Ghost Fire Page 9

  “On your feet!” he shouted. “We have bloodied Siraj’s nose enough for one day.”

  And all for nothing, he thought bitterly.

  •••

  The next day, they watched Siraj’s army move into position. Camel trains brought up ammunition, ton after ton, while elephants hauled the great guns to their batteries. From the high point on the east wall of Fort William, Theo saw the nawab’s camp stretching almost to the horizon, the richly decorated tents of the noble officers like gilded islands among the tens of thousands of men bivouacked in the open.

  Even now, Governor Drake maintained that the nawab wouldn’t attack. “He is a peacock, spreading his tail-feathers,” he said confidently. “Alas, if he wishes us to play the hen, he will be disappointed.”

  Theo had no such illusions. He had bound his wounds, but blood still seeped through the bandages, drawing flies. The nawab’s men had died in their hundreds in front of the redoubt, and still kept coming. They would not give up the fight now.

  Neither was there much hope that the fort could sustain a siege with the whole populace of White Town crammed within its walls. There was no shelter, no water for washing, and not enough latrines; the entire fort stank of human effluent. That brought flies in their thousands, including the bugfly—a tiny beetle that emitted a pungent, sulfurous smell. They settled on anything that was motionless. Theo saw one child with his face almost invisible beneath a mass of crawling insects.

  The governor and council were nowhere to be seen. They stayed in their chamber, watching the catastrophe through the long windows. They wrote letters and memoranda; they argued around the table.

  “Why do they not evacuate?” Theo wondered. He was on the walls with Nathan, helping his men barricade the gaps in the wall with bales of cloth taken from the Company warehouses. Though Theo had received no rank or promotion, the men had accepted his authority with simple certainty. He was their leader.

  To the west, the fleet of ships sat placidly anchored in the river. Only a musket shot away, but it might have been ten thousand miles. With the naked eye, Theo could see the crews swabbing decks and polishing brass, playing fiddles and dancing jigs. It was as if the devastation of a great city was not happening a few hundred yards off their neatly painted sides.

  “The governor still thinks Siraj is shadow-boxing.” Nathan looked away from the ships to the cauldron of misery in the courtyard below. “His English mind cannot comprehend the idea that an Indian would dare force the issue.”

  “You seem to comprehend it well enough.”

  Nathan shrugged. “I grew up on the frontier, where titles and the color of a man’s skin count for nothing. We have Indians there, too, and I can assure you that ours yield to no one when it comes to warfare.”

  “Is that why you left?” Theo asked. “Because of the Indians?”

  “I got bored of praying and shooting.” Nathan lifted a roll of calico and jammed it into the embrasure. “So I ran away to sea.”

  “But what about your parents?” Theo asked.

  Nathan took a swig from the flask of rum he kept in his powder bag, and offered it to Theo. “I know how you lost yours. It must be hard for you to understand why a man would choose to leave his family. Mine were easier to lose than yours, by the sound of it.”

  The rum burned Theo’s throat, but he was glad of the moisture. “Will you go back?”

  “If I have a choice in the matter.” Nathan shot a wry look toward the nawab’s camp. “Not for my parents, but I would like to see my sister Abigail again.”

  Theo didn’t answer. He was thinking of his own sister, and if they would ever repair the bond that had been broken. He had seen her only once since he had returned to the fort, sitting with other women wrapping powder cartridges for the defense. She had not noticed him, and he had not spoken to her. No matter what had happened between them, he wanted her safe. He would do everything he could to get her out alive.

  Gerard had stayed in the council room with the other merchants. That was just as well: even thinking about him incited Theo’s rage.

  “What is that?”

  Nathan was pointing south, to the jumbled roofs of Black Town. Smoke was rising; high flames licked the evening sky.

  “They have set the bazaar on fire.” The warren of tight-knit alleys in Black Town hid what was happening, but Theo could hear pandemonium from the streets. Another fire started, further east, then another. The screams of women rent the air.

