Nightrunners of Bengal

by John Masters

  Rodney thought back. Only once had he felt the presence of personal danger--when he first went into the temple-- and that was obviously an infection caught from the Silver Guru’s panic. It could not have been anything else, because by then he’d recognized the sepoys, and he knew that with a dozen of them he could calm or disperse any crowd. Bulstrode was still talking.

  “... Several things not clear still. Why did the Guru make that remark about the death of a tyrant, the one which worried Miss Langford here and started all this off? Only possible reason is face--fellah must be vain as a peacock. It worked; word got round, and he’s treated as a major prophet now. Then Sitapara’s message to you, miss, telling you to watch the Commissioner’s bungalow. Remember she was on the lookout for stuff connected with the murder of the old Rajah. You acted on the message, uncovered a bribe to Dellamain, and gun-running. Can’t make it out, quite. Perhaps I will later.” He looked up suddenly at Caroline Langford. “De Forrest, miss. Is he in it?”

  She must have been expecting the question, for she answered without hesitation, “No, Colonel, I am positive he is not. He saw all that I saw, but I am sure that his only motive in denying it was to be left alone again when----”

  She stopped short.

  “When what, miss?”

  “When I refused to marry him.”

  “H’m, you didn’t tell me that before. Well, that clears him anyway.”

  Rodney appraised the girl’s pale face; was she sorry that she had let out de Forrest’s secret? Was she angry that he had not allowed the Rani to be sacrificed on the altar of justice? Was she thinking how she could yet drag Dellamain to judgment?

  Bulstrode stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. “I haven’t got any morals, miss--don’t believe in ‘em--but by God I know this country. Those chupattis and bits of flesh --far more disturbing than this Kishanpur nonsense. They really worry me. Been devilling the Commissioner to find out. He’s doing his best, I know, but he gets nowhere. Then there’s my drunken coot of a second-in-command, Myers, and his goddamned God. I’ve told him I’ll have him court-martialled if he talks religion to our fellahs again; they’ve got a perfectly good religion of their own. The new cartridges--don’t like that either, but I’m trapped, same as Dellamain but different. Either I say they’re unclean, and as good as announce that the Company’s just tried it on to see whether the sepoys’d notice--or I say they’re not, and tell a lie which’ll be found out, because by God I believe they are unclean. Don’t like any of it. I know these people, and they’re in a damn funny mood. Never seen anything like it.”

  He brought down his eyes and fixed them on Miss Langford. It was clear that he was exerting himself to convince her. Peckham and Rodney were soldiers; they would merely receive his orders and obey.

  “Now miss, you’re a private person. If you don’t agree with me there’s only one thing for you to do--go to Mr. Colvin, the Lieutenant Governor, in Agra. If you do that, you’ll be doing it for one of three reasons: ruin the Rani for murdering the old Rajah; ruin Dellamain for taking bribes; air this plot because you think there’s treason behind it. First two things are up to you; the third I’ve told you --you may be doing England a great deal more harm than good. What about it?”

  Caroline looked down into her lap. “Can’t we help Mr. Dellamain escape from this circle of bribery and blackmail somehow?”

  Rodney started in surprise; Peckham shot her a friendly look; Bulstrode’s face was expressionless.

  “Not without getting him broke, miss. Anyway, now the cat’s out of the bag over there in Kishanpur, the Rani and the Dewan may come to some agreement. That’d settle the blackmail part.”

  She thought for a few seconds, and said, “It is hard. I do not like it, but I will abide by your decision.”

  “Right. I’ll be ready in a minute.”

  The colonel heaved himself upright and waddled into the bungalow. Peckham gathered up the papers and pretended to read through them again. Caroline remained in her chair, her eyes on the floor. Rodney got up, hitched his scabbard into his hand, and walked slowly down the verandah. She was trapped now, for here her abstract idealism became practical vindictiveness. She had turned out to be human after all, like everyone else, and she was very unhappy about it. He wished there were something he could say. It didn’t matter--one unpleasant hour with Dellamain, the hour whose shape ahead had made him uncomfortable all morning, and it would be over.

