Flood of Fire

Two

Sunset was approaching by the time Zachary stepped on the budgerow, with his ditty bag slung over his shoulder. There was mud everywhere and the companion-ways were blocked by piles of dead leaves, fallen branches and discarded rigging. He almost tripped on a belaying pin as he went to hang his ditty bag on a spar; it was rolling about on the planks, mired in grease and dirt.

Less than a year had passed since Zachary had last set eyes on the budgerow but in that short time the condition of the houseboat had deteriorated so much that he was tempted to think that she had gone into mourning for her lost master, as abandoned dogs and horses are said to do: the colours of the hull had been bleached to dull shades of blue and grey and the Raskhali emblem — the stylized head of a tiger — had faded to a barely visible outline. Yet, even in this state of neglect it was evident that the budgerow was a fine, broad-beamed vessel that had been designed to suit the tastes of a wealthy man.

The first quick inspection proved reassuring: Zachary saw that his work would consist mainly of cleaning, retouching, polishing and making a few replacements. The budgerow’s hull was fundamentally sound and no structural elements would require rebuilding. Many deck-planks needed to be replaced and the head-works and upper stem would have to be retouched and repointed. The intricately carved stem-cheeks had rotted and would need to be replaced and re-carved. Many of the gammonings had come loose and something would have to be done about them; a few of the hawse-timbers, knightheads and bobstay pieces also needed attention. But all in all the situation was not quite as bad as it appeared — with a little luck he’d be able to get the job done in six to eight months. And the best part of it, he reckoned, was that he would be able to manage most of the work on his own.

He decided to start by clearing the decks. Peeling off his shirt, he worked his way down the vessel’s starboard side until he reached the door that led to the main reception room. When he turned the knob the door creaked open: the room smelled of damp and mildew; the chandelier was wrapped in a shroud of cobwebs and the furniture was blanketed in layers of dust.

This was where Zachary had first met the former Raja of Raskhali, Neel Rattan Halder. He remembered how surprised he had been to see that the host was quite young — a sickly-looking man with indolent eyes and a lethargic manner. Looking around the mouldy reception room now, Zachary was aware of a twinge of pity: who would have thought that day, when they were all sipping champagne in this room, that the Raja had but a few more weeks of liberty left and would soon end up feeding the sharks?

Stepping out of the reception room, Zachary set to work on the ladder that led to the open deck on top. Clearing the rungs one at a time, he slowly made his way into the fading sunlight and found himself looking at a fine view of the riverfront. The Burnham mansion was a few hundred yards downriver, on the same shore; on the far bank lay the tree-lined perimeter of Calcutta’s Botanical Garden.

For Zachary the surroundings were steeped in memory, most of all of Paulette Lambert, the Burnhams’ erstwhile ward: the Botanical Garden was where she had grown up and the Burnham mansion was where she had been living when Zachary first met her. Now, glancing at the twilit house, he was reminded of a dinner-party at which he and Paulette had been seated next to each other: he had never imagined then that she would soon run away, to board the Ibis in the garb of a coolie-woman; nor had he imagined that she would come into his cabin one night and that he would hold her in his arms. The recollection was vivid enough to send a pang of yearning through his body. Stepping quickly down the companion-ladder, he went back to the lower deck and began to open the doors of the cabins at random.

The last door was reluctant to yield and he had to force it with his shoulder. When it creaked open he found himself in a palatial stateroom, panelled with fine wood and fitted with brass sconces. This room appeared to have been spared the ravages that had consumed the other parts of the boat: the bed was still covered with sheets, curtained by a dusty mosquito net. Parting the netting, he threw himself backwards on the bed: it was so soft that he bounced a little and began to laugh.

The luxury! It was almost unimaginable after all he’d been through. The bed alone was bigger than his cabin on the Ibis — the very cabin in which he had held Paulette in his arms and briefly kissed her lips.

Through the last many months, in Mauritius and in Calcutta, Paulette had been Zachary’s constant companion: whenever his plight had seemed insupportable he had conjured up her phantom, so that he could quarrel with her. ‘You see, Miss Paulette, what you’ve put me through! Do you ever think about it, Miss Paulette? That I wouldn’t be in the chokey now if it weren’t for you?’

And then her tall slim frame would take shape in the shadows and she would step out of the corners of whatever hell-hole he happened to be in. Gawky, as always, half-tripping over her feet, she would come to sit beside him, just as she had during their last and fiercest argument on the Ibis: when she had pleaded with him not to prevent the escape that was to be attempted that night.

‘You asked me to let the five of them get away, Miss Paulette and so I did — and you see where it got me?’

But sometimes the exchange would take a softer turn and the argument would end as it had that night, when he had thrown his arms around her and pressed his lips to hers. At times her presence would become so real, even in the cramped circumstances of a flop-house, that he would have to banish her from his mind for fear that the men around him would begin to snigger, as they always did when a man was heard to be working his pump.

But now, blissfully alone, for the first time in months, lying in this soft, yielding bed, there was no need to hold her off: his body seemed to be waking from a long sleep, tingling with an almost forgotten urgency of desire. A voluptuousness like he had not felt in an age took possession of him — it was all too easy to imagine that it was not his own hand but Paulette’s that was snaking into his breeches.

Afterwards, as he was drifting off to sleep he thought, as often before, what a providential thing it was that the Creator, having cursed the race of Man with an unruly and headstrong organ, had also been merciful enough to give him a handy means of taming it.

He slept as soundly as he ever had and on waking in the morning he shared another brief but ecstatic encounter with Paulette before jumping out of bed, wonderfully refreshed. After making himself some tea and porridge he set to work, scouring the foredeck.

The boat had been so long neglected that it was slow going. Around noon a khidmatgar unexpectedly brought him a tray of leftovers from the Burnham bobachee-connuh and he carried it gratefully inside: there was rice, a large bowl of Country Captain, and relishes of all sorts, enough to last him through lunch and supper as well.

He ate his fill, and the drowsiness induced by the rich food prompted him to return to his cabin. It wasn’t with any conscious intention of summoning Paulette that he lay down, but when she came to him, of her own accord, he could see no reason to push her away.

But afterwards, catching sight of the gluey stains on the bedsheets he was stricken with guilt. Pulling up his breeches, he went back to the foredeck and resumed scrubbing.

This part of the boat had no covering or shade and he was soon uncomfortably hot. Removing his shoes, socks and shirt made little difference: all his clothing was soon soaked in sweat; his breeches, already sticky, seemed to be plastered to his skin.

The river, muddy though it was, looked very appealing now. He cast an appraising glance at the Burnham mansion, wondering if anyone would see him if he stripped down to his underwear and jumped into the water.

The house was a long way away, with a wide expanse of lawn in between. It was siesta time and there was not a soul to be seen, in the house or on the lawn. He decided that the chance was worth taking: there were thick rushes along the shore — he was sure to be well hidden.

Tearing off his banyan and breeches he swung himself over the vessel’s side, dressed in nothing but his knee-length drawers. The water was none too deep and refreshingly brisk: it took only a few minutes to cool off.

