A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  A hundred and fifty miles upstream from Calcutta the Ganges had made a mighty curve to the west and day after day the two boats plugged on into the setting sun, past Bhagalpur and Patna; Benares, with the thousands who came to bathe in holy Mother Ganges and drink its dirty water standing twenty deep along the shore; past Mirzapur and at last to Allahabad where they left the Ganges, which flowed on north-westerly, and held their westerly course on its broad tributary the Jumna.

  There was a different smell in the air now and clouds were gathering on the horizon, so far away that only their tops could just be seen. Any day the rain would begin to fall. They had done well but there were still many miles to go before Ramsey could leave the boats and make up a convoy of bullock carts and buy a horse for himself.

  One evening, with Allahabad far behind them, they rounded a bend and saw a long boat shaped like a punt anchored a hundred yards from the shore. Three or four men, naked but for miniscule loincloths, were reclining on deck, panting, others were in the water and presently some more broke the surface as they appeared from under it. Several women, kneeling in the boat, were leaning over the side and holding ropes. Anchored close ahead of them were two craft which Ramsey recognised as a bajra, a type of boat in which rich natives travelled for comfort, and a flat-bottomed panswai in which their baggage was conveyed.

  He called to the manjhi, the master of his scow, to ask what was going on.

  “They are Shandar, Huzur, the best divers in India.” He laughed coarsely: “Their women are expert at another sort of trade.” His wit was appreciated by the rest of the crew and by both Ramsey’s servants, all of whom echoed his amusement.

  A sailor standing in the scow’s stern shouted “What has happened there?”

  One of the women who was not for the moment tending a rope turned and called back “The Great One in the bajra put too much trust in the idiot manjhi of the panswai and several boxes have fallen overboard. Our men are diving for them.”

  As the scow came alongside, two of the women began to haul on ropes and slowly a crate came to the surface of the water and was heaved onto the Shandar’s craft.

  Another of the women, smiling boldly, called, “Rest from your work tonight and stop at the next village. We will perform a tamasha such as you will not see between here and Calcutta: because there are no Shandar women down that way to dance.” She paused and laughed as vulgarly as the manjhi, but with a provocative intonation that was like a gentle hand fondling Ramsey’s groin. And whereas the Manjhi was a squat fellow with a pendulous belly, the Shandar girl was lissom, full-bosomed and red-lipped and her eyes, even at that distance, flashed an invitation and a promise that were like a caress.

  Sher Mahommed Khan cleared his throat with a rasp whose portent Ramsey knew well. He glanced cautiously towards him and saw him and Karim Baksh with their heads together in animated talk. The sailors, who were not needed then to row because the wind was strong, had clustered around the manjhi at the helm and the clamour of their voices carried the length of the boat.

  Presently the helmsman handed over to his boatswain and came hurrying to speak to Sher Mahommed Khan. Ramsey pretended to be absorbed in looking astern to watch the divers.

  “Sahib Bahadur.” Ramsey guessed what was afoot from the style of address: Gallant Sir, the usual form when speaking to an officer. If that rogue of a Pathan was reminding him of old times it could only mean that he wanted to wheedle something out of him.

  “What is it, Ji?” One courtesy deserved another.

  “The sailors are weary, Huzur, and Your Honour would surely benefit from some distraction. This is the only chance of entertainment between here and Nekshahr; and the sailors will redouble their labours if the Presence will permit them a little rest and enjoyment.”

  “You and Karim Baksh, of course, would prefer not to waste time dallying ashore.”

  “If it serves Your Honour’s best interests, an hour or two of recreation will cause no delay: the boats will travel all the faster afterwards.” Sher Mahommed Khan was being as dignified and pompous as a lord mayor. “The manjhi also promises there is the best duck-shooting for many days’ march up and down river at a lake near the next village.”

  “Tell the manjhi to tie up at the village but be on our way again at midnight.”

  “The Sahib Bahadur is a great man and will have many sons.”

