Sea of Poppies

'Too soon to tell, Mannikin,' said the first mate with a smile. 'Much too early yet.'

Zachary shrugged this off, and over the next few days, what with stowing provisions and tallying the spare equipment, there was no time for any but the most perfunctory exchanges with the first mate. Then, one afternoon, Steward Pinto came aft to let Zachary know that the schooner's contingent of guards and overseers was in the process of embarking. Curious about the newcomers, Zachary stepped out to the quarter-deck to watch, and within a few minutes he was joined at the fife-rail by Mr Crowle.

The guards were for the most part turbaned silahdars – former sepoys with bandoliers crossed over their chests. The overseers were known as maistries, prosperous-looking men in dark chapkans and white dhotis. What was striking about them, maistries and silahdars alike, was the swagger with which they came aboard: it was as if they were a conquering force, that had been deputed to take possession of a captured vessel. They would not demean themselves by shouldering their own baggage; they deigned only to carry weapons and armaments – lathis, whips, spears and swords. Their firearms, which consisted of an impressive cache of muskets, gunpowder and tamancha handguns, were carried aboard by uniformed porters and deposited in the schooner's armoury. But as for the rest of their luggage, it fell to the lascars to fetch, carry and stow their belongings and provisions, to the accompaniment of many a kick, cuff and gali.

The leader of the paltan, Subedar Bhyro Singh, was the last to step on board, and his entry was the most ceremonious of alclass="underline" the maistries and silahdars received him as though he were a minor potentate, forming ranks and bowing low to offer their salams. A large, barrel-chested, bull-necked man, the subedar stepped on deck wearing a spotless white dhoti and a long kurta with a shimmering silk cummerbund: his head was wrapped in a majestic turban and he had a stout lathi tucked under his arm. He curled his white moustaches as he surveyed the schooner, looking none too pleased until his eyes fell on Mr Crowle. He greeted the first mate by beaming broadly and joining his hands together and Mr Crowle, too, seemed glad to see him, for Zachary heard him muttering, under his breath, 'Well, if it isn't old Muffin-mug!' Then he called out aloud, in the most cordial tone that Zachary had yet heard him employ: 'A very good day to you, Subby-dar.'

This unusual display of affability prompted Zachary to ask: 'Friend of yours, Mr Crowle?'

'We've shipped together in the past, and it's always the same, inn'it, for us Rough-knots? "Shipmates afore strangers, strangers afore dogs".' The first mate's lip curled as he looked Zachary up and down. 'Not that ye'd know about that, Mannikin, not in the company y'keep.'

This caught Zachary unawares: 'I don't know what you mean, Mr Crowle.'

'Oh don't y'now?' The first mate gave him a grimace of a smile. 'Well, maybe it's best that way.'

Here, before he could be pressed any further, the first mate was taken away by Serang Ali to oversee the fidding of the foremast, and Zachary was left to puzzle over the meaning of what he had said. As luck would have it, the Captain went ashore that night so the two mates dined alone, with Steward Pinto waiting on them. Scarcely a word was said until Steward Pinto carried in some chafing-dishes and laid them on the table. From the smell, Zachary could tell that they were about to be served a dish for which he had once expressed a liking, prawn curry with rice, and he gave the steward a smile and a nod. But Mr Crowle, in the meanwhile, had begun to sniff the air suspiciously and when the steward removed the covers from the dishes, a snarl of revulsion broke from his lips: 'What's this?' He took one look inside and slammed the lid back on the curry. 'Take this away, boy, and tell cookie to fry up some lamb chops. Don't y'ever set this mess o'quim-slime in front o'me again.'

The steward rushed forward, mumbling apologies, and was about to remove the containers when Zachary stopped him. 'Wait a minute, steward,' he said. 'You can leave that where it is. Please bring Mr Crowle what he wants, but this'll do just fine for me.'

Mr Crowle said nothing until the steward had disappeared up the companionway. Then, squinting at Zachary with narrowed eyes, he said: 'Ye're awful familiar with these here lascars, in'ye?'

