by John Masters
By eleven o’clock he was drinking brandy in the anteroom and flinging himself into the violent games customary on guest nights--wall racing, high-cockalorum, cockfighting. The moon shone on the lawn, the band played, everything was forgotten except the delights of wine, resilient muscles, and fellowship. The servants smiled at the immenseness of their lunatic energy.
Near midnight glass shattered, and a confused banging and yelling broke out. Rodney heaved up from under a pile of bodies, the wreck of a round of high-cockalorum, and called, “Look at this!”
Eddie Hedges was riding around the anteroom on a frantic band-horse. It sidled and fretted and knocked over chairs and tables. Hedges put the inevitable hunting horn to his lips and blew the racketing Gone awaaaaay! Then he yelled, “C’mon, get a horse each--midni’ steeplechase!”
“Good old Hedges! Trust the Buck to think of a good idea.”
“To horse! Out, you lazy pack of buggers! Out! Out!” The hunting horn screamed. They tumbled, yelling and whooping, on to the lawn. “Hi, stop! Where in thunder are we going?” “I don’t know, Willie--whassit matter?”
“Hi, hi, listen--le’ss go up the Pike to the ol’ temple. D’you all--all--know it? Then roun’ the well in Bargaon-- then back here!”
“Whassat? Sic--six miles? Drummer, hold that bloody horse still--hup! Ache ha, chor do! My God, the Infantry are coming. Ha, ha!”
“Of course I’m coming. Have you heard ‘bout the cavalry officer who--who was so stupid that--all the others noticed it!”
Rodney laughed at his own joke till the tears ran down his cheeks. They were all mounted by now, except Sanders and old Norman Gosse, who watched staidly from the verandah. The bandsmen laughed in the shadow of the trees; a flying fox, disturbed by the racket, flew angrily out of the branches and flapped across the face of the moon. They had taken off jackets, waistcoats, and spurs for the games in the anteroom, and most had their shirt tails out. Geoghegan had lost his trousers and wore no underdrawers. “Ready, you buggers? Go!”
The white shirts flapped across the lawn. They leaped the low wall in a mob, and swung, whooping and screaming, towards the north. Gosse and Sanders turned back into the mess, and the thirty-seven bandsmen picked up their instruments and began again to play for them.
At first the riders were bunched together. They yelled to each other and shouted hunting cries, and woke officers and their wives asleep under mosquito nets on the lawns. The hoofbeats echoed back from the trees lining the cantonment roads. A few minutes later they galloped past the hovels on the northern outskirts, near the 60th’s lines, and reached open country. They began to spread out.
One after the other they turned off at the Pike at the old temple, and the pace slackened. As Rodney rode across the moon-bathed fields some soberness began to dim the clear beauty of his exhilaration. This was hellish dangerous; these fields were a maze of pot-holes, unfenced wells, sunken tracks, and wide thorn fences. He dropped back, fighting to dispel the woolly cloud in his brain, and began to concentrate on riding. White shirts fluttered dimly ahead like spirits hurrying home to the graveyard at cockcrow. The night air rushed by, drying the sweat on him, and seemed cool; it smelled of horses and saddlesoap and good Indian dust. The horse’s powerful rhythm helped to clear his head and settle the sliding queasiness in his stomach. He was still young, and he would not die like Julio, not yet. He laughed aloud at the madness; it was lucky that no one was expected to explain why he did what he did on guest nights. Rodney remembered he had not seen young Myers on a horse, or on the verandah with Gosse and Sanders. The servants would probably find him under the mess table when they came to clear it up; then they’d carry him home, hand him over to his bearer, and pretend it had never happened. That had been his own introduction to the Bengal Army.
At the Bargaon well he knew that only Hedges, Willie van Steengaard, and Jimmy Waugh were in front of him. He was thinking that he would not disgrace his regiment, or infantry in general, if he kept his present position, when hoofs drummed up on his right and Geoghegan dashed past, swearing and singing. He had torn off his shirt and rode stark naked except for his boots. Ahead, the hunting horn screamed fainter and fainter.
Rodney slowed to a hand canter and peered round. He must be about a mile east of the cantonments, with the Benares Gate of Bhowani City not far off to his left. Bending low over the horse’s neck, he saw housetops silhouetted against the sky, and knew he was right. Any moment now he’d be on top of a narrow, slightly sunken lane which ran through the fields hereabouts. Standing in the stirrups, he saw the lane and saw something moving in it.
