A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  The bearer, Husain Ahmed, approaching the part of India from which he hailed, was full of his importance and good spirits. He had sent his wife and children home when he took his discharge from the Bombay Army. Soon he would be reunited with them.

  Sometime after they had crossed the river he approached Whittaker. In a mixture of his scanty English and, from deference to his employer, Hindustani, he was able to make himself understood. He scorned the Munshi as intermediary. Whittaker, understanding this, made every effort to understand also what Husain Ahmed was telling him.

  Constance rode up beside them and listened.

  “Is he saying what I think he’s saying, Henry?”

  “And what d’you think he’s saying?”

  “That there’s a place down the road a piece where we can stay in some house for the night, in more comfort than camping out.”

  “That’s how I figure it, too. He says it’s going to rain hard tonight.”

  “Sounds like good sense to me.”

  “As far as I can make out, this is some house the British built a long time back when they stationed troops here to keep the peace between Zafarala and its neighbours. It was the residence of some official... some administrator, I imagine. Husain Ahmed says it’s just outside Mirgaganj, which used to be an important place.”

  “The house is empty?”

  “So I understand.”

  “It would be convenient. Didn’t he say it has a well in the garden?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe we can have proper baths. Let’s make use of the place if it’s really all right. Did the British just abandon it?”

  “Evidently when they moved out nobody else wanted to move in.”

  “I hope it’s not in ruins or occupied by snakes or wild animals.”

  “I doubt it. That would be too humiliating for Husain Ahmed. He’d have kept quiet about it.”

  They knew that their bearer’s concern for their night’s comfort was not entirely altruistic. He had made it plain from the first that it was undignified to sleep in the wagons as they preferred to. Sahibs, he insisted, on the first night of their journey and with the interpretative help of Mukerji, made their servants erect a proper camp whenever possible. To that end, there were fine tents and floor coverings among their equipment. Night after night the servants laboured to erect the tents while the Whittakers waited around; except when it was raining so hard that sleeping in the wagons was unavoidable. Tonight, on his home ground, Husain Ahmed would not be disgraced by American informality.

  The house, when they came to it that evening, had a pleasant enough aspect. There was a horseshoe drive with pillared gates at each entrance, one standing open, one locked shut, both gates rusty. A high wall surrounded the compound, where trees grew thickly. The roof appeared sound although rain had washed away streaks of whitewash from the walls. The windows were unbroken and the entrance doors at back and front of the bungalow were intact and swung freely on their hinges.

  Husain Ahmed explained that many travellers — Muslim travellers, he added — used it as a stopping place. This was evidenced by the patches of betel juice on floors and walls; but the place was clean and reasonably dust-free.

  The bearer quickly found an untouchable man and wife to sweep the place out, attend to the latrines and prepare baths. Each bedroom had its own dressing-room and bathroom.

  “I haven’t felt so clean and comfortable since we left Bombay,” Ruth said at dinner.

  “What’s more, Bishen has excelled himself. Why can’t he always cook like this?” Constance looked around the huge dining-room, in the middle of which their small table and three chairs had been set. The light of two oil lamps near them scarcely reached its corners. “I wonder what kind of furniture they had in here.”

  Whittaker lit a cigar and poured himself some brandy. “From the size of the place, this must have been a banqueting hall rather than a family dining-room. I guess the guy who lived here must have entertained a couple of dozen guests every night.”

  “Maybe it’s the regular style in Zafarala, Daddy. Maybe we’ll live in a house like this when we get to Nekshahr.”

  “It would suit my purpose very well. A banker can’t live in a modest style and expect to impress people. And if there was one thing I learned in Bombay it was that in this country people judge entirely on appearances.”

