By Eastern windows (17 page)

‘Yes, sir.’

Lachlan's face remained expressionless while inwardly wishing he could strangle General Balfour. For all other combatants it would be a two-day cruise by ship down the coast to Cochin. But for Captain Macquarie and his company – twelve days of marching over land and rivers in the dust and heat, hauling supplies and a ton weight of cannon.

Why did Balfour do it? Lachlan wondered. Why did the old bastard always single him out for preferential persecution?

Jane was devastated when she heard the news. They had never been parted since the day of their marriage and just the thought of Lachlan leaving her and going into the danger of battle was simply beyond her contemplation. And Cochin was over one hundred miles down the coast from Calicut.

She pleaded to be allowed to go with him, as a soldier's wife, willing to share all the hardships of a soldier's life in the tented field.

When she began to pack her things, Lachlan had to grab the clothes out of her hand and stop her.
 
‘You must stop this!’ he warned her. ‘I am a soldier, not a fool! Only a fool would allow his wife to accompany him into a possible battle area.’

‘But that's
unfair!
’ she cried distractedly. ‘Even the battle area will be swamped with female camp followers! Cochin will be full of them!’

‘Yes, well, most of the female camp followers are prostitutes who go there at their own risk. The Army claims no responsibility for them. But you are my wife and my responsibility. And that, my dear Jane, is a very different matter.’

He refused to even consider it.

Two days later they prepared to say farewell. He stood looking ruefully into her mournful eyes, then bent and kissed her mournful mouth.
 
‘I'll write a letter to you every day,’ he promised. ‘And every day I'll send a native letter-carrier speeding back to Calicut with it.’

She rested her face on his scarlet jacket. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too.’
 
Words were pointless.
 
He kissed her once more, and then turned out of the house.

A small force had been left in control of the station. As Lachlan mounted his horse he spoke quietly to Bappoo.
 
‘I can trust her to your protection, Bappoo?’

Bappoo nodded his head loyally. ‘I protect her with my life, Huzoor.’

And so the soldiers moved out, past the station guards, towards the town of Calicut. From the veranda Jane watched them go, the men marching in columns and the officers mounted on chargers.

Then Jane turned her head and saw the small group of Indian girls standing together, all looking as lost and afraid as she felt.

She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and began the walk down to join them. As the only officer's wife on the station, it was her duty to cheer the other women and keep their spirits up.

EIGHT

In 1635 the Portuguese had built the coastal settlement and Fortress of Cochin, then lost it in battle to the British. Thirty years later the Dutch came along and drove the British out, and since then the Dutch had held Cochin for over a hundred years.

But now the British were back.

Upon arrival at Cochin, after a twelve-day march, Captain Macquarie's company received an order to pitch tents and make camp near the Mattancherri Gate of the Fortress, although every officer had been offered quarters in the houses of Mattancheri itself, inhabited principally by Jews.

Unlike the other inhabitants, the Jews of Cochin did not reside within the fortressed town, but about a mile distant outside the walls. Mattancherri was situated on the banks of the Cochin River, contained two synagogues, a cluster of lovely houses with beautiful gardens, and a Hindu Palace only a hundred yards distant from one of the synagogues. In Mattancheri the Jews and the Hindus had always lived in harmony.

Lachlan found he was to be billeted in the house of a Dutch Jew named Mr Francis Wredé, a wealthy man of property who was loyal to the Stadtholder.

‘Oh, yes, Jews from Holland and many other parts of Europe are all intermingled here in our little Hebrew colony in Cochin,’ said Mr Wredé as he showed Lachlan around his home, a large and beautiful house with an open pavilion at the back, overlooking a garden adorned with fountains and every kind of eastern flower.

Lachlan's pleasure in his new quarters was magnified by the discovery that two of his favourite friends were also lodged there, Dr Colin Anderson and Captain Edward Grant, both of whom had sailed directly from Bombay a few weeks earlier.

Captain Grant waited until they had sat down to dinner before he briefed Lachlan on the current state of affairs in Cochin.

‘A siege is inevitable now,’ Grant said in a resigned tone. ‘When we first arrived a communication was sent to Governor Van Spall, informing him that the British had been ordered to take possession of all the Dutch settlements in India in order to prevent them being seized by the French, and that was why we were here – to take possession of Cochin in the name of the Prince of Orange.’

Grant reached across the table for the salt. ‘So what did Van Spall do? And what has he done ever since? He vacillates and vacillates and appears to have no idea what to do. Proposals have been going back and forth for over a week and still Van Spall can't decide whether to surrender Cochin or fight it out. And we on our part can do nothing until the artillery ship arrives from Bombay. So Van Spall's dithering is proving a great help to us.’

‘What’s happened to the artillery ship?’ Lachlan asked. ‘Does anyone know?’

‘It apparently ran into some difficulty near the coast of Goa, but now it's reported to be on its way.’

‘How many men do the Dutch have?’

‘Almost a thousand regulars, and even more irregulars.’

‘That many?’

‘Yes,’ Grant smiled, `but the poor darlings haven't fought a battle for over a hundred years, have they?’

Later Mr Wredé joined them and suggested they take their wine out to the veranda overlooking the garden at the back of the house. Francis Wredé proved to be a kind and gentle-mannered man who was devoting all his time and money to the translation of the history of the Malabar Jews into Low Dutch.

On the veranda, tea was served in small porcelain cups placed on silver saucers, while Mr Wredé conversed companionably with the three officers. Lachlan was very surprised to learn that Jews had lived in India since the fifth century.

‘Oh yes, the first Cochin Jews originally came from Babylon.’ Mr Wredé was delighted at Lachlan's interest. ‘Captives of Nebuchadnezzar,’ he continued, ‘held as slaves until some miraculously escaped and fled here to Hindustan. Other Jews, of course, fled to Europe. We are a people scattered all over the face of the earth. But wherever you may find us – ‘ Wredé spread his hands and smiled, `we are all the sons of Abraham.’
  

