A Good Soldier

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  While Ramsey read it, Sher Mahommed Khan stood waiting with artless curiosity. Everything that concerned his master was his concern also. Pathans were, anyway, as inquisitive as monkeys.

  “The Dewan writes to invite me to the palace at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. Tell the sais.”

  “I will myself inspect the trap, the harness and the horse tomorrow morning while Your Honour is out riding. All will be in order for our visit.”

  “Prepare also the guns I will take as presents for the Nawab, the Nawabzada and the Dewan.”

  “When Karim Baksh and I have cleaned them, Huzur, they would pass inspection for a Governor General’s parade.”

  “They had better.”

  Soon after, a small boy brought a note in the careful script of a public letter-writer. The top of his head reached the level of Sher Mahommed Khan’s hip bone.

  “Who sent thee?”

  “One who said that a certain Pathan would surely ask such a question.”

  “Did the sender also warn thee that this certain Pathan would reward impudence with a box on the ear?”

  The urchin grinned. “No, Great Prince. The lady said he would flay the skin off my back.”

  “Then answer.”

  “The beautiful one said also that the great warrior is bountiful.” Two small hands were cupped and extended.

  Sher Mahommed Khan tossed a coin into them, his eyes glistening with amusement. “Take this, then, as proof, imp of Satan.”

  “I do not know the lady’s name. Her beauty is as the moon and her abode is in the chakla. For four annas more I can take the brave warrior prince...”

  Sher Mahommed Khan raised a hand in mock threat and the boy ran off, laughing.

  Even Pathan curiosity did not prompt loitering while Ramsey read Shakuntala’s letter. The message was brief and poignant. Its humility and frankness aroused tenderness and longing. His desire for her and his lonely spirit responded equally. She had established herself on the fringes of the courtesans’ quarter where he could go without compromise. She yearned for him. She begged him to come to her.

  Ramsey thought of Ruth Whittaker and her direct, challenging manner. She had scarcely figured in his thoughts since they had parted in Calcutta. Her beauty had lingered in his mind’s eye, but he had been amused by her prickly manner rather than attracted by her face and figure. He wondered what caustic comment she would make about his relationship with a dancing girl in the chakla.

  He heard a carriage turn in at his gate. A phaeton drew up at the veranda steps and he rose from his cane armchair to greet the visitor. He saw that it was Henry Whittaker.

  “I am greatly indebted to you, Ramsey, for the brave service you rendered my wife and daughter this morning. At considerable danger to yourself, I understand. As Mrs. Whittaker explained to you, I was out boar hunting with the Resident or I would have been with them.”

  They sat on the wide veranda among the potted plants, drinking cold lime juice and smoking cheroots. A green lizard scuttled along the bottom step in pursuit of a drove of ants. On the veranda rail a butcher bird stood aggressively straddle-legged. Its pouting white chest and shaggy black feathers around its eyes emphasised its belligerence. The lizard’s tongue scooped up a swath of insects. The butcher bird dived on the lizard and bore it away squirming in its surly beak. A mynah perched, snuff-brown and yellow-billed, in a neem tree. A mongoose came cautiously from beneath a bush and the mynah gave a screech of alarm that sent the mongoose scurrying back into hiding and every bird within earshot into the air in a flurry of startled wings. Only the cock turtle dove cooing and throbbing on the roof remained undisturbed, its eyes on the nest where its hen sat on their two eggs.

  Whittaker said presently “I think that perhaps you and I have a common purpose in coming to Zafarala.”

  “But you are a banker, surely?”

  “I am looking for investments.”

  “I am afraid I know nothing about commerce apart from the little I picked up from MacLean during my short stay in Calcutta. And about banking and investments I am completely ignorant.”

  “With your knowledge of India and all the connections you have with your long family history out here, I am sure you can help me and I in return can help you. What d’you think of that?”

  “I should tell you straight away that I am in a somewhat precarious position. I have come here merely as MacLean’s agent, not as his partner. He shares no part of the financial risk.”

  “Well, now. How did that come about?”

