worse now that Haines has made known his objections to Wellsted’s manuscript. The captain appears to care more about Wellsted’s scribbles than he does about losing half his officers.
Thirsty, the lieutenant makes his way to the galley and orders hot coffee. Aboard ship the coffee is not as good as ashore. He has watched the Arabs carefully as they grind the roasted beans and brew them over the campfire with a witch’s pocket of spices, but no matter how exactly he emulates their actions, right down to using a rough mat of palm fibre to strain the liquid of its grains, he never can make his concoction taste as good. Still, James Wellsted prefers even poor ship’s coffee to the liberal dose of alcohol the crew imbibe daily. The lieutenant likes his head to be clear. He likes Arabia too. He finds the language comes naturally, the flowing robes give a sense of freedom and the undiscovered nature of the land provides an unspoilt enticement.
Back at the prow, he savours the dryness the coffee leaves in his mouth. Haines’ dinner is finishing and he can hear the midshipmen leaving the cabin, laughing and drunk as they make their way below deck to squeeze their tired bodies into closely packed hammocks. They are pleasant enough – gentlemen’s sons, all three of them, rich in family money and social advantages. Like Wellsted, they left home very young but unlike him they never saw the hideous poverty of the English streets (for it is easy, passing in a carriage to ignore it). Bombay with its skeletal beggars and stinking slums on open display shocked them, the pitiless harshness of Arabia is worse and the rampaging malaria over the last few days has reduced them to tears privately, though each has done his duty and masked his shock from the men. Still, the youngest, Henry Ormsby, has taken to drinking a good deal. He carries a hip flask of brandy inside his jacket. When he arrived on board he had to be warned about gambling. Pelham, one of the crew, a sardonic ne’er-do-well with few brains and fewer teeth, was caught dicing with the young gentleman and was deemed to have taken advantage of Ormsby’s youth and the ready supply of bright shillings from the youngster’s family allowance. The man was flogged for the offence. Unfairly, in Wellsted’s view. Ormsby had begged to be allowed to play and had gambled his money fair and square. If he had won he would have pocketed the winnings.
Captain Haines, with his moral standard hoisted ever high, was scandalised, of course. Wellsted, however, was brought up in Marylebone with his grandfather, Thomas, at the helm. Thomas clawed his way up from a cottage with a dirt floor. He’d worked hard and taken every opportunity that God had given him, and some that were sent by the devil too. A truculent, unforgiving old man, his life’s purpose is to see to it that at least one of his grandchildren rises in society. He pushed his son into the upholstery business and then begged, borrowed and stole to make sure that his workshops were stocked with fabrics so fine that both staunch traditionalists and the avant-garde of the ton sent their business to the Wellsteds and paid, more or less, whatever Old Thomas chose to charge.
‘Where do you find these wonderful silks?’ the ladies breathe. ‘I have never seen any fabric so perfect in my whole life.’
The wily old man says nothing – but it is not a complete coincidence that James’ younger brother, Edward, is apprenticed to the customs service the same year that James joined the Bombay Marine.
When the Indian naval commission came up, Thomas spent almost the entire family savings on securing the position for James.
‘He’s bright. He’ll go far. He’s our best chance,’ Thomas insisted.
James’ parents were slack jawed. It was a fortune, but they complied. Iron of purpose, Thomas dominated the Wellsted household for years, marshalling the entire family behind his purpose: to rise. To this end he made sure that his grandchildren understood the poverty around them on the streets – the constant threat of sliding backwards, of having nothing at all. He’d show them the hoi polloi as if to say, ‘This is what’s possible’, you can belong in the salons of gentlemen customers, all fine damasks and mahogany finishes, with the fire stoked and the servants scrubbed, well fed and respectful, but you can fall too and fall far. As a result, James has seen ragged gin whores aplenty and a regular freak show of pestilence. In London decay simmers constantly, breaking through the surface if only your eyes are peeled. The whole, crowded city is built on a barely contained plateau of shit – open sewers in the streets. Never far away, the Thames is a stinking, rancid, stagnant strip of thick slime, running through the centre of the city. Nothing can live in it.
In such surroundings, people are cruel and even in the gentrified streets of Marylebone, women, children and animals are beaten till they cower by their husbands, fathers and masters. Worse, James’ grandmother died in the front room of number thirteen, of the pox. Blood gushed from her ears and her sphincter lay open permanently for two days as vitality (if you could call it that) seeped from every orifice. In the end, exhausted and ravaged, she begged to die. The boy was a mere eight or nine and, his eyes already open to the world, about to leave for his dearly bought commission.
‘Well now, James Raymond,’ his grandfather said, standing dry-eyed over his wife’s dead body. ‘The old lady will not live now to see you make the Wellsted fortune. We can go no higher, your father and I. It’s the education, you see. Whereas you, with all your letters, well, you can take us up. By hook or by crook, Jamie boy, whatever you have to do to win the prizes, for there will be prizes and no mistake. Make us proud.’
An ant crawls over the old woman’s milky eye. She has been dead less than an hour.
‘Swear you’ll bring it home, James.’ The old man grips the youngster’s wrist and slams the child’s hand down on the corpse’s stiffening breast. ‘Swear to me on your grandma’s dead body that you’ll shine. You’ll make a gentleman no matter what. Steal it, plunder it, swindle it or earn it fair. It doesn’t matter to me. Swear on her broken body or go to hell yourself.’
The harshness of Arabia does not shock James Wellsted one bit. He has few scruples about writing his memoirs. He has credited those he believes require credit – Chapman gave Wellsted use of his diaries before he died and he offered help when he was writing about geological specimens. Another officer advised on the Greek translation the lieutenant used. Wellsted will be damned if he’ll kiss Haines’ arse. He knows that the captain is not generally liked, and his objections to what Wellsted has done are questionable. He’d simply have liked to get his account in first. Well, damn the old man – it’s first past the post, the British way and the captain will simply have to lump it.
Against the sound of the lapping waves, Wellsted does not hear Haines approaching in the darkness.
‘I could have you up on charges, Lieutenant, for refusing the captain’s orders. Dinner in my cabin, I said.’
‘I didn’t realise it was an order, sir. I thought it more an invitation.’
Haines makes a derisory grunt. His breath is sour. Wellsted can smell it keenly on the thick, evening air.
‘I’m so hurt,’ the captain mumbles, ‘that so many good men, who have now given their lives for the service … that you are stealing their credit. It is wickedness, Wellsted, not the act of a gentleman.’
‘I found what I found in Socotra,’ Wellsted replies evenly. ‘I simply noted down what I had done. I have named the others.’
Haines snaps. ‘You were my assistant. An assistant, that is all.’
Wellsted does not rise to the bait. They have had this argument before and Wellsted can put his hand on his heart and say that the majority of what he claimed in his memoir is his own work. He’ll find his way, by hook or by crook and it will be a better memorial of the men who’ve died than Haines’ interminable snivelling.
The captain, still outraged, waits a few moments but Wellsted only stares silently
