Dishonored

by Maria Barrett

  Sometime later, although Colonel Mills was never exactly sure when, as the ghastly task of collecting together what was left of the butchered bodies and digging graves for them was under way, a massive earth tremor ripped through the ground and the whole sky was momentarily lit up, a vivid white, then orange light. The magazine, an immense store of ammunition in Delhi, had been blown up by the British forces to stop it falling into enemy hands and the effect of that explosion was felt for miles around.

  The small rabble of servants that had remained in camp ran screaming from what they were doing and cowered together, wailing and praying. Several of the soldiers dropped their tools; one lost his balance and stumbled.

  “What the damned hell was that?” Colonel Mills was perspiring heavily; large dark stains of sweat ran into the patches of black blood on his uniform. “Get up, man!” he shouted at a dhobiwallah, swinging his leg out and kicking him hard in the back. “Get up, I said!”

  “It came from the direction of Delhi!” one of the young officers called out. His uniform was also drenched in blood. He wiped his arm across his brow as he looked up and left a trail of dirt, sweat and blood on his skin. The colonel couldn’t bear to look at it; he turned away. “God only knows what’s happening there,” the young officer went on, “it could be any…” Suddenly his voice trailed away as he looked past the colonel’s shoulder. He saw a figure, a woman with a European shawl over her head. “What the devil…!” Dropping his spade, he broke into a run.

  Colonel Mills swung around. “My God! Alicia!” He recognized the silk and his whole body froze in shocked disbelief for a moment. Then he was running down after the young man, sprinting across the patch of open ground and onto the road toward his bungalow.

  The ayah had crawled out from under the eaves of the bungalow, terrified by the earth’s gross shudder, and she stumbled forward into the last of the daylight, momentarily blinded after her hours of darkness. She still wore the memsahib’s shawl over her head and she clutched the baby to her breast, desperately trying to shush him quiet, his pathetic wails smothered by her grip. She made only a small anguished sound, a stifled sob, but her eyes were wild with panic, darting frantically over the ground as she moved out of the cover of the house; searching for any terror.

  The young officer reached her first. He gripped her shoulder with one hand to hold her steady and yanked the shawl from her head. Already he could see that she wasn’t what he had thought and the disappointment flared his anger. “What the hell is this…?” He clenched the edge of the shawl in his fingers, a French patterned silk, and crushed it. “Jesus! You impudent…” He raised his arm to hit her.

  “Leave her!” Colonel Mills stopped several feet away, panting hard. The realization of who the figure was sent a pain of such intensity through him that he had to bend double for a moment and hold his chest to ease it. He glanced up at the young officer. “It’s the ayah,” he said slowly. “Mrs. Mills’ ayah.” He straightened, making an almighty effort to regain his composure, and took several deep breaths. Finally, he walked across to them. “You can leave us, major,” he said. Without looking at the servant, he reached out for the baby and took his son into his arms.

  “I said leave us!” he ordered, and the baby whimpered at the force of his voice. The young officer turned away.

  Holding his son, Colonel Mills started for the bungalow, oblivious to the sobs of the ayah behind him. He carried the baby badly, inexperienced and disabled in his sorrow, and the child began to howl, a thin weak cry against the blanket of deathly silence that covered them all.

  It was dark when Colonel Mills finally came out of the bungalow. The ayah had gone in after a while and taken the baby from him to feed it and change it, but he had barely realized. He had sat for a long time in the eerie darkness amidst the horrible chaos the mob had left behind, and stared blankly out at what was left of the garden, Alicia’s precious garden. He did not try to make any sense of it all, he had seen too much of men and war for that, but he did try to find someone to blame. In his ordered military mind he believed there was someone or something responsible for everything. Nothing ever just happened, events were made. And in the time that he sat, his anger and grief focused on that one fact, Colonel Mills found the someone responsible he needed. In the distorted logic of pain and misery, he blamed Indrajit Rai.

