A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  “My answer lies in the fifth Stanza: ‘In the afflictions, misfortunes and tribulations of life, only he who actively helps us is our friend.’”

  *

  Only a few small lights lit the temple. The acrid fumes of burning oil hung on the still air with the scent of sandalwood and incense. The three devadasi who had awaited the head Brahmin’s return met him at the door and made Namaste. The Sadhu accompanied him into the temple.

  It was time for the last ceremony of the night, the Arati, which rendered innocuous any harm from the evil eye which a person may have incurred during the day. The two Brahmin always went through purification immediately after every visit to the palace. They went with the three young women to stand before the images of Brahma, with the four heads, Vishnu, with the four arms, and Siva with the huge furious eyes and his ears adorned with snakes.

  Each Devadasi held a brass plate on which was a lamp fashioned of rice dough flour, filled with liquefied butter in which floated a burning wick. Each in turn raised her plate to the level of each man’s head and described seven circles with it.

  Thus they believed themselves safe from any ill-effects caused by baleful emanations from the Nawab or his eunuch. The swami left the temple to trudge back to his lonely hermit’s dwelling among the rocks. The head priest went to his cell, his way lit for him by a lamp carried by his favourite Devadasi of the moment.

  The Nawab lay in the arms of his current favourite concubine, a half-gypsy dancing girl and brooded on the swami’s ambivalent words.

  *

  Daily the Dewan had a morning audience with the Nawab. In consideration of the Dewan’s age and his family’s long service to the Nawab’s, they sat facing each other informally, smoking and sipping sherbet or tea. There was the peculiar bond between them that had to exist when one had known the other all his life and looked up to him as an awesome figure, his father’s most trusted friend, an influence on his youth. The Nawab’s respect was undiminished by his adult perfidy and warped ambitions. The Dewan’s affection for the once engaging stripling remained alive for the gross, profligate man. His protectiveness still enveloped the graceless tyrant as it had the boyish scamp. The dichotomy of his attitude embraced the ruler as the child he had helped to rear and as the embodiment of the state. To both he owed a responsibility and a duty. The Nawab had turned out to be a bad man. The stability of Zafarala was paramount. The Dewan could admit the one without disloyalty and it made him all the more aware of the supreme importance of ensuring the other.

  “Dewan-ji, what more have you to tell me of this Rumgee?”

  “That he was until recently an officer in the same regiment as his father and his grandfather before him. That the two who accompany him were soldiers in that regiment. That he comes as the agent of a rich Calcutta merchant. I hear also that he and his henchmen were beset by pirates and Thag and killed many.”

  “You believe that he really comes only to trade?”

  “About that I have not spoken to the Resident. Before I do so, it would be well to have a favourable answer ready about the lease of land. A hospital...”

  “Will offend many. The chief mullah might forbid it to Muslims. The Brahmins will resent it. It would give the British a firmer foothold here.”

  “When the day comes that the British decide to extend their rule, which states in the whole of India will be strong enough to resist them? None. What hope is there of a powerful alliance among the states, to oppose the British? Again, none. By accepting their proposals, when these are for the good of the people, we will win the goodwill of the British. In that way we shall be able to preserve our independence, for they will not wish to take by force what they can influence amicably.”

  The Nawab puffed sulkily at his huqqa. “I must consult those who can tell me whether the portents are propitious.”

  “At least, then, send for our own Imam, not some idolatrous visionary.”

  The Nawab would not meet the Dewan’s eye. He already felt guilty about succumbing to the blandishments of the Hindus; and apprehensive of the reprimands he would surely incur from the chief mullah, who would not be entirely ignorant about what was going on. Did the Dewan know how frequently he had been seeing the head Brahmin and the swami?

  “I intend to consult the chief mullah.”

  “It would be as well not to delay. If you are uneasy about the real purport of Rumgee’s arrival, I need a bargaining counter to use with the Resident.”

  “There is nothing to prevent me ordering Rumgee’s death. That would remove all doubts about him most effectively.”

