Bhowani Junction

by John Masters

  He stepped down on to the line-side path and walked carefully along. I wondered whether there were any police with the crowd, and what the people meant to do when they got to the station. I felt cowardly, and as if I had somehow betrayed Ranjit by showing this fear of Indians, even though they were a mob.

  Macaulay didn’t have Colonel Savage’s extraordinary ability to see in the dark. He picked his way so slowly over the slots where the point rods and signal wires crossed under the line that I whispered, ‘Let me get in front. I know the way.’

  He muttered, ‘Okay,’ and stood aside. As I brushed past him he said, ‘For God’s sake, stop at once if anyone says, “Halt!” Stop and answer, “Shikar.”’

  I whispered, ‘All right,’ and moved forward quickly. The lights of the yards came up on our right, and almost immediately a soft voice challenged me from close by—‘Halt-who-go-da?’

  I stopped at once and whispered, ‘Shikar.’ Macaulay bumped into me and stood dose.

  The man answered, ‘Kabul.’ He and another Gurkha appeared from the shadow of a wagon and came close to us, their rifles carried like shotguns in the crooks of their arms. Macaulay said, ‘It’s me, the adjutant. I’m seeing the lieutenant-lady home.’ He spoke Gurkhali slowly and with many Hindustani words.

  The Gurkhas drifted back into the shadow.

  A little farther on I said, ‘Let’s cross the line here. There’s more light in the yards.’ I led on at once, crossed the main line ducked under one row of wagons, then another, and came to a third. The yard lights shone brilliantly from their tall standards. A few big moths were up there round every light, circling and beating their wings and crashing into the reflectors so hard that we could hear them from down below. The shadows were thick along the sides of the empty, standing trains. The heat they had been gathering all day poured out from their iron sides.

  Just ahead there, at the end of the yards, I’d be in the Old Lines and nearly opposite the Institute. I stopped with a sigh of relief and leaned back against the frame of a wagon. I said, There’s no need for you to come any farther now, Mr Macaulay.’

  He was close behind me. He said, ‘Yes, I think you’re out of the wood now.’ He whispered, but I could swear it was not from fear. It was the kind of whisper men use to a girl at night, when there is really no need, to say those things they always say in whispers.

  I said quickly. ‘I’m sure it’s all right now. Well, thank you. I must go.’

  He said, ‘Aren’t you going to thank me properly?’ The whisper was light and dry. Again I said, Thank you.’ I said it quickly, wanting to run. But I couldn’t get away from him even if I did run. I knew suddenly I must turn to face him.

  He had his carbine in his right hand, and his left hand was reaching out for me. It went round my waist. He said, Thank me—like this.’ He bent forward and pressed close, and his hot face clamped against mine, moving round like an animal’s to find my lips. For a second I stood stiff and still, thinking, The fool, the damned bloody fool, he will get into trouble. Colonel Savage will kill him. Then I couldn’t stand the dribble on his moustache any longer. I began to struggle.

  When I writhed in his arm it might have been a signal, a trigger. He dropped the carbine and leaped on me with both arms out. The carbine fell with a small sound on to the clinkers. He tore at my shirt and skirt and pressed me back and mewed, ‘I can’t stand it—please, Victoria. Please let me, let me. It’s no use, I can make you, you did with Johnny—you’ve got to!’

  I fell back and slipped on the rail under the wagon. He scrambled silently after me. I swung my arm round and hit him. There was a heavy sharp-edged steel thing in my hand. He fell sideways and lay across the rail, his head out in the open. I stood up, aimed carefully, and hit him again as hard as I could, swinging the piece of broken fishplate up in both hands and bringing it down, edge on, against the side of his head.

  I had not heard any other sound, but swung round, the fishplate raised, when a darker shadow fell across me. I saw it was Ranjit Singh. He came forward slowly, stopped, and whispered, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ He knelt slowly, fluttered round with his hands looking for some place to touch, to feel, to assure himself. He whispered, ‘Put that down, Miss Jones. Come with me, quickly.’

