A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Then came the bucks: magnificent black fellows with their white livery, slowing from a dignified trot to an arrogant walk. Raising their heads, tossing their antlers, sniffing the air, cocking their ears for the cracking of a branch, the rustle of long grass. Alert for four-footed predators but not for one on two legs.

  The whole herd approached him diagonally, coming within carry of his bullet. He picked out his target, the biggest buck of the four that lorded over the does. Stealthily he raised his rifle and sighted on its shoulder, then lowered his aim and waited, watching. Twice the does swerved aside and changed direction: first going away from him and then returning. His concentration broke and he saw their behaviour as symbolical of Shakuntala’s. He put the thought away: he did not want to spoil his shot. Twice they stopped and looked around, sniffing the air, listening. Each time, the bucks stopped too and lifted their heads but gave no sign of alarm.

  He came up on aim again, following the big buck with his foresight from right to left as it came within yards of the riverbank. The does began to lap the water. Three of the bucks thrust in among them. The fourth, his, stopped again and made a leisurely survey on every side. Holding his sights steady on the black buck’s heart, Ramsey fired. The buck leaped up and forward, then crashed to the ground, its chest skidding under the impulse of its powerful loins. The herd scattered, bucks and does jumping high at every few paces in their alarm.

  Ramsey returned to his travelling companions as the first drops of rain began to spatter on them.

  *

  Shakuntala had cooked for him. He had gone to her curtained carriage, taking with him claret and brandy. They had eaten sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing each other, using their fingers. From time to time she made a morsel and put it to his mouth, a gesture of great intimacy. She shared his wine.

  The night was very dark, threatening more rain. An oil lantern cast its yellow light on the multicoloured cushions where he reclined. She stretched out at his side, her face close to his, the pupils of her eyes dilated. Her hand went to the back of his head and gently moved his mouth towards hers.

  “You gave me my life and it is in your hands to do with as you please... I love you...”

  He could not reply. He did not know what he felt for her. He knew that it was more than affection and respect for her courage and independence, her determination to be mistress of her own destiny in a land where women were permitted no privileges except that of suicide on their husband’s pyre.

  He did not know what to tell her, so he gave her the only answer and reassurance he could. In the morning it was raining and it rained all day until nightfall. They stayed together under her canopy with the curtains drawn, parting only to bathe. Her girls brought them food. They were isolated from the world, and happy. They spent each night together until they came to Nekshahr.

  Ramsey despised Europeans who carelessly begot children on native women and then abandoned them. He had only one disquiet, but she dispelled it.

  “I would be proud to bear you a child, although I know that would not please you. However dearly I wish it, I can never give you that token of the love I have for you. I never conceived my husband’s child and... in the life you know I have led... I have never... it is not my qismat. I am barren and not even you, who have loved me as no man ever did, can make me fertile.”

  He had not once said that he loved her, but he did not challenge her words. He told himself that they were only a form of speech, a euphemism, a transference of the physical to the emotional.

  When he parted from her he still did not admit to himself that her interpretation might have been the true one.

  *

  Ten miles outside the city the convoy encamped for the last time.

  All Shakuntala’s tenderness could not comfort Ramsey. Her expertise was itself a source of anguish. It was not the coming deprivation that saddened him. They could meet in Nekshahr as often as he wished. The knowledge of the way in which she earned her living was one source of grief.

  Another was the sensation that a bond was being broken, a union which he had not sought but which had surpassed any attachment created only by her beauty and her artful body.

  There was a communion of affection and understanding. Their concern for one another was greater than the physical ecstasy that each derived from the other. It was more than the care that considerate lovers share. There was a dependence which at its first realisation he had resented and to which he had intuited her resentment also. They were both independent and self-reliant. To both of them dependence on another was a weakness It was only when each, without mentioning it, recognised that it was also a strength greater than any independence, that they both realised how far into an unexplored realm of emotions their implicit commitment had carried them.

  He had stayed at her side throughout the day and they had drawn the curtains around the parda ratha before the sun had set. Her girls had passed food to them, parting the curtains enough only to admit the trays and dishes, not interrupting their privacy by so much as a glance.

