by Ruskin Bond
Regardless of the din of impatient basins and spoons lower down the corridor, the warder stepped right into the cell.
'Say, Three-fifty-four, don't you know what he is going to see you for?' he asked.
Masterick looked up with a spot of fear in his eyes.
'You're going out to-morrow, Three-fifty-four. Didn't you know? Oh, you poor devil!'
That last was because Thomas Masterick had trembled a little, grinned a little, and slid down to the floor with the mutton broth spreading all over his chest.
'My Gawd!' said the warder in the mess-room half an hour later. 'Now what the devil was that Number Three-fifty-four living for? Eh? What was he looking forward to? He wasn't even keeping tally of his time. He's the first one I've ever known who couldn't tell you to a second how many hours he still had to do—at any time of the day or night.'
'Well, you see,' Thomas Masterick was informing his basin at that moment, 'when I was a Feast and Thanks giving down there by the doctor's shop, I had it all written up in the whitewash. Got a splinter off the floor boards, I did. And scratched 'em all up in the whitewash. All in bundles of ten. And I scratched one out at each breakfast. Five thousand four hundred and eighty days. That's what they give you for a lifer. And I had 'em all written up.
'The first time I lost count was years and years ago. While we were out in the exercise, the maintenance party came round and put fresh whitewash up in the cells. And when I tried to think down to how many I'd done and how many I still had to do, I got a dizzy. And then, just when I had it nearly all put to rights again by licking off a lot of the new whitewash, they went and changed my cell and made me an Ember Day.'
When the chaplain came he found Masterick very quiet and subdued.
'How are you, Number Three-fifty-four?' he asked with kindly austerity. 'Well, I hope?—and prepared for your big adventure tomorrow?—I really and sincerely trust we shall never see you again?'
Masterick turned his eyes to the window-patch.
'Well, sir, that all depends on how They look at it,' he said, a little distantly. 'I never quite know what They're going to do with me next. You never ought to have seen me to start with. Not really. Because I never killed Fred Smith. But you know that, don't you? I told you.'
'You; but I want to know what you are going to do. I can probably help you with your arrangements and help you to get settled down again. Have you any people living to whom you can definitely go?'
'That I can't say, sir. You see, I've been here a tidy long while. And most likely all the people I used to know have died. Perhaps, even Fred Smith has died, too. A tidy long while I've been here. There's been a war finished and done with since I've been here. And you see that little flag-pole against my bit of window? Well, I always thought that was a flag-pole from the day it first went up, five months back. But that ain't a flag-pole. It's a wireless. So Southampton Jack tells me. I'll have to step very quiet till I pick up that lot of ropes outside again.'
'Yes, quite. H'm! A great pity you haven't somewhere definite to go—something definite to do. Perhaps I may be able to exert——'
'Oh, I've got something definite to do all right, sir.'
'Oh, you have. Oh, well, of course, that's splendid. Regular employment is it?'
'Pretty regular, maybe. I want to take the mike out of that cocksure crowd in the court. Because, you see, sir, I never killed Fred Smith.'
The chaplain who had heard that curiously uncomplaining fact reiterated with such steady persistence that he had almost come to believe it himself, made a mental note that Thomas Masterick was a case which would have to be watched pretty closely when he got clear of the prison.
But he needn't have worried. The authorities admitted two months later that their suspicions about Masterick were groundless, and They called off the System. He had harboured no dark animosity against those connected with his trial—a trial which, except for the fact that Thomas Masterick did not kill Fred Smith, was perfectly honest and fair. In fact, he made what they called 'quite a good recovery'. He picked into the old ruts with deliberate, if painful, endeavour. He got a job down about the docks and set about his task of climbing back into civilisation again with calm stolidity. In his case They did not fear for the recidivist.
