Nightrunners of Bengal

by John Masters

  “Is that really all he thinks of?” the girl interrupted quickly. “Doesn’t he want to be his own master?”

  “Perhaps, if it were possible. But first he wants peace, and protection--which means power--and we’re giving them to him.” He filled his glass and went on. “That’s why it’s right--but sometimes I feel ashamed. Take this very Bhowani Territory. It used to be part of Kishanpur State, as I expect you heard when you were there. We took it on a forced lease--in perpetuity--but we really have no right here. Yet now the peasants and the lower castes generally would do anything rather than revert to Kishanpur rule and--”

  The girl was looking up over his shoulder; he broke off and turned his head. The others had come back, and Joanna was standing by his chair, her full lips compressed. His face was very close to Caroline Langford’s, and he stood up abruptly.

  “Joanna, let’s dance.”

  “Let me look. ... I can’t, Rodney. Major de Forrest booked it just now.”

  “Fine, he can wait. Come on.”

  She came then, with an obvious gladness, a display of happiness--and ownership. Caroline Langford was talking to Alan Torrance, and not looking at her. Rodney felt a fraction of the light spring leave his wife’s step.

  He swung her out on to the floor, pushed down his thoughts, and let the music take him. He must be a little drunk, but only partly on brandy and champagne. . . . The peasants had peace, and that was good and right--but oh, the dusty splendour, the silent trumpets!

  The music stopped, and he demanded the next with Joanna too. In that dance he felt the increasing drag of her against him, saw the tiny curl of discontent on her lip; she was trying to make him behave more sedately. Oh, God, he couldn’t live all his minutes in a staidly reasonable manner; he wasn’t built like that.

  But the sparkle died, and afterwards he led Joanna back to the table and began on the duty dances which filled his programme: Mrs. Caversham, Mrs. Bulstrode, Dotty van Steengaard, Victoria de Forrest--Caroline Langford. She waltzed surprisingly well and did not chatter, concentrating hard, as usual, but light and sure on her feet. In the lilting lift and swing of it he thought he’d like to talk more with her. She was plain, but interesting.

  He saw her dress was very similar to Joanna’s--white tulle, but with many fewer pearls. That couldn’t have helped. Why did women take such instant likes and dislikes? And why did everyone stare at him so? He couldn’t be that drunk --no, his partner was staring too, over his shoulder, across the ballroom and the lounge towards the centre hall.

  A slight dark Indian stood in the outer doors, one of which had been opened. Mud splashes streaked his brilliant clothes, and the Club’s head butler and two servants moved to restrain him from coming in. A raw draught blew through the lounge, and Curry Bulstrode’s voice rose in a hoarse bellow above the music. “Shut that door, hey!”

  The butler slammed the door to. Circling in the dance, Rodney could not see clearly, but Miss Langford said suddenly, “It’s the Dewan of Kishanpur! Why is he here? And what are they doing to him?”

  “The servants are making him take off his slippers.”

  “But he’s the Prime Minister and Commander-in-Chief of the State. They can’t treat him like that!”

  “Can’t they! He’d make them crawl on their stomachs. Anyway, they’re acting for us. He is a bedraggled little peacock, isn’t he? They’re leading him through towards the billiard room. We’ll hear all about it soon enough. Let’s forget it--you really dance wonderfully well.”

  He saw she was perturbed, but she said no more. The hum of conversation rose; the band had never stopped playing; the incident hardly checked the momentum of the dance, because New Year’s Eve at the Bhowani Club was something more than the occasion of a ball--it was a ceremony, and the exiles would play their roles to the end.

  Fifteen minutes later, while dancing with Rachel Myers, he saw that a servant was bowing beside Curry Bulstrode’s’ chair in the lounge. The Colonel heaved his twenty-stone bulk upright, drained a pony of brandy, licked round the glass with his tongue, and waddled away. Rodney watched the same servant wander round until he found Major de Forrest; watched him come to the doorway of the ballroom and slip closer through the dancers. When he reached Rodney, the man whispered, “Compliments of the Commissioner-Sahib, will you go to him in the billiard room, please.”

