Balasore was a small town that had seen better days—according to Tindall, the English, the Danish, and the Dutch had all established trading stations here before the former took full control of the subcontinent. Now there was little to recommend it and little to distinguish one darkened street from another. It was almost four-thirty, the first hints of light showing in the eastern sky, when the local police chief, whose name was Jenkinson, brought the column to a halt. The Universal Emporium was round the next corner.
Jenkinson and Tindall went forward to check the approaches and returned ten minutes later. Then the whole force wheeled round the corner, onto a much wider street lined with shops. A hundred yards down, one group peeled off into an alley, and McColl noticed the Universal Emporium sign that someone had painted above the entrance of a one-story building. As other groups moved to cover the far side and the rear, a large constable eyed the front door and waited for the word. When it came, he put his head down and charged, the doors splintering open with a crack that seemed likely to wake the whole town.
Other constables poured through the breach. Tindall and McColl waited, aware of doors opening farther up the street, silently praying that they wouldn’t hear shots within.
“We have them, sahib!” an officer called from the doorway.
They went in, passing through a shop room full of gramophones to reach the living quarters at the back, where two naked Indians were lying facedown on the floor.
Tindall grimaced. “Give them their clothes, for God’s sake.”
The two were brought dhotis, which they pulled on in silence. When asked their names, they shook their heads and smiled.
Another constable entered the room. “There are people outside, sahib,” he told Tindall. “What shall we do with them?”
“Tell them to go away,” Tindall said brusquely. “And you two,” he went on, addressing the other two officers present, “take these men back to the train. Use the rear door. I’m assuming you’d rather we didn’t use the town jail,” he added, turning to Jenkinson.
The police chief shrugged. “I doubt these men will have many supporters in Balasore, but better safe than sorry.”
The two men were led away.
McColl looked round the room, which was much more cluttered with personal effects than those they’d searched at Harry & Sons. “Maybe this time we’ll find something useful,” he murmured.
“Let’s find a cup of tea,” Tindall told him. “By the time we’ve drunk it, the sun will be up.”
The small crowd outside seemed curious rather than hostile, and several offers of tea were forthcoming once Tindall explained that the men inside had been dacoits in the pay of the Germans. This seemed to satisfy all those present, although McColl did hear one man ask a neighbor what part of the country these Germans were from.
“Tea for the sahibs” came in souvenir mugs from the 1911 Delhi Durbar, and the two of them sipped the scalding brew on the shop’s veranda, surrounded by staring locals. It would have made a good picture for all the empire lovers at home, McColl decided. He tried to think of a suitable title. Breakfast on the Job? Another Day in Charge?
The sun came up with its usual swiftness, and they got to work. Two hours later they had three things to show for their search, all of which seemed significant. Among these were a pair of maps, one hand drawn on a page torn from a school exercise book, the other an official printing. The former offered annotated directions to a village named Kaptipada, which the local police chief informed them was about thirty miles to the west. The same village was on the printed map, and right alongside it someone had scrawled three sets of initials. Two more had been scribbled beside Sharata, a village five miles farther west.
One explanation—and McColl couldn’t think of another—was that the initials represented terrorists hiding out in the relevant locations. If so, the JM at Kaptipada might well be Jatin Mukherjee. Which would be a coup.
The second map had been produced by the Bengal Railways and bore four crosses at what looked like significant choke points. McColl was immediately reminded of the maps he’d studied at Victoria Station a year earlier and the British official’s description of which bridges the Irish group would need to bring down if they wanted to slow the army’s embarkation for France. This map, McColl reckoned, showed where Jugantar would cut the lines connecting Bengal to the rest of the country, the lines the British army would have to use to reinforce their garrison in the event of a major rebellion.
The third clue was harder to read. There was a Crescent Bicycles calendar on the shop room’s wall, the month of August showing, unmarked by the proprietors. Idly turning the page, McColl noticed that someone had drawn a line round the week beginning September 5. All the following months were blank.
It could mean almost anything, but something told him it was important.
He took what was left of his tea out onto the veranda and stood there scanning the dusty street. What lasted a week? Not birthdays or weddings, and Ramadan lasted a month. Some Hindu festivals could drag on for quite a while, but none of Tindall’s men knew of any around that time.
And then it occurred to him. Back home a train or a boat usually arrived at a particular hour, but here in Asia the distances were so much greater, the timetables more indicative than precise. Trains or boats were often hours, sometimes days, late in reaching their destination. What if someone or something was supposed to arrive during that week? The ship they were seeking would be crossing a fair bit of ocean and would have difficulty in timing its arrival more precisely. And the same would be true of a German messenger, whether traveling overland through Burma or by sea from Batavia or Bangkok.
He might be completely wrong, but as a theory it fit the facts. If, as seemed likely, the terrorists were hiding out some distance from the coast, they were probably waiting to learn exactly where and when they should meet the boat. The message would probably come to the emporium and then be taken to wherever it was they were staying.
