Nightrunners of Bengal

by John Masters

  One by one, as he met their eyes, they had acknowledged that they knew him. Father d’Aubriac smiled, Mrs. Hatch exclaimed loudly, but none of the others spoke. A flicker of something passed over, and then they were again as they had been--wide dry eyes, slack lips, taut cheeks. His head nodded and he tried to think what ailed them, and himself. Not fright --only Dellamain’s always-moving eyes showed fright. He looked again, and this time saw, mirrored in the refugees, his own shame. They were naked in their minds, stripped of faith and trust by the same blast that had destroyed wealth, family, and position. Naked, they did not want to see or be seen.

  He walked slowly to a vacant bed and lay down. Caroline glanced at him and carried Robin over to John McCardle. He heard them talking; the tiny whispers boomed in his head.

  “Mr. McCardle, can you do anything for Robin--Robin Savage? He’s bad.”

  “One moment. We’ll finish wi’ Mr. Geoghegan here.” A long silence. “Now, miss, wha’s this muck on the child’s held?”

  The whispering faded. Robin whimpered, and Rodney gripped the frame of the bed while sweat sprang out on his face. He’d have to leave it to Caroline, because the ceiling was floating away and the darkness coming. He shut his eyes.

  18

  The sun shone level through the grilles and traced a geometrical design on the wall above his head. The aura of despair had lightened; the room was not cheerful, but he heard a murmur of talking, and the refugees moved about as men and women move, instead of dragging themselves like ill-handled puppets. Caroline was at his bed; she gave him a cold chupatti and milk from a brass bowl. He ate and looked at her, and followed her with his eyes when she went to help Louisa Bell with the baby and afterwards came back. Robin was asleep.

  Dellamain was talking to someone in a dark corner; Rodney heard a few words. “. . . ghastly disaster . . . dastardly scoundrels . . . troubles over now, my dear lady . . . every reason to believe the outbreak was confined to Bhowani . . .”

  The Commissioner’s voice had recovered its fruity timbre; that meant he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t be, because his words made nonsense, and he must know it.

  Rodney munched the chupatti and muttered to Caroline, between mouthfuls, “He knows, but he pretends not to. We’ll never sleep again. We’ll never trust a soul. What did he see? Oh, God!” The moths were fluttering away with his sanity. He put his hands to his head and rocked to and fro. “Shyamsingh’s face. Thaman, Vishnu, Thirteenth Rifles, to me!”

  He laughed, and Caroline was there, holding his shoulders. She knew, she understood; he stared up at her. She was appraising him for some reason, seeing how strong he was, testing whether he was broken quite into little child-pieces. He sat up and said quietly, “Well?”

  Something was coming which she must force herself to say. He jerked round to see if Robin had died in his sleep, but the boy’s chest rose and fell regularly.

  To stop the shaking in him he folded his arms and stretched out his legs. She was bending over him, and in the shifting windows of his mind her breasts were tight and her thighs perfect, smoothly shaped. He looked at her in dumb anguish. It was God’s punishment to thrust that piercing-sweet desire into his wonder of her. She was his elder sister and his mother; she would protect him and guide him. Robin was hers, not his, because he and Robin were equally children and equally helpless. She looked down at him through a rent in the veil; he could for the instant touch the sanity of her world, and know it was cold and shadowed. She had taut pointed breasts, and he could have kissed them, but she was weighing him like a little boy to be told bad news. He saw her as once in a long time, out of nowhere, without words, a little boy sees his mother and is bowed by the weight of her anxiety and holds her hand to comfort her. Wondering, he touched her fingers.

  Sister with the fragile neck and blue-veined wrist, what have I to do? Shall I tell you a story? ... Of a Jack-a-Manory? Shall I kiss it and make it better? When I was a little boy, and my mother was worried, and I saw it and was very good for her sake--she cried. I don’t understand.

  She dragged her words up one by one. “Robin is a little better, but--the Silver Guru was in the courtyard as we came in. He moved away. It was too late. I saw him.”

  He said, “He escaped? I was afraid they might find out he is English.”

  She braced herself once more, and her voice was sharper-edged.

