by Diane Wolf

Created on: June 22, 2009

Prologue Shadows In Still Water
Calcutta, India, 1756

Fort William, prized jewel of Britain's East India Company, lay smoking in the stiff, still Calcutta midnight. Governor Drake had angered the Nawab, Siraj-ad-daula, with a number of offenses both real and imaginary. For three days, since Wednesday, June 15th, the Nawab and his forces had besieged the fort, repelled mainly by luck and the heroics of a handful of junior officers. It was beginning to crumble now, under the continuous onslaught.

It was on days like these that John Holwell, chief magistrate, wished he had never left his comfortable medical practice at Guy's hospital in London. Wiping his face with a handkerchief already gray from smoke, he passed beneath the arcade formed by a series of arches along the east wall and onto the fort's parade ground. The last two arches in the arcade had been walled in to form a small prison eighteen feet long by fourteen feet wide called the Black Hole for unruly soldiers to sleep off a drunk. Here Drake had imprisoned the powerful Hindu merchant, Omichand, who sometimes acted as intermediary between the Nawab and the British. That had been Drake's first mistake.

Holwell had been assigned the task of trying to placate the man into writing a conciliatory letter to the Nawab for them. Holwell had talked himself hoarse to no avail in the stifling, foul little room while Omichand peered at him from his perch on the sleeping platform like an enormously fat vulture waiting for his dinner to die.

The air outside the Black Hole smelled little better. Every breath left the acrid taste of sulfur in his mouth. It was midnight but the Indians had abandoned their usual practice of stopping before sundown and were still haphazardly shelling the fort.

Holwell hurried across the huge parade ground, pushing his way through the more than 2000 native women and children who had sought refuge in the fort. They swarmed around him, crying with their palms held up to plead with him.

One wealthy family sat eating rice and lamb, oblivious of the dark, hungry eyes of the bony children who squatted nearby. Holwell's own stomach rumbled. He had eaten only one hot meal and a handful of dry biscuits in the last few days. Swallowing hard, he turned his head.

Inside the governor's mansion, Holwell threaded a path around the European women and children gathered in the grand ballroom. This group was quieter but the little white faces looked just as hungry. The humid air

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