A Rising Man

by Abir Mukherjee

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted.

  He spun round, his rifle cocked. ‘This man is under arrest,’ I said, pointing to the wounded fugitive. The sepoy kept his weapon trained on me, till suddenly the room seemed to fill with soldiers. Digby was with them.

  ‘Are you all right, old boy?’ he asked, dropping to my side.

  ‘Is this Sen?’ I asked, pointing to the man lying on the floor.

  ‘Get me some light!’ he shouted, and a sepoy hurriedly brought over a hurricane lamp.

  Digby bent over to take a closer look. The man was sweating, his face contorted in pain, eyes screwed shut beneath a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles.

  ‘Could be. He fits the general description.’

  I pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed myself to the wounded Indian. There was no way I was going to let Section H spirit him away after what I’d gone through.

  Several orderlies now arrived and attended to the man. His breathing was shallow and the floor was slick with his blood. Another orderly bandaged my arm. He told me I’d been lucky – it was only a flesh wound. Still, it hurt like hell. I’d managed to survive three years in France without getting shot. In Calcutta, I hadn’t made it to three weeks.

  Still handcuffed to me, the man was stretchered out to a waiting ambulance. There seemed to be the best part of a hundred military personnel outside. Lord Taggart was standing beside Dawson. That was a relief. I’d need his support if I was going to keep my prisoner.

  Both men noticed me at the same time and hurried over.

  ‘Commissioner,’ I began, ‘this man has been arrested in connection with the murder of Alexander MacAuley and the attack on the Darjeeling Mail. I intend to question him once his wounds have been seen to.’

  Taggart looked over at Colonel Dawson.

  ‘Is it Sen?’

  Dawson bent down for a closer look, then nodded.

  ‘Thank God,’ said Taggart. ‘Good show, Captain. You seem to have bagged yourself the—’

  ‘If I may, Lord Taggart,’ Dawson interrupted, ‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to take custody of the prisoner. We need to interrogate him about a number of attacks.’

  Taggart paused. ‘Colonel,’ he said, ‘this man has been lawfully arrested by one of my officers in relation to a matter that the Lieutenant Governor has classified as top priority. He will remain in our custody unless and until you can provide me with written orders to the contrary. Of course, my officers and I thank you for the assistance you and your men have rendered in apprehending the suspect and will share with you any and all information obtained from him during questioning.’

  The Colonel glared at him, then nodded curtly, turned and stalked off. Taggart turned to me.

  ‘Thank you, Captain. I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time. You’d better get Sen to hospital and put under police guard. Question and charge him as soon as you can. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to hold Dawson and his superiors off.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said, as the orderlies lifted Sen’s stretcher. I winced as a stab of pain ran up my arm.

  ‘And Sam,’ said Taggart nodding at my wounded arm, ‘get that seen to properly.’

  With that, he turned and walked back to a waiting motor car. The driver saluted and opened the rear door.

  Digby and Banerjee walked over, both soaking wet.

  ‘Look at us,’ beamed Digby, ‘heroes of the hour.’

  ‘Like the three bloody musketeers,’ I replied.

  Digby laughed. ‘Yes, I like that. Athos, Porthos and Banerjee. It’s got a certain ring to it don’t you think, Sergeant?’

  Surrender-not said nothing.

  TWENTY

  THE REAR OF the ambulance was windowless. Inside, Sen lay on a stretcher, his eyes closed, groaning now and again. His skin was grey but his breathing was less ragged than before. That was good. It would have been a shame if he’d died before we got a chance to hang him.

  An Indian orderly silently ministered to him a bit too tenderly, and I tried to stay out of his way and nursed my wounded arm. My head was spinning. A combination of blood loss and lack of food probably. At that point, even Mrs Tebbit’s cooking held a certain appeal, though not as much as a hit of O did.

  Somewhere along the road I lost my bearings. Eventually there came the rhythmic bumping that indicated we were crossing the bridge back over the Hooghly.