  “Listen. I can understand how the Rani had to make peace with the Dewan when you uncovered the plot against her. But she had no need to forgive the Silver Guru. You know her better than I. Is it likely she would? If the Guru is here, the Rani has no quarrel with him. So the guns were not for a revolution against her; they were for rebellion against us. Colonel Bulstrode did not say it was impossible; he said it would be ridiculous, because the Bengal Army could crush all the princes put together.”

  Rodney giggled suddenly.

  She went on. “And now I have seen the one thing that we were never to see--that you must have been so near to seeing the night of the Holi, the night the Silver Guru lied to you. You saw all the people who were supposed to be plotting against each other--the Rani, the Dewan, the Guru, the ringleaders of the sepoys. It must have been a terribly important meeting, perhaps their last, the one where they confirmed their plans. And you came so close. A few minutes later and you would have seen them together, not separately. They would have killed you, I suppose. Captain Savage--Rodney--we must not be blind again. Please, please see. O Almighty Father, please not again, not too late again.”

  He listened to her urgency and struggled to encompass and acknowledge the meaning of the phrases. He mumbled, “We’re all right. Silver Guru’s an Englishman. Lots of reasons he could be here--may’ve run for his life like us, come to make his peace, come to preach. Sumitra wouldn’t harm us. I saved her life. Anyway, it’s not true!”

  She wanted to believe him, and the glow in her eyes died to an unwilling point of grey flame. Robin babbled something; Rodney turned towards him. Bandages enswathed the small head and hid the fair hair.

  When Rodney looked back, Caroline’s lips were hard set; he cowered under her harsh whisper. “There is no rest. We’re exhausted with horror. We think we can’t face any more of it. We’re sick from shame and horror. Mr. Dellamain’s useless, he’s trapped by his past, he’s blind! He thinks he has a hold over the Rani, but it’s the other way round. We’re prisoners; there’s a guard on the door. You and I are the only ones who know enough to see the truth. And you’ve given up, like the child you are. You’re not going to lie down and get better, not this time. You killed them all in Bhowani because you wouldn’t see the truth about the Rani. You don’t care about Robin, but you’re not going to kill me. Get up! Self-satisfied prig, lazy lecherous cad, baby!”

  The words rattled round his ears: sister, telling him to be a man, failing to coax, desperately trying to prick his little boy’s pride. But he wasn’t a little boy any more. He stared at Robin’s bandaged head and knew she was right. He was possessed in that moment by the exact and terrible shape of the demon beyond the curtain. He snarled, “Shut up! Go away! Leave me alone!”

  He sprang off the bed and walked aimlessly across the room. Damn, damn, damn her! Prisoners. His eyes glittered; the walls were thick, the room sixty feet above the river. Another slaughter--in here; blood soaking into the carpets; perhaps it would be in the dungeons with the bats. Sane, cold clear sane. He’d have to kill someone--people--the more the better.

  What if these fears were fantasies? The Rani might harm the refugees; flight would certainly kill most of them. They were frail and battered, and at this burning season half of them would die, including Robin. Disease swept the fields and travelled the roads; they’d die in the jungles, foodless and without shelter.

  The others were looking at him strangely. He stopped his; pacing and cried, “I’m going to see the Rani.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  He heard the gasp of relief in Caroline’s voice. He twisted the iron ring of the door
handle and when the door did not open tugged harder, hammered with his hands on the wood, and shouted, “You outside there! Open the door!”

  Feet approached leisurely down the passage, and a man called through, “What do you want?”

  “Open this door at once. I am Captain Savage. Miss Langford and I wish to see Her Highness at once.”

  Bolts slid back and the door opened. A pair of armed soldiers stood outside, and though he knew them both they would not meet his eyes. They said, “Wait please, sahib,” and one called down the corridor over his shoulder. Rodney sat on his bed, trembling and staring in front of him.

  Mr. Dellamain came over and said heavily, “I do not wish to intrude, Captain, but as the--ah--senior British representative here I feel communications with Her Highness should be made through me. Perhaps I can carry your message at my next meeting with her?”

  Rodney answered shortly, “No.” After a while the Commissioner went away from him while the people in the room muttered to each other and Caroline whispered something to McCardle.

