The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  ‘This is a monstrous project!’ he exclaimed suddenly. ‘I would shoot a man; I might even maroon a man, and leave him to starve. But by God, I would not hang him up, till he was decaying meat! And I would not do it six hundred times, if God Himself commanded me.’

  She said, in a low voice, to his surprise: ‘Do not hate me for this.’

  ‘Hate you?’

  ‘You understand my thought, Richard. My blood is the same. But I am yours now, not his.’

  ‘You have nothing to do with this.’ Even to gesture towards the Steps of Heaven was to take part in this wicked charade. ‘This is your father’s iniquity, not yours …’ He sighed, deeply moved, wishing above everything that the moment could pass away, and that the precious innocence of Makassang – sometimes only briefly glimpsed, but real none the less – could be re-established. ‘There is one thing that can give us comfort – and them too. They will die quickly.’

  Sunara waited a long time before answering him with a small, guilty shake of the head.

  ‘I do not think that is my father’s plan.’

  It was not her father’s plan, and in the succeeding days Richard felt himself a childish fool even to have imagined it. Next morning, the Rajah was early upon the scene, walking about his ‘garden’ like some benign landowner seeking to enjoy and perhaps improve his property. Colonel Kedah followed him, and took note of his suggestions – a cross to be moved here, some steps to be swept clean of blood droppings there, a nailed arm which had worked free during the night’s restlessness and must be made secure and symmetrical again. There were even arrangements for the cultivation of this plot. Each cross was to be dowsed with water once a day, to cleanse it and perhaps to revive its burden; and each prisoner was to receive a daily allowance of water, as much as he could consume at one administering, for as long as he lived. But he was not to receive it on the first day. The first day was to be experimental, and punitive.

  Colonel Kedah, dismissed, returned to the palace to make his arrangements; while the Rajah, still in his mood of large benevolence, continued his stroll about the Steps of Heaven. Already he had favourites, among his planted flowers; and upon these he gazed with a connoisseur’s delight. There was a tall lanky priest, on whom the dread intimations of his mortality had already settled: his face had become a mask of horror and pain; even his shaven head, lolling downwards, managed to add something to this extremity of holy agony, proclaiming that it had begun to destroy even his pious fortitude – that the portals of heaven, or whatever he hoped for, suddenly, seemed too strait for human endurance. There was a fat man, a veritable balloon of woe, whose writhing, jerking flesh, most pitiful in aspect, could not fail to make him a monstrous figure of fun. And there was always Black Harris, in his position of honour, to which the Rajah returned again and again, reserving his most baleful scrutiny for this arch-enemy.

  Black Harris’s wiry body, brutally mishandled as it was, seemed likely to endure for a long time. He had lost some blood, and the wound in his groin – more of a branding than a wound, and already the target for marching armies of ants – presented a frightful aspect. But over the years he had been hardened to endure many such wounds, many such nights of torment; though it could hardly be said that he had ever been in a worse case than this, yet pain and wounds were no strangers to him, nor desperate ordeals either. The Rajah noted with approval that, keeping his wits even now, Black Harris was doing his best to distribute the fearful strains of his position equally over his whole body, so that his legs and feet took their share of the burden, and no one limb was called upon to outlast another. Such prudence, thought the Rajah, argued a will to live which was just what his garden needed … Taking his farewell at last, the Rajah bent a final gaze on Black Harris, and found that the pirate’s eyes had opened, and that the gaze was being returned.

  ‘I wish you long life,’ said the Rajah, using the traditional Malay salutation which implied a real and warm interest in the welfare of the person addressed. Then, with a stately nod, as if to a valued acquaintance who would never be wholly absent from his mind, the Rajah left the Steps of Heaven, and walked across the lawn to the Sun Palace.

  It chanced that Richard met him under the entrance portico – Richard who, sick of the infected air, had taken a dawn ride down to the Kutar coast and back, in search of relief for a most uneasy night. The brisk movement, and the clean wind rushing past his face when his horse was stretched to full gallop, had been briefly exhilarating; but now, drawing near to this shrine of cruelty again, he found his spirits ebbing once more. It was with a sombre look that he noted the Rajah coming from the direction of the Steps of Heaven. So early in the morning – the old man must have the stomach of an ox. Richard, greeting his father-in-law with formal courtesy, found him, as he had suspected, to be in the highest spirits.