The moon shone on the white canvas awnings of bullock carts, ten or twelve of the rare four-wheeled pattern, trailing along one behind the other, each pulled by four bullocks, the noses of each leading pair of bullocks an inch from the tail of the cart in front. He grinned, gave a wild yell, and urged the borrowed band-horse into a gallop. At the near edge of the track he bent forward, pressed hard with his knees, and yelled again. The horse gathered itself and lifted in a wide arc over lane, bullocks, carts, and all.
The monstrous shadow flew across the moon, and the bullocks in the leading cart snorted, flung their shoulders against the yoke, and dashed up the side of the lane. They thundered away across the field, the cart bouncing and rattling, and Rodney cantered after them, still laughing. The cart driver seemed to be awake, which was unusual, and well seated; he shouted at the maddened bullocks while the cart tore on over the rough surface. At the end of the field there was a dense thicket, and the bullocks, swerving to avoid one tree, jammed the cart heavily against another. The front wheel on the left side broke off and flew away from the axle. The yoke snapped, the driver rolled forward over the struggling bullocks, and the cart turned on its side. Half a dozen wooden boxes and barrels spilled out and spilt open, and a man was catapulted through the canvas top to sprawl cursing in the undergrowth.
A broad column of moonlight shone down through the trees and glinted back in little curved arcs among the bushes. Rodney stared--shells, not solid roundshot but modern explosive shells, probably for twelve-pounder cannon. He leaned forward quickly. Near the shells powder trickled from a big keg. The man in the thicket scrambled to his feet and searched frantically with his hands for something on the ground. Though he wore the plain white clothes of a middle-class townsman, he was the Dewan of Kishanpur.
Even as he noticed these things Rodney had been starting to urge his horse forward. It was a childish prank that he had played, against people who couldn’t protest, and he was ashamed of himself. He had no money on him and was planning to take the driver back to his bungalow and pay him there for the damage, plus a little something.
But when he recognized the Dewan, he checked. Simultaneously the Dewan found what he sought and stood up.
A pistol was in his hand; the driver beside him had a pistol; bare feet pattered across the field from where the cart convoy had halted. What sort of men were these, all armed?
The Dewan stared up with eyes narrowed, trying to see who was the white shape on a grey horse in the dark. When he raised his pistol and began to move forward, and the driver moved with him, Rodney swung the horse around. Stretching out along the withers, he galloped for cantonments. No one shot at him as he went.
He’d better ride to the Commissioner’s bungalow and report at once. Then he could act as a messenger if Delia-main asked for cavalry to be turned out.
He lifted the horse over the low cactus hedge bordering Auckland Road, the eastern boundary of cantonments. Two people on foot were right under him, coming in the opposite direction. He saw the flash of the moon on their clothes, jerked savagely at the reins, and forced the horse to curve its spine and land jarringly off balance. He yelled, “Hut! bahin ka chute!”
They would be servants, sneaking out to the city on some shady errand connected with the approaching Holi festival. He dug his heels into the horse’s flanks, but a woman’s voice cried out in English from the foot of the hedge. “Cap
tain Savage? Quick! Did you see Shivarao--the Dewan of Kishanpur---out there? We must catch him.”
Caroline Langford stepped forward, and, a little behind her, Swithin de Forrest. Rodney dismounted and told them in brief sentences what he had seen, eyeing them covertly, for they were dishevelled and flushed. De Forrest wore white trousers and shirt, Caroline a low-cut cotton dress and an elbow-length cape. De Forrest shuffled his feet, kept his head down, and gave no sign of interest in the story.
Rodney finished. “I’m on my way to the Commissioner. I’ve never seen an armed bullock-driver before, and the Kishanpur Army is not allowed explosive shells, or cannon bigger than six-pounders. I found that out when I was there --it’s a clause in the treaty, and they thought it was insulting.
But the carts must be going to Kishanpur. I can’t imagine what they think they’re going to do with them. I’d better hurry.”
De Forrest did not speak. Caroline held up her hand. “It’s no use going to Mr. Dellamain. Whatever it is, he’s in it. You remember about Sitapara promising to send me word if she heard anything? Sitapara the courtesan? A man came in after dark with a message from her--word of mouth. I was to watch the Commissioner’s bungalow tonight.”
