And India did smell, as Ayscough had said: smelled powerfully. Flowers, green sap, perfume and spice-cooking aromas that made the driest mouth water. And rot and corruption, too. There was nothing about the place that could be considered a halfway measure. It was a place of strong, almost violent contrasts, and they hadn't even set foot ashore yet to discover one percent of them. Try to acclimate on the last stretch of the voyage as they could, the first sight of Calcutta set everyone's mind into a hopeless spin.
The harbor and the city banks were as busy as the Pool of London, with hundreds of ships anchored, everything from stately "John Company" Indiamen to ancient copies of galleons, from the largest to the smallest riverine trading ships. Hide-built coracles and rowing boats worked in a plague from the ghats built up along the river bank. Warehouses and docks stretched as far as the eye could see, with reddish Fort William brooding over it all, and behind the ghats there were pleasure gardens as gay as Covent Garden or Ranelagh, spacious as St. James' or Hyde Park, where in one moment rich men rode in their carriages or strolled slowly, and the next, a lower-caste mehtar would dash by carrying his bucket of excrement to be dumped. Behind the European quarter, the cantonment where it was adjudged safe to live, there were native quarters, teeming with life crowded elbow to elbow from sunrise to sunset, except in the hottest parts of the day. Sacred cows strolled oblivious through the greenest, lushest cricket pitch anyone had ever laid eyes on while the players waited for their bearers to shoo them away, gently and without offense. Native markets hummed and buzzed with commerce, and smoke rose from cooking fires, fires where brass and bronzeware was molded and hammered, where hides were tanned or clothes washed. It was all of London crammed into half the area, still huge enough to daunt almost all of them from going ashore into such an exotic alienness.
They found a safe anchorage where Telesto would have room to moor, and dropped the best bower anchor. The sails were clewed up to the yards, then brailed up and secured with harbor gaskets for the first time since Capetown. Yards lowered slowly, and squared away Navy fashion. A stream anchor was lowered from the stern and rowed out to keep her from swinging afoul of another ship. The sun awnings were rigged across the decks, and, unlike Navy fashion, would be left deployed day and night, instead of being taken in each day at sundown, for they provided some protection from the rains that would come during this season.
"Very well, Mister Choate. Dismiss the hands," Ayscough said after the last bit of tidying and straightening had been,done to his, the bosun's and the first officer's satisfaction.
"Um, the matter of shore leave, sir," Choate ventured. "Firewood and water first, Mister Choate. Ready the ship for sea should it become necessary, then we'll consider it," the captain grunted, though his own nose was twitching to get ashore.
"Bosun, watering party!" Choate yelled.
"Excuse me if I suggest something," Twigg interrupted, coming down from his regal perch on the poop deck with his servant in tow. "You'll want to rinse out the ship's water barrels, of course. I'd suggest boiling water for that."
"Er, they are a bit foul, sir, even being sluiced at Capetown not so long ago," the purser chuckled. "A bit on the tan side, our water is."
"Yes, see to it. And from my prior experience, all the water we take aboard should be boiled first. Else it'll come out of this river," Ayscough harrumphed. They had all seen the garbage floating in the Hooghly, the excrement dumped, thankfully downstream from the city and their anchorage.
"You read my mind, sir," Twigg replied with a slight bow and a twitch of those tight lips of his. "Further, though. It is my experience in Asian waters that thin gauze should be procured for insect netting, if not for each hand to swath about his hammock, then at least for the hatches that lead below. I do not know why, nor do any physicians of my past acquaintance, but the incidence of malaria is much reduced if this is done."
"As long as it does not come out of ship's funds, though…" the purser objected. "Why, the Navy Board's…"
"Silence," Twigg snapped, raising a hand in warning. "And I tire of reminding you, sir, that I and Mister Wythy are funding this vessel? You may not care about the health of the men in your charge, but I do. If only for the inability to find trained seamen enough in India to replace the ones who die. And die they will, in job lots, no matter what precautions we may take." • "I merely meant…" the purser stammered on, red-faced.
"I'll speak to you in my cabins later, Mister Abernathy," the captain snapped. "Do what… our owners suggest."
After witnessing that entertaining exchange at the expense of "Mr. Nip-cheese," as Abernathy and most pursers were termed, Lewrie went to the larboard bulwarks to stare at the ghats that led down to the river in terraced steps. He'd seen insect netting used before in the West Indies, and sickly as that region was, he'd expected nothing less of the East Indies. Besides, he consoled himself, I've had the Yellow Jack once before, and everyone said back on Antigua that once you survived it, you couldn't get it again. He rubbed the top of his left arm where the family surgeon had punctured him over and over and made him howl with pain and terror even before he was out of nappies, to inoculate him against the smallpox. There were two major risks of the tropics taken care of. As for the rest, he was young, healthy as a rutting yearling bull, wasn't he? He was well-off financially, an established English gentleman-his kind was bloody immortal!
As for other diseases, he'd sleep with the nets, drink nothing but imported wine or ale, make sure his water was boiled first should he be forced to drink such a dull beverage-perhaps nothing but tea, he speculated. One had to boil tea-water if one wanted a decent pot.
Food could be washed in boiled water, he supposed, and anyway, there was salt-meat to fall back on. And he would take his sheep-gut condom ashore with him, should he ever be allowed ashore. Twigg and Wythy hadn't snarled at him in the last two months, so he supposed he had outlasted their anger at him. He'd not been allowed ashore at Oporto, Madeira or Capetown. Surely, he'd touch land-and a few other softer things-here in Calcutta!
Chapter 2
With so many hired stevedores, and those working for less than anyone could credit, the cargo was finally landed in their warehouse and factory ashore. Twigg and Wythy went with it, thank the good Lord, to establish their putative trading firm. Telesto rode higher out of the water. Firewood and water were brought aboard and stowed away. A distillery was established at the factory to supply them daily. Crates of chickens, small flocks of goats and sheep were hoisted aboard for fresh meat. The crew complained about the lack of juicy fresh beef, no matter the explanations that cattle were a protected species to Hindoos. The passengers had left the first day, Burgess Chiswick included. They'd shared one last bumper of claret and then he was off to Fort William for his assignment with the East India Company's army. There were some more chores that Captain Ayscough wished performed before shore leave would be allowed. The ship was smoked and scoured below decks, the bilges pumped clean and the many rats that had come aboard with the cargo hunted down and dispatched, or at least thinned out. Rigging had to be re-rove to replace spliced or storm-raveled cordage; sails had to be patched. Cosmetics about the look of the ship could go hang for a while, but she must be made ready in all respects to go to sea at a moment's notice before the hands were to be allowed a monumental rut or two.