Free Lance Page 5

  ‘The honour of a glass with you, Mr Harley!’ the naval officer ' called.

  ‘Willingly, Lieutenant Shore.’

  Servants brought the second course: a joint of beef and turtle meat. The heat of bodies and candles and broiling food sent the temperature soaring; sweat coursed roistering faces and wilted starched cravats. Todd moved his shoulders irritably beneath the thick red coat. ‘Prodigiously warm,’ he remarked to Anstruther. ‘I feel like a hog in armour!’

  He received a condescending stare from the amber eyes. ‘You must stick it, sir. The jolly is not half done!’

  Todd sawed his beef, and tried to focus the scalloped plate which wavered like a seashell glimpsed through water. A servant spoke urgently in the surgeon’s ear. Blore smacked his hands together and swore.

  ‘What is the trouble?’ Amaury called.

  ‘That stupid fellow Meyer has just shot himself!’

  ‘Meyer - ensign of the 12th?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He looked lovingly at the turtle meat and calipash that brimmed a plate awash in juicy gravy. ‘What the devil use can I be? Send salaams to the Coroner!’ he ordered the servant.

  ‘I think, Captain Blore,’ said Harley quietly, ‘you had better go to attend the unfortunate man.’

  ‘Damme, how infernally vexatious!’ The surgeon rose reluctantly, jowls quivering in frustration. ‘I charge you, Amaury, keep this delicious turtle hot against my return! Cursed nuisance!’ He plodded from the room, bawling for his palankeen. ‘That’s not pleasant intelligence,’ said Todd, finding trouble with the sibilants.

  ‘Our fourth suicide this year,’ Harley replied. ‘Money, monotony, climate and drink - all take a regular toll.’

  The cadet weakly waved away a smoking hot fish curry planked suddenly beneath his nose. Of all the uproarious company Harley and Amaury alone seemed immune to successive bumpers, to spiced and steaming dishes and the suffocating heat.

  ‘Your good health, Major Cavendish!’

  Dessert followed savouries: oranges and plantains, ice-cream and sugared fruits. The covers were whipped away and replaced by fresh decanters: claret, hock, madeira, sherry-wine and port. Houcca-bearers scuttled from the comers. Todd took the tendered mouthpiece, cautiously inhaled, and choked. He examined the pipe distastefully.

  ‘Is it indispensably necessary that I should become a smoker?’

  ‘Undoubtedly,’ said Anstruther, puffing away as though he had smoked a houcca all his life, ‘for you might as well be out of the world as out of fashion. Everybody uses a houcca, and it is impossible to get on without.’

  ‘Don’t mind this rattling young man, Mr Todd,’ said Harley. ‘There are several gentlemen who never smoke them.’ He sent Todd one of his fleeting smiles, and blew a cloud that engulfed Anstruther’s head.

  Todd thankfully discarded the snake-like tube, and stared blearily at the candles, which dissolved in double images, wobbled and reunited. Gentlemen lolled in chairs, alternately sipping and smoking. The windows were opened; tobacco clouds battled the stifling air that flowed inside. A setting sun flared gold across the sky. The quick oriental night descended like a shutter, stars glittered in a dark blue vault.

  Four hours they had sat at table, Todd reflected, and no sign of ending yet. His head was aching abominably; he pressed fingers to his temples.

  ‘Gentlemen, the King!’

  ‘The King - God bless him!’

  A bumper for each toast, and no heel taps allowed. Todd stopped the servant refilling his glass.

  ‘The Queen and the Royal Family!’

  They collapsed in their seats; chair legs scraped the floor. Surgeon Blore stumped through the doorway, rubbed his hands and licked his lips.

  ‘Where is my turtle?’ he demanded.

  ‘Keeping hot in the kitchen, I have no doubt,’ Amaury replied. ‘How is poor Meyer? Is he dead?’

  ‘Dead? I shrewdly suspect he is. If he still exists it is without a head, for the devil an atom of skull could I find, though I certainly did not wait long in search of it. Damn the fellow for fixing such a time to scatter his blasted brains about! But come, where’s my allowance of turtle and green fat?’

  Todd’s young companion gagged, and climbed unsteadily to his feet. The once rosy face was grey; round red flushes, sharp as coins, patched his cheekbones. He weaved uncertainly to the door.

  ‘Where are you going, Mr Morrison?’

  ‘You cannot bunk the toasts!’

  ‘Milksop!’ Anstruther taunted, and hiccuped loudly.

  ‘Cocktail!’ yelled Surgeon Blore.

