“It is as your other worship says,” he informed me.
“How are new orders conveyed and how is new information disseminated?” I said, pursuing the matter.
“One fellow tells another, is how it’s always been done.”
“This is done very poorly,” I said to Mr. Ellershaw, with an air of gravity, taking upon me the full role demanded by Cobb. “Very poorly indeed, for this lack of organization is most disastrous. You must go about the grounds and shout,” I told Carmichael, “ordering such guards as you can find to gather here. Tell them, if they ask, that Mr. Ellershaw of the Court of Committees demands it.”
Carmichael bowed his ungainly form nearly to the ground and scurried out. While we waited, Mr. Ellershaw praised me for my masterful handling of the low fellow and then begged me to amuse him with some stories from my time in the ring. I did so, and after perhaps a quarter hour, there were a sufficient number of men gathered about us for Mr. Ellershaw to proceed.
I counted some two dozen guards. “How many are there employed at this time? How many are missing?” I asked him.
“I have no idea.”
I then put the question to the gathered group, but they were as confused as Mr. Ellershaw.
Ellershaw turned to the men. “Fellows,” he shouted, “you have acquitted yourselves poorly, for something of mine has gone missing, and I shan’t tolerate it. I have therefore decided to put in charge of you one man, who shall organize your comings and goings and duties. You shan’t laze about further on Company time, I promise you, for I have employed as your overseer the famous pugilist Benjamin Weaver, who shall tolerate none of your knavery I give him to you now.”
A murmur arose among the men, and I observed that they spoke confusedly to one another. My initial impression was that they had no notion of the idea of an overseer. I soon saw, however, that I was mistaken.
“Begging your worships’ pardons,” Carmichael said, stepping forward hesitantly, “but perhaps you don’t know that we already have one of them.”
Ellershaw stared blankly at the gathered company, and then, as if in answer to a question he dare not ask, a figure pushed its way forward. And what a figure he was. Here was a man of well over six feet in height, of enormous stature and commanding presence. He was dark, almost as dark as an African, but dressed as a working Englishman would dress in such weather, in rough woolens, a heavy coat, and a cravat about his neck. His face was of the cruelest sort, with a large flat nose and small eyes and a long, sneering mouth, but what made it most distressing were the scars that crossed his flesh as though he had been whipped in the face. His cheeks, across his eyes, even his upper lip, bore the deep craters and crevices of some unknown conflict. Upon the street, I might have wondered at the land of his origin, but here, in this place, there could be no mistaking it. He was an East Indian.
“What this?” he demanded, as he pushed himself forward. “Warehouse overseer? I warehouse overseer.”
“And who the devil are you?” Ellershaw asked. “Why, you look like the devil for all that.”
“I Aadil. I warehouse overseer.” He grunted.
“That’s Aadil,” Carmichael chimed in. “He’s the warehouse overseer that we already got. What do we need another one for?”
“A warehouse overseer?” Ellershaw bellowed. “No such thing.”
“I warehouse overseer,” Aadil responded, now smacking a massive hand against a massive chest. “It me. All men here agree me overseer.”
“How come I never heard of this?” Ellershaw demanded. A good question, particularly since he governed the subcommittee on the warehouses.
No one had an answer for his unanswerable inquiry, which Ellershaw took as some sort of victory. “There it is, then,” he said. “You.” He jabbed a finger at the East Indian. “You’ve done a poor job, so I’m demoting you. You are now one of the guards. Weaver here is the new overseer.”
Aadil glared at the two of us but said nothing, accepting loss of status with what I regarded as Oriental stoicism. At least I hoped it was that, for the fellow looked angry-enraged, even-and I should hate to have to manage affairs with a wrathful barbarian under my command.
“Now that we’ve resolved this business,” Ellershaw said to me, “perhaps it would be best for you to speak a few words to your men.”
I turned to the gathered crowd, possessing no notion of what to say. I had not known to prepare any oratory, but the situation provided me with little choice but to make the best of it. “Men,” I said, “there have been mistakes in the past, that much is true. But you have been given a difficult duty and you have been hampered by a lack of organization, and that shall plague you no longer. I am here not to torment you but to make your duties easier and more clearly understood. I hope to have more information for you shortly, and until that time I trust you will acquit yourselves as best you can.” Having nothing more to say, I took a step backward.
Mr. Ellershaw, it would seem, had no better idea than I of what to do, and we stood in awkward silence for a long moment. Then one of the men leaned to his left and whispered something in Carmichael ’s ear, and that worthy let out a too loud and too shrill titter.
Ellershaw turned red at once and pointed his walking stick at the laughing man. “You there,” he boomed. “Step forward.”
He did. “I am sorry, your worship,” Carmichael said, with a nervous stammer that seemed to suggest he knew he had crossed a line. “I meant no harm or nothing like it.”
“Your meaning is your own, I can’t speak to it,” Ellershaw said. “Your behavior, however, is another matter. To demonstrate that our affairs shall be far more orderly under Mr. Weaver’s guidance than under that black fellow’s, I believe it is best that this fellow receive a stout beating. It is just, and it shall provide Mr. Weaver with a fine opportunity to use his pugilistic skills once more.”
I examined his face, hoping to find the unmistakable mask of humor. Instead, I saw only a hard determination. My agitation now ran high. How could I acquit myself to the satisfaction of Ellershaw-and so consequently my true master, Cobb-if I were to shirk from this cruel task? “That is, perhaps, excessive,” I ventured.
“Nonsense,” Ellershaw told me. “I have had men under my command, and in India too. I know something of maintaining order.” He called forth two men from the crowd to hold tight Mr. Carmichael, whose eyes were now big and moist with fear. Ellershaw ordered one of the men to hand me a thick pole of wood, some three feet long and four inches wide. “Strike this fellow about his buttocks,” he commanded me. “And feel no need to restrain. It is a sturdy piece of wood, and no mere human flesh will harm it.”
I took the plank but made no motion with it. I merely stared dumbly.
If Ellershaw saw my hesitation, he made no sign of it. Instead, he turned to the immobilized man. “You are a lucky fellow. You are about to be flogged by one of the great fighters of this kingdom. You may tell your grandchildren of this.” And then to me, “Go on, then.”
“I think it overly cruel,” I said. “I have no wish to flog the fellow.”
“But I wish you to,” Ellershaw returned. “If you wish to keep your post, I suggest you listen.”
When a man is in disguise and acting as something he is not, he must inevitably face such moments as this, though not only with such dire consequences to another human being. If I were to act as myself and do what I thought right, I must refuse my charge and so jeopardize my standing with Mr. Cobb. To refrain from flogging the innocent would be to risk my uncle and my friend. On the other hand, I could not in good conscience beat a fellow with a heavy stick just to placate Ellershaw’s thirst for thrashed buttocks.
I struggled in my mind to come to a solution, but came up instead only with a justification. I was disguised, it is true, but as myself, and I like to believe that those who knew me would think me unwilling to beat someone who had done me no harm. Mr. Ellershaw had hired Benjamin Weaver, and he could not fault me for acting as myself. If I were to lose my place, I could explain to Cobb that I wished only to act as myself, thinking the order something of a test. I hoped that would be enough to preserve my friends from harm.