by John Masters
It was useless to cry for mercy or call them by name. They were only more angry that he knew them, more intent to kill, so that none who had seen this moment should live to tell what he had seen. But he had to live, he had to rescue Robin. Panic choked his throat. The dark faces closed in.
The night split apart and the fire darkened. A violet flash leaped out and up to all horizons and the sky. Solid white-hot air thudded against his eardrums and pressed him without pain into the dust. Long rocket streamers, vivid sparkling scarlet, streaked up into the smoke clouds. A noise began and roared and quaked without cease, and the earth shuddered. Bricks and stones crashed among the crowd. Bulky shapeless things droned overhead and splintered distant trees. The upper half of a sepoy’s scarlet-coated torso squelched by his side and skidded away towards the gaol. The magazine had exploded.
Tom and Prissy Atkinson awoke with a start, together. Tom’s yoke trembled. “Ayah, kya hogya?” Big dark shadows moved about their room, and Mummy had gone to help the stork who was bringing Auntie Dotty a new baby. There were bangs and flashes outside, and big ugly things in the room, smudged and vague through the mosquito net, and Ayah didn’t answer. Prissy began to whimper: the bogey man had come to get her, the bogey man with the purple face and the black hat and the steel claws. She screamed in a hiccuping crescendo, rhythmic, hysterical. The mosquito net ripped.
Victoria de Forrest lay awake, naked and uncovered, on her bed. A drowsy tenderness made her face lovely, and she touched her skin with the tips of her fingers, and her tongue moved. Eddie Hedges, asleep and naked, lay with his back against hers, and his lips, which she could not see, curled in a thin sneer. She looked at the shape of his head in the darkness. His clothes were scattered in an untidy heap on the floor. Her father would never come in, but perhaps Eddie had better get back--there seemed to be a fire somewhere, and a disturbing, whispering noise. He must marry her, she loved him so; but he said his debts were so great, and he was so keen on his work. He’d be famous, and the old sticks who had such a down on him would be jealous. No one knew him as well as she did. She’d wait; this was worth all the world and all the sneers--this. She stirred and felt the warmth of fruition, here, and here, and here. She didn’t care. He’d have to marry her if it was true, and she knew in her womb that it was. She’d be the best wife in the world, for him; and she’d look after him; and he’d settle down and never want to roam any more. . . . The noise came suddenly close, right outside, there on the verandah, shots and shouts. Armed men burst in and fired before she could move hand or foot. Eddie was sitting up, naked, the sneer hard on his face. He fell back, and she fell across him. One sepoy turned them over with his bayonet; another spat on the floor and said, “Harlot! But he was like a good wild hawk, wasn’t he?”
Major Anderson, second-in-command of the 13th Rifles, was a bachelor and lived alone. When something awakened him he sat up, pulled the mosquito net aside, and pushed his head out. He fumbled in the dark for the matches, snarling, “What the hell’s all this row? Who are you? What’s the matter?” He struck a match. Eyes glinted in the sudden light, and he saw ghostly grey and silver uniforms. A trooper raised his carbine and stepped forward. The breath choked in his throat. He was alone, and his heart cried out, Not me, not me. You can’t! The match burned his fingers. Alone with a tiny light, alone among crowds, alone in the grave, alone for ever in the whistling desert of eternity. He loved no man or woman or child. The match went out, and the trooper fired.
Moti, the Savages’ ayah, had not slept. The word passed at dusk, and she lay trembling, her head wrapped in her sari. She heard Rodney come in and look at her. This is the night. She didn’t want to die. The gods had found out that she mixed the ergot to give Savage-memsahib a miscarriage last year. They’d told the sahib. It was wicked, and the gods would kill her now, or the sahib would. The darkness quaked, and her teeth rattled. In her village there were vengeful spirits and ghosts and hobgoblins. The sahib didn’t kill her that time. He’d come to make sure she was there to be killed as soon as he was ready. When the fireglow lit the room she rose silently and scurried out of the house. In the fields she turned south and stumbled towards the city. She’d stay with the corn chandler’s wife. If it was all right tomorrow, she’d come back. She’d tell the memsahib she’d had an attack of malaria and lost her memory.
