Heads were appearing in windows, voices asking what all the shouting was about, and he realized he should have fired a warning shot, if only to alert those men still sleeping in the carriage above. He fired two shots into the air. “It’s a bomb!” he screamed. “Get out of the carriage!”
A rifle cracked, and the figure beneath the train slumped forward, the bomb slipping out of his grasp, the burning fuse apparently extinguished. Or had he just fallen on top of it?
The explosion was answer enough. A jagged flash, a thunderous crack, and a forceful shower of flesh that sent McColl reeling backward and dumped him onto his rear.
He lay there for several seconds, watching smoke give way to stars. He could still see, still hear. His body, though splattered with blood and God knew what else, was still in one piece.
The carriage in front of him seemed undamaged. At either end its lucky inhabitants were clambering down the vestibule steps to see what had happened.
Tindall helped McColl to his feet, offered him a handkerchief to wipe the gore from his face, and stared thoughtfully down the train. “I suppose we should make sure he only had the one.”
No vaudeville comic could have bettered the timing. The words were barely out of Tindall’s mouth when another flash lit the whole station area and half the last carriage exploded into the air.
A frenzied search found no more devices, but the damage had been done. Four men were dead, and four more seemed certain to lose limbs. The missing sentry was found with a length of wire embedded in his neck.
It seemed probable that the man was one of Jatin’s, sent to disrupt and discourage the police pursuit, but, if so, he wouldn’t be telling them.
The morning passed without news, either from those out searching for the missing terrorists or from the stand-ins at Universal Emporium, whose only visitors had been penniless locals eager to hear the strange noises one could make by dropping a tiny needle on something round and black. The whole expedition could end up with nothing, McColl thought, as he watched the hastily constructed coffins lifted aboard a Calcutta-bound train. Eight months of chasing Jugantar, eight months of frustration, failure, and too many deaths.
Their luck turned. The peasant escorted into the carriage by a local policeman was from a village a few miles to the east, one close to the Burhabulang River, between Balasore and the coast. As he spoke no English or Bengali, the policeman had to interpret.
That morning, soon after sunrise, five strangers had walked into the peasant’s village and tried to buy food at the shop. They had obviously been hungry, and their clothes were ragged and wet, but their accents were those of rich men, and they had tried to pay with the first ten-rupee note that most of the locals had ever seen. Questions had been asked, a scuffle had broken out, and one of the strangers had pulled a pistol and shot two villagers. One was only slightly wounded, but the other man was dead.
The other strangers had quickly drawn their weapons, and the five of them had retreated down the street, with the angry but unarmed villagers in cautious pursuit. Soon the gunmen had reached a river, a tributary of the Burhabulang, which barred their way, and they had taken turns to cover one another as they swam across. The villagers had pretended to let them go, but once the strangers had passed from sight, two men had picked up their trail.
“Can you show me where this all happened?” Tindall asked, unfolding the best map they had.
The peasant stared for a several seconds at the mass of lines, squiggles and words placed before him, then shook his head. McColl doubted he’d ever seen a map before.
“He’ll have to take us there,” Tindall realized. “How did he get here?” he asked the local officer.
“On a donkey.”
“Well, tell him we’ll be leaving in an hour or so. Give him something to eat in the meantime.”
The peasant listened and offered what seemed a pithy reply.
“He wants to know about the reward,” the officer reported.
“All in good time,” Tindall said with a reassuring smile.
Though obviously less than satisfied, the peasant followed his keeper out.
An hour later they were ready to go. Tindall’s force of seventy-odd men would converge on what seemed the likeliest village and be brought on from there if that proved the wrong one. Tindall, McColl, and a few other officers would follow the donkey on horseback.
The horse caused McColl almost as much trepidation as the elephant had done—apart from two short rides in the Punjab that January, he’d not been astride one since South Africa—but the animal proved remarkably docile. With the sky clearing and the temperature soaring, he was perhaps as cowed by the heat as his rider.
It took them two hours to reach the village, which straggled along a single street leading down to the wide Burhabulang. Half of Tindall’s force was already there, and another quarter arrived in the next thirty minutes, which was more than enough to continue the pursuit. Their helpful informant led them west to the tributary, where another man was waiting to take them on. The men they wanted, he reported through the interpreter, were only a mile or so ahead, encamped on a hill not far from the river.
Getting everyone across the tributary looked likely to delay matters, until a helpful villager disclosed the existence of a ford not far upstream. Less than half an hour later, McColl was staring up at the hill and the copse of trees on its summit, where the wanted men were hunkered down.
There were several mounds of earth in front of the trees, which offered a modicum of cover, but there were only five of the terrorists. As Tindall began deploying his much larger force, sending groups round each flank of the hill with orders to link up beyond it, a lone shot was fired from inside the copse, causing several men to hit the ground but otherwise causing no harm.
A statement of intent, McColl thought. These five would not surrender lightly.
