The Empire Trilogy Part 27

Harry and Fleury had spent the late afternoon riding about the country warning indigo planters to come into the Residency. When they returned to the cantonment for the second time they found their way obstructed by abandoned carriages and hackeries; such a panic had taken place that the road to the Residency had become jammed with vehicles and people had been obliged to continue on foot, bringing what possessions they could with them or having them carried by coolies on their heads.

In the darkness of the Residency drive, which was lit only by a flaring torch on the portico, the silhouettes of men and horses thrashed and wrestled with boxes, bundles, and mysterious unnameable objects which they clung to with desperate tenacity; it was as if they were struggling up to their waists through a swamp of pitch towards the solitary, dancing flame of the Residency. Curiously enough, they struggled in almost total silence except for laboured breathing and an occasional strained whisper.

Those who managed to win through this slough of darkness and despair found themselves in the hall, which more resembled purgatory than Heaven, and was crowded with ladies and children who sat huddled on trunks and boxes. They stared about them with that wide-eyed, alert look which people have during emergencies but which is really the result of shock; if you spoke to one of these alert-looking ladies she would have difficulty understanding you.

Almost five hours had pa.s.sed since the General had dived bleeding from his horse, thereby conceding the weakness of his arguments. During this time the Collector had hardly for a moment stopped giving orders. At first he had found it difficult because the refugees were stunned; even when he shouted no one paid any attention to him. So he had changed his tactics: he had a.s.sembled all the young lieutenants and ensigns who had managed to escape unhurt from Captainganj (for once the senior officers had borne the brunt of the slaughter) together with half a dozen civilian officials. With this retinue at his heels he had stalked about the Residency doing his best to impose order on chaos, organizing a skeleton defence for the "mud walls", allocating rooms for the women and children, sending out parties of loyal Sikhs to patrol the cantonment. All these orders he murmured to the dazed young men around him and, curiously enough, the quieter his tone, the more greedily his orders were swallowed and the more hastily executed. Soon he was barely whispering his commands.

Now, on the roof, all was quiet except for that laboured breathing, the crunching of gravel and the creaking of wheels that filtered up from the struggling ma.s.s in the darkness below. The Collector cursed them silently. Why had they to bring their useless possessions? Already the rooms and corridors of the Residency were shrinking with the deposit of furniture, boxes, and bric a brac. He knew now that he should have forbidden everything except food and weapons...but in their place, ah, could he have brought himself to leave behind his statues, his paintings, his inventions?

On his way to the roof he had looked into his bedroom. The General lay in a coma in the dressing-room; his whistling breath could be heard through the half open door and the Collector could just glimpse the nimbus of mosquito net which enveloped him. Miriam and Louise Dunstaple were watching together beside his cot now that Dr Dunstaple had gone to aid Dr McNab in treating the other wounded who had escaped from Captainganj.

Presently the stars began to appear and the night became brighter. Some time later, the Magistrate joined him on the roof.

"Thank heavens they got away with some cannons, Tom," said the Collector.

The Magistrate made no reply except to sigh and peer over the bal.u.s.trade at the seething ma.s.s of men and possessions below. It was evident that he did not think that cannons would make any difference. Nevertheless, enough men had escaped from Captainganj to make a useful force. Two dozen British officers of native regiments, twice that number of English private soldiers, and the majority of the Sikh cavalry, numbering over eighty men; add to that at least a hundred European civilians, either Company officials or planters and, finally, a large but as yet undetermined number of Eurasians. Perhaps there would also be a handful of loyal sepoys. But all the same the Magistrate was right: against the vast numbers that the rebel sepoys were capable of marshalling the Residency force was insignificant.

Now the moon rose and other gentlemen began to appear on the roof. Among the first was Dr Dunstaple who seemed in surprisingly good spirits and was anxious to tell the Collector an amusing story about Dr McNab. An hour or two earlier, while the two doctors had been working together to sew up a young ensign, McNab had suddenly asked him if he had heard of the native way to staunch wounds...a way which he was, he said, eager to try out for himself. "'And what's that, McNab?' says I. 'It's this,' says he..." and here, although McNab had barely a trace of Scottish accent, Dr Dunstaple set himself to imitate him in an exaggerated and amusing way. "'Hae ye no hairrd o' burtunga ants, Dunstaple?' 'As a matter of fact, McNab,' says I, 'I cannot say that I have ever heard burtunga ants mentioned in the entire course of my existence.' 'Och, then, lesten to this, laddie,' says he. It seems that the little beggars have large and powerful jaws. What you have to do, he tells me, is to press together the lips of the wound and place the ants on it at intervals. They bite immediately. The necks are then snipped off and the bodies fall to the ground leaving the edges of the wound firmly held by the heads and jaws. 'Och, Dunstaple, I hae foond me a naist o' the wee baisties and I shall see for maeself ere long."' And Dr Dunstaple laughed heartily at the thought and repeated: "Hae ye no hairrd o' burtunga ants, Dunstaple?"

When Harry Dunstaple and Fleury came up on to the roof the Doctor, failing to notice that neither the Collector nor the Magistrate were enjoying it, insisted on repeating the anecdote about McNab, adding that all the time Ensign Smith had been listening with his face as grey as porridge, expecting McNab to produce his ants then and there. It was something for Fleury to put in his book about Progress, he chuckled...the strides that medicine was making in India.