Lady Isabel Hatton-Dunn clenched her hands until the nails cut her palm, and lay still with eyes closed. She screamed continuously, but not too loudly. She and Priscilla Atkinson had come straight from the party to the van Steengaards’, to await the arrival of Dotty’s baby. Almighty and most merciful God, give me strength and mercy. It was dark, and Priscilla lay in the corner, crumpled, half-naked, raped, and dead. Assistant-Surgeon Herrold was dead. Their blood ran sluggishly across the floor and under the bed, where Dotty hid. She hadn’t had her baby yet; the waters had broken an hour ago, and travail had begun. If she, Isabel, could make noise they wouldn’t hear Dotty’s groans. She kept up her screams, not feeling the man who grasped her and sweated to his climax. Scream again, carefully, just right. Let another sepoy replace the first--ho, the fourth, that was. Make a noise carefully, just right. Geoffrey must be dead, Willie dead, Priscilla dead, Rodney dead. Scream, but not too frantically, just right, so that they will keep on, and not kill me and drown my cries. She opened her eyes suddenly. They were dragging Dotty’s grotesque body out from under the bed. Lady Isobel cut her scream short and began to fight in desperate silence. The man rolled off her and did not fight back. All struggling stopped, and they watched a baby’s birth. She lay panting and tried to hope. The sepoys’ faces were tender. They were farmers, and their faces became shining and alight. One knelt to help the struggling girl. Another sprang with tormented eyes out of the shadows. He swore, kicked the helper aside, fired his rifle, and stamped with his booted feet. Isabel watched the muzzle come round on her, and felt the bayonet point slide in.
Subadar Narain lay half stunned among the crowd outside the courthouse, quite close to Rodney. He watched Rodney get up and run, and lifted his pistol, then slowly lowered it. Turning, he looked straight into Naik Parasiya’s angry eyes. The naik’s teeth were clenched; he said, “We have to kill them now, Subadar-sahib. Anyone who is not for us is against us.” The Mohammedans of the 60th were running together; they dribbled at the mouth and screamed, “Din! Din! Din!” The subadar climbed shakily to his feet. Madness. What could he do if this was happening all over India? He’d wait and see, and try to get control of them again when they calmed down.
Fifty yards away Ensign Horace Simpkin died quickly. His clothes were blown off him, and flash burns covered the front of his body from forehead to feet. He was blind and dying, and the Union Jack waved somewhere above in a lightning-shot murk of pain. When he saw that the 88th had mutinied, he had run to blow up their magazine. That would take away their power; the 13th and 60th would have time to come to the rescue; he’d save Bhowani for England. That was what he meant to do. But a piece of Indian timber, whirled by fire, did it a second earlier. The magazine blew up in his face. He was dying, and he remembered his debts. It was his duty as an officer and a gentleman to repay the moneylenders what he had borrowed, and the interest at twelve per cent per month. Captain Savage had lent him fifty rupees. He wouldn’t leave an estate big enough to pay them. He wriggled on the ground and groaned. Emma--it was his duty to support her, and she said she was starving. The Union Jack blurred until it was only the blood-red St. George’s Cross of England, flying above the winds of agony, fluttering and whipping at the staff while black smoke boiled round it.
Harriet Caversham woke to a smell of burning. She sat up, sniffed and nudged her husband sharply. “Eustace, something is on fire. Go and see about it at once.” Lieutenant Colonel Caversham was singing an aria in a golden tenor, while the thousands who filled the mighty hall wept and applauded. He heard and obeyed, still three-parts asleep, his mind singing. A line of flame ran across the ceiling cloth, and he saw that the thatch above was
on fire. Blinking, he guided his wife out before him on to the verandah, so that the sepoys among the trees shot her first. She fell back dead into his arms. He stared down at her and out at the lawn. The flames silhouetted him and made him a perfect target but it took them three more shots. To the last he had no faintest notion of what it was that kept smashing into his stomach and chest.
