The unexpected dinner invitation from the budgerow started Mr Doughty off on a journey of garrulous reminiscence. 'Oh my boy!' said the pilot to Zachary, as they stood leaning on the deck rail. 'The old Raja of Raskhali: I could tell you a story or two about him – Rascally-Roger I used to call him!' He laughed, thumping the deck with his cane. 'Now there was a lordly nigger if ever you saw one! Best kind of native – kept himself busy with his shrub and his nautch-girls and his tumashers. Wasn't a man in town who could put on a burra-khana like he did. Sheeshmull blazing with shammers and candles. Paltans of bearers and khidmutgars. Demijohns of French loll-shrub and carboys of iced simkin. And the karibat! In the old days the Rascally bobachee-connah was the best in the city. No fear of pishpash and cobbily-mash at the Rascally table. The dumbpokes and pillaus were good enough, but we old hands, we'd wait for the curry of cockup and the chitchky of pollock-saug. Oh he set a rankin table I can tell you – and mind you, supper was just the start: the real tumasher came later, in the nautch-connah. Now there was another chuckmuck sight for you! Rows of cursies for the sahibs and mems to sit on. Sittringies and tuckiers for the natives. The baboos puffing at their hubble-bubbles and the sahibs lighting their Sumatra buncuses. Cunchunees whirling and ticky-taw boys beating their tobblers. Oh, that old loocher knew how to put on a nautch all right! He was a sly little shaytan too, the Rascally-Roger: if he saw you eyeing one of the pootlies, he'd send around a khidmutgar, bobbing and bowing, the picture of innocence. People would think you'd eaten one too many jellybees and needed to be shown to the cacatorium. But instead of the tottee-connah, off you'd go to a little hidden cumra, there to puckrow your dashy. Not a memsahib present any the wiser – and there you were, with your gobbler in a cunchunee's nether-whiskers, getting yourself a nice little taste of a blackberry-bush.' He breathed a nostalgic sigh. 'Oh they were grand old goll-mauls, those Rascally burra-khanas! No better place to get your tatters tickled.'
Zachary nodded, as if no word of this had escaped him. 'I take it you know him well then, Mr Doughty – our host of this evening?'
'Not him, so much as his father. This young fellow's no more like the old man than stink-wood is like mahogany.' The pilot grunted in disapproval. 'See, if there's one thing I can't abide it's a bookish native: his father was a man who knew how to keep his jibb where it belonged – wouldn't have been seen dead with a book. But this little chuckeroo gives himself all kinds of airs – a right strut-noddy if ever I saw one. It's not as if he's real nobility, mind: the Rascallys call themselves Rogers, but they're just Ryes with an honorary title – bucksheesh for loyalty to the Crown.'
Mr Doughty snorted contemptuously. 'These days it takes no more than an acre or two for a Baboo to style himself a More-Roger. And the way this one jaws on, you'd think he's the Padshaw of Persia. Wait till you hear the barnshoot bucking in English – like a bandar reading aloud from The Times.' He chuckled gleefully, twirling the knob of his cane. 'Now that'll be something else to look forward to this evening, apart from the chitchky – a spot of bandar-baiting.'
He paused to give Zachary a broad wink. 'From what I hear, the Rascal's going to be in for a samjaoing soon enough. The kubber is that his cuzzanah is running out.'
Zachary could no longer sustain the pretence of omniscience. Knitting his eyebrows, he said: 'Cu – cuzzanah? Now there you go again, Mr Doughty: that's another word I don't know the meaning of.'
This naïve, if well-meant, remark earned Zachary a firm dressing-down: it was about time, the pilot said, that he, Zachary, stopped behaving like a right gudda – 'that's a donkey in case you were wondering.' This was India, where it didn't serve for a sahib to be taken for a clodpoll of a griffin: if he wasn't fly to what was going on, it'd be all dickey with him, mighty jildee. This was no Baltimore – this was a jungle here, with biscobras in the grass and wanderoos in the trees. If he, Zachary, wasn't to be diddled and taken for a flat, he would have to learn to gubbrow the natives with a word or two of the zubben.