  Bulstrode came out, pushing the matting aside, and jammed on his shako. “Come on. Got those papers, Peckham?”

  At the Commissioner’s bungalow the doorkeeper wore scarlet and gold livery and a scarlet and gold turban, and a whistle of office hung from his neck on a silver chain. He led them along the verandah, past a row of salaaming Indians, and into the drawing-room. They sat in a semicircle of chairs, not speaking, and waited. A profusion of mahogany furniture filled the huge room; a triple punkah creaked overhead and hardly seemed to disturb the dust. Bulstrode spread his legs and dozed off. Rodney avoided Caroline’s eye. The Commissioner was going to make them wait, perhaps to impress on the Indians outside that he was the master of Bulstrode and the army too.

  Several visitors had been dispatched when the doorkeeper announced that now the Commissioner-sahib would be pleased to see the Colonel-sahib, the Major-sahib, the Captain-sahib, and the Miss-sahiba.

  Dellamain was standing behind his wide desk. He wore a formal dark grey frock coat, white trousers, white shirt, and thin black tie. Rodney saw afresh that he was big and intelligent, and afraid. Still, the Commissioner had full control of himself and greeted them jovially, though he must have guessed this was no ordinary call.

  “Miss Langford, Colonel, Major, Captain; I’m delighted. Please take chairs. Cigars, gentlemen? I think Miss Langford does not object to the weed. No? I must apologize for keeping you waiting, but I had much business to transact. The secret with an Indian visitor is never to sit down; then he cannot. I’m sure you make use of that principle, Colonel?” Bulstrode grunted and clanked his scabbard against the chair leg. Dellamain’s smooth flow continued. “Did you notice that last pair? They’re surveyors for the resettlement I have persuaded Government to undertake in this territory--at last!”

  Caroline interrupted. “What is resettlement?” Bulstrode frowned, Rodney bit his lip. It was a disease with her--find out! Then he saw in her face that, in part at least, she had spoken from a wish to make this interview less frightening for Dellamain.

  The Commissioner was delighted. “Resettlement, Miss Langford, is a process of land survey which has as its object the reassessment of the land’s agricultural capacity, and hence of the revenues to be collected from it in the way of taxes. In the process of settlement or resettlement we discover and record many facts concerning the ownership of land. It is a long, long task--this territory comprises six thousand nine hundred and eighty-three square miles--and will not be completed until long after my retirement. But it is essential. We are still working from the records taken over from the Rajahs of Kishanpur, and they are unbelievably inaccurate. We have to find the character of the soil, and assess the value of improved communications and irrigation. When we leased this territory from the Rawans in 1809 the old irrigation works were in decay, for instance; we have put some of them in order and begun to build better ones. Account must be taken of all these matters, and hundreds more, in the resettlement report. It is interesting. Look.”

  He spread his hand out on the wall map, dropped suddenly into natural English, and in a few crisp sentences made clear the complicated laws of land tenure, revenue, and inheritance, as they ruled in the territory at the time. He was brilliant and brief, and even Bulstrode had to nod his appreciation. The effect on Caroline was not quite what Rodney had expected; she was interested enough but she was also, he thought, a little jealous. She understood completely and wanted to use her own brain on problems as big and important as this; and she knew she was more hopelessly trapped than Dellamain. He could go to Engla
nd --when he had made his money--and earn recognition on the wider English stage. One day Palmerston, Gladstone, and Disraeli might acknowledge him, but she could not change her sex, or the traditions which manacled a woman’s capability.

  Bulstrode collected himself, shuffled his papers, and belched. In the silence he said, “Sorry to interrupt, Commissioner. Got an important report to make. Miss Langford, you begin.”

  Dellamain sat down rather suddenly. As though a hand had been passed over it, his face assumed an air of judicial command. For the third time in the week Caroline told her story. Rodney followed, looking away from Dellamain as much as he could, because he did not like to inflict hurt in cold blood or see the wounded squirm.

  The Commissioner paled slightly during the recitals; at the end he flushed a mottled red and raised his protuberant eyes to Bulstrode. He spoke slowly. “And you, Colonel, you permitted this? You ordered out cavalry behind my back?”