Two-Bottle Tom Myers was in his own room. His wife and Rachel slept in the next room and sometimes one or the other would come and sit with him, but he was alone now. He lay fully clothed on his bed, gripping the wooden frame and watching the ceiling. God the All-Terrible advanced on him in cloud and fire and a wrinkling spread of grey, lined with scarlet. God the punishing Father came like a scorpion, and the scorpion crawled over his head, curled its tail, was large and larger, grey and black, and lined with scarlet. Let there be no mercy. Let my sweat run and my blood come, and the silent scorpion stride down with giant strides. I have sinned against heaven, and in Thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son. Others see me and follow me, and I do not die. Strike. The wrath of God struck down in light. The brilliance blinded him and seared him. The hand of God came out of the violet light and pressed him down and smothered him. His bladder and bowels emptied, he jerked once, and closed his eyes with a smile. The sepoys, creeping into the stench a minute later with a lamp, did not touch him for he was clearly dead. There was no secret leader here, and they muttered prayers and ran out of the bungalow. Mother Myers and Rachel huddled together in the next room, listening to the silence.
Lachman the bearer ran fast through cantonments, the cook’s carving knife in his hand. He thought fast, too: the goldsmith in the Street of the Metalworkers had a room at the back to shelter them for a few days, and could get a horse somehow. Sher Dil hadn’t been a bad old man--for a Mohammedan--but he’d really been showing his age these last two years. He presumed too much; it wasn’t right or dignified that the great Captain Savage-sahib should be called Rodney-sahib as if he were still a baby. Now that the sepoys had killed the old fool, Savage-sahib would certainly promote him Lachman, to butler. Then he could serve the sahib for ever, and be near him, and the work would be most properly done. The sepoys--treacherous swine, they’d catch it when Savage-sahib was able to get back at them. But Lachman had to find him first and help him to escape, or they’d murder him. He’d thought of everything: knife, money --all his own savings and all his wife’s gold trinkets--hidden pistol, ammunition, set of native clothes. He’d get the sahib away all right. Sepoys stopped him from time to time, and he always answered, “I’m looking for my sahib. I want to kill him, or at least stick this into his corpse, the bullying white swine!”
Ursula Herrold held the sides of her cot and giggled. She loved the shakos and the dark faces--nice hard hands to lift and swing and tickle, much better and harder than Ayah could, nearly as nice as Daddy. Gurgle and shout. This always made them laugh and lift her up when she was out for a walk with Ayah and met them. “Cummany! lef-righ-lef-righ!” She stamped her bare feet in time with her own shout, and crowed down the muzzle of the rifle.
The Rani of Kishanpur stood on her battlements in a hushed night. A dust storm had raved about the fort at dusk, whipping the trees in crazy fury, and it was cooler. She faced west, gripping the edge of the stone and feeling its roughness with her hands. She saw nothing out there and knew she never would see anything except the silent river and the jungle. She swallowed from time to time and waited there until the sun came up behind her. Then she ran down to her son on his cushions and hugged him, and did not leave the room all day.
The battering pandemonium stopped. Rodney heard men shouting “Din! Din!”; others near him lay breathless and open-mouthed against the earth. He scrambled to his feet and ran round the back of the court, northward through the gardens. Behind him the crowd breathed, all together, like a huge animal, but there was no pursuit. He did not think anyone had seen him go.
He worked towards his own bungalow as fast as he could, stumbling, climbing awkwardly over walls, dodging past servants’ quarters. He had no weapon; one thing at a time --get to Robin and Joanna. His head ached fiercely and his eyes brimmed over; shock and strain were physical hurts, as definite as the agony of his burns. He knew a sudden reasonless certainty that on this night all India had exploded into smoke and fire, that all its millions would be his enemies and he would find no pity or shelter in all its miles of plain and jungle. To right and left the bungalows burned, and outside each one men moved about in silhouette. Some of them were shouting excitedly and firing rifles; in others the first panic of fear had gone, so that they stood about in whispering knots.
And, kneeling in the shallow irrigation ditches, lying face down across the well copings, spread-eagled in the flowerbeds, crumpled in the dusty paths, lay the broken and the dead. There were white and brown, master and servant and sepoy; a disjointed body at the foot of the Sculleys’ garden wall; a girl in a nightgown, armless under a jacaranda; a sepoy across her, bayoneted; bright flames from a bungalow, and shrieks, where a woman burned alive and troopers waited, carbines ready. That was the Cummings’. Isobel would have been with Dotty van Steengaard; Caroline too, perhaps. He checked his pace--but he couldn’t stop now. A ripple of insane expectation changed his pain to pleasure.