'We sailed together from Cape Town,' said Zachary, with a shrug. 'I guess they know me and I know them. That's all there is to it.' Reaching for the rice, Zachary raised an eyebrow: 'With your permission.'

The first mate nodded, but his lips began to twitch in disgust as he watched Zachary helping himself. 'Was't them lascars as taught y'ter t'stomach that nigger-stink?'

'It's just karibat, Mr Crowle. Everyone eats it in these parts.'

'Do they so?' There was a pause and then Mr Crowle said: 'So is that what y'feeds on, when ye're up there with the Nabbs and Nobs and Nabobs?'

Suddenly Zachary understood the allusion of that afternoon; he glanced up from his plate, to find Mr Crowle watching him with a smile that bared the points of his teeth.

'I'll bet ye'thought I wouldn't find out, didn'yer, Mannikin?'

'About what?'

'Yer hobnobbin with the Burnhams and such.'

Zachary took a deep breath and answered quietly, 'They invited me, Mr Crowle, so I went. I thought they'd asked you too.'

'Right! And black's the white o'me eye!'

'It's true. I did think they'd asked you,' said Zachary.

'Jack Crowle? Up at Bethel?' The words emerged very slowly, as if they had been dragged up from the bottom of a deep well of bitterness. 'Not good enough to get through that front door, is Jack Crowle – not his face, nor his tongue, nor his hands neither. Missus'd worry about stains on her linen. If ye're born with a wooden ladle, Mannikin, it don't matter if y'can eat the wind out o'a topsail. There's always the little Lord Mannikins and Hobdehoys and Loblolly-boys to gammon the skippers, and pitch slum to the shipowners. Ne'er mind they don't know a pintle from a gudgeon, nor a pawl from a whelp, but there they are – at the weather end of the quarterdeck, with Jack Crowle eating their wind.'

'Listen, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary slowly, 'if you think I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth, let me tell you, you're half a clock off course.'

'Oh, I know y'for what y'are Mannikin,' the first mate growled. 'Ye're a snob's cat, full o'piss and tantrums. I'se seen the likes o'yer before with yer pretty face and yer purser's grins. I know y'mean nothing but trouble, for y'self and fer me. Best y'get off this barkey while y'can: save me as much pain as yer goin'ter save y'self.'

'I'm just here to do a job, Mr Crowle,' said Zachary stonily. 'And nothing's going to stop me doing it.'

The first mate shook his head: 'Too soon to tell Mannikin. It's a couple of days yet afore we weigh. Time enough that something could happen to help yer change yer mind.

For the sake of preserving the peace, Zachary bit back the rejoinder that sprang to his tongue and ate the rest of his dinner in silence. But the effort of keeping himself under control left his hands shaking, his mouth dry, and afterwards, to calm himself, he took a couple of turns around the main deck. Bursts of animated conversation were welling out of the fo'c'sle and the galley, where the lascars were eating their evening meal. He stepped up to the fo'c'sle deck, leant his elbows on the saddle of the jib-boom, and looked down at the water: there were many lights flickering on the river, some hanging from the sterns and binnacles of moored ships, and some lighting the way for the flotilla of boats and dinghies that were weaving between the cables of the ocean-going fleet. One of these rowboats was pulling towards the Ibis with a number of drunken voices echoing out of it. Zachary recognized the boat as Jodu's, and a twinge shot up his spine as he remembered the night when he'd sat in it, arguing with Paulette.

Turning away, Zachary peered into the looming darkness upriver: he knew that Paulette was in a village somewhere north of Calcutta – he had been alarmed to hear from Jodu that she had been ill and was being looked after by friends. When the boat pulled up beside the schooner, he was powerfully tempted to jump into it and row off, to go looking for her. The impulse was so strong that he might have obeyed it, if not for one thing: it stuck in his craw that Mr Crowle would imagine that he had succeeded in running him off the Ibis.