Chapter 1: The Barren Rocks of Aden

14^th December 1832

We entered Aden harbour at midday. I could see there were many small dhows moored alongside a wooden jetty unloading their catch of fish, so I instructed Captain Saleh to make for a stone quay, free from dhows and other craft, beyond the busy jetty. As we approached the quay a notice caught my eye.

‘Mooring on this quay is forbidden to all non-East India Company vessels’.

The order was written in English and Arabic. Captain Saleh could read Arabic as he made to turn Seagull about. I stopped him, shaking my head, and pointing in the direction I wished to go. He shrugged his shoulders, muttered a quick prayer to Allah, and came alongside the quay. The vessel was soon made fast to a bollard, and our baggage swung ashore.

It was as Mimi and I were disembarking that I saw Rollo Guest. He was standing, with his back to me, about twenty yards away talking to a man in uniform, who I assumed to be British as he was European and wore a scarlet tunic. It was he who was first of the pair to see me.

“Imshi! Natives are not allowed on this quay.” He shouted, waving his arm in a dismissive gesture.

Rollo had turned around when the man shouted but did not recognise either Mimi or I dressed in our Bedouin clothing. Mimi shrieked with surprise when she saw Rollo and ran towards him, wrapping her arms around his neck on reaching him and delivering a smacking kiss to his lips.

“By Jove, Guest, you certainly have a way with Gippo bints,” the military man said in admiration. By then I had also reached the pair, and said, in the haughtiest tone of voice I could muster.

“The female to whom you refer is not a ‘Gippo bint’ but my wife, Lady Mimi Greenaway, and I am Colonel Sir Elijah Greenaway.” I then turned to Rollo and addressed him in my usual tone of voice. “Hello, Rollo, fancy bumping into you! And when you have finished kissing her would you mind returning my wife to me?”

Mimi chuckled, disengaged herself from Rollo, and then linked her arm in mine. The two men stared at us with shocked expressions decorating their faces and mouths agape.

The man in uniform was the first to recover his senses and aplomb.

He gave a punctilious salute. “Lieutenant Peter Keyt, of the Honourable East India Company’s Seventh Regiment of Madras Native Infantry, Sir. I beg the Colonel’s pardon for addressing the Colonel’s Lady in such a derogatory fashion, and humbly offer my...”

I waved away his apology. “It was an easy mistake to make, Lieutenant, given that both my wife and I are dressed in the Bedouin fashion. But I was not aware the East India Company had a garrison at Aden.”

“The Company does not, Sir. I am ADC to the Resident Agent – John Company has a presence here, but no more than a platoon of sepoys to guard the Resident Agent ‘s’ ... err ... residence.”

Rollo was still struck dumb, but now his face expressed emotions other than surprise. Guilt, relief, embarrassment, and happiness all fluttered across his face as he took in our presence.

He was about to speak when Lieutenant Keyt demonstrated his ADC skills.

“I know the Resident Agent will be honoured to offer you and your wife accommodation, Colonel.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. We will also need transport for our baggage.” l indicated the two trunks sitting in splendid isolation on the quay. Captain Saleh and Seagull had made a swift and silent departure.

Keyt shouted something in a foreign lingo and two sepoys, Indian soldiers, popped up into sight from behind some lobster pots on the quay.

More foreign lingo, which I supposed was Hindustani but later learned to be Malayalam, soon had the pair of sepoys lugging the trunks to the roadway where a passing camel cart was flagged down. I saw coins pass between Lieutenant Keyt and the driver of the cart, whereupon the two trunks and us four Europeans were loaded aboard. Escorted by the sepoys on foot we made an unhurried way to the residence of the Resident Agent of the Honourable East India Company in Aden.

“I think we deserve an explanation, Rollo, as to why you and Missus Crudwright were apprehended by the kidnappers in Mimi’s and my tent, and how it is you are here in Aden and she is not.”

It was evening in the palatial home of Mr Dominic Philson, the Resident Agent. Mimi and I were accommodated in a suite of three rooms on the second floor of the large rambling building that once had housed the local sheikh. Dinner had been served and consumed, and now Rollo Guest, looking rather apprehensive, sat across the table from Mimi and me in the withdrawing room of the suite.

“Oh, and before we start, these may bring a smile to your rather gloomy face.” I handed him the sheaf of topographical maps he had drawn up detailing the suggested route of a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. His gave a huge smile and took the documents from me with eager hands.