  ‘I bid you good morning, Tunku,’ returned the Rajah, with something like heartiness in his manner. ‘You have enjoyed your ride? I hope it will give you an appetite for whatever the rest of the day provides.’

  ‘I have little appetite,’ answered Richard, not disguising his low spirit. From where they stood under the arched portico, he could see the topmost crosses on the Steps of Heaven, and in particular the gaunt ebony cross of Black Harris. The sight, after the freshness of the morning on the Kutar beaches, struck him with sudden disgust, and he spoke what was in the forefront of his mind. ‘Who could have an appetite,’ he asked, with bitterness, ‘when he has a sight such as this set before him as well?’

  The Rajah’s eyebrows lifted, in what seemed like genuine surprise. ‘Do you not like my new garden?’ he asked. ‘The utmost care has gone to its planting … Surely you are glad to see these traitors undergoing their punishment? They have deserved every moment of it! And Black Harris, your oldest enemy of all? Would you not rather have him where he is, than playing the pirate in your own ship?’

  Richard frowned. ‘Oh, I am glad enough that they have been brought to book. But I have no taste for punishment like this. A quick end is what these wretches deserve. Anything else is needless cruelty.’

  ‘It is not cruelty at all,’ said the Rajah, in the same surprised tone, as if he could not comprehend Richard’s objections. ‘It is justice … They tried to kill us, and they failed. Now we will kill them.’

  ‘Then let us kill them,’ returned Richard. ‘Not play with them.’

  ‘I do not understand you, Tunku,’ said the Rajah, with his first touch of asperity. It was as if his pleasure were endangered, and might be spoiled altogether if the manner of it came under criticism. ‘Why should we give these carrion a merciful death? Would they have given it to us? They would have taken the two of us, and boiled us, to make cooking oil for a Land-Dyak feast! I tell you’ – he pointed, with vehemence, towards the Steps of Heaven – ‘not a man there shall die until he has learned his lesson! And the longer the lesson, the better I shall be pleased.’

  Richard shrugged. His muscles were stiffening after the dawn’s hard riding, and the sweat drying on his silk shirt was clammy and unpleasant. He wanted peace, and a scented bath, and solitude with Sunara. Yet it was difficult to turn his eyes and his mind, away from the agonies of the Steps of Heaven, towards such promised ease. Some men deserved to live, and some to die. But none deserved to have their death eked out over ten thousand miserable pulse-beats.

  ‘It is your Highness’s affair,’ he said at last, using a formal phrase. ‘I have said what is in my mind.’ He looked once more, briefly, towards the tall grove of crosses. ‘Those poor devils are quiet enough, in any case.’

  ‘These are early days,’ answered the Rajah. The word ‘days’, in this connection, conveyed a latent, terrible significance, though Richard tried to ignore it. ‘They are quiet, because they are resigned. But it is a mistake to become resigned too early.’ His old face, in the fresh morning sunlight, took on a seriousness almost holy in its contemplation. ‘I have had some experience in these matters, and I am not surprised that our friends are quiet now.
But I look forward to a change of tune.’ His head was inclined to one side, as if he heard the promised subtleties of that melodious change already. ‘I fancy that they will begin to cry out tomorrow evening, after the heat of the midday sun.’

  It was as the Rajah, that cunning judge of men and affairs, forecast. The climbing sun next day, unrelieved by cloud, smiting downwards in burnished wrath, began to drive men mad. There developed, slowly at first, and then in terrible crescendo, a wailing and a sobbing on the slopes of the Steps of Heaven, a cursing and a screaming, a low-pitched groaning of strong men, a high piercing appeal from the weak and the tormented. It grew and grew, towards twilight, until the whole of the steps was filled with its monstrous clamour.

  It stilled somewhat as dusk fell, though during the night it was never less than a sad, prayerful muttering, most penetrating on the night breeze. In the morning, it grew again; it even seemed to be revived by the attention of the gardeners, unmoved men who sprayed their withering plants with a miserly hand, while the Rajah, walking abroad, watched their ministrations and took full enjoyment from the delights which had been set before him.