  We reached Medical College Hospital shortly after ten. Someone must have told them we were coming as there was quite a party waiting for us, including half a dozen medical personnel and an armed police detachment. Two native orderlies, pristine in white shirts and trousers, gently lowered Sen onto a gurney. A white doctor briskly took his pulse, then held his eyelids open with thumb and forefinger and shone a light in each eye while a nurse wrote down his observations on a clipboard.

  The doctor turned to me and held out his hand. Maybe it was the loss of blood, but I had no idea what he wanted. Was I supposed to pay him? Was that the custom here? I reached into my pocket and pulled out the remains of a sodden ten-rupee note. My swim in the canal had rendered it little more than mush. I handed it to him apologetically.

  He looked at me like I was an idiot.

  ‘The key,’ he said forcefully. ‘You’re still handcuffed to the patient. Now, unless you propose to accompany him into the operating theatre, I suggest you give me the key so that I can uncuff him.’

  I did as ordered. The doctor deftly unlocked the cuffs, freeing Sen’s wrist. He handed them back to me along with the remains of my ten-rupee note. The medical team quickly took charge of Sen and a gaggle of white coats wheeled him inside, the guards following. With the cavalcade gone, I was suddenly alone. The exhilaration of the chase and capture of Sen had quickly dissipated and now I stood there, damp and bleeding. As heroes’ welcomes go, it left quite a lot to be desired.

  I looked around. The orderly from the ambulance was leaning against the building, smoking. He eyed me sullenly as I walked over to him.

  ‘I need to get my arm seen to.’

  He stubbed out the cigarette and let the butt fall.

  ‘Come with me, sahib.’

  I followed him into the hospital reception, through swing doors and along a dimly lit passageway, his shoes squeaking on the tiled floor. An overpowering smell of disinfectant clawed at my throat. Someone had used it liberally, like a priest sprinkling holy water to ward off disease.

  We entered a narrow corridor, one side of which was lined with wooden chairs, worn through use. The orderly instructed me to wait while he went off to fetch a doctor. He returned a few minutes later in the company of a middle-aged Indian in a white coat who introduced himself as Dr Rao. He was about five feet ten – tall for an Indian – with a head shaved smooth as an egg.

  ‘Please come with me,’ he said, gesturing down the corridor.

  We entered a room off the hallway. The stench of chemicals permeated even here. He switched on the light, illuminating a small windowless office that was little more than a glorified cupboard.

  I sat on a banquette while he removed the makeshift bandage the orderlies had applied back in Kona.

  ‘Can you remove your jacket?’

  I did so with some difficulty. It was still soaking wet and felt like it weighed a tonne. He took out a scalpel and cut off my blood-soaked shirtsleeve.

  ‘That should make things easier,’ he said. ‘Please remove the rest of it.’

  He made a cursory examination of the wound, then led me to the sink in the far corner of the room and washed it. I winced. The water stung like ice.

  ‘Come now.’ He smiled. ‘A big man like you should not be acting like a woman.’

  His bedside manner wasn’t going to win him any prizes. And the comment was hardly fair, given I’d just arrested a wanted fugitive and possibly foiled a terrorist campaign. Still, any resentment I may have had towards him didn’t last long.

  ‘I’m going to give you something for the pain,’ he said, directing me back to the banquet
te. ‘Lie down please.’

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Morphine.’

  It was the best thing anyone had said to me all day.

  I don’t remember much more. Just the doctor unlocking the steel cabinet in the corner of the room and extracting a syringe. The strong smell of antiseptic. Then nothing.

  I woke up on the banquette and noticed my arm was in a sling. I guessed my wound had been sewn and bandaged. The doctor was writing some notes at his desk.

  ‘Ah,’ he said as I sat up, ‘so you’re back with us. Good, good.’ He walked over and handed me a tube of ointment. ‘Remove the bandage when you bathe. Reapply this cream and re-bandage afterwards. You can probably dispense with the sling after a day or so.’

