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Adam Savage visited her cabin often, keeping an eye on her weight loss. He knew she could have no better nurse than John Bull, because he’d been privileged to be at his mercy once. As they neared the English Channel, however, the choppy seas proved too much for either of them and Savage found himself playing nursemaid.
Kirinda moaned and turned her face to the cabin wall. She was mortified to have the master remove the slop pail of vomit and wash her.
“Kirinda, look at me,” Adam ordered sternly.
“Leave me, let me die,” she whispered.
“Dying isn’t that easy, little one,” Adam murmured.
“I am covered with shame,” she whimpered.
“No, you are covered with puke, but I’ll soon wash away every trace. Only think how often you have bathed me, you silly girl. You have tended me when I hadn’t the strength left to lift my eyelids. Sit up now and I’ll tell you something that will please you. Tonight you will be on dry land.”
She kissed his hands. Adam plopped the strong-smelling carbolic soap back into the bowl and stood up. His dark head almost touched the beams. “I want you to nibble on this dry biscuit and sip this wine slowly. I swear by Vishnu your stomach will not reject it.”
She knew she should not drink forbidden wine, yet she must obey his orders. She knew in her heart that her master was a more potent god than any Hindu god or goddess. As he opened the door to leave he said, “I’ll tell you something else that will please you. John Bull is much greener than you today.”
Kirinda couldn’t imagine the immaculate John Bull being brought low by seasickness. She began to perk up immediately.
In his manservant’s cabin he performed the same ablutions, but filled John Bull’s ears with strengthening words. “This is what you have waited a lifetime for. This is the English Channel. Surely you will be at the rail to embrace your chosen land, John Bull? Kirinda is over her seasickness, I believe. She can’t wait to plant her feet on English soil before you do, man.”
John Bull moaned softly. “The way I am feeling, you may plant all of me in English soil and good riddance to bad rubbish!”
“Eat this dry biscuit and sip on this wine,” Savage instructed, bundling up the soiled linen. Before John Bull could protest about drinking spirits, he said, “Kirinda had the courage and good sense to take some wine and it settled her stomach immediately.”
John Bull could not lose face by allowing Kirinda to appear a better sailor than he. If it was the last thing he ever did, he must set foot on English soil unaided.
Dusk had descended before theRed Dragonwas safely moored at the Indigo Docks in London. A wave of nostalgia swept over Savage as he contemplated setting foot on English soil once more. It was over twelve years since he had disembarked from these docks and all along the water the waterfront looked and smelled much the same. However there were far more merchant vessels anchored here now, and the wharf was crowded with every nationality of seaman from the far-flung reaches of the world.
From the high deck he could see the lamplit taverns that rubbed elbows with the warehouses, and through cynical eyes he noticed how seedy and dirty they looked. The same number of drunken sailors lay about and surely those were the same drabs plying their trade that had been there the night he’d embarked.
When the gangplank was lowered he was the first across. He needed to hire a carriage to carry him and his body servants to a London hotel. The very soles of his feet itched to walk the streets of this familiar old jade of a city, yet he did not give way to temptation. Once he had traveled light with no other possessions than the clothes on his back. Such was no longer the case. Wealth brought with it sobering responsibilities.
Savage hired the least shabby carriage he could find and instructed the driver to wait by the East Indiaman, theRed Dragon.Back aboard he unlocked the gun cabinet in his cabin and distributed weapons to the captain and the first and second mates. “I’ll rent warehouse space tomorrow. I want an armed guard on my chests in the starboard hold until I personally come for them. These docks swarm with rats, four-legged ones too. You won’t be able to keep them off the ship, but keep them away from the tea chests and the spices. Lure some cats aboard.”
Savage had packed his own trunk and he picked it up and carried it with him as he rapped sharply upon the cabin doors of his two servants. “John Bull, I have a carriage waiting.”
The Tamil servant opened the door slowly and stepped out of the cabin with the gravest dignity. He was dressed in immaculate white with the blood-red turban sporting its great ruby. Across the companionway Kirinda, too, moved slowly, as though she were in a trance. She put one small foot very deliberately in front of the other, afraid she might topple over if she put one foot wrong. She carried Rupee in a wicker cage and a tapestry valise that held her clothes.
John Bull said, “Give me the bird.”
Very carefully she placed the valise on the floor, put her hand behind her head with the fingers sticking up in the air like a coxcomb, and squawked at him. Then to Adam Savage’s consternation the two servants dissolved into giggles. As he stared in disbelief from one to the other John Bull said, “Exshellency … the girl cannot hold her liquor,” then hiccuped in what could only be described as a dignified manner.
Christ Almighty,thought Savage,they are both drunk as deacons.It was a most curious trio that walked into the Savoy Hotel that night, and though the staff was noted for its impeccable, discreet service, it was beyond their power to keep from staring open mouthed.
It soon dawned on them that this was a nabob and his body servants. Though the powerful-looking man with black hair curling about his shoulders and skin the color of teak signed his name as Savage, they secretly doubted he was a white man. They dubbed him Indian Savage and were left in no doubt of his wealth when he reserved three adjoining suites. When asked how long he would need them, he froze the inquirer with his ice-blue eyes and replied, “For the nonce,” which told them nothing and everything they needed to know.
The man in the turban closed his eyes in silent prayer as the exotic bird he carried selected a fine old English word from its vocabulary and screeched, “Sodomite!” at the top of its voice.
The female in the delicate sari and sturdy English walking boots looked as if she had been plucked straight from some heathen temple. Her laughter floated across the Savoy’s foyer like tinkling bells.
John Bull opened all the connecting doors to the suites, because the heavy English furniture made the rooms seem small and crowded after the spacious bungalow with its screened verandahs. Adam Savage sat down at a desk to compile a list of information and directions he would need from the concierge. John Bull unpacked his master’s clothes and hung them in the wardrobe, shaking his head over the fact that he had only brought one trunk from the dozens aboard theRed Dragon.
All went well until the chambermaid arrived. John Bull took it upon himself to deal with the English servant. She had an assortment of large towels folded over one arm and carried three porcelain chamber pots. When she tried to hand them to John Bull, he looked at her as if she was deranged. “These are unbearable,” he said firmly.
She looked him up and down, knew instinctively he was going to give her grief, and challenged, “Wot do you mean, unbearable?”
“They are too big. When they are filled they cannot be lifted … therefore they are unbearable.”
