The Strangler Vine, page 6
The second was – though I was loath to admit it – Mr Jeremiah Blake. The truth was, he was quite unrecognizable from the shivering, peeling, hobbling invalid of the week before. The transformation seemed to me extraordinary. He was firstly not as old as I had supposed – not young of course, but not the doddering, used-up creature he had seemed. The puffy, rashy red skin was almost gone, he was clean-shaven and his face was sunburnt. I suppose some might have called him handsome – in a coarse and common way. It was not a gentleman’s face, there was something pinched about it, and it bore the marks of hard living: a broken nose, an old white puckered scar through an eyebrow. His formerly greasily straggling hair had been cut, shorter and plainer than was the fashion, and one could now see that his right ear was ragged, not like a pugilist’s ear, but a tom cat’s, as if something had torn bits from the top of it. Occasionally he would run a finger over these indentations. He retained an almost imperceptible limp. His eyes were deep-set and hooded. I found his gaze most unnerving, and others did too. I could not make out what colour his eyes were, some mud shade I suppose. He carried about him an air of what, for lack of a better word, I called insolence, but which I felt as the days passed was more a sceptical irritation with the world. He was very guarded. To my dismay he lived as much as he could as a native – wore native dress, a kurta and dhotis or white cotton pajamas, with slippers, and carried a curved native sword, the tulwar, which some older Company officers preferred. A part of me envied him the looseness and coolness of his clothes, but I would not have dreamt of giving up my uniform. He ate like a native too – with his fingers, tearing the roti with his one hand, then using it to scoop up the meat and rice prepared by Nungoo, the large and slow-moving fifth member and cook of our party. And he sat cross-legged upon the ground as the natives did. Having lost my folding chair, I too now had to sit upon the ground with the natives, and I could not but view it as one more of the petty humiliations that Mr Blake had forced upon me. For what was quite unchanged was that he was just as silent and rude to me as he had been before. Not once in these days did he address a word to me; indeed he spoke little at all, and invariably in Hindoostanee.
‘Was Mr Blake very angry at my late arrival and conduct?’ I asked Mir Aziz on the third day.
‘Chote Sahib, Mr Blake is showing no anger, nor is he speaking of it.’
On the fourth day, the rain stopped. The air was still thick and humid, but it was a relief to wake to near silence. By the light of a lantern I unpacked my books and found that apart from some dampness and a little foxing on the page edges, they had survived. As the sun rose there were patches of blue and the landscape seemed washed clean. I felt my mood lighten. I looked about me. It was, I reflected, a relief to be out of Calcutta. The landscape was now dense flat scrub clothed in its fresh post-monsoon growth, with occasional thickets of jangal. Pale brown monkeys chattered in the trees. Flocks of goats and sheep and moth-eaten pariah dogs wove on and off the highway. In the distance one could see the beginnings of low brown hills. The road itself was lined with trees, and every few miles there would be a small, tumble-down, thatched Hindoo temple or an old tomb with a small tank for water next to it and sometimes a holy man or sadoo in attendance. At regular intervals we came upon old stone monuments, thirty feet high, like fat stone fingers pointing heavenward. Mir Aziz told me that they were kos minars, giant milestones placed there by the Moghul emperors who had also planted the trees to provide shade and shelter for travellers. Now and again there would be a line of stalls selling food and tobacco to travellers camping nearby, and a dak post where groups of bearers sat waiting to carry messages or post up the road. A little way from the road one could see small villages of bamboo and mud, huts green with moss and mould after the rains. The tentative thought came to me that all might not be lost; being in the Mofussil might not be so unbearable and we might after all find Mountstuart.
Mr Blake’s oddities might form part of my entertainment, but he was at the same time the great shadow over my reviving spirits. I had intended to apologize to him for my conduct on the first day, but the way in which he ignored me, and the deliberateness of his use of Hindoostanee to isolate me, soon suffocated that resolve. His whole manner, moreover, seemed designed to repel interlocutors. He never rushed but he was always engaged in some activity, and even when he was eating or sitting by the fire at night, he seemed entirely preoccupied. On that fourth day, I forced myself to approach him, but I had to interpose myself between him and his horse in order to gain his attention.
