by Ruskin Bond
By lunchtime—or tiffin, as we called it then—Dhuki had the well covered over with the wooden planks.
‘The major will be pleased,’ said my mother when she came home. ‘It will be quite ready by evening, won’t it, Dhuki?’
By evening the well had been completely bricked over. It was the fastest bit of work Dhuki had ever done.
Over the next few weeks, my mother’s concern changed to anxiety, her anxiety to melancholy, and her melancholy to resignation. By being gay and high-spirited myself, I hope I did something to cheer her up. She had written to the colonel of the regiment and had been informed that the major had gone home on leave a fortnight previously. Somewhere, in the vastness of India, the major had disappeared.
It was easy enough to disappear and never be found. After seven months had passed without the major turning up, it was presumed that one of two things must have happened. Either he had been murdered on the train and his corpse flung into a river; or, he had run away with a tribal girl and was living in some remote corner of the country.
Life had to carry on for the rest of us. The rains were over and the guava season was approaching.
My mother was receiving visits from a colonel of His Majesty’s 32nd Foot. He was an elderly, easy-going, seemingly absent-minded man, who didn’t get in the way at all but left slabs of chocolate lying around the house.
‘A good sahib,’ observed Dhuki, as I stood beside him behind the bougainvillea, watching the colonel saunter up the veranda steps. ‘See how well he wears his sola topee! It covers his head completely.’
‘He’s bald underneath,’ I said.
‘No matter. I think he will be all right.’
‘And if he isn’t,’ I said, ‘we can always open up the well again.’
Dhuki dropped the nozzle of the hosepipe and water gushed out over our feet. But he recovered quickly and, taking me by the hand, led me across to the old well, now surmounted by a three-tiered cement platform which looked rather like a wedding cake.
‘We must not forget our old well,’ he said. ‘Let us make it beautiful, baba. Some flowerpots, perhaps.’
And together we fetched pots and decorated the covered well with ferns and geraniums. Everyone congratulated Dhuki on the fine job he’d done. My only regret was that the pigeons had gone away.
HANGING AT THE MANGO TOPE
The two captive policemen, Inspector Hukam Singh and Sub-Inspector Guler Singh, were being pushed unceremoniously along the dusty, deserted, sun-drenched road. The people of the village had made themselves scarce. They would reappear only when the dacoits went away.
The leader of the dacoit gang was Mangal Singh Bundela, great grandson of a Pindari adventurer who had been a thorn in the side of the British. Mangal was doing his best to be a thorn in the flesh of his own government. The local police force had been strengthened recently but it was still inadequate for dealing with the dacoits who knew the ravines better than any surveyor. The dacoit Mangal had made a fortune out of ransom. His chief victims were the sons of wealthy industrialists, moneylenders and landowners. But today he had captured two police officials; of no value as far as ransom went, but prestigious prisoners who could be put to other uses . . .
Mangal Singh wanted to show off in front of the police. He would kill at least one of them—his reputation demanded it—but he would let the other go, in order that his legendary power and ruthlessness be given maximum publicity. A legend is always a help!
His red-and-green turban was tied rakishly to one side. His dhoti extended right down to his ankles. His slippers were embroidered with gold-and-silver thread. His weapon was not an ancient matchlock but a well-greased .303 rifle. Two of his men had similar rifles. Some had revolvers. Only the smaller fry carried swords or country-made pistols. Mangal Singh’s gang, though traditional in many ways, was up-to-date in the matter of weapons. Right now they had the policemen’s guns too.
‘Come along, Inspector Sahib,’ said Mangal Singh, in tones of police barbarity, tugging at the rope that encircled the stout inspector’s midriff. ‘Had you captured me today, you would have been a hero. You would have taken all the credit, even though you could not keep up with your men in the ravines. Too bad you chose to remain sitting in your jeep with the sub-inspector. The jeep will be useful to us. You will not. But I would like you to be a hero all the same, and there is none better than a dead hero!’
Mangal Singh’s followers doubled up with laughter. They loved their leader’s cruel sense of humour.
