Flood of Fire

Fourteen

With the arrival of the British force, rumours began to circulate that the Chinese authorities were offering bounties for the capture or killing of aliens. There were reports also of clashes between foreigners and villagers at various places around the mouth of the Pearl River.

The island of Hong Kong, however, remained an exception: it was one place where foreigners could wander more or less freely, without fear of annoyance or molestation. Strangers had been visiting the island for many generations and over time the villagers had grown accustomed to having them in their midst; many had even learnt to profit from their presence, as for example the elder of Sheng Wan village who had rented Fitcher Penrose the plot of land for his nursery, on the slopes of the island’s highest mountain.

It was not for its convenience that Fitcher had chosen the site: the path that led to it started at a secluded beach and wound steeply upwards, doubling back and forth across a number of spurs and nullahs. The ascent was so taxing that Fitcher, whose ageing bones were often racked by attacks of rheumatism, was sometimes unable to undertake the climb for weeks at a time.

But in some ways the height was an advantage: Fitcher had noticed early on that the lower reaches of the island were marshy and infested with mosquitoes, while the higher slopes were relatively free of insects. The site had other advantages too — richer soil, lower temperatures and most notably a plentiful supply of water, from a pool fed by a stream that gurgled down from the elevated spine of the island. Being nestled inside a hollow the site was also sheltered from storms.

The magnificent views offered by the location, of the bay and of Kowloon, on the mainland, were of no moment to Fitcher, who was chronically short-sighted. But to Paulette they mattered a great deal: the vistas that opened up on the walk to the nursery were so enchanting that she even relished the steep climb.

To the islanders the mountain was known as Taiping Shan — ‘Peaceful Mountain’ — and so far as Paulette was concerned the name could not have been better chosen: the slope was a serenely tranquil setting and in all the time she had spent there she had never had the least cause to fear for her own safety. While at the nursery she always felt perfectly secure, not least because the two gardeners who had been hired to work there were a friendly, middle-aged couple from Sheng Wan: so reassuring was their presence that Paulette never felt the need to carry any weapons.

But after the arrival of the British fleet there was a change in the atmosphere: when rumours of attacks on foreigners began to circulate, Fitcher insisted that she carry pistols with her. She decided to indulge him, knowing that it would set his mind at rest — but still, she never imagined that there would come a day when she might actually have reason to be glad that she was armed. But so it did.

It happened at the end of a day’s work, when Paulette was heading back from the nursery. On reaching the beach where the Redruth’s longboat was to meet her, she found an odd-looking stranger sitting on the sand, with his arms wrapped around his knees.

It was rare for that beach to attract visitors and the few who came were usually local fishermen. But this man appeared to be a foreigner: he was dressed in trowsers, a shabby jacket and a hat.

In the meantime he too had spotted her and risen to his feet. She saw now that even though he was dressed in European clothes he was not a white man, as she had thought — the cast of his countenance was distinctly Chinese. He was no longer young, yet not quite in middle age, with sunken cheeks and eyes, and a wispy beard. There was something unkempt and a little disturbing about his appearance; Paulette was concerned enough that she opened the flap of her satchel, so that her pistols would be in easy reach.

Then a look entered the man’s eye that sent a jolt through her, reminding her of another encounter at that beach, the year before. Then too she had been recognized by someone who had sparked not the faintest glimmer of recognition in her own eyes.

‘Miss Paulette?’

Raising his hat, the man bowed, in such a manner that the greeting was at once both European and Chinese.

‘Forgive me,’ said Paulette. ‘Do I know you?’

‘My name is Ephraim Lee,’ he said gravely, holding his hat over his chest. ‘People call me Freddie. But maybe you remember me by another name, lah? Ah Fatt — from the Ibis.’

Ciel! Paulette’s hand flew to her mouth, which had fallen open in amazement. ‘But how did you recognize me?’

He smiled. ‘The Ibis — it has tied us all together in strange ways, ne?’

She had only set eyes on him from afar before, and the thing she remembered about his appearance was a vague sense of menace, exuded not just by his angular, unsmiling face, but also by the sinuous vigour of his musculature. But she could see none of that menace now, either in his face or in the way he carried himself — rather it was he who seemed to be menaced, hunted.

‘What brings you here, Mr Lee?’

‘For a long time I have been looking for this place, eh, Miss Paulette.’

‘Oh? You had been here before perhaps?’

He shook his head. ‘No. But I had seen it, ne?’ He said it as though it were self-evident.

‘How? When?’

‘In dreams. When I saw it today, I recognized — I knew, this was where the body of Mr Bahram Moddie was found. You were there that day, ne? Mr Karabedian, my godfather, he tell me so.’

Suddenly Paulette remembered that this man was the natural son of Mr Moddie: Neel had mentioned this the morning the body was found.

‘I am sorry for your loss, Mr Lee.’

He acknowledged this by tipping his hat. As he was making the gesture Paulette noticed that there was a distinct tremor in his hand. He too seemed to be aware of it, for he put his hands together, as if to steady them. Then he inclined his head towards a shaded spot, under an overhang of rock. ‘Miss Paulette — maybe we can sit there for a few minutes? Maybe you can tell me what you saw that day, eh? When my father’s body was found?’

She could see no reason to object: ‘Yes, I will tell you what I remember.’

They seated themselves on a patch of wild grass and she told him how she had come down to the beach that day, to find a group of men, Indians, kneeling around a bare-bodied corpse. To her surprise, one of them had come towards her, with a look of recognition in his eye.

‘Neel?’

‘Yes, Neel — but he told me not to use that name.’

He nodded and fell silent. After a while, in a voice that was taut with apprehension, he said: ‘Miss Paulette, one thing I would like to ask you. That morning, lah, did you see a ladder, hanging from my father’s ship?’

With a start Paulette realized that she had omitted this important detail — the dangling rope-ladder that had drawn her eye to the Anahita that morning. The sight had puzzled her: why would a ladder be left dangling above the water? Who could have used it and for what?