‘Mr Blake, I know you did not wish me to accompany you on this journey. But at the very least you might do me the courtesy of letting me know your plans.’
He had his saddle upon his shoulder, carrying it from one pony to the next. He paused, scratched the top of his ear, and said, ‘Lieutenant Avery, your job is to keep up, not to hinder me, and to keep your bone-box shut. If you do that I shall be perfectly satisfied. And you never know, you may even learn something.’
I muttered something unrepeatable under my breath.
‘You feel you’ve been ill-used? You were lucky to leave Calcutta when you did.’
‘And how do you figure that, sir?’
‘You’re no city type, and where you were you had few prospects. The cholera epidemic will only get worse. You’re badly in debt and your servants were stealing from you.’
‘You know nothing, sir. My servants were perfectly honest and my finances quite secure, thank you!’ This was not at all how I had expected the exchange to go.
‘All griffins are in debt,’ he said, which was true. ‘But the last five buttons on your jacket are patkong, a cheap alloy, not silver. Your laundryman or tailor replaced them. There’s a market for silver buttons in Calcutta.’
Looking closely at my buttons I saw that the last five were almost but not precisely identical to the others. I could not believe I had not seen this before. I walked back to my fresh pony, humiliated, my heart overflowing with the purest dislike of him. He is an oaf, a coarse oaf! And I hate him, I thought. When I looked up, Mir Aziz was watching me.
‘If you are being kind enough to permit me, Chote Sahib,’ he said, ‘I may tell you that we are indeed on course in our travels, and I would be most pleased to show you the maps of our route.’ It was half in my mind to rebuff him, but there was something in his manner that forestalled me. The words were not offered in pity or two-faced flattery, but rather with a grave courtesy. I checked myself.
‘I would be most grateful if you would,’ I replied.
Thus, by design or by accident, Mir Aziz became my guide. He imparted information to me and helped me accustom myself to the road. It was a state of affairs that would have caused disapproval in Calcutta, but I was grateful for it. Within a few hours he had pointed out a dozen small things to make the journey less discomfiting. He showed me how to pitch my tent to avoid the worst of the insects and how best to arrange my nets for sleeping. When I mutinously refused Nungoo’s curries and native dishes – in Calcutta such dishes were often disgusting and not often found on European tables – he told me to eat and maintain my strength, and I did, dreaming of bread and butter all the while. When he saw the rashes from my uniform, he suggested I take to looser civilian attire.
‘I thank you, but as we are on Company business, I believe I should wear its livery,’ I said, loud enough to ensure that Blake could hear.
Mir Aziz was not tall, but he was broad and strongly set and square-shouldered. His skin was like polished wood and his thick bushy eyebrows were held in a permanent half-frown of concentration which gave him a wise and considered aspect. His eyes had that dark liquid quality so characteristic of the natives; he had a strong, sharp nose and a splendid black beard with a few silvers hairs in it. When the wind got up, he would part it carefully, pushing one half up on to one side of his head, and the other on to the other side, and tie the two sides against his yellow pugree with a scarf. His speech might sometimes be florid, but he never spoke with the gushing flattery and insincerity that I had encountered in Calcutta. What his precise role was on our journey, however, was not by any means clear and on the subject he was most enigmatic.
‘I am, as goes the saying of the Romans of old, general factotum,’ was all he would say. ‘I am doing and making everything.’ One day he offered to shave me and did so with great facility and skill. After he dressed my face with various unguents, taken from a small wooden box, he gave me a powder and a small vial, ‘Multanni mitti and rose-water, Chote Sahib. It is being treatment for painful skin.’ Blake, I noted, consulted Mir Aziz frequently – though he did not take advantage of Mir Aziz’s barbering.
What surprised me most about Mir Aziz was how susceptible he – a Mahommedan and also so evidently sensible – was to Hindoo superstitions. He spoke often of good and bad omens, of tigers roaring and ravens cawing, of demons and evil spirits. The two other natives, Sameer and Nungoo, were just as impressionable. When we saw an elephant there were great expressions of rejoicing. I said to Mir Aziz that I had thought elephants were sacred only to the Hindoos, because of their paunchy little elephant god.
