A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Ramsey bore it all with patience. He was pleased to have a horse under him again and each time it had rained he had left the others, to canter ahead so that he could get Sikander into shelter as quickly as possible. The rangy sixteen-two country-bred had a comfortable gait and each time he urged him into a hand-gallop for a furlong or so to reassure himself about his wind, but Sikander neither roared nor sucked. However slow their progress, it was taking him closer to his destination and after so many weeks of travel already behind him he was able to accept intermittent delays without annoyance. It was good to pause for a moment to talk to the cultivators about their crops and cattle and the season, after the company of sailors who neither knew nor cared about the land.

  In late afternoon a third shower delayed them for an hour and they took refuge in a copse. It was too early to stop for the night and when they set out once more Ramsey cantered off to look for a place where they could camp before darkness overtook them. Rounding a bend in the road he saw two enclosed carts, each with two distinctive domes on its roof under which Muslim and high caste Hindu women travelled in parda. But the side curtains of both were open, the carts were stationary and four women in Hindu garb were gathered about the nearer one. It was tilted to one side and two men crouched there.

  Heads turned at the sound of his horse’s hoof beats and he reined back to a trot, then stopped beside the group and saw that one wheel had come off.

  He wondered why these young women bothered to travel in parda vehicles. Not only were the curtains open but also they did not wear the burqa which enveloped from head to foot, with eye slits, or even a veil over the lower part of the face. They regarded him boldly through eyes darkened with kohl and smiled at him with artfully reddened lips. One of them, taller than the others, with a touch of arrogance in her bearing and a flashing beauty, looked to be about his own age. Her companions appeared to be between 16 and 18.

  “Jai ram. Is the axle damaged?”

  The two men scrambled to their feet, they all made Namaste and the tall graceful girl with the proud carriage approached him.

  “Jai ram, Bara Sahib. The wheel dropped into a hidden hole under the mud and the axle broke. The next village is three hours away.” She gestured at the two elderly, scrawny drivers and made a derisive grimace. “They cannot lift the cart without help and I do not think they can repair the axle, as they say they can.”

  “My carts will be here presently, with several strong men. They will help you.” He pointed up the road to where, a few furlongs ahead, lay an open patch of ground with clumps of trees around three sides. “We will spend the night there. If you take your undamaged cart and wait, I will go back and tell my men I have found a camping place and to hurry.”

  “I am beholden to Your Honour.” She sounded suitably submissive but her look mocked him.

  “What is your name?”

  “Shakuntala, Huzur.” She lowered her eyes with a parody of bashfulness that amused him by its sheer mischief.

  “And what are you: Bediya, Shandar, Salb, Kalavant, Derli, Adbalki? Or a gypsy, perhaps, a Khanabadosh?”

  Shakuntala was laughing at him, and while the two men stood glum and puzzled, the other girls were whispering and giggling together.

  “The Bara Sahib knows the dancing and courtesan tribes of my country well.”

  She did not answer his question and he did not repeat it. He knew that she would give it only in her own good time. While he regarded her in silence, stung by her mockery, she kept her eyes steadily on him with a provocative smile. She had immediately aroused the feelings to which he had so nearly succumbed on the night when he watched the Shandar dancers.

  He felt a curious sensation, as though this lovely young woman had invaded his innermost privacy; a spasm of emotion that was more than empathy: he surprised himself by the recognition that it was admiration he was feeling: admiration for her composure, her directness and for her air of command. All this was unique in his experience of girls like her; and it was considerable.

  A moment later he surprised himself further by his own words, which came involuntarily.

  “Where are you bound for, Shakuntala?” The pleasure it gave him to say her name was absurd, he told himself.

  “To Nekshahr.” It meant The Beautiful City.

  And then the instant that so astonished him and evidently was an equal surprise to her. “They tell me the city is well named. And my eyes tell me that you will be the greatest of all its beauties.”

  Her smile vanished. She lowered her eyes from an impulse which was as uncontrolled as his words and she flushed. She said nothing. It was not from professional coquetry. Then she looked up again.

  “May I ask where Your Honour is going?”

  He smiled. “I will tell you that when you tell me more about yourself, Shakuntala.”

  “As Your Honour wishes.”

  “To the devil with it. You will find out from my people as soon as they arrive: I am on my way to Nekshahr also.”

  She smiled again, but gently this time, and he turned Sikander back the way he had come and cantered away.

  Shakuntala watched him out of sight around the curve while the other girls gathered about her and the drivers remounted their carts.

  One of the girls nudged her. “What did the Englishman say when he leaned out of the saddle to whisper in your ear?”

  “That is between him and me. What are you doing gawping and prattling like monkeys? You heard what he said. Get into the cart, we are going to wait for him up there where the trees will give us some shelter if it starts to rain before he gets back.”

  They trooped off obediently behind her and while they covered the short distance in the undamaged cart they remained unusually silent, watching her and waiting for her to say something. But Shakuntala’s eyes were fixed on some point in the infinite distance and her thoughts were unfathomable.

