A Very Pukka Murder

by Arjun Gaind

  “Could you possibly find out?”

  “I could certainly try, but it will take a bit of time.” He sounded annoyed at being caught out, even vexed. “Let me see what I can dig up.”

  “Good! Meanwhile, tell me what you know about the Major’s antecedents, will you?”

  “Oh, now that I can help with! I wrote a biographical piece about him for the Gazette, you see, when he came out to take up the Resident’s position. According to official records, he entered the Army when he was quite young, a purchased commission as an ensign in the Bengal Light Infantry. He was seconded to be one of General Prendergast’s aides during the march into Burma, and acquitted himself particularly well, although there was some sniff of impropriety in the aftermath of the fall of Mandalay.”

  “What manner of improprieties?”

  “Oh, he was accused of lining his own pockets. It was said that he took rather a handsome gratuity from a cabal of merchants when it came to disposing of some of the booty looted from the royal palace in Mandalay. Some may have called it a backhander, but I believe the Resident Sahib saw it more as a well-earned commission.”

  “Was it a large sum?”

  “Large enough to show his true nature, but not so much that it got him into trouble. In either case, he got off clean and was rewarded with a Lieutenant’s pips, after which he was seconded to the North Western Frontier.

  “Since then, he has managed to make quite a name for himself, enjoying quite a meteoric rise there by all accounts. I believe he was one of the masterminds behind the Chitral Expedition and the Tirah Campaign, after which he was promoted and sent on to Sindh and then to Travancore, where he served until about six years ago, when he seems to have committed rather a large blunder.”

  “What sort of blunder?”

  Miller tittered, and made a great show of rolling his eyes suggestively. “A woman, of course. There always is, isn’t there? A native bibi came forward and claimed that he had made a promise to wed her and then betrayed her trust. Russell of course claimed he had done no such thing, but the ensuing scandal did quite a lot of damage to his prospects.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If rumor is to be believed, she accused him of beating her, once so severely that it apparently caused her to lose their child.”

  Sikander’s face hardened. As far as he was concerned, there was nothing quite as low as a man who raised his hand against a woman. Not only were the poor creatures too weak to fight back, defenseless in every way except with their tongues, but it took a particularly vicious breed of man to behave with such reprehensible savagery. Sikander found himself despising the Major even more. If only he had known, he would have never permitted the man to be appointed to so senior a post. But then, the Major had been careful never to allow the true brutality of his nature to show through. It had remained hidden behind a veneer of civility, but Sikander chastised himself for not realizing that the Major’s aloofness had merely been a carefully cultivated mask. There was even a clinical condition that described men like that—Manie sans delière, or “mania without delirium,” a scientific term propagated by Phillipe Pinel. It described the sort of unnatural moral insanity demonstrated by egocentric individuals who lacked both a conscience and a sense of morality and believed themselves to be above the rules that applied to normal humans.

  “How is it that he was never brought up on charges?”

  “Oh, I suspect it was hushed up. There was the fact that the victim in question was a native, and I believe the Major was most vociferous in his objections that he had not touched her. I suppose it was inevitable that he would get off scot-free. As it always proceeds in these matters, his word as a gentleman was thought to be solid, but the fallout did manage to damage his professional reputation quite irrevocably.”

  “Because of a woman? That seems excessive.”

  “Well, as it turned out, the woman in this case was the youngest daughter of one of the Maharaja of Travancore’s most faithful retainers, who was understandably irate at the time. And he had friends in Madras, high-ranking connections who did not approve of a middle-aged officer philandering with a girl young enough to be his granddaughter. In either case, the Major was given an early retirement and discreetly shunted out of Travancore and informed that there would be no further promotions on his horizon.”

  Miller pursed his lips disapprovingly. “If rumor is to be believed, he began to drink rather heavily and spent the next two and a half years languishing at a loose end in Calcutta before being granted his next posting, which happened to be here at Rajpore, a position which I believe he was offered only because he had considerable previous experience with the Afghans. Of course, even though it was a bit of a comedown after some of the exalted positions he had occupied previously, needless to say he jumped at the chance to be a pain in your neck, a job at which he excelled by all accounts.”