  The trouble in Moraphur had been growing for some time, he realized that now. Hadn’t Rai’s son said so? What was it he’d said? That the situation was not a comfortable one? He must have known, Colonel Mills reasoned, he must have had some idea! And if he had known, then his father would have known! Indrajit Rai would most definitely have known, could probably have even been behind the whole thing! Smiling, gracious Indians, with their parties and European canapés; it was all a ruse, a trap to lull the British into a false sense of security. But that upstart of a son couldn’t keep quiet! He couldn’t keep his filthy native mouth shut, could he? Colonel Mills stood, for the first time in hours, his legs weak and stiff from sitting, he paced the floor. It all began to slot into place, the visit from Nanda, the party, the whole scene was so damn clear he wondered why the hell he hadn’t seen it before! As he paced, he worked it through. Nanda must have got wind of the mutiny, he worked for the maharajah, Rai was the maharajah’s jeweler. What if Rai had been planning something like this for years and then found the chance in the unrest among the ranks. He could have stirred it, raked the hornets’ nest, he could have incited anything in the atmosphere there was.

  The colonel stood on the steps of his ransacked home and looked at the torchlight dotted around the camp, torches to light the way for burying the dead. He gripped the balustrade as his head swam and he swayed precariously, dizzy with anger and fatigue. “Jesus Christ, that man will pay!” he muttered through clenched lips. “God damn it he will pay for his part in all…” He stopped as the wail of an infant pierced the silence and made him shiver with pain. It was his own son crying. Henry Reginald Mills was crying for his mother.

  “Captain!” Colonel Mills called out to the officer in charge of digging a grave at the back of the mess. The young man stood straight and wiped the sweat out of his eyes but his vision didn’t clear. They had been working all day in the choking heat and the scene had begun to blur into one mass of sweat, dirt and blood.

  “Yes, colonel?” He averted his gaze, not wanting to look his superior in the eye. He had buried the remains of the man’s wife; how could he face the poor devil after that?

  “Captain, I want you to go into Moraphur. There are people to hold accountable for the trouble today and I want them brought in for questioning.”

  The captain swallowed, the hard lump of his Adam’s apple moving uncomfortably in his throat. “Sir, I think that we should try to finish up here tonight if we possibly can. I—”

  “I have given you an order, captain!” the colonel interrupted. “I am not interested in what you think!” He jutted his chin out and squared his shoulders. “There is justice to be done and we must see to it. The men I want brought in are both in the same family: Rai. There are business premises in the town and a bungalow out toward Deeg. I want them here tonight.”

  “Yes, sir.” The captain drove the spade hard into the ground and left it there. He walked across to the small party of soldiers still digging and shouted out his orders. What the colonel was doing God only knew but he wasn’t in any position to question him. He hoped there wasn’t going to be any trouble; the poor bastard was obviously out of his mind with grief and with him in command, the last thing they needed now was trouble.

  “It is the British Army, master! Come quickly! Please… there are soldiers outside!”

  Indrajit Rai hurried down the corridor from the bedroom he shared with his wife, straightening the cotton kurta he had pulled on in the past few minutes. The main room of the bungalow was dark and the bearer stood with a lamp by the door. He could hear movement from Jagat’s bedroom and he called out to his son.

  “Jagat! It is al
l right, please, go back to bed, I am sure it is nothing.” Taking the lamp from the bearer, he paused a moment to compose himself and then swung open the front door.

  “Indrajit Rai?”

  “Yes. I am Rai. What is it you want?” Indrajit blinked rapidly in the glare of the torchlight but could make out only several indistinct figures behind the officer in command.

  “Indrajit Rai, I am here to place you and your son under arrest. You will come with me to the British Army headquarters for questioning.” The young captain kept his voice even and stared at a spot directly above the other man’s head. He was damned nervous but didn’t dare show it. If you let that sort of thing slip then the crafty buggers really took advantage. He had never trusted the natives and he had no intention of starting now. “Is your son inside? Ask the bearer to tell him we are waiting.”