“Oh. Is that all she knew?”
“That’s all she said. Please don’t interrupt; we haven’t got all night. We--Major de Forrest and I--hid in the bushes in the Commissioner’s garden. About three-quarters of an hour ago a man crept in round the side wall. He looked as though he might be a servant, only he waited under a tree until the watchman passed on his round, then he slipped forward and tapped on a window. Mr. Dellamain came out at once--I saw him in the moonlight--and the man handed a thing like a small bag over to him and went away quickly.”
“And the man was the Dewan?”
All this explained at least why de Forrest had been absent from his regiment’s guest night. Rodney wished the man would speak instead of standing there like a withered tree. He was the senior; this affair had obviously become official; he should take command.
The girl answered Rodney’s question. “Yes, it was the Dewan. We followed him carefully, but lost him lower down Auckland Road. I was going to give up, and then we met you.”
Rodney remembered his promise to Joanna. There were several courses he could follow; none of them would be “respectful” to Mr. Dellamain, and any of them would involve him again in Kishanpur and Caroline Langford’s obsession about a mystery. He wished he knew what Dellamain was frightened of--but he hadn’t time to think about that now.
He turned to de Forrest. “Obviously it’s no use going to Dellamain, sir. If you agree, I’ll turn out a troop--or a squad--of your regiment, catch these people, and take them straight to Colonel Bulstrode as station commander. Then he can hold the evidence in military custody until the Lieutenant Governor sends someone down from Agra to investigate.”
De Forrest looked up. The sweat gleamed on his face, and on Caroline’s as she watched him. He spoke with a collected, flat, lack of emphasis. “No, Captain, I will not agree. I have not seen the Dewan of Kishanpur tonight, or Mr. Dellamain. I have not, therefore, seen anything handed over to Mr. Dellamain. I am returning to my bungalow now, and my advice to you is to do the same. Good night. Good night, Miss Langford.”
He turned and walked silently up the road. Rodney watched until the shadows absorbed him. The girl was drawn and tense, and her voice suddenly harsh.
“Never mind, Captain Savage. I’ll explain later. Can’t we catch these people ourselves, if I get a horse and a pair of pistols?”
Rodney glanced at her in admiration; now she was almost beautiful in her determination. With a man’s eyes he looked at her as he replied, “It’s silly to do that, Miss Caroline. We must go to Colonel Bulstrode.” She frowned, and he added, “Really we must. The colonel’s a great deal shrewder than he looks, you know.”
She pulled the cape tighter across her chest, and the curve of her breasts showed clearer through the material. The silly girl didn’t know what she was doing. “All right. If we must. Hurry.”
She refused to ride the horse, and Rodney led it by the reins. They walked fast along the shoulder of the road, her slippers scuffing in the dust. She’d have to say something about de Forrest soon, but he didn’t see how he could help her.
Without warning she brimmed over, the anger bitter in her low voice. “You think I’m doing this for the pleasure of destroying the Rani, don’t you? There is no pleasure in it at all for me. I believe that our duty to God’s principles-- justice and truth--is more important than our duty to people, or any particular person, especially oneself. We aren’t in this world for our own pleasure, but to further God’s principles. The old Rajah was my friend, but I hope I’d have the strength to do what I’m doing even if he had been my enemy. I had to get help. I asked Major de Forrest because he showed interest. He wasn’t excitable like you, and that was right--I’m not crusading against people, or human enemies, but against falsehood, and there is no need to hate anyone. He just did what I asked him to.” She broke off and muttered, “How much farther?”
“A few minutes.”
She slowed her pace, and he slowed with her. She had to unburden herself of this, and a few minutes would make no difference in catching the carts.
“This evening he suggested we should get married--it was in Isobel’s garden. I couldn’t believe my ears; I’d never thought of it. I’ve never met any man I wanted to marry. I was too surprised to speak. Then I answered ‘No, thank you,’ and he said perhaps I was right. A little later the messenger came from Sitapara. I didn’t see what difference the proposal made, so I asked Major de Forrest to come with me--and he refused! I asked him whether he had only helped me in this as a necessary preliminary to a proposal, and he said yes. He said that he had thought we could live undisturbed lives together because I had outgrown the stupidity of emotion. He said that he saw from my reaction to this message that he was mistaken--he said that I merely got inflamed by ideas instead of people. He said that would outweigh the benefits of disposing of Victoria as a housekeeper. That’s what he said!”
