It turned out that the sailor responsible for distributing the powder had been grazed in the head. He was sitting on his haunches, with blood pouring down his face. The packets of powder were lying behind him; Neel took one and raced back to the fo’c’sle deck where he thrust it into the eight-pounder’s muzzle.
Theirs was now one of the last gun-ports on the Cambridge that was still active. But the gunners of the Nemesis were closing in; even as their eight-pounder was recoiling from its next shot, a heavy ball struck the bulwark, knocking out one of the rings that held the gun’s breech-ropes. A slab of wood fell out, yanking the gun-carriage towards the water. As it tumbled over the side, barrel and all, Neel heard the whoosh of a rocket and looked up: in the bright afternoon sunlight the projectile seemed to be heading directly towards him.
Neel froze as he watched the rocket arcing down from the sky. He would not have moved if Jodu had not pushed him: Lafao! Jump!
*
Shireen was walking along a beachside pathway in Hong Kong, with Freddie, when the smoke from the battle at the First Bar appeared over the horizon, spiralling slowly upwards.
It was Freddie who drew her attention to it. ‘Look there — must be more fighting, lah. Very far; too far for us to hear. Maybe near Whampoa.’
The smoke was just a dark smudge in the sky, but Shireen did not doubt that Freddie was right about its cause.
‘Do you think the British will press on to Canton now?’ said Shireen.
‘Yes, this time for sure, lah.’
On the Mor Shireen had overheard a long discussion of this subject that morning. Many of the seths were persuaded that this offensive would be called off like others before; they had convinced themselves that the Plenny-potty would again lose his nerve — and if not that, then the mandarins would surely succeed in bamboozling him once more.
The day’s tranquil beginning had only deepened their conviction; the excitement of yesterday, when the bombardment of the forts of the Tiger’s Mouth had jolted them out of their berths at sunrise, was still fresh in memory and the contrast between the din of that morning and the silence of this one seemed an ominous portent.
The mood had changed briefly when the first shots of a gun-salute were heard — but the seths’ spirits had plunged again when it was learnt that the shooting did not presage a renewal of hostilities but was intended, rather, as a tribute to a Chinese admiral. Of all things! Almost to a man the seths concluded that the salute was a sure sign that the hapless Captain Elliot had once again been duped by the mandarins.
Dinyar alone had remained incorrigibly optimistic. The night before, on hearing of the storming of the Tiger’s Mouth, he had predicted confidently that this time the British would not stop short of Canton itself.
The officers are all gung-ho now, he had told the other seths. The Plenipot wouldn’t be able to hold them back even if he wanted to.
Shireen had listened to the discussion with only half an ear; it was Freddie who was uppermost in her mind that morning. She had thought of little else but of how she might contrive to see him without anyone learning of it.
Fortunately it happened that Dinyar had an errand to run in Hong Kong that day. Hearing him call for the Mor’s cutter, Shireen had made up a story about needing to visit Sheng Wan village, to buy provisions. As luck would have it she had run into Freddie within minutes of stepping off the cutter.
‘Listen, Freddie,’ she said to him now. ‘There is a reason why I came to see you today.’
‘Yes?’
‘There is something I want to tell you — something important.’ Freddie nodded: ‘So then tell, lah.’ And when she hesitated he added with a smile: ‘Do not worry — I will not say anything to anyone.’
Shireen fortified herself with a deep breath and then a string of words came tumbling out with her scarcely being aware of it: ‘Freddie, you should know that Mr Karabedian has asked me to marry him.’
To her surprise Freddie took the disclosure in his stride, quite literally. Without missing a breath or a step he said: ‘And what your answer was, eh?’
‘I told him I wanted to talk to you first.’
‘Why me?’
‘But of course, I had to talk to you first, Freddie,’ said Shireen. ‘You have known Zadig Bey all your life — he has been like a second father to you. I do not want to do anything that might hurt you.’
‘Hurt me?’
Freddie glanced at her with a raised eyebrow: ‘Why it will hurt me, eh, if you marry Zadig Bey? I will be happy for him — and for you too. You should not worry about me — or Father also.’
A weight seemed to tumble off Shireen’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Freddie.’
Acknowledging this with a grunt he shot her a sidewise glance: ‘But what about all your Parsis, eh? What they will say if you marry Zadig Bey? They are very strict, ne?’
Shireen sighed. ‘They will cut me off, I suppose. Even my daughters will, at least for a while. And I will probably never again be able to enter a Fire Temple: that will be the hardest part. But no one can take my faith from me, can they? And maybe, in a few years, people will forget.’
They had come to a sharp bend in the path now and as they turned the corner Shireen caught sight of Dinyar: he was walking briskly towards them.
Freddie too had come to a stop beside her. ‘Oh, see there,’ he said, under his breath. ‘One of your Parsis.’
It had not occurred to Shireen that Freddie might be acquainted with her nephew. ‘Do you know Dinyar?’ she said.
‘Only by sight, lah,’ said Freddie. ‘He know me too but will not speak.’
‘Why not?’
Freddie’s lips curled into a crooked smile: ‘Because I am half-caste bastard, ne?’ he said. ‘He is afraid of me.’
‘But why should Dinyar be afraid of you?’
Freddie flashed her another smile. ‘Because he also have made half-caste bastard, lah. In Macau. He know I know. That is why he is afraid.’
Freddie smiled again as she stared at him, her eyes widening in shock. ‘Now I must go, lah. Goodbye.’
*
The tide happened to be coming in when Neel tumbled headlong into the Pearl River: it was to this fact that he owed the preservation of his life — if the current had been flowing in the other direction then he would have been swept towards the raft, to be picked off by British sharpshooters. Instead he was carried in the other direction, towards Whampoa.
Neel had never before been out of his depth in a river; his experience of swimming consisted of paddling around pukurs and jheels — the placid ponds of the Bengal countryside. He had never encountered anything like the surge of the Pearl River’s incoming tide. For the first minutes he could think of nothing but of fighting his way to the surface to gulp in a few breaths.
As he was tumbling through the murky waters he caught a glimpse of a dark trail swirling around his limbs: one end of it seemed to be stuck to his right hip. Thinking that some floating object had attached itself to his body he twisted his head around to take a closer look. He saw then that the trailing ribbon was his own blood, flowing out of a wound. Only then did he become conscious of a sharp, stabbing pain in his flank. Flailing his arms he pushed himself to the surface and shouted for Jodu: Tui kothay? Tui kothay re Jodu?
Twenty feet away, a head, bobbing in the water, turned to look in his direction. A few minutes later Jodu’s arms were around Neel’s chest, pulling him towards the shore, into a thicket of reeds and rushes.
Leaning heavily on Jodu, Neel staggered out of the water but only to collapse on the bank. There was a long rent in his banyan, and underneath it, just above his hip, was a gaping wound where a musket-ball had entered his flesh.