‘As for you, Guler Singh,’ he continued, giving his attention to the sub-inspector, ‘you are a man from my own village. You should have joined me long ago. But you were never to be trusted. You thought there would be better pickings in the police, didn’t you?’
Guler Singh said nothing, simply hung his head and wondered what his fate would be. He felt certain that Mangal Singh would devise some diabolical and fiendish method of dealing with his captives. Guler Singh’s only hope was Constable Ghanshyam, who hadn’t been caught by the dacoits because, at the time of the ambush, he had been in the bushes, relieving himself.
‘To the mango tope,’ said Mangal Singh, prodding the policemen forward.
‘Listen to me, Mangal,’ said the perspiring inspector, who was ready to try anything to get out of his predicament. ‘Let me go, and I give you my word there’ll be no trouble for you in this area as long as I am posted here. What could be more convenient than that?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mangal Singh. ‘But your word isn’t good. My word is different. I have told my men that I will hang you at the mango tope and I mean to keep my word. But I believe in fair play—I like a little sport! You may yet go free if your friend here, Sub-Inspector Guler Singh, has his wits about him.’
The inspector and his subordinate exchanged doubtful, puzzled looks. They were not to remain puzzled for long. On reaching the mango tope, the dacoits produced a good, strong hempen rope, one end looped into a slip knot. Many a garland of marigolds had the inspector received during his mediocre career. Now, for the first time, he was being garlanded with a hangman’s noose. He had seen hangings, he had rather enjoyed them, but he had no stomach for his own. The inspector begged for mercy. Who wouldn’t have, in his position?
‘Be quiet,’ commanded Mangal Singh. ‘I do not want to know about your wife and your children and the manner in which they will starve. You shot my son last year.’
‘Not I!’ cried the inspector. ‘It was some other.’
‘You led the party. But now, just to show you that I’m a sporting fellow, I am going to have you strung up from this tree and then I am going to give Guler Singh six shots with a rifle, and if he can sever the rope that suspends you before you are dead, well then, you can remain alive and I will let you go! For your sake I hope the sub-inspector’s aim is good. He will have to shoot fast. My man Phambiri, who has made this noose, was once the executioner in a city jail. He guarantees that you won’t last more than fifteen seconds at the end of his rope.’
Guler Singh was taken to a spot about forty yards away. A rifle was thrust into his hands. Two dacoits clambered into the branches of the mango tree. The inspector, his hands tied behind, could only gaze at them in horror. His mouth opened and shut as though he already had need of more air. And then, suddenly, the rope went taut, up went the inspector, his throat caught in a vice, while the branch of the tree shook and mango blossoms fluttered to the ground. The inspector dangled from the rope, his feet about three feet above the ground.
‘You can shoot,’ said Mangal Singh, nodding to the sub-inspector.
And Guler Singh, his hands trembling a little, raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired three shots in rapid succession. But the rope was swinging violently and the inspector’s body was jerking about like a fish on a hook. The bullets went wide.
Guler Singh found the magazine empty. He reloaded, wiped the stinging sweat from his eyes, raised the rifle again, took more careful aim. His hands were steadier now. He rested
the sights on the upper portion of the rope, where there was less motion. Normally he was a good shot but he had never been asked to demonstrate his skill in circumstances such as these.
The inspector still gyrated at the end of his rope. There was life in him yet. His face was purple. The world, in those choking moments, was a medley of upside-down roofs and a red sun spinning slowly towards him.
Guler Singh’s rifle cracked again. An inch or two wide this time. But the fifth shot found its mark, sending small tuffs of rope winging into the air.
The shot did not sever the rope; it was only a nick.
Guler Singh had one shot left. He was quite calm. The rifle sight followed the rope’s swing, less agitated now that the inspector’s convulsions were lessening. Guler Singh felt sure he could sever the rope this time.
