By Eastern windows (19 page)

The Dutchman was sitting on a box with his back against the wall. He was very fat and very drunk and laughed hysterically as he held the rope in one hand and the whip in the other – enjoying himself so much that he was caught by surprise when Lachlan's hand closed about the wrist holding the whip, twisting it savagely.

The Dutchman yelped in startled pain and let the whip fall onto the dust.

‘
Vah!
’ the Dutchman exclaimed; then a mixture of emotions compounded of rage, and contempt crossed his face as his inebriated gaze took in the red-coated uniform.

‘Ah!’ he said scornfully. ‘It is von of the mighty British!’ He tugged his wrist free and looked around at the crowd who were watching with renewed interest. He suddenly let out a drunken giggling laugh and shouted in amusement at the crowd.
 
‘The British, they come, to make Cochin safe for the Stadtholder. So safe, the Stadtholder vill never see Cochin again! The British take – the British keep! Never give back!’

He threw back his head and laughed hysterically at the stupidity of the Prince of Orange, but Lachlan's eyes were on the struggling boy.

‘You!’ His fist thumped the shoulder of the laughing Dutchman. ‘What the hell are you
doing
to this boy?’

‘Him?’ the Dutchman tugged hard on the rope and brought the boy stumbling towards him. ‘He is mine.’

‘Yours? What do you mean he is yours? Is he your servant? And you treat a servant like that?
 
Put him on public show, naked, and whip him for public amusement.’

The Dutchman looked at the crowd with a humorous expression, then smiled fatly and spread out a hand in a gesture of resignation. ‘The people must see the quality of the goods before they buy.’

‘Buy? The boy is for sale?’

Colin Anderson, who had been in Cochin longer and knew more of the trade of the settlement than Macquarie did, muttered towards Lachlan's ear. ‘The man is a slave-trader, for God's sake!’

‘He is beautiful, is he not,’ the slave-trader said, grabbing the boy's jaw and jerking up his head. ‘Beautiful black-eyed boy, but light-skinned, yes? Father's skin vas light.’ He reeled off the boy's pedigree. ‘Boy now nine years. Mother from Morocco, taken as slave and sold as concubine to royal son of maharaja in palace at Surat. Mother fifteen when boy born, prince seventeen. Good stock. Young seed. Both parents very beautiful.’

The Dutchman grinned slyly at the British officer. ‘Englishmen like beautiful boys to play with. You vant to buy’

‘You son of a scorpion!’ Lachlan snatched up the whip and angrily flicked a lash at the wooden box under the Dutchman. ‘How would you like it, mynheer, if I made
you
do a little dancing?’

‘Lachlan – ‘ Anderson caught his arm warningly, but the wide-eyed boy had jerked his face free of the Dutchman's sweating hand and threw himself at Lachlan's feet.

‘Sahib, I be good servant!’

A Mussulman of Arabic appearance standing on the inner edge of the crowd stepped forward and spoke angrily to the slave-trader while throwing hostile glances at the British officer.

The slave-trader turned his inebriated gaze to the Redcoat, glanced at the lowered whip, and then smiled fatly. ‘The Mussulman vants to buy,' he said. `First he come and say he pay thirty rupees, then thirty-five, then forty. Now he say he pay forty-five rupees for beautiful boy.’

‘
Sahib
!’
the boy cried, clawing at Lachlan’s boots while glancing in terror at the Mussulman. ‘
Sahib! I be good servant!
’
 

‘You can have the boy, British,’ the slave-trader said to Lachlan, ‘for eighty-five rupees.’

‘Boy no good for the noble Sahib,’ the Mussulman said quickly. ‘Sahib want good Hindu or good Mussulman for servant, but this boy – ‘
 
he made a contemptuous gesture, `this boy is
kutch-nay
!
He is nothing! His mother was slave in palace at Surat then thrown away, no good. She then slave to Dutch Sahib in Cochin for few years, but die. Mother weak, lazy, no good servant, no good, like boy.’

‘Then why do
you
want to buy him?’ Lachlan demanded.
 
