The White Rajah (1961)

by Monsarrat, Nicholas

  ‘Enough, enough,’ he said. ‘You spoil my day with your wrangling …’ Far down the Steps of Heaven, among the lowest of the crosses, a distant wailing broke out, borne on the summer air like the wafting of smoke. The Rajah, his attention caught by it, rose from his chair. ‘Kedah, we must not neglect those lower slopes. They are as fine, sturdy fellows down there, as those in the places of honour.’ He turned to Richard. ‘You will join us, Tunku?’

  ‘I thank you, no,’ muttered Richard, still robbed by his anger of words to suit the occasion.

  ‘You are in danger of missing the rarest of pleasures,’ observed the Rajah. ‘But I will not press you … Come, we waste a fine evening. Let us walk.’

  Now the cries from the Steps of Heaven came in short swelling bursts of agony, in concerted wails which were taken up by every man who still had a voice, as if the jointure of their appeal might melt some stony heart. But always, at each awakening, the sound would waver away to nothing, as the torture sapping the prisoners’ strength showed its terrible toll. Often silence would reign for an hour or more, a settled stillness more frightful than sound itself; and then some tormented slave would snatch back his soul and find his voice, and give a sobbing cue to his companions. At this signal, the clamour would mount, and burst into desperate entreaty, and dwindle down to silence once more.

  Gradually the bloody turmoil simmered away into a hopeless endurance. Taunted by draughts of water, taunted also by the holidaymakers who were allowed by the Rajah to spend their daytime leisure and enjoy their family meals on the steps, the prisoners clung to the last of their lives, in grisly belief that even this skeleton survival might be sweeter than death. More than a hundred still remained, hung upon nails, suspended in this idiot delusion of hope. It was the evening of the fifth day.

  On that night, Richard could not sleep. He would doze, and wake sweating from some monstrous nightmare of pursuit and slaughter, and lie listening – listening to Sunara’s light breathing beside him, and to the silence, and then, time and again, to the thin far cries of men in their last extremity. Sometimes he rose, and went into a neighbouring room, and drank deep from a carafe of the heavy rice wine, seeking to drown the pitiful clamour, which sounded louder each time it was heard. He could have wished for company – not the company of Sunara, who was too loving and too tender for this brutal hour, but John Keston (who had gone down to Kutar with the boy Adam and Manina), or Amin Sang, faithful friend, valiant soldier, whose guard duty had taken him elsewhere in the palace.

  But he was doomed to be alone; alone with the wine which could not drug his senses, and with his rank and power, which could neither save life nor snuff it out, and with the silences, which did not endure long enough to bring even a hint of the mercy of peace.

  Towards morning he rose from his daybed, sending a half empty wineglass crashing to the polished teak floor, and stretched, and listened, and stared about him, stupid with sleeplessness, possessed by an unplanned impulse of action. Then he said, aloud: ‘It is enough,’ and he sought out his pistols, and loaded them, and strapped them on. Then, walking as lightly as he could, with the wine and his heavy spirit weighing him down, he descended the wide staircase, and went out into the garden.

  In the sleeping palace, he had been the only one who stirred. But now, as he crossed the threshold of the main portico, and stepped on to the velvet lawn, a shadow moved, and barred his way, and a voice challenged him: ‘Halt, and speak!’

  It was Amin Sang.

  Richard answered: ‘Peace! The Tunku!’ making himself known in the custom of the Royal Regiment; then he looked towards his friend, dimly seen in the darkness, and said: ‘You are watchful, Amin.’

  ‘I have the guard, Tunku.’ Amin Sang lowered his short stabbing-spear, on which a flicker of reflected starlight burned briefly, and eased his determined stance. ‘You are watchful also. Could you not sleep?’

  Richard stared out towards the Steps of Heaven, silent now save for a snuffling and a moaning, which might grow, or might die away, as the passion for life dictated. ‘Who could sleep, in this swinish place?’

  It was only in speaking to this trusted man that he, the Tunku of Makassang, could venture such a form of words, which approached a traitorous edge; and Amin Sang acknowledged this confidence when he answered: ‘Sleep will come, for all of us, and all of them. Do not bear it too heavily.’