  Morrison halted, swaying. ‘I go merely... to attend... nature’s demands. I shall... return.’

  He staggered out, serenaded by shouts of laughter. ‘I wager we see no more of him!’ The indigo planter mopped sweat from a swarthy face. ‘Such moll dawdling boys they breed these days. Gad so, when I was his age...’ He meandered on, burbling reminiscences of prowess in booze and boudoir when ladies dressed in furbelows and gentlemen wore swords. Nobody listened. The taciturn sepoy colonel opened a lipless slit of a mouth and, surprisingly, began to sing.

  ‘Drink to me only wi-ith thine ey-yes …’

  ‘Gentlemen, I give you the Royal Navy!’

  The frigate captain glanced at Todd and wagged an accusing finger. ‘You sup thimblefuls, sir. I should not have suspected you of shirking a toast to the Navy!’

  Anstruther said thickly, ‘It must have been a mistake,’ lifted a decanter and filled Todd’s glass to the brim. ‘Drink up!’

  Todd drained the goblet, and felt the wine’s resurgence in his gullet. They toasted the Army, the Honourable Company, the Governor General. Tobacco smoke shrouded the candles in clinging wispy whorls. Every drink sent perspiration spouting from the pores; gentlemen opened waistcoats wide and mopped their streaming chests. The frigate captain slipped unnoticed beneath the table; a cavalryman laid his head on his arms and went quietly to sleep. Amaury, cool as a winter night, listened to the sepoy colonel’s singing: he finished ‘Sally of our Alley’ and embarked on ‘Robin Gray’. Anstruther slumped in his chair, and squinted at the candles. The planter and Surgeon Blore bickered over vintages, both talking simultaneously in blurred and raucous tones. Harley sat bolt upright, apparently stone sober. He had changed from claret to madeira and now was drinking port.

  Todd recalled his manners, and said carefully, ‘I have observed, Mr Harley, that no native gentlemen attend our entertainments, neither privately nor in the public rooms, though many potentates and princes live around Madras. Is there no social intercourse with Moormen?’

  ‘Practically none. Europeans attend Hindostanee houses on a few formal occasions; the other way round never. For, you see, if a Hindoo eats with an Englishman he is immediately defiled; and Musulmans will not touch wine nor eat meat that has not been ceremonially slaughtered.’

  ‘We live in their country: it seems a pity that Englishmen and blacks may never hobnob.’

  ‘You are innocent in the ways of India, Mr Todd. We have no feeling against natives, but how can you entertain a fellow who will neither eat nor drink nor smoke with you?’

  Amaury stood. ‘Gentlemen - coffee and cards in the drawing room.’

  The survivors followed him unsteadily. Amaury’s banian hissed instructions, servants entered the dining-room, solicitously lifted two senseless forms - the cavalry cornet, dead to the world, snored stertorously in his chair - and carried them to palankeens waiting in the forecourt. Gentlemen reeled to the veranda and relieved themselves across the balustrade. Amaury counted heads.

  ‘Eight left,’ he announced. ‘Enough for two tables at whist.’

  ‘ ‘Tis very late,’ Harley protested. ‘I must betake myself to bed.’

  Amaury looked at a bracket clock which stood on a walnut bureau. ‘A little after midnight. Time for a rubber or two.’

  ‘No cards for me,’ said the planter. ‘I doubt I could distinguish clubs from hearts! Come, Blore - what do you say to a game at billiards!’ />
  The rest cut cards; Anstruther and Todd drew low and settled to piquet at a separate table. Houcca-bearers pattered in, and arranged the houccas beside their masters. Stewards placed a decanter beside each player. Todd waved the wine away; Anstruther, sneering, selected brandy. Silence settled on the room, broken by the players’ declarations, the clink of bottle on glass, the clicking of billiard balls and muted guffaws next door. Noises of the night drifted through open widows: the monotonous bark of a pariah dog, a jackal pack’s weird howling, the faraway boom of surf.

  Todd’s senses gradually cleared, leaving him an urgent desire for sleep. Anstruther swilled brandy, becoming steadily more fuddled. His play was wildly erratic; the ivory counters mounted at the cadet’s elbow.

  ‘Pique, I think,’ said Todd, laying down his hand. ‘And you owe me twenty pagodas.’

  Anstruther peered short-sightedly at the cards. ‘How so! I scored with my king when you led the deuce!’

  ‘That was the previous deal - you have won no points in this.’