  Be that as it may, thought Ramsey, but I certainly don’t want to beget one tonight; yet that girl... and the others like her... it’s been weeks since I last... but the risk... but the Sandhar are a sub-tribe of the Bediya, and the Bediya are wise in medicines and diseases, as all of India knows... and if the rich sardar in the bajra hasn’t any of his women with him and succumbs to one of the Sandhar... he won’t want to catch anything anymore than I do...

  It would be a lively change from spending the evening sipping brandy and reading one of the small stock of books he had been able to bring.

  The village had a decent landing ghat, where the ornate state barge of the local minor Raja was moored. He went ashore with Sher Mahommed Khan carrying one of his guns and Karim Baksh the other. They walked to the small lake near the village in less than half an hour and concealed themselves to await the evening flight. It was strange to be away from the movement and the peculiar sounds of the river. The countryside was silent apart from the occasional lowing of cattle and the hum of insects. The old familiar eventide smells of India came creeping from the hamlets where cooking fires were burning. The sky was suffused with the grey-blue of sunset; and tinged, low on the horizon, with streaks of crimson smudged by great black banks of rain cloud. From far away came the mutter of thunder and the thin flash of forked lightning.

  The duck came fast from the east in a whirring flock, black against the pale sky, and Ramsey fired, tossed his gun to Sher Mahommed Khan to reload and grabbed the other from Karim Baksh. He waited for the next flight to appear, while the other two waded into the jhil to pick up the four dead birds; loudly praising his marksmanship. More ducks flew overhead, he fired again and again and the birds fell in a swift parabola to splash into the water a few yards from the shore. A third flight came over and then there were no more, but his last shots had frightened up a score or so of pigeons and he brought down a few to make up a decent meal for everyone on board both his boats. He strode back to the village with a fine delight of anticipation burning in his mind and loins. A bath in the tin tub, clean clothes, brandy, fresh fish, roast duck, claret, mangoes and guavas and plantains; and more brandy: then the dancing girls.

  The rich landowner’s boats had arrived at the village and there were two Shandar craft at the ghat. The village was expectant. Children ran about in excitement, shrieking, tumbling and pummelling. Women stood or squatted gossiping at their doors. The men were in the three teashops, or under the banyan tree in the open space around which the village had grown.

  The Shandar had moored at one end of the ghat as far from the other boats and the centre of the village as they could, to preserve the esoteric mystery of their preparations which added piquancy to the villagers’ and travellers’ anticipation.

  Ramsey heard the thunder again, more loudly, and saw the lightning flash more brightly in the darkened sky. He savoured his brandy, his food and wine, and lay back on the cushions smoking a cheroot and waiting for the first beat of the drums and the first notes from the strings of the sitar, the lighting of the oil lamps in a circle between the banyan tree and the ghats which would illuminate the performers.

  Suddenly the lamps glowed in the fuscous night as though the Shandar had crept stealthily to the place and lit them all together. The first dramatic, slow throbbing of a drum followed at once and cries of pleasure shrilled from the village women and children. Ramsey walked down the gangplank. Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh, at his heels, thrust a way through the ring of spectators and spread a carpet and cushions for him and the two boats’ masters; and their own comfort.

  Presently the sardar appeared with ser
vants and a veiled female companion: from the way she moved, a young one. Many high caste Hindus had adopted the Muslim custom of parda. This must indeed be a man of importance as well as substance. Ramsey turned to greet him. “Jai ram, Sardar-ji.”

  The landowner returned the greeting cordially. “Jai ram, Sahib Bahadur.” So his two ex-sepoys had been at work. Sher Mahommed Khan was as touchy as an elderly duchess about status.

  The sardar was well-fed, walnut-skinned and bearded. His clothes were ornate. His servants prepared a waterpipe for him and poured sherbet from a large earthenware jug into silver tumblers. He invited Ramsey to accept a drink.

  “Are you travelling far, Sahib?”

  “To Nekshahr, Sardar-ji. And you?”

  “Nekshahr? You have been to Zafarala before?”

  “Never.”

  “I am returning to my home near Agra.”

