Nightrunners of Bengal

by John Masters

  “Stand at ease. Thank you, Jemadar-sahib. It seems to have been well done.” He glanced round. “Tell them I said so, please.”

  The irregular succession of carriages swept round the curve of the drive. Godse gave a curt command to fall in. As the sepoys stood in the ranks Rodney looked closely at their dark wet faces and saw that their eyes followed the carriages and the children. Their expressions were unusually taut still, but he knew they loved children and they loved a party, and to have the two together would be bliss.

  On an impulse he said, “Jemadar-sahib, any men who want to stay and watch the party may do so--but they must keep out of sight, round the end of the lawn here. March off the rest, please.”

  They shuffled their feet, and Rodney repeated the permission, adding with a smile, “Come on, my sons. There’ll be some toys left over for your children.” Several men moved to leave the ranks then, but others were as anxious to dissuade them. Jemadar Godse compressed his lips and said nothing. Naik Parasiya, bursting out with an odd suppressed passion, urged them all to come back to the lines because here they would only get in the sahibs’ way. In the end four or five fell out; the rest marched off at the super-quick step of a Rifle regiment, their white trousers jerking away left-right into the fading heat, their knees always a little bent in the Indian manner.

  Rodney turned and heard the carpenter’s whine at his back. “Your Majesty, Your Highness, you are my father and my mother . . .”

  “What is it, Piroo?”

  “Your Honour is a mighty hunter. Would Your Honour be graciously pleased to come and shoot a tiger out at Devra tonight?”

  The words were set in the form that custom demanded, but the tone of voice carried an urgency and, more than that, almost a rasp of command.

  Rodney stared at the wrinkled gnome. “How do you know there’s a tiger near Devra? Oh, of course, you own land there, don’t you? But tonight? I can’t possibly. Next time he kills I’d like to, Piroo.”

  “Come tonight!”

  Piroo spoke harshly, using neither honorific titles nor polite forms. In all the years Rodney had known him it was the first time there had been no grovelling abasement in his voice. He blinked in astonished anger. “It’s impossible. Dismiss!” He nodded curtly and walked away from Piroo towards the carriage porch.

  There, at the head of the steps, the members of the ladies’ reception committee were receiving the station, greeting with marmoreal formality people they had seen nearly every day for years past and would see every day for years to come. Mrs. Bulstrode wore russet brown, and the rims of her eyes were as usual a little red. Mrs. Caversham glittered in an electric blue which emphasized the bony angles of her body; as usual her lips were pursed, and as usual she looked like a soured schoolmistress. Victoria de Forrest stood with them, by right of being her father’s housekeeper. A virginal white dress accentuated the overblown ripeness of her figure. The gossip about her affair with Eddie Hedges was growing virulent, and she held her head up defiantly. All three wore poke bonnets, and lace quilling framed their faces with varied effect. Mrs. Bulstrode fiddled nervously at a brown silk reticule.

  As Rodney approached, Captain and Mrs. Ernest Cumming of the 88th stepped out of their victoria and slowly ascended the steps. They were a nice, rather shy pair, he thought, who were turned in on each other by their childlessness--but she did carry her nose in the air, now that he looked at it. Perhaps she did it because her husband couldn’t ride a horse like a gentleman; perhaps, if he had been a superb horseman, she would not have acted so foolishly in the matter of the bedpan.

  Strange currents stirred the reception committee. Mrs. Caversham froze and stared gelidly at the Cummings as though they were little children detected making a mess in the corner of the classroom. Mrs. Bulstrode scurried forward, stammering an involved and overly warm greeting. Victoria de Forrest opened and shut her mouth, like a voluptuous cod stunned and thrown on the floorboards of a boat. Rodney smiled wryly. By God, Geoghegan had been speaking the unvarnished truth for once; already the sides were drawn up for the Battle of the Bedpan.

  The six-year-old Atkinson twins, Tom and Prissy, rushed up and seized his arms. “Uncle Rodney, Uncle Rodney, when’s Robin coming? We want to play with Robin.”

  Their eagerness cheered him; he was not related to them, but in India all English children, called all English grownups Uncle or Aunt. They had adopted Robin as a wonderful new kind of animated doll. Rodney laughed down at them.

  “He’ll be here soon. Let’s go to the swings; that’s where he’ll come.”