  Ten minutes later the Dewan came; his sharp dark features were lighted by a fire behind the skin, and Rodney thought he had been drinking, or doping, or both. The twilight from the windows bathed his pitted face; the pupils of his eyes were black points. His tongue caressed his lips as he glanced round the room; his eyes rested for a long second on Rachel Myers’ half-dressed nubile body. He said thickly, “Come with me, please. Her Highness is busy but has been kind enough to grant you an interview.”

  Rodney and Caroline followed in silence along the passages and down the spiralling stairs. Heavy yellow curtains hung over the doorway of the small throne room.

  They stopped outside, and the Dewan cried softly, “Your Royal Highness. Miss Langford, and Captain Savage of the Thirteenth Rifles, Bengal Native Infantry, in the service of the Honourable East India Company!”

  The words were loaded with sarcasm, and he leered at Rodney as he said them. Caroline pulled aside the curtains, lifted her head, and walked in. Rodney braced his knees and followed her.

  The Rani sat on a pile of cushions, alone in half-darkness. A dim lamp, on a round ebony table behind her, silhouetted the smooth shape of her head. They stood side by side, looking at her, and she looked only at Rodney. No one spoke, and he scanned her face for a sign. There was triumph or pride in the carriage of her head--he could not be sure which. It was difficult to see her features against the fight, but he thought there was no glow of happiness in the fiat brown texture of her skin, and saw that the eyes were sad. He watched her make a slow careful inventory of his torn clothes and burned face. Had he met her in a city lane, and believed her noble lies? Had she sat on cushions like these, with a light like this, in a tent by the falls of a river? He didn’t remember. She had turned from him to stare at Caroline, and her mouth had hardened. He was conscious of the wills stepping out to meet each other. Prithvi Chand was right; they were alike.

  At last the Rani sighed and compressed her lips. “What is it?”

  He forgot what it was that he had come to say. She had helped to organize the mutiny. The Rajah had been an honest old man, one who held the given word above everything, and his father had given the Rawan word to the English; so she had murdered him. He knew now what the princes had talked about at the tiger hunt, why they had been gathered together. How many had said Yes, how many No?

  It was Sumitra’s triumph that he stood destitute and wounded before her. And it was a rage of personal defeat trembling in Caroline beside him, not any abstract loathing of treachery or fear for the future. His spirit only absorbed these things and recorded them. His own fury had evaporated, and he could not fight either of the women. He saw that Sumitra’s eyes were pitying and protective when she looked at him. He had nothing to say.

  She repeated her question. “What is it?”

  His hands fidgeted, and he muttered, “It doesn’t matter. My son is badly hurt. We wanted to know whether you are going to protect us. It doesn’t matter though.”

  She leaned forward. “Who doubts it? You, Rodney? Mr. Dellamain?”

  “I doubt it.”

  She whipped round on Caroline. “You? Who are you to doubt the word of a queen?”

  “You’re not a queen. You’re a murderess, a harlot, and a liar.”

  Sumitra leaned back and smiled crookedly. “I see. Something has made our little white miss a woman. You would kill for him now, and like it? Poor little thing. You have not the courage to fight for what you want. I have. I killed my husband for India; I pretended to be a whore for India; I lied, for India. I am an Indian first and woman afterwards. Poor little thing, just discovering you are a woman first-- and nothing else. It is bad, the first time, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not true! Don’t say it!”

  Rodney hardly heard what they said. They were miles from him and engaged in a battle he did not understand--a battle which had nothing to do with the point. Caroline was losing because she could not speak coherently for rage. It was an entirely new girl beside him, and he stared at her in astonished wonder.

  Vaguely he realized that Sumitra had turned on him and that she was in a towering fury. “And you crawl down to insult me because she orders you to. Blind, cruel, stupid fool! English fool, man-fool! Why should I protect you or your son or this white she-rat?”

  He jumped forward; the mad glare crackled in his eyes, and his voice blared. “If you touch a hair of Robin’s head, I’ll break your son’s skull in front of your eyes. By God, I tell you we’re coming back in blood and fire. We’ll burn you black bastards alive over slow fires; we’ll quarter you, and hang you on gallows, and rip your filthy guts open with steel.”