‘Yes, there was a ladder,’ she said. ‘I saw it hanging from the stern of Mr Moddie’s ship. How did you know?’

‘I see it too sometimes,’ he said. ‘In my dreams, lah.’

Turning towards her he asked, in a shaky voice: ‘Miss Paulette, will you mind if I smoke, eh?’

‘No.’ She thought he would take out a wad of tobacco — but instead he reached into his jacket and pulled out a long pipe and a small brass box.

All at once everything fell into place: the quivers, the twitching, the gauntness of his face. She understood that he was an addict, and withdrew slightly. Yet her gaze was drawn back towards him with a new curiosity.

In the last few weeks, ever since she received Zachary’s letter, Paulette had given a great deal of thought to opium and its curative properties. The letter had come as a terrible shock: it wasn’t only that she had been wounded by it; she had also been forced to ask herself whether her fondest hopes and beliefs were nothing but delusions and pipe-dreams. She had remembered how, on reaching Mauritius, she had gone to the Botanical Gardens at Pamplemousses, to wait for Zachary; she remembered her joy when she found the garden abandoned and overgrown — this, it had seemed to her, was an Eden after her own heart, where she would happily await her Adam. She had decided that theirs would be a romance to surpass even that of Paul and Virginie, whose fate had so often moved her to tears — for their love would be freely and willingly consummated. Here, in this garden, she would joyfully take Zachary into her arms and they would be wedded under the stars, in body and in soul, on an island of their own imagining, far from the imprisoning imperatives of the world, their fates decided only by their own volition, their bodies joined together by that ecstatic, vital urgency that was the true and pure essence of life itself.

She had wandered through the abandoned house of the Garden’s former curator until she came to a room that she knew would be the perfect setting for their first night together. On the floor she had made a nest, not a bed — because in Eden, surely, there were no beds? — and she had strewn flowers over the sheets and hung garlands of boys-love on the windows. She remembered how she had wept that night and the next, and the next, when Zachary had not come; and yet those nights had not been lost either, because she had reimagined them many times in her mind’s eye — when she pictured herself seeing Zachary again, it was always on an island, with both of them in shirts and breeches, running hungrily towards each other.

There was a time when she had joyfully embraced these memories — but after receiving Zachary’s letter, with its unexplained repudiation; after trying and failing to understand what could have caused his change of heart, she had come to be filled with shame, and also a loathing of her own foolishness and naivete, a feeling so intense that she had longed to find some escape. She watched in fascination now as Freddie roasted a tiny droplet of opium and inhaled the smoke. She saw that its effect was almost immediate: his twitch disappeared and his hands seemed steadier. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before he spoke again.

‘Miss Paulette, why a ladder, lah? What was it for?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I too have wondered what it was for.’

He smiled dreamily. ‘When Anahita comes back maybe then we find out, ne?’

‘Is the Anahita coming back?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Is coming — I have seen it in dreams.’

They sat for a while in companionable silence: for the first time since she had received Zachary’s letter Paulette felt at peace. She sensed in Freddie a void far deeper than that which the letter had created in herself, and it conjured up a powerful sense of kinship, overlaying the bond that already existed between them, the bond of the Ibis.

Had there been time she might have asked for a taste of his opium pipe — but just then she spotted the Redruth’s longboat, coming to fetch her from the island.

*

A week after the fleet’s departure for the north, Kesri learnt that Captain Smith, the CO of the southern sector, had decided that it was time for the Bengal sepoys to move off the Hind: they were to set up camp on an island called Saw Chow.

Kesri received the news with whole-hearted relief — after so many months on the Hind nothing could be more welcome than the prospect of a move to dry land. But his jubilation ebbed when he went to the island for an exploratory visit, with Captain Mee.

Saw Chow was not far from Hong Kong: it lay halfway up the Pearl River estuary, in a cove that was known as Tangku Bay to foreigners. To the south lay the crag of Lintin island; to the north was the promontory of Tangku, where a detachment of Chinese soldiers could be seen going through their drills. Saw Chow itself was a desolate, windswept little island: there were no trees on its three shallow hills, and scarcely any vegetation either. A less hospitable place was hard to imagine, but orders were orders so they had no choice but to make the best of it.

They picked a site in a hollow between two hills and marked out the lines for the sepoys’ and officers’ tents. The next day a team of khalasis, thudni-wallahs, dandia-porters and tent-pitchers went over to set up the camp. A few days later the whole unit moved over to the island, sepoys, camp-followers and all, with their baggage, equipment and armaments.

Once installed in the camp, their lives settled quickly into a routine of drills and inspections in the early morning: the rest of the day was spent in waiting out the heat as best they could, under the scant cover of their canvas tents.

Every few days the officers would escape to Macau or Hong Kong Bay, but for the sepoys and camp-followers there was no such relief: for them the island was a prison-camp, a place of grinding monotony and discomfort. Other than occasional visits from bumboats there were no diversions.

One day, trying to think of ways to relieve the tedium, Kesri came up with the idea of digging a wrestling pit. Captain Mee readily gave his approval and Kesri went to work immediately: with the help of a few sepoys and camp-followers he dug a pit in a spot that looked across the sparkling blue waters of the estuary. It took a few days to properly prepare the soil, by mixing it with turmeric, oil and ghee; when the pit was ready Kesri inaugurated it himself, with a prayer to Hanumanji.

Once again, the pit had just the effect that Kesri had hoped for, channelling energies, creating camaraderie, and giving the men something to look forward to every day. If anything the impact here was even greater than at Calcutta, for Kesri made sure that the camp-followers were allowed to participate, sweepers, dhobis, barbers and all. A few sepoys were put out by this but Kesri silenced them by citing the inviolable ethic of the akhara, in which worldly rank had no place and all men were considered equal. As for the objection that the camp-followers would not be able to match the sepoys in strength, this too was quickly disproved: several of the gun-lascars, golondauzes and bhishtis were large, brawny men, more than able to hold their own in the pit.