“Thank you, Colonel. I thought the brigands had taken these as well as Chasti...” His voice fell away in embarrassment. He took a deep breath, steadied his nerve, and then continued. “Entering into a sexual relationship with a married woman is conduct unbecoming, and a dishonourable act, for which I am truly sorry. I am not fit to wear the uniform of my country, and will resign my commission as soon as I return to England.”

“Hold on, Rollo. If every officer who dallied with a married woman resigned his commission there would be damn few left to command His Majesty’s Army,” I said.

‘Aye that’s true, and you would not be one of the few because you paddled in a married man’s pond when in Wiltshire.’ My demon reminded me.

Mimi reached across the table and grasped Rollo’s hand.

“We are your friends, and hold you in high regard. We know you are no seducer of women, marries or unmarried. Tell us how it all started.”

“It began a few hours after leaving Southampton in Ganges,” Rollo said shamefaced, not looking either Mimi or me in the eye.

“But you and the Crudwrights were stricken with mal de mer. We hardly saw anything of you, or them, until we arrived in Lisbon,” I said. “Nobody was in a fit state for gall...”

Mimi laid her hand on my arm. “Let Rollo tell his tale without interruptions, Jacques.”

“Only the professor and his daughter were seasick,” Rollo confessed. “In fact, I was doing my best for the poor fellow in our shared cabin when Chast ... Missus Crudwright came to attend to him. She gave him a potion that had him asleep in minutes.” Rollo blushed as red as a radish. “Minutes later she and I were sharing deep prolonged kisses, which soon developed into...” He came to an embarrassing stop. “I cannot describe, in front of Lady Mimi, all that subsequently happened between Chastity and me over the next three months, Colonel. I would be too ashamed. I sunk to depths of depravity I never knew I possessed, and revelled in carnality like a satyr, abandoning all my morals and decency in disgusting debauchery.”

Mimi smiled. “There is nothing you can say that will shock or disgust me Rollo, or change my opinion of you as a good and righteous man, led astray by a scheming, promiscuous, hussy. But I do not wish to discomfort you any further, so just answer some questions I have for you.”

Rollo sighed with relief. “Ask your questions, Lady Mimi.”

“We saw naught of you for days on the voyage to Lisbon. Were you and Chastity in your cabin all this time?”

Rollo shook his head. “No, although we did meet once or twice in my cabin after the first liaison. However, the professor would be sound asleep after being given a potion by Chastity, a mixture of laudanum and valerian I believe. Once we met in her cabin, where Georgina was also comatose after a draught of the sleeping potion. We spent most of our time at night in Michael Lucas’s cabin...”

“Who on earth is Michael Lucas?” I blurted out, receiving an annoyed glance from Mimi for my interruption.

“He is the Chief Purser on Ganges. For a fee, he rented out his quarters for Chastity and me to meet and...”

“Yes, Rollo, we can guess what you and Chastity got up to in Mister Lucas’s cabin.”

I grinned to myself; Mimi was now the interrupter. “And how was it that Mister Lucas became aware that you and your trollop required privacy, and a bed?” she continued.

Rollo flushed red. “One evening he caught us almost flagrante in the shadow beneath a companionway leading down to a lower deck. Mister Lucas offered to let out his cabin as a trysting place for a crown a night, and I accepted. It appears Mister Lucas makes a tidy sum during the voyage to India by allowing his cabin to be used for illicit meetings. He said something to the effect of, ‘I don’t usually have paying guests in my berth until south of the Cape Verde Islands, when the fishing fleet start shedding their inhibitions faster than their petticoats’.”

“What did he mean by that?” I said.

Rollo shrugged his shoulders.” I have not the faintest idea.”

Mimi brought the conversation back from where it had wandered.

“Did you and Chastity have liaisons in any of the ports we stopped en route to Damietta?”

“Chastity thought it best we kept apart in public, much as we did on Ganges.”

“Everyone on Ganges, except the Chief Purser, thought you and the Crudwrights were prostrate with seasickness rather than prostrate with overindulging in...”

“Yes, thank you, Jacques. You do not need to elaborate.” Mimi spoke quite sharply, and I realised she was more displeased with me, and probably with the arch seducer Chastity Crudwright, than with Rowland Guest. “So did Chastity Crudwright explain to you how she came to be attacked by aggressive apes in Gibraltar, pugnacious pigs in Corsica, and delinquent ducks in Malta?”

