Colonel Brandon's Diary (8 page)

 

 

The Indies are strange beyond my expectations. The heat is like a furnace. I rise early and work as much as I can before the sun explodes over the horizon. By the afternoon it is too hot to do anything at all, and the evenings are little better.

The men who have been here some time say that I will get used to it, but I wonder if I ever will.

The colours are as fierce as the heat, and the food is fiery, burning my mouth and throat. I ate my first Indian dish today, and I had not taken two mouthfuls when I grabbed at my throat and felt the tears running down my cheeks. The others laughed, and poured me more wine, but drinking it only made my mouth burn the more and the sweat ran down my face in rivers.

I tried to remember the soft summers of England to cool me, but I could not bring them to mind, for it seemed impossible that I had ever been cold.

I ate no more of the strange dish, but I must accustom myself to the food ere long, or else die of starvation.

 

 

I have seen my first elephant!

I remember hearing about such beasts long ago, but I thought the stories were exaggerated. Having seen one, I think that, if anything, the stories were too tame.

It was the oddest thing I have ever come across. It dwarfed a horse as a horse dwarfs a dog, and it was covered in a thick leathery hide that hung in folds from its legs like a pair of ill-fitting breeches. It had a short tail at the back, and at the front it had a head of such monstrous appearance that it seemed impossible such a thing could exist. Large ears, eyes too small, and huge tusks were the least of it, for in between them was the strangest thing of all: a nose, but what a nose! It had the length and appearance of a snake, and it swayed from side to side as the creature walked, snuffling along the ground like a blind thing looking for food. Then, finding something, the trunk lifted like a misshapen hand and dropped the morsel into the creature’s mouth.

I stood still to watch it. As I did so, it found another use for its appendage and, lifting it up like a ceremonial trumpet, it let out a great bellow.

‘It sounds like a cow with a cold,’ said Green.

‘Though a good deal louder,’ said Wareham.

‘Quite a sight, is it not?’ said Green, as the creature walked past.

‘I have never seen such a monstrous thing in my life. Those tusks, that nose — ’

‘Almost as large as Ullswater’s proboscis!’ said Wareham, to much laughter.

Ullswater took the raillery in good part, saying, ‘The elephant has the advantage of me, for I have not learnt how to forage with mine.’

‘Yet,’ said Wareham.

Ullswater laughed with the rest of us, but added, ‘You may laugh, but when rations are short and I turn up delicacies, then I will be the one doing the laughing!’

 

 

I am becoming used to my new country, with its elephants and bullocks, its spicy food and its scents of jasmine and musk. I am becoming adept at giving orders and having them carried out. I can fire a musket, and I believe the men respect me; those who are still on their feet, for the life is cruel and many of those who arrive from England do not survive. Sickness, the climate, accident and injury carry off more than half of them.

 

 

Wareham wanted to buy a necklace for his sister and he invited me to go to the bazaar with him. We were soon wandering between the stalls, surrounded by the din of moneychangers arguing with their customers, the sight of bright fabrics and the smell of pungent spices. The goldsmiths and jewellers were busy, and Wareham stopped to buy his sister a gold chain. I watched the jugglers as he completed his purchase and then we returned to camp, where I found a letter waiting for me.

I felt a chill as the air of England seemed to blow over me, for the handwriting was my sister’s. Knowing that whatever news the letter contained would already be a few months old, I opened it and scanned the pages quickly, learning that my father was dead.

I folded the letter and stared in front of me, unseeing. If only Eliza had been strong for another few months, my father’s death would have removed the barrier between us. We could have been married. Only a few months! The shock of it turned me to ice.

‘Not bad news I hope?’ asked Wareham.

I roused myself.

‘My father is dead.’

‘I am sorry,’ he said.

I thought of my father as he had been when my mother was alive, and I remembered him smiling. And then I thought of him as I had last seen him, showing no remorse at the fact that he had forced Eliza to marry my brother, and I crumpled the letter in my hands.

Now he was dead and buried, and my brother was the new head of the family, and the owner of the estate.

