by John Masters
Adam Khan said slowly: ‘You are trying to annoy me, Peter.’
Peter said: ‘No, I’m not. I just want to make it quite clear that your fate and mine are going to move out of our hands if this war begins. Soldiers in Europe and sailors in the Atlantic are going to settle it.’
‘That is wrong,’ Adam said heavily.
‘But true,’ Peter said, showing his teeth.
The boy Baber said: ‘Do not care what my father says, sahib. With him it is---‘ He broke into rapid, clean Punjabi.
‘We have been hearing for weeks about the war that might come. Grandfather says the armies used to invade us from Burma, Persia, Afghanistan, China, Nepal. Where is our Peacock Throne? In Teheran! Carried off by the son of an Afghan pastry cook! But for a hundred years we have been marching out upon them, to chastise them. We can hold up our heads anywhere, not because of what my father says, but because of what he, my grandfather, did . .’
Emily covertly eyed Adam and saw him gazing at his son with that same wry admiration; his eyes met Peter’s with an obvious message: You see? This is what we must not lose while we worry about freedom. The boy surged on, standing up now, for he was full of passion, and Rodney had stood up too and was clutching at the skirt of Baber’s beautifully cut black achkan.
‘Grandfather says when we can beat anyone in the world, as the English are teaching us; when there is no need to send English soldiers with us to see that we do not become frightened at strange new things; when we can build bridges and roads, and give judgement by what is right, not by what will please our friends; when the King Emperor can say to us: “Do this,” and we can do it--then we shall be free, whoever sits in your seat, sahib, whatever anyone writes on any piece of paper, whoever is Viceroy, even if there is no Viceroy. If we cannot do these things, Grandfather says, we shall be free as we were after the time of the Emperor Aurangzeb--free, and slaves to fear.’
He stopped and sat down slowly. ‘I am sorry, sahib. I spoke because I wanted you to know that Indians have pride.’ He turned away from his father.
‘Well spoken, my son,’ Adam said softly. ‘Well spoken indeed. When you are a man, after this war is over--for I feel in my bones that it is coming--you will know that I too have spoken well. Also the Deputy Commissioner Sahib. And my father. That is our tragedy.’
The youth dosed his handsome face in disbelief. Adam turned to Peter. ‘I hope that’s what happens, that we all fight together and that India does more than her share, because then, afterwards, everything will have to be different. Then, when we will have helped to win the war, we cannot be treated as a trophy but as an ally, an equal.’
Peter was silent, and Emily saw that he was looking sombrely at Adam Khan. At length . . . ‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘But nothing will be settled in India. That’s our tragedy.’
Adam Khan stood up, and Baber automatically with him. ‘That’s all I had to say, Peter. I’m going to call a meeting of the local branch of Congress as soon as we hear any definite news. I’ll let you know about any resolutions we pass.’
‘Thanks,’ Peter said.
‘And another thing,’ Adam added with a half-smile. ‘Everyone in Rudwal hopes Harry Walsh breaks his neck on Meru--some because they think you are their father and mother, almost God; others because they think you’re the devil, but our own personal Rudwal devil. Give my regards to Gerry. Did you tell him I’d finally persuaded our anti-British wing to join us in giving our blessing to the hospital?’
‘Yes. He was delighted. Parkash wanted to go and bash your heads in for being so long about it. “Don’t the bloody British have dysentery too?” he bawled. Good-bye, Adam. I hope I’m not putting you in jail next time I see you--I or whoever occupies my chair. If there is a war we shall have to take the gloves off.’
Adam Khan nodded, hesitated as though about to speak, and then turned and left with his son.
Peter returned to his chair. The heavy report lay on the floor, where Rodney began to tear pages out of it. ‘No, Rodney,’ Emily cried, and stooped to take it from him.
‘Let him,’ Peter said. ‘That’s all it’s good for.’ He stared out of the windows, where a driving grey rain was dispelling the mist.
The chuprassi was at the door. ‘Huzoor sahib--tar a-gya.’
