A SHORT STORY · 2016-07-07 · life: regimental entertainments aplenty, concerts, fancy dress balls and amateur theatricals too. All poor imitations of the evenings I’d recently

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A SHORT STORY

and prequel to

This Sportful Dance of Atoms by the same author.

First published in 2016 by Longmead Publishing.

© Anthony Michael Cornish 2016

Anthony Michael Cornish has asserted his right to be

identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-0-9932922-7-9

www.longmeadpublishing.com

Umbrellasthe Golden

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PART I

1823

How, I ask myself, can things have come to this? What

grievous sin have I committed—beyond the usual

indiscretions of a young and foolish man—to account for

my present situation? What possible measure of justice

has contrived to place me on this violently pitching deck,

vomiting copiously over the ship’s rail? That is, when I’m

able to reach the rail and so avoid puking over my shoes.

Put simply—and there are details I’m obliged never to

mention—I’m en route to take up a position as Surgeon to

one of the garrisons in India and at a distance from those

secret ‘details’. The one thing I can say is that men far

above my station have been meddling in my affairs for

Umbrellasthe Golden

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some time, master puppeteers to my puppet. It all began

with an affair of money, as is so often the way.

My father’s at the root of it all; a weak, broken man

whose ineptitude in matters of finance propelled him

first into a debtor’s prison and from there his ever-

loosening wits drove him inexorably into the lunatic

asylum. For our family’s creditors, however, even this

misery provided insufficient redress and they continued

to pursue the debt, bloodhounds on a fresh scent,

arguing through the courts that as my father was

declared incompetent they must be permitted to lay their

taloned claws on what little remained of his assets.

And so it had come to pass. The forfeiture of our

family home had then pushed my mother to the brink of

madness and it was at that very juncture that Sir Everett

Fairchild came to our door, announcing himself to be a

firm friend of father’s despite neither mother nor I

having so much as heard his name before. It wasn’t long

before the true purpose of his visit came to light, but only

once my exhausted, befuddled mother had retired for

the night. Then, by the light of the fire flickering in the

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grate, Sir Everett confessed the genuine reason for his

visit. It transpired that father was quite another person

from the one I thought I knew: for his entire life he’d

been an agent of the government, sent here, there and

everywhere in the world to do its bidding, all in the guise

of a diplomat. Sir Everett and my father had been firm

friends and shortly before his fall from grace father had

extracted a promise from his spymaster general to

ensure that mother and I would not follow him into ruin.

As doyen of our government’s secret service, a

master intelligencer, Sir Everett’s solution to our travails

was simple enough. I’m well travelled, fluent in several

languages and trusty enough with a brace of pistols to

give a good account of myself in a tight spot—much like

father in his heyday, I also discovered. So, in exchange

for a weighty purse—and heaven knows we had pressing

need for the money—I was charged with a simple task: to

carry a bulky envelope of documents to Paris. I would

never discover what it contained, nor signified, but

delivered it safely into the hands of a shadowy figure

standing on the banks of the Seine, in the appointed

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place, at the appointed time and in possession of the

requisite code words.

I’d been uncomfortable at the prospect, but in the

event found it all most stimulating. I was enthusiastic to

do more and Sir Everett was happy to oblige. For my

next engagement I acted as a conduit for nuggets of false

intelligence to find their way to a revolutionary Bolivian.

For the next I served as a lure to tempt a foreign

ambassador’s wife—I will admit that I’m blessed with

advantageous looks—who was too free both with her

body and her pillow-talk. For each adventure I was

rewarded with a purse of gold coins and, one by one, our

family’s creditors fell silent.

And then came the task for which all others had

been mere preparation. I met Sir Everett at his London

club to have my latest and most significant assignment

revealed to me. This time my destination would be Italy

and my task the scratching of a persistent political itch.

This particular loose cannon, a poet to whom I will refer

simply as ‘X’, had some years earlier greatly embarrassed

our political masters by publishing a certain, damning

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poem that would most likely be forgotten in a

generation. And how might a piece of simple poetry

cause so much consternation? The work fixed its critical

gaze upon the Peterloo Massacre, taking the government

firmly to task with regard to the brutality of the militia

who, on the sixteenth day of August 1819, had fallen upon

the thousands of protestors amassed on St. Peter’s Field

in Manchester:

And if then the tyrants dare,

Let them ride among you there;

Slash, and stab, and maim and hew;

What they like, that let them do.

It’s said the dragoons had notched their sabres before the

charge, intending to rip flesh as well as slice and render

otherwise survivable wounds mortal. The poem

portrayed one politico as ‘Murder’, a second as

‘Hypocrisy’ and a third as ‘Fraud’.

The politicos’ injured pride might have simmered

and then receded, if only ‘X’, clearly relishing his success,

wasn’t fervent to publish again. This could not be

tolerated, so off I went to Italy in pursuit of said errant

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poet. I must confess to having felt a good deal of guilt, for

‘X’ was no bomb-throwing anarchist, but my family was

too far in need to forsake the promised reward.

In the end it was a simple enough thing to

achieve, ‘X’ making no attempt at all to conceal neither

himself nor his movements. Was he so naïve as to

expect no retribution for his words? No violence to

forestall his reprise? So, the night before he was to

set out in his schooner Ariel from Livorno across to

Lerici I crept on board by the light of the moon and a

dark lantern. I know little of how boats are made, but by

the simple application of a metal bar I loosened a few

planks in the bilges. How I had congratulated myself

when the next night the Ariel went to the bottom in a

storm. He will be no great loss to the literary world: I

hold his efforts to be uniformly clumsy.