Soon word of the pit spread beyond the island and one day a few Royal Marines came across and asked to participate. But it turned out that they were interested in the Angrezi kind of pugilism — mainly boxing, a form of combat that was abhorrent to Kesri, who saw it as no better than mere marpeet or brawling. Kesri told the marines that if they wanted to enter this pit they would have to abide by its rules. They took this in good spirit and became welcome additions to the widening circle of wrestlers.

One day, on returning from a visit to Hong Kong Bay, Captain Mee announced that a young Parsi merchant had just arrived from Manila, on his own ship: amongst his crew there was a lascar who was said to be a trained wrestler. The young Parsi was a great lover of sport and was keen to see how his lascar fared in the pit.

It so happened that the festival of Nag Panchami was just a few days away. This being an occasion of great significance for wrestlers Kesri had planned a tournament to mark the day: only the more accomplished wrestlers were to participate in this special dangal. He told Captain Mee that the lascar was welcome to try his luck.

The dangal was well under way when a cutter, rowed by a dozen oarsmen, drew up. A square-jawed, broad-shouldered young man got out and went to shake hands with Captain Mee — he was dressed in Western clothes and to Kesri’s eye he looked every inch an Angrez. But when Captain Mee brought him over Kesri understood that he was the Parsi shipowner that he had mentioned: his name was Dinyar Ferdoonjee.

After exchanging a few words with Kesri, the young merchant gestured in the direction of his cutter: the wrestler, he said, was one of the oarsmen on his boat. There was no need to point the man out: even while seated he towered over the other rowers. When he started to rise it was as though his body were slowly unfolding, like a ladder with multiple sections. Once he was fully upright his shoulders were seen to be almost as broad as the boat; as for the oar, it looked like a piece of kindling in his hands. Unlike most lascars, he was dressed not in jama-pyjamas but in grey trowsers and a white shirt, which contrasted vividly with his dark skin. His head was of a piece with his frame, square, broad and massive — but as if to compensate for his intimidating dimensions, the expression on his face was one of extreme forbearance and gentleness. In his gait too there was a shambling quality which led Kesri to think that he might be slow of movement, and that his size and weight might be used against him in the pit.

But after he had stripped down to his wrestling drawers the lascar’s demeanour underwent an abrupt change. Kesri watched him carefully as he was loosening up by slapping his arms and chest: his performance of these dand-thonk exercises was impressively fluid and supple. When he stepped into the ring, his stance was as fine as any that Kesri had seen: perfectly balanced, with his head poised over his leading leg, the chin in exact alignment with his knee.

The lascar’s first opponent was a muscular young sepoy, one of Kesri’s best students. The sepoy had recently mastered a move called sakhi and he tried it just as the bout was beginning, lunging for the lascar’s right arm while trying to throw him over by hooking his knee with his foot.

But the lascar countered effortlessly, blocking the foot and pivoting smoothly into the attack, with a hold that Kesri recognized as a perfectly executed dhak. Within seconds the sepoy was pinned and the bout was over.

The next to enter the ring was a powerfully built marine: his best move was a throw called the kalajangh which was intended to flip the opponent over, by sliding under his chest and grabbing hold of his thigh. It was a common move and Kesri guessed that the lascar would know a pech with which to counter it. This proved to be exactly the case. The marine found himself grappling with thin air when he made his lunge; a moment later he was down on his belly, vainly trying to prevent himself from being rolled over.

The curious thing was that the lascar seemed to take little pleasure in his victories: instead of making a winning pehlwan’s customary gestures of triumph he hung his head, as if in embarrassment. This encouraged a couple of others to try their luck; but they fared no better than those who had gone before them: the lascar pinned them both, displaying in the process a mastery of complicated moves like the bhakuri and bagal dabba.

At this point Kesri could feel the eyes of his men turning to him, as if to see whether he would salvage their honour by entering the pit himself. He could not disappoint them — besides, he was curious to see how he would fare against the lascar. Murmuring a prayer to Hanumanji he stepped into the pit.

For a couple of minutes Kesri and the lascar circled experimentally, feinting, each trying to trick the other into a hasty move. Then Kesri went on the attack, with a multani, spinning around on his back foot and trying to come at the lascar from the rear. Instead it was the lascar who ended up behind him, forcing him into a defensive crouch.

In the past Kesri had sometimes turned this position to his advantage by using the dhobi pât — a move in which the opponent was hauled over the shoulder, in the manner of a dhobi beating clothes. But it turned out that the lascar knew the counter-move for this too. All of a sudden Kesri was sprawled on his back, struggling to keep his shoulders off the ground.

Sensing that the pin was near, the lascar stuck his shoulder into Kesri’s chest as he prepared to bring his full weight to bear. Their faces were now less than a foot apart, and suddenly their eyes met and locked. Now, just as the lascar was about to make the final thrust, an extraordinary thing happened: he was jolted into easing his grip — it was as if he had looked into Kesri’s eyes and seen something that he could not quite believe. All at once the fight went out of him and the relentless pressure that he had been exerting lessened. Kesri seized his chance and flipped him over: a second later he had the pin.

The reversal of fortune was so inexplicable that it left Kesri feeling strangely grateful to the lascar: he would not have liked to lose in front of his own men and was glad to have been spared that fate. But he knew also that the lascar was the better wrestler and later, when they were out of the ring he asked: What happened? Kya hua?

Even though he had asked in Hindustani, the lascar answered in Kesri’s own mother tongue: Hamaar saans ruk goel — I just lost my breath.

Taken by surprise, Kesri said: tu bhojpuri kahã se sikhala? Where did you learn Bhojpuri? Where are you from?

The lascar told him that he had been brought up in Ghazipur, in a Christian orphanage; his name came from the surnames of two of the priests: Maddow Colver.

Ghazipur? said Kesri: for him that town was indelibly linked to his sister Deeti. Do you mean the town with the opium factory?

Yes, that very one.

