The door opened and Das walked in, with his wife and his lieutenant Subhash Bose in attendance. Basanti Das was wearing a khaki sari, almost as though she were a female member of the Congress Volunteers.
Das placed his palms together in pranam.
‘Please,’ he said, gesturing to a sofa.
I took up his invitation – there seemed no point in making things more difficult than they needed to be – and Surrender-not did like-wise. Das and his wife took a seat on the sofa opposite while Bose perched himself on its armrest. As he did so, a gilded clock on the mantelpiece chimed softly.
‘Would you care for some tea?’ asked Mrs Das.
But now wasn’t the time for the niceties.
‘There’s a matter of some urgency which we need to discuss,’ I said, declining the offer.
‘Of course,’ said Das. ‘Please continue.’
‘We understand you have called for a gathering on the Maidan for three o’clock this afternoon.’
Das said nothing.
‘I’m here to tell you, in the strongest terms, to call off the demonstration and that if you do not, you’ll be in breach of the terms of your house arrest and will be returned to prison.’
Das removed his spectacles and wiped them on the folds of his dhoti.
‘You do not think that as citizens of the empire Indians should turn out to greet the Prince of Wales, our future king-emperor?’ he asked.
It was a typically Bengali response – neither a yes nor a no, but an opening salvo in a game of words that I was not in the mood to indulge.
‘Mr Das,’ I said, ‘we have received credible intelligence that an attack is planned on the crowds greeting the prince later today, an attack that could result in significant loss of life. If you do not call off your protests, the consequences could be catastrophic.’
‘It’s true, kakū,’ said Surrender-not. ‘The captain and I have seen the evidence. It’s not a trick.’
Das listened carefully, then exchanged a look with Bose, before turning back to face us. He steepled the fingers of both hands.
‘Please tell me more about this intelligence you’ve received.’
‘I’m not at liberty to divulge that,’ I said.
‘How very convenient,’ snorted Bose from his perch. ‘If we march, our supporters will be in imminent danger; however, you cannot inform us of what shape that danger may take. One might even think you wanted to keep us off the streets, because if you arrest us, you’ve nowhere left to put us. Thank heavens we have Surendranath’s assurance that all is above board.’
I felt Surrender-not tense beside me. He was about to respond when Mrs Das interjected.
‘This attack of which you speak, would it not affect the British crowds too? In such circumstances, I take it you have already cancelled the prince’s plans and informed the attendees?’
‘I don’t believe such action has yet been taken,’ I said, ‘though increased security measures are being implemented.’
Das feigned surprise. ‘I must profess, it is unusual for your authorities to care so much for the safety of Indian protesters while at the same time disregarding the risks to Calcutta’s British citizens, let alone to the prince himself.’
‘That’s not something I can comment on,’ I said. ‘All I can tell you is that the threat is real and that the consequences could be grave. If you do not call off the march, I am ordered to take you, and your assistant here, back into custody.’
Das thought for a moment. ‘I shall not lie to you, Captain. I am aware of the protests planned for this afternoon and I approve of them. But you are mistaken to think that I have the power to stop them, even if I wished to.’
‘Again,’ I said, ‘I would remind you that you are under house arrest. Should you leave the confines of this property, you will be detained immediately.’
‘You have a dozen men stationed outside, checking all vehicles that come and go from the house. How exactly do you expect me to leave its confines?’
It would have been a fair question had I not already stood by impotently as another Indian evaded our security forces little more than an hour earlier.
‘Please, Das kakū,’ said Surrender-not. ‘Nothing good can come of this. The agitation has been going on too long and people are tired.’
Das took his wife’s hand and sighed. ‘We shall see, Suren. Maybe you are right. Or maybe we shall surprise you. Either way, my course is set. I must follow the path which Gandhi-ji has laid out for me.’
With that he and his wife rose. Beside them, Bose followed suit.
All three accompanied us back to the front steps. I turned to Das at the gate.
