The East Indiaman Read online

  As they drove to the north north west, into the great bight of the Arabian Sea, the south west monsoon frequently occluded the sky so that he was obliged to resort to latitude sailing, and first head well clear of the Malabar coast and the offlying archipelagoes of the Maldive and Laccadive Islands until, on the latitude of Bombay, he could turn east and run along the appropriate parallel. It added considerably to their time on the passage, reducing their stock of both food and water to a minimum. Rain showers enabled them to eke out the former a little, but to Kite’s relief they caught sight of other sails, not the squares of enemy cruisers, but the triangular peaks of two large baggalas, swooping along to the north and heading in the same direction as themselves. These Arab craft possessed a speed and grace equal to the schooner and kept them distant company until, in due course, they were joined by a kotia coming down from the north and then four swift, triple-masted pattamars.

  Late that morning they sighted the lighthouse and by late afternoon the anchor was let go under the guns of Bombay Castle. Secure behind the ramparts nestled the large, rectangular gubernatorial villa, above which flew the barred colours of the East India Company. A forest of masts belonged to the dhows and mashwas both at anchor and drawn up on the various beaches fringing the shore line. Above them rose the taller spars of Indiamen and Country vessels, filling the basin between the Bunder Pier and the docks to the south. Farther off they could see the green of vegetation and the waving fronds of tall coconut palms. In the outer bay, lying wind-rode at anchor like themselves, lay two large Indiamen and a snow-rigged despatch vessel belonging to the Bombay Marine.

  Minutes before they dropped the anchor from the cathead they had been surrounded by small bumboats selling fruit and vegetables, many unseen before by Kite and his crew. They were manned by small, active men in ragged skirts and shirts; some wore turbans, others wore sun hats woven from palm fronds but all cried out their wares and solicited trade with energetic eagerness. Two or three of the boats, though sculled by men, bore groups of huddling women, painted trulls in bright squares of silk and cotton, their eyes outlined with kohl, their hair brightened with henna.

  Contrary to Kite’s expectations, Hooker was in voluble mood. As the boats closed in on the schooner, Hooker stood at the rail and, addressing them in an incomprehensible native tongue, waved them away. The bumboats circled warily, as though seeking a weakness in Spitfire’s defences or the removal of Hooker. After anchoring he called out for a boat to be made available for him, giving every appearance of eagerness to go ashore. Kite passed orders for Harper to hoist out their largest cutter and remarked that he would go below and shift his coat, but Hooker objected.

  ‘I think it best that you do not come ashore yet, my dear fellow. We must keep these vultures at bay and withal play up the fiction of this being a yacht,’ he explained, ‘and there may be a question of quarantine,’ he added as an afterthought. ‘I shall make the appropriate calls and see what progress I am able to make in the matter of a new vessel for us.’

  Kite might have felt this a slight, but after the weeks of anxiety he was content to go below and rest. Hooker had been nothing more than a passenger for weeks and as Harper had reported the anchor brought up, Kite had felt the weight of responsibility slip from his shoulders. He could not care less about the bum-boats, he had met them in the West Indies and, the whores notwithstanding, felt that McClusky could keep them at bay. Hooker, however, had other ideas.

  ‘Post a couple of seamen with loaded muskets,’ he ordered imperiously. ‘I’ll leave half my dacoits. They all have knives and know how to use them should the need arise. Let one of those vermin aboard and they’ll swamp you, you’ll lose every moveable object you possess and I must mind my… well you know to what I refer.’

  Hooker issued these instructions as he waited for the body-guard of dacoits that had been assigned to accompany him ashore, to clamber down into the waiting boat which, with Harper at the helm, bobbed alongside. They were all chattering excitedly with frequent obvious references to the shore, though they fell silent as Hooker barked some orders to them and four detached disconsolately, a quartet assigned to remain aboard. Then he turned back to Kite. ‘By the way, William, I shall soon remove my wife and myself ashore; do you too require a lodging? It shall have to be at your expense, of course…’

  There was something unkind about that ‘of course’, compounding the sudden domination of the deck and the transformation of Spitfire into Hooker’s yacht. Hooker’s changed tone revived the suspicions Kite had entertained days earlier when Sarah had first voiced her own worry about the man’s mood. As if to sharpen his instincts, Kite smelt Hooker’s body odour and, in an instant of catalysed perception, linked his unnecessary remark to Hooker’s desire to go ashore alone. He was seized by the conviction that Hooker was up to something and he immediately prevaricated.