And yet, a month after that, they freely admitted that it would have been far better for them and for the pomp and vanity of all the legal world if Thomas Masterick had gone straight out, bought a gun and kicked up ten different hells according to his own half-burned-out lights. For the problem that Thomas Masterick flung at them with cold and calculated deliberation when the time was ripe shook the law-officers of the Crown to their finger-tips. He knocked the Law clean out. He left it flat and gasping. He sent every legal mind in the country hectically scampering through old and ancient tomes for light and guidance. But there was no light and guidance. Thomas Masterick had floored them utterly and completely, ludicrously and horribly.
For, three months after his release from prison, and quite by accident, he met the long, lanky devil in the black gown. Counsel for the Crown was also wearing a Knighthood and a K.C. Thomas Masterick was not to know that. Not that it would have mattered to that numb, pulseless soul, even if he had known it.
It was by the 'Griffin', where Fleet Street melts into the Strand, and he walked up to him, and he said:
'Hey, mister—you know all that lot of stuff you said about me?'
The K.C. looked down at him shrewdly, and paused for a moment.
'No,' he said evenly. 'I don't think I do.'
'Yes, you remember—that lot of stuff you said about me in the court. To the judge.'
The K.C.'s eyes contracted ever so slightly. Somewhere, right away in the back blocks of memory there came a tiny, fleeting picture—a glimpse.
'Oh, yes—I believe I do,' he said. 'Let me see, now—er—wasn't it—er—'
'Yes, mister; that's what it was. And it was all wrong. All the whole lot of it. I said so at the time, didn't I? And I'm saying so again. I never killed Fred Smith. Not in spite of all what you said. Honest I didn't. And one of these days I'll prove it to you. I'll give you the surprise of your life. And that surprise of everybody else's life who was in that court.'
The K.C. drew in a long breath, slowly.
'Ye gods!' he breathed, almost too low to be heard. 'So you—you have only just come out, have you?'
'Yes, mister. A couple of months ago.'
'Are you working? I mean, have you got anything to do?'
'Yes, mister. Got a regular job. Wapping to Convent Garden. I'm often along here.'
'That's a good man.' The K.C. slipped a fiver into his hand. 'Get yourself a nice new Sunday suit,' he said, with a pat on his shoulder.
'Thank you very much, mister.' Thomas Masterick pocketed the fiver and hung around. After a moment he said:
'Could you—would you give me a word of advice, too, sir?'
'Certainly, certainly. What's the trouble?'
'Well, supposing I ever found that Fred Smith you said I killed. See, just supposing. How would I have to go about it?'
The K.C. whistled under his breath. 'Well!' he said, 'that would be a poser. Perhaps the best thing you could do would be to come along and see me—here in my chambers. Any of the bobbies here will show you—just here in the Inner Temple.'
'Because down in my lodging-house there's a White Star man says he's seen Fred Smith—that's since you said I killed him. It was in 'Frisco, he said Fred was running grain in the hog-backs. Got tired o' sail, he did.'
'Well, look here, old man, if ever you do manage to get hold of him, you come along and see me. I'll do all I can to help you.'
'I wouldn't half be able to take the mike out of that cocky lot of devils, wouldn't I?'
'You would what?'
'Prove 'em a lot of unholy liars.'
'You certainly would.'
'Not 'arf, I wouldn't,' said Thomas Masterick tonelessly. 'I'd do more than that, too!'
The K.C. nodded ge
nially and went off with a little pity and a lot of amusement in his heart. He was a good soul in his way, was the K.C., but the acid of the Law ran tart in his veins. His perceptions were too subservient to the dictates of logic.
But it happened that he heard from Thomas Masterick again. On a most propitious day, too. The K.C. was lunching a few legal friends in his chambers. There were three other K.C.'s, a former Chancellor, and two judges of the High Court among them.
The K.C.'s secretary entered and slipped behind his chair. 'There's a very persistent fellow outside, sir—a man who calls himself Thomas Masterick. He says you wouldn't turn him away for anything. That it's very important. And that he's got Fred Smith with him!'
'Good God!' said the K.C., swinging round. 'Here? He's got Smith here.'
'There is another man with him, sir, yes—frightened-looking man.'
