by John Masters
He said, ‘I think Alam Singh should serve the army for the same period he failed to, and then he should be dismissed to go back to Ravi. He believed he had done all that he undertook to do when he enlisted five years ago, and according to our thoughts, that is true. I would recommend that he be given four months rigorous imprisonment, to be served in the ranks of the regiment, and then to be discharged.’
The two other Indians spoke up at once, ‘I agree, sir. Four months rigorous imprisonment.’
The colonel turned to the young British captain and said, ‘It looks as though we are outnumbered, Longmire ... Well, he’s your man, Major Krishna Ram. If this is the sort of discipline you keep in the Ravi Lancers I’m not surprised your people run away. Call the court back into session.’
When it was all over Krishna walked slowly back up the road, noticing with another part of his mind that there was more traffic than usual, loaded carts going forward, empties coming back. He stopped half an hour at the Regimental Aid Post to visit the sick and talk to Ramaswami. When he got back to the regiment there was a message for him to report at once to Major Bateman.
Warren’s nose was pinched, the broad face closed. ‘Colonel Lovat’s been by. He told me about the proceedings of the court. I don’t understand how you could press for this ... ridiculous punishment in a case of desertion. If you have any explanation, I’d like to hear it.’
Krishna Ram said, ‘Sir .. ‘ He stopped. Warren did not understand. Warren would never understand. Perhaps he might have, back in India, but not here, not in the tightening grip of the war. He said, ‘I believe I understand what Alam Singh thought, what he felt. We changed his obligation when we embodied the regiment into the Indian Army. In Ravi a man can leave whenever he wants to, after his agreed term of service is up.’
‘Always? In war?’ Warren snapped.
‘Yes, sir. But a man left in war would have his action judged. I mean, the people would decide whether he was leaving for cowardice, or from some proper reason. To till the fields is always a proper reason. The ground must be seeded and grow its fruit, the Brahmins say.’
Warren said, ‘I am dissatisfied with your reasoning and with your action. Also with the panchayat proceedings on Sher Singh. I suppose I ought to have known that he’d do whatever you wanted, though. That’s all.’
Krishna Ram saluted and went out. Poor Warren ... but he was a good man, too, and the hell of a soldier. He had never told Warren about the letter Diana had written him. He wondered why. It still warmed his tunic pocket. He reached his billet and took it out to read it once more.
The following afternoon was the last day of the Holi celebrations. The celebration of fertility was over, and there remained only a morning of prayer outside the temple, the regiment squatting on the grass while the Brahmin read extracts from the holy books and the rissaldar-major gave a short speech; then, in the afternoon, gymkhana sports. A long awning was set up on one side of the biggest field, under it chairs and benches and stools and boxes of every kind set in rows to make seats and tables for the officers and VCOs. In the centre a large sofa, most of its springs showing, held the CO and the rissaldar-major. Brandy appeared, and bottles of wine, while Captain Sohan Singh cheerfully rubbed his fat hands. When Warren Bateman said, ‘Good God, man, where on earth did you get all this?’ he bowed and grinned and said, ‘On information received, sah! ‘ Krishna sipped brandy and water and watched the kabaddi. The players’ oiled bodies began to glisten as the game progressed, changing from shivering goose-pimples at the beginning to a full sweat at the end. Then came wrestling, and Krishna’s old squadron, A, emerged as champion, though no one could beat that fat Dafadar Bural Ram in B, who was rumoured to have been a professional somewhere down country before coming to Basohli ... to escape a criminal charge in British India, it was also said. Then came foot races, then hurdle racing on horses borrowed from a cavalry regiment, the riders seated backwards, and bareback.
Puran Lall was sitting a little to Krishna’s right. Krishna leaned across and said, ‘The squadron’s doing well, Puran.’
The young man was staring straight ahead, apparently watching the sowars setting up the hurdles that had been knocked over in the first heat.
‘Puran! ‘ Krishna said, more loudly.
The young man started and turned his head. ‘Sir?’
‘I said, A Squadron’s doing well.’
‘Yes, sir. I was thinking of my brother. My father wrote, you know. He said I must kill many Germans to revenge Ishar.’
Krishna Ram said, ‘We have to kill them, but I don’t think we should feel revenge.’