By this time Fleury and Harry, though each still considered himself privately to have nothing in common with the other, had become firm friends. It so happened that they had had an adventure together; they had had to ride all the way back to Krishnapur unarmed through mutinous countryside and then the Collector had sent them out again to warn indigo farmers...and at one point they had heard what had sounded mighty like a musket shot which, although not very very near, might or might not have been fired in their direction but, they decided, probably near, might or might not have been fired in their direction but, they decided, probably had had been. Harry clung to this adventure, such as it was, all the more tenaciously when he found that because of his sprained wrist he had missed an adventure at Captainganj. been. Harry clung to this adventure, such as it was, all the more tenaciously when he found that because of his sprained wrist he had missed an adventure at Captainganj.

Those of his peers who had escaped with life and limb from the Captainganj parade ground did not seem to be thinking of it as an adventure, those who had managed to escape unhurt were now looking tired and shocked. And they seemed to be having trouble telling Harry what it had been like. Each of them simply had two or three terrible scenes printed on his mind: an Englishwoman trying to say something to him with her throat cut, or a comrade spinning down into a whirl-pool of hacking sepoys, something of that sort. To make things worse, one kept finding oneself about to say something to a friend who was not there to hear it any more. It was hard to make any sense out of what had happened, and after a while they gave up trying. Of the score of subalterns who had managed to escape, the majority had never seen a dead person before...a dead English person, anyway...one occasionally b.u.mped into a dead native here and there but that was not quite the same. Strangely enough, they listened quite enviously to Harry talking about the musket shot which had "almost definitely" been fired at himself and Fleury. They wished they had had an adventure too, instead of their involuntary glimpse of the abattoir.

It was much cooler on the roof. The moon hung, soft and brilliant, above the cantonment trees and the dust in the atmosphere caused it to shine with a curious dream-like radiance which Fleury had never seen before outside India. In its light he could make out figures huddled on bedding, for a number of gentlemen had found it too hot to sleep without punkahs in the interior of the building and had come up here. Others were standing and talking together in low tones. Presently the Padre's voice rose above them, reciting the Prayer in Time of Wars and Tumults..."Save and deliver us we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies; abate their pride, a.s.suage their malice and confound their devices; that we, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved ever more from all perils, to glorify thee, who art the only giver of victory..."

A weird, melancholy cry started up now, echoing over the moonlit hedges and tamarinds and spreading like a widening ripple over the dark cantonment. Beside Fleury, the Magistrate said: "Listen to the jackals...The natives say that if you listen carefully you hear the leader calling ' Soopna men raja hooa Soopna men raja hooa...' which means 'I am the king in the night'...and then the other jackals reply: ' Hooa! hooa! hooa! Hooa! hooa! hooa!' 'You are! you are! you are!"' Fleury could make out nothing at first, but later, as he was falling asleep it seemed to him that he could, after all, hear these very words. Below, the last refugees had now struggled out of the darkness with their burdens and all was quiet. At last Fleury fell asleep, and as he slept, a fiery beacon lit up the cantonment, and then another, and another.

The Collector awoke to a pleasant smell of wood-smoke, which for some reason reminded him of Northumberland where he had spent his childhood. He had slept in his clothes, of course, and had woken once or twice as people came through his bedroom to attend to the General. He had had a nightmare, too, in which he had found himself struggling to free himself from a stifling presence that had wrapped itself round him like a shroud. But he had slept well, on the whole, and felt refreshed. He had Miriam to thank for that because, while watching by the General's beside she had made it her business politely to discourage all those who wanted to wake the Collector to tell him that the cantonment was burning, as if there was anything he could do about it. As soon as he was properly awake, however, she told him what the pleasant smell was.

In any case, it was by no means the whole cantonment which had burned; the watchers on the roof had only counted five or six different fires, and the majority of these were of already deserted bungalows, inhabited only by the ghosts of magnificent company officials. The other bungalows still for the most part had their servants to protect them, however tepidly. More important, the sepoys were still at Captainganj, arguing among themselves as to whether it would be best to sack the cantonment or to march straight to Delhi to restore the Emperor. It was said that the sepoys were also sending a horseman to Saint Petersburg to acquire the a.s.sistance of the King of Russia whom they believed would be sympathetic to their cause.

Before the morning grew too hot the Collector summoned the Magistrate to the roof to plan the defence of the enclave. The Residency was the most solid as well as the most imposing building in the cantonment. It stood, together with Dr Dunstaple's house, the Church and the Cutcherry, in a compound of several acres which was roughly three-sided. Against one of these three sides the native town ab.u.t.ted in the shape of a handful of not very substantial mud houses and, of course, of the mosque which the Magistrate, blinded by rationalism, had been so anxious to destroy.

"We'll establish a battery in the flowerbeds down there to protect us against attack from the native town," said the Collector. He saw the Magistrate shift his gaze to the mosque and knew what he was thinking. He himself, as it happened, was coming to see the mosque less as a sign of his own largeness of mind than as a source of trouble to the cannons in the flower-beds. However, the Magistrate made no comment and together they crossed the roof. From here they could see the cantonment spread out in the shape of a fan, roughly bisected by the Mall, where in peaceful times Europeans took their evening stroll; anywhere else it was considered undignified to be seen on foot. The line of tamarinds which gave it shade came to an end on the far side of the cantonment at the old parade ground, long since abandoned, perhaps fortunately, for a better site at Captainganj.

"Tom, I want you to pick the men you need and establish a battery behind the Cutcherry rampart. You'll command it with Lieutenant Peterson to advise you. We'll need another battery in front of Dunstaple's house. I intend to put Lieutenant Cutter in charge there. At the ramparts in between the batteries we'll establish pickets every few yards with rifles and bayonets. In the meantime we must do what we can to build them up higher."