  I put the bar down and watched Ranjit Singh pull at Macaulay’s body until it was all under the wagon, lying between the rails. He beckoned with his hand, palm toward me in the Indian way. I followed him for fifty yards between the empty trains, then he crawled under the one to our left, under the next, and the next, until we stood beside the main line. He looked both ways and crouched low, and we hurried across his teeth were chattering all the time. There is a low wire fence there. I climbed it after him, awkwardly in my tight skirt, and we passed into the city. I followed down a dark lane; left, another lane; right, a short street with lights in the shops but no one about and the windows shuttered; left again, the thick stink of a tannery; on for a hundred yards.

  Ranjit opened a door and beckoned me in. His face showed pale and strained in the dim light from a curtained window across the street. The pupils of his eyes were huge. We stood at the foot of a narrow stair. He scurried up. There were two doors at the top. He hesitated a moment there, standing irresolute, looking across the hall, and at the doors in turn, and back at me. Then he opened the door on the left and held it for me. I walked into a room of light colours, whitewashed walls, light from oil lamps, very little furniture.

  A woman got up slowly from the floor and slowly came toward me. She was brown and square, an her hair was iron grey. Her sari was white with a blue border. She set her feet wide apart as she walked. She said in Hindustani, ‘Who is this, my son? And whom has she killed?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him!’ I gasped.

  The woman said, ‘Look, girl.’

  I looked down. The blood lay in spots and streaks and whorls over the breast of my khaki shirt. The horrible night came down on me, all together, reflected in the woman’s hard brown eyes. Even in that room I heard the boom of the drum and the faint chanring of the crowd. Fear and hate and heat and lust were all round me. I stood helpless. I felt my face twisting and an icy cold creeping up in me in jerks and spasms. I opened my mouth to scream.

  FOURTEEN

  The woman rocked back on her feet, which were so strongly set against the floor, and her square hands swung round—left, right, bang-bang on my face. My cheeks stung, and the teeth rattled in my head. She took hold of my arms at the elbows and said quietly to Ranjit, ‘Whom did she kill, son?’

  ‘A British officer of the Gurkhas. Lieutenant Macaulay. In the yards. He was a beastly swine.’

  She said, ‘Is he still there? Do you think he will have been discovered yet?’

  He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

  I could not cry now. My hysteria had gone. I stood in the woman’s grip so tired that I couldn’t tremble, I said, ‘He tried to rape me.’

  She said, ‘Ah. Son, call our friend.’

  Ranjit wiped his forehead with his hand and shuffled his feet. He said, ‘Do you think it would be wise, Mother? I mean, to tell anyone else? The fewer people——’

  Tell? Tell! Of course. I knew there was something I had to do. I said, ‘I must go and tell the Collector, And Mr Lanson. At once.’

  She said, ‘Why did you come here if you want to go and tell the Collector? What will he think when he knows you came straight here? Eh?’ Her voice was strong, not harsh but full and deep and firm. She said, ‘Now hurry and fetch our friend, son.’

  Ranjit still hesitated, but his mother turned to look at him, and he went out with a little movement of defeat. The door closed behind him.

  The woman led me through a side door into a small bare room. A lamp, a newar charpoy, and a tin trunk were its only furniture. She said, ‘Now get those clothes off, girl. Be quick.’

  I took off my skirt and shirt and stood shivering in the hot, close room. Thre was no window. Faint sounds and a little starlight filtered i
n through a high skylight. The woman said, ‘Take everything off. Was he trying to undress you? Some of your things may be torn or bloodstained.’

  I took off the rest of my clothes and stood naked. The woman gave me a pair of bloomers, an Indian-style bodice, and a sari, and helped me to get into them. As I dressed I heard the creak of foosteps in the other room, and the mutter of men’s voices. The woman opened the door an inch and called through, ‘Water. Basin. Soap. Sigri. That stain remover.’ She came back and fingered over my discarded chothes. Her hands moved quickly, and her eyes darted from side to side. She left some on the floor and carried the rest back into the big room, pushing me in front of her.

  Ranjit was there with a short pale Indian in a loincloth. Ranjit stared at me as if I was a ghost. The woman said to the other man, ‘You know what’s happened?’