He was about to pull himself aboard again when he caught sight of the soiled belaying pin, lying on the budgerow’s deck. It occurred to him that this was as good a time as any to give it the polishing it needed: it was within easy reach so he caught hold of it and dropped back into the river. A few steps towards the shore brought him into waist-deep water. He pulled up some rushes and began to scour the pin, his elbow pumping furiously in the water.

The pin was skittle-shaped, of about a handspan’s length: the grease and mud had made it slippery, so he had to press it against his belly with one hand, while scrubbing it with the other.

After several minutes of hard rubbing the encrustation of dirt began to come off at last. The pin was almost clean when a child’s voice broke in. ‘You! You there!’

He was standing with his back to the lawn and was caught unawares. Spinning around, he found himself looking at a little blonde girl, dressed in a white pinafore: he guessed that she was the Burnhams’ daughter.

Suddenly he realized that his chest was naked and that she was staring at it. Flushing in embarrassment, he retreated quickly into deeper water, stopping only when his body was submerged up to the neck. Then he turned to face her: ‘Hello!’

‘Hello.’

She looked at him gravely, cocking her head like a bird: ‘You’d better get out of the water,’ she said. ‘Mama says the river’s filthy and only horrid heathens and Gentoos bathe in it.’

‘Does she?’ he said, in panic. ‘But then you mustn’t tell her you saw me in the river!’

‘Oh, but she knows already. She was watching you with her bring-’em-near, from her bedroom window. I saw her.’

Now another voice came echoing across the lawn: ‘Annabel! Annabel! Oh, you budmash larkin, have you no shame?’

Zachary looked up to see the bonneted figure of Mrs Burnham streaming across the lawn in a torrent of lace and fluttering silk.

He retreated again, sinking even deeper into the water, allowing it to cover him almost to the chin.

‘Oh Annabel! What a bandar you are running out into the hot sun. We’ll be lucky if we’re not roasted half to death!’

Mrs Burnham was running so hard that the bonnet had flown off her head: it would have fallen but for the pink ribbon that held it fast to her neck. Her ringlets were flying around her face and there were bright red spots on both her cheeks.

Chastened though he was, it did not escape Zachary that Mrs Burnham’s appearance was in no small measure enhanced by her flushed cheeks and dishevelled hair. Nor was the Junoesque appeal of her generous bustline entirely lost on him.

‘Oh Annabel!’ With her eyes carefully averted from Zachary, Mrs Burnham clapped her bonnet over her daughter’s face. ‘This budmashee just will not do! Come away, dear. Jaldee!’

Zachary decided now that he had no option but to brazen it out. Adopting as airy a tone as he could muster, he said: ‘Hello there, Mrs Burnham — terribly hot, isn’t it? Thought I’d cool off with a quick bath.’

An outraged quiver went through Mrs Burnham’s body, but she did not turn to look at him. Speaking over her shoulder, through clenched teeth, she said: ‘Surely, Mr Reid, there is some provision for bathing inside the budgerow? And if there is not then some must be made — for we certainly cannot have you wallowing in the mud, like a sunstruck buffalo.’

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Burnham; I didn’t think—’

She cut him off sharply. ‘I must ask you to remember, Mr Reid, that ours is a Christian house and we do expect a certain modesty, in all things …’

Words seemed to fail her here, and she quickened her step, steering her daughter in front of her.

Zachary called out after her rapidly retreating back: ‘I do apologize for my state of undress, Mrs Burnham. Won’t happen again, I promise you.’

He received no answer, for Mrs Burnham and her daughter were already halfway to the house.

*

A fortnight went by without any mention of Bahram’s finances. Through that time not a word was said to Shireen about the state of her husband’s business affairs at the time of his death.

At first Shireen was too distraught to give this any thought. It was only after the initial shock of bereavement had passed that she began to wonder about the silence.

In a family like theirs, where matters of business weighed on every mind, there was something a little unnatural about the studied avoidance of this one topic, especially since it was well known to everyone that Bahram had travelled to China with the avowed intention of taking over the shipping division of Mestrie & Sons, a firm that had been in Shireen’s family for generations.

Of Shireen’s immediate relatives those who were best placed to be informed about Bahram’s business affairs were her two brothers, who had jointly inherited the company upon their father’s death, a couple of years before. Shireen could scarcely doubt that they knew something about the state of her husband’s finances, yet neither of them showed any signs of broaching the subject, even though they visited her several times each day.

It was certainly no secret to Shireen that her husband and her brothers had been locked in a struggle over the company after her father’s untimely death. The tussle was not unexpected: her brothers had never considered Bahram worthy of the Mestrie family and he in turn had heartily reciprocated their ill-will. Ever since the day of Shireen’s wedding the tensions between her siblings and her husband had snapped and whirred around her, like ropes around a windlass. But through most of her married life Shireen had been privy only to the familial aspects of the conflict: where matters of business were concerned her father had enforced an uneasy peace. It was only after the patriarch’s death that Shireen had herself become the pivot on which the family’s tensions turned.

No one knew better than Shireen how betrayed and ill-used her husband had felt when her brothers had tried to pension him off so that they could dispose of the branch of the company that Bahram had himself built up — the hugely profitable shipping and export division. But to be a party to his own dispossession was not in keeping with Bahram’s character: he had decided to acquire the export division for himself, and to that end he had invested in a massive consignment of goods for China, in the hope of raising the funds for an outright purchase. Not being a man for half-measures he had decided that his consignment would consist of the largest cargo of opium ever to be shipped from Bombay. To raise the money for it he had tapped every source of capital available to him — business partners, community leaders, relatives — and finding himself still short he had turned finally to Shireen, asking her to pawn her jewellery and mortgage the land she had inherited from her father, in Alibaug and Bandra.

Over the years Shireen had been at odds with Bahram over many things, most of all his apparent unconcern for their lack of a son. She had often pleaded with him to search for a cure, but he had never taken the matter seriously, which had caused her great pain and regret. But when it came to business she knew that his instincts were unerring — he had always proved his doubters wrong. She herself, being of a naturally pessimistic bent, had often been among those who expected his ventures to fail. But they never had — and in time she had grown to accept that in these matters it was best to trust her husband’s judgement. So in the end she had yielded to his entreaties and allowed him to dispose of her inheritance as he thought best.

What had happened to that money? Why had nobody mentioned it to her? For a while she clung to the reassuring notion her family was avoiding the subject because they did not want to raise it in company. It was true certainly that between her daughters, her sisters, her grandchildren and her own sizeable contingent of bais and khidmatgars, there was scarcely a moment when she was alone. Even her nights were not really her own, for there was always someone at hand to make sure that she took a liberal dose of laudanum before going to bed.

Shireen was not ungrateful for her family’s support, yet, after a while, it became apparent to her that there was something odd about the nature of their sympathy. Her relatives’ concern seemed to be focused entirely on herself — her departed husband seemed hardly to figure in their thoughts. When she made an attempt to reverse this, by announcing that she wanted to hold a lavish ‘Farvandin roj’ ceremony for Bahram, in the Fire Temple, no one paid her any mind. Instead, without consulting Shireen, the family organized a small service that was attended only by a few close relatives.