The poet’s body and that of his companion were

later washed ashore and his friends had the bodies

cremated on the beach at Viareggio. I attended the

funeral in the guise of an admirer and to my surprise, as I

watched the solemn proceedings I felt a sharp pang of

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regret, but consoled myself in the certain knowledge that

had I refused the task not only would my family’s

situation have been placed in jeopardy, but Sir Everett

would have found himself a replacement assassin in

short order.

My reward is sufficient to clear all that remained

of my family’s debts at one sweep, but there’s a

sting in the tail: rumours have surfaced, accusation and

counter-accusation circulating in the air like carrion

birds. There are some who suspect conspiracy and

murder to have taken place and he, Sir Everett Fairchild,

to be architect of it all; the éminence grise.

Sir Everett feels it prudent to have me tucked away

from prying eyes for a while. Without sufficient proof the

spymaster himself is untouchable, but should his

accusers draw a bead at me then this might well prove

sufficient to bring the edifice crashing down around both

our ears. I can’t withstand pain for long and under duress

would be likely to confess all within an hour, so there’s

only one thing to do, says Sir Everett: I must ‘disappear’

for a year or two.

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Within a week I’m on my way to Cairo, there to

await passage for India where Sir Everett’s arranged for

my appointment to the British garrison in Calcutta.

My sojourn in Egypt proves most stimulating, the

sights, sounds and smells of the souk and the wailing calls

to prayer from the minarets all exotica to me; so

enchantingly foreign. I soak up the atmosphere and even

a smattering of Arabic while awaiting the convoy of ships

that will carry me forth.

We set sail at last. The journey takes almost three

months and by the end of it our food and water are in

perilously short supply. The ladies and children make

particularly hard going of it, despite my best efforts, and

their situation doesn’t improve upon our arrival in

India: the heat’s intense, almost unbearable past midday,

there are hordes of marauding insects plaguing us at

all hours of the day and night and, to cap it all, we’ve

arrived in Calcutta just in time for the onset of the

monsoon season.

I take up my duties several days later and soon

discover that everyday life, even in such an exotic place,

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can be a horribly tedious thing. Perhaps the subterfuge,

danger and tension of my recent adventures have rather

turned my head.

My one consolation is the flamboyant social

life: regimental entertainments aplenty, concerts, fancy

dress balls and amateur theatricals too. All poor

imitations of the evenings I’d recently frequented in

London and Paris, it’s true, but they do defend against

the monotony for an hour or two.

By day, the majority of my time’s spent treating

cuts, bruises and the inevitable bouts of venereal disease,

all common enough complaints among a peacetime

garrison with altogether too much time on its hands …

and regular pay in its pockets.

Then one day I receive an invitation to the

home Sir Geoffrey Manners, a wealthy Calcutta

merchant. Our hosts are in business, prodigiously

wealthy and anxious to impress, so invitations to such

events are much sought after, in the certainty that

invitees will be treated to the choicest food, drink and

entertainments.

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So I due course here I stand, a glass of chilled

sillery-wine in hand, my eyes roving this way and that

across the room in search of diversion. The sheer oddity

of the scenario brings a wry smile to my face, for

who would have thought such a thing possible? Here we

all are, Britons translocated to exotic India with its

abundant, foreign scents and sounds, baking in the

intolerable heat, but nevertheless dressed up fit to attend

a London ball in mid winter! And the irony doesn’t stop

there: the invitation to this gathering had come to me

written en Français, the language of our recently

vanquished enemy, so it seems fashion is indeed

everything in such matters. What snobbery!

I’m well versed in the workings of such events and

my first action is to tip the waiter generously, thus

ensuring a ready supply of wine and the choicer cuts of

meat. For what else is a man to do, surrounded by such

collection of crushing bores, but eat and drink his fill?

In fairness to our hosts, Sir Geoffrey and Lady

Manners (please note, not ennobled by virtue of birth,

but through success in business) have made a tolerable

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effort. They can certainly afford it, enjoying great success

in Calcutta after purchasing Taylor’s Emporium, where

one might obtain the finest imported tableware and

furnishings, but all at spectacularly inflated prices.

They’ve even staged a rather splendid tableau

vivant in which the actors are apparently depicting the

Fall of Troy. But it’s not Helen—played by an ageing

trout whose face I rather doubt capable of launching one

ship, let alone a thousand—who intrigues me, but one of

her attendants. The girl standing by her side is

uncommonly pretty and knows very well she’s being

watched, surreptitiously meeting my appraising look and

returning my gaze with a mischievous, coy smile that

captivates me in a moment. It’s not merely her looks, for

in such tableaux it is not uncommon for the actors to cast

off the usual social restraints in the interests of their ‘art’

and tonight the girl’s dressed in a long, flowing gown

that conceals little of the shape beneath. The evening

suddenly becomes very interesting indeed.

The dinner’s a predictably lavish affair, with

course after course of beautifully prepared and

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presented dishes circulating around the table with

orchestrated ease. I’m delighted to be sitting diagonally

opposite the coquettish handmaiden from the tableau

vivant, who once again takes every opportunity to meet

my glances. A few discrete questions of the servant I’d so

generously tipped and I discover her to be none other

than Miss Susannah Manners, the daughter of the house.