  By then Rodney felt no surprise; he had remembered that his company was on alarm duty this week. He excused himself, led Rachel back to her mother, and slipped off.

  3

  SIx men were grouped in the shadows round the far end of the billiard table. Mr. Dellamain, a big man in his mid-forties, stood facing the door. He was the Commissioner charged with the government of the Bhowani Leased Territory, and therefore indisputably the most important official in the room. As though he considered the precedence needed some further emphasis, he stood in a central position, in a pompously authoritarian pose. He was a portly man, dark-jowled, and had bulging flecked brown eyes.

  Colonel Bulstrode had levered himself up on to the table so that his vast buttocks, tight in the blue trousers, bulged over its edge. Major Swithin de Forrest, the commanding officer of the 60th Bengal Light Cavalry, in silver and grey, sat on the higher of the two banks of leather-padded spectators’ benches, and looked down like a malarial death’s head. Gerald Peckham, the brigade major, sat on the lower bank; he was fair and pleasantly good-looking; a staff officer’s notebook lay opened on his knees. Eustace Caversham, Rodney’s own commanding officer, stood a little aside, his narrow head bowed, his fingers fiddling from nervous habit with the braid on his jacket.

  The sixth man Miss Langford had recognised as the Dewan of Kishanpur. He turned quickly to face the door as it opened, and Rodney saw that smallpox had scarred the texture of the dark skin. The wide-set eyes examined him with the too alert interest he associated with a mind not firmly balanced. Red mud and rain had soiled the yellow coat and white jodhpurs. Rings twinkled on the Dewan’s fingers as he played with the hilt of a sabre in a jewelled scabbard. In his right hand he held his slippers; on his head he wore a hard wide-brimmed black felt hat shaped like the flattened sail of a dhow, one side up, one side down, and decorated with pearls and diamonds.

  Caversham peered at the doorway. “Savage? Your company is on garrison alarm duty, I think?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Please sit down, and listen.”

  Mr. Dellamain grasped the lapels of his tail coat with plump hands. His voice claimed their attention--a full, ripe voice.

  “Gentlemen, I will be brief. I have news that His Highness the Rajah of Kishanpur was assassinated today. He was thrown over the inner battlements of his fort into the courtyard, and died instantly.” Rodney glanced round, but all the faces were expressionless. “There appears to have been a palace plot to remove both the Rajah and his only legitimate son, an infant, and place on the gaddi another, much older son by a concubine--though how the murderer expected to achieve recognition by the Governor General, I am at a loss to understand. This gentleman here is His Excellence Shivarao Bholkar, the Dewan of Kishanpur, and a devoted servant and trusted friend of the late Rajah. He has come here in person to bring me this sad intelligence.”

  The Dewan licked his lips and bowed uncertainly, as if not quite sure that he had followed the English sentences aright.

  Bulstrode, sucking on an empty pipe, said, “When did it happen, Commissioner?”

  “At about three o’clock this afternoon.”

  Rodney calculated quickly. Kishanpur lay forty-seven miles to the east, on the far bank of the Kishan River. The messengers would have had to cross the river and ride at least part of the way after dark, and it was unlikely they could have set out immediately after the assassination. He pulled out his watch; near twelve--not bad going.

  Mr. Dellamain continued: “Her Highness the Rani was luckily able to take the assassins red-handed, and so save her infant son, the heir. Thereafter, she appears to have acted with considerable-
-er--energy. She at once ordered the ringleaders to be garroted--thirty-five of them, I think. It was thirty-five, you said, Excellence?”

  “Thirty-five men, sahib--and three women.”

  Bulstrode in turn pulled a heavy full hunter from his waistcoat and opened it. He grunted. “Quick work, h’m! And no tales.”

  The Dewan’s sloe eyes flashed momentarily. Rodney felt rather than heard a faint thumping; the lamps rattled in their chains, and the windows shivered. Midnight. They were singing “Auld Lang Syne” in chorus in the ballroom, arms linked and feet stamping. He glanced at Eustace Caversham and saw that he was pale. Every year, by Bhowani custom, Caversham allowed himself to be persuaded into singing the first verse, solo. Now the biggest moment of his year was lost and all his gargling gone for nothing; he’d have to wait till ‘58.