  Ruth went to bed with her head full of speculation about their journey’s end. There was only one more night after this to spend in camp and then they would be in Nekshahr. Perhaps it wouldn’t be bad. If they could have a big house like this one... why, that would be even grander than their home in Boston: which was no humble abode and one that was a credit to any banker. And at home they had a cook and a maid and a houseman and a handyman. Here, they would have three or four times as many servants. Life could be enjoyable enough; provided they didn’t stay too long. She was homesick. She hoped there would be some agreeable young men in Nekshahr. British, of course: but if there were enough of them, chances were she would find a few she liked. She had enjoyed those months in Boston when they came back from the West. She was missing the dinners, the balls, the receptions. Perhaps Nekshahr would yield a merry and diverse social life. Certainly the British in Bombay and Calcutta spent a lot of time enjoying themselves together. Their pursuit of pleasure seemed to take priority over everything else.

  She climbed into her charpai feeling very small in the huge bedroom, bare of furniture but for the wooden cot and a canvas chair. She blew the light out. In the darkness it suddenly seemed a long way to the door at the far side of the room, across the wide corridor and into the room where her parents slept. Why should she care how far it was, secure in a house after a month in a tent or a cart? She fell asleep.

  In her dreams she was riding the grey pony her father had bought her in St. Louis. But the plains across which she was riding were not those of the American West but the parched flatlands of India. And the Conestoga wagons were drawn by bullocks, driven by Mukerji, Husain Ahmed and Bishen... but the Munshi, the bearer and the cook never touched reins...

  And there was music. It wasn’t the kind of fiddle music she had heard the cowhands, the ranchers or farmers play. It wasn’t the kind of drum and pipe tune she had been hearing as they travelled the long road from Calcutta.

  It was a sad, wailing kind of noise, an almost tuneless dirge, coming from some kind of stringed instrument she couldn’t put a name to.

  The noise dominated her dream, the images faded. She woke with a start, her head throbbing. It was very cold. A wind blew across her and she shivered. She put out her hand to feel for the canvas of a tent or the tilt over a cart. It touched nothing. She sat up in panic and reached further. The bed lurched and she fell out with a scream. Her shoulder bumped a solid wall and she remembered where she was.

  For a moment she sat on the floor where she had tumbled, terrified, shivering and disoriented.

  She was awake but she could still hear the eerie music of that screeching stringed instrument. She could hear something else as well: the rasping breath of a man or a large animal panting in fury.

  Ruth screamed.

  She scuttled along the wall on all fours, fearful of that terrible, threatening respiration, the shrill music sawing at her nerves. The bedroom wall seemed to run on forever. She rose to her feet and clawed her way along it until she felt the door.

  She heard her mother’s voice screaming “Henry... Henry... do something...” and her father’s, answer, hoarse, uncertain. “All right, Constance... don’t be afraid...”

  Her father called “Ruth... Ruth... are you all right?”

  A gust of icy wind tore through the room. She had wrenched the bedroom door open and stumbled into the corridor. The door slammed shut behind her. She could hear someone striking flint on steel... she saw sparks... a candle flame flickered.

  Her mother was sobbing. Her father’s gruff voice tried to comfort her in the intervals of calling “Ruth.”

&n
bsp; In the candlelight she saw her parents, both in night attire, her father supporting her mother, who clung to him.

  From the far end of the corridor came the sound of running bare feet and a swaying lamp appeared. The chaukidar came running up, out of breath. Another oil lamp shone at the back door and more hurrying steps echoed up the passageway. Husain Ahmed appeared. Then Mukerji, clutching a shawl about his shoulders and shivering, his eyes rolling in terror.

  Ruth ran to her mother, who put her free arm around her and they embraced each other. Both of them were shivering uncontrollably and gasping for breath.

  The Indians were hesitant to speak. Mukerji and Husain Ahmed exchanged quiet words. The Munshi turned his troubled face towards Whittaker.

  “What is being matter, Sahib?”

  “We heard a noise in our room... like someone breathing stertorously...”

  “Ishtertorously, Sahib? What is this?”

  “Heavily... short of breath... panting... and we felt a kind of angry presence... something bad... and a cold wind in the room...”

  Mukerji spoke quickly to the bearer.

