Retribution Road Read online

  This was the second time the Company had gone to war in Burma. The first time, in 1826, Campbell, at the head of the British troops, had won trading posts all along the coast, as far as the kingdom of Siam. He, too, had arrived too late. Rain and fever had killed ten thousand men when he tried to reach Ava by land. His campaign ended in a half-victory and the right to trade in the ports. Since then, the Burmese had regained their strength, attempting to renegotiate the ’26 agreement, giving the trading-post managers a hard time, threatening trade in the gulf and on the road to China. Dalhousie had sent Commodore Lambert there at the beginning of the year, on a diplomatic mission. Lambert was no diplomat. The situation grew poisonous and the last recourse remaining to the Company was to declare war. This time, the goal was to put an end to the situation by taking the whole country.

  But the wind did not blow, miring the fleet as it waited for the chance to attack. Men were dying before a single cannon blast or gunshot had been fired.

  *

  Bowman took a handkerchief from his bag and unfolded it over his stomach. He chewed the last piece of dried pork that he had brought with him from Pallacate, slowly savouring the meat’s flavour. He rubbed his teeth and gums with a carefully hoarded slice of lemon peel, then swallowed it.

  Supplies were running low. They had not brought enough food with them. Rations were reduced. The fresh water had stagnated, and they’d had to cut it with vinegar.

  He sank back in his hammock, cursing the shareholders in London who declared wars without any knowledge of warfare, the officers getting rich in their palaces, the Bengal sepoys who’d been recruited from the more delicate castes and had refused to go to Burma. Bombay and Madras had been forced to supply men, and the Company had arrived later than planned.

  Amid the usual moans and other noises of the deck, the sound of raised voices drew the sergeant’s attention. Strong words, first of all, which turned to insults. Laughter and jostling. He stood up and pulled aside the sheet.

  There were about twenty soldiers surrounding two men who were fighting. A huge, bull-necked blond man was laying into a tall, brown-haired soldier, lighter by about twenty or thirty pounds. The men were laughing, and when the weakling tried to run away, refusing to fight, they pushed him back into the arms of his opponent. The blond man threw him against the hull, his head smashed into a metal girder, and blood spurted from his temple. The men around him laughed even harder. The bull charged at him, the tall thin man evaded the attack, and his opponent collided with the ship’s wooden framework. Stunned and angry, he took a knife from the sleeve of his uniform. The spectators stopped laughing, and moved away from the weapon. The weakling raised his hands.

  “Stop. This is pointless. I don’t want to fight you.”

  The man with the knife was no longer listening. Forced to defend himself, the tall man took off his jacket and rolled it around his arm, edging back towards the hammocks while never taking his eyes off the blade.

  The bull leapt forward. Again the weakling eluded him, tripping over, rolling along the floor and springing back to his feet.

  Bowman, leaning against a post, watched with the others. There had not been anything to watch for quite some time now.

  In the next attack, the tall thin soldier tried to hit the hand holding the knife. He missed, and the blade whistled through the air in a quick downward arc, slicing through his shirt. He fell to his knees and coiled up like a snake around his wound. As the blond man rushed forward to strike another blow, two hands seized his throat, lifted him from the floor and threw him backwards. He got to his feet, furious, and saw Sergeant Bowman standing in front of him. He blinked, open-mouthed and breathless, and let his knife drop to the floorboards.

  Bowman leaned forward over the wounded man. The gash was long but not very deep. He ordered a soldier to fetch the surgeon.

  “Why didn’t you stop it before, Sergeant?”

  Bowman stood straight.

  “Throw him in his hammock.”

  The surgeon arrived a few minutes later, grumbling that he had enough sick men to deal with already without the soldiers slicing each other open. Once he had treated the wound, he stood in front of Bowman’s hammock.

  “Perhaps you should report this, Sergeant? The men are growing more and more tense. We do not want this kind of incident to happen again.”

  “I’ll take care of it. There won’t be any more problems. How’s the victim?”

  “Nothing serious. I didn’t bother with stitches.”

  The surgeon had an ugly face, eyes red with fever. He stood there, mulling something over, and Bowman waited for him to speak.

  “If we stay here too long, I won’t be able to do anything. I’m almost out of medicine, and half the Indians are sick. They can’t stand the sea.”

  He looked down.

  “Take care of the men, Sergeant. The wounded man is a good Christian. They’re all good Christians.”

  The doctor gave a nervous smile, which dissolved into a look of utter despondency. He was still waiting for something. Bowman cleared his throat.

  “I’ll take care of them, sir. Don’t you worry about that.”

  The surgeon scuttled off between the hammocks.

  Everyone was going crazy, because everyone thought the war had not started yet, whereas the truth was that the first battle – the longest and most fatal battle – was already raging on board the ships: the waiting. Bowman knew that one must first survive the army before surviving the battlefield. He was already at the front.

  He picked up his book and opened it to the passage that he always read before going into combat.

  Hidden behind his sheet, one finger on the page and his lips moving silently, he deciphered the words.

  But all the silver and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated unto the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord.