  “And incur a terrible retribution.”

  The Nawab made a dismissive gesture. “Who rules in Zafarala? If I decide to do away with him or any other Englishman, who will know? His body will not even be found.”

  “True. But the British do not need proof of their suspicions and it is not unknown for them to perpetrate similar pleasantries in return.”

  The Nawab concluded the argument curtly. “If the so-called Governor General, who does not govern here, has sent this man as an informer, I must know at once. Find out.”

  The Dewan was at his blandest. “There is something else I can tell you about him. He did not travel alone. He had the company of one whom you knew as a child and who has danced before the King of Oudh. She has returned home and Rumgee is her lover.”

  The Nawab tossed the mouthpiece of his huqqa aside and sat up. His eyes shone with interest.

  “Shakuntala?”

  The Dewan nodded.

  *

  Major Owthwaite’s version of the Hindustani language was as bizarre as his uniforms. With a slashing disregard for the niceties of grammar he hacked his way through it using a surprisingly large vocabulary but delivering it in the same broad dialect with which he spoke English. The Nawab had had a Eurasian tutor in the English language. His grammar was good, his accent vile, the words at his command were few. Ruler and Military Adviser conversed in the vernacular with occasional lapses into English. Whatever their respective linguistic inadequacies, they achieved perfect understanding.

  “What did the Resident wish to see you about yesterday, Major Sahib?”

  “He is suspicious of the Raja of Karampur.”

  “Why so?”

  Owthwaite was as blunt with the Nawab as with everyone else. “He has heard that the Brahmins have had your ear of late. He believes it is upsetting your fellow Muslims. He thinks the Raja might take the advantage of the unrest...”

  “There is no unrest.”

  “Not on the surface. Yet. But are you sure there is none festering? The Resident Sahib fears the Raja may choose a time like this to send his troops across the frontier to try to recover territory which he lost seven years ago.”

  “Perhaps the Resident is thinking wishfully.” The Nawab looked cunning. “Perhaps he intends to foment unrest here... and even to urge the Raja of Karampur...”

  Owthwaite stood up angrily. “That is a most unseemly thing to say. The Resident Sahib is an Englishman. It is unthinkable that he would be so dishonourable.”

  “Sit down, Major Sahib.”

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor was beyond Owthwaite. They used chairs for their meetings. Even so, with the Nawab seated, Owthwaite loomed enormously above him.

  “Nawab Sahib, have you learned nothing from your dealings with the British? Have they not always behaved with honour towards you and to your father before you, and your grandfather?”

  “Times change, Major Sahib. And men change with them. The power of your countrymen in my country increases year by year. What the British Government could not achieve in my grandfather’s time or in my father’s is possible today. What certainty have I that the British will never attempt to spread their dominance over other parts of India and swallow up Zafarala? And Karampur while they are about it? I have no certainty, and you must surely admit as much.”

  “You could ask for assurances.”

  “Which might be given honestly today and i
n a year or two be invalid because circumstances have changed: because the armies of the British Government in India have grown so large that what was once absent from the mind of the British Government has become an intention.”

  “Government would never make such a move unless there were good reason. As long as Zafarala can defend itself and as long as it can support itself financially and as long as Muslims and Hindus continue to live peacefully together, why would Britain wish to take over the rule of this state?”

  “Even Englishmen’s eyes have been known to look covetously on what can easily be taken.”

  Owthwaite could not deny this but he would not admit it even tacitly. With a voice as stiff as any authentic British major’s, he said “Zafarala would be no easy victim for any enemy, Nawab Sahib. I thought you had confidence in me and in the army I have created for you. And that is your best safeguard against anyone’s aggression.”

  “It is a safeguard only if it has been demonstrated, Major Sahib. Put to the test.”

  “And you think that is what the Resident may be scheming?” Owthwaite spoke with contempt.