  The Indian said, ‘Yes. I’ll go at once. I ought to be back in half an hour at the most.’

  He walked quickly to the door. I said, ‘What are you going to do? I must tell the Collector. I must——’

  The woman said, ‘You must not tell the Collector. Who do you think they will put the guilt on? My son. It won’t matter what you say. Do you want to go through examination in court, cross-examination? Are you a virgin? If they don’t fix it on my son, they’ll say you led the Englishman on and then asked him for money. They’ll say anything to protect his reputation. Our friend will arrange it so that they will never find out who did it.’

  The Indian went out. I listened but could not hear his feet on the long stairs. The invisible charcoal fumes from the sigri tingled in my nostrils.

  The woman squatted in the middle of the floor and began to rub the marks of blood out of my clothes. As she worked she said, ‘Sit down, girl. I am this one’s mother. I am a widow—the Sirdarni Amrita Kasel. Mrs Kasel, you would probably say. You should call me Beji when you speak to me.’

  I hardly heard her. I sank slowly on to a cheap rickety chair. I said, ‘You don’t seem to realize. I’ve killed somebody. I’ve got to go and tell the Collector. I tried to speak firmly, but it came out in a hoarse whisper.

  She said, ‘You’ve killed an Englishman, an Army officer. That is not a person. That is an animal. Give her a drink, son. Our friend keeps several bottles in his place.’

  Obediently Ranjit hurried out and soon came back with a half-full bottle of Solan whisky and two glasses. Shakily he poured out half a glass for me and as much for himself. I gulped it down and watched him drink in slow shuddering sips.

  The Sirdarni said, ‘Why should you support the British law? You’re half Indian, aren’t you?’ She held up the front of my skirt in front of the sigri. ‘Get the iron,’ she ordered Ranjit, and when he brought it she put it on the sigri to heat.

  The whisky began to smoke in my head. I felt loose and large and on the edge of something enormous. I had to tell them about it. I said, ‘He tried before. He was awful.’

  The Sirdarni said, ‘Quiet!’

  My voice had been trembling, edging up the scale in little high shivers. The Sirdarni looked at me and said, ‘My child, you have done a great thing. Now you are a heroine of the new India. I seldom drink, but I will drink to you now. Fill her glass again, son.’ She carefully propped the clothes on a bench and a box so that they faced the sigri, and took the whisky bottle from Ranjit. She said, ‘Jai Hind!’ and poured a lot of whisky down her throat. I watched her throat muscles moving up and down as she swallowed. She handed the bottle back. I drank again and shook my head and shivered.

  ‘We’ll have to check our stories,’ the Sirdarni said.

  I said, ‘I must——’

  She cut in. ‘You must!’ She stood, feet apart, by the sigri and fixed her eyes on me. She said, ‘Have you ever met an Englishman who didn’t insult you? Haven’t your people worked for them for a hundred years? And now how are they going to reward you? You know. They’re going to leave you here to us. And what do you think we’re going to do? We’re going to make you realize that you are Indians—inferior Indians, possibly disloyal Indians, because you’ve spent a hundred years licking England’s boots and kicking us with your own boots that you’re so proud of wearing. I saw the soldiers pissing on our people at the station. I saw you. You didn’t look happy. Why don’t you see that you’re an Indian, and act like one? We’re strong now. We’ll look after you.’

  My teeth chattered on the rim of the glass. Ranjit stood there fidgeting in front of me but as silent as a dummy. Why didn’t he say something?

  The Sirdarni said, These chothes are nearly dry. We’re all moving together, moving forward. Soon the British will go, and we are hurrying them up. We don’t all agree among ourselves—some are conservatives and reactionaries—but we’re on the move, we are marching. That fool Surabhai, and me, and our friend—millions of us, all moving. Coming with us. Here. Look!’

  She picked up a mirror from the gimcrack table behind her and held it in front of my eyes. I gasped and stared. I saw an oval pale brown face and large eyes framed in the gold and green curve of the sari. I knew why Ranjit had been staring at me. I moved my head and opened my lips and spread my fingers. It was me, but this person in the mirror was more beautiful than me. She was a beautiful Indian girl in her own clothes. I could appraise her as honestly as if she had been any other woman I might see in the street, because she was not ‘me’, Victoria Jones, the Anglo-Indian.