"What about the river?"

Again they crossed the roof. Below them the barren lawns stretched away towards the river; on its far bank lay melon beds, rich green contrasting pleasantly in that glaring landscape of whites and greys with the bright yellow of the melons. These melons, the Collector knew, were only eaten by the very poorest natives in Krishnapur and by one other person, namely the Magistrate himself who during the hot weather liked to scoop out the pips, pour in a bottle of claret, and then dip his ginger whiskers into the cool mixture of wine and juice. "A sad example," thought the Collector with pity, "of the eccentricity to which men living by themselves are subject. Thank heaven that I myself have been spared such peculiar habits."

Aloud he said, "An attack from this direction isn't likely in my opinion. The ground beyond the ramparts is open for quite a distance. The only cover is the near bank of the river and that must be a good three hundred yards away. On the far bank the ground rises and they can't approach un.o.bserved. But above all there's the banqueting hall. They'd be mad to attack that."

The banqueting hall stood on a rise in the ground which corresponded to the hill beyond the melon beds. It was a solid building, not much used any longer. In design it was an unhappy mixture of Greek and gothic; the six pillars of its facade were an echo of the six imposing pillars of its ill.u.s.trious parent, East India House in Leadenhall Street. Inside there was wood panelling, a great baronial fireplace complete with inglenooks, and even a minstrel gallery. It possessed stained-gla.s.s windows, too, but perhaps the most surprising pieces of ornament were outside, the four giant marble busts of Greek philosophers which gazed out over the plain from each corner of the roof.

"They might attack there even so," said the Magistrate doubtfully.

"If they do, so much the better." Through modesty the Collector had failed to mention the final attribute which rendered the banqueting hall utterly impregnable, for it was here that he had allowed the books he was reading on fortification to influence the plan of his "mud walls". He had chosen the simple and traditional tenaille tenaille trace: a system of flanks and faces arranged something like the points of a star to cover each other so that, at least in theory, there was no angle at which the rampart might be attacked without the risk of cross-fire. Of course, once past the banqueting hall these elaborate fortifications petered out again into the same wandering line that followed the p.r.i.c.kly pear of the compound wall and which might well be contemptuously dismissed by a military man as "mud walls". trace: a system of flanks and faces arranged something like the points of a star to cover each other so that, at least in theory, there was no angle at which the rampart might be attacked without the risk of cross-fire. Of course, once past the banqueting hall these elaborate fortifications petered out again into the same wandering line that followed the p.r.i.c.kly pear of the compound wall and which might well be contemptuously dismissed by a military man as "mud walls".

"We'll put Major Hogan in charge to keep him quiet. And we'll give them a six-pounder, though I don't suppose they'll find much use for it. Now we'd better get down and set up those batteries while we still have the chance."

Major Hogan was a rather muddled and peppery old fellow who was generally considered to have been too long in the East. The garrison under his command was composed of Harry Dunstaple (relegated there until his wrist was properly mended), a couple of portly Sikhs, half a dozen very elderly native pensioners who had loyally presented themselves on hearing of the Company's difficulties, a taciturn man from the Salt Agency called Barlow and, lastly, Fleury. Major Hogan, as it happened, was the only officer over the rank of lieutenant to have survived the slaughter at Captainganj. He might have laid claim to the military command of the whole enclave but had not done so...Years had pa.s.sed since he had last taken any serious interest in his profession.

Although disappointed to be posted to the safest place inside the enclave, Harry swallowed his feelings and set to work to improve the Collector's fortifications. Soon Fleury was hard at work too, sitting in the shade of a Greek pillar and directing the native pensioners who came tottering up from the river bed with boulders where to put them. But Fleury had little stamina and presently this tedious job became too much for him; so he sauntered away in a rather unmilitary fashion. Harry would have reprimanded him, because one cannot have a soldier, even an amateur soldier like Fleury, leaving his post whenever he gets bored, but Harry had just received delivery of his six-pounder and could think of little else...it was made of bra.s.s and he had set his two Sikhs to polishing it. Bra.s.s cannons are lighter than iron but gunners who knew their business, like Harry, preferred them because they were less likely to burst. But bra.s.s does have a disadvantage, too. If a great number of shots are fired the muzzle becomes distorted into an ellipse from the shot constantly hammering upwards against its rim, and then loading becomes difficult or impossible. But several hundred shots would have to be fired before this happened, which would take weeks or months of siege warfare...and there was no question of the garrison at Krishnapur having to hold out for more than a few days, while help was sent from Barrackpur or Dinapur. So Harry had no need to worry about that.

Fleury had wandered over to the Residency hoping to find someone to have a chat with, perhaps even Louise if he were lucky...but everything was in turmoil. All the men were working in a frenzy to throw more earth on to the ramparts before the sepoys had a chance to attack...they did not even appear to see see Fleury standing there amiably in his Tweedside lounging jacket. And where the women were, heaven only knew...though he would not have been surprised to learn that they were organizing something else, somewhere else. Fleury wandered away, feeling unwanted. At the Church, there was more feverish activity; a difference of opinion was taking place because the Collector had ordered food, powder and shot to be stored in the Church; the Padre and some members of his congregation were entertaining serious doubts about the propriety of this. But while the more spiritual were entertaining doubts, the military were shifting the stores. Fleury watched the great earthenware jars containing grain, rice, flour and sugar being carried into the Church and arranged in rows at the back. Fleury standing there amiably in his Tweedside lounging jacket. And where the women were, heaven only knew...though he would not have been surprised to learn that they were organizing something else, somewhere else. Fleury wandered away, feeling unwanted. At the Church, there was more feverish activity; a difference of opinion was taking place because the Collector had ordered food, powder and shot to be stored in the Church; the Padre and some members of his congregation were entertaining serious doubts about the propriety of this. But while the more spiritual were entertaining doubts, the military were shifting the stores. Fleury watched the great earthenware jars containing grain, rice, flour and sugar being carried into the Church and arranged in rows at the back.