He glanced down at the boy who was staring up at him with terrified, desperate eyes, an innocent child being brutalised and bartered like a whipped pup.

‘Eighty-five rupees,’ the Dutchman said. ‘Who pays? Who buys?’ He looked from the Mussulman to the Redcoat.

‘Fifty-five rupees,’ the Mussulman said. ‘No more. Boy worth ten. I pay fifty-five.’

‘
Saahib
!
’ the boy wailed. ‘
Saaahib!
’

 
‘Sixty rupees,’ the Mussulman added quickly, ‘Sixty rupees I pay.’

‘Now he say he pay sixty!’ The slave-trader smiled at the Redcoat. ‘You can afford to pay more?
 
Eighty-five rupees?’

Of a sudden Lachlan nodded, his decision made. Colin Anderson hastily caught his arm. ‘Lachlan, are you mad? Surely you’re not going to buy the boy?’

‘From this bloated pig’s bladder? No I’m not going to
buy
the boy.’ He snapped out his pistol and jammed the barrel into the Dutchman’s head, flicking back the hammer.
 
‘I’m going to
take
him. Right now. Hand over the rope, or I’ll blow your drink-sodden brains out!’

The slave-trader was too shocked to answer, his head pressed back against the wall, his eyes quivering with fright as his quivering hand loosened its grip on the rope. Lachlan snatched it and began to back away, taking the boy with him. He watched the crowd of staring eyes and knew none of them would dare to challenge him. Taking a man’s property without payment was against the law, but all knew that the British ruled Cochin now, and the British were the law.

*

That same afternoon Lachlan was back at work, and then found himself on duty for five long days consecutively, in command of a detachment of the 77th on duty inside the Fort.

Almost collapsing from want of rest, he was finally relieved from his five day command, but only in order to discharge his duty as a Paymaster of the Regiment, and give the soldiers their pay.

‘Put an extra few rupees in, Captain!’ a bright young spark shouted as Lachlan sat at a fold-table under a tree and began paying the lines of soldiers.

Lachlan smiled a polite response, but the foolish young soldier, standing halfway down the line, made the mistake of becoming more familiar and bold. ‘I mean, Captain,’ he said with a laugh, ‘all you officers will be getting a nice rich reward for taking Cochin, won't you?’

‘Take that soldier's name, Sergeant,’ Macquarie said, without looking up.

‘But, Captain!’ the soldier argued, ‘I was only saying – ‘

‘Don't you
dare
argue with me. Take his name again, Sergeant.’

‘Oh bugger me for speaking!’ the soldier muttered.

Lachlan put down his pen and looked directly at Sergeant McGinnis. ‘How many times is that now, Sergeant?’

`Three times, sir. He’s answered ye back three times.’
 

‘Then this afternoon, Sergeant, let him take three hours of double-drill or whatever other punishment you think fitting.’

The soldier almost collapsed; involuntarily his mouth opened again but was stopped by the soldier behind him who hissed impatiently. ‘Shut up Berwick, or I'll stuff a mango in your gob! Some of us are waiting to be paid.’

Sergeant McGinnis looked severely at Berwick who had come out to India with a new detachment of soldiers, and had been sent down to Calicut only a few months previously. Berwick was a likable lad, but very cheeky, and reputed to be hopelessly in love with the captain's wife of all people, Mrs Jane Macquarie.

The Sergeant muttered in an undertone, ‘Ye, my laddie, are even more stupid than I gave ye credit for.’

‘What's to be my punishment, Sarge?’
 
Berwick quavered, almost in tears. ‘Not double-drill, Sarge, please! I'll do anything, but not three hours double-drill!’

Sergeant McGinnis regarded him with a look of lofty rectitude. ‘And why not?’ he demanded. ‘If I say ye'll spend three hours running round the parade-ground under full pack, then ye will!’

‘But Sarge – ‘

‘No whining, Berwick, no whining if ye please. We don't like whining lads in this regiment. And I hope them's not tears I see in your eyes! If they are tears, then ye know the punishment
 
– a collection to buy ye a baby's rattle!’