Puran Lall said, ‘I don’t know ... On the court martial yesterday one part of me wanted to sentence Alam Singh to death because he had escaped to live while my brother died and because he had let us all down, so that they’--he lowered his voice--’the sahibs--can make jokes about us ... Another part of me was thinking, if he does not want to fight at my side, I don’t want him. It is difficult to know what is right.’
‘It is,’ Krishna Ram said. Then, ‘Have a drink. You’ll forget more easily.’
‘I don’t want to forget,’ Puran Lall said grimly.
The last item began. Sowars under the woordie-major ran out and placed a line of tent pegs across the field. Bareback, their feet and legs bare below the military breeches, the competing riders took position at the far end, each carrying one of the lances that had been borrowed with the horses. Then they started down, one by one. Beginning at a canter they passed the awning at full gallop, lance point lowered, and tried to impale a tent peg on the point. As they galloped away the lance point swung up behind them, and the crowd gave a triumphant yell or a loud hiss according as to whether the peg was seen on the point or not.
A dozen villagers were watching the spectacle from the other side of the field, among them the woman who owned Lieutenant Dayal Ram’s billet. She clapped and called out encouragement in French every time it came to Dayal’s turn. As he got through the preliminary heats, never failing to spear the tent peg, her excitement increased. She was, of course, Dayal’s mistress, Krishna thought; she never attempted to hide it, rather flaunting the fact that the handsome Indian was her lover. Dayal Ram took as little trouble to conceal the liaison, though he never flaunted it in front of the CO. Now, as his lance point swept down for the last time, he needing only this peg to win the championship, the woman stood out in front of the other villagers, her hands clasped and her body tensed. The bay mare stretched into the gallop. Dayal leaned forward, the steel point eased down down down ... He yelled ‘Yeh hai!’ at the top of his voice, the tent peg whirling up on the point behind him. As the sowars jumped up, applauding, he reined in and slipped to the ground, all in one movement, and the French woman ran into his arms. He laughed, hugging her, while all the sowars laughed to see her simple joy. Krishna, glancing along the line of officers, saw that they were all standing, except the CO. Warren Bateman’s face was set in an expression of deliberately trying but failing, to be neutral. Then he stood up, scowling, and said to the RM, ‘I’ll award the prizes right away, sahib, and then I’ll hold durbar, here.’
The regiment stood close packed on the field where a few minutes ago Dayal Ram had been hugging the French woman. Warren Bateman said in his well pronounced but almost uninflected Hindi, ‘Durbar is open ... First, step forward, all men of the draft... Face the rest of your comrades. Lads, here are the men who have to join us, to replace those we have lost.’
He introduced the four new VCOs one by one, giving their names, homes, and the regiments from which they had been drafted. The draft had arrived a couple of days earlier, and were all from regular Indian Army cavalry regiments in India. As this process went on, of replacing losses with men from the regulars, or with recruits trained at regular depots, the Ravi Lancers would gradually lose its character as the private army of an Indian prince. Other changes were taking place in the character of the regiment, more subtle than anything in its organization or composition. At
the gymkhana Krishna had seen a sowar brutally cuff some French children out of his way with a curse. That would never have happened a year ago ... not because they were French but because they were children. Men charged with petty military crime were beginning to make excuses instead of admitting their guilt. It was perhaps inevitable, like young Ishar Lall’s death ... but he did not like it.
The introductions ended, Warren said, ‘Let him who wishes to speak in durbar, speak ... You, dafadar-ji.’
‘Sahib, it is in my mind that we will be serving in this France for many months or years to come.’
‘Don’t say that, dafadar-ji,’ Warren snapped. ‘We will win the war before the end of the year.’
‘As the presence says ... even for a month, three months perchance, it is in my mind that some of us, one man in each troop perchance, should be able to speak a little French. In the front line, it is not needed, but as soon as we go to the rear, it is needed, for ...’
‘It is understood,” Warren said cutting in impatiently. ‘The adjutant will see what can be done. The difficulty will be to find those understanding Hindi, to teach us. Among the regiment I think that I alone do ... and it is not proposed, I hope, that I shall become a schoolmaster-babu.’