And suddenly everything I had worked so hard to run away from caught up with me and I could no longer deny my memories of England. I recalled it in every detail: the soft landscape, overshadowed by mist; the variety of greens, from the verdant emerald of the lawns to the lime-green of the ferns and the dark sage of moss and late summer leaves; the clear water, running through streams and basking in lakes; the sun rising, mild and clement, in the morning. And Eliza would be there now, cutting roses in the garden and wandering across the meadows, her hat swinging by a ribbon from her hand. I prayed my brother treated her well, and that she was happy. With kindness and diversion I hoped she would be, if not happy, at least not unhappy, and it gave me some comfort to think of her at Delaford, where she was meant to be.

I went outside and was immediately scorched by the sun, so different from the mild friend of England. The buzz of the mosquitoes irritated my ears, and I slapped at my neck in anger as they bit into me. The exotic colours dazzled my eyes, and I thought how far we had come in such a short time, Eliza and I, for if not for her marriage I would still be in Oxford, with its mellow stone and its rustling river, and she would be there with me.

 

 

I woke early and set to work. The sergeant soon came to me and, after the usual preamble, said, ‘Johnson is dead, sir.’

I rubbed my eyes and said, ‘Very good,’ and thought, Another man lost to the climate.

I dismissed the sergeant and then threw down my pen and went out of the tent, watching him drill the men and hearing the familiar commands: wheel, turn, march, counter march, advance, retire.

Their numbers were depleted, for there were the usual absences due to illness, caused by the heat or tainted food or disease, and to deaths. I thanked God I had acclimatized, and that I no longer felt the agonies produced by the exotic spices and rotten meat.

My eyes wandered to the bullocks walking past, carrying loaded panniers, and I wondered if we would have enough of them to pull the guns and ammunition wagons when we broke camp.

Carstairs joined me, evidently thinking the same thing, for he said, ‘Do you think we should buy a couple of elephants to pull the heavy guns?’

‘They are expensive,’ I said. ‘Can we afford them?’

‘The purchase price, yes, but the maintenance?’ He shook his head. ‘Perhaps not. At least with bullocks, they can graze off the land. It is a pity, though. A couple of elephants would make easy work of it.’ His eyes wandered to the men, who were forming a square. ‘They seem to be shaping up well.’

‘Not well enough. They are not ready for battle. Their formation is sloppy, and they do not react quickly enough to commands.’

‘They will improve.’

‘I hope so, or they, too, will soon be dead.’

He looked at me curiously, for I used not to be so grim, but I cannot rid myself of the thought that, if only Eliza had had more strength, we could be married now, she and I, and we could be happy.

 

 

Another letter from Catherine arrived this morning, already many months old, giving me news of my father’s funeral, and telling me of Eliza.

I hope it is only the melancholy occasion and my sister’s presence that caused her low spirits, but I fear it is her marriage. If she still regrets it, what torment for her.

What torment for us both.

 

 

I am finding it impossible to control my thoughts. They are not here with me, but at home, with Eliza. Is she happy? Is she well? Is she thinking of me?

I turn a thousand possibilities over in my mind. If I had not left home, if I had returned sooner, if . . . if . . . if. . . .

I must gain control of my thoughts soon or I fear for my sanity. My only solace is work, and I am determined to think of nothing else, for how else will I survive?

1781

A letter from Catherine this morning, the first in two years, for not since my father’s death has she written to me. I opened it with nerveless fingers, wondering what news it would contain, and wondering if it would mention Eliza. For all my efforts to forget her, I cannot banish her from my mind, and when there is a lull in my duties, I find myself thinking of her.

I read Catherine’s news of her family with little interest, scanning the page until Eliza’s name caught my eye.

Divorced? I sat back in my seat, rocked.

I steeled myself to read on.

I put my head in my hands. All that hope and beauty coming to nothing. She was divorced, disgraced, cast off, and by my brother, a fiend who should never have been allowed to marry her. I felt ill, even worse than I had felt when hearing of her marriage. At least then I had been able to hope she would not be too unhappy. But now I could hope for nothing.

I read on, feeling worse and worse with every word, for she had been abandoned by her first seducer. Without an adequate allowance, for my brother had been mean and vengeful and had not given her an income that was either adequate to her fortune or sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, she had sunk still further, finding another protector and sinking yet again.

I folded the letter at last and willed myself to turn to stone, for if I remained a creature of flesh and blood, I feared the pain would kill me.

1782

How strange it feels to be in England again after almost four years away. I had forgotten how low the sky was, and how grey, and how it leached the colour from everything, leaving the world a dreary place.