  Ramsey gave a brief account of his row with MacLean. He did not omit to mention that he had threatened MacLean with violence; and admitted how ashamed he had felt at MacLean’s retort.

  Whittaker smiled. “Perhaps you are a little too sensitive; a hot temper does a young man no shame. But tell me why you say you are in a precarious position? You have a year in which to pay MacLean for your stock. Surely you expect to clear it in that time?”

  “Unfortunately, I did not arrive here with all my stock intact. We were attacked by river pirates and later by Thugs. Each time, I lost a good part of my cargo. With what is left to me, I shall be lucky for come out even at the end of my first year.”

  “You are an honest man, Ramsey. You and I will get along. Now that you are not bound in partnership with MacLean, it gives unlimited scope to us for working together.”

  “I will gladly help in any way I can, but you will have to explain to me exactly what it is you propose to do.”

  “There is time for that. First tell me again about your falling out with MacLean. It came about very conveniently for him, it seems to me. Instead of bearing half the risks of the venture, he carries none at all and has everything to gain.”

  Ramsey reluctantly retold the story of how MacLean and he had quarrelled over his challenge to Pocock and about the attack on Pocock and his wife.

  “You will have to learn to temper honesty with discretion. I think you were tricked. We’ll talk some more tomorrow, at dinner.”

  *

  In baggy trousers tight at the ankle, shirt, waistcoat and kamarband, Ramsey passed for either a Pathan or a Punjabi as he wished. Many Pathans had skins lighter than his, which was sunburned and weather-beaten, and blue or grey eyes. With his brown eyes and flawless idiomatic Urdu and Pashtu, he was a convincing Indian or Afghan. In whatever town he visited the chakla, he went in this guise.

  He set out on foot and picked up a tonga in one of the bazaars. This was a night for adventure, of the amorous or any other sort. The sky was brightly star-spangled, the air was balmy and dry. More than a week of separation made him eager for Shakuntala. The tonga pony trotted along the streets where he had seen the victims of the mad horse and where he had rescued Ruth and her mother. He could think of Ruth dispassionately now. With the garb he had assumed had come a change of attitude. With the night had come a different orientation of his values and priorities. Whether Ruth were indifferent to him, hostile or encouraging, was unimportant.

  The streets narrowed. The upper stories of the buildings on either side overhung the roadway; enclosed verandas with lattice work and carvings, from some of which smiling girls called down to passers-by. Yellow and pink lights cast a glow from the rooms behind the balconies. Snatches of song and the sounds of music drifted into the streets.

  He paid off the tonga driver at a house on a corner and entered a door further down the street, climbed a narrow bare wooden staircase and knocked on the door which faced him on the landing.

  The girl who opened it was one who had accompanied Shakuntala in the parda ratha. She greeted him with an impersonal professional smile and bade him enter, before recognition came. Then she gave a peal of laughter, clapped her hand to her mouth and taking him by the hand led him hurriedly into a small room where she left him alone. In a moment Shakuntala was with him, eyes alight with excitement. She wore thin silken pantaloons gathered above the ankles, and around her ankles were bells and shining, clinking anklets. Her midriff was bare, her br
easts enclosed in a spangled and embroidered bodice. Her long, glossy hair fell unconfined and uncovered.

  When he put his arms about her waist and she pressed herself against him with hers around his neck he felt the tremor of her whole body. He responded to her so strongly that she smiled at him in the mocking, encouraging way that always recalled the first time he had ever set eyes on her. Now it brought a pang of jealousy and a fleeting distaste that was more for himself than for her.

  The small room was an alcove, one of many around the large central room and separated from it only by heavy curtains. She drew these aside and while he lay at ease on cushions she squatted at his side preparing a huqqa. Its bowl was filled with rosewater, the tobacco was of the best. The mouthpiece she fitted to the long tube was made of amber and fretted with gold. When she handed it to him she smiled and said gently “My first gift to you and a small return for the gift you made me: my very life.”