  Thus the noise rose and fell; brutally loud by day, stilled to a hopeless sighing by night. It was a noise which could not be excluded from Richard’s apartments, nor indeed from any part of the Sun Palace; in its terrible penetration, it became as much a part of their lives as the coming of day and night themselves. Such continued and pitiful appeal was truly unendurable; and it was on the third afternoon, when, by the Rajah’s attentive reckoning, there were still more than five hundred crazed wretches left alive, that Richard found he could tolerate it no longer.

  After talking with Sunara – a wan and pale Sunara, now near her time, shielding the precious life within her from the dominant ugliness without – he strode down from his chambers, and confronted the Rajah, who was sitting contentedly with Colonel Kedah in one of the lawn bowers, listening to the rise and fall of his villainous orchestra.

  The Rajah looked up as Richard approached and made his bow. If he saw anything amiss in the younger man’s expression, he took no notice of it; instead, he motioned to one of the rattan cane lounging chairs by his side, and invited him to join their company.

  ‘You are welcome, Tunku,’ he said, in the customary words. ‘I had been expecting you to change your mind, and decide to enjoy our simple pastime. Look at that fellow there!’ He pointed with his stick at his favourite, the fat man, who had now been reduced to a jelly of quivering pain. ‘Is not that the most ridiculous sight imaginable? He looks for all the world like a pig hung up by its trotters!’

  Richard stared straight at the Rajah, not meeting his mood, not accepting the proffered chair. ‘Sir, he is a man, after all.’

  ‘He thought he was a man,’ the Rajah corrected, though still ignoring Richard’s unusual manner. ‘But fate has decided otherwise. Just as it has for all the rest. They have all come to their point of change.’ He gestured round the disgusting landscape, with all its hideous clamour. ‘Hear that homage!’ he exclaimed. ‘Listen to those loyal voices! Could you wish for anything more satisfying?’ His eyes flickered upwards, surveying this young man whom he knew perfectly well to be divided from his own thoughts and feelings, by a chasm of instinct. ‘Could you wish for anything more just?’

  Richard contained himself with an effort, as duty warred with distaste. ‘Justice should be swift,’ he answered. ‘Or so I have been taught.’

  Now Colonel Kedah spoke, for the first time. He had been watching Richard carefully, as a man watches another man who may be a hidden rival, and who may also betray some flaw which will repay careful scrutiny. In the last few days, Kedah had continued his coldness towards Richard; but it had remained on a basis of prudence, as if he were feeling his way towards a settled enmity, making sure of his allies – and the greatest of these could be the greatest in the land, the Rajah himself – before committing himself to the alienation of a powerful friend. Now it seemed that he had grown more sure of his position, or more adventurous; for his words, aimed at Richard, conveyed a clear contempt, from which it would be difficult to retreat with any sort of grace.

  ‘I do not think the Tunku is at one with us over this matter,’ he said – and with the slight emphasis on the word ‘us’ he made clear his own alignment. ‘I fancy he finds us lacking in such Western qualities as mercy and forgiveness.’ His cold eye came round to Richard like the beam of a searching light, probing for weakness or self-betrayal. ‘Is not that so? You would be happier if this’ – he gestured before him – ‘this punishment had never taken place at all.’

  Richard decided to make the plunge, and his tone was purposefully cold. ‘It is true that I do not care for senseless cruelty. In fact, it sickens me.’

  ‘Sickens?’ queried Kedah, with an equal coldness. ‘That is hardly fit talk for a fighting man, surely? Is a fighting man sickened by blood? Not by the blood of his enemies!’ Kedah smiled round about him, calling the Rajah’s attention to his sarcasm – and to his loyalty also. ‘This is a strange moment to show a weak stomach!’

  ‘Call it what you will,’ answered Richard indifferently. ‘I take no pleasure in cruelty, and I am not ashamed to say so, before all the world.’

  ‘And your son also?’ It was Kedah again, pressing his advantage. ‘Are you teaching him to be squeamish?’ He used a vile word which had connotations of cowardice as well. ‘I understand that you have sent him away.’

  ‘I have sent him away.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Kedah, with pointed malice, ‘you should also send away the Fifty of the Brave. One cannot be certain, can one, even where such resounding titles are concerned? Your Fifty may prove to be squeamish in the same way, and for the same reasons.’