Peter put his hand back over his shoulder, while looking at her. ‘The wires are up again, then,’ he said softly. He tore open the envelope, and read aloud: ‘HARKAMU AUGUST 4 BY GALLOPERS FROM JUNIPER JULY 26 LAST ATTEMPTS MERU FAILED JULY 22 23 24 REGRET REPORT JAMES LYON KILLED JULY 24 ALL OTHER MEMBERS OF EXPEDITION SAFE RETURNING AT ONCE DUE RUDWAL APPROX AUGUST 29 WALSH.’
‘Mr Lyon,’ she whispered. ‘The one who was going to be Gerry’s partner.’
‘Don’t remind him of that,’ Peter said sharply. ‘We’d better tell him, though.’
‘Now?’ she said doubtfully.
‘Yes. Otherwise he’ll hear rumours first. Do you think the telegraph operator hasn’t told all his friends already?’ He got up and left the room with the telegram in his hand.
He did not return for ten minutes, and then Gerry was with him. Gerry was trembling, hardly so much that you could notice it, but definitely, a light, continuous shivering of the skin, and his face was pale. ‘I wonder how it happened,’ he muttered. ‘How did it happen?’--over and over.
‘You mustn’t worry about it, Gerry,’ she said quietly.
Peter said: ‘Isn’t it time ayah took the children?’ She glanced up in surprise, for usually he liked to play with Rodney till late on such afternoons as this, when he was in the bungalow; but she saw the child staring at Gerry with absorbed interest and she moved at once to pick them both up and carry them off, and call to the ayah to come and take charge of them.
When she returned to the drawing-room Peter said: ‘Now I want to show you something else. This came five days ago.’ He pulled a sheet of white paper from a pocket and began to read aloud.
The letter was from the Chief Secretary to the Government of the Punjab. It contained a copy of an informal note from the Home Member of the Government of India to the Lieutenant- Governor of the Punjab, informing the latter that Mr Peter Savage, I.C.S., at present serving in the Punjab Commission, was being considered for the post of Deputy Secretary of the Home Department of the Government of India. The step would be a most unusual one, but Mr Savage seemed brilliantly qualified for the appointment. However, before it was made he, the Home Member, would be glad if, according to the normal custom of the service, the gentleman was consulted. The Chief Secretary now informed his ‘Dear Peter’ that H.E. would like to know as soon as convenient what he was to reply to the Home Member.
Peter returned the letter to his pocket.
He said: ‘That wire from Harry came from the north. Nothing’s been wrong with the telegraph in that direction--but they’ll have the wire through to Lahore any moment now. But--suppose they were never going to; suppose this is all we have to go on--this letter from the Chief Secretary, the telegram from Harry--now what?’
Emily had put down her knitting while he read. Gerry’s trembling had stopped, but he was even paler than before. ‘What do you mean?’ Gerry asked at last.
‘I mean--what am I to do? We were going to do great things, starting from here, weren’t we? You and Adam and I. But you both turned back into Rudwal. Adam is going to stay as chief of the local Congress. You’re going to stay as a doctor. Now I’ve forced open the gate that lets me get out and on, and I’m ready to go. Am I to turn back too?’
His voice was quite normal, as was his manner, but his words were so unlike him that the total impression was as though he were playing a part. Watching him carefully, on her guard, Emily thought that that was what he was doing; he was pretending that there would be no telegram from Europe. But partly the questions were genuine: if that overriding message were not waiting somewhere between Rudwal and Lahore, then all this would have been of the greatest importance, because he really wanted to know.
Gerry sai
d anxiously: ‘What do you want to do, Peter? If you go to Calcutta I don’t think anything can stop you from becoming Viceroy, whatever the policy may have been. Where’s the present Secretary going?’
‘Lieutenant-governor of a province,’ Peter said. ‘It’s Mainwaring--he’s forty-eight. A coming young fellow!’
Gerry said: ‘And you’re--thirty-three. You’ll go on to be a lieutenant-governor before you’re thirty-eight. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Is it?’ Peter asked, and he turned to her with same dark smile he had held through the reading of the letter and his questioning of Gerry.
Was he playing with her? When had Peter not known exactly what he wanted? But he wasn’t. He wanted her to interpret him to himself so that he might understand the strange forces that had been pulling him this way and that since Adam and Gerry left him climbing alone.