  Indrajit Rai took a pace back and held on to the wall for support. “But please… I don’t understand. Please, there must be some mistake.” A sweat had broken out on his upper lip as he looked at the officer. “What could you want with—”

  “I am placing you both under arrest as of this moment,” the captain interrupted and continued to look over his prisoner’s head. “You may inform your household.”

  “But I…”

  Two of the soldiers moved forward behind the captain and Indrajit Rai backed into the house. He could not believe this was happening, it was impossible! There must be some mistake. His legs buckled under him.

  “Papa? Papaji!” Jagat hurried across to the door and took the weight of his father just in time. He helped him across to a chair. “What is it, Papa? What has happened?” He glanced up at the army out on the verandah. The small group of grimy and bloody-uniformed men were menacing in the light of the torches.

  He swallowed hard and looked back at his father. “What do these men want, Papa? What?”

  Indrajit Rai clutched his chest and took a deep breath to ease the pain there before he spoke. “It is the British Army, Jagat, they have come to arrest us both.”

  “No!” Jagat stood. “No! It cannot be! Why? What have we done?” He looked from his father to the men outside and then back to his father. “They cannot do this!” he hissed urgently. “Papa, they cannot just arrest us! Call the servants! They cannot just take us away!” Jagat’s voice had risen with panic and the young captain outside shifted uncomfortably. He couldn’t hear the conversation but he could catch the tone and it was beginning to make him damned nervous.

  “Hurry up in there!” he called out. “I don’t want to have to send my men in after you!”

  Jagat swung around angrily. “You just try! Dammit!” He shouted across to the bearer in Hindi to fetch the rest of the servants. “Go! Now! And quickly, tell them to come with sticks!”

  “Jagat, no!” Indrajit contradicted his son and the bearer stopped short. “It is a misunderstanding, Jagat, that is all!” He rose to his feet and straightened his clothes. “We will see the colonel about all this; it is simply a mistake, Jagat. You will see. Come!” Indrajit faced the door. The events of the past day in Meerut and in Moraphur had left Indrajit Rai shocked and exhausted; he had never seen such violence and hatred in his countrymen. He had been helpless, frightened for the safety of his own family and he had watched, in shame and anger, the annihilation of innocents. The world was in chaos, this was simply another part. “Come, Jagat!” he ordered. The young man looked at him, totally uncertain of his words or actions. “Tell Mrs. Rai that we will be back as soon as this mistake is found out.” Indrajit laid his hand on the bearer’s arm. “Look after her,” he said quietly in Hindi. “Jagat?”

  Jagat took one last long look at his father. Unlike the man he loved and respected, he had no regard for the British sense of justice. He glanced back at the light in the corridor and saw the figure of his mother watching them. “Yes, Papa,” he answered finally and together they walked out of the house.

  4

  COLONEL MILLS SAT ALONE IN THE OFFICERS’ MESS WITH HIS head in his hands. The heat was choking and he was in full dress uniform, the sweat running almost continuously down the side of his face, but he was oblivious to it. In these small private moments, he was oblivious to everything; his mind was completely blank.

  In the past two weeks Colonel Mills had brought Moraphur back under British command. With the small battalion of men from Meerut he had wielded extraordinary power over the small community. He had rounded up anyone he had reason to suspect, he executed at his will and he kept large numbers of wealthy and powerful Indians under armed guard. He neither knew nor cared whether what he was doing was right or wrong, he was driven by grief and anger; he had a crusade.

  Glancing at his pocket-watch on the table in front of him, he realized it was almost time for the enquiry board to assemble and he sat upright, straightening his jacket. Despite the chaos, Colonel Mills always looked immaculate; it had become an obsession with him, after the dirt and blood of clearing up the massacre. He wiped his face on his handkerchief, newly laundered, the second that morning, and set his papers in a neat pile ready. Moments later, he called out in answer to a knock and the three other officers who made up the enquiry board filed in.