  So the people shouted when the priests blew with the trumpets: and it came to pass, when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

  The Bible was the only book he had ever possessed. Bowman did not even imagine that there could be others as thick as this one, with so many stories inside. He closed his eyes and wondered why God, who made it rain on his enemies, made walls crumble and dried up rivers to help his armies, seemed so indifferent to the fate of the Company. He also wondered why he hadn’t stopped the fight earlier, and if the injured soldier, if he’d managed to disarm his opponent or even stab a blade into his belly, would even have asked that question.

  All good Christians.

  Bowman smiled. The fight had entertained him, and the men, no matter what the quack said, were still ready to fight. That was all they were waiting for.

  The smell of vinegar rose from the just-cleaned deck, mingling with the scents of lukewarm seawater and the Joy’s putrefaction. Bowman stroked the match head against the handrail, and the flame briefly illuminated his hands and then his face as he moved it towards the tobacco. He took a drag, arched his neck and blew out the smoke, chin in the air, emptying his lungs.

  To the east, along the invisible coastline, the lights of Rangoon flickered like dying stars. Beneath his feet, the men tossed and turned in their hammocks, hoping that tomorrow the wind would come, that the ship would stop listing, or that the vinegar would be turned into wine. Sentries patrolled the deck, rifles resting on shoulders, while a few officers took the air in the moonlight.

  Bowman had recognised some of them during the crossing. Six or seven among the two hundred on the Joy. Officers under whom he had fought in the Punjab, in Cavendish’s regiment; others he had met at trading-post garrisons where he had been sent during the last three years.

  Among the men he had saluted, not one had spo
ken a word to him. Maybe they were avoiding him, or maybe he had changed since the Punjab. Maybe not everyone had a memory for faces like he did. He spat in the sea as if to pass on a disease.

  “Sergeant Bowman?”

  He half-heartedly saluted the deck officer, lifting his pipe to his temple.

  “Major Cavendish wants to see you. I must accompany you there now.”

  “Cavendish?”

  “Straight away, Sergeant.”

  Bowman rebuttoned his stinking jacket.

  Cavendish. Second-in-command of the fleet. Heir to the duchy of Devonshire. His family was one of the Company’s biggest shareholders. The only time Bowman had seen him was after the palace of Amritsar had been taken, during a promotion ceremony. Corporal Bowman, who had become a sergeant, remembered this well. Cavendish had made a speech. He’d said that the officers were the “spearheads of the Company”. Bowman had thought that a very good expression.

  Cavendish was on board the Joy and wanted to see him – Arthur Bowman.

  Perhaps the attack was about to be launched. Perhaps Godwin was gathering the officers to give them his orders. But Bowman was only a sergeant. He had no business in the fo’c’s’le with the general staff, and – unless there was a problem – a soldier like him would never approach a high-ranking officer.

  He followed the deck officer, passing sentries and guards, walking through corridors with polished walls where the light of oil lamps was reflected. His guide knocked at a door, and a voice bade them enter. The officer opened the door, moved out of the way, and closed it behind him.

  Bowman did not understand where he was. It was not the command room, just a little cabin with one window, a bunk, a map table, two chairs, and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. Behind the table, in one of the upholstered chairs, sat Major Cavendish, looking more or less as Bowman remembered him. In front of the window, smoking a cigar, was a captain in uniform. He recognised him, even if, back then, Wright had been only a lieutenant. For a second, the sergeant just stood there, before clicking his heels, saluting, and turning his back to the officers and the table.

  “Sergeant Bowman at your command, sir!”

  A snort of laughter behind him.

  “You may turn around, Sergeant.”

  “Sir! You have not put the map away, sir.”

  Bowman waited. There was no sound of paper, not even the faintest movement. On a warship just before an attack, N.C.O.s had no more right than a private soldier to see military maps. Glancing at one, even inadvertently, could lead a man to the noose or into the sea with the sharks.

  Cavendish spoke to the captain:

  “Wright, I have the feeling you’ve made the right choice this time.”

  Wright did not reply. In a firmer tone of voice, Cavendish said again: “Turn around, Sergeant.”

  Bowman swivelled, his gaze still lifted above the table.

  “Sergeant, you are going to look at that map which scares you so much and tell me what it represents.”

  Bowman blinked.

  “I’m not scared of the map, sir. I didn’t know I was authorised to look at it, sir.”

  “Well, you are. Tell me what it represents.”

  Bowman lowered his eyes, glancing quickly at Captain Wright, then at Cavendish, before resting his gaze on the map.

  From where he stood, the map was upside down and he could not read the names, but he saw a sea, a coastline, a large green stain, and in the middle of it the twisting blue line of a river. He tried to focus on the words, but they were printed too small.

  “I don’t know, sir. But I would guess it is the kingdom of Ava.”

  “Precisely, Sergeant. And what is that river?”

  Bowman lifted his head to the ceiling.

  “Sir, I’m not sure, but I would imagine it’s the Irrawaddy.”

  “Correct once again. What could you tell me about that river, Sergeant?”

  Bowman gulped.

  “I . . . I don’t understand, sir.”

  “What do you know about that river?”

  “It’s the route to Ava, sir.”

  Cavendish smiled.

  “What else?”