‘You’re sure you want to do this?’
‘What choice do I have, Captain? We are all allotted our roles by the Almighty.’
‘If people die today,’ I said, ‘it’ll be on your head.’
He looked at me. In the week since I’d met him, he seemed to have aged a decade.
‘If what you say is true, I would ask only that you let me march and die with them.’
‘If I may –’ said Surrender-not.
‘Please don’t,’ said Das. For the first time, the old man seemed to lose his composure. ‘Enough has been said already. Maybe if you’d spent less time talking to me and more to your own kith and kin, you’d know that your father intends to march with the protesters today.’
THIRTY-FIVE
The Dases and Bose retreated inside as the Wolseley drew up. Surrender-not just stood there in shock.
‘You need to speak to your father,’ I said. ‘Convince him to stay away. We can telephone from here.’
‘It would be futile,’ he said eventually. ‘You saw how Das reacted. My father’s response will be no different.’
I slammed my palm against the bonnet of the car. We were under orders not to mention anything about the threat of mustard gas, to Das or anyone else. But family was family and it wouldn’t be the first time we’d disobeyed a direct command.
‘You need to tell him about the specific threat. Tell him about the gas.’
Surrender-not shook his head. ‘It’s too late,’ he said. ‘The protest on the Maidan begins in less than an hour. If my father is planning on going, he has probably left already.’
‘Still …’ I said.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I must try.’
Das’s front door was still open and Surrender-not headed back inside.
I lit a cigarette and tried to ignore the cramps wracking my limbs. My thoughts turned to Gurung. He was out there, probably no more than a few miles away, plotting his final act of revenge on an unsuspecting populace. No, not plotting. A man of Gurung’s background and ability would have finalised his plans long ago. All that remained was for him to execute it. As for McGuire, the bile rose in my gut as I thought about his fate. I hoped Gurung had killed him quickly, even if his previous murders suggested otherwise. At the same time, there was the nagging, accusatory voice at the back of my head questioning my own actions. Once McGuire had received that note, I should have been quicker to realise that something was wrong. Why hadn’t we been watching McGuire’s wife?
Surrender-not emerged from the house and back into the sunshine. His face told me everything I needed to know. His father was en route to the demonstration on the Maidan.
‘Get in,’ I said, flicking away the butt of my cigarette. ‘I told Taggart I’d report back to him at Lal Bazar, but that doesn’t mean you need to be there. We’ll drop you off at the Maidan – see if you can find your father.’
The roads were choked, as they always seemed to be these days, and the car crawled through the congested streets north towards the Maidan. I spent most of the journey talking, trying to divert Surrender-not’s attention from thoughts of his father. Nevertheless, the boy still spent much of it staring out the window doing his impression of a Carmelite nun.
The crowds were converging on the flat open ground of the Maidan, and it was clear that this demonstration was
on a different scale to those of recent months, with thousands of white-clad natives drifting in from the north and from the ferry ghats on the river to the west. While some seemed in high spirits, talking and singing as they went, most were silent, their nerves etched on their faces.
Government troops, ferried in by the lorry-load, looked on warily from their positions around the fringes of the park but made no effort to interfere. Indeed, with the numbers arriving, short of opening fire, it wasn’t clear what they might do to intervene even if they wanted to.
Surrender-not ordered the driver to stop close to the junction where Chowringhee met Outram Road.
‘Good luck,’ I said as he got out, before telling the driver to make for Premchand Boral Street. I needed a top-up of kerdū pulp before heading on to Lal Bazar.
Lord Taggart’s face had taken on the pallor and portent of a monsoon cloud. The usual stolid calm was gone. Now he paced his office with all the urgency and uncertainty of an expectant father as I summarised this morning’s debacle. Of course he already knew that we’d lost Gurung, and McGuire too – Major Dawson had told him as much, he said, in a brief thirty-second telephone call – but it was left to me to give him the detail.