  Husain Ahmed asked “Did the Sahib hear music?”

  “Why, yes, we did...”

  “The music of a sarangi?”

  “What’s that?”

  Banerji explained “A kind of bhiolin, isn’t it. A i-stringed instrument that man is playing with... with... bow.”

  “Like a fiddle?”

  “He said, like a violin, Daddy.”

  “Yes, that was what it sounded like. Why? Did you hear it also, Husain Ahmed?”

  “No, Sahib. I hear nothing...”

  “Then why did you ask about a... a... sarangi, did you say?”

  “Yes, Sahib, sarangi.”

  Ruth exclaimed “I heard it too. And the rasping breathing and the icy draught of wind... and an angry... evil kind of emanation.”

  “Sahib... Memsahib... Miss-Sahib... it is my fault. We should not be here in this house.”

  “What are you talking about, Husain Ahmed?” Whittaker sounded curt. It was two-o’clock in the morning: no time for enigma or apologies. No time for broken sleep.

  “Sahib, I will make tea for Sahib, Memsahib, Miss-Sahib and bring. Then I will tell Mukerji Babu and he will tell you in English.”

  “And bring the Miss-Sahib’s bed into our room.”

  They sat huddled side by side in the light of an oil lamp, sipping hot tea. Husain Ahmed shifted about uneasily from foot to foot. Mukerji stood beside him looking woebegone and explaining.

  “When British came here, they built this house near grave of Muslim pir... that is saint. Grave is now inside compound wall. This is great desecration of holy ground. Pir was famous player of sarangi. He is haunting this place always when unbelievers are here. Husain Ahmed is hearing about this but does not believe. Also he thinks because he is believer, ghost of pir will not haunt while he is here. Very sorry, Sahib, Memsahib, Miss-Sahib, but Husain Ahmed says he is very foolish man.”

  In the morning they all trooped down to a corner of the large compound, where they found the saint’s tomb. A plinth of white-washed bricks three feet high supported four brick pillars on which rested a stone slab smaller than the plinth. This in turn supported another slab, smaller again. Around the tomb bamboo rods had been thrust into the ground and from each fluttered a piece of cloth bearing a quotation from the Quran.

  For a moment Ruth fancied she heard the wail of the sarangi again and felt the sharp cold breeze. She shivered under the hot sun.

  Husain Ahmed had an armful of jasmine and their cloying scent made her feel sick. Tucked under an elbow he carried a bamboo stick to which was attached a rectangle of green cloth on which was Sanskrit writing. He placed the stick in the ground and the flowers on the tomb.

  “Now everything all right, Sahib, Memsahib, Miss-Sahib. Pir not angry now.”

  “Just the same, I don’t think I’ll be paying a return visit.” Ruth walked quickly away without looking back.

  Her father laid an arm across her shoulders and hugged her. “Don’t worry, dear. I’ll make sure our house in Nekshahr has no tombs inside the garden wall.”

  She hid her face against his chest and her voice broke in a sob. “Let’s go home, Daddy. This country scares me... all of it... it’s so... so inscrutable... so inexplicable... so dark.”

  He patted her and his voice was gently chiding. “Now, Ruth, where’s that good old Yankee scepticism and grit? We’re not giving in to India: we’re going to lick it.”

  Chapter Nine

  The last week of Ramsey’s journey was an idyll which aroused emotions and sensations that had never been touched before.

  It began on the evening after the rout of the Thag, following a day on which there had been only one fall of rain, in the late afternoon, allowing them to cover more miles than they had yet accomplished between dawn and dusk.

  His two driverless carts had been hitched to the rear of two others and the docile bullocks plodded on as before. Shakuntala, with habitual independence, insisted on driving her own: about which Sher Mahommed Khan had not been backward in offering advice.

  She accepted it with a wry grin. As she said to Ramsey, “You saved my life, but without that hulking great tribesman and the Punjabi some of us would have died.”