  “Siraj has unleashed his army.”

  They both knew what that meant. Black Town was an open target: Governor Drake would not have considered defending it, even if he’d had the men. Most of the inhabitants had fled, but—judging by the shouts and wails—many had stayed.

  “They will seek shelter here,” Theo realized. He ran down the steps at the south-east bastion. By the time he reached the gate, it was trembling under the impact of the crowd pressing and pounding against it from the outside.

  Gerard Courtney stood in front of it. He had his back to the gate, facing down the gaggle of sepoys remonstrating furiously with him.

  “Outside are our families,” one implored. “You must save them or Siraj kills them.”

  “Out of the question,” snapped Gerard. “If we let them in, they will overwhelm us. We do not have enough supplies for ourselves, let alone thousands of homeless blacks.”

  One of the sepoys stepped closer. Gerard edged back against the gate. “Why do we fight for you, if you do not help our families?”

  “You fight because we pay you. Now get back to your stations, before I throw you in the Black Hole for mutiny.”

  The sepoy took the bayonet from his belt and held it bare-handed. In the gang of men behind him, Theo saw the gleam of knives.

  “For God’s sake open the gate,” Theo begged.

  Gerard glanced at him. His eyes narrowed. “Do not involve yourself in this, cousin. This is a Company matter and I have the authority.”

  Theo thought about that. He nodded. Before Gerard could react, Theo stepped forward and punched him square on the jaw. His cousin’s head snapped back and thumped against the gate. Gerard slumped, unconscious, to the ground.

  The sepoys stared at Theo uncertainly. “I am in command here now,” he announced. “Take Mr. Courtney to the governor’s house and see he gets medical attention. Tell them he was struck by falling masonry.”

  Two of the sepoys dragged Gerard away.

  “Now open the gate.”

  Almost before he said it, the sepoys lifted the bar and heaved. It took all their strength to move the gate against the crush of people pressing on it. As soon as it was open a crack, women started pouring through: a trickle at first, but soon a torrent. Their clothes were torn, their faces black with soot and bruises.

  “You may regret this,” Nathan murmured in Theo’s ear.

  Theo watched a woman in a torn sari push by. She had a baby clasped to her chest and a small child clinging to her hand, struggling to keep up. Three more children pressed close behind, holding her dress so they wouldn’t get lost in the fray. He imagined them as orphans, as he and Constance had been. “I will not regret it.”

  •••

  The city burned all night. Black Town was constructed mostly of wood and straw: it burned quickly. The flames danced so high they flickered on the clouds so that the sky itself seemed on fire.

  At first light, Theo looked out to see a smoking ring of ash and devastation. Only the houses closest to the fort had survived, the church and the great traders’ mansions. Scorch marks covered the white façades and smoke billowed from the windows where some of the shutters had caught fire.

  “Have you seen your cousin this morning?” asked Nathan.

  “I do not think he has left the governor’s house since last night.”

  “I would avoid him, if you can. The fact that we are fighting for our lives will not stop him having you shot for mutiny, if he finds you.”

  “I fear Siraj may save him the
effort.”

  The boom of a cannon echoed over the desolate landscape. To the east, beyond the church and the theater, puffs of white smoke blossomed from the batteries Siraj had erected.

  “They’re coming.”

  Theo gazed around. He did not need a manual of warfare to understand the danger. The Company mansions that ringed the fort were all at least a story higher than the ramparts, and easily within musket range. If the nawab’s army gained control, they would be able to pour fire down on the defenders. For the hundreds of women and children huddled on the parade ground, it would be a massacre.

  “Get the men,” said Theo. “We will take up position next to the church.”

  When Nathan returned, Theo was surprised at how many men he brought.

  “You are earning a reputation,” Nathan explained. “They have heard how you defended the Perrin’s redoubt. They want to serve under you.”

