Captain Elders raised his arm against the searing flames, too crazed to realize his own danger, and peered into the burning building. Instinctively he knew that this was the lair of that female fiend who had caused the death of his Alice. He felt the tears flood his eyes. His poor girl, murdered by that black witch even before she had begun to live!
The flames raged higher, tingeing the rafters and walls a blood-red hue. Why not simply let her roast? But that would not be enough. He wanted to see the pain, the fear, the horror on the she-devil’s face as he ran his blade through and through her evil guts.
Blindly he staggered up the stairs as the panelling on both sides, adorned with the usual nauseating decoration of these filthy treacherous heathens, began to shiver and crack. A beam came crashing down, scattering sparks. He sprang over it and clambered on, coughing thickly with the smoke. Now he could hear muffled sounds, screams perhaps, cries for help. He grinned crazily. He hoped they came from that bitch. ‘Suffer, you black-hearted whore!’ he cried above the roar of the fire that now seared the stairwell. He cackled madly and pushed on, shielding his face with his left hand, sword in his right. The stairs ended. He thrust open a great door. Everywhere were the shapes of the vilest creatures of the most perverted imagination, writhing phallic snakes, whores revealed in all their wanton nakedness, fat lecherous-faced gods wielding monstrous organs, mocking the sanctity of womanhood. His demented face contorted. This obscene affront to Christian humanity was her place.
He swung his sword wildly. ‘Where are you?’ he cried thickly. ‘Where are you, great whore of Babylon?’
A slim frightened black woman — Padmini — appeared to his right. She saw the sword in his hand, the wild eyes, and cried, ‘Do not strike my mistress ... There will be a great reward for you ... Gold, pearls ... !’ She pressed her body against the door, arms outstretched in a vain attempt to bar his progress.
Captain Elders laughed uproariously, as if it was all one great joke. His sword hissed through the air. Padmini screamed as the keen blade sliced through her arm, bone and all. She fell to her knees, moaning piteously, head hanging.
Elders did not spare her. ‘Heathen whore!’ he cried, as the flames came racing in behind him. He thrust hard. The blade slid into Padmini’s lean brown belly. Her beautiful face contorted with agony.
‘Ran — ’
Her last cry died as he withdrew the sword with an obscene sucking noise and she fell, her life extinguished.
Elders peered inside the door which Padmini had defended with her life. But the smoke was too thick. Reason should have told him that his own life was in jeopardy, but Captain Elders was past all reason. Perhaps he wanted to die; without Alice life held no meaning for him.
Another timber crashed to the stairs. Nearby a tapestry started to flame. Vaguely he heard voices calling, but whether they were from below or within his own sorely troubled head, he did not know or care. He entered the inner room. ‘Blood and fire!’ he cried. ‘We’re going to burn you black heathen bastards ... over a slow fire! You’re going to pay now ... blood and fire!’ He stopped short, sobbing for breath, chest heaving.
A naked woman crouched in abject fear in a corner. Her fat white limbs trembled violently and she held her hands to her quivering lips from which no sound came. Next to her was an Indian. A man? No, a woman in male clothing, regal, arrogant — and knowing!
‘James ... James!’ At last his name escaped those trembling lips in a shrill of relief and fear. ‘James ... it’s me... It’s your Alice!’
He looked at her, the mad look vanishing from his eyes, though he still held his blood-stained sword raised. ‘What ...’ he stuttered.
‘Captain Elders! Don’t you recognize me ... Alice?’
Now he was panting. His mouth was slack, yellow teeth bared, spittle dribbling down his chin. A red vision blurred his gaze. The women seemed to be swaying and jerking before his eyes. What did it mean? Why was the black heathen woman dressed as a man ... and why was the white one naked, flaunting herself thus?
Even as the flames grew nearer the Ranee of Burrapore remained unafraid. Neither they nor this mad Englishman could frighten her. She dropped her free hand on Alice’s quivering shoulder and kissed the white woman — deliberately — full on the lips — then straightened up to confront the Englishman, dark face full of proud defiance.