  ‘Infernal nonsense! I distinctly recall --’

  ‘Don’t shout at me, Mr Anstruther. I repeat you have scored no points - perhaps the wine has soused your recollection.’

  ‘God’s blood, do you say I am drunk?’ Anstruther swayed to his feet. ‘Damned impertinent puppy! I made three points with the king - and I say you lie!’

  Todd stood. ‘Withdraw, sir, at once-or I’ll give you a damned good licking!’

  Anstruther swung a round-arm blow. Todd countered, and punched his face. The table tilted; glasses, cards and counters flew. Anstruther closed and grappled; they skidded in a wine pool and rolled wrestling on the floor.

  ‘Hey! What the devil is all this?’ the sepoy colonel rasped. The whist players sped to the struggle. Amaury and Marriott prised the pair apart and heaved them upright. Blood trickled from Anstruther’s lip; Todd’s torn stock flapped loosely on his shirt.

  ‘Gentlemen, take hold of yourselves!’ Amaury snapped. ‘Why this unseemly dispute?’

  ‘Brawling like drunken sailors!’ said the colonel disapprovingly. The billiards players, attracted by the noise, leaned on their cues and watched. Anstruther wiped his mouth.

  ‘That jackanapes tried cheating! The fault is partly mine - a King’s officer should have more gumption than to game with Company trash!’*

  ‘Be careful, Mr Anstruther,’ said Amaury pleasantly. ‘I also am a Company officer.’

  ‘And I!’ the colonel growled.

  *[Anstruther’s insult harked back to a regulation which had persisted until 1796, when Company officers of the Bengal Army mutinied against the rule which made every King’s officer - commissioned by His Majesty - automatically superior in rank to every Company officer - commissioned by the Court of Directors. Battle-hardened veterans with twenty-five years’ service in the Company were put under command of inexperienced boys who had not held their King’s commissions for as many weeks. The mutiny ended the practice - but antagonism still smouldered.]

  Anstruther looked sulky. The fight had partially sobered him; sweat coursed his pasty cheeks and mingled with the blood on his chin. Marriott asked, ‘What have you to say, Mr Todd?’ Todd tied his stock with shaking hands. ‘Anstruther gave me the lie.’

  ‘Ho!’ said Blore. ‘A serious business indeed!’

  ‘Only one answer to that,’ the colonel observed portentously. ‘A meeting,’ belched the planter.

  ‘No!’ said Amaury forcefully. ‘A stupid quarrel over nothing, words spoken in the heat of wine. It must go no further!’

  ‘After accusations of lying and cheating?’ the colonel asked incredulously. ‘Impossible, sir!’

  Todd buttoned his coat. ‘I am willing to withdraw, if Mr Anstruther agrees.’

  ‘Good fellow!’ said Amaury softly. ‘Now, Anstruther, what do you say?’

  Marriott looked at his friend curiously, remembering his record, a reputation born from pitiless insistence on the niceties of honour. To seek evasion of an issue whose outcome was so obvious hardly fitted Amaury’s character.

  Anstruther hesitated, dabbing his lip. With the wine gone cold within him the prospect of a duel seemed distinctly unattractive. ‘Well,’ he mumbled, ‘if Todd is prepared to withdraw I see no reason--’

  ‘By God!’ The colonel’s hard gaunt face went stiff with anger. He swung on Anstruther. ‘I cannot answer for you, sir, a King’s officer, but you, Mr Todd’ - a quivering finger pointed - ‘should you be prepared to suffer insults such as these I shall report to General Wrangham and demand you be court-martialled! Consider your honour, sir! I am ready to act for you, Mr Todd. Mr Anstruther, I beg you name your second!’

  There was a blend of sadness and despair in Amaury’s expression, which left behind a strangely ravaged face. The look he gave the colonel blazed with hatred. He said coldly, ‘You need not trouble yourself, sir. I shall act on Anstruther’s behalf, and Mr Marriott here on Todd’s. We shall arrange a meeting at daylight.’

  ‘Tomorrow? - no, I mean today: ’tis already past two.’ Blore wagged his head. ‘Can’t do it, you know - can’t fight on Sunday.’

  ‘Of course - I had forgot. Very well, gentlemen, Monday it must be. Now let us cool our tempers.’ Amaury clapped his hands. ‘Holloa, boy! Bring the kettles of burnt champagne!’

  Harley took his leave offering Todd a place in his palankeen. From the veranda he watched the false dawn sheening the skyline, and rested his hand briefly on Amaury’s shoulder. ‘You did your best,’ he murmured. ‘I am truly sorry your efforts were fruitless. The colonel’ - he contemplated that officer, busily swigging champagne - ‘is, unfortunately, a very meticulous gentleman.’ Harley sighed. ‘Another duel: they happen every week. The rigours of the climate kill our countrymen in droves; why must they also try persistently to kill each other?’