  With that, Miller sat back, looking very pleased with himself. Sikander waited for him to go on, but it seemed that was the gist of the information he had to offer at that time.

  “Is that all?” Sikander said, somewhat disappointed. While the tidbit about the Major’s misadventures in Travancore was certainly interesting, it gave him little insight into why someone would want to see him dead. “You’re losing your touch, Mr. Miller. I was hoping for something more, well, salacious. Why, I learned more from Mr. Lowry, and he is not even a journalist.”

  The presswallah’s face stiffened, visibly goaded by this jibe. “Ah, our eminent Magistrate! Now there’s a man who is extraordinarily good at keeping secrets.” Miller sniffed, his face souring with barely concealed distaste. “He isn’t all that he seems, that one, let me assure you.”

  “What do you mean?” Sikander asked, intrigued by this comment.

  “Actually, you may find this interesting,” Miller gloated. “It just so happens that Mr. Lowry is a molly.”

  “A what?”

  Miller gave Sikander a suggestive wink and made a rude gesture, waving one limp wrist back and forth. “A man’s man, Your Majesty, if you know what I mean. He’s a Margery. A Mary-Ann.”

  “What?” Sikander’s mouth fell open in unmitigated surprise. It took him a minute to understand what the presswallah was insinuating, before comprehension dawned like a kick in the head.

  “Are you trying to tell me that our Magistrate likes to indulge in the sin of the Greeks?”

  Miller laughed, a staccato burst of glee. “Oh, there’s nothing Greek about it, I assure you. If anything, he has a marked preference for Anglo-Indian telegraph boys, the younger the better.”

  Even though Sikander considered himself a man of the world, he found himself utterly stunned by this revelation. It was such a surprising bit of news that it managed to pierce even his ordinarily unflappable exterior. Like most people, he was all too aware that sodomy and buggery were common amongst the English, particularly soldiers of the lower ranks who were forced to spend years on campaign, far away from the company of any women other than the harlots who plied a brisk trade around the Cantonments. And of course, he had heard stories that such things were quite common in British boarding schools like Eton and Harrow. But never in his wildest flights of fancy would he have guessed that Lowry was an invert. There were no signs to suggest it, at least no apparent ones. The Magistrate wasn’t an effeminate man, not in the least. Tiresome perhaps, and long-winded, but he seemed as red-blooded as anyone else. For God’s sake, Sikander thought, I even had him along on the annual battue last year, and he bagged a buck.

  His face tightened with barely repressed distaste. If what Miller was saying was true, if it wasn’t just a scurrilous rumor, then that changed everything. This information about Lowry’s sexuality, managed to cast an altogether different complexion on his relationship with the Major. Was he indeed an unwitting pawn after all, as Sikander had believed, or had he been involved with the Major in some darker, more twisted way?

 
“Are you sure of this, Mr. Miller, or is this just hyperbole?”

  Appalled by such a blatant querying of his veracity, Miller let out a vexed snort. “I am unequivocally certain, Your Majesty. In fact, I have a signed affidavit from a ball boy at the Calcutta Cricket Club. He approached me last year with rather a lurid tale to tell. It seems he and the Magistrate had a bit of a dalliance not long ago, and when they parted ways, he was left disappointed, feeling as though he had been taken advantage of.” Miller smiled, as oily as a Turk. “In exchange for a small gratuity, he was only too happy to share the sordid details with me.”

  Sikander’s brow furrowed, his mind ticking away like an abacus. So Lowry was a sodomite. That singular fact changed his understanding of the man completely. Was that what had caused the falling out between of the Major and him all those years ago? Sikander had a gut feeling he was on the right track. Possibly the Major had discovered Lowry’s affliction and was repelled by him. Yes, that made ample sense. That would be more than enough to amputate a friendship irrevocably. And that would certainly explain what leverage the Major had possessed over Lowry, the dirty secret that had kept the Magistrate dancing to his tune, like an organ grinder’s monkey.

