Edward Renwick Draft
Description
Thirty-four. Five years in Bengal, promoted to Major for civil works service. Lean, sunburned, ink-stained fingers. Practical, enthusiastic about his work in the way that bores most people at parties. Happier on a construction site than in a ballroom but duty requires both.
Background
Renwick’s father was Order of St. Aelfric. Renwick grew up with the knowledge. He’s not an active operative; he’s an engineer who went to India to build things. But he carries a letter from Harcourt and knows to watch for the unusual. He is Harcourt’s only asset in Calcutta.
Overseeing an embankment reinforcement upstream of Baranagar: a cofferdam, earthworks, engineering equipment, a crew of Indian labourers and a handful of British sappers. The project has been running for eight months. He knows every current, depth, and channel in that stretch of the Hooghly.
What He’s Seen
His construction site is within earshot of the temple ghat. Workers refuse to stay after dark on certain nights. He’s heard chanting that doesn’t sound like normal worship, a harmonic quality that made his teeth ache. He’s seen lights in the temple when it should be closed. He’s watched fishermen avoid the stretch of river near Baranagar. He filed one report to Blackwood, who filed it in a drawer.
He’s been sitting on this for months, cataloguing observations the way an engineer catalogues anything: methodically, precisely, waiting for someone who’d know what to do with the data.
Motivations
Once he understands what the chanting is, what the river is carrying, and what Kali Puja night will bring, his mind goes straight to engineering solutions. “If the problem is acoustic transmission through the water channel, then we need to break the channel. I have a cofferdam half-built, sixty barrels of powder in the magazine, and sappers who know how to use them. Tell me when.”
Connections
- Lord_Percival_Harcourt — Harcourt’s only Calcutta asset
- James_Hatcherly — Subordinate, demolitions specialist
- Charles_Ashworth — Administrative authority over his construction site
Appearances
Relationships
- Asset of Lord Percival Harcourt — Harcourt's only contact in Calcutta. Order connection through his late father.
- Commands James Hatcherly — Hatcherly's superior officer. Can authorise work at the construction site.