  Richard leant back against one of the pillars of the portico, deadly tired, deadly sick of the guilt of the punishment. ‘I bear it heavily, because of the part I played, in making prisoners of these wretches.’

  ‘You played an honourable part.’

  ‘I wish I had played no part at all!’

  There was silence; and then Amin Sang spoke, in a reasoning voice, as one might speak to a child who must be brought to know the shocks and shifts of the adult world. ‘Tunku, you do not mean that. Or, if you do mean it, you are wrong. These men were enemies. Black Harris was an enemy. It was necessary to bring him to justice.’

  Richard said: ‘It was not necessary to torture him. Or all the rest.’

  ‘This is a cruel land, Tunku.’

  ‘It is people who are cruel.’

  There was another heavy silence. Richard had come nearer still to treason in his speech; and this time Amin Sang, loyal and dutiful in all things, could not voice his agreement, nor even hint at it. The silence stretched, long, loaded with wild thoughts, loaded at the last with a pitiful, faraway cry in the night. At the sound, Richard collected himself, and stood upright. He knew what he had to do. It was not the whole answer; it was not even rational, or sensible, or calculated. But it was a step, a gesture: the only one he could make.

  He spoke the military phrase: ‘I pass your guard, Amin Sang.’

  Amin Sang’s voice was careful. ‘You are armed, Tunku.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yet we are alone. My men are making the first rice, in the forecourt.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘On my life, I have not seen you.’

  Almost before his voice was gone, Amin Sang was gone, withdrawing like a ghost from a world he did not wish to rule. At his going, Richard stood alone, in the garden, near to the pale dawn. It was the coldest moment of the night, the moment which could rob the fiercest warrior of his spirit. But he was prepared at last to play the man.

  He walked out towards the Steps of Heaven, and the sobbing, urgent cries which by chance broke out at that moment. A sweet bird sang of the dawn, but its trilling melody was drowned and lost in ugliness and pain. The prisoners’ cries grew pitiful, unbearable, then ceased on a strangled note of despair. The stench of blood and excrement was appalling. He drew near, not by chance, to the ebony cross of Black Harris. In the dawn’s revealing light, the gaunt wasted figure hung like small meat in a giant slaughterhouse, awaiting, not a buyer, but a deliverer.

  Richard moved forward as in a dream, and stood stock-still as in a dream. He willed the next action, the next sound; and the next sound was the sighing, croaking voice of his enemy, Black Harris, falling from above him like dew wrung out of tattered rags, saying: ‘I knew you would come … Put me away, Dick.’

  Though it was what he had been expecting, though it was what he had come in search of, yet it was still a shock. He stood looking at his feet, just as the man above him looked at his feet; they were two luckless beings caught in the same agony, the captive and the free. Richard sighed; the turmoil of anger and disgust which had brought him into the garden had given place to a dull despair. His very life now seemed irrational, and overturned; here, within his grasp, was this treacherous enemy to whom he owed nothing but hatred, and he was about to show him the greatest blessing in his power – and that was only a swift passport to death. Was this what it was, to be a pirate transformed into a prince? – to command neither the ruthlessness of the one, nor the benevolent generosity of the other?

  If he had remained a pirate, he would have left Black Harris where he was, to bleed out his miserable life. If he had
become in truth a prince, he would have lifted him from his cross, and bandaged up his wounds. But he was trapped between these two worlds; halfway from a bloodthirsty malice, halfway to loving kindness and great mercy.

  Richard shook his head. He could only do as much as fate allowed. But he knew that he was bound to this man, so much like himself, by more than hatred and a lust for revenge. They remained brothers, in spite of all the past. For a brother, one must do the best one could.

  Dawn was at hand. It was light enough to see the fearful wreckage of the garden, with its multitude of drooping victims, and to see also the man above him, a figure of unnameable filth and pain.

  Richard drew one of his pistols, and stepped back, and aimed. In his resolve, he had grown deadly calm, and his hand at the last was firm as a rock. He shot true. Black Harris slumped into death with no more than a rattling sigh. His jaw, now gaping, seemed to sketch the wraith of a smile as it fell.