And then, as his finger touched the trigger, an odd, disturbing thought slipped into his mind, stayed there, throbbing: Whose life are you trying to save? Hukam Singh has stood in the way of your promotion more than once. He had you charge-sheeted for accepting fifty rupees from an unlicensed rickshaw puller. He makes you do all the dirty work, blames you when things go wrong, takes the credit when there is credit to be taken. But for him, you’d be an inspector!
The rope swayed slightly to the right. The rifle moved just a fraction to the left. The last shot rang out, clipping a sliver of bark from the mango tree.
The inspector was dead when they cut him down.
‘Bad luck,’ said Mangal Singh Bundela. ‘You nearly saved him. But the next time I catch up with you, Guler Singh, it will be your turn to hang from the mango tree. So keep well away! You know that I am a man of my word. I keep it now by giving you your freedom.’
A few minutes later, the party of dacoits had melted away into the late-afternoon shadows of the scrub forest. There was the sound of a jeep starting up. Then silence—a silence so profound that it seemed to be shouting in Guler Singh’s ears.
As the village people began to trickle out of their houses, Constable Ghanshyam appeared, as if from nowhere, swearing that he had lost his way in the jungle. Several people had seen the incident from their windows. They were unanimous in praising the sub-inspector for his brave attempt to save his superior’s life. He had done his best.
It is true, thought Guler Singh. I did my best.
That moment of hesitation before the last shot, the question that had suddenly reared up in the darkness of his mind, had already gone from his memory. We remember only what we want to remember.
‘I did my best,’ he told everyone.
And so he had.
THE GOOD OLD DAYS
I took Miss Mackenzie an offering of a tin of Malabar sardines, and so lessened the sharpness of her rebuke.
‘Another doctor’s visit, is it?’ she said, looking reproachfully at me over her spectacles. ‘I might have been dead all this time . . .’
Miss Mackenzie, at eighty-five, did not show the least signs of dying. She was the oldest resident of the hill station. She lived in a small cottage halfway up a hill. The cottage, like Longfellow’s village of Attri, gave one the impression of having tried to get to the top of the hill and failed halfway up. It was hidden from the road by oaks and maples.
‘I’ve been away,’ I explained. ‘I had to go to Delhi for a fortnight. I hope you’ve been all right?’
I wasn’t a relative of Miss Mackenzie’s, nor a very old friend; but she had the knack of making people feel they were somehow responsible for her.
‘I can’t complain. The weather’s been good, and the padre sent me some eggs.’ She set great store on what was given to her in the way of food. Her pension of forty rupees a month only permitted a diet of dal and rice; but the thoughtfulness of people who knew her, and the occasional gift parcel from England, lent variety to her diet and frequently gave her a topic of conversation.
‘I’m glad you have some eggs,’ I said. ‘They’re four rupees a dozen now.’
‘Yes, I know. And there was a time when they were only six annas a dozen.’
‘About thirty years ago, I suppose.’
‘No, twenty-five. I remember, May Taylor’s eggs were always the best. She lived in Fairville—the old house near the raja’s estate.’
‘Did she have a poultry farm?’
‘Oh, no, just her own hens. Very ordinary hens, too, not White Leghorns or Rhode Island Red—but they gave lovely eggs, she knew how to keep her birds healthy . . . May Taylor was a friend of mine. She didn’t supply eggs to just anybody, you know.’
‘Oh, naturally not. Miss Taylor’s dead now, I suppose?’
‘Oh, yes, quite dead. Her sister saw to that.’
‘Oh!’ I sensed a story. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Well, it was a bit of a mystery, really. May and Charlotte never did get on with each other and it’s a wonder they agreed to live together. Even as children they used to fight. But Charlotte was always the spoilt one—prettier, you see. May, when I knew her, was thirty-five, a good woman if you know what I mean. She saw to the house and saw to the meals and she went to church like other respectable people and everyone liked her. But Charlotte was moody and bad-tempered. She kept to herself—always had done, since the parents died. And she was a little too fond of the bottle.’
‘Neither of them were married?’