After dinner, we’re enjoined to dance. With

many representatives of His Majesty’s armed forces, John

Company too, soldiers and sailors alike all dressed up in

their finery, this is quite a handsome spectacle.

Mercifully, the air’s cooled, thanks to the increased

tempo of vast fans in the ceiling kept in motion by little

Indian servant boys squatting at the end of ropes and, to

all intents and purposes fast asleep as they pull and

release, pull and release.

I dance passably well and soon find myself held in

Susannah’s embrace. She’s full of life, with lustrous,

flashing eyes that promise much. We dance together

several times, whirling about the floor with more

enthusiasm than expertise, it must be said. Perhaps it’s

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the prodigious quantity of wine I’ve consumed that

stifles my good sense. She entreats me to accompany her

for a breath or two of air, for is it not very hot and is she

not momentarily tired of dancing? I’m happy to oblige

and we walk in the gardens. Then she trips—how was I

to know that she’s no ingénu deserving far much more

than her minor role in the tableau?—and complains of

having hurt her leg. Would I please, my being a medical

man, be so kind as to look at it to ascertain the extent of

her hurt? Of course I will.

The alcohol must have softened my wits, as I

succumb to temptation, running my hand up her

bestockinged leg. I’m utterly entranced. We kiss, no

more than that, before returning to the ballroom, but

Susannah has lit a fire in us both that neither of us know

how, nor indeed wish, to hold in check.

We met again the following day. I call at her

father’s mansion ostensibly to offer my thanks for the

previous evening’s entertainments, but in truth in the

hope of catching another glimpse of the enchanting

Susannah. I’m about to leave my card for Sir Geoffrey—

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currently indisposed, most likely due to the vast quantity

of alcohol he’d consumed, that or fatigued from all his

ludicrous galumphing about the dance floor—when I

catch sight of his daughter preparing to ride out in the

company of a groom.

I approach as she mounts and in response to her

enthusiastic invitation reply that yes, I’d be delighted to

accompany her. As no other animal has been made

ready the dull-witted groom is supplanted and off we go,

scandalously sans chaperone.

We find a space in which to give the horses their

heads and gallop until they run with sweat and the blood

pounds in our own veins. We stop to rest the horses by

the side of a small river, hobbling them and sitting

ourselves down to catch our own breath. After more

flirtation I can contain myself no longer. At first she

responds inexpertly to my kisses, but thereafter learns

very fast indeed.

Afterwards, while riding back, Susannah’s mood

deteriorates with every step her horse carries her in the

toward her father’s house. By the time we arrive at the

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stables she’s thoroughly miserable and declares that

she’s made an appalling mistake. I’m hardly flattered, I

must say, but worse is yet to come: by the time we come

to say our farewells she’s sobbing uncontrollably.

Returning to my rooms I realise that all this will

surely turn out badly for me and I’m proved right: from

the moment Susannah’s father discovers all that’s passed

between us my options narrow by the hour. Quite how I

might be expected to know that the girl’s already

promised to a Captain in the Honourable East India

Company is beyond me. And, of course, no one will ever

believe she’s as much seductress as I am seducer.

Far from his outrage cooling Susannah’s irate

father refuses to contemplate the betrothal of his

only daughter to the lustful, deceitful Doctor Goulde.

In fact, he’ll countenance nothing less than a duel

with pistols. I, being somewhat accomplished in their

use, am enthusiastic to accept the challenge before

it occurs to me that Sir Everett dispatched me to

India in order to lie low! The scandal of an illegal duel

together with the identity of one of the duellists might

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be enough to reignite the fire he’s so anxious to see burn

out.

So the die is cast and my sole recourse is more

flight; I will make myself scarce while Sir Everett’s

acquaintances in the government and the Honourable

East India Company insulate me from the furore I’ve

provoked. A joint British Army, Navy and Honourable

East India Company expedition is being assembled to

sally forth and punish the wicked Burmans for having

the temerity to threaten British India. They have a

pressing need for surgeons to attend the casualties that

are sure to ensue and I agree to take up my place the

moment it’s suggested. I’ll soon be on my way to Burma

and mercifully far from Calcutta, Susannah and her

absurd father, transported upon His Majesty’s Ship Liffy.

The climate’s spiteful enough to Europeans in

peacetime, let alone war, so while I’m spared pistols at

dawn I’m not going without some trepidation.

There’s one blessing: I’ve not yet unpacked all of

my possessions, so when the call comes for we

passengers to embark I’m first on board the Liffy, keen to

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be away from Calcutta no matter the dangers awaiting

me in faraway Burma.

PART II

THE GOLDEN UMBRELLAS

The Burman King in Ava had been planning his outrage

for months. His governors in Arracan and the provinces

along with the frontier had assembled a great number of

troops, offensive war being his clear intention, so our

present purpose is this: first blunt his martial intentions

and then teach him the error of his ways.

In his arrogance Maha Bandula, the chief Burman

general, carried with him a set of golden fetters in

which he intended to lead the Governor-general of

India back to Ava as his captive. He’d then invaded

Arracan, surrounded a British border post and although

a few officers and Sepoys managed to escape the

remaining Europeans and native soldiers had been

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brutally slaughtered. In his arrogance the Burman King

boasted that he “would prevent the English from

disturbing even the women of Yangon (Rangoon) from

cooking their rice.”

On board His Majesty’s Ship Liffy, fifty guns,

under Captain Charles Grant, we embark with men of

His Majesty’s 38th (the 1st Staffordshire) Regiment. The

Liffy’s a fine, handsome ship and well turned out, a

fighting frigate and a big one. Commodore Grant is a

affable fellow who extends every comfort to his guests,

not least the boons of his kitchen, wine cellar and table.