  ‘Quarantine or not, Josiah, I shall need to clear the vessel inwards. I am, after all, the master.’ In that ‘after all’, he subconsciously sought to match the message implicit in Hooker’s ‘of course’, but Hooker was too preoccupied.

  ‘No matter, William, these things can be dealt with shortly. This is not the London River, this is India…’ Hooker turned away and prepared to swing his ungainly bulk over the rail.

  ‘Well it may be India,’ Kite began as Hooker lifted one huge thigh, ‘but there is one thing I insist upon before you go.’

  ‘Oh, and upon what do you insist?’ Hooker looked into Kite’s eyes, his tone surprised. He was sweating copiously as he held himself half way over the rail and Kite had a sudden, reactive impulse to thrust him over the side so that he fell into the waters of the anchorage. Restraining this irrational desire left his voice curiously vehement, a fact to which he afterwards attributed Hooker’s admission. Had Hooker been standing upon the deck, or seated below with a wine-glass in his hand, Kite knew he would never have released the intelligence with such ease. But, poised as he was betwixt wind and water, balancing unfamiliarly in an attitude which, however familiar it might have been for a seaman, was perilous for a man of Hooker’s disposition and bulk, Hooker gave up his secret without hesitation.

  ‘By what method are we to cheat the Chinese of their silver?’ Kite snapped.

  ‘Opium,’ Hooker said as his weight forced him to seek the next step down Spitfire’s tumblehome before his arms gave out. Almost immediately he regretted his candour, for he slipped, recovered with a gasp and, his head now almost comically level with the rail, his chin set between his white-knuckled hands, he hissed, ‘you must tell not a soul, William. It is my turn to insist…’

  Then he was gone and Kite moved quickly to the rail to see Hooker in Harker’s massive arms, being eased onto the stern sheet bench. Harper’s averted face bore an expression of distaste and Kite could scarcely suppress his smile as Hooker looked up.

  ‘Damn you, Kite,’ the discomfitted Hooker called out, ‘I insist… Do I have your word?’

  ‘Aye, of course, and Josiah,’ Kite added, ‘my wife and I shall remain on board for the time being.’

  ‘You are unkind, sir,’ Sarah said as he walked aft after watching the boat pull away for the shore, pitching in the short, steep waves thrown up by the wind as it scoured in from the open sea. ‘I heard what you said about staying on board and I would dearly love to get ashore.’

  Kite held up his hand and walked aft to the taffrail, beckoning Sarah after him. She still wore breeches and a shirt, the ruffles of which lifted in the cool breeze that came in from the sea. Dark clouds were building over the sea and already the westering sun was obscured. Against the cloud the line of the horizon was jade green, broken here and there by the lateen sails of native pattamars and mashwas which were running in for the shelter of the harbour.

  ‘What is it, William?’

  Kite frowned. Then he said in a low voice so that no sound of their conversation filtered down to Rose below. ‘It is odd, Sarah, but I am convinced Hooker is up to something, that he has some secret mat
ter in hand from which he denies me any part. We are so much in his hands that I am thrown into all confusion and…’ Kite fell silent.

  ‘And?’ Sarah prompted.

  Kite shook his head, as if throwing off a bad dream. ‘I had the oddest impulse to throw him over board,’ Kite said, nodding down at the water under them.

  ‘Dear God,’ Sarah exclaimed, drawing back from the rail. A large shark, with its attending remora turned languidly in the shadow of Spitfire’s stern, predatory and sinister, seemingly unperturbed by the wind ruffled surface of the harbour.

  ‘I felt a… a premonition,’ he whispered, and Sarah put out her hand and touched his.

  ‘My husband has gone ashore to secure us lodgings.’

  They both turned as Rose approached them under a parasol. She came aft in a swirl of green and gold silk, her tall, well proportioned figure upright and confident as she walked on the unfamiliarly level deck. Rose Hooker had never really accustomed herself to the slightest movement of the schooner at sea. Now, with the breeze pressing the brilliant silk closer about her, she presented a graceful picture of happiness, her smile wide in the shadow of her parasol, her oiled hair gleaming as she turned and waved a bangled brown arm towards the pale ramparts of the castle and Fort George beyond.