Kesri fell silent, seized by a strange sense of affinity with the man: that they were both wrestlers, that their paths had crossed on Nag Panchami, that they both had associations with Ghazipur — all of this seemed to imply that their fates were somehow intertwined.

All of a sudden a thought came to Kesri and he said to the lascar: Sunn — listen, my unit needs some strong men to haul our heavy guns. Would you be willing to join us? Just for the time that we are here? The pay will be good.

The man took his time in answering, looking towards the sea and scratching his head before turning back to Kesri.

Yes, he said at last, with a slow, thoughtful nod; if you can arrange it and if my present employer agrees, I will join you.

*

Zachary’s return to the Ibis was like a homecoming.

This was the vessel on which he had shipped out from Baltimore, as a novice seaman, a ship’s carpenter. Now, three years later, here he was boarding her again, as the skipper! The change was so great as to suggest the intervention of some other-wordly power: as a sailor Zachary knew that certain ships possess their own minds, even souls — and he did not doubt that the Ibis had conspired in making his transformation possible.

Nor was he surprised when the Ibis seemed to recognize him, bobbing her bowsprit up and down, as if in welcome. Yet, amongst the crew there was not a single face that was familiar to him. The lascars who had sailed with him on his earlier voyages were all gone; the new crew had been recruited in Singapore and consisted mainly of Malays and Manila-men. The mates too were strangers to Zachary: one was a tall, taciturn Finn and the other a dour Dutchman from Batavia. There wasn’t much they could say to each other, beyond what was required for the running of the schooner. But this was soon discovered to be a blessing; lacking the words to run afoul of each other, they got on very well.

Zachary’s instructions were to sail north in convoy with a couple of other opium-carrying vessels, a bark and a brigantine. Both belonged to Free-Traders, the older of whom was a Scotsman by the name of Philip Fraser. Youthful, soft-spoken and always fastidiously clothed, Mr Fraser looked more like a doctor than a sea-captain. It turned out that he had indeed studied medicine at Edinburgh before coming east to join his uncle, who was a well-established figure in the China trade. Being the most experienced of the three skippers he became, by tacit agreement, the leader of their little convoy. It was Mr Fraser who led their Sunday prayers and it was he too who taught them the special code that China coast opium-sellers had started to use, to dupe the mandarins in case their account books were seized by customs officials.

For the first two days the three ships sailed in the wake of the expeditionary fleet as it headed northwards. On the fourth day, at a pre-arranged signal from Mr Fraser, they broke away and turned eastwards. Heading towards the port of Foochow, they hove to just over the horizon; here, said Mr Fraser, they could safely wait for buyers without fear of official harassment — Chinese mandarin-junks rarely ventured so far out to sea. Pirates were a greater concern, but Mr Fraser was confident that they too would steer clear of these waters for fear of the British fleet. Still, for the sake of prudence it was decided that they would mount careful watch through the night, with their guns at the ready.

In the evening the three captains assembled on Mr Fraser’s brigantine, for dinner, each bringing with him a few chests of opium. It was agreed that if boats approached, it would be left to Mr Fraser to decide whether they belonged to bona fide buyers; if so, he would negotiate prices on behalf of all three of them.

Zachary decided that he would sell his own cargo first. He went over to the brigantine with his ten chests of opium, and then returned to the Ibis to make sure that the schooner’s guns were primed and ready.

But in the event, no shooting was called for — the transactions of the night were remarkably quick and easy. Around midnight lights were seen approaching from a north-westerly direction. They were the lanterns of a ‘fast crab’, a kind of boat much favoured by dealers on the mainland. Mr Fraser’s linkister hailed the boat and an agreement was quickly reached. The entire operation, including the transfer of three dozen chests of opium, was over in less than an hour.

Later, when Zachary went to collect his share of the proceeds, he discovered that the chests had fetched more than any of them had dared hope: fourteen hundred Spanish dollars each. Giddy with exultation, he realized that he was now in possession of a fortune large enough to buy a ship like the Ibis. ‘Who bought the chests?’ he said, and Mr Fraser explained that the buyer was an agent for one of the leading wholesalers of opium on the China coast — a man known to fanquis as Lynchong or Lenny Chan.

‘He’s quite a character,’ said Mr Fraser, with a laugh, ‘is our Lenny Chan. To look at him you’d think he was a grand mandarin, full of conceit and frippery. But he speaks English like an Englishman, and a Londoner at that.’

Lenny Chan’s story was as singular as you could wish, said Mr Fraser. As a boy, in Canton, he’d worked as a servant for one Mr Kerr, an English flower-hunter. After a few years Mr Kerr had sent him to London, as the caretaker of a collection of plants. Lenny had stayed on at Kew, spending many years there before coming back to Canton to start his own nursery. Branching out into the ‘black mud’ business, he had succeeded in building up one of the largest retail networks in southern China.

But things had changed for Lenny the year before, after Commissioner Lin came to Canton: he had had to flee the city because of the Yum-chae’s crackdown on opium — his premises had been raided and a huge reward had been offered for his head. But Lenny, ever resourceful, had managed to slip away to the outer islands, to rebuild his network offshore.

After the proceeds had been divided Mr Fraser sent for a bottle of brandy and the three skippers talked for a while. Mainly it was Mr Fraser who spoke, in his quiet, reasoned way. What he had to say was so compelling, so persuasive, that Zachary listened spellbound.

To blame the British for the opium trade was completely misguided, said Mr Fraser. The demand came from Chinese buyers and if the British did not meet it then others would. It was futile to try to hinder the flow of a substance for which there was so great a hunger. Individuals and nations could no more control this commodity than they could hold back the ocean’s tides: it was like a natural phenomenon — a flood. Its flow was governed by abstract laws like those that Mr Newton had applied to the movements of the planets. These laws ensured that supply would match demand as surely as water always seeks its own level.