  Despite the murders and the theft, a new, relaxed feeling of harmony pervaded the convoy. For the first four hours Ramsey had ridden, barely awake, while he insisted on Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh sleeping in the cart which carried his baggage and which served as a dormitory when the ground was unsuitable for pitching tents. Thereafter they took it in turns to lead Sikander while he slept. He had been thinking that sometimes God could be remarkably discouraging. Looking back on the past three months there was nothing to brighten the perspective. He felt too weary and glum to carry on a conversation with Shakuntala although she ventured once or twice to talk. When he woke from his sleep, however, it was like emerging into a new epoch.

  His resentment at the trials to which life, the Almighty, Fate, or whatever the provenance, was subjecting him melted when he saw the sun-dried road ahead and knew that the carts would not be getting bogged down; when he contemplated the ringing clear blue sky and saw no immediate threat of storm; when he realised that the earth was still damp enough to prevent dust rising and making his mouth, eyes, ears and nose itch from its gritty irritation. In an odd way he felt a liberation of the spirit and when he had considered this for a while he concluded that it must be because surely no more disasters could befall him before he reached his journey’s end.

  Shakuntala greeted the new, wide-awake, cheerful Ramsey with her warm, disturbing smile when he drew alongside to walk his horse by the driving seat where she and one of the other girls seemed to be enjoying the novelty of their situation.

  The way in which she looked at him had gradually changed from its first teasing impertinence to one of respect and affection. Her manner had altered and instead of being defensive she had become unreserved and encouraging. Today he noticed that the respect in her eyes had grown into adulation, affection developed into love. It elated but embarrassed him. Their relationship had, from the first, been heading towards a conclusion to which he was looking forward impatiently. He was resigned to waiting until they arrived at Nekshahr before he could claim what she offered. But the way she was regarding him now changed the situation. He did not want to be worshipped by anyone, he did not want any woman to have feelings for him which he could not reciprocate. He liked her and wanted her and a frank mutual sensuality was enough and as much as he could give. He foresaw a breakdown of all her reticence and a revelation of emotions which he did not want to arouse in her. The life she led was essentially a lonely one: not in the most obvious sense, for she was always surrounded by company, but spiritually so. He sensed that any strong attachment would demolish defences she had carefully erected and kept up, and provoke a flood of declarations and deep feelings which it would be unfair to encourage.
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  He pretended to ignore the signals she was giving him by some commonplace remark.

  “We will be in Nekshahr in five days, if it does not rain for more than two or three hours every day.”

  It had not been the diversion from what was in both their minds that he had hoped. “Are you in such a hurry to get there?” She smiled and the girl at her side smiled as well.

  “There is much to be done.”

  “And some of it perhaps need not wait until we arrive.”

  The younger girl chuckled and gave him a mischievous glance. Shakuntala kept her eyes on him with assumed innocence and he turned his head away so that she would not perceive the eagerness he felt. There was an implicit understanding between them: it had been inevitable from their first encounter. The agreement had been sealed days ago, without any overt promise or commitment. What she was hinting at this moment brought an instant response from his impatience, quickened his desire.

  He rode away into the scrub with a rifle, looking for buck. The clouds had gathered again and covered the sky but there was no immediate threat of rain. He found a narrow river, running yellow and in full flood, and rode beside it for a while until he came to a small stand of trees where he could dismount and tether his horse; and himself be difficult to discern among the shadows and the undergrowth. From the edge of the clump he scanned the scrub-dotted plain. After a while he spotted movement just beyond rifle range. What he had seen resolved itself into the tawny shape of a doe, scampering towards the river. Others followed. At some point on their path the first one suddenly gave a leap, as though over an obstacle. Ramsey knew it was a characteristic nervous habit, occasioned by no more than some impulse that impelled it, for no apparent reason, to jump high in the air. It was probably sheer exuberance and joy of living, but he, about to kill, did not welcome the notion. Each doe in the herd gave the same galvanic spring at the same place. He had seen it a hundred times before and it always made him smile. Foolish creatures. And so typically inexplicably feminine.