‘But it is bringing us good fortune too, Chote Sahib, to Musselman, Sikh, Jain – and Christian too.’
Another night, after eating, Sameer produced a noise unheard in polite company – and evidently unacceptable in Mir Aziz’s. The older man insisted that he leave the camp, taking a piece of burning ember with him, douse it, then hit himself with a slipper five times. Looking much abashed, Sameer did precisely as he was told; indeed he and Nungoo took instruction from him without question.
These two spoke almost no English and behaved to me with just enough courtesy so as not to appear actually insubordinate. I had never been in such constant close quarters with natives and was sure they took pleasure in serving up insults I did not understand in their own tongues, but I did not wish to be forever asking Mir Aziz for translations and so I ignored them. Sameer was little more than a boy – slight, quick-moving with a mouth full of white teeth, constantly bordering on insolent and skilled with the horses. It was he who had called me a milk-faced boy that first morning, a quip I dismissed when I saw the difficulty he was having in growing a pair of wispy moustaches. When the weather improved he took to galloping ahead of us, shouting something that sounded like ‘Chullo bai! Chullo bai!’ and scattering travellers on foot.
Nungoo was older, quiet, with a broad flat face, long moustaches and skin dark as treacle. His arms seemed to emerge from the front of his shoulders, which made his back look almost hunched, but he was extremely strong and very methodical. He reprimanded Sameer now and again, I noted, but also took a certain care in him. Both men, like Mir Aziz, were Mahommedans and so not constrained by the caste rules that bound Hindoos to certain tasks. Like him, their roles were not precisely stated: they were neither quite servants nor sepoys – though they had both served in the Company’s army – but rather something in between. They rode extremely well, and carried swords and muskets. Nungoo cooked for us. Sameer saw to the horses and for a few coins washed my clothes.
That fourth night we finally spent under a roof. Not in a dak bungalow – his lordship would not have that – but a native caravanserai, a kind of circular walled cloister entered through a large gate, where each section of cloistered wall was a small room with a wooden door. Mr Blake greeted one or two natives, then went to speak to the woman who ran the cook-shop at the gate. He seized her hand and she cried out and laughed a deep guttural laugh when she saw him. I was surprised, since very few Europeans ever elected to stay in such places, but within minutes our wet clothes were being dried round the hearth, and bowls of curry, rice and small fried cakes were produced. In the yard in the middle of the caravanserai business was contracted, and natives tended camels, loaded bales and took on new grooms. At the edges, high-caste Hindoos cooked their suppers over open fires, and merchants and horse dealers moved from one shadowed cloistered room to the next, muttering and arguing. I sat at the entrance of our straw-filled room with my copy of Mountstuart’s The Courage of the Bruce, while Blake played knucklebones with the merchants, several of whom he clearly knew, occasionally issuing a loud belch. I knew I was unmistakeable in my uniform, and I fancied the natives went more slowly and watchfully about their business. I was sure my appearance annoyed Mr Blake, and I was glad that it did. The presence of a lumpy charpai gave me reason to rejoice and, despite the constant burble and the savaging of insects, I lapsed into unconsciousness for a few hours.
For the next week we woke at four while it was still cool, riding five or six hours to cover the required distance of thirty to forty miles, changing our ponies every few days, resting when we could in the afternoons. Though we passed empty white dak bungalows, Blake never allowed us to stay in one. Instead nights were passed in the now noxious-smelling tents. The heat was still thick and exhausting, but the rain was dwindling and the mud was less onerous and the travelling less hard. And despite the exasperations, I found that after months of lethargy the change of air and the activity elevated my spirits. I did not cease to mourn poor Macpherson, but the longing for home came less painfully, and other thoughts began to supplant it. I determined that I would do all that was asked of me, and everything in my power to try to make our journey a success. I would show no fatigue, I would not complain – though occasionally I would gripe to myself that I was obliged to undertake chores that no European would normally perform, in conditions that no European would normally have to undergo, that my sores were starting to fester, that I could not abide the food and that the insects kept me from sleeping. I would observe Jeremiah Blake and note my observations, and whatever happened I would do my duty. I found these thoughts comforting.