  “Excellent, Mr. Miller,” he said, beaming at the presswallah, “now this is more like it. This I can use, by God Almighty.”

  Miller preened. “I am glad to see you are pleased, Your Highness. Is there anything else I could assist you with?”

  “As a matter of fact, tell me what you know of this fellow Fletcher.”

  “Well, personally, I must confess, I simply can’t bear the man. One of the most unpleasant people I have ever met, and I have encountered a few foul specimens in my time, let me tell you.”

  “Might I ask why you dislike him so deeply, Mr. Miller? Has he done you some personal harm?”

  Miller scowled, not bothering to hide his obvious antagonism. “Fletcher’s a bully, your Highness. The worst kind of Ajax, one of those overly sweaty, virile types who spend every waking hour on the playing field. It doesn’t help, of course, that he has a natural propensity for violence, an ability that borders almost on being a gift, and like most brutes, he believes that his physical strengths make him far superior to those of us who prefer to indulge our energies in more sedentary, civilized pursuits.”

  His plump face colored, twisting into a grimace. “It’s ironic, really. I imagine that this brutishness is the very quality that makes him such a fine soldier. The same traits which are so loathsome in peacetime, they are of such great value upon the field of battle, yes…?”

  “Is he indeed as fine a soldier as they say he is?”

  “I hate to admit it, but yes, there’s no question about that. His record is beyond reproach.”

  “Perhaps I am expecting too much from your memory, but would you be able to recount his war record for me, at least in a cursory fashion?”

  “I can certainly try. Let me see what I can recall,” Miller took another generous sip of gin, and rubbed at his temple with one thumb and fingertip. “Hmm, numerous commendations for conspicuous valor, which suggests that he is as brave as Hector. He fought in Burma, at Minhla where he was decorated for gallantry, and the advance from Toungoo, and then in Afghanistan during the Tirah Campaign.”

  “Did he distinguish himself against the Afghans?”

  “No, not quite. The Captain had a bit of unfortunate luck that kept him out of any real action.”

  “What happened?”

  “I believe he had been picked to lead a relief column to Sarahgiri but two days before his troop was scheduled to depart, he took a dreadful tumble off his horse and shattered his knee while playing a rather spirited game of polo.” Miller shrugged. “Still, one man’s bad luck is another man’s good fortune, or so they say. We all know how Sarahgiri turned out.”

  Sikander nodded. Sarahgiri was a debacle rarely talked about by the British military, one of the worst defeats they had suffered at the hands of the Afghans. Without warning, five companies of the 36th Sikh Regiment had been surrounded and trapped in a remote signaling post by an army of 10,000 Afridis. Rather than facing the ignominy of surrender, the gallant Sikhs had chosen instead to make a last stand. As bravely as the Spartans at Thermopylae, they fought to the last man, defending their posts even as they were overrun by a horde of Pathans bent upon bloody murder.

  “Good Heavens, Fletcher had a very narrow escape there, didn’t he? If he hadn’t toppled off his horse, the Afghans would probably be wearing his guts for garters by now.”

  “Yes, he has the devil’s own luck, but knowing the man, he probably thinks he could have won the damn skirmish if he had been in command.”

  “How did he happen to end up in Rajpore?”

  “Oh, he was seconded here, against his choice, of course. He was one of Younghusband’s guides during the whole Tibet affair, but the only action he saw was a musket-ball in the bottom early on the march to Chumik Shenko which became infected. It took him a while to recover, after which, the good Captain had the temerity to send a strongly worded letter to his superiors in Simla demanding that they promote him immediately and post him to Palestine.”

  “That was not what happened, I imagine.”

  “Of course not. The War Office does not take kindly to having demands made of it by lowly Captains. As a result, he was sent off here, to Rajpore, banished to finish out the rest of his career in quiet dudgeon.”