She said: ‘I think you want to stay here, Peter. With Gerry and Adam. I know that I----’ She hesitated, wondering whether she dared push him at all in any direction, knowing his old instinct to go then in another because it would be harder.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘I want you to stay here. Everyone knows you here, and you know so many. You’ve done wonderful things for Rudwal--really done them, so that you can see them and feel them and live with them. Remember what Adam said. You--you’re the people’s father and mother, or a devil, but their devil.’ She laughed awkwardly, for Peter was watching her like a cat.
He said: ‘Savage of Rudwal--whose shauq was building hospitals and climbing some mountain over there. “He was a great man, my son. They are not the same nowadays. There is his grave, under that peepul tree, where he used to sit in judgement.” One’s stature grows several inches every year, and Baber’s grandson will be told that I was a hundred feet high, ate a whole bullock for breakfast every morning, and knew how often each man in the district lay with his wife. I’ll be immortal. There’s an old beggar beyond Dagoh who calls me Auchterlony Sahib. Says I haven’t changed a bit. Is that what you want?’
She said: ‘Yes. So do you.’
She wanted to say more: that the hurtful thing which Peter felt so uncomfortable within him was the burgeoning capacity to love. She wanted to tell him that, in him, the enemy of the ability to love was the power to lead; that he wanted instinctively to stay here, because once he left there would have to be more leading than loving; that his instinct was reinforced by the fact of his strong ties to Adam and Gerry.
All this and more she would have liked to say, and would have said, with Gerry standing concerned at her side--only, this was the day of the telegrams. The chuprassi was at the door, and for the third time she knew that she had been near, but would not yet win him over.
Peter took the telegram. Footsteps rushed down the passage, and Peggy burst in, water dripping from her cape and oilskin hat. ‘War!’ she cried. ‘We’re at war.’
Emily stood up suddenly, her eyes tingling. After all, after waiting and knowing for half a week that it would come, and refusing to face it--still it struck like a gust of bitter smoke, swirling round the room, making the eyes smart and the breath come choking out of her lungs.
‘War---‘ Gerry gasped and sat down suddenly on the sofa.
‘War,’ Peter said, glancing at the telegram.
Peggy had torn off her cape and hat, and the bearer had mysteriously appeared to take them away. Puddles of water stained the carpet. Peggy was so moved that she had almost reverted to her old simplicity of manner, and Emily found that they were holding hands and crying.
‘There will be a call for volunteers,’ Peter said. ‘The plans already made here are to be put into effect. In other words, war--in Europe.’
‘But India must be in it?’ Peggy cried.
‘Yes,’ Peter said with a strange look at her. ‘India is in. Now what?’
Emily said urgently: ‘It makes no difference, Peter! Stay here. You can look after Rudwal as no one else can. There’ll be all sorts of trouble. Remember what Adam said! And thousands of our people going into the Army. Men short for the crops everywhere--food shortages---‘
‘Don’t be silly, Emily,’ her husband said softly. ‘If I stay here I’ll be like a man busily sweeping the galley floor while the ship goes down. Remember something else Adam said--”Our fate is going to be settled six thousand miles away.” I said it too. It isn’t only Rudwal’s--it’s India’s. Rodney’s. Elizabeth’s. England’s. Yours. Any way you look, to the bigger or smaller things, you get the same answer.’
His eyes were brilliant now, and his voice as young and sharp and harshly decisive as when she had first seen the power and the longing in him, not at the boat race but under the fluted challenge of King’s College Chapel.
‘War,’ Peter said. ‘World war, and they’ll be asking for volunteers.’ He turned suddenly on Gerry. ‘What are you going to do?’
Gerry’s mouth shut with a snap. ‘There’s no choice. I must go and fight.’
‘No,’ she cried.
‘Yes,’ Peter said fiercely. ‘Do you want to put a knife in his back as well as mine?’ Peggy listened, alert, waiting again, fallen away from Emily in expectancy. ‘How can he live with himself if he skulks here while the fate of the world’s being settled in Europe? What’s going to happen to the hospital if the Germans win?’
‘He can still work in it. There’ll still be sick Indians,’ Emily said miserably. It was true, though it sounded almost traitorous to say it, and no man, least of all Gerry, could accept it, certainly not at this moment in history.