The regiment laughed, a little louder, a little more sycophantic-ally than was necessary, Krishna Ram thought.
Warren said, ‘Next... you ...’
An oldish sowar with a sharp dark face said, ‘Sahib, may the presence know that I have served eleven years. Never have I failed to do what was ordered. I am the senior sowar of the squadron.’
‘Which?’
‘B, sahib ... It is my right, by ancient custom, to be storeman of...’
‘Silence!’ Warren Bateman snapped. ‘Did I not say at the last durbar that no matters of discipline were to be brought up in durbar?’
‘But, sahib ... ?’
‘Hold your tongue!’ a jemadar roared, drowning the rissaldar-major’s quieter admonition to the same effect.
‘Hukm hai!’ Warren said. ‘I have said it before, and I say it again, for the last time: it is forbidden to discuss orders, promotions, or anything military in durbar.’
‘Jo hukm,’ the man said, his face closed.
Krishna saw a sowar, his arm raised. It was the same young man who had asked the difficult questions about Christianity and the war in the durbar before Christmas. Warren Bateman’s eye swept the crowd. He must have seen the young man, but he was ignoring him.
‘Durbar is ended. Stay. I have some announcements to make ... There is not enough desire to kill Germans among you. Your hearts are not filled with a consuming hatred. You must be as Duryodhan, implacable ... The Germans are not men but beasts. They slaughter women and children. They take their own parents and, seeing they are too old to fight, put them in ovens and broil them down so that they can use the fat to make munitions. Prisoners they torture in despite of the rules of war and the laws of chivalry among soldiers. Let it be clear--there can be no chivalry, neither English nor Rajput towards them. They are rats, to be exterminated. Fill your hearts with hatred ... Tomorrow a British sergeant, expert in this matter, will give a lecture and demonstration to all officers, VCOs and NCOs of the regiment. Major Krishna Ram will translate.’
He glanced at Krishna. Krishna said, ‘Yes, sir,’ wondering why he had not heard of this before.
Warren Bateman said, ‘Next, we are due to move up the line on March 25, four days from now. All short leave is therefore cancelled ... One last matter. During Holi it was permitted, as a special case, that men should wear caste marks. I remind all ranks that this will not be permitted again while the regiment serves directly under the King-Emperor. Many of your uniforms were spoiled or stained by the powder thrown during Holi. This is a shameful mark to put upon the King-Emperor’s uniform. Let it be known now, that there be no misunderstanding later--it is forbidden to throw powder during Holi or on any other occasion! Hukm hail’
‘Jo hukm!’ the regiment cried.
Warren turned to Krishna, ‘That’s all.’ He nodded and strode off as Krishna called, ‘Ravi Lancers, shun! ... Ravi Lancers, dismiss! ‘
Krishna walked slowly back to his billet, full of a nostalgic melancholy. This Holi and durbar marked the end of an era. Now, finally, they were not Ravi cavalry but Imperial infantry. It seemed a hundred years ago that there had been panchayats round a hookah, long discussions under a tree in the warm twilight, Himalayan snows afire along the horizon. Now they took rapped-out orders, one by one: this has been decided, that will be done! Jo hukm!
The sergeant’s name was Mackintosh and he was from the Gordon Highlanders. He was black-avised and lantern-jawed, tiny eyes glittering in a sunburned slab of face. He stood six feet two inches and must have weighed sixteen stone, all as solid as so much elephant bone. The rifle with fixed bayonet was no more than a swagger stick in his huge calloused hands. A standing dummy had been set up for him on the gymkhana field, and two or three lying dummies, sacks stuffed with straw, lay ready nearby.
The sergeant quickly began his demonstration. Long point. Short point. Jab. Butt stroke, kick, and kill. The ribbons fluttered out behind the red and white checkered Glengarry. Krishna Ram thought, we’ve seen all this before, and our NCOs teach it just as well.
The sergeant turned, and said, ‘That’s how you’ve been taught the bayonet, I dare say, sorr.’ His Scots accent was strong.
‘Yes, sergeant,’ Warren Bateman said.
The sergeant swelled up like a turkey cock, ‘Sorr, that’s not the bayonet ... that’s a tea party for old ladies. The bayonet is to kill! ‘ The last word came out as a shriek.