When she tried to question her daughters about this they fobbed her off by muttering about the expense. She knew then that something was being concealed from her and that she would have to take matters into her own hands. The next day she sent notes to her brothers asking them to visit her as soon as possible.

Next morning, punctilious as ever, they came up together, dressed for the day, in crisp angarkhas and neatly tied white turbans. After a few conventional words of greeting Shireen said: I’m glad you’ve come; I’ve been wanting to ask you about some things.

What things?

About my husband’s business dealings. I know he had sunk a lot of money into this last trip to China. I was wondering what became of his investments.

There was a silence and Shireen saw that they were exchanging glances, as if to urge each other to go first. To make it easier for them to speak she broke in: You must tell me; I should know.

They fell on this opening with some relief.

The situation was very unfortunate, they said. Bahram-bhai had made some terrible mistakes; his love of risk had led to calamity; he had taken an enormous gamble and his wager had gone disastrously awry.

Shireen’s fingers snaked through the folds of her white sari seeking the comfort of the sacred kasti threads that were girdled around her waist.

What happened? she said. Tell me about it.

After some hesitation they began to speak together: It was not entirely Bahram’s fault, they said. He had been caught unawares by recent developments in China. Soon after he reached Canton a new viceroy had been appointed, a mandarin by the name of Commissioner Lin — by all accounts a power-crazed madman. He had detained all the foreign merchants and forced them to surrender the opium they had shipped to China that season. Then he had personally overseen the destruction of their cargoes — goods worth millions of Spanish dollars! Bahram was among the biggest losers; his entire cargo had been seized and destroyed — a consignment that he had bought mostly with borrowed money. As a result his debts to his creditors in Bombay were still unpaid; had he returned he would have had to default and declare bankruptcy — this wasn’t surprising perhaps; he had always been a gambler and a speculator, just like his grandfather before him.

Shireen listened as if in a daze, with her hands clasped on her lap. When they had finished, she said: Is there really nothing left? Nothing?

They shook their heads: there was nothing. Bahram had left behind nothing but debts. Such were the circumstances that his flagship, the Anahita, had perforce been sold off at Hong Kong, to one Benjamin Burnham, an English businessman, for a price far below the vessel’s value. Even the houses Bahram had built for his daughters would need to be sold. Fortunately she, Shireen, was provided for — she still had this apartment, in their family house; at least she would never have to worry about having a roof over her head. And her sons-in-law were both doing well; they had decided to put money into a fund that would provide her with a monthly allowance. She would have to economize of course, but still with a bit of care she would certainly be able to get by.

At this point an odd thing happened. A butterfly flitted through an open window, hovered over their heads for a bit, and then settled briefly on a framed portrait of Bahram. Shireen gasped and pulled off her veil: the portrait was one that Bahram had brought back from Canton many years before. It showed him in a dark blue choga, sitting with his knees slightly apart, his square face, with its neatly trimmed beard, looking startlingly handsome, a smile curling his lips.

Shireen had always believed that even the most trivial occurrences could be freighted with meaning; to her it seemed self-evident that when things happened in conjunction — even small things — the connections were never without significance. Now, even after the butterfly had flown away, she could not wrench her gaze from the portrait. Bahram seemed to be looking directly at her, as though he were trying to tell her something.

Shireen took a deep breath and turned to her brothers: Tell me; is there any chance at all that some part of my husband’s investments may be recovered?

They glanced at each other and began to murmur in low, regretful voices, as if to apologize for quashing her hopes.

There was indeed a chance, they said, that some of the money might be recovered. Bahram was not the only foreign merchant to have his goods seized; many others, including several important British businessmen, had surrendered their cargoes to Commissioner Lin. The authorities in London would not allow these confiscations to pass unchallenged: they were not like Indian rulers, who cared nothing for the interests of businessmen — they understood full well the importance of commerce. It was rumoured that they were already planning to send a military expedition to China, to demand reparations. If there was a war and the Chinese lost, as was likely, there was a good chance that some of Bahram’s money would be returned.

But …

Yes? said Shireen.

But when the time arrived for the distribution of the recovered funds, there would be no one at hand to represent Bahram. There was sure to be a scramble for the funds and the other merchants would be there in person, present and ready to claim their share.

Shireen’s mind cleared as she thought about this. But couldn’t we send someone to represent us? she asked. What about Vico?

They shook their heads. Vico had already declined, they said. He was after all only Bahram’s purser and had no standing either with the Canton Chamber of Commerce or the British government. The foreign merchants of Canton were a tight little circle, impossible for outsiders to penetrate. Bahram had himself been a member of that group, so they might well be sympathetic to his family’s claims if approached by a blood relative — but unfortunately there was no one to play that part for Bahram.

Shireen knew exactly what was being implied — that things would have been different if she and Bahram had had a son to represent their interests. She had so long tormented herself with this thought that she had no patience for it now. But what about me? she said, blurting out the first words that came to mind: What if I were to go myself?

They stared at her, aghast. You?

Yes.

You? Go to China? You’ve never even stepped out on the street by yourself!

Well, why shouldn’t I go? Shireen retorted. After all, your wives and daughters go out in public, don’t they? Don’t you boast to your English friends about how ‘advanced’ our family is and how we don’t keep purdah?

Shireenbai, what are you talking about? It’s true that our wives don’t keep strict purdah but we have a certain standing in society. We would never allow our sisters and daughters to wander around the world on their own. Just imagine the scandal. What would people say?

Is it scandalous for a widow to want to visit her husband’s grave?

At that point, they seemed to decide that she needed to be humoured and their voices softened.

You should talk to your daughters, Shireen. They’ll explain the matter to you better than we could.

August 11, 1839

Canton

Yesterday I ran into Compton while walking down Thirteen Hong Street. Ah Neel! he cried. Zhong Lou-si wants to see you!

I asked why and Compton explained that Zhong Lou-si had been very impressed by his report on opium production in Bengal. On hearing of my part in it, he’d said that he wanted to yam-chah (drink tea) with me.

Of course I could not say no.

We agreed that I would come by Compton’s print shop the next day, at the start of the Hour of the Rabbit (five in the afternoon).

I arrived a few minutes before Zhong Lou-si’s sedan chair came to the door. He looked older than I remembered, stooped and frail, with his wispy white beard clinging to his chin like a tuft of cobwebs. But his eyes were undimmed with age and they twinkled brightly at me.

So, Ah Neel! I hear you’ve been learning to speak Cantonese? Haih Lou-si!

Zhong Lou-si is not Cantonese himself but he has been in Guangdong so long that he understands the dialect perfectly. He was very patient with my faltering efforts to speak the tongue. I did not acquit myself too badly I think, although I did occasionally have to seek help from Compton, in English.

It turned out that Zhong Lou-si had asked to meet with me for a special reason: he is composing a memorandum about British-ruled India — he used the word Gangjiao, which is the commonly used term for the Company’s territories — and he wanted to ask me some questions.

Yat-dihng, yat-dihng, said I, at which Zhong Lou-si said that rumours had reached Canton that the English were planning to send an armed fleet to China. Did I have any knowledge of this?