Captain Elders saw it all in a flash: the whole perverted obscenity of these two women, one his wife! The black woman was his wife’s lover. He gave a terrible shriek, an anguished mixture of rage and betrayal. ‘Jezebels!’ he screamed. ‘Jezebels — both!’
Alice collapsed, squirming hysterically, while the Ranee defiant and proud to the very last, stood boldly waiting for the inevitable.
A crash. A burning timber slammed to the floor, scattering sparks. The thick smoke increased. Elders saw the Ranee as if through a fog, wavering, swaying, yet always mocking. ‘Let there be no mercy,’ he croaked. ‘Let my sweat run and my blood run ... Let the wrath of God strike down the heathen ...’
He advanced upon her, wreathed in grey smoke like some vengeful god from a Nordic saga, fire and Alice forgotten.
She stood expectantly, head raised proudly, sword hanging uselessly in her tiny brown hand. All was lost, her dreams of greatness shattered for ever. She welcomed approaching Death.
‘We have sinned against heaven!’ he shrieked, ‘and in Thy sight ... We are no more worthy to be called Thy children!’ His face writhed as he raised the sword in both hands above his white head. ‘It is the wrath of the All Highest ... ’
With a great hiss the blade came hurtling down. She raised her bared head proudly to meet its cutting edge. ‘IN ... DIA,’ she cried, as that cruel steel exploded inside her head. ‘INDIA ... ’
That last defiant cry seemed to go on for ever, echoing on and on, as the Fortress of Burrapore fell at last in one great searing mass of tumbling stone and burning timbers, the fiery sparks sailing up to a merciless, unseeing heaven. ‘INDIA ... ’
*
Envoi
By sun and rain, disease and debt,
By alien friend and alien foe,
By wives we must perforce forget,
And children we must never know,
By exile, solitude and hate
By these, Lord, let us expiate.
Hilton Brown
*
Major John Bold yawned luxuriously as he lolled lazily in the jolting tonga which had brought him from Burrapore. Now the monsoon was over and the fields around the road to Musulipatan were bright green. Here and there skinny red-bodiced women worked at their crops. Solemn oxen plodded ponderously about their business. All was peace and contentment, reflecting the young major’s mood as the red ball of the evening sun touched the horizon.
What a contrast with what he’d left behind. It was now three weeks since the Gibraltar of the East had fallen and Lord Hastings had annexed Burrapore for the Company.
Almost immediately, after searches failed to discover Cheethoo’s body in the smoking ruins, Lord Hastings had ordered John to take out a strong patrol after him. Somehow the wounded chieftain — they had found that out from one of their French captives — had escaped them and John had contented himself after a whole week in the saddle, with viewing those far mountain peaks where Cheethoo had taken refuge.
After he had made his report, Hastings had promised to bring up Bold’s Horse to a full regiment if he would venture into that remote mountain country and apprehend Cheethoo. He had turned down the tempting offer, pleading the need for leave. It was nine months since he had seen Georgina.
For some reason Major Tomkins had argued against granting him leave. But in the end the Governor General had allowed him to go, though with obvious reluctance.
John straightened up as they moved down Club Drive to the Collector’s mansion, patting at the grey dust which covered his regimentals. His heart began to beat a little faster. It wouldn’t be long now before he saw Georgina.
At the m
ansion, Chinese lanterns burned fitfully in the trees, and muted string music came from the windows. He passed under a floral arch, marigolds worked into a wooden portico, and smiled softly. Were they welcoming home the prodigal son, after all? It would be splendid if it were true.
There were carriages everywhere, all gleaming and highly polished unlike his own shabby, dust-covered tonga, the waiting syces clad in their best livery.
The driver reined his horse and John stepped out, telling him to wait, slapping the dust from his wrinkled uniform while the elegant grooms looked down their noses at this shabby stranger.
John ignored their glances. The music was louder now. Was it the same orchestra which had played that night when Georgina had confessed she loved him, tears in her beautiful green eyes?
He paused at the great entrance. The room seemed full of noise, important noise made by self-important people. Could he burst in on the Collector just like that? Back in the Army of the Deccan they were calling him the Hero of Burrapore. But that was up country. Here he was a nobody. Abruptly he felt shabby and uncertain, and on impulse, moved to the bougainvillaea-fringed verandah. Feeling a little absurd, rather like the beggar at the feast, he edged his way to the nearest tall window.
