Henry didnʼt answer. Instead, he rummaged through the content of his suitcase until he produced a little box. Then he returned to Sarah, a huge secretive grin on his face.
“What is that?” Sarah asked uncertainly.
Henry handed her the little box, watching her expectantly as she hesitantly opened the lid.
“Oh my goodness...” she whispered, and her eyes grew huge when she saw what was inside of the box: A ring with a precious sparkling amethyst in the center.
“This is the ring which my father gave to my mother for their engagement, Sarah. I want you to wear it now.”
“Henry, I am not sure if I can accept this… after, all it is your motherʼs…”
“My mother is dead, Sarah,” Henry explained. “She passed it on to me under the condition that I should give it to the woman I love and want to spend my life with. And I really canʼt think of anyone else wearing it but you.”
“Then I will gladly wear it, Henry,” Sarah whispered reverently.
Henry took the ring out of the box and slipped it over her finger, which worked effortlessly as if the ring had been made solely for her to wear.
“We might not be able to officially marry in front of God, as you are still Damianʼs wife,” Henry said, still holding her hand. “Nevertheless, I want to ask you if you would like to be my wife.”
Sarah beamed at him.
“There is nothing that I would love more…” she answered, her voice quavering with emotion. “And you? Would you like to be my husband?”
“Yes, Sarah, I want to be your husband. And I promise I will be there for you until death do us part.”
Sarah let her fingers tenderly run along Henryʼs cheek.
“Death will not part us, Henry,” she said. “Our souls will live on and will forever be connected to each other. Maybe in another life after this one, I will encounter someone who is very sweet and gentle, loving and caring. And then I will know that it is you again...”
Henry quickly bent to kiss Sarah, before she could see how his eyes were getting moist, before she could see how touched he was. Then he took her by the hands and slowly dragged her over to the mattress where they lay down, cuddled up to each other and kissed until Sarah fell into a peaceful slumber.
One last time, just before he was about to fall asleep as well, Henry found himself worrying about their future again, did he ponder if everything would work out fine for them.
One last time before his eyelids got heavy, he let his gaze wander out of the window.
And there he saw that the firmament was covered with a thousand stars.
Chapter 19 – New Beginnings
January 1887, Uttar Pradesh, India
It was a damp and sizzling morning when six-year-old Ranjid stepped out of the little clay hut where he lived with his parents and his three brothers. The outline of the massive Himalayan mountain range in the distance stood out against the sky, hazy and unreal like a hallucination.
But the sun, the song of the birds, and the apparent peacefulness were deceiving. There was something that hung in the air that morning, but Ranjid didnʼt know what it was. He guessed, though, that it had something to do with the men on the horses who had so suddenly appeared on the horizon. Those men had been the talk of the region for the past weeks and had come from a far-away country where allegedly the rain was plentiful and the sun didnʼt shine. News had spread quickly that they had turned up everywhere in India and had created a considerable amount of unrest in some places because there were people who didnʼt like those foreigners very much.
And now they had come to Ranjidʼs little town.
His father Maraan told him not to follow him and to rather stay at home with his mother. Then Maraan had joined the other male villagers who were on their way to the market place, armed with pitchforks and shovels and looking rather angry.
As the commotion in town and his fatherʼs words had made Ranjid very curious, he quickly sneaked out of his familyʼs clay hut when his mother wasnʼt watching, and secretly followed the others to the market place. Having arrived there, he hid behind a huge stone wall which represented the remains of an old abandoned house which had fallen apart a while ago. There were some holes that had formerly been windows. From there Ranjid could see the villagers who had now all gathered in the square, awaiting the arrival of the strangers.
“Here they come!” Karunakar, the blacksmith, shouted. He excitedly pointed over to the foreign men who were riding towards the village at a steady pace, a determined and self-assured air about them. They wore helmets, red jackets and black trousers, and somehow they all looked the same to Ranjid. Only when they came closer, the boy could see that one of them—a tall, blonde, and wiry man—stood out because his jacket displayed a lot of medals and he was riding at the top of the group, which counted so many more men than Ranjid had fingers on his hands and toes on his feet.
Ranjid didnʼt know that the blonde manʼs name was Damian Cox. He didnʼt know that Damian Cox had spent the best part of the past weeks in hospital, recovering from an extremely nasty head wound which still caused him migraines. He didnʼt know that Damian Cox carried a lot of anger inside of him; anger that he had been unable to direct towards the person that was the reason for that anger and the head wound. He didnʼt know that Damian Cox was now very keen on directing this anger towards anyone who came his way and who didnʼt do as he wished. Ranjid didnʼt know that the villagers, who were now gathering on the market place, were in fact some of those people who didnʼt do as Damian Cox wished. He didnʼt know that these villagers were angry because they found that the British rule in India was unjust and that the British colonists were only befriended with the monarchs and leaders of the country and didnʼt care about the needs of the less well-off and the rural folks, such as Ranjid and his family.
