Nightrunners of Bengal

by John Masters

  After dusk the oddly assorted trio of officers of the Bodyguard had stood about talking in strained undertones. Besides Prithvi Chand there was a surly Lieutenant Shivcharan, and a slim golden-skinned youth of about sixteen, apparently the ensign. Rodney had heard little of their conversation, except that two or three times he’d caught the words “rani” and “Her Highness.” The Dewan, too, frequently shouted that some order came “from Her Highness’s own lips,” and Rodney noticed then with what alacrity men obeyed. They did not argue or ask questions; they ran. The woman stayed behind the golden curtain but she was everywhere, just the same. He felt a pang for what he’d said to Prithvi Chand. The poor devil lived here and probably slept with perpetual nightmares of rope and rack.

  At nine o’clock he’d left the courtyard and its flares and silences and sudden scurries, and come to his room. But the Rani was here too, filling each corner with the same darkly gilded premonition that had touched him in the billiard room. He could not imagine what kind of human being it was who could tear apart the chains of her sex and widowhood. According to the rules, she should have become a person of no account, a woman by custom considered dead.

  Midnight. He could not read. The door swung open, and the Dewan and Prithvi Chand, breathless and excited, stumbled into the room. The Dewan burst out in rapid Hindustani; Rodney buckled on his sword as he listened.

  “The riot’s begun, Captain-sahib! A terrible riot in the city. I’ve told the Commissioner, and he says the sepoys will put it down. He gave me a note for you.”

  Rodney glanced at the scribbled chit and said, “Which of you gentlemen is coming with me?” The Dewan answered, and they went out together. Two minutes later the company stood formed up in the silent courtyard, bayonets gleaming. The groom held Boomerang ready. As they began to move into the entry port the iron gates at the far end clanged open.

  He halted them among a huddle of broken-down shops in the outskirts of the city and addressed the Dewan curtly in Hindustani. He did not want to be rude; he would have liked to feel sympathy, because the pockmarked little man was a Bholkar, and the Bholkars of Goghri had once been the greatest family in Central India--greater than the Rawans, so great that their head was called simply “The Bholkar.” This Shivarao, as a young child, might have been present when British soldiers and Bombay Native Infantry stormed and sacked Goghri. Sympathy wouldn’t rebuild the Bholkar glory; nothing could--but Rodney couldn’t find even sympathy. The Dewan’s air, alternately cringing and bullying--and both attitudes facades for something deeper-- grated on him.

  Against his will Rodney’s voice rasped. “Which way is the riot?”

  “Down there, sahib. They have set fire to the tax collector’s office, and a tithe barn, and have already killed many officials.”

  Rodney called out; the sepoys moved, advancing deeper into the city. Crowds milled aimlessly about in the alleys; it was not easy to see details, except that some wore white cotton cloth and some dark coarse blankets. He thought that among the town-dwellers there must be peasants from the country--probably farmers just arrived with goats on the hoof and vegetables for the dawn market. One or two men were throwing stones at house doors, but they did not act in concert, and no one showed serious anger. The sepoys tramped forward, the thick wedge of them walling the street from house to house, the bayonets of the front rank levelled.

  The mob surged, like fish in a crowded channel, and were pushed slowly forward. Ahead, where they were not directly in contact with the sepoys, they did not know why the pressure kept moving them on.

  At his stirrup the Dewan looked up with eyes sparkling. “Open fire, sahib, open fire! Kill them!”

  He did not reply. The lane at last debouched into a small square bounded on three sides by boarded and shuttered houses, and on the fourth by a sprawled temple. There the crowd was pressed too thickly together to move. A low building across the square was burning gently; the red flicker from it illuminated the upturned faces of the mob. They waved hand torches above their heads, and he saw more torches on the housetops. Drifting wisps of smoke dimmed the guttering lights, and a cloud of dust, heavy with the smell of sewage, hung over everything.

  The grumbling mutter of the people in the square began to form words. He tried to make them out, while the Dewan screamed up at him, “They’re destroying the Rani’s property ! They’re killing officials! It’s your duty to fire--“

  Rodney snapped, “Shut up, you--“

  --ugly, murderous little brute, he’d wanted to say. He heard distinct words in the crowd.

