by Ruskin Bond
‘Can you swim, mate?’ asked Mr Muggeridge looking at me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But not all the way to Bombay. How far can you swim?’
‘The length of a bathtub,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry,’ said my father. ‘Just make sure your life jacket’s properly tied.’
We looked to our life jackets; my father checked mine twice, making sure that it was properly fastened.
The pilot had now cut both engines, and was bringing the plane down in a circling movement. But he couldn’t control the speed, and it was tilting heavily to one side. Instead of landing smoothly on its belly, it came down on a wing tip, and this caused the plane to swivel violently around in the choppy sea. There was a terrific jolt when the plane hit the water, and if it hadn’t been for the seat belts, we’d have been flung from our seats. Even so, Mr Muggeridge struck his head against the seat in front, and he was now holding a bleeding nose and using some shocking language.
As soon as the plane came to a standstill, my father undid my seat belt. There was no time to lose. Water was already filling the cabin, and all the passengers—except one, who was dead in his seat with a broken neck—were scrambling for the exit hatch. The co-pilot pulled a lever and the door fell away to reveal high waves slapping against the sides of the stricken plane.
Holding me by the hand, my father was leading me towards the exit.
‘Quick, lad,’ he said. ‘We won’t stay afloat for long.’
‘Give us a hand!’ shouted Mr Muggeridge, still struggling with his life jacket. ‘First this bloody bleedin’ nose, and now something’s gone and stuck.’
My father helped him fix the life jacket, then pushed him out of the door ahead of us.
As we swam away from the seaplane (Mr Muggeridge splashing furiously alongside us), we were aware of the other passengers in the water. One of them shouted to us in Dutch to follow him.
We swam after him towards the dinghy, which had been released the moment we hit the water. That yellow dinghy, bobbing about on the waves, was as welcome as land.
All who had left the plane managed to climb into the dinghy. We were seven altogether—a tight fit. We had hardly settled down in the well of the dinghy when Mr Muggeridge, still holding his nose, exclaimed, ‘There she goes!’ And as we looked on helplessly, the seaplane sank swiftly and silently beneath the waves.
The dinghy had shipped a lot of water, and soon everyone was busy bailing it out with mugs (there were a couple in the dinghy), hats and bare hands. There was a light swell, and every now and then water would roll in again and half fill the dinghy. But within half an hour, we had most of the water out, and then it was possible to take turns, two men doing the bailing while the others rested. No one expected me to do this work, but I took a hand anyway, using my father’s sola-topee for the purpose.
‘Where are we?’ asked one of the passengers.
‘A long way from anywhere,’ said another.
‘There must be a few islands in the Indian Ocean.’
‘But we may be at sea for days before we come to one of them.’
‘Days or even weeks,’ said the captain. ‘Let us look at our supplies.’
The dinghy appeared to be fairly well provided with emergency rations: biscuits, raisins, chocolates (we’d lost our own), and enough water to last a week. There was also a first-aid box, which was put to immediate use, as Mr Muggeridge’s nose needed attention. A few others had cuts and bruises. One of the passengers had received a hard knock on the head and appeared to be suffering from loss of memory. He had no idea how we happened to be drifting about in the middle of the Indian Ocean; he was convinced that we were on a pleasure cruise a few miles off Batavia.
The unfamiliar motion of the dinghy, as it rose and fell in the troughs between the waves, resulted in almost everyone getting seasick. As no one could eat anything, a day’s rations were saved.
The sun was very hot, but my father covered my head with a large spotted handkerchief. He’d always had a fancy for bandana handkerchiefs with yellow spots, and seldom carried fewer than two on his person; so he had one for himself too. The sola topee, well soaked in seawater, was being used by Mr Muggeridge.
It was only when I had recovered to some extent from my seasickness that I remembered the valuable stamp album, and sat up, exclaiming, ‘The stamps! Did you bring the stamp album, Dad?’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘It must be at the bottom of the sea by now,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, I kept a few rare stamps in my wallet.’ And looking pleased with himself, he tapped the pocket of his bush shirt.