Soon the men in their uniforms had arrived at the market square and stopped their horses. A strange, uncomfortable silence filled the air. Ranjid saw how the blonde man cast the gathered villagers a pitiful glance, then he pointed at their pitchforks and burst out laughing. He said something to his fellow men in a foreign language, and then they too laughed.
The villagers were not amused. One of them dared to take a bold step forward, challenging the leader with the nasty laugh by threatening to punch him in the nose. It was then that Ranjid noticed that the strangers were accompanied by an Indian man who seemed to act as an interpreter. The leader gave the interpreter a sign, then the interpreter said to the villagers, “We strongly recommend you to give up the riots and act in the interest of the land of your mothers and fathers. We are here in peace and—”
Sharukh, the carpenter, cut him off.
“Liar!” he furiously shouted at the interpreter, who slightly shrunk in his saddle in the face of his fellow countrymen taking up position in front of him. Then the carpenter spat on the ground, right at the feet of the leaderʼs horse.
The grin was wiped off the leaderʼs face. He let out a yell, and even though Ranjid didnʼt understand the language, he knew that the leader had just given his men the order to attack.
The next moment hell broke loose. The foreigners were riding straight into the group of villagers, hitting them with clubs. The villagers in turn tried to defend themselves with their pitchforks and grabbed the men by their legs, trying to drag them off their horses.
As for the leader, he didnʼt move a finger. Proudly seated on his horse, he rode over to a safe spot where he was watching the event from afar, a contented smile on his face.
Ranjid got a fright when one of the leaderʼs men and a villager began to fight right in front of the old ruin where he was hiding. He saw that the foreigner pointed at the villager with something which looked like a long pipe with some kind of lever and a pike at the top. Ranjid had seen a thing like that before, on a picture somewhere. He remembered that back then he had asked his father what it was, and his father had told him that it was called a rifle with a bayonet. Ranjid had then asked him what it was used for,
and his father had said that these kinds of things were only used by godless people and that he should rather quickly forget about it. And when Ranjid had wanted to know what it was that the godless people did with the piky pipe thing, his uncle Gopal had interfered and had said with a laugh that if one aimed with it at someone and pulled the trigger, the person who got hit would end up with a hole in his body and then would have to walk around with that hole for the rest of his life. That was the only explanation Ranjid had ever received.
Ranjid saw that two of the other villagers came to help their friend and beat the man with the rifle up until he sank to the ground and didnʼt move anymore. Then the brave helpers ran back to the market place where the fight was about to get out of control.
The rifle was still lying on the ground next to the unconscious man with the red jacket.
Suddenly, it occured to Ranjid how funny it would be if the fair-haired man, the leader who was to blame for all of this, would have to run around with a hole in his body for the rest of his life. He guessed that it would surely cause a lot of laughter which, as he found, would serve the nasty man right for treating the village people and his father so bad.
Yes, that would be extremely funny...
Ranjid wondered which body part a hole would look most funny in and came to the conclusion that it would be the best if the hole was in a body part that the evil man could not so easily cover, after all, it should be visible to everyone.
The head, Ranjid thought. Yes, a hole would be most striking in the head. That would be really funny to look at and rather embarrassing for the man…
Ranjid quickly left his hiding place, ran to the spot where the man in the uniform was still lying, motionless and bleeding, and snatched the rifle. It was heavy. The boy laboriously dragged it along the stony ground until he had reached the old ruin again where he took up his previous position behind the window and carefully lifted the rifle, clumsily balancing it with his hands. He soon found out that if he wanted to properly aim at the blonde man on the horse, he would have to stop swaying. Clever as he was, he positioned the rear end of the rifle on his shoulder and placed the top of it on the ledge of the window.
That was much better.
What also made it easier was the fact that in this moment the man on the horse stuck a cigar in his mouth and lit it, and by doing so he didnʼt move a bit and stayed really calm.
Ranjid aimed the rifle exactly at the manʼs head.
The man took a puff at his cigar, inhaled, exhaled, little clouds of smoke surrounding his content-looking face.
Ranjidʼs finger pulled the trigger.
And fired.
The sound of a terrible bang filled Ranjidʼs little ears. The recoil was enormous. The rifle fell out of Ranjidʼs small hands and the boy toppled backwards and fell over a sandbag which was standing right behind him. He hurt his arm upon falling on the ground and began to cry.
He was disappointed. Neither his father nor uncle Gopal had told him that oneself could get hurt when firing a rifle. Angry, sobbing, and without looking back, he ran back home to his mother at breakneck speed. He knew that she would hold him in his arms and comfort him until the pain was gone.
Later when his father came back from the fighting, wounded but alive, he would tell his family with relief that somebody had killed the commander and that this incident had confused and weakened the troop so much that it had been easy for the villagers to get the upper hand and ultimately drive the soldiers away—maybe not forever but at least for that day.
Ranjid didnʼt understand anything of it. And he wasnʼt really interested in it either.