  “Ooh! Did you put up the swings, Uncle?”

  “The sepoys did, Prissy. I--er--told them what to do.”

  They pulled him through the scattered groups forming on the grass. Two-Bottle Tom was there, shiny white of skin, atremble and ill, walking a little behind the matronly bulk of his wife. Mother Myers, flushed with pride, hung on her son’s arm and plainly wished he could have been in uniform, like Rodney. At the swings Rodney handed the twins over to Geoghegan and flopped in a chair to watch. Rachel Myers was here too. She stared alternately at Torrance and Geoghegan, and each stare was loaded with soul-force. Only an expert could tell that Torrance basked in ethereal admiration, while Geoghegan wallowed in a bath of mercy and pity. The veterinarian was not an expert; from time to time he glanced nervously at the girl and secretly fingered his clothes to see whether he had left any buttons undone.

  The children swung and shouted, and Rodney drooped. Where did that fearful enthusiasm come from? Where along the road from childhood did it vanish? Or did it trickle away all the time, unnoticed, until one day you found you didn’t care a damn about anything? Was it a childish thing to thrill to the ripple of a galloping horse? He licked his lips; he’d like a drink.

  The carriages rolled to a stop under the porch. Each woman, with the billows of her crinoline, occupied a seat wide enough for three, while her husband and children huddled opposite. The committee greeted them, and then they came out on to the grass, and when they were close it could be seen that their faces were wet and their hands damp and their dresses already a little crumpled. For a minute or two the children would walk primly beside the parents. As the grown-ups stopped to gossip, the children broke free and ran among the flowerbeds, yelling to each other in Hindustani and English, until their shrill clamour invaded every corner of the lawn. No one could tell boys and girls below six apart, unless he knew them, because all wore white dresses and several petticoats, and all had long curls flowing over their shoulders. The bigger girls looked like dolls which might have been made by women of another generation, for they were dressed in the adult fashions of twenty years before; their skirts were shorter and less full than the modern crinolines, and showed their pantalettes beneath.

  The bigger boys glowered sullenly as “Aunts” exclaimed over their finery. Peter Peckham, aged seven, wore elastic-sided brown boots, cotton stockings barrel-striped in blue and green, full-hipped tartan trousers ending an inch below the knee, a plaid gingham blouse, and a tam o’ shanter with a cockerel’s feather; he clutched his mother’s hand and frowned ferociously at the grass. Master William Osbert Ransome-Frome, ten, wore a sailor suit and a ribboned straw hat. Master Timothy Osbert Ransome-Frome, eight, wore stockings and kilt of the sickly Dress Stewart tartan, and full Highland trappings, and Rodney found time to wish that the Queen had never heard of Balmoral. Albert Bulstrode, nine, wore a blue Dutch boy’s costume; its high-crowned maroon velvet cap, with short peak and long tassel, clashed in anguish with his ginger hair and freckled face.

  Joanna came at last and brought Robin down to the swings. She swished off again immediately, saying she had promised to play croquet with the Commissioner. The twins pounced on Robin and brought him dolls. True to his age, he left the dolls and became very busy about the task of moving every twig on the lawn six inches from where it had been before, talking to himself as he worked.

  Rodney watched, absorbed; he’d give anything to know, to understand, w
hat went on inside all those small heads. The place swarmed with children; one never appreciated how many there were in Bhowani until they all came together at a party like this. The voices of scolding mothers rose shriller and more often. The Club servants came out carrying trays loaded with glasses of boiled milk, cakes, and mangoes. He saw by the groupings of the women that many men must already have slipped away to the bar.

  Lady Isobel put her hand lightly on his sleeve. “Rodney, you go and enjoy yourself. I’ll keep an eye on Robin for a while.” He thanked her with a smile and worked his way over to the croquet pitch.

  A mixed foursome--he thought he’d never seen one quite so mixed--moved slowly from hoop to hoop, tapping in succession at the coloured croquet balls. Joanna and Mr. Dellamain were playing against Mrs. Hatch and Swithin de Forrest. Dellamain played well, with only a small part of his attention on the game. The fingers of his left hand hovered always at the brim of his tall hat, ready to lift it an inch or two in gracious recognition of the salutations due to him. His glance flickered across Rodney’s face, and Rodney saluted. The grey hat rose, the full lips smiled, the eyes were sad and worried.