  She left him with a jug of cool sherbet and a brass cup and went across the room to speak to an elderly Sikh who reclined against the wall, drawing on a huqqa and talking to one of the girls who sat cross-legged at his side. She was another who had travelled with Shakuntala from Delhi. She rose and the two girls went out of the room.

  Ramsey looked around. A dozen men, singly or in pairs talking, sat and lay in alcoves or against the wall. There were Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus, young, middle-aged and old. Half of them were accompanied by girls of the establishment. The place was redolent of rosewater and the heavy scent of the yellow flowers of the champa tree, of sandalwood and of the coconut oil which glistened on the girls’ hair, of the musky scents with which they perfumed themselves.

  Four musicians filed into the room and took their places in a row at one end. Two of them were simpering epicene youths, two were hard-looking older men. One played a dholak, a tabor; another a sitar; a third played a black reed pipe and a fourth a tom-tom. They began to strum, the lecherous-eyed dholak-player setting the tempo. A weird palpitating eccentric rhythm began to shrill and moan, to throb and re-echo about the room. It filled Ramsey with a sense of abandon and he saw the expressions on the faces of the other men become rapt as they watched expectantly for the appearance of the dancers.

  The four girls ran into the room, the bells around their ankles jingling. They stood in a row and made Namaskar, then began their dance. Castanets snapped and rattled in their fingers, their arms weaved sinuously, their bodies writhed, their legs made gracefully exaggerated movements, their heads darted from side to side in sensual motions which took years of training to acquire. The bells and anklets jingled. The beat of the drum and tom-tom became more frenzied, the movements of the dancers became a whirling pattern of gaudy silk and smooth bare brown flesh. Their scarlet lips were widely smiling, their tresses flew out behind them as they spun and bowed, dipped and pranced. They enacted the story of a girl pining for her lover who is away at the wars. A rich man takes advantage of her unprotected loneliness to try to ravish her. The lover arrives home just in time to rescue her and slay the rapist. The dance ended in a dizzy maelstrom of twirling arms and legs, of frantic music and an aura of excitation and bawdiness that left Ramsey rampant.

  Here and there the curtains were closed across an alcove. The three other dancing girls returned to the room and went around pouring sherbet for the customers or tending their huqqa. One of them disappeared behind drawn curtains with a client.

  Shakuntala reappeared at Ramsey’s side and drew the thick velvet across the archway. She lay beside him.

  “I belong only to you. I go with no other man. Never be jealous, never doubt me. I am my own mistress and no man has any claim on me; but you alone.”

  “Then come to me. Come to my house and I will provide for you and protect you.”

  She shook her head, sad-eyed. “For a few months, perhaps... a year... and then what? The day will come when you will wish to take a wife of your own kind.” She slanted a look at him and the corners of her lips curved up in a smile. “Perhaps the beautiful fair-haired girl you snatched from under the hooves of Khaufnak, The Dreaded One.”

  “When did you hear of this?”

  “Within an hour of it happening. I envy her. I wish that my skin were white... that it had been my destiny to be born other than a dancing girl of the chakla... but if I came to you now it could not be forever and the parting that must come one day would be even harsher. I am here whenever you want me. I will come to you by day or night if you send for me. More, we cannot have.”

  *

  The wood and brass of the pony trap shone as brightly as the bay pony’s harness and its coat. Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh sat stiffly at attention behind Ramsey. Between them were six green canvas and leather gun cases. The yellow spokes of the wheels turned gaily in the roasting sun, the harness jingled cheerfully, brass buckles winking in the brilliant light.

  A yellow-loinclothed Sadhu sat under a deodar tree, staff and begging bowl at his side, a hundred yards from Ramsey’s bungalow. He stared fixedly to his front, his hands resting on his spread knees, one of them holding a chaplet of dried berries. He wore the Brahminical cord and on his forehead the Vishnuvite namam. Ashes of burned cow dung covered his torso. His lips moved as he silently recited a mantra.

  The sentries at the palace gate saluted Ramsey with a crisp flourish and stamp of feet which he knew could only have been taught them by ex-Sergeant Major Owthwaite.