It was misguided, even sinful, said Mr Fraser, of the Chinese government to cite the public good in opposing the free flow of opium. The truth was that the best — indeed the only — way that the public good could be arrived at was to allow all men to pursue their own interests as dictated by their judgement. This was why God had endowed Man with the faculty of reason: only when men were free to justly calculate their own advancement did the public good — or, for that matter, material advancement, or social harmony — come about. Indeed, the only true virtue was rational self-love, and when this was allowed to flourish freely it resulted, of itself, in a condition vastly more just and beneficial than anything that any government could accomplish.

If there was any country on earth, said Mr Fraser, that stood in breach of these doctrines it was China, with its subservience to authority and its minute control of everyday matters. Only with the destruction of their present institutions, only with the abandonment of their ways and customs, could the people of this benighted realm hope to achieve harmony and happiness. This indeed was the historic destiny of Free-Traders like themselves; opium was but another article of trade, and by ensuring its free flow they were promoting the future good of China.

Some day, following the example of men like themselves, said Mr Fraser, the Chinese too would take to Free Trade: being an industrious people, they were sure to prosper. Of all the lessons the West could teach them, this was the most important. And inasmuch as traders like themselves were helping the Chinese to learn this lesson, they were their friends, not their enemies. From this it followed that the more vigorous and persistent they were in selling opium the more praiseworthy their conduct, the more benevolent their friendship.

‘It is all for their own good after all: China has no better friends than us!’

Zachary raised his glass. ‘Well said, Mr Fraser! Let us drink to that!’

*

The house that Robin Chinnery had rented for Shireen was on a hill, in the centre of Macau. It was one of a row of ‘shop-houses’, flanking a sloping lane — Rua Ignacio Baptista.

The house reminded Shireen of the old Parsi homes of Navsari, in Gujarat: it was long and narrow, with a tiled roof and a small open courtyard at the back. Although sparsely furnished the rooms were cosy enough and it did not take long for Shireen and Rosa to settle in.

As it happened, this was a part of town that Rosa knew well: the São Lorenço Church, where she worshipped, was nearby, as was the Misericordía, where she worked during the day. Also very close was the part of town where soldiers and funçionarios from Goa were quartered, with their families. Rosa was well known to the community, and her friends and acquaintances extended a warm welcome to Shireen as well. Much sooner than she would have thought possible, Shireen felt herself to be perfectly at home in Macau.

Often, at teatime, Zadig would come by; he was lodging with an Armenian merchant, a few streets away. He and Shireen would sometimes go for walks together, strolling through the town’s winding lanes to the Praya Grande — a sweeping bayside corniche, lined with luxurious villas.

As they walked, Zadig Bey would fill her in on all the latest news.

The north-bound British fleet had called at the ports of Amoy and Ningpo on their way to Chusan. At every stop they had tried to hand over Lord Palmerston’s letter to the Emperor, outlining Britain’s demands and grievances, but the task had proved impossibly difficult: no one would accept it. The British emissaries had been repeatedly rebuffed by the mandarins of the ports they had visited; on a couple of occasions hostilities had broken out.

At Chusan the fleet had entered the harbour to find a small fleet of war-junks at anchor there. The Plenipotentiaries had tried to persuade the local defence forces to surrender without a fight, but to no avail. The Chinese commanders had declared that they would resist, come what may, so the British warships had lined up for battle and opened fire. In exactly nine minutes they had destroyed the Chinese fleet and all the defences along the island’s shore. The troops of the expeditionary force had landed without any further opposition and the next day they had seized the island’s capital, the city of Ting-hae. The Union Jack had been raised above the city and a British colonel had been given command of the island’s civil administration.

Everything had gone exactly as Commodore Bremer and Captain Elliot had planned.

*

Around the middle of July 1840, no doubt because of the pressure of events, Neel’s journal entries became a series of hasty jottings, written mainly in Bangla but sometimes in English as well.

It was around this time that officials in Guangzhou received news of the seizure of Chusan and the fall of Ting-hae. It was then too that the city’s officials learnt that a large number of British merchant vessels had accompanied the expeditionary fleet and were actively engaged in selling opium, up and down the coast.

These developments came as bitter blows to Commissioner Lin who had, even until then, nurtured the hope that a negotiated settlement, leading to a resumption of trade, would be worked out. But now, seeing that hostilities had already been launched by the British, he became convinced that the only way the opium trade could be brought to a halt was by wholly evicting the invaders from China. To that end notices were distributed along the coast offering rewards for the capture of enemy aliens. Not all foreigners fell under this head: Portuguese, Americans and some others were exempted. The notices were targeted solely at British subjects, which included Parsi merchants as well as Indian soldiers and sepoys.

Macau was the one place on the mainland where there was still a substantial British presence: it was there, if anywhere, that the notices were expected to produce results. And soon enough a courier came hurrying to Guangzhou to report that an Englishman had been captured in Macau, along with two Indian servants: they had been spirited into the mainland and were now in the custody of provincial officials.

The courier was sent back post haste: the captives were to be treated with the utmost consideration, wrote Commissioner Lin, and they were to be brought immediately to Guangzhou.

Over the next few days Guangzhou was swept by rumours: it was said that the captured Englishman was a personage of great consequence, possibly Commodore Bremer himself. This created great excitement, for the commodore had by this time achieved an almost mythic stature, being credited with all manner of demonic attributes: he was said to be fantastically tall, with burning eyes, an enormous mane of red hair and so on.

Much to everyone’s disappointment the Englishman, on arrival, proved to be a short, slight young man, much given to striking extravagant poses, sometimes knitting his legs together as though in need of a chamber-pot, and sometimes rolling his eyes at the heavens, like a farmer yearning for rain. On questioning it turned out that his name was George Stanton, and that he was a twenty-three-year-old Christian evangelical who had interrupted his studies at Cambridge in order to save souls. Since there was no ordained clergyman in Macau he had claimed the preacher’s pulpit for himself and had proceeded to deliver a series of sermons to the remnants of the city’s English community.