  “I hope we do it to more purpose this time,” Theo answered. He could not help but feel honored by the men’s regard—but also the weight of responsibility. The men had chosen to fight for him. He owed it to them to lead them well.

  They left the fort by the east gate and took up position in one of the mansions overlooking the main avenue and the park. Looking down from the upper windows, Theo saw how the battle had already ravaged the park. Trees had been felled and dragged into the road to form rough barricades, while shallow ditches criss-crossed the lawns and flower beds. They served no purpose that Theo could see: they had been begun in panic and abandoned in haste, without connecting to any other defenses. More like an open grave.

  He shivered and banished the thought. He cradled his rifle—like Nathan, he had adopted one of the Indian jezails taken from the battlefield—and sighted it down the road toward the nawab’s camp. It was eight in the morning, and his shirt was already soaked with sweat. “It will be a hot day’s work,” he predicted.

  Afterward, his memories of the battle that followed were fragments, like a waking nightmare. Intense vivid images were interrupted by blank spaces, as if all sensation had been stripped bare. The worst moments, when the battle was hardest, were knots of insanity: between the noise, the smoke, and the repetitive actions of firing and reloading, there was no specific recall except the feeling of terror and proximity to his own death. Likewise disjointed were the interludes when the enemy paused—sometimes for hours at a time—and Theo and his men would sit around the bedrooms and drawing rooms of Calcutta’s eminent citizens, unable to relax because the attack might resume at any minute. What had they talked about?

  He remembered his men cleaning their muskets with port from crystal decanters and wiping down the barrels with silk napkins. He remembered one of the men finding a pink crêpe dress hanging on the back of a door, putting it on and capering around the room, while the others laughed and shouted lewd comments. He remembered an Indian soldier suddenly bursting through a door that should have been guarded, as surprised to see the English as they were him. Theo had put his pistol to the man’s temple and blown his brains out at point-blank range. He remembered fighting with Nathan, side to side or back to back, saving each other’s lives so often they barely thought to mention it.

  But always the momentum was retreat. They were pushed out, first, of one mansion, then another. They fortified positions but were outflanked and forced back. There was no talk now of the nawab’s army fleeing. The attackers fought like tigers, and however many Theo’s men killed, there were more to take their place. The houses that the Company merchants had refused to raze became battlefields. The fighting went from room to room, and if the attackers could not crash through a door, they smashed through the walls instead, or set the building on fire.

  Theo and Nathan fought all that day, and through the night, and into the next day. By the following afternoon, it was clear their position was indefensible. They left the last house by setting light to the powder in Theo’s flask as a diversion, then jumping out of the first-floor window and sprinting across the open ground to the fort. Bullets rattled around them—some from their own men, on the fort’s walls: they did not recognize the blackened, ragged figures fleeing toward them.

  With the remnants of their men, they gained the shelter of the walls and managed to squeeze through the gate before it slammed shut.

  The fort was unrecognizable from when they had left it. A day and a half of sustained bombardment had battered great breaches in the walls. The bales of cloth and mattresses they had used to block the gaps had burned; some were still smoldering. The governor’s mansion was a jagged stump, open to the sky—every one of its precious windows had been smashed.

  The parade ground was strewn with bodies and body parts. The nawab’s French gunners had targeted their cannon with murderous precision. In the packed courtyard, there had been nowhere for the refugees to flee. They had sat motionless, while the cannonballs carved bloody trails through their midst.

  A corpse lay at his feet: a slim young woman in a green dress. She might have been pretty, once, but there was no way of knowing. Her head had been shot clean off her slender neck. The rest of her remained untouched, apart from the flies. Her dead fingers clutched the book she had been reading. There was not a drop of blood on the gold lettering down the spine. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders.

  What if that had been Connie?

  The thought cut through Theo’s heart. Exhausted from days of fighting, suddenly all he cared about was his sister. In the heat of battle, he could not protect her, like he had promised. She might be dead already, one of the bodies strewn around him, and the last words he had spoken to her had been cruel and angry.