  Sher Mahommed Khan and Karim Baksh looked scornful. Ramsey heard the Pathan growl “Rungroot” which was as close as any native could get to “recruit”, and his friend answer “Ten hours pack drill”. They went on to cast aspersions on the probable state of cleanliness of the sentries’ muskets.

  The Dewan received him with grave courtesy but as soon as Ramsey had spoken a few sentences his reserve gave way to a smile.

  “Sahib, but for your pigment I would think you were one of us. I had the privilege of knowing your father when he commanded his regiment here at the time of our last trouble with Karampur. You have good news of him, I trust?”

  “Yes, praise Allah, he is well.”

  “You no longer serve with your regiment, Lieutenant Sahib?”

  “I am no longer a lieutenant, Dewan Sahib. May God help me, I have come to Zafarala as a man of peace, not war.”

  “I have heard it said that you come as agent of a Calcutta merchant.”

  “You have heard right.” Time to seize the bull by the horns and either confirm or dispel one of my suspicions about MacLean, thought Ramsey. “And I have heard that another Englishman came here a year ago, for much the same purpose as myself.”

  The Dewan studied him for a moment. “That is so.” And then, firmly dismissive, “He departed many months ago.” The look he gave Ramsey denied possibility of further discussion. The Dewan’s voice became kindly: “I was grieved to learn of your trouble at Barrackpore. It surely brought great grief to your honoured father when the news reached him.”

  “He will understand that I could not, with honour, continue to serve in the regiment.”

  “Perhaps you will see the matter in a different light, in time, and wish to rejoin. After all, your brother officers did not all resign: so presumably they felt no personal dishonour.”

  What you are fishing for, Ramsey was thinking, is some indication that I have not severed my connection with the Army: that I am here as a secret informer to the Commander-in-Chief.

  “No, Dewan Sahib, there is no road back. My whole future lies here; if the Nawab will permit it.”

  “God willing, I hope you will prosper. His Highness wishes to see you now.”

  “I am honoured.”

  “He is grateful to you. But for your skill and courage, the horse Khaufnak could have been killed or so badly hurt that it would have to be destroyed.” The human lives were of no account.

  “It killed two men.”

  “Such things are the will of Allah.”

  Ramsey did not mention the young woman who had been tra
mpled to death. One female life more or less, or a thousand of them, would be of no consequence to the Dewan.

  “If you will do me the honour of accepting them, Dewan Sahib, I have brought trifling gifts for you. And for His Highness and the Nawabzada.”

  *

  The Nawab put down the shot gun, then took the rifle from a servant’s hands and fondled it. He looked at Ramsey with sly bloodshot eyes.

  “How many tigers have you shot, Rumgee Sahib?”

  “Eight, Your Highness.”

  “I have shot more than four hundred. Leopards?”

  “Two.”

  “I have shot two hundred. Panthers? Bears?”

  “I have never shot either.”

  “I have shot more than a hundred panthers and fifty or sixty bears.”

  Ramsey wondered if the Nawab kept as accurate a tally of the people whom he had had put to death.

  “Your Highness is a great shikari.”

  “We shall go on shikar together one day soon. But it is I who should be making a gift to you. It would have grieved me deeply if my magnificent Khaufnak had been harmed. How can I show my gratitude?”

  “It is not necessary. I am glad to have been of service to Your Highness.”

  “You are a welcome visitor to my country. I hope you will stay long with us.”

  “Your Highness is most gracious.”

  “Your honoured father and grandfather were loyal friends to Zafarala and of my forebears.”

  “My father will be proud to hear of your kind words, when next I write to him.”

  “His presence would be of value to me now. The Raja of Karampur is again threatening the peace of my country. We shall have to strengthen our frontier garrison.”

  “No doubt you have spoken of this to the Resident Sahib.”

  “This is not a time for British interference... intervention. I have a strong Army, but I would rather deter Karampur than fight him. My father preferred diplomacy to war and so do I. If I have strengthened my Army it is not because I intend aggression, it is to defend ourselves.”