The dinghy drifted all day, with no one having the least idea where it might be taking us.
‘Probably going round in circles,’ said Mr Muggeridge pessimistically.
There was no compass and no sail, and paddling wouldn’t have got us far even if we’d had paddles; we could only resign ourselves to the whims of the current and hope it would take us towards land or at least to within hailing distance of some passing ship.
The sun went down like an overripe tomato dissolving slowly in the sea. The darkness pressed down on us. It was a moonless night, and all we could see was the white foam on the crests of the waves. I lay with my head on my father’s shoulder, and looked up at the stars which glittered in the remote heavens.
‘Perhaps your friend Sono will look up at the sky tonight and see those same stars,’ said my father. ‘The world isn’t so big after all.’
‘All the same, there’s a lot of sea around us,’ said Mr Muggeridge from out of the darkness.
Remembering Sono, I put my hand in my pocket and was reassured to feel the smooth outline of the jade seahorse.
‘I’ve still got Sono’s seahorse,’ I said, showing it to my father.
‘Keep it carefully,’ he said. ‘It may bring us luck.’
‘Are seahorses lucky?’
‘Who knows? But he gave it to you with love, and love is like a prayer. So keep it carefully.’
I didn’t sleep much that night. I don’t think anyone slept. No one spoke much either, except of course Mr Muggeridge, who kept muttering something about cold beer and salami.
I didn’t feel so sick the next day. By ten o’clock I was quite hungry; but breakfast consisted of two biscuits, a piece of chocolate, and a little drinking water. It was another hot day, and we were soon very thirsty, but everyone agreed that we should ration ourselves strictly.
Two or three still felt ill, but the others, including Mr Muggeridge, had recovered their appetites and normal spirits, and there was some discussion about the prospects of being picked up.
‘Are there any distress-rockets in the dinghy?’ asked my father. ‘If we see a ship or a plane, we can fire a rocket and hope to be spotted. Otherwise there’s not much chance of our being seen from a distance.’
A thorough search was made in the dinghy, but there were no rockets.
‘Someone must have used them last Guy Fawkes Day,’ commented Mr Muggeridge.
‘They don’t celebrate Guy Fawkes Day in Holland,’ said my father. ‘Guy Fawkes was an Englishman.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Muggeridge, not in the least put out. ‘I’ve always said, most great men are Englishmen. And what did this chap Guy Fawkes do?’
‘Tried to blow up Parliament,’ said my father.
That afternoon we saw our first sharks. They were enormous creatures, and as they glided backward and forward under the boat it seemed they might hit and capsize us. They went away for some time, but returned in the evening.
At night, as I lay half asleep beside my father, I felt a few drops of water strike my face. At first I thought it was the seaspray; but when the sprinkling continued, I realized that it was raining lightly.
‘Rain!’ I shouted, sitting up. ‘It’s raining!’
Everyone woke up and did their best to collect water in mugs, hats or other containers. Mr Muggeridge lay back with his mouth open, drinking the rain as it fell.
‘This is mo
re like it,’ he said. ‘You can have all the sun an’ sand in the world. Give me a rainy day in England!’
But by early morning the clouds had passed, and the day turned out to be even hotter than the previous one. Soon we were all red and raw from sunburn. By midday even Mr Muggeridge was silent. No one had the energy to talk.
Then my father whispered, ‘Can you hear a plane, lad?’
I listened carefully, and above the hiss of the waves I heard what sounded like the distant drone of a plane; but it must have been very far away, because we could not see it. Perhaps it was flying into the sun, and the glare was too much for our sore eyes; or perhaps we’d just imagined the sound.
Then the Dutchman who’d lost his memory thought he saw land, and kept pointing towards the horizon and saying, ‘That’s Batavia, I told you we were close to shore!’ No one else saw anything. So my father and I weren’t the only ones imagining things.