  “He? An honourable Englishman? Perish the thought!” The Nawab resorted to sarcasm. “But I confess it has been in my mind for some time to exercise my army and demonstrate its strength. Fifty years ago Karampur annexed a large area of Zafarala territory which was not returned to us seven years ago when the British made the peace treaty between the two states: and compelled Karampur to surrender some of its territory to us. The time has come for us to go and take back the rest of what belongs to us. And let everyone see that we are capable of doing so and of defending ourselves.”

  “In that case, Nawab Sahib, I had better go and take a look at the frontier zone.”

  “There is no hurry. I must consult my astrologers.”

  “All I ask is that you do not expect me ever to fight my own countrymen. I have eaten your salt and taken your pay and I will fight for you to the death against any enemy, but never against my own country.”

  “That is understood, Major Sahib. I have no wish to fight the British, either. Their strength in my country is overpowering. The only possibility of victory would be a simultaneous mutiny by the Bengal, Bombay and Madras Armies.”

  Owthwaite laughed. “Which is unthinkable.”

  “Which is unthinkable,” the Nawab agreed.

  *

  The Chamberlain. A pinched, fretful face and a timorous air. Big, protruding ears. A short, thin man somewhere in his thirties or forties. He had the appearance of a wizened, depraved and cowardly youth. In moments of extreme fear, which came to him not infrequently, he salivated and had constantly to dry his chin with a sleeve. He was terrified of the Nawab; with good reason. Being a Hindu official at any Muslim court was an incubus. Serving a homicidal, cruel and unstable master like Sri Hamid Ali Khan Brajindra Bahadur Jang was a Barmecidal privilege: which could at any moment prove suicidal. He had insinuated himself into the appointment hoping so to ingratiate himself with the ruler that he would progress to chakledar, revenue-farmer, which put considerable wealth in a man’s hands. Now he was in doubt whether he would survive his present office. He had developed obsequiousness to the point where he almost deliquesced in the Nawab’s presence. But he was now also in doubt about its adequacy as a protection. The Nawab expected obsequiousness and took it for granted.

  In turn, the Chamberlain found the servility of others doubly gratifying in compensation. Information, for its own use or to pass on to the Nawab, was his most valuable resource. The Dewan kept paid informers in the caravanserai at the city’s principal gateway, in the brothel area, the bazaars and the mosques, the teahouses and around the whole state. The Chamberlain grubbed up information wherever he could. Minions brought scraps of overheard conversation or the witness of their own eyes to him from many nooks and crannies in return for small sums of money or for favours. One of these was Prithvi, the young eunuch guarding the pavilion while the Nawab conversed with the chief priest and the swami.

  “You have heard, Muhtamim-ji, of the Englishman who has lately arrived in the city?” Prithvi gave the Chamberlain a sly look.

  “Rumgee, the merchant with the bearing of a British officer and accompanied by two Muslims, one a Pathan, both with the obvious stamp of the soldier upon them. He is living at the house of Captain Thorn.” The Chamberlain affected indifference.

  “Has the Muhtamim learned the purpose of his visit?”

  “To trade, it is said.”

  “Perhaps to trade in bullets and death.”

  “What did you overhear, Prithvi?”

  “That he comes, perhaps, as an informer for the British Sarkar.”

  “With what purpose?”

  “To provoke strife. A war perhaps. Civil war, it may be, between us and the Muslims.”

  The Chamberlain shuddered. The last time there had been inter-religious war in the state, when he was a very young child, the Muslims of the royal household had put their Hindu colleagues to the sword: for the Nawab’s safety, they had said. His father, who had escaped with his life by mere chance, had often told him the story of that massacre.

  “Then you must drop the right word in the right quarter. We want no fighting here, Prithvi. If the British catch wind that their intentions have been foreseen, they will abandon them.”

  “It shall be done, Muhtamim-ji.”

  “You are in a particularly favoured position to do it. I rely on you. Come back to me when it is done.” The Chamberlain took a red silk purse from his pocket, shook out some coins and tossed a mohur to Prithvi. It glinted golden in the morning sunlight that cast a beam, thick with dancing dust motes, across the room. The eunuch caught it. “There will be another for you when it is done.”