  Amaury returned to the drawing-room, a savage glint in his eye. To Anstruther he said frigidly, ‘Sir, I suggest you return now to your quarters and recoup your faculties for tomorrow’s meeting.’

  Anstruther looked at his face, and went without a word.

  Amaury flung himself in a chair and poured a bumper. ‘Come, gentlemen, the night is young! Cards, champagne, conversation - what you will! Steward, fill the glasses!’

  ‘The night, on the contrary, sir, is on its deathbed,’ the colonel grumbled. ‘I have taken enough, I thank you, and must depart.’

  ‘Never!’ Amaury shouted. ‘Are you a cocktail, colonel? Here, sir’ - he splashed rum in a tumbler - ‘a brew to warm the bones! Drink up! I give you a toast: the shades of departed duellists!’ Amaury became wildly boisterous, a demeanour totally unlike his usual cool composure. He remained solicitously attentive to the colonel’s glass, topping it up whenever he took a sip, careless in his choice of liquors, dribbling brandy on top of rum, port on top of brandy. The colonel, his palate blunted by years of red-hot curries, and already three-parts drunk, accepted without demur his host’s feverish hospitality. They all settled to steady drinking, Amaury calling the toasts in quick succession. Marriott, feeling his stomach rebel, poured most of his wine on the floor. Not so Amaury: he matched the colonel glass for glass, studying that officer meanwhile with a kind of fierce intensity. They bellowed marching songs in chorus, danced staggering round the tables. Impassively the servants watched their antics, standing like graven images, arms folded over chests.

  The windows framed a luminous sky; dawnlight paled the candles.

  The planter rocked to his feet, and lifted a goblet that splashed red wine. ‘We have murdered the night! Here’s to S-S-Shunday!’

  ‘Shunday!’ Blore repeated inanely. ‘Why, we must go to church!’

  ‘A sad spectacle we should make,’ Marriott objected. ‘Are we not all a little disguised?’

  ‘No, no - sober as fishes. Besides, we shall shee this new beauty come from home.’ Blore laid a forefinger beside a bulbous nose. ‘A poshitive en-chant-resh, a twenty-carat dazzler - Mish Caroline Wrangham! I wager I am first
to hand her out!’

  He referred to a convention existing in Madras that on Sundays any gentleman might hand a lady from her vehicle to the church door without previous introduction: a custom which collected a crowd of ribald bachelors - especially when an Indiaman had berthed and a new beauty might appear.

  ‘Have you seen her, Amaury?’

  ‘From afar, at a Governor’s rout. Is she truly such a charmer?’

  ‘Yes,’ Marriott admitted, ‘she is.’

  ‘Then,’ said Amaury decisively, ‘we will all go to church!’

  The colonel pressed his hands on the table and levered himself to his feet. His eyes were nearly closed, the gaunt face ashy pale. He muttered, ‘If you will forgive me, sir ...’

  His knees folded like soggy cardboard, and he rolled unconscious on the floor.

  Amaury surveyed the man with evil satisfaction. ‘Our friend has earned a headache to last a lifetime. Pedantic prig! Gentlemen, we must breakfast and change our clothes. My phaeton will convey us to the church.’

  In morning dress - Blore’s brought from Fort St George, the planter wearing Marriott’s borrowed garments, for the Red Rocks where he lived were fourteen miles away - they swilled black coffee in the dining-room. Marriott felt dizzily unsteady on his feet; Blore could hardly stand; and repeated cups of coffee failed to cure the planter’s hiccups. Amaury, outwardly quite sober though somewhat pale, immaculate in a bottle-green coat and tan striped breeches, ushered his guests to a four-horse phaeton and took the reins. At a perilous speed the vehicle brushed the gate posts and rattled briskly along the road to Fort St George. Amaury sprung his horses; the carriage swayed and bounced.

  ‘Steady, Hugo!’ Marriott called.

  Amaury made a peculiar noise, midway between laugh and curse, and cracked his whip. The planter began to sing. The phaeton dodged a string of camels, swerved between a bullock cart and palankeen. Blore, defeated by the jolting, leaned over the back and spewed, spattering the feet of the sices mounted behind. Amaury reined on the glacis; the horses trotted sedately through the gateway’s winding corridor and halted at St Mary’s Church.