‘What now?’ he asked.
In the five years that I’d known him, it was the first time I’d seen him lost for direction and it was disconcerting for both of us. Taggart was a thinker, a chess player who had a knack of thinking several steps ahead and of seeing the sense in the whole canvas while others saw only the confusion in the centre, but faced with Gurung and his mustard gas, he was as blind as the rest of us.
I told him what I said to Dawson earlier. ‘Cancel the prince’s itinerary.’
‘You know I can’t do that.’
‘The only other option is to disperse the protesters, using force if necessary.’ He stopped pacing and turned towards me. The conflict playing out in his head was etched on his face.
‘Very well,’ he said quietly. ‘I suppose we’re out of time. I’ll inform the viceroy’s people that we need to break up the crowd. I’ll tell them I take full responsibility’
It was a brave act, one which we both knew would cost him his job. With the world’s press in the city, the pictures of unarmed protesters being manhandled by the authorities would be in the papers and newsreels across the world by Boxing Day. It was a scene that London and Delhi wanted to avoid at all costs and whoever authorised it would pay dearly. It was the right thing to do, and yet …
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the crowds. They’re too large. We don’t have the manpower to shift them. It’ll take the military to move them. That means getting Dawson to do it.’
Taggart walked back to his desk and sank into his chair. He composed himself, then picked up the telephone.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Taggart.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever Gurung was planning, dispersing the crowds might at least put a spanner in the works. The sight of soldiers manhandling the protesters would make uncomfortable viewing but it was far better than the alternative of stretcher-bearers carting off gassed civilians.
Taggart dialled the switchboard and asked to be connected to Fort William. There was a click as the operator attempted the connection and then the commissioner asked to be put through to Dawson. I waited as the major’s extension rang. And then, just as Dawson answered, a terrible thought struck me. Suddenly the picture swam before my eyes – of an explosion and panicked soldiers firing on a crowd engulfed in a smog of thick, choking gas. A vision of hell.
Before he could speak, I made for Taggart’s desk and pressed down the lever on the telephone, cutting the connection. Taggart looked up at me in anger.
‘What are you playing at, Sam?’
‘We can’t disperse the crowd,’ I said.
‘But you just –’
‘Gurung will have thought of that. He’d know that we’d need to use force to shift Das’s protesters. What better time to set off his mustard gas than when the world’s press are watching our troops manhandle unarmed demonstrators? The soldiers will think they’re under attack. Some might even start shooting and we’ll have a bloodbath on our hands. Even if no shots are fired, it’ll look like we released the gas.’
Taggart slowly returned the receiver to its cradle as the full horror sunk in. He leaned forward and rested his head in his hands. When he finally spoke, it was with the voice of a broken man.
‘What do we do?’
My throat felt dry.
‘We have to think like Gurung.’ I checked my watch. ‘In less than an hour, the Prince of Wales is scheduled to commence his speech at the town hall. The Congress-wallahs gathering on the Maidan will make their way there to protest. The time of maximum danger will be when the prince has finished his speech and the attendees at the town hall are about to leave, coming into proximity with the protesters. If I were Gurung, that’s when I’d set off the gas. We need to take whatever precautions we can.’
‘You really think he’ll seek to kill Indians too?’
‘Remember, Gurung’s not Indian,’ I said. ‘He’s Nepalese, and the Gurkhas have never had problems when it’s come to killing natives. The massacre in Amritsar in ’19 is proof enough of that. I doubt he’ll care about Indian casualties any more than he would British ones.’
The thought seemed to galvanise the commissioner. ‘The area inside the town hall gates has been checked and double-checked for explosives of any kind,’ he said. ‘As for the prince, he’ll be leaving by the rear entrance and taken straight to Government House. The route is circuitous and closely guarded and there’ll be decoy vehicles too.’