He’d split a sepoy apart with a steel edge, drag his entrails out slowly, by hand, while the man still lived. His eyes flared in his blackened face, and blood ran out under his fingernails.
At the lower wall of his own garden he saw that the bungalow, the servants’ quarters, and the stables were on fire. He heard the horses screaming and the beating of then-hoofs against the walls and doors. Something in white lay on its back near the carriage porch; straining his eyes, he thought it was the corpse of Sher Dil. Ten or eleven sepoys of the 88th wandered around the garden, searching aimlessly. The flames picked out their scarlet coats, white trousers, white crossbelts, and immensely high black shakos, and twinkled on crests and buttons. He had seen them a score of times like that, round campfires. He ran straight forward on them, his hands open.
The cry choked in his throat and he knelt quickly. Beneath his feet a face glistened dark and wet in a bed of canas. The dull scarlet flowers were crushed down, and beside the face there was a white bundle. He put out his hands and touched them. His batman Rambir, shot in the throat and chest, lay on his back with his hands crooked up. His son Robin lay beside Rambir, face down in his nightshirt, the back of his head a black and clotted blur. Rodney felt the skull gently and thought it was not broken. Blood still trickled under the fair hair and dripped on the earth. They must have held him by the ankles, dashed him once against a wall or a tree, and thought they’d killed him. Rodney gathered him up and pressed him, kissing the round face and purple eyelids. The boy breathed in quick shallow gasps. The sepoys still moved about the lawn.
One of them stopped by the banyan tree across the drive and looked up into it. At once he shouted in triumph to the others, and they all ran together under the tree’s drooping air roots. The first man scrambled into a fork and on up out of sight. The leaves shook, a woman screamed. Joanna crashed through the branches and fell sideways on the hard earth. Rodney held his son tighter and slipped slowly over the edge of reason. He must go to her, and his son was alive in his arms. He must go; his arms crept down, he could not make his muscles obey; slowly he laid his son in the flowers. He climbed to his feet and lurched forward.
At the first stride a blow smashed against the side of his head and he reeled into the earth. He fought to hold consciousness, fought murderously to get on, his legs still running, his eyes forward. The thing behind hit him again. Heavy bodies pressed down on his back. A hand that smelled of smoke and sweat clapped over his mouth. He closed his jaws on it, tearing at the flesh until the bones grated in his teeth.
Two sepoys dragged Joanna round the lawn by her ankles. Her hair trailed on the grass, and her embroidered white nightdress rode up over her thighs. She shrieked and moaned as
they bayoneted her in the breasts and belly and face.
He was on his knees again, running on his knees, bursting towards her. A third blow exploded in his head, and the world expanded; he could just see her a hundred feet away, spread naked and dying under their bodies. A man sobbed into his ear, “Lie still, lie still. Do not look.”
He could not close his eyes. A harsh voice cried, “Enough!” She must be unconscious and nearly dead--Joanna, whom he had sworn to love and protect; Joanna whom he did not love and had not protected, his wife and Robin’s mother, who had not liked to be left alone with Indians.
“Lie still, sahib, or we’ll all die--the baby too. They are like mad dogs.”
Blood filled his mouth. The hand lay crushed and placid between his grinding teeth.
Her raw body quivered no more. A sepoy bent over with his rifle and put the muzzle to her ear. Still Rodney could not shut his eyes. At the explosion waves of fiery darkness engulfed him.
Later everything was the same, but reasonable. Men straddled his back and held him to the ground. That was fine; he was quite comfortable. A mangled hand lay in his tight-clenched mouth; it tasted sweet, of blood, and he let it drop. It was a beautiful night, hot, but beautiful and red-lit. Someone had burned his face with a torch. The buildings crackled merrily, and sepoys stared at the lovely light. Joanna had chosen to sleep out naked on the lawn. He knew by the stirring in the trees that dawn was near. He recalled an aimless bustling in the night, but now all was in order. He heard the familiar rhythm of marching men and the sound of a trumpet call--the Rally--blown twice from somewhere in the 60th’s fines. It was indeed a beautiful smoky scarlet night.
One of the men on his back was muttering urgently, something about the dawn coming; the other grunted. Rodney recognized the voice and the grunt now--that cocksure little beast Ramdass, and dear gloomily silent old Harisingh.