  He was panting, teeth bared, and could hardly see her. A red vision blurred his eyes, where Indians writhed, contorted in agony, and his own face laughed madly at their tortured antics.

  He stopped, held down a shuddering breath, and said coldly, “Send us all under escort to Gondwara.”

  The Dewan and two soldiers had hurried into the room when he raised his voice. They stood close behind him now, but the Rani was oblivious of them. She was on her feet, her eyes dilated; looking into them, he saw horror, and heard her whisper, “Shivarao! No, no!” Then anger overwhelmed everything else, and she spat in his face.

  “There! I am Sumitra Lakshmi, Rawan, Regent for the twenty-seventh Rajah of Kishanpur, and I tell you that you English are not coming back. You will be rooted out of India like the weeds you are. Do you think you will be safe in Gondwara? Gondwara will fall when we are ready, then all India.”

  Her voice dropped a tone, and the pride went from it; it crawled with a personal venom. “Who are you to plead? I hate you. I would like to see you all killed, but you--you I’d strangle with my own hands.”

  She clawed towards his face. Caroline gasped and threw herself forward. Three long nail slashes sprang out on the Rani’s left cheek, and the blood welled up into them. The soldiers caught Caroline and dragged her back. In the silence the Rani sat back and began to laugh hysterically, shrieking and rolling about on the cushions, while the soldiers held Caroline, and Rodney felt the muzzle of a pistol in the small of his back.

  The Dewan motioned them out of the room, and in silence they went back along the corridors and up the stairs--first a soldier, then behind him Caroline, then another soldier, then Rodney, and last the Dewan.

  Two lanterns guttered on the floor of the refugees’ room and threw distorted shadows on the ceiling. The eyes turned as they came in, and the low buzzing of talk stopped. Rodney waited till the door thudded shut behind him, then went quickly to the farthest corner and whispered, “Come here, please. It’s important.” They straggled over, McCardle leading Geoghegan by the hand, and gathered round him. He saw the set look in their faces, and noticed that Delia-main was frowning.

  He said, “Listen to me. The Rani’s in league with the mutineers. If we don’t escape now, we’ll be kept prisoners for months--at best. At worst----”

  “
She’ll murder us.”

  Caroline spoke quietly; she was by his side, facing the others. He looked round on them, one by one; one by one they looked away.

  Dellamain seized his arm. “You’re insane! How can we escape? If we do, what hope is there for us in the fields, without food and money? What chance of survival will your son have--or Mrs. Bell’s baby? It’s hallucination. The Rani has treated us well. She’ll protect us!”

  “Why are we held prisoners in this room then?”

  “For our own safety. The Dewan told me. What does it matter? We don’t want to go out. I tell you, you’re insane. The Rani owes everything to the British--it’s sheer madness to think she’ll harm us. I have a personal knowledge of her and influence with her.” He swung round. “Believe me, my friends! I am your Commissioner.”

  Caroline whispered fiercely, “Mr. Dellamain, the truth is going to come out however much you try and hide it from yourself. You took bribes from her and allowed her to smuggle, and she arranged the mutiny under cover of it. You tied your own hands. You were responsible for the mutiny. Oh, let’s not be silly. I was responsible, Captain Savage was, we all were. It doesn’t matter now. We must escape.”

  Rodney cut in. “Caroline and I are going to escape. Who’s coming with us?”

  Mr. Dellamain made for the door, shouting, “I’m going to tell the Rani. You’re mad, you’re both mad. You’ll ruin everything for the rest of us!”

  John McCardle looked once more at Rodney, then called suddenly, “Before ye go, Commissioner, an imporrtant worrd for your earrs.” Dellamain hesitated; Rodney ran to the door and stood with his back against it.

  McCardle came forward, a short scalpel in his hand, and motioned Dellamain away. “An’ ma worrd is this, sir: if Rodney and Miss Langford want tae escape, yell no hinder them. Sit doon, man, or Ah’ll carrve you in many pieces. Hurry, Rodney. It shouldna be deeficult--an’ Ah’ll come wi’ ye.”