The ship’s human cargo, the officers and men of the 38th,

are good company for the most part and I begin to relish

this fresh adventure.

We are but a small part of an effort comprising

10,000 men, half of them British and John Company

regulars, and half Sepoy. We depart Chittagong in mid

January, a mighty flotilla of Royal Navy ships, the gallant

Liffy in their number, and East India Company armed

transports, to rendezvous with the Bengal contingent at

Cox’s Bazaar on the southern frontier. I’m busy from the

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outset: before the first shot’s fired the 38th has 112 other

ranks on the sick list, leaving only 583 men fit for duty.

We’re then forced to endure another lengthy wait at

Cox’s Bazaar, only resuming our odyssey in late January

after an interminable wait for orders and for the

remainder of the Brigade to come up. The climate is

death to many and the 38th loses forty-nine men to

disease before we even sight the Burmese coast.

I’m quartered with a group of officers, all decent

sorts with the exception of one, a junior Lieutenant and

braggart of the first water: Lieutenant Hugo Pattoun

Pressman. He’s a Staffordshire man out of a well-to-do

family, but quite the sourest fellow I’ve ever had the

misfortune to encounter and he an officer in one of His

Majesty’s proud redcoat regiments! He has a talent for

sniffing out plentiful supplies of liquor and this talent

alone has gathered a score of sycophants about him.

I keep my distance, but any amount of caution

can’t defend me from colliding with him after a while. A

50-gun ship, albeit leviathan beside some of the vessels

in the flotilla, is a hard place in which to be private.

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The seventh day of our voyage dawns bright

and hot. The wind has slackened and the only

way to persuade any ventilation down to the lower

decks is to rig wind sails over the gratings to funnel what

little air there is down below. Even with this

the atmosphere below decks is so stifling and the

men becoming irritable that they all flock up onto the

weather deck in search of a breath of cool air and

distraction.

A conflagration is inevitable, but when it takes

light I’m much surprised to be at the centre of it! I’m at

the windward rail enjoying the meagre breeze on my

face when I suddenly find myself surrounded by a bevy

of the 38th’s junior officers. Their ringleader’s Pressman,

of course, who speaks directly into my face, his breath

reeking of brandy.

“Make a way for the 38th’s finest, Mr. Goulde.”

I, as is my constant nature, will never give ground

to a bully, having despised fellows of Pressman’s ilk since

my schooldays. A tyrant in uniform is a tyrant

nonetheless.

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“We have need for a little cooling breeze, so

be a good fellow and find a place further along the

rail.”

“I much regret, Lieutenant, that this place suits me

very well.”

“Ah!” replied Pressman, “but it’s this part of the

ship that’s caught my eye, Doctor, so this is where we will

stand.”

At this, much ill-mannered chortling from his

oafish companions.

“Don’t be tiresome, Lieutenant.”

“What?” I see the blood rise up to suffuse

Pressman’s face, but before he can reply there comes a

welcome interruption:

“I’m sure, Lieutenant, that Colonel Sale will not

take kindly to your abusing a gentleman—and our

Company Surgeon to boot—particularly while you are

clearly under the influence of alcohol.”

“Do you say I’m drunk, sir?”

“No, Lieutenant, merely that you have been

drinking.”

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“Leave it, Hugo,” says one of Pressman’s cronies.

“Let’s find a place further along.”

And with that Pressman and his coterie move off,

but I feel sure I’ll hear more from him. The

ridiculousness of the situation suddenly strikes me: a few

months ago I’d been engaged in vital work for my

nation’s government, but now? Here I am, confined in

another reeking, stifling ship, bobbing along in a foreign

ocean, suffering the attentions of a crass bully. I’d once

been so full of hope, prospects, optimism and ambition

and while my schoolmates had taken up this or that

elevated position I’d yearned for travel and adventure

and this had ultimately led me … here.

I confess I’d not having heard much of Burma until

my arrival in Calcutta and suddenly here I am, part of a

vast military expeditionary force bent on delivering an

obscure eastern king a sharp lesson in British manners.

But what of my noble rescuer? The Liffy isn’t,

it appears, entirely devoid of decent company.

Major Alexander John Mercer, officer in the Light

Company (the ‘Light Bobs’) of His Majesty’s (the 1st

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Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot, usually keeps a

judicious distance from the unsavoury Pressman and his

crowd, but observing me so hard pressed he could not

restrain his indignation.

We have something in common, for I discover that

he’s also prone to seasickness. I have the means at my

disposal to mend his discomfort and set about preparing

an efficacious physic to relieve his puking. After that we

converse, enjoying each other’s company, and I dare say

to myself that I’ve found myself a kindred spirit.

“He’s a crass braggart, Jonathan, despite the

uniform; hardly a gentleman at all! What baffles me is

how he obtained his commission, although money can

have much to say in such matters. We have standards in

the Regiment, you know, so please don’t judge the

officers of the 38th by his behaviour.”

“Rest assured. In fact, I’ve found all the men,

officers and other ranks, to be honest and stoic. For that

matter, the Sepoys in the native regiments too!”

If he takes exception to his men being compared

with those in the native regiments, he shows no sign:

25.

“I’m gratified to hear it. I confess I know little of

Pressman’s people, except that they hail from

Staffordshire, or is it Cheshire? His family’s something in

business there. Brewing, perhaps.”