McColl went back in and explained his thinking to Tindall. “If we leave a couple of our men to staff the shop,” he added, “any messenger would fall right into our hands.”
Tindall scratched his head. “That sounds like a good idea, but how would they carry it off? “I don’t suppose any of them know anything about gramophones.”
“The damn things must come with instructions. And they’d only have to sell them.”
“And the bicycles? How will they repair them?”
“Badly, I expect. But seriously, it can’t be that difficult, and it’ll give them something to do.”
“The whole street knows we arrested the two who were there.”
“So? Spread the word that the owners in Calcutta were shocked to find out these men were criminals and are sending two more to take their places. Then bring two new men down from Calcutta. You might even find some with a knowledge of bicycles.”
Tindall raised both hands in surrender. “All right. We’ll staff the place until the end of that week. If we still need to. If those sketch maps are what we think they are and we catch these buggers in Kaptipada, then that may be an end of it.” Discovering that there were local maps at the police station, he sent off a constable to fetch them and drummed his fingers for the fifteen minutes it took for the man to get back. After examining them the DCI chief announced himself satisfied. “A quick march up the river and they won’t know what hit them. I think we might have them this time.”
By midafternoon they were halfway to the small town of Udala. That was the nearest they could get to Kaptipada on a half-decent track, and Tindall had “borrowed” Balasore’s only automobile—a 1906 Oldsmobile L—from its reluctant Indian owner to take them that far. Accepting the owner’s chauffeur had been part of the deal, and the Indian in question took his duties extremely seriously, laboriously working his way round any obstacle—McColl was sure he took pains to avoid a large leaf on
one occasion—and keeping their overall speed at not much more than walking pace. He also insisted on frequent stops to “let the engine breathe.”
Not that hurrying would have helped. Four horses had been found to mount an advance party, but the rest of the constables were having to walk the twenty miles and even at this pace would be some way behind.
It was almost dark by the time they drove into Udala, where the advance party had requisitioned the village school for the marchers and arranged elephants for their bosses to ride the next morning. This both excited and alarmed McColl, who’d never been up on one.
The marchers had another, albeit shorter, walk awaiting them. They arrived around ten, somewhat the worse for wear, and examined their new surroundings with evident dismay. They were used to the streets of Calcutta, not this other India.
A sentry post was established on the path to Kaptipada—Tindall didn’t want any local villager taking news of their presence to the terrorists five miles upstream. He, McColl, and Jenkinson had been given beds in the government bungalow, under mosquito nets hung from the wooden beams, but first the stifling heat and then the deafening clatter of rain on the roof made sleep a patchy affair.
Their driver had also been offered a bed but had opted to sleep in his charge, perhaps afraid that a passing local might climb aboard and drive it away. When McColl ventured out in the predawn light, the Indian was stretched across the backseat, legs hanging over the door, and snoring loudly enough to annoy the monkeys, who were chattering wildly in the branches above and hurling down pieces of bark.
They left soon after sunrise. Getting aboard the elephant was a challenge, but once McColl was up, he soon got used to the peculiar motion of the giant beast beneath him, and the early-morning ride through the dripping forest was most enjoyable. This was Kipling’s India. At one point McColl thought he heard the roar of a distant tiger and felt vaguely let down when a local handler told him it was only a leopard.
After a couple of hours, someone brought the column to a halt and an officer walked back to tell Tindall that the village was just a short distance ahead. A small reconnaissance party was dispatched, and the three of them were helped down off their elephants. It was already quite hot, and a layer of steam seemed to cling to the jungle floor. In the branches above, a host of brightly colored birds were singing up a storm.
An hour or so later, two soldiers returned with the news that three young men from the city were staying with the richest man in Kaptipada, one Kumar Bandopadhyay. His bungalow was at the other end of the village. Their two colleagues had it under observation.
There was no point in delaying. After handing out a few basic instructions, Tindall led his men on up the path and through the gauntlet of stares aimed their way by the local villagers. As they neared the bungalow, the party split off into two columns to encircle it from both sides, but McColl’s first sight of the building told him they needn’t have bothered. An Indian, presumably Bandopadhyay, was sitting placidly on the veranda, fanning himself with a palm frond and clearly expecting visitors.
“They’ve gone,” McColl muttered.
“Looks like it,” Tindall said stoically.
Ignoring their obvious hostility, Bandopadhyay ordered a servant to bring them all drinks—“It is hot this morning, is it not?”—and answered the leading question only once everyone’s thirst was slaked. Yes, it was true that three young men had been staying with him—they had left the previous day. Until this moment he had assumed they were foresters—they had told him as much and left for the forest each morning, returning after sundown.
When Tindall said equably that he didn’t believe a word of the man’s story, Bandopadhyay just shrugged and smiled. He made no objection to their searching his home, having doubtless already removed anything that might incriminate himself or give any clue to his recent guests’ next port of call. They searched it anyway and found only a few discarded garments. McColl was working his way through these when Tindall noticed a still-smoldering fire behind the house.
The two men went outside, and Tindall stirred the ashes with a stick.
