Retribution Road Read online

  Antonin Varenne

  Retribution Road

  Translated from the French by

  Sam Taylor

  Contents Page

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also by Antonin Varenne in English translation

  Part I: 1852 Burma

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part II: 1858 London

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Part III: 1860 New World

  New York Tribune

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Part IV: 1860–64 Sierra Nevada

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  About the Author

  First published in the French language as Trois mille chevaux vapeur by

  Éditions Albin Michel, Paris in 2014

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by

  MacLehose Press

  An imprint of Quercus Publishing Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Éditions Albin Michel – Paris 2014

  English translation copyright © 2017 by Sam Taylor

  The moral right of Antonin Varenne to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  EBOOK ISBN 978 0 85705 371 8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph © Sam AbellMap © Bibliothèque nationale de France

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  Also by Antonin Varenne in English translation

  Bed of Nails (2012)

  Loser’s Corner (2014)

  In 1600, Queen Elizabeth I granted a trading monopoly in the Indian Ocean to a group of English merchants and investors. The first “East India Company” was born. The shareholders in London, and their European competitors, took control of the world’s trade.

  In 1776, the financial and political elite of the thirteen North American colonies declared themselves independent from British rule. Freed from imperial taxes and laws, the United States of America rapidly became a new economic power. As soon as it became independent, the young American nation began a series of military interventions to extend and defend its commercial interests. In Sumatra, in Ivory Coast, in Mexico, in Argentina, in Japan, in China, in Nicaragua, in the Philippines, in Hawaii, in Cuba, in Angola, in Colombia and Haiti.

  In 1850, the East India Company – dubbed by its shareholders “the most powerful company in the universe”, with a private army of 300,000 men – imposed its commercial laws over one-fifth of the world’s population: three hundred million people.

  In the nineteenth century, an American or a British soldier with a yearning to travel could see the world while fighting, moving from country to country.

  I

  1852

  Burma

  1

  “Rooney! You lazy Irish bastard! Pallacate!”

  Rooney got up off the bench, slowly crossed the courtyard and stood in front of the corporal.

  “The mare’s on her last legs, sir. All the horses are knackered.”

  “You’re the one who’s knackered. Now get in the saddle!”

  Back bent by exhaustion, head half sunk into the trough, the mare was noisily gulping down gallons of water. Rooney grabbed the reins, pulled the horse’s mouth out of the water, and grimaced as he put his foot in the stirrup. He’d spent half the night riding from one barracks to another. His arse hurt, his teeth and nostrils were lined with dust, and the sun was burning his head.

  Fifteen miles to the trading post in Pallacate.

  The animal shook its head, refusing the bit. Rooney yanked the reins, the mare bridled, and he gripped the pommel to stop himself falling. The corporal laughed. Rooney whipped his horse’s ears, yelling: “Giddy-up!”

  The mare galloped across the paved courtyard. Rooney passed through the north gates of Fort St George without slowing, whipping the horse constantly. Mulberry plantations flashed past, cotton fields where a few peasants worked, bent over their tools. All along the path, columns of sepoys in their red uniforms walked quickly under the hot sun, kitbags on their backs and rifles on their shoulders.

  The garrisons converged on the fort and the port. The villagers, worried by all this activity, had closed their doors and windows to keep out the dust kicked up by the soldiers’ boots. The Madras army was on the march, and the countryside had emptied around its path.

  Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, had declared war on the King of Burma.

  General Godwin, who had arrived from Bombay the day before with ten ships, was mobilising all the regiments.

  Rooney had spent the last twelve hours delivering letters all over the region.

  Pallacate. His final errand.

  Maybe he’d be able to stay there tonight, go to the Chinaman’s place and pay for a girl. They were clean, and gin was cheaper there than in St George. The idea of spending the night in the weavers’ village gave him wings, but it didn’t help his horse, which was gasping like a consumptive.

  Rooney, his legs soaked with foam, whipped it hard, again and again. It was wartime: you were allowed to kill a horse.

  He passed children on donkeys and peasants in rags. Seeing the first houses of Pallacate, he spurred the horse and entered the main street at a gallop, and women with children clinging to their backs ran for shelter.

  “C’mon!”

  At the end of the village, he turned left towards the warehouses of the trading post. He’d have the Chinaman’s shop all to himself. Same thing at the fort. There’d be no-one left, no more stupid chores to do for weeks. While everyone went off to Rangoon, he’d stay behind and take it easy. The King of St George!

  “C’mon!”

  The mare shook her head, her strides fell out of time. There was a jolt, as if her legs were giving way beneath his weight. Rooney held on with all his strength and the horse suddenly started up again, accelerating without even the need for a kick in its side, half crazed with heat and exhaustion. In the courtyard encircled by warehouses, Rooney saw the Company’s flag waving in the wind.

