Red Earth and Pouring Rain (13 page)

‘So,’ the Begum said, ‘Thomas Sahib, my little daughters here are curious: Where do these tall pink men come from, and why?
Who are they, they ask, these brave warriors who come so far to our Hindustan?’

‘Do they ask?’ Thomas said.

‘They do, indeed,’ the Begum said.

‘Then listen, and I will tell you,’ Thomas said. ‘I don’t know about any of the others, but I will tell you about me. Listen…’

I was born in a place called Tipperary, in Ireland, where it is always cold and the fog drifts over moors. I lived well, and
my family ate and drank to satisfaction, but always I felt a little empty, a little absent, as if something was missing; always,
I thought of places I could go where everything would be new, and when I thought like this, for a while, that feeling would
vanish; so one day, when I was very young, maybe ten or eleven or twelve, I walked away from my home and made my way to the
coast and became a ship’s boy, a cook’s helper, and in time, a sailor.

I will tell you about how a gun made me a sailor. At the time I was a general-purpose scullion and helper in the gallery of
an English two-masted brigantine named
Constant
, sailing in the waters north of Calais on blockade. One winter morning we engaged the French sloop Ella when she caught us
unawares by coming out of a heavy bank of fog to the west. She had the advantage of us from the very start. As we came around
slowly into the wind, with the beat to quarters sounding, we could see that she would pass us astern, raking us from head
to stern without a shot fired in return.

That is the thing about a naval engagement: you can see it coming. I was carrying cartridges from the magazine up to the deck,
laying them by the number two gun, and each time I went down and then up it was awful how she drew slowly closer, beautiful
with the sails against the dark grey of the fog and the wake rising clean and white behind her. All this time there was not
a word said, just the creaking of the timbers and the slow rise and fall of the deck under our feet, and then the side of
the French ship was hidden by smoke and suddenly I was lying flat on my back wondering at the terrible, torn state of the
sails above me.

When I pushed myself up I rose into a reeking mess of blood and
fire; the marines on the quarter-deck above us had been cut up awfully and two of the guns on the starboard side were knocked
over on their side, one with the wood of the carriage splintered away. Our number two gun was loose on the deck, bucking back
and forth with every swell, running over and crushing the bodies that lay on the deck. As I stood it came at me, and I was
dazed enough to be cool about the way I stepped aside, stooped down for a capstan which I jammed into the wheel, stopping
the gun short in its wild career.

‘Good lad,’ said a blackened, grinning face to me as I stood, quite unable to know what to do next. I recognized the layer
of the number one gun, which was now on its side and finished; he motioned at me and we worked like fiends to get the cannon
back into harness. Now that I had someone showing me what to do I was myself again. I was always strong for my age, and between
the two of us and another of his crew we had the gun ready when our sails took the wind and it came time to give reply. Even
on that first day I had a feeling for the craft, and as the gun grew hot and leapt like a beast into the air when we fired,
it took me not long to learn the rhythm of it, the quick scrape with the wet cloth inside, the cartridge, shot, running it
up, the tap-tap as the layer took his sights and then waiting for the top of the wave, and then the roar. We were taken apart,
though, that day, and we must have surrendered if a frigate hadn’t come up to scare off the Frenchman, and when it was over
my part was noted and I was made a part of the number one crew, which suited me very fine.

After that I served on many ships, most of them men-of-war heavy with cannon and shot and low in the water; we sailed many
waters, and as the years passed I visited many countries, many cities in Europe and Africa and then Asia; I fought men of
all races and colours and learned how to use the instruments of war. Then an English ship I served on docked at the port of
Goa, and that evening for the first time I walked on the soil of this country which we call India; we traded with the Portuguese
and two weeks later sailed again. I sat on deck whenever I could and watched the coast of Malabar slip by, green and dark,
with fishing boats slipping in and out among the beaches and the palms and the swamps; we passed by many ships, some Portuguese
and some Arab and some belonging to the kingdoms on the coast. One afternoon, a week or two before we rounded Comorin, I saw
a tiger lying on a beach,
stretching and yawning in the sun, and we all rushed to the rail, shouting and gesturing, and I remember thinking, I must
remember this; and as we watched he stood up and stared at us; even at that distance I could see the yellow glare of his eyes;
then he grunted (I felt my heart squeeze) and moved off into the darkness under the trees.