I realized that the question was deceptively simple and had probably been phrased to conceal the full extent of Zhong Lou-si’s intelligence on the subject. I knew that I would have to be careful in choosing my words.

Among foreigners, I said, it had long been rumoured that the British would soon be sending a military expedition to China.

Haih me? Really? Where had I heard this? From whom?

I explained that many men from my province Bengal — (Ban-gala is the term used here) — were employed as copyists and ‘writers’ by British merchants. There were some Bengali copyists even in the staff of Captain Elliot, the British Plenipotentiary, I told him. We often exchanged news amongst us, I said, and it was common knowledge that Elliot had written to the British Governor-General in Calcutta, in April this year, asking for an armed force to be assembled for an expedition to China. I told him that I had overheard Mr Coolidge and his friends talking about this recently, and they appeared to believe that the planning for the expedition had already begun, at British military headquarters in Calcutta. But nothing would be made public until authorization was received from London.

What did it mean, Zhong Lou-si asked, that the planning was being done in Yindu — India. Would the troops be British or Indian?

If past experience was a guide, I told him, it was likely that the force would include both English and Indian troops: this was the pattern the British had followed in all their recent overseas wars, in Burma, Java and Malaya.

This did not come as a surprise to Zhong Lou-si. He told me that as long back as the reign of the Jiajing Emperor, the British had brought shiploads of Indian sepoys — xubo bing he called them — to Macau. But Beijing had reacted strongly and the troops hadn’t landed. That had happened thirty years ago. Ten years later, in the second year of the present Daoguang Emperor’s reign, the British had come back with another contingent of Indian sepoys. This time they had briefly occupied Macau, before being forced to leave.

Then Zhong Lou-si said something that startled me: he said that at the time Chinese officials had concluded that the sepoys were slaves and the British did not trust them to fight; that was why they had left Macau without putting up much resistance.

But sepoys are not slaves! I protested. Like British soldiers, they are paid.

Are they paid the same wage as red-haired English troops?

No, I had to acknowledge. They are paid much less. About half.

Are they treated the same way? Do the Indian and British troops eat together and live together?

No, I said. They live apart and are treated differently.

And do the Indians rise to positions of command? Are there Indian officers?

No, I said. Positions of command are held only by the British.

A silence fell while Zhong Lou-si meditatively sipped his tea. Then he looked up at me and said: So the Indians fight for less pay, knowing that they will never advance to positions of influence? Is this right?

None of this could be denied. Jauh haih lo, I said: what you are saying is right.

But why do they fight then?

I did not know how to answer: how does one explain something that one doesn’t understand oneself?

Something that no one understands? All I could say was: They fight because it’s their job. Because that is how they earn money.

So they are from poor families then?

They are from farming families, I said. They come from certain places in the interior of the country. But they are not poor — many are from families of high rank and many of them own land.

This deepened Zhong Lou-si’s puzzlement: Why do they risk their lives then, if not from necessity?

Look, I said, it is hard to explain, but it is because many of them are from clans — I could think of no word for ‘caste’ — that have always made their living by fighting. They give their loyalty to a leader and they fight for him. At one time their leaders were Indian kings, but some years ago it was the British who became the major power. Since then sepoys have been fighting for them just as they did for rajas and nawabs. For them there is no great difference.

But when they fight for the British, do they always do it sincerely, with their hearts in it?

Again I had to stop to think.

It is a hard question to answer, I said. The sepoys are good soldiers and they have helped the British conquer much of India. But at times they have also rebelled, especially when going abroad. I remember that about fifteen years ago there was a big mutiny, in Barrackpore, when a sepoy battalion was ordered to go to Burma. In general the sepoys from Bengal Presidency do not like to fight abroad. That is why the British often use sepoys from Madras for foreign campaigns.

Zhong Lou-si nodded thoughtfully, stroking his white beard. He thanked me for my help and said he hoped we would meet again soon.

Between Kesri and his sister Deeti there was a gap of eight years. Five other children had been born to their parents in between: two had survived and three had died. Yet, even though Kesri and Deeti were the furthest apart in age, they were more like each other than any of their other siblings.

One thing they shared was the colour of their eyes, which was a light shade of grey. For Deeti this had been something of a handicap, for there were many credulous people in their village who believed that light-eyed women were endowed with uncanny powers. The feature did not have the same consequences for Kesri as it did for Deeti — in a boy, light eyes were considered merely unusual, not a disturbing oddity — but it still created a bond between them and Kesri was always quick to jump to Deeti’s defence when she was taunted by other children.

Another thing they had in common was that they both grew up believing that kismat was their enemy. For Deeti this was because her astrological chart showed her to have been born under the influence of an unlucky alignment of the heavens. Kesri had a different reason: it was because he happened to be his father’s oldest son.

In most families to be the first-born son was considered a blessing — and if Kesri had been a different kind of person he too might have considered himself lucky to belong to a family that followed the custom of keeping the oldest boy at home, to tend the family’s fields. But Kesri was not one to be content forever in a village like Nayanpur, always running behind a plough and shouting at the oxen. From his earliest childhood he had loved to listen to the tales of his uncles, his father, his gurujis, his grandfather and all the other men of the village who had gone a-soldiering when they were true jawans — fighters in the prime of their youth. He never had any ambition other than to do what they had done: go off to serve as a sepoy in one part or another of Hindustan or the Deccan.

Since theirs was a land-tilling family, all the boys were taught to fight from an early age. The times were such that bands of dacoits and armed men were always on the prowl: even to go out to the fields meant carrying shields and swords as well as ploughs and scythes; how could you farm your land if you could not defend it?

Kesri and his brothers had started to wrestle when they were very young. Not far from their village, there was a famous akhara — a gymnasium for the practice of various disciplines, of body and spirit. This one was attached to an ashram run by Naga sadhus, an order of ascetics who wore no clothing other than ash and were known as much for their valour in combat as for their practice of austerities. Distinctions of birth were a matter of indifference to Naga sadhus and it was, in any case, a hallowed tradition of akharas that differences of caste and sect were not recognized within their precincts: everyone who came there bathed, ate and wrestled together no matter what their circumstances in the world beyond.

This aspect of the akhara did not appeal to Kesri’s father, who was a great stickler in matters of caste; Kesri on the other hand found it deeply congenial and did not in the least mind having to take a purificatory bath when he came home. He liked the camaraderie of the akhara as much as he enjoyed the physical challenges; being sturdy in build and active by temperament he particularly relished the rigorous regime of exercises. He enjoyed wielding weights like naals and gadas and unlike the other boys he never looked for excuses to get out of ‘ploughing the wrestling ring’, an exercise in which one boy sat on a wooden beam while another pulled him around the floor by means of a harness attached to his forehead.

But it was combat itself that Kesri most enjoyed: all his senses grew sharper when his wits and his body were under pressure; he was able to keep a cool head in situations where other boys tended to panic. Left to himself he would have spent most of his time learning manoeuvres like the dhobi’s throw and the strangle pin; it irked him sometimes that the sadhus placed as much emphasis on the control of the breath, bowels and bodily emissions as they did on the mechanical skills of wrestling, but he accepted their demands as the necessary price of his training. Every morning he would dutifully study the serpent that crept out of him, and whenever he found it to be dull in colour or less than properly ‘coiled and ready to strike’ he would report the matter to his trainers and change his diet according to their prescriptions.