  The Commissioner shot a quick, warning look at Bulstrode. “Three women, your Excellence? That is unfortunate --but we cannot judge these things by our own standards, can we, gentlemen?”

  He began to pace the floor, head bent, one hand caressing his chin. Bulstrode watched him, his shrewd eyes sunk like tiny blue stones in the rolls of fat, a faint sneer hiding in the red-grey jungle of beard around his lips. The Dewan tugged at his moustache.

  Mr. Dellamain turned at last and resumed his position.

  “The treaty of 1809 makes my duty clear. We must keep the peace in Kishanpur until we have time to find the facts, recognize a new ruler, and see him firmly established. Is your army affected, Dewan?”

  “Some--I am not trusting, except Bodyguard.”

  “I see. Colonel, what force do you consider necessary? I shall of course go to Kishanpur myself, so we must be strong enough to avoid any unfortunate--ah--contretemps.”

  Bulstrode took the pipe out of his mouth. “It’s only a piddling little state. One company infantry, one troop cavalry will do. I’ll send a galloper to Gondwara--ask the general to stand-by some artillery there, at six hours’ notice. Kishanpur’s not allowed guns heavier than six-pounders, hey? A company of our twelve-pounders will fix ‘em if it comes to a fight.”

  Mr. Dellamain stroked his jowl. “I think Brigadier General Jones would have sent a larger force than that, Colonel.”

  Bulstrode frowned. “Jones was an old hen--Queen’s service, too--didn’t know the first damned thing about India! I’ve been out here thirty-nine years--two hundred John Company sepoys are more than a match for any damned pack of rajah’s ragamuffins. Send your lads off at once, de Forrest--Mervuglio’s troop? All right. And you’ll send Savage, I suppose, Caversham? Good. He can march at sunup, arrive the following day. Savage, arrange details direct with Julio. You command in Kishanpur as soon as you get there. Execute Commissioner’s policy--use your own discretion how you do it. Clear? That all. Commissioner? Got to meet a curried duck in the supper room.”

  Without waiting for an answer, he heaved down from the table and waddled out of the room. Mr. Dellamain stared after him, his face mottled by some emotion halfway between shame and anger. The other soldiers hesitated and shuffled their feet, then followed the colonel and left the Commissioner once more alone with the Dewan.

  Rodney slipped away and set about making the necessary arrangements. The orders were clear enough. Julio Mervuglio’s troop of a hundred men of the 60th Light Cavalry would ride to Kishanpur as soon as they could and deal with any urgent trouble there. He himself would follow with his infantry company of the 13th, and on arrival in Kishanpur would be in command of the whole force.

  He went in search of Julio, and found him in a corner of the bar, listening to de Forrest’s dry orders and nodding energetically, obviously in a high state of excitement. When the major finished, Rodney settled with Julio details of the rendezvous, supplies, baggage and scales of reserve ammunition, and then returned to the lounge.

  The supper interval was nearly over, and in the ballroom the bandsmen were taking their places on the dais. As soon as Rodney sat down, Torrance began to ply him with questions while men from other parties clustered round to hear the news. Before he finished outlining the story the band struck up, and in a few seconds his audience dissolved. Geoffrey, Isobel, Joanna, and Torrance began to talk about something else; Miss Langford stared at the ceiling.

  In the billiard room there had been tension. He’d had a quick vision of an old man with grey hair and bright robes, dropping spreadeagled past the loopholes of a red wall, turning in the air as he fell; a dark and bloody excitement came from Kishanpur and filed the edges of his imagination. Not now, though; he and Julio would set off on a routine duty, and no one was at all excited. His exhilaration evaporated; he’d better get some sleep.

  Caroline Langford lowered her eyes to his. “We haven’t leased all of Kishanpur. Why do we interfere?”

  Rodney answered wearily, “We--the Company--can’t permit the endless succession-murders and civil wars that there used to be in the states. We don’t allow any rajah to mount the gaddi until we have recognised him as the lawful heir to his state. Then we’ve forbidden many states--including Kishanpur--to have a big army; it might be dangerous. Well, when we prevent a rajah from defending himself, we have to undertake to do it for him--and we do.”