Said my father, ‘It only goes to show that a man can see what he wants to see, even if there’s nothing to be seen!’
The sharks were still with us. Mr Muggeridge began to resent them. He took off one of his shoes and hurled it at the nearest shark; but the big fish ignored the shoe and swam on after us.
‘Now, if your leg had been in that shoe, Mr Muggeridge, the shark might have accepted it,’ observed my father.
‘Don’t throw your shoes away,’ said the captain. ‘We might land on a deserted coastline and have to walk hundreds of miles!’
A light breeze sprang up that evening, and the dinghy moved more swiftly on the choppy water.
‘At last we’re moving forward,’ said the captain.
‘In circles,’ said Mr Muggeridge.
But the breeze was refreshing; it cooled our burning limbs and helped us to get some sleep. In the middle of the night, I woke up feeling very hungry.
‘Are you all right?’ asked my father, who had been awake all the time.
‘Just hungry,’ I said.
‘And what would you like to eat?’
‘Oranges!’
He laughed. ‘No oranges on board. But I kept a piece of my chocolate for you. And there’s a little water, if you’re thirsty.’
I kept the chocolate in my mouth for a long time, trying to make it last. Then I sipped a little water.
‘Aren’t you hungry?’ I asked.
‘Ravenous! I could eat a whole turkey. When we get to Calcutta or Madras or Colombo, or wherever it is we get to, we’ll go to the best restaurant in town and eat like—like—’
‘Like shipwrecked sailors!’ I said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Do you think we’ll ever get to land, Dad?’
‘I’m sure we will. You’re not afraid, are you?’
‘No. Not as long as you’re with me.’
Next morning, to everyone’s delight, we saw seagulls. This was a sure sign that land couldn’t be far away; but a dinghy could take days to drift a distance of thirty or forty miles. The birds wheeled noisily above the dinghy. Their cries were the first familiar sounds we had heard for three days and three nights, apart from the wind and the sea and our own weary voices.
The sharks had disappeared, and that too was an encouraging sign. They didn’t like the oil slicks that were appearing in the water.
But presently the gulls left us, and we feared we were drifting away from land.
‘Circles,’ repeated Mr Muggeridge. ‘Circles.’
We had sufficient food and water for another week at sea; but no one even wanted to think about spending another week at sea.
The sun was a ball of fire. Our water ration wasn’t sufficient to quench our thirst. By noon, we were without much hope or energy.
My father had his pipe in his mouth. He didn’t have any tobacco, but he liked holding the pipe between his teeth. He said it prevented his mouth from getting too dry.
The sharks came back.
Mr Muggeridge removed his other shoe and threw it at them.
‘Nothing like a lovely wet English summer,’ he mumbled.
I fell asleep in the well of the dinghy, my father’s large handkerchief spread over my face. The yellow spots on the cloth seemed to grow into enormous revolving suns.
When I woke up, I found a huge shadow hanging over us. At first I thought it was a cloud. But it was a shifting shadow. My father took the handkerchief from my face and said, ‘You can wake up now, lad. We’ll be home and dry soon.’
A fishing boat was beside us, and the shadow came from its wide flapping sail. A number of bronzed, smiling, chattering fishermen—Burmese, as we discovered later—were gazing down at us from the deck of their boat.
A few days later, my father and I were in Calcutta.
My father sold his rare stamps for over a thousand rupees, and we were able to live in a comfortable hotel. Mr Muggeridge was flown back to England. Later we got a postcard from him saying the English rain was awful!
‘And what about us?’ I asked. ‘Aren’t we going back to England?’
‘Not yet,’ said my father. ‘You’ll be going to a boarding school in Shimla until the war’s over.’
‘But why should I leave you?’ I asked.
‘Because I’ve joined the R.A.F.,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’m being posted in Delhi. I’ll be able to come up to see you sometimes.’