  He spoke, as Richard well realized, from the fullness of a bitter heart. Though Kedah had played an essential and gallant part in the battle of a short time ago, he had not been in the forefront, at the storming of the Shwe Dagon; the public champions of that action were Richard, and Amin Sang, and the fifty men who had met at the crest of the pagoda; and Colonel Kedah, assigned to a more pedestrian role, resented fiercely the fact that other men had won the laurels of the day and become the acknowledged victors.

  In fact, the designation ‘The Fifty of the Brave,’ which had come into being naturally and innocently, had excited Kedah’s special jealousy from the very beginning, and this was not the first time that he had used it in an odious sense, as if the fame it advertised were false and the reputed action far in advance of reality. Richard, stung to anger, was about to return a trenchant answer, both for his son and for the Fifty; but before he could do so, the Rajah intervened.

  He might have made such a move before, thought Richard swiftly, if he had not perhaps been enjoying the exchange, taking malicious pleasure in this added spectacle. Now he raised his hand commandingly.

  ‘I have heard enough,’ he said. Though he did not address either of them by name or by glance, it seemed clear to Richard that the rebuke was intended for himself. He stiffened to meet it; his own anger had been directed at Colonel Kedah, but perhaps the time had come to bring it to bear on others as well. ‘I have heard enough,’ the Rajah repeated. ‘These are my prisoners, convicted of treachery against my person, and the penalty for that is what you see. And what you hear,’ he added, with a faint smile, as a long wailing cry came from one of the nearby crosses. ‘I do not want to listen to talk of mercy. I prefer to listen to this.’

  ‘And I,’ said Kedah. ‘Treason must be punished, rooted out.’ His single eye was grim and intent as it rested on Richard. ‘In the highest, and in the lowest.’

  Richard decided to ignore him; instead, he addressed himself to the Rajah. ‘I would ask your Highness to hear me,’ he said, and his tone was not humble or suppliant. ‘These are your prisoners, certainly, but I have done my share towards their defeat. I ask that, having been vilely punished for three days, they now be executed.’

  ‘No,’ said the Rajah.


  ‘Sir–’

  ‘No!’ repeated the Rajah, with sudden venom. ‘Do I have to say a thing ten times, before it becomes clear? I am not used to argument … Their punishment will continue, for as long as I please. Let us have no more of this. It does not concern you.’

  ‘It concerned me very closely,’ answered Richard tartly, ‘when there was fighting to be done.’

  The Rajah stared back at Richard, in icy anger. ‘Silence! Did you not hear me say that I have had enough? You become arrogant – arrogant, and interfering. And why are you suddenly so tender? Is it because that man’ – he pointed towards the cross of Black Harris, a drooping, motionless emblem of death – ‘is in fact near your heart? Did he try what you did not have the courage to try?’

  ‘That is absurd!’ exclaimed Richard, provoked to fury. ‘Who can doubt my loyalty? I have shed my blood in your service! I have as much sympathy with Black Harris as your Highness himself! Of course he deserves to die. But–’

  ‘Then let him die,’ interrupted Kedah, ‘at his own pace – and ours. Do not come to his aid, like a woman nursing a sick child.’

  ‘I am not “coming to his aid”,’ said Richard, almost snarling. ‘I am the one who brought him to his cross! If you can match that service, you have a right to speak. If not, be good enough to hold your tongue!’

  They had come to the verge of open warfare. ‘One man did not defeat Black Harris,’ said Colonel Kedah, and it was clear that he was speaking once again with bitter feeling. ‘Not even one so exalted as yourself. Not fifty men so exalted … I have as much right to speak as you …’ He was coldly, enormously angry; his breath and his speech were forced from him with an effort, as if they were dammed up within. ‘More right, because I follow his Highness in all things, without question, without lagging … If you cannot bear to see your friend suffer, you should join your son down at Kutar.’

  If he had had a sword or a cutlass, Richard Marriott would have drawn it at that moment, so enraged was he by this insolence. But he was unarmed, as was Colonel Kedah; all they could do, having reached the limit of words, was to glare at each other with the hatred of men whom nothing could now reconcile. Into this furious scene, the Rajah stepped once more. But as their anger had grown, his own appeared to have ebbed; his tone was good-humouredly chiding, nothing more.