When he returned to the banqueting hall he found Harry behaving rather oddly. He was gazing in a trance at the bra.s.s cannon and running his fingers over its soft, hairless, metal skin. It might have been a naked young girl the way Harry was looking at it. He gave a start when he heard Fleury approach, however, and slapped the chase in a more manly fashion.

"Look here, Harry, you must tell me all about cannons. To begin with, what's this thing like a door-k.n.o.b on the end for?"

"That's the cascable," muttered Harry, taken aback. He could see that Fleury was not going to be such a success as he had hoped.

"Sometimes, Tom, I wonder that I am not an atheist myself!"

It was the Collector who had uttered this heartfelt cry. He and the Magistrate were standing in the vernacular record room of the Cutcherry; from outside there came the steady clinking of spades as a detachment of English private soldiers, the remainder of the General's "odds and ends" on their way to Umballa, threw gravel against the outer wall.

The Collector was displeased; he had just had to arbitrate a dispute over the graveyard between the Padre and the Roman Catholic chaplain, Father O'Hara. A small portion of the graveyard had been reluctantly allotted to Father O'Hara by the Padre for his Romish rites in the event of any of the half dozen members of his Church succ.u.mbing during the present difficulties. But when Father O'Hara had asked for a bigger plot, the Padre had been furious; Father O'Hara already had enough room for six people, so he must be secretly hoping to convert some of the Padre's own flock to his Popish idolatry. The Collector had settled the dispute by saying with asperity: "In any case, n.o.body's dead yet. We'll talk about it again when you can show me the bodies."

The vernacular record room, which had a surprisingly cheerful appearance, was the very centre of the British administration in Krishnapur and as such was the object of the Magistrate's scientific scrutiny. He had come to see this room as an experimental greenhouse in which he watched with interest, but without emotion, as an occasional green shoot of intelligence was blighted by administrative stupidity, or by ignorance, or by the prejudices of the natives.

As a matter of fact, it even looked like a greenhouse. Its walls were lined from floor to ceiling with tier over tier of stone shelves; to protect the records from white ants they were tied up in bundles of cotton cloth brilliantly dyed in different colours for ease of reference...and these bright colours gave the shelves the gay appearance of flowerbeds. This cloth protection, however, was not always effective and sometimes when he opened a bundle the Magistrate would find himself looking, not at the doc.u.ment he required, but at a little heap of powdery earth. And then he would give a shout of bitter laughter which echoed across the compound and had more than once caused the Collector to raise his eyebrows, fearful for his sanity. In India all official proceedings, even the most trivial, were conducted in writing, and so the rapidity with which the piles of paper grew was alarming and ludicrous. The Magistrate was constantly having to order extensions to be made to his laboratory. Sometimes, when tired, he no longer saw it as an experimental greenhouse but instead as an animal of masonry that crept steadily forward over the earth, swallowing doc.u.ments as it went.

The Collector, his splendid ruff of whiskers standing out clearly against a bank of yellow bundles, was looking at the Magistrate in a moody, persecuted sort of way. The Magistrate himself was standing with his head against a bank of cinnamon-coloured doc.u.ments which so nearly matched the colour of his own hair and whiskers that for a moment it seemed as if his eyes, nose and ears were floating disembodied above the morning coat. He knew what the Collector was feeling persecuted about and could not resist persecuting him a little more, thinking with relish: "His high-mindedness could hardly be expected to survive the pressure of circ.u.mstances." He enquired innocently: "How about the mosque?"

The Collector winced. "The Engineers are going to knock it down presently. We have a futwah futwah, of course, but one still doesn't like to have to do it."

A futwah futwah, or judgement, had been obtained from the Cazee in Krishnapur after tedious negotiations by messenger and in return for a promise of future favours. It sanctioned the demolition of the mosque on the strength of a precedent of the Emperor Alumgire; that pious monarch, while at war with the Mahrattas, had pulled down a mosque which sheltered them from his artillery...In that instance the doctors of the law had declared that the Almighty would pardon the removal of His temple for the destruction of His enemies. But at Krishnapur it was for the protection protection, not the destruction of unbelievers that the mosque was to be demolished. The Collector was not convinced by this precedent and doubted whether the Mohammedans would be very satisfied with it either, particularly as the Cazee was already letting it be known that the futwah futwah had been extorted from him. Yet even the dire risk of arousing Mohammedan resentment was not at the heart of the Collector's disquiet, for beside the practical reason, the question of resentment, there lay its moral shadow, the fact that a civilized man does not countenance the destruction of places of worship. had been extorted from him. Yet even the dire risk of arousing Mohammedan resentment was not at the heart of the Collector's disquiet, for beside the practical reason, the question of resentment, there lay its moral shadow, the fact that a civilized man does not countenance the destruction of places of worship.