  “I will say the word tonight, Muhtamim-ji.”

  *

  The shutters were closed over the drawing-room windows of Unwin’s bungalow. The doors of the house were locked. The air trembled to the sensual throb of a drum played with the fingers and thumb-pads of both hands. The drum was accompanied by the twanging of a sitar. Bare nimble feet whispered and sighed on the polished floor tiles. The musicians’ eyelashes and eyelids were darkened with kohl, their lips touched with cosmetic and they smiled with sickening epicene invitation. The two willowy youths who danced wore heavy make-up and women’s garments. The cloying scent of attar of roses filled the room. Two or three more of Unwin’s servants squatted against a wall. He reclined on a sofa piled with cushions. Prithvi lolled at his side, his feet drawn up under him. A decanter and two goblets of wine stood on a low table before them. They held hands. From time to time one would put a sweetmeat to the other’s mouth.

  “Wilfred-ji, this new sahib, Rumgee...”

  Unwin giggled. “Your eyes have lit on him already?”

  “I have not seen him.”

  “If you do, I shall have no cause for jealousy. He likes women.”

  “That is not my interest in him, Wilfred-ji. I speak of him only to warn you.”

  “Of what, Prithvi? Have a piece more halwa... and a sip of wine with it... isn’t that delicious?”

  “Truly delicious. There is talk that he is a spy for your Sarkar.”

  “He is no spy. Don’t talk now: watch the dancers, enjoy the music.” Unwin’s fingers tightened about his friend’s.

  “I talk now so that no one may overhear.”

  Unwin giggled again. “In English such confidences are called pillow talk.”

  “Listen to me, Wilfred-ji. There is gossip about this sahib already. Men say he has come to stir up religious trouble and cause bloodshed throughout Zafarala.”

  “Lies.” Unwin sounded cross. He didn’t want to talk politics, he wanted to enjoy this little entertainment he had taken pains to arrange. He had too few evenings to himself to waste any.

  “He is no merchant. He is an officer of the British Army and his two servants are soldiers.”

  “No longer.” Petulant and impatient now. “He is a merchant and harmless. Harm
less at least to the Nawab and the state. Not so harmless towards those who would harm him.”

  “Such as?”

  “Pirates... Thugs... dacoits. Enjoy the dancing and music, can’t you?”

  “Wilfred-ji, you must heed my words. Rumgee is much feared and suspected.”

  “Put your mind at rest. I will ensure that no harm comes to my friends.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The Whittakers arrived at their last stopping-place early enough to pitch camp a few miles outside Nekshahr and arrange for a carriage and pair to come out the next morning to take Henry Whittaker into the city. He insisted that Mukerji should accompany him as interpreter if necessary. Mukerji looked uncomfortable and demurred.

  “Is not correct, sir. British gentlemen are not calling on Resident with accompanying Munshi or babu. Also I cannot sit or stand behind like sais or bearer.”

  “American gentlemen ride with whom the hell they please, whomever they’re calling on. And you ride right beside me.”

  Mukerji, with a worried expression, went; sitting as far from his employer as he could.

  Husain Ahmed, with much salaaming, explained that it was not seemly for the sahib to make his first appearance in Nekshahr without a bearer.

  Wife and daughter watched them set off. Whittaker in frock coat and top hat; Mukerji in dhoti and freshly laundered pale grey shawl; Husain Ahmed in crisp white tunic, trousers and turban, standing on the step at the rear.

  “It’s a shame we don’t have a flag Daddy can fly from a staff in front of the coachman. Doesn’t he just look so distinguished.”

  “That would hardly be a tactful way to introduce himself to the British, dear. Or to bring himself to the attention of the Nawab.” Constance was smiling. She felt very proud of her Henry too, at this moment. In a way he was an unofficial ambassador for their country.

  “Don’t you feel a sense of anticlimax, Mother, now that we’ve actually arrived here after all that long haul?”

  “No, Ruth, I do not. The feeling I do have is that things are only just beginning. And I don’t know whether to be excited or apprehensive.”