  *

  When the convoy reached the broken-down parda vehicle Sher Mahommed Khan said at once that he could lift it off the ground unaided, but Karim Baksh might as well give a hand. He could also mend the axle and put the wheel on again, but what were these low-caste, idle Hindu drivers for? All they did was sit on their bums and ride for a living. It would do them good to do some proper work.

  “You can both give a hand with lifting the cart and propping up the broken side with stones or logs. Let the drivers find those. And leave them to get on with the repair. I want you to get our tents up as quickly as possible, if the ground is dry enough.”

  If the tents could not be erected, there was room in one of the carts for Ramsey and both his servants to sleep.

  As he rode off towards where Shakuntala and her companions awaited him, he heard Sher Mahommed Khan say condescendingly to the driver of the damaged cart, “And whom have you got by way of passenger? Some fat money-lender’s wife or a Rani from one of those potty little states that abound in these parts? Not like where I come from. And why aren’t the curtains decently drawn?”

  He did not hear the reply and he wished he could see Sher Mahommed Khan’s face when the driver gave it.

  He found the ground under the trees firm and dry enough. A tarpaulin would be laid on top of it anyway. He tethered and unsaddled Sikander, gave him a nosebag and was aware of Shakuntala standing beside him.

  “Would the sahib prefer tea or sherbet? Both are prepared and there are comfortable carpets and cushions in my ratha.”

  Ramsey took a silver flask from a saddlebag. “Hot tea laced with brandy is the best reviver after a hard day.”

  “Or before a hard night,” she murmured, leading him towards her temporary abode.

  The two of them occupied one end of the cart while the three younger girls served tea and sweetmeats, tried to conceal their curiosity and failed, withdrew finally as far as they could and fell to quiet chattering with many glances towards the stranger and their employer.

  Ramsey avoided any question that would sound like an inquisition. He learned that the girls had spen
t the last year in Agra and Cawnpore. Shakuntala was born in Zafarala and brought up there in her profession. She had worked in many great cities, Delhi and Lucknow among them, and now she had her own troupe of dancers and in Nekshahr would be mistress of her own house of entertainment. They were the bare outlines of a story of which he had to know more; to know everything: but this was not an acquaintanceship to be hastened. He had that conviction already. He would relish the revelation of herself the more for coaxing her into recounting her life story as her confidence in him increased and, if real affection between them were going to bloom, to let it do so unhurriedly. They had plenty of time ahead of them.

  Later in the evening, after he had dined, she came to his large tent, where there was a carpet on top of the tarpaulin and there were comfortable canvas chairs and cushions. He gave her a glass of Madeira to taste for the first time and they talked about the great palaces, mosques and temples of Lucknow, of its fine gardens, and of the mad King of Oudh whose throne was there. She compared them with what she remembered of Nekshahr, but when he led the conversation towards the Nawab she would say no more than that it was many years since she had been home and she remembered little of what manner of man the ruler was.

  Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh had perched themselves on the driving seat of the cart which had by now been repaired and in which the three other girls slept, although they took it in turn to ride with Shakuntala to keep her company. The sounds of the two men’s voices and the girls’ laughter at their jokes and yarns rang loudly in the night. They heard Sher Mahommed Khan declare that if the girls could produce a drum for him they would hear it played as well as ever they had done, and better, and they would be inspired to dance as they had never danced before.

  Shakuntala chuckled. “He says that because he knows we have no musical instruments. Our musicians bring their own. I am tempted to buy a drum at the next town and invite him to play. Not that we intend to dance by the roadside like slave girls being led around India by their owners as though they were dancing bears.”

  “He is not slow-witted,” Ramsey said drily, “he would instantly feign a sprained wrist or broken finger that would prevent him playing.”

  “All Pathans are braggarts and liars but yours gives promise of being the biggest in the land.”

  “They are brave men, too. I owe my life to him; and in part to Karim Baksh also.” If Karim Baksh had not killed or driven off Alec Lumsden’s attackers, who knew that they would not have overpowered Sher Mahommed Khan and himself, more heavily outnumbered?

  She looked at him keenly. “They are your brothers, I think, rather than your servants.”

  To answer directly would be maudlin and he avoided it. “That is not the relationship they seek to have with your girls.” He smiled. “You had better keep an eye on them: each of them has a way with him.”

  There was no smile in return. Her expression hardened. “Do not be misled by their youth. My girls will flirt with them all the way to Nekshahr, but beyond that they will be welcomed only as paying customers at my place of business.”

  And you? he wondered. You and I?

  Perhaps she divined his thoughts. She rose and put her hands together in Namaste. “It is time for me return to my own place, Bara Sahib Bahdur.”

  He returned her obeisance and stood at the door of his tent watching her sinuous walk as she crossed the grass, past the fire where the drivers sat in a circle talking and smoking, to her bed. He longed to go with her and wondered how many weeks it would be before she was established in her own house and he too could seek a welcome there and watch her dance in return for a purseful of silver coins. He felt no bitterness about it.