  He wondered if she had any premonition of finality about their parting. He wondered if, when he left her in a few hours’ time, it would be the ending of a harmony that they could never regain.

  Chapter Ten

  Two hundred years after his ancestor had been created the first Nawab of the new state of Zafarala, Sri Hamid Ali Khan Brajindra Bahadur Jung, at the age of 38, had ruled for seven years. One of his names, Brajindra, was passed down through the generations as acknowledgment of the family’s Hindu origin. He was not the most deserving inheritor of the honorific which concluded his title. Bahadur Jung meant Courageous in Battle. His Highness Hamid Ali Khan had taken, or commanded the taking of, many lives but had never seen a battle.

  He was of average height, corpulent and debauched looking. Beardless, he wore a moustache whose ends drooped on either side of his mouth and thickened above each jaw into bushy excrescences that met the trimmed hair growing beside his ears. It was an unusual affectation, copied from portraits of Asaf-ud-Daulah, a notoriously dissipated Nawab of Oudh at the turn of the century.

  The Monsoon interfered with the Nawab’s favourite entertainment, wild animal fights in a stockaded arena adjoining an outer wall of his palace. His Chamberlain was responsible for ensuring that camels, tigers, antelopes, bears, wolves and leopards were kept constantly ravenous so that they attacked each other or their own kind with the greatest ferocity.

  The Nawab was bored. He sent for his Chamberlain.

  “Summon the British Resident to bring his fighting cocks. Summon his assistants and Major Owthwaite to enjoy the spectacle of my fine birds in combat with his.” Cock-fighting might be less spectacular than a contest between a camel and a tiger, a bear and a leopard, or two antelopes, but it could be held indoors.

  *

  Carter, the British Resident, was angular and pasty with thinning mousey hair and a long upper lip which, with his sour mouth, gave him the appearance of a mask depicting Tragedy.

  His senior assistant, Captain Thorn, brought him the gilt-edged invitation inscribed in copperplate by the Nawab’s Writer.

  “Good.” Carter’s thin mouth came as near to smiling as only a chance to show off his fierce birds could provoke. “We shall see some good sport this evening.”

  Thorn, round-faced, naturally ruddy under his sunburn, blue-eyed and fair-haired, showed no pleasure. His hobby was wrestling and he delighted in displaying his strength against the native professionals, as he had intended for this evening.

  “Unwin is invited, sir.”

  “Let him know, will you.

  There was implicit contempt in Thorn’s voice which the Resident ignored.

  Thorn was a captain of Bengal Cavalry, seconded to political duties; an athlete with a fondness for dark-skinned women. Wilfred Unwin was a barrister who had never practised, a professional diplomatist, an aesthete; who had no taste for women of any colour.

  Thorn pushed open the door of Unwin’s of
fice but did not enter.

  Unwin looked up with a smirk. His porcine eyes sunk in plump cheeks shone with good humour, his pudgy dimpled hands that strayed so readily towards the prettier of the Nawab’s pageboys made a gesture of welcome.

  “We all dine at the palace this evening and watch the cock-fighting.”

  “The feathered variety only, I take it, alas?”

  Thorn turned his back and slammed the door. He heard Unwin chuckle.

  *

  Major Owthwaite plucked the pasteboard from his khid-madgar’s salver with a thick hairy thumb and forefinger, beetled his brows over it, then pulled irritably at his bushy beard.

  “It’s ’Is Nibs. Dinner invite: not for you, love. Silly devil would ’ave to choose the one night this week we’re ’avin’ ’otpot: only good thing as ever come out of Lancashire.” Thirty years in India had not changed his Yorkshire accent.

  Nor had twenty years since she came out as a 14-year-old with her sergeant father diluted his wife’s Cockney.

  “Nemmind, ducks, we’ll ’ave it agine termorrer.”

  Ivy Owthwaite never complained. She recognised her enormous good luck in being transmogrified from the wife of a sergeant major in the Bombay Horse Artillery to a Grande Dame, wife of a Military Adviser, when her Percy was transformed at the Nawab’s whim to Major and this appointment in the year that Hamid Ali Khan had inherited the throne.