  “Down with the murderess!”

  That must mean the Rani. The news of the sepoys’ arrival did not seem to have travelled through the mob; only those nearest had turned to face them. He patted Boomerang’s neck and stared steadily down on them; they looked like honest men, puzzled and goaded. A big old fellow with a gauzy white beard shook his fist at the Dewan and yelled hoarsely, “Murderer! Adulterer!”

  Round the speaker they surged forward, and a couple of bricks flew. Rodney saw that they were aimed at the Dewan, who was cursing beside him, but they crashed among the men. A sepoy staggered and spat blood and teeth into the road. Subadar Narain hissed, “Stand up stand still!”

  Rodney leaned down to the bugler at his other stirrup. “Bugler, blow three Gs.”

  The bugler held his rifle between his knees and took up the bugle dangling at his right hip. He wetted his lips, whispered “prrp prrrmp” into the mouthpiece, then flung back his head and blew.

  At the brazen shriek the voices in the crowd fell silent, and Rodney heard the massed, heavy breathing. He stood in the stirrups and called out, “Ohé, people of Kishanpur! Disperse quietly to your homes! If you move this way, we fire!”

  A sibilance of whispering soughed over the square. “Sahib hoi--Company ka sahib--Company ka sipahi!”; then a ripple as they murmured, “Dewan bhi!”

  He saw consternation in the faces turned to him, and disbelief. They hated the Rani and the Dewan, and they could not believe that he and the sepoys had come to uphold the rulers. Flushing, he raised his voice and shouted his order again. A farmer, conspicuous by a wall eye and a pinched toothless face, jumped out, joined his hands in salaam, and cried in a shrill thick dialect, “Sahib, rid us of the murderess --and rule us--or she will strangle us!”

  Narain muttered under his breath, “Swine!” The Dewan fixed the speaker with a wide stare, a hungry almost loving look. More brickbats clattered on the house fronts, and a stick curved through the air.

  “Make way!” Rodney edged Boomerang back till two ranks of soldiers were in front of him and he was no longer blocking their line of fire. “Front Rank--kneel! Front rank, second rank--cap! Fire a volley at point blank--ready! Present when the sword drops.”

  He drew his sword and held it out level. From the corner of his eye the N.C.O. at the right of the front rank watched the point.

  A long deep sigh shook the crowd. They began to move, peaceably, without panic or hurry. They edged away, pushed back, dispersed, dissolved. The dust drifted around the dark soldiers, waiting, silent and still in perfect discipline. One tried to choke a cough, and Narain snarled, “Quiet!” Rodney’s sword arm ached.

  At last he cried “Rest!” and slowly lowered the sword till it lay across Boomerang’s withers, and breathed out with a long whistle. The square was empty of people. Several abandoned bullock carts stood in it, and a pair of goats, tethered together, ran about bleating. He saw no bodies and no wounded, and the fire in the shack opposite had burned itself out. The housetops were deserted; a yellow light glowed on the portico of the temple; his eyes moved nearer along the second-storey windows.

  He looked straight into the face of an unveiled woman, statue-still, and ugly.

  She was leaning out of an open window two feet above him and not more than ten feet distant, her elbows on the sill. She was in her late forties; her face was square and powerful, and daubed with remnants of make-up. Red betel juice stained her teeth and mottled
her lips; thick black hair, grey-streaked, fell in rats’ tails round her face. He knew by the contemptuous pride of her pose that she could be only a princess or a whore.

  The Dewan saw her and exclaimed in angry recognition. Ignoring him, she said scornfully, “Of course they killed the Rajah. I know it. You English--blind stupid fools!”

  The Dewan pulled the pistol from his sash and sprang forward. The woman inclined her head, pursed her lips, and spurted a jet of red betel juice down into his eye; she was gone, vanished into the dark behind her. The pistol exploded, and a sudden orange flash glared on the wall. The ball chipped the baked mud and sang up into the sky.