The road was not yet as busy as it would become once the rains stopped for good, but it was already a full day’s entertainment in itself. There were frenzied ash-smeared fakirs who gambolled grotesquely and stuck their palms out for money; women wrapped in layers of cottons – saffron, pink, blue – with babes on their hips and dull brass bracelets tinkling; small insolent boys chewing sugar cane. There were jugglers with families of monkeys in their turbans; wealthy Sikhs in yellow silk waistcoats with enormous beards and huge dastars, leading columns of camels and carts; wedding parties in red and silver, with painted elephants, encircled by the scent of jasmine; and carts of dull-eyed, ragged indentured servants.
As for us, it is impossible to overstate what an odd, un-European picture we made: a small, lamentably unkempt party, travelling faster than anything but the camel sowars delivering messages up the road. Occasionally we would pass an English civilian or officer followed by the usual eight carts of possessions and twenty or thirty servants, covering their eight miles a day, with perhaps a wife and children carried in two palanquins, all complaining bitterly. I began to dream of travelling with a tent so large and luxurious that it required its own bullock cart, my tripod basin, eau de cologne and Windsor soap, and a full complement of servants including my own cook, laundryman and barber.
By night, we’d take turns to watch for thieves and dacoits, but not Thugs. Mir Aziz said one rarely heard of them now. Even in earlier times, they had never plied the busy routes but haunted the more remote places where there was jangal into which to vanish, and they had never attacked Europeans. We were all armed – Mir Aziz always wore an ammunition belt across one shoulder, and a tulwar, which he sheathed in a beautiful and very distinctive black leather scabbard stitched with silver.
What did not change was that Mr Blake remained an utter enigma. He kept his own council, never imparted his thoughts and showed, as far as I could tell, absolutely no interest in Xavier Mountstuart. By day, he was always out in front, his straight back an unmistakeable marker of a former soldier. At night, by our fire, he might take out a small, thick leather-bound book and read from it; or he would bring out a small huqqa and suck impassively, staring into the fire. Though he sometimes looked near-feverish with fatigue, he never acknowledged it as far as I could tell. Despite his commonness he did have a quality that commanded our natives’ respect. In other circumstances I might have tried again with him or even forced my conversation upon him out of sheer mischief. But there was something powerfully self-contained about him that repelled inquiry. I considered asking Mir Aziz what he knew about him, but I was reluctant to expose both my ignorance and my curiosity. I tried to imagine his life in Calcutta with his bibi, the native woman who had died. I could not picture him surrounded by friends or a family, or that dreary broken-down house in better days. I could see no sign of the ‘bloodhound’ described by Colonel Buchanan. I did not hear him inquire of a single European we encountered if they had seen Mountstuart – not an unreasonable question about the most famous man in India. Instead, at each town or station he and Mir Aziz would disappear for an hour or two. Whether he knew of my own admiration for Mountstuart I had no idea. I found the thought that he had known the poet abhorrent. As a result I took to searching out a British officer in each place to inquire whether they had seen Mountstuart. None had. There seemed to be no trace of him.
In those hours when we rode and there was little to see, or when I tried to rest and sleep would not come, I deliberately turned my thoughts from Frank to Mountstuart and the Thugs. What I knew about their practices – ‘Thuggee’ – had come both from the drawing-rooms of Calcutta, and Major William Sleeman’s history of the Thugs and their customs, which I had read after I had arrived in Calcutta. ‘Thuggee’ Sleeman was the Company officer who had done most to capture and destroy the Thug gangs. The headquarters of his campaign, Jubbulpore, was our destination. It was in the Thug heartland, the old anarchic Maratha states, taken over by the Company in 1819. Since the late 1820s William Sleeman, in a campaign of extraordinary brilliance and relentlessness, had pursued and all but stamped out the Thugs, making the roads of India safe for native travellers.