  “Good morning, gentlemen.” He didn’t smile, he never did.

  The officers sat, each for his own reasons highly uncomfortable with the situation, and the colonel addressed the matter at hand. “Rai,” he said, without looking up. “I want to pass a motion that they be executed the day after tomorrow and that all business, property and land belonging to the said party be requisitioned by Her Majesty’s Government in India.”

  One of the officers coughed nervously and the colonel glared across at him. There was an awkward silence while the young captain in question struggled to find the nerve to disagree but it was short-lived. He knew what was happening wasn’t right but he just didn’t have the courage to speak out. Reinforcements were arriving in a couple of days and with them very probably a new command, thank God. He would have to leave it until then. He kept quiet as the colonel addressed the other two and said, “Those in favor say Aye.” Assent was mumbled and the motion passed. The young captain looked at his colleagues with a weary, exasperated expression and the colonel went on to the next matter. This meeting was as ridiculous as they had been each day so far; the enquiry board was a mere formality, Colonel Mills was in command, he gave the orders and, regardless of how bad those orders were, for the moment at least, they had to be carried out.

  * * *

  “Papaji, Papaji!” Jagat Rai touched his father on the shoulder and shook him gently. The older man opened his eyes and attempted a smile, the effort of which seemed to exhaust him, and he closed them again.

  “What is it, Jagat?” he murmured.

  “Papa, there is something to eat. Here, you must try to take a little.” Jagat held out a rusting tin plate. “Please, Papaji, just try a little.”

  But Indrajit held his hand up and gestured for Jagat to take the plate away. The food had not been prepared by his own cook, by someone of the right caste, and as a fastidiously religious man, it would defile him to eat it. He had gone a fortnight now without food and he was frail, dehydrated by the lack of water or nourishment in the intense heat and ill, infected by the dirt and excrement in the cell. Jagat sighed bitterly, wondering whether to try again and then stood, knowing it was useless. He walked to the far wall of the cell and placed the plate in the corner on the floor. He gave the disgusting mess they had been served to the cockroaches.

  “Jagat?”

  Turning back to his father, Jagat saw that he wanted to say something. He hurried to his side. “Papa? What is it?” He took the strip of cotton he had ripped from his shirt and dipped it in the cup of water they shared. He gently smoothed it across his father’s brow to soak up the sweat. “Papaji?”

  “Jagat, you are sure that your mother is all right?” Indrajit opened his eyes now and stared at his son. “You have had word that she is all right?”

  Jagat looked
away. “Yes, Papa,” he answered quietly, “I have had word.” He clenched his fists by his side and willed his father to avert his gaze. Jagat had never been able to lie, especially not to the man he loved and respected. There had been no word of his mother, there had been no word of anyone, but he was too afraid of what the worry would do to his father to tell him that. So he had lied, two days ago he had lied, and now Indrajit, in his fevered, exhausted state, woke every few hours and asked the same question. It was agony to Jagat to have to answer him and to have to repeat his lie over and over again.

  “Jagat, I am afraid that they have forgotten us,” Indrajit Rai breathed. His throat was so dry that he had lost his voice and could barely whisper. “I want you to ask for a meeting with the colonel, with Colonel Mills…” Indrajit broke off and rested for a few moments. “The colonel is a fair man, Jagat…” Again he had to rest, the effort seemed to drain the life from him and he was on the edge of unconsciousness. “I want you to insist on seeing him…” he murmured before his eyelids fluttered and closed. “He will help us, I know he will.”

  Colonel Mills stood with his back to the room and stared out at the remains of the camp. The officers’ mess had miraculously survived but most of the other buildings were burnt out, thankfully in places, leaving only the ashes of some of the slaughter. He put his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun and remained standing there as a knock sounded on the door and he called out for the person to enter.

  “Excuse me, colonel, but may I have a word?”

  The same officer who had gone to arrest Indrajit Rai stood by the door in the officers’ mess dining-room and waited for the colonel to acknowledge him.