Being a man of strict habits it was Mr Stanton’s daily practice to bathe in the sea at sunrise, usually in the company of some other young men in whom he had tried to inculcate certain improving practices. It turned out that it was his diligence in this regard that had led to his capture: one morning Mr Stanton and his servants had arrived at Macau’s Cacilhas beach to find it deserted. Mr Stanton had proceeded with his swim, as usual — and this was when a group of agents from the mainland had effected his capture, whisking him away in his still-wet breeches and banyan, along with his two servants.

It fell to Neel to question the two servants, whose names had been recorded by the captors as Chan-li and Chi-tu: it turned out that they were actually Chinnaswamy and Chhotu Mian, from the Madras and Bengal presidencies respectively. They were both in their late teens and had previously been employed as lascars, of the rank of kussab. They had entered Mr Stanton’s service in Singapore where they had been stranded after a dispute with their former serang.

While corroborating Mr Stanton’s account in a general sense the two lascars were emphatic in dissociating themselves from him, describing him as the worst, most foolish master that could be imagined, a complete ullu and paagal. He had made them rise before dawn every day to walk with him to the beach, all the while exhorting them to take cold baths themselves — this was the only sure method, he had assured them, of foiling the constant temptations of a horrible, debilitating disease.

It had taken them a long time to figure out what he was talking about and when they did, they had realized that he was completely insane. They had resolved to leave his service as soon as possible, but no opportunity for escape had arisen, and now here they were, captives in Guangzhou!

Bas! said ChhotuMian with bitter relish. At least Stanton-sahib will get his punishment too. Without his bath he will be helpless, no? His hands will have no mercy on him.

But the lascars’ satisfaction was misplaced: on Commissioner Lin’s orders Mr Stanton was provided with excellent accommodation, in Canton’s Consoo House. He was also given a Bible, writing materials and every facility that he desired.

As for Chinnaswamy and Chhotu Mian, on Neel’s recommendation they were sent off to join Jodu, on the Cambridge.

After it had been determined that Mr Stanton was a person of no consequence there was no particular reason to detain him in Guangzhou. He would have been set free if the matter had not taken another turn: the Portuguese Governor of Macau sent a letter — evidently written under pressure from British officials — demanding Mr Stanton’s immediate release, on the grounds that he had been illegally captured on Portuguese territory (of the lascars and their fate, Neel noticed, there was no mention).

The letter infuriated Commissioner Lin. This was not the first time he had been forced to remind the governor that Macau was not foreign territory but a sovereign part of China, on which the Portuguese had been allowed to settle as a special favour: he now decided that the time was ripe for an assertion of this principle. To that end a large squadron of war-junks was sent to Macau, through the inner channels of the Pearl River delta, in order to evade the British blockade. In addition a force of some five thousand troops was also sent down, to take up positions along the massive barrier wall that marked Macau’s northern boundary.

All this happened very quickly, amidst an atmosphere of rising tension and uncertainty in Guangdong. Neel had a hazy idea that something significant was afoot but had no inkling of what it was. Then, on the morning of 14 August, Compton told him that Zhong Lou-si was proceeding towards Macau in person and had decided to include Neel in his entourage. Since Macau had a large number of people from Xiao Xiyang — Goa — it was thought that his services might be required.

Zhong Lou-si and his entourage left Guangzhou that afternoon. Their boat made its way southwards through the inland channels of the delta and brought them to their destination the next day. They landed slightly above the barrier that separated Macau from the rest of the mainland.

The barrier consisted of a heavily fortified wall that arced over the narrow but rugged isthmus that joined the mainland to Macau. On the mainland side the isthmus rose steeply, to a peak that commanded a panoramic view of the Portuguese settlement: from there the curved, tapering peninsula could be seen vanishing into the water like the tail of a gargantuan crocodile.

The area was familiar to Neel: during earlier visits to Macau he had often strolled up to the barrier. On a couple of occasions he had even walked through the gateway, advancing a good distance into the Province of Guangdong: in those days the customs house at the gate was but a sleepy little outpost; the guards would allow sightseers to go through in exchange for a few cash-coins.

Now, approaching the wall from the mainland side, Neel saw that the barrier’s fortifications had been greatly strengthened: a large battery of cannon had been placed along the embrasures and a huge military encampment had appeared on the slope above, with rows of tents ranged behind fluttering banners.

Although Neel asked no questions it was evident to him that a military action was imminent.

*

When Kesri heard that a steamer had taken a group of officers — Captain Mee among them — to Macau for a reconnaissance mission, he guessed that a fight was in the offing. This was confirmed when the Enterprize came paddling back to Saw Chow: within a few minutes Kesri received a summons from Captain Mee.

‘The men must be ready to embark early tomorrow morning,’ the captain told Kesri. ‘A transport vessel will come for us soon after dawn — the Nazareth Shah.’

At Macau the officers had seen much evidence of warlike preparations by the Chinese, said Captain Mee. They had deployed a large force just above the barrier; in addition a fleet of war-junks had appeared in the inner harbour. There was every sign that the Portuguese colony was shortly to be attacked, an eventuality that Captain Smith, the CO of the southern theatre, was determined to prevent. Accordingly he had decided to launch a pre-emptive action to disperse the Chinese forces. The ground attack was to be led by a detachment of one hundred and ten Royal Marines, supported by ninety armed seamen from the frigate Druid. The Bengal sepoys would accompany the assault force to provide support if needed. They would embark the next day with only a small detachment of essential camp-followers — gun-lascars, bhistis and a medical team; the sepoys’ baggage was to be packed as per Light Marching Orders.

Kesri lost no time in summoning the company’s naiks and lance-naiks: they had practised so many embarkation drills that everyone knew what had to be done.

Next morning reveille was sounded early but the Enterprize was late in arriving so the sepoys had to endure a long wait under the hot sun. But once the embarkation started it went off without mishap: towed by the Enterprize, the sepoys’ transport ship drew close to the tip of the Macau promontory in the late afternoon. Several British vessels were already assembled there: two eighteen-gun corvettes, Hyacinth and Larne, a cutter, Louisa, a few longboats and the forty-four-gun frigate Druid.