“Only recently, in fact the night, two nights, we spent in your tent she confessed as to what had happened to her,” Rollo said, his face flaming with embarrassment. “Chastity had ‘entertained’ a trio of lecherous, drunken, sailors on Gibraltar, a brace of priapic olive pickers in Corsica, and a well-endowed young man herding geese in Malta. However, the goose herder’s mother discovered the pair fornicating when she arrived with the lad’s dinner, and she attacked Chastity, inflicting several scratches and bites before Chastity managed to escape.”

Mimi nodded. “The trollop has an itch between her legs that requires plenty of scratching. You were just one of the many men she used as a scratcher. I hope you have not fallen in love with her, Rollo, for she will break your heart if it is not already broken.”

Rollo sighed. “At first I thought I loved her. I had never met anyone like her before, and she took me to places I never knew existed. But as time went on I realised what I felt for Chastity was not love but lust. We had precious little in common, and although she is quite intelligent her interests did not match mine. Anyway, after we got to Suez Chastity entered into a Sapphic relationship with Eloise de la Zouche, and she has fallen in love with her!”

“You had better give us a full account of events, from when you and Chastity were kidnapped until meeting us in Aden,” I said.

Captain Rowland Guest’s tale.

When the kidnappers ripped their way into Mimi’s and my tent Rollo and Chastity were laying sated and exhausted in bed, covered with nothing other than a sheen of perspiration. Rollo managed to fire off a pistol shot before he and Chastity were bundled in bedsheets, hooded, and then bound and gagged and thrown into a cart. After an uncomfortable journey of several hours, the cart stopped and their hoods and gags were removed and they were given water and food.

Rollo heard the gang leader tell his men they had to keep the prisoners in good health, otherwise ‘Cleopatra’ would not give the gang the full amount of money promised when they reached Suez.

Four days later they arrived in the port and were delivered to a large house near the dock. Rollo noticed the guard surrounding the house were all Nubians, equipped with muskets and scimitars. He and Chastity were led into a large room with a raised dais at one end. On the dais sat the most beautiful woman Rollo had ever seen. From his description of the woman I knew her to be Eloise de la Zouche, although the gang leader referred to her as Cleopatra when he paraded Rollo and Chastity before her.

“Here are the two you wanted kidnapped, Cleopatra. Give me the rest of my money and I and my men will return to Alexandria.”

Cleopatra flew into a rage. “These are not the ones I paid you to kidnap, you cretin. Guards, remove this incompetent fool and his men from my sight and dispose of them.”

As the kidnappers were dragged from the hall by the Nubian guards, the gang leader shouted out. ‘These two were in the main tent, as you said they would be. You seek to cheat me out of my...” A scimitar severed his head from his body and he said no more.

Cleopatra regained her composure and addressed Rollo and Chastity. “You are certainly not Elijah and Mimi Greenaway, so who are you? You were in their tent, and, as I see you are wearing nothing but a sheet each, were presumably naked in their bed.”

“I am Captain Rowland Guest, and this lady is Missus Chastity Crudwright,” Rollo spoke for both captives.

“Well, Missus Chastity Crudwright, it appears you do not live up to your given name,” Cleopatra sneered. “Are you are aware that in the Ottoman Empire adultery by a female is punished by being stoned to death? Whereas you, Captain Rowland Guest, would merely receive a flogging. But let me see what an adulterous pair looks like in the flesh, so to speak. Remove your sheets.”

Rollo was reluctant to obey, and a Nubian ripped the sheet from his shoulders.

“Why so shy, Captain?” Cleopatra said. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, and if I wasn’t currently off men I would take you into my bed.”

Chastity had obeyed without demur, shedding her covering immediately.

Cleopatra examined Chastity closely, her tongue flicking across glistening lips. “I see why a man would risk a flogging to get between your thighs, my dear. In fact, I shall have you in my bed tonight.”

She gave a string of orders to the Nubian attendants in a language Rollo could not translate. He was given back his sheet, then hurried away to be locked in a small room. An hour or so later food, water and clothing was brought to him. Rollo saw bloodstains on some of the clothing and deduced it had come from the kidnappers – the now dead kidnappers.

During the night he heard moaning, sounds similar to those made when Chastity was approaching her peak. Moments later shrill shrieks reinforced his suspicion that Chastity and Cleopatra were engaged in a bout of strenuous Sapphic sex.