“One’s forced to puzzle at how he came to be here

and not there.”

“A younger son, Jonathan, his older sibling

destined to run the family business and can you

imagine Pressman in the clergy? Pity his congregation!

But don’t underestimate him for all that: he’s a wily fox

with a vicious temper. I’ve seen his brutality toward the

men and you can be sure they follow him through fear

rather than loyalty. He’s one to be avoided.”

“There’s nothing I’d like better, Alexander, but

how to achieve such a thing cooped up on board ship like

this and so much in his proximity?”

“Stay close to me whenever you can. He won’t dare

insult you again in my company. He and I have had our

differences and have come to an accommodation.”

How I wish to know the circumstances of this

‘accommodation’, but don’t ask. Mercer’s right:

26.

Pressman’s antagonism to me is thereafter subdued,

manifesting itself only in glares and oaths muttered

sotto voce, but aimed unmistakeably in my direction. The

remainder of the voyage passes peaceably enough and in

any case we know that we’re soon to arrive off Yangon

and will have plenty to distract us after that.

Long before we come into view of the Burmese

coastline I become increasingly aware of the potent smell

of the place, identifying rotting vegetation, sodden wood

and a host of indefinable other things, both living, dead

and long dead all mixed up together. We come in sight of

the coast itself to see such a wall of dense green it seems

utterly impenetrable. I wonder how anyone might live in

such a place … and then quite why he might be prepared

to fight for it, especially taking up arms against the most

powerful nation in the world.

Battle’s not long in coming and I witness the action

as it unfolds. The Navy, personified in our gallant

Captain Grant, doesn’t anticipate immediate violence, so

I as Surgeon am not immediately required to make my

way below decks in anticipation of hurts to the men. We

27.

of the Liffy (50), with our consorts Larne (20) and Slaney

(20) in close attendance, sail up the river to Yangon

(Rangoon) and suffer minimal harassing fire from the

chokies, or wooden guardhouses set along the banks.

The ships make their way cautiously through the narrow

channels, apprehensive of running aground and

occasionally passing within mere feet of the thick-

wooded shore. Mercer would later confess that had the

Burmans thought to place a few marksmen among the

trees we on board the ships might have suffered a good

deal, but there was no concerted fire at all.

The flotilla drops anchor and beats to quarters in

full view of the battery on the King’s Wharf in Yangon,

the transports mooring in close succession to our rear,

but still not a single shot comes our way. It’s as if the

Burman gunners are reluctant to set too against the

massive floating batteries now facing them and oblige us

to respond decisively.

But then the officers in command of the Burman

guns whip their men on and a feeble barrage is directed

at us. Everything changes with a violence so sudden and

28.

a noise so great that it steals the breath out of my lungs.

The Liffy’s guns return fire and hammer the enemy into

submission in no time at all, our thirty-two pounder

great guns roaring out in a rolling barrage beneath my

feet. The Burman fortifications, being made of teakwood,

throw up lethal splinters whenever struck by British

cannonballs. The injuries among the Burman gunners

must be terrible, but their dead and injured are spirited

away deep into the jungle together with all the rest of

Yangon’s population, for when our infantry eventually

land they find only pools of blood to mark the places

where their foes had died.

Not only is the town deserted and every boat and

canoe taken away, there are no supplies left worth a

damn and more important than all of this, there are no

European merchants, missionaries or diplomats to be

found anywhere.

Only after the place has been declared safe am

I allowed ashore. Yangon’s a veritable swamp. My

immediate thought is of pestilence and can’t fathom why

the Burmans have taken their women and children with

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them, far into the innermost recesses of a foetid jungle.

Captain Grant provides a convincing explanation: the

Burman troops are organized into levies and corps and

their families taken under guard as guarantors of their

men’s loyalty; should they disgrace themselves their

relatives will be summarily executed.

But this brings another, greater problem, greater

even than the considerable difficulties of landing

our men and equipment onto the shore. Major-General

Campbell KCB, Commander-in-Chief of the Expedition,

had anticipated having the active support of the

local tribe, their being traditionally hostile to the

Court of Ava, so the Army had brought with them

only the minimum of supplies and almost no

transportation to carry the expedition onward into the

interior. We’re forced to rely on the ingenuity of the

foraging parties, but in the country surrounding Yangon

they find only a little paddy—rice in the husk—and little

else of value.

As for the missing Europeans, a Burman deserter

informs us that once news of the invasion reached them

30.

the merchants and missionaries had been seized,

strongly fettered and confined in the King’s godown—the

custom-house—where they’d been most vilely treated,

accused of having foreknowledge of the flotilla’s

approach and working in concert with we British to plan

the assault. The prisoners pleaded their innocence, of

course, saying that they would hardly stay in Yangon if

they genuinely knew what was about to come crashing

down upon all their heads, but it would do no good and

they were told that they must remain in the godown and

expect a sentence of death to be carried out upon them.

The guards took a savage pleasure in showing them the

grisly implements of their forthcoming execution,

sharpening the blades before their prisoner’s eyes and

strewing sand about the place to soak up the blood that

was about to flow.

But the Burman governor held back from issuing

the final command, perhaps fearful of reprisals should

we uncover his cruelty, then lost what remained of his

resolve when the Liffy sent a thirty-two pound ball

through the godown. The prisoners survived and were

31.

marched under guard to the great pagoda where British

patrols would find them the following morning.