We docked at Calcutta, and I wandered through the streets, the bazaars full of fruit, muslin, silk, fish. I saw people dressed
in every imaginable colour, turbans round and triangular, jewellery on every limb; there were traders, soldiers, scholars,
priests, labourers, servants; there were dozens of languages, accents sibilant and staccato, long hovering vowels and strong
decisive consonants. We stayed for a month, and I spent every moment I could walking, alone.

Finally, loaded with spices and silk, we set off. I watched the white beaches recede into a distant stain on the horizon,
with the sails cracking and the mast creaking above me, a heaviness in my heart. For two days we headed due south-west, and
then were seized by a dead calm; we drifted. The sea was a flat grey; a school of dolphins surrounded us and splashed through
patches of seaweed, walking through the water on their tails, grinning up at us; on the tenth day we saw land to starboard,
and slowly drifted closer to it. I could see huge trees, gnarled and twisted, branches reaching down, roots rising out of
water; the air was very still, the sun sent us scurrying for whatever shadow we could find, and the pale blue of the sky hurt
the eyes; I sat under a boat, fanning myself with a little straw punkah I had bought in Calcutta, dreaming, thinking of the
stories I had heard of the kingdoms of the plains and the Deccan, the nawabs of Avadh, the broken Moghuls, the Sikhs, the
Marathas, the Rajputs, the sultans of the south. Late that night, a slight breeze sprang up, and our captain came running
out of his cabin, shouting orders; ropes creaked and wood groaned, and we began to move, slowly, hesitantly, and then out
of the trees, from the dark forest, I heard a coughing grunt; I stood bolt upright, and then a tiger’s roar boomed over the
ship, a harsh fearful spitting sound, unbelievably loud; I felt warm liquid spill out of me and spread down my thighs, but
even before the echoes had died away I was running towards the rail; I went over in a running dive and hit the water like
a knife; racing towards the trees, I could hear shouts behind me, but I knew they couldn’t stop to put out a boat after me
—the wind was up, and they
couldn’t be bothered with one man; so I pulled myself through the darkness, weeping and laughing and talking to myself. Soon,
I was able to pull myself up onto a thick root. The lights of the ship receded. I was alone, among the trees.

Thomas was quiet, then, for a moment, and looked dreamily into the dark.

‘Why?’ he went on. ‘One might ask, why? Listen…

As I stumbled and swam through the swamp, thirsty, starving, I asked myself again and again; but the roots of things are hidden,
shrouded. The black trees towered above me, and I sprang from branch to branch, my skin covered with sores and bites and cuts.
I lost my shoes in the bubbling ooze that rose and fell each day with the tide; I grew faint and lost all sense of direction,
and often I collapsed, my limbs jerking and flopping about, dreaming, seeing impossible creatures rise out of the green water:
chimeras, gryphons, phoenixes. Why? I asked, and all I can say even now is that for some the unfamiliar holds the promise
of love, of perfection.

One morning, I lay on my back on a small island, a patch of brown soil in the middle of rushing water. With watery eyes I
watched the sun climb through the leaves, and then I felt a hot rush of breath on my feet, a miasma that climbed up my thighs
and over my chest, a rich rotting-meat smell that filled my nostrils. I looked up into golden eyes, calm eyes, eyes vacant
in a natural ferocity quite without malice. I felt whiskers brush softly across my cheek, and then there was the sharp pain
of a bite in my left shoulder, just below the neck; he picked me up and carried me easily through water and over trees and
dry ground. The blood slipped out of me and over his jaws, dripping into the thick green scum; the sun followed us, moving
over the patchwork canopy above; the light danced in my eyes and I knew I was going to die. Just before the last fragment
of my awareness dropped away, I lost all control and smelt, in the mist that hung above the water, the odour of my own refuse.

I opened my eyes and there was a man standing above me, his bare brown legs straddling my body; he was shouting at the tiger,
waving a spear. The tiger was crouched, its belly flat on the grass, its tail flicking
to and fro; it snarled, jaws thrust forward, teeth stained pink from my shoulder. The man’s voice dropped into a tone almost
conversational —he spoke to the animal in a language full of grunts and clicks; the tiger seemed to listen, and then the man
screamed, raising his hands high above his head. The tiger backed away, easing out of its crouch, and then turned and disappeared
into the trees.