Elegant people eddied back and forth while white-clad servants proffered spark-ling champagne. Champagne, that meant a very special assembly. The Collector was a well-known tightwad. He pressed his nose against the glass. Everywhere were happy, well-fed faces, glistening with the evening heat and alcohol, and all staring at the empty centre of the room.
The music stopped and the Collector came into view, clad in one of the newfangled frock coats in a bright bottle green, his fat face more crimson than ever. He held out a pudgy hand like a head waiter expectant of a large tip. The guests clapped. John gasped.
It was Georgina and there was no mistaking that dress of white satin. Georgina, his beloved, who had writhed with such passion on that white beach so long before, who had said she loved him, was wearing a bridal gown! His heart almost stopped beating.
Dazed, feeling a little sick, yet curious all the same, the unseen observer craned forward. A servant placed a glass of champagne in Georgina’s gloved hand. She smiled at the guests, showing her pearl-like teeth, obviously very happy. She raised her glass. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, ‘please raise your glasses.’ Turning her lovely head to one side, she cried, ‘To my husband!’
John barely caught himself from crying out loud. There was no mistaking that pudgy figure and pale, self-satisfied, weak face. The regimentals were different — the Guards uniform had been replaced by a fantastic, ornate cavalry uniform, all gold braid and silver epaulettes, adorned with the insignia of a lieutenant colonel — but still they were worn by him! Georgina Lanham was married to his greatest enemy, the man who had not only attempted to have him assassinated but who had ruined his career in the British Army and had forced him into exile on the other side of the world. Georgina had wed Rodney Hartmann!
For a moment John was too stunned to move, to react, even to think. He simply watched as the assembly drank the toast to the newly married couple, with his arch enemy gazing in lovelorn stupidity at his bride, slack mouth open and gaping like some stupid village idiot.
The spell broke. He was seized by a burning rage, and overwhelming sense of injustice. He flushed hotly, jaw clenched, a nerve ticking at his temple. His hand fell to his sword. In a moment he would kick his way through the window and plunge his blade into the fat guts of the nonentity who had betrayed him twice over.
Slowly Georgina reached up on the tips of her toes. To her new husband’s surprise she planted a kiss on his red fleshy lips. His fat face flushed with pleasure and he drew her slim body to his soft weak frame in a possessive embrace, and kissed her.
The guests delighted in the cloying sentimentality of that moment of ‘true love’. Led by the Collector, who had found his difficult daughter a rich, safe husband at last, they applauded, and in that instant John knew he had lost her.
Slowly his rage dissipated. His hand dropped from his sword. For a few moments longer he stood watching the two of them. She had been his dream and for an enchanted time he had believed and hoped. Now the dream was dead and a coldness gripped his heart.
Slowly he turned and walked back to his tonga. The music and chatter receded. One of the Collector’s watchmen spoke to him, but he brushed the man aside without a word.
An officer of the native infantry staggered out of the darkness, flushed and a little drunk. ‘I say, it’s Major Bold, isn’t it?’ he cried. ‘Aren’t you going to the reception? That old bugger, the Collector, is doing himself proud. There’s oodles of bubbly, and — ’ He broke off, puzzled. Bold was walking past him like a sleepwalker.
A couple crossed the path to John’s front. ‘Isn’t it wonderful, darling?’ the woman gushed. ‘They sail from Madras, this Wednesday week. Imagine our Georgina Lanham mixing with high society — the Prince Regent and his circle ... ’
The coldness was becoming more acute. The chatter, the music, grew ever more distant. Already he had forgotten them. Now he heard another kind of music — the tunes of battle and sudden death. His eyes were set on distant peaks in remote strange lands.
His driver looked at him strangely. John did not seem to notice. He clambered in, gave his orders and then sat, stiff, erect and silent. The driver shrugged. The pay was good, at least. He flicked his whip. The tonga moved off, turning north the way it had come. Major John Bold was returning to the wars ...
By exile, solitude and hate
By these, Lord, let us expiate.
Bugles at Dawn Page 25
