‘Boiling tar, sir. Hot and hot off of the foretop, but nothing to what the Captain’s been ladling out. We reckon he must have word of Linois; but any rate it has been drive, drive, drive. Not a dead-?eye turned in on Tuesday, and yet we rattled down the shrouds today and we sail on tomorrow’s tide! Admiral did not believe it possible; I did not believe it possible, nor yet the oldest fo’c’sleman; and like I said or meant to say Mr Rattray took to his bed the Monday, wore out and sick: which half the rest of the people would a done the same if they dared. And all the time it was “Where’s the Doctor - God damn you, sir, can’t you find the Doctor, you perishing swab?” Right vexed he was. Excellency’s baggage aboard in double quick time - guns for the boats every five minutes - ball over their heads to encourage ‘em to stretch out. God love us all. Here’s a chit he gave me for you, sir.’
Surprise
Bombay
Sir
You are hereby required and directed to report aboard H M Ship under my command immediately upon receipt of this order
I am, etc.
Jno. Aubrey
‘It is dated three days ago,’ observed Stephen.
‘Yes, sir. We been handing it from one to the next, by turns. Ned Hyde spilt some toddy on the corner.’
‘Well, I shall read it tomorrow: I can hardly see tonight, and we must get a couple of hours’ sleep before sunrise. And does he indeed mean to sail upon the tide?’
‘Lord, yes, sir. We’m at single anchor in the channel. Excellency’s aboard, powder-?hoy alongside and the last barrels stowing when I left her.’
‘Dear me. Well, cut along to the ship now, Bonden: my compliments to the Captain and I shall be with him before the full. Why do you stand there, Barret Bonden, like a stock, or image?’
‘Sir, he’ll call me a lubber and a fool and I don’t know what all if I come back without you; and I tell you straight it will be a file of Marines to carry you back to the ship the moment he knows you’re here. I’ve followed him these many years, sir, and I’ve never known him so outrageous: lions ain’t in it.’
‘Well, I shall be there before she sails. You need not hurry to the ship, you know,’ he said, pushing the unwilling, anxious, despondent Bonden out of the door and locking it behind him.
Tomorrow would be the seventeenth. There might be other factors, but he was certain that one reason for this furious drive was Jack’s desire to get him out of Bombay before Canning and Diana should return. No doubt he meant it kindly; no doubt he was afraid of an encounter between the two men. It was an ingenious piece of manipulation; but although Stephen was under naval law he was not to be moved about quite so easily. He had never cared for laws at any time.
He threw off his clothes, poured water over himself, and sat down to write a note to Diana. It would not do: he had hit the wrong tone. Another version, and the sweat running down his fingers blurred the words. Canning was a formidable enemy; sharp, silent, quick. If indeed he was an enemy at all: the danger of over-?reaching oneself -Byzantine convolutions, too cunning by half. The nausea of perpetual suspicion and intrigue: a hopeless nostalgia for a plain direct relationship - for cleanliness. lie reached for another sheet: it appeared that the enemy was at sea -he begged pardon for not taking leave - looked forward to a meeting in Calcutta - reminded her of the promised tiger, sent his compliments to Mr Canning, and was sure he might confide his little prot?g?e to her kindness - he was just about to purchase the child for -’That puts me in mind of my purse,’ he said. He found it, a small cloth bag, hung it round his neck, and put on a kind of shirt. Out into the cooler, cleaner air. Through the streets again, more peopled now with the gardeners bringing in their fruit and vegetables - barrows, asses, bullocks and camel carts making their way carefully through the grey darkness, pariah dogs flitting behind
them. In the bazaars there were small lamps everywhere, and the glow of braziers - a general stirring: people picking up their beds and carrying them indoors or turning them into stalls. On through the Gharwal caravanserai, past the Franciscan church, past the Jain temple to the alley where Dil lived.
The alley was unusually crowded; already there were people filling in from side to side, and it was only by urging a Brahmin bull in front of him that he was able to reach the triangular booth made of planks and wedged against a buttress. The old woman was sitting in front of it, with a wavering lamp on her right side, a white-?robed man on
the other, Dil’s body in front of her, partly covered with a piece of cloth. On the ground, a bowl with some marigolds in it and four brass coins. The people pressed in a half circle facing her, listening gravely to her harsh, angry voice.
He sat down in the second rank - went down with a grunt, as though his legs had been cut from under him - and he felt an intolerable pain rising in his heart. He had seen so much death that he could not be mistaken: but after some time the hard acceptance he had learnt cleared his mind at least. The old woman was calling upon the crowd for money: breaking off to tell the Brahmin that a very little wood would do - wrangling with him, insisting. The people were kind: many words of comfort, sympathy and praise, small offerings added to the bowl; but it was a desperately poor neighbourhood and the coins did not amount to half a dozen logs.
‘Here is no one of her caste,’ said the man next to Stephen; and other people murmured that that was the cruel pity of the thing - her own people would have seen to the fire. But with a famine coming, no man dared look beyond the caste he belonged to. ‘I am of her caste,’ said Stephen to the man in front of him, touching his shoulder. ‘Tell the woman I will buy the child. Friend, tell the woman I will buy the child and take it down. I will attend to the fire.’
The man looked round at him. Stephen’s eyes were remote; his cheeks hollow, lined and dirty; his hair straggled over his face: he might well have been mad, or in another state - removed. The man glanced at his grave neighbours, felt their qualified approval, and called out, ‘Grandmother, here is a holy man of thy caste who from piety will buy the child and take it down: he will also provide the wood.’
More conversation - cries - and a dead silence. Stephen felt the man thrust the purse back into his bosom, patting and arranging his shirt round the string.
After a moment he stood up. Dil’s face was infinitely calm; the wavering flame made it seem to smile mysteriously at times, but the steady light showed a face as far from emotion as the sea: contained and utterly detached. 11cr arms showed the marks where the bracelets had been torn off, but the marks were slight: there had been no struggle, no desperate resistance.