A week later I was on a small train which went chugging up the steep mountain track to Shimla. Several Indian, Anglo-Indian and English children tumbled around in the compartment. I felt quite out of place among them, as though I had grown out of their pranks. But I wasn’t unhappy. I knew my father would be coming to see me soon. He’d promised me some books, a pair of rollerskates and a cricket bat, just as soon as he got his first month’s pay.
Meanwhile, I had the jade seahorse which Sono had given me.
And I have it with me today.
1
ING BHARATA ruled over all the world. He was a thoughtful and religious man, and he looked upon the whole world as evidence of the supreme spirit of God.
He worshipped God in the form of Vishnu, the Preserver, and was full of devotion, ruling the earth for one hundred thousand years. He had five sons, amongst whom he divided all his kingdom, and went at last into the forests near the river Gandak, where he lived alone, praying and meditating.
His worship consisted of offering fresh flowers, tender leaves, and wild fruits and roots. He controlled all his senses and never grew weary. There was no one to disturb him, no one to take his mind off the worship of God. He bathed three times a day, and worshipped Vishnu in the golden sun.
One day, while Bharata was bathing in the river, he heard a lion roaring, and saw a deer, which was about to give birth to a fawn, fleeing from the lion and splashing across the river. As it reached the other side, it gave birth to the fawn and then died. Bharata saw the helpless little fawn struggling in the water. Being moved with compassion, he took it in his hands and saved it. Then he took the fawn home and cared for it, and soon began to love it. He became so attached to it that little by little he began neglecting his services to God; but he was quite unaware that this was happening.
‘There is no one to care for this deer,’ he said to himself, ‘and so I will look after it and bring it up. The great teachers say that to help the helpless is a virtue.’
His love for the deer grew, and he used to bring it tender grass to eat, and he would bathe it and keep it near him. Sometimes he would hold it in his arms or on his lap. He loved its company. Often, when performing some ceremony, he would break off in the middle to look for the deer.
But one day, the deer disappeared.
Bharata was overcome with grief and a terrible sense of loss.
‘Did I not take care of you in every way?’ he mused. ‘Now I do not know if some animal has killed you, or if you will one day return to gladden my heart. I remember how you used to touch me gently with your horns as I sat in meditation. I remember how you would playfully trample on the things I brought for worsh
ip, and if I spoke to you in anger, you would stand at a distance till I called you again. The other hermits looked upon you as a holy animal. Perhaps the moon has taken you.’
Unable to get over his sorrow, he neglected the religious ceremonies he usually performed. He had renounced his family and his kingdom in order to obtain the spiritual freedom of the hermit. Now, because of his attachment to the deer, all his strivings appeared to have been futile.
Then one day, the deer returned.
Bharata was overcome with joy. He treated it as though it were his own son, and devoted the rest of his days to its welfare.
In his last days, on his death bed, his thoughts were only of the deer; and so, upon his soul leaving his body, he was reborn as a deer. But the memory of his past life remained with him. He felt sorry that he had neglected his duties to God, and regretted his former attachment to the deer. He did not mingle with the rest of the herd, and at last left them and went away alone to his old place, where he had formerly lived and worshipped; and there he remained, bathing in the river and grazing on its banks; and so much did he desire to be freed from the body of a deer that, when he died, he was able to be born again into a Brahmin family.
2
Born to a Brahmin father, Bharata was brought up well; but remembering his former lives, he kept aloof from other people, so that many thought he was half-witted. When his parents died, his brother forced him to do menial work. People made fun of him, but he paid no attention, and took everything that came his way, good and bad. He cared neither for cold nor heat, going without clothes and sleeping on the bare ground, so that his sacred thread became black with dirt.
In spite of these hardships, he remained sturdy and strong.
One day, the king of the country decided to offer a human sacrifice to the Goddess Kali, and hearing from his servants that Bharata was a useless fellow, seized him as being perfectly suitable for the sacrifice.
After a ceremonial bath, Bharata was given fine clothes and decorated with jewels. He was given rich food. Burning camphor and perfumes were placed before him. Then, accompanied by dancers and musicians, he was taken to the temple of Kali.