With such a will did Kesri apply himself that by the time he was ten he was recognized to be one of the akhara’s best wrestlers, by age and size. Soon his regimen of training was expanded to include the use of weapons — mainly the lath, a heavy cudgel-like staff, but also the talwar, or curved sword. Musketry he was introduced to at home, by his father, who would occasionally instruct all his sons in the handling of his matchlock.

In the use of weaponry, as in the wrestling ring, Kesri proved to be so adept that even before he turned fifteen — the age at which boys began to be recruited as jawans — he was one of the most feared fighters in the village. But in his father’s eyes this was just another reason why he needed to remain at home: their land would be safer with him than with any of his brothers.

Kesri’s younger brother was called Bhim. He did not lack for brawn, but he was a slow-witted youth, incapable of knowing his own mind. He did his father’s bidding without question.

Their father, Ram Singh, had been a soldier himself and was a stubborn and quick-fisted man. To talk back to him was to invite a hiding with a lath. This did not deter Kesri from speaking his mind, and he received many a beating for his defiance. Eventually he came to realize that arguing with his father was a waste of time: Ram Singh was the kind of old soldier who digs in deeper in the face of opposition. Kesri understood that if he was ever to join an army he would have to go against his father and do it on his own. But how? No respectable recruiter would take him without his family’s consent — without that they would have no surety for his conduct. Nor, without his family’s help, would he be able to afford the equipment that a recruit was expected to bring, far less a horse. As for the other options — joining a band of fighting mendicants, for example, or some kind of gang — even tilling the land seemed preferable to those.

So Kesri had no choice but to hold his tongue when military men stopped by to ask Ram Singh about his boys. He would chew on his gall in silence while his father explained that he’d be glad to talk about the prospects of his second son, Bhim — but where it concerned his oldest boy there was nothing to talk about: his future had already been decided. Kesri would be staying at home to till the land.

To add to Kesri’s misery, it was at about this time that offers of marriage began to pour in for the sister who was closest to him in age. It seemed that she too would soon be leaving home. It was as if new horizons of possibility were opening up for everyone but himself.

Since Deeti spent a good deal of time in the fields with Kesri she was the only person in the family who understood his state of mind. The other girls were kept indoors as much as possible, to protect their complexions, but Deeti’s chances of a good marriage were slight in any case because of her ill-aligned stars, so it was decided that she needed to know how to work the land. She was no taller than Kesri’s knee when he began to teach her how to handle a nukha — the eight-bladed instrument that was used to nick ripe poppy bulbs. They would walk along the rows of denuded flowers, each with a nukha in their hands, scoring the tumescent sacs to bleed them of their sap. When the heady odour of the oozing opium-gum made them drowsy they would sit together in the shade of a tree.

Even though Deeti was much younger than Kesri they were able to talk to each other as to no one else. Deeti’s capacities of empathy and understanding were so far in advance of her age that there were times when Kesri would wonder whether she had indeed been gifted with powers beyond the ordinary. Sometimes, when he despaired of leaving Nayanpur, it was she — a tiny putli of a girl — who reassured him. She knew that he brooded about the horizons that were opening up before his brother and sister, and she often said to him: Wu saare baat na socho. Don’t think of all that. Turn your mind to other things.

But to ignore what was happening was plainly impossible. Their home had never before attracted so many strangers; never had they experienced the excitement of being sought out and courted in this way. Often, at the end of the day’s work, when they headed back to their mud-walled home, they would find their father talking to recruiters, in the shade of the mango tree out front; or they would learn that their mother was in the inner courtyard, deep in discussion with marital go-betweens.

Ram Singh was as well-informed about military matters as their mother was about the marriage market. He had spent many years in the army of the kingdom of Berar and was acquainted with a good number of the professional recruiters who roamed the villages of their region looking for promising young men. This stretch of the Gangetic plain had always provided the armies of northern India with the bulk of their soldiery. Since many of these jawans were from families like their own, they had relatives in at least a dozen armies. Ram Singh had tended to these connections carefully and long before anyone came to inquire about his sons, he knew exactly the kind of recruiter he wanted to talk to. He also knew which recruiters he would ignore — and it made no difference whether they were relatives or not.

One of the first recruiters to seek them out was an agent of the Darbhanga Raj, a zamindari with which they had a family connection. Being a relative he was given a polite hearing but no sooner was he gone than his offer was summarily dismissed.

The Darbhanga Raj is just a petty zamindari nowadays, said Ram Singh. It’s not like it used to be in my father’s time. They are vassals of the white sahibs; to work for them would be even worse than joining the English Company’s army.

This was a matter on which Ram Singh had strong opinions. Their district had been seized by the East India Company a long time ago, but in the beginning the annexation had made little difference and things had gone on much as usual. But with the passage of time the Company had begun to interfere in matters that previous rulers had never meddled with — like crops and harvests for example. In recent years the Company’s opium factory in Ghazipur had started to send out hundreds of agents — arkatis and sadar mattus — to press loans on farmers, so that they would plant poppies in the autumn. They said these loans were meant to cover the costs of the crop and they always promised that there would be handsome profits after the harvest. But when the time came the opium factory often changed its prices, depending on how good the crop had been that year. Since growers were not allowed to sell to anyone but the factory, they often ended up making a loss and getting deeper into debt. Ram Singh knew of several men who had been ruined in this way.

Of late the Company had even tried to interfere in the job market, taking steps to discourage men from joining any army but their own. For Ram Singh, as for many others, this was even more objectionable than meddling with their crops. That anyone should assert an exclusive claim to their service was an astonishing idea: few things were as important to them as their right to work for whoever offered the best terms. It was not uncommon for brothers and cousins to take jobs in different armies: if they happened to meet in battle, it was assumed that each man would do his duty and fight loyally for his leader, having ‘eaten his salt’. This was how things had been in Ram Singh’s time and his father’s before him; and so far as he was concerned it was yet another reason why he did not want his sons to join the Company’s paltans.

Ram Singh was well-acquainted with the Company’s army, having fought against it at the Battle of Assaye. The Berar forces had entered that battlefield in alliance with the army of Gwalior, and they had come painfully close to giving the British the greatest defeat they had ever suffered. Ram Singh never ceased to relive that battle, and he often said that the British victory was due solely to the cunning of their general, Arthur Wellesley, who had succeeded in sowing treachery in the opposing ranks, through bribery and deceit.

If there was one thing that Ram Singh was sure of it was that the East India Company’s army was no place for any of his sons. In the English way of fighting, he liked to say, there was nothing to stir the blood, nothing heroic. No Company soldier ever stepped forward to offer single combat; none of their jawans sought glory by breaking from their ranks and taking the enemy unawares. Their way of fighting was like that of an army of ants, always lined up shoulder to shoulder, each man sheltering behind another, every soldier doing exactly the same thing at the same time, everyone making the same, drilled movements. There was something ant-like even about their appearance, with all of them in identical livery, no one daring to identify himself with his own insignia or his own unmistakable turban. As for the caravans that followed them, they were shabby and nondescript affairs, at least in comparison with the vast baggage-trains that accompanied the armies of Gwalior, Jaipur and Indore, with all their dancing girls and bazars.