  George Bulstrode sucked his teeth and swivelled his bulk round to face the Commissioner. “Yes.”

  In the long harsh silence Rodney examined his toes. It was obvious now what Dellamain would say. After the long pause, he said it.

  He spoke with firmness and conviction. If his plump fingers had not fiddled with a round ebony ruler on the desk; if his voice had not gathered that canonical richness; if Bulstrode had not forecast his story so exactly, Rodney would have been glad to believe him. Caroline was right in seeing that he needed help. Bulstrode was right in seeing that the bribery was unimportant. Charles Dellamain was administering the Bhowani Leased Territory better than anyone else could have; the inner, frightened Dellamain somehow knew the land and the people. These myriads that he ruled did not care what bribes he took; he protected them and gave them peace and justice. What did it all matter compared with the resettlement, the tasks of building confidence and prosperity?

  Dellamain did not speak long. He denied that he took bribes or that he had ever countenanced smuggling of any kind. As to the details of the gun-running, he said he was well aware of them; that they were connected with a political matter so delicate and secret that it could not even be committed to paper. He was indeed surprised to learn from them that the Silver Guru was English; but he was glad to know it, because the Guru was an important link in his negotiations, and he, Dellamain, could now be more sure that his trust in him was not misplaced.

  At the last, he turned to the attack. He looked from Rodney to Caroline, ignoring Peckham, and spoke with heavy authority. “You two, abetted by Colonel Bulstrode. have been like mischievous urchins playing with gunpowder. Your amateur muddling interference might have endangered the British position in India, no less. I did all I could to discourage you, short of explaining to you things which you should not be allowed to know. You, sir”--he glanced at Rodney--”are a military officer, and less blame attaches to you than to your superior. But it is clear that your own lack of balance led you to fall in the more readily with his plans. And you, Miss Langford, must be regarded as the instigator of this foolishness. I have attempted to dissuade you. I have dropped hints to your cousin Lady Isobel, which must have reached you. I have appealed to the faith, integrity, and common sense I thought you possessed--in vain. Your faith is reserved for Indian rajahs; you blundered relentlessly on. Colonel Bulstrode, your conduct leaves me with an impression that you lack the sense of proportion appropriate to your high rank. Now”--he had regained full assurance as no one spoke or contradicted him--”let us all forget and return to our respective duties. I should not like my last six months in the Company’s service to be marred by ill feeling and mutual recriminations over this unfortunate affair.”

  “You’re retiring in six months? I didn’t know that.”

  “You do not, if I may say so once more, Miss Langford, know everything. Yes, I am going. I have been privately in touch with certain parliamentary figures at home and intend to devote myself to politics there.”

  He had not altered his voice much, but the last sentences carried the unmistakable plea: I’m so near escape from this labyrinth. Be kind.

  Bulstrode, who had closed his eyes during the Commissioner’s upbraiding, slapped a wad of papers on the table. “My official report to you--two copies. Sign one as a receipt please, Commissioner, and give it back to me.”

  Dellamain seized his pen and scribbled angrily. Bulstrode glanced down. “Time and date, please, Commissioner.”

  When they had been added he handed the signed copy to Peckham and rolled out of the room with a parting nod. The others followed. The Commissioner of Bhowani sat shrunk in his chair and stared at the sheets of white paper littering his desk.

  Bulstrode and Peckham went towards the station commander’s office; Rodney and Caroline walked slowly north through cantonments. Men were out scattering water from goatskins to lay the dust in the roads, and the smell was clean and fresh.

  Caroline said, “It goes down, layer below layer, each worse than the last. I wish I could believe, really believe, that we’ve uncovered the lowest layer of all. But I can’t. Can you?”

  He knew he could not. Down there in the depths were emotions and wisps of suspicion he could not even identify; he knew only that they made him uneasy, and ashamed.

  He did not speak, and the girl went on, her voice detached and sad. “I hear the Governor General has a big Georgian house in Calcutta, and the drawing-room is white and gold. I see him, poor man, sitting at a desk, looking out on the garden, and worrying over what will happen if there’s a rebellion in Kishanpur--not for long; he has too many things to worry about. He might know Mr. Dellamain’s name, but he wouldn’t know him.”