‘No—I suppose that’s why they lived together. Though I’d rather live alone myself than put up with someone disagreeable. Still, they were sisters. Charlotte had been a gay young thing once, very popular with the soldiers at the convalescent home. She refused several offers of marriage, and then when she thought it time to accept someone, there were no more offers. She was almost thirty by then. That’s when she started drinking—heavily, I mean. Gin and brandy, mostly. It was cheap in those days. Gin, I think, was two rupees a bottle.’
‘What fun! I was born a generation too late.’
‘And a good thing, too. Or you’d probably have ended up as Charlotte did.’
‘Did she get delirium tremens?’
‘She did nothing of the sort. Charlotte had a strong constitution.’
‘And so have you, Miss Mackenzie, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘I take a drop when I can afford it—’ She gave me a meaningful look. ‘Or when I’m offered . . .’
‘Did you sometimes have a drink with Miss Taylor?’
‘I did not! I wouldn’t have been seen in her company. All over the place she was when she was drunk. Lost her powers of discrimination. She even took up with a barber! And then she fell down a khud one evening, and broke her ankle!’
‘Lucky it wasn’t her head.’
‘No, it wasn’t her own head she broke, more’s the pity, but her sister May’s—the poor, sweet thing.’
‘She broke her sister’s head, did she?’ I was intrigued. ‘Why, did May find out about the barber?’
‘Nobody knows what it was, but it may well have been something like that. Anyway, they had a terrible quarrel one night. Charlotte was drunk, and May, as usual, was admonishing her.’
‘Fatal,’ I said. ‘Never admonish a drunk.’
Miss Mackenzie ignored me and carried on.
‘She said something about the vengeance of God falling on Charlotte’s head. But it was May’s head that was rent asunder. Charlotte flew into a sudden rage—she was given to these outbursts even when sober—and brought something heavy down on May’s skull. Charlotte never said what it was. It couldn’t have been a bottle, unless she swept up the broken pieces afterwards. It may have been a heavy—what writers sometimes call a blunt instrument.
‘When Charlotte saw what she had done, she went out of her mind. They found her two days later, wandering about near some ruins, babbling a lot of nonsense about how she might have been married long ago if May hadn’t clung to her.’
‘Was she charged with murder?’
‘No, it was all hushed up. Charlotte was sent to the asylum at Ranchi. We never heard of her again. May was buried
here. If you visit the old cemetery, you’ll find her grave on the second tier, third from the left.’
‘I’ll look it up some time. It must have been an awful shock for those of you who knew the sisters.’
‘Yes, I was quite upset about it. I was very fond of May. And then, of course, the chickens were sold and I had to buy my eggs elsewhere and they were never so good. Still, those were the days, the good old days—when eggs were six annas a dozen, and gin only two rupees a bottle!’
HE SAID IT WITH ARSENIC
Is there such a person as a born murderer—in the sense that there are born writers and musicians, born winners and losers? One can’t be sure. The urge to do away with troublesome people is common to most of us but only a few succumb to it.
If ever there was a born murderer, he must surely have been William Jones. The thing came so naturally to him. No extreme violence, no messy shootings or hacking or throttling. Just the right amount of poison, administered with skill and discretion.
A gentle, civilized sort of person, was Mr Jones. He collected butterflies and arranged them systematically in glass cases. His ether bottle was quick and painless. He never stuck pins into the beautiful creatures.
Have you ever heard of the Agra Double Murder? It happened, of course, a great many years ago, when Agra was a far-flung outpost of the British Empire. In those days, William Jones was a male nurse in one of the city’s hospitals. The patients—especially terminal cases—spoke highly of the care and consideration he showed them. While most nurses, both male and female, preferred to attend to the more hopeful cases, Nurse William was always prepared to stand duty over a dying patient.
He felt a certain empathy for the dying. He liked to see them on their way. It was just his good nature, of course.
On a visit to nearby Meerut, he met and fell in love with Mrs Browning, the wife of the local stationmaster. Impassioned love letters were soon putting a strain on the Agra–Meerut postal service. The envelopes grew heavier—not so much because the letters were growing longer but because they contained little packets of a powdery white substance, accompanied by detailed instructions as to its correct administration.