Rodney cleared his throat. “We’re getting near. I think there’s a light on.”
Why did she tell him all this? To make him believe her story of the mysterious incident at the Commissioner’s, by showing that de Forrest had a motive for lying? That was unnecessary, and surely she knew it. Was she trying to explain her association with de Forrest, and so kill the gossip? She wasn’t a person who cared much about gossip; nor did he care whether the gossip was true or not, and she knew that too.
“I’ve nearly finished. When he said that, I was so angry that I lost my temper. He’d thought that I was like him-- incapable of feeling. He was going to use me, so that he could get rid of Victoria and replace her by an efficient housekeeper. He does have one feeling--he hates Victoria. But the message was so important that I had to make him come with me, just this last time, and I did. But it was all a lie still, inside him. You heard what happened.”
They turned into Colonel Bulstrode’s drive. It was past one in the morning, and Rodney quailed at the thought of the reception they would get if the old man were sleeping off a mountain of curry and a gallon of beer. The girl walked unspeaking at his side round the curve of the drive, and the band-horse’s hoofs clicked evenly on the gravel.
“He was going to use me.” Did she realize that de Forrest would think she had tried to use him; that ordinary people-- including Rodney himself--resented being treated as mere tools with which she could more efficiently uncover the beauty of a divine principle? And there was something else, even more interesting. The tone of her voice at one part of the story had quivered with plain female fury; she was not merely grieved because de Forrest was so numb to abstract principle; she was angry that he had thought of her as an unexciting woman. She didn’t know herself as well as she thought she did, and he liked her the more for it. Besides, the real she was much more interesting than either the one she pr
etended to be or the one she hoped to be.
The light they had seen was on Bulstrode’s verandah. The drive curled round the front of the bungalow, and they saw the colonel sprawled in a long wicker chair under his carriage porch. Half a dozen empty beer bottles littered the gravel around him, and a servant squatted on his hunkers at the edge of a flowerbed nearby. Bulstrode was wearing sandals, filthy white trousers, and a dress shirt--the latter unbuttoned and not tucked into the trousers. He grunted when he saw them but did not attempt to get up, and showed no surprise.
“Ha! Good morning to you both. Chokra, tie the sahib’s horse to the tree, and bring beer. Miss Langford, you take beer? Good girl! Now, you haven’t sense enough to know this is the best time for paying friendly calls, so--what’s the matter?”
He shifted slightly in his chair, and the little eyes glinted towards Rodney. Hesitantly at first, then with increasing assurance, Rodney told his story; when he had finished, Caroline filled in the gaps.
The colonel listened intently and did not stir except to bury his face from time to time in his mug of beer. At the end of the tale he wiped the froth from his beard and moustache, hawked noisily, and spat the phlegm accurately at a red-and-black moth perched on a pillar of the verandah. He started scratching among the jungle of hair on his chest. “First things first. No one’s to go haring round in the middle of the night after these fellahs. They’re slow--got forty-seven miles to go--catch ‘em tomorrow if we want to. The Dewan won’t be with ‘em when we do. He’ll have a horse meet him somewhere in the jungles. Right. Now, Dellamain’s certainly taking bribes from someone. Known that for two years. Why? Because he wants to retire, go home, buy himself a seat in Parliament. Wants to finish his book--Fiscal Policy and Land Tenure,” some name like that; knows a hell of a lot about it--well, I suppose someone’s got to. Fellah dreams day and night of seeing his name in The Times-- The Right Honourable Sir Charles Dellamain, P.C., etcetera, etcetera. Would, too, in politics at home--very capable fellah, straight as a corkscrew.” He transferred his scratching to the rolls of fat on his stomach. “I don’t like him--don’t care a damn about bribes of course, but he’s an oily, gutless four-letter man. Proved it at Kishan Falls, eh? Beats me how he’s got into this. Take a few diamonds to wink at rajahs’ little vices--burning wife alive, running boy brothels --that’s one thing. Help fellahs run guns, that’s another, and damned dangerous. Should’ve thought it’d have given him the wind up. Anyway, he won’t have the carts chased if he can help it, fear of what might come out. If I ask him to, he’ll choke me off somehow, make his own inquiries later.”