They had moved out now and were standing at the door of the Cutcherry. Some distance away, squinting into the glare, the Magistrate could make out Lieutenant Dunstaple and young Fleury talking together in the shade of a peepul tree with the wonderful enthusiasm and sincerity of youth (but which, reflected the Magistrate, can be a bit sickening if you have too much of it). But the Magistrate was, in any case, not interested in youth for the moment...he was more interested in the Collector's skull and character, and in the relationship between them. Indeed, he was perplexed. He had believed himself capable of reading that skull as easily as you or I would read a newspaper. But the fact remained that although the Collector's organ of Cautiousness seemed, according to his skull, to be unduly p.r.o.nounced, he had not been behaving as if it were well developed at all. On the contrary, he had been behaving as if it were rudimentary, even atrophied. He had been making rapid decisions all day. It was very worrying.

The advance of science is not, the Magistrate knew, like a man crossing a river from one stepping-stone to another. It is much more like someone trying to grope his way forward through a London fog. Just occasionally, in a slight lifting of the fog, you can glimpse the truth, establish the location not only of where you are standing but also perhaps of the streets round about where the fog still persists. The wise scientist deliberately searches for such liftings of the fog because they allow him to fill in the map of his knowledge by confirming it. The Magistrate knew that to prove the truth of his phrenological beliefs he must find a person who, unlike the Collector, was subject to one powerful propensity only one powerful propensity only, which could then be verified beyond dispute by the development of the skull. The Collector was too difficult a case; the fog of ambiguity, of counter-active organs, clung too thickly round his head.

The sight of Harry not far away reminded the Collector of something as he stood at the Cutcherry door...He must send young Dunstaple for the "fallen woman" in the dak dak. In all the fuss of the past twenty-four hours n.o.body had thought to warn her and bring her in. It was probable, however, that she knew of the danger but was too conscious of her shame to show herself at the Residency. Still, she could not possibly stay where she was; a terrible fate lay in store for an unprotected Englishwoman, he did not doubt. Admittedly, it would be a problem having her in the Residency with the other ladies but there was nothing to be done about that. She must come in, no matter how greatly she had sinned.

The Collector had heard a little about her and was inclined to be charitable. She had come out to India as someone's "niece", a rather remotely connected "niece", one gathered. Calcutta was full of such "nieces"...girls who had come out from England sent by anyone who could sc.r.a.pe up an acquaintance with a respectable family in India, as members of "the fishing fleet" to find a husband. The war had taken such a toll of young men! Only in India was there still a plentiful supply to be found, because many young men had chosen India without necessarily intending to choose celibacy as well. Poor girl, it was probably not her fault. No doubt she would still make a good wife for some homesick young ensign willing to incur the disapproval of his colonel. He sighed. Now he must get back to work.

"We'll see what happens, in any case," he observed cryptically, and walked out into the sunlight. The Magistrate watched his head glow for a moment before a bearer sprang forward to protect it with the shade of a black umbrella. He too sighed. More than ever he longed to grasp the Collector's skull and make some exact measurements of it.

Now that the greatest heat of the day was over, the engineers were setting to work on the demolition of the mosque. Presently, the Collector found himself alone once more in his study. He stood near the window, one hand resting on the marble head of Innocence Protected by Fidelity Innocence Protected by Fidelity. "It really wasn't altogether my fault," he suggested to himself hopefully.

A strange thing was happening to the mosque; a golden cloud had begun to spread outwards from its walls into the still air. Gradually the cloud darkened and spread into a thick cloak of dust that completely masked the building from the Collector's troubled eyes, as if to protect him from the evidence of his own barbarity.

While the Collector was observing the slow demolition of the mosque Harry Dunstaple, attended by Fleury and a couple of Sikh sowars sowars, had gone to rescue the "fallen woman" from the dak dak bungalow...this was exactly the sort of daring and n.o.ble enterprise that appealed to the two young men's imaginations, rescuing girls at the gallop was very much their cup of tea, they thought. bungalow...this was exactly the sort of daring and n.o.ble enterprise that appealed to the two young men's imaginations, rescuing girls at the gallop was very much their cup of tea, they thought.

The difficulty about the dak dak was that it had not been built, as it should have been, in the cantonment but in the middle of the native town, which made the expedition dangerous. To make matters worse the sun was setting; they had to hurry lest they be caught in the native town after nightfall. After the tranquillity of the cantonment the noisy crowds surging through the streets came as a shock to Fleury; as they penetrated deeper into the bazaar men shouted at them, words he could not understand, but they were plainly jeering. Their progress was constantly impeded by the crush; a perilously swaying cargo of Mohammedan women pa.s.sed by on a camel, their masked heads turned towards Fleury; he felt himself stared at weirdly by their tiny, embroidered eye-holes. was that it had not been built, as it should have been, in the cantonment but in the middle of the native town, which made the expedition dangerous. To make matters worse the sun was setting; they had to hurry lest they be caught in the native town after nightfall. After the tranquillity of the cantonment the noisy crowds surging through the streets came as a shock to Fleury; as they penetrated deeper into the bazaar men shouted at them, words he could not understand, but they were plainly jeering. Their progress was constantly impeded by the crush; a perilously swaying cargo of Mohammedan women pa.s.sed by on a camel, their masked heads turned towards Fleury; he felt himself stared at weirdly by their tiny, embroidered eye-holes.

" Sahib. Yih achcha jagah nahin! Sahib. Yih achcha jagah nahin!" one of the Sikhs said to him. "No good place, Sahib. Come quick." He was leading them towards a short cut which would take them away from the princ.i.p.al road through the bazaar.