“They didn’t leave yesterday,” McColl decided, his eyes on the wall of jungle that almost encircled the open space at the rear. For all they knew, Mukherjee was out there now, watching them from hiding. But it didn’t seem likely.
Tindall pulled a map from his pocket. “The road we took to Udala is the only obvious way out of here. I suppose they could have made a detour around us, but it would have been risky.”
“They probably went across country,” McColl said. He should be feeling downhearted, he thought, but for some strange reason he didn’t. “In their position I’d have done some exploring over the past few weeks and had my escape route planned in advance.”
Tindall sighed. “You’re probably right. So which way did they go?”
“Oh, east. They’ll be heading for the coast.”
They went back inside, and Tindall told Bandopadhyay that he was under arrest.
“On what charge?” the Indian asked indignantly.
“Ah, that’s the wonder of the new act,” Tindall told him with uncharacteristic acidity. “We don’t need to worry about that until after we’ve locked you away.”
Ten constables were sent off to visit the other village on the captured map, but without any real hope of finding terrorists. If the ones in Kaptipada had received advance warning of the police expedition, they’d have made sure that their comrades did, too. Tindall’s one hope was that the latter had not been so careful about what they left behind.
The rest of the party made its way back to Udala, where the chauffeur was fighting a rearguard action against village youths keen to leave their fingerprints all over his gleaming car. His escape was further delayed, moreover. Tindall had decided to make things more difficult for the fugitive terrorists by spreading word of substantial rewards for any confirmed sightings. Some of his officers would carry the news, but they needed guides to find the many villages, and recruiting them took most of the day. It was long after dark when the Oldsmobile crawled back into Balasore, the driver celebrating their first flat stretch of surfaced road with a giddy speed of twelve miles an hour.
The rest of Tindall’s available men, who had arrived back an hour or so earlier, were sent to patrol the railway line that the terrorists would need to cross if they wanted to reach the sea. Most looked tired enough to miss a herd of stampeding elephants, but McColl understood Tindall’s urgency, even as he welcomed the prospect of sleep for himself.
The DCI chief was certainly determined not to let the opportunity slip, ordering up more reinforcements from both Calcutta and the local garrison before McColl had finished his morning ablutions. The two men then trudged through teeming rain to the local jailhouse for more unproductive chats with Bandopadhyay and the men from the Universal Emporium. The latter were keen to share their knowledge of gramophones, and the former stuck to his original story, that whoever his guests had really been, he had thought them simple foresters.
The light was beginning to fade when the train bringing extra police and soldiers arrived at Balasore station. Two Calcutta officers were chosen, briefed, and sent to man the shop; the rest were divided between the railway cordon and those units advancing cross-country from Kaptipada. But by sundown there was still no reported sighting of Mukherjee and his comrades. Had they slipped across the line during the previous night, when the watchers were widely spaced and probably half asleep? Or had they gone to ground in some dense stretch of forest? If the marks on the calendar meant what McColl suspected, they still had plenty of time to meet the boat.
It was unbearably hot and humid that night, and McColl, who these days had trouble getting to sleep even in a fan-cooled room, found himself wide awake and almost swimming in sweat inside the small compartment he shared with Tindall. There was a reason, he thought, that Indians slept in the open.
It wasn’t much cooler outside, but at least a faint breeze was blowing toward the Bay of Bengal. McColl walked down the side of the train toward the yard throat, where one of the two sentries that Tindall had posted was amusing himself by walking a rail like a high-wire artist, using his rifle for balance. McColl gave him a wave and turned back, picking his way across the weed-choked sidings that lay between the station and their train. The low platforms to his right were, as usual, liberally scattered with sleeping bodies—given that most Indians spent a lifetime within five miles of their villages, it always amazed McColl that the stations and trains were so crowded.
He was nearly level with the last carriage when he realized that the other sentry was conspicuous by his absence. Glancing round, he noticed movement behind the train. The sentry, most likely, but he decided to make sure. McColl rounded the rear of the stabled train just in time to see whoever it was duck out of sight beneath a carriage. Which was strange behavior for a sentry.
He reversed his steps round the back of the last car, but there was no one crossing the sidings. The figure he had seen was still beneath the train.
It might be a railwayman or some errant youth who couldn’t sleep, but something more sinister seemed likely. As McColl walked swiftly toward the carriage in question, a sudden flare of light condensed into a blazing pinprick, confirming his worst suspicions. The man had lit a fuse.
McColl’s first impulse was to rush forward, his second to halt some ten yards short of the man, whom he could just about see, crouched beneath the carriage with what looked a bomb in his hand.
What should he do?
“Cut off the fuse!” he yelled. “Or pull it out! If you don’t, I’ll have to shoot you and do it myself!”
The figure didn’t move; the fuse kept burning. Maybe the man hadn’t understood him, but McColl didn’t know the Bengali for fuse. Maybe there was no way to stop it now. The thought of moving any closer to the bomb terrified him.
One Man's Flag Page 14