  ‘It is so good to be home,’ she said simply as she turned back to them.

  ‘I suppose Josiah will have no trouble in finding you somewhere to live?’ Sarah asked, ‘are houses to be had easily, or will he seek out some friend?’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry, Sarah, Josiah has much influence here; all will be well now.’

  Rose stared again at the distant fort and Kite, watching this exchange, thought he caught a wistfulness in her face, then dismissed the thought: he had become too damned suspicious. And what if Rose Hooker was wistful? She had been away a long time and, even if her expectations of England had been blighted, the prospect of getting ashore from the confines of the schooner must have raised even a short-term anticipation in her. Then Rose swung back to them.

  ‘Yes, all will be well now, for all of us.’ She smiled, then added, ‘he will be back by nightfall with good news.’

  Yet somehow Kite was not reassured. There was something fey about Rose’s lack of conviction and he felt a sudden chill in the air.

  Hooker was not back by nightfall. Nor were Harper and the boat. The day was eclipsed by the sudden chill and sweeping hiss of rain which came a few minutes before sunset. The fresh monsoon breeze of the day turned into a near gale so that Spitfire snubbed at her cable and Kite’s only consolation as he huddled on deck cursing the ill-luck that kept him from a full night’s sleep yet again, was that they were able to fill several casks with water as the rain poured down from the furled sails in torrential spouts.

  It was all over before midnight as the cloud eased, the stars appeared again and the wind moderated. Kite heard the hail of Harper’s voice and a few minutes later the mate, sodden to the skin, his ugly face cracking in a grin of pleasure at getting back on board, stood in the cabin with a glass of toddy Sarah had prepared for him. The boat lay astern on its painter and Harper looked exhausted.

  ‘Well Zachariah, where is Mr Hooker?’

  Harper looked round. Mistress Kite was in her dressing gown, the Indian woman was wrapped in yet another of her extravagant silk confections and Captain Kite, his hair plastered on his skull had at least kept his trunk dry. Harper noted his stockinged feet rose from puddles on the square of carpet the cabin-deck was graced with. He set down his glass and withdrew a note from his breast.

  ‘I fear the ink has run,’ he said, handing it to Kite.

  Kite read it through quickly and then handed it to Rose. ‘He says he is detained and will be back in the morning. He is apparently spending the night with a certain Wadia.’

  ‘A native ship-wright, I think,’ Harper offered in his American drawl.

  ‘A ship-builder whose reputation is celebrated throughout the land,’ Rose added. ‘Did he send a topass with this?’ she asked Harper, holding up the soggy note.

  ‘A topass?’

  ‘A boy. A runner…’

  ‘A messenger,’ Kite added for Harper’s benefit..

  ‘Yeah, he sure didn’t come himself. It was raining…’

  ‘Very well. You had better get some sleep Zachariah. Now the wind has dropped I’ll turn out McClusky; he can stand the anchor watch.’

  When Harper, refreshed from his sleep and in dry clothes, returned to the landing place next morning he was met not by Hooker but by the same Indian messenger who had brought him Hooker’s note the previous evening. An hour after leaving Spitfire he was back alongside with the Indian who had insisted upon being taken out to the schooner with a large bundle wrapped in a cotton sheet.

  ‘He demanded a passage out to the vessel, Cap’n Kite,’ Harper explained as he brought the man aft to where Kite and Sarah were enjoying a cup of coffee on deck.

  Kite regarded the Indian. Apart from Rose and the dacoits who had kept themselves to themselves throughout the voyage, this was the first native Indian had met. The man was impressive: tall and turbanned with an attractively hawk-like face and fierce moustaches. His long coat was of dark blue and he wore leggings bound at the ankle while his feet were bare. In his belt was a dagger. Meeting Kite’s eye he inclined his head in a civil, though not a servile manner and made a gesture with his hands that indicated some degree of obligation to Kite’s station.

  ‘You are the Captain Kite?’ he asked in an English that was almost perfect.

  ‘I am. You have news of Mr Hooker.’