  The Raja of a neighbouring Sikh state with traditional enmity for Zafarala had taken advantage of the change of ruler to attack and try to regain territory lost to Zafarala decades earlier. The Nawab had sought British intervention. The force that had spent six months there had included Sergeant Major Owthwaite, whose smart bearing and huge physique had impressed the ruler.

  *

  The Nawab, in a good humour after he had drunk copiously and seen his fighting cocks defeat the Resident’s by two victories to one, had gone to his zenana, leaning on the arm of his eldest son the 17-year-old Nawabzada.

  The guests were leaving. The Chief Minister spoke quietly to Carter.

  “Rais Sahib, I would like to talk to you tomorrow.”

  “My door is always open to you, Dewan Sahib. Or would you prefer me to call here?”

  “For the sake of discretion, the Residency. At noon?”

  “You are perturbed, Dewan Sahib?”

  “The Prophet said ‘Signs are in the power of God alone. I am only a plain-spoken warner.’”

  “You wish to warn me?”

  “It is also written in the Holy Quran, ‘Abraham said: O Lord make this land secure, and turn away me and my children from serving idols.’”

  The Resident understood the old man’s oblique reference. “I have heard something of what I think you have in mind. Is it the Brahmins again?”

  “As Abraham was concerned only with the good of his people, so am I. I shall come to you tomorrow ostensibly to discuss the lease of land for the hospital that Dr. Bond Sahib has requested.”

  *

  Ramsey told the cart drivers to await word from him in the serai outside Nekshahr. With Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh on horses he had bought the previous day at a town on their route, he rode ahead. With no carriage, this was the most impressive entrance he could make into the capital. His orderlies wore their best clothes, looked disdainfully at the pedestrians and gave their master’s progress a distinction that would be reported throughout the city by nightfall.

  Domes and minarets, the crenulated walls of the ancient fort, the high marble walls and towers of the palace, showed above the trees in the palace grounds and along the banks of the river that meandered away to the south-west, eventually to join a tributary of the Narbada and flow on to the Arabian Sea.

  The serai was near the city’s southern gate where much of the ancient wall still stood. Around a walled enclosure small rooms opened onto a covered walkway. Travellers’ animals were tethered in the courtyard.

  Past the city gate the narrow streets reeked of goats and untanned hides, of animal and human faeces and urine. The odour of rank tobacco, overripe mangoes and guavas and hot ghi — clarified butter — mingled with curry spices, garlic and coconut oil. The wholesome odour of baking puri, chapati and parata, the stink of sweaty humanity and dirty clothes, the sight of beggars and cripples hung on the warm air or distressed the eye.

  They rode beyond the flyblown bazaars to the north-east suburb beyond the maidan, the palace and the great Mosque. It was noon when Ramsey dismounted under the porte cochère of the Residency. He sent his card in to the Senior Assistant and was at once led by a smart chaprasi in blue uniform to Thorn’s office.

  Thorn greeted him cordially but with doubting eyes. “Ramsey! What brings you here? What can I offer you... brandy, chilled claret...?”

  Ramsey knew the reason for Thorn’s guarded look. Best to dispose of all embarrassed uncertainty at once.

  “You have heard about Barrackpore, of course.”

  “A dreadful business.”

  “I sent in my papers.” There was no need to say more. Shame at his regiment’s dishonour was implicit.

  “I had not heard that news. What brings you to Zafarala?”

  “Did you know a fellow called Angus MacLean in Calcutta?”

  “Only by name.” The tone implied that captains of the First Bengal Horse did not consort with the merchantry.

  “He’s not a bad fellow, as they go: an old acquaintance of my father’s.” A devious rogue, but that’s no business of Thorn’s.

  “Really?” Thorn’s manner hinted that the earlier generations of senior officers sometimes had strange friends.

  “He offered me a partnership. For various reasons, however, I am here as a free agent.”

  “In what capacity?”

  “A merchant venturer, I suppose one could call it.”