What was the point of a soldiering life if it offered no pleasure or colour? Why would a man throw himself into a battle if he did not know that at the end of the fighting he would be able to take his ease amongst the camp-followers, seeking out his favourite girls, and being plied with rich food and heady drink? Better be a cowherd, pasturing livestock, than live like that. There was no honour in it, no izzat: it was contrary to the ways of their caste, and against the customs of Hindustan.

It dismayed Ram Singh that many Indian kingdoms and principalities had begun to imitate the English armies. But fortunately there still remained a few that were wedded to the old ways of war — Awadh, Jaipur, Jodhpur and Jhansi for instance. And then there was the Mughal army, which still remained a powerful draw: such was its centuries-old prestige that even now, when the old empire’s territory was shrinking fast, a man who served in its legions could be sure of commanding the respect of his village.

For all these armies, the region around Nayanpur was a proven and preferred recruiting ground so Ram Singh knew that his son Bhim would not lack for options. And sure enough other recruiters soon began to arrive at their door. Some were professional ‘gatherers’ of jawans — jamadars and dafadars — with links to several kingdoms and principalities. The jamadars were usually senior men and some were known to Ram Singh from his own soldiering days. When they came to visit, charpoys would be placed under the shade of the mango tree outside and hookahs, food and water would be sent for.

Often it was Kesri who was called on to serve the visitors and light their hookahs. No one minded if he loitered, listening to what was being said: since he wasn’t available for recruitment, his presence made no difference. Bhim, on the other hand, was not allowed anywhere near the recruiters. That would have been as improper and unwise as for a girl to step out brazenly in front of a set of prospective in-laws.

Ram Singh would start by questioning the recruiters minutely about such matters as the salary that was being offered and how regularly it was paid; how booty was divided and what sorts of battas — or allowances — were provided. Was there a batta for clothing? Was there a marching-batta? Or a bonus for campaigns away from the home station? Who provided the food when in camp? How large was the camp-followers’ bazar? What did it offer? Was accommodation provided in the home station?

Only if these queries were answered to his satisfaction would Bhim be produced before the recruiter. And just as their mother always found a way, when the time was right, to present her daughters to their best advantage before the families of prospective grooms, so would their father do the same for his son. When the moment came he would send Kesri to fetch his brother. The boy would arrive with a plough slung over his shoulders, dressed in nothing but a vest and langot, so that his impressive physique was bared for the recruiter to see. Then, Ram Singh would ask him to groom the jamadar’s horse, which he would proceed to do with a will, thereby showing himself to be a well-brought-up, obedient boy who could follow orders respectfully.

The jamadars were not the only ones to come looking for able-bodied youths: some of the recruiters were serving jawans, back on leave. Bringing in recruits was a way of earning commissions, so rounding up a few young fellows was a good way to make a bit of money.

For Bhim and Kesri the younger soldiers were much more interesting than the grey-whiskered elders who usually came by. Some of the jawans were friends or acquaintances from nearby villages so there was no need to stand on ceremony with them; some even stayed the night and then the two brothers would lie awake till dawn, listening to their stories.

One day a cousin from a neighbouring village came to visit. Although not much older than Kesri he had already spent a couple of years in Delhi, in the service of the Mughal army. This was his first visit home and he could not, of course, be allowed to leave without spending the night: the boys took their charpoys out into the courtyard and were soon absorbed in their cousin’s stories. He described Delhi’s temples and mosques, forts and palaces. When he and his company went on marches, he said, their unit was far outnumbered by their camp-followers. The bazar that trailed behind them was like a small town, only much more colourful. One whole section of it was given to naach-girls — and they were the most beautiful women that anyone had ever seen, from Afghanistan and Nepal, Ethiopia and Turkmenistan. Boys like Bhim and Kesri, he said, could not conceive of the things these girls could do with their bodies — no more than they could imagine a banana being peeled with the tongue.

Of course it couldn’t be left at that. The boys plied him with questions and after a little bit of nahi-nahi and other pretences of modesty, he told them all they wanted to know and more — how it felt to have the contours of your face stroked with a nipple, and what it was like to have your instrument enveloped by muscles that could squeeze, pluck, and even glide, like the fingers of a musician.

For Kesri this was dangerous territory, for one of the most important aspects of his regimen of training, as a wrestler, was the control of the inner workings of the body — especially its desires and their manifestations. To that end he regularly practised a variety of exercises, intended to prevent the loss, accidental or intentional, of his vital fluids. But that night his training proved unequal to the task: he woke suddenly to find that he had succumbed to a swapnadosha — a ‘dream-mishap’.

As for his brother Bhim, he knew at once that this was exactly the brand of soldiering that would suit him best. With Kesri’s encouragement he went to their father the next morning and told him that he wanted to go to Delhi with his cousin. Ram Singh willingly gave him his blessings and promised to make all the necessary arrangements.

Preparations for Bhim’s departure started at once and involved the whole family. Clothes were made, bedding and blankets were prepared, and an array of equipment was assembled — flints, powder, musket-balls for his goolie-pouch, and an assortment of edged weapons, long and short.

Kesri, in the meantime, was busy ploughing the poppy fields. But try as he might, he could not stop thinking of his brother Bhim’s forthcoming journey to Delhi, mounted on a horse, with his weapons slung behind him and a fine new turban on his head. By contrast his own bare body, with a filthy langot knotted around the waist and flies settling on his pooling sweat, was a reminder of the lifetime that lay ahead of him, of trudging endlessly behind draught animals, jumping aside when they spurted dung in mid-stride, season after season, watching the crops come and go, counting it a luxury to snatch an hour’s sleep in the shade of a tree in the afternoon, and at the end of the day, struggling to wash away the mud that had hardened into a second layer of skin between his toes. And in the meantime Bhim would be going from city to city, filling his bags with booty, eating rich meats and fowl and revelling in the embraces of beautiful women.

Abandoning the oxen in the middle of the field Kesri went to sit under a tree; tears trickled down his cheeks as he sat there, clutching his knees. That was how Deeti found him when she brought over his mid-day meal of rotis and achar: she understood without asking what the matter was; she stayed with him through the afternoon and helped him finish the ploughing.

At the end of the day, when they were walking home, she said: Don’t worry, it will happen. You will leave too.

But when, Deeti? Batavela. Tell me — when?

*

For several days after his unfortunate encounter with Mrs Burnham and her daughter, Zachary lived in hourly fear of being evicted from his comfortable new lodgings on the budgerow. It seemed just a matter of time before a khidmatgar arrived with a letter to inform him that his employment had been terminated because of his lapse from decorum.