Since this admonishment was delivered in the strict but indulgent tone of a mentor, Zachary plucked up the courage to ask what 'the zubben' was, at which the pilot breathed a patient sigh: 'The zubben, dear boy, is the flash lingo of the East. It's easy enough to jin if you put your head to it. Just a little peppering of nigger-talk mixed with a few girleys. But mind your Oordoo and Hindee doesn't sound too good: don't want the world to think you've gone native. And don't mince your words either. Mustn't be taken for a chee-chee.'
Zachary shook his head again, helplessly. 'Chee-Chee? And what d'you mean by that, Mr Doughty?'
Mr Doughty raised an admonitory eyebrow. 'Chee-chee? Lip-lap? Mustee? Sinjo? Touch o'tar… you take my meaning? Wouldn't challo at all, dear fellow: no sahib would have one at his table. We're very particular about that kind of thing out East. We've got our BeeBees to protect, you know. It's one thing for a man to dip his nib in an inkpot once in a while. But we can't be having luckerbaugs running loose in the henhouse. Just won't ho-ga: that kind of thing could get a man chawbuck'd with a horsewhip!'
There was something in this, a hint or suggestion, that made Zachary suddenly uncomfortable. Over the last two days he had come to like Mr Doughty, recognizing, in the lee of his hectoring voice and meaty face, a kindly, even generous spirit. Now it was almost as if the pilot were trying to give him a word of warning, cautioning him in some roundabout way.
Zachary tapped the deck rail and turned away. 'By your leave, Mr Doughty, I'd best make sure I've got a change of clothes.'
The pilot nodded in agreement. 'Oh yes: we'll have to get ourselves all kitted out. Glad I thought to bring along a fresh pair of sirdrars.'
Zachary sent word to the deckhouse and shortly afterwards, Serang Ali came to his cabin and picked out a set of clothes, laying them on the bunk for Zachary to inspect. The pleasure of high-priming in someone else's finery had begun to wane now, and Zachary was dismayed by the array of clothes on his bunk: a blue dresscoat of fine serge, black nainsook trowsers, a shirt made of Dosootie cotton and a white silk cravat. 'Enough's enough, Serang Ali,' he said wearily. 'I'm done playin biggity.'
Serang Ali's demeanour became suddenly insistent. Picking up the trowsers, he held them up to Zachary. 'Mus wear,' he said in a voice that was soft but steely. 'Malum Zikri one big piece pukka sahib now. Mus wear propa cloths.'
Zachary was puzzled by the depth of feeling with which this was said. 'Why?' he asked. 'Why in the livin hell is it so important to you?'
'Malum must be propa pukka sahib,' said the serang. 'All lascar wanchi Malum be captin-bugger by'm'by.'
'Eh?'
Now, in a sudden, bright flash of illumination, Zachary understood why his transformation meant so much to the serang: he was to become what no lascar could be – a 'Free Mariner', the kind of sahib officer they called a malum. For Serang Ali and his men Zachary was almost one of themselves, while yet being endowed with the power to undertake an impersonation that was unthinkable for any of them; it was as much for their own sakes as for his that they wanted to see him succeed.
As the weight of this responsibility sank in, Zachary sat on the bunk and covered his face. 'You don know the livin deal of what you askin,' he said. 'Six months back I was nothin but the ship's carpenter. Lucked out getting to second mate. Forget Captain: that's way above my bend. Ain gon happen; not bimeby, not ever.'
'Can do,' said Serang Ali, handing him the Dosootie shirt. 'By'm'by can do. Malum Zikri plenty smart bugger inside. Can do 'come genl'man.'
'What makes you think I can do it anyways?'
'Zikri Malum sabbi tok pukka-talk no?' said Serang Ali. 'Hab heard Zikri Malum tok Mistoh Doughty sahib-fashion.'