There was no real contest, though, between five men with pistols and sixty or more toting rifles. Soon a rain of bullets had ripped the leaves from the trees that sheltered the rebels, and Tindall’s main force was crawling forward across the marshy ground without suffering any apparent casualties. It was slow but remorseless, and around an hour had passed when McColl noticed a sudden diminution of the enemy’s returning fire. A few minutes more and it stopped altogether. Either the terrorists had run out of bullets or they were saving the few that remained for themselves or for a last hurrah.
The officers kept firing for a few minutes and, after receiving no further response, mounted a headlong charge. Tindall had given orders, more in hope than in expectation, that the rebels should be taken alive, and to his and McColl’s relief no more shots rang out. There was only the one triumphant shout—“We have them, sahib!”
He and Tindall walked up to the cluster of shredded trees and surveyed the human damage. One of the Jugantar men had been killed by a bullet to the head, and two had been injured, one only slightly, the other shot in the neck, belly, and thigh.
The latter’s face matched their picture of the young Jatin Mukherjee, and the man himself admitted in a whisper that that was who he was. As his captors looked down at him, he offered them a smile that was part defiance, part amusement. It was the look, McColl thought, of a man who had lost a battle but knew his side would win the war.
The wounded men and the corpse were taken to the village, where a cart was commandeered to carry them on to Balasore. The other two were marched to the town jail, where Tindall and McColl questioned them that afternoon. Neither they nor their slightly injured comrade in the hospital had anything to say on the subject of German arms. Their leader needed an emergency operation, and McColl and Tindall had to wait several hours before they could interview the man they’d been seeking for most of the year. Jatin regained consciousness early that evening, but speech was clearly difficult, and only one whispered sentence emerged from the heavily bandaged throat: “I alone am responsible.”
/> When Tindall asked him for what, Jatin simply smiled.
They left him under guard, intent on starting again the following morning, but during the night Jatin surreptitiously tore the stitches from his wounds and bled himself to death.
Cunningham arrived in Balasore the following morning, having shaken off whatever bug had laid him low. Responding to the news of Mukherjee’s suicide, he was his usual compassionate self. “If only the rest of the scum would follow his example,” was the Five man’s idea of an epitaph.
Tindall gave him a contemptuous look. “The man had courage,” he retorted. “If he’d been English, he’d be up for a medal.”
Cunningham was taken aback, but not for long. “Well, at least we’ve put a bloody great spoke in Jugantar’s wheel!”
And in that McColl supposed he was right. As a leader, Mukherjee would be hard to replace, and there seemed little chance of their getting their hands on the soon-to-be arriving guns. The divisions that might have been needed in India could now—God help them—be sent to France. Where they might make a crucial difference to how things went on the Western Front. Which might even save his brother’s life.
Tindall and Cunningham returned to Calcutta that evening, taking their train and most of the officers with them, but McColl elected to stay on in Balasore. Mukherjee’s Jugantar cell might be broken, but McColl was convinced that the guns were on their way; if the weapons were landed and dispersed, there’d be other Indians more than willing to use them. He had less faith than Tindall in the competence of the local police, and he still had vivid memories of that day the year before when the Dublin authorities had allowed 90 percent of a similar arms shipment to slip through their fingers.
He took a room in the town’s only half-acceptable hotel, resigned himself to nights without a cooling fan, and settled down to wait. Assuming that the news of Jatin’s death had somehow filtered out, there seemed a fair chance that someone might turn up in Balasore with more recent news of the shipment.
Saving his only book for the long hours of darkness, he spent the days familiarizing himself with the nearby coastline, a picture-perfect sandy beach that stretched both north and south for almost twenty miles. If and when the ship arrived, there was nowhere it could dock. A smaller boat would be needed to bring the guns ashore.
Each day, between nightfall and dinner, he checked in at the emporium, where Tindall’s two men were learning the gramophone and bicycle trades. They didn’t seem like the brightest sparks in the bazaar, and it was only the fear of being spotted that stopped McColl adding a lunchtime visit to his schedule.
His fears turned out be well founded. Six days into their vigil, one of the men turned up at McColl’s hotel. His demeanor was apologetic, which didn’t augur well.
A man had come to the shop, a Bengali, around thirty years old, well dressed.
“What did he want?” McColl demanded to know. “What did he say?”
“He said, ‘I need a bicycle for my nephew Prabir.’”
“And?”
“It’s hard to explain, sahib. I said, ‘How old is he?’ and he just looked at me, as if he was waiting for me to say something else. And when I didn’t, he just repeated what he had said: ‘I need a bicycle for my nephew Prabir.’ I said, ‘Yes, I heard that, but we have different sizes for different ages.’ He looked upset and shook his head and said, ‘Thank you,’ and then he walked out through the door. My colleague and I, we looked at each other and laughed, but after a short time I began to think perhaps this man is suspicious, yes?”
“How long ago was this?” McColl asked.
“One hour, I think. Perhaps a little more.”
“Come with me,” McColl said, grabbing his jacket. The station was a ten-minute walk away, the next train for the north standing in the platform. After ordering the guard to delay its departure, McColl and the officer began working their way through the coaches. They found their quarry in second class, sharing a compartment with two Indian businessmen and rather obviously trying to conceal himself behind a copy of The Statesman.