Krishna translated quickly for the VCOs and NCOs, while the sergeant signalled to a British private soldier who had come with him. The private opened a large box on the back of the sergeant’s car and dragged out a dummy made to look not like a sack but like a man, a man in German uniform. The private threw the dummy down, as one throwing meat before a hungry tiger, and the sergeant leaped at it screaming, ‘Die, you Hun bastard!’ He jabbed his bayonet clear through the dummy, which spouted blood, to gasps of horror from the assembled men. ‘Die, die, you baby-eating swine!’ the sergeant shrieked, lifting the dummy on the point of his bayonet, throwing it down, jumping on it with both feet, stabbing the bayonet through the face. ‘Die! die! ‘
He whipped round, the bayonet red to the rifle muzzle, and snarled, ‘This is bayonet fighting ...’
‘Yeh bayonet ka larai hai,’ Krishna said, but the sergeant’s storm of words overwhelmed him and he fell silent. It was no use trying to translate; everyone was hypnotized by the sergeant, and in any case no translation was needed.
The sergeant whipped off his Glengarry, showing a shaven bullet head. ‘Shave your heads,’ he snarled, ‘so the Hun can’t grab a hair. Keeps the lice out, too ... You’re not sticking your bayonet into a dummy but into a swine, a rat ...’ (he leaped at the German and stabbed it again) ‘rat!’ (he kicked it in the balls and thrust his bayonet into its stomach), ‘the man who raped your wife ... stuck his dirty syphilitic prick right into her cunt before your eyes’ (he was sobbing, tears coming down his cheeks as he systematically ripped the German to ribbons) ... ‘she’s shrieking “Save me, save me!”‘ (stab stab)... ‘but you can’t... because you’re a dirty sissy, a pansy ...’ (a savage butt stroke, the rifle whistling round reversed, took the battered dummy’s head clear off). ‘This bastard took your job ... bashed your baby’s head in before your eyes ... strangled your mother ... yes, your mother, she died right here, this fucker’s hands round her throat and she trying to scream help, help and you ...’ He wheeled round, the bayonet thrusting towards the audience--’And you can’t do a thing because you’re fucking sissies ... pansies ... nancy boys ... bed-wetting mothers’ darlings. You’re not men!’ He whirled up and down the ranks, ranting, glaring. Krishna saw that the sowars were convinced they had a madman in front of them. But for the presence of Warren Bateman standing steady there, who presumab
ly understood what the sergeant was saying and doing, they would have run away.
The sergeant hurled the rifle at a dafadar, and yelled, ‘There, sergeant, you do it... Go on! ‘
The dafadar looked helplessly at Krishna who said, ‘Bayonet practice karo, issi mwafik.’
The dafadar, a mild-mannered quiet man, an excellent rider and disciplinarian who never had to raise his voice to get what he wanted done, tentatively stabbed at the upright dummy. ‘Not that one, the German,’ the sergeant yelled, ‘Go on ... you sissy, you useless fancy man ... Kill, kill! ‘ He ran beside the dafadar, shrieking in his ear. Krishna Ram thought, the epithets would be more effective on an Englishman, who would understand what was being said. The dafadar knew that the sergeant was abusing him, but not the exact terms. Krishna could hardly understand, himself, because of the sergeant’s frenetic rage and strong Glasgow accent.
After a couple of minutes the sergeant grabbed his rifle back and again fell on the dummy, growling and snarling like a blood-maddened tiger. Straw and sacking and bits of rubber flew, the
German disintegrated, blood spattered the spectators. Suddenly Krishna Ram had an almost uncontrollable desire to burst out laughing. This was grotesque. It was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. He tried to catch Warren Bateman’s eye, but the CO was watching intently, wholly absorbed.
The sergeant suddenly stood upright, slammed the rifle on to his left shoulder and slapped the butt in a correct salute. His chest bulged and he was looking at a point a couple of inches above Warren Bateman’s head, as per regulations. ‘Bayonet demonstration ended, sorr!’
‘Well done, sergeant ... that was magnificent. Will you let the RM give you a drink?’
‘I’m due at the Gurkhas in ten minutes, sorr. Permission to dismiss, please.’