  In a frenzy, he began searching through the corpses. Flies swarmed in protest like a black mist. It was like wading through Hell. He stared into lifeless eyes in heads that had been separated from bodies and tugged on arms that pulled away from their sockets. He trampled on torsos, legs, stomachs and hands, the fingers stiff with rigor mortis and outrage.

  “What are you doing?”

  Nathan’s calm voice checked the madness and brought Theo to his senses. He stared at his friend. “Looking for Connie.”

  “You should try the waterfront. The governor has ordered all the women to evacuate the city.”

  Theo pushed through the crowds that clustered around the western gate that led to the ghats and the river. Desperate to get through, he started using his shoulders and elbows more aggressively, pushing people out of his path. It was impossible: every person in the fort was trying to squeeze onto the wharf. What if Connie was already there? What if she left, before he had had the chance to make his peace with her? What if he would never know what had become of her?

  There had to be another way. He left the crowd and ran to the stairs that led up to the rampart, moving quickly before the nawab’s marksmen sighted on him.

  The wall was empty. From its height, he could look down onto the wharf outside the fort. Every inch was crammed with humanity, a crush of women and children pressing toward the budgerows that bobbed against the pilings. Soldiers had been posted to organize the evacuation, but they were overwhelmed by the tide of desperation. Some women lost their footing and fell into the water. Others jumped, swam to the boats and tried to haul themselves aboard, while angry hands pushed them away.

  Theo scanned the crowd, searching for Constance. In the sea of dark hair and headscarves, her fair tresses would stand out like a beacon. He strained his eyes. Nothing.

  “There.” Nathan had come up behind him. He was pointing to the river, where one of the budgerows had already set out.

  Theo’s heart leaped. There she was! She had her back to him, but her fair hair and pale skin were surely unmistakable. “Thank God,” he breathed. The boat was so overloaded that her gunwale almost touched the river. Many passengers were squeezed aboard and some hung out over the water, clinging to the others to keep from falling in. With no room to move their oars, the rowers made tiny crablike movements, barely enough to ke
ep the heavy-laden boat moving.

  But Connie was safe, he was convinced of it. Soon she would be aboard one of the East Indiamen that waited implacably at their moorings, ready to carry her away from this charnel house.

  Further along the riverbank, beyond the walls, a dark shape flew into the air. Trailing a plume of black smoke, it arced over the water, struck the river with a hiss and vanished.

  “Fire arrows!” cried Nathan.

  Another flew up, and another, all bending their lethal arcs toward the overcrowded boat. Theo ran to the end of the wall, thinking he could disrupt the archers with flanking fire. But they were hidden behind one of the mansions and he had no shot.

  He had to save Connie.

  He would never get through the river gate. The arrows had sent the crowd into a frenzy. Panicked women on the wharf were fighting to get into the fort, while those inside—ignorant of what was happening—pressed equally hard to get out. Theo couldn’t jump down. The wall was too high, and the wharf was too wide for him to clear it into the river. He would break his legs.

  More arrows hit the boat. One struck a woman through her back, setting her dress on fire. The boat rocked as the other passengers scrambled desperately to get rid of her. She clung on, but they pried her fingers off and dumped her in the water. The fire went out—but she was drowning. Theo saw her arms flailing frantically as the boat pulled out of reach.

  He had to get to Connie.

  A low wall blocked the end of the wharf. In peacetime, it stopped thieves gaining access. Now, it kept out the attackers. But it had not been built for defense. It was only half the height of the main rampart, jutting out below where Theo stood.

  Theo squeezed through an embrasure and jumped down onto the top of the wall. It was narrow, a foot wide, but he landed cleanly. The boat had edged further away, but it was still within range of the fire arrows. They hissed down all around it, sending the passengers into terrified convulsions that threatened to spill them all into the water.