The man looked older than thirty to McColl, and less sure of himself than the other Jugantar people he had met. He blustered briefly in perfect English before abruptly changing tack and meekly submitting to ejection from the train. A search of his clothes and body failed to produce a weapon or any incriminating papers, but McColl had no doubt that this was the man he’d been waiting for. It was only a short walk to the town police station, where he could interrogate the man in private.
Fifteen minutes later McColl was facing him across a table. “Name?” he asked.
The look on the young man’s face was that of a rebellious child.
“It doesn’t matter,” McColl said, putting down his pen. “You can just be a number to the hangman.”
“Hangman?” the Indian blurted. “What have I done to deserve hanging? I’m just a . . . I have done nothing.”
McColl smiled at him. “Just a messenger, you were going to say. Well, in law a man who carries messages for terrorists is as guilty as they are.” He wasn’t at all sure whether this was true, but it sounded believable.
“I delivered no message,” the man said stubbornly.
“No, you didn’t, but you intended to, which amounts to the same thing. Let me bring you up to date on your conspiracy. Jatin Mukherjee is dead; he will lead no rebellion in Bengal this—”
“I don’t believe you.”
McColl took out the picture of Mukherjee’s corpse and silently passed it across, thankful that Tindall had insisted on having it taken. Some Indians, the DCI man had said, would need more than an English say-so to believe that their hero was dead.
This one believed it now. There were tears in his eyes, McColl noticed. “He was a brave man. He fought a good fight. And he lost, just as you have. And you will pay the final price, just as he did. Do you have a family?”
“What? Yes.”
“Children?”
“Two. Boys. What—”
“If you want to see them again, you will tell me the message you were sent to deliver.”
“If I do that, I shall be a traitor.”
“Yes. But no one will ever know. I promise you that.”
“I shall know.”
“True. And if you keep silent, you will die, and in the days spent waiting for your execution you’ll know that you’ve abandoned your sons,” McColl went on remorselessly. He wasn’t enjoying himself, but he could see that the man was weakening.
“And if I do tell you—what will happen to me?”
“I will let you go. I won’t even ask who gave you the message.”
“You won’t?” the Indian asked disbelievingly.
“As long as you take an oath not to engage in any subversive activity for the duration of the war.”
The Indian regarded him, wanting to save himself, wanting to be loyal.
“Look,” McColl said. “You came here to give them a place and a time and probably a coded signal for when the ship arrives.” The Indian’s expression told him he’d guessed right. “But those guns will never reach Jugantar now, whether you tell me the message or not. You have nothing to betray anymore.”
“There is my comrade on the boat.”
So there was only one Indian aboard, McColl thought. The rest would be hired hands. “What can I say?” he went on. “The affair is over. We shall probably catch your comrade anyway, but as of this moment you have a chance to walk away. To live.”
“To live as a traitor.”
“To live,” McColl repeated. “Your boys will have a father,” he pressed on, knowing that it was necessary and feeling the shame of it anyway.
The Indian closed his eyes. “My name is Barun Ray.”
“And the message?”
“The early hours of the tenth off Chandipur Beach. The ship is the Celebes.”
“The ship will flash a light four times. Those on shore must do the same.”
“Thank you.”
Ray gave him a weary look. “What happens to me now? Can I go back to my family?”
“No. You will write to them, tell them that your friends have asked you to stay in Balasore for a few days.”
“But you promised.”
“I said I would let you go, and I will. When we have the boat.”
Men’s Mess
With ten days having passed since her arrival and her relationship with the German authorities showing no visible sign of strain, Caitlin decided it was time she talked to the opposition. Among the list of contacts she had memorized in Christiania, there was one that Kollontai had deemed safer than the others—a woman named Erna Drahn. “She’s over eighty,” Kollontai had said, “and she doesn’t go out much, so the police will probably not be watching her. But there was nothing wrong with her mind when I last saw her, and she’ll know what’s going on. She’s been a party member for more than forty years.”
Drahn lived in Friedrichshain, and Caitlin took a tram out to see her on the Tuesday evening, after, she hoped, losing any official shadow in the Wertheim department store on Leipziger Platz. She was wearing her least conspicuous clothes and, as far as she could see, attracting no unusual interest from her German fellow passengers.
After she’d found the flat and knocked on the door, a shout invited her in. Erna Drahn’s health had clearly deteriorated since Kollontai’s last visit, and she was now effectively chair-ridden. But there was nothing wrong with the old woman’s spirit, and she knew enough English to make a stilted conversation possible. Once Caitlin had set the watchful blue eyes at ease with the anecdote that Kollontai had given her to recount, there was no holding back.
Most of those party members who had rejected the leadership’s shameful line were now in prison, Erna told Caitlin. But not all. Though she herself was out of touch with the latest developments, she was confident that the opposition was making itself heard in one way or another. Caitlin should speak to Rolf Wehler, who as far as she knew was in hiding in Niederbarnim. She would make inquiries and find Caitlin a trustworthy interpreter, because Rolf didn’t speak English. “He will tell you what is going on, and you can tell your American readers that despite the traitors of August, socialism is alive and well in Germany.”
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