  “I don’t know, sir . . . It’s the route to Ava . . . And the monsoon is coming.”

  “The monsoon . . . What does that mean, Sergeant, the monsoon?”

  Silence again. Bowman felt his legs giving way beneath him.

  “Sir! The rain, that means that the fleet can’t sail up the river.”

  Cavendish looked at the map for a moment, preoccupied, then stood up.

  “Sergeant, I was told by Captain Wright that you were aboard and he recommended that I meet you. He told me you were a brave fighter, almost . . . How did you put it, Wright? Ah, yes! ‘Recklessly bold’. The captain said you fought like a lion under his orders during the attack on the palace of Amritsar. What do you say to that, Sergeant?”

  “I beg your pardon, sir?”

  “Do you agree with Captain Wright?”

  “Sir! It was a hell of an attack, with sabres and bayonets, but I was only obeying orders, sir.”

  “Ah! That is what I wanted to hear you say, Sergeant. You obeyed orders. And you mounted the assault with your bayonet! Wonderful! So you are a good soldier, and you are brave.”

  Cavendish paced around the cabin, hands behind his back, then finally came to a halt beneath the halo of the lamp and put his hands on the map.

  “Sergeant, I have given it some thought and I am going to assign you this mission. Captain Wright will conclude this interview.”

  Cavendish went out without saluting or saying another word, slamming the door behind him and leaving Captain Wright alone with Bowman.

  Wright took one last drag on his cigar and threw it out of the window.

  “It’s a stroke of luck that you should be on board this ship, Bowman.”

  “The kind of luck you don’t always get when you want it, sir.”

  Wright turned around.

  “What do you mean by that, Sergeant?”

  “Sir! It’s a manner of speaking. Nothing special, sir.”

  The captain observed Bowman for a moment.

  “Tomorrow, before noon, a Company dinghy will come here to fetch us, from the Joy. You will be under my orders, second-in-command of the expedition. Thirty men, twenty of whom will arrive tomorrow with the sloop, and ten others – ten trustworthy men whom you must choose from among the soldiers on the Joy. Be on deck tomorrow morning, kitbag packed, no weapons, ready to not come back.”

  Wright turned towards the window.

  “You are one of the most violent men I have ever commanded, Bowman. You obey orders and you make others obey you. It is for those qualities that I recommended you to Major Cavendish, and that he decided to choose you. I hope you will repay the trust we are putting in you. Not a word to anyone. Dismissed, Sergeant.”

  Bowman stood stock-still, as if his shoes were nailed to the wooden boards. The cabin spun before his eyes. He tore his feet from the floor, moved towards the door, found himself in the corridor and walked outside. Under the black moon, mouth wide open, he took deep, gasping breaths. The air was warm, humid, stale, too thick to relieve his dizziness.

  He did not know why or how it would happen, but he knew he had just been condemned to death. It had not taken place on a battlefield or during an assault on an enemy base, but before a map, a duke too busy to finish his sentences and a cigar-smoking captain. And in place of a sentence, he had been given an order.

  He walked over to the railing, leaned his hands on it and stared out at the lights of Rangoon in the distance. He stayed there for an hour, breathing that coffin air, before going back down to the first deck, where he crept between the Company’s mercenaries, stretched out in hammocks, their eyes wide open and immobile, clinging to the ceiling like lizards.

  Ten men.

  3

  He didn’t sleep a wink. Beneath his feet, sepoys driven mad with fever had spent the whole night screaming. He lifted up a c
orner of his sheet.

  The dawn light filtered in through the half-open portholes. The men were starting to move, giving up on sleep. The galley workers brought in the breakfast rations of rice gruel and rum. The soldiers, holding their mess tins and cups, stood in line. Once they had been served, they went off to eat their ration, devouring the insipid soup and the mouthful of alcohol that, some said, had the power to save a man from fever and toxic air.

  Bowman did not leave his hammock. During the slow and pathetic ritual of the soup, he watched the soldiers filing past in front of him. He didn’t know any of them, nor did he know anything about the mission for which he would need them.

  Wright had chosen him because he was tough.

  Maybe he should seek out men of the same stamp?

  Besides, what did that mean, a trustworthy man? Wright didn’t trust him. He didn’t trust Wright. Bowman had never trusted anyone but himself. And yet, the idea of being surrounded by ten men like him disturbed him more than anything.

  He had long ago ruled out the idea of choosing any Indians. One never knew what made a native obey orders, nor what might one day make them disobey orders. For him, an order had the same value as a decision he had made himself.

  Ten men. Take your pick.

  Bowman spotted the weakling who had lost the fight, the one the surgeon had patched up the night before. Standing in the line of soldiers, mess tin in hand, his shirt torn and stained with dry blood, he had managed to get through the night without catching a fever.

  “You. Come here.”

  The soldier followed the sergeant to a quieter corner of the deck.

  “You know why I didn’t stop the fight before?”

  He looked at Bowman.

  “Why, Sergeant?”

  “Because a fight is like a war: you have to know who the winner is before you can know who was right to start fighting. And sometimes it’s the man who didn’t want to fight who wins. So he was the one who was right.”