founder, Prince Eugene, Europe's greatest soldier.

Condescending to accept the gifts, the nawab replied that he would consider the matter of a firman, since trade was good for everyone. That was all, the audience was over.

Back at their quarters. Ram was surprised to see Hume jubilant. "A mere lakh I'll be dropping into his itching palm!" the latter gloated. "A hundred thousand rupees is a sore sacrifice, wi' perhaps another half lakh to underlings, but the firman's ours."

"But he promised nothing, sir," Ram puzzled. "Can you be sure?"

"Sure enough. You'll see, in a month it'll all be settled."

It was, and the Ostenders marched homeward. Sheer satisfaction made Hume seem ten years younger. "Mark me," he told Ram, "in a few years we'll be as big as John Company itself!"

"John Company?"

"Another name for the H.E.I.C.—a corruption of 'Joint Company,' as it was called when it was founded back in 1600." Hume chuckled. "We're no' likely to handle tea at Bankipur, though our Coblom factor will. It'll go to Ostend, but every chest will be smuggled to England. Not being taxed there, 'twill sell for half of what the H.E.I.C must ask. There'll be the devil to pay!"

"Then it'll harm English trade?" Ram wondered why Hume was so bitter against the company he had served so long.

"Aye, if folk get half-price tea, John Company's ruined and we'll likely take its place and all get as rich as nabobs."

When Ram asked what he should invest in to send back in the next ship, Hume advised gumlac. "Most will be using their cargo space for silk, but gumlac's more valuable by bulk. 'Tis only a peculiar kind of tree gum, but it makes the finest sealing wax. 'Twill bring \e three hundred per cent profit. I'm using my own space to the limit for it. Oh, by the by, I'm hoping we'll see much of ve when my wife and bairns arrive."

"My thanks, sir. I didn't know you had a family."

"They're at Serampore till I make ready for 'em. You being the only other Briton, I count on ye to amuse ma lassies, at least till some of our foreign scamps learn English or the vernacular."

"Your daughters speak it?" It would be pleasant to practice Hindustani or Bengali with girls of his own race.

"Aye, they were born oot here. What a Tower of Babel we are! We're few as yet, but we're from half Europe, and India to boot."

Back at Bankipur, they found the fort completed but Ritter and others down with a fever that bafBed Dr. Wiktorin. Hume and van Hoven, in fact, knew more about it and became amateur physicians, much to the surgeon's indignation.

The writers-cum-ensigns returned to their accounts, so Ram put Czappan in charge of the Europeans and Kempny of the sepoys and took over-all command of the fort himself.

One of his problems was that, through ignorance of native customs and prejudices, the white soldiers often caused broils in the bazaars. One morning, two Austrians failed to report in after overnight leave, so he led a mounted party in search of them. He was making inquiries in the Leathermakers' Bazaar and getting blandly negative replies when from its farther end came tumult. Yells, curses and the thud of blows sent men surging toward it.

"Advance!" he ordered. "No striking without orders and guard well your rear." Spurring through the crowd, he strained to recognize German voices. In a space ahead he saw a single native fighting against half a score others who were armed with swords and lathis — long clubs. The lone man had only a dagger but was using it so well that his enemies kept at a respectful distance. As there was no sign of his missing troopers. Ram was about to turn back when the inequality of the odds made him change his mind.

"Way make!" He drew his saber. Chota Billa's hoofs cleared a path and brought him between the assailed one and his foes. "Back, sons of an unclean mother! Spawn of jackals, begone!" Sight of armed Europeans was enough and, leaving two of their number writhing on the ground, the attackers fled. Though their intended victim's face was masked with blood and his left arm gashed, he still gripped his dagger, mouthing obscenities.

"Vishna reward you!" he called suddenly. "It is I, Baja Rao!"

Ram stared, then wanted to vomit. The Maratha's right eye lay on his cheek. "A htter quickly bring!" he ordered. "This luckless one to the fort carry." The crowd took up the cry, and soon Baja was being borne fortward.

But there Wiktorin clucked over him glumly. "He's doomed. Best slit his throat and put him out of his miser)'."

"Surely he's not mortally hurt?" Ram was feeling possessive toward this ex-sepoy he'd saved.