  Joanna made a deft shot, and Rodney joined in the applause while she stood in a pretty attitude, resting both hands on the shaft of her mallet. Mrs. Myers rolled by, making a heavy bow; Joanna contrived to smile at Mr. Dellamain and simultaneously to rake Mrs. Myers with an icy stare. Rodney glowered as he followed the players to the next hoop. If he had to take sides in the bedpan battle he would prefer to be in Mother Myers’ camp. Swithin de Forrest played an expressionless and fairly efficient game, speaking seldom and then only to give his partner, Mrs. Hatch, a word of cold advice. Rodney saw that Joanna was behaving as if Amelia Hatch had no part in this game, was not in Bhowani, did not exist; she was boiling with bewildered secret pique that Dellamain had invited a sergeant-major’s wife to play with them; she hadn’t learned yet even how to condescend graciously.

  “Mrs. Hatch presents an unusual spectacle, does she not?”

  That was Caroline Langford’s voice, strangely stilted, from just behind him. At a party ten days ago she had tried to talk to him about Kishanpur; but there was nothing to say. He had known she wasn’t satisfied then, and here she was again. She’d bring up the old subject unless he could stop her. He said, “She does.”

  He would not turn round; he would concentrate on Mrs. Hatch and the problem she represented. Each Native Regiment had, besides its British Officers, one British sergeant-major and one quartermaster-sergeant. They were the only Englishmen here not of commissioned rank and so, by definition, not of the upper classes. And of the six of them in Bhowani only Tom Hatch of the 88th had married a white woman; the rest kept Indian girls. Work kept Hatch busy, while Amelia had nothing to do but sip gin and fume over the wasteful incompetence of Indian servants. She’d never had servants before, and knew she could do the work better herself if she were allowed. She hated alike the loneliness of her bungalow and the condescension shown to her at such parties as this. She longed to gossip, and cut a fine figure, yet sometimes weeks passed without her talking to another Englishwoman. The gawky half-grown Hatch children were rolling their hoops apart from the rest even now, though Lady Isobel was trying to bring them into the games, and their clothes were as clean and smart as anyone’s.

  Mrs. Hatch had spared no effort in her determination to dress up to the officers’ ladies. Her snub-nosed cockney face glowed brick-red above a maroon pelisse of frilled cashmere. Her crinoline dress was made of lilac satin and was monstrously skirted. A tiny poke bonnet of lilac satin, profusely decorated with artificial flowers, was held on the back of her head by a broad maroon ribbon tying under her chin. Wisps of hennaed hair, grey-brown at the roots, straggled over her ears and forehead, and under the bonnet half of her bun had worked loose. Large black buttoned boots thrust out from underneath her dress. Even where he stood Rodney caught the gin on her breath; that explained how she was managing to enjoy herself.

  She moved erratically from hoop to hoop, flushing, giggling, curtseying frequently to de Forrest and Dellamain, eyeing Joanna ferociously, and swearing under her breath. He grinned suddenly to see her play off Joanna’s own trick against her. While simpering at de Forrest, she managed to say in a voice of boreal hauteur, “Ai don’t know, Ai’m sure, wot the position in ehr contest is, Mrs. Sewidge.”

  It was no good; Caroline still stood there behind his shoulder. He had nothing to say to her. He would not face her. She said in a voice pitched so that anyone nearby could hear, “I am leaving Bhowani on Tuesday, Captain Savage.”

  He turned in surprise and looked at her. He didn’t see why she wanted to go rushing off suddenly. If only she’d relax she could be a wonderful person to talk to. He said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  Lightning flashed behind her eyes and died. She said, “You are not!--I apologize. I believe you are.”

  A small hand tugged at his tunic, and he glanced down. Robin, bored with playing, had come to find him and stood now with his face shyly pressed against Rodney’s trousers. Rodney put down his hands and caressed the boy’s shoulders.

  Caroline said, “If I have made any trouble for you, I am sorry. Perhaps it’s all over now, as Colonel Bulstrode said. But I’m running away, really--which is stupid, because I cannot escape from myself.”

