‘And one to appeal to your Whiggish notions of progress.’

‘That I cannot promise,’ said Fairbrother, knowing that some thought the Whig party’s motive in Reform was merely to replace the divine right of kings with the divine right of Whigs. ‘But I believe the future in all things to lie with steam. Have you seen an iron-rail road, Mr St Alban?’

‘I have not, but I am certain of their capability.’

‘On passage to England from Jamaica my ship put in at Kingstown, and I was able to see the railway just built to Dublin, all of six miles. Wholly remarkable. There’s to be a railway-train from both ends each day, every half-hour from six in the morning until a half before midnight, some of them carrying mail bags for the English packets. I am urging my brother, and fellow planters, to consider such a scheme for the conveyance of sugar.’

‘And is there coal for the engines in Jamaica?’

‘There is not, but there’s wood aplenty – the very name “Jamaica” means “wood and water” – and coal may be brought from England, I suppose. I came here by steamer from Suez, Mr St Alban, and there’s no coal in Araby.’

‘Nor wood, I think. Camel dung perhaps?’

Fairbrother glanced at him keenly (though he knew St Alban wasn’t given to mock, certainly not a man his senior in everything but title). ‘They port coal across the desert – that much I know. Is there coal here?’

St Alban hesitated. ‘I’m shamed to say I don’t know, Captain Fairbrother. Colonel, do you suppose there is coal here?’

Hervey’s attention had once again wandered. ‘What? Coal?’

‘Is there coal in India, Colonel?’

‘I should imagine so, yes. I think they dig it out in Bengal somewhere.’

St Alban was now thoroughly animated by the intelligence of the steam route through Arabia, not least because one day soon he would take passage home – though not without some regrets – and he saw no merit in spending more time at sea than was strictly necessary.

He pressed him: ‘Was the Red Sea way greatly faster, sir?’

‘The passage was ten weeks. It would have been nine had we not had to put in near Mecca for repairs. Yours was … what, twenty?’

‘Twenty-four.’

‘And I am very glad you hastened,’ said Hervey, not wishing to hear again the details of Fairbrother’s ‘flight from Egypt’. His particular friend had been in Madras for three weeks, and his adventures in the footsteps of Moses (as it seemed) had delighted everyone he’d met – Somervile especially, whose plan it was to have a steamship ply between Fort St George and Suez. (The governor was especially pleased to have beaten Bombay to it, and more so to have persuaded Fort William to bear half the cost and engage a paddler of their own to take on packets and passengers to Calcutta.)

Hervey had scarcely been so glad as when Fairbrother had arrived that afternoon, soaked to the skin by the refreshing south-west monsoon, yet looking just like a hidalgo – a man of rank in the Peninsula. Hervey’s own circumstances had been transformed since they’d seen each other last, when, as the saying went, he lived unaccompanied. For now Kezia was in residence. And not merely in residence, but in evident contentment. Would his good, dear friend, with whom he’d shared so much these past years, quickly tire of the new arrangements? He profoundly hoped not. But he’d do well to find him some proper occupation, for although Fairbrother was not one actively to seek work, he did – if not always recognizing it – grow weary of its absence after not very long. He still had his rank on the half-pay of the late Royal Africans, which had proved handy in more than one adventure, but here in Madras it might not be so esteemed. Might he enjoy some commission from the Company?