In this short extract from chapter one of Paul Theroux‘s new novel Burma Sahib, we find the young George Orwell – aka Eric Blair – on the boat to Burma

The tall young man — Eric Blair — had been waiting for this moment, the ship released by the local pilot who’d guided the Herefordshire through the canal and who’d just reboarded the escort boat that had drawn alongside. The Herefordshire’s captain grasped the handles of the ship’s wheel — easily seen through the slanted windows of the bridge — and the engines began grinding and groaning, louder as the speed increased, and also thumping under Blair’s plimsolls. The smudge of a small coastal town slipped below the horizon.

“‘Somewheres east of Suez,’” Blair was murmuring with emotion. He hadn’t felt this at Port Suez, among the souvenir sellers and the gully-gully man producing a live chick from a startled child’s ear; nor at the crowded bazaar, buying his solar topee; nor seeing some crew members spread small thin carpets on the afterdeck and kneeling to pray. That was prologue. He held the poem’s words as pleasure in his mouth — he didn’t want to be seen smiling.

That was when he had turned, his tie blowing over his shoulder, as he faced the blue water of the gulf, the sun behind him heating his head, the low brown profile of the shore on both sides receding so quickly he could easily imagine he was in the open ocean — even though he knew from the map in the lounge that the Red Sea lay ahead, and later the Indian Ocean.

Where the best is like the worst — the lines running through his mind. Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments…

Now he could not resist smiling — no one could see him — he was facing forward, gladdened by the accelerating engine, the obvious speed and slosh, after the plod through the canal. The bow wake parted the sea, a greeny-blue spearpoint.

An’ a man can raise a thirst.

For the rest of the glowing afternoon he remained on the bow deck, peering ahead, thinking, I’m on my way, his decision seeming somehow more serious and strange as the heat of the day burned against his head — this heat reminding him that he was entering a new zone, a new climate, sailing to the far corner of the British Empire where it was likely just as hot, maybe hotter.

What pleased him was that Eton was in the past — he was no longer a schoolboy, and in his mind’s eye he saw himself in his school uniform — the top hat, the tailcoat — he shook his head at the memory, with his friends, fat little Connolly, spotty Hollis, round-shouldered Runciman, walking solemnly to chapel or to exams, or garbing for combat in the Wall Game. It was hardly like study at all, but rather a pompous version of youthful folly, odious little snobs innocent of the world.

This is an extract from Burma Sahib (Hamish Hamilton) by Paul Theroux. Buy a copy here.

Or buy a copy from Blackwell’s here.

Paul Theroux will be our guest on A Drink with the Idler this Thursday 11 April from 6-7pm. Free to subscribers.

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