‘That leaves the streets outside the town hall where the protesters’ march will finish. I’m guessing Gurung will try to conceal himself within the crowd.’
‘I’ll issue instructions to both our men and Dawson’s to stop and check the identity of any man who looks even vaguely Nepalese.’
I signalled my assent. I didn’t particularly like it, but we were out of options.
‘I’ll get down to the town hall,’ I said. My instincts told me that one way or another, things would end there.
THIRTY-SIX
The town hall was the quintessential Calcutta building, a whitewashed, neoclassical structure complete with Doric columns, shuttered windows and a faded grandeur that mirrored the city’s own decline from capital city to provincial outpost. If set apart from its surroundings, it might have been described as a handsome building, imposing even, but bordered as it was by the magnificent High Court and little more than a stone’s throw away from Government House, it felt rather underwhelming: a plain old maid sitting between more beautiful sisters.
Exactly fifty years ago, at a time when the town hall had been the judiciary’s temporary home, one of the judges had been assassinated on its steps by a puritanical Mohammedan. I prayed we’d make it through the day without adding to that number.
Esplanade Row was thick with bodies: on the steps of the town hall stood a column of kilted soldiers of the Black Watch, while a solid line of khaki-clad sepoys and white-uniformed officers of the Calcutta police kept back the crowds and checked the credentials of the hundreds of British residents who’d turned out in honour of their prince. Dressed in their Sunday best and with many of them carrying Union Jacks, they pushed forward, those with tickets jostling to enter the building, those without lining the route or craning at the open windows in the hope of catching a glimpse of the man whose picture had, for the last fortnight, seemed to smile from the front page of every English newspaper printed in the city.
There was something of a strange euphoria among the white crowd. For a year now, their Calcutta, predictable, orderly, hierarchical, appeared to have been overrun by forces outside their control, the streets seized by brown men who seemed to have forgotten their place. Today, however, their prince and future king-emperor was in town and these people felt as though they were in command again. In the face of vicissitude, many no doubt
hoped that this rich, effete man, who knew nothing of them or their lives, could turn the clock back to the glory days when Calcutta was great and those with brown skin knew who was top dog.
Their fears were real, and understandable. The problem was, I doubted that the man they’d come to see could do anything about it.
Even now, the peril they so feared, the little brown men in their white caps and homespun clothes, were gathering in their thousands on the Maidan, getting ready to march up Red Road to confront them.
I was about to head towards them when a carriage drew up at the military cordon. The lacquered door opened and out stepped the American, Schmidt. He turned and, offering a hand, helped Annie from the cab.
I cursed to myself. Then walked over to them. The Yank saw me coming and flashed me a smile with those ridiculously white teeth.
‘Look who it is, Miss Grant,’ he said. ‘It’s your friend Mr Wyndham.’
Annie looked at me like I was a dose of the clap.
‘You come to meet the prince too, Wyndham?’ said the American. He held out his hand which I ignored.
‘Annie,’ I said, ‘this place isn’t safe. You need to leave.’
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘The Prince of Wales is coming here, Sam. This is probably the safest place in Calcutta.’
‘It’s not,’ I said. ‘And you need to go. Now!’
‘Don’t worry, Wyndham,’ said Schmidt. ‘I’ll look after her. Make sure she doesn’t come to harm. You can trust me on that.’
I contemplated doing the decent thing and punching him in the face, but this wasn’t the time. Besides, I couldn’t have afforded to pay for his dental bills. Instead I ignored him.
‘I’m serious, Annie,’ I said. ‘Go home. Take George Washington with you if you have to, but please go.’
It looked like she was considering it. Beside her, the American was shaking his head. She turned to him.
‘Maybe we should listen to Sam?’
At that moment, a roar went up from the crowd as a row of redliveried Bengal Lancers appeared, followed by an open carriage topped with a gold silk canopy and pulled by four horses. Behind it came another carriage, this one without a canopy, and another phalanx of the Lancers.
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