  As he passed the first warehouse, the mare’s head sank forward and disappeared. He heard the horse’s front legs break – the terrible sound of crushed bones. Rooney went flying straight ahead, six feet above the ground. He held out his arms, but did not feel the collision,
did not feel the bones snap in his wrists and arms. His head banged into the ground, he somersaulted forward and his back smashed into the water pump, a cast-iron pillar in the middle of the courtyard.

  Sergeant Bowman grabbed his rifle, which was leaning against a root of the large banyan tree, and got up from the deckchair he had positioned in the shade of its branches. The cloud of dust raised by the fall of the horse and its rider was floating slowly over the courtyard. The mare was screaming loud enough to wake the dead and the unconscious messenger wasn’t moving at all. The sergeant walked past the animal, which was thrashing its hind legs in the air, put the Enfield across his thighs, and crouched down in front of the soldier.

  Crumpled in a heap next to the pump, he opened his eyes.

  “What . . . what happened?”

  His head fell onto his chest and a thread of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. His pelvis was smashed, his legs tangled together like bits of cloth. His eyes rolled from side to side, trying to recognise his surroundings. The courtyard, the silk warehouses, the sergeant who was watching him, and the horse lying on its side, its tongue licking the earth as if it were water.

  “I can’t . . . feel anything . . .”

  His eyes looked down at his shattered body. A grimace of panic distorted his face.

  “Fuck . . . what . . . happened . . . to me?”

  The sergeant did not answer him.

  “Help me . . . fucking hell . . . help me.”

  Again, Rooney looked around. There was no-one else. The horse was whinnying and kicking, but the sergeant just squatted there, motionless. Rooney tried to call out for help, but he choked and spat out blood. Sergeant Bowman moved back a little bit to avoid being splattered.

  “You . . . bastard . . . Help . . . me.”

  The sergeant, stone-faced, tilted his head.

  Private Rooney’s face suddenly stopped moving, frozen in an expression of panic, his eyelids open and his eyes staring into Bowman’s. A bubble of blood formed between his lips and burst.

  The trading-post manager came running from his office.

  Sergeant Bowman stood up and walked over to the horse, loaded his rifle, placed a boot on the mare’s throat and fired a bullet into the side of its head.

  The manager crossed himself before opening the satchel that hung from the courier’s neck. He took out the sealed letter with his name on the front.

  “Bloody ridiculous. To meet your death delivering a message in wartime . . .”

  Sergeant Bowman rested the rifle on its butt and and crossed his hands over the still-warm barrel. Sepoys rushed over, forming a circle around the dead man. The Company accountant searched the soldier’s pockets, finding his military papers inside his jacket.

  “Sean Rooney. Fort St George . . . Well, that’s one who won’t die in Burma.”

  The manager turned to Bowman.

  “Sergeant, go now. You’re expected in Madras with your men.”

  Bowman put his rifle on his shoulder and headed over to his hut in the shade of the banyan tree. The accountant shouted after him: “Sergeant! You’ll be responsible for taking Private Rooney’s body to Madras.”

  Bowman kept walking.

  “I’ll leave you the horse.”

  *

  Twenty sepoys waited in the sun, standing in two columns. Next to the sergeant’s horse, an ox was harnessed to a wagon. Inside the wagon, Rooney’s body lay covered by the soldiers’ kitbags.

  Bowman walked past the saluting men and knocked on the manager’s door.

  “I’m leaving five men here while you wait for Madras to send a contingent.”

  “Very good. I am not interested in warfare, Sergeant, only in trade. I am not in any danger here. I must admit I am not unhappy to see you leave, Bowman, but it is my duty as a Christian to wish everyone well. May God be with you, wherever you go.”

  Bowman mounted his horse and rode to where the dead animal lay. The horse sniffed at the carcass, snorted loudly, and lifted its head. The sepoys passed at a trot, followed by the wagon. Bowman followed them, bringing up the rear.

  *

  At Fort St George, Bowman let the sepoys draw breath and asked a guard for the name of the officer responsible for the messenger.

  “Rooney? You’ll have to see the corporal, over at the stable. What happened?”

  Bowman found the stable, where the corporal sat at a table with other tired, dirty messengers, amid the stink of dung.

  “What a prick! Killed a horse and himself too! He always was a bit of an idiot, Rooney. And those bloody Irish – they hate being buried far from home! He didn’t suffer too much, did he?”

  “My monkeys will bring you the body. I’ll leave you my horse too.”

  At the fort’s headquarters, Bowman received his orders.