'Goodness gracious me!' The K.C. turned to his lunch-party with wild excitement in his eyes.
'Well, if that isn't the most amazing thing!' he cried. 'Listen here, you fellows. I've got the most unique course just coming in you've ever sampled in your lives. This is a lunch you'll remember and talk about for years. A real tit-bit. Do you—do you remember that dock murder fifteen years or so ago? Feller named Masterick killed a chap called Fred Smith. I was conducting for the Crown. You, Rumbold, you were judge at the time. He got the black cap—obvious from the first; but the Home Sec. Commuted. That, too, was obvious. He——'
Rumbold nodded and the others all intimated their precise memory of the case.
'Well, Masterick is here and Smith is here!' cut in the K.C. with a rush. In a few words he outlined the details of the case to them and the history of his last meeting with Thomas Masterick in Fleet-street.
'Show them in, Plender,' he said. And the two men came in—Masterick calm and a little bit suspicious; Fred Smith openly scared.
'Who's all this lot?' demanded Masterick, nodding once at the guests.
'Friends of mine, old chap. Friends who are, I am sure, quite as eager to hear you and help you as I am myself. I doubt if any man in the world ever had such an array of legal talent—ha, ha, that's one for you, Rumbold—to help him as you.'
'I don't want any help,' said Masterick flatly. He dragged Smith farther into the room. 'I've had a hell of a hunt to find him,' he announced. 'And when I did find him he wouldn't come along—not till I told him about you, mister. I ain't got much to say—I'm afraid I've got a dizzy coming on; that's what comes of trying to think too hard. But the way I look at it is this. You were a cocksure crowd of devils in that court, weren't you? Wouldn't listen to reason, no ways. I told you a hundred times I never killed Fred Smith, but you wouldn't have it; you was that damned cocky about it. You lagged me for fifteen years for murdering that swipe there. And I hadn't done it. But I've done the punishment for it, blast you!
'And now'—he suddenly pulled out a gun and shot Fred Smith clean through the heart where he stood—'now I've done the murder for which I've already been punished.' He thundered. 'And what the hell are you going to do about it?'
The Rupa Book of
NIGHTMARE TALES
By the same author:
Angry River
A Little Night Music
A Long Walk for Bina
Hanuman to the Rescue
Ghost Stories from the Raj
Strange Men, Strange Places
The India I Love
Tales and Legends from India
The Blue Umbrella
Ruskin Bond's Children's Omnibus
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-I
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-II
The Ruskin Bond Omnibus-III
Rupa Book of Great Animal Stories
The Rupa Book of True Tales of Mystery and Adventure
The Rupa Book of Ruskin Bond's Himalayan Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Suspense Stories
The Rupa Laughter Omnibus
The Rupa Book of Scary Stories
The Rupa Book of Haunted Houses
The Rupa Book of Travellers' Tales
The Rupa Book of Great Crime Stories
The Rupa Book of Nightmare Tales
The Rupa Book of Shikar Stories
The Rupa Book of Love Stories
The Rupa Book of Wicked Stories
The Rupa Book of Heartwarming Stories
The Rupa Book of Thrills and Spills
The Rupa Book of
NIGHTMARE TALES
Edited by
Ruskin Bond
Selection and Introduction Copyright © Ruskin Bond 2004
First Published 2004
This edition 2010
Second Impression 2011
Published by
Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd.
7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj,
New Delhi 110 002
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Contents
Introduction
The Uncharted Islands
By E.H. Visiak and John Gawsworth
Thrown Away
By Rudyard Kipling
The Mark of the Beast
By Rudyard Kipling
The Ninth Year
By R. Edison Page
A Man's Theory
By Alice Perrin
The White Tiger
By Alice Perrin
The Face of Bronze
By John Eyton
The Dancing Fakir
By John Eyton
Maza: A Vignette
By 'Ganpat'
This "Familiar" of Mine
By Hilmer Rey
The Werewolf
By C.A. Kincaid
Susanna's Seven Husbands
By Ruskin Bond
When Glister Walked
By Oscar Cook
Si Urag of the Tail
By Oscar Cook
A Kathi Robin Hood
By C.A. Kincaid
Introduction
"Only mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the mid-day sun."