  Torrance stifled a yawn and raised one quizzical eyebrow at Joanna. Miss Langford was not satisfied; she bent her brows on Rodney.

  “I do not believe one word of this story of the Dewan’s. The elder son--the man they say did the murder--was as harmless as a mouse, and terrified of the Rani. Now she and the Dewan have had him executed--and all his fuddled hangers-on with him, I suppose. No one will ever hear any- thing but what the Rani says. The old Rajah was a good man--rather like the Duke of Wellington. He said his father signed a treaty of friendship with us and he was going to keep it in letter and spirit, though he hated us. He was hard, old-fashioned, and, to our ideas, cruel--but honourable and upright. I liked him. I didn’t think there was a soul would want to murder him, or dare to, except--“

  Her face was pale and serious, her jaw set; she must have looked like that when she faced the Rajah, cross-examined him, argued with him. Watching her, Rodney tried to imagine the feelings of a grim old man, uncompromisingly an Eastern prince, when confronted by this equally uncompromising freak of an English female. He pictured their first, formal meetings; she would ask him man’s questions; he would try to fob her off with platitudes; she would correct him, goad him to astonishment and interest in her. He must have recognized her militant feminism and chuckled to see a woman angrily reject the extra weapons her sex gave her.

  Joanna stared coldly at Miss Langford and then turned to Rodney. “Has the Kishanpur tiger hunt been cancelled?”

  He’d forgotten that. It had been the old Rajah’s custom to invite a small party from Bhowani to his annual tiger drive. This year invitations had come for the Hatton-Dunns and Caroline, among others, but not for the Savages.

  Rodney said, “It wasn’t mentioned--but I hardly think the Rani will go through with it so soon after this. It’s in February, isn’t it? Anyway, it doesn’t concern us, dear.”

  “But if they do have it, and you’re still there on duty, they’ll have to invite me too, won’t they?”

  Caroline Langford tapped her knee with her fan. “I have something important to say. Please don’t stop me, Isobel. Captain Savage, do you remember what the Silver Guru said to the crows this afternoon?”

  Rodney started. He remembered. “Are you all, then, the ghosts of dead tyrants? And which one ruled this morning in the east, eh?” Kishanpur was in the east.

  The others stared at him, for he had repeated the words aloud. He stammered confusedly. “But--but--he couldn’t have known it! It was about five o’clock; the Rajah was killed at three--and Kishanpur’s forty-seven miles away.”

  “Precisely. He could not have known. But he did.”

  His brain refused to focus on the worrying, misshapen idea. He shrugged impatiently.

  Then he saw she was angry. Her eyes, and still more her expres
sion, also showed surprise--and that stung him.

  She exclaimed, “Do I understand that you--that no one is going to make inquiries? Or at least report to Mr. Dellamain?”

  She was right, of course. Dellamain ought to be told, as a matter of routine. But the tone of her voice was infuriating.

  “That is just what I do mean, Miss Langford. It is no business of mine, still less--“

  “Rodney!” Joanna lined her reproof with a downy coo of approval.

  “It is your business, sir”--the girl made an angry gesture towards the ballroom--”all of you! The natives almost worship this Guru. You know that. Even I have seen it. Now an honest old man has been murdered, and it appears that the Guru is in league either with the devil or with a clique of assassins--and you say it’s none of your business!”

  Torrance glanced at his nails and coughed. “Miss Caroline, it’s just a coincidence--er, can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  She took no notice but jumped to her feet and stared coldly round the circle. She had to raise her voice to make herself heard above the music and the yelling from the ballroom.

  “Then it is clearly my duty to tell Mr. Dellamain myself --and ensure that he pursues the matter.”

  Rodney, trembling with anger, watched her sail through the empty lounge. Suddenly he regained his sense of humour and chuckled. “She’ll be blushing in a minute!”

  But the erect figure crossed the hall and disappeared under the lintel of the doorway leading to the men’s bar; on it was written Gentlemen Only. Rodney swore under his breath. Nothing would stop the infernal woman, and her face would not be red. The idea of “ensuring” that the Commissioner pursued the matter!