But as the days went by, with no dismissal, he decided that Mrs Burnham had perhaps decided to grant him another chance. Still, he knew he could not be complacent — occasional flashes of light in the mansion’s windows suggested that he was still under observation — so he went to great lengths to observe all the proprieties in matters of dress and deportment. When working in exposed parts of the boat, he made sure that he was clothed from neck to toe, no matter how hot it was.

But other than this minor annoyance, Zachary was perfectly content to be living on the budgerow. His days were uneventful but not unrewarding: he got up early and worked steadily till sunset; when he needed help he called on the mansion’s khidmat-gars but mostly he was content to labour on his own. His quiet and frugal existence seemed to excite the pity of the household staff and they kept him supplied with leftovers — in fact he could not remember a time in his life when he had eaten so well and lived in such comfort.

Best of all were the nights. The bed was itself like an embrace, soft and yielding, and the solitude and quiet were an even greater luxury. Nourished by the fine food and peaceful surroundings his imagination grew so vigorously concupiscent that it took no effort to summon Paulette out of the shadows and into his bed — and the pleasures of his trysts with her were so intense that he often sampled them several times in one night.

One morning, while working on the foredeck, Zachary heard Annabel’s voice, calling from the shore: ‘Holloa there!’

He raised a finger to his cap. ‘Hello, Miss Annabel.’

‘I came to say goodbye — I’m leaving for Hazaribagh today.’

‘Well, I wish you a safe and pleasant journey, Miss Annabel.’

‘Thank you.’

She took a step closer. ‘Tell me, Mr Mystery,’ she said, ‘you knew Paulette, didn’t you?’

‘So I did.’

‘Do you think you may see her again soon?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope so.’

‘If you do, please tell her I said hello, won’t you? I do miss her so.’

‘So do I, Miss Annabel.’

She nodded. ‘I’d better be off now. Mama doesn’t like me to talk to you.’

‘Why not?’

‘She says it isn’t decent for a girl to talk to mysteries.’

He laughed. ‘Well, you’d better run then. Goodbye.’

‘Goodbye.’

Annabel and Mrs Burnham left later that day and for a fortnight afterwards the Burnham mansion was silent and dark. Then suddenly the lights went on again and Zachary knew that Mrs Burnham had returned. A week later there was an explosion of activity around the house; khidmatgars, chokras, malis and ghaskatas went swarming over the grounds, stringing up lanterns and putting out chairs. One of the chokras told Zachary that a big burra-khana was to be held at the house to celebrate the Beebee’s birthday.

In the evening a great number of gharries and coaches rolled up the driveway and the sound of voices and laughter wafted across the lawns until late into the night. Zachary sequestered himself in his stateroom and was careful to stay out of sight.

The next day, at suppertime, the khidmatgars brought over a lavish spread of leftovers as well as a few bottles of beer. Along with the food and drink they also delivered a small parcel. It was accompanied by an envelope that had Zachary’s name written on it, in a steeply sloping scrawl.

This was the first communication Zachary had received since his last encounter with Mrs Burnham: he opened the envelope with deep trepidation, not knowing what to expect. To his surprise the tone of the note was not just pleasant but almost cordial:

August 30, 1839

Dear Mr Reid

I trust you have settled in comfortably and are making progress with the refurbishment. If you need anything I hope you will not hesitate to let the khidmatgars know.

Since Man does not live by bread alone you are no doubt in need of some improving Literature to relieve your solitude. I have thus taken the liberty of sending you two books. I hope you will find them of interest.

Yours &c.

C. Burnham

It was clear now that he had been granted a reprieve! With a groan of relief, Zachary deposited the note and parcel on the teapoy that stood beside his bed. Then he celebrated by opening a bottle of beer and proceeded to eat a hearty meal. Afterwards he went up to the deck above and summoned Paulette to sit beside him, under the stars. Her presence was so palpable that it made him long for the pleasures of his bed; he went hurrying back to his stateroom and tore off his clothes. Wasting no time, he parted the mosquito net and slipped between the sheets, pausing only to snatch up one of the stained and crusted doo-rags that lay strewn around the bed.

He was about to snuff out the candle when his eyes fell on the parcel that Mrs Burnham had sent him. Reaching over to the teapoy, he tore off the parcel’s paper covering: inside were two books, of just the sort that he would have expected to receive from Mrs Burnham. One was a biography of a long-dead missionary and the other was a collection of sermons, by a Reverend someone-or-the-other.

The books looked dull and Zachary was in no mood to read anyway: but just as he was about to put them away a little pamphlet tumbled out of one of them and fell on his chest. Picking it up, Zachary glanced at the cover. Printed on it, in bold, screaming letters, were the words:

ONANIA; OR THE HEINOUS SIN OF SELF-POLLUTION.

The title made him sit bolt upright: he wasn’t quite sure what the words meant but their very sound was enough to cause alarm.

Opening the pamphlet at random he came to a paragraph that had been heavily underlined.

Self-pollution is that unnatural practice by which Persons of either Sex, may defile their own Bodies, without the Assistance of others, whilst yielding to filthy Imaginations, they endeavour to imitate and procure to themselves that Sensation, which God has order’d to attend the carnal Commerce of the two Sexes, for the Continuance of our Species.

His eyes returned, as if hypnotized, to the words ‘filthy imaginations’. A chill of shame went through him and he quickly turned the page, but only to arrive at another underlined passage:

… the Crime in itself is monstrous and unnatural; in its Practice filthy and odious to Extremity; its Guilt is crying, and its Consequences ruinous; It destroys conjugal Affection, perverts natural Inclination, and tends to extinguish the Hopes of Posterity.

He turned feverishly to another page:

In Men as well as Boys, the very first Attempt of it has often occasion’d a Phymosis in some, and a Paraphymosis in others; I shall not explain these terms any further, let it suffice that they are Accidents which are very painful and troublesome, and may continue to be tormenting for some time, if not bring on Ulcers and other worse Symptoms. The frequent Use of this Pollution; likewise causes Stranguries, Priapisms and other disorders of the Penis and Testes but especially Gonorrhoeas, more difficult to be Cur’d than thosecontracted from Women …

Zachary’s hands began to shake and the pamphlet dropped from his fingers. Reaching down, he pulled open his drawers and began to examine himself, looking for evidence of ulcers, stranguries and phymosises. What exactly they were he didn’t know, but amongst the wiry hairs of his pubes and in the wrinkled folds of the sac below, there was no shortage of troubling manifestations — pimples, white-heads, creases, and swollen veins that he had never noticed before.

When had they appeared and what did they portend? He could not think and was grateful only that he could see no signs of incipient priapism. This was a disease he had often heard discussed among sailors: their name for it was ‘fouling the fiddle-block’, and he had heard it said that it could lead to terrible damage, sometimes even causing the head of the organ to erupt, like a boil or pustule. He could not imagine a more dreadful affliction.

And then a thought occurred to him that was even more frightful than the spectre of disease: what if the pamphlet’s arrival was not an accident? What if Mrs Burnham had deliberately stuck it in the book, knowing that it would find its way into his hands?