  The Dewan put up his pistol and turned back, breathing hard. Rodney stared at him coldly, without moving. When the sloe eyes dropped he snapped out a string of orders, and the sepoys began to march. For an hour they explored the silent jungle of the city.

  At last he halted them and turned to the Dewan. “Where is the other damage? Where were your officials killed? What’s happened to the corpses?”

  The Dewan had recovered himself, and smiled crookedly. “It must have been exaggerated, sahib. But several men indeed died, so I was told. If not, we can remedy the matter tomorrow.”

  Rodney turned Boomerang’s head without a word and led the sepoys back to the fort.

  The riot should have settled something. Perhaps it had; but now he was on edge with suppressed anger and a certainty that No. 3 Company had somehow been tricked and misused.

  In the courtyard of the fort, when he had praised and dismissed them, he detained the man who had been injured by the brick. The light was bad, and after a minute’s vain peering he called impatiently for a torch. No one answered; the Native Officers had gone about their duties; the N.C.O.’s and sepoys were trailing off to their quarters; his orderly, Rambir, had disappeared, and the Kishanpur officers were nowhere to be seen. His frayed temper broke and he shouted at a shadow passing near him, “You there! Go and get a light, quick!”

  The shadow stopped moving. After a short pause a woman’s voice called softly, “Someone fetch a light to me, quickly!”

  In five seconds Prithvi Chand panted up with a flaring torch. By its light Rodney saw that the shadow was a white burqa, the one-piece, top-to-toe garment worn by all Mohammedan and some high-caste Hindu women. Black eyes flickered behind the netting of the oblong eyepiece, and she was gone. He did not have to ask who she was. He frowned and turned to the sepoy.

  When he had finished he set out to make his report to Mr. Dellamain. The Commissioner sat fully dressed at his desk. A pair of horse pistols lay beside the inkstand, the chewed stubs of cheroots filled the brass ashtray, and stale tobacco smoke permeated the room. He looked up quickly as Rodney entered. “Well, was it serious?”

  Rodney laughed shortly. “It was nothing at all. Someone had set fire to a shack in the square, and they were throwing a few bricks. Of course it might have got worse, but as it was the Kishanpur troops could have put it down easily.”

  “H’m. Was there much shooting? I did not hear any, but then the breeze might carry it away.”

  “We didn’t fire a shot. The Dewan tried to murder a woman, but missed. Personally I doubt whether anyone was hurt, from beginning to end. I had a strong impression that it wasn’t real, spontaneous.”

  The Commissioner rose, took a deep breath, and swelled to his full size. His voice was ripe again as he said judicially, “Now why do you imagine someone should have stirred up a riot--and whom do you suspect?”

  “I have nothing to go on, sir, but...” He related how the crowd had behaved, particularly when he first saw them. “They may have been a bit boisterous. I think the Dewan made it out worse than it was, so that we’d be called in-- which would prove that we’re supporting the Rani.”

  He knew now the pattern of light and shadow which could reveal that other man behind the Commissioner’s heavy features. He looked, and saw that Dellamain was twisting away from some fact, or fear, or suspicion, even while he spoke words of certainty and reasoned confidence.

  “Ah, I suppose that is possible. The workings of the Indian mind are tortuous. But even so, it is a trifle far-fetched. The Dewan is essentially an honest man, unusually direct and-- h’m--crude for an Indian. And I do not see that any harm has been done even if your suspicions are justified--a point, I may remind you, on which we have no evidence. Had he asked me outright, I would have been glad to dispatch you on a flag march, in order that the infant Rajah’s subjects should be under no misapprehension. The Company’s policy will certainly endorse him as the true heir, and the Rani as regent during his minority.”

  “But they hate her; we heard them tonight! They called her a murderess--that means they think she killed her husband the old Rajah. And they hate the Dewan. They’re going to hate us too, and despise us, for supporting her. Some of them were shouting for us to take over the state.”

  The Commissioner, who had been pacing the floor and slowly shaking his head, stopped in mid-stride and said sharply, “Nonsense! A small section of rumour-mongers and sycophants in the mob, at most.”