  Rodney nodded. The Governor General would know nothing of the nature of this Charles Dellamain who served him--the ability, the banked fires of ambition, the bribes.

  “Then the Rani plots, the Dewan plots, the Silver Guru plots. Mr. Dellamain puts a foot into one whirlpool and is dragged into another. Below, other little people plot and bribe.”

  And below again--what? She hadn’t been down that far; she didn’t know that down there it became impossible to separate good from evil. In trying, you met an eight-armed god and were of a sudden touched with his desires, ruled by his code of values. The humped white bull licked with a rough tongue; the night smelled of women and dried urine; smoke drifted across a frieze of endless copulation; there was a man in a bright coat, and he had a hawk and a knife, and others threw red and blue powder on him. Where was right, in this?

  “There are not two standards for us, for the English-- only one. We must keep our standard, or go home. We must not, as we do now, permit untouchability and forbid suttee, abolish tyranny in one state and leave it in another, have our right hand Eastern and our left hand Western. It is not that India is wicked; she has her own ways. If we rule we must rule as Indians--or we must make the Indians English. But we do neither; we are like Mr. Dellamain. We have one foot in a whirlpool. Sometimes I am sure we will be dragged into another and drowned. God will punish us for compromising. As He will punish me.”

  She turned abruptly into the Hatton-Dunns’, and Rodney walked on alone. She was wearing a pale blue dress today and a wide-brimmed hat. Her wrists were too fragile and her shoulders too thin to support the weight of her concerns. Now that he had studied her face more often he did not know why he had ever missed its beauty; perhaps because it was strong and always serious, especially the eyes. She must not lose that quality of seriousness--he knew too well how barren was a human being completely without it--but she must learn to stand away from it sometimes, and laugh. She had no right, at her age, to throw away her sense of humour and flay herself unrelentingly for the furtherance of God’s purposes. Didn’t God create laughter too? But she was so much kinder than she pretended; he wanted to help her.

  Cantonment life lay in wait to enfold him, as on his previous return from Kishanpur. Then he had for a time resisted the cushioning familiarity; now he would welcome it. Parades, drills, the Club; they would be again what they ha
d always been--the dull, strong fabric of living.

  April the eleventh. April, the mango showers and a lifting of the air at dusk. May, the blinding noon of heat; in May the sky was clean and blue, shading to iron-grey in the heat of the early afternoon. May was a breathless night on the lawn and the mosquito net flimsy as the veil of a ghost; or an evening dust storm, and they would sleep on the verandah while the watchman threw water, all night long, on the matting screens; or a stirring of the air at midnight when the earth under the trees cooled and the flower petals nodded. May was drought, parched throat at noon, 115 in the shade, the sun striking the parade ground and lashing back up into the eyes.

  In June the air would day by day become more humid, while heavy clouds passed overhead from southwest to northeast. The monsoon would reach Bhowani after the middle of the month--June the twentieth last year, June the nineteenth in ‘55, June the twenty-third in ‘54, June the eighteenth in ‘53. He remembered, as everyone did, the exact date of each annual rescue. There would be electric storms for a few days beforehand--high winds, thunder and dust, a heavy drop or two of rain. Then, on the first day of the monsoon, a tremendous storm of rain, lasting for hours; half a day’s pause--another storm; pause--another. When it rained, large drops fell slowly, then faster and thicker until they were almost a waterfall. It fell too fast for the earth to swallow it; it laid the dust, filled the rivers, and spread a surface of slippery mud on the hard earth. Later it slackened but fell still, a few hours at a time, all through July and August. Between the storms, white cumulus clouds sailed in a blue sky, the temperature was not much over 90, the air was washed clean and felt heavy with more rain and the sound of running water.

  In September the rains drizzled to an end. Water stood in the roads and fields, and every disease of India flourished. The earth was soft deep down, and replete; the little streams full, the big rivers overflowing, twenty, thirty, sixty feet above normal, depending on the shape of the banks; the formerly brown grass green, the roof of the jungle green, the night awhirr with moths and flying beetles.