  He smiled, trying to bring out some lightness in her. It was difficult to smile though, because she was very slight, and very hurt; and because he was wondering if she could find in the whole world any place, any way of life, where she could fulfil herself; and because he did not think she could until she learned to laugh. She was so much his opposite that way. He could make her smile if he had the time--it didn’t matter now, because she was going.

  And that was just as well. Really, she’d been nothing but a damned nuisance. A man couldn’t survive here without his blinkers and she kept tearing them off.

  Joanna came up, her game finished. Pretending not to see Caroline, she stooped over Robin and cooed baby words into his ear. Caroline’s deep eyes glowed with the strangest grey fire as she looked down at them. Instinctively Rodney tightened his grip on his son’s shoulders and bent his brows on the girl. She turned and left them standing there.

  He swore silently and went up into the Club and through to the bar. It was full of men snatching a quick one before returning to their duties as husbands and fathers. On this special occasion, as on Christmas Day, the sergeants were allowed into the Club; they were all here, and the officers of their regiments were standing them drinks. Tom Hatch’s pleasant square face beamed shyly round; he was half drunk. Rodney called for a brandy and retired into a less crowded corner.

  A hand clapped him on the shoulder and he looked up angrily. It was Major Anderson. “Well, Savage. You see, the musketry went off all right, didn’t it?”

  “Thanks to the Silver Guru, sir.” He eyed the Major’s face, a few inches from his own. “I spoke to my company beforehand, reminded them how long we’d known each other--was it likely that I or any of us was going to try to destroy their religion?--asked them to trust me. But I found out afterwards they’d asked the Silver Guru, too.”

  “Insolence! And what did he say?”

  “He told them to obey orders--pointed out that if the rumours were true there would certainly have to be justice and absolution.” Rodney swirled the brandy around in his glass and averted his face; Anderson’s breath smelled sour. That affair, the Silver Guru’s intervention, was incongruous; but the man could hardly be expected to discard half a lifetime’s role as a religious oracle just because one or two people knew he was an Englishman and a part-time political intriguer. Angry again, Rodney looked up and said deliberately, “It wasn’t necessary, anyway.” That was what really annoyed him. The musketry could so easily have been put off until the air cleared. There was no need to bite the cartridges, because they could be torn open by hand; the movement was already out of the drill book.

  Anderson wagged a finger in
his face. “It was necessary, boy. You’ll learn. Give in in one place and you’ll never be able to stop. I was glad I was there to make you. So will you be--one day.”

  He sidled away through the crowd, and Rodney returned to his drink. Fragments of conversation floated into his ears. “The Derby? Tournament--fours. Gleesinger a thousand to fifteen, Blink Bonny twenty, but you’d throw your money away on a filly.” “Our lines are a disgrace. They’re not fit for pigs to live in, let alone sepoys of the Company. Why doesn’t... ?” “We’re going to Simla nex’ year. Mrs. Sculley insists, and ‘oo is Thos Jos to contradict?” “I assure you, Hedges, I wouldn’t serve with Queen’s troops if they paid me double. Five-and-twenty years I’ve been out here, and I assure you Johnny Sepoy is . . .” “No trouble at all. Except a couple of fools in Number Four. Curry B. clapped ‘em in the quarter guard. Court martial Tuesday. What? No, no nothing to do with the grease as far as I know. These two just refused to accept their percussion caps yesterday morning. Have a drink.” “A bedpan? There’s no need to whisper about it, I fear. You’re lucky, sir. My wife picked someone else’s flowers once, and great heavens...” “If Janki Upadhya is the next senior naik, then he must be promoted. Rheumatism’s got nothing to do with it. There’s no way round the regulation, and a dashed good thing too.”

  Rodney, moodily gulping his brandy, glanced up and intercepted an odd look of sympathy in Willie van Steengaard’s eye. Willie! His wife was due to have a baby any moment. Didn’t he have troubles enough of his own? Rodney scowled at his friend, set the glass down with a crash, and elbowed out of the room.

  The conjurer was near the end of his show. His ingratiating voice rattled on in Hindustani and broken English. The children looked peaked and pale; how could the poor little devils pick up stamina in this filthy climate, on this disgusting food? The conjurer waved his hand, and three pigeons flew out of his turban. Some children squealed, some cried fractiously, most stared glumly at the pigeons, now sitting in a row on a branch.