It was pleasant, sitting in the cool evening air, listening to the gentle voice of their host telling them the history of his scattered people, their cruel bondage in Egypt, their days in the wilderness, and the reign of King Solomon.

Soothed into a warm relaxation, his eyes on the rippling fountain in the centre of the musky garden, Lachlan heard of the wealth and power and greatness of Solomon. ‘A king who surpassed all other kings on the earth, until, alas, Solomon forgot the lessons of his youth and in his old age built altars, not to the God of Israel, but to the strange Gods of his wives.’

The mention of wives jolted Lachlan out of his lassitude. Very politely he interrupted his host and asked if a
halcarra
could be procured to carry a letter for him that night.

‘Of course,’ Mr Wredé agreed graciously.

And while Lachlan went to his room and dashed off a hasty letter to Jane, and while Mr Wredé went to procure a letter-carrier,
 
Dr Anderson and Captain Grant remained seated in the cool evening air debating their own views on King Solomon, the author of the ‘Song of Songs.’

‘He liked his women, Solomon, that's for sure,’ Anderson murmured.

Captain Grant sat thoughtful.
 
‘The only bits of Solomon’s Song that I remember are the bits the Theology Master always left out ... ‘
Your breasts are like clusters of the vine, and your kisses like the best wine that goes down smoothly, gliding over lips and teeth...’

Grant lifted his glass and sipped, gazing thoughtfully at the evening sky. ‘Breasts like clusters of the vine, eh? I suppose he must have been referring to her dusky nipples, saying they were like purple grapes, what?’

He looked at Anderson for his opinion, but Anderson was laughing. He liked Captain Grant, an exceptionally handsome young man, and one of the many English officers attached to the 77th.

Captain Grant continued gazing at the sky, now streaked with the gold of a setting sun. ‘Everything about the East is sensual,’ he murmured. ‘No wonder Englishmen are never quite the same when they return home.’

He turned his head and grinned slyly at Anderson. ‘I wonder what Macquarie will think when he gets a look at those erotic Hindu frescos all over the walls in the Mattancheri Palace, eh? A Scot from puritan stock as he is, as
you
are. Shall I tell him how you almost collapsed when you saw the paintings?’

‘Swooned, is the better word.’ Anderson laughed. ‘And I shouldn't worry about Macquarie. He has his own little love-nest and seems very happy in it.’

‘What?’ Grant regarded him with disbelief. ‘Don't tell me the man is still in love with his wife?’

`My dear Edward, surprising as it may seem to you, the Macquaries positively dote on each other.’

‘Dote? Really? Even him?’

‘He's besotted.’

‘Poor man … and married now how long? Two years? Three years?’

‘More or less.’ Anderson smiled. ‘She's very nice, you know. And loyal. She left Bombay and came down to live with him on the station at Calicut. And no other officer's wife did that.’

Captain Grant was silent for a few seconds. ‘Lucky Macquarie, eh?
 
I must confess I'm a bit jealous of the
doting
. It's such a long time since I had any. Not since Nanny wept all over me the day I was packed off to Eton.’

Anderson was laughing again. ‘Edward, you were born a fool.’

‘That was my father's opinion too, alas.’ Grant stretched his legs and languidly gazed over the garden.

‘No, I tell a lie,’ he admitted. ‘The very last female who doted over me was a young golden-haired beauty named Hannah. She and I spent one lovely summer hidden for most of the time in a field of buttercups in Berkshire. An unforgettable summer that was. We were very young, of course, but she doted over me wonderfully. Then I was sent up to College, and a few months later I discovered that her father had quickly married her off to a doctor in Cornwall, while I had been wasting my time writing long love-letters to her from Oxford.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘God knows. I still often wonder. Out of the blue, completely out of the blue, her father sent me a packet containing all my letters unopened, and a curt note informing me that his daughter was now married, and expecting a child.’

He sighed wistfully. ‘Sweet Hannah ... funny how it's the sweet ones we soldiers never seem able to forget. Even now, when I sleep with Eastern beauties, no matter what they say their names are, I always call them Hannah.’

Anderson looked at him with a shrewd curiosity. ‘Sounds as if you might still be in love with her?’

Grant was silent for a long moment. ‘There is that possibility, yes.’

*

At the front of the house, Lachlan was placing his letter to Jane into the hands of a
halcarra
, watching it being slipped inside a secret fold of the youth's shabby garment, then with a brief salaam he started off on his journey to Calicut.

‘They are a strange people, the halcarras,’ Mr Wredé murmured as they both stood watching the youth run off, `very poor, but lightningly swift on their feet. I suppose that's why they are usually employed as flying messengers and letter-carriers.’

‘I wonder how they manage to run so far so quickly?’ Lachlan said. ‘Most are so thin, and the only nourishment they seem to take with them on their long journey is a handful of rice and a small flask for water.’

Mr Wredé looked at him curiously. ‘You don't know what else the halcarra runner always takes to help him ease the boredom of his long journey?’

‘No.’

‘Opium.’

‘Ah.’ Lachlan was about to say that half of India seemed to be addicted to opium, then realised he would only be stating the obvious.

*

Three weeks later, Governor Van Spall finally made up his mind. On behalf of himself and his Council, he sent Colonel Petrie a very clear and decisive answer for the Prince of Orange and his relative on the English throne. He was positively determined not to admit a British garrison into the Fortress of Cochin, but on the contrary to defend Cochin to the last extremity.

War was, more or less, declared.

And Colonel Petrie found himself unable to do a thing about it, because the artillery ship containing the guns for the siege had still not arrived.