The Gunpowder Tax

Script

INT. COMPANY OUTPOST - CROWe’S QUARTERS - NIGHT

A single oil lamp. Rain ticks on a tin cup. CAPT. SILAS CROWE scrapes Bengal mud from a boot with a bayonet tip.

ASHA MUKHERJEE slips in, soaked under a shawl, clutching a folded ledger page like contraband.

ASHA
They don’t steal powder. They tax it twice.

She lays the page on Crowe’s trunk. Columns of figures. Red ink. A wax smear where a seal was torn away.

CROWE
(reading)
“Saltpetre—issued. Saltpetre—lost to damp.” Same week.

ASHA
And the “damp” is always paid out. To men who never lift a barrel.

A knock. Immediate, sharp. Crowe palms the page under his coat.

LT. TOM KESTREL enters, wet-eyed from the rain, trying for authority and missing.

KESTREL
Captain. Sentries say the depot lanterns are being covered. Again.

CROWE
They’re afraid of moths?

KESTREL
They’re afraid of eyes.

Asha watches Kestrel. Crowe watches the door.

CROWE
(to Kestrel)
Get me three men who can walk quiet and won’t faint at paper.

KESTREL
Paper?

CROWE
Powder’s useless without it.

Asha pulls the ledger page back out—open defiance now.

ASHA
If you don’t see the storehouse, you’ll only ever fire what they allow.

Kestrel hesitates—then nods once, hard.

KESTREL
Midnight, then.

CROWE
Midnight.


EXT. COMPANY POWDER DEPOT - RIVERBANK - NIGHT

Monsoon mist. The river breathes. The depot squats like a dark crate, guarded by two half-asleep sepoys beneath an awning.

Crowe, Kestrel, Asha, and THREE MISFITS from Crowe’s gun crew—WILKINS (one eye), RAMU (bare feet), and O’BRIEN (shaking hands)—move through grass slick as oil.

Crowe signals: WAIT.

Asha whispers, translating the distant guards’ mutter.

ASHA
They’re counting the “losses” aloud. Like a prayer.

Crowe slides a small pouch of coins to Ramu.

CROWE
Softly.

Ramu pads forward, vanishes into the mist. A moment—then one guard’s lantern dips, snuffed. The other guard turns—

Kestrel’s hand clamps over his mouth. O’Brien’s bayonet hovers. The guard goes limp, lowered, not dropped.