It was an Englishman, Noel Coward, who wrote the above lines. And no doubt it was an Englishman who invented the sola-topee (or pith helmet), enabling him to step out into the heat of an Indian summer's day, to manage the Empire for Queen (or King) and country. Occasionally these intrepid souls dropped dead from sunstroke, but most of them soldiered on with a little help from nimbu-panis and whisky-sodas. Preferably the latter.
First here as traders and merchant adventurers, later as rulers (first for the East India Company and then for the Crown), the British colonial—whether in the Army or the administration—never really came to terms with India. It was always a foreign and hostile environment, and the Englishman was constantly baffled by local customs, religions, and life-style. India was seldom, if ever, "home". If he, and his family, survived the climate, infectious disease, and wars with local potentates, they were only too happy to get back to dear old England—preferably richer by a few thousand pounds. Their entertainment centred around the Club, or shikar trips in search of "big game", of which there was still a plentiful supply. The fortunate few made their way to Simla or other temperate hill-stations, which they had invented for their own recreation and amusement.
Outside the station bungalow lay a world of magic, witchcraft, intrigue, dust storms, monsoon floods, temples and mosques, scorpions, poisonous snakes, dacoits, mosquitoes, murder and general mayhem, with which they had sometimes to cope. Probably, the only thing Indian that they accepted whole-heartedly was Curry and Rice.
Many wrote about the India they had to contend with, none more vividly than Rudyard Kipling, a journalist who was at his best writing about the ordinary British soldier. Others were administrators, Army officers, tea-planters or railwaymen who took time off from their varying d
uties to write about jungle adventures, or the supernatural (always in vogue), or the perils of life on the Frontier. Occasionally, the memsahib put pen to paper. Most of them kept diaries; others, like Alice Perrin, Flora Annie Steele, and B.M. Croker, were accomplished novelists and short-story writers.
Pre-mutiny, not much in the way of literature was produced by the East India Company's servants. They were too busy making money. The only ones who did not make any money were the ordinary soldiers, badly paid and unappreciated. The British soldier who won for his country the greatest Empire the world had seen till then, lies in countless graves from Burma to the Bosphorus, Tuticorin to Tibet, forgotten by those whom he helped to reap great riches. The Pagoda Tree had its roots in the graveyards of India's military cantonments. But they found a champion in Kipling, who celebrated their exploits in Barrack-Room Ballads and other works.
In the nineteenth century a number of journals and newspapers came into being, providing an outlet for literary talent: The Calcutta Magazine; Delhi Gazette and Delhi Punch; and The Mofussilite of Meerut, edited by the energetic John Lang, who also happened to be the first Australia-born novelist. Later, The Civil and Military Gazette of Lahore, and The Pioneer of Allahabad provided a platform for the talents of the young Kipling, whose early poems and stories appeared in those publications. In the north, A.H. Wheeler brought out its 'Railway Library' editions for railway travellers, as did Higginbotham in the south.
The twentieth century saw a proliferation of English language magazines—The Madras Mail (with its colourful annuals), The Statesman of Calcutta, The Onlooker, Sport and Pastime (from The Hindu) and The Illustrated Weekly of India. The last-named, under the editorship of C.R. Mandy, provided a platform for the work of many emerging Indian writers in the 1940s and later: Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Attia Hosain, Kamala Markandaya, Bhabhani Bhattacharya, to mention just a few.
Many of the British writers represented in this anthology wrote for the Indian State Railways Magazine, a quality publication carrying well-illustrated travel and historical articles, art work, and fiction, through the 1920s and 1930s. Its contributors included C.A. Kincaid, Hilton Brown, F.W Champion (a pioneer wildlife photographer), and a young ornithologist, Salim Ali.