‘I am sure Harry will be volunteering,’ Peggy said smoothly. Emily stared at her with cold hatred. These two and a half months had caused no rebirth of any love from the past, only an understanding that the wound she and Peter had inflicted on Peggy was not healed, was in fact still festering and would continue to do so until some great cauterization burned away all evil--and perhaps all good too.
Peter said: ‘And I’m going too. My duty is supposed to be to stay here, but I’m not going to. Gerry, I’ll wire Cox’s at once, to get passage for you and Emily and the kids as soon as possible.’
‘Yes,’ Peggy said, ‘Gerry can look after you on the journey.’ Peter went on: ‘I’ll leave for Manali tonight, see Forsythe, and arrange to get into the Thirteenth Gurkhas. Grandfather raised them, and my father served in them till he disappeared. That’s the first step. Once I’m in uniform I’ll get to Europe quick enough.’
‘The I.C.S. won’t release you,’ Emily said.
‘Yes, they will. The Chief Secretary will be delighted to smooth my path on what he will see as a greatly mistaken course.’
‘So it is,’ Emily said, ‘but not for that reason. Your job, your life, is here.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Peter said. ‘It might have been.’
He went out quickly. After a moment’s staring at the brother and sister standing with such different expressions in the drawing-room, Emily hurried after him. She found him in his study and closed the door behind her.
‘I warned you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I warned you.’
He looked up from his writing. ‘About Gerry? If you want to hold me responsible for starting the war, I can’t prevent you--but it’s not reasonable.’
‘If you’d stay here, he’d stay. If you’d say it was the right thing to do, he wouldn’t care who else was going to sneer. Why should he? After you made him let Harry down, his reputation’s gone. How was Mr Lyon killed? I know, and you know! Because they were tired--three men doing the work of four! That’ll be on Gerry’s head too. He only had your opinion left to care about--and you say he’s got to volunteer.’
Peter put down his pencil and began folding the telegram into an envelope. He said: ‘If there hadn’t been this war, things might have been different. You were right. I wanted to stay. I was ready to give up everything else.’
He was walking slowly up and down the big study, facing her, turning his back, the envelope in his hand, his face keen b
ut not hostile, turned inward as he tried to explain to her something he hardly understood. He said: ‘Now--I can’t. How can I stay here and let my fate, and yours, be decided by other people? Besides, I have always been ready for something like this to happen. I told you about Grandfather, and the Mutiny changing his world, the conditions of life, all his ambitions, overnight. I have always expected something of the same sort to happen--you dying, something like this--God lying in wait to catch us out. Well, He didn’t catch me! I’m ready. Emily, I can be a better soldier than ever I was a District Officer. A soldier doesn’t have to ask--he commands. From now on, until the war’s over, it’s the soldiers who are going to decide what happens.’
‘And you--as a second lieutenant?’ she said bitterly.
‘The war’s going to last a long time,’ he said. ‘Higher up, war and policy go hand in hand.’
‘And afterwards?’ she asked. ‘After you’ve won?’
‘I don’t know. Back here, perhaps, to be the D.C. and climb Meru. That’ll be it, darling! After the war we’ll all come back and stay.’
Just this once, he seemed to be saying, just this one more time, let me go out and guide and conquer and lead men breathless in my wake--then I’ll come back, and we’ll live in peace and grow love like a flower garden . . .
She turned away. After a moment he said harshly: ‘I should be in London by the middle of next year. Omar! Take this to the telegraph office.’
She went out and stood a moment in the passage. It was unfair to blame Peter. There would be thousands of other men doing this same thing--how few with his burning desire to do it, his driving certainty that he could succeed at it!--thousands of other wives as stricken as she. There was a war. Perhaps the soldiers in Manali were right, and it would be over in a few weeks. She could only pray that it would be so--for the sake of the men who would die, for her own sake, for Gerry’s and for Peter’s. It was an act of God that war, so perfectly suited to Peter’s temperament, should have come to relight the fires that she had almost stifled in him. Now he would be on his own, and she had Gerry to look after, who was not going to be a doctor after all, because of the war and because of Peter. She must go to Gerry, and comfort him. Yes, now, now! Send Peggy away and take Gerry into her arms and scream in his ear, I’m yours, I love you. . . . And then, of course, he’d go away for ever.