  The Sirdarni took the mirror away, and I was looking at the sigri and the foolish, short, hard-edged skirt, the masculine shirt. I have always hated the short skirts. I had to wear them and I had got used to them, but now I saw them for the first time. The Sirdarni said softly, ‘India is your home, my child. The dawn is breaking now—our dawn, our sun, our freedom. We will stand by you always, whatever you do, once you find that you are an Indian. Trust us.’

  I met her eyes, and I did trust her. My roots had been in bitter soil, and then for a time I had been without roots. Searching for home, I had not found home—only Home and a house.

  Home was where the English came from and went back to, though I never could. Home was where they did not have a city and a cantonment in every big town, so that the officers could laugh themselves sick at an Anglo-Indian who talked about how he was going ‘Home to Southampton Cantonment’. Our house was Number 4 Collett Road, a bungalow sitting on a tired piece of land belonging to a country which Pater and everyone who lived in the house repudiated.

  The presence of Macaulay was very strongly on me. He was typical of the British. He was pleasant when it suited him, cold when it suited him, and all the time selfish, cunning, lord of all he wanted to take. I know he was unbalanced, but I didn’t take that into account then. Colonel Savage was a cruel bully. Johnny Tallent pretended to love me and then told all his friends I was free for the taking. Patrick was as bad as any of them, and a bigger fool besides. Rose Mary. Mrs Williams, Sir Meredith Sullivan.

  An overpowering nervous excitement filled me, coming up like a high fear that choked me in my throat. All those people I had been thinking of stood on one side, and on the other—the dawn. I realized that it was not fear that I felt, but triumph, which is so often the same as fear.

  My boat was moving fast to shore then.

  The strange Indian came back. His face was pale and smooth and without expression. His eyes were calm. He had large ears, set low, and he wore a big shapeless moustache. Both his moustache and the untidy hair showing below his turban were pepper-and-salt, black and grey. The Sirdarni said, ‘This is our friend, Ghanshyam. And you are Victoria Jones. My son has spoken of you.’

  I glnced at Ranjit and smiled proudly. He did not smile back. He was silent and troubled and could not stand still for more than a few seconds at a time.

  Ghanshyam, the pale Indian, said, ‘I have brought the body into the city and hidden it in a dungheap, where it should not be found for several days. The Gurkhas did not see me. I have buried the piece of fishplate, first washing it clean. No one saw me.’ He spoke in a soft, ca
reful, polite voice.

  The Sirdarni said, ‘Good. Now we must get our stories straight. Do not worry at all, my child, there is nothing to worry about. You are an Indian, and because you have struck a blow for us—for yourself—we will see that you come to no harm. What happened?’

  I told her. The excitement was dying away in me; the effect of the whisky had passed; but my boat was moving on a new clear course. All this was nothing but sensible people sensibly planning.

  The Sirdarni said, ‘Then only my son knew that this Macaulay was going to see you to your house? And those who saw you leave the station with Macaulay would be—several Gurkhas and coolies on the platform, the two sentries who challenged you. Those sentries would also know that you got as far as the beginning of the yards together. Then the same sentries saw my son following you very shortly afterwards. Yes?’

  Ranjit said, ‘I didn’t see any sentries in the yards.’

  His mother said, ‘They may have seen you though, and remained hidden, recognizing you?’

  ‘No, they would have challenged,’ I said.

  The Sirdarni said, ‘I do not think it matters.’ She walked once up and down the room and stopped in front of Ghanshyam. She asked him, ‘What do you think?’

  Ghanshyam said, ‘It is not difficult, Beji. Lieutenant Macaulay and Miss Jones went on along the line, just inside the yards, without being challenged again. Ranjit went after them because his work was finished and Miss Jones had left her bag behind. He caught them up near the Loco Shed junction and gave Miss Jones her handbag. Then he came home here, there being no reason for him to return to the station. Lieutenant Macaulay left Miss Jones by the signal outside her home. She at once went into her garden, and that was the last she saw of him.