  The single shot had rung and echoed up and down the Steps of Heaven. First it was the turn of the peacocks to scream in savage surprise. Then monkeys set up a scandalized chatter, and men came running.

  ‘Upstart!’ screamed the Rajah. Robbed of his pleasure and his prey, he was beside himself with ancient fury; it seemed that he could scarcely remain seated on the ivory throne, as he cursed and upbraided Richard Marriott for his interference. ‘How dare you take the law into your own hands? Who are you, to decide when a prisoner is to die? By God, I have had a man whipped to death for less than this! And do not think that I will not do so again!’

  ‘I told your Highness what was in my mind,’ answered Richard stonily. He had endured nearly an hour of questioning and probing, insult and threat; he was wearied to death of it; there was a temptation to say: I did it, and I am glad of it – now do your worst. But he could not quite bring himself to such a point of defiance: too much was at stake – he had a life to lose, he had Sunara, and the boy, and John Keston, and Amin Sang to defend. Even if he had stood alone, he would not have delivered himself over to the malice of this furious man. ‘I told you I did not care for cruelty. Black Harris was dying, like all the others. All I did was to give him his death before it was due.’

  ‘By whose authority?’

  Richard shrugged. ‘My own.’

  The Rajah glared at him. ‘You have none! There is only one man who has authority in these matters. Myself! Are you seeking to take my place?’

  Richard shook his head. ‘I meant, the killing of Black Harris was of my own choosing. I took it upon my own conscience. I told no one what I planned.’

  The Rajah’s eyes bored into the man standing before him, with the most malevolent concentration. ‘I am not so sure of that. There might be a plot here – a plot to challenge my rule. If there is, be sure I will find it out!’ His glance became suspicious, veiled, as it had done many times during the past hour, when his mood swung like a weathercock, and rage gave way to brooding doubt. ‘I will have the truth from you. How did you pass the guard?’

  ‘I met no guard.’

  ‘They were on duty, surrounding the palace. You must have passed them.’

  ‘I saw no one.’

  ‘Then Amin Sang, the guard-captain, is at fault. Or is he part of this cursed plot?’

  ‘Sir, there was no plot.’ Richard spoke warily, conscious of delicate and dangerous ground. ‘I was alone. It was near dawn, and the guard were standing down, in the forecourt, making their first rice. I saw no one, and it is clear that no one saw me.’

  ‘You lie!’ shouted the Rajah, in renewed fury. ‘There were voices heard. Do you think I have no loyal servants in the palace? You were heard to speak to someone. It was reported to me. Who were you speaking to?’

  ‘I saw no one,’ Richard repeated, ‘and I spoke to no one. If there were voices heard, it was the prisoners crying out. God knows there was enough of that, to fill the whole palace! Or else I was speaking to myself.’

  ‘What did you say to yourself?’ asked the Rajah, in sneering contempt.

  Richard stared back at him, not prepared to dissemble. ‘If I said anything, I said that I had seen and heard enough of cruelty and torture.’

  ‘The guard will be punished,’ muttered the Rajah, taking up a new line of thought. ‘And the guard-captain will lose his rank, if not his life. The prisoners were in his charge. I do not care what name he bears, nor to what honoured family he belongs. Treason is treason!’

  ‘Sir,’ protested Richard stoutly, ‘there was no treason here, and Amin Sang is innocent. He knows nothing, and he saw nothing. He is a loyal soldier, and he has proved it, times without number. I tell you again, the killing of Black Harris was not plotted. It was my own decision.’

  Now the Rajah rounded on him, working himself towards a fresh outburst. ‘Do you feel yourself so strong, that you are ready to take all this blame? Have a care! I called you an upstart, and by God you are proving it true! Do you think you can escape punishment, because I took you for my son, and named you Tunku?’

  ‘Surely a son may advise his father. Surely he may speak out, if he sees injustice.’

  ‘He cannot advise, and he cannot speak out!’ The old man’s anger was reaching its peak again. ‘Perhaps you have risen too quickly, to have learned the conduct of my court. A son remains a subject none the less. All my subjects, high and low, do as they are bidden. If they do not, they pay for their disobedience with their lives.’