Yangon’s a truly desolate place. I’ve heard it

described as a great centre of trade, boasting a customs

house, dockyard and harbour, but to my eyes it’s quite

the most miserable of places; a collection of squalid huts

surrounded by a wooden stockade between sixteen and

eighteen feet in height. There are herds of meagre swine

infesting the streets by day and packs of likewise starved

wild dogs roam about by night, howling and quarrelling

through the hours of darkness and, to compound our

misery, pestilential vapours sweep in from the jungle.

All I can think of is the diseases they must surely carry

with them.

There are a few brick houses belonging in the

main to Europeans and little else of substance, but rising

above them all is the grandiose Shoe Dagon pagoda of the

Golden Dragon King. Standing on the summit of a steep,

conical hill perhaps seventy-five feet in height, the

building resembles an inverted speaking trumpet fully

three hundred and thirty-eight feet in height and

32.

surmounted by a cap of brass, itself forty-five feet in

height and richly gilded.

The retreating Burman forces had laid waste the

surrounding countryside in the hope that, while their

force of arms had failed them, starvation might succeed

in driving us away. In time their strategy will prove close

to the mark, but for now they surround us in the

cantonment as their levies come up to them from the

surrounding countryside. Soon enough we’re we beset

on all sides, not least by the dense jungle that completely

conceals the Burman preparations deep within the

gloom. They carry out nightly attacks on our defensive

positions to keep our men from restful sleep.

The assistance that Major-General Campbell

hoped for from the local tribesmen still doesn’t come, at

least in any great numbers, and in his puzzlement he’s

heard to wonder “Why? Do they live in fear of

retribution, believing our cause futile from the start?

That it’s only a matter of time before their former

masters return to seek retribution?” Fear of punishment

is exactly why they don’t come to us, the Burmese King

33.

having most prudently rounded up their families to serve

as hostages to their loyalty.

I’m fortunate to remain quartered on board the

Liffy while the men of the 38th, Alexander among them,

are obliged to endure the town’s ramshackle huts. They

live in grave discomfort, amid vermin aplenty and to cap

it all the weather’s dreadful.

Worse still, in the middle of February we’re

subjected to a violent cyclone that costs the Army much

of its camp equipage and baggage: the sailors throw it

overboard, or see the flotilla swamped.

My sojourn aboard ship gives me the opportunity

to become acquainted with the stalwart Lieutenant

George Tincombe of the Royal Navy and I soon come to

think very highly of him; he’s as courteous, hospitable

and respectful as the Commodore and none of my

incessant questions regarding the Liffy, its mechanicals

and the different roles of her people are ever rebuffed.

This passes the time for us both while waiting for either

the Burmans or the expedition to do something. We all

know the stalemate cannot possibly last for long.

34.

In the meantime I improve my knowledge of the

Navy life, for example learning that progressing beyond

the rank of Lieutenant is a very difficult thing and

elevation can usually only be obtained by patronage.

Tincombe obtained his lieutenancy due to his unusual

blend of valour, formidable skill at navigation and

popularity with Admiral Clarke, but even all this will

likely not be enough to have him ‘hoist his own flag’

of command one day. Indeed, he professes himself

prodigiously grateful for his present rank, revealing

that the Admiralty doesn’t like to retire senior naval

officers, preferring instead to put them ‘on the beach’,

there to languish on half-pay and stifling the aspirations

of many junior officers until one of their number has the

misfortune to die. “Dead man’s shoes”, as Tincombe

aptly describes it.

As he and I while away the hours, in Yangon the

expedition is at last persuading itself into some

semblance of order. Alexander stands nervously to

attention as Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell,

Commander-in Chief to the venture, progresses slowly

35.

down the line in order to inspect His Majesty’s 38th

Regiment of Foot. Alexander’s rightly proud of his

regiment—Pressman excepted, of course—but appalled

at the state of his boots, badly scuffed and salt-damaged

in the course of the two-month crossing of the Bay of

Bengal. All that and repeatedly vomited upon and

commonly slept in out of sheer exhaustion. He has no

servant to attend to his things, the fellow having died of

fever in Cox’s Bazaar and impossible to replace at any

price Alexander could afford.

Sir Archibald stops before our profusely sweating

Lieutenant and raises his eyebrows.

“And you are …?”

“Major Alexander Mercer, my Lord.”

“You appear fevered to me. Do you have a fever?”

At this the General steps back in alarm.

“I’m sure I haven’t, sir, though I have been

somewhat ruined by the sea crossing; yet to find my

land-legs, sir.”

“Good man!” says a part-reassured Campbell, who

then continues his way down the line without so much as

36.

a glance at Alexander’s forlorn boots, much to my new

friend’s relief.

Campbell ostentatiously clears his throat and

prepares to give the 38th his customary rousing speech.

Alexander had made a study of him from the moment he

learned he was to come under his command for the

Burmese expedition. The great man had seen a great

deal of war, having joined the British Army in 1787 and

first seen battle in India, but there the purgatory climate

had worked its malice on him (as it had many a soldier)

and he’d been obliged to return to Britain to regain his

health.

After seven years of inaction and tedium he’d been

passed fit to return to active service, this time in Portugal

where he’d then had the profound misfortune to be part

of the campaign led by Sir John Moore that culminated

in the headlong retreat to Corunna.