They plunged into a wilderness of dark and stinking streets, so narrow that there was hardly room for two people to pa.s.s each other. Their way led down flights of twisting steps and past shadowy doorways redolent of smoke, excrement and incense; sometimes the street narrowed to a mere slit between houses and once a ma.s.sive, comatose Brahmin bull stumbled past them. Then, abruptly, they emerged from the stifling darkness into light and air. The dak dak bungalow lay beside them. While Fleury waited at the gate with the Sikhs Harry darted inside for the "fallen woman". bungalow lay beside them. While Fleury waited at the gate with the Sikhs Harry darted inside for the "fallen woman".

After a few minutes Harry emerged alone, looking perturbed, to confer with Fleury. The "fallen woman", whose name was Miss Hughes, was refusing to come. What on earth should he do? They could not possibly leave her alone for a second night without protection...And now, not content with refusing to come she was even thinking of killing herself again. Anyway, that is what she had said said she was thinking of doing. She had implied that then he and all the others would not have to worry about her any longer. She might as well be dead, anyway, loathsome creature that she was, because she was thinking of doing. She had implied that then he and all the others would not have to worry about her any longer. She might as well be dead, anyway, loathsome creature that she was, because now now...(Harry had blushed at that "now" knowing only too well what it referred to)...because now now she had nothing to live for. She had ruined herself. she had nothing to live for. She had ruined herself.

"Nonsense!" Harry had declared gruffly. "You have a jolly great deal to live for."

"Just tell me one single thing!" And Miss Hughes had turned her tear-stained face, which was like that of a sensual little angel, towards Harry.

"Well...Any amount of things."

"What things?"

But Harry had been unable to think of anything. This was not the sort of thing he was good at. So he had dashed out to see if Fleury had any ideas. All this time the light was fading. To remain here after dark would be to invite disaster. So there was no time to lose. The two young men stared at each other in dismay.

"Tell her...tell her..." But Fleury, too, found himself baffled by this unexpected development. And it was not that his mind had gone completely blank, as Harry's had...because he could think of a number of ways for a dishonoured woman to spend the rest of her life...becoming a nun, good works to achieve redemption, that sort of thing. The trouble was that these did not sound to him like the sort of lives one could recommend to someone who thought she had nothing to live for; they sounded too uncomfortable for that.

But this was getting them nowhere. The Sikhs were beginning to roll their eyes ironically, and the horses were becoming restive too.

"Look here, tell her what a joy it is just to be alive. You know, the smell of new-mown hay, crystal mountain streams, the beauty of the setting sun, the laughter of little children...or rather, no...never mind the children...And, of course, you might also bring in the woman taken in adultery, the casting of first stones, Our Lord loving sinners and so forth."

"Wouldn't it be better if I stayed here and you you spoke to Miss Hughes?" pleaded Harry. spoke to Miss Hughes?" pleaded Harry.

"Certainly not. She knows you."

So Harry again hurried inside, his lips moving silently as he rehea.r.s.ed Fleury's reasons for life being worth living. Outside, meanwhile, Fleury had to pretend not to notice that the Sikhs, their irony verging on impertinence, were ostentatiously saying goodbye to each other.

So it was that when Harry again emerged, distressed and still without Miss Hughes, it was less the fear of death in the native town than of appearing foolish in the eyes of the Sikhs, which caused the two young men to ride back to the Residency, leaving Miss Hughes to her fate. But they did not feel very pleased with themselves.

8.

Days pa.s.sed and still the sepoys made no decision to attack the Krishnapur cantonment. They moved out once, but after only a mile they stopped, engaged in disputes, and then moved back to Captainganj again. This movement of retreat caused some of the Europeans to hope that the affair might pa.s.s away without further bloodshed, but neither the Collector nor the Magistrate shared this optimism. A strange calm prevailed.

By acting as if the Company still retained some authority in the region, by staging a pantomime of administrative government to an empty theatre, the Collector had done his best to keep everything going as usual. But he found that all business in the courts and offices had ceased, except for the opium-eaters who came for the drug at the usual hour. There was another sign of this ominous calm, too, for the native sub-officers out in the district reported that crime had ceased altogether. The Collector remembered something he had once read...a Sanskrit poem describing how, in an overwhelmingly hot season, the cobra lay under the peac.o.c.k's wing and the frog reclined beneath the hood of the cobra. So it must be, he thought, in Krishnapur, where all personal antagonism had been forgotten in the general feeling of expectation.

At the same time, however, as this sudden absence of crime was noticed, there was evidence of unrest in the native town. Merchants had latticed up the fronts of their shops with bamboo hurdles to protect them against the looting which they evidently expected. The wealthier merchants had even hired small armies of mercenaries to protect their property. These men, armed with swords and latees latees, were to be seen swaggering about the streets in various uniforms of their own confection, shouting with laughter if they saw a European and boasting that they were now the masters.

The Collector was grateful for the days of respite. He knew that if the sepoys had attacked immediately after the mutiny at Captainganj they would have had little chance of defending themselves in the Residency. For the past few days everyone had been working to make the defences solid. It was true that some of the ladies were becoming bad-tempered and disconsolate from the heat, from the absence of active punkahs (the punkah-wallahs were vanishing one by one), and from the scarcity of khus tatties khus tatties, the frames woven with fragrant gra.s.s over which water was thrown in order to cool the air during the hot weather. But on the whole the community had worked together, frantically and with a common purpose, until now order prevailed where there had only been confusion before. And the Collector thought admiringly of that observation hive of bees they had had in the Crystal Palace. What fine little beasts bees were!