  “How unfortunate for him!” Sikander pursed his lips. “Isn’t he rather old to be a mere Captain?”

  “You don’t know the half of it, Your Majesty. If rumor is to be believed, the poor bugger has been passed over six times.”

  “Is that quite a common occurrence, to be passed over so many times?”

  “Not at all,” Miller replied. “It’s surprising really. If I were him, I would have taken the hint and put in my papers for an early retirement by now, but then, our friend the Captain has always been rather too tenacious for his own good.”

  The way Miller emphasized the word “tenacious” suggested to Sikander that he intended it as an insult, not a compliment.

  “Did you know,” the Englishman said with a florid grimace, “that he has won every single one of his promotions on the battlefield? Can you believe it?”

  “Is that so?” Sikander said, impressed by this statistic in spite of his disdain for Fletcher.

  “Yes, it seems very inspiring, doesn’t it? But then, if you stop to think it over, what other choice does he have, the poor dolt?” Miller shook his head. “Our dear Captain is not quite as pukka as he likes to pretend, you see.”

  Sikander mulled over this statement, wondering what exactly it could portend. The word “pukka” was a very interesting one, uniquely Anglo-Indian in origin but with myriad vague meanings that depended entirely on the context in which it was used. In a positive sense, it could mean anything from reliable or trustworthy to admirable, but when used negatively, it suggested that someone or something was not quite legitimate or acceptable. Sikander frowned. It was the ultimate accusation, at least in British India. To be accused of being not pukka meant a man could not be trusted, and to have been saddled with a label like that, no wonder Fletcher’s career had stagnated with a mere Captaincy. And there was nothing the Captain could have done to counter such a scurrilous accusation, he thought, because it was precisely the sort of backroom gossip that followed a man around, not specific enough to be forgivable, but just tangible enough to be damning.

  “I am not sure what you are trying to insinuate, Mr. Miller. You will have to be more specific.”

  Miller leaned forward until his face was just inches away from Sikander, so close that the Maharaja could smell the fetid tang of gin on his breath.

  “I have heard stories about his grandmother, sir. It is said that she was a native bibi, a Pahari woman taken by his grandfather to be his second wife. And the Ca
ptain, he is quite dark in complexion, is he not, which suggests that he may be a chee-chee, I suspect. There’s definitely some brown in the mix. He’s an octoroon at least, a minimum of one-eighth Indian, sir. I am convinced of it.”

  Sikander’s eyes widened. This was a damning accusation indeed, and if it were true, it held nothing but the direst connotations for Captain Fletcher. The chee-chees, the half-and-halfs, the Eurasians—call them what you may—occupied a bewildering position in British India. Their skin color was as varied as their ancestry—some were as pale as ivory while others as black as charcoal, but regardless of their complexions, they belonged neither to the East nor to the West. Instead, they lived in the no-man’s land between the India inhabited by Indians, and the white-washed cottages of the British Raj. It was tragic that an entire population should be doomed to be marginalized so completely and perhaps the truest example of the old saying that the sins of a father inevitably were visited upon his sons. The Indians despised the Anglos, thinking them as foreign as the white men who had spawned them, while the British shunned them equally, too embarrassed to acknowledge the outcome of two hundred years of heat and lust.

  There had been a time when it wasn’t unheard of for a man who was a half-blood to rise high in service of the Empire, particularly if he was gifted with uncommon military prowess. Take the case of Sir Robert Warburton, who had founded the Khyber Rifles, or Colonel Henry Forster who had raised the Shekhawati Brigade, or the most famous of them all, James Skinner, the founder of the Yellow Boys, who had begun his career as a mercenary but had retired ultimately as a Companion of the Order of the Bath. Why, one Anglo had even risen to become the Prime Minister of England, the redoubtable Lord Liverpool, whose mother had been half-Indian. But these cases were few and far between. The truth of it was that Anglo-Indians were not welcome in British Regiments. Most of them had to turn to native armies to make a career for themselves, and the few that did find a place in British service were often discriminated against, denied advancement because of their origins.