1814 saw his elevation to knighthood and 1820

brought his transposition to India once again and from

there to his present command. Now here he stands,

fervent to teach the King of Burma a brisk lesson in how

37.

the British respond to malice inflicted upon its friends

and possessions. He speaks:

“You are a proud regiment and I am proud that

you and your like are with us here. We have

seen a glorious victory today, but there will be

many battles to come. This is a hostile land, full

of hostile men intending to do us evil. They will

do us harm in every way possible to evict us

from this country and then resume their

rapacity among our friends and subjects of the

British Empire. We will instruct their King in

Ava what results from an attempt to beard our

British Lion! Keep alert, do your duty and we

will finish this affair in short order. You have my

word on that!”

He’d given the same speech to other regiments,

both redcoat and native, before the 38th, the Bengal

Presidency, to which the 38th belonged, also having the

2nd Battalion of the Madras Native Infantry, a Mughal

levy, a detachment of local horse, further detachments of

38.

artillery and engineers in its ranks. All had cheered

enthusiastically at Campbell’s words.

Later, Alexander recalled for my benefit the details

of that morning’s action. It was his first taste of battle and

he’d never forget it. Certainly, their occupation of the

seaport belonging to the ‘golden-footed monarch’, the

King of Ava, was decisive, but could it really be called a

victory? Surely, to qualify as such the Army must

perforce encounter the enemy and destroy him in detail.

The troops had landed in three divisions and

the town succumbed without a single firearm being

discharged and that night the Burmans contented

themselves with massing in the jungle and swamps

around the town and floating fire-rafts down the river

from Kemmendine to harass our ships.

A few days after Campbell’s speech we see the

onset of the rainy season and the first cases of Cholerae

Morbus appear; there would be many more. There was

little food to be had, the Army’s logisticians having

proved wholly incompetent, and thereafter everything is

in dreadfully short supply.

39.

Come February the Madras Presidency forces,

including the 38th, of course, receive orders to cross the

Nâf River to Mungdoo, or Maungdaw as the natives had

it. It’s a clear, sunlit day and the men are towed across

the plucky little steamboat Pluto only to find the enemy

stockades to be impenetrable.

They will have another chance soon enough.

Alexander, with one of the 38th’s sergeants, six men and

some Marines under Lt. Bell go out in the cutter from the

Matchless to assault the Burmans on Ramree Island. Led

astray by their guide and coming up to the wrong place,

one soldier’s struck dead and another wounded. They

nevertheless carry one stockade at the point of the

musket, but could progress no further and are forced to

retire, frustration heaped upon frustration.

Here’s an extraordinary thing; the Burman

generals stride about bearing the symbols of their

office, all gilt and reflecting the sun, including

a splendid golden umbrella they believe will somehow

shield them from our missiles. Of course, far from

lending them any kind of protection this simply makes

40.

them tempting targets for our marksmen and artillery,

who have great sport with them.

Alexander will have more work to do confronting

one stockade after another. At Chamballa there is a

spirited reply from the Burmans that costs the 38th

six men lost and thirty wounded. In late March the

Light Company, Alexander to the fore as ever, see bitter

action until our artillery once again find the Burmans’

range and silence them in short order. Then Colquhoun

Grant’s valiant brigade goes up against the enemy’s

left, wading through water and up a steep bank through

sharpened stakes to take the fight to the Burmans,

who promptly abandon their positions and flee, leaving

us with only one Sergeant killed and nine men

wounded. Back in Yangon it’s hot work for me, with

many deep and jagged wounds to dress. I’m also rapidly

discovering that infection is as much a threat to a man’s

life as the wound itself; one might carry off a soldier

quite as efficiently as the other, although quite how to

keep wounds, instruments and one’s own hands clean is

beyond me.

41.

I’m becoming a little tired of Yangon when I

have the greatest stroke of luck: the Light Company

Surgeon treads upon a sharpened stake and Alexander

falls back to Rangoon with a request from his Colonel

that I return with him to the front to take the

unfortunate’s fellow’s place. Yangon, as foetid as ever,

holds no joys for me and I’m thrilled at the prospect of

seeing a little action.

We’re immediately sent into the fray together with

two fresh Sepoy Light Companies from the 8th Madras

Native Infantry, sterling fellows to a man, to assault a

ridge looming over our positions. They’ve almost

reached the top when the Burmans begin rolling vast

stones down upon us. Many are bowled over and the

attack has to be broken off. I have to reset many a broken

bone before the great guns are brought up and for two

days we hammer away at them. What a noise; what

destruction they wreak! On the third day we rush the

main pass and carry it with almost no losses at all.

Then comes the crossing of the mountain range

separating Arakan from the Irrawaddy valley. To the

42.

London pen pusher I’m sure it might appear a simple

enough thing, but the mountains run quickly up to 5,000

feet and we have to penetrate jungle-clad slopes to get

there, with no roads, nor so much as a track to help us.

We carry few supplies and the natives are by no means

quick to help us, so we’re soon exhausted and many of

the men fall sick. With a heavy Burman force to our front

we’re vastly relieved to receive the order to retire to

Dalet, so in the end it’s all for nothing and the men are

decidedly bitter.

By June we have over five hundred NCOs and men

fit for duty and 120 sick, but by the end of September

only two hundred are left standing with one hundred

and thirty dead to disease. The flour’s bad and the salt-

pork found rotten in the cask. We endure one hundred

inches of rain in July and August and the damp saps

away what’s left of the men’s remaining strength. We

lose fifty more men dead in October, forty more in

November and over seventy in December until we can

muster only one hundred and seven rank and file fit for

duty. By then, seven officers, twenty-eight sergeants,

43.

fourteen drummers and two hundred and ninety-five

men lie dead from the Burmese sickness.

