Voyage East

I can still remember the very first time I saw James Brooke.

It was in the Goat and Compasses, a low dive of an inn, even as sailors’ taverns go. I was there because I wanted to be alone to drink away the last of my pay and decide what I was to do for the future when the door was thrown open and in he came.

He was so much younger in those days, of course. We were all so much younger. I was scarcely a man, really, for all I thought myself cock o’ the walk. He was in his middle twenties, tall, good-looking with dark curly hair blowing untidily. I say good looking but, in truth, he was one of the handsomest men I had ever seen. He was of medium height but slim and swift in his movements, and he carried himself with the easy confidence that comes with wealth. It seemed to me he brought an energy and enthusiasm into the room with him. At first I thought it was because of the red soldier’s coat he wore over civilian trousers. (It was the coat of an officer of the East India Company and he had no business wearing it, having resigned his commission the previous year, but all this I was to learn later.) As he and his friends fairly skipped across to the bar, though, his gaze caught mine and the fire that glinted and shone in that glance was brighter than any red coat.