  “Then we shall be following the same path for much of my way.”

  But a juggler had pranced onto the scene now and this was not the time for conversation. He was not a Shandar but belonged just the same to the vast tribe of Bediya from which came a variety of performers and people who lived by their wits; criminals and midwives, snake charmers, panders and women who could cure rheumatism and concoct love philtres: a colourful, often useful — like the Shandar divers — and even more frequently perfidious gallimaufry who could be encountered anywhere from Cape Comorin to the Khyber Pass.

  The juggler tossed coloured wooden balls and caught them deftly here, there and everywhere: behind his back, between his legs, at seemingly impossible arm-stretch. When he finished, Ramsey was the first to throw a coin to him and when he had scooped them all up another took his place who produced coins and small articles apparently from his mouth and nose, out of thin air, from the garments of spectators. The village people cried out in amazement, their children shrieked with delight, the boatmen, sophisticated travellers familiar with 1500 miles of waterways from the Hooghly Delta to the upper reaches of the Jumna and the Chambal, pretended to be unimpressed. It was the nach girls they had come to see.

  The dancers came gliding onto the scene with swirling skirts, bangles clattering at their ankles and on their arms, tossing their heads, their bodies swaying in exaggerated movements as the two drummers quickened their beat. Their eyes, rimmed with kohl, seemed unnaturally large; their broadly smiling lips glistened red with cosmetic colouring and from the betelnut juice that stained their mouths. There were six of them and their eyes constantly sought Ramsey and the sardar.

  Lust made Ramsey feel as though his stomach and intestines were liquefying, it swamped his mind with shattering images of the sinuous brown bodies concealed by the brightly coloured, dizzily whirling skirts and tight-fitting bodices, hinted at by the glimpses of bare flesh between. It brought his scruples and willpower to disintegration, he sank into a morass of such urgent desire that he almost whimpered aloud with pent-up frustration and the anticipation of its relief.

  He glanced at the sardar, who reclined among his cushions puffing at his huqqa while his woman fanned him; aloof from the display, content in the knowledge that she was there to satisfy the concupiscence whipped up by the nach girls. Ramsey thought there was contempt in his expression. He looked around at the other men. Sher Mahommed Khan sat hunched forward with narrowed eyes, his breathing quickened, the fingers of his huge hands opening and closing involuntarily. Karim Baksh was smiling, his eyes following the movements of one of the girls, who came repeatedly to flaunt herself close to where they sat. He, too, exuded feral greed. The boat-masters were the same, mouths hanging open with wanting, bodies tense.

  Excitement gave way to shame. Ramsey was not ashamed of his natural feelings, even though at this moment they had gone far beyond healthy passion to animal rapacity. What made him scorn himself was that he was on the brink of degradation, of losing his self-control, of weakening his authority by publicly taking a woman who was equally available to his servants and the boatmen. When he went with a native girl he did so in privacy and with discretion. There were establishments, “the houses on the wall”, which, even in Barrackpore, a European could frequent without the whole regiment being aware of the fact within 24 hours.

  The girl who kept coming to tempt him was so close that she was almost on the carpet. Her eyes were only on him and he could smell the musky scent with which she perfumed herself and the coconut oil on her hair. Her smile was uninhibited and she laughed at him in taunting invitation and complicity. In the contortions of the dance she bent her body so low that her face was on a level with his: she spoke to him but he turned his head away and made a dismissive gesture. She laughed again and moved on. From the corner of his eyes he saw her make the same sweeping movement in front of Sher Mahommed Khan and saw him reply and her compliant grin.

  The music stopped and the girls dissolved into the darkness as men began immediately to stir.

  Ramsey bade farewell to the sardar, who told him his name was Dhala Rao, and went to bed feeling wretched and desolate, enervated and in no way consoled by his resistance of temptation. He loathed self-righteousness and self-pity and at least he could be pleased that he felt neither. What he did feel was regret at continuing deprivation and some satisfaction at his strength of principle. In this crapulous and bifarious mood he fell asleep.