Together the British vessels rounded the tip of the promontory and dropped anchor in the Inner Harbour, on the western side of the city, facing the Praya Grande. Ranged opposite them, to the north, where the peninsula joined the mainland, were a dozen or more war-junks and a flotilla of smaller craft. It was evident to Kesri that these ungainly-looking vessels would be no match for modern warships, yet the very strangeness of their appearance, with castellations perched on the prow and stern, bred a certain disquiet, as did the inexplicable bursts of activity that broke out on their decks from time to time, accompanied by gongs, bells, clouds of smoke and massed voices, shouting in chorus. These peculiar outbursts put the sepoys’ nerves on edge.

In the distance, on the ramparts of the Macau barrier, there was a large battery of cannons and ginjalls — tripod-mounted swivel guns, six to fourteen feet long. Beyond the barrier lay a steep slope on which hundreds of pennants and banners were fluttering in the breeze: Kesri reckoned that a few thousand men were bivouacked up there. After nightfall cooking-fires began to glow all over the slope, creating a curious, glimmering effect, like that of fireflies lighting up a tree. It was clear also, from the traceries of light that kept zigzagging across the campsite, that fresh orders were circulating constantly in the hands of runners with torches.

On the Chinese ships too there were signs that preparations were continuing through the night: the water’s soft lapping was pierced every now and again by shouted commands and the sound of gongs.

When daylight broke it was seen that the war-junks had moved closer to the shore. They were anchored in a protective cluster around the projecting walls of the barrier. The battery on the battlements had also been augmented overnight and there were now some two dozen guns ranged along the parapet.

Through the morning Captain Mee and the other senior officers surveyed the defences, steaming back and forth, abreast of the shore, on the Enterprize. It was noon when the signal for the commencement of the attack was hoisted.

The operation began with the Louisa, the Enterprize and the two eighteen-gun corvettes converging on the barrier and taking up positions facing the Chinese vessels. The Enterprize went in so close to shore as to actually thrust her nose into the mud. Then, upon the hoisting of another signal, the warships opened fire from a range of six to eight hundred yards.

As the roar of cannon-fire rolled across the water flocks of waterbirds took wing, darkening the sky. Within minutes, the Chinese gunners were returning fire, even as cannonballs slammed into the battlements around them. For a while they kept up a spirited but erratic fusillade, with most of their shots sailing over their targets. Then, as the corvettes’ thirty-two-pounders found their range, they began to fall silent, one by one, amidst explosions of shattered masonry and dismembered limbs.

Under cover of the bombardment the Druids marines and small-arms’ men had already boarded a couple of longboats. Now, a signal went up on the frigate’s foremast summoning the Enterprize. With a frantic churning of her paddle-wheels the steamer reversed out of the mud and turned her bows around. Pulling up to the Druid, she took the longboats in tow and went steaming past the barrier to the spot that had been chosen for the landing — a beach on the mainland part of the shoreline, from where the Chinese position could be attacked from the rear.

For a while the landing force disappeared from view, vanishing behind a curve in the shoreline. When Kesri next spotted the red-coated soldiers they were coming over the top of a spur, in double column, with the marines on the outer flank. Their position was exposed to the heights above as well as to battery on the barrier. Coming over the ridge they ran into heavy matchlock- and cannon-fire. Then detachments of Chinese troops began to advance on them from two sides.

Suddenly the British attack came to a halt. The Druids small-arms’ men had a field-piece with them but before they could assemble it the landing-party was ordered to fall back on the beach.

Even as the retreat was under way, another flag was hoisted on the Druid. Captain Mee took a look and turned to Kesri: ‘The signal’s up. We’re to move forward to support the marines.’

Kesri snapped off a salute: Ji, Kaptán-sah’b.

The sepoys and their contingent of supporters were already on deck. The barrels of the howitzers and mortars, each of which weighed several hundred pounds, had been lowered into a cutter earlier; now the rest of the unit followed.

The camp-followers went first, led by the bhistis, their shoulders bowed by the weight of their water-filled mussucks; then came the medical attendants with rolled-up litters, and after them the gun-lascars, bearing the disassembled parts of a howitzer and its gun-carriage. Maddow, the newly recruited gun-lascar, was carrying a pair of hundred-pound wheels as if they were toys, one on each shoulder.

When the sepoys’ turn came, Kesri positioned himself at the head of the side-ladder so that he could observe the men as they filed past: they were unblooded troops after all, going into action as a unit for the first time. As such Kesri would not have been surprised to detect signs of nervousness or distraction on their faces — but he saw saw none of those fleeting, uneasy movements of the eyes that were always a sure indication of skittishness. None of the sepoys so much as glanced at him as they stepped down the ladder: to a man their eyes were fixed on the knapsack ahead. It pleased Kesri to see them moving smoothly, like spokes in a wheel, with their minds not on themselves but on the unit: it meant that the hard work of the last many months had paid off, that their trust in him was so complete that they knew, even without looking, that he was there, his presence as certain and dependable as the hand-rail that was guiding them down the ladder and into the longboat waiting below.

The boat’s tow ropes had already been attached to the Enterprize: the craft surged ahead as soon as Captain Mee and the subalterns had boarded. The sound of the steamer’s paddle-wheel drowned out the rattle of gunfire in the distance; the crossing seemed to take only a few minutes and then they were racing over the gangplank to join the marines at their beachhead.

As the sepoys formed ranks bhistis came running through, pouring water into their brass lotas. In the column beside them, the marines were urinating where they stood, in preparation for the advance. Knowing that there would be no time to relieve themselves once the attack began, the sepoys followed suit.

Captain Mee took command now, ordering the columns to advance, with the marines on the right flank. They ran up the slope at a steady trot and as they came over the top of the elevation, the order to fire rang out. This time the sepoys and marines were able to throw up a thick curtain of fire, even as bullets were whistling over their own heads.