  For a moment Rodney thought the man underneath, cornered, was going to lose his temper. Dellamain was struggling to draw around himself the Commissioner’s detached firmness. At last he succeeded, and it was the great Commissioner of the Bhowani Leased Territory who laid an affable hand on Rodney’s shoulder and gripped it, a gesture Rodney detested.

  “There, my dear fellow, you have a sensitive nature, and I admire it in you. But in these matters of high policy we must subordinate the heart to the brain.” Rodney stirred, and the Commissioner let his hand drop. “You have carried out your task tonight with efficiency and dispatch--and Christian mercy. Be assured I shall commend your conduct to Colonel Caversham, and I--ah--flatter myself I have some small influence with him. You have great responsibilities of your own; pray do not burden yourself with mine too. Now let me see, I think a word or two in the right quarter might effect your speedy return to Bhowani, eh? And to the charming and gracious Mrs. Savage. How would that suit you? Caversham could send another officer to relieve you. The sepoys may have to stay for some considerable period.”

  “Don’t do that, sir. It’s my company.”

  “No? Very well. Now go to bed like a good fellow. You must be exhausted. By the way, I would wish you to move your men out into camp somewhere nearby as soon as the immediate danger is over--say in a week? We must not give the impression that we have--ah--seized the reins of government.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “Wait. Her Highness is very anxious that the officer who stays here should try to improve the efficiency of her army.” “What for, sir?”

  Mr. Dellamain raised his eyebrows. “To assure her own protection and the young Rajah’s, I presume. Perhaps a certain pride too--put on a better show for the Governor General than Lalkot does, you know--something like that. And of course the better her army becomes, the less chance there is that we’ll have to come in and help.”

  “Very good, sir. Good night.”

  “Good night, my dear fellow.”

  Rodney saluted and walked quickly along the passage and down the spirals of booming stairs to his own room. The pompous Commissioner’s parting clap tingled on his back; poor frightened Dellamain’s contrived smile hovered before his eyes: two people in one, a composite man, committed by profession to the filth of politics, writing crooked demarches, saying something and meaning something else. He unbuckled his sword and for a moment let the cold steel of the scabbard touch his cheek. That was direct, honest; cruel--but clean.

  5

  He watched the dancing girls through half-closed eyes, for he was full of food and lazily content. He had been here seven weeks, each week settling more comfortably into the new way of living. Tomorrow, Saturday, February the twenty-first, it would all vanish under a resurrected formality. Tomorrow the British guests arrived for the installation of the young Rajah and the tiger hunt. He could gauge now the constraint t
heir presence would put on him and the people here. After the tiger hunt he would return to Bhowani, his tasks completed.

  There had been no more disturbances in the city, or, so far as he knew, anywhere else in the five thousand square miles remaining to the State of Kishanpur. Once a week letters came from Bhowani--the day he left, Robin had sat on a small scorpion; the dog, Jewel, recently had had a fight with a jackal; Joanna had bought the materials for a new bonnet from a pedlar, and the tailor had made it up for her--total cost, six rupees fourteen annas. She also “presumed” that she would soon receive an invitation to the tiger hunt; he knew she would not, but found it difficult to tell her in so many words. In his letters he “supposed that the Rani had never thought of the matter,” and pointed out that he could hardly “stoop to outright cadging.” It wasn’t true; Sumitra had thought of it. Whenever he tried to manoeuvre conversation towards the subject, she as subtly guided it away again. After several attempts he knew she avoided it deliberately. She was a wonderful woman, but a princess, and an Indian, and his pride forbade him to ask favours of her.

  The Commissioner had stayed only a week, and had taken Julio’s troop with him when he returned to Bhowani. The six weeks since had passed quickly, and Rodney had been kept busy training the local army. He had not expected to achieve much in so short a time, and had set to work with mixed feelings. The work was interesting enough; on the other hand, half believing that the Rani was a murderess, he felt a strong distaste for the idea of setting her more firmly in power.

  But after a few days the scruffiness and military ignorance of his pupils aroused his soldier instincts. In a week his only thought was that these people were a disgrace to his profession, and he worked on them as keenly as on his own company. He’d even fretted as his time ran out, but knew now that he would go back to Bhowani warmed by a little glow of accomplishment.