He was standing in his bedroom with one elbow on the chimney piece as he mused on the qualities of bees. But suddenly it occurred to him that he could no longer hear the General's whistling breath from the adjoining dressing-room. This breath had grown daily less audible...yet how tenaciously the old General had been fighting to survive! Dr Dunstaple proclaimed it a miracle that he should have lasted so long.

The Collector was moving towards the dressing-room where Louise was watching by the General's bedside, when he heard another noise coming from outside in the compound, a strange, resonant murmur, a humming sound which slowly grew in volume until it reverberated everywhere, and which sounded, by an odd coincidence with his reflections of a moment earlier, not unlike the sound of bees about to swarm. As he hesitated a bearer knocked and came in with a message from the Magistrate, asking him to come immediately to the Cutcherry.

Outside the offices the Collector found the explanation for the resonant humming he had heard. A crowd of Eurasians and native Christians had a.s.sembled with bundles of bedding and other possessions loaded on to hackeries or balanced on their heads; the noise came from their humming, a sound like that made by the native infantry when striking camp, combined with a high-pitched wail of discontent.

The Magistrate, looking hara.s.sed, was sitting at his desk. From the wall the portrait of the young Queen surveyed her two subjects with bulging blue eyes.

"What on earth is the matter with them?"

"They want to come into the enclave. They say they're loyal to the Company and that as Christians they'll certainly be murdered by the sepoys. They're probably right, at that." Noting the look of dismay on the Collector's face he added: "I know, but what can we possibly do? I suppose we could take in the Eurasians at a pinch but we can't possibly have any more native Christians...We have more than enough as it is. We haven't enough food."

"We can't just leave them out there to be ma.s.sacred, for Heaven's sake!" cried the Collector, who had turned pale and was groping for a chair. The Magistrate was taken aback by the Collector's show of emotion. He said: "I'm sorry, but we won't be able to stand a siege for any time at all if we have to feed such a crowd. Of course, it's up to you to decide, but I can't recommend you to take them in."

"Is there nothing we can do?"

"We'll take in the 'crannies', if you like...They would be the most in danger, anyway. All I can suggest for the native Christians is that we give each of them a certificate to say that they've been loyal to the Government, for when these difficulties are over. They can be rewarded afterwards."

"A fat lot of good a certificate will be!" groaned the Collector, but there was no alternative that he could see. He stayed for an hour in the Cutcherry helping the Magistrate to sign and issue the certificates. All the time he remained there the high-pitched, resonant humming did not cease for a moment.

It was only as he was walking back to the Residency that he remembered the General and summoned a bearer, telling him to go and enquire how the General was. The bearer, however, did not move. Instead, he replied quietly that it was unnecessary...He had just heard...he dropped his eyes and after a moment's hesitation murmured..."... is dunniah fane s; rehlat keah is dunniah fane s; rehlat keah" (that his spirit had begun its march from this transitory world).

It was about noon that the General died. The humming of the native Christians was the only sound to break the silence. As the afternoon wore on, the humming was silenced by the great heat; all living creatures were obliged to crawl into some shade in order to survive. For a while the silence now became profound at the Residency, as it did every afternoon. Besides, there was nothing further for the garrison to do; by now they had made their defences as secure as was possible in the circ.u.mstances. The ladies, having fought polite but ruthless battles for a place under those punkahs in the billiard room that were still moving (that is to say, those which still had a native attached to the other end), lay stretched out on charpoys and mattresses in their chemises and petticoats like arrangements of wilted flowers, their faces, necks, and arms shining with perspiration. Flies and mosquitoes tormented them and they longed for the evening which would bring, if not coolness, at least a fall in the temperature.

About three o'clock the deathly silence was broken by a terrible noise of banging and hammering which startled them awake. It was the native carpenters knocking together a coffin for the General. The Padre was to bury him that evening. Towards four o'clock, when the heat had at last begun to die down a little, the aggrieved humming started up again. This time it came from a little further away...from outside the Residency gates, where the native Christians had been moved, each holding his certificate of loyalty to the Company.

The Padre, too, was distressed by this humming. He had complained to the Collector about the Christians being left outside, just as he had complained about the storing of great jars of grain and powder at the back of the Church, but it had done no good. The Collector had been polite and soothing, but he stubbornly continued to ignore the Padre's demands.

The Padre was dismayed that his authority, which ought to have increased at this time of danger, had instead melted away. Even on the day following the disaster at Captainganj when he had taken the Sunday evening service in the expectation, at such a critical time, of finding it full to capacity, he had found himself with a congregation of a mere half dozen, all ladies.

He had intended beforehand, picturing to himself a large and anxious congregation, to preach a comforting sermon on a text from the Psalms: "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes." But seeing that mere handful of worshippers in the empty, echoing Church, he had been seized by righteous anger and had preached instead on the theme: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

He had heard, he declared, that there were those in the British community who blamed their present perilous situation on the missionary activity of the Church. They blamed a colonel of a regiment at Barrackpur who had been preaching Christianity in the bazaar. They blamed Mr Tucker, the Judge at Fatehpur, for the piety which had made him have the Ten Commandments translated into the vernacular and chiselled on stones to be placed by the roadside...

"They blame the pale-faced Christian knight with the great Excalibur of Truth in his hand, who is cleaving right through all the most cherished fictions of Brahmanism...the literature of Bacon and Milton that is exciting a new appet.i.te for Truth and Beauty...the exact sciences of the West with their clear, demonstrable facts and inevitable deductions which are putting to shame the physical errors of Hinduism.