All that counted was that his family was unscathed and united again.
* * *
“He is wounded! He is wounded!” officer McMillan yelled. Immediately, a handful of soldiers grouped around him and knelt down on the ground, staring bewildered at the body which lay motionless at McMillanʼs feet.
But it was too late. After a few final convulsions and some gargling sounds coming out of his bleeding mouth, Damian Cox died, his vacant eyes strangely diverted towards the skies.
Standing next to his fellow soldiers was Jeremy, the former stable boy of the Partridges. His face had taken on a stony expression. All around him the riots were still going on as not everybody had noticed yet what had happened to their leader.
Dead. Damian Cox is dead.
Jeremy was hoping that all of this would simply turn out as a misunderstanding because men like Damian Cox didnʼt die. Men like Damian Cox werenʼt even injured—or rather, they possibly got injured but recovered with miraculous speed, just like Damian had recovered after that fight with Henry Abbott in Kensington. The proud man had staggered out of hospital only a couple of weeks later, demonstrating an air of unshakeable self-confidence despite being wrapped up like a mummy and walking on a crutch.
Like Phoenix risen from the ashes, Cox had suddenly turned up at the mansion one cold and foggy winter morning, yelling at Lord Partridge that he could go to hell with his ploughs, blaming him for having let Henry Abbott and Sarah stay alone in the mansion back then when the whole family had gone to Norwich.
Jeremy had never seen Lord Partridge so pale, lost and speechless. Having been silent witness to the heated conversation between the two men, Jeremy had waited outside behind the shed and had run after Damian when the latter had stomped off with the thunderous announcement that the Partridges would never see him again.
“Sir, can I talk to you for a moment?” Jeremy had asked Damian when he had caught up with him.
“What could you possibly want from me?” Damian, still fuming, had spat.
“I want to come with you to India. I want to become a soldier.”
Damian Cox had begun to laugh and had shaken his head in disbelief.
“Do me a favor, boy: Go back and carry the crap, will you? The army does not need fools like you.”
“I am strong! I am resilient!” Jeremy had retorted with a firm and angry voice. “And I want to lead another life! I want to do something useful! Donʼt forget that it was me who alarmed you when Miss Sarah and Henry Abbott were in the stable that night. Take me with you. I am begging you!”
Obviously surprised by Jeremyʼs obstinacy and impertinence, Damian had looked at him pensively for a moment and then had said with a smirk, “You know what? Why not?”
And then Jeremy had followed Damian Cox on his crusade through the Indian subcontinent on his ruthless mission to make the land British ground by convincing the unwilling and by crushing the riots—with force if necessary.
It was obvious to Jeremy that this whole undertaking also served Damian as an outlet; an outlet to get rid of that anger and hatred inside of him which had always been so prevalent and which had been fueled by the memories of that particular night in Kensington which Cox considered as a major personal defeat.
The fact that Damian found a certain secret delight in the plight and misery of the people that he hurt or killed was one of the reasons that Jeremy eventually began to doubt if his decision of joining Damian had been a good one. Jeremy had wanted to become a soldier for the cause and not because of mere bloodlust.
Apart from that, Damian had treated him in no way respectfully. Jeremy had understood, of course, that they were different in ranking. Damian was the leader of the regiment, and Jeremy was only a number on his list of soldiers who could easily be replaced like little screws in a massive machinery. Still, Jeremy couldnʼt get rid of the thought that Damian held a particular grudge against him. He gathered that it was because he reminded Damian of Partridge Mansion and all the bad memories connected to it.
“Hey, shit-house ward, come over and clean my boots!” Damian would yell at him. Jeremy had learnt at a very early stage that Damianʼs noble and distinguished manners were forgotten as soon as he was on the battlefield.
But Jeremy had never complained. After all, he was in India and in Damian Coxʼs regiment, which was a real privilege. Deep inside, though, he had often wishe
d he would have been back home in England again.
And now Damian Cox was dead.
And just as if he had always secretly waited for an opportunity like this, Jeremy hesitantly turned around and walked away from the others who were still gathering around Damianʼs dead body, not paying attention to him. First, he walked slowly not to stir any suspicion and pretending to go in search of the one who had fired the gun that had killed Damian. Then he slightly accellerated his pace.
Eventually, he began to run. He ran and ran and ran; away from Cox, away from the regiment, away from his life as a soldier. He was roaming the plains and cities, hungry and desperate like a lonely wolf, always heading northwest towards Europe and always hiding, because wherever he went he risked being identified as an Englishman, despite his skin which had always shown a somewhat darker complexion which might have triggered one into believing that he was born in the southern hemisphere, despite the turban and the linen cloak which he wore in order to more easily mingle with the Indian population. It was much safer for him if nobody found out that he had been an English soldier even though he didnʼt consider himself a soldier anymore. But he guessed that this was of no interest to those Indians who had experienced cruelty by the colonists and who sought revenge.
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