I’m spared, but much regret that Pressman also

survives. In fact, the incorrigible oaf seems impervious to

any and all effects of both jungle miasmas and Burman

violence and leaves the place with his health intact,

although not his reputation, as you will soon see.

In the August of 1825 I learn that after bravely

fighting off fire-rafts at Kemmendine the courageous

little Sophie is to be dispatched to Bengal to recuperate

and then fetch back vital provisions. She’s become a

most unhappy ship by now, with nearly a quarter of her

complement dead from action or disease and many more

taken gravely sick.

Alexander has also sickened, in fact grown

mortally weak, so I instruct him to be taken onto the

Sophie, then onward to recover in Bengal. Our Burman

adventure is at an end and I follow after him the next

month. Among the men of the 38th a total of five hundred

and twenty-five have succumbed either to their wounds

or disease. I saved any man I could, but nothing will

44.

avert the disaster. The war will drag on until 1826 and

cost 10,665 men their lives. What price empire?

My own release did not come until fate had

once again crossed my path—in the person of that

pernicious fellow Lieutenant Hugo Pressman. Cruelty’s

commonplace in the ranks and the officers frequently

hold back from exerting discipline for fear of the men’s

fragile morale breaking apart entirely. That, or spur

them into open mutiny. A blind eye may be turned for

the men, but never for the officers—which would be

unconscionable—but quite why it has to be me in that

particular place, at that precise hour, is perverse.

The 38th fights a minor skirmish on the left flank.

An inconclusive affair, but there are a number of

Burman warriors left dead, among them several of the

King’s ‘Invulnerables’. Now then, the Invulnerables

believe that if they insert rubies—quite commonly found

in those parts—under their skin this will provide them

with stupendous amounts of courage and make them

invincible in battle. Their bloodied corpses bear

eloquent witness to the vanity of such beliefs.

45.

British blood has also been shed on this day: two

Sepoys dead and a Corporal of the 38th has suffered a

deep sword-cut to the abdomen. I know very well that

my efforts will be in vain for the poor fellow’s lost a great

deal of blood before I’m able to staunch the wound. In

the event he’s lost too much blood, but the man deserves

to know that at least one person values his life enough to

try and save it. Just as he breathes his last I look up to see

a terrible thing: there’s Pressman, a bayonet in hand,

hacking away at the arm of an Invulnerable and then

prising a sizeable ruby out of the gore. If only I’d thought

to look away before he glances in my direction.

‘Judging me, Surgeon Goulde?’

‘I’m busy enough with this poor fellow.’

‘Liar!’

He rises to his feet, blade in hand, a wild look in

his eye and takes several steps towards me. He need

not fear Colonel Sale hearing anything from me:

with only Pressman’s men standing about us there will

be no witnesses to support me should I wish to report

his shameful conduct, but before I can stand Pressman

46.

launches himself at me and brings his bloodied

bayonet up to my throat! Even then the physician in

me is busily assessing the situation: he’s a heavy-set

fellow, fit, and up close I can tell that he’s not as

impervious to Burma’s depredations as I’d first

thought—he’s hale enough in wind and limb,

but has also grown quite mad. My life is in imminent

danger.

Realising my plight it’s at that moment that Private

Turnbull thinks to intervene. I will be forever grateful for

his actions on that day.

‘Lieutenant Pressman, sir! Don’t strike at him!

That’s our Surgeon you have there!’

He rushes towards us, perhaps thinking to pull

Pressman away from me. The matter might have

concluded there and then, but in his mad fury Pressman

spins round and before any of us know what’s happening

the bayonet is stuck deep in Turnbull’s chest. The poor

man stands wide-eyed for a second or two, splutters a

gout of blood from his mouth and slumps to the floor,

quite dead.

47.

Pressman, coming back to something like his

senses, stands quite still, staring the body lying at his feet

with a stricken look upon his face. From that moment

you might think there’s only one possible outcome to the

matter, murder being murder no matter what status the

perpetrator, but you are not accounting for the

considerable influence of Pressman’s family. In short, he

escapes the rightful consequence of his actions, claiming

that Turnbull had attacked him hoping to steal his ill-

gotten rubies. His sole punishment is to be cashiered out

of the 38th and sent home to England in disgrace for

‘ungentlemanly conduct’—namely, looting.

Idiotically, I decide to attend his trial and as the

court’s dismissed Pressman turns to look me square in

the eye for the longest moment. I understand then,

without the slightest doubt, that he holds me completely

and unforgivably responsible for his present discomfort.

I already know him to be a man prone neither to

forgiveness, nor forgetting.

I take ship for India confident that by now

sufficient time must surely have elapsed for my return to

48.

England not to pose a threat to Sir Everett, but my

infernal luck with regard to Lieutenant Hugo Pattoun

Pressman persists. When my turn comes to embark I

discover that Pressman is to be my travelling companion

for the tedious three-month voyage to Calcutta. We

exchange not one syllable in the whole voyage, but I can

feel the man’s angry stares boring into the back of my

skull, whenever he isn’t glaring balefully into my face.

I have, however, gained two firm friends in George

Tincombe and Alexander Mercer, both of whom I will

meet again. This joy set on the scale against making a

resolute enemy of Hugo Pressman. Years later he and I

will also meet for a second time and that encounter will

prove as bloody—no, bloodier—than the first.

49.

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