  ‘I am called Muckbul Ali Rahman. Hooker Sahib has assigned me as topass to you, Captain Kite, that is to say I am to be your interpreter, guide and, I hope, your friend.’ The man smiled and shot a look at Sarah. Rahman’s dark, almost liqueous eyes bore a look of astonishment as though, Kite thought, it had just dawned upon him that beside himself stood an English woman. He footed her a bow and muttered, ‘Memsahib.’

  Sarah smiled and dipped in a half curtsey.

  ‘Hooker Sahib wishes me to inform you that he is currently waiting upon the House of Wadia and is sanguine that a ship may be chartered before the sun sets this evening…’

  ‘Forgive me, sir,’ Kite broke in uncertainly, ‘but I have a need for water and fresh food; moreover I must clear the vessel inwards…’

  But it was Rahman’s turn to interrupt. He held his hand up, palm outwards, waving it in a negative. ‘It is all arranged, Captain Kite, an officer from the Custom House will attend you if you send a boat to the landing place at noon, there is a gun from the fort, and Hooker Sahib will rejoin you at that time. If you give me a list of your requirement for stores, I shall see to the matter and as for water, Sahib, you can land your casks at the dockyard when it is convenient and you will be shown where to draw potable water.’

  Kite digested this intelligence. Rahman had arrived like the god he had once seen appear in a machine lowered from out of the paper clouds suspended over the stage of a theatre in Liverpool. Was this some form of oriental magic, like the beds of nails and climbing ropes of which he had heard Hooker speak? All his worries would, Rahman seemed to promise, melt away like the puddles of dew and rain drying from their decks in the hot sunshine that now consumed those real clouds that had hitherto lowered over Bombay harbour.

  ‘Very well…’

  ‘You should call me Topass, Captain, if you cannot manage my name.’

  ‘I am obliged to you Topass,’ Kite said smiling at the dark-skinned man, surprised that quite inexplicably he found himself liking Rahman. Despite the Indian’s arrival at the behest of Hooker, Kite thought he would trust the man before he would trust his master.

  ‘And yet,’ he muttered to himself, ‘I hitherto trusted Hooker, or else I should not be here with Sarah.’

  The unease of premonition returned to dog him through that busy morning as they fought off the sporadic attempts of the bumboats to work alongside while they strove to hoist the
water casks out of the hold. Nor did the sensation diminish when Hooker returned. For an hour he closeted himself with his wife and Sarah drew him away on deck when he sought to eavesdrop through the temporary bulkhead by which means they had given each couple privacy.

  In due course, however, Hooker sent word for Kite and he had descended from the deck, his head aching from over-exertion in the heat.

  ‘You should not drive yourself,’ Hooker said expansively, smoking a long cheroot. He was sodden with sweat and gave off the old aroma of neglect as he leaned back in a creaking chair with a glass of wine.

  ‘All is well then, Josiah?’ Kite enquired, helping himself to a glass and, mopping his own face, easing himself onto the transom shelf.

  ‘Very well indeed, my dear fellow. I have had a stroke of luck. I called upon the chief factor. I ascertained, after we had discovered a mutual acquaintance in Calcutta whom we both held in high esteem, that a large country ship has just been made available for charter. Her owner, a Scotchman named Buchanan, has just expired. The man had no issue and no partners. She is loaded with cotton piece goods and her commander has, with some partners of his own, Parsees I gather, raised sufficient capital to buy half her bottom and her freight. She is fully manned and cleared for China. Without Buchanan’s letters of credit Captain Grindley is unable to proceed and he is thus urgently seeking further backing. I was able to provide the missing capital…’

  Kite broke into Hooker’s enthusiasm: ‘Captain Grindley? She has a commander, this vessel of yours?’

  ‘Yes, yes…’

  ‘Then what is to become of me? Was it not agreed that I should command your ship?’

  Hooker blew smoke at the white painted deckhead and smiled dismissively. ‘Yes, yes, of course, William, but don’t you see what a golden opportunity this was? Why, it fell into my lap, it was fate, was I to pass up such a chance? It was an opportunity to move matters forward, d’you not see, without delay. Besides, you have your schooner.’ Hooker waved his wine glass about in an airy gesture that slopped the residual contents. ‘She will make you a fortune…’