  The doctor seemed a good man. At that moment he’d even replaced Surrender-not as my favourite native. It’s difficult not to feel predisposed towards someone who gives you the gift of morphine. He was a kind man, and if there was one thing the war had taught me, it was that when you meet such a person, the sensible thing to do is to take advantage of them as much as possible, for you never know when you’ll come across such a gift-horse again.

  ‘Can you give me something for the pain?’ I asked.

  He thought for a moment, then went over to the steel cabinet and unlocked it.

  ‘I’m going to give you some tablets. Use them extremely sparingly. One at a time and only when you absolutely need to. They contain morphine. Do you understand what that means?’

  I nodded and tried to look earnest, which was difficult when what I really wanted to do was hug the man.

  ‘Morphine is highly addictive,’ he cautioned.

  Yes, I thought. Like all good things.

  I thanked the doctor as he draped my jacket over my shoulders, then I made my way back to reception. There I asked the duty nurse where I could find the patient who’d been brought in under armed guard earlier. She consulted the log before directing me to a room on the first floor.

  Sen’s room wasn’t hard to find. It was the one with the armed gorilla standing outside. On seeing me, the constable saluted and opened the door, the tattered remains of my uniform being all the identification he seemed to need. There was only one bed, screened off by curtains. Another constable stood guard at the foot of the bed. Beside him stood Surrender-not, his uniform still damp from his swim in the canal.

  ‘What news, Sergeant?’

  ‘They’ve just brought him up from the operating theatre. The doctors removed some shrapnel from his leg and back. They say he lost quite a lot of blood. But he’ll live.’

  ‘Can we question him?’

  ‘Not before morning, apparently. They’ll monitor him through the night and give us an assessment at eight a.m.’

  That wasn’t ideal. ‘Who knows what’ll happen by the morning?’ I said. ‘Colonel Dawson could turn up with several detachments of the Madras Light Infantry and lay siege to the hospital till we give him up.’

  Banerjee’s brows furrowed. ‘I don’t believe the Madras Light Infantry is billeted in Calcutta,’ he said, ‘or anywhere else in Bengal for that matter, sir. They’re probably in Madras.’

  ‘My point, Sergeant, is that by the morning Colonel Dawson might have obtained an order from the L-G commanding us to hand Sen over.’

  ‘In that case, sir, maybe you could speak to Lord Taggart and request him to purchase us as much time as possible before Section H force our hand?’

  It was a good point. We’d also need to get Sen out of the hospital and to somewhere more secure. Guarded or not, it would be too easy for Section H to get hold of him here.

  The curtains around Sen’s bed parted and a bean-pole of a European in a white coat came out. He looked altogether too young to be a doctor. Then again everyone these days looked either too young or too old. The chap was sallow and clean shaven, not that it looked like he needed to shave more than once a month. Wide eyed, he appraised my bandaged arm, then effusively introduced himself as Dr Bird.

  ‘You must be the arresting officer.’

  ‘Captain Wyndham,’ I said, shaking his hand. It was limp and clammy. Like shaking a fish.

  ‘Jolly glad to meet you, Captain,’ he gushed. He pointed to his patient lying prone behind the curtain. ‘From what I hear, you saved this man’s life.’

  He was wrong about that. I’d done nothing of the sort. I’d merely bought him a stay of execution. He was going to hang. I’d see to it myself, assuming Section H gave me the time to file charges. If not, they’d kill him. Either way, he was a dead man. But I wasn’t about to let Section H take my prisoner without a fight. I’d prefer to avoid it, though, and for that I needed the young doctor’s unwitting help.

  ‘I’m not sure he’s out of the woods yet,’ I said.

  ‘What?’ he stammered. ‘I can assure you, Captain, he’s out of immediate danger. He should recover quite quickly.’

  ‘What I mean, Doctor, is that it may not be safe to keep him here. His comrades might try to break him out.’

  What colour there was quickly drained from the young man’s face. ‘But you’ve posted an armed guard?’ he spluttered. ‘Surely they wouldn’t try anything here?’