  The drums began to beat again but the sitar was silent and there was no clacking of bangles. The brown limbs were weaving their rhythmical pattern, the red mouths were smiling and the movement of the slim girls were transmitted to his own body. The drums beat more loudly and quickly. He awoke to the heavy patter of rain on the thatched roof that arched above him and on the plans of the open decks. The boat rolled and pitched. The monsoon beat the river into frothy waves.

  He lay listening for a while, trying to work out how far they could expect to continue by water before being forced to take to the roads. The rains had come a few days earlier than he had expected.

  *

  They were far enough north and west to have escaped the worst of the monsoon which was now deluging the country to the south of them. For the first few days it rained for two or three hours at a time, then for longer periods, followed by two days together when it did not stop at all. After a week of this the pattern settled into heavy showers of about four hours’ duration followed by many hours of sunshine, which were in turn succeeded by a whole day or as many as three days of ceaseless rainfall.

  From time to time Dhala Rao’s two boats caught up with Ramsey’s. Sometimes they would pass one another, when Ramsey had told the manjhi to tie up while he stretched his legs, or the sardar had business ashore. Twice Dhala Rao invited Ramsey aboard to drink sherbet, smoke a huqqa and talk. His caste prevented them eating together. Twice Ramsey returned the hospitality. The only drink he could safely offer without giving offence was the favourite curdled milk diluted with water. This was proof against contamination: although the water may have been drawn by someone of a lower caste than the drinker’s, the milk of that venerated animal the cow automatically purified it. Ramsey was pleased to find that Dhala Rao, not being a Brahmin, did not object to the addition of a good measure of brandy to this beverage. In consequence their conversations on board the scow were livelier and more open than on the bajra.

  Ramsey’s liking for Dhala Rao increased as their acquaintanceship progressed. He had often been disappointed to find that as he got to know an Indian better, bigotry, antagonism, subterfuge or lies emerged to spoil the friendship. Dhala Rao, however, was broad-minded and frank. In addition to owning land, he traded in textiles and carpets, which formed his cargo on the panswai that was keeping company with his other boat. He had bought the textiles in Benares and the carpets in Mirzapur.

  In his 20 years or so of adult life, Dhala Rao had travelled to both Calcutta and Bombay and north to Lahore. He had an enquiring mind and was overtly impressed by Ramsey’s elegant Urdu and the ease with which he spoke Pashtu: which, in the presence of strangers, Sher Mahommed Khan used w
ith him in order to bring his sahib’s accomplishment to their notice.

  On his second visit to the scow, after a third glass of watered dahi liberally reinforced with brandy, he became expansive.

  “Perhaps when you have settled in Nekshahr, Sahib Bahadur, we may visit each other and find interests we could pursue to our common advantage.”

  “Gladly, Sardar-ji. But as I am only a novice in commerce; it will be many months, a year perhaps, before I can spare the time to travel outside Zafarala. My affairs will demand all my attention. So I shall look to you to visit me.”

  “That I shall gladly do. You will do well not to neglect your business by absence, until you are securely established. Even then, I advise great caution. It is not only the Nawab who is covetous and unstable. He changes favourites and enemies almost as often as the sun rises and sets. But there are many others around him who are almost as greedy and treacherous and shift their allegiances.”

  “I have heard many accounts of the Nawab’s nature and his habits.”

  “He is easily influenced by knaves and often by fools.”

  “Has he no good and wise men in his confidence?”

  “The Chief Minister is just and wise, but the Nawab too readily heeds others who have only their own advantage in mind when they advise him. I say this frankly and with contempt, although the worst of those who mislead him are my fellow Hindus.”

  “I am told that the British Resident is a man of strong mind, that he has a wise head on his shoulders.”

  “Those who show too much strength of mind when dealing with the Nawab, if they thwart him in any way or arouse his suspicion, lose their heads altogether: even British Residents.”

  “And those British who have no official standing?”

  “They can be made to disappear overnight, without trace, as easily as the Nawab disposes of his own subjects on a moment’s impulse.”

  “You have known such disappearances?”