"In Europe he'd merely lose his eye. But here . . . !" The surgeon took up an instrument. "But I'd better clean him up first."

Ram winced as he saw the eye snipped off and fall to the floor, where it seemed to stare up at him accusingly. Baja groaned as his other hurts were dressed. Wiktorin washed his gory hands. "See the flies are kept off him and give him all the water he wants. He'll last till tomorrow at least."

But Baja Rao survived, though with an empty, suppurating socket. Ram put him in his own bungalow. "When he's well, I'll send him away," he told Gopal Das. "Let none know he here is."

Meanwhile, the two absentees returned, shamefaced and fearful. They had visited whores, drunk much arrack and awakened half naked and robbed in an outhouse. Ram fined them and gave them extra duty, for white troops were never flogged, save for serious crimes, lest European prestige suffer.

WTien Ritter reassumed command, he made it clear that he was the senior by ordering Ram to make an inventory of all stores.

The latter had barely begun his dull task, however, when Hume's bearer brought him an invitation to dine that evening. Punctiliously he reported this to Ritter, who scowled, "Why should he invite my junior? It is not good manners."

"He may want me to interpret. He has no German."

"Go then, but you will render a complete stores return before sunset gun tomorrow."

Arriving at the governor's mansion, as it was now called. Ram was greeted and given a cool drink. "Ye're the only one I've invited," Hume explained. "Ma wife and bairns arrived last night."

"Honored, sir, deeply."

"Hope you are," Hume said dryly. "Here's ma good leddy now."

Ram's jaw dropped. The lady who entered was almost coal black!

"La, how d'ye do, Master Anstruther? Ma 'usban's told me so-o much about ye." She extended a plump hand. " 'Tis so-o relieving to know there's someone for ma dear lassies to talk to, among all these dreadful foreigners."

Somehow, Ram managed to kiss the beringed fingers and also to take in more of his hostess' person. She was enormous, almost as wide as tall, and exuded a musklike perfume. Though free from race prejudice, he had scarcely expected this. What of the daughters?

"Drink up, laddie." Hume signed for the khansaman to refill the glasses. Ram guessed that the Scot realized his embarrassment.

"I fear the young leddies dally," Mrs. Hume simpered. "But gentlemen know females' primping is on their account entire. . . . Ah, here's ma eldest chick . . . Bea, sweetling, here's Lieutenant Anstruther come to place his heart at your feet."

Ram hardly dared look. When he did, his nerves eased. Bea was tall, statuesque, with handsomely bold features, her hair jet and her hue a light lemon.

She held out slim fingers. "Sir, forgive our tardiness, but the trip upriver—exhausting, 'pon honor." Her magnificent black eyes regarded him with such naked appraisal that he flushed. Yet sheer relief drew him to her.

"Charmed, ma'am. How rare to meet such beauty!"

"Ah, and here's ma other darlin'," Mrs. Hume interposed. "Annie, dove, here's the handsome lieutenant to greet ye."

Annie, younger, was also lemon-hued, but had gray eyes and almost sandy hair. She chose to play tomboy. "La, I ken well ye've a good Scots patronymic, but what were ye christened?"

When he told her he was known as Ram, she laughed. " 'Tis the name of a Hindu god! Aye, besides half of Bengal calling themselves so—Ram Das, Ram this. Ram that. Most common."

"Short for Ramillies." He was nettled. "My father named me after the battle, where he served with some honor."

"Let's to table," Hume said. "Lad, ye'll eat better tonight than since leaving England—likely better than ye ever had."

He was right. The bawachi had been trained to adapt native foods to European tastes. "I taught him," Mrs. Hume beamed. "Took years, but now he's without price."

After the ladies had retired, Hume called for cheroots and Oporto.

"I ken ye're a wee bit confused," he smiled diffidently. "But ma leddy's ma lawful wife, in case ye're thinking of our rules about takin' up wi' native women. She's Portuguese from Goa, the oldest European settlement in India. Luisa de la Riba she was, of a fine old family. There's a wee dark stain, mind; Abyssinians from across the Arabian Sea settled around Goa, good fighters and bowing to no man. But she's a Christian—a Papist indeed, till I taught her the error of her ways. Now she's Presbyterian, and so are the bairns."

"You're fortunate, sir, having your family with you, instead of being an exile from home."