  *

  The docks were swarming with merchandise, crates of weapons and ammunition. Mountains of barrels were piled up, over a distance of nearly a hundred feet. Water, wine, rum, vinegar, cages containing chickens and rabbits, squealing pigs. Coolies unloaded tons of food and armament supplies while rowing boats came and went from the seventeen stranded ships of the Madras fleet. The sun hung low over the ocean, and the Company colours, on the immense flags floating above the sea, sparkled in the yellow light.

  An endless flood of sepoys and British soldiers were arriving in columns. From the rowing boats could be heard the sound of men singing in rhythm as they pulled on the oars, transporting contingents and cargo.

  Seventeen first-class vessels, a thousand cannons and fifteen thousand men at anchor, three-quarters of them sepoys, as they were three times cheaper than English soldiers. The Company’s army outnumbered the British army, but its numbers were swollen by indigenous recruits.

  The shareholders of Leadenhall Street wanted the Gulf of Bengal for themselves alone. If this armada did not prove sufficient, they would send another thirty thousand men. Pagan Min had to fall before the monsoon season, or the Company would be stuck for another four months while they waited for the rivers to become navigable again. The officers knew it, and the N.C.O.s yelled at the tops of their voices, urging the men forward, urging goods to be moved and sailors to row with greater speed.

  Bowman’s little troop of soldiers was sucked up into the whirlwind of the port.

  For two hours, jostling for position on the docks, they waited their turn to jump aboard a rowing boat. The sun was setting when the sergeant and his men finally started climbing the rope ladder up the side of the Healing Joy, the flagship of the fleet.

  The sepoys went down to the bottom deck, beneath the waterline, and Sergeant Bowman joined the British contingent on the first deck. Four hundred men searching in the darkness for their places, unrolling the hammocks where they would fester for the next two weeks.

  If the wind was in their favour.

  Several hours passed before the sound of cannon fire exploded above their heads and the fleet began to move. On the deck, above the troop, there were whistles and shouted orders, the voices of sailors and the creaking of wooden masts, the vibrations reaching all the way down to the sepoys’ hold.

  It was midnight. The heat was unbearable.

  Surrounded by overexcited men, as the Joy listed and soldiers began to throw up, Sergeant Bowman lay in his hammock and closed his eyes, one hand on the Afghan dagger in his belt. Three years he’d waited.

  2

  A porthole was opened.

  Bowman, elbows on the railing, leaned a little further forward.

  A body fell into the sea, a white shirt pulled roughly up over its head. It hit the water, sank for an instant, then bobbed back up to the surface. A second followed, and slowly drifted the length of the ship. A grey shape circled the corpses. When a third cadaver toppled overboard, the sea – motionless since dawn – suddenly started bubbling.

  Dozens of fins and tails stabbed through the water. Little black eyes appeared in the foam. Huge jaws snapped at arms and legs. The red cloud spread as the soldiers’ bodi
es fell from the porthole like chicken into a vat of hot oil.

  Bowman counted eight that morning.

  Sprays of pink water splattered the hull, and headless torsos rolled in the frothing sea, tangled up in scraps of shirts. Sharks wounded by their frenzied fellow creatures continued fighting for a piece of shoulder, while others, killed in the maelstrom, floated belly up amid the slaughter.

  Bowman looked up. Around other ships, a few cable-lengths from the flagship, the same aquatic frenzy was taking place with figures just like his leaning over to watch. He scraped a match against the rail, protected the flame with his hand, and lit his pipe again.

  About a hundred men had died that night, on board the seventeen ships.

  Once their feast was over, the sharks moved away and the seagulls swooped down for the leftovers. The sea was red, as if dyed by laterite silt in the estuary of an African river. The current took away the fleet’s waste matter, spreading the coloured stain, which grew steadily paler, towards the coast. The morning sun rose above the dark line of the continent, and round-bellied clouds, filled with rain that did not fall, rolled low over the horizon.

  Bowman spat in the water, cleaned out his pipe and went back down to the first deck.

  After a three-week crossing and three days in anchorage, the Healing Joy stank like a zoo. The wind did not blow in the gulf, and the fleet dawdled dismally on a deep swell.

  He lifted up the sheet that separated his hammock from the rest of the men and lay down on the mouldy fabric.

  *

  On land, Pagan Min’s spies could not care less about this immobile armada: they were watching only the sky, waiting for the monsoon to burst. The boredom of the men in the anchored vessels turned to melancholy and more and more of them fell ill. Laid low by fever, stupefied by the ships’ slow movement, by the silence and the heat, they lay still all day and all night, amid a constant murmur of groaning and coughing. Under the waterline, where the air no longer circulated, the sepoys were dropping like flies. Of the eight corpses thrown into the water this morning, six were Indians. Piss and shit sloshed over the duckboard, the air was putrid, and General Godwin had forbidden the sepoys to go up to the upper deck: the more degraded the state of the troops became, the more important it was to hide this fact from Min’s spies.