No, that was impossible surely? It was beyond his imagining that she would even know of the existence of such a book, let alone possess a familiarity with the matters that were addressed in it. Surely a woman like her, a memsahib of tender sensibility, the most sheltered of Burra Beebees, would not allow her eyes to dwell on a booklet of this sort? And even if she had, surely — surely? — she would not have considered sending the pamphlet to a man whom she hardly knew at all?

For what could be the intent of such an act? What grounds could she have for imagining him to be an Onanist — indeed, of accusing him of it?

To know something so secret, so private, would mean that she had looked into his very soul. And to see so deep into the head and body of another person was to take possession of them, to achieve complete mastery; he might as well be her dredgy now for he would certainly never be able to look her in the eyes again.

And the worst part of it was that he would never find out whether she knew or not — a subject like this could never be mentioned between a mystery and his mistress.

A terrible dread swept over him now and all thought of his anticipated tryst with Paulette was erased from his mind. He was filled instead with a self-loathing so acute that he could not imagine that such filthy temptations would ever well up inside him again. And if they did he would fight them; he would prove that he was no Onanist: of that he was determined — his freedom, his mastery of his very soul, seemed to depend on it.

His eyes fell on the yellowing rags that lay around his bed and he shuddered. In light of what he knew now, they looked unspeakably vile, veritable founts of sin and contagion. He cast his hands around him until they fell on the rag he had brought into his bed, and he hurled it away with a shudder of loathing. Then he picked up the pamphlet and read it through one more time, from beginning to end.

Over the next few days Zachary wore the pages of Onania almost to shreds, reading the pamphlet over and again. The parts that made the most powerful impression on him were the passages on disease: every perusal deepened his apprehensions about the infections that were simmering inside his body.

Until this time he had been under the impression that the clap was the revenge of the pox-parlour and could not be caught without actually thrusting your cargo through a hatch, no matter whether fore or aft: that merely winching up your undertackle with your own maulers could produce the same result had never entered his mind.

On the Ibis he had seen the consequences of the clap on other sailors: he had listened to pox-ridden men screaming in pain as they tried to tap their kegs; he had viewed, with horror-struck curiosity, the fruit that blossomed on diseased beanpoles — the clumps of welts and boils, the dribbles of pus. He had also heard stories about how the treatment — with applications of mercury and even leeches — was just as painful as the disease. To spike one’s cannon forever seemed better than to take that cure.

It had never occurred to him that his night-time trysts with Paulette might be leading in this direction. He had thought that his bullet-pouch was no different from his bladder or his bowels in that it needed an occasional emptying. He had even heard it said that coughing up your cocksnot from time to time was as much a necessity as blowing your nose. Certainly no one who had ever slept in a fo’c’sle could fail to notice the fusillades that shook every hammock from time to time. More than once had he been bumped in the nose because of an overly energetic bout of musketry in the hammock above. Just as he himself was sometimes shouted at, he’d learnt to shout: ‘Will you stop polishing your pistol up there? Take your shot and be done with it.’

But he remembered now, with a sinking in his heart, that it was always the most trigger-happy gunmen who ended up with the clap. He himself had never been of that number — at least not until he fell under the sway of Paulette’s phantom. Now, as he battled the temptation to sink into her arms again, the very sound of the letter ‘P’ became unbearable to him — as did words like ‘gullet’ and ‘mullet’ and everything that rhymed with ‘Paulette’.

The worst part of it was that each day brought with it worrying signs of the one condition he thought he had been spared — pria-pism. It was a bitter irony that this disease had manifested itself only after he had forsworn its cause; no less was it an irony that the longer he abstained the more vigorously it asserted itself. On some nights it was as if his spuds were cooking in a kettle: to keep the lid on, with the pressure building up below, took a jaw-gritting effort, but he persisted, for to give in would be to capitulate, to acknowledge that he was indeed a congenital tug-mutton.

During the day he managed to keep the symptoms at bay by applying himself strenuously to his work. But even then, scarcely an hour passed during which his tackle did not stir in its stowage. The shape of a cloud would conjure up an image of a breast or a hip, and before he knew it his drawers would puff up like a spanker in a breeze. The sight of a boatwoman on the river, rowing a sampan or a paunchway, could bring on a situation in which he had to race off to find an apron to drape around his middle. One day, a glimpse of a goat, lazily grazing in the distance, evoked the curve of a woman’s thigh — and before he knew it his hawser was trying to bore a hawse-hole through the flap of his breeches.

That night he wept to think that an animal — a goat! — had produced such an effect on him: how much lower was it possible to fall?

When the khidmatgars brought him trays he would stare morosely at them, wondering whether they too had ever visited the Onanian isles. He would examine their faces for signs of the symptoms listed in the pamphlet: pimples, inflammations, rapid blinking, dark patches around the eyes and an unnatural pallor. On none of them were the signs so prominently visible as they were on himself. They had probably married early, he guessed, and would thus never have needed to resort to the solitary vice.

But even these inoffensive reflections were fraught with danger. One thought would lead to another and visions of the khidmatgars’ intimacies with their wives would flash through his head. The hairy hand that bore the tray would evoke the rounded shape of a breast; a calloused knuckle, on the fingers that gifted him a bowl of dumbpoke, would turn into a dark, swollen nipple — and all of a sudden his jib-boom would be a-taunt in his drawers and he would have to push his chair deeper under the table.

His condition being what it was, nothing was more terrifying to Zachary than the prospect of accidentally encountering Mrs Burnham. For this reason he spent all his time on the budgerow, hardly ever setting foot on shore. But one morning, in despair, he decided that confinement was making his condition worse and he forced himself to go for a walk.

As he marched along the riverbank, his head felt lighter than it had in many days. The twitching in his groin also began to abate — but still, as a precaution, he kept his eyes rigidly fixed on the ground. But his confidence grew as he walked and he began to look around more freely. And to his surprise, many sights that would have hoisted his mizzen just the day before — the bulge of a breast under a sari; a woman’s ankle, twinkling down the street — aroused not the faintest flutter.

As his assurance increased he let his eyes wander where they wished, allowing them to dwell, promiscuously, on voluptuous clouds and suggestively heaving trees. Finding no cause for concern he even ventured to pronounce the proscribed words: mullet, gullet and so on until he arrived finally at a full-throated ‘Paulette!’ — and still his foredeck remained perfectly ship-shape, with his tackle tightly snugged down.

He stopped and drew a breath that coursed euphorically through his body: it was as if he had been granted a reprieve, a cure! Turning around, he strolled joyfully back to the budgerow, and there, as if to confirm his exculpation, he found a visitor waiting.

It was Mr Doughty, bearing an invitation to the Harbourmaster’s Dance, a fancy-dress ball intended to raise money for the Mariners’ Mission in Calcutta: it was the custom to give away a few tickets to indigent but deserving young sailors.

Zachary understood that Mr Doughty had gone to some trouble to procure a ticket for him and thanked him profusely. ‘But the trouble is, Mr Doughty, I don’t have a costume.’

But Mr Doughty had thought of this too. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that, my boy. I’ve got one for you — same thing I’ll be wearing. Why don’t you come over early and eat dinner with us that day? I’ll get you all kitted out — won’t cost a thing and you’ll enjoy yourself, I promise.’