CHAPTER 1ODDBALLS AND TOFFS
SUMMER 1894
DAY ONE: EVENING
I doubled over the ship’s railing and clung for dear life, my head even with my spattered trousers, tossing up the last of a fine meal. The wind whipped around, snatching at my clothes. Around me was wet darkness, the splash and hiss of foam. Waves smashed the hull and sent up a spray that hit my face. More seasoned travelers were enjoying their meals amidships, but I’d known I’d never reach the leeward side and taken my chances at the nearest rail.
The caviar I’d consumed only an hour ago tasted sour coming back up. The HMS Etruria rolled until I was suspended high above, like a fly clinging to the top of a Ferris wheel. At the crest it began to dip, nearly upending me. Our hull dropped back into the ocean with a boom. I heaved, but my insides had nothing left to give. Waves roiled, too damn close, as the steamer sliced through vast swells.
Fighting the pull of gravity, I latched on and gasped for breath. Head throbbing, I turned, but the deck chairs seemed far away. Bollocks. My clothes sopping with seawater and puke, I took a step, lurched and clung to the rail, limbs shaking.
“Puis-je vous aider?” asked a deep voice at my shoulder. May I help you?
A white-haired man caught my arm, his head even with my shoulder. I jerked—buffeted on all sides, I’d not noticed his approach. I felt oddly distant, as though gazing at myself from afar and tut-tutting my poor showing.
“I’m all right,” I choked. He’d spoken French, yet I could not reply in the same tongue. My French was poor on a good day; at present it was nonexistent.
“Vous êtes un soldat,” said the man, getting his arm around me. Soldat—soldier. The wind snatched away the rest of his words, but his intent was clear: to ferry me to a deck chair. I took a breath, found myself empty for now, and eased away from the railing on legs of India rubber.
I cursed, as my feet slid—the damned deck seemed soapy, and I’d swapped army boots for leather this evening. Only the older man’s steadying grip kept me from slamming onto the boards. He took my weight with a grunt and staggered. Gasping an apology, I made for the safety of the chair.
Once I dropped into it, I panted in relief and gazed around the empty deck. Small electric lanterns glowed every few yards. A jaunty waltz drifted from the music room at the bow. Diana would be twirling around the ballroom…I gave thanks that she had not seen me quivering at the railing. Who was she dancing with? The injustice of it pricked me—why was I plagued with this blasted seasickness while other blokes could waltz away the hours?
It scarcely mattered though. Since I didn’t know how, I should not mind her dancing with other fellows. And yet…
On Diana’s birthday two years ago in Bombay, I’d watched her float across the floor, her smile spilling joy into the company, her delighted chuckle rising like bubbles in champagne. I watched from afar because I was on duty, hired by her brother. Afterward though, she’d insisted on a dance with me. A mixed-race man wasn’t usually invited to society dos, so I’d never learned to dance. In a dither over how to proceed, I’d led her out. Then, inventing a silliness to spare her worn feet, I carried her around the ballroom floor, swishing her about like a ballerina. Even now, recalling the thrill of it, my chest compressed with amazement.
The acrid smell of a cigar drew my attention back to my companion.
“Thank you,” I said to the gentleman smoking quietly beside me, noting his finely cut coat and the red ribbon on his lapel.
“English,” said the man, his tone desultory.
Flicking his cigar ash toward the railing, he said in an unfamiliar singsong accent, “Stay away from there. It is easy to go over, in thees weather.”
We sat in the dim light for a while. Warmed by gratitude, I reached out a hand and said, “James O’Trey. You’re right. I was a soldier.”
He took my hand with a mild grip, his own bony and papery dry. After a moment, he said, “Me also. Strange to meet here, is it not?”
What was curious was that he hadn’t offered his name. Old enough to be my grandfather, he pulled on the cigar, then held it absently over the arm of the chair as he gazed outward without expression.
“Do they return…here?” He tapped his forehead with two fingers, the cigar glowing between them. He had a white goatee, but his dark eyes were intent.
Perhaps the dusk fostered confidences, for I would not have answered so in daylight. “The lads I lost? I see them often,” I said and drew in the salt air.
The faint waltz gave way to a brisk polka that separated the pair of us from the distant frolic with a chasm as wide as the ocean. Unmoving, my companion squinted into the night. His rigid posture tugged at me, demanding solidarity, even compassion.
I continued, “And the…others. I see them too.”
He turned his face an inch and stiffened, his shoulders tight. Ahead, the polka continued in painful counterpoint while surf splashed over the rail, misting our faces.
Ramrod straight, the old soldier stood and said in a low voice, “I did my duty. It was my duty.” He gave a sharp nod and walked deftly up the stairway to the promenade deck.
I settled back, puzzling over my unknown companion’s parting words. Ignoring the waves smashing at our hull, I contemplated his tone. It held a strange note—stiff pride, and something else I could not name. He’d behaved as though responding to an argument, yet I had given none. What had I missed?
Sometime later Diana approached, peering this way and that as she stepped through patches of light. She spotted me and hurried over in a rustle of silk skirts.
“All right, Jim? You weren’t at the table. Thought you might take the air.” She glanced at my trousers and made a moue with her mouth as she sat in my companion’s chair. “Oh dear. You’ve had a rough time of it.”
We’d been married two years ago, aboard the steamer from Bombay, then emigrated to the United States to make a home in Boston. It still astonished me when I looked at her, so poised and elegant, her arms encased in satin gloves. Her copious curls were piled in a do that looked far too heavy for that delicate neck. Being married was vastly different from anything I’d expected. I glanced at Diana’s absorbed face. What was she thinking? I’d believed I knew her every mood, but the open, carefree girl had turned into a brisk young woman whose feelings I could not always read. Recently I’d detected moments of melancholy that unnerved me.
I said, “I had company. Old military chap.”
Copyright © 2023 by Nawaz Merchant