  Richard at last had had enough. He regarded the Rajah with cool temerity. ‘I am ready to die,’ he said, ‘if you are ready to kill me.’

  ‘Not so fast,’ answered the Rajah, obscurely delaying his judgement. ‘I will decide who is to die, and when … I wish to know why you took it upon yourself to kill Black Harris, the enemy of us both.’

  ‘Because I kill my enemies, whenever I can.’

  ‘Do not trifle with words,’ said the Rajah venomously, ‘nor with myself, either … You know well enough what I mean. Why did you cut short his punishment?’

  ‘It was a matter of pity.’

  ‘What has pity to do with war?’

  ‘Your Highness, this is not war.’ Richard, alone with his antagonist, made a last effort to show what was in his mind. He looked round the great audience chamber, where only the tireless arms of the punkah slaves moved, where the two of them faced each other in charged, monumental solitude. Though there were still men left alive on the Steps of Heaven, they no longer cried out; this was the last hour of the last day of punishment; death or terror had stolen all their voices. ‘The war is over. It is won. Now we have nothing to fear. Now is the moment to show pity.’

  ‘Are you teaching me how to rule?’

  Hearing the barbed, blood-chilling tone, Richard sighed again. Clearly it was no use. He was wasting his time, and his wits; he might as well have bowed his head and taken his browbeating without a word of answer, like any truant schoolboy. Wearied of the futile contest, he spoke his last sentences with resigned calmness.

  ‘I would not presume to teach your Highness anything … But for myself, I can feel pity for those I have defeated… It is not a sign of weakness, nor of treason either … Indeed, it is a measure of strength. I truly believe that compassion is a part of government.’

  ‘Is it, in truth?’ The Rajah rose from his throne; Richard noted, with concern but without surprise, that the old man was visibly trembling, as if a sudden seizure of rage had possessed his whole body. ‘Let me tell you that I need no lessons in government!’ He glared down at Richard, like a veritable avenging God. ‘You have taken upon yourself to pardon–’ the Rajah positively spat out the absurd word, ‘–to pardon a criminal who was undergoing punishment. For that you will bear the responsibility … You will be told later what my decision is, in this matter … But in the meantime’ – the Rajah, descending the steps of his throne, had the murderous look of a swooping bird of prey – ‘it will be my pleasure to teach you one lesson, at least. I will teach you how to govern Makassang. And that without pity, Tunku �
�� without pity!’

  ‘I angered him,’ said Richard, in the miserable knowledge of his guilt. He was aware, now, that his enterprise of killing Black Harris had been stupid and ill-advised; he had acted on impulse, under pressures of feeling which now seemed foolish and childlike; if he could have gone back over that fatal ground, he would have blocked his ears, forgotten his nature, and done nothing. But how could he have guessed this hideous outcome? ‘I angered him, and this is the result.’ He took Sunara’s hand, needing above all her comfort and her understanding. ‘If this is what happens when one counsels pity, then God help us all!’

  It was a true prayer, spoken from the very heart. Richard had never been so shocked as he had been, during the past few days, when the royal anger had reached its odious peak. The Rajah, baulked of the pleasures of one particular revenge, had set himself to seek other avenues; it seemed that he must compensate for what he had lost in the untimely death of his principal enemy, by all the means which a harsh nature could devise. Wanton cruelty had run its gamut: appointing Colonel Kedah as his chief executioner, he had embarked on an unspeakable programme of torture and punishment. As the crucified flowers in his garden one by one withered and died, he had replaced them by others; there had been vast forays in search of enemies and ‘spies’; the palace dungeons resounded to the cries of men, young and old, who had been brought there by the capricious will of a tyrant, and detained in agony and fear to slake his pleasure.

  Richard had not entered any further protest, nor even indicated his aversion; he was convinced that he had done enough harm already, and must be content to watch the reaping of the vicious harvest he had sown. To be such aspectator was made unexpectedly easy for him; within a short space, the Rajah seemed to have forgotten his earlier, furious rage over Richard’s interference; in manner he had grown jovial and benign, as if, feeding on blood, he had become full of good humour also. Or it might be that he was beginning to discount Richard, and his thoughts and opinions, as elements which need not be taken seriously in the adult realm of kingship.