Berwick's eyes blinked rapidly as he jerked up his chin.

Sergeant McGinnis clasped his hands behind his back, did a slow strut up to the top of the line, about-turned, and strutted back down again. He paused, and stood looking sideways at Berwick, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

‘Not three hours drill,’ he said finally, in a more gentle tone.
 
`Not for ye, Berwick. It's been a good campaign and so I’m going to be kind to ye.’

‘Thanks, Sarge.’

‘So, this afternoon, Berwick, I want ye to spend your time writing three letters to your friends back home on the subject of –
 
"Why I joined the Army."’

The soldier behind Berwick spluttered.

‘And when ye have written them,’ the Sergeant continued, ‘I want ye to write a last letter, addressed to the Commander-in-Chief, on the subject of – "How I learned not to be cheeky and argue with an officer who has just done a five-day spell of duty and is badly fatigued and in need of a rest, but can't have one because he has to spend a further day paying out wages to the men which includes cheeky young buggers and good soldiers alike!"’

Berwick was staring, while the soldiers in front and behind him were endeavouring to control their shaking bodies.
 

‘I couldn't write all that, Sarge!’

‘And why not?’

‘I never learned writing.’

Captain Macquarie glanced up as a number of soldiers down the line erupted into laughter, and Sergeant McGinnis looked up at the sky as if wishing he was dead.

*

At last it came, the time to leave. Captain Macquarie paid off the casual servants and coolies who had joined his company on the march overland from Calicut, and gave them all an extra few rupees to carry them home to Tanore or Paniani or wherever they had been hired along the way to Cochin. Their service with the British Army was no longer needed. A regular garrison was now installed at Cochin under the command of Colonel Petrie, and everyone else was leaving the tented field and going home to base at Calicut or Bombay.

In order to prevent the fortune-tellers, the conjurers, the cooks and horse-keepers, the boot-shiners and silversmiths, and all the other trades that made up the camp-followers, and especially the prostitutes, from swarming after the soldiers and their pay, a ship had arrived to take the 77th back to Calicut by sea, and was due to leave in three days time.

Lachlan couldn't wait that long.

He went to the extravagance of hiring a pattamar boat and two nights later he was back at Calicut, arriving there in bright tropical moonlight.

He had left his horse at Cochin to be transported on the troop-ship. Arriving at Calicut he hired a horse and was soon speeding a further four miles up the coast to the British station and Jane.

In the quietness of the military settlement, the sound of his horse had been heard from a half a mile away. He briefly acknowledged the sentries with a touch of his hat as he rode past them, slowing his speed as his horse picked its way up the narrow path towards the officers' bungalows.

Turning his head sideways, he murmured over his shoulder, ‘Almost home.’
   

‘Yes, Sahib,’ whispered the boy sitting behind him.

As he neared the house he heard footsteps running along the veranda ... and there she was, his beloved girl.
 
He smiled and swung down to her.

*

Bappo, Marianne, and the other household servants seemed almost as excited as Jane to see Lachlan again. None seemed to notice the small boy sitting motionlessly in the darkness above the horse, until Lachlan turned back and lifted him down.

The boy was now dressed decently and wore a small dark blue turban on his head. ‘This is George,’ Lachlan said, leading him into the light on the veranda. ‘A new addition to our household.’

Jane stared at the boy. Her hands rested on his shoulders as she looked into his face. ‘Oh, he's beautiful!’ she exclaimed.
 

The boy smiled back at her happily.

‘And so
sweet
!
’ Jane added.

Lachlan nodded. ‘I had a suspicion that's what you would say.’

‘But why – ‘

‘Not now, he said. ‘Let's get this wee laddie some food and off to bed and then I'll tell you everything.’

As soon as George had been taken off to the servants' quarters, the questions poured out of her. Had he eaten? What? Good gracious! He had not eaten since that morning!

Lachlan insisted that he was not hungry, but she would have none of it. He
must
eat! And immediately!