My saviour bent down and smiled, speaking to me in that gentle clicking language. He was an old man with a tiny wizened face
painted in red and green and crowned with coloured feathers; around his neck and in his ears he wore jewellery made of bone
and chiselled pieces of coloured stone; he wore animal skins, and carried a spear and a bow. All this I saw as he bent over
me and brushed the salt-encrusted, matted hair away from my face. He clapped a palm on his dark, muscular chest.

‘Guha,’ he said, ‘Guha.’

I tried to speak, but could produce only a thin scratching sound. Guha wiped the blood and mud away from my shoulder and picked
me up effortlessly, draping my limp body over a shoulder. My head swayed with each stride, and my cheek slid back and forth
across smooth brown skin; soon, the regular rhythm of our motion and the sound of the swamp, that twittering, grunting, humming,
booming song, answered each other in a hypnotic antiphon that compelled a descent into the region of dreams and memory: already,
the places and faces of my past had taken on that soft glow that hides, forever, the grotesqueries and sufferings of childhood
and the desolate loneliness of first youth.

When I woke up Guha was rubbing my limbs with a wet tuft of soft grass, wiping away the caked dirt and sweat; later, he cradled
my head in his lap and squeezed the juice of fruit into my mouth; and always, he spoke to me, chuckling and clucking softly,
rolling his eyes, gesturing. Often, he left me in the little clearing where he made his camp and loped off beneath the heavy
branches. He would return, hours later, bloody carcasses hanging from the belt at his waist. When I could walk, I hunted with
him; I would crouch behind him; we stalked, and in the swamp where I had seen nothing, felt only hunger, I saw an abundance,
life burgeoning, swimming, crawling, giving birth, clawing, biting, all the wonder and the filth. I killed, and each time
Guha knelt over the still-warm body, murmuring under his breath, touching the bloody flesh with his long, thin fingers.

* * *

By the time the sun moved to the south and the days grew short, my clothes had disintegrated into fragments, and I dressed
like Guha, even wearing feathers and stones. I learned some of his language, the words for leaves, insects, fruits and animals,
for fear and danger, and we spoke to each other in fits and starts. Sometimes, in camp, at the end of the day, he would sing,
raising his eyes towards the red glow between the trees; I understood some words, grasped some small fragments of what he
offered to the sky, but even if I had understood nothing there would have been no mistaking the wonder in his voice, the awe
and the good humour. In return, I sang him songs I remembered from my childhood. One night, under a full moon, I sang a ballad,
an old clan favourite about knocking the English about in a battle long ago, and as I paused between verses Guha piped up
in his quavery voice and let loose with a few lines of one of his little ditties, and soon we were swinging back and forth
merrily, sending the birds whirling above the tree-tops in confusion; he bent over and thumped my knee, nodding his head,
and then we both collapsed in laughter, roaring, infinitely pleased by our madness; our camp-fire crackled on, and perhaps
even the watching moon smiled a little at our antics, because good friendship is hard to find, and life is long.

The next morning Guha walked around the camp picking up things, suddenly filled with purpose; he motioned to me to collect
my meagre belongings. I followed him out of the clearing; that day we walked in a straight line, due west, with Guha slipping
soundlessly through the bushes; at sunset we paused for a few minutes to eat, and then went on. Where are we going? I tried
to ask, where? but he pressed on, silent.

That night we left the entangled trees and still water behind and moved across a rolling plain; walking across a raised dike,
I saw the light from a distant lamp blinking in the dark, and realized we were in a place of cultivation, of irrigation and
harvests. For a moment, I felt fear, and wished we were back in the damp recesses of the swamp, but I had crossed oceans to
escape the strangling constrictions of home, to find a shining fiction called Adventure, so once again I licked my lips, grasped
my weapons firmly, and we went on, never slowing or pausing. For twenty-four nights we journeyed, hiding during the days in
groves of trees or fields dense with sugar-cane; several times people passed within a few feet of us, and sometimes packs
of village dogs loped by, sniffing and restless, but Guha’s skill was ancient and boundless. At the end of
this time we reached a region where the ground rose up in wooded ridges, and as the sun rose on the twenty-fourth day we left
the fields behind and climbed into the shade of the jungle.