With volley following on volley, the charcoal in the gunpowder created a great cloud of black smoke, reducing visibility to a yard or two. Coughing, spluttering, the sepoys were half-blinded by the acrid smoke and half-deafened by the massed roar of the muskets. But there was no check in their stride: the habits ingrained by their training — hundreds of hours of daily drills — took over and kept them moving mechanically forward.

Kesri was in ‘coverer’ position, in line with the first row of sepoys. After the start of the battle his attention shifted quickly from the opposing lines to his own men. Many a time had he spoken to the sepoys about the surprises of the battlefield — the unpredictability of the terrain, the din, the smoke — yet he knew all too well that the reality always came as a shock, even to the best-prepared men.

Above the booms of the cannon and the steady rattle of musket-fire he caught the sound of a bullet hitting a bayonet, an eerie, vibrating tintinabullation. Looking into the smoke, his eyes sought out the ghostly outline of the sepoy whose weapon had been struck: he was holding his musket at arm’s length, gaping at the Brown Bess as though it had come alive in his hands and were about to skewer him. With a couple of steps Kesri crossed to his side and showed him how to kill the sound, by placing a flat palm upon the metal. Next minute, right behind him, there was the abrupt, metallic pinging of a musket-ball, ricocheting off the brass caging of a sepoy’s topee. The man who had been hit would be deafened by the sound, Kesri knew: the noise would reverberate inside his skull as though his eardrums were being pounded by a mallet. Sure enough, the sepoy — a boy of seventeen — had fallen to his knees, with his hands clasped over his ears, shaking his head in pain. Leaping to his side, Kesri pulled the boy to his feet, thrust his fallen musket into his hands, and pushed him ahead.

In the meantime, the gun-lascars had assembled their gun-carriage; the howitzers opened fire together with the marines’ field-piece. From the squat barrels of the howitzers came dull thudding sounds as they lobbed shells into the fortifications; from the field-piece came deep-throated roars as it hurled grapeshot and canister directly into the ranks of the opposing infantry.

Seeing the Chinese line waver, Captain Mee, who was in the lead, raised his sword to signal a charge. A great howl — Har, har Mahadev! — burst from the sepoys’ throats as they rushed forward. When they emerged from the curtain of smoke, bayonets at the ready, the Chinese line swayed and began to turn; all of a sudden the opposing troops scattered, melting away into the forested hillside.

Now it was all Kesri could do to bring the men to heel: they were in the grip of that euphoria that seizes soldiers after a battle is won, a thing as elemental as the blood-lust of an animal after a hunt. This was when they were at their most dangerous, their discipline at its shakiest: Kesri ran after them, brandishing his sword and shouting dreadful threats as he dhamkaoed and ghabraoed them back into formation — yet in his heart, he was glad that their initiation into combat had happened in this way, in a minor skirmish rather than a pitched battle. As he watched them, sulkily falling back into line, a great pride filled Kesri’s heart: he realized that he would never know a love as deep as that which bound him to this unit, which was largely his own creation, the culmination of his life’s work.

*

Neel was watching from the crest of a nearby hill, along with Zhong Lou-si and his entourage: for him, as for them, the engagement had, through most of its duration, confirmed certain widely held beliefs about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese and British forces. One of these was that British superiority at sea would be offset by Chinese strength on land; that the defenders’ overwhelming advantage in numbers would allow them to repel a ground invasion.

No one in Zhong Lou-si’s entourage was surprised by the damage inflicted by the British broadsides; they were well aware by now of the lethal firepower of steamers, frigates and other Western warships. The defenders too had been warned beforehand and had made preparations to wait out a bombardment. It was the ground assault that would be the real test, they knew, and when it was launched they had taken satisfaction in the minuscule size of the first landing-party — a total of fewer than three hundred men! They were jubilant when the marines and small-arms’ men were forced into retreat by the thousands of Chinese troops that poured out to oppose them. At that moment Compton and his colleagues had felt that their beliefs had been vindicated and the battle had been won.

It was for this reason that the subsequent rout was doubly shocking, to Neel and Compton alike. Thousands of men put to flight by a force of fewer than five hundred! Not only did it defy belief, it challenged every reassuring assumption about the wider conflict, not least those that related to the effectiveness of Indian troops.

Although nobody mentioned the sepoys to Neel, he overheard Compton saying to someone: If the black-alien soldiers had not arrived the battle would have ended differently.

Neel took a perverse satisfaction in Compton’s words for he had tried often, always unavailingly, to alter his friend’s low opinion of the fighting qualities of Indian troops. Committed though Neel was to the Chinese cause, he was aware now of a keen sense of pride in his compatriots’ performance that day. The matter of who the sepoys were serving was temporarily forgotten; he knew that he would have been ashamed if they had failed to give a good account of themselves.

In other ways too the day was a revelation to Neel. He had never witnessed a battle before and was profoundly affected by what he saw. Thinking about it later he understood that a battle was a distillation of time: years and years of preparation, decades of innovation and change were squeezed into a clash of very short duration. And when it was over the impact radiated backwards and forwards through time, determining the future and even, in a sense, changing the past, or at least the general understanding of it. It astonished him that he had not recognized before the terrible power that was contained within these wrinkles in time — a power that could mould the lives of those who came afterwards for generation after generation. He remembered how, when reading of long-ago battles like Panipat and Plassey, he had thought of them as immeasurably distant from his own life, a matter of quaint uniforms and old-fashioned weaponry. Only now did it occur to him that it was on battlefields such as those that his own place in the world had been decided. He understood then why Shias commemorate the Battle of Kerbala every year: it was an acknowledgement that just as the earth splits apart at certain moments, to create monumental upheavals that forever change the terrain, so too do time and history.

How was it possible that a small number of men, in the span of a few hours or minutes, could decide the fate of millions of people yet unborn? How was it possible that the outcome of those brief moments could determine who would rule whom, who would be rich or poor, master or servant, for generations to come?

Nothing could be a greater injustice, yet such had been the reality ever since human beings first walked the earth.