"They blame the pious men who have circulated this missionary address to the more educated natives in our Presidency," cried the Padre, flourishing a pamphlet in the pulpit, "demonstrating that our European civilization, which is rapidly uniting all the nations of the earth by means of railways, steam-vessels and the Electric Telegraph, is the forerunner of an inevitable absorption of all other faiths into the One Faith of the white ruler. They blame these devoted men for daring to suggest such a thing! They blame Lord Canning for giving a donation to the Baptist college at Srirampur and Lady Canning for visiting the female schools of Calcutta! They blame our most saintly men of G.o.d...and I ask you, brethren, for what sin do they blame them? They blame them for buying little native orphans during famines in order to bring them up in the true Way. Is this a crime? No, it is the service of Our Lord!

"Brethren, if our little community is now in peril it is because of Sin Sin. The bad lives that are led by many of the Christians among us are a cause of discontent to Him...and make Him, who is above all, withdraw His protection. Sin Sin is the one thing above all others which grieves Him... Sin is the thing which G.o.d most hates..." is the one thing above all others which grieves Him... Sin is the thing which G.o.d most hates..."

The Padre paused. It had grown dark in the Church. On each side of the pulpit a wrought-iron bracket, raised like a skeletal arm, held a thick white candle. The two small flames from these candles suddenly furnished him with inspiration and he began to explain their significance...As the world grows darker, so the flame of truth grows brighter...just as these candles were slowly growing brighter as darkness fell outside. He was talking in a different tone, hurriedly, even incoherently. In spite of the wafting punkahs which made the candles flicker, it was stifling in the Church. He left the candles and returned to the subject of Sin. He felt there was something he had left unsaid, something that it was vital to explain to his congregation. No doubt they were suffering from weariness after the anxious night they had pa.s.sed. But if they were tired, so was he. He had never felt more tired in his life, nor more suffocated by omnipresent Sin. The heat was appalling...but Sin dazed him even more.

As he continued to talk, somewhat at random, the conviction slowly gained on him that he was delivering his sermon not to the half dozen ladies in front of him but to the ranks of great earthenware jars at the back of the Church. They crouched there in their shadowy pews, perfectly motionless. He pleaded with them to listen to the Word of G.o.d, but they made no answer. Ignoring the ladies, who were becoming uneasy, he tried again and again to formulate the one elusive argument that would win over those dim, sinful ranks of jars. But they remained deaf to the exhortations which echoed round their stony ears.

Although Miss Hughes had not yet killed herself (she was reluctantly reserving this measure until Harry was satisfied that he had done justice to the cause of life) she had steadfastly maintained her refusal to move from the dak dak bungalow. Neither of the two young men had expected her to survive that first night. They were even more surprised when she continued to survive. bungalow. Neither of the two young men had expected her to survive that first night. They were even more surprised when she continued to survive.

Fleury secretly believed that it was Harry's lack of eloquence which had caused Miss Hughes to stay where she was.

Unfortunately, when Fleury rather condescendingly agreed to accompany Harry on another mission to convince Miss Hughes, he found that he was quite unable to get into his stride. Miss Hughes appeared quite insensible to the wonders of the natural world, on which he had been counting. Worse, he soon discovered that the wonders of man's own creation (Shakespeare, and so on) meant no more to her than had "the golden glories of the morning", about which she had peremptorily cut him short, to ask him to kill a mosquito that had somehow become obsessed with her lovely naked arms. Harry and Fleury exchanged uneasy glances.

"Oh, do look! I feel sure it's bitten me." Miss Hughes sulkily rubbed her arm, blinking like a child. The two young men peered dutifully at her smooth skin, which was of a delicate, transparent whiteness, showing here and there the faintest of duck egg blue veins. Fleury, forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be looking for the place where the mosquito had had the good fortune to penetrate this lovely skin, gazed with frank admiration at Miss Hughes, thinking what a fair substance her s.e.x was made of. What large, sad eyes she had! What glistening dark hair! Her features, though small, were perfectly sculpted: how delightful that tiny nose and delicate mouth! And he immediately began to consider a poem to celebrate her alabaster confection.

On account of the heat, and perhaps also on account of her despair as a "fallen woman", Miss Hughes had received the two young men in her chemise, reclining on her bed in a way so forlorn that no normally good-hearted gentleman, unless a man of granite principles, could have resisted an impulse to comfort her; beside her chemise she wore only her drawers and two or three cotton petticoats. The criteria of female beauty, as Fleury knew very well, tend to change from place to place and from generation to generation: now it is eyes that are important, now it is the slenderness of your hands; perhaps for your grandmother her bosom was crucial, for your daughter it may be her ankles or even (who can tell?) her absence of bosom. Fleury and Harry were particularly sensitive to necks. Louise Dunstaple, Fleury had already noticed, had a lovely neck, and so did Miss Hughes. There was something so defenceless about Miss Hughes's neck, it was so different from their own muscular, masculine necks that the two young men could hardly keep their eyes off it. Her dark hair was piled up into an untidy chignon beneath which a number of dark wisps had escaped; above the collar of her chemise, as she moved her head, delicate tendons played like the filaments of a spider's web. What a beautiful neck it was! And the fact that it could plainly have done with a good scrubbing somehow made it all the more attractive, all the more sensual, all the more real real. That is what Fleury was thinking as he gazed at Miss Hughes.