  *

  The word went out as it had done every year for five recorded centuries and for probably two hundred years more than that. It was carried by one of their number to all manner of men: Muslims and Hindus, the high caste and the low; tradesmen, merchants, farmers, carters, domestic servants. Whatever their caste or religion, they were united in devotion to the terrible Kali, The Black One, the goddess of destruction. Her hideous effigies depicted her black of face with a long protruding tongue dripping blood; and possessed of four arms: one hand holding a bleeding human head, another a dagger, a third with its cupped palm full of blood and the fourth raised in threat.

  Legend taught that when Brahma the creator was populating the earth a demon roamed the world devouring all mankind so that the earth remained empty. It was Kali who came to the rescue, fought and killed the demon. But from each drop of his blood that she spilled another demon sprang; and the more she killed, the more blood was shed and more demons appeared. Exhausted, she gathered sweat from two of her arms and cast it into human shapes. To both men thus created she gave a square of silk, then commanded them to destroy all the demons without spilling blood. When the men had strangled all the demons, they offered her back the cloths; but she said they must keep them in her memory and use them to found a way of life by which they and those they chose could earn great wealth.

  These initiates called themselves Phansigar, stranglers, and in time became known as Thag, from the word thagna, to deceive, because of their method of operating. The British in India called them Thugs and in 1810 the Commander-in-Chief had issued a warning that sepoys going home on leave should beware of these murderers who went about in bands and preyed on travellers. Their victims always disappeared without trace and little was known about the bandits or how to identify them. It was certain, however, that hundreds of separate gangs covered the whole of India from its southernmost tip to the Himalayas and from coast to coast.

  The band which was led by a shopkeeper called Sukhdeo Lal came together secretly in a remote grove of tall trees and dense bushes around a grassy plot, each with his square yard of black silk secreted under his garments with only the tip of one corner protruding ready to hand. In that corner a small coin was knotted, dedicated to Kali.

  Those who had brought the burial pickaxes laid them before their chief, who consecrated them and the whole enterprise to Kali. “Mother of the Universe, protectress and patroness of our order, if this expedition be pleasing to thee, grant us thy help and give us an omen of thy approbation.”

  Then the ones who had the skill cast a horoscope and sought signs and portents. When they had declared that the time was propitious the chief detailed everyone to his duty for this year’s journey: as bhuteari, to find a suitable place for each mass-murder; lughai, to dig graves, bury the victims and remove every trace of the crime; or butote, to do the strangling.

  When all these preparations were done they took to the road in the guise of honest travellers, groups and individuals who had come together for company and mutual protection from dacoits and the numerous robber tribes that roamed in every corner of the land. Most were on foot, there were three or four bullock carts and a couple of light traps drawn by scraggy ponies. In all, the Thag numbered more than twenty men, all of whom made this annual three or four week foray to kill for gain and many of them also for sadistic pleasure which grew on them with every year. All of them had strangled many hundreds of men, women and children, and Sukhdeo Lal had over a thousand victims to his name. When they struck it was always by night and they buried the corpses and moved on with their spoils within a half-hour.

  The road they took led them towards Nekshahr.

  *

  For seven days the eight heavily laden bullock carts and the two parda ratha trudged through dust and mud, under heavy rain and long hours of brilliant sunshine. Sometimes Ramsey rode far in front and sometimes beside Shakuntala’s vehicle to talk to her and whichever of the girls was her companion for the day. Often he walked for an hour or two’s exercise and from time to time would take a gun and ride off into the wild countryside to hunt a sambhur, a gazelle, a black buck or an antelope and bring it back slung across Sikander’s quarters behind his saddle.

  In the evenings he would sit for a while with the other men around the fire and listen to their stories and tel
l his own. They never tired of hearing about his long voyages to England and back again and of asking questions about the country whose power was increasing throughout India year by year. Mostly, he spent the hours in Shakuntala’s company, either in her ratha with the curtains parted to frustrate gossip or in his tent with the flaps open.

  One night, after she had dined with him for the first time and drunk her first glass of claret and another of Madeira, she became confiding. He was in a canvas chair while she lay on cushions, looking up at him. The yellow light of an oil lantern gave her face a softness of feature and gentleness of expression which enhanced her beauty and were difficult to reconcile with the brash banter he had heard from her when she verbally challenged Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh or defended herself against the impertinence of travellers met during a day’s journey. It was not easy to convince himself that he had seen such cynicism and steely disillusion in the eyes which now regarded him so fondly.

  He was smoking a cheroot. She sniffed its aroma.

  “When you visit me I will prepare a huqqa for you of such fragrance as you have never smelt in all your days.”

  “What will you scent it with?”

  “Wait and see.”

  “And how shall I know where to find you?”

  “All men will know. The whole town will know of Shakuntala the dancer.” She paused and her expression grew sad and then defiant. “Shakuntala the widow of Pratap Mahindra, youngest son of the old Nawab’s chief steward. Shakuntala who refused to allow her head to be shaved and to wear a widow’s white garments and spend the rest of her life as a servant in her in-laws’ household; who chose freedom and the only profession that would give it to her.”