  ‘I hope not, but you can never be sure. These are desperate men, Doctor. The last thing I want is a gun battle in a hospital. I’d be a lot happier if he were at Lal Bazar. We could protect him there. And it would remove any threat to your other patients.’

  The doctor rubbed his hands together nervously. That medical oath of his probably told him that Sen should remain here. After all, he had a duty to safeguard the health of his patient. But his patient was a terrorist and his presence here endangered the lives of others, not to mention that of the good doctor himself. In the end, enlightened self-interest won the day.

  ‘You should be able to move him in an hour or so,’ he said. ‘But he’ll need to be accompanied by one of my staff, and you’ll have to guarantee adequate facilities for his recuperation.’

  ‘Whatever he needs, Doctor.’

  An hour later, Sen and I were back in an ambulance, this time for the short trip to a basement cell at Lal Bazar. An Indian doctor would remain with the guards to check on the prisoner every thirty minutes. It was only once Sen was securely ensconced in his cell and I was happy as to the security, that I decided to head back to the Belvedere.

  My watch read one thirty, so it was probably some time after four a.m. that a police driver dropped me off outside the Belvedere. The house was in darkness and the noise of the car engine failed to arouse anyone indoors. It did, however, wake the rickshaw wallahs at the corner of the square. Salman began to rise from his mat before I gestured to him to return to his bed.

  I let myself in, quietly locked the door and made my way upstairs. In the darkness, I stripped out of the remains of my damp uniform and left the clothes where they fell. With my good arm, I poured myself a large measure of whisky and sipped it neat. I felt I’d deserved it. My other arm was aching again. I considered another drink to help dull the pain, then remembered I had something better. I retrieved the small glass bottle of tablets that Dr Rao had given me, unscrewed the lid and gently tapped out a couple of the chalky white discs. I considered swallowing both, but on second thoughts returned one to the bottle. There were only five tablets in all. The doctor had purposely rationed my supply. These things were precious and I’d have to make them last as long as possible – until I could find another source or, better still, obtain a repeat prescription. I popped the tablet into my mouth and washed it down with the last of the whisky.

  TWENTY–ONE

  Saturday, 12 April 1919

  I AWOKE TO what’s euphemistically called birdsong. It was more of a bloody racket, nine parts screeching to one part singing. In England the dawn chorus is genteel and melodious and inspires poets to wax lyrical about sparrows and larks ascending. It’s blessedly short too. The poor creatures, demoralised by the damp and cold, sing a few bars to prove they’re still alive then pack it in and g
et on with the day. Things are different in Calcutta. There are no larks here, just big, fat greasy crows that start squawking at first light and go on for hours without a break. Nobody will ever write poetry about them.

  My whole body hurt, the smallest movement resulting in a crescendo of pain. I reached down for the bottle of whisky on the floor but merely managed to knock it over. I cursed as it rolled under the bed. Lying back, I sighed and closed my eyes, hoping to placate whoever was using my skull for batting practice, and gave serious consideration to just lying there and not moving all day. It wouldn’t have been a bad option if the crows would just shut up.

  But there was Sen to consider, lying in a cell at Lal Bazar. I hauled myself up and stumbled to the sink, splashed tepid water on my head, then looked at the tramp with the crumpled face staring at me from the mirror.

  I bathed, then reapplied the ointment and bandaged the wound as best I could. What was left of my uniform still lay in a heap on the floor. I didn’t have a spare. A new one wouldn’t be cheap, though I’d been told of a tailor on Park Street who did a special on officers’ uniforms. In the meantime, I dressed in civvies like a proper CID man: a pair of trousers and a shirt that could have done with a wash. Fumbling with the sling, I eventually managed to adjust it so that my arm ached as little as possible.

  Downstairs, the maid was already up and about, rushing around, preparing things before Ma Tebbit appeared.

  ‘Morning,’ I said. She gave a little shriek of surprise. Maybe she hadn’t heard me come in. More likely she was just shocked at the state of me.