  “You intend to stay in Zafarala, then?”

  “You need not worry: I do not intend to become involved in politics.”

  “You may find that more difficult to avoid than you think. What have you in mind to do, exactly?”

  “To take advantage of any commercial opportunity that appears feasible.”

  “That covers everything and tells me nothing.”

  “I shall know no more until I have learned something about Zafarala. My first need is to find a house.”

  “You are welcome to put up at my place for the time being. I shall enjoy your company. It is two years since I had the chance of a yarn with a brother officer.” Thorn gave a wry smirk. “The only other soldier here is the Nawab’s Military Adviser, Major Owthwaite: Sergeant Major, Retired, on full pension. I hear he was a first-rate N.C.O. Masquerading as an officer, he is an impertinence.”

  “That is good of you. I shall not impose long. I presume it will be easy enough to find a bungalow?”

  “There are several empty, from the days of the Military Mission. Come and have tiffin. I shall arrange your formal call on the Resident for tomorrow morning.”

  *

  Carter had ordered fresh lime juice for the Dewan and had a huqqa prepared for him. The Dewan sat cross-legged on a sofa, Carter faced him in an armchair. The first few minutes’ talk followed the obligatory inconsequential course. The Resident glanced at the grandfather clock in a corner; time enough.

  “So, Dewan Sahib, the Brahmins are intriguing again?”

  “It is the chief priest of the main temple, as before, Rais Sahib. The Chamberlain is go-between. As you know, he is a Vaisya. It is my opinion that he hopes to gain merit and in his next incarnation, in which these idolators believe, to return to earth in a higher caste; a Kshatriya or even a Brahmin. He is an eager messenger and arranger of meetings. He seeks to ingratiate himself. His position at court is precarious; like everyone’s...”

  “Except yours, Dewan Sahib.”

  “It is true I have served the Nawab and his father before him for twenty-five years. But even I am liable to choke over my food or fall into the crocodile tank. A lackey such as the Chamber
lain is more likely to suffer torture and beheading.”

  Carter smiled. “You are invulnerable. Not even this Nawab would dare harm you. You are held in too great respect. There would be an uprising.”

  The Dewan made a dismissive gesture. “I still have a little influence.”

  “Which weakness of the Nawab’s are the Brahmins exploiting this time?”

  “You know how superstitious he is. You know he is not a good Muslim, unlike his revered father. Perhaps you do not know that the Dasnamah, who are also called Dandin, are the only Sadhu sect who are exclusively Brahmin. This one is a recluse, a swami. It is said that he is the chief priest’s brother. They have been visiting the palace. You know that the Nawab insists that he is accessible to all men. But whereas the old Nawab was truly impartial in dispensing justice and hearing petitions, his son is prejudiced in favour of his fellow Mussalmen. I say this to my shame. Hindus have to pay a bribe to obtain fair judgment. I do not know what the head priest and the swami are supplicating or plotting, but you recall what happened two years ago.”

  “I had heard about these meetings and wondered what evil was brewing.”

  Carter had no difficulty in recalling the machinations of two years ago. Annually the whole of Islam commemorated the martyrdom of the Prophet’s two grandsons, with a month called Muharram. Its main event was a procession carrying a model of the martyrs’ tomb, known as a tazia. Many of the men taking part scourged themselves with chains and rods, making their own blood run. The atmosphere was charged with crazed fanaticism and bigotry which was easily ignited into violence. Riots between Muslims and Hindus at the Muharram procession broke out all over India.

  Soon after the 1822 Muharram the Hindu chief priest in Nekshahr had set about convincing the Nawab that he was seeing visions which warned that unless a temple to Vishnu were built at a certain place, disaster would smite the whole ruling family. He reminded the Nawab that his early forebears were born Hindus of the Kshatriya, the warrior, caste that ranked immediately after the Brahmin. He declared that the Brajindra family’s defection to Islam had grieved and angered the Hindu gods. Now Vishnu, the Creator, demanded reparation. If reparation were not made, Vishnu’s wrath would bring down a terrible vengeance on the Nawab and all his kin.